Eighties Techno-Pop Band Vivabeat to Release Their First-Ever Live Album

Wild World (Live in Los Angeles 1980-84)

Eighties techno-pop band Vivabeat to release of their first-ever live album, Wild World (Live in Los Angeles 1980-84), Friday, March 27, 2026 via Liberation Hall Music. The album is available for presave and preorder here. The album’s first single and video, a live version of the band’s best-known song, “Man from China,” is now available here.

Fans of Vivabeat will be thrilled to learn that two never-before-released tracks, “Glisse le Rat” and “I’m Right,” appear on this new package. The 14 songs were recorded at three live shows in Los Angeles over a four-year period and capture different stages of the band’s career. The Whisky a Go Go date was one of Vivabeat’s earliest shows and features its original lineup. The Lhasa Club was a mid-career performance, and FM Station was the band’s final show ever.

The band’s co-founders, keyboardist and vocalist Marina (del Rey) Muhlfriedel and bass player and primary songwriter Mick Muhlfriedel spearheaded the live project after first reissuing their debut album Party in the War Zone and The House is Burning on Rubellan Remasters in late 2023, followed by expanded editions of Party in the War Zone Expanded and another incarnation of The House is Burning with Liberation Hall Music in 2025.

“I had doubts we could make a live album work given the primitive quality of the recordings,” said Vivabeat’s Marina Muhlfriedel. “I’m so glad to have been proven wrong. The live tracks on Wild World capture a wilder, edgier energy than our studio work, bringing me right back to who we were at the time.”

“The process of digging into the various tracks after so long was challenging but so worth the effort,” said Vivabeat’s Mick Muhlfriedel, who produced and engineered the Wild World project. “I was repeatedly struck by how good the playing was at different points in Vivabeat’s career. Most of all, Terrance Robay’s live vocal performances were practically flawless. I truly wish he were still with us to hear Wild World.”

After combing through archival cassettes and videotapes, Mick was able to compile the Wild World, thanks to significant recent advances in production software and AI. After digitizing the long-languishing source material, he spent months assembling the album, using a “stem splitter” to convert the original two tracks into multitracks, separating the vocal and instrumental tracks for mixing. While the technology has improved significantly, it took considerable effort to bring the live tracks into shape. Once Mick’s process was complete, the band worked with engineer Thomas Ross Johansen to finalize the EQs and ensure consistency across the project.

A five-song video from The Lhasa Club show (the only live footage of the band) will also debut on YouTube on March 27. A mashup video of The Lhasa performance of “Man from China” and imagery from the band’s original 1979 “Man from China” video is now live on YouTube.

Vivabeat was formed in L.A. in 1978 as a hybrid of Los Angeles and Boston musicians from local punk/new wave bands and remained 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. When he joined the band, lead singer Terrance Robay was fresh off playing James Dean on the London stage. Connie DiSilva was a prodigy synth player and radio DJ in Boston. The Whisky and Lhasa shows feature Jeff Gilbert on guitar and Chris Schendel on drums.

Vivabeat’s debut album, Party in the War Zone, included the original version of one of the group’s most successful songs, “Man from China” — the tune that first captured Peter Gabriel and Charisma Records’ attention and resulted in Vivabeat’s signing. Its haunting whistle hook is said to have inspired Gabriel’s “Game Without Frontiers.” The song quickly became an underground classic and a Top 20 80s dance hit in Europe, the U.S., and Asia.

Man From China (Party in the War Zone)

After parting ways with Charisma, the band continued recording and spent several years touring with iconic ‘80s groups such as the B-52s, Depeche Mode, Gang of Four, Human League, R.E.M., and released an eponymous EP produced by Earle Mankey and featuring former Japan/Gary Numan/Sinead O’Connor guitarist Rob Dean. The EP included the song “The House is Burning (But There’s No One Home),” which appears in the movie Body Double, was licensed for Amazon Prime’s new animated series The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy, and its video won an MTV award. Numerous other Vivabeat tracks have been licensed for shows, including “Working for William,” which was featured in the Peacock series, Hysteria.

Marina is currently a writer living in Los Angeles. She occasionally performs in a Backstage Pass reboot and hosts Our Lips Unsealed, a rock ‘n’ roll storytelling show. Mick is the president of a large youth soccer nonprofit, The Downtown L.A. Soccer Club, and is completing a new album with his Buff Roshi project featuring Holly Beth Vincent.

*Huge shoutout to It’s Alive! Media & Management for information and images. Check out their website at ItsAliveMedia.com.