OMD - Dazzle Ships reissue
by MacQ Jun 11, 2008 in news, reviews
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark reissued their 1983 oddball album Dazzle Ships back in March. Coming after 1981’s incredible Architecture and Morality you had to wonder what was next. Well, something sort of lovably awkward. I recently came across a cool blurb at Quietus on Dazzle Ships that puts it in great political and cold war context to what was happening in the world at the time.
After the astounding reception afforded to Architecture and Morality in 1981, Dazzle Ships was a commercial and critical failure for OMD. Yet it stands the test of time as a heroic statement, succeeding, from the tinny brass opening of ‘Radio Prague’ onwards, in walking a tightrope of arch camp aesthetics and a seriously-minded, yet ludicrously overblown experiment. Try reading Andy McCluskey’s lyrics in hard print and they at times feel as empty as a wide horizon. But when harnessed to the deeply elegiac melodies (those rich synth tones, slow-marching drums), and a battery of sounds evocative of war at sea and radio propaganda, the whole comes alive with undeniable panache.
Of course, it was never going to sell, no matter how exuberant a pop song ‘Telegraph’ might be. Cold War geopolitics appear in ‘International’, which opens with a news report telling of a girl from Nicaragua whose hands had been cut off at the wrists. ‘ABC Auto-Industry’, meanwhile, features a Czechoslovakian radio programme on the use of robots in factories.
Check out the rest of the review, or watch the Telegraph video with the jerk-around-wearing-a-tie-on dance moves they helped make famous. I love these guys for being unapologetically cold science + warm romantic geek trailblazers of early synth pop.
Tags: 1983, Andy McCluskey, Dazzle Ships, OMD, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, reissue, skinny white brits
As awkward and clunky as this record can be, I love it every bit as much as Architecture and Morality — OMD were in a position where they could have made buckets of money cranking out copies of “Enola Gay” and “Souvenir” and instead they made a weirdo synthpop prog record. Thanks for writing about it!
Thanks.. Yep they went risky and took the arthouse route and it helped solidify their legacy of ‘that sound’. It definitely sounds more detached and plink-plonk broody, esp. compared to the previous album.
I met my ex at the very first OMD gig in LA (Hollywood) at the Whisky-A-Go-Go on the night of April 15th, 1981. FACT
Greg
an OMD O.G. !
Update:
Found this on the Motion And Heart site:
“An old concert for you Whiskey A Go-Go USA
This is from 14th March 1991, thank you to Junk Culture for sharing this! some class tracks for you to listen to, and if you like Orchestral Manoeuvres from the early days then do have a listen:
http://www.motionandheart.co.uk/sound/whisky1981/ ”
Dates are of course completely wrong (I’m pretty sure they played 2 nights at the Whisky, April 14th and April 15th) so this is from the night before I met my ex. I don’t think I was at this gig, but you never know. I think she was up the street at The Roxy seeing Adam & The Ants that night. I missed that show because it was sold out, I lived ‘way down in Newport Beach at the time and it was hard to get tickets to quick-selling small club gigs!
Greg
awesome, will check it out. Thanks Greg!