Duet Emmo – Or So It Seems

Too many bad experiences with vinyl re-issues in recent years, especially with colored ones. How is the quality ?

Includes download code for MP3s and 24-bit, 96kHz Flacs. Thank you, Mute.

Very welcome 2022 reissue (based on the new CD): sounds great but then the original 1983 LP was always deep & heavy - & was a noticeably hefty piece of vinyl. Only differences I can detect are tiny patches of instrumentation and shading around the edges of songs. Still stands as one of the most melancholy albums ever put out by any Wire members, with bleak experimental minimalism surrounding elegiac electro-torch songs. Both very 80s - akin to the Leer/Rental collab - and way ahead of its time - you can hear Panasonic here for starters.

"Mute is excited to announce the reissue of Duet Emmo's Or So It Seems on limited edition double white vinyl. Newly remastered by Stefan Betke (aka Pole) from the original tapes. Duet Emmo is the legendary collaboration between Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis (both of Wire and Dome) and Daniel Miller (The Normal and founder/owner of Mute). Or So It Seems was originally released in 1983 and was the act's only release. The result was the perfect amalgamation of Miller's hard-line electronics and Gilbert and Lewis's abstract and sparse textures, exhibiting why the anagrammatic combination of Dome and Mute was a fitting name for this project. The limited edition white vinyl is packaged in a gatefold jacket with original artwork and includes a limited-time high-definition download code."

On 'Hill of Men' Daniel Miller and the Domeheads curiously anticipate the sound of any number of nineties techno projects like Basic Channel and the extended 'Heart of Hearts' 'remix' treatment of the title track that can be found on the B-side of the Or So It Seems 12 Inch Single (and CD Reissue) is another order of visionary all together.
Why this hasn't been given the reissue treatment is absolutely beyond me. Perhaps it's modesty on the part of Daniel Miller, but like any true work of art, it's value can only be truly understood decades later and nearly forty years on, the time for a reassessment of the work of Duet Emmo is seriously overdue.

With these eye-watering prices hopefully someone figures out a vinyl repress since the Wire & Dome ones all went out pretty fast. Mute? Editions Mego? Superior Viaduct? Hopefully someone out there listening...

Consisting of the Dome duo and Daniel Miller, this album pretty much sounds as one might expect it too: eerily dark yet intelligent atmospheres, cold and harsh instrumentation, with frequent pleasures of electronic experimentation (thanks to the inclusion of the Mute Records founder, who's a notorious dabbler in electronic music); it makes sense considering the 'band' name is Dome and Mute spliced together.

At first I was a little disappointed; some tracks seemed rather atypical of Dome's sound, with occasional flare-ups of a more 'new-wavey' edge. But the conclusion I came to in my opinion was a strong, albiet slightly unbalanced, piece of work.

The album has very few vocals, mostly for ambient purposes; the track 'The First Person' is a re-recording of Dome's 'Linasixup' (the latter of which is my preferred version). It contains a number of brief instrumentals reminiscent of, well, Dome's usual, but gives a fine dose of Daniel Miller's involvement, in tracks like 'Heart of Hearts' and the title track.

I don't think it's a perfect album, but it's a genuinely good listen.