R.E.M. – New Adventures In Hi-Fi

 

R.E.M. – New Adventures In Hi-Fi

By

Jesse E. Mullen

 

You’ve formed a band and grown it beyond what anyone could’ve imagined. At the peak of your popularity, you cease touring and become a studio project. But desire to tour soon returns and you’re back on the road. What could go wrong? As it turns out, everything.

So was the situation for R.E.M. in 1995. The Athens, GA quartet had gone from cult college rockers to international superstars thanks to singles such as “Losing My Religion” and “Everybody Hurts.” The band had just resumed touring for their 1994 album Monster after a five-year hiatus from the road.

However, it was not an easy time. Health issues plagued the band throughout the tour. Bassist Mike Mills had additional complications from a bout of appendicitis the previous year. Singer Michael Stipe suffered from a hernia. But most serious was what happened to Bill Berry.

The drummer collapsed onstage one night and was swiftly diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. Berry would make a full recovery, but the event put a damper on the proceedings, and informed writing sessions the next album.

New Adventures In Hi-Fi is different from previous R.E.M. records in multiple ways. But perhaps the most noteworthy is the way it was recorded. Rather than using a traditional studio as the band – and virtually all bands – had previously done, they utilized a new mobile recording unit which they brought on tour with them in 1995.

R.E.M. got the idea from Radiohead, who opened for them that year. The Oxford band had recorded “My Iron Lung” live in front of an audience for their album The Bends. But R.E.M. took it a step further, recording the bulk of the album live, either in front of the audience or at soundchecks on their Monster tour.

There was also a familiar face aiding them along. On this album, R.E.M. were joined by sideman Scott McCaughey. The Young Fresh Fellows singer and bassist played a supporting role on the Monster tour as rhythm guitarist and keyboardist. And now he was recording as a member of the highly influential band.

But questions still remained – could R.E.M. continue their hot streak? And would the recordings still sound as good as those made in a traditional studio? When New Adventures In Hi-Fi was finally released in September of 1996, fans were finally able to take stock of the material.

The album opens on a slow, eerie note with “How The West Was Won and Where It Got Us.” Subtle drums from Bill Berry and a melodica introduce the track. Stipe sings in his lowest, gravelliest register. It has the effect of sounding like waking up in the morning after a long night out.

The song is oddly comforting despite the odd placement on the album. The lyrics seem to describe western imperialism and the damage it has done to our planet, as well as its population. Stipe had always been politically active, but his lyrics were always cryptic. He never explicitly referenced events that would date the albums, and that is to everyone’s benefit.

“Wake Up Bomb” recalls the glam rock sound of Monster. Lyrically, the song is firmly tongue-in-cheek. Stipe takes pleasure in praising his sense of fashion. He seems to be poking fun at the attitudes of the time with regards to image.

The guitars and organ in the chorus help elevate what could have been a middling idea to a strong rocker. “Wake Up Bomb” succeeds because of it’s live sound as well as its excellent production.

“New Test Leper” recalls the sounds of MTV’s Unplugged program. The acoustic guitars are out in full force, and – barring a heavily reverberated lead in the chorus – is as close to folk as R.E.M. got. Stipe’s love of irony shows in the lyrics, denouncing Christianity while using biblical references.

“Bittersweet Me” is – somewhat ironically – a track where R.E.M. borrow a bit back from Miracle Legion. The jangle of the guitar in the verses with a bit more bite in the choruses recalls the work of Ray Neal on “Country Boy.”

The lyrics show Stipe trying to break from the mundane in life, saying that he doesn’t know what “[he’s] hungry for.” This is a song where the “live” sound is especially beneficial. As it is a relatively stripped back recording, it sounds organic and fresh – and likely will for a long time to come.

Switching instruments had become a favorite pastime for R.E.M., dating back to 1988’s Green. On “Be Mine,” Mike Mills plays guitar while Peter Buck plays bass. It’s quite sweet musically, lacking drums, and allowing the subtleties of the guitars to breathe.

It feels like a bedroom recording, recalling the dreamy atmospheric quality of “Let Me In” from Monster in 1994. A fairly stripped back track, the lyrics describe love in unconventional terms. Stipe sings that he wants to be his partner’s “Easter bunny” and his “Christmas tree.”

But perhaps the most unconventional song is “Leave.” A seven-minute track complete with hip-hop beats, turntable scratches, and Buck’s distinctive e-bow it is swirling and hypnotic. Lyrically, Stipe is cryptic as ever, describing breakdowns in communication in a way which only he can.

The listener is never sure if he’s talking to a lover or making a statement on the stresses of modern life. Either way, the track proves that R.E.M. can be experimental, hypnotic, and catchy at the same time.

New Adventures In Hi-Fi broke ground by stretching the definition of “studio album” to its limit. No longer would bands be limited to recording in tight rooms in front of a mixing board. However, this would just be a footnote if the music wasn’t as excellent as it is.

The world at large may not have understood what R.E.M. was trying to accomplish here, but it has stood the test of time. As a final hurrah to the classic lineup, New Adventures In Hi-Fi is most satisfactory.

Warner Bros./1996

 

 

 

The Chameleons – Script of the Bridge

 

The Chameleons – Script of the Bridge

By

Jesse E. Mullen

 

Artists are often a product of their environment. Be it painters, directors, or musicians, they work with what they know. Some musicians are capable of capturing this mood across a career. Take The Chameleons for example.

The Manchester quartet used their gothic rock to evoke the feelings of rainy northern England. Guitarists Reg Smithies and Dave Fielding used shimmering textures rather than traditional lead work. This left bassist/singer Mark Burgess and drummer John Lever to propel the songs forward.

Burgess in particular had a gift for melody. His delivery of the song lyrics was always pleasing to the ear. Yet he also gave off a desperate impression to his singing. It was almost like he was fighting for his life when he was at the microphone. And in a way, he was.

The 80s in Britain were a time of hardship. A failed conservative government lead to hard times, particularly among the working classes. A miners’ strike and disdain for Thatcherite policies meant moral was at an all-time low.

All of which informed the sound of Script of the Bridge. While Burgess never gets explicitly political, his tone and ambiguous lyrics evoke the desperate feeling of the times.

"Don't Fall" opens the album with a sample of a man, saying “In his autumn before the winter, comes man’s last mad surge of youth.” A woman responds, “what on earth are you talking about?” and the main guitar riff enters. Burgess’ voice enters repeating the title, and John Lever’s drums crash in.

Burgess’ lyrics are surreal, and the narrator seems to be in distress. When the chorus hits, the listener is confronted with the urgency of the narrator’s unfamiliar surroundings – even if we don’t know precisely what he’s afraid of. The brilliance of the track is that we don’t need to know.

The composition gives the listener plenty to grab onto, both rhythmically and melodically. Burgess’ voice is in top form and Smithies and Fielding have enough dreamy fretboard action to make The Psychedelic Furs blush.

An ominous bassline and analog synth introduce “Monkeyland,” gradually getting louder and louder. Burgess’ voice enters and describes another abstract scenario. He’s being experimented on by strange people. The bass, guitars, and drums gradually build until a crescendo in the chorus when Burgess seems to break free.

Burgess has established himself as a master of the surreal. Although the listener may not relate to the exact scenario, we know it is coming from a place of emotional depth – in both his wording and his delivery. His voice again alternates between soothing tones and those of a blunt instrument.

“Paper Tigers” and “View From A Hill” both showcase the dreamy guitarwork of Fielding and Smithies. “Paper Tigers” is an up-tempo post-punk tune with heavily delayed riffs. It’s a sound Ride would ape years later on “Jump Jet.” In fact, several shoegazing bands owe their start to the sounds being explored here.

“View From A Hill” is an entirely different animal. An almost funeral march of a tune, it manages to be both melancholy and uplifting. The guitars are atmospheric washes and resemble icy synthesizers. It is entirely evocative of an overcast day in a cemetery.

Burgess uses the upper register of his voice on the track, and it is an incredibly moving performance. He is the one reminder that the song is in fact made by humans and not by spirits. The urgency heard previously gives way to sweetness and warmth. A true masterpiece.

But perhaps “Second Skin” is the greatest track of them all. A quiet keyboard plays the main theme twice. And then, at seventeen seconds into the track, “Crash!” John Lever smacks the snare with a great force, and the guitars enter. Burgess spins a tale of a “cold damp evening” where “the world stood still.”

The track feels tailor-made for a suspenseful thriller movie. It’s another prime example of Burgess firing on all cylinders. His voice again balancing its melodic qualities with the urgency and desperation of a young man trying to make it in life. When Burgess sings “is this the stuff dreams are made of,” we believe it is.

Some albums are designed for specific moods or settings. In more extreme cases, bands devote an entire career to their surroundings. The Chameleons are one of those bands. On Script of the Bridge, The Chameleons evoke the sound of rainy Manchester streets, with the hope of sunny days.

Statik/1983

 

 

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