Wire’s Colin Newman to Reissue 1997 Solo LP

Wire frontman Colin Newman will be reissuing his sixth solo album, 1997’s Bastard, on January 26th via his own swim ~ imprint.

The only full-length Newman released under his own name in the ’90s, Bastard found him working alongside his wife and longtime musical partner Malka Spigel on a collection of electronic-minded material that surely fit in line with the beats-driven pulse of the mid-to-late period of the decade.  

“There was a point in the ’90s when British music journalists basically didn’t get dance music and would refer to it as ‘faceless techno bollocks,'” Newman explains in the sleeve notes to the new edition of Bastard. “It was that very attribute that Malka and I felt most attracted to. In instrumental music, you could be anyone from anywhere. The only thing that mattered was how good your tunes were. In fact, for the first Immersion album, we pretended to be from Germany and were photographed in wigs and masks. This had the unexpected result of the album selling more copies in Germany than anywhere else!”

Newman further explores the premise of the album in his extensive notes, which will be featured on both the CD and vinyl editions of Bastard. It should be noted this will be the album’s first time available on wax. 

“With Bastard, it took a while to get to the concept, which was essentially this: What if we subverted the whole ‘bloke from Wire’ thing and had a Colin Newman album without any actual songs on it?,” writes Newman. “These days, this is not such a big thing, but it was hugely transgressive at the time. The language of Bastard is house, techno, breakbeat, drum and bass, and doubtless post-rock. The only singing is a one-line Malka sample on ‘Turn.’ Not only did the album not play by the rules of what would these days be called music by a ‘heritage’ artist, but it didn’t play by the rules of dance music either. Back then, dance music artists didn’t mix up styles as they do today. This is one of the reasons the album’s called Bastard.”

And while it is indeed cause for celebration that Bastard will finally be made available on vinyl, if you’re a hound for bonus tracks you are going to want the CD version. In addition to the original LP, it also comes housed with a second disc that includes the 1995 Voice EP, material from the swim team #1 and swim team #2 releases as well as four previously unreleased tracks from a 2001 recording session. One of which, “Cut The Slack,” can be heard below. 

For more information on Bastard, visit Colin and Malka online at Swim HQ. 

 

Bastard Tracklist:

LP 1 & CD1

1. Sticky

2. May

3. Slowfast (falling down the stairs with a drumkit) 

4. Without

5 g-deep

6. Spaced In

7. Spiked

8. The Orange House & the Blue House

9. Turn

 

CD2

1. Automation 

2. Faq

3. Voice

4. Output

5. The Narrativ (with Corrado Izzo) 

6. Blank Canvas

7. Time Will Allow

8. Tsunami

9. Cut The Slack (2001) 

10. Found & Bound (2001) 

11. Unbroken (2001)

12. Flight Mode (2008)

 

AUDIO: Colin Newman “Cut The Slack”