Second Layer - World of Rubber

Thanks to the crate digging blogs of the last several years, Adrian Borland's music, both with The Sound and his side projects have been rediscovered by a new army of online fans. Of particular interest is Second Layer, the duo he formed with The Sound bassist Graham Bailey. The first thing that's noticeable on listening to World Of Rubber is how utterly different the sound and aesthetic of Second Layer is compared to that of The Sound. While The Sound had songs of gloomy introspection and a sweeping romanticism, Second Layer strips all of that away, leaving in its place a monochrome worldview morbidly obsessed with the dehumanising effect of war, nuclear weapon annihilation, and the fracturing and negation of the self within an increasingly distorted and technologically mediated society. The lyrics on World Of Rubber don't trade in subtlety or ambiguity, instead preferring to overwhelm you with its ugliness. The opening song 'Definition Of Honour' has Borland drawling explicit anti-war rhetoric such as "the definition of honour is the hole in the side of your head." 'Underneath The Glass,' has an almost freakish level of paranoia with Borland neurotically singing about germs, disease, assassination plots, and disturbing things squirming in the brain.

The music, mirroring the blunt lyrics, is as harsh as it is austere, with Bailey's drum machine rhythms and bass providing the stiff regulatory pulse, and Borland's abrasive guitar providing the platform onto which faltering synths and industrial metal noises are bolted and welded together. It's an assemblage of machine parts that seeks to characterise the inhuman worldview shown on the album's cover, where veins, flesh, skin and emotions are replaced by wires, pistons, plastics and cybernetic feedback circuitry. By the time they made tracks such as 'Japanese Headset', 'Underneath The Glass', and 'Distortion' they move more into the cyberpunk territory that you hear from Chrome and Cabaret Voltaire. The deep well point in World Of Rubber though has to be 'Black Flowers,' an almost apocalyptically grim dirge, with shuffling walls of bass and atonal synth wash, with Borland singing 'Black Flowers' like a poisoned nursery rhyme. It's the sort of song that I'd like to hear at the death of the earth, standing on a beach when the sea turns black and putrid and the grey skies open up and piss blood red acid rain on me.

Second Layer's studio-only discography launched with two introductory short-play records that established their stark, industrial-influenced template. Their 1979 debut, the Flesh as Property EP, introduced listeners to a colder sonic palette via tracks like "Courts or Wars" and "Metal Sheet," combining primitive rhythm box loops, Alan Vega-inspired vocal whispers, and heavily fuzzed, abrasive guitars. They amplified this harsh approach with the 1980 State of Emergency EP, a release that dove straight into discordant noise, clattering beats, and anxious electronics heavily reminiscent of early Cabaret Voltaire. Both EPs functioned as vital creative testing grounds, allowing Adrian Borland and Graham Bailey to peel back the sweeping melodies of their primary band, The Sound, in favour of stripped-down, mechanical minimalism.

The culmination of the duo's bleak sonic vision arrived with their sole 1981 studio album, World of Rubber, released via Cherry Red Records. Shifting from raw short-form experimentations to a fully realized, abstract concept album, the LP crafted a haunting, monochrome portrait of late-Cold War anxieties. Driven by cold ARP synthesizer textures and a custom drum box, key tracks like "Fixation," "In Bits," and "Black Flowers" explored psychological disintegration, nuclear devastation, and modern alienation. Ultimately serving as Second Layer’s swan song before The Sound signed a major label contract, World of Rubber stands as a definitive, aggressively uncommercial masterpiece of early British cold wave.

The story of Second Layer is a vital, abrasive chapter in the history of British post-punk, serving as a dark mirror to Adrian Borland and Graham Bailey’s primary work in The Sound. While their main project built its reputation on anthemic sweeping melodies and emotional romanticism, Second Layer was a deliberately hostile, studio-bound vehicle designed to map out late-Cold War anxieties. Across two EPs and a lone studio album, the duo stripped away commercial polish, trading structural hope for primitive electronics, metallic guitars, and a bleak, monochrome thematic focus on psychological collapse and nuclear devastation.

The band’s 1979 debut, the Flesh as Property EP, stands as an exceptional exercise in minimal synth-punk and industrial reductionism. Propelled by a sparse, custom-built rhythm box, tracks like "Metal Sheet" feature Borland delivering a menacing, Alan Vega-esque vocal whisper over a cold electronic pulse. The standout track "Courts or Wars" layers heavily fuzzed, abrasive guitar work over a mechanical drone, marking the only moment in the band's catalog that shares a direct, driving musical lineage with the energetic early output of The Sound. It is a lean, highly innovative short-play record that remains a high point for early minimal wave collectors.

If the debut EP was a calculated exercise in tense restraint, the 1980 State of Emergency EP was an outright descent into discordant chaos and technological dread. Shifting heavily toward industrial noise, the release sounds like a panic-inducing broadcast from a subterranean bunker. The title track clatters along with a dystopian techno-groove akin to Cabaret Voltaire’s early singles, while the aggressive arrangements aggressively push the boundaries of their home-made equipment. This EP is the most uncompromisingly experimental entry in their discography, functioning less as a collection of traditional songs and more as an anxious, claustrophobic document of a society on the brink of collapse.

The duo’s bleak sonic experiment culminated in their definitive 1981 full-length album, World of Rubber, released via Cherry Red Records. Critics from The Quietus have highlighted how the album crafts a brutally blank-eyed portrait of alienation, bookended by the biting, anti-war rhetoric of "Definition of Honour" and the ghostly, funereal synth dirge "Black Flowers". Throughout the record, tracks like "In Bits" resemble a street rumble between Joy Division and Suicide before collapsing into a brilliant holocaust of guitar feedback. Though occasionally mannered, the LP avoids becoming a mere approximation of its peers due to Borland’s sharp songwriting instincts, cementing World of Rubber as a chillingly compelling cold wave masterpiece that has rightfully earned its status as a cult classic.

Ripped to MP3

Flesh as Property (7" EP, 1979)

A1: Courts or Wars

B1: Fixation

B2: Metal Sheet

State of Emergency (7" EP, 1980)

A1: State of Emergency

B1: Machine Code

B2: Germany

Annnd...

The complete 20-track anthology version of World of Rubber chronicles Second Layer’s entire career by packaging their sole studio album alongside their two pre-album EPs and five previously unreleased archival home studio demos.

Disc 1:

The Original Album (1981)

The first half contains the complete, original tracklist from the 1981 LP release. Note that the tracking order has been sequentially updated in modern formats to front-load the single mixes:

1. Definition of Honour

2. In Bits

3. Fixation

4. Save Our Souls (originally titled "Saving Face")

5. Distortion (originally titled "Restortion")

6. Underneath the Gloss (originally titled "Underneath the Moon")

7. Zero (originally titled "Cinema Car")

8. Japanese Headset (originally titled "Japanese Head")

9. Black Flowers

10. Skylon (originally titled "The A.G.M.")

Disc 2: 

The EPs & Unreleased Demos (1979–1980)

The second half pulls together their highly sought-after 7" EP releases and rare basement tapes salvaged from the band's vault.

Flesh as Property EP (1979)

11. Courts or Wars

12. Fixation (Alternative 7" Mix)

13. Metal Sheet

State of Emergency EP (1980)

14. State of Emergency

15. Machine Code

16. Germany

Unreleased Demos & Studio Outtakes

17. I Am Strange

18. The Miniatures

19. The Sound of Rain

20. While the City Sleeps