Perhaps it's time for a re-evaluation of the android Gary Numan and his oeuvre? Help is at hand with this release featuring three sessions forming 'The Complete John Peel Sessions' - the first session preceded the release of 'Replicas' by three months back in 1979 (remember The Tubeway Army cover with Numan dressed in black with bleached hair in front of a stark window and single light bulb), then a second session some four months later, and the final session at Mr Peel's insistence from 2001 to promote the 'Pure' album.
First session's 'Me I Disconnect From You' has glam-rock riffs and squeaky synth lines appeal from January 1979 sounding every bit the Goldfrapp precursor, and 'Down In The Park' allows that eerie voice to take centre stage amidst synth motifs and bass "...I was in a car-crash/ or was it the wall..." sounding like a one-man Kraftwerk, and 'I Nearly Married A Human' is arranged on tinny beats and electronic minimalism like a Joy Division navel-gazer that's in safe hands, or even the uber-uncool A Flock Of Seagulls.
The hit 'Cars' lights the second session with a track that heralded the glorious future has arrived - a work of imagination and ballsiness that's never lost its credibility, and here it comes with a bassy warble that'd work the club scene,and a hardworking drummer keeping things tight to the groovy keys. The light aircraft tune 'Airlane' with sequencer and prog-rock influences is followed by 'Films' sounding like a contemporary dance hall track way ahead of the league, Gary with the lines "I don't like the film/ so pay it all back..." and its disgruntled narrative and experimental edge. Numan explores identity on 'Conversation' with lines "...we are not Gods/ and we are not men...there are no faces/ this is my complex..." like a Basement Jaxx ditty somewhat long.
'RIP' paves the way for the dark heart 'Pure' album session with hushed sinister vocal and a subterranean world of the undead locked in some nether-world, such is the darkness of the track "...I rip the skin from God's face..." and lots of low frequencies forming a wall of noise, 'Metal' has an early Numan openness of sound with the synth and bass competing for prominence, 'I Can't Breathe' and title track 'Pure' have a noise-core dirge with chugging bass menace one for our perennially dressed in black friends - "...I want to be your animal...this is what you want to sacrifice...". 'My Jesus' has the Massive Attackesque bass heavy sequencing with chopping production-line riffs and sonic splurges like a grungy-metal-techno-hybrid-monster, and 'Down In The Park' and 'Cars' are re-visited, the former with grungy riffs pinning down the electro-doodle, the latter with a techno-ed-up analogue 4 / 4 separating the meat from the gristle on a track with muscle. 'Listen To My Voice' forms a stand-out with a sweetish dark chorus - "...send black angels/ for you..." a track with grip amidst telegraph wire buzz and driving stomp-guitars, and 'A Prayer For The Unborn' closes with an epical rendition.
An influential bunny and pilot who has shaped the sounds of Afrika Bambaataa, The Foo Fighters, Basement Jaxx and Marilyn Mansun and gave the cutesy Sugababes a smash hit with their nabbing of 'Our Friends Electric', Numan's influence has breadth beyond the skies. A pioneering sonic explorer of synth-rock marrying synthesisers and metal chords, this is no window dressed release but the definitive article from an artist and band at the leading edge of electronic and metal crossover.
