Drinking Electricity were a post-punk

Post-punk

Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...

/synthpop

Synthpop

Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...

 trio from Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 active during the early 1980s.

History

The trio comprised Anne-Marie Heighway (vocals

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

), David Rome (guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

, vocals), and Paul Edgley (bass

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

). Rome had previously worked with Martin Lloyd in the band Analysis, which was later to evolve into Oppenheimer Analysis. They were signed by former Fast product boss Bob Last to his new Pop: Aural label. Their first two singles were both cover version

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

s, the first a version of Johnny Kidd's "Shaking All Over", and the second a version of The Flamin' Groovies' "Shake Some Action". Their third single was their own composition, "Cruising Missiles", and was the last for Pop: Aural, with Heighway and Rome setting up their own Survival label for subsequent releases. First release on their new label was "Subliminal" in 1981. It would be early 1982 before their next release, the band's debut album Overload. The album was not well-received critically, with Trouser Press

Trouser Press

Trouser Press was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow Who fan Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" ...

describing it as "simple, rather plain synth-rock with a strong electronic beat and thin ancillary instrumentation". After two further singles in 1982, the band split up. The Survival label went on to become one of the premiere "minimal techno" labels of the 80s, with releases by the likes of Richard Bone

Richard Bone

-Biography:Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Bone began his professional musical career creating soundtracks and scores for several off-Broadway companies working in experimental theater. In 1979, he released with his band Bone the single "Pirate the Islands/Headlines Have It" before joining the new-wave...

, Tik and Tok

Tik and Tok

Tik and Tok are the robotic mime and music duo of Tim Dry and Sean Crawford. They began performing together with SHOCK: a rock/mime/burlesque/music troupe in the early 1980s with Barbie Wilde, Robert Pereno, L.A. Richards and Carole Caplin....

, Thirteen at Midnight, and Play, and several releases by Capercaillie

Capercaillie (band)

Capercaillie is a Scottish folk band, founded in the 1980s by Donald Shaw and fronted by Karen Matheson. They have seen four of their albums placed in the UK Albums Chart, and continue to perform and record to the present day.-History:...

.

"Good Times (Dance Mix)" was sampled by Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles (band)

Crystal Castles are an experimental electronic band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, consisting of producer Ethan Kath and lyricist and vocalist Alice Glass. Crystal Castles are known for their chaotic live shows and their lo-fi home productions. The duo released many limited EPs between 2006 and...

 on "Good Time" from their eponymous debut album in 2008.

Singles

• "Shaking All Over" (1980) Pop: Aural (#43)
• "Shake Some Action" (1980) Pop: Aural
• "Cruising Missiles" (1980) Pop: Aural
• "Subliminal" (1981) Survival (#48)
• "Good Times" (1982) Survival (#50)
• "Subliminal (radical mix)" (1982) Survival

Split single:

• Pete Shelley
  Pete Shelley
  Pete Shelley is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist, best known as the leader of Buzzcocks.-Biography:...
  
  - "Witness the Change (Extended Instrumental)"/Drinking Electricity - "Superstition (Mirror Image Edit)" NYNX