WIRE
"CHAIRS MISSING"
Harvest Records, 1978
- "Practise Makes Perfect" – 4:11
- "French Film Blurred" – 2:34
- "Another the Letter" – 1:07
- "Men 2nd" – 1:43
- "Marooned" – 2:21
- "Sand in My Joints" – 1:50
- "Being Sucked in Again" – 3:14
- "Heartbeat" – 3:16
- "Mercy" – 5:46
- "Outdoor Miner" – 1:44
- "I Am the Fly" – 3:09
- "I Feel Mysterious Today" – 1:57
- "From the Nursery" – 2:58
- "Used To" – 2:23
- "Too Late" – 4:14
One of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make musically was being asked once about fifteen desert island discs and I couldn't decide between Pink Flag and Chairs Missing, two flawless records by Wire. I generally have to give the nod to Pink Flag because it's one of the only albums I've ever listened to, without taking it out of the disc changer, non-stop, for weeks and weeks and weeks. That record is just AMAZING. Amazing amazing amazing.
However, I think Pink Flag gets all the recognition, so I've decided to focus this post on Chairs Missing... I really dunno if I can reccomend it over Pink Flag, but I can say that it's definitely the more interesting of the two records. Pink Flag was art punk; Chairs Missing is art... I dunno... it's still got punk elements, but I can't really name any records that sound like this. It's like they took the sound of 'Reuters' from Pink Flag and used that as the basis for this entire album.
Endlessly inventine, I can't put my finger on what exactly is going on on some of these songs -- how they create this insane mood with just a couple standard rock instruments a little synthesizer doodles. It's crazy. It's cold but not in a Cure way; this isn't goth music. It's still accessible enough.. damn. Yeah.
"Mercy" is a standout, an epic that never gets boring, "Marooned" is simple but has one of the best choruses I've ever heard, "Another the Letter" has amazing guitar interplay, "I Am the Fly" sounds seriously deranged, "Men 2nd" is probably my favorite track.. .WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST...
But the best song on here has to be "French Film Blurred". This is a masterpiece of creativity, production, songcraft, effects.. I dunno. Everything comes together. At the end when there are about 5 or 6 layered guitars playing on top of each other as more effects are added on top and subtle keyboards rise to what is expected to be a noisey crescendo -- and then it all just ends. Crazy.
Just ridiculously amazing and brilliant.