Lavender Vinyl. In the late 1970s, a peculiar sound began bubbling up from the land of 10,000 lakes.

Buried beneath 50 solid inches of annual snow, Minneapolis made a Sound quite different than what the pop world foresaw.

It issued forth as a slick, black, technologically advanced fusion, poised to storm the charts.

Never known for sizable African-American populations, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St.

Paul in fact harbored a tight-knit community of musicians working feverishly through the late '70s and early '80s toward a radical manipulation of American dance music, coating futuristic funk with the glamorous sheen of guitar rock.

Synthetic ebony and ivory met electricity, with sexed-up results sent shockingly across the pop heavens like violet lightning.