Ocean Rain (1984)

Ocean Rain is the fourth studio album by the English post-punk band Echo & the Bunnymen. It was released on 4 May 1984 by Korova and reached number four on the UK Albums Chart, number 87 on the United States Billboard 200, number 41 on the Canadian RPM 100 Albums and number 22 on the Swedish chart. Since 1984 the album has been certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry. Ocean Rain includes the singles "The Killing Moon", "Silver" and "Seven Seas".

The band wrote the songs for the new album in 1983. In early 1984 they recorded most of the album in Paris using a 35-piece orchestra, with other sessions taking place in Bath and Liverpool. Receiving mixed reviews upon release but retrospectively praised, the album was originally released as an LP and a cassette in May 1984 before it was reissued on CD in August. The album was reissued on CD in 2003, along with the other four of the band's first five studio albums, having been remastered and expanded before again being reissued in 2008 with a live bonus disc. The artwork for the album was designed by Martyn Atkins and the photography was by Brian Griffin. Echo & the Bunnymen played a number of concerts in 2008 where they performed Ocean Rain in full and with the backing of an orchestra.

Background

Following the poor reception of Echo & the Bunnymen's third album, 1983's Porcupine, the band recorded the single "Never Stop". The title track of the single was produced by Hugh Jones, who had produced the band's second album, 1981's Heaven Up Here. The single introduced a new sound for the band with an expanded arrangement including congas, marimbas, violins and cellos. After "Never Stop" was released on 8 July 1983 the band toured the Outer Hebrides in Scotland before two successful concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 18 and 19 July. Also that month, the band was filmed by RPM Productions for the Channel 4 documentary series Play at Home. Filmed in a café used by the band they recorded acoustic versions of two old songs, "Stars Are Stars" and "Villiers Terrace", as well as two new songs, "The Killing Moon" and "Silver", for their episode of Play at Home titled "Life at Brian's".

After spending some time in Liverpool writing new songs for the album, the band recorded their sixth session for John Peel's radio show on BBC Radio 1 on 6 September 1983. The songs recorded were "Nocturnal Me", "Ocean Rain", "My Kingdom" and "Watch Out Below", which would all later appear on the band's fourth album Ocean Rain – "Watch Out Below" was later renamed "The Yo Yo Man". When the band's John Peel session was broadcast on 10 October 1983, the punk zine Jamming said, "[The songs] hint at a readjustment and a period of new positive recovery."

Echo & the Bunnymen were booked to headline a two-week youth festival at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon on the evening of 23 October 1983. Due to a high demand for tickets a matinee performance was added. The matinee concert at Stratford-upon-Avon saw the live debut of "Seven Seas". With representatives from the band's record company and lead singer Ian McCulloch's mother in the audience, the performance was nervous and uncertain; although the evening performance, without the record company representatives and McCulloch's mother, was much improved.

At the end of 1983 Echo & the Bunnymen recorded a live special called A Crystal Day for the Channel 4 programme The Tube. Ignoring their old material, the band played "The Killing Moon", "Nocturnal Me", "Ocean Rain" – which had now developed into a ballad – and an early version of "Thorn of Crowns" called "Cucumber".

Recording and music

The band recorded and self-produced "The Killing Moon" – which was released on 20 January 1984 – at Crescent Studio in Bath, Somerset. After catching a cold, McCulloch completed the recording of the vocals for the song at Amazon Studio in Liverpool, where Pete de Freitas also completed the drumming. The band then went to Paris where they were booked into Les Studios des Dames and Studio Davout. Henri Loustau, the engineer at des Dames, assisted on the string passages and Adam Peters provided the string arrangements and played cello and piano. McCulloch, not happy with the lead vocals he had recorded in Paris, re-recorded most of the vocals at Amazon Studio in Liverpool.