The Sea Of Wires
The Sea Of Wires
UK COLD SPRING RECORDS CSR345CD 2 x CD (2024)
Excellent compilation of early 1980s UK electronic music from this Coventry act, Chris Jones and Tony Murphy…it’s another in the informal series of cassette music reissues from this UK label, including the We Be Echo double CD from 2022 and (at a pinch) the Music For Stowaways reissue by B.E.F. from 2023. This set includes selections from the Individually Screened album, Diversions by Chris Jones, and a bonus 1982 track called ‘Beyond The Edge of Tomorrow’.
This CD set is pretty much an exact replica of the contents of the Vinyl On Demand set which appeared as Recordings 1980-82 in 2014, but for me personally this is the first chance I had to hear these imaginative and resourceful synth recordings…as some readers may know I do like DIY amateur bedroom recordings from this period of UK underground endeavour, and often savour the raw untutored approach and hissy sounds, but Individually Screened sounds very professional, well played, well edited, polished…if it had appeared on the Sky Records label in the 1980s it would have been in its element. I can’t add anything to the assessment of “Johnny Zchivago” on his Die or DIY blog, where he noted this music came from a time when synth technology was just starting to become more affordable and more compact (indeed I knew of a fellow around this date who built his own synth at home from a kit), thus putting a new form or genre of experimental music in the hands of enthused young musicians; compare with the enormous moog used by Florian Fricke on the first Popol Vuh album and concomitant studio / engineer support.
It’s not too far-fetched to regard this movement as the next step in post-punk music, creators moving beyond the ambitions of four-piece bands with guitars and drums, and Individually Screened shows us just what determined new starters can achieve with their Korgs, Wasps, Yamahas and copy-cat echo. Die or DIY also highlights the lack of drum machine or beatbox rhythms on the music, a refreshing change from all the indie guitar cassette bands with their Dr Rhythms who either liked the sound or couldn’t get a drummer into the studio. Every commentator agrees on one thing: that The Sea Of Wires have a discernible kosmische / krautrock influence, Tangerine Dream comparisons doth abound, and the VOD reissue is explicitly tagged on Discogs as “Berlin School”, a very specific 1970s genre of German electronic music which is strongly identified with Klaus Schulze and Manuel Gottsching (and often claimed as a precursor for New Age and ambient music). It’s hard to deny all these strains when you listen to Individually Screened, especially with the band’s penchant for long and flowing discursive instrumental meanderings, but somewhere there’s a traceable undercurrent of darkness, introspection and bold experimentation that feels uniquely English to me, especially on a track like ‘An Endless Rainy Day’. If I’m right, perhaps that’s what led to the inclusion of this cassette in the Flowmotion catalogue operated in the UK by Ian Dobson and Gordon Hope (it was also a magazine), where a 1981 reissue found itself in the company of cassettes by Paul Nagle and Inner City Static, and later Konstruktivists, Nocturnal Emissions and Throbbing Gristle.
A couple of shorter tracks buck the Kosmische trend; ‘Return of the Captain’ and ‘Robot Dance’ are snappy up-tempo numbers more or less in the mould of Vice Versa (suggesting Sea of Wires might have found a home on Mute in an alternative history). There’s also ‘Is the New Man Human’ which in title, tone and sound quotation is an obvious reference to Tubeway Army (by 1980 Gary Numan was already a rising star on Beggars Banquet). To recap the release history: SOW2 was the original 1980 cassette, ART 005 was the 1981 Flowmotion reissue, and VOD 131.09 was the vinyl 2014 reissue. However, completists can hear the entire cassette on the Die or DIY blog, where the final track ‘Vikings’ is restored.
Disc two of today’s set is Diversions, a 1981 release credited to Jones solo but Murphy appears on one track with his Synthi sounds…the original cassette, subtitled ‘An Odd Electronic Assortment’, had ten tracks, but we only get five highlights on this CD (again, go to the blog above for a complete version). Having praised the long-form approach of SOW above, I find these shorter tracks just as rewarding; there are some vocal parts (though they’re some way from being songs), and there’s a shade more thought gone into the planning and structure. It’s not just that the tunes have ended up in a minor key, there’s also an insistent, naggy approach which is less benign in tone than the dreamy Individually Screened, and layers of sequenced noise which help to drive home the pessimistic undercurrents.
The closing cut ‘The Nightmare Continues’ embodies all of these endarkened sentiments in a gloomy dirge, where the melodic elements are undercut by grisly noises. We’re quite some way now from the Kosmische city-of-the-future dreams. To complete our journey into this sci-fi tinged world, we have the lengthy ‘Recollections of Death’, which was originally the A-side of the final Sea Of Wires cassette Beyond The Edge Of Tomorrow (SOW 3) from 1981. Quite a major opus – originally structured in 11 chapters with distinctly futuristic titles – and illustrated by a spiffy Kevin Cann cover drawing which portrays an incarnation of The Terminator before the fact. Played on Roland, Korg and Yamaha synths, and the Elka string synth; “and not a rhythm box in sight!” was the proud claim of the original release. The original cassette included guest guitarist David Browett on two tracks – he also supplied transistor radio sounds – but these are missing on today’s reissue.
Cover artworks on this superb reissue are by Abby Helasdottir and they emulate / simplify the original cassette covers in a very inspired way. From 10 February 2025.