Opium - Under A Daylight Moon

Alright, you might guess my excuses for writing the first post of the year by half March, so I better not give any. Right to the subject of the post, which is a forgotten gem of the Opium discography, their debut album which was released back in 1995, already on the Neuropa label. Now you can rediscover it by catching one of the few copies which are still left directly from the core of the project, Alex Macpherson (formerly a bassist of The Wake, a great Factory band). Just write him here: neuropa@talk21.com
You can bet it's really worth it, the quality of this early release is amazing. The first two tracks will be re-released on the Atlantean single in 2003 (reviewed here almost one year ago), with Mirage being retitled TranSaharan.


But it's the following Nocturne the best song on the album, and probably Opium's best song ever, the one that should definitely get a re-release on the next Opium album we hope to see soon as 11 years is quite a long wait, though there have been some excellent singles in the meantime... This song is extremely emotional, with touching vocals from Jane Jardin Love and a wonderful deep bass which somehow reminds New Order's Peter Hook's best works when he plays the rhythm bass. You could almost think it's Vini Reilly from the Durutti Column playing that delicate guitar solo in the middle...
Macpherson shows almost a classical sensitivity in songs like Morpheus, graced by a piano which could have been composed by a romantic artist of the 19th century, like Chopin or Liszt.
It's the dub of Monsoon and Slowlove which brings us back to the modernity, though there's always a dreamy atmosphere which goes from the ethnic to the esoteric.
The modern and yet mysterious beauty of the woman on the artwork of the cover is a good metaphor for Opium's sound.
The eclectic and original inspiration from this album is shown once again at the end, when the surreal glockenspiel Ostraloid introduces a fabulous cover of Wild Is The Wind, a song brought to success by such artists as Nina Simone and David Bowie.
You find much of what the current music scene is missing on this album (which is closed by the hidden extra of the instrumental of Atlantean), the experimental attitude of bringing the most various influences to make modern music which is looking forward, mantaining the accessibility and the emotional power of the music. You'll wonder where this album has been all these years while you bought a lot of disappointing records and you didn't know it existed. Well, now you know it does, so get it while you still can.