Album dossier / 1980

In the Flat Field

Bauhaus · Post-Punk/Gothic Rock

Recorded at Southern Studios in Wood Green, London through 1980, Bauhaus's stark theatrical debut was self-produced -- the band had a clear vision and wanted no outside producer shaping it. One track, 'Double Dare,' was actually lifted straight from an earlier BBC John Peel session (recorded quickly at BBC Maida Vale) rather than re-cut in the studio, since the band felt the pressured, limited-take Peel version had a vitality they couldn't recapture; negotiating rights to reuse a BBC recording on a commercial LP, complicated by the Musicians' Union, delayed the album's release by months. Guitarist Daniel Ash built the record's queasy, out-of-tune textures largely through processed, non-melodic guitar noise rather than conventional riffs, while Peter Murphy's yelping vocals and the band's stripped production became a blueprint copied across the emerging gothic rock scene.