Midge Ure & Mick Karn - "After A Fashion" b/w "Textures" 12" Vinyl, 45 rpm, 1983 (Chrysalis)

One of the things I love about the New Romantics period in pop is artists embracing the foreign and at the time, very exotic landscapes on this planet.  In a sense, they take the idea from Paul Bowles, not only as a writer, but his iconic personality as the Westerner in the exotic Middle East, or North Africa.   Bands like Duran Duran, Japan, and Ultravox liked to present themselves as an international artist(s) in a very adventurous world.   Very much of an exploitation in theory, because when you get down to it, we're all tourists.  Which I think is the most honest aspect of The New Romantics era.  Once in awhile great music comes from the juxtaposition of British pop (once part of the grand occupation) and the world that is out there.  We can almost taste it, but at the time we could only admire the tourist postcards, or in this case, album covers or publicity photographs.  Mick Karn is very much the exotic musician who started from one place and ended up embracing the world.  "After A Fashion"a one-off recording by two musicians who were prominent in British pop during the early 1980s.  Midge Ure I suspect was the more successful pop star due to his musical history with other bands, but especially with Ultravox.  

Karn was the brilliant fretless bassist, and who added exotic color to David Sylvian's Japan.  The sounds he made from his bass was like liquid being poured into a glass, or on the sand.   His textural playing and compositions (especially on his early solo albums) reflect on a world that was exciting, and sexual.  Midge Ure in his fashion (no pun intended) also explored the same landscape but through a more pop format than Karn and Japan.  What makes this 12" single fascinating is the combination of Ure's pop awareness with Karn's outer world sounds.  

The 7" single is very different than the 12", in that the song is expanded in a textural manner that flirts with the main chorus.   Almost a dub version, but not quite.  I have to imagine that it's only Karn and Ure on this recording, doing all the instruments.  It has that 'studio' feel and truly the image on the cover of this long single, is quite accurate.  The picture of Ure and Karn in Egypt is both a postcard as well as a visual interpretation of the sounds with on the record.  Paul Bowles had taken numerous photos of himself among the desert of North Africa, and for the literate or aware, this is clearly the influence of Ure and Karn's "After A Fashion."  The b-side is an instrumental that is a sound piece that reflects the aesthetic of travel and being aware of one's limits.