There’s never a shortage of opinion online about Siouxsie and the Banshees and their work. I’m not one to dive in to it all, but one thing I would pipe up for is ‘Tinderbox’, a personal favourite of mine. I always feel that this album is likely the last Banshees LP to be based on the template that had held sway from ‘The Scream’ onwards and John McKay’s unmistakable and original style. It feels as if a distinct guitar style was passed baton-like from Smith to McGeogh and Carruthers over the preceding albums, but after ‘Tinderbox’, some major surgery would be carried out on the Banshee’s DNA. A re-focus on shifting the guitar element into either a more abstract noise-merchantry role or a supporting role in tandem with the widening emergence of keyboards as the foundation of the sound.
This was such a surprising release, completely out of the blue. With three albums already under the project monicker of Dome, an album (‘3R4’) and single (‘Ends With The Sea’) as B.C. Gilbert & G. Lewis, 12″ EP under the name Cupol and the B.C. Gilbert/G. Lewis/Russell Mills exhibition installation soundtrack (‘MZUI’) – evidence witnessed the ex-Wire pair follow a particular sonic path that mostly found its music fashioned from manipulated sound sources – Blackwingstudio as instrument in particular – with vocals mostly (but not exclusively) provided by Graham Lewis. Despite the then fairly common default assumption that anything that sounded unusual must be done on ‘synthesizers’, rarely were there much in the way of traditional keyboards and synths to be found on their releases. This release was quite the exception however, no doubt due to the presence of Daniel Miller amongst the ranks.
^ Duet Emmo ‘Or So It Seems’ UK 12″ single front cover
The A side is quite the minimal synth track – building slowly from odd keyboard/synth sequences, the Mute Records house style is there to hear, with the unmistakable vocals of Graham Lewis in particularly fine form on top. It is melodic, make no mistake about it – incredibly so compared to much of the preceding, often stark, output since 1980 by Gilbert and Lewis, where you would have little clue as to quite what instrument or sound source was made to produce what you were hearing. Despite the sweetness in melody and vocals, plenty of more discordant elements were still to be found, particularly the track’s intro section and later saxophone. Continue reading “Duet Emmo – ‘Or So It Seems’ UK 12″ (Mute, MUTE 025, 1983) / French 7″ (Mute/Vogue, VG 108 / 101835, 1983)”
The impossibly stylish sleeve design to the debut single by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, ‘Electricity’, was an opening statement of intent by Factory Records, one so unusual to produce that it set the production presses on fire, with the result that the intended press run was left incomplete, apparently. It’s thermographed print was at one time de rigueur for stylish business cards – though black-on-black print as found here was perhaps a little more unusual. Whatever, this release in its original form has been a much sought after item and one you wouldn’t have imagined seeing again in its original form. However, 2019 saw the release of a boxed set of facsimile recreations of the first ten Factory Records artefacts to commemorate 40 years of the label, ‘Use Hearing Protection – Factory Records 1978-1979’ by Rhino Records. Let’s look at the original and recreation side by side…
The 1979 original
The beautifully minimal original cover – it has survived 42 years in good shape now. My copy of the vinyl is OK, hardly blemish free – also, it is a mis-press as it has the side A label on the B side too. Ooops! As for the music… famously, despite having re-recorded both songs at Cargo Studios with Martin ‘Zero’ Hannett as producer, the band insisted that their original somewhat low-fi and wonky version (recorded on the Winston 4-track recorder and produced by the band and then manager Paul Collister (aka Chester Valentino) in the latter’s garage, christened ‘Henry’s’), was used for the A side. But Tony Wilson insisted that the lush re-recording of ‘Almost’ was used on the B side.
1984 was the year that Cocteau Twins popularity would rise enough to make the top 30 of the UK singles chart and to skirt the edges of the mainstream, first with the release of the ‘Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops’ single and amplified by year’s end with ‘Treasure’, a third album from the band that contains many a fan favourite to this day and arguably the emerging dreampop sound. They were also filling concert venues the size and likes of The Royal Festival Hall in London and The Usher Hall in Edinburgh – a mere two years on from their debut album. Along the way, the independent spirit was retained with exclusive tracks on some more obscure cassette compilations. Starting with…
Cassette compilation: ‘State Of Affairs’ (Pleasantly Surprised, 003)
A various artists compilation from a period where sturm und drang was very much in fashion and is reflected in many of the tracks found here, the Cocteau Twins connection here is an exclusive remix of ‘In Our Angelhood’ that has never been reissued anywhere else. It appears that there were plans to issue this track as a single from the ‘Head Over Heels’ album, but it never came to pass. The intended single release is mentioned on the text in the booklet that accompanies this cassette, but I don’t know for sure if this remix was the planned single mix or not. Its a good bit different from the album mix for sure, though the sound quality here is not the best, it must be said. The arrangement on the version recorded for the October 1983 BBC Radio 1 David ‘Kid’ Jensen session is quite similar.
^ Various artists – ‘State Of Affairs’ compilation cassette front cover and cassette side one
This odd little release was one in a series of short video compilations of Virgin label catalogue artists issued in 1989, while VHS was still the format of choice. Amongst other acts of interest in the series (at least for me…) were Skids and Magazine. This video was the first time I was able to view again some promo videos I had seen only a handful of times anyway back in the very early ’80s, and some I had never seen before, so it was a welcome purchase, despite the brevity (clocking in around 25 minutes). Being a UK based Top Of The Pops viewer, the videos were less common sights due to the frequent and memorable John Foxx appearances in the TOTP studio, not least for ‘Underpass’, ‘No One Driving’ (the latter with no less than four Yamaha CS80’s for the backing band!) and ‘Europe, After The Rain’.
