Colin Newman Bastard

It was four years into the swim ~ label’s history before Bastard arrived. Like my previous albums, it was another collaboration – this time with my partner in life and crime, Malka Spigel. There was a point in the ’90s when British music journalists basically didn’t get dance music and would refer to it as “faceless techno bollocks”. It was that very attribute that Malka and I felt most attracted to. In instrumental music, you could be anyone from anywhere. With Bastard, it took a while to get to the concept: What if we subverted the whole ‘bloke from Wire’ thing and had a Colin Newman album without any actual songs on it? These days, this is not such a big thing, but it was hugely transgressive at the time. The language of Bastard is house, techno, breakbeat, drum and bass, and doubtless post-rock. The only singing is a one-line Malka sample on ‘Turn’. Not only did the album not play by the rules of what would these days be called music by a ‘heritage’ artist, but it didn’t play by the rules of dance music either. Back then, dance music artists didn’t mix up styles as they do today. This is one of the reasons the album’s called Bastard. Upon release, Bastard was modestly successful although widely misunderstood. Malka and I have done more work together on swim ~ – and, of course, there has been plenty of Wire activity after its second hiatus during the 1990s – but I never felt the need to do another solo album. I don’t crave attention and certainly don’t feel I lack ways to express myself. In many ways, it’s more creative to collaborate with others.