Since then three new titles have appeared as singles (usually with three or four additional cuts on the rear side of the 12" versions) recorded at their own eight-track set up with various cohorts and acquaintances.

Live shows have been infrequent and have mostly featured Adam Williams mixing the sound from on stage and Tim Wheater – the enfant terrible of the classical flute world. These appearances were often lacking in spontaneity due to the precise dictates of the pre-recorded drum tracks.

Recently Dave and Annie have been treading the boards with Robert Crash (an intercontinental commuter who has a studio in Berlin and connections with cable TV in New York) who adds his own special brand of percussion. His flailing sticks are even used to strike a synth and thus produce notes instead of beats.

The currently 'bubbling under' single release is 'Love Is A Stranger'. For most of the general public this is the first taste of Eurythmics and its relative success is a result of ears succumbing to the merits of the disc itself rather than minds being swayed by the 'ex-Tourists' slag-tag that has stood in the way of acceptance in the fad-happy rock media.

That very obstacle itself is a symptom of the 'rock and roll circuit' which Dave and Annie are somehow competing with yet not allowing themselves to become a part of.

'Love Is A Stranger' is certainly the most simple single you've done. The bass and drum rhythm runs steadily and most of the emphasis seems to have been placed on the performance and mixing of the voice.

It varies from one part of the song to another, actually heightening the impact of the lyrical content rather than just making a nice 'pop vocal' sound.

Annie: "We did decide for 'Love Is A Stranger' that everything in it would be very clear. All that is there is seen to be there and nothing is hidden in a big mush of sound."

Dave: "Using our own eight track we hear a song millions of times and the melody in it is always apparent to us. We realised it might not be so obvious for people hearing the song for the first time."

The actual substance of the songs on your past singles was perhaps intruded upon by so many different things happening in the mix. The clarity that 'Love Is A Stranger' has makes it ideal for radio plays.

Annie: "The best test of what makes a good single is always what it sounds like when it comes on the air over little transistor radio speakers. When I heard 'Belinda' (an early single culled from the first album) on the radio I just knew it wasn't a good choice as a single. There was nothing wrong with the music or the song but it was the way it was mixed and produced and presented. Nothing happened when it came on. Only in that context can I be objective about what should be a single.

"We keep putting out records according to our idea of commerciality yet we get reports back saying that DJ's found it weird, or what we thought of as weird they found commercial. We haven't got the commercial thermometer well gauged, we just work on what we like best as appreciators of music."

Dave: "I'm totally confused as to what commerciality is but if I go out to a club and hear a record which is in the top ten I can immediately see why it is n the top ten."

How does having your own studio aid or hinder song composition?

Annie: "It's a baffling process, songwriting, it still bewilders me (the pair hadn't been writing seriously until Eurythmics began). Some of the things we've done have been like jigsaws that get pieced together over about three months. Other things happen quicker."

The Eurythmics' base of recording operations has recently been shifted from above a factory in Chalk Farm to a disused church in Crouch End. Dave and Annie have leased a part of the strange premises from a couple of manic animators who both live and have their animation studio (full of ancient but constantly-used equipment) in the building.

Annie: "There is a different kind of creativity going on there and it is very refreshing not to be constantly reminded of the rock and roll circuit. Those two guys are much older than us yet they have more enthusiasm than people of our age."

Dave: "Not only are they doing their animations during the day but they're actually building our studio for us at night. They have incredible stamina."

Annie: "One of them has been in the entertainment industry since he was a child but has always moved on from one thing to another, keeping up with what was vital at the time like the change from music hall to television. They've not been deadened by making their living at it for so long either."

Dave: "That's because they've always had their own place and not given in to the BBC and become institutionalised."

Annie: "People in institutional jobs always seek what is safe and comfortable within the system. They never stretch themselves."

The photos that you have on the record sleeves propagate a variety of images. There's Annie in her wigs and shades and Dave in his World War One fighter ace goggles and hand up a French horn.

Dave: "We're totally into many different kinds of influence. Rather than simply be a conglomeration of influences – a hybrid mishmash like most bands are – we go by how we feel for one particular record and we don't have a constant thing."

Annie: "When you have the opportunity to present something through visual images it can be quite interesting to interpret one song in a certain way and another song in a different way. We have a lot of ideas and visuals are a good way of getting them across.

"All our record covers are different but there is a kind of continuity there as well. If you lay out the picture bags there are a set of visual images running like A to B to C. When a particular idea is finished we burn it and go on to something else."

Dave: "It stops us getting bored. Having been in groups before we've got past the thing of playing the same songs live every night and always making the same kind of sounds. Someone like Dave Edmunds always has the same sound, he obviously loves it and does it very well but I would just get bored if I had to make 'Love Is A Stranger' a thousand times."

There is no 'progression' in the usual rockspeak musical sense from single to single. There are familiar elements such as Annie's voice but generally a person never knows what to expect from a Eurythmics record.

Dave: "At the beginning of Eurythmics I did say to RCA that we wanted to be successful in a way that people wouldn't know what the next record was going to be. It's a bit like Bowie, nobody ever has a clue what he's going to do next, it can be the Baal thing or a duet with Bing. It's that kind of freedom – not being stuck to making a sound like the last one."

Annie: "God! I really hate that. 'Find a style that's selling' – that's what the music business is based on but you can never say what a hit record is going to be. When a group does get a hit the pressure is on for them to continue that. That's very freakish. We want to get across the river but we want to jump from stone to stone so it can be changeable but with us always in control."

Dave: "It's more inspiring for us. I'd imagine we're in the position now where we could, if we wanted, release an album of me playing 12-string acoustic guitar with Annie singing over the top and it would still be accepted as a Eurythmics record."

"We're a bit like kids who haven't forgotten the feeling of opening the paint box for the first time and having the colours to splash about.

"I like messing around with other peoples' songs as a kind of light relief otherwise you get too obsessed with yourself and what you're doing. We used to be freaked-out by the thought of doing other peoples' songs after what happened with 'I Only Want To Be With You' but recently we've been playing a few things live.

"There is a Francoise Hardy song, a kind of Parisian café music that we've done and also 'Can't Hurry Love'. We were rehearsing it when we heard the Phil Collins version on the radio. With our version nobody recognises it until Annie starts singing the words."

Annie: "We take a song and explode it rather than just doing a replica like a cabaret band would. Often other people's lyrics are great, they have the cheek to use the clichés that you would chuck out at once."

Dave: "You can change the clichés though, like a collage where you cut out pieces of paper and stick them back where you want them to go."

Can You explain the ideas behind the 'Love is A Stranger' video?

Annie: "The video is basically a little cameo story. I would say 'Love Is A Stranger' is a song about love objects. The concept of love in relationships is very often a person projecting what they want onto another person.

"We are all in love with the idea of love but what we want is not always good for us. We might get obsessed with something very dangerous. I wanted to put these ideas into a pop song.

"In the video, a very expensive looking limousine draws up outside a house and very pricey-looking whore leaves the house, gets into the car and is driven away by the chauffeur. Obviously a whore is a very expensive love object for sale. In the car she pulls off the wig to reveal another personality. She arrives at another house as though she's delivering something, like a dealer.

"The person in the house is very sadistic, there's lots of leather around and strange things in the bathroom. When the person leaves that house and gets into the car, the person has become a man. The man turns into a dummy which you see is being manipulated by the driver of the car. That's the idea behind it."

"A very simple idea," sniggers Dave. "To me it's like a contemporary love song. I don't mean written with contemporary music but the lyrics are how things are at the moment unlike, say, the love songs of the 50's. A lot of people nowadays want to be single and separate. The song is a comment on that."

Annie: "The song is about somebody who is obsessed with something which is also a destructive thing. Like the love between an addict and heroin. If we could, we would have had hypodermic syringes laying around in the video."

Dave: "The whole of the new album has that bitter/sweet thing about it. I think that is the way things are in life at the moment. People in their subconscious are dealing with horrific things like nuclear war yet still carrying on doing everyday things. There is this huge switch going on all the time between massive paranoia and getting drunk at a party. That's what 1982 feels like to me and I suppose that is reflected in the music."