OLDLAND MONTANO: Sometimes Black, Sometimes white + You are loosing me 7″ Similar to Sade. Check video

Description

Artist: OLDLAND MONTANO
Title: SOMETIMES BLACK
Format: 7 INCH (7″ VINYL)
Country: UK
Label: SIREN
Year: 1988
Description: (SRN94) PIC SLEEVE, EX/EX

When this album was released in 1987, times were good for the major record companies (Siren was a label owned by Virgin before they started buying train sets and model airplanes). If you were in London at that time and were beautiful then a record deal would surely be yours. Misty Oldland and Kay Montano were (and probably still are) beautiful and they got the full treatment here. In fact, if my often flawed recollection is correct, the promo video for “Sugar Mummy” was directed by no less than fashion photographer Terence Donovan.

This nonetheless an interesting curio that does stand up well to musical re-examination. Hushed, breathy harmonies are the order of the day and, given the time period, the essential drum machine is also present and correct. It is classy though, and the songs are actually quite good with the sensitive production by Sean Oliver (from Rip, Rig and Panic – a band worthy of rediscovery) and Nick Froome helping establish the atmosphere that was otherwise so sadly lacking in eighties’ music. Songs like “Sometimes Black Sometimes White” would make a grown man sigh, for example.

Kay Montano never released anything else and Misty Oldland continued on as a solo artist gaining a bit of success in Europe.