To cut a very long story short we moved away from the Contino Rooms and and ended up renting a first floor room in a 15th Century cottage in the heart of the New Forest in a village called Sway. We hoiked the Fender Rhodes up the tiny, left handed stairwell, plugged it all in and got cracking. Single number three was completed here. Heavy Sigh / Rainbows.
Picture the scene. A Thatched Cottage in the New Forest, 100 yards from a real Ale pub, lots of fresh Tea & Scones on hand, two singles under our belt already that year, a beautiful surrounding area, stray ponys, babbling brooks and more importantly........fish and chips.
The details are a little hazy but we already had the bare bones of both Heavy Sigh & Rainbow but they both needed arranging overdubbing and some Wonderfulsound magic desperately needed. Did we mention there was a real ale pub close by? This was going to be a slow process....
Sonically the room sounded wonderful great for mixing and recording with all the hay in the roof, woody beams and the surrounding rural, wooded area along with the emergence of butterflies as we mixed the final Rainbows....(hence the inspiration for the sleeve) which contributed towards the harmonious feel. Many an hour was lost in this room up in the clouds.
The adjacent room was a toilet which we used for a vocal booth, (out of bounds during recording sessions of course!) Very inspirational.
We did work on other music during our time in the forest as the surrounding area continued to inspire us even more but the main focus was the 3rd single which we managed to nail over the course of the three months we spent up in the rafters. It was then time to move on and find another home.
Single # 3 turned out to be a very well received 7" which introduced us to a wider audience. One of these audience members was one John Stammers from Chorlton-cum-Hardy whom we exchanged singles with around the time of his debut, 'Ivy & Dennis'. Apparently John was so impressed with "Heavy Sigh" that he briefly gave up writing music for 5 minutes, or in the time it takes to boil the kettle for a "brew". We were equally taken with Johns offering too and a musical friendship was born which continues to this day.
So that was the story of our third Single. Next up, 'Chasing Christmas' and Manchester's own 'Moonboots' buying up ten copies which instantly catapulted us into the Chorlton/Leveshulme Balearic Top Ten.