Penthouse and Pavement

Penthouse and Pavement is the debut album by the English synthpop group Heaven 17, released in 1981. "(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang" was released as a single, but did not achieve chart success partly due to a ban by the BBC. The album sold reasonably well, but was not a commercial success on release. It has since been regarded as "an important outing", is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, and was re-released in 2010 in a 3-disc special edition. The title-track was included on the soundtrack of the 1993 film Sliver.

Reception

Whilst the singles charted poorly, the album charted at No. 14 and remained in the Top 100 for 77 weeks. It was certified gold (100,000 copies sold) by the BPI in October 1982.

Dan LeRoy in a retrospective review for AllMusic felt that the album combined electropop with good melodies, and that Glenn Gregory was able to handle the "overtly left-wing political" lyrics without sounding "pretentious".

The album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Heaven 17

Heaven 17 are an English new wave synthpop band originating from Sheffield in the early 1980s. The band were a trio for most of their career, comprising Martyn Ware (keyboards), Ian Craig Marsh (keyboards) (both previously with The Human League) and Glenn Gregory (vocals). Although most of the band's music was recorded in the 1980s, they have occasionally reformed to record and perform, playing their first ever live concerts in 1997. Marsh left the band in 2007 and Ware and Gregory continued to perform as Heaven 17.

History

1980s

Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware were the founding members of pioneering British electro-pop group The Human League; Glenn Gregory had been their original choice when seeking a vocalist for the band but he was unavailable at the time, so they chose Philip Oakey instead. When personal and creative tensions within the group reached a breaking point in late 1980, Marsh and Ware left the band, ceding the Human League name to Oakey. Taking their new name from a fictional pop group mentioned in Anthony Burgess's novel, A Clockwork Orange (where The Heaven Seventeen are at number 4 in the charts with "Inside"), they became Heaven 17 and formed the production company British Electric Foundation (BEF).

Heaven

Heaven, the heavens or seven heavens, is a common religious, cosmological, or transcendent place where heavenly beings such as gods, angels, jinn, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or to live. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to earth or incarnate, and earthly beings can ascend to Heaven in the afterlife, or in exceptional cases enter Heaven alive.

Heaven is often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, a Paradise, in contrast to Hell or the Underworld or the "low places", and universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith, or other virtues or right beliefs or simply the will of God. Some believe in the possibility of a Heaven on Earth in a World to Come.

Another belief is in an axis mundi or world tree which connects the heavens, the terrestrial world, and the underworld. In Indian religions, Heaven is considered as Svarga loka, and the soul is again subjected to rebirth in different living forms according to its karma. This cycle can be broken after a soul achieves Moksha or Nirvana. Any place of existence, either of humans, souls or deities, outside the tangible world (Heaven, Hell, or other) is referred to as otherworld.

Hebden Bridge

Coordinates: 53°44′31″N 2°00′32″W / 53.742°N 2.009°W / 53.742; -2.009

Hebden Bridge is a market town which forms part of Hebden Royd in West Yorkshire, England. It is in the Upper Calder Valley, 8 miles (13 km) west of Halifax and 14 miles (21 km) north-east of Rochdale, at the confluence of the River Calder and the Hebden Water.

In 2004, the Calder Valley ward, covering Hebden Bridge, Old Town, and part of Todmorden, had a population of 11,549; the town itself has a population of approximately 4,500.

History

The original settlement was the hilltop village of Heptonstall. Hebden Bridge (Heptenbryge) started as a settlement where the Halifax to Burnley packhorse route dropped into the valley and crossed the River Hebden where the old bridge (from which it gets its name) stands. The name Hebden comes from the Anglo-Saxon Heopa Denu, 'Bramble (or possibly Wild Rose) Valley'.

Steep hills with fast-flowing streams and access to major wool markets meant that Hebden Bridge was ideal for water-powered weaving mills and the town developed during the 19th and 20th centuries; at one time Hebden was known as "Trouser Town" because of the large amount of clothing manufacturing. Drainage of the marshland, which covered much of the Upper Calder Valley before the Industrial Revolution, enabled construction of the road which runs through the valley. Before it was built, travel was only possible via the ancient packhorse route which ran along the hilltop, dropping into the valleys wherever necessary. The wool trade was served the Rochdale Canal (running from Sowerby Bridge to Manchester) and the Manchester and Leeds Railway (later the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway) (running from Leeds to Manchester and Burnley).

Martyn Ware

Martyn Ware (born 19 May 1956) is a British musician and music producer. As a founder member of both The Human League and Heaven 17, he was partly responsible for hit records such as "Being Boiled" and "Temptation". He has also worked as a record producer, notably helping to revitalise Tina Turner's career in 1983 with "Let's Stay Together", kick starting Terence Trent D'Arby's career by co-producing his solo debut, Introducing the Hardline According to... in 1987 and producing Erasure's I Say I Say I Say album in 1994.

More recently, he has collaborated with Vince Clarke (as The Clarke & Ware Experiment) on two music projects; the Pretentious album (1999), and Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle (2001). He has also contributed programmes to internet radio stations.

He is a Visiting Professor at Queen Mary College, University of London, a member of BAFTA, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a founder of 5D – the future of immersive design. He has also received an Honorary Doctorate in Science from University of London.