Ayura Crisis

China Crisis Collection: The Very Best of China Crisis doesn't lie; true to its title, the album gathers China Crisis' brightest moments. While the exclusion of "The Highest High" is an oversight, this is one of the most accurate and thorough summaries of a band's career. Uniting elements of synth pop, jazz, progressive rock, and new wave, China Crisis sound like nobody else.

China Crisis Collection: The Very Best of China Crisis doesn't lie; true to its title, the album gathers China Crisis' brightest moments. While the exclusion of "The Highest High" is an oversight, this is one of the most accurate and thorough summaries of a band's career. Uniting elements of synth pop, jazz, progressive rock, and new wave, China Crisis sound like nobody else. The jittery "Working With Fire and Steel" unveils the group's early infatuation with sprightly electronics. "Working With Fire and Steel" is actually one of the few songs on China Crisis Collection that received U.S. airplay; its chipper, naïve keyboards must've wooed radio programmers hooked on early-'80s video games. China Crisis' music became increasingly sophisticated with each LP as the band explored slower tempos and more soulful melodies…

French band formed in 1968 by former Pingouins lead singer Jacques Mercier. In the early 1970s they released two eponymous albums covering a wide variety of psych, prog, blues-rock and experimental styles, and also had some success with few pop singles…

Reunited with producer Walter Becker, China Crisis made perhaps their most Steely Dan-like album with Diary of a Hollow Horse. Pristinely recorded and brimming with jazzy sophistication, it includes some of the U.K. quintet's best-ever material, including "Sweet Charity in Adoration," a satisfying, complex pop song of the first order that features a lovely flute cameo from sessionman Jim Horn. Yet beyond the FM perfection lurk a few surprises. The group also teamed with producer Mike Thorne (Soft Cell) for a trio of cuts that are among the most simple and direct pop songs in the their catalog. In particular, "St. Saviour Square" and "All My Prayers" have straightforward rhythms and melodies that connect instantly, drawing passionate performances from singer Gary Daly and offering a nice contrast to the more subtle surroundings…

Digitally remastered and expanded two CD edition of the Liverpool band's 1982 album. The bonus CD includes non-album tracks, radio sessions and more.
Like fellow Liverpudlians O.M.D., China Crisis began life as a synthetic duo who performed brilliantly executed pop songs with quirky edges. And like O.M.D., they seamlessly mixed their love of guitar-based pop with (then) modern musical technology (i.e., synthesizers). Unlike O.M.D., China Crisis' legacy languishes somewhere between there and then with no sign of them ever being considered "hip." Not to say that that is their fault! Gary Daly (the quirky vocalist/keyboardist) and Eddie Lundon (the smooth vocalist/guitarist) made their fascinating debut, Difficult Shapes & Passive Rhythms, Some People Think It's Fun to Entertain, on a low budget, and their magic was already in place…

China Crisis underwent a complete change in sound for their third album, completely ditching the heavy dub rhythms and challenging arrangements of 1982's Difficult Shapes & Passive Rhythms, Some People Think It's Fun to Entertain and 1983's Working with Fire and Steel (Possible Pop Songs, Vol. 2) with an altogether smoother and less aggressive sound. That doesn't equal a commercial capitulation, however; if anything, the choice of Walter Becker (of the then-unfashionable Steely Dan) as producer was a more commercially daring maneuver than anything the group had previously attempted.