FOR TO NEXT / AND NOT OR

I've just listened to these two LPs for what must be the first time in over twenty years.

The titles are taken from the BASIC computer programming language. For To Next (white) is an album of songs whereas And Not Or (black) is entirely instrumental.

I've always looked upon them as somehow sperate from the rest of the Hillage back catalogue. Furthermore, I've always assumed that something profound must have happened to Steve prior to their making. A bad trip whilst listening to Joy Division perhaps ?

For one thing, he'd had his hair cut. For another, the trusty battered strat was replaced with one of those headless Steinberger efforts. The organic sound of old was almost entirely abandoned and replaced with cold 80s machine music. It's as if he'd literally taken his own words "I don't want to be a guitar hero, I want to be a guitar ZERO" somewhat earnestly.

By the time of his previous LP (Open from 1979), he was playing the larger halls in the UK. This turned out to be the final Hillage band tour and as far as I know, nothing from FTN or ANO was ever performed live.

Sound wise, both records are not unlike that of Simple Minds' Sons And Fascination which he'd produced two years earlier in 1981. The fact that it's purely Steve and Miquette makes it a sort of proto System 7. I wonder just how these records would have sounded if they'd been recorded with the Studio Herald band.

Tonight's listening made me realise that I'd been a bit unfair to these LPs in the past. There's certainly some terrible 80s drum machines and sequencers going on but despite this, there's still some lovely guitar work not far beneath the surface. What was most shocking at the time though was the lyrics. The new age optimism was all but lost and replaced with concerns about nuclear paranoia and even unemployment (Bright Future). It's certainly not the Hillage of old but it's still interesting nevertheless. The song Waiting must be least Hillage-like thing he's ever done. It's bleak and even perhaps disturbing but utterly curious all these years on.

To those who are relatively new to the music of SH, you'd be best leaving them until you're a full-blown convert. This might be controversial but I can categorically say that I prefer these LPs to anything by System 7.