Opium - Atlantean / One Last Kiss

When bassist Bobby Gillespie left The Wake, one of the best Factory bands, to join The Jesus And Mary Chain as drummer before launching his new band Primal Scream, Alex Macpherson replaced him on bass in 1983-1984, the period many believe to be the best of the band's history, with the release of the Talk About The Past single and the recordings of the Here Comes Everybody album.

After leaving The Wake, Alex joined The Cat Club which released the cult house classic One Last Kiss in 1987.


In the 90s Alex launched a new project, Opium, and released the single Atlantean in 1995, excellent keyboards, fabulous rhythm and divine female vocals by Jane Jardin Love. Basically it sounds like Saint Etienne at their best if they were produced by New Order's Bernard Sumner and remixed by Soul II Soul. We're lucky Opium re-released the single last year on the smartly named Neuropa label. The B sides are TransSaharan (a beautiful instrumental with more fantastic keyboards and a slightly exotic feel) and Olympian, which is actually the instrumental of Atlantean.

Opium are back this year with a new single, it's a re-working of The Cat Club's One Last Kiss. No more JJ Love on vocals, but it seems Alex can always find excellent female vocalists as Katrina Docherty's voice is equally splendid. The single is made of four different mixes of One Last Kiss (the best being The Last Days Of Disco), which is as good as Atlantean. 90 seconds into the song a solemn and touching keyboard appears, and you hear echoes of not only The Wake, but New Order at the heighth of Your Silent Face as well. A magnificent piano duets with Katrina's voice for the whole song.
Opium are about to release their new single, Envious, this summer.
For more info you can write Opium: neuropa@talk21.com
Also check the Opium pages on the Cerysmatic Factory site, from which the scans of the covers were taken.

New Order - Jetstream

Been busy again with the Gabrielles Wish site, which is now on a new server (fast and ad-free) and some updates for La Skarnemurta.
But a new New Order single, Jetstream, has been released, so it's a good chance to be back here posting, hoping to have more time in the near future.
For detailed info about all the formats of the release and the remixes available only on the Internet you can check NewOrderOnline.com (from which the cover scan is taken). Basically CD1 and the 12" just include edits or the same of some of the remixes on CD2 (code NUCDP14, of which you can see the cover on the right), so my comments are just about this release.


This enhanced CD includes the video (which is not as special as the one for Krafty, but it's funny at least for Bernard's dance) and the U Myx software which allows you to make your own remix of Jetstream (featuring Ana Matronic from The Scissor Sisters), which is a catchy funky pop gem with a killer chorus and a wonderful production (see also my review of the album Waiting For The Sirens' Call).
There are also four remixes, and all of them are great.
Jaques Lu Cont loops some vocals (though I'd have certainly looped the J E T spelling moment, it was just born for remixes and nobody got it...) on a soft but powerful base and makes good use of Hooky's bass.
Richard X starts with the drum machine from an old New Order cult track, Video 586, and then basically replaces the original base with a harder and wonderful one (going from True Faith-ish to disco) keeping the surface of the song similar to the track.
Tom Neville makes an excellent hard electro version of the track, good for the dancefloor, sounds a bit like Kraftwerk remixing acid house...
The best remix comes from our good old mate Arthur Baker, with his splendid space techno remix, fabulous keyboards and great rhythm... gives also space to a section of Hooky's bass which virtually can't be heard on the original...
The quality of these remixes is amazing, such above the average you can usually expect, this makes Jetstream a special single you can't miss.