In the late '80s, Wire vocalist Colin Newman recorded two masterpieces of refined electronic pop for Crammed. They both contained  excentric lyrics in the purest Newmanian tradition, and surprising arrangements for chamber music ensemble (strings, woodwinds, brass), orchestrated by Irish composer John Bonnar (who has worked with Brian Eno and Dead Can Dance). The other two members of the team which worked on these two albums are sound engineer Gilles Martin, and Minimal Compact bassist/vocalist Malka Spigel.

From the press on Commercial Suicide and It Seems:

“File under Genius, mad” (Sounds, UK, ‘87)

“One of the few Englishmen to whom I would give carte blanche to make pop.” (Melody Maker, UK, ‘87)

“You can place ‘Commercial Suicide’ alongside Robert Wyatt’s ‘Rock Bottom’ or Syd Barrett’s ‘The Madcap Laughs’ in your record collection... just like these elders, Colin Newman is an excentric, in the better sense of the term” (Rock & Folk, France, ‘86)

“Insidiously powerful” (Record Mirror, UK, ‘87)

“If Colin Newman isn’t careful he’ll soon find himself horribly close to becoming popular” (Q, UK, ‘86)

“He’s one of these tightrope walkers who throw narrow bridges between pop music and so-called ‘new music’: experimental, neo-classical, minimalism. Music with strange angles, biased perspectives... one thinks of paintings by Tanguy where mineral ectoplasms float in empty landcsapes” (Libération, France, ‘86)