"This album was created with absolutely no guitars"

that's written on the back of the first two Synergy records, 1975 and 1976, an inverse nod to Queen's "This album was created with absolutely no synthesizers"

c.f Human League - “We are the Human League, there are no guitars” (Phil Oakey, voiceover on “Dada Dada Duchamp Vortex’, which is 1977 I think) and also "We're the Human League.

There are no guitars or drums played on this record" on 'Dance Like A Star" which is also 1977 I believe. 

I don't think Queen though were anti synths, though,  so much as  trying to say "all these amazing sounds you're hearing on the record, that's our wizardry with guitars and the mixing desk"

they don't seem like Luddites

plus there was quite a lot of synth-ery in mainstream rock before Synthpop...  

Pete Townsend had a big collection of synths

 Pink Floyd "On the Run"...  Hillage...

or this 

 

or this 

there's loads more examples

sort of makes you wonder why Synthpop was such a big deal

i guess because it wasn't so player-ly, so obviously musical in the Old Wave sense...  and synthpop also had the mechanistic post-Moroder rhythm aspect...  it very much didn't rock, didn't groove

Yes, that is Hot Gossip covering Human League's "Circus of Death"

And more than that - it is Hot Gossip, produced by the British Electric Foundation, so that's Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh remaking one of their own tunes

I very nearly bought the Hot Gossip album Geisha Boys and Temple Girls, also produced by BEF and featuring a number of other unusual cover version choices (Talking Heads's "Houses in Motions" plus two Heaven 17 tunes "Soul Warfare" and "Geisha Boys and Temple Girls"), at this great record store in Tilburg, called Sounds.  But I desisted, having already picked up another 13 albums + 1 twelve inch + 1 single. I figured that was enough of a haul.

Now of course I rather regret having desisted....