SWAGGER: LOST NOT LOST VOLUME ONE 1989/1990

This collection of old, primordial No-Man tracks bears a promising "volume one" in its title, suggesting that this is only the first of several archival collections from the group. Indeed, it's been released as a companion piece to a much more substantial project - Housekeeping, a bumper compilation of material from the group's period on the One Little Indian label. This collection compiles material from immediately before that, and is essentially an expanded version of the Swagger EP, originally released back when Tim Bowness, Steven Wilson, and Ben Coleman were still calling their art pop project "No Man Is An Island".

I may as well kick off with a review of Swagger, then. Here we go: "Combining sophisti-pop cool with flashes of prog sensibilities and a touch of industrial added by the drum machine, this EP from No-Man establishes the trio of Tim Bowness on vocals, Ben Coleman on Violin, and Steven Wilson on multi-instrumentalist wizardry as capable of evoking a deep, rich sound, presenting pocket symphonies for the 1980s indie-pop era. It's not quite trip-hop, but it perhaps lives next door to that scene. Elsewhere, Bleed comes across as Prefab Sprout doing a collaboration with Nine Inch Nails with Outside-era Bowie."

As for the rest of this stuff? Well, it's very much in a similar vein, with Tim Bowness' vocals (not unlike latter-day Scott Walker) and Steven Wilson's instrumental backing crafting something intriguing. For those more used to Wilson's work in Porcupine Tree or the more prog-leaning of his solo albums, this may feel like something of a departure; the main touchpoints here in terms of influence seems to be the synth-pop of earlier phases of the 1980s and, perhaps especially, the synth-pop-bleeding-into-post-rock contours of none other than Talk Talk, albeit with the jazz influences less evident. As with Talk Talk, No-Man would eventually undergo a sweeping musical evolution of its own, and thanks to this collection a key part of that process is now readily available.