ALBUM BY ALBUM

THE SYNTH-POP ICONS WHO MASTERED THE BLEND OF EXPERIMENTALISM AND MELODY

MARK LINDORES

Thanks to Liverpool’s hosting of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, 2023 has already seen Merseyside’s musical heritage celebrated for its greatness. And with the Wirral’s Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – an oft-overlooked inclusion in conversations such as these despite a back catalogue of scintillating synth-pop – toasting their 45th anniversary this year, the celebrations should continue a little while longer.

While former schoolfriends Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys had both been in bands around Liverpool, a mutual adoration of experimental electronica such as Kraftwerk, Brian Eno and Neu! saw their paths align, first in The Id, then OMD in 1978. Early shows at iconic venues Eric’s in Liverpool and The Factory club in Manchester created a buzz, amplified when Factory Records’ Tony Wilson declared them “the future of pop” and signed them to a one-single deal for Electricity purely to get them noticed by the major labels. As it turns out, Wilson’s wife Carol signed OMD to her Dindisc label – an imprint of Virgin, granting the band the creative freedom of an indie with the financial security of a major.

Speaking of security, the band weren’t confident of long-term success and used their advance to build The Gramophone Suite, their own studio in Liverpool.

THEIR DEBUT SET A TEMPLATE FOR THE OMD SOUND: OBTUSE AND EXPERIMENTAL WITH POP HOOKS

Their eponymous debut was released in February 1980, a collection that set a template for the OMD sound – obtuse arrangements and experimental instrumentation with pop hooks relaying lyrics scoping everything from catastrophic events such as nuclear war (Bunker Soldiers) to the local telephone box which temporarily served as OMD HQ (Red Frame/White Light).

A re-recorded version of Electricity is a seminal synth-pop masterpiece and introduces an oft-used OMD trademark of replacing a chorus with an instrumental sequence. Messages, with its sweeping beat punctuated by recurring beeps and the sparse Almost, a track cited by Vince Clarke as the reason he pursued a career in electronic music, repeat the sonic structure.

OMD’s strait-laced image was far removed from the flamboyance of the New Romantic scene with which synth-pop was sometimes linked; Andy and Paul were more ties and tank tops than togas and tiaras, further establishing them as an entity entirely of their own. Likewise, with the clean graphics of their artwork, courtesy of Peter Saville’s crisp die-cut sleeve, a masterstroke of graphic design but a disaster business-wise due to the production costs.

Facing record company pressure to deliver another album before the end of 1980 and reeling from the suicide of one-time labelmate and touring partner Ian Curtis from Joy Division, the Organisation sessions were far from easy for Andy, Paul and drummer Malcolm Holmes, who had been recruited as a full-time band member – Holmes had previously played on earlier records as a session drummer and toured with OMD.

Nevertheless, the group found beauty amid the bleakness and crafted a record of enormous scope – atmospheric and ambitious. While resources and lack of money had forced them to improvise with everyday objects for sound effects on earlier songs, for Organisation their music was augmented with samples – most notably on Stanlow, a track written about the oil refinery in Ellesmere Port where McCluskey’s father and sister worked. Recordings of the machinery and pumps included on the record elevated it to evoke dark industrial soundscapes, desolation and diminishing communities.

Due to a tight deadline that hindered the writing of new material, the album includes a cover of standard The More I See You, and other songs from the pre-OMD days of The Id were reworked for inclusion, while Statues, inspired by the death of Ian Curtis, immortalised the tragic events of the time. Both the album’s title and VCL XI paid homage to their love of Kraftwerk (Organisation being the name of a pre-Kraftwerk line-up, the latter the name of a valve on the back sleeve of the electro pioneers’ 1975 album Radio-Activity).