For those unaware, The House is Burning: The Best of Vivabeat 1979-1986 is a collection of sixteen rare tracks from the new wave techno-pop band Vivabeat.

Formed in L.A. in 1978 as a hybrid of Los Angeles and Boston musicians playing in local punk/new wave bands and were active until the mid-1980s. Marina Muhlfriedel founded the seminal L.A. punk/pop band Backstage Pass; drummer Doug Orilio was in Boston’s Reddy Teddy, and Mick Muhlfriedel and Alec Murphy played with various Boston bands including Human Sexual Response.

When he joined the band, lead singer Terrance Robay was fresh off playing James Dean on the London stage. Connie De Silva was a prodigy synth player and radio DJ.

Their debut album, “Party in the War Zone”, included the group’s most successful song, Man from China - a tune that first captured Peter Gabriel and Charisma Record’s attention. Indeed, its haunting whistle hook is said to have inspired Gabriel’s Game Without Frontiers. Man from China quickly became an underground classic and a top 20 new wave dance club hit in 1980 in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

The band continued to record, including an eponymously titled EP featuring Earle Mankey’s production and former Japan/Gary Numan/Sinead O’Connor guitarist, Rob Dean. It featured the song The House is Burning (But There’s No One Home), which appears in the movie Body Double and was featured in the Amazon Prime animated series, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy.

By 1982, Vivabeat found its footing alongside mainstream New Wave bands and spent a few years touring and playing shows with B-52s, Depeche Mode, Gang of Four, Human League, The Thompson Twins, R.E.M., Gary Numan, Wall of Voodoo, and others.

1. The House Is Burning (But There’s No One Home)
2. Tents
3. Gray, Gray, Gray
4. Shine
5. Napalm Springs
6. Blue Guitars
7. Man From China
8. The Wonder Of It All
9. The Last White Man
10. Angry Red Planet
11. City Of Industry
12. The Girl the Wind Goes Through
13. Henry James
14. What We Talk About (When We Talk About Love)
15. Dreaming Of Tigers
16. 2000 Light Years from Home

This brilliantly brought together of collection of tracks from one of the most criminally underrated, perhaps even now wrongly forgotten about bands of their time, opens on the quintessential new wave sound of The House Is Burning (But There’s No One Home), the jaunty pop joys of Tents and the more fluid notes and melodies of Gray, Gray, Gray and then proceed to bring us the drum-synth notes of Shine, the veritably translucent, at first, latterly Trio-esque Napalm Springs, the vibrant Blue Guitars, before the compelling flashback cut, and their hit single Man From China and the ambient Soft Cell-esque The Wonder Of It All are upon us.

Along next is the free flowing, guitar-synth work of The Last White Man, the spirited Angry Red Planet and the keyboard-imbibed sounds of City Of Industry and they are in turned backed seamlessly by the New Order-hued The Girl the Wind Goes Through, the bright pop synth of Henry James, the more effervescently harmonious work of What We Talk About (When We Talk About Love), the set rounding out on the diligent new wave sound of Dreaming Of Tigers, closing all too soon on the Flock Of Seagulls-imbibed 2000 Light Years from Home.

Vivabeat - The House Is Burning (But There’s No One Home) Official Music Video

Official Purchase Link