Face The Music
Written by Stephen Hillier
When February 2012
Where Brighton, East Sussex
Originally sung by Sarah Blackwood
Features Analogue Solutions Telemark
“I'd find you again, in another world...”
The Dubstar song that actually features a lyrical dagger through the heart, not simply implies it.
Every year Café Del Mar would get in touch to ask if I had anything that would be suitable for their compilations. And every time I’d said no, but as we were now in full reformation mode it seemed this was the moment to reconnect with our Ibizan roots. I said ‘si, here’s Face The Music’. Cafe Del Mar said ‘non’. Dammit.
This song was originally known as ‘Sorry’, but I thought it best that I would rewrite the words. Chilling out with a Negroni watching the sun going down to a song where someone is repeatedly telling you they’re ‘sorry’ didn’t make sense to me. On reflection, it also didn’t make sense to submit Face The Music, which had a sullen and obviously incompatible mood running throughout. Unfortunately, knowing what’s appropriate and when has never been my strength.
In the winter of 2012 I’d seen The Robin Guthrie Trio at Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar in Brighton. A basement venue, it was a totally spit and sawdust kind of place. I loved every second, one of the most important gigs of my life. So I investigated his solo catalogue. He had released three stunning albums with Harold Budd: the Californian ones that were mirror images of each other, and Bordeaux following a few years later. ‘How Close Your Soul’ conjured an image in my mind: What if Sapphire and Steel were to be updated for the 21st Century, like Battlestar Galactica had been? Where would it be set? Who would play the leads? And who would supply the music?
I had answers to all of these questions. It would be in black and white, it would be set at night in a deserted French village, Alexander Skarsgård would play Steel and Karen Gillan would play Sapphire. The music would be by Budd and Guthrie, ‘How Close Your Soul’ specifically. And who would write the main theme? Me of course, and Dubstar would play it.
That’s what Face The Music is, not a tune to chill out to as the sun sets into the Mediterranean, but the theme to a romantic remake of an obscure 1980s Science Fiction TV show. You don’t get more Dubstar than that. Seriously, think about it… you don’t.
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