Side A: Feigned Hearing [Edit] 3.30
Side B: I Can Hear Your… [Remix] 3.07
This delightful little single took two tracks from Colin Newman’s ‘Commercial Suicide’ album in some feint hope of contradicting the album’s title perhaps. The A side is certainly a cheery, light, keyboard constructed piece, beat-less through a complete absence of any percussion – you can’t help but feel its chances of success as a 45 were always likely to be limited given that lack of backbeat. But who knows what the reasoning was. It’s well documented in the mighty fine Wire tome, ‘Everybody Loves a History’, that the mid-’80s period saw Colin Newman opting out of the music industry rat-race by way of an extended trip to India. On returning, re-investigating some keyboard-based demos made prior to the trip, pairing up with new partners in both John/Sean Bonnar (musically) and Malka Spigel (musically and by way of marriage), the subsequent album, ‘Commercial Suicide’, was a strong, original work and cheerfully raised two fingers to any notions of commercial success by throwing away any attempts at tracing from the Wire template the previous albums ‘Not To’ and ‘A-Z’ had both clearly drawn upon. The resulting album was still clearly the work of Newman but shot through with a subtler, minimal method and instrumentally a fair remove from the more recognisably Wire-like guitar/bass/drums of ‘Not To’ in particular.
Continue reading “Colin Newman ‘Feigned Hearing’ Belgian 7″ single (Crammed Discs, CRAM13457, 1986)”
