We could only be so lucky to age as well as EG and Alice’s 24 Years Of Hunger has. Now, it seems, I have to be the next one carrying the torch forward to promote this forgotten Pop masterpiece. In 1991, it was an unlikely blip on England’s music radar, appearing in a bright flash, only to disappear from memory just as quick. Much like The Blue Nile’s early work or that of Sade, and the nocturnal sounds of other Sophisticated Pop lesser knowns like Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, or the post-Steve McQueen stylings of Prefab Sprout, the male/female duo of EG White and Alice Temple seemed out of time, being one of the first, in their generation to be inspired by those Pop lesser knowns.
24 Years Of Hunger, appears to be conceived from a rejection of sort. EG White (real name Frank White), just years prior, had actually tasted fame, as a founding member of brief lash in the pan boy group, Brother Beyond. With Brother Beyond, EG had found compatriots who shared a love of that first generation breed of sophisticated pop artists but left themselves open enough to explore the funky pop generating from the other side of the pond. There, as bass player and keyboardist, with brother David, they’d help compose some of the most tasteful slices of British Pop since lord knows when. The combination of boyish, meathead, good looks by frontman Nathan Moore and surprisingly challenging/seasoned songwriting shops by the rest, opened up the world to what could have been the next “Beatlemania”-like Pop craze, if not at least the British answer to A-ha. Both shared a simmering way of blending complex ideas with seemingly mundane Pop music.
Somehow, as things often go, an offer to have the Pop maestros of Stock, Aitken & Waterman help out in songwriting duties portended to a bad sign the brothers (or at least EG) saw being heralded. Rather than stick around for decidedly, far more commercialized sophomore release, they both struck out on their own, exiling themselves from that bit of burgeoning fame.
EG used some of the monies earned from this Pop career to build a small personal recording studio to sketch out ideas he had to lay by the side. Enamored then by the music of Curtis Mayfield, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, John Coltrane, and John Lennon, EG put some tracks to tape but felt something was missing. Some of the songs benefitted from his subdued phrasing but others seemed like they needed a different energy.
One day, EG, somehow caught wind of Alice Temple. Alice Temple (name inspired by Serge Gainsbourg’s “Daisy Temple”) had already brushed fame’s wind/whim, herself. She began so by earning it as Britain’s first female BMX champion, and later their European champ, only to be discovered by noted fashion photog Mario Testino, and parlaying her distinct visage into a career modeling in fashion mags, on the runway and in music videos. Other stints as DJ and deep sea diver, clue you in that she wasn’t your typical artist. Known to be a partier, one day EG caught his childhood friend Alice on stage singing along to some song and was floored by what he heard. Instantly, they exchanged contacts, and he found the yin to her yang.
Rather than run around to a record company, they resolved to do things differently. Working mostly in EG’s Nottingham Hill kitchen studio, they would purposefully keep the music minimal. Sometimes, misunderstood as too polished, 24 Years Of Hunger purposefully sounds the way it does, because they lacked the constraints a record company would have imposed on them. They wanted to sound — pretentious as it sounds — as complex and personal as they needed to be and to focus intently on the music, and not their image. With that time, EG and Alice chose to sprawl out, creating songs in myriad styles (jazzy, in many ways) they had been inspired by. EG and Alice, in breathless press releases, would stress how they were attempting to avoid the expected roles Pop musicians had to play. They had no intention of releasing a video for any of their songs, lend them either to be remixed, and promote it on TV.
If you remember the early ‘90s, you can remember how totally it was adverse to any sort of tasteful Pop music. Unless your name is Janet Jackson, songs like “I Wanna Sex You Up”, “Baby Baby”, and “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” speak to a generation that loved the act of it, but couldn’t quite match the music to the necessary atmosphere. Now, to find brethren closer to what EG and Alice were treading it we’d have to journey to the music of Keith Sweat, with hits like “I’ll Give All My Love to You” or Janet’s own Rhythm Nation to find that Venn Diagram of grown folks love songs and finish with compatriots like Everything But The Girl (who knew how to ride radio’s notoriously fickle waves).
And that’s what 24 Years Of Hunger is. 11 songs that speak of heartbreak or of heartache, in the hazy way it fluctuates through that feeling of love we all understand. “Indian” was released as a single. Alice’s breathy vocals capturing that quicksilver like tone Joni would intone when she’d go on those cross-country journeys (of the heart and mind), all in the span of 4 minutes. EG perfectly accompanies Alice, in this special conversation that is all things fraternal, personal, and intersectional. While songs could crouch themselves in the interactions of simple male/female relationships, EG and Alice keep things non-binary and strike a tone that’s refreshingly focused on the nature of all sorts of human relationships.
Many songs should have or could have been hits: “So High, So Low” once again finds an unique intersection between the jazz-pop of Joni with its descendents in the likes of Sade and Prefab Sprout, through the offshoots like Talk Talk, Womack & Womack, and The Blue Nile. Where gentle, sultry jazz touches, mix new school minimal R&B of a different type. “Rockets” a minor deviation from that stew, lets EG take the central role, creating adult contemporary that hints at some of the brilliant work done by The Blue Nile, pre-losing his mind Terence Trent D’Arby, or the “musical”, languid side of Godley & Creme, stretching out the melody until it’s a modal print of its essence. Once, again all done in the span of commercial single.
Long out of print, in the vaults of WEA Records, it’s one of those albums that sounds more of our time than its. With that in mind, it’s not like EG is hurting for notoriety. Nowadays, behind the scenes, EG is a prolific songwriter-for-hire who’s written countless hits for others like Sam Smith, Mary J. Blige, and Florence and the Machine (to name a precious few!) while Alice has contributed to groups like UNKLE, gone back to modeling, and worked with EG once more on her debut solo album. Now, she’s found time to release a sophomore solo album, what 20 years later? Unsurprisingly, the lack of promotion let a elegant masterful work of Pop languish in the forgotten bin of history. Hopefully, it won’t take longer than another 24 years for others to rediscover this piece.
“Harbouring ambition on a villainous scale, EG wishes to make music that is truly “transcendental”, while Alice quashes all illusions of boring-studenty-angst-worthiness with her goal to reinstate that great old British tradition of “Brilliant pop stars… since punk all we’ve really had is Boy George, all the good ones live in America. I mean look at George Michael, he’s not a pop star, he’s a businessman.”
And so, there we have EG and Alice. The first truly interesting pop proposition of the ’90s, a mass of contradictions, a music that speaks for itself in a language that might just need interpretation.”
– From Press Release to 24 Years Of Hunger