Lewis has made a large contribution to contemporary music with his work in Wire, his collaborations and his extensive solo work. In addition to this work, Lewis has
composed music for modern dance, film and produced installations for art exhibitions.
Alreet? as a title suggests a greeting, which is in direct contrast with the opening lyric “Auf Wiedersehn” (goodbye). The album has a sense of finality, a dark foreboding can be felt throughout, as well as a theme of transformation and being confronted with aging. This is evident in some of the lyrics such as “You will not pass this way again.”, “I have run out of meds, the doctors are powerless.” and “Would you like to live forever?”. These songs and lyrics can easily be applied to an end of times scenario, which feels very appropriate now.
The album is masterfully produced. The attention to the space in the mix of the songs, the way in which textures are combined, and the choice of sounds really is beautiful. I can feel that this is the work of a bass player as it displays an awareness of layers and how those sounds interact with one another, which is an unappreciated difficulty of playing in the bass frequencies in a band. This is often approached intuitively by bass players- however it’s on display here across a range of sounds/instruments and also applied to the way in which the sounds are mixed and moved across the stereo spectrum.
The album was co-produced with Swedish musician Max Lorentz and features contributions from Wire members Matthew Simms and Robert Gray as well as contributions from Kevin Kers Vestege, Harald Pettersson and sampled guitars from ex-Wire member Bruce Gilbert.
The album has an electronic feel however it is genre defying, not fitting neatly into any particular genre. It is song-based, however experimental. A masterful work, from an influential musician that feels appropriate for these times. I really enjoyed listening to it, really worth a look!
Alreet? is out now on Upp Records, order now on vinyl, cd and digital download via Bandcamp
Review by Mansell Bass
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