Speaking In Tongues

This started off with Ever So Lonely by Monsoon shuffling into play the other day, and became a bit more of a deep dive into other appearances by Sheila Chandra on YouTube.

Ever So Lonely was a key song for me in the early 1980s, like Living On The Ceiling by Blancmange, introducing this curious kid to Indian instruments in pop music, Monsoon having the advantage of Sheila as frontperson, a mesmerising presence. 

The subsequent singles did not match the success of Ever So Lonely, to the extent that the record label asked Monsoon to drop the "Indian elements" of their music, like it was just a passing phase or interest, rather than theit core reason for being. 

Unsurprisingly, Sheila and founder Steve Coe called time on Monsoon and returned to his IndiPop label to focus on solo releases.

I discovered Sheila - and specifically Speaking In Tongues - on a mid-90s compilation, but the seeds of this playful accapella music were planted in her earlier solo releases, as can be seen in a Swedish TV appearance in 1984.

 

Monsoon was a studio band, so Sheila didn't really start performing live until several albums into her solo career. At which point, she was unlike anything audiences may have experienced before, even those who were fans of other music on her then-label Real World.

Here's an example of Sheila's incredible performance of Speaking In Tongues II in 1992.

 

A good decade before The One Show, BBC1's staple magazine show was Pebble Mill, hosted in 1994 by Alan 'Titch' Titchmarsh (still plugging his brand of amiable bland today, albeit on ITV). 

Thankfully this clip spares us the preceding interview with wildfire absurdist Ian 'Beefy' Botham, and sees Sheila patiently explaining her music to Titch before performing Speaking In Tongues III.

 

It is well documented that Sheila was subsequently afflicted with burning mouth syndrome, which ended her career as a singer and actress in 2009. Her husband Steve Coe also passed in 2013.

Sheila found her voice through writing and mentoring and I've just discovered this 50 minute interview with Sheila from the end of last year, which covers key moments in her life and the challenges that she has overcome. An inspirational woman.

In September, Real World releases Echo, billed as Sheila's final album, a collection of live performances of songs from her career, trailed with a stunning rendition of Ever So Lonely, Eyes and Ocean.

Decade II: 1982

Side 1 of a cassette compilation, recorded sometime in March 1990, lost sometime in the next two decades, reimagined and recreated 11th August 2024.

 

And the hits just keep on coming...

 

If you were here for last weekend's opening brace of 80s-themed mixtapes, you'll know that of the five cassettes I recorded in 1990, only three remain. 

 

The two lost volumes covered 1982 to 1985 and I've had a go at recreating the track listing and cover art (kind of) from scratch. Some songs I vaguely recall being on the original mixtapes, others I've no idea, but I've excluded any songs that I couldn't have owned or borrowed in spring 1990. Lots had to be left out, inevitably, but I think the end results are faithful reproductions that sit well with their contemporary cassettes.

 

1982 was another fantastic year for pop and I realise how lucky I was to grow up surrounded by all this diverse and exciting music troubling the Top 40. Synths were fully embedded in the mainstream by now but with all sorts of influences and flavours stirred in. 

 

Looking back, there's a marked shift towards heavy marketing and promo by this point: videos, double pack 7" and 12" picture discs with free posters, saturation on kids' TV shows, and so on. If a single wasn't a hit, it would be re-mixed, re-recorded and re-re-re-released until, damn it, it became a hit.

Kiss Me is a prime example of this. Stephen Duffy originally formed the band Tin Tin with a couple of guys from Fashion, a Dexys Midnight Runner and producer Bob Lamb. Kiss Me was their debut single in November 1982 and flopped. The single was remixed and released in the USA by François Kevorkian in 1983 and became a minor club hit. 

 

Taking notice, Duffy's label released the remix in the UK in 1984 and it scraped to #78. Undeterred, Kiss Me was remixed yet again, this time by J.J. Jeczalik (Art Of Noise) and Nicholas Froome, and given one last shot in early 1985. Fourth time lucky, as Stephen 'Tin Tin' Duffy reached the dizzy heights of #4 and enjoyed several other hits afterwards.

I've cheated a little here and gone for François Kevorkian's remix from 1983, partly because I didn't own the original Tin Tin single back in the day and partly because it's a much better version than the 1982 original.

I've also plumped for the 12" remix of Talk Talk's eponymous single to open proceedings. An early purchase from Plastic Wax Records in Bristol, back when it was in Old Market, opposite the Trinity. As with most Talk Talk extended mixes, there are fewer vocals than the single/album version and lots of none-more-80s bridges, bells and whistles.

I was tempted to drop in the 12" mix of Party Fears Two by Associates but it pops up quite frequently in my 80s mixtapes so I've stuck with the single version here instead. Hearing this for the first time on Top Of The Pops was an attention-grabbing moment and began a lifelong love of Billy MacKenzie. What a voice.

Making their debut here along with Talk Talk are Tears For Fears, Blancmange and Scritti Politti, who will all (probably) reappear in later volumes. Others, like Yazoo, ABC and Monsoon make one-time appearances in this series.

Squeeze wrapped up an incredible run of singles with Annie Get Your Gun, recorded to promote their essential compilation, 45s And Under. 

And should any 1982 collection be without Pete Wylie's epic The Story Of The Blues? No Wah!, sorry, no way!

 

No prizes for guessing the year in tomorrow's post...

1) Talk Talk (Extended Mix Long Version): Talk Talk

2) Don't Go (Album Version): Yazoo

3) Party Fears Two (Single Version): Associates

4) Living On The Ceiling (Single Remix): Blancmange

5) The Story Of The Blues Part One (Single Version): Wah!

6) Mad World (Album Version): Tears For Fears

7) Kiss Me (U.S. Remix) (7" Version): Tin Tin

8) Poison Arrow (Single Version): ABC

9) Windpower (Single Version): Thomas Dolby

10) Ever So Lonely (Single Version): Monsoon

11) Asylums In Jerusalem (Album Version): Scritti Politti

12) Annie Get Your Gun (Single Version): Squeeze

14th March 1982: The Lexicon Of Love (#6): 8

21st March 1982: Sulk (#9): 3

25th April 1982: Talk Talk EP (#52): 1

2nd May 1982: Ever So Lonely EP (#12): 10

25th July 1982: Upstairs At Eric's (#3): 2

8th August 1982: Songs To Remember (#43): 11

5th September 1982: The Golden Age Of Wireless (#31): 9

24th October 1982: Singles: 45's And Under (#43): 12

31st October 1982: The Hurting (#3): 6

??? November 1982: Kiss Me EP (# n/a): 7

21st November 1982: Happy Families (#7): 4

16th January 1983: The Story Of The Blues EP (#3): 5 *

Side One (45:46) (GD) (M)

* The Story Of The Blues first charted on 19th December 1982

History Reinvented

You can blame it all on Tom Moulton, for inventing the remix in the 1970's and creating floor-filling club classics, resurrecting 'old' hits by The O'Jays for the disco generation. For the past five decades, there has been a continuing, arguably obsessive, need to review, refresh and reinvent our rich musical history to reflect changing dancefloor tastes. Ironically, the remixes themselves end up being a snapshot of a particular period in time. From Tom Moulton to Ben Liebrand to 808 State to Blank & Jones to Luxxury and The Reflex, there is a constant stream of DJs and artists diving into their record collections to pull up (& pull apart) a classic song.

Some artists appear to embrace the deconstruction and tinkering, for example The Cure and Soft Cell. Others take a much different view. When Talk Talk's former record label EMI, buoyed by the success of singles compilation Natural History, decided to release a follow-up, History Revisited: The Remixes in 1991, Mark Hollis asked them not to. When EMI did it anyway, Talk Talk successfully sued and EMI was forced to withdraw and destroy all remaining copies of the album. The Wikipedia entry on the remix album includes an extract from a contemporary Melody Maker interview with Hollis and you can understand where he's coming from:

 

"I've never heard any of this stuff and I don't want to hear it . . . but to have people putting this stuff out under your name which is not you, y'know, I want no part of it. It's always been very important to me that I've got on with the people we've worked with. People's attitude has always been really important to me. So much of why someone would exist on one of our albums is what they are like as a person. So to find you've got people you've never given the time of day to going out as though it's you . . . it's disgusting."

 

Manager Keith Aspden put it even more succinctly:

"It's a distortion—more like History Reinvented".

 

I'm guilty of having bought - and enjoyed - the Talk Talk remix 12" singles and album (okay, with the exception of the Talk Talk Recycled megamix by Jive Bunny, which is an abomination). I also have a broad interest in new remixes of old songs, although there's generally more shit than shine.

To be honest, you'll find a bit of both in this selection, depending on your attachment to a particular song. My approach to the playlist was a very simple one: I've simply referred to the running order of 2005 compilation 12"/80s and pulled together a selection of updated remixes and reworks that I happened to have in my collection. Arguably, none are better than the original version, and some do little more than sling  some dance beats under the song. Others take the song somewhere new or present the music in a new and interesting way. I'm particularly fond of Fluke's remix of The Human League, Jakatta's remix of Tears For Fears and, yes, Dominic Woosey & JJ Montana's controversial Talk Talk reinvention.

1) A Forest (Tree Mix By Mark Saunders): The Cure (1990)

2) Tainted Love '91 (Remix By Julian Mendelsohn); Soft Cell (1991)

3) Promised You A Miracle (Mylo Promised U A Remix): Simple Minds (2013)

4) Love Action (I Believe In Love) (Fluke's Dub Action Remix): The Human League (2003)

5) Fade To Grey (Bassheads 7" Edit): Visage (1993)

6) Situation (Richard X Remix): Yazoo (2006)

7) It's My Life (Tropical Love Forest Mix By Dominic Woosey & JJ Montana): Talk Talk (1990)

8) Kiss Me (Remix By Rusty Munno): Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy (1993)

9) Pull Up To The Bumper (Funk's Extension Mix By Funkstar De Luxe): Grace Jones (2000)

10) Sinful! (Scary Jiggin' With Doctor Love) (Remix By Pete Wylie): Pete Wylie ft. The Farm (1991)

11) Shout (Jakatta Thrilled-Out Mix By Dave Lee): Tears For Fears (2004)

12) Ever So Lonely (Remix By Ben Chapman): Monsoon (1990)

13) Wonderful Life (Deepend Bootleg): Black (2013)

14) Dr. Mabuse (Blank & Jones so80s Reconstruction): Propaganda (2014)

History Reinvented: 12"/80s Reimagined (1:24:32) (KF) (Mega)