One of the lesser stars in the Factory Records universe,
Antena were a mutant anomaly, a chance meeting of
Jobim samba and
Young Marble Giants electro-pop austerity.
Camino del Sol collects every single and the lone EP of the same title that they would produce. Few heard them in the early '80s when they were around, partially because they were stuck in the wasteland of Factory Benelux, the Belgian little brother of the main Factory operation in Manchester that never had the sway of its elder. It probably didn't help that
Young Marble Giants spinoff group
Weekend and labelmates
A Certain Ratio were plying a similar fusion of Latin rhythms and pop song structure, although neither produced an end result as intimate or insular as that of
Antena.
Isabella Antena's chanteuse-whisper vocals provide one of the clues to the group's uniqueness, as do the pencil-thin synth lines and genteel bossa nova drum machine patterns -- both of which sound out of place among their contemporaries, with the exception of
John Foxx, but have a revelatory quality in light of groups that have come since; think
Smokey & Miho,
Adult., Kahimi Karie,
Arto Lindsay, even
Beck. Added to the wonder of this rediscovery are great liner notes and a respectable package that harks back to Factory's heyday. ~ Wade Kergan