Search - Gilbert and Lewis :: 8 Time

8 Time
Gilbert and Lewis
8 Time
Genres: Dance & Electronic, International Music, Pop, Rock
 
  •  Track Listings (8) - Disc #1


     
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CD Details

All Artists: Gilbert and Lewis
Title: 8 Time
Members Wishing: 1
Total Copies: 0
Label: 4AD
Original Release Date: 1/1/2006
Re-Release Date: 3/27/2006
Album Type: Import
Genres: Dance & Electronic, International Music, Pop, Rock
Styles: Ambient, Europe, Britain & Ireland
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
 

CD Reviews

About Time
Mark Champion | San Antonio, TX United States | 06/13/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)

"What it is is Graham 'He Said' Lewis and Bruce 'BC' Gilbert's post-Wire collaborative work released in 1980-1981 on the 4AD label before they dubbed themselves Dome and started issuing stuff on their own Dome label. It includes everything, in chronological order: the first mini-album LIKE THIS FOR AGES; the 3R4 album; and the 7-inch single 'Ends With The Sea/Hung Up To Dry Whilst Building An Arch'. 'Like This For Ages' resembles latter-day Wire material such as 'Former Airline' or the more abstract 154 pieces; not conventionally catchy but compelling nevertheless ("I've been eating dreams,' declaims - - I think- -Lewis, "it's been like this for ages"); its B-side 'Kluba Cupol' is a 20-minute instrumental expansion and remix of the A-side's rhythm track with shimmering layers of noise and further rhythmic mayhem overlaid. Oddly, its development tends toward the vertical rather than the horizontal (listen and find out what I mean). Released in an age replete with 12-inch disco remixes, Gilbert and Lewis typically subverted the genre. The 3R4 album consists of two short clacky collaborative instrumental fragments (both cleverly titled 'Barge Calm') and two nearly side-length pieces,'3.4' and 'R', each composed/developed by one of the duo with some performance assistance from each other and others (Davyd Boyd plays bass, for example, on both pieces and AC Marias lends her voice to 'R'). Difficult to describe, both are magnificent semi-musical soundscapes which reward repeated listening; the extended monotonic coda to 'R' is especially haunting. The 7-inch again reverts to the sound of latter-day Wire, and again AC Marias adds her haunting voice to an already haunting affair. This is pioneering stuff, released around the same time that Brian Eno was propagating his Ambient ethos and vaguely antithetical to it as it requires more active listening. Yeah, it works fine as background too, but it's a lot more fun right up front. My Complaint Department admonishes, however, that the packaging leaves much to be desired, missing as it is the incredible, shoulda-been-award-winning mock-arabesque cover of LIKE THIS FOR AGES. Hey, it's missing the beautiful cover for the 7-inch, too. For shame, for shame."
Post-Wire-isms
DAC Crowell | 04/11/2000
(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a collection of sorts, assembling Gilbert and Lewis's "Kluba Cupol" and "3R4", along with a couple of extra tracks, on one CD. None of this is anything that directly relates to Wire, as such; this is the tangent that the duo went off in that eventually led to their work as Dome. And none of it is easy to listen to, but it's pretty essential stuff for those into darker ambient music as well as New Music. "Kluba Cupol" is something of a weird piece of psuedo-primitivism, with odd tribal trance-drumming being the conceptual source for this odd, rhythmic work. The showcase works here, I think, are "3.4" and "R"; both of these are tense, dark, oppressive works that both draw on the legacy of British industrial/noise music as well as presage future dark ambient/noise efforts that wouldn't come down the pike for another decade or more. The shorter works are really sort of distractions, I think, althought it's good to have them here for the documentary purpose of having the whole release from which they come present on the CD. Important, albeit difficult."