THE STRANGLERS - AURAL SCULPTURE @ 40

 

Released on November 5th, 1984, The Stranglers' eighth studio album, Aural Sculpture, turns 40 years old today. It's an album that saw the group reassessing their approach after going for an icy Euro-techno sound on their previous album, Feline (1983). For Aural Sculpture, the group opted to bring back a bit of warmth to their sound, though the emphasis on the beat was still prominent, albeit augmented with horn sections, female backing vocals, and an increased use of acoustic guitar.

Initial recordings for the album were self produced by the band, but the results from those sessions were somehow lacking, with the band feeling unconvinced by the results, and the record label insisting they bring in a producer to help them get their house in order. They'd originally considered hiring Marvin Gaye, but that couldn't happen when he was killed on April 1st. Eddie Grant was also in the running, but it was ultimately Laurie Latham who got the job. It was Latham who suggested the horn section and backup singers to flesh out the arrangements. The result was that a lot of material from the initial sessions was scrapped and a bunch more new songs were added during the second round of recording. The album was mostly a passion project between Cornwell and Latham, with J.J. Burnel being somewhat distracted by his ailing father requiring care before he finally passed while the album was being produced.

The album's release was a commercial success for the group, with three singles coming from it, including Skin Deep, No Mercy and Let Me Down Easy. Critically, the album was also well received, with most finding the album's nuances more welcoming than the detached austerity of Feline.

THE STRANGLERS - THE RAVEN @ 45

 

Released on September 21st, 1979, the fourth studio album by The Stranglers, The Raven, turns 45 years old today. It's an album that saw the group continuing to evolve beyond the rabble of "pub-punk" aggression, developing their songwriting and musicianship to create music of increasing diversity and nuance.

The album, conceptually, leans into a lot of Norse mythology, especially with the cover graphics depicting a raven on the front, and the band photographed on the prow of a Viking Longship on the back. These concepts are echoed in the album's first two songs, Longships and the title track. The remainder delves into a variety of charged political, social and philosophical topics, like Japanese ritual suicide ("Ice"), heroin use ("Don't Bring Harry"), the Iranian Revolution ("Shah Shah a Go Go") and genetic engineering ("Genetix"). "Dead Loss Angeles" features guitarist Hugh Cornwell playing bass guitar in conjunction with bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel, who wrote the song's heavy bass line. No lead or rhythm guitars feature on the track, whose lyrics were written by Cornwell about his experiences in the United States. Things even take a turn into fringe conspiracy theories with the album's most experimental composition, the munchkin voiced, dirge-looped "Meninblack", a song that would be the springboard for their next album, with its theme of mysterious aliens breeding humans for food. Taken as a whole, it's all rather intellectual for a so-called "punk" band, but these men in black were never that simple, nor simple minded.

The album was originally released with a limited-edition 3D cover. Another limited edition had to be created when the band was forced to remove an image of Joh Bjelke-Petersen from the inner sleeve artwork. Bjelke-Petersen was the subject of the album's sixth track, "Nuclear Device (The Wizard of Aus)".

For some fans of their early albums, the evolution displayed on The Raven may have been a disappointment. I'm sure some critics of the time may have seen this as an opportunity to let loose a backlash against perceived pretensions. However, in my books, this is the beginning of the period when their music became its most interesting and innovative, a trajectory that would continue through the first half of the 1980s, with subsequent albums like The Gospel According to the Meninblack (1981), La Folie (1981), Feline (1983) and Aural Sculpture (1984). It's the era of their career when they matured beyond the adolescent misogyny that characterized their "punk" roots, and transformed them into intellectual commentators on the sociopolitical circumstances of the modern world.

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.

 

THE STRANGLERS - BLACK AND WHITE @ 45

 

 

Marking 45 years on the shelf today is The Stranglers' third LP, Black and White, which was released on May 12th, 1978. It’s an album which continued to highlight the band’s distinctiveness, well beyond the limitations of three chord slashing, bog-standard punk rock. The album showcases the group beginning to develop a more introspective emotional lyricism along with an increased sophistication in their song-craft, introducing elements like the 7/4 time signature in the song, Curfew. For some, the shift towards a more refined sound came at the expense of powerful songwriting, as showcased on their first two LPs, but for others, the writing was just as solid, while pushing musical boundaries with implications of influence upon contemporaries like Gang of Four, Joy Division and Public Image Ltd. Clearly, they were on a path which was akin to those “post-punk” allies and their continued evolution down that path would quickly lead to some significant pop classics down the road. Not that Black and White doesn’t have its own cherries to be picked. Tracks like Nice ’n’ Sleazy, Toiler On the Sea, and Death & Night & Blood are just some of the songs which have become essential listening in the classic Stranglers canon.

The initial release of the UK version included a white vinyl 7” which included a cover of Burt Bacharach’s Walk On Buy, along with two other bonus tracks. The US release did not include the single, but was pressed on black & white marbled vinyl. The album was a critical and commercial success at the time of its release, though retrospective critical praise has been a bit more mixed in light of the band’s evolution. Still, it remains an essential piece of the band’s legacy for any serious fan.

THE STRANGLERS - FELINE

 

Released 40 years ago today, on January 22, 1983, it's The Stranglers 7th studio LP, Feline. After the critical and chart success of La Folie and the Golden Brown single, Feline continued the band's evolution into a hybrid style of electronics infused alternative Euro-pop. Most notably, this is evident in Jet Black's use of synth-drums, augmented by his near metronome perfect meter. It's a move which may have alienated fans of their raunchier punk roots, but resulted in some exquisitely composed confections for those who could appreciate their newfound subtlety.

The album was initially released with a bonus 7", Aural Sculpture Manifesto, a deliberately pretentious sounding monologue delivered by Hugh Cornwell, espousing the band's theory and mastery of sonic manipulation, which was clearly beyond the purview of their peers <hurumpf>. As for the LP proper, it was home to three singles: European Female, Midnight Summer Dream and Paradise, though the US edition of the LP included Golden Brown as the closing track on the A side of the record. While the LP charted higher than the previous album, the singles found less receptive audiences than Golden Brown. Critics were somewhat mixed in their response to the album, with accusations that the album was "boring" coming from several. However, as previously mentioned, the style of the album was less "beat them over the head" and more "seduce them", so its charms are only revealed through repeated listening. In addition to the electronic drums, the album relies on predominantly acoustic guitars and Dave's synth textures to create a balance between the natural and the synthetic. This gives the album a rather dreamy ambience throughout.

While it may not rank as my favorite LP from the band, falling in behind La Folie, The Raven & Meninblack, it keeps pace as a tight fourth in that pack and offers a consistently enjoyable listen whenever I'm in the mood for its muted savage charms. I had the pleasure of seeing the band live when they toured this LP and it was a wonderful experience I'll soon be recounting for your amusement.

THE STRANGLERS - RATTUS NORVEGICUS @ 45

 

Celebrating 45 years since its release is the debut LP by The Stranglers, Rattus Norvegicus (aka, The Stranglers IV), which was issued on April 15th, 1977. It would become one of the biggest selling “punk” records of the year and set the band on a run of hit LPs and singles throughout the remainder of the decade and into the early 1980s.

The group was founded in 1974 by drummer, Jet Black (Brian Duffy), who had made good financially running a fleet of ice-cream vans and an off-license club by the time he reached his mid 30s. He’d had experience as a jazz drummer back in the late 1950s & early 1960s, but left the music world to pursue his business ventures. By 1974, the urge to return to music had surfaced and he set about recruiting blues musician Hugh Cornwell, classical guitarist Jean-Jacques Burnel (who took up the bass) and keyboardist Dave Greenfield. The group was initially known as the Guildford Stranglers, but dropped the geographic prefix before officially registering as a business on September 11th, 1974.

They proceeded to work the pub circuit in the UK until they came to some notice opening for US acts like Ramones and Patti Smith, which found them serendipitously being swept up in the burgeoning London punk scene. By the time their debut LP was released, they’d built up enough of a following that the LP and it’s attendant singles became some of the most successful releases to come from that scene. While they were an immediate hit with fans, the critics were suspicious. The band’s age and obvious technical proficiency set them outside the realm of snotty young three chord thrash, which was quickly becoming the accepted norm for the movement, even though its premier artists all colored outside those constricting lines. The Stranglers also embodied a literary articulation within their lyrics which set them well outside the more primal youth rebellion themes of their so-called peers.

The group themselves were not at all uncomfortable working within the punk zeitgeist and embraced its raw aesthetics, though they never held back on adding their own sense of sophistication to their work. They never dumbed themselves down in order to fit into that scene. Their debut LP, which was essentially a snapshot of their live set at the time, along with its two follow up releases, No More Heroes & Black & White, securely put them at the head of the pack of new bands dominating the UK charts in the late 1970s. In the ranks of the albums released at that time, it certainly captures the energy of the era while injecting a depth of content to the proceedings which was beyond most of their contemporaries of the day.

THE STRANGLERS - LA FOLIE @ 40

 

Celebrating its 40th anniversary today is the sixth studio album by The Stranglers, La Folie, which was released on November 9th, 1981. Directly translated as “madness”, the French title was elaborated on by the band as a reference to the madness of romance and love, a theme which is carried through the album’s lyrical content.

At the time this album came along, The Stranglers’ career trajectory was decidedly waning, commercially. Their previous album, The Gospel According to the Meninblack, had not performed as well as their earlier albums, which had positioned them as one of the most commercially successful UK bands to come from the “punk” movement of the late ’70s. To try to boost their appeal, their record label recruited acclaimed producer Tony Visconti to help craft each song on the album with an ear towards it potentially being a single. The effort, initially, seemed to be in vain as the first single from the album failed to make any impact and album sales dragged as a result. Then came the second single, Golden Brown, which ignited on the airwaves and ended up propelling the album into the upper reaches of the charts and steadily climbing sales. Despite its controversial musings on the pleasures of heroine, It ended up putting the band back on the map as far as being hit makers and was one of the labels biggest selling singles for several years.

The album, as a whole, represents some of the most polished and intricate music the group had produced to that point. Personally, it’s one of my favorite Stranglers albums along with The Raven. It has a progressive edge to it while maintaining a professional sheen to the production and the songwriting hooks are insistent and unforgettable. It also has a sophistication that showed off the group’s true prowess as musicians while never quite betraying the more cynical, dark humored undercurrent that had always been at their core. The theme may have been the emotional turmoil of romance, but the intellectualism of the lyrics retains a constant counterpoint. It’s almost a baroque sense of ornateness in some areas, especially with things like the harpsichord on Golden Brown, courtesy of the late, great Dave Greenfield. It’s a richly layered and textured album of complex, multidimensional themes delivered with precision and panache!

THE STRANGLERS - MENINBLACK @ 40

 

 

February 7th marks the 40th anniversary of the release of The Stranglers fifth studio LP, The Gospel According to The Meninblack, released on this day in 1981.

The album began life as what most fans considered to be a throwaway track on their previous album, The Raven. The song, Meninblack, seemed like a bit of frivolous fun, featuring a half speed mechanical drum loop, layers of synth and a helium double speed vocal that incited conspiratorial screeds about mysterious aliens harvesting humans for food. It all, at the time of its release in 1979, seemed a bit silly to most, though it was always one of my personal favorites from that album for its experimentalism and oddness.

The truth was that the guys were quite serious about this conspiracy of mysterious black clothed "agents" who appeared to people who reported encounters with UFOs. It's a concept that has since become a staple trope in science fiction properties like the Men In Black film franchise and the X Files TV series. Back in 1980, however, it was only something that was discussed in obscure intellectual circles. One must remember that it is only in the last few years that conspiracy culture has become mainstream with groups like QAnon gobbling up oxygen in the media. Back before the internet, conspiracy theories had a bit more clout and were closely aligned with occult (meaning "hidden") traditions. Those who pursued these topics were involved in in-depth research and documentation, not merely swapping unsubstantiated rumors with unhinged strangers online. Sure, a lot of the people involved in such pursuits were still on the fringes of society and often sanity, but at least they had some standards for research and investigation.

As work began on the album, which was split up throughout 1980 with various tours breaking up the recording sessions, a peculiar pattern of misfortune seemed to descend on the band, prompting paranoia and suspicion that what they were delving into was somehow upsetting some kind of balance. It was tempting to see the group as being cursed during the events that surrounded the creation of this record. Among many misfortunes that befell the group were things like...

• court cases resulting in custodial prison sentences (Hugh)
• management and label conflicts
• master tapes going missing for The Raven
• all their gear being stolen while on tour in the US, including Dave's impressive array of keyboards and synths, all of which had been critical in the recording of the album
• poor record sales & charting (this was the least successful album of their career to date)

The critics were also ruthlessly savage towards the album and its singles. Stylistically, though its direction had been hinted at by The Raven, it was still a huge departure from their earlier works. Overall, it had an almost "techno" vibe thanks to the heavy use of synths and Jet's focus on mechanical, precise and electronic sounding drums, though calling it "pop" would be misleading as the vibe was too bizarre and dark for such a label. The religious themes also caused critics to level accusations of pretentiousness at the group. The album was even packaged to look like marble carved scripture with a gate-fold inner image of a parody of da Vinci's Last Supper and biblical sounding song titles. It was no surprise when, after poor sales and critical reception, their label had them back in the studio, posthaste, to get going on another album to try to rehabilitate their reputation.

For me, however, this was the album that got me hooked on the group. The experimentation, use of electronics, complex themes and the cohesive aesthetic of it's symbology all worked together to form a work of astonishing completeness. Even some of the band now look back on this as the peak of their creative achievements, particularly Hugh Cornwell. It's frequently seen as the "ugly duckling" of their catalogue, but I think it has stood the test of time and bares the marks of a group willing to go against the grain to pursue their artistic vision. And I still keep a lookout for any mysterious looking gentlemen in dark suits.

 

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - THE STRANGLERS, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE MENINBLACK

When I was in grade 11 high school (1979-1980), I became friends with this guy who was also getting into some of the new music that was coming out.  He'd twigged that I was listening to The Clash and asked if I had heard the Sex Pistols and we got chatting about these bands, which were not at all popular with the rest of the teens in our isolated Northern Ontario school.  He mentioned that he had a cousin who lived in the UK and would send him tapes of the latest bands.  We started to hang out after that and he was the first person to play me any music by The Stranglers, who fast became his favorite band. 

I wasn't quite so into them at first.  I liked them well enough, but it wasn't until I heard The Raven that I started to find them really interesting, particularly the Meninblack song with it's half speed drums and evil Munchkin voices.  When they put out the Meninblack album in 1981, an entire LP dedicated to exposing the conspiracy of aliens farming humans for food, I was all in.  The Gospel According to the Meninblack became the first album I'd buy from The Stranglers.  I wasn't put off by the middling reviews for the album as I found the combination of the mechanical percussion and Dave Grenfield's synths highlights of the album and the whole concept was super cool to me.   I had no idea at the time that the endeavor would turn out to be something of a "curse" for the band, who endured a year of terrible misfortune while they attempted to record, promote and tour the album.

With the sudden, unexpected passing of keyboardist, Dave Greenfield, I wanted to highlight what was my "gateway" into appreciating this band, who were so significantly stamped with their identity thanks to Dave's inimitable musical prowess.