As I’ve mentioned numerous times in these entries, with the internet starting to be used as more of a valuable research and discovery tool in the 2000s, more and more about what was happening in the lesser known corners of independent music — in this case electronic/synth music — over the past few decades started to come to light. This is especially the case for artists that may have opted for more independent routes to release and present their music, or for artists that perhaps weren’t as attracted to the big lights of the music machine to get their work to become of a more household name so to speak.
Up until recent years, I had no idea who Mark Lane was, although I seem to have some déja vu of coming across the name before. If anything, there are numerous artists who behind what seemed to be “everyday ” names (like Bill Nelson for example — I’ll save that for another entry) that were creating some amazing, colourful music in the vague genres that they worked within that I’ve managed to miss. Mark Lane as I discovered has been putting out records of minimal electronic music and experiments in tape splicing since the early 1980s from his home town of Los Angeles. An artist that in my eyes would have long gaps in between releases and went on very infrequent tours, Lane managed to connect with similar artists of the time from Europe, including collaborations with The Klinik (Belgium), Conrad Schnitzler of Tangerine Dream (Germany) and Martin Bowes of Attrition (UK) — the latter whom I’ve corresponded with before and is a talented, true musician that I’ve had the honour of doing a remix for over ten years ago (see below) for their 2014 release Narcissist vs One Horse Rider.
It was with a gathering of friends at my flat about two years ago that a mutual friend who was over said “Hey, have you heard this track? I think it’s totally up your alley.” From there the track “Sojourn” from Lane’s breakthrough 1984 release Who’s Really listening? started creeping slowly into the stereo.
Going off a first listen it’s an interesting one, with the first two full minutes of the track being a slower paced, layered analogue drum machine pattern that punctuates an empty, slightly reverberated space followed by some subtle organ swells and what sounds like a sample of a voice with all of the low end peeled of stuttering in the distance.
For those cued up for listening, this initial minimalism hints at something to come but with that extended lead into the actual full track would probably shed off a lot of an audience that have modern listening habits — there’s no hook to grab one in on the get go and it’s a track that could easily be skipped at the press of a button on everything from compact discs that came out in the 1980s all of the way through software the majority of people listen to music on now.
But the wait is definitely worth it. After this two minute introduction the track explodes open with a gorgeous chord progression and Lane’s emotive, reflective vocals floating above in a lovely melody. There’s a bass guitar filling in some of the low end in the background, as well as some interesting cosmic noises sprinkling onto the top layers of the track, punctuating that dreamy feel that this main passage has. If anything someone with a more “DJ” mentality might see this sparse introduction that starts this track as a creative possibility in which to do some interesting work blending any preceding track over the introduction of “Sojourn” for some experimental results.
It isn’t a track necessarily geared for energizing the feet of any club-goer to get on the dancefloor so much as what could easily be a euphoric conclusion to an incredible evening surrounded by music and friends. And indeed that’s what I’ve used it for, spinning it out once in the infrequent times that I DJ to close out a night. It feels like a passionate song the way Lane sings it, and perhaps has some personal meaning to him as an artist. And that’s something to share with the folks on the dancefloor after a great night.
Other tracks on this release include the title track “Who’s Really Listening” might be familiar to some of you out there due its inclusion on The Minimal Wave Tapes: Volume 1 on the Minimal Wave label, which was released in 2010. It is more taut and perhaps more “in line” with what European artists at the time were doing with analogue sequenced synths at the time. A track like “Tsar” from this release is a bit more aggressive, perhaps with some early industrial over tones.
It would seem Lane’s interests musically were indeed across the Atlantic and perhaps found less of a likeminded audience in the USA where this type of music was far less practiced. A band like November Group comes to mind — another who seemed to bring in more European influences, which has been covered in these pages before. Perhaps Lane acknowledged this isolation in what he was doing. After all, the title of the release and it’s title track is called Who’s Really Listening? Even now this release is one you can’t really get your hands on, with the tracks from this release being up on YouTube but with no available physical releases (except for Discogs) or a centralised place to acquire the digital files from the artist himself.
“Sojourn” got some multiple plays after the first time I heard it, so much that I opted to include it in this below “micro-interview” with the US online music magazine DMC World back in early summer of 2023 ahead of the release of No.

For me Mark Lane represents a type of artist that is likely in music for creativity, expression and to put something meaningful out there, rather than getting sucked up in the peripheral “rat race” that the music industry can be. Often these artists are creating amazing music but can sometimes be underappreciated.
A case in point in terms of a modern artist might be someone such as Iv/An from Zagreb, Croatia — and artist I’ve had interpersonal connections with for well over a decade and puts out some very strong material and one of the most unique voices in modern minimal electronic that is out there. A friend of mine from out of country was visiting a month or so ago and we played a lot of Iv/An tracks as we both were familiar with his material and it’s overall a great body of work and definitely worth checking out. Iv/An has put out a great number of interesting releases mostly available through this own Bandcamp page, as well as releasing material from other artists and collaborations on his Intonal Shifts label. I’ve highlighted a flagship release of his below — Comforts Of The Future — that came out a number of years ago on the immaculately curated Tonn Recordings label out of Belfast, which might be of interest.