Originally released in 1986 Commercial Suicide was CN's 4th solo album, 1st of a trilogy of collaborations with composer Sean (AKA John) Bonnar (who later worked with various Dead Can Dance members) which was never completed. The working partnership for this album and it's sequel It Seems was completed by Malka Spigel (they were married earlier that year) and Gilles Martin who were both part of the team that had recently completed Minimal Compact's Raging Souls.
The album's distinctive timbre comes from it's marrying of a simplistic drumless electronic basis and orchestral instruments played by a cast of musicians emanating from a variety of backgrounds (Jeannot Gillis & Claudine Stannakers from avante-classicists Jules Verne, Luc Van Lieshout from Tuxedomoon, Patrick Codenys from Front 242 and the improbably named Rino Christ who was a mate of Luc's from the circus band!)
The album's rather wry title actually comes from the title track itself which in it's original demo form (of course only 2.5 people have ever heard it) sounded a bit like Suicide only a bit more, err... commercial. The front cover image was conceived by Bruce Gilbert. Quite apt, in an oppositional kind of way, for an album in which the 'axe' is almost totally axed!
The re-released version contains the tracks from the rather infamous 'interview' 12"... Interview and the (ahem) amusingly titled 'disco dub interview remix' were the result of the studio team being rather bored at attempting to put together a recorded interview with Colin and deciding to make the proceedings a tad more interesting!
Here's what the Press said at the time about Commercial Suicide.
Sixteen folks, including he, get a photo and a check on the inner sleeve. Their instruments are blown, bleeped, plucked, bowed or banged; Colin Newman has assembled his own chamber orchestra, and hidden beneath the naturally deadpan title, the work is of maximum beauty. He's always been the interesting one post-Wire. While many praise his first solo work, 'A-Z', I would never be without the third chapter, 'Not To'. (...) 'Commercial Suicide' breathes more deeply, affects on a wider scale. 'But I...' and 'Can I Explain The Delay ?' ( very Newman, no?), to name but two, sway in a forest of oboes, clarinets, digital treatments and real horns, with the wryest vocals in pop mooning in its self-referential soup. The man can hardly be described as humorless when the lyric sheet reads, for 'But I...': " (spoken ad libidum until the music runs out, one gathers that the artist has been waiting for something and we wonder if it was a 71 bus) ". 'Feigned Hearing' is priceless: the digital birdies chit-cheep, signaling a joyous spring, but we're not yet into mid-winter! These processed soundings could hardly be richer. Nice one, Colin!
David Swift - NME, UK
"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
"File under Genius, mad"
Sounds UK
"One of the few Englishmen to whom I would give carte blanche to make pop."
Melody Maker UK
"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 landscapes"
Lib'ration France
"Insidiously powerful"
Record Mirror UK
"If Colin Newman isn't careful he'll soon find himself horribly close to becoming popular"
Q UK
