Review: Sound of The Colourfield

In January 1984, The Colourfield released their eponymous debut single. It stalled just outside the Top 40, a better fate than that awaiting its follow-up, ‘Take’, a few months later, which barely made the Top 75 at all. It was a markedly different reception to that afforded frontman Terry Hall’s previous enterprises, both of which had been successful from the get-go: The Specials’ debut single ‘Gangsters’ was a Top 10 smash, while The Fun Boy Three debuted in the Top 20, the British public having chosen to ignore the fact that ‘The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum’ was wildly uncommercial. 

But the fans that were happy to send that gloomy stew of lumbering percussion, needling organ and lyrics about famine, nuclear war and global conspiracy straight onto Top Of The Pops seemed to look askance at The Colourfield. A career that lasted four years yielded only one hit, 1985’s sour-sweet, bossa nova inflected ‘Thinking Of You’, a song one suspects attracted a different audience than Hall was used to (on the DVD included in this six-disc box set, there’s a clip of the band miming to the song on cosy BBC One lunchtime show Pebble Mill At One, an odd place to find the man who, a few years previously, had been howling his way through the unsettling chorus of ‘Ghost Town’). Their second album, Deception, which at least one band member thought was a concerted attempt to break America turned out to be an unmitigated flop that Hall basically disowned on release. The Colourfield stumbled to a halt shortly afterwards, more-or-less unnoticed.

So what went wrong? On the evidence of Sound Of The Colourfield, it wasn’t the music. Their debut album Virgins And Philistines offered up a gorgeous blend of 60s and 70s influences: largely driven by acoustic guitar, occasionally lushly orchestrated, it variously touched on folk, jazz, spiky mod pop and MOR. The songs were uniformly great – ‘Castles In The Air’, ‘Armchair Theatre’, ‘Faint Hearts’ – their cover of The Roches’ hypnotically lovely ‘Hammond Song’, a thing of beauty. They had strong material to spare, as evidenced by a CD of B-sides: the twanging spy-theme guitar of ‘Your Love Was Smashing’ and the quite fabulously spiteful ‘Pushing Up The Daisies’ – the latter aimed, Hall said, at Wham! “and bands who smear orange make-up all over themselves before they go on Top Of The Pops” – are particular highlights. And a CD of live performances suggests they were good at that too. The 14 songs from Hammersmith Palais in 1985 are a little distorted, but they’re worth hearing, as is Hall’s mordant between song chat: he had a way of profusely thanking the audience that somehow suggested he was rolling his eyes as he did it. 

Perhaps some listeners simply couldn’t countenance the idea of The Specials’ former frontman crooning his way through ‘The Windmills Of Your Mind’, as he did on a B-side included here, or dabbling in smooth Bacharach-influenced songwriting, but if they thought it too big a stylistic leap, that simply suggested they hadn’t been listening closely enough in the past: the influence of easy listening was pronounced on The Specials’ second album, More Specials; and it was there again on tracks like ‘Well Fancy That!’ and ‘Tunnel Of Love’ from the Fun Boy Three’s second album Waiting as well as its cover of Ron Goodwin’s Miss Marple theme ‘Murder She Said’. 

But after Virgins And Philistines, things got more complicated. For fans who already own the original singles and albums, the biggest draw on Sound Of The Colourfield is likely to be the Demos And Outtakes on CD4, most obviously the sessions recorded in Paris in 1986 by a four-man version of the band, with Hall and fellow original members Toby Lyons and Karl Shale joined by former Teardrop Explodes drummer Gary Dwyer, featuring five songs that eventually found their way onto Deception. Like ‘Things Could Be Beautiful’, the pounding standalone single the band recorded with Ian Broudie around the same time, they’re muscular, punchy, electric guitar-driven and really good. Had The Colourfield’s second album sounded like that, it might have slotted in amongst the bands that Hall apparently saw as their peers: “R.E.M., The Bunnymen and New Order seem far healthier than anything else around,” he told a journalist at the time. But somewhere along the way Hall had a dramatic rethink. Enamoured by the sound of Cameo’s ‘Word Up’, he turned to hitmaking US producer Richard Gotttehrer. Dwyer vanished from picture and bassist Shale quit, and the album was completed with the aid of crack US session musicians. The result was Deception, heavy on cutting-edge synth sounds and clanking, Jam and Lewis-esque rhythm tracks. The songwriting is still strong, and it’s not without a certain period charm 39 years on, but there’s something telling about the fact that its uncontested highlight, the beautiful ‘Miss Texas 1967’, is the track that sounds the closest to the way The Colourfield sounded before.

And that was pretty much the end of that. In a sense, The Colourfield set the tone for the rest of Hall’s career, at least until he reconvened The Specials in 2008: wonderfully crafted songs, unexpected musical shifts – from working with Dave Stewart in the early 90s duo Vegas to collaborating with former Fun-Da-Mental frontman Mushtaq Uddin on 2003‘s superb The House Of Two Lights – and underwhelming sales. The failure of Hall’s various projects and solo albums to much interest the general public means there’s a lot of buried treasure to find in his catalogue, some of which is collected here, nicely packaged, with strong sleeve notes, that blend new interviews with Lyons, Shale, Ian Broudie and debut album producer Hugh Jones with vintage Hall quotes.

If it’s hard not to feel a little frustrated when you hear the short-lived four-piece Colourfield in full flight – “do that! Don’t bother trying to sound like Cameo!” – more often the music on Sound Of The Colourfield makes you gently elated, as beautiful songs, beautifully performed are wont to do. 

Review by Alexis Petridis. Sound of the Colourfield is released this Friday, 27 February, via Chrysalis.

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Tracklisting

Sound of The Colourfield The Colourfield /

• • CD 1: VIRGINS AND PHILISTINES
    1. Thinking of You
    2. Faint Hearts
    3. Castles in The Air
    4. Take
    5. Cruel Circus
    6. Hammond Song
    7. Virgins and Philistines
    8. Yours Sincerely
    9. Armchair Theatre
    10. Sorry
  • CD 2: DECEPTION
    1. Badlands
    2. Running Away
    3. From Dawn to Distraction
    4. Confession
    5. Miss Texas 1967
    6. She
    7. Heart of America
    8. Digging It Deep
    9. Monkey in Winter
    10. Goodbye Sun Valley
  • CD 3: A-SIDES, B-SIDES & MIXES

    A-sides and B-Sides

    1. The Colour Field – A-side 7” single, Jan 1984
    2. Sorry [Original Version] – B-side to The Colour Field single, Jan 1984
    3. Pushing Up The Daisies – B-side to Take single, July 1984
    4. Windmills of Your Mind – B-side to Take 12” single, Jul 1984
    5. My Wild Flame – B-side to Thinking of You 7” single, Jan 1985
    6. Little Things – B-side to Thinking of You 7” single, Jan 1985
    7. Castles in The Air [Single Remix] – A-side, Apr 1985
    8. Your Love Was Smashing – B-side to Castles in The Air single, Apr 1985
    9. I Can’t Get Enough of You Baby – B-side to Castles in The Air 7” single, Apr 1985
    10. Things Could Be Beautiful – A-side single, Jan 1986
    11. Frosty Mornings – B-side to Things Could Be Beautiful single, Jan 1986
    12. Running Away [Radio Edit] – A-side single, Feb 1987
    13. She [Single Remix] – A-side single, Jul 1987
    14. Monkey in Winter [with Sinéad O’Connor]- B-side to She 12” single, Jul 1987

    Versions

    15. The Colour Field [Extended Version] – A-side to 12” single, Jan 1984
    16. Take [Extended Version] – Previously Unreleased
    17. Thinking of You [Singalong Version] – B-side to Thinking of You single, Jan 1985
    18. Castles in The Air [Extended Version] – A-side to 12” single, [Apr 1985
    19. My Wild Flame [Extended Version] – B-side of Thinking of You single, Jan 1985
    20. Castles in The Air [Instrumental Version] – B-side to Castles in The Air single, Apr 1985
  • CD 4: DEMOS & OUTTAKES

     All Previously Unreleased

    1. The Colour Field [Instrumental Demo] – Cargo Studio, Rochdale [Oct 1983]
    2. Cruel Circus [Demo] – Recorded at Cargo Studio, Rochdale [Oct 1983]
    3. Armchair Theatre [Instrumental Demo] – Recorded at Cargo Studio, Rochdale [Oct 1983]
    4. The Colour Field [Guide backing track] – Recorded at Strawberry Recording Studios, Stockport [Nov 1983]
    5. Take [4-Track Demo] – Home recording, Stockport [early 1984]
    6. Thinking of You (Instrumental) [4-Track Demo] – Home recording, Stockport [early 1984]
    7. Pushing Up The Daisies [4-Track Demo] – Home recording, Stockport [early 1984]
    8. Windmills of Your Mind [4-Track Demo] – Home recording, Stockport [early 1984]
    9. Yours Sincerely [4-Track Demo] – Home recording, Stockport [early 1984]
    10. Castles in The Air [4-Track Demo] – Mixed by Dermot James [Nov 2024]
    11. Heart of America [Ian Broudie Version] – Recorded at Amazon Studios, Liverpool [Nov 1985]
    12. Jesus and The April Rain [Ian Broudie Version] – Recorded at Strawberry Recording Studios, Stockport [Dec 1985]
    13. Digging It Deep [Studio Davout Version] – Recorded at Studio Davout, Paris [Jun 1986]
    14. She [Studio Davout Version] – Recorded at Studio Davout, Paris [Jun 1986]
    15. Frosty Mornings [Studio Davout Version] – Recorded at Studio Davout, Paris [Jun 1986]
    16. Confession [Studio Davout Version] – Recorded at Studio Davout, Paris [Jun 1986]
    17. Jesus and The April Rain [Studio Davout Version] – Recorded at Studio Davout, Paris [Jun 1986]
    18. Heart of America [Studio Davout Version] – Recorded at Studio Davout, Paris [Jun 1986]
    19. Goodbye Sun Valley [Studio Davout Version] – Recorded at Studio Davout, Paris [Jun 1986]
    20. Things Could Be Beautiful [Acoustic Version] – Recorded at The Garden Studio, London [Mar 1987]
  • CD 5: LIVE

    Hammersmith Palais 1985

    1. The Colour Field [Live] *
    2. Pushing Up The Daisies [Live]
    3. Faint Hearts  [Live] *
    4. Your Love Was Smashing [Live]  *
    5. Take [Live]  *
    6. Cruel Circus [Live]  *
    7. Yours Sincerely [Live]
    8. Sorry [Live]  *
    9. Hammond Song [Live]  *
    10. Virgins and Philistines [Live]  *
    11. Thinking of You [Live]  *
    12. I Can’t Get Enough of You Baby [Live]  *
    13. Armchair Theatre [Live]  *
    14. Castles in The Air [Live]  *

    Warwick University 1986

    15. Frosty Mornings [Live]  *
    16. Take It as It Comes [Live]  *
    17. Memories Can’t Wait [Live]  *
    18. Things Could Be Beautiful [Live]  *
    19. She [Live]  *
    20. Jesus and The April Rain [Live]  *
    21. 96 Tears [Live]  *

    *Previously unreleased

  • DVD

    Promotional Videos

    1. The Colour Field Directed by Jeff Baynes
    2. Take Directed by Jeff Baynes
    3. Thinking of You Directed by Bill Butt
    4. Castles in The Air Directed by Bill Butt
    5. Things Could Be Beautiful Directed by Bill Butt
    6. Running Away Directed by Nick Thompson
    7. She Directed by Tim Pope
    8. ‘Why Am I Standing Here?’  [The Making of the Making of The Colourfield] * Directed by Tim Pope

    At The BBC

    9. Thinking of You [Whistle Test 22.1.1985]
    10. Faint Hearts [Whistle Test 22.1.1985]
    11. Thinking of You [Top of The Pops 31.1.1985]
    12. Castles in The Air [ORS 1.3.1985]
    13. Thinking of You [ORS 1.3.1985]
    14. Thinking of You [Pebble Mill at One 19.4.1985]
    15. Castles in The Air [Pebble Mill at One 19.4.1985]

    * Previously Unreleased