| Bruce Gilbert | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Bruce Clifford Gilbert |
| Born | 18 May 1946 Watford, Hertfordshire, England |
| Occupations | Musician, guitarist |
| Labels | Mute Records Editions Mego Touch Music |
| Associated acts | Wire Dome |
Bruce Gilbert (born Bruce Clifford Gilbert, 18 May 1946, Watford, Hertfordshire) is an English musician. One of the founding members of the influential and experimental art-punk band Wire,[1] Gilbert branched out into electronic music, performance art, music production, and DJing during the band's extended periods of inactivity. Gilbert left Wire in 2004 and has since been focusing on solo work and collaborations with visual artists and fellow experimental musicians.
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Gilbert studied graphic design at De Montfort University until 1971 when he became an abstract painter,[2] taking on part-time jobs to help support himself.[3] In 1975 he was hired as an audio-visual aids technician and slide-photography librarian at Watford College of Art and Design.[3] Borrowing oscillators from the Science department, Gilbert started experimenting with tape loops and delays at the recording studio set up by his predecessor.[3] Together with Colin Newman and Angela Conway, who were students at Watford at the time, Gilbert formed a short-lived group called Overload.[3] In the summer of 1976, Newman and Gilbert were joined by Graham Lewis and Robert Gotobed and started practicing and performing as Wire.[4]
Gilbert, who always considered Wire a living sculpture rather than a musical project,[5] fondly recalls early punk gigs as events where the audience, far from being mere consumers, became part of a shared dynamic experience: "I viewed it as a bit of a laboratory, not musically but culturally, because the people were experimenting with themselves: with their behaviour, their appearance and their clothes. Everything was up for grabs."[6]
Wire released three albums between 1976-79 with Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154 before temporarily disbanding after a show at London's Electric Ballroom at the start of 1980. At this time, Gilbert formed a series of bands/projects with Wire's bassist, Graham Lewis, including Cupol, Dome, P'o, and Duet Emmo.[1] Gilbert's collaborations with Lewis were experimental, featuring ambient music and found sounds.[7] Dome performed at art galleries with visual displays that allowed audience interactivity. Gilbert and Lewis performed with tubes made of paper over their heads, thus restricting their vision. Artist Russell Mills frequently collaborated with Dome.[8] In 1980 Gilbert and Lewis produced The The's debut single "Black & White/Controversial Subject" for 4AD as well as the single "Drop/So" by AC Marias for their own Dome label.[9] Between August 8 and August 31, 1981, Gilbert, Lewis, and Mills took over London’s Waterloo Gallery and produced MZUI, an interactive audio-visual installation where visitors were encouraged to play a number of instruments created by the artists from objects found on the site.[10][11] The MZUI album, released by Cherry Red in May 1982, contains two untitled pieces based on recordings from the venue, finishing with the looped and distorted voice of Marcel Duchamp,[11][10] whom Gilbert considers a key influence.[12] Gilbert's experimental piece "Children", released in 1983 by Touch, features his parents talking about significant events from their childhood.[13]
Between 1984 and 1991, Gilbert was commissioned to create music for a variety of film and modern dance projects,[7] by, among others, Michael Clark, Aletta Collins, and Ashley Page,[14] with excerpts appearing on his albums This Way (1984), The Shivering Man (1987) (both combined on CD as This Way to the Shivering Man), Insiding (1991) and Music for Fruit (1991).[7]
Wire re-entered the public arena on June 7, 1985 with a performance at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford,[15][11] and Gilbert contributed sounds, lyrics, and occasional vocals to the various albums, EPs, and singles released by the band between November 1986 and February 1993.[12]
In 1989, Gilbert co-produced the AC Marias album One Of Our Girls (Has Gone Missing), sharing author credits with Angela Conway for 10 original songs (the album also contains a cover version of Canned Heat’s "Time Was", first released in 1988 as a single featuring Conway, Gilbert, Barry Adamson and Rowland S. Howard).[16]
Since the 1990s, Gilbert has appeared at London techno clubs under the name DJ Beekeeper, often deejaying inside a garden shed above the dancefloor.[7] Gilbert has been quoted saying that being a DJ was just an excuse to "manipulate other people's music"[17] - such projects include remixing "National Grid Pt 1 and 2" by the group Disinformation for their double CD Antiphony released on Ash International in 1997.[18]
In March 1996, he released Ab Ovo, his first solo album not to result from external dance or film commissions. It was described in The Wire as "a forceful piece of work which sounds like nothing else around."[19]
Wire reconvened in London for a one-off performance of "Drill" to celebrate Gilbert’s 50th birthday in May 1996,[19] with the band getting back together in earnest after curating and performing at an event at the Royal Festival Hall on February 26, 2000.[20] In 2002, Gilbert contributed the soundtrack to "London Orbital", a film by Chris Petit and Iain Sinclair based on Sinclair’s psychogeographical exploration of the M25 motorway.[21] As part of the project, Gilbert and Wire performed live at the premiere of the film and Sinclair’s book at the Barbican on October 25, 2002.[22] Gilbert left Wire in 2004, after the release of the Send album, pursuing solo projects and collaborations with visual and sound artists ever since.[23]
Gilbert’s 2004 album Ordier is a collection of excerpts from a 1996 live performance.[24] In 2009, Gilbert released Oblivio Agitatum, which he recorded entirely at home.[25] In a review for Brainwashed, music journalist Creaig Dunton concludes that "even with his long silence, Bruce Gilbert is still an expert at shaping mini dramas and landscapes out of the raw clay of electronic music."[26]
Gilbert’s latest recording, "Monad", was published by Touch as a vinyl-only 7-inch single on August 8, 2011.[27][28]
In October 2011, Gilbert’s short story "Sliding Off the World", first released as a spoken-word piece set to atmospheric noise on the CD Touch 25 in June 2006,[29] was published in the anthology Murmurations by Nicholas Royle (Two Ravens Press, ISBN 978-1-906120-59-7).[30]
see Wire discography
Orr, album (1996), Mute (Parallel Series)
"frequency variation", 12" single (1998), Sähkö Recordings
manchesterlondon, album (2000), WMO
The Oval Recording, album + 7" single (2001), Mego