𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗘𝗕𝗢 - 𝗦𝗟𝗘𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗚𝗛𝗢𝗦𝗧𝗦 – 𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗔𝗥𝗬

Today we celebrate the ♦️𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗔𝗥𝗬 𝗼𝗳 “𝗦𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗴𝗵𝗼𝘀𝘁”♦️. The album was released exactly 18 years ago today on the 24th of March 2003. It deals with the memories of former relationships and the effects the ex-partners have on the life of the characters in the songs and how those people have changed the protagonists as a human being. “I believe we carry the ghosts of past relationships with us till we die,” Brian explained. He added that ‘you’ in the lyrics actually means himself.

Photo credits: Cover of the album and covers of the singles / edit by Silke

📀 𝗦𝗟𝗘𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗚𝗛𝗢𝗦𝗧𝗦
🎵 https://bit.ly/3lXCdjo 🎵

“Sleeping with ghosts” was produced by Jim Abbiss and engineered by Simon „Barny“ Barnicott. Bill Lloyd worked on the album as additional engineer. The songs were recorded at The Townhouse Studios and Sarm West Studios, both located in London. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘣𝘶𝘮 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 11 in the UK Album Charts and received a generally favourable reaction from music critics.

𝘍𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦𝘴 were released from “Sleeping with ghosts”: The lead single “The bitter end” came out three weeks prior to the album and peaked no. 12 in the UK Singles Chart. It was followed by “This Picture”, “Special needs” and “English summer rain” which all entered the Top 30.

In an interview with Rock Sound Brian said that “Sleeping with ghosts” was the most emotional and honest record they made so far. Brian also pointed out that he was very proud of the fact that the album has no drug references at all (see quotes below).

Photo credit: Jean Baptiste Mondino (3), cover of the album / edit by Silke

📌 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗔𝗟𝗕𝗨𝗠 “𝗦𝗟𝗘𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗚𝗛𝗢𝗦𝗧𝗦” 📌
📢 ”The memories are certainly there and “Sleeping with ghosts” is about how do deal with them. You look back and think about if your memories are accurate. If they're objective or not. And I believe that with me they are subjective. And I also believe we carry the ghosts of past relationships with us till we die.”
(DNAsix, March 2003)

📢 "Trying to push your sound forwards without turning your back on all the things that make the band unique and recognisable is definitely a difficult balance, but I think we pulled it off."
(Scotland on Sunday, April 2003)

📢 "Obviously, certain songs are about particular people or things that reminded me of them, but I think there's a shared history there because we've all been through the types of relationships described on this record. The title “Sleeping with ghosts“ is about a smell or object or film reminding you of a certain person or misdemeanour."
(Scotland on Sunday, April 2003)

📢 “I’ve used this album to look back on relationships I’ve had over the past 10 years and whatever masochism is going on in the song is nearly always directed towards myself – ‘you’ actually means ‘me’.“
(Rock Sound, April 2003)

📢 “This record is the most emotional and honest we’ve made.”
(Rock Sound, April 2003)

📢 ”This album is a return to what we do best really, it’s dealing with relationships again. It’s got so much to do with the fact that we had an eight month period off beforehand to think for the first time and be human beings, to reacquaint ourselves with humanity outside of the rock’n’roll bubble. It was very natural that those were the kind of songs that were coming out.”
(X-Ray, April 2003)

📢 ”I started to think very much about the relationships I’ve had over the past ten years and whether they’d changed me and the effect that they’d had on me. So “Sleeping with ghosts” became an album about exorcising the demons of your past relationships. And in that way, it became a very therapeutic and cathartic thing for me.”
(X-Ray, April 2003)

Munich, Germany, May19th 2003. Photo credit unknowm

📢 ”By the time I reached 30 I realised there is no tragedy without joy in the first place. I became quite obsessed by the idea that you carry the ghosts of your relationships past with you for the rest of your life and people come back to haunt you, and that this is often triggered by external stimuli – smells, a song on the radio, an article of clothing, a book, whatever. I wondered what effect your memory still had on you to this day, regardless of the amount of time from the end of the relationship and where you are now and how you’ve moved on. Along the way, I managed to exorcise a few personal demons.”
(X-Ray, April 2003)

📢 ”I’m very proud of the fact that this album has no drug references.”
(X-Ray, April 2003)

📢 ”Is about trying to deal with your memory and trying to deal with those ghosts that you carry around with you, continuously, the people, the events that shaped you. Trying, I guess, to accept them and learn from them in order to take healthier steps towards the future.”
(Suicide Girls, February 2004)

📢 "The album title's about carrying the ghosts of your relationships with you, to the point where sometimes a smell or situation or an item of clothing they bought you kind of brings a person back. For me it's about the relationship that you have with your memories. They inhabit your dreams sometimes. There can be a lot in the future that's gonna remind you of the ghost of relationships past. So I see the album as a collection of short stories about a handful of relationships. Most of them mine. In a way writing the songs helps me to get a lot of the nasty things off my chest and put them in a box a little bit more, and therefore have a bit more of an objective discourse with those emotions because you've done something positive with them, you've rid yourself of them."
(ReadMag, November 25th 2003)

Post bya Silke