I discovered Units’ Digital Stimulation on a trip to the now defunct Rhino Records in Hyde Park, NY. I had no clue who they were but the record was cheap and for whatever reason I thought it might be good. I put it with a small stack of vinyl I was buying and forgot about it for a few months. I realized I hadn’t ever listened to the record until I was home from school one summer… When I finally put it on my turntable it was like a revelation. It was part Synthpop, part Post-Punk and part Power Pop (all things I was really into at the time) but uniquely it’s own sound all at the same time. The only thing I could even conceivably begin to compare Units to back then was Devo and The Sparks. But the major difference was that the Units used a Punk Rock sense of urgency instead of the kitschy whimsy that Devo and The Sparks relied on so heavily. And unlike either Devo & The Sparks, The Units featured Male & Female vocals. It was almost like X but with keyboards replacing guitars. I never imagined some random vinyl bought on a whim would become capture my attention quite the way it had, moving it to full on obsession.

This was the mid 90s so tracking down info on obscure bands via the internet wasn’t yet an art form… so it took some digging and time but eventually Units’ Digital Stimulation became my gateway into the short lived and wonderful Westcoast scene most commonly refered to as Synthpunk nowadays. Unfortunately though most albums from the bands of that scene are out of print, rare and pretty hard to track down. I spent a pretty penny pre SolarSeek trying to get a hold of music from Los Microwaves, The Inflatable Boy Clams, Nervous Gender and so many others. Actually to this day a lot of this stuff is still sitting on vinyl not yet ripped into digital format and with little interest from any label in re-releasing it on CD. It’s really unfortunate and as result I’ll probably be devoting a few later volumes of Digging For Fire to profile some of these bands.

Digital Stimulation stands as the Unit’s only full length album. They did however put out a few 7″ and 12″ singles to go along with it, including The Right Man 12″ which was a minor New Wave single of it’s time. Due to the popularity of The Right Man, Units were eventually signed to Epic Records and put out their final release, the New Way to Move EP. Unfortunately by this point though the band had polished up all those unique & jagged edges that made Digital Stimulation so endearing and opted to become a more straight forward New Wave/Synthpop band ala fellow westcoasters Missing Persons. While it was no Digital Stimulation, A Way to Move is still an enjoyable listen that I encourage you to track down if you enjoy this album.

Units - Digital Stimulation