RECORD TURNOVER 80s HITS #243
Living Links was an 80s duo from Baton Rouge, consisting of Hans VanBrackle and Margie VanBrackle. They only released one album during their time together, the excellent Gathering the Forces that came out on the tiny local label Skratch in 1985. Before that, they had a couple of singles as well but I’d never heard of them until recently. But thanks to the California label RidingEasy Records all these tracks became available again a couple of years ago.
RidingEasy normally specialises in heavy guitar music, so I’m a bit surprised that they made this reissue. But actually, it seems like they had been in touch with the members who had a lot of unsold copies of their records. So the 2023 ‘reissue’ was actually a box set including all of their original releases. You could buy a mint copy of Gathering the Forces for $80, which still seems a lot to me but I guess not because now it’s sold out. But they also became available digitally.
And the 9 tracks from the LP makes you wonder why they didn’t become more well-known in their time. But I guess it was mostly a side project of their individual bands U.S. Times and ParalElles (not that they made it any bigger). The music of Living Links reminds me of many other 80s post-punk groups – from Young Marble Giants to The Room to Lives of Angels.
