''Come from Heaven'' is the debut studio album by
Alpha. It was released on
Massive Attack
Massive Attack are an English trip hop collective formed in 1988 in Bristol by Robert "3D" Del Naja, Adrian "Tricky" Thaws, Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall.
The debut Massive Attack album '' Blue Lines'' was rele ...
's record label, Melankolic, in 1997. It includes vocal contributions from Martin Barnard, Wendy Stubbs, and Helen White.
"Sometime Later" peaked at number 91 on the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
.
Critical reception
Ned Raggett of
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...
gave the album 3 stars out of 5, describing it as "a gently queasy blend of sounds and styles that manages to be tasteful and downright romantic without being airbrushed soul."
[ He wrote: "When the duo fully stretches its collage/sampling muscles, as on the title track, it can be quite breathtaking, a careful balance between chaos and atmospherics."][
Larry Flick of '']Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...
'' stated that the album "combines the sample-happy experimental sound of the electronic underground with traditional pop sounds."CMJ New Music Monthly
CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events and online media company, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music Monthly'' and ''CMJ New Music Report''. Th ...
'' called it "slow, deep, sexy nighttime music, so richly recorded and alive with pleasure that only the extremely sexually repressed could not feel it down there."
Track listing
; Samples
*"The April Fools
''The April Fools'' is a 1969 American romantic comedy film directed by Stuart Rosenberg and starring Jack Lemmon and Catherine Deneuve.
Plot
Wall Street broker Howard Brubaker is married to Phyllis, who does not love him. Catherine is the stunn ...
" by Percy Faith
Percy Faith (April 7, 1908 – February 9, 1976) was a Canadian-American bandleader, orchestrator, composer and conductor, known for his lush arrangements of pop and Christmas standards. He is often credited with popularizing the "easy listeni ...
on ''My Things''
*"What the World Needs Now Is Love
"What the World Needs Now Is Love" is a 1965 popular song with lyrics by Hal David and music composed by Burt Bacharach. First recorded and made popular by Jackie DeShannon, it was released on April 15, 1965, on the Imperial label after a relea ...
" by Burt Bacharach
Burt Freeman Bacharach ( ; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Gr ...
on ''Rain''
*"My Autumn's Done Come" (uncredited) by Lee Hazlewood
Barton Lee Hazlewood (July 9, 1929 – August 4, 2007) was an American country and pop singer, songwriter, and record producer, most widely known for his work with guitarist Duane Eddy during the late 1950s and singer Nancy Sinatra in the 1960s ...
on ''Sometime Later'' and ''Somewhere Not Here''
*"Delaney Takes a Break" by Michel Legrand
Michel Jean Legrand (; 24 February 1932 – 26 January 2019) was a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and jazz pianist. Legrand was a prolific composer, having written over 200 film and television scores, in addition to many so ...
on ''Delaney''
*"Not the Lovin' Kind" by Lee Hazlewood and " Who Needs Forever" by Astrud Gilberto
Astrud Gilberto (; born Astrud Evangelina Weinert, March 29, 1940) is a Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer. She gained international attention in the 1960s following her recording of the song "The Girl from Ipanema".
Biography
Astrud Gilbert ...
(both uncredited) on ''Hazeldub''
*" Plus Fort Que Nous" by Francis Lai
Francis Albert Lai (; 26 April 19327 November 2018) was a French composer, noted for his film scores. He won the 1970 Oscar for Best Music, Original Score and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for the film ''Love Story''. The s ...
and " Summertime" by Memphis Slim
John Len Chatman (September 3, 1915 – February 24, 1988), known professionally as Memphis Slim, was an American blues pianist, singer, and composer. He led a series of bands that, reflecting the popular appeal of jump blues, included saxoph ...
on ''Slim''
*" A House Is Not a Home" by Ronnie Carroll
Ronnie Carroll (born Ronald Cleghorn; 18 August 1934 – 13 April 2015) was a Northern Irish singer, entertainer and political candidate.
Career
Carroll was born Ronald Cleghorn in 116 Roslyn Street, Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1934, the son o ...
and " The Ghost's Leavetaking" by Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, '' Th ...
on ''Back''
*"The Hour of Enchantment" by Ron Moody
Ron Moody (born Ronald Moodnick; 8 January 1924 – 11 June 2015) was an English actor, composer, singer and writer. He was best known for his portrayal of Fagin in '' Oliver!'' (1968) and its 1983 Broadway revival. Moody earned a Golden Glob ...
and "The Windmills of Your Mind
"The Windmills of Your Mind" is a song with music by French composer Michel Legrand and English lyrics written by Americans Alan and Marilyn Bergman. The French lyrics, under the title "", were written by Eddy Marnay.
The song (with the English ...
" by Dusty Springfield
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, pop and dra ...
on ''Nyquil''
*"Courtyard
A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky.
Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary ...
" by Bobbie Gentry
Bobbie Gentry (born Roberta Lee Streeter; July 27, 1942) is a retired American singer-songwriter, who was one of the first female artists in America to compose and produce her own material.
Gentry rose to international fame in 1967 with her So ...
on ''With''
*" Save the Sunlight" by Herb Alpert
Herb Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American trumpeter who led the band Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s. During the same decade, he co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss. Alpert has recorded 28 albums that have landed on the ...
and Lani Hall
Lani Hall (born November 6, 1945) is an American singer, lyricist, and author. From 1966 to 1971 she performed as lead vocalist for Sérgio Mendes & Brasil '66. In 1972 Hall released her first solo album, ''Sun Down Lady''. She may be best know ...
on ''Firefly''
Personnel
Credits adapted from liner notes.
* Corin Dingley – production, photography
* Andy Jenks – production, photography
* Wendy Stubbs – vocals (2, 9, 13)
* Martin Barnard – vocals (3, 4, 8, 12)
* Helen White – vocals (4, 6, 11)
* Donald Skinner – instrumentation on additional loops
* Alex Lee – instrumentation on additional loops
* Angelo Bruschini – instrumentation on additional loops
* Daniel Jones – strings score
* Gavin Wright – strings conducting
* Paul Hicks – strings overdub engineering
* Alex Scannell – strings overdub engineering assistance
* Andy Bradfield – mixing
* Ben Findlay – mixing assistance, additional overdub engineering
* Jacquie Turner – mixing assistance, additional overdub engineering
* Russell Kearney – mixing assistance, additional overdub engineering
* Marco Migliari – mixing assistance
* Justin Griffith – mixing assistance
* Emma Jones – mixing assistance
* Kevin Metcalfe – mastering
* Stephen Male – art direction
* Latifah Cornelius – design
* Jack Webb – photography
* Donald Christie – photography
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Come from Heaven
1997 debut albums
Alpha (band) albums
Melankolic albums