What we have here is a double CD remaster of the first two Delay Tactics albums to celebrate 40 years since the second album, ‘Any Questions?’ which originally came out in 1984, along with 10 bonus tracks of unreleased studio and live material. The band were originally formed by Carl Weingarten and Reed Nesbit as a tape-looping duo, with keyboard player Walter Whitney joining to complete the line-up. Nesbit left before the second album, and he was then replaced by David Udell. I recently reviewed a solo album by Udell, while Weingarten has long been recognised as an incredibly important guitarist who is always looking to stretch boundaries of what is possible, and I have reviewed many releases featuring his work over the years.
It is nice to have the pair together, which with the bonus cuts gives us 31 songs and a little over two hours in running time. This must have been a groundbreaking release when it came out as this is really avant garde in its approach as the improvisations allow the band to work against and off each other, and in many ways is somewhat reminiscent of the style of Markus Reuter, although technology was yet to catch up with them. In many ways it is somewhat naïve when compared against modern experimental music of its type, and the drum machine and synth sounds have not aged at all well. It may have been cutting edge 40 years ago, but it is certainly not that now. This means that the music is intriguing in some parts as the guitarists attempt to create sounds not normally associated with those instruments, but the overall impact is quite diminished by what they are playing against which definitely reduces the level of enjoyment.
This is more for those interested in the early development of this genre, Delay Tactics or Weingarten as opposed to actually listening to it for pure pleasure as I would point to bands such as Anchor & Burden to really understand what is possible. But 40 years ago this would have been significant.
Rating: 7/10
