the passage
ltm catalogue

One of the most inventive and intellectual bands to emerge from Manchester during the post-punk period, The Passage were active between 1978 and 1983, producing four acclaimed albums and a slew of singles. To read full band biography click here. To purchase CDs click here.


PINDROP (LTMCD 2356) £10
Pindrop, their dense first album, originally appeared in 1980 on cult label Object and was recorded at Graveyard Studio. Here, Passage mainman Richard 'Dick' Witts performs most of the material. Stand-out tracks include Watching You Dance, Troops Out and the powerful 16 Hours. Pindrop's rough edges and tense, claustrophobic atmosphere all underpin the central lyrical theme, which is fear. The 13 bonus tracks include all material from their first two Object eps, featuring ex-Fall bassist Tony Friel, and a superb Manchester radio session from February 1981. Full tracklist: Fear, Troops Out, Carnal, Watching You Dance, Hunt, Anderton's Hall, From the Heart, Locust, 2711, 16 Hours, Carmen, A Certain Way to Go, Prelude, Love Song, Competition, $lit Machine, New Kind of Love, Taking My Time, Clock Paradox, 16 Hours, Time Delay, Mr Terror - Chief of Police, My One Request, The Beginning the Dawn, A Man Set Out, Tangled, Shave Your Head.

Reviews: "Lyrically they were bluntly polemical, and more explicitly than Joy Division, they caught the strange mood cocktail of hedonism and mortal fear of the early 80s" (Uncut, 6/03); "My, they've aged well. Lovingly compiled, and brimming with extra tracks and sharp-eyed sleevenotes" (Q, 7/03); "Pindrop chilled and thrilled - vocals switching between panicky whisper and desperate chant, drums beaten with a relentless passion, synth lines coiling around your heart like a creeper" (The Wire, 12/03); "With the disquieting Pindrop, The Passage can be accepted as major. It's a work of disciplined intellectual aggression, frantic emotions and powerfully idiomatic musicality. It's as shocking a beautiful nightmare, as stormy and aware a debut lp as Unknown Pleasures" (Paul Morley, NME, 10/80); "An astounding first lp - the most appropriate parallels are early Joy Division and late Wire, but their technique is unique to them" (Sounds, 10/80); "Pindrop never ceases to haunt and provoke no matter how many times you refer back to it. Troops Out has all the hallmarks of a great post-punk hit single, and the Piccadilly Radio session is largely fantastic. The two rare Object eps feature Tony Friel's propulsive input and are pretty startling too" (Whisperin' & Hollerin', 4/03); "Riven with muggy, claustrophobic urgency. Of all Manchester's sons to crawl from punk's fallout, Dick Witts was possibly the cleverest" (Glasgow Herald, 4/03); "A welcome electronic diversion" (Careless Talk, 5/03)


FOR ALL AND NONE (LTMCD 2359) £10
For All and None, their second album, originally appeared in 1981 on their own Night and Day label. Here, Witts is joined by guitarist Andrew Wilson and drummer Joe McKechnie. Stand-out tracks include Dark Times, Hip Rebels and Lon Don. The four bonus tracks comprise all tracks from the two rare Night and Day singles Troops Out and the superb Devils and Angels, the latter featuring short-stay vocalist Lizzy Johnson. Full tracklist: Dark Times, Lon Don, The Shadows, Do the Bastinado, A Good and Useful Life (Begun), A Good and Useful Life (Revived), Flag Night, Shave Your Head, Tangled, Photo Romance, The Great Refusal, Troops Out (7"), Hip Rebels (7"), Devils and Angels (7"), Watching You Dance (7").

Reviews: "The second album sacrificed nothing of the intensity and power of their debut, while demonstrably stretching their ambition with complex arrangements and a more polished production" (The Wire, 12/03); "Firmly presents the case for rediscovery" (Q, 7/03); "Their elaborate, Moog-driven segmented musical backdrops reflected Witts' classical background. Four stars." (Uncut, 6/03); "FAAN kicks off with two of their best and most enduring songs, Dark Times and Lon Don. The album remains a dark, intelligent marvel to this day" (Whisperin' & Hollerin', 5/03); "A varied collection of melodic songs with both tension and depth, plus lyrics that successfully avoid the twin pitfalls of preaching or propaganda" (The Face, 10/81); "A lance falling straight into a block of ice" (Sounds, 9/81)


DEGENERATES (LTMCD 2361) £10
Degenerates, their third album, originally appeared in 1982 on Cherry Red. Here, Witts is joined by guitarist Andrew Wilson and short-stay drummer Paul Mahoney. Stand-out tracks include popular single XoYo, Born Every Minute, Go to Seed and Love Is As. The five bonus tracks include the non-album single Taboos, as well as b-side tracks such as Animal In Me. Full tracklist: Xoyo, Fleck, Revelation, Love is As, Born Every Minute, (Ourselves), Go To Seed, Armour, Time Will Tell, Empty Words, XoYo (7"), Animal In Me, Born Every Minute (flexi), Taboos, Taboodub.

Reviews: "How on earth XoYo missed the charts must remain forever a mystery" (Q, 7/03); "Their most distinguished album yet, and the most complete pop record I've heard for three years. Degenerates focuses magnificently upon the real world" (Melody Maker, 6/82); "Perfectionist and pertinent presenters of multi-dimensional pop" (NME, 7/82); "Their sophisticated subversion is mostly fabulous stuff" (Smash Hits, 5/82); "Undeservedly forgotten" (Uncut, 6/03); "They had the experimental ethos of Cabaret Voltaire, the politik idealism of The Fall and the tunes of the Buzzcocks. Ten charming treasures of skewed technopop" (Tangents, 4/03); "The whiff of subversion still hangs heavily over virtually all the tracks and the likes of Fleck, Revelation ond the fiery Go To Seed retain the dark truculance of the band's earlier work" (Whisperin' & Hollerin', 6/03)


ENFLAME (LTMCD 2363) £10
Enflame, their fourth and final album, originally appeared in 1983 on Cherry Red. Here, Witts is joined by guitarist Andrew Wilson and drummer Joe McKechnie. Stand-out tracks include Sharp Tongue (also a single), Horseplay and the powerful Sunburn. The song Drugface was later heavily sampled by Moby for his 1991 single Drug Fits the Face. The seven bonus tracks include the non-album single Wave, and five demos from 1983. Full tracklist: Sharp Tongue, Clear as Crystal, Drugface, Man of War, The Half of It: Twats, The Half of It: Sissies, Dogstar/@th Day, Horseplay, brd usa ddr jfk, Sunburn, Wave, Angleland, Song to Dance (demo), Tattoo (demo), Drugface (demo), Man of War (demo), Angeland (demo)

Reviews: "Degenerates and Enflame still bristle beautifully. Witts might have been as bilious and polemic as The Fall were, but he understood the majesty of Kraftwerk" (Q, 7/03); "Seemed to achieve the impossible, with The Passage becoming more poppy and more avant garde at the same time" (The Wire, 12/03); "A groundbreaking outfit, and few have attempted their complex, keyboards n' drums dominated sound before or since. This is a thrillingly expanded reissue that still sounds ahead of much of the game today" (Whisperin' & Hollerin', 4/03)


BBC SESSIONS (LTMCD 2365) £10
BBC Sessions traces the history of The Passage through their several John Peel Sessions for BBC Radio One. The first, from November 1980, features vocalist Lizzy Johnson, and catches the band in transition. The second and third Peel sets, from October 1981 and May 1982 respectively, feature two otherwise unrecorded tracks in Rod of Iron and Form and Void. The collection also includes three unreleased demos from 1983. Full tracklist: Dark Times, Shave Your Head, Devils and Angels, The Shadows, Rod of Iron, Form & Void, Man of War, Love is As, A Day, Empty Words, Horseplay, Clear as Crystal (demo), Sing the Praise (demo), Dogstar (demo).

Reviews: "All clattering percussion, lyrical shock and awe, and dreamy synthesizers" (Q, 7/03); "Excellent" (The Wire, 12/03); "The Passage revel in an environment more than most given to an experimemntal approach, and so it proves with another range of enigmatic variations. Of all the synth bands active at the turn of the 80s few took such an unorthodox approach as The Passage, and we will probably never see their likes again" (Leonard's Lair, 4/03); "An excellent sister piece to the four studio sets, and a vital outing in its own right" (Whisperin' & Hollerin', 6/03)

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