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ARTIST: Red
ALBUM: In Motion
LABEL: RGM Records
SERIAL: RgM INT148.420
YEAR: 1983
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: 
LINEUP: Tony Red - lead vocals, keyboards * Nigel Hine - guitars * Nick South - bass * Walter Mats - drums * Andy Gold - keyboards * Frank Mead - saxophone
Additional Musicians: Paul Francis - sketch-bass
TRACK LISTING: 01 Let Her Go * 02 Uniform Man * 03 Never Releasing * 04 Naomi * 05 Portrait * 06 Ants * 07 Get The Motion * 08 Taking Pictures * 09 Conscious Mind |
BackgroundInteresting history behind this stylish one-off; a Belgian band with a British lead singer signed to a German-based label. Here's the scoop- originally called
Glass Museum; the group with obvious designs on the UK met vocalist and die-hard
Pink Floyd fan Tony Red at a British recording studio where the boys were working on a demo. A friendship was formed and Tony joined as their bass player just in time for a short tour of Belgium with
Simple Minds. It's from here the story grows more complicated with
Glass Museum moving to Germany and forming their own label - RGM. For unknown reasons Tony Red signed to the label as a solo artist with
Glass Museum backing him as Red. While touring Britain with a totally different line-up, RGM collapsed due to lack of money and in turn, so did Red just as the band, or Tony was starting to draw serious attention.
The SongsWith sleeve art evocative of
Duran Duran's 'Rio' album; 'In Motion' is totally a product of its time, a flashy new romantic pop with tinges of the Duranies as well as
Visage, MTV period
OMD and
Spandau Ballet. All very electronic with minimal rhythms and funky bass underpinned with sultry sax on several cuts and yet with all the Eurocentric artiness there's very little substance to be found. The lead-off track and single pick 'Let Her Go' carries all the vocal idiosyncrasies and pulsating synths that made
OMD such a hot commodity and while catchy, it feels calculated and predictable. In my minds-eye I can see these well-coiffed youngsters going down a storm at Blitz a few years earlier but by 1983 this sound was old hat and songs like 'Uniform Man', the romantic-noir of 'Portrait' and the
Split Enz -like intensity of the instrumental 'Taking Pictures' as fun as they are, just don't cut the mustard in terms of staying power after the inevitable needle lift.
In SummaryFollowing Red's demise, Tony Red pursued his progressive rock passion with
Think Floyd, a
Pink Floyd tribute band which gained some notoriety and released a pair of CD's: 'Hope' in 1997 and 'Beyond Boundaries' in 2000. Sadly, Tony passed away in 2008 of Multiple Sclerosis but not before recording a solo album 'Positive Waves' which had a strong Floydian feel as well.
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