Released on April 6th, 1984, the debut and final LP by Tones on Tail, Pop, is marking its 40th anniversary today. Though it was a short-lived bridge between Bauhaus and Love and Rockets, it remains a hypnotically enigmatic diversion within that musical continuum.

Tones on Tail originated in 1982 as a side project for Daniel Ash while he was still a member of Bauhaus. It began as a duo with Ash collaborating with Glenn Campling, an art school friend & flatmate who'd also worked as a roadie for Bauhaus. The band name came from the calibration tones traditionally recorded on the "tail" ends of reel to reel audio tapes. The pair released an eponymous EP in March of 1982, but by 1983, with the demise of Bauhaus, they were joined by drummer Kevin Haskins, making the group now a full-time project for the trio, who issued another EP, Burning Skies, in May of 1983.

With the release of the Pop album in 1984, the group scored a surprise club hit with a non-album single B-Side, Go!, which was on the Lions single. The group then embarked on a brief tour of the US before releasing a final single, Christian Says, in November of 1984.

By 1985, there were rumblings about a possible reunion of Bauhaus, which managed to get to the point of a water-testing jam session being scheduled, but when Peter Murphy failed to turn up for the session, and the other three members went ahead without him, they realized their chemistry was still quite strong, so they regrouped as Love and Rockets instead, putting an end to Tones on Tail as a functional unit.

The legacy of Tones on Tail may be somewhat dwarfed by that of the bands that bookend its existence, but that doesn't mean the music they created is any less worthy of attention. I have great memories of dancing to GO! in the clubs of the mid 1980s, and the sound of Tones on Tail has a distinctly eerie atmosphere, even in comparison to Bauhaus or Love and Rockets. In 1998, a double CD compilation, Everything, compiled their entire catalogue into one convenient package.