Wireless

Following the dissolution of Manchester, Lancashire, England indie stalwarts Molly Half Head, the guitar pop outfit Wireless came together. After that ensemble broke apart in 1995, songwriters Paul Bardsley and Phil Murphy chose to sustain their creative alliance. As Bardsley told reporters, ‘It just got a bit stale. In the end, instead of battling away and exhausting ourselves, we decided to call it a day.’ The lineup expanded with the recruitment of Chris Picken on keyboards, Michael Darling on bass and Basil Creese on drums. Demo tapes were shopped to multiple imprints, and Chrysalis Records became the first to recognize their market appeal, while a publishing deal was simultaneously secured with Creation Records. The band’s opening release, ‘I Need You’, introduced a markedly more approachable style than Molly Half Head had displayed. In the studio, producer Bruce Lampcov swapped the dense, riff-driven approach that had defined Molly Half Head for lush string sections and acoustic guitar textures.