Pre-order “I Trawl the Megahertz” on Limited Edition White Vinyl from Rough Trade

When “I Trawl the Megahertz”, Paddy McAloon’s sublime musing on the tragic fragility and beauty of the human condition, was released in 2003, it was met with confusion and indifference.

He had been talked out of releasing it as a Prefab Sprout album. Because for anyone who was expecting “Cars and Girls”, it would have been a hell of a shock. A title track twenty two minutes long – as long as it’s possible to get into an Atari ST midi sequencer – with no hooks, and an American female voice floating soft words across a looping backdrop of gentle ambient music. And then the second section of jaunty instrumentals and sampled voices from the radio. Before, finally, just one song with Paddy singing, prescient and touching, of growing a long and silver beard and escaping his obligations to sleep amongst the trees.

Even diehard fans were confused and in some cases vocally dismissive. And although Paddy did a little press, the release passed almost unnoticed by the musical world. Famously, he was disappointed that the Guardian chose not to review it. And so the album disappeared into obscurity for a time, a little side note in the McAloon canon. Yet this was a hugely personal record for him, one he had unusually himself pushed to release, and it must have been a hammer blow to see it fall flat.

There’s much that can be said about the album, how it was written in the velvet darkness post eye surgery when the imagination is at its most receptive to the stories that emerge from shortwave radio; how David McGuinness miraculously found ways to inexpensively add real orchestration to add warmth and texture; how Yvonne Connors had recorded her part with Paddy in a London hotel room, and how he laboriously edited out the background noise from the mini-disk copy because the “proper” recording was lacking something indefinable; how the second section forms a concept piece called “Sleeping Rough” about an industrialist, who in losing everything gains the world.

But what I want to say about it is more personal.

I came across it when my second phase of Sprout fandom started, around 2008. I bought it out of curiosity – at the time sellers could barely give it away, and I was later to pick up a signed copy of the CD for peanuts. Now I was in the process of becoming divorced (I was not yet 49), I was missing my children, and in a highly emotionally fragile state. So I put it on to play, and after a little preamble, a voice said “Your daddy loves you. Your daddy loves you very much. He just doesn’t want to live with us any more.”

Immediately a flood of tears broke. It was as if everything I had pent up until then had just found a release.

Sobbing uncontrollably, I somehow made it through the rest of the piece. Lines would fade in and out of focus, would burst forth in brilliant moments of clarity, and all the while this swirling, slightly synthetic, idiosyncratic ambient loop was soothing the harshness of this woman’s story of love, loss and despair.

It’s funny. I’m listening again, and it’s doing the same thing. Ten years on, and with my life settled and content, this piece of music still knows where my raw spots are, and pokes and comforts them simultaneously.

In the 1970s, I would sit down in the evenings when my homework was done with a short wave radio, and just scan for things in the static and background electronic warbling. It was comforting to listen to a huge world beyond the narrow boundaries of my own teenage self, where Russian propagandists would monotonously intone documentaries about tractor factories, where you would hear the zeal and activity of American preachers. Or mysterious lists of numbers, or a static soundscape which the late night would blur into nearly comprehensible whispers. That idea is I think what lies at the heart of this piece: you are given an imperfect view of a greater reality revealed in little snippets. You’re suspended, detached, turning the dial and hearing the story emerge. Paddy spoke a little of this in the recent radio documentary with Jarvis Cocker.

And so I’ve loved this record from the first. To the point where, when I was listening endlessly, obsessively, to the other Prefab Sprout records I would consciously and deliberately not listen to this piece. Because I didn’t want familiarity with it to dull its impact. I ration it to myself. I can still be surprised by a line I’d half forgotten.

Little by little, and as was the case with most things connected to Prefab Sprout in recent years, other people discovered the album and interest snowballed. The prices for second hand CDs started going up, to the point where you would be unlikely to get change from forty quid for it. This wasn’t hurt by the fact that half of the original release had the ill-judged Sony rootkit virus PC copy protection system on, and so were actually dangerous to play in some contexts.

And the clamour for a new-release grew. I get a lot of emails from people trying to contact Paddy, and offering to finance the re-release of “I Trawl the Megahertz” on vinyl. I explain that this is a fan site and I can’t contact him, I attempt to point people at the place I last found Keith Armstrong, I hear rumours that something is happening. But it’s cotton in a blizzard, a plane going down behind enemy lines. Nothing ever comes of it.

Until now. Rough Trade are today opening pre-order of the album as a double vinyl LP, in a limited and exclusive edition of 1000 copies on white vinyl, with deliveries in late January 2019. There will also be a standard edition released by Sony on vinyl and CD at the same time, and I’ll post separately about that. And it will be a Prefab Sprout album, as it really should have been all along. At Paddy’s request: “I thought we could do anything… And Megahertz is true to that spirit. The music here is of a piece with everything I’ve ever written. It’s from the heart.”

This is the most wonderful news, and I’m certain that this will become highly sought after as a collector’s item.  Rough Trade were of course the distributors of the first two Prefab Sprout singles, so it’s very appropriate that they are now carrying the torch for this unique and wonderful release.

Get your copy here.

21 thoughts

  1. Thanks for bringing this to my/our attention. Thanks also for sharing the personal impact it had on you. I think we all know that music can do that; some of us will have experienced it to a greater or lesser extent. But I am not sure many of us would talk about it so frankly.

  2. Lovely words and insights Tim. I hit the link and bought it before reading the article. Thanks for the heads up, I’ll be a proud owner of ITTM 🙂

    1. You mention “how David McGuinness miraculously found ways to inexpensively add real orchestration to add warmth and texture”

      Where is this sourced from? I’d love to read some more on this.

      Thanks

      1. I think it was from one of the 2013 interviews, but there are a lot of these and I couldn’t tell you which one. There are some I’ve agreed not to publish too so even hunting for the comments wouldn’t be easy. But anyway the gist of it was that McGuinness was able to take some parts and record them individually with real instruments, which was a lot less costly than recording with a fuller orchestral group.

        Bearing in mind Paddy had just recorded an album with Tony Visconti and using such luminaries as Carlos Alomar, it was a bit of a step down. And what I’d infer from that is that he really wanted this out there. As a statement probably, that there was more to his music than three minute pop songs.

        1. That’s very interesting, someone on FB mentioned it was recorded on a budget for £25000 which is amazing considering how full and lush the orchestration sounds. Here’s to hoping it gets the recognition it truly deserves this time ’round with the re-issue.

  3. Can only agree, a lovely personal write up of what I regard as a masterpiece.
    Really pleased that this a getting a re-release, more people need to hear it.

  4. Hi,

    what a great website you run. You give a lot of pleasure with what you write, and the information you source. I referenced your site and what you do in the comments section of the article on I Trawl The Megahertz on the brilliant super deluxe edition website:

    http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/news/prefab-sprout-i-trawl-the-megahertz/#more-145673

    Here’s hoping Paddy gets active with recording new material rather than just writing. If not, then we still have his great music – however old it may be it’s still sounds as fresh and uplifting as ever.

    Regards,

    Edward.

  5. Could we start a campaign to get this CD performed at the Proms next year. Offbeat enough to complement the range of music performed during the festival.

  6. On Amazon and also Steve Hoffmans Music forum lots of reports of off centre pressing on disk 1. I am on my second copy from Amazon.co.uk and sadly both of mine are 3mm or so off centre which really impacts the strings especially towards the end of the side.

    Hopefully the record company will see these reports and arrange for a repress/swap out process.

    So sad as the music is wonderful

    1. I have finally given up having sent 3 (black 180g) vinyl copies back to Amazon.
      On all 3 Disc 1 was printed off-centred which makes it unlistenable. The wobble on the long string sustains actually made me feel a little nauseous. Shame as the mastering is silent and rich. Hugely disappointing as I was really looking forward to this release. Reluctant to risk until we are advised how to spot a reprinted copy.

  7. I haven’t noticed a problem with the vinyl. What has irritated me – and I realise this will seem pedantic to some – is the text of the liner notes/inner sleeve. There are errors in spelling and grammar. Nothing major, nothing affecting the meaning, but considering the effort which seems to have gone into design, as I say, irritating.

  8. Got my CD copy last week and listening for the first time – had to wait for the family to go out! Amazing stuff, but I keep thinking, this stuff cries out for live performance. Any rumours of such anywhere in the world?

  9. One of my all time favourite records – a desert island disc. Does anyone know if the CD remastering adds anything to it?

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