The Wolfgang Press
Bird Wood Cage

It is still not entirely clear what the Wolfgang Press wanted to play exactly.
Their music was a blend of seemingly incompatible elements, filtered through a sensitivity that has something psychoanalytic about it. Gospel, industrial, folk, synth-pop, and even reggae, are combined in an irresistible mixture.
The group had a fairly fragmented career, and never found the strength (or perhaps the desire) to focus attentively on an album. Perhaps if they had been farsighted enough, they could have produced a masterpiece, and not just great albums. Nevertheless, their trajectory remains one of the most innovative and original of the decade, an example of true experimentation, and not a mere cut-and-paste of trendy influences.
The mind behind the group was singer and bassist Marc Allen, supported by the keyboards of Mark Cox and the drums of Andrew Gray.

"Bird Wood Cage" is their second LP, released in 1988.
It is a restless, disorienting, provocative album.
The rhythms are often almost danceable, as in the opening "King Of Soul", a track that sounds like a statement of intent. A dark and ghostly atmosphere hangs over a female gospel choir, a slow techno-industrial percussion, and a captivating electronic sound that, with its intermittent nebulas, provides the sinister tone that marks the album.
"Raintime" unfolds on another unusual architecture. Afro-synthetic percussion and a desert sorcerer's enchanting violin set the scene for Allen's theatrical declamations, who here seems like a Brian Ferry of the disenfranchised.
The siren that peeks out from the powerful low rumble marking "Bottom Drawer" does not bode well. In fact, this is one of the most surreal tracks, a journey into an hallucinatory nightmare made of nocturnal refuse and rotten souls, a walk through Allen's deviant mind.
The big difference is made by the subliminal nature of their dark sensitivity, the fact of not flaunting anything. On the contrary, it seems that Wolfgang Press is seeking a subtle and penetrating form to describe pain, fear, and obsession.
In the tribalism of "Kansas", it feels like an updated version of the Talking Heads for the nascent (at the time) techno-house era, while in the pseudo-Latin delirium of "See My Wife" it sounds like listening to the sick version of Arto Lindsay's percussionism during the Ambitious Lovers period.
Not to mention the indefinable charm of the synthetic ambient gusts present in "Swing Like A Baby", where a mechanical press rhythm suggests a version of Nine Inch Nails with less anger and an overdose of heroin.
The grotesque play of "The Holey Man" is so caricatured in its mockery of dark-punk poses that it wouldn't even scare a child. The track is one of the most surreal of the batch and demonstrates a creativity and intelligence that probably were lacking in many more acclaimed bands.
The reggae accordion in "Hang On Me" is a funny homage to B-grade horror movies, with its finale in the throes of autistic keyboard hallucinations, another subtle mockery of those who took themselves too seriously. This "cartoonish" capacity of their music is like a sardonic smile, a mocking sadistic joke that truly terrorizes. As if to say, here there is much more "substance" than "form."
The album concludes with the noisiest nightmare of all, "Shut That Door", a frenetic dance between screams and whimpers, driven by a section of pure and hard rock rhythm. Could it be another hidden gag?

In short, those who love intelligent experiments cannot avoid listening to this album. A hidden corner in the gigantic building of rock.