The Wolfgang Press renew their lust for life: Interview

With a new album in the pipeline – the second in 18 months – slated for spring, The Wolfgang Press – cherished as one of 4AD’s longest-serving acts – are back. Ahead of their sell-out Lexington show, Steve Morgan found them in fine voice off stage as well as on

Mick Allen laughs. He’s a big bloke, and he’s standing up. This is good news when you’re sitting down, and have just asked him: “So, what’s it like to be back after thirty years?”
“Well, I don’t think we ever really went away, did we?” he answers, turning to guitarist Andrew Gray for support. “We’ve always been doing something, writing on and off for years. “But yeah, I know what you mean,” he chortles heartily. “It has been a while.”

As two thirds of The Wolfgang Press, Allen and Gray – original member Mark Cox has been replaced by Gray’s brother, Stephen – were responsible for some of 4AD’s most-charismatic, memorable, and regularly genre-defying music, which is saying something when your labelmates include Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance and Pixies.

In from the ground up at the 4AD stable, Allen and Cox were also part of fabled, ephemeral four-piece Rema-Rema, before becoming Mass. Joined by Gray, alma mater of another short-lived early 4AD act, In Camera, the trio morphed into The Wolfgang Press. The results were no less intense. Too intense for some, not least John Peel, whose patronage would have proved handy in unit-shifting terms. Yet, across six studio albums, from 1983’s The Burden of Mules to 1995’s (apparent) final cut, Funky Demons, TWP explored myriad styles; from sketchy, skeletal primal post-punk, through torch-song blues, austere electronica, and choppy slabs of funk, often backed by seriously eye-catching visuals: not least a penchant for John and Jackie Kennedy masks that lent the videos for tracks like Kansas and Going South an air of disquieting unease.

An unexpected foray into out-and-out pop even brought a bonkers collaboration with Tom Jones, who’d heard 1992’s A Girl Like You when considering material for a new album. “Totally surreal, but he was such a lovely fella,” Allen recalls. Then, nothing – aside of 2001’s 17-track retrospective, Everything Is Beautiful. But, late in 2024 came a new studio album A 2^nd Shape. Warmly received, it marked a return to their roots. Rich, dark, keyboard driven, it also sounded very now, its lyrical themes touching on reset, re-evaluation, and rebirth. It also got the creative juices flowing on a follow up, due in spring.

“I don’t like the word organic,” Stephen explains, “but the process is the most-interesting thing, to me anyway – the way it moves and develops. If it wasn’t developing, I wouldn’t be interested. It stimulates.”

Post-interview, I watched the band overcome maddening technical difficulties to deliver a fascinating set I was still thinking about – particularly Allen’s stage presence – three days later. The intervening years have rounded out that broad frame, but he remains a menacing live presence, mike in right hand, mike stand gripped and rocked with the left, leaning in, as if deep in some conversation with an imaginary foe. Andrew Gray looks older, naturally, but the noises he wrings from his guitar have a distinct energy, the sound of a man still questing, still keen to explore. He also senses the time was right to step back towards the light.

“It’s a bit strange – the landscape is very different,” he says. “This morning I was hoovering my carpet, tonight I’m on stage in front of 200 people. That gives you a good kick up the arse. But there’s such an interest from the youngsters in post-punk and stuff, so there is a connection,” he adds.

And why not? After all, these lads were once themselves inspired by punk – Allen came of age watching the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club in 1976. “Just seeing Rotten there on stage, in front of about 30 people, it was Dickensian down there,” he recalls. “It felt a little bit edgy, I didn’t know what I was doing there. But it changed everything.” Gray was keenly tuned in to the sounds of David Bowie and Iggy Pop. These epiphanies died hard, informing the band’s grasp of music as art, a chance to paint with sound.

“We were always more of an album band,” Gray continues. “I guess in that respect we were a bit like Wire or The Fall, perhaps.”

It’s a neat comparison – no-one would ever accuse either of those bands of playing to the gallery. And, like those acts, TWP were a band that those who knew held a candle for. During the gig, Allen clocks the mood of hushed reverence, heightened yet more by a 40-minute wait. “You’re too expectant,” he says, not unkindly, in fact with an almost touched, patricianly feel, ahead of a blistering rendition of Raintime, a signature cut from 1988’s Bird Wood Cage, arguably the band’s most complete album.

Thankfully the faithful don’t have long to wait for more new material. New album Asylum Variations – a couple of numbers feature in the Lexington set – the intense, guitar-driven Speakers Don’t Speak is excellent – are due in a matter of weeks. Allen also talks with keenness about how fluid the writing process has proved, with the air of a man clearly enjoying making music again.

And the album title? The ‘variations’ is a nod to classical composer Elgar’s fabled Enigma works – and ‘asylum’ – that should be self-evident in the raging bin fire that is 2026. “It’s a seriously scary time, but it’s not a political album, as such, more one that reflects the world and the problems in it,” Allen muses. “But we just try to create something that interests us and excites us.” Like their vintage work, they remain a band of singular conviction. In a deeply uncertain world, it’s reassuring to have them back.

A 2^nd Shape is available on Downwards Records via Bandcamp here. The Asylum Variations will be released in spring 2026.

All words by Steve Morgan. More of Steve’s writing can be found in his author’s archive. Steve is on Instagram and Bluesky

Photo by Robyn Skinner

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