Eighties techno-pop band Vivabeat will release its first-ever live album, Wild World (Live in Los Angeles 1980–84), on March 27 via Liberation Hall Music.
The 14-track collection draws from three Los Angeles performances recorded over a four-year span, capturing the band at different stages of its evolution from punk and new wave to a more dance- and funk-driven sound. The album includes two previously unreleased songs, “Glisse le Rat” and “I’m Right.”
A live version of the band’s best-known song, “Man from China,” is the album’s first single and was released today alongside a companion video.
The recordings span early and late moments in Vivabeat’s career, including one of the band’s first shows at the Whisky a Go Go, a mid-period performance at the Lhasa Club, and the group’s final concert at FM Station. Together, the tracks document lineup changes and the development of the band’s sound during the early 1980s.
The live album follows a series of reissues and expanded editions of Vivabeat’s studio work released between 2023 and 2025. Band co-founders Marina Muhlfriedel and Mick Muhlfriedel spearheaded the project, with Mick producing and engineering the album.
“I had doubts we could make a live album work given the primitive quality of the recordings,” Marina Muhlfriedel said. “The live tracks capture a wilder, edgier energy than our studio work.”
Mick Muhlfriedel said recent advances in production software made the project possible, allowing archival cassette and video recordings to be restored and mixed into a cohesive release. The band also worked with engineer Thomas Ross Johansen to finalize the album.
Formed in Los Angeles in 1978, Vivabeat built an underground following with songs such as “Man from China,” which became a Top 20 dance hit internationally and helped earn the band a recording contract with Charisma Records. The group toured with acts including Depeche Mode, the B-52s and R.E.M. before disbanding in the mid-1980s.
In conjunction with the album release, a five-song video from Vivabeat’s Lhasa Club performance — the only known live footage of the band — will debut on YouTube on March 27.
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