Thompson Twins kept moving into the gap to feel the motion of a thousand dreams and found their greatest success with this new wave world beat classic. The band had started as a foursome in London and went through numerous lineup changes before hitting it big with the single 'In the Name of Love', which was a number one dance hit in the US. After considering forming a splinter group called the Bermuda Triangle, the trio of Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie, and Joe Leeway fired the rest of the band (including founding members Peter Dodd and John Roog, as well as Chris Bell and Matthew Seligman). They traveled to Egypt and then to the Bahamas to record 'Quick Step and Side Kick' at Compass Point Studios. The album went platinum in the UK and gave them another number one dance hit in the US with 'Lies'. They toured with the Police and then returned to Compass Point Studios in Nassau to record 'Into the Gap' with Alex Sadkin co-producing with Tom Bailey. The sessions featured Tom Bailey on vocals, synthesizer, piano, contrabass, harmonica, guitars, and drum programming; Joe Leeway on Prophet synthesizer, percussion, and backing vocals; and Alannah Currie on backing vocals, drums, percussion, marimba, and xylophone.
Currie confesses: "I got involved with the percussion thing [after a man told her a woman would never make a good percussionist]. It was after playing saxophone. It was the part that intrigued me. We were living in a part of London where there were a lot of races. You use traditional [non-Western] rhythms then you change it and start using machine rhythms."
Bailey considers: "Eighty percent of songs are about love, another way of saying, "I love you." It's so boring, so cliché, what we have to do is find a way of making that phrase—say it as a fresh line, as if that's the first time it's ever been said. That's being extremely general, obviously. There's rules, but you hope that [the combination of] the inspiration, the experience, the songwriter's craft, comes into making it alive...A lot of it comes down to chemistry. We're not alike. We're theoretically a very bad mixture of people. But why me and Alannah got involved—professionally and personally—we found it throws up a third thing, a sort of chemical reaction...People pointed out, we've actually had them tell us, 'You guys are the perfect image for an integrated world.' We're like, 'What?' We were [just] neighbors on the same street!"
'Into the Gap' became a huge hit, selling over five million copies worldwide. It reached number ten in the US and number one in the UK.
www.thompsontwins.moonfruit.com
"Doctor! Doctor!" - 4:39
"Day After Day" - 3:49
"The Gap" - 4:44
"Hold Me Now" - 4:46
'Into the Gap'
full album:
https://myspace.com/thompsontwinsmusic/music/album/into-the-gap-8701241
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=ALBTKoXRg38BBnsSfzIBn50Zi5wUtD4YNW
All songs written and composed by Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie, and Joe Leeway.
Side one
"Doctor! Doctor!" - 4:39
"You Take Me Up" - 4:26
"Day After Day" - 3:49
"Sister of Mercy" - 5:09
"No Peace for the Wicked" - 4:09
Side two
"The Gap" - 4:44
"Hold Me Now" - 4:46
"Storm on the Sea" - 5:32
"Who Can Stop the Rain" - 5:46
No comments:
Post a Comment