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The next radio programme will be a bit more electronic, to make up for the lack of electronic pop music in previous shows. So I thought, what better time to post a song by Hal than now? No, not THAT Hal of course... This is Keris and Alex's post-Brighter project, which also included Laura Bridge I'm told. She would later start Harper Lee together with Keris. He had some songs he'd written for Brighter left and jumped at the possibility of recording them for an ep on Vinyl Japan. (One of the songs on the ep, "I Wish I'd Never Said That", turned up at Indie MP3 last year as a Brighter demo). The newly recorded versions presented a more electronic sound with more prominent drum programming, bass keyboards and some Bernard Sumner style guitar-playing among the many layers of jangle. There is also a beautiful song called "Somedays" that stands out starkly for its sparse use of guitar. The feel of the lyrics is bleaker than the older Brighter songs, that sometimes presented an innocent (but perhaps futile) hope - I'm thinking of songs like "Does Love Last Forever?". In many ways the ep is more similar to Harper Lee and their more electronic moments, like "Stupid". Or "He Holds a Flame" for that matter. As Hal, they wrote new material and played a few shows, but none of the original Hal songs were ever recorded - to my and I'm sure many other fans' chagrin. Alex Sharkey later joined Fosca for a while and then started Pinkie. If we've truly seen the last of Harper Lee, maybe we could hope for a Hal reunion then? Do you remember the songs Keris? And if we all gather in money we can sue those Hal impostors! The Election Day EP was released in 1994, and if you listen to the programme next week, you can hear the title-track as well.

DROP 42

Hal - Clear About This