ep // Headgit EP
Githead are a four-piece, ahem, 'supergroup'
comprising one half of Wire's guitar section (Colin Newman)
on guitars and vocals, his wife and ex-Minimal Compact bassist
Malka Spigel, second guitarist Robin Rimbaud (best
known as the esteemed electronica innovator Scanner) and
Beat Monster, a drum machine. Anyone expecting the ambient
electronics of Spigel and Newman's Immersion project, the
speed and aggression of twenty-first century Wire or Scanner's electroacoustic
work is likely to be in for a surprise - this is none of those things.
The closest I can get on this brilliant six-track EP would be in
Wire's 1980s rebirth on albums such as A Bell Is A Cup or
IBTABA, wherein precise but melodically-rhythmic but still
'Drill'-ing guitar riffs chimed along with typically deadpan vocals
from Newman. Combined with thick beats, Rimbaud's guitar textures
and Spigel's churning, funky, basslines, the result is a new strand
of innovative, digitally-enhanced rock.
The EP gets underway with 'Reset', an instrumental
that features chugging bass and layered guitar spirals, all over
a beat not dissimilar from Moby's 'We Are All Made Of Stars'.
It's motorik and repetitive, minimal and sleek, and somehow echoes
the ebulliant and uncharacteristically jovial 1970s Wire track 'Song
1' (from 154). 'Fake Corpses' is not as bleak and mysterious
as its title would suggest. The verses have a lightness to them,
beautiful melodies and a descending bass pattern. The choruses are
more muscular - grinding bass and distorted guitars, but throughout
Newman delivers typically obtuse vocals - you can't take the art
out of the man.
I first heard 'To Have And To Hold' - no, not a
love song - on a compilation free with The Wire. Commencing
with a dubby bassline, the song starts with serene, minimal noises
and progresses on a digitally-processed journey where the guitars
alternately chime and are clipped with staccato resonances. Newman
delivers a whispered, conspiratorial vocal full of imagery, cynicism
and sinister concepts. 'Craft Is Dead' is a statement-filled song
featuring a chorus full of unanswered questions and verses which
run like advertising slogans ('Plagiarism is the perfect gift'
and 'Money is illiquid' are two of my favourites).
'Profile' leads on a funky, gyrating bass groove
and finds Rimbaud and Spigel alternately counting 'Profile one...profile
two...' and so on, each of which is followed by a randomised
lyric. Guitars flick and shiver around the groove, but this song
is punk-funk for the digital age. The short closing instrumental
'12 Cities' is atmospheric and eery, disembodied radio voices muttering
away to themselves in the background over gentle picked guitars
and hissing static noises.
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