It’s hard to work out what Brett Wickens is best known for.
He founded Spoons at high school with Gordon Deppe and Sandy Horn in 1979 before moving on the next year to create the minimalist electro project, Ceramic Hello, with Roger Humphries. Shortly after, he ditched art college to join Peter Saville in England, where he collaborated on iconic record sleeves for New Order, Joy Division, Ultravox, OMD, and Peter Gabriel.
Although graphic design became the core of Wickens’ work, he still found time to take pictures and put out music with Jah Wobble, William Orbit, Andy McCluskey, and Martha Ladly (of Associates and Martha and the Muffins). Appointments at prestigious design studios, like Pentagram, Ammunition, and MetaDesign, took him into the big leagues of branding (most prosaically, you can see his work in the logos for The Sopranos and SanDisk, was well as the menu on the soda machines in Five Guys), but he has continued to dabble in sleeve designs and his own instrumental music.
Raised in Burlington, Ontario, a small Canadian city in the shadow of Toronto, Wickens attended Aldershot High School. Regular trips to the metropolis to visit the imported records specialist, Record Peddler, exposed him to the sounds of Factory Records and the artwork of its designer, Peter Saville. A trip to London in 1981, carrying a portfolio of drawings from art college, secured an internship and a career shaping the visual identities of pop bands and fashion houses.
Wickens had already dabbled in music as the keyboardist in Spoons, which went on to have chart-bothering hits with “Nova Heart” and “Arias & Symphonies,” and as Ceramic Hello. The latter must have impressed Saville, with its album cover featuring crying eyes drawn by Wickens and a menacing set of experimental electronics.
More music was to follow, but the UK years were dominated by assignments to create artwork for China Crisis, Funkapolitan, OMD, New Order, and Joy Division. The release of the compilation album, Substance, in 1988, gave Wickens the opportunity to play with mixed type styles. Working with photographer Trevor Key – another of Saville’s associates, Wickens set widely-spaced classic Garamond letterforms against a retooled version of Wim Crouwel’s New Alphabet.
Another notable legacy is the graphical code that Wickens developed with Peter Saville for New Order’s single, “Blue Monday.” The colour-based system could be decoded using a wheel on the reverse of the band’s album, Power, Corruption and Lies. It appeared on their “Confusion” single and on Section 25’s LP, From the Hip. With solid green representing A and solid yellow meaning B, it was easy enough for fans to use the colour wheel as a Factory Records rosetta stone.
Even as his design career kept him busy, Wickens worked on material for a second Ceramic Hello album. It was never formally completed, but the sketches produced enough material for Vinyl on Demand to assemble them as part of The Absence of a Canary V1.1 in 2006. There were rumours of a third album to come, involving Roger Humphries again, under the working title, Daisy Cutter. Sadly, it has not seen the light of day.
Wickens once said in an interview that his priorities are, in order: (1) family; (2) photography; and (3) music. If that remains the case, then we may have to wait, but – on the evidence of the materials here – it will be worth it.
10. Spoons – After the Institution
Wickens appears as a founding member and keyboard player on Spoons’ debut single, “After the Institution.” Released on Mannequin Records and marking his first documented commercial recording, its an organ, rather than a synth, that sets the tone.
Wickens’ role was taken over for subsequent Spoons recordings by Rob Preuss, who was a local (and very young!) kid with a talent for keyboards and a loose connection to the scene.
9. Ceramic Hello – Climatic Nouveaux
The first Ceramic Hello single, written and recorded by Wickens with Roger Humphreys, set the project’s template: minimal electronics, emotionally distant vocals, and a sense of looming threat.
It has to be remembered that Canada was more favourable to red-neck rock than synthesised music at the beginning of the 1980s. Although acts like Rational Youth and Men Without Hats were taking up the European sound and sequences, FM radio was playing songs like “Disco’s in the Garbage.” In this environment, Ceramic Hello was in a very small circle of experimenters that included Nash the Slash, Images in Vogue, and New Man Celebration.
The Ceramic Hello album, The Absence of a Canary, broke the mould entirely. Released on the independent Burlington label, Mannequin Records, it was released in a limited run of 1,000 copies. Today, they change hands on Discogs for hundreds of dollars.
8. Ceramic Hello – The Diesquad
A standout track from the first Ceramic Hello sessions, “The Diesquad” hit the sweet spot for fans of Gary Numan, whose Pleasure Principle album came out just as Spoons were being formed in Burlington. There are also traces of the influence of John Foxx’s Metamatic in the ice-cold synths.
7. Kinetic Ideals – Me and the Sky
Kinetic Ideals were a Burlington band formed around the same time as Spoons and label-mates with them on Mannequin. Wickens produced their final EP, 1983’s A Personal View, at Hamilton’s Grant Avenue Studio – a facility famous for its connection with Daniel Lanois.
6. Brett Wickens and Jah Wobble – Between Two Frequencies
In 1986, Jah Wobble dubbed an infectious bass line over a Wickens track. Released exclusively as a 12″ single, “Between Two Frequencies” channelled Cold War paranoia (including warnings of chemical warfare).
The demo appeared on the Vinyl on Demand reissue of The Absence of a Canary, in its Wobble-less version.
5. Ceramic Hello – Dark Rain
Part of the additional tracks included in the 2006 reissue, The Absence of a Canary V1.1, “Dark Rain” sits somewhere between Metamatic and Nash the Slash with an android whale taking vocal duties.
4. Torch Song – Living Out of Time
Torch Song was originally the project of William Orbit, Laurie Mayer, and Grant Gilbert. Their 1986 album, Ecstacy, marks a transitional phase, as Rico Conning started to become more involved. Wickens composed the closing track on the first side of the album, which also appeared as a B-side on the single, “Can’t Find My Way Home.”
3. The Partnership – Sampling the Blast Furnace
“Sampling the Blast Furnace” was originally recorded as a Ceramic Hello track. While Wickens was working in William Orbit’s studio, it came to the attention of Andy McCluskey of OMD, who was keen on the song. Orbit remixed the material with vocals from McCluskey and Martha Ladly. The results didn’t receive an official release, however, due to conflicting contractual obligations. Wickens, himself, has said that he prefers the Ceramic Hello original, but the coalescence of the personnel makes this more than a curiosity.
2. Martha – Light Years from Love
Another Canadian who found her way to London at the peak of New Wave, Martha Ladly played keyboards and provided backing vocals for the Toronto act, Martha and the Muffins. Picked up by the Virgin-owned label, Dindisc, Martha and the Muffins had two Marthas – and, importantly, a hit with the Mike Howlett-produced “Echo Beach.”
Ladly formed a relationship with the Warholesque Saville, who was the go-to designer for Dindisc’s Carol Wilson. An artist, herself, Ladly contributed a cubist painting for the cover of New Order’s Factory US compilation EP, 1981-1982. She also won an award for the 12″ sleeve image for “Everything’s Gone Green.”
Ladly had a career working with The Associates, Roxy Music, and Robert Palmer. She also had a turn as a solo artist. Her first single, Finlandia, featured the rhythm section of Joy Division. In 1983, she worked with Wickens on a summer single, “Light Years from Love.” It didn’t make as much of an impact on the charts as it deserved.
Ladly put more focus on her visual arts career. She worked with Peter Gabriel’s Real World for many years; eventually, returning to the Ontario College of Art and Design University as an academic.
1. Children of Theories – Klangven II
Wickens is not done with music-making, yet. In 2020, he shared some works created as part of a project called Children of Theories. If anything, the style is closer to that of Carbon Based Lifeforms, circa Derelicts, than the industrial-adjacent angst pop of Ceramic Hello. Growing up will do that to you.
