I am hugely indebted to Jan Burnett, best known for his work with Spare Snare, for all of what now follows.
Secession – an 80s Scottish synth band who I had absolutely no knowledge of whatsoever until the name was mentioned, during a chat in a Glasgow coffee shop. There are over 1000 entries, covering all musical genres in the excellent and essential ‘The Great Scots Musicography’, written by Martin C Strong and published back in 2002, but there is no mention of Secession.
It’s a rare oversight, especially as the band, between 1983 and 1987, released eight singles and one album, some through Beggars Banquet and some through Siren Records.
Jan is a big fan…..as indeed he is of a great deal of synth music which emerged in the 80s. The picture at the top of this post dates from their time at Beggars Banquet which was 1984 by which time they were a trio, having originally started out as a four-piece and later a five-piece.
The founding members were Peter Thomson (guitar, keyboards, synthesizer and vocals), Jack Ross (guitar, synthesizer and vocals), Jim Ross (bass guitar) and Carole L. Branston (keyboards and vocals), with a small pre-programmed drum machine keeping the beats.
The debut single was Betrayal, released on their own The Garden Label in 1983:-
Listening to this now, I have no idea how I missed out on it, other than to highlight it as another example from those days when music that wasn’t from Glasgow very often failed to penetrate in my home city.
Shortly after the debut single, Alistair MacLeod (percussion and vocals) joined up, helping to reduce the over-reliance on the drum machine. They began to pull together demo material at Palladium Studios in Edinburgh (where Cocteau Twins had recorded their 1983 masterpiece Head Over Heels), but Jack Ross, being unhappy with the direction the music was taking, decided to quit. Not long after, Jim Ross (and I’m not sure if he was related to Jack), followed suit.
More demos were recorded, this time at Planet Studios in Edinburgh, where Goodbye Mr Mackenzie would work in future years, thus launching the stellar career of Shirley Manson. One of the demoed tracks, Fire Island, brought interest from London-based Beggars Banquet, and they signed to the label.
At this point in time, Alistair McLeod decided he preferred to concentrate on pursuing a career as a photographer, and so he left, to be replaced by Charlie Kelly. The new trio re-recorded Fire Island, and it was released as their Beggars Banquet debut in 1984:-
mp3: Secession – Fire Island
All of which means that the persons in the photo up top, from left to right, are Charlie Kelly, Carole L. Branston and Peter Thomson.
A second single, Touch was released later in the year by Beggars Banquet. Although it failed to reach the Top 75 at home, it did enjoy a bit of success over in Germany. There soon followed a change of label, to Siren Records, an indie-style set-up supported by Virgin.
The band had now grown back in size to a four-piece with the addition of bassist JL Seenan, with this being their debut 45 for the new label in 1986:-
The band were extremely active in 1987, releasing a further four singles, and the album A Dark Enchantment, all through Siren Records.
Secession broke up not long after the release of the debut. JL Seenan and Charlie Kelly joined The Vaselines (their co-founder member Eugene Kelly was Charlie’s brother), and played on their debut album, Dum-Dum, released in 1989.
Sadly, Peter Thomson, the main songwriter in Secession, died in 2001.
So why am I drawing all this to your attention today?
It’s all to do with the very impending release via Jan Burnett’s Chute Records, of a 40th Anniversary celebration of the two singles released on Beggars Banquet. Jan has been able to obtain the licence to do this as a physical release, with orders being taken from tomorrow, 1st September.
It’s going to be a full-length CD, extending out to 78 minutes, with 7″, 12″, remix, demo and outtake versions of the songs. At this point in time, it will be a physical release only, with Beggars Banquet very likely to issue the material in digital form in due course.
All the information you could want will be available, from tomorrow, at https://secession.bandcamp.com/
There will only be 500 copies of the CD pressed up, so if you’re enjoying what you are hearing today, then I suggest you might want to move in quickly.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 