Compared geographically I am very static, in fact even Canvey Island sounds nice, so the tape, and now the CD, serves as my marker. Soprano sax and voice are provided effortlessly by Vivienne Soan . The sax is liquid, and the voice has been heavily treated with EQ, in the fashion probably made popular by Portishead . Occasionally, it might have been a nice idea to revert to an untreated voice, but the theme is set at the start of the piece by a child's voice with a telephonic quality, and continued from there. The track is reminiscent in many ways of the earlier Thomas Dolby epics, with beautiful sound textures and a shifting focus in the arrangement.
Lush strings start the piece, with a child's voice-over saying the names of different colours.
This breaks into chorused, picked guitar over the strings, and a synthesized sea-wave sound which is rather beautiful. The piece then builds into a heavier section, complete with a '70s- style jazz rock guitar solo, joined by operatic singing. My only criticism of an otherwise excellent job is that there's just a bit too much echo on the lead guitar. The standard of the musicianship and recording on all these compositions is extremely high, and when you've got a player of the standard of BJ Cole playing pedal steel, you've either got some very good friends or some money behind you. Special effects using the pedal steel and echo abound, from bowed-in notes to the sound of frenzied string and bar with loads of echo.