Tune of the Week: Colin Newman

Colin Newman is a singer-songwriter best known as the frontman for the influential group Wire. Said group has formed, broken up and re-formed multiple times. Every time there’s been a breakup of the band Newman has taken the opportunity to expand his own creative horizons. His second solo album “provisionally entitled the singing fish” is a great example. On this release Newman casts away conventional notions of songwriting and adopts an Eno-esque method of mood creation through sound. Each song is entitled “Fish” with the corresponding track number. In the track above you can Newman create a swirling soundscape centered around a persistant drum pattern and simple melody sung without words. Sounds build on top of each other until the fade out at the end suggesting an endless cycle of aural mania. These pieces were orginally intended to be used as soundtrack pieces. I’m not sure anyone has ever answered that call. Hopefully in the future someone will!