OBJECT 47

"One of us will live to rue the day we met each other."
—from "One of Us" by Wire, as found on the album Object 47.

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For the record, I must state that I am a Wire fan.

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My first listen to material from Wire's Object 47 album was the free download of "One of Us." I knew that Bruce Gilbert, Wire's guitarist had left the band after more than thirty years with the band. I tried to keep that from influencing how I felt about the song, but couldn't. It felt like something was missing, although I wasn't sure if it really was or if I was grieving a loss.

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When I went out to seek the album, no local brick-and-mortar store had it in stock. Wall of Sound in Seattle told me that they would order some and have them in a few days. That worked out perfectly since I would be back in a week for another session of my writing group.

When I returned I didn't see Object 47 anywhere, so I inquired about it. The clerk told me that he had already sold out of the few he had ordered and that "you wouldn't want it anyway because it sounds like all of their '80s stuff." What? You turned down a guaranteed sale due to your aesthetic judgment of the album. Needless to say, I will never shop at Wall of Sound again.

So I trudged up to Everyday Music on Broadway with the help of my trusty cane. They had three copies in stock and no objections to my buying it. In fact, their clerks seemed generally happy that I was buying an album, and one of them even asked me my general opinion of Wire.

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There are Wire fans, of which I am one, and there are Wire snobs, one of which the Wall of Sound clerk was.

Wire fans like all of the periods of Wire's creative output—Mach I: 1976-1980, mostly punk and post-punk; Mach II: 1985-1992, pop and dance-floor tracks, along with a lot of experimentation; Mach III: 1999-2004, a return to their punk roots, very loud and abrasive; and Mach IV: 2006 to present, a mature sound that encompasses everything that went before, including the myriad of offshoots and solo projects. Wire snobs are stuck in the Mach I period and seem to have disdain for anything else. Some of them will also admit to liking Mach III period Wire, while others will not.

The Wire snobs are really the ones that lose, especially since Wire themselves is always trying to change their sound, challenge themselves, remain dynamic and vital. Wire snobs are static, stagnant.

Object 47 is definitely not for them.

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Track 1 > "One of Us"
If there were still such a beast in existence, this would have been the first single of the album. Wire released it as such on their own Pink Flag website, as well as their MySpace page. The bass guitar and drums really drive this pop track with dark lyrics. This is classic Wire, even with the absence of Bruce Gilbert.

Track 2 > "Circumspect"
This is a slow Beatlesque track that shows the influence of the Beatles upon Wire. It slows the tempo down before it takes off again in the next track.

Track 3 > "Mekon Headman"
This track either samples from or lifts a riff from "Outdoor Miner" on Wire's second album Chairs Missing, which seems appropriate since "Outdoor Miner" is probably one of the most covered Wire songs. The echo is more sophisticated than that, but the borrow is completely in keeping with the games that Wire plays with both its lyrics and instruments. Another great game in "Mekon Headman" is the backward sampled guitar lines. The vocals may also be backward samples, although it is difficult to tell. It could just be Graham Lewis's delivery on this particular song is affected to sound as though backward. Some wild stuff.

Track 4 > "Perspex Icon"
Echoes of Colin Newman's solo album A-Z, which contains much of the material that would have been Wire's fourth album of the Mach I period, if the members of the band hadn't driven each other crazy. At first listen, I thought that Colin's wife, and oftentimes collaborator, Malka Spigel, was singing with him, but it appears not. Colin is just singing toward the upper reaches of his vocal range.

Track 5 > "Four Long Years"
Another song that sounds as though stolen from session tapes of a Colin Newman solo album, this time Or So It Seems. That is, until you really listen to it. Graham Lewis's filtered background vocals playing against Colin's lead vocals playing against Colin's background vocals, and all of it corralled by the cymbals of Robert Grey's drum kit, show it to be much more mature and complex than an album of twenty years ago.

Track 6 > "Hard Currency"
This is ready for remixing and then the dance floor. It is hypnotic. There is some kind of wild sound collage buried deep in the mix below drums, bass, guitar, and vocals. It rises up ever so briefly in the middle of the song. Try to catch Graham's quiet chanting, which may or not be part of the same murky layer.

Track 7 > "Patient Flees"
I think of this as the "drunken Western soundtrack." It takes slow, plodding, anxious steps as it approaches hangover at High Noon. Colin's "quiet" and "sung" verse vocals rub against his "loud" and "spoken" refrain vocals, which amplifies the tension that the band is trying to achieve with the music itself.

Track 8 > "Are You Ready?"
This is the requisite song of "questions" that seem to appear on most Wire albums, and are usually sung by Graham. This one is no different. It's pop sensibility and dance-friendly grooves would make it a likely candidate for remixing for the dance floor, the album's second single, or both. If some of the other tracks feel like they could have easily fit on Colin solo albums, then this is the one that could have easily been found on a Graham/He Said album.

Track 9 > "All Fours"
I get goosebumps every time I hear this track. It is loud and abrasive. The pulsing drone of guitar and bass and drum anchor the sound. Colin and Graham play off of one another's vocals. Page Hamilton (of Helmet fame) provides a feedback storm of guitar that is very similar to that of departed guitarist Bruce Gilbert's similar feedback storm on "Spent" from Read & Burn 01. This is the huge, over-the-top send-off for the album, shooting us skyward, taking us into orbit, as the layers and noise and controlled chaos increase. And then the brief, quiet beauty of breaking free of gravity's grasp hovers before us for a few seconds, until we are absolutely certain of our freedom and left floating in absolute silence.

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Object 47 stands on its own as one of Wire's best albums, even with the absence of Bruce Gilbert. I would assume that my early fears were more grief than anything else.