Paul Haig

Latter-day fans of Josef K who discovered the group and their leader, Paul Haig, through the neo-Brit-pop bands that take the Scottish indie stalwarts as one of their main starting points (we're looking at you, Franz Ferdinand) may be the target audience for this reissue of Haig's solo album Chain, but be warned: Chain was originally released in 1989. In other words, there is almost none of the shambolic guitar pop that made Josef K's name here, because like the majority of Haig's solo material, this is synthesizer-based dance music. Because it came out in 1989, the year of Madchester and the much-vaunted Return of the Summer of Love, one might expect that Chain is the sort of jump into Hacienda-style acid house beats in the manner of the albums that compatriots like New Order, the Style Council, and even former freakbeat-revivalists merchants the Times recorded around the same time. Sadly, however, Chain isn't even particularly interesting as an example of bandwagon jumping, because it largely consists of pretty much exactly the sort of mechanical, bass-driven synth-dance pop that was Haig's musical mainstay starting with the 1982 single "Blue for You." Produced by the Associates' Alan Rankine, who also played and programmed many of the instruments, the album also includes "Chained," a track penned by Rankine's partner Billy Mackenzie that sounds like an outtake from one of the Associates' later albums. There's a small handful of worthwhile tracks, most notably the piano driven "Swinging for You," and the quietly anthemic album closer "Ideal of Living," but for the most part, Chain is primarily of interest only to diehards. [The 2008 Cherry Red reissue adds five previously unreleased tracks, including remixes of "Something Good" and "Ideal of Living" that had been planned for a scrapped 10" single.] ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide