Positive Noise were a New Wave

New Wave music

New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...

 and Synthpop

Synthpop

Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...

 band from Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 who had a number of indie hits in the 1980s. They released three albums and several singles and were together for over five years.

History

The band was formed in 1979 by Ross Middleton (vocals), his brothers Graham Middleton (keyboards, vocals) and Fraser Middleton (bass guitar, vocals), Russell Blackstock (guitar, vocals), and Les Gaff (drums). Their first released material was two tracks ("Refugees" and "The Long March") on the Statik label compilation album Second City Statik in 1980, and they followed this with two singles on Statik in 1981, both of which were top-ten hits on the UK Independent Chart. Début album Heart of Darkness was released in May 1981, after which Ross left to form the short-lived Leisure Process

Leisure Process

Leisure Process was a British New Wave duo formed in the early 1980s. They consisted of Ross Middleton, previously of post-punk Glasgow band Positive Noise, and session sax player Gary Barnacle. Four singles were released before their split...

, with Blackstock taking over on lead vocals. Heart of Darkness peaked at number four on the independent chart, and the band's second album, Change of Heart (1982), also charted, reaching number 21. They released a third and final album, Distant Fires, in 1985, now with John Telford on drums and John Coletta on guitar, but their earlier success was not repeated and they split up shortly afterwards.

Ross Middleton went on to work as a music journalist, writing for Sounds

Sounds (magazine)

Sounds was a long-term British music paper, published weekly from 10 October 1970 – 6 April 1991. It was produced by Spotlight Publications , which was set up by Jack Hutton and Peter Wilkinson, who left "Melody Maker" to start their own company...

under the pen name Maxwell Park.

Albums

• Heart of Darkness (1981) - came with a bonus 7-inch single: "Love Like Property"
• Change of Heart (1982)
• Distant Fires (1985)

Singles

• "Give Me Passion" (1981)
• "Charm" (1981)
• "Positive Negative (1981)
• "Waiting for the Seventh Man" (1982)
• "Get Up And Go" (1982)
• "When the Lightning Strikes" (1983)
• "A Million Miles Away (1984)
• "Distant Fires" (1985)