JAH WOBBLE’S BEDROOM ALBUM @ 40

 

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.

ZOVIET FRANCE - SHOUTING AT THE GROUND @ 35

 

Turning 35 years old this month is Zoviet France’s monolithic double LP masterpiece, Shouting at the Ground, which was released in May of 1988. The album marked a stylistic shift for the group compared to previous releases. Most notably, they began working with digital signal processing devices. Previous releases had all been created using basic analogue instruments and effects like tape loops & delays, spring reverb tanks, acoustic instruments and, occasional analogue synths. With the adoption of digital effects processors & sampling, the sound took on a much more drone-centered compositional style, taking advantage of the potential to extend digital reverb and delays into sustained, near infinite soundscapes. The packaging for the album was also surprisingly conventional, incorporating a standard LP cover with printed color inner sleeve inserts. Previous LPs had made use of exotic materials like rubber, foil, burlap and roofing tiles, often with hand painted or screen printed accents and graphics. Though the album represented a technological evolution and a slight move towards more mainstream accessibility, it retained the band’s sense of mystery and atmosphere, creating sonic landscapes of vast expanse and depth, placing them at the forefront for the development of dark ambient music.

NEW ORDER - POWER CORRUPTION & LIES @ 40

 

Marking its 40th anniversary today is the sophomore LP from New Order, Power, Corruption & Lies, which was released by Factory Records on May 2nd, 1983. After a tentative step out from under of the shadows of Joy Division and the suicide of Ian Curtis with their debut LP in 1981, New Order were clearly letting the world know they were freed of the shackles of their past and ready to move forward as a reconstituted creative force. Backed by the unprecedented success of the Blue Monday single released in March that same year, this double-barrelled assault on the underground proved to be irresistible for fans and critics alike.

Building on the foundations set by Blue Monday, which was not included on the album, New Order set their sights on a distinctly more electronic sound, incorporating more sequencers, drum machines and synths into their arsenal than their first album & singles. This helped give the group a more distinct sound than their debut album which still bore many sonic trademarks established by Joy Division. It wasn’t a complete stylistic departure and there were still hints of past ghosts in the themes. The brighter, tighter sound still had their essential post-punk DNA in it, but the greys and monotones of previous recordings were blushing with more color and intricacy. The mood was decidedly less introverted, with guitarist Bernard Sumner stepping up to assume the brunt of lead vocals, performing with more confidence while being less hidden in the mix.

The distinctive cover of the album was designed by Peter Saville and followed on from the Blue Monday graphics with their use of the color coded key on the sleeve’s edge, but this time featuring the painting "A Basket of Roses" by French artist Henri Fantin-Latour, which is part of the National Gallery's permanent collection in London. Saville had originally planned to use a Renaissance portrait of a dark prince to tie in with the Machiavellian theme of the title, but could not find a suitable portrait. At the gallery Saville picked up a postcard with Fantin-Latour's painting, and his girlfriend mockingly asked him if he was going to use it for the cover. Saville then realized it was a great idea because the flowers "suggested the means by which power, corruption and lies infiltrate our lives. They're seductive." The owner of the painting (The National Heritage Trust) first refused the label access to it, but Tony Wilson called up the gallery director to ask who actually owned the painting and was given the answer that the Trust belonged to the people of Britain. Wilson then replied, "I believe the people want it." The director then replied, "If you put it like that, Mr Wilson, I'm sure we can make an exception in this case." The cover was later among the ten chosen by the Royal Mail for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps issued in January 2010.

Upon it’s release, the album became an immediate critical sensation and has since gone on to achieve legendary status, regularly referenced as one of the best albums of the era and even of all times. In 1989, Power, Corruption & Lies was ranked number 94 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s, with the magazine citing it as "a landmark album of danceable, post-punk music". Rolling Stone also placed the album at number 262 on the 2020 edition of its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time (it was not included on the original 2003 and 2012 lists).

FM - DIRECT TO DISC / HEAD ROOM @ 45

 

Marking its 45th anniversary this month is the sophomore LP from Canada’s OTHER progressive rock trio, FM, with Direct to Disc (aka Head Room) being released in May of 1978. Recorded shortly after the departure of co-founder, Nash the Slash, this would mark the premier of Ben Mink on mandolin & violin and highlight an idiosyncratic use of a short lived, but fascinating recording process.

For the recording of this album, FM employed an experimental technique which bypassed the use of recording tape and, instead, captured the sound directly to the master acetate disc. To utilize this process, the band had to perform live in studio, with no overdubbing capability, and mix the LP as it was being captured by the transcription mechanism to the master disc. The process for doing this was extremely sensitive as any flaw would ruin the master, so over-saturation, clipping and distortion were essential to avoid. This also meant that the band had to be prepared to get it right with only one or two takes allowed as it was extremely expensive to be burning through master discs for throwaway takes.

Despite the limitations of this process, FM opted to record two side-long, heavily improvisational and predominately instrumental compositions. It was a risky proposition to be flying by the seat of your pants when you are trying to work within such strict technical parameters. Yet the band managed to deliver the goods with two 15 minute excursions into jazz-rock infused experimentalism - incorporating their traditional electric violin & mandolin from Ben Mink, Cameron Hawkins’ battery of synthesizers & bass guitar and drums & percussion from Martin Deller. This also included a bizarre configuration which used an alpha wave brain monitor plugged into a synthesizer, translating Deller's live brainwaves into a throbbing hum. All in all, a pretty bold experiment for a young band to undertake.

The sessions reportedly produced two sets of master plates with one set used for the finished LP, which was pressed in a run of 20,000 copies, all of which sold out. There are rumors that the unused plates were later used for an unauthorized second pressing, titled Head Room, which because of the different plates, contained different performances of the tracks. The existence of this alternate version remains somewhat questionable as the band have not been able to confirm that the Head Room release actually contains different performances from the initial Direct To Disc release. Because of the nature of this “direct to disc” process, all records which were manufactured using it were, by necessity, limited editions. The master disc simply wasn’t usable past a certain number of copies. This also meant that any future reissues would have to be remastered from the vinyl pressings as there would be no master tape available.

For the initial authorized release, regular FM artist, Paul Till, provided the cover painting and the album was issued by independent label, Labyrinth Records, as their first and apparently only release. Critically, it was a well received album, but it is mostly neglected because of its limited availability and the more experimental nature of the music it contains. A reissue on CD was finally released in 2013.

KRAFTWERK - THE MAN MACHINE @ 45

 

Marking it’s 45th anniversary this month is the seventh studio album from Kraftwerk, The Man-Machine, which was originally released in May of 1978. It would complete the dehumanization process which had begun with Autobahn and crystallize the band’s image is musical “robots”, precisely crafting the future of techno-pop music for generations to come.

While the band’s previous album, Trans Europe Express, did a lot to streamline and perfect the pulsing electronic rhythms which had been evolving throughout their previous two albums, particularly with its groundbreaking title track and their expanded use of step sequencers and automated rhythms, Man-Machine took those techniques to their logical conclusion. They enabled the group to achieve a kind of stately exactitude which had a transcendent quality, ushering the listener into an alternate mechanical universe. It was like they’d finally manifested the true “soul” of the automaton and, not only made it live and breath, but also imbued it with the uncanny ability to bust a remarkably funky move! The entire album was bursting with a syncopated dance-ability which had been bubbling up in past releases, but which was now the dominant force. The opening track in particular, The Robots, announced itself with such bass shaking authority that it sent listeners cranking their volume to fully exploit its shuddering groove.

When I first bought the album, sometime around 1979/80, I brought it over to my friend’s place because he had a proper hi-fi stereo system. He aptly pointed out to me how perfect it sounded, with no sense of acoustics from the natural world. It sounded completely synthetic, though not at all “plastic” or phony. It was like hearing sound directly for the first time, like it was being transmitted to your brain with no interference from the atmosphere, like you were hard-wired. It was pure and pristine and unaffected. That made it stand out from any other record I had in my collection, electronic or otherwise. The uncompromising elegance and precision that was in place throughout every track put it in a category all its own. There was nothing else that came close to it.

That distinctiveness carried through to the artwork and even the promotion of the album, where Kraftwerk had commissioned the creation of mannequins to be made in their exact likeness. This allowed them to host two synchronized release events, one in London and one in NYC, where the former was attended by the group themselves and the latter was attended by their mannequins. In later years, they would be evolved to become actual physical robots and then 3D computer generated avatars. Artwork for the cover was produced by Karl Klefisch, based on the work of the Russian suprematist El Lissitzky – the words "Inspired by El Lissitzky" are noted on the cover. The back cover image is an adaptation of a graphic from Lissitzky's book for children About Two Squares: A Suprematist Tale of Two Squares in Six Constructions. The image of the band in their coordinated attire also set a precedent for the group, who would hence-forth always adopt coordination in their outfits, especially for live presentations.

Strangely, the album did not sell well when it was initially released, but it proved to be a sleeper. In the UK, it took until 1982 for it to chart high enough to become the group’s 2nd best selling record behind Autobahn. Two singles where released from the album with The Model, again, becoming a sleeper hit in the early 1980s. It’s like it took a few years for the world to catch up with Kraftwerk and figure out how far ahead of the game they were. Of course, the release of Computer World finally reinforced their visionary comprehension of where electronic music could go and there’s NOTHING in that world today which hasn’t built on Kraftwerk’s foundations. The Man-Machine is still my favorite album from them and its pristine songs hold up time and time again.

THROBBING GRISTLE - UNITED / ZYKLON B ZOMBIE @ 45

 

Issued 45 years ago this month is the debut single from Throbbing Gristle, United b/w Zyklon B Zombie, which was released in May of 1978. After coming out of the gates with a murky slurry of sonic despair for their debut LP, TG being ever the contrarians, felt it was necessary to demonstrate they were capable of knocking together a catchy pop song, despite any perceived musical limitations. The result was United, what appears to be a “love song” on the surface, although upon closer inspection, TG still managed to subvert the genre by bringing in allusions to obsession, identity confusion and occult references to Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law. These sing-song musings sit atop a minimal yet catchy synth & drum machine rhythm, accented by occasional slashes of discordant guitar. But the mayhem is kept to a bare minimum with the results being what critic Jon Savage classified as the first “electropop” song. This respite from madness is short-lived, however, as the B-side returns the listener to the ravages of unfettered TG noise, this time focused on the subject of Nazi death camp poison gas, Zykon B. The single’s sleeve depicts an innocuous looking apartment complex and row of garages with an inset of some bare crossed limbs for the A-side, while the B-side shows Chris Carter in the shower with an inset of gas canisters sporting the label “Giftgas” and what looks strangely like a Psychic cross, albeit some years before Genesis would use a similar symbol for Psychic TV, his post TG project.

MARTIN DENNY - FORBIDDEN ISLAND @ 65

 

Marking its 65th anniversary this month is the third studio album from exotic lounge music pioneer, Martin Denny, with Forbidden Island being released in May of 1958. It was recorded in Hollywood at Liberty Studios after Denny’s group had finished a nine month residency as the house band at Don the Beachcomber's Bora Bora Lounge in Hawaii. This was their first album to be recorded without Arthur Lyman, who had left the group to pursue what would become a successful solo career. Along with the usual covers of popular tunes of the day, the album features four original compositions from Denny: "Cobra", "Exotica", "Primitiva", and "Forbidden Island". The album received mostly favorable reviews from critics and Billboard awarded the album four stars writing: "Interesting treatment of exotic original and standards… produced provocative sound. Good off-beat jockey wax." Where some critics maybe didn’t rate the music as “serious”, they at least had to acknowledge the technical perfection of the production and record engineering. Australian critic John Masters wrote in December 1959 that high fidelity addicts may enjoy Denny's "conglomeration of weird and wonderful imitations of tropical rhythms" and opined that, although "most of the content is sugar coated trash, the recorded sound is outstanding and for this reason the disc is commended, as a technical showpiece only, to stereophiles." Personally, it is one of my favorite of Denny’s classic “exotica” albums.