Image
Classic Bands

Cindytalk to Reissue Wappinschaw & The Wind is Strong on Dais Records

“So-called experimental can only remain so if you keep challenging yourself.” – Cinder

The mercurial Scottish artist Cinder thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation. At long last, her long-awaited back catalog is resurfacing, alongside multiple new works.

Initially exploding on the UK punk scene in the early 1980s as The Freeze, a move to London shifted her exploration into the worlds of industrial and post-punk. After a series of celebrated albums for the Midnight Music label as well as collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder migrated to the United States, Hong Kong and Japan, expanding her musical horizons in each continent and cultivating a fruitful partnership with Viennese experimental institution, Editions Mego.

“All sound is music,” says Cinder, who employed tape hiss, ticking clocks, flicking flames, and distant whispers in the sonic tapestry of her third album, The Wind Is Strong. Although Cinder included the subtitle “A Cindytalk diversion” in the sleeve notes, The Wind Is Strong… is crucial to the project’s canon, demonstrating the versatility of her unique ear and intuition. The cinematic album: a mix of musique concréte, haunted reverie, and desolate beauty, remains one of the most ambitious – and elusive -in the Cindytalk discography. Originating as a soundtrack to a film by Ivan Unwin entitled Eclipse (The Amateur Enthusiast’s Guide To Virus Deployment), the album was inspired heavily by Alan Splet’s eerie sound design for David Lynch’s Eraserhead. Long out of print, the fifteen tracks flow between field recordings, piano vignettes, and metallic haze – a hybrid palette Cinder deemed “ambi-dustrial.”

The film was originally slated for release by Factory Records’ video division, Ikon. Unfortunately, Ikon collapsed on the eve of the project’s completion, so the film was never distributed. Their label at the time, Midnight Music, repackaged Cindytalk’s score as an LP in 1990 under the name The Wind Is Strong – A Sparrow Dances, Piercing Holes in Our Sky.

The ambitious fourth album, Wappinschaw, was inspired by Scotland and its struggle for independence. At the time of its recording, Cinder was attempting to leave London. But as much as “ideas of homecoming were percolating,” there remained old ghosts to exorcise, culminating in Wappinschaw’s heady, harrowing voyage: “An invocation of spirits of resistance – as much a declaration of war as a declaration of love.”

The title refers to an archaic Scottish battle inspection, during which clan chieftains surveyed their group’s weapons to ensure they were ready for combat. Opening with an aching vocal rendition of British folk standard The First Time Ever (I Saw Your Face), the album surges into A Song Of Changes. The mood fragments into feverish dirge, pensive spirituals, noir abstraction, spoken word, bagpipe drone, and apocalyptic post-punk. Cinder describes the creation of Wappinschaw as a “precarious” process, composed from “scraps” with abruptly shifting personnel, a situation compounded by the impending dissolution of Midnight Music.

Listen below:

Wappinschaw and The Wind Is Strong are both out 30 July through Dais Records.

Pre-Order:
Cindytalk – Wappinschaw
Cindytalk – The Wind Is Strong

Wappinschaw Track Listing

1. The First Time Ever
2. A Song Of Changes
3. Empty Hand
4. Return To Pain
5. Wheesht
6. Snowkisss
7. Secrets And Falling
8. Disappear
9. Träumlose Nachte
10. And Now In Sunshine
11. Prince Of Lies
12. Hush
13. Muster

CD & Digital Bonus Tracks
The Moon Above Me
In Sunshine
Old Jack Must Die

The Wind Is Strong… Track Listing
1. Landing
2. Firstsight
3. To The Room
4. Waiting
5. Through Flowers
6. Secondsight
7. Through The Forest
8. Arrival
9. Is There A Room For Hire
10. Choked I
11. Choked II
12. Dream Ritual
13. Morning Bell
14. On Snowmoor
15. Angel Wings

*Photo courtesy of Steve Gullick

Alice Teeple

Alice Teeple is a photographer, multidisciplinary artist, and writer. She is not in Tin Machine.

Recent Posts

  • Art

Darkwave Trio Corlyx Colour Outside The Lines in Their New Single “Zombie Kid” — Plus Announce New Album “Purple Pain”

Darkwave trio Corlyx is a band that boldly colors outside the lines of traditional genre conventions, redefining the contours and…

11 hours ago
  • Art

French Synth Act Minuit Machine Returns With the Video for Their Resilient New Single “Hold Me”

They way they tore me apart Like I’m a corpse they wanna ditch They way they sold me for parts…

12 hours ago
  • Bands

Ballerinas Twirl in the Video for Los Angeles Post-Punk Artist Indiana Bradley’s Luminous New Single “Silent Moon”

It is a quiet devastation, a weight that presses without end. The realization unfolds not in a sharp moment but…

1 day ago
  • Song Premiere

Karolina Bnv Reimagines Classic New Beat with “Germany Calling”

In the history of new beat, there are few more memorable samples than "Germany calling." Taken from a Lord Haw-Haw…

2 days ago
  • Bands

Stella Rose Debuts Video for Smoldering Alt-Rock Anthem “HOLLYBABY”

Today, New York City's rising singer-songwriter Stella Rose drops her latest single and lyric video for HOLLYBABY, the title track…

2 days ago
  • Bands

Kim Deal Serenades a Flamingo in Her Surreal Video for “Nobody Love You More”

Perfect hosts and room ghosts shout I don't care what they say They can fight it out I mean to…

2 days ago
Sticky Footer Banner with Close Button