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Click on the song titles above for lyrics and songwriting credits
On 27th November as part of Record Store Day Black Friday, Time Traveler Recordings releases the x2 LP set Eye Communication, Live At The Wax Museum, an exceptionally rare live recording from Marianne’s 1983 tour of Canada and America. This 10-track concert captures a powerful performance at the height of her early-’80s resurgence following the release of her acclaimed multi-platinum, Grammy-nominated album Broken English, follow-up LP Dangerous Acquaintances (1981) and the recently released A Child’s Adventure (1983).
For most Canadian and American fans, Marianne’s 1983 tour, (which she playfully described as ‘crisis cabaret’) was their first opportunity to see her perform. Marianne and her band stopped off in Washington D.C. on October 2nd 1983, at the popular but short-lived nightspot The Wax Museum, a 1000 capacity nightclub featuring state-of-the-art sound, lights, video and recording facilities. This concert was captured on the live video relay broadcast in the venue during the concert. On the tour, audiences and critics alike responded enthusiastically to her emotional honesty- Marianne’s music took listeners into a darkness that was not only hers but also that of anyone who had ever been repressed, silenced or ignored. At an earlier concert on the tour, the LA Times picked up on this in their concert review, noting that “the audience’s cheers seemed to respond to something more than simply the show at hand.” And that “without histrionics”, she appeared to be “living rather than just delivering the songs”. and this is very much the experience fans will get listening to the Wax Museum performance today.
The set list for Eye Communication, Live at The Wax Museum offers a good cross section from Marianne’s last three albums. Highlights include two tracks from her recently released album A Child’s Adventure, the first ‘Times Square’ captures the “loneliness and emptiness and… absolute repressed fury” of addiction. Marianne’s intense performance shows why it remains one of her most powerful ballads. The second ‘Falling From Grace’ came out of the Redlands drug bust and subsequent court case and “everything that had happened to me. It’s a song of shame about it – it was a terrible experience”. Originally released on Broken English, Marianne’s cover of John Lennon’s ‘Working Class Hero’ was considered a surprising choice at the time but the intensity of the recording obliterates any reservations, and the performance she gives at the Wax Museum is filled with the same scornful conviction. The concert features one previously unreleased song: ‘Rising’, a co-write with bass player Fernando Saunders about “the darkness in all of us, and the light at the end of the tunnel,” that allows Marianne to experiment with a different sound, and a different voice. The recording ends with ‘Broken English’, a song as relevant today as when it was first released. An anti-establishment anthem of defiance, geo-political tension and societal disillusionment, it has a way of shapeshifting to reflect whatever global crisis we are currently in the grip of. This live version is defined by Fernando’s driving bass line, Godfrey Wang’s atmospheric synths and Marianne’s passionate cry of ‘What are we fighting for?’
The Wax Museum concert features an incredible band of top-notch musicians. On bass was Fernando Saunders who developed a long professional association with Marianne, playing on various albums of hers between 1983 and 2005. He is joined by Joe Mavety on lead guitar, who was part of Marianne’s touring band in 1978 and who played at early gigs for Broken English, and Godfrey Wang who played keyboards and synthesizer on the 1982 European leg of the tour. They were joined by new band members, Carol Steele who played percussion and J.T. Lewis on drums – he would later play on Marianne’s 1987 album Strange Weather.
This officially sanctioned release is produced by Time Traveler Recordings in conjunction with Andrew Batt, Creative Director of the Marianne Faithfull Estate. Andrew, also known for his Grammy nominated work on Bobbie Gentry undertook the audio restoration and mastering on the recording and contributes in-depth sleeve notes featuring interviews with Marianne’s band members, Richard Harrington of the Washington Post and Marianne’s son Nicholas Dunbar, owner of the Marianne Faithfull estate. A true collector’s item, the limited-edition 180-gram 2-LP set includes an insert with the liner notes and previously unseen photographs and rare ephemera and on side D an etching in Marianne’s handwriting of an excerpt from William Blake’s poem ‘The Tyger’ which she recites in ‘Eye Communication’.
Released in time to mark what would have been Marianne’s 80th birthday on December 29th 2026, Eye Communication, Live At The Wax Museum will also be released on CD and digital on 4th December 2026.
