“Going weird now is not an embarrassment,” Bruce Gilbert said in an interview back in 1999 — just as he was concluding his Dome efforts alongside fellow Wire member Graham Lewis. And ever since Wire temporarily disbanded in the early 80s, the septuagenarian who currently lives in London has continued to act upon the inclination to musically “get weird,” and to do so with minimal concern about earlier standards of propriety. He’s collaborated a plethora of times with non-musical artists for dance and film projects, and his solo career as a musician has brought with it plenty of supposed weirdness. (I mean, if you consider noise music weird these days, pshaw.)
A relative sense of quiet might’ve led to the impression that Gilbert was ready to hang that weirdness up — but no! Never! Five years after his last album (a collaboration with BAW), he’s resurfaced with a new release called Ex Nihilo to run up the flagpole, and it comes out on Editions Mego March 23.
“Ex nihilo” means “out of nothing,” ICYWW; and the album cover certainly comports with that, while the music promises to conjure thoughts of sounds emerging from a dark and unknowable place. Pre-order the album right here, and listen to the track “Undertow” down below for a fuller sense of the emptiness. We’re a long way from “12XU”.
Ex Nihilo tracklisting:
01. Undertow
02. Change And Not
03. Negative Mass
04. In Memory of MV
05. Hymn
06. Black Mirrors
07. HA8
08. Nomad
09. Where