Don't hold me to this, but I'm pretty sure I bought this from the dollar bins at the late great Pennylane Records on Queen Street East in Toronto around 1997. Surplus Stock appear to be a joint Anglo-Deutsch product led by synth player Robert Giddens, who had previously been D.A.F.'s producer. They also had a small connection to the Fall, who are thanked in the liner notes "for their help and inspiration." So the trio had their avant-rock connections down, but in fact, "Spiv" is your basic doomy synth minimalism, not at all far removed from early Human League. I love this particular era of post-punk, when bands were genuinely shooting for something beyond the strictures of rock and roll as it had been, but they weren't quite sure what they were trying to do yet. This kind of innocence can't be faked, which is why the current crop of bands mining this era for inspiration are getting it subtly but importantly wrong.

Incidentally, the flip of this single is called "Vips." Yes, it's the a-side backwards. Neither version appears on Surplus Stock's sole album, 1980's Holland In Not.