WAH WAH ALBUM REVIEWS 1

The Independent 14.7.94 by Joseph Gallivan

If "Goal Goal Goal", the new-laddy rewrite of James's (right) lovely song "Low Low Low", has whetted your appetite for their alternative side, plan ahead for the moment next month when they launch an album called Wah Wah. This thoroughly Other piece of work (their second album in nine months) is a companion piece to Laid, and came about at the suggestion of producer Brian Eno. Reports vary, but the gist is that he wanted the cutting room floor to be ankle deep in discarded jams and rock postures, so he could keep the best stuff for Laid. Let the increasingly acclaimed lads get it out of their systems. The title was to be Frequency Dip, which bears the mark of the boffin, but has recently been changed to the more rock `n' roll Wah Wah. The disc itself will be in the shops for a week, from 29 August, and thereafter will only be available on mail order. This is so as not to confuse the Americans, who may have largely been unaffected by having Suede, Primal Scream and Blur thrust at them, but think James are the genuine article.

But what does it sound like? Well, it's mainly electronic, and features lead singer Tim Booth experimenting with freely associative lyrics in a falsetto voice. A little bit of confusion is good for us all.

Wah Wah is out on Fontana, 29 August 

NME 9.94 by Emma Forrest 7/10

That James were only one of three British bands to be invited to play at Woodstock II and, even better, that they boasted about it, shows pretty much where they stand. James are dull, worthy indie rock with a capital I who metamorphosised into the stadium band from hell at the bat of America's overly made-up eyelash.

'Wah Wah', released for one budget-priced week, is intended as the alternative companion to their last album 'Laid'. Apparently spurred on by Brian Eno, they put on tape the jamming racket that no-one but them would ever hear. Which, on paper, ranks as a bad idea on a par with Twix ice-cream.

In practice, however, it works quite well. They've released the only album they could get away with after receiving such a critical kicking for 'Laid'; an album of complete unmitigated noodling; drum machines and flute loops and George Harrison-esque vaguely oriental instrumentals; murmurs and half-truths and mock sloganeering.

And for once it's not an album about Tim Booth. Or if it is, at least you can't tell.

In the same vein as U2's 'Zooropa' - but less contrived - 'Wah Wah' trades in psychobabble instead of self-conscious media-babble. There are a few dire Booth-isms ("Love's at the heart of everything / Let love be your goal" - Pressure's On) but without the middle of the road folky twiddlings to add injury to insult, it's somehow more bearable. It's an ambient album, with something to hook onto - moving wallpaper in the nicest possible sense. It's one of the few genuinely engaging dance albums around.

Just forget it's a James album. They have.

Q Magazine 9.94 by Mat Snow 2*

Under no circumstances to be confused with a James album proper, Wah Wah offers an insight into the creative processes of both the band itself and sonic auteur Brian Eno, who produced their last album, Laid.

Wah Wah does not consist of 1993's outtakes but rather jams undertaken on Eno's orders to keep the Mancunian left-fielders occupied while he sprinkled his fairydust on the Laid tracks. Like all such jams, the band perm grooves, riffs, chants, licks and lyrical snatches in various stages of dress but still too naked to leave the house. Though no more than four tracks (especially Tomorrow and Jam J) out of a whopping 23 are anything like individually satisfactory, each is pregnant with a certain possibility, suggesting fully-fledged James tunes to come. Meanwhile, buffed up with Brian Eno's signature opiated industrial dance sound and accumulating in mood over an hour, they total an intriguingly unfocused ambient experience.