Gary Numan / Tubeway Army – Replicas: The First Recordings / Gary Numan – The Pleasure Principle: The First Recordings

Beggars Arkive

Was it really forty years ago that I popped into my local Our Price record shop on my way home from school to pick up a copy of Tubeway Army’s “Are Friends Electric“?

I remember going in there because they still had copies with the picture sleeve, rather than the generic paper one that seemed to be left in the other record shops in Croydon. I had seen it being performed on TV (I forget now if it was Top Of The Pops or The Old Grey Whistle Test), and was captivated by the sounds of the synths and by Gary Numan’s white-powdered face and make-up making him seem even more alien than David Bowie did then, and the only other band I knew of at that point that were getting into Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy chic were Japan.

So here we are, forty years later with two double albums full of demos and sessions from Numan’s LPs released in 1979, all served up on beautiful coloured vinyl (and CDs are available too).

Replicas: The First Recordings is printed on sage green vinyl, and I have to say the pressing sounds fantastic, and it also comes with some informative inner bags (as they used to be known). As far as the early demos go, some seem to have more power than those on the album as the sound is slightly stripped back; this gives them a more rhythmic feel. “The Matchmen” sounds wonderful, its pulsating post-punk collides well with Bowie’s Berlin-era sound and here seems more urgent than on the album. “Down In The Park”, a classic single at the time, is replete here — even with a few bum notes that add to the charm of these early recordings. This is Numan at his android best, looking at an indifferent world through the gaze of an outsider. It is here that you can almost smell and feel what it was like being in the studio, putting the tracks together and evolving a new sound.

As most Numan fans know, the album was actually a concept record — so it is a bit odd hearing the tracks out of their normally running order, but that really is a very tiny criticism, but this is also the order in which they were originally recorded. It’s also good to hear Numan getting to grips with the synths as well; on some tracks like “Do You Need A Service?” he sounds more confident on his guitar, but this is part of the working process that these recordings slowly unravel. Also, because it wasn’t part of the original album, it still harks back more in style to the first Tubeway Army album. I can also understand why “The Crazies” didn’t manage to make it onto the album — even though it has a great synth / guitar, it feels a little pedestrian when compared to other tracks that did make the final cut. “When The Machines Rock”, though, has such a wonderful late 1970s Moog synth sound that you just want it to envelop you.

“Me I Disconnect From You” accentuates the stabbing synth sound, even though the rhythm section has a few fluffs at first. But the synths sound rawer and I have to say I might actually prefer it to the version that ended up on Replicas. “It Must Have Been Years” was always a strong on the album, but here it is more guitar-heavy and makes the riff sound a bit more like ’70s heavy rock, rather than something cold that the album version gives off — and it even has a classic rock ending. On tracks like “Only A Downstat”, Numan seems unsure about what to do with the synths; he sounds slightly hesitant at times, though with a few short weeks this instrument would dominate his sound. He does seem more comfortable during “I Married A Human 3”, even if some of the tuning is slightly out at this point, this track is so Low-influenced that it would happily sit by some of Brian Eno’s soundscapes of two years earlier.

The thing you notice as the demos go on, such as the title track, is that the synth becomes more prevalent, as if Numan is now deliberately composing tracks to fit around the synthesizer rather than the guitar. “Are Friends Electric?” is less grand and Numan’s vocals have less self-assurance than on the album version. Duplicate tracks reveal the slow piecing together of what songs would become, but it’s the three John Peel Session tracks that are the icing on the cake here. The band feel like they are pushing the tracks a little harder and giving more of an element of what they would sound like live; they just sound marvellous to me and show that Numan was slightly ahead of the game sound-wise at this point.

A few months later and Numan dropped the Tubeway Army identity and released his first album under his own name (even though members of the band were still on this recording). The sessions originally took place before both “Are Friends Electric?” and the Replicas album hit the top spots in the UK charts and Numan began extending the range and voices of the synths in his sound.

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One thing that strikes you about The Pleasure Principle demos is that they sound more self-assured, and some are even not to dissimilar to the later album versions. The fact that the sessions start with a storming version of “Cars” certainly doesn’t hurt things at all, and shows how almost fully formed some of the songs were at this point. Having an extra synth player certainly adds to tracks as well, and the depth and lushness of sound. “Films” sounds like it could be from John Foxx’s Metamatic sessions, as the keyboards have a slightly colder feel than the more orchestrated versions recorded later. “Complex” sounds here more like something from Eno’s Before And After Science in its overall feel and mood.

The demos show that Numan had probably written more tracks on the synths at home, as the guitar takes second place more throughout the process. “M.E” is a good example of where the band are primarily focussing more on what sounds they can get from the Moogs to enhance Numan’s concepts. A couple of tracks from these sessions would also end up as B-sides to singles released a year later, including an electronic version of Erik Satie’s Trois Gymnopédies No 1 and a track called “Photograph”.

It’s interesting that Numan had found his voice early in these recordings, and especially within the overall production sound; tracks like “Conversation” show this well. Even though bands like the early Human League were miffed at Numan, who they thought stole their thunder, his overall sound is very different from them, harking more towards Bowie than Sheffield.

The set includes some remastered 2009 versions and I had forgotten just how haunting “Asylum” was and hints a little towards Japan’s Quiet Life sound in its melancholia, while “Oceans” again nods its head towards John Foxx in feel. Again, the real bonuses come in the shape of the fantastic-sounding John Peel Sessions and are worth the purchase alone. The set sounds beautiful and looks wonderful in its orange-coloured vinyl and its great inner bag, complete with some rather nice liner notes about the recording of the demos.

These are must-have recordings for any Numan fan, and they have the added bonus of looking and sounding fantastic as well. I’m sure these sets are mainly aimed at the diehard fans, but I think a lot of new listeners, especially those with an interest in electronic music, will get a lot of them as well — and will certainly hear a time when men tried to sound like machines, and even looked a little like them too.

-Gary Parsons-