noisefromthevoid

I first fell in love when i was 17. She was only 2 years older than me, but in some ways it felt like 2 lifetimes. She loved music, was smart, fun and highly opinionated. She also had a boyfriend. But umm, that didn’t stop us. In between the late night sneaking, marathon sex, radical political discussions, bad jokes and cheap beer we also found time to listen to a sh*tload of records. As a consequence it was she that introduced me to much of the music from those turbulent early 80’s that I still adore today. And topping that illicit list of late night musical mischief would have to be The Sound, whose 1st and most mindblowing album “From The Lion’s Mouth” was in hindsight the perfect soundtrack to our doomed love affair..

The Sound were, like many bands I liked back then, refugees from the London squatting scene. They were also label mates with pop icons Echo and The Bunnymen, though they never managed to escape the Bunnymen’s shadow despite in my opinion being far superior musically. The Sound’s under appreciated musical talents lay mostly in the skills of their singer/guitarplayer Adrian Borland, whose undiagnosed bi-polar condition no doubt fuelled their music’s dark and powerful edge, giving them an almost hypnotic intensity that gripped you in a vice of human frailty and tragedy. A fitting description perhaps, as Mr Borland - like so many talented artists before him - couldn’t take the weight of his overwhelming manic depression and threw himself in front of a train a few years ago. But his sad death set off a chain of events that has led to the Sound’s music being rediscovered, revived from obscurity, and re-issued again on Renascent Records who’ve also been busy reissuing a bunch of music by the Comsat Angels, The Woodentop and Wild Swans amongst others..

Anyways onto the music, and I love The Sound so much I’m gonna share not one, but two favorites trax of their’s. Both of which I’ve played in the VOID many times. So enjoy, and thank f*k for youtube..