Fish - 'A Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors' Remastered - 'Internal Exile' Remastered

I remember the day I learned Fish had left Marillion. That news hit me hard. I was a boy of 18 and Marillion had been my band since Andy Miller loaned me his ‘Market Square Heroes’ 12 inch at a pipe band practice in 1983. There had been a spit up, I was too young to know better and felt I had to choose. The other four, or the guy who lived just down the road from me, the face of the band, the man who wrote the words that meant so much. There could be no alternative for me, it had to be Fish and I bought into his career and stayed with him ever since. (Fortunately, I got over my childhood partisanship fairly quickly and still think post Fish Marillion are one of the best bands on the planet).

So, Fish had left the band. What now for this larger than life Scottish singer? Well, we found out pretty quickly. 1990’s Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors was the first offering from a now solo Fish. It was good to see Mark Wilkinson had chosen Team Fish too. His artwork was, and remains, synonymous with the singer and his album cover and gatefold sleeve for this first solo release really underpinned much of the records content. Fish was always political and the sleeve alluded to some of the views he held at the time – “Vigil” and “Big Wedge” were the musical accompaniment to those views. It’s fair to say, Fish was hurting at the time and some of the artwork reflects that, in my copy there is still a picture of Mark Kelly in the artwork. This remaster comes without Mark Kelly, that hatchet having been buried a long time ago, but it does come with a great deal more than the original nine tracks. But let’s start with those…

I always think a good remastering should be like having a nose job or an ear pinning. It should be an improvement on the original, that makes the individual feel better but should not be so radical that the work becomes instantly obvious, or where the original features become altered beyond recognition. Against that as a test, I think the ‘work’ on these albums has been really successful. What I hear are sharper sounds. The music is lifted, and each instrument is clearer and can be easily separated from the pack with careful listening. This means, I think, that it is possible to hear the sum of the parts and gain a greater appreciation of their contribution to the work as a whole.

There were a couple of standouts for me. “Family Business” is a great song, I’ve always wondered why Fish wrote two songs that had domestic violence as theme (Punch and Judy being the other one). There are very few musicians who would be brave enough to approach this subject; I’ve always thought Fish managed this in a considered and respectful way. This has always been a stick out song for me.

“The Voyeur (I Like to Watch)” is another favourite. This is one of the songs that has benefitted from the re-master. The sounds are sharper the words are clearer and the opening four words carry a creepiness that sets up the next four minutes perfectly.

This whole album was, I felt, a statement of intent. Fish drew on some great Scottish musicians for this record, including, Hogmanay regulars, Phil Cunningham and Aly Bain. He brought in other sounds, violin, bagpipes and whistles and introduced the world to the man who would become one of his long-terms axe men, Frank Usher on guitar.

In 1990, I listened to this album, for the first time, with some trepidation. I didn’t know if it would compare with the four previous Marillion offerings, and if it did would it just be more of the same. It was great then to find it was a record that stood on its own two feet. Thirty plus years later, it still stands on its own, just with a clearer production.

This box set is not, however restricted to the album. There are couple of lives to listen to as well.

The Blu Ray disks contain full gigs from tours I was at, but unfortunately not the exact night these were recorded so I can’t say I am singing on them! It’s these Blu Ray recordings that will satisfy nostalgic consumers most.

There is sentiment and humour throughout the recordings between song banter. It’s that banter which the teenage me, chased down and found in brightly coloured bootleg cassettes, picked up from market stalls or from well-connected older friends. This connection with the live performance was always a key factor in my love of Fish and I am looking forward to seeing him on his farewell tour and I hope the banter flows then like it does throughout these recorded gigs.

Demos are always something I find interesting, and I mean just that ‘interesting’. I like listening to the genesis of a song and hearing how that underpins the final version. There is a rawness about the demos within this collection that do just that. The “Big Wedge” cut whose only trace of a vocal is menacing 1-2-3-4 at the start really helped give a handle on the musical growth of that track. Similarly “A Gentleman’s Excuse Me” had a rawness and rough edge that was not there on the final offering. I liked it, in the same way I like sweet and hot food together on the same plate - it tastes great, it shouldn’t, but it does.

The demos are well worth a listen.

Next up is “Internal Exile”. I always preferred this album to its predecessor. That’s not to say I didn’t love “Vigil”, I did, but I preferred this. I think I preferred it because it sounded much less like a Marillion record than its predecessor. I guess I was still in my post break up huff at the time and a move away from the earlier sound helped me deal with that.

Originally released 18 months after the first solo record, I wonder if Fish felt there was a bit more distance between him and Marillion, both in his head and from his doorstep, having now moved to Scotland. Many of the words of the previous disc had been written for Marillion, this album was all about Fish. There is the complexity of “Shadowplay” a six-and-a-half-minute explosion of everything prog. Underpinning keyboard, rasping drums, bending guitars and a complex lyric about, well, I am not wanting to speculate who or what the target of this pointed vitriol is, but it sets it apart for me. A great song.

I never quite understood why “Just Good Friends” didn’t have more commercial success. The male and female cross play, the subject matter and some great musicianship all made it, I thought, prime radio fodder. How things might have been different if this had topped a chart or two a la Kayleigh.

Other stick outs for me are “Favourite Stranger” and the title track, “Internal Exile” both of which sound sharper for the remix with the later track featuring that other Fish friendly axe man, Robin Boult.

The added tracks on this offering are drawn from a host of demos. I particularly like the “Credo (Demo Guitar)” mix. I love the song anyway, but listening to this, I shut my eyes and, for six minutes, I was in a studio listening to this song in the raw and I loved it.

The lives are good too. This collection was released a few weeks after the general election, I am sure much of the sentiment Fish was letting loose in the Crypt Creepers version of “internal Exile” continues to be shared by many today.

When these two albums were originally published, news of bands and artists was gathered sporadically and for, Fish news, we relied upon what was in Kerrang or The Scottish Daily Record. If we were very lucky we might have caught our favourite artist on a breakfast TV sofa before school, and if we were very, very lucky, we might have had time to hit record and commit it to VHS to watch again after school. It was, indeed, hard to get news and information on the artists we followed back then. These reissues plug that gap, the sleeve notes are lengthy, detailed and a genuinely great read. It would have been easy for Fish to get into superficial detail about track content, players and the ordering of songs. Instead, he does what Fish does best and puts his heart onto his sleeve with the notes he has penned. I am going to offer no spoilers, the sharing that he offers should come from him direct to you, not with me as intermediary, but safe to say I thought he went above and beyond what needed to be said. He gives insight to his life, marriage and finances in a way that provides a context to the music no friend would ask for, but through which a true friend would listen without interruption whilst keeping the wine glasses full.

Fish followers will be aware that, very often, our protagonist lets us know, “it’ll be in the book”. If that autobiography comes along, and I hope it does, I will devour it’s pages. However, these comprehensive sleeve notes (perfectly presented hard back book) amply fill the void meantime, whilst also leaving the feeling that, when that book is written, there is still much more to come. In short, stick the music of your choice on, fill up your cup with your favourite beverage and make sure you read the words that accompany these releases. You won’t be disappointed.

I thought the last studio album, “Weltschmerz” was a fantastic studio album to finish a great career with. These two re-issues are the last two that Fish is going to release from his back catalogue. Together, this trio of records, make up, for me, his finest solo work and sit nicely together on the shelf in a perpetual loop of beginnings and endings.

In marketing terms, it’s easier to retain customers than to entice a new ones. So, to recycle a back catalogue makes for a sensible commercial path. It does, of course, need to be a valuable offering and I am pleased to say that these two box sets from Fish did not leave me feeling short changed or with any buyers remorse whatsoever.

I’ve spent the last few days listening intently to these tracks. As I turned the last track off for the second or third time of listening, I wondered what to put on the turntable next. In the end, I went for simple silence. I wanted to process what I had just listened to, read about and enjoyed over these last few days. This box set is a collection of memories, it is an unburdening, it’s a moment in time. It is a set of songs that need a wee bit of space to percolate and time to really move around in my head.

You should give it a listen; your memories will thank you for it.