XTC: Drums & Wires (200g, Steven Wilson mix) [APE HOUSE]

Why you'll love it

This Ape House edition presses Steven Wilson's 2014 stereo mix on heavyweight 200g vinyl. "Making Plans for Nigel" reached No. 17 in the UK, and Pitchfork ranked the album No. 38 among the top albums of the 1970s.

This edition

• 200g vinyl
• Steven Wilson 2014 stereo mix

About the album

XTC went into 1979 with a new guitarist and a new plan. Keyboardist Barry Andrews had left, Dave Gregory came in on second guitar, and bassist Colin Moulding, tired of the band's quirky reputation, pushed for something more direct. The title says it all: guitars (the wires) and great big drums.

They cut it in four weeks at London's newly built Town House with producer Steve Lillywhite and engineer Hugh Padgham, who were just working out the gated reverb drum sound that announces itself on Moulding's opener, "Making Plans for Nigel." Andy Partridge's songs, from "Helicopter" to "Millions" and "Complicated Game," tangle the two guitars together over pop, art rock, new wave and punk, and Partridge dreamed up Jill Mumford's face-shaped cover.

It was their first album issued in the US, and it has since become the best-known XTC record; Paste ranked it No. 31 among the 1970s' best in 2019, and in 1980 Partridge even reworked much of it as dub on Take Away / The Lure of Salvage. Wilson's mix gives Padgham's drums even more room, which on a record named after them seems fair enough.

Also at Kops: more XTC on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Ape House (cat# APELPR103), a reissue of the 1979 album.