Artist: BEF

British SynthPop legends Heaven 17 have announced a two day special event at the Roundhouse in Camden, London on 14th-15th October 2011. Day one will see the band following on from their 'Penthouse and Pavement 30th Anniversary Tour' (which was awesome!) and performing their 1983 album 'The Luxury Gap' in it's entirety including the singles 'Let Me Go', 'Temptation', 'Come Live With Me', and 'Crushed By The Wheels of Industry'. Day two will consist of the first ever live performance by Martyn Ware's British Electric Foundation (B.E.F.) featuring tracks form 'Music Of Quality & [...]

It remains one of the great mysteries of the age. Like who built the pyramids, or what was the purpose of Stonehenge. How did Phil Oakey come up with Dare! , one of the defining statements of eighties synthpop ? The odds were certainly against him. When the League Mark I split , Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware took all the song writing and production skills with them. Oakey was left only with Adrian Wright, the guy who did the slide projections for their live shows, and his trademark hair [...]

It held no more than ninety minutes of music. Individual tracks could be located only with a great deal of button pushing and waiting. And invariably its tape store came unwound, wrapping yards of sticky brown ribbon around the capstans of your player. But in the early eighties the cassette struck fear in the heart of the music industry. Prominent artists and label execs alike lined up to announce, "Home taping is killing music." Profits plunged. The vinyl record seemed doomed. But there were others who saw the cassette tape as a harbinger of a brighter future. Malcolm [...]

(from Captain Marvel Adventures #113; October 1950) B.E.F. - Suspicious Minds (from Music of Quality and Distinction, Vol. 1 , 1982; collected on The Best of B.E.F. 2002) - In which the Ware and Marsh production team (previously of the Human League, and the heart of Heaven 17) reimagine one of The King's finest works with the help of tarnished glam idol, Gary Glitter. ("Because I love you too much, baby..." Major contextual eeeeew, there.) "We can't go on together [...]

• B.E.F. - Suspicious Minds

BEF is electronic soul and gospel formed from the ashes of Sheffield electronic groups, The Human League and Heaven 17. After the original Heaven 17 split, producer Martyn Ware and programmer Ian Craig Marsh set up BEF (British Electric Foundation) to produce classic pop covers done with electronic equipment. The featured tracks are from their 1991 album "Music of Quality and Distinction Volume 2". From the blurb in the promo EP for the album: "The [...]

• BEF - Family Affair (feat. Lalah Hathaway)