Sophie and Peter Johnston: Press

TAPE OF THE MONTH WINNERS (2 tracks: 'Travel In Time' & 'Paradise')
"Extremely commercial and accomplished tape from a brother & sister team that should be sent on the A&R rounds immediately. Sophie sings and writes the lyrics while Pete composes, plays keyboards and produces. 'Paradise' is a sugar-coated pop offering that, like 'Travel In Time', makes excellent use of contrasting synth settings and both songs display an unmistakeably individual sound. Sophie sings with an attractive breathlessness, the production has a very confident feel to it, but what impressed this reviewer most were the extremely polished arrangements. A worthy Tape Of The Month Winner."

REVIEW OF 'HAPPY TOGETHER' SINGLE.
"This winsome little number has snuck in and stuck. Move over Whitney, this is the song you'll sing in the shop, on the bus, in your bath, in your sleep. Though faintly tainted by a few frills and flounces, the power of the soul searching vocals, still rough about the edges, should pull in the pesetas."

DOLLAR MEETS JAMC.
Coming from a Catholic family of eight, with brother Tim playing drums for Pauline Murray and Mum and Dad singing Medieval madrigals, the Johnstons could form a Newcastle team of Osmonds ... They scoff at my idea.
The Sophie & Peter duo have long been making music on their own with techno-buff Peter engineering and producing an entire sound from a studio in his Kennington, South London, bedroom and sister Sophie singing.
Taking no chances with record company foibles, last year they released their own single. "Simon Bates played it," Peter enthuses, "I couldn't bloody believe that!" 'Losing You', on their 'Smash The Majors' label, sold hundreds on mail order and was the Johnston attempt to break the monopoly, trying to prove that people will hear and buy, regardless of major record company paraphenalia.
It was their exasperated response to years of frustration beginning in '83 with an Indie cowboy who promised the earth but didn't deliver, and moving on to a brief major label flirtation with Chrysalis. After a mutual "good riddance", the duo has returned to their roots, finding a soulful, synthesized noise which, on the current single 'Happy Together' blends reverb melody and clarity with Sophie's candy sweet vocals. Avoiding coy, twee associations their sound is BIG - Dollar meets the Mary chain. Potential success id aided by the tender loving care of the I Major label, handlingthis sore pair with the required circumspection.
"We wanted to produce ourselves, have our own studio," asserts Peter, "and choosewhat we put out. We spent a long time looking through contracts, whereas we'd been too impatient before. We realized we'd have to go through all this crap to get to a decent situation." Their first single with their new label is, he says"comparatively conservative, but in the future we'll put more grit into it, keeping the spirit exciting ... something raunchy like hip hop, not smooth with a glossy sheen." Aware of the bland AOR pop tendency, he aims to produce something "some kid at home who's unemployed can relate to." After years of financing demos from dole cheques, they shouldn't find that too difficult.

REVIEW OF S&PJ ALBUM.
Even after a bunch of unquestionably commercial singles, Sophie & Peter Johnston still evade the recognition they deserve. Surely this is criminal, given that many other popular contemporary synthesizer records merely sound like a car being driven without the use of the clutch.
Sophie & Peter, with their self titled debut album, expand the boundaries of synth pop from the ballad('Happy Together') to the Def Jam parody in 'Brain Def'. They also delight with pure dance tracks saturated with hooklines, as in 'Torn Open' and 'No Time'. It's refreshing to hear the synthesizer back in the hands of a musician and not a failed computer programmer. Watch out Mr Numan! (4/5 stars)

ARTICLE IN 'HOT G' SECTION OF THE MAG.
SOPHIE AND PETER WHO? You sayeth! But no more, no more, no more! Here's the Hot G lowdown on this peerless pop pair!
Sophie and Peter are brother and sister and they hail from the North East, man. Pete's the canny lad that plays all the instruments and then Sophie pops along to do the singing bit.
They first came on to the scene when John Peel (that ancient beard that plays records on Radio 1 well past everyone's bedtime!) liked a demo of theirs so much he got them to do some special songs for his show. I wasn't long before they became a cult success and were signed up by a record company.
Unhappily, they haven't exactly set the Top 10 aflame. Shame, Hot G reckons as we chatted to Sophie to see what could be done about this tragic state of affairs!
HOW LONG HAVE YOU AND PETE BEEN ON THE GO, SOPHIE?
"Well, we started when I was 16 and I'm 22 now. Um, six years! How old's Pete? Erm, he's actually 28!"
WHO WRITES THE SONGS?
"Oh, Peter does! He does everything! Hee-hee! He spends all his time playing and now he can play loads of instruments from classical guitar to synths and drums."
HAVE YOU EVER DONE A TOUR?
"No, we've never even done a concert! But we have done a bit of TV. We've done some songs on the local pop show in the North East - TX45. Peter did the theme tune for the programme as well."
DO YOU EVER SEE YOURSELF AT NO 1?
"Oh I'd love that. I don't want to be a millionairess or anything but it would be nice to have some success."
IF YOUR FAIRY GODMOTHER CAME ALONG AND SAID YOU COULD BE PART OF ANY GIRLY POP MOB. WHICH ONE WOULD IT BE?
"Mmm, probably one of Mel & Kim. But I'd really like to be able to sing like Chaka Khan and dance like Madonna."
Well, Sophie, we'll see what we can come up with in the Hot G three wishes department.
As for you lot out there, Hot G will turn you into pumpkins if you don't search out Spohie & Peter Johnston's xilent debut LP! It's easy to find because it's called - Sophie And Peter Johnston, natch! It's classy pop at it's most perfect! You'll be Happy Together!

S&PJ ALBUM REVIEW
John Peel's esoteric late night forays into the pan-global groove have unearthed more than a handful of bright and sparkling nuggets over the years. One such discovery was Sophie and Peter Johnston, whose first LP is a strikingly good and self-assured affair which tapsinto a rich vein of contemporary, mainstream pop.
They specialise in a smart, literate and lushly textured music (imagine The Pet Shop Boys without the sulks). Sophie Johnston's warm and breathy vocals weave dreamily in and out of heart-wrenching ballads like I Want You To Know and Happy Together before soaring off into the ether on songs like Open Up, Torn Open and No Time, buoyant aural fizz bombs which radiate a zestful, uplifting exuberance. If there were any justice in this flighty, ephemeral world of pop these songs would be perched imperiously atop Hitsville's loftiest spires. 4/5 stars

'LOSING YOU' SINGLE REVIEW
The most exhilarating single of the week. I first heard Sophie and Peter on the John Peel Show yonks ago. They still haven't quite cracked it, but give the tremendously high standard of this modern ballad, it can only be a matter of time before they do. Backed with a bombastically progressive dance number, '60 Second Blow', this release couldn't come more highly recommended.

Smashing Majors and breaking down barriers are Sophie & Peter Johnston. Although on paper it sounds violently revolutionary Peter and sister Sophie, by sheer determination, have proved a crucial point in making and releasing records: it can be done without record companies and still be successful. Although to many a successful record can only be called so if it's in the charts and making millions for it's writer. Sophie and Peter's success is having their debut home grown single - 'losing You' - played several times on national radio and selling in large enough quantities to make a second single worthwhile and economically viable.
'Losing You' can be faintly pictured if you imagine a ballad style battle between prefab Sprout and Propaganda where Propaganda are marginally vistorious. Happily it's a world apart from the boring slush ballads sliding wetly up the charts all too often. Peter's made the synthesizer sound like an instrument and not a machine as it's perfectly united with Sophie's rich voice. It was recorded on their own 8-track tape recorder in Peter's bedroom.
On the record label is the eye catching slogan 'Smash the majors'. Words not put there solely to attract DJ attention as they mean what they say. Peter explained - "it's really what all our experiences have taught us about how the music industry works. We don't think it's very healthy the way that record companies have got such a monopoly over the music industry at the moment. The fact that it costs so much from somebody writing a songto getting it heard and getting a chance for it to be successful, there's an awful lot of business involved. We'd like to see a situation where it was possible to write a song, record it and for it to be appreciated without people having to risk going through the kind of thing we've been through."
What they have been through is ages of legal wrangling and disillusionment that left them artistically and physically drained. Perhaps I'd better start with the moral of the story which is 'make sure you know what you're signing'.
Sitting clasping a cup of coffee in his office/recording studio/bedroom Peter told the full story of Sophie and Peter Johnston. "Sophie and me began when I finished York University in 1980. In those days it was a guitar band, I played guitar, my brother was drumming, Sophie sang and I had a friend on bass guitar. We wrote songs and did a few gigs at clubs. Then gradually it whittled down to a two piece - I had borrowed a synthesizer from a friend and found it easier to get a more contemporary sound and achieve more professional sounding results, it was more inspiring than the guitar and then we found that using a cheap drum machine alongside the synths fitted better with the kind of electronic/sequenced sound we were after. We wrote songs and demoed them locallly at studios. The owner of a local studio heard some of our stuff and liked it. He dabbled in publishing and said that he had contacts in London and would try to get us a contract. We signed a publishing deal for one song and we could use his studio free for demoing songs. After a year he said there was a little independent company interested in signing us. We signed with them after a very short time which was a big mistake, we didn't take enough legal advice. We later found out that the contract was very unfavourable to us, it barely stood up legally it was so bad. We did a recording for this company which didn't turn out, the guy was annoyed and lost interest in us. I think he more or less shelved us at that stage.
We tried a few other avenues and sent tapes off to Kid Jensen, Peter Powell and then we sent one to Peel. The Peel one was only an afterthought, we didn't really think he'd be interested in us. In the end it was him who picked up on it and asked us to do a session for his show, after that we got a lot of reaction from record companies. Unfortunately we were already signed to thisguy who had complete comtrol over us. He negotiated a deal with Chrysalis but tried to take more money for himself than we thought he should have as there was an advance of quite a considerable sum. After a stalemate situation for 8 months we compromised and the deal went through.
With Chrysalis records things never really took off. We did demos for them but there was a communication problem as we didn't have management. We did some, what we considered to be, good recordings but they didn't release them. Eventually, when the whole thing seemed to be culminating, we had a couple of top producers interested in working with us and recording dates were being finalised they said they were dropping us.
In a way we were quite pleased because all the hassle we had with them wasn't pleasant. At the end of all that we were obviously disillusioned with the record industry. All in all since we were signed up with the independent guy, we'd been tied up in contracts for approaching 3 years and we still hadn't released a record. So in the summer of 1985 we were finally contractually free and decided to buy our own tape recorder and record our own single. We didn't want to look for another deal so we did it ourselves and released 'Losing You'."
At the start of 'Losing You' is a mish-mash of noises not usually found in the grooves of a ballad platter. It shows their sense of humour is prevalent in their work. "I had a sampling unit where you can record sounds into it and mess around with them" elucidated Peter. "I sampled lots of things like hitting pots and pans, babies crying, cats meowing, toilets flushing and threw them all in at the start of the record. I partly did that as well because the song was similarish to other ballads because of its tempo. I didn't want all the song to fall into that cliched idea of a ballad song, it's a love song but real life is not all sadness. If you've had a rough romantic experience with someone you're upset about it but not all the time. There are moments of relief and life has to go on so I thought it would be more realistic instead of making it all geared towards a kind of weepy sound to have a contradiction on it with those zany sounds on the beginning. Plus it was also that I knew that if we'd been signed to a major company who were investing thousands of pounds in it they wouldn't have wanted to have taken a risk like that. It would have had to have been just right so I thought sod that, let's do this just for the hell of it!"
Let us not forget Sophie. While Peter and I were putting the music world to rights, she was in cambridge studyingEnglish and Art and generally working really jolly hard.
It can't be lonf till the nation succumbs to the sound of Sophie and Peter Johnston. A new single is in the making but you can still get a copy of the remarkable 'Losing You' by sending 1.50 to: PO Box ....

'SECRET GARDEN' GIG REVIEW
Madonna meets the Cocteau twins in the backroom of a Brixton pub! Straddling the gap between indie and chart music, The Secret Garden played a set at the Old White Horse that revealed their potential to become one of the leading lights of the Nineties.
The band is basically a brother-and-sister duo, Sophie & Peter Johnston, who in a previous incarnation got as far as recording an LP for WEA which contained some of the most soaring, uplifting pop songs you'll ever hear. The difficulty then was that they didn't quite fit into the mould of what programmers term Radio One musicor the credible, journalist-approved left-field area of rock. In truth they transcend both categories. Sophie has the voice of a jilted angel, a pure church-choir timbre, while peter - the multi-instrumentalist and songwriter - supplements swirling keyboard programmes with crystalline, often jazzy guitar.
Most of the songs have very straightforward chord structures which might render them unadventurous if they fell into the wrong hands, but the Johnstonian magic - Peter's lush arrangements and Sophie's voice - elevate them into something very special indeed. From faster, poppier numbers likeIt Could Happen to dreamy ballads like Eternal Circle, The Secret Garden reflect all angles of traditional accessible pop; even the occasional lyrical banality melts away into the melody.
All this, combined with the Johnstons' lack of showbiz pretence, makes the Secret Garden an irresistible proposition. Get through the wrought-iron gates as soon as you can!

Review of 'Slumber Party' by Cannonball Jane on www.tangents.co.uk ('the home of Unpopular Culture on the World Wide Web')

"...This track also makes me think of the glorious Sophie and Peter Johnston and for that we should all be grateful, for Sophie and Peter are surely one of the late ‘80s great lost Pop acts. Their eponymous 1988 set must be ripe for a salvage operation."


Review of Autokat single ‘The Driver’ / ‘Television’ on the Manchester based
Akoustik Anarkhy label on www.tangents.co.uk


'...Oh, and also because ‘Television’ reminds me of the great ‘Television, Satellite’ by Sophie And Peter Johnston. The NME apparently recognised this great single last week and said it was terrific “despite sounding like it was recorded in a dustbin.” Naturally they miss the point: it sounds terrific BECAUSE it sounds like it was recorded in a dustbin."