There are times when one just wants a good old-fashioned melodic synthpop album…

In ‘We Need Fiction’, the debut album by duo BRITISH STEREO offers the surreal concept of Chris De Burgh fronting ALPHAVILLE with instrumental interludes by the late Vangelis.

Behind BRITISH STEREO are two cult musical figures; lead singer of the prog-rock group GRACE, Mac Austin formed WHITE DOOR during a hiatus with brother Harry and John Davies to release the more synthy ‘Windows’; it was produced by Andy Richards who would go on to work with Trevor Horn on a number of his productions including FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD. WHITE DOOR unexpectedly returned released a second album ‘The Great Awakening’ with the addition of a fourth member, Swedish musician and lifelong fan Johan Baeckström.

Meanwhile Phil Heeks has been producing retro-futurist electronica as THE BRITISH STEREO COLLECTIVE in a project that began as a series of faux TV and film theme compilations influenced by the likes of Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis as well as TANGERINE DREAM and KRAFTWERK. His work has been digitally stored by The British Library Sound Archive.

Heeks and Austin have joined forces as BRITISH STEREO for ‘We Need Fiction’, an album that has a 35 year timeline. The songs were originally recorded back in the day by Austin on a TEAC Tascam 144 4-track as demos intended for WHITE DOOR. In 2025, Heeks worked on isolating the vocals and extracting them before reconstructing the songs. Austin added additional vocals to his old vocal takes to create an interesting hybrid of now and then.

The end result presents a collection of songs, instrumentals and some impressionistic hybrids. With synth hooks galore, the very immediate ‘Mercy’ easily could have come off ALPHAVILLE’s ‘Big In Japan’ album and only Mac Austin’s progressive higher register tones in the vein of the man born Christopher John Davison give it away as not being the German combo led by Marian Gold.

Much more sedate but no less rich in synth melodics is ‘Beautiful You’ which sees Jane Bailey who sang lead vocals on THE BRITISH STEREO COLLECTIVE’s 2025 album ‘Marked to Kill’ taking on a harmonisation role alongside Austin that works a treat. She’s also takes the lead ad-libs on the elegiac interlude ‘Mausoleum’, but the mood changes swiftly with the Europop stomp of ‘People & Places’.

‘Hall of Mirrors’ is a completely new recording despite the song being rooted in WHITE DOOR’s past but it recreates the trio’s original bright widescreen sound with sharp Linn Drum rhythms and percolating soloing. The ‘We Need Fiction’ title track gets all boisterous and is reminiscent of Jean-Michel Jarre’s uptempo pieces while the melody is actually reminiscent of one of John Foxx’s lesser-known instrumentals ‘Swimmer 2’ which was the 12 inch B-side of 1981’s ‘Dancing Like A Gun’.

It segues into the balladic ‘Close Your Eyes’ which has a chorus that goes into full Schlager mode. Sung together by Austin and Jane Bailey, while this track will polarise, it would have won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1971. The album closing piano-centred variation without vocals ‘A Thousand Years’ affirms this as an international anthem and it is difficult not to imagine a flock of white doves emerging from a sporting event ceremony à la ‘Chariots Of Fire’.

What this album certainly does not lack is melody and well-delivered vocals. If you’re a fan of WHITE DOOR, ‘We Need Fiction’ does a fine job in providing an addition to the tradition. As Mac Austin himself reflected: ”I would never have imagined 35 years ago when we started this in a bedroom we would be releasing it in 2026.”

‘We Need Fiction’ is available as a CD or download from https://thebritishstereocollective.bandcamp.com/album/we-need-fiction-by-british-stereo

Clear vinyl LP edition available direct from https://fairsound.com/product/british-stereo-we-need-fiction/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
27th April 2026