After completing three consecutive masterpieces that serve as defining documents in forward-thinking ‘70s punk, Wire entered a new decade by promptly going on hiatus. But it was a break bereft of loafing, and the most active members were Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis. They instigated numerous projects, one being the 3R4 LP under the joint handle of B.C.Gilbert · G.Lewis. Initially issued in late 1980, it’s just received a deserving reissue by Superior Viaduct.
The enduring influence of the vast majority of punk acts is usually pinpointed to a specific release or to a clearly delineated period of activity, but the situation isn’t so cut and dried with Wire. Sure, ’77’s Pink Flag is a dead ringer for any non-specious list of the genre’s great achievements, but in truth their debut is only part of the band’s equation of importance. The next two, ‘78’s Chairs Missing and ‘79’s 154, while brilliantly detailing a transitional phase away from unhyphenated punk and toward a seat at the head of the early post-punk class, don’t adequately sum up their relevance either.
Document and Eyewitness, a fascinatingly untidy and eternally-divisive live disc (repressed deluxe-style last year on Wire’s Pinkflag imprint) serves to punctuate the first unimpeachable era; many folks overlook it and pick the tale back up at ‘86’s “Snakedrill” EP or ‘87’s The Ideal Copy. Those records inaugurate a synth/electronic-friendly sequence sitting betwixt the breakthroughs of ’77-’80 and a third regrouping both rewarding and unexpected (the second recess lasted roughly a dozen years); it commenced with ‘03’s Send and is still in progress today.
Most outfits are lucky to put together five worthwhile months much less deliver vital artistic contributions across five decades (the timeframe is even harsher when applied to punk). With this perspective in mind, the quality attained by ‘13’s Change Becomes Us is substantial and directly pertains to Wire’s resistance to tidy encapsulation; they’ve had an existence as unique as it is valuable, and one still significant as it continues unfolding.
The above omits the solo/side-project activities that transpired during ’80-’85. From ’80 to ’82 Colin Newman cut a solo album a year, A-Z for Beggars Banquet and Provisionally Entitled the Singing Fish and Not To for 4AD; due to their song-based, at times quite melodious nature, I’m frankly a tad stumped over why they’re not held in higher esteem by listeners who cherish Wire’s progressions deeper into post-punk territory. Maybe it’s because they’ve never been particularly easy to find.
However, the subject here is B.C.Gilbert · G.Lewis. Before we get to 3R4, a little illumination should be shed upon Dome. While Newman was exploring accessibility (in context, naturally) his cohorts were delving into the post-punk deep weeds, though that’s not really as formidable as it might seem. On the other hand, the results were challenging enough for the duo set up a custom label, also named Dome, to put them out.
Dome and Dome 2 emerged in 1980, Dome 3 the next year; in this era the label additionally issued a 7-inch by frequent collaborator A.C. Marias (of One of Our Girls (Has Gone Missing) fame), Alone on Penguin Island from Desmond Simmons and an absorbing and highly scarce self-titled (or untitled) LP by Michael O’Shea. Also in ’80 Gilbert and Lewis began an association with 4AD, not with 3R4 but through the two-song 12-inch “Like This for Ages” under the name Cupol, its a-side title track playing at 45 and the flip at 33 1/3.
Stretching out to over 20 minutes, the EP’s b-side “Kluba Cupol” does aptly foreshadow the contents of 3R4, which 4AD released in November of ’80, the moniker adjusted once more. Consisting of four tracks, the sides open up with pieces barely exceeding 60 seconds, each prefacing a considerably lengthier selection.
These preludes share the title “Barge Calm,” though rather than enigmatic they instead offer clarity; both are essentially the same composition with variations in production/recording texture. The first one is clean and bright and offers much detail, the other registers as full-bodied but with a perceptible haziness in the capturing.
The effect is the “Barge Calm” of the a-side accurately portraying its studio derivation while the origin of the flipside’s version is potentially ambiguous; it could be a field recording. And this relates to the overall motivation of the pair’s projects at this juncture, a concept succinctly stated in Superior Viaduct’s promo text as “studio as instrument.”
“3. 4…” begins with a rising stream of increasingly ominous ambiance that’s quickly subverted by something close to radio interference, except far too deliberate as it wastes no time in becoming part of the weave. As the 17-minutes unwind rhythms surface, followed by tangible percussion, squibs of noise and then an extended portion employing bass guitar and a gradually evolving cyclical motif. And so it goes toward conclusion.
In the 20 minute “R” the sound again rises, this time a mechanized atmosphere, the repetitive clang truly industrial as an underlying thread grows in assertiveness and remains to help shape a lengthy section of relative calm; things start turning subtly darker, though importantly not clamorous, right around the mid-way point. What follows could easily satisfy lovers of ambient, drone, the early industrial/DIY tape scene, avant-soundtracks, and minimalist and/or modernist classical.
Certainly a whole lot of post-punk attempted to soften edges and travel inroads to reconciliation with the marketplace, if not necessarily the pop charts; it’s an impulse that partially defines Wire later in the ‘80s. Simultaneously, there was a sizeable amount of doors slamming shut on widespread appeal; 4AD is the home of Bauhaus and The Breeders, but at the onset (3R4 was the label’s second LP) Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent also supported decidedly non-commercial material such as this.
And also “Ends with the Sea” b/w “Hung Up to Dry,” a B.C.Gilbert · G.Lewis 7-inch, in ’81; befitting the format it’s a more songic affair, but it’s still a long way from chart fodder, at least on a planet not heavily populated with emaciated dukes and duchesses in black turtleneck sweaters. For those once or presently fitting (or even just intrigued by) that profile, please know the 45 is also currently available from Superior Viaduct.
On one side of the reissue scenario can be found the lazily mercantile; the much rarer opposite extreme is the consistently inspired. The method to accomplishing the latter doesn’t come in confining the output to some combination of consensus masterpieces and severe obscurities (though mastery and especially scarcity are welcome conditions), it’s in cultivating a distinct yet unpredictable voice as the discography develops.
For a few years now Superior Viaduct has managed to maintain a firm grip on inspiration. The admirable explorations of B.C.Gilbert · G.Lewis’ 3R4 are amongst the label’s recent historical retrievals, the sounds going down easy as they whet the appetite for more.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
