Wind & Wuthering

Untitled

Wind & Wuthering is the eighth album by British progressive rock band Genesis, officially released in the first week of 1977, though it was rush-released a week earlier in the United States.

Overview

Wind & Wuthering was released within a year of the band's previous studio effort, the popular A Trick of the Tail. While the album was recorded during a creatively fertile period following original vocalist Peter Gabriel's departure, its recording sessions brought to a head tensions resulting from guitarist Steve Hackett's frustrations that his writing contributions weren't being accepted fully by the band. Following the tour for this album, Hackett quit Genesis for a solo career in mid-1977.

Another hit seller, Wind & Wuthering reached #7 in the UK and #26 in the US, where the band's popularity was still building and where the emotive "Your Own Special Way" gained FM airplay. This set also features "Afterglow," which would become one of Genesis's signature live songs.

The album's title derives itself from two pieces: The "Wind" comes from "The House of the Four Winds", the title given by Hackett to a piece that later became the quiet bridge for "Eleventh Earl of Mar"; the "Wuthering" alludes to the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. The titles of tracks 7 and 8 are derived from the novel's closing sentence: "I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

Many fans of Collins-era Genesis consider Wind & Wuthering a masterpiece of the era. With high sound quality, and the musicianship to match the complexity of their song structures (missing in some earlier forays), both Wind & Wuthering and A Trick of the Tail—along with 1973's Selling England by the Pound—show Genesis as at its technical best and in a period of creative fertility. Synthesizers and atmospheric strings abound, as well as the quiet virtuosity of classical guitar in Steve Hackett's long-form introduction to "Blood on the Rooftops."

A digitally remastered version was released on CD in 1994 on Virgin in Europe and Atco/Atlantic in the US and Canada. The remastered CD had all of the album art restored and all of the lyrics printed (whereas were missing on the original CD).

A SACD / DVD double disc set (including new 5.1 and Stereo mixes) is planned for release on April 2, 2007 (although it will be a CD / DVD double disc set for the US and Canada).

Production Analysis

The production of Wind differs starkly from that of Trick. Tony Banks's keyboards—particularly the Mellotron—are bathed in much more reverb and sound much smoother on Wind than on Trick. Additionally, while on Trick live background vocals were limited to the songs "Mad Man Moon" and "A Trick Of The Tail," on Wind background vocals are much more prevalent. While Trick used copious quantities of dramatic Mellotron choir, Banks never uses the vocal ensemble Mellotron tape set on Wind (except for a brief passage on "All In A Mouses Night"). Instead, live background vocals are substituted (particularly in the closing track, "Afterglow"). Moving away from Banks' keyboards, Steve Hackett's guitar finds much less use on Wind than on Trick, and where it is used, it is sometimes hard to discern from the synthesizers. Collins' vocals are still mostly difficult to discern without the lyrics, but in the song "One For The Vine," the heavily-chorused, treble-heavy effect used with wild abandon in the 1980s upon Collins' voice makes its debut on the chorus, contrasting considerably against the soft and pensive vocal style in the majority of the song. Overall, the highly-produced sound of Wind is a departure from the more open, immediate composition of Trick. The production quality of Collins' drumming suffers somewhat from the glossy, atmospheric production: The drum set sounds somewhat thin and tinny compared with the drums on Trick. This is more perhaps because of the smoother sonic character of Wind than because of an actual difference in quality. Finally, the warm bass tones in Trick have migrated over to Wind, though with a slightly more icy and precise timbre.

A Detailed Description

Eleventh Earl of Mar opens the album in dramatic form, providing what many consider one of classic Genesis's most enduring recordings. The song combines mythological, lyrical themes with an orchestrally-intense yet unstable song form which eventually settles to a quiet acoustic bridge, only to forcefully climax. The song refers to John Erskine, the Earl of Mar. Mar was a major figure in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715/1716. Owing to the complex history of the earldom, Erskine is counted as the 6th, 11th, and/or 22nd Earl of Mar, depending upon how one perceives the matter.

From here the album moves to a quieter mood, providing lyrical social commentary on messiahdom with One for the Vine, another song which became an instant classic to fans. The cyclical storyline is indeed brilliant, as is the highly-animated instrumental section in the middle of the song.

Following is what some consider a significant inclusion in the album, the pop-oriented ballad Your Own Special Way, a song that served as an indication of the direction in which the band would later head.

Next is the vibrant and animated Wot Gorilla?, which mischievously borrows a nine-note sequence found in the middle section of One for the Vine, is an instrumental that has never been counted among Genesis's finest.

The following selection, All In A Mouse's Night, serves as a counterpart to "Robbery, Assault and Battery" on the previous release: Not only are both songs in the same track position, both recall the dark humor of former band member Peter Gabriel. However, on Wind, "Mouse" accomplishes this in a much more serious tone.

After this song is the deep and passionate Blood On The Rooftops, a song about the feeling of alienation and hopelessness brought by television. Its sad and cynical lyrics gather images that range from the weather forecast to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The use of the Mellotron on this track demonstrates Banks' supreme prowess on keyboards, while Hackett's classical guitar playing lends a wistful sadness throughout the song.

Ending the album is a three-track masterpiece, formed from two instrumentals— Unquiet Slumbers For The Sleepers... and ...In That Quiet Earth—and the haunting, atmospheric Afterglow. The album fades out in a wash of ethereal, lush, layered vocals, backed by perfectly-selected instrumentation from the band members.

Analysis and Conclusion

While Wind & Wuthering is certainly more atmospheric, moody, and introspective than its predecessor, and though it does have occasional weak moments ("Your Own Special Way", "Wot Gorilla?"), the sad, orchestral structure of the album is considered by many to be its greatest strength. While much of the album has a somber tone, Wind & Wuthering still maintains some of the dry humor of its predecessors. The song "All in a Mouse's Night", a complex, almost orchestral piece of synthetic clockwork in mock-heroic style, describes a night's adventure from the mouse's viewpoint. The "narrator" in the song later shifts to the cat's perspective, who fails to catch the mouse when a jar falls on him from a shelf. The cat is seemingly trying to explain away his failure with an exaggeration ("There I was with my back to the wall/then comes this monster mouse, he's ten feet tall!"). Even this song, by virtue of its references to the cold, wintry night on which it is set, compliments the overall mood of the album as one of brumal and autumnal themes.

Feeling at once like a culmination as well as the end of an era, Wind & Wuthering is an album of maturity, and as the cover art seems to show, is it is full of autumnal and wintery themes ("Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers..."), and is lyrically both darker and more quiet than the albums which preceded it (as shown, for example, in the darker political commentary of songs like "One for the Vine" and "Blood on the Rooftops," the latter of which mentions the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). Ending with the multi-layered harmonies of the ballad "Afterglow" (a song which would provide the quiet moment of many Genesis concerts for years to come)—while nowhere near as varied as A Trick of the Tail—Wind & Wuthering indicates a highpoint of artistic craftsmanship, which the band would have to regain after its less ambitious work on ...And Then There Were Three..., which was released the following year. Some argue that, though respectable in its own right, the 1980 release Duke already revealed the band's rapid departure from the lush, orchestral brand of progressive rock that it had produced in the 1970s—those who support this argument cite Wind & Wuthering, along with A Trick Of The Tail, as the highpoint of Collins-era Genesis.

Track listing

1. "Eleventh Earl of Mar" (Tony Banks/Steve Hackett/Mike Rutherford) – 7:41
2. "One for the Vine" (Tony Banks) – 10:00
3. "Your Own Special Way" (Mike Rutherford) – 6:19
4. "Wot Gorilla?" (Tony Banks/Phil Collins) – 3:20
5. "All in a Mouse's Night" (Tony Banks) – 6:37
6. "Blood on the Rooftops" (Phil Collins/Steve Hackett) – 5:27
7. "Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers..." (Steve Hackett/Mike Rutherford) – 2:23
8. "...In That Quiet Earth" (Tony Banks/Phil Collins/Steve Hackett/Mike Rutherford) – 4:50
9. "Afterglow" (Tony Banks) – 4:12

2007 SACD/DVD Remaster

• Disc 1 is a hybrid SACD/CD with a multi-channel SACD layer.
• Disc 2 is a DVD which includes "Wind & Wuthering" in DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM Stereo plus bonus material

1. Reissues Interview 2007
2. US Television - Bootleg video 1977
3. Japanese Television - Bootleg video 1977
4. World Tour Programme 1977 (13 page gallery)

Personnel

• Phil Collins – drums, percussion, vocals
• Steve Hackett – guitars, kalimba, autoharp
• Tony Banks – keyboards
• Mike Rutherford – basses, guitars, bass pedals