Second Layer

Formed as an electronic outlet by Adrian Borland and Graham Bailey of the Sound, Second Layer placed Borland on guitars and vocals with Bailey covering keyboards, bass, and drum programming. Their album World of Rubber emerged in 1981, joined the same year by the singles “State of Emergency” and “Flesh as Property” plus the Second Layer EP. Because the pair shaped the Sound’s core identity, the side project carried echoes of that approach, though filtered through a cooler distance created when synths and drum machines supplanted live instrumentation. Borland’s songwriting remained nearly as intimate as the material he wrote for the Sound.