After Andy Gill’s death in February 2020, his widow, Catherine Mayer assembled a small team to complete 'The Problem of Leisure'. The record had originally been conceived by Andy Gill himself not as a post-mortem tribute, but to mark the 40th anniversary in 2019 of Gang Of Four’s extraordinary 1979 debut long player 'Entertainment!' an album widely heralded as a classic (“the fifth best punk album of all time” according to Rolling Stone magazine). Personally speaking I would have loved to hear that as a couple of songs I thought might be on this are not...'I Found The Essence Rare' and 'At Home (He's A Tourist)'.
Andy Gill had already revised that vision in the months before his death, after some artists chose tracks from different albums and periods. Every musician who committed to the project was given the freedom to create new versions of whichever Gang of Four songs they wanted to cover, with Andy overseeing some of the earlier productions but largely leaving artists to create their own interpretations.
This leaving "the artists to their own interpretations" means that we end up with two versions of 'Damaged Goods', 'I Love A Man In A Uniform', and 'Natural's Not It' and three versions of 'Not Great Men'. Yes they are all different but it feels like they could have had other songs rather than being repetitive with choices.
It is released on a number of different formats: Limited Edition 2CD packaged like a hardback book with a 12 page booklet of Artwork by Damien Hirst. Includes googly eye attachment on the front sleeve. A Standard one CD version. Dogluxe Limited Edition double vinyl pressed on Red Vinyl (Individually numbered - edition of 650). Standard black double vinyl with a gatefold sleeve. Pink Cassette version and also a Download version.
Let's have some music. The album opens with probably the strongest song, 'Damaged Goods' by IDLES
IDLES say: “IDLES does not exist without Gang of Four. ‘Damaged Goods’ still sounds new and exciting after the millionth listen. We jumped at the chance to just play it, let alone record it. It was an honour, a joy and a privilege”
Another song that featured on the debut 'Damaged Goods EP' also appears on the album, 'Love Like Anthrax' by Gary Numan & Ade Fenton, though I have to confess to barely recognising it!
A number of Digital Download Singles were released leading up to the album's release. Here's a few starting with 'Paralysed' by Warpaint.
'Where The Nightingale Sings (Redux)' by 3D x Gang Of Four featuring Nova Twins
Page Hamilton from Helmet says, “My old pal Henry Rollins reissued Entertainment! and Solid Gold back in the 90’s and asked me to do liner notes for Solid Gold. I don’t remember what I wrote but I know it was glowing, corny and fanboy. Their songs, feel, energy, inventiveness made an indelible imprint on my musical soul. All of our peers that formed bands in the late 80’s were influenced by Go4. I chose ‘In the Ditch’ for this tribute cause it’s a great song even though it was challenging (thank you to my band!). It feels improvised and random at times but holds together as a composition. The guitar part feels like spontaneous scratchy funk, the angular bass and drum groove grooves hard but sounds like there’s a spoke missing. The vocal is somehow beautiful but scary, urgent and dangerous. There’s no room for limp dick, mail-it-in, non-musical moments in any of these songs. How the hell did they put this together? We could only try to capture the intensity of the original. This band changed me. Thank you Andy, Dave, Hugo & Jon.”
'I Love A Man In A Uniform' by Herbert Grönemeyer featuring Alex Silva
'Natural’s Not In It' by Tom Morello & Serj Tankian
Tom Morello:
“Andy Gill was one of a handful of artists in history who changed the way guitars are played. His band Gang of Four were just incendiary and completely groundbreaking with Andy’s confrontational, unnerving and sublime playing at the forefront. His jagged plague-disco raptor-attack industrial-funk deconstructed guitar anti-hero sonics and fierce poetic radical intellect were hugely influential to me.”
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