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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Interview by Jack Watkins

‘We recorded it in a kitchen!’ How China Crisis made Black Man Ray

Gary Daly and Eddie Lundon of China Crisis in 1985.
‘There’s something very 1980s about the intro’ … Gary Daly, left, and Eddie Lundon in 1985. Photograph: Brian Rasic/Getty Images

Gary Daly, singer, songwriter

Ed and I had just come off a long tour of Europe and North America supporting Simple Minds and needed a break. I immersed myself in music-making with a synth, drum machine and a four-track Tascam Portastudio. I was very inspired by Brian Eno. I’d seen the words “found sounds” on his album credits. The notion that any sound could be included in a recording struck me as magical. I just held a mic out of my bedroom window. Black Man Ray started out as an ambient number with an intro featuring the sound of a boy I recorded singing in the street below. In the end, he actually featured in the opening bars of our song The Highest High.

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