OMD: Bauhaus Staircase – UK – CD5 [2023]

1. Bauhaus Staircase (Album Version)
2. Don’t Go (Album Version)
3. The Rock Drill
4. Bauhaus Staircase (Extended Mix)
5. Bauhaus Staircase (Stealing Sheep Remix)

We received the physical copy of this latest OMD single we sagely pre-ordered months ago some three weeks ago. But the personal schedule has seen precious little lunch hours for blogging in the last month; leaving us until now to weigh in on its deliverables. With OMD singles still hanging on to the notion of physical release, I was able to divert the necessary funds in this time of slim music budget to snag the apple of my eye; the almighty CD single! What’s it like?

First of all, the initial two tracks are straight from the album, which arrived a little in advance of the single, and we’ll be digging into that starting tomorrow. We already approve of “Bauhaus Staircase” and “Don’t Go” was a known quantity as the 40th single on the “Souvenir” compilation/BSOG. So let’s jump right to the non-LP B-side, “Rock Drill,” and get started.

The context of “The Rock Drill” went back to artist Jacob Epstein’s Futurist exploration of the oncoming Machine Age originally made in the 1913 period. Epstein had mounted his almost robotic figure on an actual rock drill to suggest the man-machine [sound familiar?] era at hand with a then-breathless optimism. Then World War I happened and blew the scales from Epstein’s eyes. He radically changed the piece after seeing the industrial ethos applied to the wholesale destruction of the war to end all wars. Of his piece shown here he famously said:

“Here is the armed, sinister figure of today and tomorrow. No Humanity, only the terrible Frankenstein’s monster we have made ourselves into… later I lost my interest in machinery and discarded the drill. I cast only the upper part of the figure.”

OMD certainly knew how to interpret this into song. Beginning with pastoral Mellotron samples, the first sign that all is not well are the random metallic sounds poking through the soundfield before the peace is shattered by harsh, grinding noise, ripping the peace asunder. This is not the reserved exploration of industrial noise that can be found on the title track to “Architecture + Mortality.” This sounds like an attack of jackhammers and then, startlingly, the beat began to cut through the miasma of sound with Cossack rhythms that the other noises began to syncopate with.

Then the band delivered the coup de grace; the Speak and Spell samples from “Genetic Engineering” were deployed here as soundbites that carried through to Epstein’s sentiments already expressed above. That they did not use the “Frankenstein’s monster” sample from “ABC Auto Industry” showed awesome restraint. Instead a robovoice declaring “powerrrrrrrr” interjected at certain intervals in the rhythm. The climax had the track breaking down into hellish Industrial Glitch with a horrific clanking rhythm having the last word as the din dropped out of the track. “The Rock Drill” represented OMD at their most left-field and challenging and…I wish it were 6:55 instead of 1:55 in length. Hear for yourself.

The band’s 12″ extended version of “Bauhaus Staircase” began with a pulsating synth loop not unlike the one at the beginning of “Kids In America” before the wailing leads descended from above. The rhythm was slightly re-jigged and a few bars of vamping were in evidence before the recognized beginning of the song happened at the one minute mark. After the middle eight there were extended bars of synth loops and percussion where my favorite “Pere Ube And The Modern Dance” vocal dub hook got even more pay and emphasis on the 12″ mix. Yes, please! These guys seem to really know what makes me tick.

The Stealing Sheep remix, however, was one of the weakest OMD remixes Ive heard in the band’s Reformation Period. Sure, sure. It was miles better than the Micronauts remix of “Electricity,” but so’s a root canal… even without anesthesia! Strangulated, chopped samples of McCluskey’s vocals were employed in an annoying abstract manner that specifically kept the song’s melody from flowing even an inch. The rest of the mix was best described as a dub samba construction that had none of the factors that made the song attractive to me. I can’t believe that Stealing Sheep had the temerity to loop the line “don’t you ever waste this moment” three times in a row as if to salt my wounds.

I’ve not heard some of the plethora of remixes from “History Of Modern”,” but thus far, Stealing Sheep take the cake for the worst of the modern OMD remixes. And I’d been doing so well with remixes since 2010. This latest OMD remix was a flashback the the horror of the 90s for these aged ears. Ultimately, the three tracks here not included on the “Bauhaus Staircase” album, “The Rock Drill” was a must have, and the band’s own remix of the title track is actually my go-to version of the song. Showing, as Meatloaf suggested, that two out of three ain’t bad.

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