Waking Hours

Originally released on A&M Records in July 1989, reaching No 6 in the UK charts and spawning four Top 60 singles, Waking Hours was Del Amitri’s commercial breakthrough – This re-issue faithfully replicates the original 1989 “blue background” artwork and is pressed onto high quality blue vinyl.

After beginning in the mid 80s as a leftfield indie-jangle band, Del Amitri were now developing into a west-coast influenced classic pop act. The group, led by bassist-vocalist-writer Justin Currie and writer-guitarist Iain Harvie, worked with producer Gil Norton on demos in 1987 that led to them being signed to A&M Records. Working further with Hugh Jones and Mark Freegard, they made an album that chimed with the times, offering an antidote to Madchester with its beguiling selection of grown-up pop. Opening track and first single Kiss This Thing Goodbye set the scene perfectly, a record that sounded like it should be played loud on a sunlit freeway, but it was the album’s third single, the affecting ballad Nothing Ever Happens, released as single at the start of 1990, that established the group in the UK while making significant inroads in the US.