The WildSwans-Mark III(The Unfinished Business)
Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 3:19 pmAnybody who cares for this band, just check this out....
Mark III
Paul Simpson declared his intention to resurrect The Wild Swans on his Myspace site late in 2007:
"This unhappy band has been unfinished business for me for over 20 years, haunting my days and nights, obsessing my thoughts at the expense of my health and sanity. I never got over the sudden implosion of the first incarnation and was devastated by the crash and burn of the second. In returning from the ambient wilderness I am not trying to recreate the unique sound of any of the former members, how could I? It is the original spirit of the group I am after, the original blueprint for an English electric brotherhood. I formed and named the band shortly after leaving The Teardrop Explodes back in 1980, individually recruiting the members and establishing both the look and the compass direction. I lived and breathed The Wild Swans Mk. I and was traumatised to see it seized and taken from me, so this shouldn't be viewed as a reformation or even an exorcism, it is a continuum; different but the same".
– Paul Simpson, vocalist
The Wild Swans Mark III released a new recording as a limited edition 10" vinyl single on the Occultation label in March 2009 entitled 'English Electric Lightning/The Coldest Winter for a Hundred Years'.
The single was reviewed in the March 2009 edition of Liverpool.com magazine who said 'The hymn like melody and Gothic vocals evoke fond memories of the classic single, Revolutionary Spirit, whilst clever lyrical juxtapositions hammer home this harsh lament for modern Britain. Another classic. Welcome back.'
pennyblackmusic said in their March 2009 review, English Electric Lightning' is magnificent, a soaring and hymnal six minutes of chiming guitars and surging keyboards, which finally lives up to all the potential alluded at all those years ago with 'Revolutionary Spirit'. It carries a similar sense of harmony and melody to 'Revolutionary Spirit', but, as well as being much better recorded, where it surpasses that first record is in Simpson's urgent half hopeful, half despairing call-to-arms lyrics, which far less abstract than much of what he has written previously, throws together Johnny Rotten, Geoffrey Chaucer, Princess Diana, Margaret Thatcher and John Milton and examines everything that he sees as both being right and wrong about Britain.
The seven and half minute B side, 'The Coldest Winter in a a Hundred Years', is equally strong, a spoken word, comical monologue extracted from Simpson's forthcoming memoirs and, which set against a backdrop of scaling guitars and shimmering keyboards, tells of the first years of the Wild Swans and his own history sharing a flat in Liverpool with Bunnymen drummer, the late Pete de Freitas.
A brave and ambitious single from this most unfortunate of groups who three decades have at last matched up to all their early enormous possibility.
The current band line up features original members Paul Simpson and Ged Quinn along with Ricky Rene Maymi (Brian Jonestown Massacre), Mike Mooney (Julian Cope/Spiritualized) and Steve Beswick.
It is anticipated that an album, The Coldest Winter for a Hundred Years, will be released on the Occultation label at the end of 2009.
Thank GOD!! they're back, one of my so many new wave heroes...
(I wish Jeremy should be in the band..)from hisoka..
Mark III
Paul Simpson declared his intention to resurrect The Wild Swans on his Myspace site late in 2007:
"This unhappy band has been unfinished business for me for over 20 years, haunting my days and nights, obsessing my thoughts at the expense of my health and sanity. I never got over the sudden implosion of the first incarnation and was devastated by the crash and burn of the second. In returning from the ambient wilderness I am not trying to recreate the unique sound of any of the former members, how could I? It is the original spirit of the group I am after, the original blueprint for an English electric brotherhood. I formed and named the band shortly after leaving The Teardrop Explodes back in 1980, individually recruiting the members and establishing both the look and the compass direction. I lived and breathed The Wild Swans Mk. I and was traumatised to see it seized and taken from me, so this shouldn't be viewed as a reformation or even an exorcism, it is a continuum; different but the same".
– Paul Simpson, vocalist
The Wild Swans Mark III released a new recording as a limited edition 10" vinyl single on the Occultation label in March 2009 entitled 'English Electric Lightning/The Coldest Winter for a Hundred Years'.
The single was reviewed in the March 2009 edition of Liverpool.com magazine who said 'The hymn like melody and Gothic vocals evoke fond memories of the classic single, Revolutionary Spirit, whilst clever lyrical juxtapositions hammer home this harsh lament for modern Britain. Another classic. Welcome back.'
pennyblackmusic said in their March 2009 review, English Electric Lightning' is magnificent, a soaring and hymnal six minutes of chiming guitars and surging keyboards, which finally lives up to all the potential alluded at all those years ago with 'Revolutionary Spirit'. It carries a similar sense of harmony and melody to 'Revolutionary Spirit', but, as well as being much better recorded, where it surpasses that first record is in Simpson's urgent half hopeful, half despairing call-to-arms lyrics, which far less abstract than much of what he has written previously, throws together Johnny Rotten, Geoffrey Chaucer, Princess Diana, Margaret Thatcher and John Milton and examines everything that he sees as both being right and wrong about Britain.
The seven and half minute B side, 'The Coldest Winter in a a Hundred Years', is equally strong, a spoken word, comical monologue extracted from Simpson's forthcoming memoirs and, which set against a backdrop of scaling guitars and shimmering keyboards, tells of the first years of the Wild Swans and his own history sharing a flat in Liverpool with Bunnymen drummer, the late Pete de Freitas.
A brave and ambitious single from this most unfortunate of groups who three decades have at last matched up to all their early enormous possibility.
The current band line up features original members Paul Simpson and Ged Quinn along with Ricky Rene Maymi (Brian Jonestown Massacre), Mike Mooney (Julian Cope/Spiritualized) and Steve Beswick.
It is anticipated that an album, The Coldest Winter for a Hundred Years, will be released on the Occultation label at the end of 2009.
Thank GOD!! they're back, one of my so many new wave heroes...
(I wish Jeremy should be in the band..)from hisoka..