(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

When it was released in 1980, Colin Newman’s first solo work, A-Z (Beggars Banquet), was essentially a logical continuation of the new modernist direction of Wire, with producer Mike Thorne effectively at the helm. But Newman could finally impose his own strategies, in particular his passion for Barrett’s psychedelia and Eno’s meta-rock: spatial harmonies, oblique lyrics, convulsive singing, hallucinatory pacing.
The alchemy of Newman and Thorne is exemplified by rhythmic balancing acts that are violent and surreal, spasmodic charges that exaggerate Eno’s practices and detonate icebergs of harmonic absurdity in a boisterous industrial-holocaust music hall: the boogie of I Have Waited Ages, a supersonic vertigo of “found” voices, accelerated, distorted, slowed down, layered Wyatt-style in a tornado of electric distortions and metallurgic rhythms; the power-pop in the form of an android ballet in & Jury; the crushing cadences and neurasthenic screams of Life On Deck, a frantic robotic pantomime in expressionist cabaret; the driving voodoobilly of Inventory, with hints of Cossack dancing and symphonic interludes; and the supreme cry of neurosis in Star Eyes, where the rhythm is a catacombal choir interwoven with psychotic stammering.
The more lysergic psychedelia is evoked by the funereal and Oriental-inflected litany of Alone, the cosmic and desperate trance of Seconds To Last, and the vortex of icy organs in Order For Order.
Pushing the concept further, Newman arrives at abominable nightmares of industrial neurosis, worthy of the apocalyptic atmospheres of Joy Division: the manic syncopations and dissonances of Troiseme, the chilling suspense of Image (obsessively distorted by a discordant metallic vibration), the relentless crescendo of the expressionist psychodrama But No; culminating in the martial declamation and the chaotic, apocalyptic finale of B, where a rhythmic contraption pulverizes dissonances, vocal miasmas, and solemn threads of synth, soaring into an epic futurist dance, a majestic hymn to the primordial scream erupting in all its savage bestiality.
Each track is a mini-requiem constructed on titanic organ phrases, dramatic guitar riffs, heavy industrial rhythms, cabaret-style piano and vocals declaimed hysterically, and horribly warped tapes. All are meticulously crafted with layered rhythmic, melodic, and electronic ideas, often making them chameleonic and dense with sonic events, without ever exceeding the bounds of a song or losing its identity. They systematically conclude with a destructive tail that completely detonates the harmony. Newman is an ’80s Barrett, who has absorbed Eno’s rhythmic pastiches and Wyatt’s vocal chaos. He is a technological Barrett, whose madness is now imprisoned by machines and a far more devastating, far less poetic alienation.
Punk modernism, “industrial” music, and neo-psychedelia reach a masterful equilibrium on this record. A classic work in every aspect, A-Z is one of the milestones of British rock, a natural bridge between Eno’s Before And After Science and the “industrial” music of Throbbing Gristle. The funereal atmosphere that envelops it, the lyrical fatalism that overshadows it, the dramatic tension that tears it apart from beginning to end, and the violent expressionism of many of its pieces, always imply an epic and titanic sense of the human condition, making it in reality a moving tribute to the tragedy of existence.

The next effort, Singing Fish (4AD, 1981), is far more austere, almost like a musicological treatise. It consists of twelve untitled pieces in which Newman expresses his electronic musician ambitions under the DIY ethos popular at the time. Almost all the vignettes are evocative, though none is particularly innovative. Born at the intersection of Brian Eno’s Another Green World and Throbbing Gristle’s Jazz Funk Greats, Newman’s pieces shine with a unique genius of concision and elegance: Fish 1 combines industrial rhythm with a psychedelically minimal march; Fish 4 sketches an electronic stasis worthy of Klaus Schulze’s early interstellar symphonies; Fish 5 stages one of his thunderous robotic ballets; Fish 9 overlays a childlike hum onto android tribalism; Fish 7 develops chants and dance steps from the Middle East. All are high-level numbers in which Newman alternates between the poses of a conservatory experimenter and a cabaret clown. In short, Newman contributes to shaping the intellectual muzak that Eno had outlined in the previous decade.

Not To completes the trilogy but does without Thorne (replaced as arranger by guitarist Desmond Simmons). Not only are the songs more conventional, but the sound has also become thorny, frantic, and neurotic. It is no coincidence that the best track is the instrumental novelty Indians.

Four years would pass before Newman felt the need to try writing music for himself again. More melancholic and fragile, somewhat distracted by the presence of Malka Spigel (his wife), the sound of Commercial Suicide (Crammed, 1986) shows Newman’s inability to do everything alone, without the collaborators or Thorne, who were essential to complete the arrangements. He would succeed two years later with It Seems (1988), his most lyrical and sophisticated work (It Seems), contemplative and evocative (Rite Of Life), melodic and danceable (Quite Unrehearsed), existential and classical (Not Being In Warsaw), imbued with decadent moods à la Ultravox and subtle orientalisms à la Japan.

Newman also released a collection under the pseudonym Oracle, Tree (Swim), of recordings from the past five years, assisted by his wife Malka Spigel, a work that testifies that his aspiration for electronic music that is simultaneously tribal and ambient has not been extinguished.

Githead's HeadGit (Swim, 2004) is a collaboration between Newman, Scanner and Minimal Compact's Malka Spiegel. GitHead then released Profile (Swim, 2005) and Art Pop (Swim, 2007).