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OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark): Dazzle Ships

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Virgin Records
Released: 1983.06.24
Time:
 34:50
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): Rhett Davies and OMD
Rating: ******.... (6/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.omd.uk.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 1999.10.13
Price in €: 5,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Radio Prague (Floyd/OMD) - 1:18
[2] Genetic Engineering (OMD) - 3:42
[3] ABC Auto-Industry (OMD) - 2:06
[4] Telegraph (OMD) - 2:57
[5] This Is Helena (OMD) - 1:58
[6] International (OMD) - 4:26
[7] Dazzle Ships [Parts II, III, VII] (OMD) - 2:21
[8] Romance of the Telescope (OMD) - 3:26
[9] Silent Running (OMD) - 3:33
[10] Radio Waves (OMD) - 3:44
[11] Time Zones (OMD) - 1:49
[12] Of All the Things We've Made (OMD) - 3:23

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


PAUL HUMPHREY - Percussion, Keyboards, Vocals, Arranger, Engineer
ANDY MCCLUSKEY - Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals, Arranger, Engineer

MAUREEN HUMPHREYS - Additional Vocals

ARUN CHAKRAVERTY - Mastering
M.H. COOPER
RHETT DAVIES - Engineer
TONY LAWRENCE - Engineer
IAN LITTLE - Engineer
BRIAN TENCH - Engineer
PAUL WARD - Engineer
DIRK HOHMEYER - Engineer
JEAN-MICHEL REUSSER - Engineer
MIKE STARK - Engineer
ANDY DUNKLEY - Engineer
KEITH RICHARD NIXON - Engineer
SUE SAWYER - Engineer
M. GARRETT - Designers
K. KENNEDY - Designers
P. PENNINGTON - Designers
P. SAVILLE - Designers
B. WICKENS - Designers

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Pre-recorded at The Gramophone Suite, Liverpool, Gallery Studio and Mayfair Studio.

Dazzle Ships reached No. 5 in the UK charts.

Radio Prague is a radio recording from the Czechoslovakian radio station Radio Prague. Genetic Engineering was the first single released from the album. ABC Auto-Industry features a recording from Czechoslovakian radio, actually by a presenter called Vladimir who presented a weekly economic talk on Radio Prague. The theme was the use of robots in Czechoslovakian industry. The 'ABC' and '123' are by Paul Humphreys. Telegraph was the second single released from the album but had originally been considered as the first release. This Is Helena uses a recorded broadcast by a presenter from Radio Prague. International was originally a much more specific song about international politics. It was to have featured a lot more radio samples. The theme was to have reflected Andy's distaste at the time for the stupid things done by different countries due to differing political attitudes. The opening radio intro is the only remnant of that original idea. "I think that countries are a very inefficient way of organising the world" Andy (1983) Dazzle Ships (Parts II, III and VII) was a sound collage designed to give the impression of ships in war. Most of the sound effects of ships and submarines were taken from a company that specialises in film soundtracks. The break in the middle, punctuated by a lone bass sound is actually Andy saying "Blue" but the sound has been fed into an Emulator. The Romance Of The Telescope and Of All The Things We've Made were 'rescued' as the band considered them too good to leave as B-Sides. The Romance Of The Telescope had been remixed from the original recording. Silent Running was originally called Walking On Air. It takes its title from the science fiction film Silent Running (1971) which starred Bruce Dern. The film dealt with a fleet of spaceships preserving the last remaining forests of Earth and deals with Bruce Dern's actions when the order comes through to destroy them. The song itself has nothing to do with the theme of the film but the band simply liked the title. Radio Waves is a reworked version of an early song by The Id, hence the credit for former Id member John Floyd who wrote some of the lyrics. The opening intro is actually a short wave radio digitally scanning radio frequencies. Radio Waves was considered as a possible single.

Time Zones uses a collection of telephone 'speaking clocks' from around the world. Peter Saville had seen the painting 'Dazzle Ships In Drydock At Liverpool'(1919) by the painter Edward Wadsworth and was struck by the image. Dazzle Ships were World War 1 warships that had been painted in fractured and disjointed lines to confuse the enemy as to their exact size and distance. Wadsworth himself supervised the dazzle painting of many ships. After suggesting the idea and title to Andy, Saville carried the theme over to the sleeve design. This brought back the die-cut ideas used on previous albums with three holes revealing the inner sleeve. The surprise here was that the sleeve was a gatefold. The inside sleeve featured a map of the world with a series of dots that revealed the inner sleeve. This featured a yellow triangle against a pink background with a pink triangle against a yellow background on the reverse. Although OMD had now switched to parent company Virgin following the collapse of the DinDisc subsidary, there was a general feeling that OMD might benefit from appearing to maintain an independent position. This led to Dazzle Ships (and the subsequent singles) being issued on the Telegraph label although Telegraph was not an actual subsidary label in itself.

Also released as:
JAP: (VIL6040) LP
USA: (BFE38543) LP



With Dazzle Ships , OMD push their sonic boundaries to the extreme, incorporating found sounds, studio effects and altered tapes in attempt to create a concept album about the history of technology. Despite their efforts, the end result isn't very captivating since the group concentrated on texture, not songs, but some of those sounds are well worth investigating.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide



Long after the offices have closed down for the evening, two computers sit in their own private little room, so white and sterile, completely isolated from the world at large. Checking his internal circuits for any hint of anomaly or electronic damage, the first computer sends a brief message by wire to his identical roommate..."boy, I'll tell ya...my users sure left me with a tough assignment to work on tonight. I'm supposed to come up with an answer to the world's economic problems by 0600 hours tomorrow." "You think you've got it bad," states the second computer, "well, you ought to give my assignment a shot." As the first computer stares in what might be termed a look of puzzlement, she continues..."my users have programmed me with the entire history of popular music, from Chuck Berry to Adam Ant, and I'm supposed to assimilate all of this information into a creation of artistic merit." "But," the first computer questions, "computers aren't sentient, rational beings ...we can t create art! They tried that with those Kraftwerk fellows, and the Munich Machine...the poor fellow." "I know," she says, "that's the bad part..." And such is the fate of Dazzle Ships, the new album from the folks at Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. They've managed to create a piece of work so sterile, so devoid of passion or soul that one has to wonder if some computer didn't spit this out and term it "art." For genetic mutants, hi-tech engineers or the few remaining electronic acid casualties only; Dazzle Ships illustrates the absurdity and uselessness of the worst techno-pop.

Keith Gordon - Nov 08, 1982
College Media Inc. - CMJ New Music Report Issue: 4
 

 L y r i c s


RADIO PRAGUE

Unde Praha, Cheskoslovenske Zahranichne Rysivanie.


GENETIC ENGINEERING

Efficiant, logical, effective, and practical.
Using all resorces to the best of our ability.
Changing, designing, adapting our mentalities.
Improving our abilities for a better way of life.

CHORUS:
Babies. Mother. Hospital. Scissors.
Creature. Judgement. Butcher. Engineer.

These are the little children, the future in our hands.
When all God's children on this Earth inherit all our plans.
These are the lies they tell us. But this is the only way.
When all God's children on the Earth will evermore be saved.

REPEAT CHORUS (2x)

These are the little children, the future in our hands.
When all God's children on this Earth inherit all our plans.
These are the lies they tell us. The future's good as sold.
In all the things we do and know, we really must be told.


ABC AUTO INDUSTRY

ABC...
1, 2, 3...

Robotics, a science tried in some factories.
Function and Adaptability, it’s own terminology.
Auto industry production, economic development.
Engineering technology. Robotics, a science.

Frankenstein’s Monster... (13x)


TELEGRAPH

CHORUS:
I’ve got a telegraph in my hand.
Words on paper, written in sand.

We’ve got telegraph, right across this land.
It doesn’t mean a damn thing.
We don’t understand.
But who needs telegraph anyway?

REPEAT CHORUS

We’ve got telegraph, right across this land.
It doesn’t mean a damn thing.
We don’t understand, we never understand!

God’s got a telegraph nn his side.
It makes Him powerful, gives Him pride.
Even in America, God bless America!
They understand the value of the telegraph.
Hand in hand, hand in hand...


THIS IS HELENA

Music for your tape recorder.
I hope you will enjoy it.
Extra, extra...
This is Helena, this is Helena.
Extra, extra...
This is Helena, your M.C. today.


INTERNATIONAL

The youth and the Imperialist Tribune was also addressed by a young girl
from Nicaragua whose hands had been cut off at the wrists by the former
Samosa guards.
Veronica Merco, of the German Federal Republic, had this to say:

Aber ich habe eine Ausbildung gemacht
ak Industrie Kaufmann und... ??

I’m a shop assistant at the... ??
and I must say I’m a shop assistant by profession,
but it is difficult for.... ??

Now and then a little thing gets by.
Now and then we’ll cry.

Like a fall in a war, like a mother’s open arms.
Like a pawn in a game, hard to take.
There we sit on a line, wasting fortunes at a time, and pray.

All the time we are gone, there’s no reason, there’s no way.
Oh, the soul is the one so they say.
There we sit on a line, wasting fortunes at a time, and play.

She never thought he’d be this way.
Her arms aloft, she holds.
But now it’s all a memory.
And it’s gone...


DAZZLE SHIPS

Instrumental


ROMANCE OF THE TELESCOPE

See these arms that were broken, how they held you so.
Never once did they fail you, they won’t let you go.

We’re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there’d be answers, if we stayed around.

Over decades, now this romance has sustained us all.
Never questioned, only giving what it made us for.


SILENT RUNNING

God only knows this isn’t heaven.
The promises made, we never keep them.

CHORUS:
We’re walking on air, we’re taking our time.
But God only knows this isn’t reason or rhyme.

I’ve had this feeling I don’t believe in.
It’s happened before, I just reject it.

REPEAT CHORUS

These are the feelings, I know their outcome.
It’s useless pretending, I’d like to beat them.

REPEAT CHORUS

We’re walking on air, we’re taking our time, this time.
But God only knows, this isn’t reason or rhyme.

We’re walking on air...


RADIO WAVES

From the transmitter, to the receiver.
Across the ether, out of your speaker.

CHORUS:
Radio waves have life! Radio waves have life!
Machines are living too, they’re working for me and you!

From the transmitter, to the receiver.
Across the ether, out of your speaker.
To the Baltic Fleet and Atlantic Fleet.
Faster than the breeze over stormy seas.

REPEAT CHORUS (2)

Through America to Albania.
Over Reagan’s head, under Moscow’s bed.
To the Warsaw Pact and the NATO Pact.
Down this cul de sac, never turning back.

REPEAT CHORUS


TIME ZONES

Instrumrntal


OF ALL THE THINGS WE'VE MADE

CHORUS:
To want this.
Of everything we’ve made.
The times it’s worked before.

Of all the things we’ve said.
Times that worked before today.

REPEAT CHORUS

Of all the things we’ve said.
They've always worked before today.

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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