Featuring Gage's experimental bass filter pedal.
This track was around and ready, made by moi, with sequences and sounds already quite structured, during late dexdexter days.
Could've gone on either a dex or exdexes set, though I remember Xav specifically not wanting the track when I played the late band an embryonic demo of its sequenced stuff + my live keys.
..But the by-then-evolved version, did make live appearances aplenty, with ST.
..With choruses by Gage, who made a conscious effort to make this chorus more and more bent-akin to ACACC, since we had by then lost a reason to play such dex days track, but we both really liked ACACC's choruses, live, specifically, and so made a conscious effort to quasi-rescue them more or less as happened here, cause we also thought ACACC would be forever lost, pre-web days.
..But this track v much holds its own, that's why we played it, like this.
Hold Back The Rain is also half Hungry Like The Wolf, half My Own Way lol.
It was ready to go live as an instrumental, with Rachel on guitar, by 1998, played live by the 3 piece instrumental 'early' version of ST, previous to taking Mark on vocals circa 2000/1.
..I must say, ST's music was whole without any vocal participation.
ST actually peaked as a fully functioning, instrumental, live rockprogpunktechpop 3 piece, in London, during post britpop, post romo, post lad, pre-fischerspooner days.
Go figure.
Must also be said, famous as ST got at a certain point, twas majorly down to the way Rachel managed the band.
..Must also be said, Mark did feature, on most demos he sang on, extensive expert use of his [then as much as today] state of the art, Eventide floor pedal, with harmonizer, sampling, delay-sampling, and precise digital modelling of early AMS-style 'timed/quantized-sampling', to then, the latter re-trigger back them phrases, double-triger-ing his own harmonies, sometimes as 'simple but precise short wave reflection Elvis-like early echo chambers' - which kinda accurately also mimicked studio-double-tracking, as programmed by Mark.
..And all of it done while he sang, triggering different effects / sampled backing voxes / just previously presang-mpled vocal harmony licks while the rest of us kept quiet, done rite there and just then.
Quite effing precise and engineer-like methodical, Mark was with that Eventide kinda 'mini H3000 floor Harmoniser', I guess - a box I'm familiar with, Paul Kendall knew those well and I'd observe him while he worked, aplenty, on H3000/40000s, much to his annoyance.
And Colin was really, really, really familiar with older Eventide 900s - ask Simon Le bon. Ask Limahl, ask Mark Hollis, ask Phil Oakey. ..Or Bowie, cause Colin first used an Eventide on him during Heroes, as Tony Visconti got hold of early, ground breaking gear.
Mark's Eventide pedal was also a beautifully weird piece of state of the art tech, made mostly out of desperation by the end of its blueprint process, cause it was such an expensive piece of live gear.
This Eventide Black Hole, or whatever the name was, did look bulk-ishly basic, though digitalish and with a small LCD screen, but like Rachel's 'standard' 2-unit Marshall fuzz / distortion / compressor pedal (which she gave to me and I have in the studio upstairs to this day, got its shelf of honor), did much more than it seemed it could at first sight, if ye werked it.
..I have the somewhat plugin version of it too these days.
..However. Mark, manipulating the real thing, live, as one would with a moog Taurus pedal, was something else, an actual orchestral maneuver in the dark, while singing live, both during most these demos and also when playing live til mid 2002 when we parted ways.
No wonder Mark has plentifully collaborated, sound wise, amongst whatever other capacities, with Roisin Murphy, post Moloko.
Other songs do feature Gage & Rachel on harmonies / backing vocals.
Evan - keys + drum programming
Gage - bass
Mark Rutherford - vocals
Rachel Johnson - guitar
