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.

J.J. BURNEL - EUROMAN COMETH @ 45

Marking its 45th anniversary today is the debut solo album from Stranglers bassist, J..J. Burnel, with Euroman Cometh being released on April 6th, 1979. While it was only a modest success at the time of its release, it has become something of a cult favourite over the years for its distinctive combination of electronics and rock & roll.

The album started to take shape in 1978 while The Stranglers were working on their third LP, Black and White. At the time, Burnel was homeless, and ended up sleeping at the studio most nights. To pass the time after the band had packed it in for the day, he'd spend the evenings futzing about in the studio. There was a basic, preset rhythm box on hand, which allowed Burnel to set a groove to build on, adding bass, vocals, guitar and synths, mostly on his own. As his sketches began to accumulate into something that seemed substantial enough to play for other people, an album concept started to emerge to the point where he was able to get a green light from Stranglers' label, United Artists, for an album release. Burnel then brought in a few guest musicians to help flesh out a few details. These included drummers Peter Howells & Carey Fortune, guitarist Brian James & harmonica player Lew Lewis.

The album came together conceptually as something of a manifesto from Burnel on the potential and dangers of a European economic union. It was a concept that was becoming a legitimate and seemingly inevitable political possibility at the time. The album mostly contains songs both celebrating European culture as a whole, while offering cautionary admonitions against American style cultural imperialism.

The album cover shows Burnel standing, dwarfed, in front of the the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, which houses the Bibliothèque publique d'information (Public Information Library), a vast public library; the Musée National d'Art Moderne, which is the largest museum for modern art in Europe; and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research. Its modernist, high-tech styling, with its complex layering of massive external pipes and scaffolding, provided an appropriately grandiose and imposing backdrop for the album and it's sweeping themes of uniting the European continent.

I've always been a big fan of this record because it is so idiosyncratic in its styling, with the frequent drum machine backdrop sounding somewhat brutal and crude along with Burnel's signature snarling baselines. The odd guitar and synth slashes and affected & processed lead vocals all create an obtuse, angular kind of edginess that had echoes in the work of DEVO and Bill Nelson's short-lived post Be Bop Deluxe project, Red Noise. It's decidedly distinctive, displaying very little resemblance to anything done by The Stranglers at the time, owing more to Kraftwerk and CAN. It's also been cited by Joy Division & New Order bassist, Peter Hook, as a major influence, which makes perfect sense to me.