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Features: Shantell 7" The Secret Sea 12" A Room Lives in Lucy 12" The Critical Distance 12" Shaletown 12" The House of the Heart 12" Lady D'Arbanville 12" Catalog Re Box 1. A collection of the early vinyl singles, issued in plain black sleeves with a four page insert. Some of the singles are originals, while others are white-label "box only" represses. Limited edition of 1000. Below are details from the insert. |
Wallpaper Dying-Words co-written by N.H. and S.H.J. in 1980 strive with the energy of the music to create an atmosphere of consalescence.
The secret Sea-Written in the autumn of 1983. 'The secret sea' refers to a sea of sleep which in turn is represented by a figure who visits the dreaming body of a girl.
There were no bounds-Early in 1980 while the Havas brothers beat out a rhythm and Justin merged a melody with the feedback from his self-made guitar cab, S.H.J. pulled a book from a box in a cupboard and started reading; it was Aldous Huxley's novel 'Time must have a stop', a book that influenced him greatly as it became the first book he ever read. The words from chapter thirteen were kept as an accompaniment to the music.
A Room Lives in Lucy-Inspired by letters from S.H.J.'s correspondence with a west country girl called Alison. Her wistful and dreamily frail yearnings are intensified, becoming desperate and almost violent in their search for beauty.
There was a Man of Double Deed-An anonymous rhyme the Jones brothers' grandmother used to tell them when they were children.
Scarlet arch-The last of these three songs written between January and July 1984 describes the barren landscape of limbo the lies between the conscious and sleeping mind. Here, emotions are freed and their surreal forms are blown across the wastelands like the ghost figure of sleep in 'The secret sea'.
The Critical Distance-This inappropriate A. side writes in its own claustrophobic confusion desperate to cut through the walls of its padded cell-like confines to find some sort of clarity. Half written and half recorded in the early summer of '86 in Rome, but due to a creative block not finished until the autumn of that year.
Scythe and Spade-Adapted from an idea written by J. Hobman (Ton Ton Macoute) that was inspired by the song 'Virus Meadow'.
The Renegade-A cover version of a song perfomed by 'Ton Ton Macoute', a group who played alongside AATT in the early eighties. The words are from an Albert Camus story of the same title.
Shaletown-These lyrics, symbolic of a great population shifts from the country-side to the town in the 18th century, describes a journey across rural Britain following a trail of chaff as it drifts on a late summer breeze towards an industrial town. Inspired by frequent journeys between the Midlands and south-west Wales in 1987, the 'imaginary' journey through this time-warped Britain brought forth many of the lyrical ideas used for the Millpond Years L.P. on which Shaletown appeared the following year.
Needle Street-Threatened by the growth of industrialisation, a house on the outskirts of the town is entered and slowly dismantled by the passing of time.
The House of the Heart-This is the first song where AATT contemplate the phenomenon of Romantic Love, allegorically seeing it as a mysterious mansion full of unexplored rooms. The house depicted is Witley Court, a Worcestershire mansion that burned down earlier this century.
Anchor Yard-Another detail of the Shaletown journey. Here the disused harbours along the Pembrokeshire coastline are passed and revived with the memories of the long-gone mackeral-gutting women.
Count Jefferey (the first)-The original version of the track that appears on the Millpond Years L.P. It was recorded by the Jones brothers at their home.
Lady D'Arbanville-A cat Stevens song remembered from childhood and chosen for its Thomas Hardy like qualities.
The Street Organ-An idea that grew after being woken by a street organ
outside a back-street hotel in Liege while the band were on a tour in 1988.
The song relays the differing memories and emotions a street organ has on the
residents of a town.