Paul Haig - Right On Line

Right On Line

Unperturbed by Chain's modest commercial showing, Circa financed the recording of a new album, produced in New York by dance gurus Curtis Mantronik and Lil Louis, and also by The Chimes, whose drummer James Locke had been a periodic Haig collaborator since 1981. The expansive, sensurround album marked a timely return to the dance orientation of Rhythm of Life five years earlier, as suggested by its title, Right on Line. As Haig explained to Melody Maker:

This is essentially a dance album, but it has a lot of different elements in there that you don't normally hear on dance albums. There's a lot of hooks and pop influences, but no rock influences - thank God! The whole idea was to work with different producers and let them get on with it, which was a departure since I'd produced myself for so long. We recorded the stuff with Mantronik at his Sound Factory studio. He works very quickly, rattling stuff off in a couple of hours. He replaced all my beats with a combination of programming and breakbeats, mostly '70s funk stuff. Lil Louis took a completely different approach. He replaced the rhythm tracks on two of the songs and one we left as was He works with much more basic equipment - he's not as computerised as Mantronik. There was absolutely no sampling with Lil Louis, he's much more into the real musician school of thing.

However, after the Chimes-produced single "I Believe in You" failed to build on a measure of club success, and some excellent press, Circa delayed releasing the album until a reworked "Flight X" (featuring rapper The Voice Of Reason) broke. When two versions of this track stalled early in 1991 the album was shelved.