Modern Eon - Fiction Tales (1980)

Modern Eon - Fiction Tales

Dindisc

1980

Maybe we're all alone in here...

As soon as you listen to this album, you realise something: you realise how special it is, how strange it is, how haunting it is and how mysterious it is. I own the vinyl, I ordered it online. It arrived one evening last year, in March. At around 7pm, the sun was almost set, it was almost pitch black outside, and I pulled out an old 1970s all-in-one portable turntable and put this on. I stared at the cover, trying to make out what it even was, what side of a face I was looking at. 

There's hardly any information online, there's a small old website dedicated to them, but there's not much information. No one really knows what happened to them after they disbanded, no one knows where any of them are now. The only legacy they left behind was one album and five singles. They came and went and that was that. It's all so mysterious. It feels, holding the record and listening to the opening track, as if this album wasn't even made by people - it's just a compelling and mystical recording. The vocals are airy and beautiful, the synths are sweeping and strange, almost watery, and the whole feel of the tracks is as if it's underwater. The bass is deep and dark, the guitars are catchy. And most important: that saxaphone. Fuck, what an amazing addition, and how gorgeously complimenting is it! All the sounds blend together into this mesh of atmosphere and darkness. It truly is a dark and bleak sounding album.

As I lay there listening to the crackling vinyl on the old turntable, I realised just how perfectly my set-up for listening to it was. It adds a whole new dimension, listening to it the way I was. Like those old horror films that are ruined by their Blu-Ray transfers, this album needs to be heard on vinyl. 

Modern Eon are probably remembered most for their single 'Child's Play,' which comes from this album. It's a really gorgeous and captivating track. It's probably the lightest on the album, and really captures the feeling of child-like wonder perfectly. It comes straight after 'High Noon,' and the two are connected by this quiet and perfect synth riff. 'High Noon,' is instrumental for the first 75% of the song. It's my favourite on the album. I remember listening to it in the car at five in the morning in late November a few years ago - looking out the window at the late night sky, with that song playing, was perfect. It complimented the night so well, and inspired me to continue a screenplay I had almost shelved years before that. When the vocals finally arrive, they're distant, echoed and short. "Maybe we're all alone in here," the singers repeat. Holy fuck, it's beautiful and desolate. 

That's a good word to describe the album - desolate. It's an entire landscape of sound and feeling. Everything inside it just hits perfectly, and it all finally accumulates with "In a Strange Way," a bleak, cold and isolated piece (because it really is more than just a song) with layers of abyss.

This album is just beautifully produced, and each track is perfect. The tracks all blend together perfectly, they're catchy and even dance-able every now and then, but that never breaks them from being the atmospheric and massive (or tiny, because of that feeling of isolation) personality that they are. The fact this Liverpool band Modern Eon has all but disappeared, leaving behind nothing but this album and a few singles, just adds to the whole thing. The album just appeared one day, a product of pure nature, a design of true atmosphere.

It really is one of the best albums of all time, and one day it will get its due.