Pet Shop Boys - Left To My Own Devices

onelittle, Mar 24, 2006

Size matters…

Pet Shop Boys wanted big. Trevor Horn, a man with a reputation for taking his time, had a big idea; to program the electronics quickly, and then hire an orchestra to play along to the sequencers, live. This big idea would mean that the big sound could be recorded in only a few days. Of course, the track took six months to complete.

Horn rented arranger Richard Niles to orchestrate the track. Niles knew all about big.

How big should the string section be?, queried Horn.
Oh, 20 strings should suffice for this orchestra, came the reply.
Horn retorted; doesnt 40 strings sound better?
No, answered Niles, 20 is good for this size of orchestra.
But, insisted Horn, doesnt it sound better to say "I have 40 strings in the studio", than only 20 strings?

Niless flamboyant arrangement is heavily evident in both mixes on this CD. The seven inch mix is edited from the eight minute Introspective version. Although shorter, the sound is bigger than the album version, with bonus Bruce Woolley backing vocals and guitar by Stephen Lipson.

Horns twelve incher stretches the whole out over 11 and a half minutes, and is an object lesson in how to make a hell of a lot go a hell of a lot further. The three minute intro is quite sublime; ricocheting beats, looping strings, swooping sequencers, with horns heralding the bassline. Somewhere around seven and a half minutes in, theres a 40 second breakdown that seemingly encompasses a jet, a tractor engine, an army of snare drums and a racing car. Genius.

Left To My Own Devices includes the memorable line: "Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat". Horn had a big desire; to record Claude Debussy to a disco beat (something he eventually achieved with the Art Of Noises 1999 album). So, the Pet Shop Boys decided to play along and record an acid house interlude for the track, based around Debussy-esque chords. A 40 minute jam was recorded live, with Neil, Chris and Trevor on keyboards and Lipson playing the mix desk. This experiment was not used on the a-side but, after editing and vocalizing, became The Sound Of The Atom Splitting instead. One of the oddest in the PSB catalogue, the track is very divisive.

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