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album // Not To
1982's Not To was Wire
guitarist / vocalist Colin Newman's third album
for 4AD, following 1980's A-Z and the following year's
Provisionally Entitled The Singing Fish, and found him
working with friend and early bandmate Desmond Simmons
(guitar, piano, recorded, vocals), Simon Gilham (bass, vocals) and
Wire sticksman Robert Gotobed (drums, percussion).
Not To was produced by Newman himself, and in, addition
to guitar and vocals, he is also credited with playing piano, tabla,
'other vibes', percussion and effects.
Aside from the omnipresent steady drumming of Robert
Gotobed, Not To also featured four collaborations with
other former members of Wire; aside from the contribution of Bruce
Gilbert's 'greatest hit' guitar on the song 'Indians!',
these collaborations were all songs written by Wire post the recording
of 154 just ahead of the band splitting up around 1980.
'Safe' is one of those tracks, here finding Newman co-writing with
the occasionally-confrontational Wire bassist Graham Lewis;
'Safe' features almost Christmas-y percussion, neatly offsetting
lots of droning guitar effects and a cloying sense of being anything
but safe. 'Remove For Improvement' was written by Bruce Gilbert
and Newman, and features oddly soulful vocals from Newman. Elsewhere
on the song, gently shimmering guitar layers combine with an undertow
of restless drumming from Gotobed and urgent bass from Gilham. Finally,
'5/10', which was written by all four members of Wire consists of
a murky backdrop of mutant squeaks, gentle noises, pondering bass,
non-existant percussion and droning guitar textures. The piece threatens
to develop into something concrete but is instead content to be
similar to the tracks that characterised the more sonically adventurous
experiments on 154. According to Newman, the versions he
recorded for Not To varied substantially from those assembled
with Wire.
Sticking with the experimental leanings of Seventies
Wire's final album, Not To's opener, 'Lorries', feels like
the natural successor to 154's seminal 'Map Ref. 41ºN
93ºW', listing out various European places in Newman's trademarked
wry vocal style, while melodic bass melodies and layers of scratchy
guitarwork envelop the lyrics; it could almost be a different arrangement
of the same song, with different lyrics (and some German), and without
the pre-announced chorus. The track featuring Bruce Gilbert, 'Indians!',
showcases an uptight rhythm and those skeletal, clipped and distorted
guitars, also featuring spirals of distant recorder from Simmons,
chattering voices rising up from the background, a beat that only
coalesces in the track's final throes, and a feeling that this may
have been largely improvised.
Like a fair number of the Newman-penned tracks on
Wire's early releases, Not To features lots of fast-paced
numbers, such as 'Don't Bring Me Reminders' with its big, shouty
chorus and sparse instrumentation. 'Don't Bring Me Reminders' has
a naturally driving beat from Gotobed but the bass and guitar sections
are filled with wide gaps, only a wayward staccato rhythm guitar
line running in the background through most of the song. 'We want
to see what's left of you,' is a classic Newman non-sequitur of
a chorus, arriving with no direct linkage to the verses and sung
anthemically by a choir of Newman, Simmons and Gilham. Similarly,
'1, 2, 3, Beep, Beep' is a hyperactive mix of a skiffly beat, tinkling
bell sounds and almost Latin guitar playing, Newman scarcely catching
a breath during a long list of words and scenarios that are connected
by the barest thread of narrative.
Things slow down somewhat on the album's title track.
'Not To' contains deep bass notes and shimmering guitar. Barely-there
percussion and emotional swells – synths perhaps - rise up
from the background, Newman's quizzical vocal giving this a sense
of strained poignancy. 'We Meet Under Tables' exists somewhere between
watery ska and waltz-time piano introspection, its enquiring chorus
of 'what to say, where to go, who to know' drifting along
above reflective piano notes and sparse bass and jazzy, swinging
percussion.
The album closes with an unexpected cover of The
Beatles's 'Blue Jay Way', penned by George Harrison and included
on their Magical Mystery Tour album. The version recorded
here takes the Indian mysticism evident on the original and parachutes
in Newman's punkish vocal atop a droning, effects-enhanced backdrop
of backward sound, tabla, simple drumming and stalking bass, making
for something just as strange some twelve years after its recording.
lp:
A1. Lorries
A2. Don't Bring Me Reminders
A3. You Me & Happy
A4. We Meet Under Tables
A5. Safe
A6. Trucculent Yet (sic)
B1. 5/10
B2. 1, 2, 3, Beep, Beep
B3. Not To
B4. Indians!
B5. Remove For Improvement
B6. Blue Jay Way
single // We Means We Starts
'We Means We Starts', recorded in the same sessions
as those that produced Colin Newman's Not To
album, is a nice, mostly upbeat pop track that doesn't sound a million
miles away from the sleek sound that Wire would
produce during their second coming. The song finds Newman deploying
his finest wide-eyed, inquisitive vocal while a sparse, programmed
beat edges ever forward beneath him. The song also features subtle
percussion from Robert Gotobed, noodling piano
and Simon Gilham's lumpy bass notes blended with Newman's own edgy
guitar notes. There's a hazy, dreamy Eighties quality to this piece,
and as tracks go, frankly it seems far too good not to have made
it on to the Not To LP; it's well worth tracking down. 'We have
what I would call an agreement / Never spoken but often broken,'
is one of the matter-of-fact lines Newman sings here; never one
to deliver what you might call 'regular' lyrics, no-one does quizzical
indifference quite like Newman, and 'We Means We Starts' is a fine
example.
A slightly different version of 'Not To' takes up
the B-side, the principal difference being much more pronounced
reverb on the spiky guitar notes and a mostly instrumental second
half which is dominated by synth washes that rise to the surface
more prominently compared to their comparative submersion on the
album track. The more I hear this track, the more I'm reminded of
'Marooned' from Wire's Chairs Missing, possessing that
song's same icy chill, the droning synths here sounding like whales
trying to communicate while 'Marooned's protagonist flails and slips
under the water.
7":
A. We Means We Starts
B. Not To (Version)
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