Unbelievable Truth - Download Archive of MP3s

This was quite an easy choice for omission from 'Misc. Music', since it's played extremely scrappily. That said, it has got a vibe to it, the vibe that we tried and failed to nail in the studio, causing us all the problems we eventually had with it, as detailed in the Production Notes. Again, some good piano playing by Jim, and a hell of a great vocal by Andy. He was uncertain about doing this one, both live and in the studio, since it was right at the top end of his range, but I think his stretching gives it a real vibe. In fact, I think a lot of the innacuracies of this version come from the drums, which I was hitting with various percussion objects (a jingle stick, which is like a straight tambourine on a stick, and a pair of maracas, a little trick Rob Ellis used to do with PJ Harvey). Oh well.
Written by Moulster / Powell / Yorke
Lyrics Yorke
© Unbelievable Truth all rights reserved.
Published by Chysalis Music Ltd.
Recorded by Robin Legget
Engineered by Mike Hornby
Mixed by Nigel Powell
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Unbelievable Truth. Or alternatively, since it makes no difference whether we give permission or not, hell, put it up anywhere.

Settle Down (Live at the Zodiac, Oxford) hi-fi

One of the recordings from the final show that didn't make the cut for "Misc. Music". During rehearsals in early 2000 we started playing this song in heavy metal mode, more as a joke than anything else, having long since gone off it. When we played at Nottingham University to fill the coffers for the sorrythankyou tour, since it seemed to not be the most serious gig (and since there's only so many slow songs you can play in front of a bunch of pissed up studes), we wheeled this one out, and everyone enjoyed it. I don't think we played it again until the final show, where it was included because we were trying to play everything we knew. It's not very well played, but it's kind of fun nonetheless.
Written by Moulster / Powell / Yorke
© Unbelievable Truth all rights reserved.
Published by Chysalis Music Ltd.
Recorded by Robin Legget
Engineered by Mike Hornby
Mixed by Nigel Powell
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Unbelievable Truth. Or alternatively, since it makes no difference whether we give permission or not, hell, put it up anywhere.

I Wanna Be Adored hi-fi

A cover version for y'all, for anybody who might somehow not know the original was by the Stone Roses, when they were good (it opens their first album). Why this one? Because it's dead easy, there's hardly anything to it. We did it in front of people three times, of which this is the second, being the last night of the Tori Amos tour we did. We'd done it the previous night because, oh I don't know. As a last night funfunfun thing Warwick was supposed to sing it, but when it came to it he was nowhere to be found, the coward. The third and final time (outside of the rehearsal room) was at the Your Song covers night a couple of weeks later in Oxford. We've never been much for cover versions, excepting of course Mark Mulcahy songs, of which we've done plenty (three - Ciao!, Hurry Please Hurry and Mayflower - in front of people, and a rather gorgeous version of Tempted that we did to please ourselves in rehearsal). For those who want to know, we've also done Shipbuilding by Elvis Costello (beautifully a couple of times on the U.S. Canada promo tour in mid '98, and once disasterously on the Tori tour, which removed it from any list of possibles), but apart from that (and the aforementioned your song date), I think that's it. Anyone know any others? Has the song finished downloading yet. Well, read the credits slowly, maybe it'll have finished by then.
Written by Squire / Brown
© Unbelievable Truth all rights reserved.
Published by Zomba Music Publishers Ltd.
Recorded by Matt 'sexy' Napier
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Unbelievable Truth. Or alternatively, since it makes no difference whether we give permission or not, hell, put it up anywhere.

Agony (frankly ridiculous remix) hi-fi

There's a little story to go with this one. Back when we were still with Virgin, we were planning to do formatting of the singles, both to satisfy our paymasters and to make sure all of the material would get heard at some point. At this time, the chart rules meant that you could have alternative versions of the lead on CD2 (and CD3, if you were going that far). The download here was something that popped out in an afternoon back during my Mundaka time (check the biography if you have no idea what I'm talking about). I did a quick mix of it, which turned out to be the only one since I never managed to reconstruct it with quite the right vibe. Anyhoo, listening back, it occurred to me that it's such a hectic slab of distorted everything (I'd heard the John Peel show a few times too many that month...), that who was to say that it wasn't a remix of Agony, which we'd already decided on as the first single. Just to make sure, I reversed (and distorted, natch) a tiny bit of Agony and put it on the start, although that's not the version that's here. It's from the family of Higher Than Remix and It Blows My Mind, so if you're after delicate acoustic songsmithery, you'd do best to avoid this one...
Written by Powell
© Unbelievable Truth all rights reserved.
Published by Chrysalis Music
Produced and Mixed by Nigel Powell
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Unbelievable Truth. Or alternatively, since it makes no difference whether we give permission or not, hell, put it up anywhere.

Revolution (live at the Bloomsbury Theatre London, 1998) hi-fi

Here's that surprise I promised you. This is the only time we played this in front of an audience (unless you count the people waiting outside of the Shine gig in N.Y. the week before listening while we practised it during soundcheck), and the inexperience kind of shows in Andy's fluffed guitar in the first verse (and subsequent laughter). But, that said, it is an improvement on the original, I think. In fact sometimes looking back I wonder what would have happened if we'd recorded it a bit better and really liked it, since it really does have a 'single' quality that none of the other 'Almost Here' tunes did. Maybe huge success, or something. Academic now, I suppose. But I like this version: it rocks.
Written by Moulster / Powell / Yorke
Lyrics Yorke
© Unbelievable Truth all rights reserved.
Published by Chrysalis Music
Engineered by Matt Napier
Mixed by Nigel Powell

Too Many Things To Learn hi-fi

Much requested b-side to the Shifty Disco single version of 'Building'. It's not on the compilation album because, well, we don't really think that much of it (which is also why it didn't get re-recorded for 'Almost Here'). Written in about the time it takes to play it during our very creative last rehearsal before Andy left the band in 1995 (Roadside # 2, the original 'jolly' version of 'Covers' and 'Forget About Me' all came out that day), we did choose it for the Shifty thing since it seemed to be a b-side, good but not good enough to be anything else. We had an urge not to give away any of the other big guns we'd recorded in the 8-track bedroom sessions (Stone, Don;t Ever Mention This, Almost Here...). But here it is now, for you.
Written by Moulster / Powell / Yorke
© Unbelievable Truth all rights reserved.
Published by Chrysalis Music
Produced and Engineered by Nigel Powell
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Unbelievable Truth. Or alternatively, since it makes no difference whether we give permission or not, hell, put it up anywhere.

Nigel's Corner hi-fi

Exactly what it says on the tin. Two piano pieces I'd had around for ever, recorded at Chippy, along with a bizarre thing called Rushton I'd recorded in the Almost Here sessions, just a drum pattern and a bit of Radio 4. Another contributor to our bottomless pit of b-sides when it looked like we were going to be doing multi-formatting. Performed live once, at a wedding (during the signing of the register), the most terrifying gig of my life, made much worse by the fact that as I sat down at the piano a bit snapped off the stool, causing me to giggle uncontrollably for 30 seconds before being able to begin.
Written by Powell
© Unbelievable Truth all rights reserved.
Published by Chrysalis Music
not produced or mixed
recorded by Jim Warren and Jeremy Wheatley
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Unbelievable Truth. Or alternatively, since it makes no difference whether we give permission or not, hell, put it up anywhere.

Who's To Know (live at Oxstock Festival 1998) hi-fi

Live favourite WTK?, here recorded at Oxstock Festival (see also 'Tyre Tracks' from the download archive). Still kicking ourselves about not putting this on 'Almost Here', ho hum. It's probably the song we most consistently enjoyed playing throughout our time.
Written by Moulster / Powell / Yorke
Lyrics Yorke
© Unbelievable Truth all rights reserved.
Published by Chrysalis Music
Recorded by Matt Napier
Mixed by Nigel Powell
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Unbelievable Truth.

Stone (8-track demo) hi-fi

Recorded in my bedroom after Andy's return in late '95. Sometimes when I wonder how we got as far as we did, I listen to this and demo of Building that we did at the same time (that became our debut single), and think 'this is why', because it's not every day that bands make demos this good. As you can hear, this version is all acoustic, and we also shortened it slightly for Almost Here, but in retrospect I sometimes wish we'd just recorded the whole album in my bedroom like this, it has a vibe.
Written by Moulster / Powell / Yorke
Lyrics Yorke
© Unbelievable Truth all rights reserved.
Published by Chrysalis Music
Produced by Nigel Powell
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Unbelievable Truth.

Sanctuary Street hi-fi

A very early demo (recorded along with Sharing, Solved and Seek To Be Found - see biography - and yes, we knew all our song titles started with the letter S, it was just a coincidence). I wrote the music with my very rudimentary guitar skills, and Andy added melody and words, which I particularly like; "all the books that I have read were written about you", excellent stuff. I don't think it went any further than this 8-track demo because of my shoe-horning in a not terribly appropriate prog rock keyboard arrangement, during my period of trying to find a kind of fusion between R.E.M. / Throwing Muses / Pixies, and the I.Q. / Marillion / Genesis of my youth. In long retrospect, I guess it's not so bad, but you judge for yourself.
Written by Moulster / Powell / Yorke
Lyrics Yorke
© Unbelievable Truth all rights reserved.
Published by Chrysalis Music
Produced by Nigel Powell

Dune Sea (8-track demo) hi-fi

Still not really sure what we were thinking when we didn't record this for Almost Here (see Almost Here B-side Production notes for in-depth background). This demo certainly has something, despite the dodgy backing vocals and muffed drumbreak towards the end (my bads both).
Written by Moulster / Powell / Yorke
Lyrics Yorke / Powell
© Unbelievable Truth all rights reserved.
Published by Chrysalis Music
Produced by Nigel Powell
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Unbelievable Truth.

Finest Little Space (8-track demo) hi-fi

To show that we're not some producer's construct, in case it needed proving. Jas played me the verse in my bedroom, and it was a moment which certainly now feels like when I really got a grip of 'music'. Suddenly, and with no effort, on listening to these four chords I spliced them onto a very vague bit of a song that Andy had (the chorus, with the 'you're inside a finest little space' section being the verse) and knew exactly how the whole thing should be arranged, organ bass, strings in the chorus, lazy acoustic, the whole tomally. I was very excited. Me and Jas recorded this version of it the next day, I think. Initially it was called 'Silence', because a) it was a very quiet song, and b) there was currently no singing on it. After Andy's first mumble at it to fill in the vocal line blanks it became 'Resumee Biscuit Cake', since that was what he sang over and over during the long fade out (I used to make a wicked Belgian biscuit cake, but the resumee is a complete non-sequiter). And, as you can hear, it stayed fairly similar up until it's recording for 'Almost Here'. I like Jason's 'spanish' bass solo going into the last chorus, and the whole thing has a slightly more off-kilter mood than the two later attempts, which I like.
Written by Moulster / Powell / Yorke
Lyrics Yorke
© Virgin Records Ltd., all rights reserved.
Published by Chrysalis Music
Produced by Nigel Powell
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Virgin Records and Unbelievable Truth.

Don't Ever Mention This hi-fi

I don't really remember the genesis of this song clearly, but it's certainly in a family with Coming 'Round, Revolution et al, in that we were excited by them when we wrote them, but their "pop" nature quickly grated, and they fell out of favour. I think Andy had the chords to the verse (and the chorus, since they're identical), and it turned into a song when I added the guitar riff, played here spectacularly badly on my old plank of a Hohner, clickety clickety click. It was recorded in my bedroom on 8-track around the same time as the demos for 'Building' (which became the Shifty Disco single), 'Stone' (which we'll put up soon) and a bunch of others. I kind of still like the middle eight - my hackneyed trick of rewriting the chords under a riff that's already happened once again given an outing, and while the interleaving vocals never quite worked in the dreamy way that I hoped they would, it could have been worse. Also the middle eight is a classic mis-heard lyric for us, one of very few that I feel I can reveal without ruining anything. Andy's singing "it's around the corner", however, once you've noticed that it sounds like "it's round meccano", you can never go back.
Written by Moulster / Powell / Yorke
Lyrics Yorke
© Virgin Records Ltd., all rights reserved.
Published by Chrysalis Music
Produced by Nigel Powell
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Virgin Records and Unbelievable Truth.

Solved (demo): hi-fi
Actually the third demo we did of this song, the first two being on bedroom 8-track. This was the first demo we did at Courtyard Studios. It's slower than the album version, and more produced - reverby tambourines, breathy backing vocals, the whole schmatter - and although the 'Almost Here' version certainly has an energy that this doesn't, it's not without it's charm. Soul boy and now Away Team member Andy Lovegrove was in the producer's chair.
Written by Moulster / Powell / Yorke
Lyrics Yorke
© Virgin Records Ltd., all rights reserved.
Published by Chrysalis Music
Produced by Andy Lovegrove
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Virgin Records and Unbelievable Truth.

Roadside # 1 (demo): hi-fi
For the complete story on this track, recorded in 1994, visit production notes. Recorded version featured on the Stone EP, our first release on Virgin.
Written by Moulster / Powell / Yorke
Lyrics Yorke
© Virgin Records Ltd., all rights reserved.
Published by Chrysalis Music
Recorded by Adrian Powell
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Virgin Records and Unbelievable Truth.

Almost Here (demo): hi-fi
Nigel: The demo of the first album's title track. This was Andy's first foray into engineering, recording the whole thing in my bedroom while I was out. I loved it as is, but Andy played me a Mazzy Star song which it bore a somewhat passing resemblance to, hence taking it off guitar and onto Wurlitzer for the album. I added a tiny bit of atmospheric keyboard, and mixed it, but that was it.

Written by Moulster / Powell / Yorke
Lyrics Yorke
© Virgin Records Ltd., all rights reserved
Published by Chrysalis Music
Recorded by Andy Yorke
Not to be used on any other website without the express permission of Virgin Records and Unbelievable Truth.

Unbelievable Truth Download Archive of MP3s