Sparks in a Dark Room is the second studio album by Dutch experimental electronic post-punk/ultra band Minny Pops. After signing to Factory Benelux in 1982 following their "noisy" and "goofy" debut album Different Measures, Drastic Movement (1979), the band settled into a new, less aggressive sound featuring influences of industrial music and funk. Recording Sparks in a Dark Room in late 1981, the band headed for a more clinical and clean sound. Considered a high point of the ultra movement, the record features cold, electronic tones and darkly humorous lyrics from lead singer and songwriter Wally van Middendorp.
Released by Factory Benelux in May 1982, the album was not a commercial success but its critical standing has become increasingly positive. The album has since been regarded as a lost classic. Uncut described it as an "under-the-radar-masterpiece" whilst Careless Talk said it "places Minny Pops squarely within the realm of an early 80s interface that pitched accessible pop conveniences and electronic experimentation in the same arena." Today it is considered part of the origins of dark wave and industrial dance music. The album was remastered and re-released in March 2003 by LTM with numerous bonus tracks, and by Factory Benelux in March 2014 with even more bonus material, namely a live album recorded at the Melkweg in 2012.
Background
Minny Pops were formed in Amsterdam in 1978 by vocalist Wally Van Middendorp. The band took their name from the primitive Korg drum machine which propelled their austere, post-punk rhythms and provocative live performances. The band made their recording debut in 1979 on the label Plurex, operated by van Middendorp himself. The three-track seven-inch single contained "Kojak," on which Van Middendorp impersonated Telly Savalas' TV character of the same name with lines like "If you make more money, you make fewer friends." Later on in the year, the band released their debut album Drastic Measures, Drastic Movement, showcasing the band's "lean, mechanical sketches and abrasive noise diversions." Brainwashed called it "a bizarre mix of noise, new wave, synth pop, and Yello-like cabaret goofiness. It is one of the most genuinely tweaked documents of DIY electro-pop, a record which to this day causes heads to be scratched in satisfying bewilderment."
Their earliest releases on Plurex and praise visa word of mouth lead to a record deal with independent post-punk record label Factory Records of Manchester, England, who gave the band the opportunity to work with Martin Hannett, producer of Joy Division and later early New Order. They subsequently became the first Dutch band to record a Peel Session for radio DJ John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show. After a handful of gigs in support of Joy Division and the release of a live EP, Minny Pops had officially joined the label, but during 1981 and 1982, bounced between Factory proper and Factory's secondary Factory Benelux division, run in Belgium. According to Brainwashed, "as the group's members acquired careers as record label executives (at Boudisque, Play it Again Sam, etc.), the music that they produced became more accessible, the noise nearly vanished, and recognizable industrial-funk genre trappings emerged." Subsequently, in their new musical style, they recorded their second album shortly after the deal with Benelux.
Recording and musical style
The album was recorded by and self-produced by the band in late 1981. Recorded without a guitarist, Sparks in a Dark Room is therefore often said to sound unusually polished and layered, and has been described as a "lavish extension" of its predecessor, opting for a cleaner and more clinical synth-focused side and containing a "Cabaret Voltaire pulse and Wally van Middendorp's tongue-in-cheek dark monologues." According to the magazine Oor, Sparks in a Dark Room was "the modest high point of the Ultra-revival, the avant-garde postpunk movement of which Amsterdam was the center and Minny Pops the pioneers." The journalist described the album as more normal than its predecessor, and shows Middentrop "attempting actual singing," saying "the vibe became moody, and the sound (with its synth carpets in minor) merged nicely with Factory." The album was described by one critic as showing the band at the peak of being "creators of driving modern electronic dance music, redolent of DAF, Simple Minds and Moroder-era Sparks" whilst another said the album's "smooth sequencers and motorik rhythms [are] often redolent of Moroder, Kraftwerk and Cabaret Voltaire." The album is also said to exemplify the cold wave movement of the era, whilst the work of Hannett "presides over" the album.