Floodland
The The Sisters Of Mercy's second album was titled Floodland.
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The album Floodland and its according singles This Corrosion, Dominion and Lucretia were preceded by a press statement from Merciful Release, the text of which can be found under the entry A Short History. Four music videos featuring the songs This Corrosion, Sandstorm/Dominion, Lucretia and 1959 accompanied the album. In 1989, the video compilation Shot was released and featured all four of these videos. They are also included in the revised video collection Shot Rev 2.0 of 1993. Some additional information on the production and release of Floodland can be found @wikipedia.en and @wikipedia.de, see also the interview below with Larry Alexander on the production of Floodland ...
Track Lists
Vinyl LP
| Side 1 |
Side 2 |
| 1. Dominion/Mother Russia | 5. This Corrosion |
| 2. Flood I | 6. Flood II |
| 3. Lucretia | 7. Driven Like The Snow |
| 4. 1959 | 8. Never Land (a fragment) |
Bonus Tracks
| CD | Cassette | 2006 Reissue CD |
| Torch / Colours | Colours | Torch / Colours / Never Land (full version) / Emma |
Recording Notes
- Produced by Andrew Eldritch with Larry Alexander
- except Dominion/Mother Russia by Eldritch/Steinman
- and This Corrosion by Steinman
Band/Recording Personnel
as credited on the inner sleeve:
- Patricia Morrison - bass
- Andrew Eldritch - vocals
- Doktor Avalanche - drums
Releases
Note: The album was originally launched on 13 November 1987. For further releases see discogs/Floodland
| Label | Catalogue# | Format | Year | Country | Notes |
| Merciful Release / WEA | MR 441L | 12" Vinyl LP | 1987 | UK | first edition with gatefold lyrics sheet |
| Merciful Release / WEA | MR 441CD / 242246-2 | CD | 1987 | UK | with the two bonus tracks Torch and Colours |
| Merciful Release / WEA | MR 441C | Cassette | 1987 | UK | also featuring Torch |
| Merciful Release / WEA | MR441LTD | 12" Vinyl LP, ltd. edition | 1987 | UK | with numbered sleeve and gatefold picture lyrics sheet |
| Warner / Pioneer | P-13612 | 12" Vinyl LP | 1987 | Japan | Japanese picture lyric sheet, picture sleeve & obi-strip P-13612 |
| Elektra | 60762-1 | 12" Vinyl LP | 1987 | USA | some copies on High Quality Audiophile Vinyl |
| Elektra | 60762-2 | CD (partly in long box) | 1987 | USA | with the two bonus tracks Torch and Colours |
| Elektra | 60762-2 | Cassette | 1987 | USA | shorter versions of This Corrosion and Driven Like The Snow |
| WEA | 22321 | 12" Vinly LP | 1987 | Canada | shorter versions of This Corrosion and Driven Like The Snow |
| WEA | CD | Australia | includes Torch (directly after Driven Like The Snow) and Colours | ||
| WEA | Cassette | Australia | includes Torch (directly after Driven Like The Snow) | ||
| WEA Records Ltd. | 244053-3 | VHS Video Compilation | 1988 | UK | Title: Shot - features all the videos around the Floodland album |
| Merciful Release / WEA / Rhino UK | 5101-17580-2 | CD | 2006 | UK | with two further bonus tracks - Never Land (full length) and Emma |
Remarks
- There are differences in track times between the various formats.
These are most noticeable on Driven Like The Snow and This Corrosion.
- The 2006 reissue had, for the first time, the full demo version of Never Land.
In the past before, a full length demo had surfaced, but that was an instrumental only.
This new version came complete with vocals.
- Emma was taken from the Dominion 12".
- Possible reasons for not including the other B-Sides from Dominion could be:
- 1. There wasn't enough space on the CD or
- 2. Sandstorm / Untitled were given away in contribution to a charity compilation CD in the early 90's.
Additional Pictures
For plenty further pictures of all releases, please see The Ultimate Sisters Guide / Floodland.
Larry Alexander on Floodland Production
- Excerpt from an interview with Tape Op by Larry Crane in May / June 2013 -
You worked on Sisters Of Mercy's Floodland.
That I actually co-produced.
That's one of their most famous records.
I was working with Jim Steinman on various projects; Bonnie Tyler...
Did you work on her song "Total Eclipse of the Heart"?
No. It was after that. Andrew Eldritch, from Sisters Of Mercy, was a big fan of Jim Steinman. He hired Jim to produce two songs, and I was working with Jim at the time, so I ended up engineering. So, Jim produced those two songs: "Dominion/Mother Russia" and "This Corrosion." Andrew had been producing himself over in Manchester, and he wasn't getting anything done - he basically had a mountain of tapes. They didn't even know what was on the tapes at that point. So, his management asked me if I would go over there, and help sort things out. They'd go, "Oh, Clearmountain is unavailable? Give me Larry." They didn't care! We were all good. There wasn't such a big thing about freelance engineers back then. People would come to The Power Station because they thought The Power Station gets really good sounds.
How many reels was this?
At least a hundred reels. I went over to Manchester. They had safeties, but they didn't know which were the originals and which were copies. They didn't have the track sheets... it was just a big mess. So, we spent a lot of time going through the tapes and trying to sort them out. The first thing I did is I'd lined up all the tapes and numbered them. So, then every tape was unique. Then we continued, and eventually did the album.
Were you building the album out of that stuff you were finding on these tapes?
I don't think we used all that much of what was already there. I think we pretty much started over.
Was it good to go through and find the ideas?
Yeah. Yeah, we might just use one loop from a song and build everything on top of that. Andrew was really creative. I guess the deal was that there had been a band, Sisters Of Mercy, and they broke up. Andrew said, "I'm gonna keep the name." And the rest of them said, "No, we're keeping it."
The guys that became The Mission?
Yeah. They said, "We're keeping the name. We're Sisters Of Mercy." Andrew rushed into the studio, and recorded an album and put it out as Sisters Of Mercy. He's like, "I'm Sisters Of Mercy!" Basically, he did everything. There was a bass player, Patricia Morrison, but he wouldn't let her do anything. Even on the album you see his face and Patricia's face is off in the clouds kind of fading away.
How long did that album take?
It took a while. Manchester is kind of an industrial place, and we were in a studio [Strawberry Studios] that had actually closed. So we got a really good deal. They said, "If you wanna work in here, you can, but we have nothing to do with it." We recorded in Manchester, and then we were supposed to mix in Bath but we weren't done recording. Bath is the opposite of Manchester. Bath is like sunlight, really bright, beautiful, and we worked in this place called The Wool Hall. It was actually an old sheep farm. Any building that they built had to be in the style of what was already there, and it was beautiful, brand new, and really nice. We finished recording, and then we ended up mixing in Air Studios in London.
