Drums & Wires

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XTC - Drums And Wires - Producer(s): Steve Lillywhite - Virgin VA13134 (Atlantic) - Genre: POP". Billboard. 1979. Lyrically, the album focuses on the trappings of the modern world, a highly new wave sentiment. Best described as “polychromatic”, the album is an off-kilter, angular offering. With the effective production and compositional aspects of the album, they are matched by Partridge’s insightful lyrics and worldview. a b c d Bernhardt, Todd (15 December 2008). "Dave remembers 'Making Plans for Nigel' ". Chalkhills . Retrieved 20 September 2017. I want to cleanse my brain,” he says. “I’ve been doing ordinary things like going to the shops. I purposely didn’t really want to do any music for a while because I wanted to recharge the batteries totally. To come in fresh. It’s like having tennis elbow: the only remedy for it is to take a break.”

Another fact to be aware of is neither Partridge nor, especially, Moulding can really sing. They reach for notes and sometimes fail to find them. They speak rather than sing, voices sounding like, during puberty, they failed to break completely leaving them in a halfway house where both highs and lows are a stretch. The beauty of the situation being it suits the band perfectly. Not only are the songs bizarrely brilliant but so are the vocalists. Rathbone, Oregano (January 2015). "XTC – Drums And Wires". Record Collector. No.436 . Retrieved 19 March 2017.Moulding started actively writing songs on Drums and Wires, somewhat due to pressure from Partridge. Although he was the frontman, Partridge did not feel comfortable on stage; he wanted to share that time in the spotlight — or escape it all together. Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrateded.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p.344. ISBN 0-646-11917-6. Life Begins at the Hop" was released on 4 May 1979 [10] and became the first charting single for the band, [39] rising to number 54 on the UK Singles Chart. [40] They played a 23-date English tour, playing to half- or quarter-full concert halls. [8] In July, music videos directed by Russell Mulcahy were filmed for "Making Plans for Nigel" and "Life Begins at the Hop". [7] From 25 July to 17 August, they embarked on another tour of Australia, which was more successful. [8] [41] Immediately following the tour, the band arrived in Japan and played four dates in Osaka. Partridge recalled the band encountering much fan hysteria in Japan: "We could hardly go anywhere without being screamed at. You'd walk into a hotel lobby and there'd be a crowd of girls sitting around waiting for you." [42] The thing I love about this band the most is the way they play with the English language; manufacturing words to suit the occasion; using alliteration to emphasise their point; choosing their words as much for their sound as their meaning. Take "Helicopter" – the story of a girl let loose on the world after a sheltered upbringing (I think) – the line "she a laughing giggly whirlybird. She got to be obscene to be obheard" shouldn't work but just seems to capture the mood perfectly.

No discussion of Drums and Wires would be complete without mentioning the album’s droning closer, ‘Complicated Game’. Sounding like they were taking off from where The Sensation Alex Harvey Band left on 1973’s ‘Faith Healer’, the song grows to a sinister crescendo that sounds like an embodiment of insanity. It also represents the band at the most visceral point they would reach in their career. This I believe is one of my favorite top 3 XTC albums. Very underrated, but most XTC fans agree that this one has some amazing songs. This is the first of their albums that is really enjoyable all the way through, or is way more than just a curiosity at least. I do enjoy White Music and Go 2, but I'm not sure how many people would care about their existence if they weren't released by this band. Drums & Wires takes their quirky new wave or "post punk" type of sound from their last 2 records and uses it for some of the catchiest, most fun, clever, original and groundbreaking type of songs this band had yet to put out at this point. a b Manno, Lizzie (13 February 2019). "21. XTC, Drums and Wires". Paste . Retrieved 30 August 2019. Amidst this splendid flowering of the post-punk community, replete with the sort of musical diversity that would have been unimaginable two years earlier and sadly unthinkable today, Swindon’s finest, XTC, also produced an early classic album with the Steve Lillywhite produced Drums And Wires. Andy Partridge recalls it as an optimistic time for the band. Dave Gregory’s arrival on guitar (replacing organist Barry Andrews who left following the release of Go2) marked a shift in style with the group now configured as a twin guitar/bass/drums line-up. Despite an endless touring schedule much time was spent honing new material. Both Partridge and Colin Moulding were growing in confidence as songwriters - this album did much to further their reputation for peerless post-punk pop tunes. But it was also Steve Lillywhite and engineer Hugh Padgham’s ability to give appropriate studio support and recording expertise to the more expansive pieces such as Roads Girdle The Globe and Complicated Game that helped to bring a new level of maturity to the overall feel of the release. Herrera, Ernesto (12 April 2019). " 'Drums and Wires': 40 años de un emblema de la 'new wave' ". Milenio (in Spanish) . Retrieved 27 May 2019.

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Drums and Wires (liner notes). XTC. Ape House. 2014. {{ cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) ( link) a b Bernhardt, Todd (11 May 2009). "Colin discusses 'Life Begins at the Hop' ". Chalkhills . Retrieved 20 September 2017. The other point of note about Drums And Wires is the way Moulding has stepped up to the plate in terms of songwriting. No longer is his work secondary to Partridge. "Ten Feet Tall", "Day In Day Out", "Complicated Love" and, of course, "Making Plans For Nigel" are all memorable. As a result - more so than on their earlier work - XTC are now more of a band. The third XTC record was a considerable improvement over Go 2. Keyboardist Barry Andrews had been replaced by guitarist Dave Gregory, so the sound had been completely revamped. It was still new wave, but guitar new wave more than keyboard new wave. The common 1979 British New Wave band use of reggae accents in some of the beats and guitars was still there, though.

a b Kot, Greg (3 May 1992). "The XTC Legacy: An Appraisal". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved 1 November 2020. Moulding scored the band a hit with “Making Plans for Nigel,” which peaked at number 17 on the UK singles chart. The song would become a kind of blueprint for Moulding’s songwriting style: pastoral, sweet and just a little cheeky. It was inspired by the plays of British writer-actor Alan Bennett, “who writes principally about home life and these guys who spent most of their time with their mothers,” Moulding says. Moulding agrees. “I started writing more in my own self; I think in the first two albums I was trying to find my niche, what was me and what wasn’t,” he tells TIDAL. “ Drums and Wires was a new start for me and I was writing in the vein that I wanted to write in. And we had a hit! That was a surprise…” songwriting muscle (which is becoming delightfully erect).” Andy: “Suddenly we were a three piece. The songwriting was Xu9O9O.QxU35LYCz5Qnd_Ow9X28sMiwb6MGFXLot0dAu2FE4vYUW3JJ8IzZh2uPBWNiDFdRk5rmpOtn6IMQwxYlYI8flXC5XbuloMpmZaleski, Annie (20 March 2016). " "Music is so abused these days": XTC's Andy Partridge opens up about songwriting, painting and developing the "cruel parent gene" toward your own art". Salon . Retrieved 20 September 2017.