condition (record/cover): EX+ / VG (1/2" square damage on bottom front, small tag residue on front, edges wear and splits, light creasing)

Nimbus pressing. Insert included.

The debut album by The Work, released 1982 on Woof Records (WOOF 003), the label run by the band's founders Tim Hodgkinson and Bill Gilonis. Formed in 1980 after Hodgkinson's exit from Henry Cow, The Work brought the RIO vocabulary into more directly post-punk territory: shorter song forms, faster tempi, more aggressive guitars, less reliance on through-composed material than Henry Cow had used.

The band's line-up: Tim Hodgkinson (saxophones, bass clarinet, keyboards, lap steel, lead vocals), Bill Gilonis (guitar, euphonium, sampling, vocals), Mick Hobbs (guitar, bass, drums, ukulele, recorder, vocals), Rick Wilson (drums, bass, vocals). Slow Crimes was recorded at Cold Storage, the studio This Heat had built in Brixton, with Catherine Jauniaux guesting on vocals throughout (she had performed with the band at the Rock In Opposition festival in Bonn in 1982 and would shortly cut her own LP for Woof with Hodgkinson, Fluvial). The album contains short, sharp songs each a dense, condensed essay on a single rhythmic or compositional idea.

The original vintage Woof Records UK pressing on WOOF 003. Slow Crimes is an early document of post-Henry Cow British avant-rock, and a key bridge record between the seventies RIO axis and the 1980s Recommended Records-adjacent scene. The Work would shortly tour Japan, split temporarily and reform in 1989 for further recordings on Woof.