Rage in Eden
Occupation
- Vocals / Guitar / Keyboard: Midge Ure
- Bass / Keyboard: Chris Cross
- Drums / Percussion: Warren Cann
- Keyboard / Violin: Billy Currie
Rage in Eden (German riot in paradise ) is the fifth studio album by Ultravox. The album was released on September 11, 1981 exactly 14 months after its predecessor in Vienna Chrysalis Records and is the genre New Wave attributed.
An eponymous double album was released on September 22, 2008 Remastered Definitive Edition. In addition to a remastered version of the original album on the first CD, it contains a second CD with some B- sides of single releases, live recordings and previously unreleased songs.
Genesis
After the commercial success of the previous album Vienna, the four band members created in June 1981 after the completion of the European tour largely unprepared in the studio of Conny Plank at his farm house in Wolperath in Cologne together the lessons of tour ideas for the new album in music and implement texts. This approach was new to the band, because so far the songs have always been largely refined before the recordings in the studio and sometimes live and tested before an audience, to keep the required studio time and the associated costs low. Through commercial success with Vienna and the royalties for the chart hit Fade to Grey by Visage to the Midge Ure the text and Billy Currie had contributed along with Chris Payne of Gary Numan music, the cost of studio hire did not play a decisive role. For Rage in Eden the studio time the band were less important than to polish the sound and create an equally successful successor to Vienna. To this end, Ultravox undertook again Conny Plank as a sound engineer and co-producer and his studio for the recording and mastering. Plank also had the two previous system of Romance and Vienna looked after and helped the band again in the realization of the sound. The recordings for Rage in Eden went on for more than three months until shortly before the album's release in September 1981 out as the songs largely emerged only in the studio.
Instrumentation
In addition to the instruments already used in the recordings came to Vienna on the album in addition Linn LM-1 Drum Computer and the polyphonic Yamaha CS -80, the polyphonic Oberheim OB -X also, and a second monophonic Moog Minimoog used. The CS -80 was initially not used in live concerts since he weighs about 100 kilograms and tends to detune. The approximately 5,000 -US-dollar Linn represented a significant expansion of percussion technique, because he was opposed to the previously used by drummer Warren Cann pure rhythm devices from Roland (TR -77 and CR -78) programmed with digital sound samples. Cann was able to record his own drums, digitize and generate appropriate rhythm pattern, as you can hear, for example, The Thin Wall. The unit came from then in the live shows are used.
Besides the actual instruments and various sound manipulation techniques have been used to create the sound of Rage in Eden. The band experimented with reverb effects and often used while running in reverse 2-inch multitrack tape recording guitars or vocals. The background vocals in the title track Rage in Eden was created in this way was by the eponymous line of text from I Remember (Death in the Afternoon ) played backwards and provided with reverb added again. However, this was only approximately reproducible on live concerts, so that synthesizer wavetable synthesis should be used on the following albums. With this technique, the sounds were saved to be able to perform such studio effects also live.
Title list
The Definitive Remastered Edition contains on the second CD:
Publications and chart success
The album reached number four in the UK, in Germany and number 48 in the U.S. space 144 on the album charts. In Sweden and Norway, the album reached the Top 20 in each case and received in the UK gold status for more than 100,000 sold.
A total of two singles from the album were decoupled: The Thin Wall on August 10, 1981 ( before the album's release ) and The Voice on October 26, 1981 Both could be placed in the British Top 40 in the top 20, what the. band for five consecutive Top 40 hits in the UK earned. In German-speaking neither of these singles reached a chart position.
Tour
After the release, the band went in September 1981 to, known as Rage in Eden World Tour tour with first 22 appearances in the UK, followed by several appearances on the European continent from mid-October to December 1981. Early 1982, the tour in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Australia continued. It ended in Japan, where on February 25, 1982 was held the final concert at Nakano Sun Plaza Hall in Tokyo. The tour was the first on which no compositions of the former front man John Foxx were more played and also the last tour in which the band did without additional live musicians.
Reception
The contemporary press coverage was divided: while Melody Maker " confirmation Konsolidität and style " realized Creem found the work " sterile, inhumane and fascist". Dave Thompson of Allmusic rated the album 3.5 stars out of 5 points and says that the band climbed with Rage in Eden in great new heights.