The Wild Swans - About

only keyboard player in the Western hemisphere NOT under the impression that he was Ray Manzarek. Precisely who Ged DID think he was is still a mystery and should probably remain so, but his keyboard playing throughout is simply extraordinary. The way his instruments and Jem's interact is something unique and like nothing that had gone before. Just listen to the piano playing on No Bleeding, Flowers of England, etc. and marvel. And throughout these recordings, listen to the way that the guitar and the keyboards have, in many ways, swapped their usual roles: in most rock music at that time the guitar occupied the middle of the sound, filling it out - remember, the most influential group in Britain at the time was Joy Division: upfront drums and bass, guitar mixed back but deep, menacing and other-worldly. And then listen to the Wild Swans: Bass practically inaudible, the guitar up at the very top of the sonic spectrum, playing melodically, often flirting with the vocal line, and then the keyboards, mainly piano and/or string synth, filling the sound out, often even carrying the rhythm, adding incredible dynamics and drama. And it's a warm sound, as opposed to the icy jags of synthesizer that had become de rigueur since people had heard Wire's Chairs Missing and 154 and then Joy Division‚s Closer. And the vocals were sung with a very English delivery when most British singers affected American accents.

Every other band took much the same route: they went out and gigged, hoping to get noticed. Not our boys. They did at some point deign to go into a recording studio briefly and cut three tracks on the basis of some record company interest. Of these three tracks we've included an otherwise unreleased song called Infidel, as the historical artefact which it undoubtedly is. Then nothing much happened for a little while until Providence took a hand in the shape of one Peter Louis Vincent de Freitas.

Paul knew the Bunnymen of old, of course and, when they finally saw some money, their drummer showed his faith in the Wild Swans by offering to fund a single. At the last minute the