#tmdr

The remastered and expanded release of The Golden Age of Wireless by Thomas Dolby is available for $14.99 at AvatarMusic.

Now I'm going to explain why that's the best news ever.

Wireless was released on L.P. in at least three different forms.  Songs were added and subtracted, different mixes and edits of the same songs were substituted, one song was rerecorded completely, the track order was changed, and the segues were faded out to facilitate this.  For years, the worst version was the only one available on C.D.  The sound was also pretty weak.  Retrospectacle made some of these songs available in better quality, and brought back the lost songs "Leipzig" and "Urges," but "The Wreck of the Fairchild" and the original recording of "Radio Silence" were never released on C.D.

Even in this butchered and watered-down form, Wireless is one of the best albums I've ever listened to.  I can't even properly describe it.  It's like somebody on an island isolated from the New Wave found a synthesizer and created his own electronic version of rock, jazz, and pop music.  It's warm and soulful in a mechanical and stoically British way.  "The Wreck of the Fairchild" (which I have in very poor quality thanks to Kazaa) is a heterogenous semi-instrumental that deepens the contradictory and mysterious feel of the album.

For a fleeting moment in 2009, a version of Wireless was available that included all the songs from the different releases plus every non-album track Dolby released during the time and a number he recorded and didn't release, all with excellent remastered sound.  I'm a huge fan, but I was asleep at the switch.  By the time I got on the ball and was going to order it, it was out of print and cost over $100 to get from a third party.  It was about to break down and buy the pretend album from Amazon MP3 Store when I checked back and saw a new listing.  I sent a message asking if they really have all these copies of the 2009 edition (twice I've received C.D.s from sellers that were different from the versions they listed), and they told me this is the real deal.  It still sounds too good to be true.

There was a conspicuously young lady at the show - I'd guess she was 15, which is considerably younger than the average fan of a performer who describes himself as a former pop star from the 1980's. Her enthusiasm was above average, though.  She got a seat at the edge of the stage, right in front of Thomas.  She was wearing a t-shirt from the Map Of The Floating City game.  She seemed to know all the songs, too. During "Europa and the Pirate Twins," there's a set of 8 sampled fast hand claps.  It happens first in the 6th measure, and recurs during the whole song.  This girl was clapping along with the hand claps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4p1R73fKrQ I guess Thomas noticed this and was duly impressed, because at one point during the song, he waved her up onstage. She found her way around to the keyboard.  He pointed to a button on his M-Audio midi pad, and said something into her ear. When that measure came around again, she looked up at him.  He smiled and nodded.  She played the handcapping part. Everyone gave her a big smile and some applause as she climbed back to her seat, with a great big grin. I didn't take any pictures during the concert, but here's one of my Poison River Delta friends on a BENCH! afterwards.

On the "Time Capsule" tour, Thomas Dolby played a lot of songs from his new album, "A Map of the Floating City", and he introduced each song with a story about its inspiration or origin.  One of the songs is called "Love is a Loaded Pistol," and at each show, he told the story about how it was inspired by a dream he had while taking a little nap in his studio.

His studio, he explained, is an old lifeboat from a merchant ship that operated in the South Seas.  He rescued it, restored it, fitted it with solar panels and a windmill, and stuffed it full of recording gear.  He named it "Nutmeg of Consolation".

Thomas told the same story at every show, but at this show he went a little off script and added a bit extra.

He said that he imagined the North Sea continuing erode the coast on which it is beached, and even continuing to rise until the ocean flooded the whole world.  He imagined The Nutmeg (along with his equipment) rising with the ocean and going adrift, alone in the world, uniquely capable of carrying on.  The line I remember clearly is:

"Two little VCO's, two little VCF's ..."

I needed this on my dash again.

Thomas Dolby at The Firestation, Bournemouth, 11.08.2011