These 3 songs in the middle of Sing-Songs give me some headache as where to place them. Ancient History, Night Is Very Soft and In This Room have sound that is very far from the usual Church-sound of that era. A Different Man and I Am A Rock bookend the ep quite nicely with familiar tones but in between there is a echoe-y and a bit plastic no man´s land that has a lot of the trademarks of the early 80´s production values but doesn´t quite fit to any of the stuff that was done then.
At first there is just the drum intro that sounds a bit like from a machine. I know it might be done these days too but I remember it as an 80´s thing to have just the drum in the intro. Then it starts to build slowly with "looped" guitar lick and there also comes another guitar in to play at background with slow pace. Da-da-da-dad-da-dad-da. Da-da-da-dad-da-dad-da.There is something funky and slightly disco about the whole business here. These are sounds and landscapes David Bowie and Carlos Alomar could have played with, just before the man sold himself to the whole world with Let´s Dance in 1983.
My eyes begin to ache in the cold electric light
There are no windows in this room
In which we've been sitting all our lives
I could also imagine a video made from this song too and to be played in the then hypermodern MTV. Maybe more than some of the hits that the band had in this period. It would feature leggy model chicks with lot of jet black goth hair, black and white makeup and torn clothes. Maybe they would act like decadent disco vampires and they would wave their hands from the smoke like sirens calling our hero to his inevitable destiny. Steve would hang around in a sterile abandoned house/studio lit by blue neon lights and smoke lingering on the floor. He would gaze through the blindfolds that would make his face stripey with light and then he would shut them in terror before running around to escape the doom model chick vampires. Rest of the band would be playing around in bell towers or murky corners with grey makeup, all of them seemingly surrendered to the everlasting boredom of this room where they have to spend all of their lives. All this if they would have the video budget of Nik Kershaw or Laura Branigan.
Sorry, I might have gotten a bit carried away there but why was I carried away with this particular song? Don´t get me wrong, I like this song and it´s lazily claustrophobic feel. It´s just that I see In This Room more as a sign of it´s times than the other stuff the band made that has lasted better in the cruel test of time.
At first there is just the drum intro that sounds a bit like from a machine. I know it might be done these days too but I remember it as an 80´s thing to have just the drum in the intro. Then it starts to build slowly with "looped" guitar lick and there also comes another guitar in to play at background with slow pace. Da-da-da-dad-da-dad-da. Da-da-da-dad-da-dad-da.There is something funky and slightly disco about the whole business here. These are sounds and landscapes David Bowie and Carlos Alomar could have played with, just before the man sold himself to the whole world with Let´s Dance in 1983.
My eyes begin to ache in the cold electric light
There are no windows in this room
In which we've been sitting all our lives
I could also imagine a video made from this song too and to be played in the then hypermodern MTV. Maybe more than some of the hits that the band had in this period. It would feature leggy model chicks with lot of jet black goth hair, black and white makeup and torn clothes. Maybe they would act like decadent disco vampires and they would wave their hands from the smoke like sirens calling our hero to his inevitable destiny. Steve would hang around in a sterile abandoned house/studio lit by blue neon lights and smoke lingering on the floor. He would gaze through the blindfolds that would make his face stripey with light and then he would shut them in terror before running around to escape the doom model chick vampires. Rest of the band would be playing around in bell towers or murky corners with grey makeup, all of them seemingly surrendered to the everlasting boredom of this room where they have to spend all of their lives. All this if they would have the video budget of Nik Kershaw or Laura Branigan.
Sorry, I might have gotten a bit carried away there but why was I carried away with this particular song? Don´t get me wrong, I like this song and it´s lazily claustrophobic feel. It´s just that I see In This Room more as a sign of it´s times than the other stuff the band made that has lasted better in the cruel test of time.
1 comment:
I think it is a wonderful song, a forgotten gem under cold electric light. The Bowie/alomar suggestion was very clever. Interesting, I always dreamt up a video for this bittersweet one but slightly different. I also pictured the abandoned house but Kilbey would be trying to make a call while standing in the once-was-a-living-room under the light, all other corners dark, to a woman who would be sitting in their former bedroom-with-no-windows, strapped into a chair. He just wouldn't realise he was caught in the same trap as her. I love the closeplace imagery to tell how's a relationship (not) going like happens in this one. It's really amazingly claustrophobic and there is something so extremely fashion in this song that somehow it doesn't sound like The Church at all. It's like the fabrics are their at-the-time paisley but the design of these clothes is boldly younger, a little bit show-off, dramatic and appropriate for smoky nightclubs.
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