from the LP The Golden Age of Wireless, Harvest Records, 1982It’s currently snowing like a son of a bitch outside, which always tends to steer my head into darkwave or new wave territory, the steely synthesizers and Cold War themes transforming the greyish white precipitation into a mock nuclear winter; this particular number tells the tale of a Soviet submarine attempting to defect, “…one more night, the Winter Boys are freezing in their spam tin; the Baltic moon, along the northern seaboard, and down below the Winter Boys are waiting for the storm….bye bye empire, empire bye bye; shallow water, channel and tide….one of our submarines is missing tonight, seems she ran aground on manoeuveres, one of our submarines…” Thomas Dolby is mostly remembered for his quirky hit “She Blinded Me With Science”, but his session work on the keys is just as impressive, as he can be heard playing on Def Leppard’s Pyromania, the Thompson Twins’ Set, and more comically, on Foreigner’s butt-rockin’ anthem “Urgent”. I prefer his solo work, where he was able to focus on the more electronic side of his nature, as is evidenced in this track, full of cracks, blips & beeps to help lead those Winter Boys to safety; thanks to Shannie for this one.
