The apocalypse is over. The sun sometimes peeks through the thick blanket of radioactive smog that encompasses earth. Survivors disperse and repopulate earth. Civilizations emerge. Synth-psych ensues.

An obvious choice, perhaps, but Gary Numan�s early work with the Tubeway Army might just be the apex of synth-psych. Conceived according to a concept so complicated it would take much too long to fully elaborate here, Replicas is an album about a post-apocalyptic world where cyborgs called �machmen� reign and where humans who dare challenge their regime are labeled �crazies.� On �Down in the Park,� Numan tells the story of how the richest among the humans watch the weakest get maimed and devoured by the machmen, gladiator-style, from their windows overlooking the park.

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One of Factory Records� more obscure acts, Section 25 spent most of their career being compared to Joy Division and dismissed offhand. Their third album, From the Hip, boasts production from none other than New Order�s Bernard Sumner and marks a huge departure from their first two more straightforward, krautrock-plundering full-lengths. �Looking from a Hilltop� finds them, mid-trip, floating through space over mountainous terrain on the new Earth in one of synth-psych�s prettier, more contemplative forays.

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Speaking of Factory Records and pretty, Antena also had both going for them. Released on Factory�s sister-label Benelux, Isabelle Powaga, Sylvain Fasy, and Pascale Moiroud�s only album, Camino del Sol, went deep into bossa nova territory with more than a hint of South American psychedelic flavor at a time when, as the Numero Group later put it, no one wanted to hear either. �Achilles� sounds like synth-psych lounge music written for the one beach house on the Riviera that�s left standing after the dawning of the new Ice Age.

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OMD are usually bracketed off with Simple Minds and Wang Chung in the �John Hughes movie soundtrack music� category. Anyone who heard them before �If You Leave� was the soundtrack to Ducky Dale�s romantic exploits knows just how unfair this is. Factory�s legendary graphic artist Peter Saville designed a few of their covers, and Martin Hannett produced a portion of their early work. On �Red Frame/White Light� from their self-titled debut, OMD sound like a slightly less bent Kraftwerk who discovered the ruins of Studio 54 somewhere in the post-apocalyptic rubble and constructed a sound based on what they imagined disco must have sounded like.

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Known in the states thanks only to that �Oh Yeah� song from Ferris Bueller�s Day Off, Yello were a duo that consisted of (I kid you not) Swiss millionaire-industrialist/ professional gambler Dieter Meier and composer Borris Blank. In 1980, Yello signed with the Residents� label, Ralph Records, and scored a considerable dance hit with �Bostitch� from their first album, Solid Pleasure. By 1983, they�d moved onto even bigger and better things with You Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess, released by Elektra. Its first sleazy, woozy, and atmospheric track, �I Love You,� serves as synth-psych�s first (and possibly last) post-apocalyptic disco love song.

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