Adrian Kelvin Borland (6 December 1957 – 26 April 1999) was an English singer, songwriter, guitarist and record producer, best known as the frontman of post-punk band The Sound.

[15] Borland's personal productivity was enhanced even more with two collaborations that year, one with Jello Biafra in the Witch Trials, and another with Sound bassist Graham Bailey in Second Layer, which spawned the electronic album World of Rubber.

The Sound were caught on a downcurve, however, the following year with the release of All Fall Down (1982), an experimental and bitter album that represented the band's refusal to make more commercial music to satisfy their label (Korova, a Warner Bros. subsidiary).

[27] His problems would manifest themselves in many of the songs on the Sound's final album, Thunder Up, as well as in the schizophrenic layout of the piece; while the initial tracks deal with confronting issues (for example "Acceleration Group", "Barria Alta"), the second half proceeds at an entirely different tangent, becoming either tortuous ("Shot Up And Shut Down"), frenetic ("I Give You Pain") or mournful ("You've Got A Way").

[30] While his former bandmates discontinued their musical careers, Borland moved to the Netherlands in 1988 to found yet another band, after initially going there on holiday and to meet his manager (Rob Acda).

[30] Musically, this was a period of unprecedented collaboration for Borland; for instance, he worked (albeit under the pseudonym "Joachim Pimento") with the Honolulu Mountain Daffodils right up until their final release Psychic Hit List Victim in 1991.

Some continuity was provided by former Sound bandmate Colvin 'Max' Mayers collaborating by reprising his role of keyboardist, while Nick Robbins again engineered and co-produced the album with Borland.

In an interview with Melody Maker the same year, Borland said of the title: "I think The Sound suffered from this image of being blunt and straightforward and hitting you in the face with what we wanted to say, right from "who the hell makes those missiles?"

Critical reception ranged from the noncommittal to welcoming; AllMusic described it as 'one hour of finely woven tapestry, of gorgeous music', albeit 'Not quite as good as 1989's Alexandria', handing it three stars out of five,[34] while David Cavanagh gave it four, praising the atmosphere of 'a strange, dizzy optimism' pervading the album.

On the other hand, the acoustic-based fragility of tracks such as "Happen" and "White Room" represents a more immediate turn to lighter, less ambitious music -the latter would be re-recorded to feature on the 1994 album Beautiful Ammunition.

These rock-sounding sessions, which included masterpieces like "Love=Fire" and "Under Your Black Sun" were widely bootlegged and shared among fans until compiled from a variety of sources by Jean-Paul Van Mierlo and properly mastered (by Reinier Rietveld at 2x2 Studios in Rotterdam) for release by Sounds Haarlem Likes Vinyl's "Stichting Opposite Direction" label in 2019 under the title "Lovefield", with a second batch released under the title "Neon and Stone" in 2021.

The duo also recruited Mark Wilkin (drums) and Neil Rickarby (bass) for three or four live performances in the London area and came to a sad end after a suicide attempt by Adrian during one of his slumps.

Critical reception was as muted as always, and mixed where evident; Big Takeover complained that it was 'too light and airy', but vaguely appraised the work as 'finely honed and pleasant'.

With an AllMusic.com ranking of 4 stars the album was lauded: "Generally quieter but no less intense than much of his '80s work, Cinematic lives up to its name more than once, with mysterious atmospheres matched by often understated but still sharply realized songs and lyrics.

A switch to Earth Records and a slight change of crew – Tim Smith of Cardiacs now co-produced with Borland[38] – were the only ostensible differences between the new work and Cinematic.

[38] The songs are generally punchier and more radio-friendly, such as opener "Stray Bullets", "City Speed" and "Redemption's Knees", but containing powerful, dark, indolent tracks which, at this point, Borland had made his solo trademark: "Vampiric" is arguably the best example of this in all of his discography.

The album is also representative of earlier work in that it does not fail to neglect his mental state, dealing with it in an optimistic, confrontational fashion in "Over The Under": 'Under this roof, under the sky/I want to live, at least I'm going to try/But I'm over the under now'.

"[44]Borland himself was excited by 5:00AM, and was keen to draw lines between it and his most successful period: '"5:00 A.M" takes up, where "Thunder Up" – which was the last Sound album – left off...It's still the same person, who writes the songs, only a little bit less in love with himself and more worldview orientated.".

[47] He had still been denied commercial success or widespread popularity outside of continental Europe, and he had tried to kill himself at least three times, the third (according to his mother Win Borland) when he jumped in front of a car.

Not content with merely anticipating the release of 700 Miles of Desert he expressed the intention to record a sixth solo album with Heads and Hearts producer Wally Brill, a tour of Europe that June to promote the WRT album, a further tour later in the year to promote the new solo release, and 'a 12-song acoustic record with Wally Brill using percussion, trumpet, violin, viola and atmospheric electric guitar' for 2000.

She alerted police and following a series of phone calls and hold-ups he was eventually dropped off at his mother's home at around 3.15 am by officers who described his state of mind as "lucid".

2006 saw The Amsterdam Tapes, a demo album from 1992 that was rejected by his label also remastered and rerecorded by his friends; a band of them grouped together later that year under the moniker 'The Sound of Adrian Borland' to promote it.

[57][58] His collaborative project with Graham Bailey as Second Layer was also resurrected in 2009 by Cherry Red Records; who re-released a remastered version of the 1981 album World of Rubber in the same year.

The release of the biography tied in with a special event at Poppodium Boerderij together with the Opposite Direction Foundation with a book presentation, film, concert and exhibition.

However, it is clear that he had a broader appreciation for other forms of rock parallel to this; his admiration for The Stooges and Iggy Pop was reaffirmed on several occasions[62][63] Other influences included The Velvet Underground,[64] Lou Reed,[31] Jim Morrison and Joy Division[63] and David Bowie.

Many songs simply portray general themes of urban squalor, and political lyrics such as "Cost of Living", "Music Business" and the track "Missiles", which would reach infamy when included on their debut release, Jeopardy!.

In his solo work there are more stark examples, such as "Beneath The Big Wheel" and "The Other Side of The World" on Alexandria and the quasi-religious song "Station of The Cross" on Beautiful Ammunition.

"Night Versus Day", a song that had also been part of the Propaganda sessions, is an example of Borland's fascination with dichotomy and the themes of light and dark, which were usually used as a metaphor for the polarising effects of his condition.

It is noteworthy that Borland's first solo single was "Light The Sky", the lyrics of which ae echoed in "Shadow of Your Grace": "You lit up my life and work/It was falling into place".

The theme of night and day is brought in as a central concept on the album Harmony & Destruction: the bright opener is "Solar", for instance, while "Startime" and "Heart Goes Down Like The Sun" are dark-named songs about depression.