Dazzle Ships (album)
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| Dazzle Ships | ||
 |
||
| Studio album by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark | ||
| Released | 1983 | |
| Recorded | 1982 | |
| Genre | Electronica | |
| Length | 34:43 | |
| Label | Telegraph (Virgin) | |
| Producer(s) | Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Rhett Davies | |
| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
| Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark chronology | ||
| Architecture & Morality (1981) |
Dazzle Ships (1983) |
Junk Culture (1984) |
Dazzle Ships is an album by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, released in 1983.
The title and cover art (designed by Peter Saville) alluded to a painting by vorticist artist Edward Wadsworth based on dazzle camouflage.
The album was the follow-up release to the band's hugely successful Architecture and Morality. In contrast with its celebrated predecessor, Dazzle Ships met with a degree of critical and commercial hostility, due to the inaccessible nature of some of the material it contained, particularly musique concrete sound collages, utilising shortwave radio recordings to explore cold war and eastern bloc themes. However the album did also contain conventional pop songs (both up-tempo numbers, and ballads). Two singles were released from it, "Genetic Engineering" and "Telegraph", which achieved moderate chart success.
In terms of instrumentation, Dazzle Ships saw the band begin to explore digital sampling keyboards (the Emu emulator) in addition to their continued use of analogue synthesizers and the mellotron.
The bands former record company, the independent DinDisc label, had recently ceased trading, and so the bands contract was transferred to DinDisc's parent company, Virgin Records. However, in order to maintain the image of being signed to an "indie" label, the record sleeve proported that the album was released by the fictitious "Telegraph" label.
[edit] Track listing
- "Radio Prague" – 1:18
- "Genetic Engineering" – 3:37
- "ABC Auto Industry" – 2:06
- "Telegraph" – 2:57
- "This Is Helena" – 1:58
- "International" – 4:25
- "Dazzle Ships (Parts II, III & VII)" – 2:21
- "The Romance Of The Telescope" – 3:27
- "Silent Running" – 3:34
- "Radio Waves" – 3:45
- "Time Zones" – 1:49
- "Of All The Things We've Made" – 3:27
[edit] Singles
Genetic Engineering
- 7": Telegraph VS 527
- "Genetic Engineering" – 3:37
- "4-Neu" – 3:33
- 12": Telegraph VS 527-12
- "Genetic Engineering (312mm Version)" – 5:18
- "4-Neu" – 3:33
Telegraph
- 7": Telegraph VS 580
- "Telegraph" – 2:57
- "66-And Fading" – 6:40
- 12": Telegraph VSY 580-12
- "Telegraph (Extended Version)" – 5:53
- "66-And Fading" – 6:30
[edit] Notes
Both the 7"'s of Genetic Engineering and Telegraph were released as 7" Picture Discs.
Dazzle Ships was released on 12", Cassette and Cd, all had differing artwork.
