But beneath the surface lies a lingering oddness which doesn't go away when the record finishes. Something haunts the ether and one feels compelled to return to the curious sleeve (depicting a bunny, a teddy and a froggy – it's been filed under ‘Childrens Listening' in some stores) to withdraw the disc and begin to examine the mystery.

'Wish Thing' is the result of three years of labour by Grant Gilbert, Laurie Mayer and William Orbit. Aided by the money of Miles Copeland and assorted bank loans, their set up includes themselves, production, management and design companies all under one roof and a 24 track studio under another (the grange) roof.

William: "There's a type of music around now where everything leaps out at you and it's intended that way. In our music you have to go looking for some of the things. Some records can be fully assessed after the second play with nothing left to discover. We hope our music will have something left to discover in the sixth or sixtieth listening."

Grant: "The music is textural. The textures of the background music are as important as the main melody. We're not giving the front more status than the back as most records do. After about three hearings people begin to adjust their perspective. The problem we have is that some people might not feel motivated to listen to it more than once. People can't automatically adjust their perspective."

Laurie: “When we made the music, all three of us were hearing different things in it. Now other people are hearing different things from any of us."

Grant: I think it's good that it's ambiguous. We're not trying to reproduce a genre of music that already exists. For us it is a very spontaneous thing to do with our relationship with each other and the studio. For these reasons we feel we're developing a form of music which is unique."

Interestingly, the roles of the three are quite defined and appropriate to their talents. Grant, although as immersed as the others in the creation, didn't actually play on the LP. William handled the bulk of the instruments while Laurie used her voice and fingered some keyboards.

William: "If a group has a certain line up you can more or less tell how they're going to sound. Our line up is a studio full of instruments. We're much more concerned with the actual sound coming out of the speakers than with getting our parts right."

While the album has the qualities described above, the tracks re mixed for release as twelve inch singles are punchier, more intensely beaty affairs.

Grant: "The perspective changed. The album as an overall entity is very successful. It creates an atmosphere which is consistent throughout. The re mixes are specifically designed as one off commercial releases. We're aiming at the club market and there's a certain formula which, to a degree, we assimilate into what we're doing in order to make that market responsive to what we're doing. The club audience is one that we're really interested in turning on to our music. We feel they'll be more responsive than a rock-oriented market."

So the end product is tailored to a specific market?

Grant: “With the twelve inchers yes but not the album. We feel we have to interest the world in our music and that this particular area will be responsive initially The record company would normally be responsible for developing these ideas. The record company that we go through I don't think really know how to deal with us. We're not interested in seven-inch singles and that's a real problem for them. We're not conventional in any way. Their attitude is 'if you haven't got a hit single there's no point in marketing you'. As far as we're concerned that's not valid but it's what we're up against.

"The essence of what we're doing is spontaneity and we're not making product that we know will sell, we're not analysing the market. We're not drawing on anything else specifically and trying to emulate it. All the peripheral things like the production company are just things we have to do to consolidate our position."

Laurie: "I think the thing behind what we're doing is that we're very motivated by making a sound that's something we've not done or heard before and that when other people listen, maybe it'll touch them in a way that they're not use to.”

There is something strikingly modern (although that word isn't worn as badge – or one of those table-cloth sized T shirts) and functional about Torch Song. An almost ideological alertness to the requirements of the present an the distractions of the past. As a notorious gangster once said: 'I like that, turn it up!'