Watching You Tonight (partially found Absolute album; 1986-1987)

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This article has been tagged as Needing work due to its slightly poor wording lack of references.



Absolute1.jpeg

Absolute in a photoshoot made for the album in 1986.

Status: Partially Found

Absolute was a synth-pop/electronic music band formed between 1982 and 1983 by John Thomas, Colin Taaffe (Taf) and Paul Johnson, being known for being signees of the infamous "Reset Records" label owned by Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Erasure) and his partner in crime and producer Eric Radcliffe, from late 1984 to 1987, releasing two singles "T.V. Glare" in 1985 and "Can't You See" in 1987.

Early Days

Absolute was formed in Brighton between late-1982 and mid-1983 when all the members were still in high school. At first, the band consisted of Depeche Mode’s covers that utilized Paul’s synthesizer and John’s Technics organ. Taf and Paul left school in 1984 and got jobs while John stayed in school. By this time, John had purchased a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer and a Korg KPR-77 drum machine and Paul had a Korg Poly-61 and a Korg Micro-Preset. The two began to practice song writing and using their instruments until they felt confident enough to record a demo. They went into a local studio and recorded their first track titled “Face Up".

T.V. Glare

One of the members got in contact with Eric Radcliffe in mid-1984 to record some demos at Splendid Studios. Radcliffe was interested by their sound and Taf’s vocal resemblance to Dave Gahan, leading them be signed to the infamous Reset Records label in late 1984.

Reset Records at that point had some unsuccessful releases with Robert Marlow, who released three singles and had an album that was shelved at the time. They had lost their contract with RCA Records and was held by Sonet Publishing and Vogue Distribution in France.

In November 1984, the band recorded two more demos with John Fryer at the controls. Absolute met Vince, who was one of their heroes. Vince suggested that "T.V. Glare" would make a good single and that they should meet after Christmas to do the pre-programming at his house in London. The production started later on mid 1985 with the track "The Merry Go-Round", which was featured in the "Electronic Soundmaker" magazine on June 1985.

T.V. Glare was recorded in a week at Splendid Studios and released in August 1985. Unfortunately, it was not the hit that Vince or Eric had expected and in spite of extensive radio play, T.V. coverage, and even a bit of national press, the single was only played on BBC Radio 1-3 times a day when it was released under Sonet Publishing and Neil Ferris paid to plug it.

One of the surviving pictures of the shot made for the album.

Can't You See

By late 1985, Vince Clarke had left Reset Records, leaving Eric Radcliffe in charge of the label, but before Vince left, Eric told that the song "Can't You See" was going to be Absolute's next single. In May 1986, Eric Radcliffe started the recording of the single along with their album, which was produced by John Fryer. John Thomas left in early 1986, but was going to be featured on the album's credits and photoshoots nonetheless.

By that time, relations between Vince and Eric were very strained, especially as Vince had told the band during a lift to Kings Cross that Erasure had not been an instant success, which he was worried about.

Nobody was happy with the finished version of "Can’t You See" which some thought sounded like it had come off Erasure’s Wonderland LP.

John Fryer was given the job of re-recording "Can’t You See" along with completing Absolute’s album during winter 1986, which now featured backing vocals from Karen Dobie, an amateur singer at the time.

"Can't You See" was released in April 1987 only as a 7-inch single. It was a financial failure with no promotion from Sonet or Reset, leading it to be withdrawn from many stores weeks later. Its extremely poor reception lead to confusion back in the late 1990s on whether it existed, but in 1998, it was confirmed that the single was relased but had no promotion thanks to a CD-R bootleg release of a Reset Records compilation.

The Lost 12-Inch

Weeks after the release of the 7-inch version of "Can't You See", John Fryer began work on a 12-inch release along with the band. It was mixed in 3 weeks and consisted of a 12 minute mix of "Can't You See" along with the full version of "Love In My Heart", which was a 4 and a half minute piano ballad with Taf on the vocals. However, with the null promotion of the 7-inch release, they saw no point of releasing the 12-inch version, considering it a waste of time and money. Because of this, no vinyls were manufactured and no release ever materialized.

Watching You Tonight: The Lost Album

After the release of "T.V. Glare", Clare and Radcliffe had talks about Absolute recording and releasing their own album, which was quite risky at the time. The label was struggling and the thought of attempting to release an album was frustrating due to the poor reception of Robert Marlow's releases.

However, Vince had sympathy for the band since he also liked their novelty factor. Absolute played a lot of parts manually, which reminded him of former times with Depeche Mode and gave Absolute a chance to record an album.

In October 1985, the works of promotion for the album started, but production was delayed when Clarke officially announced that he was leaving the label to form Erasure, leaving Eric Radcliffe in charge of running the label along with being Absolute's "manager" since they were only 16.

Production

Finally on May 3rd, 1986 the band along with John Fryer which was chosen to be the producer, started the recording sessions at Blackwing Studios.

At this time, the band switched to a more experimental style, thanks to the influence of John Fryer, who was working with bands like Nitzer Ebb and 4AD.

The tracks "T.V. Glare" and "The Merry Go-Round" were reworked, giving them a different and industrial sound from the early releases made with Vince. A photoshoot was made on June 18th, 1986 on some buildings nearby Splendid/Blacking Studios, days before John Thomas was leaving the band.

One of the surviving pictures of the shot made for the album.

The production was finished on mid-1987, recording 11 tracks, including a few mixes.

Tracklist

  1. Take Her Away
  2. Can't You See
  3. Does Anybody Want Me?
  4. T.V. Glare
  5. Club Boys (Also known as "Clubbed Boys"
  6. Friend Or Enemy
  7. Love In My Heart
  8. Only Time Can Tell
  9. Doofah On 45
  10. Now You Are Gone
  11. The Merry Go-Round


Karen Dobie was recruited to do the backing vocals for most of the tracks except "Club Boys", "Love In My Heart", "Now You Are Gone", "Doofah On 45" and "The Merry Go-Round".

The word "Doofah" was a thing between them. It was an ongoing joke at the time of recording where John and the band would refer to pieces of studio equipment as a "Doofah" because they couldn’t remember the proper name. They would say to John Fryer “running through the doofah over there!" All three of them were sampled saying "Doofah!" on the tracks "Doofah On 45" and "The Merry Go Round".


Availability

Absolute got lost in time and there was no information about the band for quite a long time, the band was mentioned in several times, but the story about them remained unknown, However on 2017, Paul Johnson the former member of Absolute, posted on Soundcloud most of the album and the work done with EMI on late 1987. He told that he got a copy of the master on a cassette tape in late 1990s, however the transfer/cop.

The masters and the master tape are in possession of Eric Radcliffe.