Absent WithOut Leave

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Absent Without Leave (A.W.o.L.) was founded in 1996 as a short-lived video project which concentrated on producing tiny videoclips set to music by the likes of early 80’s synthpop pioneers like John Foxx, Gary Numan, Fad Gadget or The Twins. The project was called A.W.o.L. as a proof for not keeping up with the latest trends and fashion. The videos should reflect a bit of an 80’s feeling as the music did by its sound. Finally, A.W.o.L. bought their first analog synthesizers (the Korg MS-20 and the Roland SH-101) tired of using well-known songs from records or CD’s for their video work. This was totally out of fashion at that time as almost every synth-pop band used digital technology as it was a lot easier to handle then. In 1998 the first proper songs by A.W.o.L. emerged from the synthesizers and they eventually abandoned the video-production.From that time on, A.W.o.L. produced some more minimalistic synth pop songs like “Elusive” (which was featured on a Flexipop-CDR), a cover version of “Love My Way” by Psychedelic Furs, “Technique” and “Life Under Glass”. Then A.W.o.L. took a time-out for some years due to personal changes in life until 2004, when they started to make music again. Influenced and encouraged by Second Decay’s Andreas Sippel who also delivered some more analog synthesizers, A.W.o.L. worked on new tracks. The results were songs like “Robotiks Return” (featured on the “2 Hosen, 2 Hemden Vol. 5” record released by German label Kernkrach), “Panic Cuisine”, “Execution”, “Empty Faces” or “Nostalgia”. In 2007, the improvement of electronic gadgets allowed A.W.o.L. to produce some more songs like “The White Room”, “Exterieur/Interieur”, “Barbwire Love”, a cover version Gary Numan’s “The Machman” or “Car Crash City” (heavily influenced by the new sound of John Foxx).Meanwhile some new songs were worked on which feature not only Endzeit-lyrics but very personal textures like “Doppelgänger”, “The Time Traveller”, “My Exaltation Mask” and a remake of “Wounds” commissioned by Mark Warner of the 80’s synthpop band “Sudeten Creche” himself which was also remixed by A.W.o.L. for a future Sudeten Creche release. “Helly Kitto” (a kind of fun song) and a more difficult to access song called “Radioactive Teardrops” are the latest outputs…A.W.o.L. see themselves as a consistent advancement of the good old 80’s techno-pop transferred to the structures of the new millennium by still using a lot of analog studio technology and not trying to be fashionable but to always create new kinds of songs with different soundings; sometimes a bit more up-tempo, sometimes a bit more silent, sometimes very minimalistic sounding but then again very fulminant. We don’t want to invent anything new or to play do-gooders. But if you like what you hear on this website, we would be glad if you send us a small feedback.All the best from GermanyA.W.o.L.

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