The Wolfgang Press - The Great Leveller (1995)

The history of The Wolfgang Press goes back to 1978, when schoolmates Michael Allen and Gary Asquith, together with Mark Cox, Marco Pirroni, and Max Prior formed Rema Rema. 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell said that hearing Rema Rema's demo tape "was the first point I knew that we were actually doing something serious with 4AD", signing the band straight away and releasing their sole recording, the 'Wheel In The Roses' 12" EP in April 1980. When I first heard the record I felt the same stunned amazement as Watts-Russell, and it has remained one of my favourite records to this day, but the band split when Pirroni left to join Adam and the Ants, and the rest of the group re-formed as Mass. The new band consisted of Allen and Cox with Asquith and Danny Briottet, and they recorded one single 'You And I'/'Cabbage' in October 1980, and an album, 'Labour Of Love', which came out in May 1981, splitting up later that year. After Mass split, Allen and Cox continued working together, with their live shows starting to show an influence of PIL's 'Metal Box', and the newly christened The Wolfgang Press recorded their debut album 'The Burden Of Mules' in 1983. Trouser Press describes it as dark and cacophonous, and an angry, intense slab of post-punk gloom, but it's telling that when the band's label put together their career retrospective compilation 'Everything Is Beautiful', it contained no tracks from that debut. The band followed the album with a series of EP's in 1984 and 1985, and a slight change of style, with 'Scarecrow' being described as "a lighter, more streamlined affair", 'Water' as spotlighting "ominously sparse torch songs", and 'Sweatbox' as "deconstructionist pop". Their second album appeared in 1986, and added industrial and classical instrumentation to their creative arsenal, and 1988's 'Bird Wood Cage' was the record that brought them to the attention of a larger audience, and is generally regarded as their pivotal work, incorporating the dance and funk elements which would ultimately emerge as the dominant facet of their music. Another EP, 'Big Sex', preceded the album, and included four new songs in the same style, but it would be three years before we heard any new music from the group, and when we did it had changed again. 

The genesis of the 1991 album 'Queer' was listening to De La Soul's 1989 debut album '3 Feet High And Rising', with the band "rediscovering that music could indeed be fun. It seemed such a joyous record. There was a freshness and ease about the way it was made that inspired us to reassess our working process". The new album's sound includes many samples, and funkier, poppier beats than their previous records, with the band members each playing multiple instruments, making the sound fuller than previous work. Two singles were taken from the album, with 'Time' being an extended remix of the album track 'Question Of Time', which included a sample from Pink Floyd's 'Time', followed by a cover of Randy Newman's 'Mama Told Me Not To Come'. Their next single, 'A Girl Like You', was released in May 1992 and became a surprise international hit, scoring No. 2 on the Billboard US Modern Rock (Alternative Songs) chart on 15 August 1992, and it was later covered by Tom Jones, who then asked the band to write 'Show Me (Some Devotion)' for him, with both recordings appearing on his 'The Lead And How To Swing It' album in 1994. After the success of 'A Girl Like You', the band bought their own studio, removing the financial pressure of studio rental, and they were then able to spend two years recording 'Funky Little Demons', which was released in 1994 to less than favourable reviews, with Trouser Press describing it as "straight-ahead dance music with the correct materials, but they are no longer enigmatic risk-takers, and The Wolfgang Press have become just another white post-new wave soul band". A single from the album, 'Going South', only reached No. 117 on the UK Singles Chart, and a promotional CD of 'Christianity' was also distributed in the US, but the band was dropped by 4AD before the single could be released, resulting in them breaking up. The first three EP's were compiled into 'The Legendary Wolfgang Press And Other Tall Stories' album in 1985, although the vinyl had to omit two tracks, so this collection starts with those missing pieces, plus their contribution to the classic 4AD compilation album 'Lonely Is An Eyesore, and then carries on with all their unique non-album singles and b-sides, omitting the many, many remixes that they loved to add to the flips of their singles. 

Track listing

01 The Deep Briny (from the 'Water' EP 1985)
02 Cut The Tree (from 'Lonely Is An Eyesore' 4AD compilation 1987)   
03 Muted (from the 'Sweatbox' EP 1985) 
04 The Wedding (from the 'Big Sex' EP 1987)
05 The Great Leveller (from the 'Big Sex' EP 1987)
06 That Heat (from the 'Big Sex' EP 1987)
07 God's Number (from the 'Big Sex' EP 1987)
08 Scratch (b-side of 'Kansas' 1989)
09 Twister (b-side of 'Kansas' 1989)
10 Time (single 1991)
11 A Girl Like You (single 1992)
12 Angel (b-side of 'A Girl Like You')
13 Love Will Surface (b-side of 'Christianity' promo single 1995)

The cover uses a photo by Elena Jo Melanson