Attack Of The Grey Lantern

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I always thought the chords and melody movement were really complex on this song and I can only imagine they’ll make a West End musical out of it in the end, which would be a suitable ending to the life of this record I think. I wouldn't have a cape, but there are definitely characters on the record – Albert Taxloss, Chad, Dark Mavis.

The following three singles ("Stripper Vicar", " Wide Open Space", " She Makes My Nose Bleed") all made the top forty each improving of the previous singles' chart position. They released four classic albums – Attack of the Grey Lantern (1997), Six (1998), Little Kix (2000) and the compilation Kleptomania following the band’s split – as well as a popular and now rare series of EPs. Can someone create a new listing for this one please as I care not interfere in official Discogs entries, sorry ?However, my concern once it arrives is how will it sound with over 55 minutes of music split over just two sides ouch ! The next day I came back and Ronnie Stone, our engineer / producer said to me the verse vocal was weak so I re-recorded it and that was the only change from the track that was completed in a day. Panopticon is definitely their best album in my opinion, but the rest of their discography is worth a listen (in particular the almost equally fantastic Oceanic album).

At the start of the recording sessions for the album I’d decided there would be no love songs on this album, or any Mansun album. We recorded a 32 piece orchestra on this track which we didn’t even use in the end, such was the avarice of the era, you can hear the recording on the outtakes disc. It's Kscope 1175 and is the usual 12 songs ( 11 standard tracks with 6 on side one and the usual 5 plus the " hidden track" making a total of 6) but only on one 12" record. This was going to be the big single after the album was released to turn us into a huge pop group, but for some reason or another (everyone has a different story) it wasn’t released and ‘Taxloss’ was put out instead. Originally this song was entitled ‘Desperate Icons’, a song I’d began writing quite a few years as a teenager before the album’s release.A sarcastic swipe at the music industry, Taxloss was originally 11 minutes long and encompassed my modus operandi of the time of jumping between genres and parody.

After we added the strings to the beginning of the track it started to sound like a James Bond theme, so we changed its title to something slightly more humorous. I remember being off my tits in Ibiza when Paul Oakenfold’s ‘Wide Open Space’ remix came on in Pacha and it blew me away. The title was elongated as it seemed to earnest and this whole track was the most long winded and complicated to finish on the album. Being a huge Prince fan, I loved the way he wrote, produced and played all the instruments on a track, this was the first commercially released track I got to do all that on. The Kscope label has acquired the band's impressive catalogue and are creating a deluxe reissue series that delves into a treasure trove of previously unreleased audio and visual material.

I was planning ahead and already had the idea of a skit on a concept record already written down, this song does what it says on the tin and describes a particularly debauched night in the life of the characters on the record. It was complex to work out how to piece all this together, like a jigsaw, but great fun, the mastering engineer didn’t think so though. We originally recorded this song with a hip hop groove and some exceptional swearing that was rejected by the record company, these versions appear on the outtakes disc of the box set and its really interesting to hear these early versions and how we finally arrived at the finished version of this song that closed the album.

Written in the form of a letter from the transvestite vicar to his daughter, it sort of deepens the plot of the album’s narrative a bit before it’s all resolved on the final track, Dark Mavis. Wide Open Space" became a dance anthem after being remixed by DJ and producer Paul Oakenfold under the production alias Perfecto. The amount of times I’ve sat in pubs trying to explain to people what it’s all about is mind boggling, and in the mists of time, I’m not sure I can even remember myself.Here at NME, we deemed it the 44th best album of 1997 in our end of year list (and there was stiff competition that year, believe us). Attack of the Grey Lantern is the debut album by English alternative rock band Mansun released on 17 February 1997 via Parlophone. Having been a huge dance music fan it was really satisfying having a big club hit remix from the album too. Again, ploughing the religious imagery on this track, this song wasn’t immediately a huge hit but seems to be remembered along with ‘Taxloss’ as the most well-known on the album. I dont have the album in any other format and dont really know it that well so cant compare but compared to my admittedly small collection of picture discs this is comfortably the best.