Instead it was two and a half years before second album ‘The Falling’ emerged on London and while nowadays no-one would blink at such a gap, in the 80s the pop world moved much faster. The album sold respectably at the time, peaking at 19 in the UK during an 8 week chart run, and should have been the foundation for a credible and long lasting career.
The video for “Bad Day” can be found here: The current reissue on Drumfire records adds some 5 bonus tracks, 2 of which are extended versions, to this timeless collection and also addressed the over-bright sound of the original 80s CD issue. While the sound was a little more fleshed out than on the mini album, it still feels true to the trio’s original minimal vision and could have been made last week. Further radical reinterpretations of standards like ‘Willow Weep for Me’ and ‘Stormy Weather’ rub shoulders with wonderful originals like ‘More, More, More’ and the frankly astonishing McCourt call and response vocal on ‘Bad Day’, a no.15 UK pop hit in August 1983. It is that album, ‘The Drum is Everything’ that Carmel are best remembered for – and with good reason since 28 years on it remains a stone cold, if obscure, classic.
This startling debut’s minimal drum, vocal and bass sound and jazz influences showcased McCourt’s stunning voice and a radical re-interpretations of Smokey’s ‘Tracks of my Tears’, that was later re-recorded for their full debut released on London records in the Spring of 1984. The trio of Carmel McCourt, Jimmy Parris and Gerry Darby emerged almost perfectly formed on the small Red Flame indie label in the autumn of 1983 with an eponymous 6 track mini LP that remains unavailable on CD in the UK. Some relative date references will therefore not add to the re-publish date of August 2015.
N ote – this article was previously published in a slightly different version on Kind of in autumn 2013, having been written in late 2012.
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