Skin Like China

Released : July 2004

 

Personnel

Peter Nuttall - Music/Lyrics/Vocals
Douglas Hunter - Lyrics
Richie Schulz - Guitar/Music

'Skin like China' was a sister album to 'Electrified' but not in the sense that it supported it and continued the theme - it was more of a 'mop up' of the stuff that didn't get on Electrified with a few new songs.  It's title refers to a lyric in the Gary Numan song 'My car slides' which goes :

'She has the problem of need
Not conversation
She can only whisper such things
Like 'I tear inside'
She's like a gangster in drag I knew
Skin like china'

'Inner High' was one of the first songs written with the Tyros but it had no words for months as nothing seemed to work.  The finished product doesn't work either.  'Citadel' was a theme we explored in 1995, and it was that of being trapped by your own insecurities or what you thought other people thought of you.  I quite liked the music but again, the melody and lyrics didn't go anywhere.

'Direction' spoke of all the people I was discovering on the internet through 'Friends Reunited' which was quite popular at the time - realising that those I felt intimidated by at school were actually not being as successful at life as they hoped.

'Firefly' was all Tyros.  It was getting a bit samey though - I needed to try and get it to do something different.  It had a sound creator on it and filters I didn't know how to use.  This was probably the last time I used the workstation with it's factory settings.  The album 'Six String' would be a different matter.

'Letting go' should have been a bit faster, more energetic and not take so long to get somewhere - it could have been good.

'Poison Moon' is one of my favourite Fox songs and it deserves a full make-over.  The version on this album is alright and the re-make slightly less good.  Richie provided the guitar on 'Sunday Evening Traffic'. We were jamming one evening and recorded the music but it didn't have lyrics or a tune.  I went to bed thinking about it and couldn't sleep - suddenly the tune popped in my head, I got up a 3am and sang it.  The version here is that vocal take as we didn't bother trying to re-record it. It wasn't a great song. Not worth the effort.

The 'Time and Me' which appears here was recorded in late 2003 before the Tyros and I think it was actually the first take which we developed later.

- Peter