Dazzle Ships

Dazzle Ships
Studio album by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Released	March 4, 1983 (1983-03-04)
Recorded	1982 The Gramophone Suite Gallery Studio Mayfair Studio
Genre	Electronica Musique concrete Experimental music New wave
Length	34:43
Label	Telegraph (Virgin)
Producer	Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Rhett Davies
Professional reviews
Allmusic link A.V. Club link BBC link Record Collector link PopMatters (8/10) link Pitchfork Media (8.4/10) link
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark chronology
Architecture & Morality (1981) Dazzle Ships (1983) Junk Culture (1984)

Dazzle Ships is the fourth album by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, released in 1983.

The title and cover art (designed by Peter Saville) alluded to a painting by vorticist artist Edward Wadsworth based on dazzle camouflage.

The album was the follow-up release to the band's hugely successful Architecture and Morality. In contrast with its celebrated predecessor, Dazzle Ships met with a degree of critical and commercial hostility, due to the inaccessible nature of half of the material it contained, particularly musique concrete sound collages, utilising shortwave radio recordings to explore cold war and eastern bloc themes (the odd numbered tracks). However the album did also contain six conventional pop songs (the even numbered tracks), both up-tempo numbers, and ballads. Two singles were released from it, "Genetic Engineering" and "Telegraph", which achieved moderate chart success.

The album was co-produced with Rhett Davies, who was best known for his work on lusher-sounding albums by the reformed Roxy Music.

The band's former record company, the independent DinDisc label, had recently ceased trading, and so the bands contract was transferred to DinDisc's parent company, Virgin Records. However, in order to maintain the image of being signed to an "indie" label, the record sleeve purported that the album was released by the fictitious "Telegraph" label.

The critical hostility towards the album has cooled in the years after its release. When the album was reissued in 2008, it received positive reviews from Pitchfork Media^[1], Popmatters^[2] and The A.V. Club^[3], among others.

Track listing

All songs were written by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, except where noted.

Side 1

1. "Radio Prague" (arranged by OMD) – 1:18
2. "Genetic Engineering" – 3:37
3. "ABC Auto-Industry" – 2:06
4. "Telegraph" – 2:57
5. "This Is Helena" – 1:58
6. "International" – 4:25

Side 2

7. "Dazzle Ships (Parts II, III & VII)" – 2:21
8. "The Romance Of The Telescope" – 3:27
9. "Silent Running" – 3:34
10. "Radio Waves" (OMD, John Floyd) – 3:45
11. "Time Zones" (arranged by OMD) – 1:49
12. "Of All The Things We've Made" – 3:27

On March 3, 2008 (2008-03-03) a remastered compact disc with bonus tracks was released, to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the album. ^[4] The bonus tracks are:

13. "Telegraph (The Manor Version 1981)" – 3:25
14. "4-Neu" – 3:34
15. "Genetic Engineering (312MM Version)" – 5:12
16. "66 and Fading" – 6:33
17. "Telegraph (Extended Version)" – 5:38
18. "Swiss Radio International" – 1:03

The "Manor Version" of "Telegraph" was recorded at the same time as "Architecture & Morality". "Swiss Radio International" was dropped from the album at the last minute. Like "Radio Prague", it contains the call sign for a radio station and was once referred to as "The Ice Cream Song" by drummer Mal Holmes due to its similarity to the melodies played by ice cream vans.

Singles

Genetic Engineering

• 7": Telegraph VS 527

1. "Genetic Engineering" – 3:37
2. "4-Neu" – 3:33

• 12": Telegraph VS 527-12

1. "Genetic Engineering (312mm Version)" – 5:18
2. "4-Neu" – 3:33

The punning title of "4-Neu" was a dedication to the influential "krautrock" band Neu!. "312mm" is simply the metric equivalent of twelve inches.

Telegraph

• 7": Telegraph VS 580

1. "Telegraph" – 2:57
2. "66-And Fading" – 6:40

• 12": Telegraph VSY 580-12

1. "Telegraph (Extended Version)" – 5:53
2. "66-And Fading" – 6:30

Notes

Both the 7"'s of "Genetic Engineering" and "Telegraph" were released as 7" picture discs.

Dazzle Ships was released on LP, cassette and compact disc, all had differing artwork.

The "Radio Prague" track is the actual interval signal of the Czechoslovak Radio foreign service, including the time signal and station ID spoken in Czech. "Time Zones" is a montage of various speaking clocks from around the world. Neither "Radio Prague" nor "Time Zones" carry any writing credit at all, with OMD being credited only for arranging the tracks. The "This Is Helena", "ABC Auto-Industry" and "International" tracks also include parts of some broadcasts recorded off-air (a presenter introducing herself, economic bulletin and news, respectively). ^[5]

Owen Pallett of the one-man violin-based Canadian indie act Final Fantasy has covered tracks 1-4 seamlessly while performing live shows.

Personnel

• Paul Humphreys – Percussion, Keyboards, Vocals
• Andy McCluskey – Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals
• Martin Cooper – saxophone
• Malcolm Holmes – Drums

Instruments

In terms of instrumentation, Dazzle Ships saw the band begin to explore digital sampling keyboards (the E-mu Emulator) in addition to their continued use of analog synthesizers and the mellotron.

List of used instruments:

References