Album dossier / 1984

Ocean Rain

Echo & the Bunnymen · Post-Punk/Alternative Rock

Recorded with a 35-piece orchestra in Paris, this lush, string-laden record is often cited as the Bunnymen's masterpiece and 'The Killing Moon' one of the era's greatest singles. Guitarist Will Sergeant has said the whole record was conceived as a concept album inspired by Love's 'Forever Changes' and Scott Walker, and a French string arranger was dropped in favor of 19-year-old cellist Adam Peters, who wrote the orchestral arrangements and conducted the sessions himself. Lead single 'The Killing Moon' was tracked separately at Crescent Studio in Bath, where engineer David Lord's Kurzweil synthesizer generated the string-like template later expanded by the Paris orchestra, and Sergeant's now-famous intro riff was added almost as an afterthought after Lord noticed it while mixing. Frontman Ian McCulloch's offhand phone remark to a Warner Bros. executive that it was 'the greatest album ever made' became the record's marketing tagline, a claim McCulloch has continued to stand by decades later even though the album peaked at only #4 UK and #87 US on release.