Floodland (album)

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Floodland is the second studio album by English rock band The Sisters of Mercy. It was released on 13 November 1987 by Merciful Release and Warner Music Group. The recording of the album began in January 1987, roughly two years after the band disbanded following the departures of band members Craig Adams and Wayne Hussey. It was produced by Larry Alexander, band frontman Andrew Eldritch, and Jim Steinman while being recorded at Power Station Studios in Manhattan, Strawberry Studios in Manchester, The Wool Hall in Bath, and AIR Studios in London.

Floodland received positive reviews from critics. Four official singles were released from the album: "This Corrosion", "Dominion", "1959", and "Lucretia My Reflection".

Background

Break-up of the original band

After the release of the debut album First and Last and Always in March 1985 band leader Andrew Eldritch intended to record an ABBA cover as a single. and tried to hire Jim Steinman as a producer: "Originally I called him up in [1985] when the band had "Gimme Gimme Gimme" in the set, and I told him about the song and that our version of it had to be absolutely stupid. He agreed with me but he was busy at the time. Then the band broke up."

The break-up occurred while the band prepared their second LP in October 1985. Eldritch: "The next Sisters album was going to be called 'Left on Mission and Revenge'."

Eldritch, who still intended to record the album as a solo artist, on the same day called bassist Patricia Morrison, currently on a UK tour with her band Fur Bible supporting Siouxsie and the Banshees, and asked her to collaborate with him. Morrison: "The day they fell apart he called me and said 'Will you do it?' and I said yes. [...] We had some tours set up so I waited until that was cleared, then left."

The music press reported the break-up on 2 November 1985: "The Sisters of Mercy were down to singer Andrew Eldritch and his faithful drum machine Doctor Avalanche this week after guitarist Wayne Hussey and bassist Craig Adams left the band. Although this has scuppered recording plans for a new album this month, Andrew now intends to record the same album in the New Year and could well be using Wayne as a session guitarist. [...] Andrew has also approached former Gun Club bassist Patricia Morrison—now in Fur Bible—to play on the album, but it's not yet known whether Andrew will continue with the name Sisters of Mercy."

Andrew Eldritch later stated that he had no intention to carry on under the old band's name: "The band was finished for me." "The people that are now The Mission and myself had an agreement no-one would use the name when the band went its separate ways."

The Sisterhood and "This Corrosion"

On 20 January 1986 Andrew Eldritch released the single "Giving Ground" under the name The Sisterhood, which featured vocals by his musician friend James Ray.

At the end of February 1986 the Merciful Release label announced the "forthcoming Andrew Eldritch album which for some months has had the working title Left on Mission and Revenge."

This solo album which was finally titled Gift was released in July 1986, again under the Sisterhood moniker. On the album (on which Eldritch did not sing because of contractual reasons), recorded at Fairview Studios in Willerby, Hull. Patricia Morrison collaborated with Eldritch for the very first time, even if her only confirmed contribution was just a spoken passage on the track "Jihad".

The album was a financial failure and only got bad reviews in the music press, as a result Eldritch lost his publishing deal with RCA Music Limited.

A planned Sisterhood 12" EP This Corrosion which according to Sounds magazine (20 February 1986) would "soon be in shops, featuring the same line-up but with the addition of a mysterious and so far undisclosed American vocalist", had been recorded at Fairview Studios with Alan Vega but remained unreleased.

James Ray: "We then spent weeks on what was to be The Sisterhood's second single, 'This Corrosion', but Eldritch decided he was going to use it to kickstart The Sisters Mk II."

Preparation of the album

After the "Sisterhood fiasco" Eldritch decided to continue under the name The Sisters of Mercy: "I think that reflected rather badly on the name The Sisters of Mercy and it's probably due for re-instatement for that reason if no other." "I couldn't have gotten rid of the name even if I'd tried. So changing it wouldn't have made any sense. I'm still writing and recording the songs in very much the same way."

Eldritch, who in 1985 first moved to Bramfeld and then to St. Pauli, began to compose a new WEA album in Hamburg. The demos were mainly recorded with a Casio CZ-101 synthesizer, acoustic guitars and a new drum machine: "By the time 'Floodland' was being written, Andrew had spent all the ready cash on a computer and a sequencer, and was looking for a reasonably priced midi drum machine with a tighter snare drum. So he got a Yamaha RX5 for the snare sound (the kick was quite tight too) and wrote the album with that."

With the exception of "This Corrosion", Eldritch in 1986 recorded demo versions of all Floodland songs which began to turn up in 1988 on the bootleggers' market. In addition a 7-minute instrumental without title exists which was written in the same musical style as the later Vision Thing track "I Was Wrong" and remained unused.

According to Eldritch, Patricia Morrison didn't contribute to the songwriting: "The record was a full-on solo album. My partner Patricia Morrison obviously suffered from writer's block. She didn't come up with any musical ideas, I couldn't even get her to pick up the bass in the first place." Merciful Release office manager Boyd Steemson: "Her musical contributions were very minimal."

Eldritch denied that his approach to songwriting had changed since the band split: "'This Corrosion' sounds like 'Temple of Love' II, '1959' sounds like 'Afterhours' part 2. I don't see any difference or any real change. I think I just carry on where I stopped."

Eldritch licensed the publishing to SBK Songs Limited (now part of EMI Music Publishing) and began to negotiate with his record company WEA.

The starting point was the song "This Corrosion", which was to be produced by Jim Steinman: "As soon as I had 'This Corrosion' I immediately thought of him." "Steinman is the man for extremes. It was the first Sisters records for years so it had to be something really special." "When we were trying to sell 'Corrosion' to Steinman, we told him it was like the high-point of a Borgia's disco evening and he went for it."

Eldritch also used Steinman to get his record company to concede an appropriate recording budget: "That's one of the reasons why I used Jim Steinman, cos when he says to the record company 'We want choirs and you're going to pay for it now!' they just hand over the money. Whereas if I asked for it they'd think 'What's he really going to spend the money on?'"

According to Boyd Steemson (Merciful Release office manager) the head of Warners' A&R, Max Hole, got the band a budget of £50,000 for the song: "We knew we had something with 'This Corrosion'. [...] The record company said 'Well, £50,000—that's not bad for an album,' and Max said 'No, that's for one song!'"

Recording

New York, 1987

The recording of This Corrosion and Dominion/Mother Russia started in January 1987 in New York.

Steinman and Eldritch used Power Station Studios in Manhattan, where they worked with engineer Larry Alexander. Alexander: "I engineered the two Jim Steinman tracks at the Power Station in New York, ended up as co-producer on 'Dominion/Mother Russia'."

On both songs Steinman used six background singers and 40 members of the New York Choral Society. Eldritch: "We had an awful lot of people on the record, made a very loud noise. Never had so many people on a record before. Why? I really don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time to have 40 people singing at once. I've no idea why. [...] Every time you think to yourself 'Do we really want to go this far?' and you say to Jim, 'Jim, are you sure about this?' and anybody else will go 'Don't do it!', Jim goes 'More! More! More people, singing!'. It works."

According to Eldritch, Steinman mainly focussed on the production of the choral singings: "I have to point out that he didn't contribute to the composition or the arrangements. [...] That's why he got only half of the production credit on 'Dominion', he's not interested in drums, bass or guitars. All he wants to do is the backing vocals and choirs."

England, 1987

The remainder of the album was recorded in England.

Initially Eldritch worked with an unknown producer: "I had a producer but I had to fire him. That's why I had to do it all by myself which was quite demanding."

Eldritch called Larry Alexander in New York and hired him as a co-producer: "I was then invited to go to England and co-produce the rest of the album. I think the first studio was called Strawberry Studios in Manchester. We worked there for a while, then moved over to Bath to a studio called The Wool Hall. Next was AIR Studios in London where we finished up."

Roy Neave engineered the sessions, one of the in-house engineers of Fairview Studios. Originally Eldritch intended to work with his colleague John Spence (who had worked with The Sisterhood in 1986), who was committed to another project and recommended Neave as his replacement. Neave had already produced the Merciful Release band James Ray and the Performance.

In addition to the remaining album tracks the band recorded a long version of "Never Land" (finally released in 2006). Eldritch also sang his own version of the Sisterhood track "Colours" which was slightly remixed and edited for the purpose.

Composition

Instrumentation

In contrast to the previous album First and Last and Always, which had been recorded in a conventional way, Floodland was pieced together on the computer with the help of sequencers.

Eldritch: "I learned how cool it is to work with computers in 1987 during the recording of the Sisters album 'Floodland'."

Eldritch worked on the recorded parts with a Voyetra Sequencer Plus, as effects unit a Yamaha SPX-90 was used, the parts were saved on a Compaq Portable 286.

The guitars were played by Eldritch himself, "apart from the solo on 'This Corrosion' which was played by a friend of Steinman's. [...] I use electric guitars when I want to be ironic." The solo was done by session guitarist Eddie Martinez, who in the previous year had played the famous guitar solo on Robert Palmer's number one hit "Addicted to Love".

Most of the bass on the album was not played on a bass guitar but by Eldritch himself using synth bass. Patricia Morrison was only featured in some places (most notably on "Driven like the Snow"), Eldritch later suggested that she did not appear at all on the album. In an interview he commented on the issue of Morrison playing on Floodland: "That's an assumption which a lot of people make, [...] but obviously I question that assumption." Morrison later stated: "Yes I did play on 'Floodland', though Andrew did record over some of my parts."

The piano track "1959" was pieced together with a sequencer by Eldritch: "This one was programmed on the computer note by note without even touching a piano key."

The drum sounds were sampled together from various drum machines with an Akai S900. The tom sound was from an Oberheim DMX which had been used on First and Last and Always. The remaining drum sounds were from a Yamaha RX-5.

Lyrical content

On the album title Eldritch commented: "I just wrote the songs and it's only afterwards that you think 'My God, there's water all the way through this.' It's obviously got a lot to do with living here, because Hamburg's full of water."

The centre piece of the album, "This Corrosion", goes back to the conflict between Eldritch and his former band mates who were now in The Mission. The lyrics are a parody of clichéd meaningless rock lyrics as especially Wayne Hussey wrote them:
"It is, of course, directed at somebody and it doesn't take a genius to work out who, although it'll probably take the person concerned some considerable time. [...] Nearly all of [the lyrics] should be thought of in quotation marks. It would be too confusing to print them all." "The words THIS CORROSION are printed in capitals because it's the title of somebody else's song. I invented this fictitious band and made them sing all these stupidities. [...] Wayne used to withdraw himself with a book of song titles, select those which sounded best and piece together a song lyric from it. It didn't have to have any meaning, it just had to sound good."

"Dominion/Mother Russia" was inspired by the well-known poem Ozymandias from which one line is lifted (Eldritch: "The song is about erecting monuments in outrageous places to one's own personal power and then crumbling away."), while the second part of the song is about the nuclear accident in Chernobyl when "Mother Russia" rained down on the Northern hemisphere in the form of nuclear fallout.

"Lucretia My Reflection" Eldritch called "my 'Welcome on board Patricia' song. [...] Patricia always strikes me as a Lucretia-type person."

"Flood I" and "Flood II" uses the word flood as a metaphor: "It's sex—at least in this context. Most people, if you think about it, only get wet under certain circumstances. [...] Water is something so mammoth, so a flood is emotionally very stimulating."

"Driven like the Snow", like "Nine While Nine" on the previous album, is about Eldritch's former girlfriend Claire Shearsby: "There's not a decent vocal on this because I could never get to the end without having to stop. It's like the song on the first album, 'Nine While Nine', this is really 'Nine While Nine' part two. Too close for comfort. [...] I didn't really want to write or sing it, but I think the song helped to explain very logically why we had to fall apart." "I often wish that the songs were much less based on personal experience."

On "Never Land" Eldritch commented that it imagines "the entire population of the earth starting to travel from some indefinable point in space toward the earth at increasing speed. It would take an eternity to reach the earth—by which time you'd be reasonably spiritualised—and even when you reached the destination, you wouldn't actually hit the ground. You'd be going so fast you'd just go through and out the other side, where there is another eternity of nothingness. I just tried to write a song about these impressions." The lyrics Eldritch referred to would finally be found on the 12-minute-long version of the song which was released in 2006.

Releases

"This Corrosion" single (September 1987)

As the first single from the album This Corrosion was selected, although Eldritch initially had pleaded for 'Dominion'.

For the opulent video WEA Records conceded a budget of over £50,000. The video, which starred models from Ugly Enterprises Ltd. as well as some friends of the band, was set in the ruins of a post-nuclear attack London and was directed by Stuart Orme. Patricia Morrison: "'This Corrosion' was shot in Wapping or thereabouts in a warehouse or soundstage. We wanted to go to Kazakhstan in the Soviet Union, but at the same time the Russian record company (Melody or something it was called) were in negotiations with the West regarding video rights. We were not allowed to go as we would have botched up the negotiations."

The single was released on 18 September 1987. Each format (7 inch, 12 inch, CD and cassette) contained a different mix of the song, a fact that Eldritch explained this way: "Originally I only wanted the long version, for me the song had to be this way. But the record company vetoed that, so I spent a weekend at the mixing desk. I liked the three minute edit the best, then I thought I'd do another one at mid-length. The LP mix is the same as the 12 inch version, it just fades out a bit earlier. The cassette version is different again cos Jim insisted on doing an edit of his own. He's more into little bits and pieces."

The B-side of the single was "Torch", Eldritch had played every instrument himself and produced the track on his own. "Torch" had been written in 1985 for the aborted Left on Mission and Revenge album. The 12 inch single added Eldritch's version of the Sisterhood song "Colours".

In the UK the single reached number 7 in the charts. Eldritch and Morrison, backed by members of James Ray and the Performance, appeared on the TV shows Top of the Pops and The Roxy.

In the USA the single did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but on 19 December 1987 reached number 38 in the Billboard Club Play chart.

In Germany the single entered the charts in November 1987 and reached number 17.

Floodland album (November 1987)

On 13 November 1987 the album Floodland was released by WEA Records to mostly positive press reactions.

Patricia Morrison's name was nowhere to be found on the record although she was pictured on the sleeve, she only appeared under her real name Anne Rainone in the "Thanks" section of the inner sleeve. Morrison downplayed this fact in interviews: "If you look at Sisters' records, the names for what people play usually aren't there. Andrew writes the songs so there's no reason for anyone else to be featured. I was well aware of that when the album came out but what I didn't realise was that it would confuse other people. If people haven't seen the press we've done, they don't know I'm in the band."

In the UK Floodland reached number 7 in the album charts. Preorders alone assured the album silver status on the day of its release, on 11 March 1988 it went gold with 100,000 sold units. According to Eldritch the album had recouped the high production costs in 1989.

In Germany, according to Eldritch The Sisters' second largest market behind the UK, Floodland entered the top 100 albums chart on 14 December 1987, staying there for twenty weeks and reaching number 32. In 1993 it went gold, with 250,000 sold units.

In the USA Floodland was released on 11 January 1988 by Elektra Records. It reached number 101 in the Billboard 200 on 12 March 1988, but had not the impact on the mainstream as in other parts of the world.

"Dominion" single (February 1988)

As a second single, a remix of "Dominion" was released in the last week of February 1988.

The single had already been announced back in December 1987, but its release was delayed because Eldritch recorded a version of the Hot Chocolate hit "Emma" as a 12-inch single B-side in January 1988.

Producer Hugh Jones: "Most of the music for 'Emma' was recorded at The Church Studios in Crouch End, North London, with final overdubs and mixing done at Master Rock (horrible name!!) Studios in Kilburn. Patricia did technically play bass on the track, although there was a lot of sampling individual phrases, moving them around and inserting them where we wanted. Yes indeed, we did record the vocals at a live venue. Andrew had attempted to record 'Emma' several times before but had never considered the result to be as good as when they played the song live. So we hired the Kilburn National Theatre and the Rolling Stones Mobile recording truck, played the track to Andrew through the stage monitors, and recorded a number of performances with him singing on the stage. There were lights, dry ice, everything to invoke the atmosphere of a live experience (other than an audience!) The final result is a compilation of a number of those vocal 'takes'. Very indulgent, very eighties, particularly for a B-side!!"

The other B-side tracks of the single, made from various segments out of "Dominion", were apparently prepared shortly before the "Dominion" video shot. "Sandstorm" consists of various sampled saxophone and keyboard parts from "Dominion", mixed to a moody short instrumental track which was used in the opening section of the video. "Untitled" is a slowed-down instrumental excerpt from "Dominion". The CD single contained "Ozymandias" which is "Dominion" played backwards.

The video for "Dominion" was filmed in February 1988 in the Jordanian city of Petra. After the commercial success of "This Corrosion" WEA had again conceded a budget of £50,000 and enlisted director David Hogan, who shot the video in two days after four-and-a-half months of preparation. Eldritch called the video "Lawrence of Arabia part two."

In the UK the single reached number 13 in the charts. Eldritch and Morrison, backed by members of James Ray and the Performance, appeared on the TV shows Top of the Pops and The Roxy.

In the USA the single was only released as a promotional 12 inch. Nevertheless, it reached number 30 in the Billboard Club Play chart on 18 June 1988.

In Germany, the single did not chart.

"Lucretia My Reflection" single (May 1988)

As the third and last Sisters single for the next two-and-a-half years, a remix of "Lucretia My Reflection" was released on 27 May 1988.

As Eldritch spent a month at Slaughterhouse Recording Studios in Driffield in the spring of 1988, the 7 inch mix and the extended 12 inch mix were probably made during these sessions. Studio owner Russell Webster: "Andrew Eldritch spent a whole month on his own at the studio. We had a lot of fun together and I loved his dynamic music so much that I thought I should do something similar myself." Patricia Morrison: "The remix is really over the top. I liked it when I first heard it and I still do."

The song's lyrics mentioned the words "long train", so the eponymous Sisters track was selected as a B-side. "Long Train" was originally released as a flexi disc in 1984 and had already become a collector's item.

The video was filmed in India with director Peter Sinclair, at a "Bombay cotton factory" and other places. Additionally a video to "1959" was filmed in India. For a while Eldritch had toyed with the idea of releasing "1959" as a single. It was hovewer released as a promo for the radios.

In the last week of May 1988 The Sisters of Mercy appeared at Montreux Rock Festival in Switzerland, which was organised by BBC, MTV and TSR and broadcast worldwide on television. During this mimed appearance, the only one in front of a large audience during the Floodland era, they were again backed by members of James Ray and the Performance. Andrew Eldritch: "This was never designed to go out live. [Floodland] was incarnated that way because playing live was never an issue." Merciful Release office manager Boyd Steemson: "It was an absolute nightmare. He put out the 'Floodland' record, [...] and Andrew refused to tour."

In the UK the single reached number 20 in the charts. A mimed performance on Top of the Pops on 16 June 1988 was the last public appearance of The Sisters for the next two years.

In the USA the single did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but on 20 August 1988 reached number 30 in the Billboard Club Play chart.

In Germany the single did not chart.

"Shot" video (October 1989)

Andrew Eldritch: "For me personally I think '88 was probably the best because Floodland had come out and everybody had written us off for dead before that and suddenly we had three singles out and we were on Top of the Pops three times which is like outrageous for us and I just went home for a year and just sat in Hamburg thinking 'Yeah, all right, okay—thank you!'"

Patricia Morrison: "We want to get out with the next record, and the way we want to present ourselves live is going to take quite a lot of effort and time. And we'd rather get another record under our belts before we attempt that."

In April 1989 work on the next album Vision Thing began with new guitarist Andreas Bruhn. On 17 July 1989 Eldritch registered a new publishing company Eldritch Boulevard Limited for the new material.

In October 1989 WEA released the VHS video Shot containing all four Floodland promotion videos.

In the same month Eldritch split up with Patricia Morrison. Andrew Eldritch in June 1990: "Patricia has left the band for good in October last year. Patricia was an asset in every respect, she can play bass, she had input, she was a great moral support for many years."

Different versions of the album

• The original vinyl edition of the album was divided symmetrically into four songs on each LP side. The LP version of "This Corrosion" is the same as the 12 inch single version.
• The CD edition of the album contains the longer CD single version of "This Corrosion" which fades out a little earlier. "Flood II" has a slightly longer intro, "Driven like the Snow" is an extended remix. The CD edition of the album added the two B-sides of the "This Corrosion" single ("Torch" and "Colours") as extra tracks, much to Andrew Eldritch's annoyance as he saw the originally intended symmetry of the album destroyed. His request to omit the extra tracks on subsequent re-pressings were ignored by the record company.
• In October 2006 a remastered CD edition of the album was released which added two further extra tracks: "Emma" and a previously unreleased 12 minute mix of "Never Land".

Track listing

Produced by Larry Alexander and Andrew Eldritch, except "Dominion/Mother Russia", produced by Alexander, Eldritch, and Jim Steinman, "This Corrosion", produced by Jim Steinman, "Torch", produced by Eldritch, and "Emma", produced by Hugh Jones. The cassette pressing matches the CD pressing, but adds "Torch" after "1959" in order to round out side one.

Vinyl pressing

All tracks are written by Andrew Eldritch

Side one

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Dominion/Mother Russia"	7:00
2.	"Flood I"	6:22
3.	"Lucretia My Reflection"	4:57
4.	"1959"	4:09
Total length:		22:30

Side two

No.	Title	Length
1.	"This Corrosion"	9:16
2.	"Flood II"	6:19
3.	"Driven Like the Snow"	4:39
4.	"Never Land (a fragment)"	2:46
Total length:		22:57

CD pressing

All tracks are written by Andrew Eldritch

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Dominion/Mother Russia"	7:01
2.	"Flood I"	6:22
3.	"Lucretia My Reflection"	4:57
4.	"1959"	4:09
5.	"This Corrosion"	10:55
6.	"Flood II"	6:47
7.	"Driven Like the Snow"	6:27
8.	"Never Land (a fragment)"	2:55
9.	"Torch"	3:55
10.	"Colours"	7:23
Total length:		60:51

2006 reissue bonus tracks

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
11.	"Never Land"	Andrew Eldritch	12:00
12.	"Emma"	Errol Brown and Tony Wilson	6:21
Total length:			79:12

Personnel

• Andrew Eldritch - vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, guitar, bass guitar, programming
• Patricia Morrison - bass guitar, vocals
• Doktor Avalanche (drum machine) - drums

External links

• Discography section of the Official Website