Night Train by Antichrisis

“Night Train” is a song that really went through different stages: originally it started out as a sombre piece of Gothic Rock (this primordial demo version with Katja Bartsch on vocals can still be listened to at www.myspace.com/antichrisis) which for some reasons never made it to its final version.

When I asked Ayuma if she would be interested in getting “Stone Rain” properly done, she started working on that track immediately but wasn’t too satisfied with the results — that song’s tenebrous atmosphere just didn’t fit with her dynamic vocal performance.

So we thought about doing a more lively version and on the spur of the moment the songs tempo changed from 97 to 125 beats per minute, so “Stone Rain” obviously didn’t work any longer as some kind of histrionic Gothic Metal track; instead it turned into a dashing pop song with a vintage Stax/Motown-feeling.

Now that “Stone Rain” started to sound just right to Ayuma and me, we were facing another problem: the sad and lovelorn lyrics of that song did no longer correspond to a now very powerful and uplifting track which meant that I had to rewrite those lyrics, too.

By that time it happened that I revisited the town where I lived during my teenage years: I always felt like an outcast there, and all through those teenage years I wanted to break away from that small town with its small minds and social restrictions — and all of a sudden I knew what kind of lyrics I would have to write for the new version of “Stone Rain” which from then on changed its title to “Night Train”: the story of my juvenile experience of running away to find a better life somewhere else.

So it finally seemed that everything was sorted out — until I started working on the brass parts. I have to confess that yours truly is not exactly a virtuoso when it comes to playing or arranging brass. And although I had some great ideas for hook lines for trumpets, horns and saxophones, they stubbornly kept sounding like James Last but definitely not like Memphis Horns as they were supposed to!

But fortunately there’s Tilo Rockstroh, former keyboarder with Antichrisis during the “A Legacy of Love”- and “Perfume”-era: he’s really an expert if it comes to brass arrangements, and when I asked him if he would be so kind as to contribute a proper brass arrangement to “Night Train”, he came up not only with a complete and wonderful sounding brass section but also with a terrific soul organ and a brilliant piano part. For this reason “Night Train” is in some ways a partial Antichrisis-reunion, as this is the first new track that Tilo is again involved in, and he really did a great job!

In a nutshell: that is the story of a complete metamorphosis from a gloomy piece of Gothic Rock to a rowdy bit of Soul Music — and I hope you’re going to like it, as it is a really something else for Antichrisis.

All instruments by Sid except
brass, saxophone, piano and organ by Tilo Rockstroh
All vocals by Ayuma
Music and lyrics by Sid