Music by Mark Peters

    Originally written as a solo guitar piece, here arranged for piano, strings and bottle. A spanish feel pervades, one of hot, tense, romantic evenings.
     
    A keyboard exercise that was so liked by my friend Andrea that I solved the problem of naming it by naming it after her.

 
    This reminds me of the painting 'Europe after the rain' by Max Ernst. The storm, or war, has passed, distant thunder can still be heard, but the air is brilliantly clear and the spirits of rejuvenation are awakening.

 
    Feeling very happy one day I went for a walk and found myself going round and round Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. It was spring, the air was warm, birds and squirrels abounded, and the sunlight filtered down through the new leaves. This has the mood of reverie I felt then. 

 
    As above, just a different rendition.
     
    A very old idea of mine based on a distorted harmonic bass line. I like the lush drama of the strings. The early feeling of devastation, which gave this song its name, has disappeared.
     
    Probably the least effective version of this song. See below for two quite different versions.

 
    The Donald Sutherland movie 'Don't Look Now' had always made an impression on me. This song started out in its own way but eventually became an expression of that impression.
     
    A jumpy song, a strange atmosphere.
     
    The Spanish word for 'thing' because I couldn't quite place this song. It has a somewhat religious feel, but was originally a guitar piece, based on a sequence by 'The Only Ones'.
     
    Named because it reminded me of the colourful and unsophisticated final procession at a traditional ring circus: majestically decorated elephants, skulking tigers, tumbling acrobats and stumbling clowns.
     
    A deliberate attempt at a Jean Michel Jarre sound. Written and recorded in a couple of hours. the name stems from the fact that each part is quite uninteresting on its own, only together do they add up to anything.
     

A Formal Sigh

A Formal Sigh formed in 1980. I date it from the day Flo Sullivan came around to my place in Vandyke Street, Liverpool, to suggest we form a band. My friend Robin Surtees soon joined as guitarist, and we began auditioning drummers. In the mean time we started gigging, first as 'This is This', and then briefly as 'Unit Germane'. A strange person called Wally often joined us on keyboards, and a few different drummers sat in. Eventually we found a drummer who spoke the same language: Roger Synek. He shared a flat with Greg Milton, who also joined as guitarist and singer. Flo sang, and played keyboards on some songs. I played the bass. 

A Formal Sigh took its name from a quotation of Ned Rorem's. Finding this is left as a challenge to the reader. The band played until early 1982, and a couple of record companies were just getting interested when Flo and Robin decided to leave. They went on to form Shiny Two Shiny, then Flo went solo as Gayna Rose Madder, and Robin joined The Room. Roger and Greg reverted to their old band name, Barbel, and continued to play. I decided I'd had enough and returned to Australia, resisting all invitations to form a new band here. It was not until 1987, once more in the UK, that I bought my synthesiser and opened a new musical chapter. 

All these songs have been kept on audio cassette for many years, and the recording quality has deteriorated in the interim. I recently transferred them all to minidisc, and from there to real audio format using Cakewalk Home Studio 8. In cake walk I bumped up the gain by 6 db for each song. I recognise that the quality is not first class, but I cannot do much about it. 

The first four songs were recorded at SOS Studios in Liverpool, 14 and 15 February 1981. Peter Coleman was the engineer. This was our first demo tape. We used this tape to promote ourselves around Liverpool. Some of it formed part of a 'tapezine' published with the fanzine 'Merseysound'. Flo sent a copy to John Peel, whose late show on Radio One played a central role in bringing unsigned bands to the notice of a wider public. There is more on John Peel below.

    This was the only song of the first batch that came together quickly. It was a stage favourite, though we didn't really feel it was cool enough. It was my first (and certainly not the last) use of the 9th, one of my favourite chords.
    Music: Mark Peters. 
    Lyrics: Flo Sullivan.
    Originally called 'Oblique Intrusion', this song was both about personal relationships and that between Russia and Afghanistan at the time. I liked the unusual chord sequence and structure of this song.
    Music: Mark Peters. 
    Lyrics: Flo Sullivan. 
    This song was built around a series of riffs by Robin, and was one of the first songs that developed substantially as a jam. I always enjoyed playing it - there are seven different bass patterns.
    Music: Robin Surtees. 
    Lyrics: Flo Sullivan.
    Often abbreviated simply to 'Walls', this was a song for which I actually had all parts worked out before it was introduced to the rest of the band. In rehearsals I had a minor singing part but Greg's superiority in this area meant it is his voice backing Flo on both recordings of the song. It is about the strange relationship people assume vis a vis art, a peculiar reverence that is misused and misunderstood. I think it had something to do with my ambivalence towards art and its institutions in the west, and the natural, comfortable fit it had in places like Bali.
    Music and Lyrics: Mark Peters.
    These four songs were also recorded at SOS, also with Pete, 6 and 7 March 1982.
    There are signs of the band falling apart already here, even though by this stage we were writing songs together rather than individually, developing ideas from jam sessions into complete arrangements. I am not very proud of this, and now wonder why we chose it to be one of the four songs for recording at this session.
    Music and Lyrics: A Formal Sigh.
    Another song I don't really have any feelings for. I know we were trying to find a new voice, but this wasn't it. With more work though, this could have come together a lot better. It just wasn't ready for recording.
    Music and Lyrics: A Formal Sigh.
    Now this was a new song that I really did like. It had atmosphere and power, and a really bitter ironic edge to the lyrics. I've often wondered if they are about me, as Flo was an ex-girlfriend at the time, but I'm probably being far too egocentric. The guitar was not deliberately out of tune. This and the next song (and the previous one too, come to that) feature a highly distorted bass sound I was experimenting with at the time.
    Music and Lyrics: A Formal Sigh.
    While this song has the feel of many different animals, giant lumbering rhinoceros, manic monkeys, comical birds and aggressive predators all going about their business I still don't know how successful it is. It is our one and only recorded instrumental song. I know it was deemed a good song to record as we needed to get used to a loosened up approach to music.
    Music and Lyrics: A Formal Sigh.
    The next four songs are from our John Peel session, recorded at the BBC's impressive Maida Vale studios sometime in 1981. Dale Griffin, ex-drummer of Mott the Hoople, was the producer, and I am sorry to say I forget the name of the engineer. This day was one of the most exciting and enjoyable of my life. We travelled down to London in our van, had my father's place in Virginia Water to stay in, and were in each other's company far more than usual. I was confident then that we would grow as a band, but I was wrong. All these songs were recorded from the radio, not from the masters, so you hear John Peel's voice on all tracks.
    Short for 'Evolution Revolution'. This was another favourite, which people used to refer to as 'the chinese one'. I am pleased with the way this song developed from a melodic bass line that falls one semitone at a time. It created a tricky series of key changes that we handled well.
    Music: Mark Peters. 
    Lyrics: Flo Sullivan.
    Rerecorded for this session and slightly different, partly because I was so tense that I kept fluffing the fast part of my bass line and had to simplify it in the end - we couldn't afford to spend time on extra takes.
    Music: Mark Peters. 
    Lyrics: Flo Sullivan.
    Also rerecorded from the first SOS session. I enjoy this song, always did. I later recorded another arrangement on my synthesiser, as you may have noticed. 
    Music and Lyrics: Mark Peters.
    I think this is a great song, majestic and strong. The recording mars it unfortunately, as there are some very noticeable drop-outs near the beginning and the end. It is unusual for having three bass parts. Greg played a very driving line, I played a heavy distorted part, and also added a soft melodic line in the quieter middle section. The original idea came from Greg, who had written a song of his own based on it. His song and this one were as different as could be.
    Music and Lyrics: A Formal Sigh.
    All these song files are in real media rm format, and were created by Cakewalk Home Studio 8. The original audio recordings or synthesiser output was sampled at 44.1 MHz (CD quality), then the real audio files were made using 28.8 Kbit RA3 music in the 4 KHz stereo bandwidth, at a 20 Kbps bit rate.