Fourth Wall

The second Flying Lizards album was a collaboration between David Cunningham and Patti Paladin. This was a much more straightforward record – more songs than on the other one, linked with short, dreamlike soundscapes. Lots of guests on this record, and it was very well critically received (and influential!), but commerically tanked. People felt burned by the first album, since it didn't sound anything like its singles. This album sounded pretty much like its singles all the way through, but it didn't really matter, as they didn't get any airplay. (Too bad, because "Hands 2 Take" is just an excellent, excellent song and has one of my favorite guitar solos ever put onto record.) In an attempt to bow at least a little to commerciality, it features a cover of Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up", but it didn't sound like the early style of covers (and was relatively straight), and didn't go anywhere on the charts.

This album is really hard to find, especially on CD – the only CD issue that exists is a very out-of-print Japanese issue put out against David Cunningham's wishes by Virgin Japan. David Cunningham has said he's been planning on remixing it and re-releasing it credited to "David Cunningham/Patti Paladin", but it's yet to materialize (much like Virgin's planned Flying Lizards best-of with a load of unreleased tracks, dammit!), so it's very hard to come by. Sometimes LP copies can be found, but those aren't terribly common either. If you should see it – especially a CD copy – snap it up! I'd seen it go for over 100 dollars on eBay! After a few years of looking, I FINALLY found it. So thankful that I did – this is a great record!