A-Side: Senses Working Overtime
B-Side: Blame The Weather | Tissue Tigers

Record label: Virgin Records VS 462
Producer: Hugh Padgham
Recorded at the Manor, Oxfordshire, Autumn 1981

Released: 08/01/82
Purchased: 08/02/82

XTC | Senses Working Overtime | (Virgin) 1982 | The ultimate example of the Prof Cooper dictum that those who talk about Pop are unable to create it; you know, magical, pure, crucial and disposable POP – XTC should listen to Depeche Mode and know, then give up. (Record Mirror, 16/01/82)

Odds are that thuh noo XTC album’ll be exactly what they always deny themselves to be: twice as many hooks, ideas and chords as are necessary for success.

For a microcosm of their dilemma see this 45, a nice pseudodelic Nick Lowe-the-belt-type-opus with lyrics ’bout the world being biscuit shaped, ultimately betrayed by not being stupid enough for the chart.

If only they’d ditched several of the changes, the taped bird sounds, the . . . . (Sounds, 16/01/82)

XTC on overtime

XTC, who spent the last part of 1981 working at the Manor Studios on their fifth album with Hugh Padgham, release their first single for nine months on January 8 on Virgin.

The A-side is “Senses Working Overtime” and the 7-inch version has two tracks on the B-side, “Tissue Tigers” and “Blame The Weather,” neither of which are included on the imminent album.

The 12-inch version manages to pack another track, “Egyptian Solution (Homo Safari Series No 3)”. This turns out to be the final instalment of their last two B-sides.

The single will be housed in an “extremely elaborate, very original and designed to appeal to the senses” package, but Virgin are shy of giving away the exact details in case we laugh.

The fifth album should be released in February under the title ‘English Settlement’ and it’s expected that even XTC will have to consider promoting it with what are referred to in the trade as ‘gigs’. They promise to tell us when they’ve decided when and where. (NME, 09/01/82)