Landing in the transitional period between post-punk and new wave, Leisure Process were but one of a dozen acts trying to get a foothold in the ever-changing UK pop landscape during the 1980s. Singer Ross Middleton, in fact, had punk roots in a previous group, Scotland’s Positive Noise, a valuable platform that allowed him to test out his elastic vocals within a primarily post-punk backing band.
Positive Noise retained the manic energy and intensity of punk but found a rigid funk framework, the product of the very rudimentary synthezisers that were de rigueur of the day. The band’s live elements ensured that their credibility for working from scratch (as the synth was highly suspect at the dawn of 1980s pop) remained in check.
If anything, Middleton understood from his experience how the marriage between the synthetic and the organic worked, which suggests his eventual partnership with Gary Barnacle was not entirely an act of instinct. A saxophonist who had lent his talents to punk legends like the Clash and the Ruts, and later Tina Turner and Björk, Barnacle was one in a handful of punk stalwarts like Lora Logic and Gareth Sager (also saxophonists) who added a tonal dissonance to punk’s already atonalism with the sax, an anomalous instrument of punk, if there was any.
Teaming up with Middleton in 1982 to form Leisure Process would signal a turn in Barnacle’s career, in which his choice of instrument would gain new ground in popular music for better or worse, depending on the band. Leisure Process are the combined energy, instincts, and talents of two artists who push beyond the already disintegrating post-punk boundaries for a sound that is more palatable but still very raw in its approach. Skittering post-disco rhythms, slap-bass riffs, synth-lines, and the ebbs and flows of Barnacle’s sax make up the sound of Leisure Process, all led by the declamatory soars of Middleton’s vocals.
Aimed squarely at the dancefloor, the duo looked to move bodies to a pushing funk that also subtly informed through the slices of poetry on Britain’s socio-economic issues (“Cash Flow”), alongside a clutch of tunes describing a very dispassionate love life (“A Way You’ll Never Be”, “Love Cascade”). It isn’t so far from what other bands had been doing around that time, such as Gang of Four and the Pop Group, two bands that espoused hardline Marxist-leaning politics, and Au Pairs, who explored sexual politics – all of them propagating an agit-funk that jarred and grooved in equal measure. Leisure Process ease up a bit on those philosophies, choosing to survey their Britain through a more streamlined view of public life, but they also have a pulse on a certain youth energy generated by the great metropolis.
Leisure Process ultimately became a singles group, never officially releasing a full-length album. So, it is with some good fortune that SFE Records (distributed by Cherry Red Records) have released the entire catalogue from their days on Epic Records (1982-1983). Spanning two discs, this collection gives the uninitiated (and those already familiar) a sense of what could have been one of new wave’s biggest acts. Comprised of all singles (including seven-inch and 12-inch versions), remixes, B-sides and unreleased tracks, The Complete Epic Recordings is a comprehensive and immersive package that gets to the heart of what was brewing in the fringes of the UK’s music scene in the early 1980s.
Leisure Process’s best-known song is “A Way You’ll Never Be”. It’s catchy four-on-the-floor bass throb made it an obvious single, and establishes a surprising intersection of influences that pull from both the UK and US – including an ersatz rap that Middleton performs with both conviction and knowing humour. Arguably, it is the strongest cut in the collection, and one that might have pushed beyond the fringes from which the band operated. It sits as little more than a footnote in new wave pop history, but it clues listeners in to the very constituents that made up the duo’s sound.
Much of that fresh-baked funk turns up on other numbers, as well. “Cash Flow” closes in on a more rounded groove that courts disco in a way that “A Way You’ll Never Be” courts post-punk. The eerie, midtempo “Rachel Dreams” (the B-side to “A Way You’ll Never Be”), pushes toward synthpop, a sound the duo would continue to develop. In the robotic dance-funk of “The Sun Turns Black”, they flirt with more overt pop, baring their crossover potential.
There are surprising moments, such as “The Fluke”, a spare and haunting back-alley piano ballad that gives both Middleton’s vocals and Barnacle’s sax-playing a generous emotive stretch. The Kid Creole-inspired “Anxiety” revs up the synths, giving its synthpop a glossy, vibrant sheen. In various versions, these tracks appear on disc one (and in yet more versions on disc two). Disc two proves a more curious listen, featuring unreleased tracks that were likely recorded for a full-length album.
A different beast altogether, disc two reveals the direction the pair had planned to take, refining their synthpop inclinations to a point that might have given New Order and Pet Shop Boys something to worry about. Much of these numbers (“Sweet Vendetta”, “Pentagon”, Learning to Love Me”, “Interesting Lives”) lose much of their post-punky bounce, but gain much more melodic measure (if not always hooks). What is especially revealing is how much humor, force and exuberance Barnacle delivers on the sax, and just how much heft and cosmopolitan-suave Middleton throws into his vocals to shake off the grey cement of his post-punk days.
Put together, these two sets become an interesting document not only of a little-known band but also of the process of transformation and development; a band in the throes of coming into their own. It doesn’t always guarantee easy listening, but it still educates one in the constantly evolving art of electronic music, one of the most stylistically volatile genres in popular music.
SFE Records provides a literary component to flesh out the story we hear in the collection; the accompanying extensive liner notes, 32 pages, give an interesting background on how many of the duo’s successive attempts to push their singles were circumvented by sheer bad luck. Middleton offers his rather droll view on the trajectory of Leisure Process, which began with so much promise before fizzling out unspectacularly. The duo’s then-consultant Barney Ashton-Bullock further augments the backstory, weaving into his account the factors of early 1980s politics and anti-Thatcherism that were in some way connected to the duo.
The liner notes also reveal what a marketing dream Epic Records had in Leisure Process; several photos of two camera-friendly musicians, primed for the then-burgeoning MTV, which would certainly have made good use of the two quirkily noirish music videos produced for “Love Cascade” and “A Way You’ll Never Be”. Add to that the inclusion of a few lyrics to glean a sense of Middleton’s caustic humor and what you get is a picture of a sadly missed opportunity.
Both Middleton and Barnacle continue to work in music (Barnacle recently having lent his talents to Soft Cell’s newest material), and neither is sore about their lost fortune as Leisure Process. What we are left with here is a collection of work that continues to be copied and reproduced by the dozens of revivalists who, try as they might, can never truly beat the real thing. Middleton and Barnacle’s endeavors may certainly have been quite the process, but come nearly 45 years on, it is at our leisure.