Cut from the same cloth as U2, the Virgin Prunes were anything but a replica, to the the photograph U2 presented the Virgin Prunes were the negative, a dark cloud of invention against the dense fog of rock which hung thick in the late 70s.

In late 1982 the Virgin Prunes dived headfirst into a world of insanity, sculpting a vision of madness to enslave their new-found audience in ‘Hérésie’. The most adventurous band to rise out of the post-punk era struck gold very early on in their career, the Virgin Prunes are the anomaly in music, avant-garde, anti-commercial, hard to replicate and highly original.

To coincide with the debut album, “....If I Die, I Die”, the Virgin Prunes were commissioned by Yann Farcy to record an album for release through his label; L’Invitation Au Suicide, this dark work of experimental music would push the barrier of mainstream sound over a cliff with a celebration of disturbing gothic mastery.

The resulting album was to become ‘Hérésie’, a double ep set, one side a studio recording from their home at Windmill Lane Studios Dublin, Ireland, the other side a live recording taken from a performance at the Rex Club in Paris in June of that year.
Although primarily released and promoted for the French market the album found a much wider appeal originally as an import and towards the end of the nineties it finally found a release through Mute in the US and UK.
It is though an album of sublime anarchy and immense art, never replicated again by the band, a stretch too far into the abyss that it may have started to stare back at Gavin Friday and the rest of the Prunes.

The music contained within however is devastatingly good, interesting and surprisingly at times addictive, for example the track “Rhetoric” a mixture of Faust meets Bowie in a playground of weirdness;
“Spit into his eye,
Seeker Save His Soul.
Crawling in Pain”.
The music is not as powerful as on the debut and the standards recorded worked much better onstage with the visuals of Guggi and Friday bringing the theatrics to the music.
Here though, there is a low-point with the accordion driven “Down The Memory Lane” which is out of place slightly against others such as the sublimely macabre of “Loved One”;
“Sitting on the carpet
Playing with a gun”.

There is a train of thought that the extremity of the live shows did not translate to the studio, those slight touches of magic were lost which is why the second disc is so crucial here.
For the live recording the Prunes deprived themselves of sleep by some reports in a way to bring themselves to the point of madness or rather the right frame of mind to create a recording such as this, wether that is folklore or not this is the better side of the set by far as it pushes the audience and no doubt the listener to the brink of insanity.

The stage performance was always crucial to the Virgin Prunes, it was here that the creature finally sprang to life in a well-honed show, the influences of Joy Division, PiL and even Krautrock comes to the surface. With dolls heads and dead animals which would not look out of place at an Alice Cooper show, this though was in the name of art more so than shock.

The mastery of Dik Evans guitar work is critical in galvanizing their live sound against the thundering bass playing of Strongman (Trevor Rowan brother of second vocalist Guggi) which make the versions of “Pagan Lovesong” and “Theme For Thought” overtly raw and delivered with the intensity the band became famous for.
The “Walls Of Jericho” is blistering with Evan’s guitar chiming throughout, here Virgin Prunes cut-loose in full, sonic attack.

If there is anyone who is unfamiliar with the Virgin Prunes this is not the place to start, think of easing yourself in gently with one of there more accessible studio works, however, if you start to discover the Prunes this is where your journey will inevitably lead as this is a band hitting an abstract style of brilliance seldom seen within the modern music spectrum.

[Kevin Burke 2019]

On 17 March 1986, Depeche Mode released its fifth studio album Black Celebration through Mute Records. The album further cemented the darkening sound created by Alan Wilder. The album reached the fourth place on the UK Albums Chart, making it the group's highest-peaking album of the 1980s decade in their native country. Three years after its release, Spin ranked it at number 15 on its list of "The 25 Greatest Albums of All Time".

Four singles were taken from this album, ‘Stripped’, ‘A Question Of Lust’, ‘A Question Of Time’ and ‘But Not Tonight’ and released throughout the following year.

Upon its release Black Celebration received mixed critics in the British press. Melody Maker's Steve Sutherland brought the album down and wrote that Depeche Mode came off as "pussycats desperate to appear perverted as an escape from the superficiality of teen stardom”, also Sounds published a similar unsparing review criticizing chief songwriter Martin Gore's "adolescent fragments of despair". NME on the other hand praised Black Celebration's "perfectly constructed jigsaw melodies" and concluded "When the songs address topics other than the composer's state of mind – as on the evocative exploration of loneliness that is 'World Full of Nothing' – Depeche Mode sound like a lot more than just a high tech, low-life melodrama”…

Nevertheless the album entered the charts all over the world with some of its highest peaks in Switzerland (1st position, Swiss Hitparade), Germany (2nd of the Top 100), UK (4th of UK album) and Sweden (5th Swedish Top list). It also received Platinum in Germany (500.000 copies sold) and Gold in the US (500.000 copies sold).

But since then Black Celebration has been regularly reappraised in retrospective reviews. In 2007, when the album was re-released Rolling Stone magazine referred to the album as an "instant classic for the band's fans" that at the time of its release had seemingly been "utterly ignored by everybody else".

Depeche Mode (1986)

• Alan Wilder
• Andrew Fletcher
• David Gahan
• Martin Gore

Black Celebration LP (1986)

01. Black Celebration 4:55
02. Fly on the Windscreen – Final 5:18
03. A Question of Lust 4:20
04. Sometimes 1:53
05. It Doesn't Matter Two 2:50
06. A Question of Time 4:10
07. Stripped 4:16
08. Here Is the House 4:15
09. World Full of Nothing 2:50
10. Dressed in Black 2:32
11. New Dress 3:42

DISCOGS

On 16 March 1987, Siouxsie and the Banshees released their cover version of Iggy Pop's 'The Passenger', it was recorded for their 1987 all-cover-versions album Through the Looking Glass. The band revamped the song by adding brass arrangements. Released as the second single from that album, it peaked at number 41 in the UK singles charts.

Iggy Pop later praised their version and stated: "She sings it well and she threw a little note in when she sings it, that I wish I had thought of, it's kind of improved it [...]. Also the horn thing is good."

It was released as 7" and 12" vinyl by Polydor.

The Passenger - 7" - Tracklist

A. The Passenger 4:06
B. She's Cuckoo 4:16

The Passenger - 12 " - Tracklist

A. The Passenger (Llllloco-motion Mix) 8:00
B1. She's Cuckoo 4:15
B2. Something Blue 3:54

DISCOGS

Today, 40 years ago, Siousxie And The Banshees released the single Swimming Horses (16.03.1984) which was taken from the band's sixth studio album Hyaena. The song was co-written by Steven Severin and Robert Smith (The Cure)

The 7" B-side featured Let’s Go while the 12" version also feartured a third song called The Humming Wires.

Upon release Siousxie explained to British music magazine Melody Maker what events inspired her to write this song:

“This song is based on a programme I saw about a female version of Amnesty, called 'Les Sentinelles'. They rescue women who are trapped in certain religious climates in the Middle East, religions that view any kind of pre-marital sexual aspersion as punishable by death – either by the hand of the eldest brother in the family, or by public stoning. And there was this instance of a woman whose daughter had developed a tumour, and, of course, gossip abounded that she was pregnant. The doctor who removed the tumour allowed her to take it back to the village to prove that, no, it wasn't a baby – but they wouldn't believe her. The woman knew her daughter would have to be stoned to death so she poisoned her, out of kindness, to save her from a worse fate. Now this organization has all these escape routes for women like her, mainly through the elder brother who pretends to have killed them. But once they've been saved, they can never go back. So the song starts, "Kinder than with poison..." I also used the imagery of "He gives birth to swimming horses", from the fact that male sea horses give birth to the children, so they're the only species that have a maternal feel for the young. It was, I suppose, an abstract way of linking it all together without being sensationalist. I remember just being really moved by that programme, and wanting to get the sorrow out of me.“

Swimming Horses - Lyrics

Falling in your, falling in your arms
Fish on a line, learns to live on dry land
Thrown back again to drown
Kinder with poison

Than pushed down a well - or a face burnt to hell
Feel the cruel stones breaking her bones
Dead before born
Words fall in ruins - but no sound

She's dying of your shame - she maimed by your paw
He gives birth to swimming horses

Fish on a line, walking on dry land
But, back in the water to drown we drown
Floating in sky

He gives birth to swimming horses
Take a ride on the tide with the assassin at your side
The weightlessness under water -- forgets in slow motion
And washes pointless tortures

He gives birth to swimming horses
Floating in sky like fishes can fly through your arms

Songwriters: Robert Smith / Siouxsie Sioux / Steven Severin

DISCOGS

On this day, 44 years ago, Fad Gadget released the non-album 7” single ‘Ricky's Hand’ (14 March 1980). It was recorded at the Blackwing Studios, London, on 19 January 1980 and became the second Fad Gadget single, following the debut Back to Nature 7” the previous year.

The track was originally not included on any studio album and predating a debut LP ‘Fireside Favorites’ by several months, but does appear on several later released compilations. Mute Records founder Daniel Miller collaborated on the writing, playing and production.

The song was a sardonic cautionary tale on the perils of drink driving: "From the pocket it pulled five pound / Ricky bought another round… Ricky contravened the highway code / The hand lies severed at the side of the road".

The music was in a predominantly industrial style with an insistent electronic beat. An electric drill was also listed among the instruments; it can be heard on the recording punctuating each mention of the song's title.

The B-side, ‘Handshake’, was an instrumental that essentially mixed up the sounds used on the A-side.

Ricky's Hand 7"
A Ricky's Hand 4:06
B Handshake 4:47

Below you can watch some unique footage of Fad Gadget performing Ricky’s Hand at the renowned Hacienda FACT51 club, Manchester, England, 1984 and a live version performed on his 2001 come-back tour.

Sadly an unique video document on which Fad Gadget can be seen singing Ricky's Hand, with his two live musicians at the time, Phil Wauquaire and Jean-Marc Lederman (The Weathermen), on the Belgian RTBF show Cargo De Nuit in 1980 has recently been removed from YouTube.

Instead we discovered another nice document of Ministry covering Ricky’s Hand back in 1984!

Enjoy!