Wire - The Ideal Copy

 

Wire – The Ideal Copy

By

Jesse E. Mullen

 

You’ve formed a band at art school in London. You’ve put out three classic post-punk albums in a row, each one building on the last. And then you split up, believing that you can’t top what you’ve already accomplished.

So was the story of Wire in 1980. The influential quartet had just played an unconventional – to say the least – concert at the Electric Ballroom in London complete with headdresses, Dadaist styled chanting, and little in the way of traditional songs. This show would soon be released as Document and Eyewitness and serve as the last Wire product for several years.

In the meantime, singer/rhythm guitarist Colin Newman, bassist/singer Graham Lewis, lead guitarist Bruce Gilbert, and drummer Robert “Gotobed” Grey all embarked on vastly different solo projects. Newman’s was the most song-based, while Gilbert and Lewis formed Dome. This band was even more experimental than Wire, trading in song structures for cold, vast soundscapes.

So, when Wire reunited in 1985, people had to be wondering – how would the individual members fit back together? Would it be like old times? Or would their unconventional side projects make them fit back together like wet puzzle pieces?

Wire answered this pretty quickly with an EP entitled Snakedrill in 1986. The track “Drill” was much more electronic, with the guitars serving almost exclusively as texture over melody. Newman’s lyrics and vocals evoke a kind of cryptic instruction manual.

This industrial sound – which recalled Cabaret Voltaire – was intact when Wire released the full-length album The Ideal Copy in 1987. But how did it stack up against their previous work? Pretty well as it turns out.

“Madman’s Honey” boasts a simplistic keyboard motif which plays over the entire track. Drums resembling Stephen Morris lock in with a thumping bass groove. A two-chord melodic guitar hook is played, and Newman’s voice enters. It’s an upbeat track, but the lyrics also speak of reaching “the living end.”

It’s possible that Wire are acknowledging that a band can only exist once, and that they are in a ghostly afterlife. Seeing as the rest of the lyrics are a cryptic character study of Lubbert Das from Extraction of the Stone of Madness, it’s more likely a reference to the hallucinogenic honey from that Dutch story.

Graham Lewis’ deeper voice blends in nicely with the electronic elements on “Ambitious.” Lyrically, it’s the closest we get to a title track with “the ideal copy” popping up in several cryptic lines about international intelligence agencies.

This was the late 80s after all, and there was a paranoia about US foreign policy and reaction from the Soviet Union. Lewis’ robotic reading of the lines makes them all the more chilling. It sounds like a fake propaganda tape made for brainwashing.

But perhaps “Ahead” is the biggest surprise on the album. It is perhaps the poppiest thing Wire had done up to this point. Ironically, it came on their unconventional album. A heavily delayed guitar and melodic bassline introduce the track before tight, mechanical drums lock in the groove.

Newman’s warm, inviting vocals sing of lovable nonsense – mindless television, a monkey caught stealing – before an instantly singable chorus. It’s a high point among many highs on the album. A short instrumental interlude is followed by one last chorus and the song ends abruptly. A perfect pop song on an album of weirdness. Only on a Wire release.

The CD version of The Ideal Copy contains several contemporary EP tracks which complement the mood. In fact, all of the Wire CDs on Mute Records had bonus tracks. Quite nice of them really. Better still, some of these tracks improve upon the album proper.

“A Serious Of Snakes” boasts a droning guitar and synthesizer with sampled drums. The cold industrial sound soon gives way to melody. Newman’s voice builds to an affecting chorus as the song breaks free from the drone. A three-chord bassline adds to the warmth and melody.

“Up To The Sun” is a wacky, mostly a cappella tune with vocals from Graham Lewis and Colin Newman, while “Advantage In Height” fuses Wire’s new electro-industrial sounds with a cosmic bass groove.

But perhaps “Drill” is the most important Wire track of the reunion. As one of the first tracks to be composed when the band reformed in 1985, it was a litmus test to see how they would fare. Fortunately, it was well received by both the group and the public.

“Drill” proved Wire could modernize their sound from their early post-punk. The industrial drums and skronk guitars made the track ideal for remixing. As a result, Wire released an album entirely composed of “Drill” remixes in 1991 and titled it The Drill.

Some bands simply aren’t meant to reunite. But others flourish in a new era. While Wire weren’t broken up for very long, they reformed in a completely different musical landscape. With The Ideal Copy, Wire proved they could innovate beyond their tight post-punk sound. They made a record of the time that stands the test of time.

Mute/1987