For the uninitiated, Duet Emmo is a collaboration between Graham Lewis and Bruce Gilbert of Wire—who had been recording as a duo under the name Dome—and Daniel Miller, the man behind The Normal and founder of Mute Records. (The project name is an amalgam of Dome and Mute.) The trio got together in late 1982 to experiment in the studio, leading to a single full-length that explores and explodes their interests in electronic music, drone and art pop.
“Or So It Seems”. Taken from the forthcoming reissue of Duet Emmo’s album ‘Or So It Seems’, newly remastered from the original tapes.
The album seems to be slowly dissolving as it moves forward with the proto-industrial pieces on side A giving way to quietly unsettling instrumentals on the flip. It all sounds even more mind-altering on this vinyl edition thanks to the remastering work of Stefan Betke (aka Pole) and includes, on one side of a second disc, a remix of the album’s title track (originally released as a B-side) that takes the original song to fresher, druggier zones.
I love the creativity of this album. Its beautiful, ominous, and it takes you on a mystic journey. The album was originally released in 1983, and was the act’s only release. The result was the perfect amalgamation of Miller’s hard-line electronics and Gilbert and Lewis’ abstract and sparse textures, exhibiting why the anagrammatic combination of Dome and Mute was a fitting name for this project.
released August 19th, 2022
The Fat Angel Sings 