Take Me to the Trees, by Modern English

Take Me to the Trees

by Modern English

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1.	You're Corrupt 03:17	buy track
2.	Trees 04:47	buy track
3.	Moonbeam 03:31	buy track
4.	Something's Going On 04:15	buy track
5.	Dark Cloud 02:27	buy track
6.	Sweet Revenge 03:55	buy track
7.	I Feel Small 04:33	buy track
8.	Come Out of Your Hole 05:02	buy track
9.	Flood of Light 03:50	buy track
10.	It Don't Seem Right 04:04	buy track

about

Take Me To The Trees not only reconnects the band to their roots, in the fervent and fecund world of late 1970s/early 1980s post-punk Britain, but they have co-produced it with Martyn Young of Colourbox and M/A/R/R/S fame, whose last production job was 1986. In addition, the album’s beautiful cover is by venerated art director Vaughan Oliver, whose very first sleeve design was Modern English’s “Gathering Dust” single in 1980.

Grey, Conroy, McDowell and Walker first reunited in 2010, to tour the US, UK and Paris, before accepting an invitation to re-record their 1984 smash single “I Melt With You” for Mark Pellington’s film of the same name. They hadn’t seen each other in over twenty years, until they all started rehearsing for the tour. “It was like the intervening years hadn’t happened,” says Conroy, “and the old songs still sounded as good.” After the tour, they started swapping new ideas, “some from jamming in a room, like we used to do,” says Grey. “We looked at each other, just laughing. It was amazing.”

As the new album finally took shape, the band toured the US again in the summer of 2016, playing their 1981 debut album, Mesh And Lace, in its entirety, as the album was reissued by the US indie Drastic Plastic, the first time the vinyl for it had been available in the US. “It’s been brilliant,” says Grey. “I’m out of the loop in the modern world, but the music we used to make is fashionable again.”

The band’s fired-up vitality is palpable in Take Me To The Trees pulsating opener, and first single, “You’re Corrupt”, laced with Grey’s rant against corporate greed, “and the throwaway nature of modern culture. It’s a time when even the truth is watered down.”

Album tracks “Sweet Revenge” and “Flood Of Light” have the “edgy style of our Mesh And Lace era, and are lyrically cut up and strange”, Grey says. Some songs, like ‘It Don’t Seem Right’, were written in Suffolk, England “so they’re gloomier,” while others were penned in Thailand (where McDowell lives and Grey spends a lot of time), like “Moonbeam”, “under starry skies and a full moon.” The album title Take Me To The Trees (a line from the song “Trees”), was also inspired by nature. “It seemed like a sister title to our 1982 album, After The Snow, and to us getting lost along the way”, he says.

Modern English has also found room for a new, spectral mood in the ballads “It Don’t Seem Right” (“a love song of people forced apart”) and “Come Out Of Your Hole” (which started as a sexual image “before evolving into something else altogether”).

Given Modern English’s roots were post-punk icons Wire and Joy Division – dark and austere while still melodic and passionate – Take Me To The Trees is a return to the sound and vision of their debut single “Drowning Man” (on their own Limp label) and their early 4AD (they were just the second band, after Bauhaus, to sign to the label) music - singles “Swans On Glass” and “Gathering Dust”, and debut album Mesh And Lace, which James Murphy of LCD Soundystem called “…a sneaky secret that everyone writes off, because they just think it's going to be a 'Melt With You,' but it sounds way scarier than any Joy Division record."

credits

released February 24, 2017

Produced by Martyn Young & Modern English. Recorded at Asylum Studios, Suffolk.

Band Members:
Robbie Grey - vocals, Steve Walker - Keyboards, Gary McDowell - Guitar, Michael Conroy - bass

Additional musicians;
Roy Martin - drums, Martyn Young - Keyboards/Programming, Alex Cook - Orchestration/Keyboards, Gary James - Percussion, Ray Conroy - hand claps, Skipper - barking

Art direction and design - Vaughan Oliver

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about

Modern English England, UK

Formed in Colchester, England, the band self-released its first single on its own Limp Records label prior to signing to 4AD, home to such like-minded acts as Bauhaus, Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance. Laying the foundation for future musical movements such as goth and industrial, Modern English would gain the attention of renowned BBC DJ John Peel, who featured the band twice on his program. ... more

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