New Release From Woo

Independent Project Records (IPR) has reissued UK cult band WOO‘s debut album, Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong, originally released in 1982 via the band’s The Sunshine Series Records label, as an expanded edition. The remixed and remastered edition of Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong includes new album cover art and ten previously unreleased bonus tracks presented as a ‘mini’ album. It is available on both black and limited edition clear vinyl, as well as Special Edition CD and digital formats. This genre and time-defying selection of songs marked the public’s first exposure to the wild sonic experimentations that brothers Mark and Clive Ives would be known for over the following decades. “Mark and I had been home recording for five very prolific years before Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong was compiled,” says Clive. “The thirteen tracks we selected from this period are very diverse in style, yet magically complimentary.”

The album really is a classic. Working with acoustic guitars, clarinet, rhythm box, keyboards, singing bowls, pixiephone and subtle processing, this is gloriously DIY, melancholic, avant-garde pastoralism that connects the dots between Pentangle, Gareth Williams, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Dif Juz, and Robert Wyatt. From the cool summer breeze of opener, which sounds like a library-rock jam between Basil Kirchin and Vini Reilly, to the trippy, proto-techno drum ‘n Moog mantras of “Pokhara” and “The Cleaner,” and mystic folk ruminations like “C.H. Revisited” and “A Wave,” there isn’t a dull moment. The second half of the album goes deeper into dubwise Arcadian jazz, Mark Ives’ woozy treated woodwind taking centre-stage, and the one vocal cut, “The Attic,” is a stunning instance of wry, painterly, Eno-esque pop.

“Absolute unsung genius…uncanny and weirdly affecting” – Mutant Sounds

“What makes ‘Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong’ feel so prescient is its refusal to draw hard lines between genres or emotional registers. It anticipates later conversations about ambient pop, DIY electronica, and pastoral psychedelia without sounding programmatic or theoretical.” – The Big Takeover

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Label: Independent Project Records