Echo and the Bunnymen sailed to sadder shores through the thick and thin to give themselves on a silver salver with the swooning strings of this stormy and sumptuous sea change. Following the negative critical response to 'Porcupine', the group went into the studio with producer Hugh Jones to record the single 'Never Stop' with a more expansive sound. With the response to the single and to new songs that they revealed at live shows, the band decided to continue experimenting with even more exotic instrumentation for 'Ocean Rain'. Will Sergent explains: "We wanted to make something conceptual with lush orchestration; not Mantovani, something with a twist. It's all pretty dark. 'Thorn of Crowns' is based on an eastern scale. The whole mood is very windswept: European pirates, a bit Ben Gunn; dark and stormy, battering rain; all of that ... We went to Paris to get a kind of Jaques Brel kind of vibe. The vocals and the mix were done in Kirkby a bit of a "you lookin at me?" kind of vibe! The Paris studio had a lot of old Keyboards, like celesta and harpsichord so we used them, a real old school kind of place. Studio Des Dame. They had a weird echo chamber room, you had to climb down a ladder to get to it. I remember playing the solo bits on the track ‘Ocean Rain’ in the echo chamber. They also had this incredible old slate reverb unit about 10 feet long, we had everything going through it and it sounded so warm and rich, like the old Scott Walker records - real sixties. The trouble was we mixed the record at Amazon in Kirkby and couldn’t get the same sound. Me and Les took our bikes and spent a lot of time darting about the city. Adam Peters did the string arrangements, we had a lot of influence as to which, we were going for the Brel/Scott kind of thing."
Sessions for 'Ocean Rain' were produced by the band with Gil Norton and Henri Lonstan at Studio des Dames and Studio Davout in Paris, Crescent Studio in Bath, and Amazon Studios in Liverpool. The album features Ian McCulloch on vocals; Will Sergeant on guitar, harpsichord, and sitar; Les Pattinson on bass; and Pete de Freitas on drums, xylophones, and glockenspiels; with Adam Peters on piano and cello.
McCulloch muses: "In terms of the romanticism about 'Ocean Rain', it was half done in Paris. It's a masterpiece ... I go by my original story – greatest album ever made. It’s incredible, beautiful. ‘Killing Moon’ is genius – the best song ever written. It was the first song we recorded before we went to Paris to do the full album, and the chorus came to me. I woke up one morning and I know it was sunny, and I sat upright with words that God had given to me in my sleep. It wasn’t like a dream, I just woke up with the words, and that has never happened before or since. I legged it to find a guitar to get the chords down, and obviously to write the words down. Divine inspiration, and that was it. I haven’t really credited Our Lord with the lyrics before. Would I change anything about the album? I like my voice better now, but having said that, most people would disagree, so no, not really. I think it’s a complete thing. ‘The Yo-Yo Man’ is not my favourite, but it sets it up right for that album. I always used to do the first track and last tracks of the two sides as the core songs. People were familiar with ‘Killing Moon’ by then anyway, but imagine if they’d got to the album without hearing it – it would have been like, “Whoa, what the fuck?” And then ‘Ocean Rain’ - the closer of closers. All in under 40 minutes – it’s like a Sixties record. It wasn’t the easiest album to sell to America, but it certainly inspired other people in bands in America to go on and reap more rewards than we did. I’m surprised that Warners didn’t press the button [and promote it properly in the US]. In those days you’d hire a plugger. Wayne Coyne thinks it’s the best album ever, but it just didn’t have the exposure. And we weren’t really a band that toured for long periods - I’d miss Liverpool too much. More European influences I suppose. But then we were the best band in the world and we’d just created that… and you’re not going to bribe people? ... There was never going to be any cow-towing to America. No wearing cowboy hats and cowboy boots. With 'Ocean Rain', we went to Europe and made a more European sound. I was always into Jacques Brel and Abba -- anything that had decent lyrics and a great tune and was foreign, as in European. I was one for Marlene Dietrich rather than Doris Day...It was a blast to make, though the whole thing might have been easier if I hadn't been in the boozer every day in Paris. I remember being on the phone to Rob Dickins, who was our boss at Warner Records. He was the only one who dealt with us and he loved us, thought we were the best group in the world. He was always saying 'why can't you just go and shake someone's hand, play the game a bit?' It wasn't the way we were.. Anyway, he phoned me at the pub across the road from the studio in Paris and says 'what's it like?' And I said, 'Rob it's the greatest album ever made'. He must have written it down because when we came back and saw the poster, that's what he'd written on it: The Greatest Album Ever Made. For us it was never a career. It was an emotional thing. We thought we were the best band on the planet. To prove it, we went and made a masterpiece."
'Ocean Rain' went to eighty-seven in the US, forty-one in Canada, twenty-two in Sweden, ten in New Zealand, and number four in the UK.
http://www.bunnymen.com/
'The Killing Moon' charted at number twelve in New Zealand, nine in the UK, and seven in Ireland.
Under blue moon I saw you
So soon you'll take me
Up in your arms
Too late to beg you or cancel it
Though I know it must be the killing time
Unwillingly mine
Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him
In starlit nights I saw you
So cruelly you kissed me
Your lips a magic world
Your sky all hung with jewels
The killing moon
Will come too soon
Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him
Under blue moon I saw you
So soon you'll take me
Up in your arms
Too late to beg you or cancel it
Though I know it must be the killing time
Unwillingly mine
Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him
Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him
You give yourself to him
La la la la la
'Seven Seas' reached sixteen in the UK and ten in Ireland.
'Silver' made it to thirty in the UK and fourteen in Ireland.
'Ocean Rain'
full album:
All tracks written by Will Sergeant, Ian McCulloch, Les Pattinson and Pete de Freitas.
"Silver" – 3:22
"Nocturnal Me" – 4:57
"Crystal Days" – 2:24
"The Yo Yo Man" – 3:10
"Thorn of Crowns" – 4:52
"The Killing Moon" – 5:50
"Seven Seas" – 3:20
"My Kingdom" – 4:05
"Ocean Rain" – 5:12
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