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I saw my sister over the Thanksgiving holiday and we were talking about the first CD we bought. We've previously were both buying and sharing cassettes album and, according to my sister, our first CD was going to be special. We pooled our money together and we bought Information Society's Hack. I don't even think we even had a CD Player back then (as those were quite expensive in 1991).
In this entry, I'll just be talking about Hack, as Information Society's history is both long and rich.
Most people know Information Society through their hit song "What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy)" from their debut album (I say debut because Creatures of Influences seems more of a very long EP). That self-titled album sold very well, but my first album I bought was Hack on cassette, before replacing it with the CD version co-owned with my sister.
Hack remain one of my all-time favorite album. I know all the songs by heart and it was really the first album that introduced me to sampling and mashups. I can't even tell you how often I listened to this album non-stop throughout high school. I even spent hours reading and looking at the liner notes.
From the liner notes, I was able to tell that all the sampling and loop hack songs were by Think Tank. I've long thought that this was an independent DJ, but I found out that it's basically Paul Robb's alter ego.
Two singles were released from this album, Think and How Long - which I own both cassingles (I also have "Think" on Maxi-CD Single). "Now That I Have You" was considered for release, but only the 12" Promo exists. If you asked me, I would've chosen "Fire Tonight" or "Mirrorshade", as I felt these were stronger songs.
The entire album works as a gapless album, between each main song (usually written by Paul Robb) are Think Tank's samples. Kurt Harland did write about five songs on the album, but some of them seem to be more arranging and programming samples.
If you love 80s synth-pop songs, this is such a great album. It's pure pop, and closed with a wonderful instrumental called "Chemistry". For a long time, I ended most of my mixtapes with this song.
On the subject of the album being called Hack, here is an excerpt from Harland:
A great deal was made of the name, "HACK". We were using the name much more loosely than most people assumed. True, we were thinking of computer hacking, but we were also implying the idea of musical hacks, meaning, getting the job done efficiently and moving on. Or, as Jim liked to say, it meant that "we cut up meat!". Truth is, things like that rarely mean as much to the band as they do to reporters and fans.
Currently, Information Society are back together. They've just released Synthesizer in October and planning on some tour dates in 2008.
EDIT: From Patrick:
Kurt is back in the band and is doing all vocals on the live tour. He also did vocals for one song on Synthesizer and will do all vocals on future albums.
There's a tour information page here:
http://dancing-ferret.com/isjangig.htm
12/01/2007 00:32:33 vu my♥posts 
www.insoc.org informationsociety.us
