Back before the Internet and World Wide Web allowed music junkies to connect with others and trade secrets, fans of bands in areas of the world far outside the band's nucleus had to rely on sources like magazines and books for the best information they could get on a group. Despite being a project from former Wire members, the experimental music contained didn't make it a title which warranted an in-print status and copies worldwide were rather scarce. As a young Wire fan, it had been on my personal wish list for years. When I finally discovered it in 1998 as a used record for $30 my heart jumped. I finally found it!Boutique
The excitement of owning it became more important than actually hearing it as by the time I got home and listened on my record player, the vinyl was so old, coarse, and poorly maintained that it was borderline painful to listen to. The collected recordings from Russel Mills along with Wire's Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis, recorded at a 24-day installation are a perfect example of one of my strong beliefs: quiet music is not meant for vinyl. In the same way that hearing Mirror's Eye of the Storm on CD for the first time (after being familiar with a vinyl version whose cracks and pops became louder than the music) hearing these recordings from the Waterloo Gallery matches—and might even surpass—my excitement of finding the record in a used bin. Wire split in February of 1980, and by August of 1981, Lewis and Gilbert already had a number of releases under their belt as Dome and Kupol. They wanted to do something more intense than simply release records and do an occasional performance, and this experiment in London's Waterloo Gallery, a former meat-packing warehouse. Over the course of 24 days, the three basically had a work-in-progress, changing rooms, creating sounds from trash, using PAs and microphones to record pubic reactions and filter them in, breaking down exhibits and building new ones. The resulting recording is two 21-minute recordings which covered each side of the original record, assembled in a multitude of movements, all with completely different sources and motives. While the recordings were the exhibition ambience, it's surprisingly unlike an ambient recording, as pieces are arranged together without the sense of lengthy, drawn-out pieces that go on way too long. From spacious echoes to whooping bird-like sounds, chiming metal and looped vocal samples mimicing radio static, hearing this without the clicks is heavenly. The accompanying booklet has a great interview about some of what went in to the performance as well as some public reaction. Photos are also included as they were for the original release along with some which weren't available the first time around. It's obvious that a good amount of care went into the reissue of this and I look forward to more obscure gems from the vaults to surface on this new division of LTM.
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