The Wake - Harmony

The Wake formed when guitarist/vocalist Caesar left Altered Images in 1981. When he split he took a huge chunk of their early gloomy, post-punk sound with him. Teaming with synth player Carolyn Allen, bassist Bobby Gillespie, and drummer Stephen Allen, he conjured up a low budget, scrappy take on the gloomy, post-punk sound favoured by New Order at the time. Unlike the many other bands who did the same, the Wake added their own tense, melodramatic spin to it. Caesar's vocals and words have a warmth that balances the shards of guitars, murky keyboard drone, pummelling drums, and Peter Hook-y bass. Harmony is a strong debut that shows the band not yet fully realized, but close enough to escape any charges of mere copycatting. Would they exist without the path New Order, and Joy Division before them, blazed? Probably not, but that doesn't mean that they didn't make music worth hearing. Certainly any sad, lonely soul will find much solace in the gloom and mist here. Songs like "An Immaculate Conception'' or "Heartburn" hover like a mist of tears, the latter coming close to the lofty territory Felt inhabited. Other more up-tempo songs seek to cut through the fog with serrated guitar strings and tom-toms that are clubbed to the breaking point. "Testament" pulses like an open wound that was likely caused by Caesar slashing at his guitar, "Patrol" darkly grinds over insistent drum patterns, and "Judas" comes close to being danceable, though it's a little too depressing to inspire much movement unless you're just pulling a blanket over your head. The song that best blends the moodiness and forward motion is "Favour." With some luck, it could have been a hit with its pleasing guitar jangle, sneaky hook, and propulsive drumming. The album definitely captures a very specific mood and does it in exciting ways that are never (too) derivative. The Wake may have been working with an established template, but Caesar's vision, the emotional impact of his songs, and the fantastic amounts of energy the band put in, all combine to make it a sterling example of a sound instead of a group of imitators.

The Wake - Something Outside 12”

Following the disappointing first album, 1982's Harmony, Factory Records sent Glasgow-based indie poppers the Wake down to the minors, releasing their next single on their Factory Benelux subsidiary. The move seems to have had a galvanizing effect on the quartet, though, because this 12" is clearly a huge improvement on the doomy and derivative Harmony. "Something Outside" lightens Harmony's gloom to a more acceptable level of rainy-day melancholy. The tempo's considerably speedier than anything on the album, and a recurring instrumental section featuring a naggingly insistent keyboard-and-drum riff is a much better hook. Guitarist Caesar has put his old Ian Curtis impersonation on the shelf, singing in a pleasingly higher and more conversational register. The flip side, "Host," is less impressive, temporarily backsliding a bit to the sort of Joy Division worship that made Harmony so leaden. However, the contrapuntal harmonies by keyboardist Carolyn Allen raise the song above anything on that album, as do her Mellotron-like keyboard interjections during the extended instrumental fadeout. In the tradition of circa-1983 12" singles, both songs are nearly eight minutes long. "Something Outside" does enough with its allotted time to keep from dragging, but "Host" would have been much improved by losing about two and a half minutes from its middle. Bassist Bobby Gillespie left the Wake shortly after this single, forming Primal Scream while also serving a brief stint as the drummer for fellow ‘wegies the Jesus and Mary Chain.

The Wake - On Our Honeymoon 7”

Before they were Factory-backed, joyless Joy Division/New Order adherents, and later saccharinely sweet Sarah Records twee-poppers, the 1982 debut recorded offering from Glasgow’s the Wake was an exercise in anxious art-punk with a streak of youthful naivety, almost like a schoolboy-fronted Josef K. “On Our Honeymoon” launches straight into a deliriously loping bassline caught in a gravitational pull somewhere between Peter Hook and Three Imaginary Boys-era Cure, with skittering, disco-flecked drums and scratchy guitar running at odds against paper-thin wallflower vocals; it’s a two-minute rush of spiky, minimalist brilliance that immediately set the bar at a height the band would fail to ever hit again. On the flip, “Give Up” sinks into monochrome post-punk malaise as if New Order had never discovered the dancefloor, with wavering, saturnine keys and a tenuous edge of despair in vocalist Caesar’s delivery, all set into motion again by that darkly melodic bobbing bass. A single that’s been given a new life as a reissue once already this century and thus far from a lost-to-time obscurity, but that all-timer of an A-side makes a pretty strong case for yet another revisit.

Testament; Best Of The Wake

Starting off labouring in the long shadow of New Order, Scottish band The Wake managed to carve out a nice niche for themselves by always evolving, but remaining true to their core sound. Their time on Factory yielded some very good post-punk and synth pop singles and albums, most notably the wonderful O Pamela and Talk About the Past, which beats New Order at their own game. From there, they moved to Sarah Records for a string of solid singles and albums that showcased their simplified song craft and spiky lyrics. After shutting down in 1995 when Sarah did, they hooked up with Bobby Wratten of The Field Mice to form The Occasional Keepers, before returning under the Wake name in 2009 to play some shows, then releasing an unsurprisingly strong new album in 2012. Testament spans their career, picking their best tracks from each era and even dishing out a late-period unreleased gem (Clouds Disco). The selection is heavy on the Factory years; since that's the period they are best known for, with a nice mix of singles and albums tracks. A rare 7" edit of Gruesome Castle is a nice treat, that almost makes up for the lack of Sarah material. Best to just break down and buy the reissues of the two albums they made for them. In fact, once fans of post-punk and indie pop who don't already have all The Wake's output hear this collection, they'll likely think real hard about tracking down all their reissues. Until then, this will do fine.