FIAT LUX — then and now

Fiat Lux News

Hired History + (2CD set; on Cherry Red) including Ark of Embers (The Lost Album) will follow the release of newly-recorded Saved Symmetry (CD+digital album; on Splid).

Hired History +

This wonderful special 2CD collection at last brings together, for the first time, the entire 1980’s official label output of Fiat Lux. All the tracks will appear on CD for the very first time, except one*.  

CD 1 features the band’s commercially released tracks including the band’s debut single for Bill Nelson's Cocteau Records and the five released by Polydor Records in the period spanning 1982-85.

CD 2 is the lost and previously unreleased second album Ark Of Embers, as the band originally intended, produced by Hugh Jones. 

Hired History + includes the following singles:

• Feels Like Winter Again — released in 1982 on Bill Nelson’s Cocteau Records; both sides
• Secrets — including b/sides Comfortable Life and Aqua Vitae
• Photography — including the previously unreleased Bill Nelson version 
• Blue Emotion — including the 12” version; plus its b/side Sleepless Nightmare (note the cracking Blue Emotion video clip above)
• House Of Thorns — including the 12” version; and its b/side Three’s Company
• Solitary Lovers — including 12” version and the b/sides No More Proud (Proud Mix) and No More Proud (Dub Mix)

All tracks have been sourced and remastered from the original production master tapes, after months of searching tape archives and exhaustive listening sessions to trace the correct versions. 

The CD booklet features the original album cover art ​ — the band's key UK sleeves were designed by Neville Brody — plus extensive sleeve-notes by band members Steve Wright and David Crickmore telling the band’s story. There is also a foreword written by Hugh Jones, the producer of Ark Of Embers, who has also worked with Echo & The Bunnymen, Del Amitri, Julian Cope and Bauhaus among others.

"Each section of every song still manages to catch the ear either by the addition of a new twist or by stripping stuff away...There was fun. There were frolics. There were extended stays at the notorious Columbia Hotel… Days and nights blurred into one another…," says Hugh Jones in his sleeve-notes.

Fiat Lux hails from Wakefield and was formed by Steve Wright and David Crickmore in 1982 with Ian Nelson joining soon after. The band released one independent single on Bill Nelson’s (Bill Nelson of Be–Bop Deluxe) label Cocteau Records, before signing a major record deal with Polydor. Fiat Lux released five singles for the label dating from August 1983 and January 1985, enjoying minor hits with Secrets and Blue Emotion.

The band supported Howard Jones, Blancmange, John Cale, Thomas Dolby and Nik Kershaw, as well as touring the UK and continental Europe in their own right. Fiat Lux had the enthusiastic backing of radio stalwarts Annie Nightingale, Peter Powell, Janice Long and David ‘Kid’ Jensen, and recorded BBC Radio sessions, as well as a BBC Whistle Test and a Channel 4 TV appearance.

Fiat Lux has since been acknowledged as “criminally underrated”.

But Steve Wright and David Crickmore have started to work together again! And are also to release a newly-recorded album Saved Symmetry, including...

CD 1: Hired History +

1. Secrets
2. Photography
3. Blue Emotion (12” version)
4. Comfortable Life
5. Sleepless Nightmare (12” version)
6. Aqua Vitae
7. Feels Like Winter Again (Bonus Track) *
8. This Illness (Bonus Track)
9. Photography (unreleased Bill Nelson version) (Bonus Track)
10. Comfortable Life (unreleased Bill Nelson 12” version) (Bonus Track)
11. House Of Thorns (Bonus Track)
12. Sleepless Nightmare (Bonus Track)
13. Three’s Company (Bonus Track)
14. House Of Thorns (12” version) (Bonus Track)
15. Solitary Lovers (12” version) (Bonus Track)
16. No More Proud (Proud Mix) (Bonus Track)
17. No More Proud (Dub Mix) (Bonus Track)
18. Sally Free and Easy (Bonus Track)

CD 2: Ark of Embers (The Lost Album)

1. The Moment
2. Breaking The Boundary
3. Blue Emotion
4. Embers
5. No More Proud
6. Photography
7. Splurge
8. Secrets
9. Aqua Vitae
10. In The Heat Of The Night
11. Solitary Lovers 

* All tracks appear on CD for the first time except Feels Like Winter Again which appeared on a long-deleted See For Miles compilation.

Saved Symmetry is due for mid March 2019 and Hired History + for the end of April 2019.

More info is TBC.

Initially, please contact...