Category Archives: Pointless Nostalgia

music, Pointless Nostalgia

Gift

I’m not going to overdo the “old goth music” thing, honest, but I felt that the re-release of Gift was worth mentioning as I’d waffled about First and Last and Always recently.

The Gift cover. It’s black.

I’d fancied a copy of Gift for the last few years, but it hadn’t been produced for some time: the last official release being in 1994, and a bootleg in 2009– and copies were changing hands for far more than I was prepared to pay- rarity pushed prices up. The album is, after all, quite short, and is what amounts to a fast release to claim an advance (and probably upset Wayne Hussey).

So it was nice to see Cadiz Music, a company that really need someone to look at their website (Wix, FFS?), re-release it, for just over a tenner (prices seem volatile- just after I got it, it dropped to under £9, but is currently selling for £14)

As it is: it’s an interesting point in between First and Last and Always and Floodland, and you know what? It’s not bad. Colours we’ve almost heard before, on CD releases of Floodland, and Giving Ground is obviously the single (even in this over 7-minute version with an obvious jump about 6:30 in) and given that

The reviews in the music press were unanimously negative

but I can’t help but agree with what Andrew Eldritch said:

The Sisterhood album was a weapon in this corporate war. That’s why I called it Gift. [in German: poison] […] But I still like the record. It’s weird but it’s fine. I see it as a techno record. Or what I thought to be techno at the time.

Weird but fine does the job. Not to everyone’s taste, but an interesting snapshot and not a bad listen. I’d probably have been disappointed at £60, but for a tenner I’m good. Andrew Eldritch there again, distancing himself from Goth 😉

Interestingly, it doesn’t feature Mr Eldritch singing, as otherwise WEA would have retained rights, and we’d probably have seen it before now.

audio, music, Pointless Nostalgia

A Re-evaluation

I keep mentioning First and Last and Always here, mainly in the context of its gloominess suiting my current outlook for the future, and suggesting that black clothing, alcohol misuse, and a good listen is an ideal way to capture that.

I’ve loved the album for years, even when considerably less gloomy*, but for many years was put off by what I perceived at the time to be duff recording, but it’s that I’m coming to re-evaluate: this was before the acrimonious split that saw the forming of The Mission, the brief existence of The Sisterhood with the once-rare short album Gift, and then Andrew Eldritch make his own Sisters of Mercy with blackjack and hookers just him and Doktor Avalanche. The recording was famously fraught and amphetamine-fuelled, but musically, it worked. Wayne Hussey’s penchant for sometimes daft lyrics was kept in place, for a start.

Dear Doktor, I’m a good guitar player, but my songs are feeble-minded. If I play with the Sisters for a year and then leave to become a full-time gobshite, will I be able to steal your thunder?

Definitely. For about sixteen seconds.

How very unkind. The Mission did some great stuff too. And probably kept up with the drug level.

Anyway: the recording: at the time it always sounded flat: a bit lo-fi, and it is true to some degree, but I think there’s 2 factors at play that 80s-90s me didn’t realise.

First of all: this was almost certainly deliberate. It’s meant to not be in your face and bright, because it’s damn well supposed to be subdued. Listening today, closely on decent-ish headphones it isn’t the most in-your-face recording, but there’s plenty of clarity and layers in the background. There’s a bit of tape hiss, but it soon disappears.

It does need some decent reproduction though, or Mr Eldritch’s vocals tend to overpower stuff, and of course, I’m using better kit than back then (conversely, my hearing will be worse, but if anything, that ought to make this sound even more flat, as we tend to lose high-frequency hearing as we age, maybe that’s what is hiding the hiss?). There’s the good point that the aforementioned Doktor was a 1980 device, so the drums will always sound like, well, 1980s synthesised drums. The afore mentioned good guitarist/full-time gobshite’s playing is clear.

There is the very good point too that this was recorded by professionals in a highly regarded studio, not on a 4-track in someone’s bedroom or a disused minicab office, unlike some albums I could mention which manage to compromise the musicality despite being recorded in the next millenium.

The second factor: recording fashions change. The 80s, with CD being newly available, with that all-new ability to reproduce 20Hz-20kHz pretty well, seemed to give an impetus for very “bright” recordings, the most obvious to my mind being “Heart“, and today’s fashion is a bit more laid-back, even if we have to cope with the loudness wars– and if we’re talking about ruining music, there’s a perfect example: Metallica’s Death Magnetic is positively unpleasant. back to the 80s, and surrounded by bright 80s recordings and playing a lot of stuff off cassette much of the time- cassette recorded from vinyl in all probability- anything a bit less bright probably sounded flat. This probably led to the accusations of CD sounding harsh which persists to this day amongst the vinylheads.

*no anti-gloominess guarantee at any point is implied or stated.