The Art of Walking

Background

Following the departure of founding member Tom Hermann after an American tour for New Picnic Time, Pere Ubu briefly disbanded. David Thomas and Allen Ravenstine attended a Talking Heads concert, where Thomas remarked they were better than Talking Heads; Ravenstine replied with the name Mayo Thompson. In late 1979, the band invited Thompson, who had previously toured England and collaborated with them in 1978. His addition pushed the group further toward deconstruction and abstraction, away from the rock and roll facilitated by Hermann's guitar work.

Thomas conceived the album's concept in the bathtub. The title came after a fan criticized the band for writing too many songs about driving. Pere Ubu would record one more album with Thompson and Feelies drummer Anton Fier, Song of the Bailing Man, before disbanding due to creative differences.

Recording and music

The album was recorded in January 1980 at Suma Recording, the first Pere Ubu studio album engineered by Paul Hamann after his father Ken Hamann retired in 1979. On the track "Lost in Art", Scott Krauss and Tony Maimone performed a keyboard jam recorded on tape; David Thomas responded by asking what he was supposed to do with that, then had Paul Hamann turn on the drum mics and recorded drums and vocals in one take.

Thomas drew a smiley face with devil's horns and the slogan 'Self-expression is evil' in the control room. Thompson later described Thomas playing the snare drum and yelling "really grooving!" during the performance. The song "Horses" was originally written by Thompson and appeared on his 1970 solo album Corky's Debt to His Father.

Critical reception

The Art of Walking reportedly sold better than any previous Pere Ubu release, though it was not a massive success. Chris Cutler, reviewing for Melody Maker in 1980, wrote that the band was moving further from rock conventions and their own past while maintaining integrity, describing the music as a loose-bound net where disconnected parts cohere into an irreducible whole, and called it a record of unique beauty marked by truth, tragic and sometimes painful.

Ian Penman, in NME on August 30, 1980, argued that Pere Ubu should not be viewed through linear development or a concern for succeeding in rock and roll, and criticized criticism that assumes words have one meaning and desires point in a single direction, ignoring the world of language, noise and desire as one of lack, insecurity, interruption, struggle, blundering, disguises, ploys, and embarrassed grins. Dave McCullough, writing for Sounds on August 30, 1980, commented that the record is exciting and funnily subversive, and if it is difficult then he is much cleverer than he thought, while other successful music of the year is like sucking a thumb; he stated the only way the album is not full of excitement, fun and compelling interest is if one does not want it to be.

Trouser Press noted the ditzy-but-compelling aura of the album, rife with hymns to life's mundane moments, comparing Thomas to a fourth-dimensional doppelgänger for Jonathan Richman, warbling on 'Birdies' and 'Arabia' (with hastily scribbled lyrics appended to what was intended as an instrumental), while Thompson paints landscapes in dazzlingly shiny, occasionally unnatural colors.

Release history

The first U.S. pressing of the album mistakenly used a vocal overdub mix of "Arabia" instead of the instrumental mix found on the original UK release. That same incorrect mix appeared on the first Rough Trade CD, but the Datapanik box set's remastering corrected it. The later individual remastered disc offered both versions, labeling the vocal one "Arabian Nights." Subsequent album editions also retitled "Miles" to "Young Miles in the Basement."