Earth, Sun, Moon

Earth, Sun, Moon is the third studio album by English alternative rock band Love and Rockets, released in 1987 on Beggar's Banquet.

The album was remastered, but not expanded (unlike their previous albums), in 2001.

Background

While the album continued in a psychedelic vein, the band also experimented with a folkier sound. Vestiges of a gothic rock sound remained, but the band continued to sound less like their previous outfit, Bauhaus.

Earth, Sun, Moon featured Love and Rockets' first hit, "No New Tale to Tell". The song reached number 18 on the US Mainstream Rock chart.

The flurry of activity that bridges Earth, Sun, Moon to the self-titled album that followed just over a year later remains incompletely documented on CD. The punched-up 1988 version of "Mirror People", released as a follow-up to "No New Tale to Tell", can only be found on 2003's hits collection Sorted! The Best of Love and Rockets. The B-side of "Mirror People" ("David Lanfair"), in which a somewhat bumbling fan tapes himself asking a number of one-sided interview questions—mostly about Bauhaus—over which the band themselves play a gentle but characteristic instrumental track, remains relegated to an audio-only track on the Sorted! DVD. The contents of the following novelty 12" single by the band's alter ego The Bubblemen can also be found on the Sorted! DVD, though the complete version of "The Bubblemen Are Coming" is excluded in favor of the video edit that closes the Haunted Fishtank part of the program. The live B-sides of "No New Tale to Tell" ("Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven" and "Love Me", recorded live on 6 December 1987) remain unreleased on remastered CD, as does the newer, cleaner remix of "Dog-End of a Day Gone By" released to promote the 1988 international reissue of Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven and featured as a B-side to the "Lazy" single. The other B-side from "Lazy", a devolved version of "Waiting for the Flood" called "The Purest Blue", appears on the 1989 self-titled album.

Track listing

All tracks written by Love and Rockets.

1. "Mirror People" – 4:05
2. "The Light" – 4:16
3. "Welcome Tomorrow" – 3:36
4. "No New Tale to Tell" – 3:26
5. "Here on Earth" – 3:10
6. "Lazy" – 3:12
7. "Waiting for the Flood" – 3:38
8. "Rain Bird" – 3:17
9. "The Telephone Is Empty" – 3:59
10. "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven" – 5:13
11. "Earth, Sun, Moon" – 3:34
12. "Youth" – 4:42
13. "Mirror People (Slow Version)" – 4:26

"Mirror People (Slow Version)" is only available on the CD releases.

Personnel

• Daniel Ash – guitar, saxophone, and vocals
• David J – bass and vocals
• Kevin Haskins – drums and synthesizers

References