Marking
its 40th anniversary this month is Jah Wobble’s second full length solo
LP, Jah Wobble’s Bedroom Album, which was released in May of 1983.
After the former Public Image Ltd bassist cobbled together his debut
solo releases mostly from unauthorized remixes & augmentations of
Metal Box outtakes, which allegedly hastened his departure from the
band, Wobble was back with an intimate collection of material recorded
in his home using a modest private recording setup.
Although it
had been nearly 3 years since his debut solo LP, Wobble hadn’t been
exactly dormant during that time. He’d released a collaborative LP/EP
with CAN rhythm section, Holger Czukay & Jaki Liebezeit, two live
cassettes albums with his band The Human Condition, a single with Ben
Mandleson and a couple of solo 12” singles with A-side tracks that would
later appear on the Bedroom Album. However, by the time he stared
working on the Bedroom Album, he no longer had major label support from
Virgin Records. As a result, Wobble set up his first independent
imprint, Lago Records (aka WOB Records), which released a series of
singles, EPs and LPs between 1981 and 1986, before Wobble temporarily
retired from music in the late 1980s to work on the London subway system
and deal with his substance abuse issues.
Fundamentally, the
music created for the Bedroom Album contains the seeds for what would
become Wobble’s trademark “world music” style, incorporating elements of
Middle Eastern and Asian influences into his post-punk, dub-wise &
reggae tinged style. Certain tracks even hinted at a slightly
industrial kind of “musique concrète” approach. Whereas his debut LP
& EP in 1980 were characterized by a kind of puerile &
mischievous humor, the mood throughout this LP is far more somber,
subdued and warm, reinforcing the sense of intimacy that was consistent
with the concept of recording in his bedroom. The only outside musical
contributions for the album came from “Animal”, Dave Maltby, who played
guitar on and co-wrote several of the songs. He was also a member of
the power trio, The Human Condition, along with Wobble and original PiL
drummer, Jim Walker (1981-1982).
The album’s impact is hard to
assess as no reviews or charting info could be found at the time of
writing this. It has never been reissued since its initial vinyl
release, though it does appear in its entirety on the two CD box set,
The Early Years, released in 2001 on Wobble’s 2nd indie label, 30 Hertz
Records, which continues to function as his primary musical outlet to
this day. That compilation even features the same cover graphic as the
Bedroom Album, created by Margaux Tomlinson. Unfortunately, it seems
that the master tapes for the original LP, along with several singles
included on that collection, are no longer extant as the audio included
on the CD is clearly derived from vinyl sources. This makes the LP
something of an outlier in Wobble’s canon of recorded work, which has
become vast over the course of the past four decades as he has
maintained an unprecedented level of productivity. With the aura of a
lost musical relic, it captures a most enigmatic time in Wobble’s early
career.
