Fiction Factory: Throw The Warped Wheel Out DLX RM – UK – CD [2013]

1. [Feels Like] Heaven
2. Heart And Mind
3. Panic
4. The Hanging Gardens
5. All Or Nothing
6. Hit The Mark
7. Ghost Of Love
8. Tales Of Tears
9. The First Step
10. The Warped Wheel
11. Ghost Of Love [Special Dance Mix]
12. The Other Side Of Grey
13. Old Game Blue Flame
14. (Feels Like) Heaven [12″ Version]
15. Everyone But You
16. This Is
17. All Or Nothing [Extended Version]
18. Dreaming Of Someone
19. I Who Know You

This has been a title that I’ve had on my want list for nine years, and now it’s on the freshly organized CD racks in the Record Cell, thanks to the generosity of a commenter who was weeding it out. While I had the 1993 1st CD issue of this title, this one had a 9 track complement of bonus tracks, including the holy grail that was the 12″ Extended Version” of their big hit, “[Feels Like] Heaven.” A record that I have never seen to buy from a US dealer. I have all of this other Fiction Factory singles. So this tale began with that song.

“[Feels Like] Heaven,” was the snippet of a song that obsessed me for a decade until I finally had a copy. I saw a minute from the video in “MTV’s London Calling” in 1984 and was struck by the dignified sense of melancholy that the song put across. It was reasonably lush pop, not a million miles away from High ABC, and some impressive crooning from lead singer Kevin Patterson; who had an impressive falsetto [just like Martin Fry] to bring to these songs. The instrumentation was shewed towards the traditional here, with a few synth drones standing in for string textures, but with piano, bass, and drums doing the heavy lifting.

But the band were clearly aficionados of the sound that Trevor Horn had brought to ABC as they also copped his technique of fattening a piano melody by doubling on a glockenspiel. This could be laid at the feet of producer Peter Wilson, who produced the bulk of the album. Save for one track where Alan Rankine manned the boards. After the fallout in splitting from Associates, Rankine turned to production, with Fiction Factory joining other Scot acts like The Cocteau Twins and Paul Haig as grist for his creative mill.

The song was a wonder of mixing an embittered lyric with music of almost candyfloss romance. Giving me that cognitive dissonance I love so much in pop songs. The first time I heard it, my mind was drawn to the lyric of “twisting the bones until they snap” as immediately being contrary to the vibe of the track and an example of the hidden lyrical poison pill in a pop song. The track had a feel of ABC with the melodic verve of contemporary China Crisis [the track might have sat comfortably next to “Wishful Thinking”] and a hint of The Walker Brothers in Mr. Patterson’s commanding vocal. And a lyric that went straight for the gut. Who could ask for more?

The other material on side one hewed more closely to a Pop Funk sound redolent of its time period with Graham McGregor getting some beefy bass licks into the mix. Conga support from Mike Ogletree [ex-Café Jaques/Simple Minds] on drums, added to the hint of Haircut 100 seeping into the track.

Until I read the liner notes by Patterson explaining guitarist Chic Medley’s thoughts behind “The Hanging Gardens,” I always enjoyed the track. The combination of muted trumpet from Grant Taylor with the portamento synths from Eddie Jordan gave this song an enviable lilt that always pulled me into its flirtation with Reggae. Little did I know until now that Fiction Factory had an immediate previous history as The RBs with a 1981 Ska album on a Dutch label. So it’s tempting to think f this as the last vestige of Jamaican influence on their songwriting.

Unfortunately, Medley wrote the song to express dismay with Black culture using “Babylon” to express negativity about issues that were seen as being the province of Western culture. Making this song an example of white grievance from a time when we didn’t even have a conception of that notion.

The third single from the album was the crisp “All Or Nothing.” Patterson revealed in the liner notes that he was completely smitten with Associates and wrote this as an homage to Billy MacKenzie at the time. Any Associates… associations were probably not hurt by Alan Rankine using the same string stab synth patch on his keyboard as he had on the 1982 remix of “A Matter of Gender.”

“Side two” opened with the fiery “Hit The Mark;” possibly the most driving track here though the sequencer intro that opened it was initially modest, but as the synth bass joined the drums for lean and hard track, I couldn’t help but thinking that this was a missed opportunity at a single from the band. Especially when the middle eight gave McGregor several bars for a muscular bass [guitar] solo that could have gone even further on the 12″ single mix my mind concocts when hearing this one.

The watery guitar intro to “Ghost Of Love” was also deceptively modest, but once the prize-winning chorus kicked in with able falsetto from Patterson as well as the return of the piano/glockenspiel doubling this really played out like the should have been hit single following on the heels of “[Feels Like] Heaven.” The single had been the initial release by the band to no avail, but once they had a hit with “Heaven,” the notions was to give it another chance. It was an unfortunate pearls before swine event.

NEXT: …The Return Of Mari Wilson?