The sisterhood

The sisterhood
General information
Genre (s)	electronic music
founding	1986
resolution	1986
Last occupation
singing	James Ray
voice	Lucas Fox
voice	Patricia Morrison
(unknown)	Alan Vega
Instruments, production	Andrew Eldritch
Drum machine	Doctor Avalanche

The Sisterhood was a side project of the Sisters of Mercy singer Andrew Eldritch , in which he recorded songs that he had composed for a second Sisters of Mercy album with the help of guest musicians.

prehistory

After the release of the first Sisters of Mercy album First and Last and Always in March 1985, the band prepared for the follow-up album. Eldritch: "The next Sisters album should be called 'Left on Mission and Revenge'."

Singer Andrew Eldritch considered the band's previous musical style to be exhausted: “I always wanted to do something completely different, but no matter what we did, it was ultimately always the same.” “At that time I wanted to find out what it was like, songs without rock song structures and especially without recording guitar parts. "

Together with guitarist Wayne Hussey, Eldritch retired to Bramfeld from August to September 1985 to compose new songs. Wayne Hussey: "I went to Hamburg with Andrew for a month, where we wanted to write songs for the second Sisters-of-Mercy album, and when we came back my ideas were all rejected and Andrews was only very rudimentary. " Andrew declined all of my songs and let me work on a chord the whole time: 'Here is my song - E minor!' "

Back in England, the band found themselves in the studio for test recordings in October 1985, but the musical contradictions were insurmountable. Wayne Hussey: "When it came time to make the second album, Andrew said, 'I won't sing any of your songs.'"

Eldritch: "Then they said, 'Well, what new songs should we play then?' And I said, 'How about this, this and this?' and unfortunately the first 'with it' had too many chord changes per minute, and Craig said 'If this is supposed to be the guitar melody, I won't play it' and blew off. And that was it. ” “ At some point the others didn't want to play my new songs, like 'Torch' for example. [...] The song has a bit fancy chord changes. Craig thought she was stupid, he said 'I don't play that, I'm going home.' And there he stayed. "

Hussey: "Craig got out during rehearsals and I followed him a day later."

The breakup of the band was announced in the music press on Saturday November 2nd, 1985: “The Sisters of Mercy consisted of Andrew Eldritch and his loyal drum computer Doctor Avalanche as of this week after guitarist Wayne Hussey and bassist Craig Adams left the band to have. Although this ruined studio plans for a new album this month, Andrew now plans to record that album in the new year and could use Wayne as a session guitarist. The break was described as 'friendly' by a Merciful Release spokesperson. “The stereotype of 'musical differences' would not be inappropriate. Wayne and Craig were unable to understand the band's change of direction. ”Andrew has also asked Patricia Morrison , currently on Fur Bible, to play the album, but it is not yet known whether Andrew will continue under the name Sisters of Mercy . It is reported that Wayne and Craig are putting together their own band. ”

Andrew Eldritch: “When we went our separate ways, the people who are now The Mission and I agreed that no one would continue to use the band name.” “The band was good and successful, we could all go on. The split came at a time when none of us hurt. "

Giving Ground

That same day, Eldritch called bassist Patricia Morrison , who was on a UK tour with Siouxsie and the Banshees with her band Fur Bible , and asked her to play on his album. Morrison: "The day they all fell apart he called me and said, 'Would you do this?' And I said yes. [...] But we had a few more tours planned, so I waited until that was done and then got out. "

Hussey and Adams, however, like Eldritch still under contract with WEA Records , booked studio time at the Slaughterhouse Recording Studios in Driffield at the end of October 1985 , recorded a demo with four songs and then put together a new band. However, the demo was rejected by the record company because Hussey was not convinced as a singer.

Eldritch also went into the studio at the end of 1985 to produce James Ray and the Performance's debut single for his independent label Merciful Release . James Ray: "The sisterhood project came about during the recording of 'Mexico Sundown Blues'."

While Eldritch and Ray were in the studio, Hussey and Adams, who had taken over the complete road crew of the Sisters including equipment , announced their first concert for January 20, 1986, which they wanted to play under the new name The Sisterhood .

Eldritch was alarmed: “First they began to lay claim to the name, which clearly had to be stopped. And when they wanted to call themselves The Sisterhood, there was nothing I could do about it but be The Sisterhood in front of them - the only way to get rid of that name was to use it first and then finish it off. " " Warners believed they could have two bands on the same label with almost the same name. "

Eldritch decided to secure the rights to the name The Sisterhood as soon as possible . For this purpose he registered a company of the same name and hastily prepared a record release on his own label.

In just five days, Eldritch recorded a song called Giving Ground , which he produced with Lucas Fox. Fox and Eldritch met in the spring of 1985 when Fox was temporarily the drummer for the Australian opening act The Scientists when they were on tour with the Sisters of Mercy in Great Britain. Eldritch recorded all instruments (guitar, bass, synthesizer and drum computer programming) himself, while Fox programmed additional percussion parts .

The single contains two different mixes of the song, Eldritch's original instrumental version Giving Ground (AV) (5:45 min) on the B-side and the sung remix Giving Ground (RSV) (4:50 min) on the A. -Page. On the official Sisters of Mercy website, the abbreviations 'AV' and 'RSV' are explained as follows: “The 'Authorized Version' of 'Giving Ground' is Andrew's original version, and the 'Revised Standard Version' is the version who designed Merciful Release colleagues and was then accepted as the standard version. 'AV' and 'RSV' are well known editions of the Bible . "

Since Eldritch was still under contract as an artist with WEA Records , he could not do the vocals himself, otherwise he would have had to offer the song to WEA for publication first. James Ray: "He asked me and I sang for him, it was that simple."

Merciful Release announced the single in a press release: “The forces allied with Merciful Release bring you The Sisterhood, Andrew Eldritch contributes (in this case) musically Venom and Galle, while James Ray and the Performance will showcase their tremendous singing skills ... of them soon more."

The single was released as planned on January 20, 1986, the same day Hussey and Adams gave their debut concert as The Sisterhood in London. The resulting press hype about the two warring parties led to Eldritch's single entering the British independent charts on February 8 and climbing to number 1 there on February 15, 1986. The reviews in the music press were unanimously negative, however, and James Ray later declared, "It's a terrible song."

Hussey and Adams had to give up the name The Sisterhood . A radio session for the Janice Long Evening Show on BBC Radio 1 on February 10, they played under the provisional name The Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams Band , then finally adopted the name The Mission at the end of February 1986 .

Eldritch commented in a recent press release: "We assume that this choice of name has nothing to do with the upcoming Andrew Eldritch album, which had the working title 'Left on Mission and Revenge' for several months."

On March 2, 1986, The Mission gave a concert in Birmingham. Wayne Hussey: “The majority of the songs we've got on set so far are my songs that Andrew turned down for the second Sisters of Mercy album. Really paradox, because he saw us in Birmingham and said how good he thinks the songs. "

Planned maxi single This Corrosion

The British Sounds announced on February 20, 1986 that “a new maxi single called 'This Corrosion' will be in stores soon, with the same musicians plus a mysterious and previously unnamed American singer.” This maxi single was also released in Germany announced in advertisements as "Coming Soon" .

James Ray: “Well, while recording 'Mexico Sundown Blues' / 'Edie Sedgwick', 'Giving Ground' was made and released. We worked on a second Sisterhood single for weeks after that, 'This Corrosion', but Eldritch finally decided he wanted to use the song to restart the Sisters. "

The recordings took place with sound engineer John Spence in the Fairview Recording Studios near Hull . The American singer Alan Vega , who had been friends with the Sisters of Mercy since 1983 and was on a solo tour through Great Britain and Europe from February to March 1986, recorded a version of the song, there are also other vocal takes with him James Ray and Andrew Eldritch. A 9-minute Eldritch version of This Corrosion was uploaded to the Internet by ex-James Ray-and-the-Performance member Carl Harrison ( "I was working in the same studio at the time" ) on Christmas 2006 and has been widely since then available.

The planned maxi single was never released, the track This Corrosion instead became the comeback single of The Sisters of Mercy in 1987 .

Poison album

The Mission began negotiations with the major label Phonogram Ltd. in March 1986 , when WEA Records refused to release material from the band. The band first brought out the demo tape from October 1985 in a revised form on May 9, 1986 as a single on a small independent label. The single (whose B-side was jokingly titled Wake (RSV) based on the single Giving Ground (RSV) ) landed straight at number 1 in the independent charts . WEA Records then dissolved their contract with The Mission.

Both Andrew Eldritch and The Mission, however, were still at the music publisher of RCA Records , RCA Music Limited , under contract. For 1986 a sum of 25,000 pounds for a studio album had been agreed ( advance against royalties deal , a flat royalty payment in advance), but RCA Music announced that it would split the sum between the two parties.

Eldritch decided to lay claim to the entire amount by being the first to compose, produce and release a full album , similar to the Giving Ground single. Again he didn't appear as a singer in order to bring the album out himself and not have to offer it to WEA Records : “They thought it was great that I called myself The Sisterhood while they thought they still had the Sisters Of Mercy in their pockets. So they didn't help me in any way. I had to put the record out on Merciful Release, but I had a completely free hand. "

Eldritch returned to Fairview Recording Studios with Lucas Fox. Merciful Release Office Manager Boyd Steemson: "We had a few tracks up our sleeve so Andrew quickly finished a few songs."

James Ray: “I didn't have much to do with the album because it took Eldritch ages to formulate any concrete idea and I wanted to write my own stuff. Personally, I think that the album obviously only served to cash in again after the single. "

Giving Ground , included in an extended remix on the album, is the only track on which James Ray participated.

James Ray: "The spoken passages are from Lucas Fox." "If I remember correctly, I just gave Andrew some advice on how Lucas Fox should use his voice, and that was enough for me."

Lucas Fox speaks on the tracks Colors , Finland Red, Egypt White and Rain from Heaven . The text by Finland Red, Egypt White comes from an arms dealer catalog for the AK-47 assault rifle and the title denotes the country code for orders. James Ray states that the bassist for local band The Housemartins , Norman Cook , made an unreleased remix of the track during the sessions. Rain from Heaven, with his choral singing, may have been one of the pieces Eldritch wrote for the second Sisters of Mercy album, as he later mentioned "Craig and Wayne said the choral singing was crazy."

Patricia Morrison had the first opportunity to work with Andrew Eldritch. Her only assured contribution to the album, however, is just a spoken passage on the track Jihad . Eldritch: “So I called Patricia into the studio and said 'Sing this - Two-Five-Zero-Zero-Zero'. It took The Mission two months to realize what this text was all about. Two months!"

Alan Vega is mentioned on the album cover, but it is unknown whether and to what extent he contributed to the album recordings. Possibly he sang along with Patricia Morrison in the " Chorus of Vengeance " on the track Rain from Heaven .

The album was released in July 1986 on Eldritch's Merciful Release label and received consistently negative reviews in the English music press, while the album was completely ignored in the German music press. The goal that Eldritch had set, the album did not achieve, because RCA Music Limited terminated the contract with Andrew Eldritch and instead kept The Mission. Eldritch later referred to the sisterhood episode as a "fiasco" .

Tony Perrin, Manager of The Mission: “I think Eldritch has been doing this longer than anyone cared about. We got letters from his lawyers for ages and nothing ever came of it. The whole thing only cost us legal bills and nothing else, these rumors about large sums that we would have lost were all nonsense, and it never ended up in court. "

Andrew Eldritch later said of the album, “The Sisterhood LP was a weapon in this private war. That's why I called it 'poison'. […] Still, I like the record. It's strange, but good. ” “ For me it was a techno record. Or what I thought was techno back then. "

Looking back on the official Sisters of Mercy website, they said: "The Sisterhood album has become a classic, it was created parallel to the new beat of the European avant-garde, which then led to techno."

Album tracklist

1. Jihad - 8:16
2. Colors - 8:02
3. Giving Ground - 7:30
4. Finland Red, Egypt White - 8:16
5. Rain From Heaven - 6:42

Album re-releases

• On August 1, 1989, Gift was first released on CD.
• Gift was released on CD in Germany on May 16, 1994, and the album has not been reissued since then.

Album trivia

The English screenwriter Neil Cross processed several text quotes from the album for an episode of the British spy series Spooks - In the sights of MI5 in 2008 . In the episode Nuclear Strike , which was first broadcast on British television on BBC One on December 8, 2008 , he used the lines “Two-Five-Zero-Zero-Two-Five”, “Finland Red, Egypt White”, “Rain from Heaven ”and“ What is lost can never be found ”.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Andrew Eldritch television interview ( SkyTrax broadcast on Sky Channel in late 1987)
2. ↑ [1]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Markus Hartmann: ... and the wind blows wild again ... (in: Zillo -Magazin November 1990, page 12)  
3. ↑ [2]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Sebastian Zabel: Gruft is in the heart (in: SPEX magazine December 1990)  
4. ↑ [3]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Ute Arndt, Bernd Gerstacker, Thomas Duffé: St. Pauli - Faces and Views of the Kiez (Historika Photoverlag 1995)  
5. ↑ [4] Neil Perry, Greg Freeman: The Adams / Hussey Story (in: Sounds magazine February 22, 1986)
6. ↑ Michael Ruff : The Mission - Stock it! (in: SPEX magazine March 1987, page 16)
7. ^ [5] Neil Perry, Greg Freeman: The Adams / Hussey Story (in: Sounds magazine February 22, 1986)
8. ↑ [6] Steve Sutherland: His Master's Voice (in: Melody Maker magazine September 5, 1987)
9. ↑ [7]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Sven Niechziol: Escape from the Crypt (in: ME / Sounds -Magazin February 1988)  
10. ↑ [8] Neil Perry, Greg Freeman: The Adams / Hussey Story (in: Sounds magazine February 22, 1986)
11. ↑ Sounds magazine November 2, 1985 (page 4)
12. ↑ [9] Steve Sutherland: His Master's Voice (in: Melody Maker magazine September 5, 1987)
13. ↑ [10]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Markus Hartmann: ... and the wind blows wild again ... (in: Zillo -Magazin November 1990, page 12)  
14. ↑ [11] Steve Sutherland: Sister Midnight (in: Melody Maker magazine June 4, 1988, page 14)
15. ↑ Martin Roach, Neil Perry: The Mission - Names Are For Tombstones Baby (Independent Music Press 1993, p. 49)
16. ↑ [12] Mexico Sundown Blues / Edie Sedgwick (Merciful Release June 1986)
17. ↑ [13] James Ray Interview (on Heartland.co.uk website, September 2005)
18. ↑ [14] Steve Sutherland: His Master's Voice (in: Melody Maker magazine September 5, 1987)
19. ↑ [15]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Andrew Eldritch Interview (Andrew Collins Show, BBC Radio 6 Music April 17, 2003)  
20. ^ The Sisterhood Limited , 19 All Saints Road, London W11 (according to Companies House company number 01959298)
21. ↑ [16] Neil Spencer, Martyn Strickland: The Eldritch Story (in: Sounds magazine February 22, 1986)
22. ↑ [17] FAQ on the official website (as of December 7, 2000)
23. ↑ Markus Hartmann: James Rays Gangwar (in: Zillo -Magazin July 1992, page 24)
24. ↑ [18] James Ray Interview (on Heartland.co.uk website, September 2005)
25. ↑ Martin Roach, Neil Perry: The Mission - Names Are For Tombstones Baby (Independent Music Press 1993, p. 38)
26. ↑ [19] Neil Spencer, Martyn Strickland: The Eldritch Story (in: Sounds magazine February 22, 1986)
27. ↑ SPEX magazine (April 1986, page 43) (May 1986, page 43)
28. ↑ [20] (PDF; 1.3 MB) Interview [1]: James Ray ( Glasperlenspiel 06 -Fanzine June 2003, page 6)
29. ^ [21] Information from John Spence dated September 13, 2010
30. ↑ [22] Fairview Recording Studios (Great Gutter Lane West, Willerby, Hull HU10 6DP)
31. ↑ Paul O'Reilly: The Truth is Known (in: ZigZag magazine October 1983)
32. ↑ [23] Illustration on the official Sisters of Mercy website (as of February 8, 2000)
33. ↑ [24]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Michael Ruff : Prince of Wetlands (in: SPEX magazine January 1988)  
34. ↑ Ken McIntyre: The Sisterhood (in: Classic Rock Magazine July 2007, page 61)
35. ↑ [25] (PDF; 1.3 MB) Interview [1]: James Ray ( Glasperlenspiel 06 -Fanzine June 2003, page 6)
36. ↑ [26] (PDF; 1.3 MB) Interview [1]: James Ray ( Glasperlenspiel 06 -Fanzine June 2003, page 6)
37. ↑ [27] James Ray Interview (on Heartland.co.uk website, September 2005)
38. ↑ [28] James Ray interview (on Heartland.co.uk website, September 2005)
39. ↑ [29]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Sven Niechziol: Escape from the Crypt (in: ME / Sounds -Magazin February 1988)  
40. ↑ [30]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Michael Ruff : Prince of Wetlands (in: SPEX magazine January 1988)  
41. ↑ [31] Representation on the official Sisters of Mercy website (as of February 8, 2000)
42. ↑ [32] Mary Scanlon: "Bridge over Troubled Water" (in: Sounds magazine December 19, 1987, page 10)
43. ↑ Martin Roach, Neil Perry: The Mission - Names Are For Tombstones Baby (Independent Music Press 1993, p. 44)
44. ↑ [33]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Michael Ruff : Prince of Wetlands (in: SPEX magazine January 1988)  
45. ↑ [34]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Thomas Winkler: The unsympathetic man (in: the daily newspaper December 6, 1993)  
46. ↑ [35] Illustration on the official Sisters of Mercy website (as of February 8, 2000)