Turning their backs on current trends, Swing Out Sister have re-surfaced with an album of sixties style orchestral grandeur. David Bradwell gets all hot under the collar as he finds the Sister are doing it for themselves.

IT'S AGONISINGLY HOT outside, and even with the windows open the room is stifling. It's the summer of 1989. London is in the midst of an all-out tube strike and a heatwave the like of which has not been seen since 1944. Swing Out Sister have just turned up, admittedly half an hour late, but with any number of legitimate excuses. Having just returned from Japan, Andy Connell and Corinne Drewery were not expecting weather or traffic like we have today. Corinne is worried that she's parked illegally in a gateway outside her record company. Andy is more concerned about the lack of Earl Grey tea in the Phonogram press office, and wants to know if we can adjourn to the cafe down the road.

It's two years since Swing Out Sister toasted the success of a no.1 debut album and in the meantime they've gone a man down. Martin Jackson, the band's percussionist, left just before Christmas, during the recording of their second album, Kaleidoscope World.

"Although we had none of it mixed, we had the basics recorded, and he just decided it wasn't really going in the direction that he liked", Corinne explains, halfway through a mug of black coffee. "That might sound a bit ridiculous, but I think the initial ideas you get for the songs at the demo stage can change quite drastically in the studio. Just the three of us aren't enough to record all the musical parts we have on our tracks, so we hired in session musicians. When the songs took shape they were in a slightly different direction to the one Martin would have liked and he decided he was going to leave to go and do his own thing."

Prior to the split, the band took up the cause of their first album literally, decided It's Better To Travel after all, and went on a worldwide promotional tour. Phonogram decided against a simultaneous international release for It's Better To Travel, and by the time it finally became available in every major market, a year had elapsed. In the second half of last year the band found themselves returning to the studio to write and prepare the '60s influenced Kaleidoscope World.

"I don't think we set out with any specific plan", Corinne recalls. "We just followed our own instincts and interests in music rather than deliberately try to keep up with anything that was around at the time. We didn't particularly want to create a retrospective album, but I suppose a lot of the influences were from the past. Paul O'Duffy was our producer and he was dragging us into 1989 and with all of the different contributions I think it worked quite well. It isn't just a pastiche, but we were obviously influenced — not so much by the actual songs, but I think by the method of writing songs that was used in the '60s. By that I mean the structure and the use of strings and lots of layers of music which seems to have fallen by the wayside at the moment."

Corinne sees Kaleidoscope World as a logical development from the first album, encompassing many things the band would like to have tried before. In particular it features the full power of a 42-piece orchestra, something that becomes affordable only when you have the full backing of your record company.

"Even though it's our money in the long run, you've obviously got to prove yourself before they'll fork out for something like that", Corinne explains. "We would have liked to have done that more on the first album, but we were less experienced and we had to prove that the record was going to sell before laying out that amount of money."

The fully orchestrated recordings that the public hear are a far cry from the eight-track demos Andy produces at home. He never tries to produce the finished track at home, preferring instead to concentrate on fully developing his writing ideas.

"I always have a problem with demos", he laments. "I listen to other people's demos and I'm always a bit shocked because they sound like records. Ours are a few ideas that we have on a keyboard with a few more overdubbed on top, with a drum machine to give you the basis of where the time is. I'd never consider putting them out as B sides because that's not what they're intended to be. They're just little notepads of things and I think it probably gets rather confused when we give a demo into the record company because it doesn't sound like anything until we actually get into the studio and do it properly.

"I maybe don't visualise the finished song in the orchestral sense, but I can hear all the melodies. A lot of the time when we do demos I try to put as many little melodies in as I can hear, but all on one sound. So instead of deciding that that's a flugelhorn and that's a violin, they all sound the same. It's very hard to listen to for anyone who doesn't know what it means."

Orchestrating a record from a very basic demo would seem a daunting prospect for the average musician, but Andy seems to take it in his stride.

"YOU HAVEN'T REALLY GOT A SAFETY NET WITH A PIANO, BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T GOT A DRUM MACHINE TO CONVINCE YOU THAT IT'S GOOD."

"I think the orchestration is quite easy", he says with confidence, "it's just a matter of figuring out who plays what and which melodies work best on which instruments. When you get somebody like Jimmy Webb in, he knows exactly what the relationship between the viola and the cello should be. It's a bit more hit and miss with us, we just try to gradually hear it. Most of the time in the studio is spent on just getting the sound right rather than working out the parts."

The studios used in the recording of Kaleidoscope World ranged from the hi-tech sophistication of Lillie Yard to the country splendour of The Manor. Most of the vocals and live parts were recorded at Master Rock before the whole album was mixed at Trevor Horn's Sarm West. It was a process that realised a series of band ambitions, from simply getting the thing finished to the involvement of the legendary Jimmy Webb.

"That was one of those things that you dream about happening, and I was a bit daunted", Andy admits. "I'm still not sure how it happened. It was something we were talking about in terms of 'wouldn't it be nice if this happened' and then Paul, our producer, who's got a certain arrogance about him, said that he would call him up and see what happened. I think he was as intrigued as we were by the idea and it worked quite well."

Corinne and Andy are both equally involved in the writing side. Andy tends to work mostly on his current love, the piano, and once things are taking shape Corinne comes up with vocal ideas to complement or contrast the basic melodies.

"I suppose as a starting point the most important thing is the melody", she says, "because without that you're just playing around. You can embellish it as much as you want but without a good melody it's always going to sound thin. The mood is also very important, because you've all got to have the same idea of the direction it's going to take or it'll all get horribly confused."

"The main thing that was different on this album was that I bought a piano while we were sitting at home writing the songs to start with", Andy expands. "The first time I did what I think everybody does nowadays, that is, to get a DX7 and a drum machine and sit there for hours playing around with a bassline and a drum beat. This time round I found I couldn't do that any more because I'd lost the thread of it. You haven't really got a safety net with a piano, because you haven't got a drum machine to convince you that it's good and you've got to make the beat yourself. I like synthesisers as well, once you've got the basis of what you're going to do, but I don't think they're really challenging enough — it's a bit too easy with synthesisers to convince yourself that something's quite good when in actual fact there's not a lot there apart from the sound. With some sounds it doesn't matter what you play because everything sounds good."

Despite the musical progress Swing Out Sister have made in the last two years, most of the press coverage surrounding the release of Kaleidoscope World centred around the '60s influence of the cover rather than the actual grooves on the record. It seems rather unfortunate, but in one sense they got what they deserved. While it was never intended as a mere pastiche, it was a more than sufficient as ammunition for the angle-hungry press.

"I suppose what we've come to terms with is the fact that we don't really understand what's happening now", Andy defends. "A lot of people have said recently that it's just like some sort of game where you get a '60s cover and it's all a pastiche, but it really isn't. It wasn't like we were making a pop record and then did things as a bit of a joke. It wasn't planned and I don't really know what we do, but that was our attempt at doing a second album. I think people have interpreted it as being a very calculated thing but it was quite the opposite. We just did what we felt like doing and we certainly didn't put as much thought into that as we did the first one. It was a much more natural thing, like, 'here's a few tunes that I've got, and here's a few vocals that Corinne sang over them'. It sounds very simplistic, but that's really how it happened."

"In a way I suppose the '60s and '80s don't work together", Corinne continues, "but in another way I like the contrast in the music from the '60s compared to what's happening now. Things seem to be really stripped down now, not so musical and not so layered, and I suppose the average song from the '60s didn't really have much of a political thread — it was just music for the sake of pure enjoyment. Now music has to justify its workings or the financial gain it offers and it seems to need a reason more than just being good entertainment. If it's not dance music it's got to be making a social comment and so somewhere along the line the music's been forgotten and is somehow the least important thing."

"I don't know that the past does combine with what we do, and I think that as the days go on we're finding that there's not a great deal of cross-section or a big meeting point of the two", Andy goes on. "I think there's becoming a danger in that you can't take anything that's gone before without having this 'pastiche' mud flung at you. I think it's a shame, because when there's something good that could grow into something else and it hasn't really had the chance you're restricted from turning your head back. Just because somebody's bought a new synthesiser doesn't mean that they're going to be the be all and end all of what's happening in music. There's a very blinkered way that people assess music now. I'm all for the transience of things but it's also good to do something that makes sense over a long period of time."

"MUSIC HAS TO JUSTIFY ITS WORKINGS OR THE FINANCIAL GAIN IT OFFERS AND IT SEEMS TO NEED A REASON MORE THAN JUST BEING GOOD ENTERTAINMENT."

Although compared to their first album Kaleidoscope World has been perceived as somewhat "old-fashioned" and predominantly orchestral, it actually features more synthesisers and samplers than its predecessor, albeit heavily disguised.

"Since the first album we've had the advent of the Akai S1000 sampler and the truth of it is, they've got better and more convincing", Andy reveals. "We generally use samplers to recreate real sounds anyway, like a nice bassoon or French horn, rather than going wild with them. A lot of the orchestral sounds on the album are samples and it's nice to have a mix and balance of the two. It's interesting, especially when you credit an orchestra, to read reviews that say there's an interesting orchestral backing on a track which is all Fairlight. It's good to know that we've reached the point now where people can't even distinguish the two.

"On the other hand, I think there is a problem, because you're always being overtaken by technology, and that's part of the reason why I prefer to stick with real instruments. Although technology can now almost recreate a piano, it's still not quite there. It's taken a thousand years to get the piano to where it is now, and it hasn't changed for God knows how long. It's a perfect piece of equipment because it makes that sound and there's no way you can improve it really. You get stability with something like that which you don't get with the latest synthesiser that you know is going to be outdated in six months."

Corinne shares Andy's enthusiasm for the piano, but places equal importance on a good recording Walkman.

"I've tried using portastudios but wiped off so many demos that I find the easiest thing is to carry around a cassette player", she explains. "You don't have to worry about plugging things in or wiring things up, and as long as the batteries are working it's immediate. Without one, if you've got an idea, by the time you've turned on the equipment and sorted things out, you get in such a fluster you forget what you were going to do anyway."

The world has been kind to Swing Out Sister, and in return they've given it two memorable albums and a cluster of hit singles. Kaleidoscope World didn't quite emulate the first week success of It's Better To Travel, making its chart debut at no.9 rather than its predecessor's no.1. However, nobody can realistically complain while they have a top 10 album, and Andy and Corinne are no exception.

"Phonogram originally signed us to record singles, and I think the success of 'Breakout' took them by surprise", the former explains. "It was always a case of convincing them to let us do a whole album, and by the time we did, there had already been three Top 40 singles from it. The first album really went to no.1 by default, but then we disappeared for a while because there were no more singles and we had to do worldwide promotion. The second album went in at no.9, but that's not a problem, because I'd rather it started slowly and stayed around longer."

"In a way, having the first album go straight to number one was a disappointment", Corinne reveals. "It all seemed too easy because it wasn't something that grew and that we had to work up to."

Disappointment or not, Swing Out Sister aren't complaining, and Kaleidoscope World should ensure them the longevity they desire. It can't be easy turning your back on that which everybody tells you is modem to concentrate solely on what you think is good. But Swing Out Sister have done that, managed to combine both old and new and still managed to come out smiling.