Ned Raggett said the album shares Laid's general focus towards an "evocative, restrained attractiveness and moody melancholy," but Wah Wah features more immediate numbers with full lyrics from Booth sung in his "fine voice", mixed with more open-ended instrumental or wordless vocal jams.

The Independent said that "a little bit of confusion is good for us all" whilst the NME called it "one of the few genuinely engaging dance albums around."

[8] Brian Eno observed the band's jam sessions during the rehearsals, calling them "extraordinary pieces of music appearing out of nowhere".

Before we started our formal recording sessions for what became the Laid album, I spent some days working with the band in their rehearsal room in Manchester, seeing extraordinary pieces of music appearing out of nowhere.

It occurred to me that this raw material was, in its own chaotic and perilous way, as much a part of their work as the songs that would finally grow out of it.

The music was always on the edge of breakdown, held together by taut threads, semi-formed, evolving, full of beautiful, unrepeatable collisions and exotic collusions.

[7] Bassist Jim Glennie recalled that "it was a bit of a production line: We’d jam, those would go over to Markus to start properly messing about with.

We were initially too busy in the other studio to bother him much, which left him free to work with the material in much the same spirit as it was originally performed - by improvising at the console."

[9] According to Eno, "strange new worlds took shape out of bewildering deserts of confusion, consolidated, lived gloriously for a few minutes and then crumbled away.

"[9] Ben Fenner, who was engineering the sessions, "attentively and unobtrusively coped" with unpredictable instrument and level changes in near-total darkness, leaving the band and the producers to "wander around our new landscapes.

"[1] Dravs generally worked on the material alone, improvising at the studio console, as James and Eno were busy recording Laid, but as Laid neared completion, the band and Eno spent more time in the "wild" studio where Wah Wah was being edited, where they worked long days, but there was "always enough going on to prevent any loss of momentum," and "things happened very quickly.

"[8] He commented that "they set each other off well: the combination feels like being at the edge of somewhere - where industry merges with landscape, metal with space, corrupted machinery with unsettled weather patterns, data-noise with insect chatter.

"Pressure's On" in fact dated back to 1991,[1] whilst "Maria", albeit in more conventional form, had been commonly played live by James since 1992, but failed to make the cut for Laid.

[10] Booth remembers jamming "hundreds of songs that never saw the light of day" and guitarist Larry Gott suggests it might have been "as many as 340 tracks" recorded.

"[13] The album shares Laid's general focus towards an "evocative, restrained attractiveness and moody melancholy," but Wah Wah features more immediate numbers with full lyrics from Booth sung in his "fine voice" mixed with more open-ended instrumental or wordless vocal jams.

"[2] The Harvard Crimson described Wah Wah as the "dark side" of Laid,[14] and commented that "the 23 tracks reflect two general moods: one, a dreamy, new-age rain-foresty wash of sound over which an cerie voice intones barely audible lyrics; the other, an abrasive, Achtung Baby industrial-esque sound with distorted, staticky vocals,"[14] whilst The A.V.

Joseph Gallivan of The Independent described it as "mainly electronic, and features lead singer Tim Booth experimenting with freely associative lyrics in a falsetto voice.

"[14] whilst Melody Maker would later say that the sessions saw the band "do a U2" by "get that Brian Eno in for a bit" and "experimenting with dance music".

[13] It features a "weirdly hypnotic synthesizer, the surreal, breathy vocals and the only occasionally comprehensible lyrics [combining] to create a liquid, seductive, trippy sound.

"[14] "Jam J" was compared to U2's Zooropa by Joyelle H. McSweeney of The Harvard Crimson, who noted the song contains "driving rhythms, snarly lyrics obscured by feedback, and angry bursts of guitars breaking through the mess.

"[14] "Frequency Dip" is said by one reviewer to recall U2's Zooropa and "moves along with a throbbing bass loop and is thick on the drums.

"[2] The song contains no vocals but "conveys a lot of feeling", as a "lonely" guitar drones throughout the track while various other sounds fade in and out.

[13] "Rhythmic Dreams" relies on a steady jungly drumbeat and mantra-like vocals to give the piece shape.

[1] Glennie recalled "we bumped into problems with the record company’s ability to deal with [releasing both albums at once].

[1] However, in the United States, the album was not a commercial success as Laid was, and effectively shrunk the band's American audience, from which it did not escalate again.

"[11] "Pressure's On", "Basic Brian", "Jam J", "Honest Joe" and "Tomorrow" featured regularly in James live sets.

"[1] Reviewing the album before release in mid-July 1994, Joseph Gallivan of The Independent was favourable, saying "a little bit of confusion is good for us all.

"[29] Less favourable in the British press were Q, with Mat Snow giving the album two stars out of five and saying "though no more than four tracks (especially Tomorrow and Jam J) out of a whopping 23 are anything like individually satisfactory, each is pregnant with a certain possibility, suggesting fully-fledged James tunes to come.

Meanwhile, buffed up with Brian Eno's signature opiated industrial dance sound and accumulating in mood over an hour, they total an intriguingly unfocused ambient experience.

It's a fascinating insight into the workings of the band egged on by one of the most inventive writers and producers of the generation - a completely unique record and typical of James' contrary approach at times.