4AD: The First Five Years

In 1979, two employees at London indie label Beggars Banquet were given the opportunity to start a sub-label project called Axis Records. The main point of Axis was to be a bit of a “farm team” for Beggars, giving smaller bands the opportunity to release records into the market to see if they would be a good fit for Beggars’ larger distribution and promotional efforts. The employees—Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent—were exceedingly non-commercial in their leanings, with a preference for dark and weird post-punk, and the first Axis releases were rough, raw, and highly idiosyncratic.

In April 1980, after being called out by another label named Axis, Kent and Watts-Russell changed the name of their label to 4AD (a truncation of “Forward”) and, by year’s end, had bought out its rights from Beggars, launching as a (somewhat) self-sufficient indie label with a very defined aesthetic. Watts-Russell would buy Kent’s share of 4AD in 1981, and, along with art director Vaughan Oliver, was the primary definer of the 4AD aesthetic, which, over the course of the ‘80s, evolved dramatically. Early releases hewed closely to the arch and artsy post-punk that dominated the grimy London underground scene of the era, while just a few years later—thanks to sounds and album art presentations that were as abstract and artful as they were anti-commercial—the label seemed to be delivering missives from an astral plane. By the decade’s end, 4AD had seemingly become the paradigm of an indie label: highly curated, creatively independent, and successful enough to operate on its own terms. And while that success continued (and expanded) into the ‘90s and beyond, the purity of its vision—and the way that that vision reflected the creative ethos of Watts-Russell—was at its most potent in the ‘80s. In this Panorama, we look at some of the many highlights from 4AD’s first half decade.

The first release by Watts-Russell and Kent was actually under the Axis banner, a single by the Fast Set; “Junction One” is a spare and moody bit of synth-pop that, without its historical importance, would probably be long forgotten. The same cannot be said of the third Axis release (which would eventually gain its own 4AD catalog number), “Dark Entries” by Bauhaus. Although the song was featured in a demo version on the “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” single a few months earlier, this release proved that the Northampton goth band was more than a novelty act; it also showed that Watts-Russell and Kent had canny instincts, swiping Bauhaus from the even tinier Small Wonder label. By the end of the year, 4AD would release Bauhaus’s debut full-length album, In The Flat Field, which incredibly did not include “Dark Entries” but made its own mark with other goth classics like “Stigmata Martyr” and the title cut.

The first release to actually bear the 4AD name (but not the iconic logo; that would come a bit later) was the Wheel in the Roses EP by Rema-Rema, which was something of a post-punk pre-supergroup, featuring Marco Pirroni (later of Adam and the Ants), Dorothy Max Prior (later of Psychic TV), Gary Asquith (later of Mass and Renegade Soundwave), and future Wolfgang Press members Mark Cox and Michael Allen (who were also in Mass!).

Other notable releases from 1980 included the debut single from Modern English (“Swans on Glass,” a propulsive, bass-heavy number which was probably the best-produced song released by the label to this point) and the Presage(s) compilation, which brought together a clutch of demos received by Kent and Watts-Russell that were—with the exception of Modern English’s “Home”—rejected.

By 1981, Kent had sold his share in 4AD to Watts-Russell and had gone on to found another Beggars subsidiary, Situation Two, which would ultimately launch the careers of the Cult, Gene Loves Jezebel, and others. This left Watts-Russell to his own devices, and he kicked off the year’s LP release schedule with a bang: Prayers on Fire, the debut album by Australian nihilist-rockers the Birthday Party. To be sure, though, 4AD had not turned into a full-on punk label, as Prayers was quickly followed by Mesh & Lace, the debut full-length from Modern English, the dark and melodramatic Labour of Love LP by Mass, and the profoundly weird Provisionally Entitled the Singing Fish album by Wire guitarist Colin Newman.

By mid-year, the label would have its first “dream pop” release, the Huremics EP by Dif Juz, which was as influenced by dub and late-period fusion as it was by post-punk but evoked a decidedly ethereal vibe. Fall would see the release of Burning Blue Soul, the debut album from Matt Johnson, aka The The, with Watts-Russell and Wire members Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis acting as producers. As the label was clearly transitioning out of its post-punk roots by this point, the dark and angular weirdness of the 1981 compilation Natures Mortes - Still Lives (originally released only in Japan, but later re-imported into the UK) neatly summarizes the era.

By 1982, the kaleidoscopic, somewhat mercurial, and defiantly personal vision of Ivo Watts-Russell’s 4AD was coming into focus. Or at least as much focus as a release slate featuring both Lydia Lunch and Elizabeth Fraser can have. Careening between the throbbing sheen of the Cocteau Twins’s debut album Garlands, the fiery intensity of the Birthday Party’s swan song Junkyard, the chart-friendly synth-pop of Modern English’s sophomore album, After The Snow (which, yes, included “Melt With You”), and “Breakdown,” the debut single—and 4AD’s first club-oriented 12-inch single—from the singularly unclassifiable electro-reggae-art-pop combo Colourbox, the label’s releases for 1982 were, if nothing else, eclectic.

In addition to their diversity of sounds, these releases also marked 4AD as a formidable entity in the then blossoming world of independent music. Sure, there would be not one, but two releases featuring Lydia Lunch’s lascivious punk poetry, but there would also be chart success in the form of “Melt With You.” Also released in 1982: the debut EP from Bauhaus member Daniel Ash’s Tones on Tail, and Lullabies, the first in a string of EPs from the Cocteau Twins that would complement the group’s albums throughout their tenure at the label. (These EPs would later be compiled on the Lullabies to Violaine set).

1983 was another transitional year for the label. Although new music was released by the Birthday Party—the Mutiny EP was the band’s final release of new material while they were still together—the year’s releases from 4AD’s “legacy” artists like Bauhaus and Modern English were compilations. Instead, Watts-Russell’s attention was firmly focused on the future, and debut albums from the likes of Xmal Deutschland (whose Fetisch has become an all-time goth classic) and the Wolfgang Press (whose Burden of Mules is still one of the most intensely dark—and sonically confrontational—records released on the label) did little to dispel the label’s reputation as a home for weirdo vampires. That task was left to the Cocteau Twins, who revealed a completely reconsidered sound on Head Over Heels, replacing the bracing, rhythmic thrum of Garlands with a much more grandiose and unearthly approach that was utterly unlike anything that had preceded it. Similarly, the debut EP for the Watts-Russell-helmed studio project This Mortal Coil presented as a communique from some hazy, forgotten dreamworld where early Modern English songs and Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren” were rendered in emotionally resonant abstractions. (The EP’s three tracks were later featured on the Dust & Guitars compilation.)

There were only a handful of releases from 4AD in 1984, but a lack of quantity was more than made up for with quality, as the year not only saw the utterly unclassifiable debut album from Dead Can Dance and a highly rewarding follow-up album from Xmal Deutschland (Tocsin) that expanded on the melodramatic strengths of their debut while infusing new sonic possibilities into the goth genre.

Meanwhile, This Mortal Coil expanded Watts-Russell’s sonic canvas onto an incredible album-length work, It’ll End In Tears, and the Cocteau Twins released Treasure, the sonic and artistic high point of their entire career. Not bad for an off year.