single // Big City Bright Lights
'Big City Bright Lights' was a solitary 7”
single released by Missing Scientists on Rough
Trade in 1980. Believed to be a side-project of punk survivors Television
Personalities, Missing Scientists comprised DanDan
(guitar, synth, backing vocals), Empire (percussion,
backing vocals) and Joe From Hendon (vocals, synth,
bass). The reason for including the release here on Documentary
Evidence is because it was produced by Larry Least,
better known as Mute Records founded Daniel
Miller; Miller himself, guesting as Jacki
from Silicon Teens also provides synths on both
the A-side and its companion B-side, 'Discotheque X'. To further
enforce the Mute connection, the tracks were recorded at Blackwing,
the studio from which a number of early Mute sides ushered forth,
and engineered by 'Eric' and 'John', undoubtedly Eric Radcliffe
and John Fryer.
With all that Mute input, you'd expect this to sound
like an early Fad Gadget track, but that's not
the case. What 'Big City Bright Lights' and 'Discotheque X' hint
at is what would have happened if early Mute had blended 'proper'
instruments with synths, as the live instruments add an unusual
dimension to Miller's production and his distinctive synth interludes.
The output is a astute post-punk stew that embraces the dub aesthetic
that permeated UK punk and provided the impetus for bands like The
Pop Group to develop out of punk's snotty residues.
'Big City Bright Lights' starts with a dark synth
hit from Miller, sorry, Jacki, which could have comfortably appeared
on any of those early Mute releases before developing into a gentle
reggaeficated pop track, a loping bass line ushering in typically
reverberating drums. Miller's synths provide the syncopated, staccato
rhythm usually provided by guitar licks on the off-beat; when the
middle-eight kicks in and the synth sound from Silicon Teens' take
on 'Red River Rock' is deployed to create a whistling synth hook,
any doubts to be had about Miller's input effectively vanish. Only
the fluidity of the drums make this somewhat outside the realms
of Mute releases proper. The wry, echoing lyrics joyously extol
the virtues of big city life, an angle which Jay McInerney would
all-but-reverse with his 1984 novel of almost the same name.
'Discotheque X', on the other hand, is more straightahead
reggae than the A-side, much longer in duration, sparser and exploiting
more traditional dub elements such as fleeting (and often abrasive,
industrial-sounding) sounds from Miller's synth palette. Joe From
Hendon here sounds a lot like Wire's Colin
Newman, though that's not to say that there are actual
'lyrics'; instead phrases are read out and dropped in over the ricocheting
rhythm track. The spoken-word interplay between Joe From Hendon,
DanDan and Empire bring to mind Wire's 'Go Ahead' and also some
of the best Gang Of Four tracks. Nothing about it necessarily directly
alludes to anything Mute had released or would go on to release,
but it shows a surprising mastery of dub techniques from the triumvirate
of Miller / Radcliffe / Fryer.
Just a final word; Vic Visual's basic sleeve design
of this one-off single bring to mind everything that was good about
early, DIY, post-punk indie records in the UK – a monochrome
sleeve with simple, capitalised text, and a back cover containing
scrawls and hastily-scribbled liner notes. A far cry from Mute's
own linear imagery, granted, but a beautiful example of DIY music
culture at its finest.
7":
A. Big City Bright Lights
B. Discotheque X
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