Barry had amassed a pretty impressive portfolio prior to this album. He'd played in Magazine, the Buzzcocks, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and a couple of other acts. Adamson cast this, his first solo album as the soundtrack to a non-existent film noir. In part it was a reflection of Adamson's love of film soundtrack music (the influences of composers such as Bernard Hermann, Ennio Morricone and even Angelo Badalamenti are never far away), and in part he set it as a sort of musical CV with which to try and rope in some actual film scoring work. That did eventually bear fruit and Adamson would go on to contribute scores for films including "Natural Born Killers" "The Beach" and "Lost Highway".
The album is a masterpiece, mixing noirish jazz, frantic rock interludes, smouldering piano, nightmarish ambience, and even a cheeky wee cover of the theme to "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" Adamson throws everything he has at the album. Judging from the album cover (never judge by the cover!) and his connection with the Bad Seeds, I had thought this might be a bit of a crooning record with a touch of murder-blues, but it ended up being so much more.
