STUDIO ALBUMS
OUTLAND (1991)
Additional information :
Two and a half years after Metal Rhythm, in spring 1991, IRS released their second Gary Numan studio album, Outland. The LP followed a familiar commercial pattern, charting at number 39 in the UK but rapidly tumbling out of peoples memories
once the hardcore had bought it. Overseas there were glimpses of promise, especially in America where it sold over 20,000 copies, but IRS were in organisational turmoil at the time and they effectively imploded in 1991 taking Numan's career with them. He spent the next two years trying to recover lost ground.
To be fair, Outland is a strange, off-beat record and hardly the stuff of a promotional departments dreams. It's main thrust comes from complex, deftly programmed rhythms which owe a debt to the
pioneering work of the American production team Jam and Lewis. Numan's albums The Pleasure Principle, Dance and Metal Rhythm had already demonstrated his innovative use of percussion, heralding hip hop breakbeats, trip hop's slow motions and 90's industrial funk. On Outland the backing tracks hiccup with electronic beats as the artist mixes sci fi dance with black R&B pop.
Text by Steve Malins. (From the Outland sleeve notes)