Lives Of Angels

Lives Of Angels

Hole In The Sky

Dark Entries

Lives of Angels was the brainchild of Gerald O’Connell from London, England. At the end of the 1970s, O’Connell had been working on material for Mystery Plane, a band that included his wife Catherine on keyboards and backing vocals. In 1980 the pair of them left to form Lives Of Angels and focus on O’Connell’s own songs, which he felt were more “oblique, atmospheric and evocative” than the narrative style and social commentary of Mystery Plane. The result sounds both of its time, comfortably nestling under the gloomy clouds of British post-punk and goth, and oddly out of time; its homemade quality placing it outside of obvious chronological signifiers as the motorik riffs and spartan drum patterns loop over and over to infinity. O’Connell was unimpressed by the musical offerings of the early ’80s (with the exception of New Order, Cocteau Twins and Depeche Mode, he notes), instead drawing from San Francisco psychedelia, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, Congolese guitarist Dr. Nico and the full pantheon of krautrock (especially Amon Düül II, whose song ‘Archangels Thunderbird’ contains the line, “There is no elevator to Eden but a hole in the sky”). Keyboards and some vocals were provided by Catherine, who also acted as editor, making changes to the arrangements or pointing out inappropriate drum patterns (hence her credit in the sleeve notes as “percussion censor”). “Elevator to Eden” was originally released in 1983 on cassette by Color Disc and reissued on vinyl in 2012 on Dark Entries, in slightly condensed form....

Lives Of Angels

Elevator To Eden

Dark Entries

***Dark Entires is honored to reissue the long out of print debut album Elevator to Eden by LIVES OF ANGELS. Lives of Angels was the brainchild of GERALD O’CONNELL from London, England. In 1974 he worked at CBS studios mastering recordings from tape to disc. By 1977 he joined his first band MYSTERY PLANE, led by school mate Mark Harvey and later joined by his soon-to-be wife Catherine. Gerald branched off in 1980 forming Lives of Angels as an outlet for his own compositions. He recorded, produced and played all of the instruments on “Elevator to Eden” between 1981 and 1983, using a primitive set up of drum machines, one keyboard, guitar and a tape echo. Influenced by the Krautrock sounds of Neu! and Amon Duul II as well as US psychedelic rock, Lives of Angles crafted their own unique post-punk sound. Elevator to Eden was originally released in 1983 on cassette by Color Tape Records, the label started by Gary Ramon of Modern Art. Then in 1986 Fire Records remixed and re-released the album on vinyl but the band was not happy with the mixes. This reissue features the original 4-track cassette mixes of Elevator To Eden on vinyl for the first time ever. The LP includes 9 songs featured on the original Color Tapes release. All songs have been remastered for vinyl by GEORGE HORN at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley directly from the original master tapes. Each LP comes with unreleased photos, original artwork and a lyrics for...