Area: Radio Caroline (CD)

Product Description

AREA:
Lynn Canfield
Henry Frayne
Steve Jones

Glenn Graham, sax on Sweet Revenge
Kevin Crowley, bass on One Desire

1987. Area’s 2nd album


A review from the Bob
It’s time for turning out the lights, lighting a candle, and then sitting back to be enveloped by the record’s dark, starlit beauty. Really . . . Buoyed on a deep bass sea, gliding on the soft breezes of Lynn Canfield’s voice. . . . drifting on calm keyboard currents or passing through squalls of drums and guitars. . . . It’s elegant, exquisite and memorable music.


A review from Under The Volcano 1998
Area were a band musically that were right where they should have been for their time, circa ‘88. This is very 4AD sounding in the sense of Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil. You get female vocals over ghostly guitars and scare drum beats, this was definitely for the black clad set. Oddly enough, now we’d say this is very Projekt Records-ish. At the time this stuff came out, Projekt’s domination of the scene was just starting to build into the massive snowball it is now. This is loaded with the sort of melancholia that you get when you write rather deep and introspective songs. This stuff still holds up, which is partially due to the fact that the gloom and doom seems real rather than painted on.”


A review from Magnet Magazine, Dec 1998

While The Moon Seven Times has dissolved, guitarist Henry Fraynes now leads Lanterna, and singer Lynn Canfield and drummer Brendan Gamble are in Shotgun Wedding. Additionally, fans of The Moon Seven Times will be pleased that the Projekt label has unearthed two of the four albums by enigmatic pop trio Area, the group Canfield and Frayne first played in together. On both The Perfect Dream and Radio Caroline, Frayne conjures up a radiant guitar ether that gently spirals around Canfield’s emotive, fragile voice as they both mesh with Steve Jones’ suitably delicate keyboards and programmed rhythms. Word has it that Jones has resurrected Area and is recording new songs.


A review from Etch Magazine, Dec 1998
Two re-issues (from 1987 and 1998) from this Champaign, IL, band. The music is an exquisite combination of ambient, darkwave and dream pop. Their influences that I could pick up were Dead Can Dance, Roxy Music and Leonard Cohen (which you can hear even before their stellar version of “Sisters of Mercy”). Not only do both CDs contain beautifully composed music, they also feature the seductive, breathy vocals of Lynn Canfield, who later moved on to The Moon Seven Times and is currently in Shotgun Wedding. Thank you Projekt for putting these jewels out.


Did you know that Steve Jones of Area has another band, The Arms of Someone New? Their two long lost LPs have been reissued on Projekt: Archive. Click Here.