Cupol - Like This For Ages 12"
$14.98
Label: Dark Entries
Our Review:
Cupol was a one-off project for Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis, who used that moniker to produce a lone EP for 4AD in 1980 right after their band Wire went on hiatus in 1979. This was a very fertile period for Gilbert and Lewis, who were venturing down any and all line of thinking in exploratory research with electronics and the disintegration of the song into further fragmentation. In addition to the lone Cupol recording, they produced the 3R4 album under their own names in 1980, also for 4AD and later reissued by Superior Viaduct.
The Cupol recordings were christened around the same time that Gilbert and Lewis codified their collaboration wholly as Dome – whose recordings rank in the upper echelon of post-punk experimentation. The two tracks on the original Cupol 12" mark the distinct aspects of the Gilbert/Lewis productions: sublime minimal-wave contortions and disembodied minimalism. The title track lumbers through detuned flanges and mechanical rhythms while Lewis strains his crooning voice to bend around the lyrical salutations to perpetuated anxiety. The side-long "Kluba Cupol" stretches for over 20 minutes of ritualized drone and pulse, stated as an homage to the Master Musicians of Joujouka. The three extra tracks are quintessential Gilbert/Lewis art-damaged abstraction circa Dome 2 with monomaniacal electronic rhythms girding the splatters of guitar, zither and piano with Lewis' narcoleptic chanting being the antithesis of Wire's pop economy. The three extra tracks here were taken from Peel Sessions, unreleased at the time and later published on an archival CD through Wire's own imprint in the mid '90s. This marks the first time these bonus tracks have appeared on vinyl.