Bleep

The process of creation for Brian Eno and Jah Wobble’s Spinner LP, here given a reissue to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of its 1995 release, was rather unusual. Rather than making the record together, Wobble instead embellished recordings which Eno had laid down for the 1994 Derek Jarman film Glitterbug. It is perhaps this idiosyncratic process of production which makes Spinner an even more unique listen than what one might expect from a collaboration between Eno and Public Image Ltd.’s famed bass player.

In one sense, Spinner comes off like an album synthesising several different strains of avant-garde music contemporaneous to the mid-90s - the post-dub of African Head Charge can even be discerned in this record’s humid churn. However, Spinner also manages to sound quite unlike anything other than itself, the hissing atmospherics tying together everything from exploratory ambiences (‘Like Organza’) to dubbed-out, jazz-fusion (‘Unusual Balance’). The closest point of comparison is probably This Heat, though similarities are perhaps more in approach than aesthetic.

This new edition of Spinner comes with a pair of bonus tracks (incorporated into CD and digital versions, downloadable with the vinyl) - ‘Stravinsky’, one of Eno’s Glitterbug contributions, and a new work by Wobble entitled, appropriately, ‘Lockdown’. All formats include sleeve notes by both Eno and Wobble.

1995’s Spinner, the singular dub/industrial/avant-garde LP from Brian Eno, Jah Wobble and guests such as Can’s Jaki Liebezeit, receives a reissue courtesy of All Saints Records.