Asylum Variations

Description

4AD legends The Wolfgang Press return with their ninth studio album, »Asylum Variations«, the follow-up to 2024’s »A 2nd Shape« – the band’s first album in nearly thirty years. The Wolfgang Press – Michael Allen (vocals, bass), Andrew Gray (guitar) and Stephen Gray (synthesisers, electronic textures) – are one of the most restlessly inventive groups to have emerged from the post-punk era. All three original members came up through the original 4AD roster: Allen and original keyboard player Mark Cox had been in both Rema-Rema and Mass, while Andrew Gray was a founding member of In Camera. Rema-Rema hold a particular distinction as the first band to release a record bearing the 4AD logo; their »Wheel In The Roses« EP remains a post-punk landmark, its members going on to shape Adam and the Ants, Psychic TV and Renegade Soundwave. The Wolfgang Press began when Allen and Cox took two bedroom-recorded tracks to 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell, who encouraged them to make an album. With Gray contributing guitar and drums to a handful of tracks, their debut »The Burden of Mules« (1983) may have been described by John Peel as “the most consciously morose record I’ve ever heard”, yet it gave way to a rapid creative evolution. A run of EPs produced by Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins hinted at multiple potential directions the band could take before »Standing Up Straight« (1986), produced by John Fryer, and »Bird Wood Cage« (1988), produced by Flood, refined and deepened their sound. Recording to ADAT tape to recapture the analogue urgency of their early records, they released »A 2nd Shape« via Downwards in September 2024 to wide acclaim – the band’s first new music in nearly thirty years, and proof that their refusal to repeat themselves remains as vital as ever. With »Asylum Variations«, The Wolfgang Press continue their tradition of never making the same album twice. Although the sonic DNA of »A 2nd Shape« is intact, the band ramp up the tension and dread while also creating a coherent and accessible set of songs. Recorded at Metway Studio in Brighton, UK, they used the method of recording directly onto ADAT and taking the results into the studio to use as the basis for the record. The resulting album is yet another step forward for a band whose only constant is that every album will sound different from the last. Michael Allen explains: “The title is taken directly from Elgar’s Enigma Variations, where each piece is a portrait of a friend, family member and or acquaintance and supposedly has a hidden melody. With our album I felt that lyrically there was a thread that ran through the whole piece. The world has become increasingly unstable, both locally and globally, and each track is a visceral response to how I and others have been impacted by this change and how we are navigating through it.”