The Lines

The Lines, an English post-punk group, initiated recording sessions in 1977 and issued their final material in 1983. Over that span the band produced the albums Therapy in October 1981 and Ultramarine in March 1983, plus a modest number of singles and EPs. Largely detached from press engagement and signed to a modest imprint, they maintained loose links to Alternative TV, Prag Vec, and Fad Gadget without belonging to any particular movement. Consequently they attracted only a small and fervent following, and their catalog stayed largely unknown until Acute’s 2008 reissues. Memory Span appeared that May, collecting the band’s single and EP output, while Flood Bank followed in November and contained all but one song from the band’s two albums. Rico Conning, the group’s vocalist and guitarist, helped prepare both collections. After the Lines disbanded, Conning stayed active in music, engineering and mixing for Swans and Depeche Mode and collaborating closely with William Orbit. Acute returned in 2016 with Hull Down, a set of previously unreleased and unfinished recordings made after the second album. Exploratory and experimental, those tracks made prominent use of sequencers and synthesizers.