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Incandescent - Careless Talk Costs Lives
I was sixteen in 1982, and spent all my time riding my bicycle and drawing. Occasionally I listened to the radio, and even more occasionally I bought a record. I bought the Teardrop Explodes and the Bunnymen and listened to U2's ‘Boy' a lot. I didn't really know anything. I certainly never knew about the Wild Swans when I was sixteen. Maybe that was as well, because over time the Wild Swans became a mythical name whispered in hushed reverent tones. Among those whose opinions I respected, whose versions of histories seemed most seductive, their sole single, the Pete De Freitas produced ‘The Revolutionary Spirit' was said to be the greatest single ever. It was the end of the 1980's before I got to hear ‘The Revolutionary Spirit' for the first time. It was a muddy cassette dub that sounded like it had been recorded on a 50p microphone through a torn curtain. But nevertheless it was clear my heroes had been right; it still sounded like the greatest single ever. I like the idea that ‘The Revolutionary Spirit' has never had a ‘proper' CD release. No master tapes have ever been found, so even on this, the first and definitive Wild Swans retrospective, it's been mastered direct from a virgin slab of vinyl. Somehow it's as it should be, and guess what? It still sounds like the greatest single ever. That the rest of Incandescent is similarly magnificent explains just why The Wild Swans have been so proudly treasured by Those Who Know for the past twenty years. Painstakingly pieced together over a period of more than three years by key keeper of the flame Nick Halliwell, Incandescent collects that sole Zoo single alongside mythic radio sessions and previously unreleased live and demo material from the vaults onto two CDs that swell, soar, ache and amaze.