A Formal Sigh

A Formal Sigh

A Formal Sigh were a New Wave band from Liverpool, England that formed in 1980 and broke up early in 1982.

Biography

A Formal Sigh formed around the kernel of Mark Peters (bass guitar) and Flo Sullivan (vocals and keyboards). Robin Surtees (guitar) joined the pair within days. He was followed, after several auditions and temporary drummers, by Roger Sinek (drums) and Greg Milton (guitar and bass). Mark Peters had previously played with The Names (aka The Famous Names).

The band recorded a session for John Peel on 5 September 1981, in the BBC Maida Vale 4 studio. Altered Images had been in the studio the day before. The Peel session was produced by Dale Griffin, ex-drummer of Mott the Hoople, and engineered by Mike Robinson. Peel was, in his own words, ‘rather partial’ to the tape and played it several times, beginning on 10 September 1981. The session was also broadcast several times on Radio Merseyside. A Formal Sigh were for a while the darlings of Merseysound, a high-quality Liverpool New Wave fanzine, and were featured twice on its cover.

Apart from the Peel session, only two other sessions were recorded, 14-15 February 1981 and 6-7 March 1982, both engineered by Peter Coleman at Session One Studios in Liverpool. Merseysound released tracks from the first SOS session on its Tapezine, but no other music from the band was ever released.

A Formal Sigh gigged regularly in Merseyside and the Northwest. In April 1982 a couple of record companies were just getting interested in signing the band when Flo Sullivan and Robin Surtees decided to leave. They went on to form Shiny Two Shiny. Flo later went solo as Gayna Rose Madder, and Robin joined members of The Room to form Benny Profane. Roger Sinek and Greg Milton reverted to their old band name, Barbel, and continued to play intermittently. Mark Peters emigrated to Australia.

The band took its name from a quotation of Ned Rorem: ‘An artist is like everyone else, only more so; he speaks with a formal sigh.’

Musical Style

A Formal Sigh was always hard to categorise. The female vocal format led some to make questionable comparisons with Siouxsie and the Banshees. Several tracks were redolent of U2. Material ranged from caustic observations of contemporary political situations (in tracks like "Bleak Intrusion" and "Ev Rev") to poignantly worded exposés of troubled relationships and anomie ("There is no Hell" and "Launderette").

External links

* [http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~markpeters/studio/studio.html Several downloadable tracks on Mark Peters's website.]
* [http://bubbyworld.com/Gayna/Gaynagallery.htm Several images of the band.]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • List of Peel sessions — This is a list of artists (bands and individual musicians) who recorded at least one session for John Peel and his show on BBC Radio 1 from 1967 to his death in 2004. the first session was recorded by Tomorrow on 21 September 1967, and the last… …   Wikipedia

  • Список Peel Sessions — Список исполнителей, записывавшихcя для программы Джона Пила на BBC Radio 1 с 1967 по 2004 годы[1]. Первой группой, записавшейся у него, была Tomorrow (21 сентября 1967) последней  Skimmer (21 октября 2004). В списке указаны даты записи… …   Википедия

  • literature — /lit euhr euh cheuhr, choor , li treuh /, n. 1. writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, history, biography, and essays. 2.… …   Universalium

  • breathe — W3S3 [bri:ð] v ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 1¦(air)¦ 2¦(blow)¦ 3 somebody can breathe easy/easily 4 breathe a sigh of relief 5 be breathing down somebody s neck 6 not breathe a word 7 breathe life into something 8¦(skin)¦ 9¦(clothes/fabric)¦ …   Dictionary of contemporary English

  • Job interview — Oakland, California. Hanging Around. The total time spent in actual interviews while hunting a job takes only a small part of the day; unwilling to go home these youths spend most of their day hanging around and talking with other job hunters.… …   Wikipedia

  • List of compositions by Henry Purcell — This is a list of musical compositions by Henry Purcell.By Z numberThese pieces arranged by the Zimmerman catalogue.Anthems*Z 001, Full Anthem, Awake, put on thy strength (c. 1682 5) *Z 002, Full Anthem, Behold, I bring you glad tidings (1687) *Z …   Wikipedia

  • Zimmerman-Verzeichnis — Das Zimmerman Verzeichnis bezeichnet die vollständige Werkliste des englischen Komponisten Henry Purcell nach dem Katalog von Franklin B. Zimmerman: Henry Purcell, 1659 1695. An Analytical Catalogue of his Music. London: Macmillan 1963.… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • religion — religionless, adj. /ri lij euhn/, n. 1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and… …   Universalium

  • Meditation — This article is about the mental discipline. For the form of alternative dispute resolution, see Mediation. For other uses, see Meditation (disambiguation). A statue of the Buddha meditating, Borim Temple, Korea Meditation refers to any form of a …   Wikipedia

  • List of Emily Dickinson poems — This is a list of Emily Dickinson poems. There are 1,775 known poems that have been written by Dickinson. The poems are alphabetized by their first line. Punctuation, capitalization and even in some cases wording of the first lines may vary… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”