‘4 Movements’ is a four track 12″ EP from 1981 on Cherry Red records, the second solo release by Thomas, following some time after his initial self-released debut 7″ single, ‘Private Plane / International’ and after his joint LP recorded with Robert Rental, ‘The Bridge’.
The ‘4 Movements’ 12″ EP had been my entry point into all things Thomas Leer – specifically, the track ‘‘Tight As A Drum’, which I had heard played on the BBC Radio 1 John Peel show one night, August 1981 (I think). It sounded amazing – such a busy, unique sound and structure, its no surprise that that track in particular has had something of a renaissance by its inclusion on various post-punk compilations over the years. The sound has movement alright – like it’s been plugged into the voltage and animated into life as some form of echoing dub that is both coming and going at the same time.
The other three tracks on the EP were equally captivating though – the opening, melancholic ‘Don’t’ with its jittery drum machine programme and the sounds – were they synths, were they guitars, were they synths played like guitars? The sonics on these tracks were pretty unique to my ears. Ambitious – real craft here in the music and arrangements. Perhaps like a low budget shot at a proto sophisti-pop before it became a thing. The atmospheric ‘Letter From America’ was exciting to these young ears that were already accustomed to scanning the radio dial of a late evening tuning into the world and its voices beaming out over the airwaves and this track somehow conjured up mental images of those exciting far off voices and places to be discovered. The closing electronic synth funk of ‘West End’ was the one instrumental to be found and seemed already familiar as some exciting end theme to a spy or crime television series – except it wasn’t. The synthetic horns here were good and give The Human League / Martyn Ware and his Boys of Buddah a run for their money.
Sonically, this EP was pretty unique and hung together quite cohesively, be it the odd drum machine/electronic percussion (which wasn’t sounding much like anything else on the go at the time), the stop/start electronic rhythm fragments and bleeps that form ‘Tight As A Drum’ and of course the wonderful singing of Thomas over it all.
Come early 1982, Thomas would release his ‘Contradictions’ album. Sonically, this was very much a continuation of the same sounds and feel that ‘4 Movements’ had introduced, but as well as the uptempo, outrageously funky tracks there were moodier, almost eastern sounding elements to it – the latter somewhat showcased on the closing near instrumental, ‘Gulf Stream’ especially. The album and the ‘4 Movements’ EP would be combined into one release on the later US LP ‘Letter From America’, as featured on a previous post – and latterly, Cherry Red have reissued nearly all of the material (plus other extras) on a CD, ‘Contradictions – The Cherry Red Collection’.
Early on in 2022 an exhibition that celebrated the work of both Thomas Leer and Robert Rental – ‘From The Port To The Bridge: The Story Of Thomas Leer and Robert Rental’, took place at London’s The Horse Hospital from Friday 21st January until Thursday 10th February 2022, a welcome second life for the exhibition that first displayed in Greenock, Scotland in late 2018. The exhibition was a fascinating peek into those early days and many of the displays revealed the original instrumentation Thomas used throughout the 1980s. Featured here are pictures of three items directly related to the ‘4 Movements’ EP;
- The ‘4 Movements’ master reel-to-reel tape,
- Thomas Leer’s Toyo Gakki DS-4 Ult-Sound drum synth, used on the ‘4 Movements’ EP and which helps give the tracks such a unique sound – most famously used by Yellow Magic Orchestra, arguably,
- Thomas Leer’s Boss DR-55 Dr. Rhythm drum machine – a machine at the heart of many a post-punk recording, you can hear it nailing the rhythm bed across ‘4 Movements’.
