The appropriately named
Dream Academy, an English folk-rock trio who hit it big in the early 1980s with the bucolic, Baroque pop single "Life in a Northern Town," formed in London in 1983 around the considerable talents of vocalist/guitarist
Nick Laird-Clowes, multi-instrumentalist (primarily oboe)
Kate St. John, and keyboardist
Gilbert Gabriel. Having come from similar musical backgrounds (
Clowes and
Gabriel had worked together in the '70s while
St. John had performed and recorded alongside
Nicky Holland, and
Virginia Ashley with the dream pop outfit the Ravishing Beauties, the newly minted
Dream Academy settled into their signature blend of airy Paisley Underground-inspired psych-folk and ornate, English chamber pop right out of the gate. After a two-year period spent shopping demos, the band inked a deal with Warner Bros. and began work on their debut album. Co-produced by
Pink Floyd's
David Gilmour, who was a longtime friend of
Clowes', the eponymous 1985 release yielded a trio of singles in the aforementioned "Life in a Northern Town," which was an elegy for the late English singer/songwriter
Nick Drake, "The Love Parade," and the evocative "Edge of Forever," the latter of which made a memorable appearance near the end of the 1986 John Hughes comedy Ferris Bueller's Day Off. 1987's
Hugh Padgham-co-produced
Remembrance Days, despite a handful of memorable titles like "Here," the Planes, Trains, and Automobiles-featured "Power to Believe," and the thunderous "Indian Summer," an admirable attempt at capturing the sonic grandeur of "Life in a Northern Town," failed to make much of an impact on the charts, and the band went into a period of seclusion. The trio emerged in 1991 with their third and final studio album,
A Different Kind of Weather. Co-produced once again by
David Gilmour (
Clowes would eventually return the favor by contributing lyrics to a pair of songs on
Pink Floyd's 1994 release
The Division Bell), the album received some critical acclaim due to standout cuts like the
Gilmour co-penned "Twelve-Eight Angel" and a propulsive, loop-driven cover of
John Lennon's "Love," yet bubbled far enough under the radar that the trio would officially disband the following year. ~ James Christopher Monger