album // One Of Our Girls
A.C. Marias was the alter ego of Angela
Conway, long time Wire collaborator, artist and now video
director. Although her only album for Mute, Conway previously
released records on Bruce Gilbert and (Edvard) Graham
Lewis' sadly defunct Dome imprint. This 1989 album was
recorded at the ubiquitous Blackwing Studios, the location of many
great Mute recording sessions, with a veritable supergroup of Mute
producers - John Fryer, Paul Kendall, Gareth Jones
and Bruce Gilbert.
The album is characterised by a number of distinctive
elements - Conway's echoing, haunting and ethereal vocals, Gilbert's
deft yet subtle textural guitar, and liberal helpings of electronic
accompaniment. It's one of my favourite Mute albums ever, certainly
a collection of songs that I return to time after time. In truth,
it is also an extremely different proposition than one would initially
expect from a Gilbert collaboration, as this is often a very different
proposition to the noise-scapes that Bruce has perfected on his
solo releases.
The album kicks off with very atmospheric track,
the quirky 'Trilby's Couch', a jazz-referencing melange of walking
bass, highly spare percussion and flute / pipe sounds framed by
occasional, fleeting flurries of analogue-esque synths. All the
while, Conway delivers a mysterious lyric that seems to suggest
bizarre hypnosis and psychiatric discussions in a Freudian analysis
session. The lyrics are strewn with word pictures, bizarre events
and nonsenical actions. 'Just Talk' is an outstanding minimalist
sonic adventure, with repeated, processed stereo-spanning guitars
providing the rythmic undertow over which Conway delivers a floating
vocal which manages to sound more textural than the guitar layers.
A two-note guitar melody and an echoing, icy percussion sound offer
a counterpoint, with held synth chords urging this song to an eerie
close.
The mystery quota continues on 'There's A Scent
Of Rain In The Air', which is built around a slow rhythm constructed
of nothing more than either a deeply-processed cymbal or piston;
a deep bass drone dominates the low end while Conway's reedy voice
phases in and out in the high end, and Gilbert provides a seasick,
scratchy guitar scribble with what sounds like meditative ease.
What sounds like a distorted handclap loop comes in at around the
halfway mark, just as Conway's voice begins to loop and echo upon
itself. 'Our Dust' predates some of the beat-driven near-'pop' on
Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works, evoking the same reverb-laden
bass and beat, and similar icy cool melodies. Conway's vocal is
offhand, casual, the repeated vocal of 'I don't care' sounding
like she couldn't care less. The taped sound of a noisy restaurant
or bar concludes the song. The sub-two minute 'So Soon' is driven
by a quiet, tapped beat and swathes of analogue filtered guitar
layers, and leads straight into the strident pop of 'Give Me'. I
first heard the track on the International compilation (and
even sampled a section of Conway's deeply processed vocal from the
fading seconds of the song for one my own compositions). It's got
a heavy On-U esque beat (presumably Fryer's creation) and an edgy
Gilbert guitar loop, but it's the randomised, processed vocal snatches
- wrapped around Conway's pretty lyric - that are the most captivating,
and the stereo swirls require this to be listened to on 'phones.
'To Sleep' is just a beautiful song, a carefully-crafted
piece of moving electronica and euphoric guitar drifts which is
mesmerising; it's a suitably pastoral accompaniment to Conway's
poetry, which comes and goes like waves onto the shore. Entrancing
and enchanting - you get the idea. 'Looks Like' is delivered in
warped waltz time and, with its simple melodic synth pad swells
could be a Vince Clarke composition were it not for the occasional
intrusion of rippling guitar sounds. 'Sometime' is dark and edgy,
a throbbing bass pulse and a ratchety sound culled straight from
Wire's 'Advantage In Height' offset by a pleasant strummed melody
and a divine layered chorus of Conway's voice(s). 'One Of Our Girls
Has Gone Missing', released as a single, concludes the cassette
and vinyl editions, while the CD includes the warped cover of Canned
Heat's 'Time Was', also released as a single.
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