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.