No Man’s Land + Bonus tracks
THE OVERVIEW
Sadly, we’re coming to the end of the Toy Box set with Lene’s final album for Stiff — No Man’s Land from 1982. As usual, it’s a another album choc-a-bloc with catchy tunes, including one of my favourites of hers. Unfortunately, as I wrote many years ago in a review for a newspaper, “it sounds like they didn’t really have enough material for a full album, so they threw in what should have been the b-sides to the five potential singles, and called it day.”
Kind of a brutal assessment, in retrospect, but not wrong. The album is thin on fully-fleshed-out songs and heavy with other tracks that are quite good musically but light on lyrics with much meaning. The “A” material here is pretty strong, particularly the two lead-off tracks — both of which were in fact singles that found some traction — “It’s You, It’s You (Mein Schmerz)” and “Blue Hotel.”
I also very much liked “Special Star,” “Sister Video,” and “Maria,” and I remember all three getting some college/indie radio airplay at the time. Most of the rest of the tracks, while catchy, seem seriously undercooked lyrically. This could have been papered over with more of those great “Slavic male chorus” bits that made the first record so entertaining, but after the original band broke up, we only ever get (double-tracked) Les handling that — and just him is kinda thin and too sparsely used.
Starting with the New Toy EP, most of the background vocals were done by Lene herself — which is not by itself a bad thing because she’s awesome — but the call-and-response you got on Stateless and to a lesser extent on Flex has gone, and the songs sound less varied as a result — even as the production work improves.
Speaking of production, the fact that this album has more engineers/studios listed (eight!!) than it does musicians adds to the inconsistency factor. The truth is that this record was cobbled together from the multiple smaller sessions with various producers and studios by order of Stiff Records’ Dave Robinson, who wanted another “hit” from Lene, which he eventually got in the two lead tracks — at least in the US.
This one also had the most “writers” on any of Lene’s 80s albums, with “It’s Only You” and “Sister Video” both being written by others, and “Blue Hotel” using a co-writer (Maruo Goldsand). While still equal parts hit and miss, No Man’s Land is still a better record than most acts at the time were putting out, but it misses the high bar Lene and Les set for themselves on the two previous albums, and is very symbolic of their deteriorating relationship with Stiff.
Lene writes about Stiff a lot in the booklet, and is generous with her thanks to Dave Robinson and the other people who worked there, but from her perspective Dave was growing increasingly disenchanted with the lack of UK hits (she did better in the US, particularly on this album), and eventually lost interest, making No Man’s Land the last album on Stiff.
It’s still an enjoyable album, make no mistake, but even the bonus tracks are (mostly) extended or remixed versions of the album tracks. Speaking of which, the legend that is Bob Clearmountain did the remixing on the album (with assists from Lene and Les and Dick Wingate), so from a high-fidelity perspective this is the best-sounding album to date.
THE BONUS TRACKS
Just for variety’s sake, we finally get the two “missing” tracks from the “New Toy” EP that was release prior to the album here: the original studio version of “Savages” and the original “Special Star,” which both ended up in extensively reworked (and superior) versions on the album. Likewise, the “Single Version” of Blue Hotel is a pretty different version to what ended up on the album, though it does actually have Les and Lene singing together on the chorus, which is nice.
We then move on to the “Remixed, Extended Version” of “It’s Only You,” which you might be forgiven for thinking is actually the “Instrumental Version” for the first 1:06 before Lene finally comes in. The vocal and Lene’s background vocal are the same, but quite differently mixed from the album version. This bonus version uses more of Lene’s own bv’s and so I kinda like it better, though the album version swings more.
This is followed by a wholly new song, “Blue,” (no hotel involved). It’s rather frantic, and will remind listeners of “old” Lene, even though the vocal is a bit sparse. It probably should have been on the album proper, but its a lightweight effort despite the speedy 50s overtones.
Next up, a very remixed and mostly instrumental “dub” version of “It’s Only You,” with Lene only providing bv’s and sound effects here and there. It’s not really suitable for your own karoke version, since it wanders off from the better-known version of the song, but for anyone who wants to hear Les’s isolated contribution to a given Lene song, this is a good example — and it runs nearly two full minutes longer than the album version, so there’s some great noodling going on here.
Oddly, this is followed by the “US Extended Dance Mix” version, which is nearly as long as the Instrumental Version at 5’39”, but hurrah, we have Lene’s vocal back in. The lengthening comes in the form of a long mid-song instrumental break that gets sparse at the beginning and end, but is very effective and makes you all the more thrilled when the vocals return, and we even get some extra vocals.
From there, we go on to a “US Dance Mix” of “Blue Hotel,” which adds a minute-and-a-half to the song more cleverly than it was with “It’s Only You,” by keeping the instrumental extensions, mostly quite short until the mid-point. These two “US” extended versions are the most successful of the bonus tracks, since they simply give us more of what we love in the respective songs … and by that of course I mean “more Les Chappell croaking like a frog.” Bonus points for the fake-out false ending before the real ending!
The album ends with a genuine B-side: “O Seasons, O Castles.” It’s a slow-moving but another colourful, well-performed theatrical number with a sudden ending.
THE WRAP-UP
If you like Lene Lovich’s work beyond just any singles you might have heard, you should pick this box set up (if you can find it — it has sold out from Cherry Red!). The remastering work really adds spit and polish to the sound of all three albums, and the plethora of bonus tracks get as close as anyone outside hardcore Lene artifact collectors are likely to come to “everything” she recorded for Stiff.
It’s clear that the “project manager” for this box set, Michael Robson, really cared about the material and getting the look of the set and booklet right. Scott Davies of Rubellen Remasters did a fabulous job of remastering, and the previously-unseen (by me, at least) photo taken in Boston in 1983 just perfectly showcases the amazing look and talent of Lene, alongside other rare photos within the booklet. Best of all from a collector perspective, the box is the same size as the CDs, making for easy storage (waves to fellow obsessive-compulsive collectors).
Lene’s written comments, supplemented by Robson and Davies, do a good but brief job of telling the story of the albums from her perspective as well as some historical background. The booklet also touches on some other things Lene did (including “Mata Hari” and her pre-Stiff musical escapades) and places those events into the timeline succinctly. Lene’s post-Stiff career and home life is also mentioned, which is nice.
Cherry Red have been a winning streak of late, and this is another gold star for them for getting this out. I hope they will continue to work with Robson and Davies on other projects that the pair are passionate about, since they love they have for Lene and Les shows through every aspect of the care evident in this package.
The only downside to Toy Box is that I am now hungry — nay, starving — for Super Deluxe Editions (SDEs) of March and Shadows and Dust, but in the meantime, get the single CDs of her later albums — they’re also great!
The Chasbah 
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