Wah Wah (album)
Wah Wah | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 29 August 1994 | |||
Recorded | Early 1993 | |||
Studio | Real World Studios, Box, Wiltshire | |||
Genre |
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Length | 68:07 | |||
Label | ||||
Producer | ||||
James chronology | ||||
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Singles from Wah Wah | ||||
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Wah Wah[note 1] is the sixth studio album by the Manchester-based English indie rock band James.[note 2] After the success of their fourth album, Seven (1992), the band entered Real World Studios, Box, Wiltshire, to record their fifth album Laid in early 1993 with producer Brian Eno, with whom the group had longed to work. Prior to recording Laid, Eno observed the band's jam sessions at their Manchester rehearsal room, and considered these improvised pieces to be as important to the band's music as their eventually crafted songs. He requested to the group that whilst they were recording Laid, they would also concurrently record an album of their improvisations which Eno and, by Eno's request, second producer Markus Dravs would produce in a secondary studio in the Real World complex. Each composition started off with the band's improvisation being recorded, which Dravs would then edit, generally alone whilst James and Eno were recording Laid. Eno and Dravs would take a "promising" part of a recording and then mixed them only once. Tim Booth's desire to re-record some of his vocals caused friction in the studio.
Wah Wah consists of twenty-three tracks in total, and is often seen as the band's "experimental" and "jamming" companion to the "song"-centred Laid. Consequently it's their longest studio album to date with the band recording more than 300 songs for it. Ned Raggett said the album shares Laid's general focus towards an "evocative, restrained attractiveness and moody melancholy," but Wah Wah features more immediate numbers with full lyrics from Booth sung in his "fine voice", mixed with more open-ended instrumental or wordless vocal jams.
Critics were often divided in their reviews for Wah Wah, but were mostly positive.
Background and conception
James released their fourth studio album Seven in 1992 to critical and commercial acclaim. Lead single "Born of Frustration" became their biggest hit in the United States at the time, becoming a Top 5 hit on modern rock radio, and the band opened for Neil Young on the tour supporting his most recent album, Harvest Moon.[7] The band spent the rest of the year touring before reconvening to begin work on their next album, Laid (1993). The band's tour with Young had proven influential on the album, especially because Young requested they play acoustically, something James had never done outside of radio sessions.[7] The band's new stripped down approach for the album was helped by its producer Brian Eno.[7] Working with Eno was a career long dream for the band, who had been trying to work with Eno since their first album, Stutter (1986); the band had sent demos of the song that would feature on Stutter to Eno's management but the band did not hear a reply, and they had consistently tried to work with him since. In the early stages of writing Laid, Booth addressed a person letter to Eno with a cassette of demos, and was surprised when Eno phoned him back, agreeing to produce the album.[7]
Prior to the six-week recording sessions for Laid at Real World Studios, Box, Wiltshire, in early 1993,[7] the band performed jam sessions at their Manchester rehearsal room in order to form songs.[1] This was not unusual for the band; Booth commented in July 1994 that "every song [the band had] ever created was spawned from improvisation," adding that "we'd go in a room and make a racket."[8] For the first few years of the band's career, "from three hours of cacophony would come maybe two minutes of semi-coherence," which would ultimately "be the seed of which [the band] would attempt to repeat and refine and eventually reveal to the public."[8] By the recording sessions at Real World, the band had become "more efficient" in their "method of extraction."[8] All twelve songs eventually released on Laid had evolved from this process.[8]
Brian Eno observed the band's jam sessions during the rehearsals, calling them "extraordinary pieces of music appearing out of nowhere".[9] He considered these pieces of "raw material" to be as much a part of the band's work as the songs that would have eventually grown out of them.[8] Thus, he suggested to the band that in addition to recording Laid, he would also record and produce the band's jam sessions during the same sessions for a separate album, so that the band would be recording two albums concurrently: Laid, the album of "structured" songs, and Wah Wah, the album of improvisations. Speaking about the idea, Eno commented in July 1993:
"Improvisations are almost always the seeds for James' songs. Before we started our formal recording sessions for what became the Laid album, I spent some days working with the band in their rehearsal room in Manchester, seeing extraordinary pieces of music appearing out of nowhere. It occurred to me that this raw material was, in its own chaotic and perilous way, as much a part of their work as the songs that would finally grow out of it. The music was always on the edge of breakdown, held together by taut threads, semi-formed, evolving, full of beautiful, unrepeatable collisions and exotic collusions. I suggested that, instead of working on just one record (the 'song' record, for which we'd already agreed a very tight schedule) we find two studios next to each other and develop two albums concurrently - one of structured songs, and the other of these improvisations. It seemed pretty ambitious at the time, but we decided to aim for it."[9]
Recording
For the recording of Wah Wah, Eno enlisted the help of engineer Markus Dravs to work as a co-producer, "providing distraction" to the band inside a secondary studio inside the Real World Studios complex from the recording of Laid, which was being recorded in one of the complex's larger studios.[7] Eno recalled in June 1993 that he wanted Dravs "to look at the improvisations and see what he could make of them" while he [Eno] and James carried on recording Laid.[9] Each improvisation started with the band recording a jam session improvisation, and then Eno or Dravs would then select a "promising" part of the improvised music and mix it, but with only one take on each mix to keep in the improvisation spirit.[1] According to Annie Zaleski of The A.V. Club, each piece would be "whisked away" to Dravs "straightaway" for studio "tinkering" after the initial jamming process.[7] Bassist Jim Glennie recalled that "it was a bit of a production line: We’d jam, those would go over to Markus to start properly messing about with. I think Brian was happy for us to be actively involved in that process, to try and keep it away from the main studio."[7] Booth was then left to come up with lyrics, but many of the tracks ultimately remained instrumentals or had soundbites rather than coherent structured lyrics.[1]
"I wanted [Dravs] to look at the improvisations and see what he could make of them while we carried on with the 'song' record. We'd select a promising section from an improvisation and he'd investigate it. Using bits of processing equipment and treatment techniques evolved in my studio, he'd evolve new sound-landscapes located at the outer edges of aural culture. We were initially too busy in the other studio to bother him much, which left him free to work with the material in much the same spirit as it was originally performed - by improvising at the console."
Generally, the band improvised late at night and in very dim light, working on "huge" reels of tape, so that they, Eno and Dravs could play for over an hour without needing to change reels.
Three of the songs were written outside of the sessions, two prior to the sessions and one afterwards, although these songs are generally accepted to also be improvisations. "Pressure's On" in fact dated back to 1991,
Musical style and composition
Compared with Laid, which was referred to as the "song" album of the pair, Wah Wah was known as the "experimental" or "jamming" album, and contains 23 highly experimental tracks.
Although James are an
The album has been sometimes compared to U2's recently released eighth album Zooropa (1993), which was also co-produced by Brian Eno.[18] Emma Forrest of the NME said that Wah Wah was "in the same vein as U2's Zooropa - but less contrived,"[1] and Almost Cool compared "Frequency Dip" to Zooropa,[2] The Harvard Crimson said the album's alternative "murky, cold [and] abrasive" style "has the same exhilarating-yet-numbing power of much of U2's latest albums" and said "Jam J" "seems lifted right from Zooropa, with driving rhythms, snarly lyrics obscured by feedback, and angry bursts of guitars breaking through the mess."[14] whilst Melody Maker would later say that the sessions saw the band "do a U2" by "get that Brian Eno in for a bit" and "experimenting with dance music".[15] The NME also later said that "by the time [Wah Wah] was released, U2 and Eno had steamed through with the like-sounding Zooropa, which made James seem silly and after the fact."[16] However, although Wah Wah was released after Zooropa, it was largely recorded first, with Zooropa becoming Eno's first major project after Laid and Wah Wah when that album was largely recorded in spring 1993. Booth said that "everyone thought we were copying off them instead of the other way round!"[12] Even the Stars commented that Wah Wah "often gets mistakenly tied in as some form of apeing U2's "improvised" Zooropa album - mistaken on two fronts - firstly Wah Wah was recorded first and secondly, and more importantly, this is a much rawer form of the art, most of it taken as it was recorded and not fully formed into songs, something Zooropa clearly isn't."[19]
Songs
Raggett described "Pressure's On" as a cousin to Laid's opening song "Out to Get You" that could have "easily fit" on that album.
"Say Say Something", which shows a heavy
Release and promotion
The band initially planned to release Wah Wah simultaneously with Laid, or perhaps to release them together as a
Nonetheless, the band continued to see Laid and Wah Wah as a complementary pair, but struggled to decide on how to release Wah Wah.
Besides the already released "Jam J", the band decided to release no singles to promote the album, nor would they undertake a promotional tour, and ultimately very little promotion was given to the album, besides some press attention.[1] Despite the lack of traditional promotion, the album debuted and peaked at number 11 on the UK Albums Chart, but soon disappeared from the charts.[1] However, in the United States, the album was not a commercial success as Laid was, and effectively shrunk the band's American audience, from which it did not escalate again.[11] Booth recalled that it "put paid to us breaking America at all!"[11] "Pressure's On", "Basic Brian", "Jam J", "Honest Joe" and "Tomorrow" featured regularly in James live sets.[1]
Critical reception
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [24] |
Almost Cool | (7.25/10)[2] |
Entertainment Weekly | (B+)[25] |
The Independent | (favourable)[26] |
Martin C. Strong | (6/10)[27] |
Melody Maker | (favourable)[28] |
NME | (7/10)[29] |
Q | [5] |
Rolling Stone | (favourable)[30] |
The album was released to mixed to positive reviews from music critics, although the low profile of the release saw it ignored in certain quarters. One biographer later noted "some reviewers missed the concept of the album and were puzzled as to why James were releasing it at all."[1] Reviewing the album before release in mid-July 1994, Joseph Gallivan of The Independent was favourable, saying "a little bit of confusion is good for us all."[26] Emma Forrest of the NME rated the album seven out of ten, saying "it's an ambient album, with something to hook onto - moving wallpaper in the nicest possible sense. It's one of the few genuinely engaging dance albums around."[29] Less favourable in the British press were Q, with Mat Snow giving the album two stars out of five and saying "though no more than four tracks (especially Tomorrow and Jam J) out of a whopping 23 are anything like individually satisfactory, each is pregnant with a certain possibility, suggesting fully-fledged James tunes to come. Meanwhile, buffed up with Brian Eno's signature opiated industrial dance sound and accumulating in mood over an hour, they total an intriguingly unfocused ambient experience."[5] Besides critics, one biographer noted "there was little to appeal to the more casual James fan in the rest of the album. For the more committed, it provided a previously unseen insight into the band's working methods."[1] Select ranked the album at number 45 in their list of the top 50 albums of 1994.[31]
In the United States, where the band had found success with Laid, reviews for Wah Wah were more favourable, despite the commercial failure of the album in the country. Dimitri Ehrlich of Entertainment Weekly graded the album "B+", saying the album shows "James at its most inspired and unpredictable" and called the album "a joyride of a record."[3] The Harvard Crimson said "Wah Wah is not ear candy, like much of Laid; it's meant to get inside your head, and that may be a bit more than you're in the market for when you slap down your money at HMV."[14] Rolling Stone were also favourable to the album.[30]
Retrospective reviews were more positive. Alongside Laid,
Aftermath and legacy
Guitarist Larry Gott left the band after the release of the album, and the band took an extended break throughout 1995.[21] For their subsequent album Whiplash (1997), James worked with Stephen Hague with Eno only providing "additional assistance", although his influence was noted on the album.[15] On Whiplash, the band worked towards a more song-centric sound again,[32] although its half-experimental and half familiar approach was compared to Wah Wah.[15] The album features a more anthemetic re-recording of "Tomorrow" (which had appeared on Wah Wah), which was released as the album's second single, reaching number 12 in the UK Singles Chart.[22] For that album's follow-up, Millionaires (1999), the band regrouped with Eno as official producer for the first time since the Laid and Wah Wah sessions.[33] Tim Booth later stated that Laid and Wah Wah are "the culmination of playing four or five hours a day four or five days a week in Manchester and the new band adapting to that. It is about the transition of becoming more of a band but with Brian at the helm."[11]
The A.V. Club reflected that the success of Laid "in the pop realm meant that when Wah Wah eventually did come out in 1994, it felt like a bizarre detour and attempt at career sabotage rather than a bookend to a wonderful recording experience."[7] Even the Stars commented that "the James faithful are split down the middle on Wah Wah. Those with a predilection for the big hit singles turn their nose up at it, but those who dig a little deeper know that it is the real James baring their artistic soul, opening up their creative process to outside scrutiny - raw, real and putting everything out on the line. It's a fascinating insight into the workings of the band egged on by one of the most inventive writers and producers of the generation - a completely unique record and typical of James' contrary approach at times."[19]
On 23 March 2015, Wah Wah was remastered and re-released by
Accolades
Publication | Country | Accolade | Year | Rank |
---|---|---|---|---|
Select | UK | Albums of the Year[36] | 1994 | 45 |
Track listing
All songs written and performed by James and Brian Eno.
- "Hammer Strings" –2:15
- "Pressure's On" – 4:25
- "Jam J" – 3:36
- "Frequency Dip" – 3:33
- "Lay the Law Down" – 0:57
- "Burn the Cat" – 6:50
- "Maria" – 4:17
- "Low Clouds (1)" – 0:18
- "Building a Fire" – 2:45
- "Gospel Oak" – 2:49
- "DVV" – 1:04
- "Say Say Something" – 5:41
- "Rhythmic Dreams" – 2:36
- "Dead Man" – 0:56
- "Rain Whistling" – 2:46
- "Basic Brian" – 5:41
- "Low Clouds (2)" – 0:04
- "Bottom of the Well" – 3:16
- "Honest Joe" – 4:39
- "Arabic Agony" – 3:57
- "Tomorrow" – 2:29
- "Laughter" – 0:31
- "Sayonara" – 2:41
Charts
Album
Chart (1994) | Peak position |
---|---|
UK Albums Chart | 11 |
Singles
Single | Chart (1994) | Peak position |
---|---|---|
"Jam J" | UK Singles Chart |
24 |
Notes
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab "One Of The Three: The James Archive". oneofthethree.com. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "James - Wah Wah - almost cool music review". www.almostcool.org. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ a b c "Album Review: 'Wah Wah'". EW.com. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ NME review
- ^ a b c d Snow, Mat (September 1994). "Wah Wah: Reviews". Q. Bauer Media Group. Retrieved 19 January 2013.
- ^ Allmusic
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Zaleski, Annie (24 March 2015). "On Laid, Brian Eno helped James find its footing". Music. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Liner notes.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Wah Wah". james.wattyco.com. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ISBN 978-0-7535-0494-9.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Wah Wah - Exclusive Limited Edition Clear Vinyl". Sound of Vinyl. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ a b "James - Wah Wah (Vinyl 2LP) - Shop Music Direct". Music Direct. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Wah Wah - James - Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Social Circle Goes Round and Round - News - The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ a b c d One Of The Three | One Of The Three: The James Archive | One Of The Three – The James ArchiveOne Of The Three: The James Archive - One Of The Three
- ^ a b "NME November 8". james.wattyco.com. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ a b c "Laid/Wah Wah - Record Collector Magazine". recordcollectormag.com. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ISBN 0-00-719668-7.
- ^ a b Stars, Even The. "James - Laid / Wah Wah Super Deluxe Edition Disc 2 (Wah Wah)". eventhestars.co.uk. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- RIAA. Retrieved 13 February 2010.
- ^ a b "James - Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ a b "OfficialCharts.com Is For Sale". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ "James / Eno* - Wah Wah". Discogs. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ "Wah Wah - James | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 19 September 2019.
- ^ Entertainment Weekly. 21 October 1994. p. 66.
{{cite magazine}}
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(help) - ^ a b Gallivan, Joseph (14 July 1994). "Wah Wah: Reviews". The Independent. Retrieved 19 January 2013.
- ^ a b The Essential Rock Discography - Volume 1: 550. 2006.
{{cite journal}}
: Missing or empty|title=
(help) - ^ Melody Maker: 40. 10 September 1994.
{{cite journal}}
: Missing or empty|title=
(help) - ^ a b NME: 45. 10 September 1994.
{{cite journal}}
: Missing or empty|title=
(help) - ^ a b Rolling Stone. 29 December 1994. p. 190.
{{cite magazine}}
: Missing or empty|title=
(help) - ^ Select end of year issue 1994.
- ^ "Whiplash - James - Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ "Millionaires - James - Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ a b Laid & Wah Wah reunited at last – plus rarities and heavyweight vinyl » JAMES
- ^ "Laid/Wah Wah - James - Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ Select year-end issue 1994.