Hidden Heart

If you asked me right now, which band I would I like to have been in, I'd probably say Hearts On Fire. Everything about them, except the name, seems just about perfect. They released one brilliant album on Midnight Music - one of the better labels out there. This was as early as 1985, making them pioneers of janglepop. A singer that incredibly covers the middle ground between Jesse Garon's Fran Schoppler and Po!'s Ruth Miller - both among my very favourite bands and singers. Add to this guitarplaying as complex as anything on The Clientele's most recent ep, and not a 6-string in sight! And completely forgotten they are too - they're not on TweeNet and I can't find anything written about them online.

I think they were from Alaska and had two single releases as well, and that's more than enough infomation for me. I've had the album on my computer for about a year, but couldn't really make sense of it until now. The sound is quite mesmerising, with unusual melodies and chord-sequences and all the songs have at least two layers of twelve-string guitar. It's an unsual guitar-sound as well. Very clean and almost no low end. Usually I like the more powerful 12-string sounds, of course with McGuinn's incredible tone setting the standard. But I like this a lot too, it's played with precision and force. In fact it sounds like it's the same guitar that's been over-dubbed, which makes it even harder to distinguish. It helps listening with earphones, which is what I just did. Perhaps that is why I didn't get it before? Or maybe just move your speakers further apart if you're in front of your computer. I could have uploaded any track from the album really, but I chose "You May Not Know". I'm not going to say anything else about it.

CLOUD 80 Hearts On Fire - You May Not Know