In the Garden

The Eurythmics: Ann Lennox (vocals, flute, keyboards, synthesizer, percussion); Dave Stewart (guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, bass, background vocals). Additional personnel: Krista Fast (vocals); Roger Pomphrey (vocals, guitar); Sir Timothy Wheater (saxophone); Holger Czukay (French horn); Jaki Liebezeit (brass, drums); Marcus Stockhausen (brass); Clem Burke, Robert Gorl (drums); Krista Fast. Recorded at Conny's Studio, Cologne, Germany between February and June 1981. Eurythmics' debut album, In the Garden, is the missing link between the work of the Tourists, who included both Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox, and 1983's commercial breakthrough, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). Co-produced by Kraftwerk producer Conny Plank at his studio in Cologne, Germany, it has some of the distant, mechanistic feel of the European electronic music movement, but less of the pop sensibility of later Eurythmics. The chief difference is in Lennox's singing; even when the musical bed is appealing, Lennox floats ethereally over it, and the listener doesn't focus on her. As a result, In the Garden wasn't much of a success, though when Eurythmics streamlined their sound and emphasized Lennox's dominating voice on subsequent releases, they found mass popularity. ~ William Ruhlmann