After coming to an end of their long contract with London Records, Bananarama decided to take a well deserved break. Keren "deserted" to Cornwall with Andrew Ridgely and her son, and Sara took time out to be with her daughter and partner Bassey Walker. It was a point for the two that finally saw the group take a back seat.
It
wouldn't be a permanent break however, and in 1995 the girls would set
to work looking for a new producer and record deal. Sara had been writing
new material, during this process thay enlisted Japanese producer Tetsuya
Komuro to create a track for them. They were not impressed with the result
but were pressurised to write some lyrics to go with it. "We've
met him a few times . . . and he wanted to do something with us . . .
we couldn't get our schedules together to work with him in person. He
sent us over this track, which, I hope he never gets to read this, we
told our manager, "you must be joking", it was the biggest piece
of pap I've ever heard. (Keren)
The album was produced by Gary Miller and there is a definite
shift to a dance market. Each track bumps up the tempo and has a trance
inspired sound. The girls sing in a rather strange breathy style which
doesn't really add and depth to the resulting sound and consequently the
tracks all meld into one universal sound. Stand out tracks come oin the
form of the 1st single relase, Every Shade of Blue, System and Don't Stop
Me Now.
"It's one of my favourites. Basically, we kind of asked the
various companies what they thought they would like, and it seemed to
be a unanimous decision. I was actually quite suprised in that I felt
they would have probably gone with something uptempo. Melodically, it's
more moody, I think, than a lot of the others. I actually really like
it because of that. I think it's got a really good mood, and an atmosphere
which you don't often find ina dance track. I'm very fond of the track
itself. It's certainly one of my favourites on the album. I was suprised
at the choice, pleasantly suprised." (Keren on Every Shade
of Blue, 1995 DMA)
Europe
Curb CRB778342
Released: January 1996
UK chart position: Non UK Release
