After dozens of highly praised live appearances in London´s club scene and abroad the Solarflares´ debut was strongly demanded by their fans... they won´t be disappointed. The album features 14 tracks, all of them written by Graham Day except "Find A Hidden Door" by UK sixties band The Misunderstood (originally produced by John Peel) and "Apollo Go Go" written by Graham Day and Fay Hallam. Almost exactly ten years after The Prime Movers recorded their debut LP "Sins Of The Fourfathers" the high-energy three-piece Day/Crockford/Howard decided to put their latest material on tape. With the help of Billy Childish´s lo-fi experience and his famous recording kit bass and drums were finished in just one go. For guitars, vocals and the final mix they went to Red Studio (Kent) again, which has been the birthplace of many Prime Movers recordings. "With the backing tracks recorded live and with just two mikes the album has a very lively sound", explains bass-player Allan Crockford. "It´s a different and less complicated approach to what we´ve done before. With the Prime Movers we sometimes thought too much about what people might like. It´s the fun that counts now", says Allan. "But it´s not too different either. It´s the same people in the band." - "This is my favourite album. It´s like back to the early Prisoners", Graham adds. "We recorded ´The Last Fourfathers´ like that." Talking about The Prisoners, fans will be pleased to hear that James Taylor walked in the studio one Saturday to record "Hold Your Head Up", originally a Prisoners-song. So in this case you have three Prisoners powered by one Prime Mover. "All Too Much" is another Prisoners-track on the album. "I´ve had it for 15 years", explains Graham, "but it was never recorded". Fay Hallam (ex-Makin´ Time and Prime Movers) plays organ on the instrumental "Apollo Go Go" and completes the Prime Movers´ line-up for one song. "Apollo Go Go" was originally written during early Prime Movers days but had never made it on record. It is the perfect soundtrack to our favourite Saturday evening sci-fi series - only the series was never filmed. Is "Brompton Lane" the band´s "Stanley Road" (Paul Weller)? Graham Day: "The song is about the time when Fay and I had split our bands Makin´ Time and The Prisoners. We had our first flat together and the future didn´t look too bright. One day Wolf walked in and said ´No, you can´t give up´, and this was the start of The Prime Movers." For the start of The Solarflares Graham Day wrote some of the new songs only two days before recording. "I had to tell the others how they go", he remembers. Talking about favourite tracks Graham and Allan immediately mention "Out Of Our Minds". The song delivers exactly what the title promises: high-speed garage punk with a strong chorus, winding through your brain like a flesh-eating worm. "I like ´Shadow Of The Past´ , too", Allan adds. The Hendrix-ish instrumental could be the perfect "chill-out" of an album, but in this case it just gives you a little time to refresh half way through a frantic set. And after more than 50 minutes there is no doubt: with their debut The Solarflares have written a classic in garage music. Have you expected anything less? |
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