The Making Of David Bowie’s “Sound And Vision”: “He encrypted everything with hidden meaning”

Originally published in Uncut Take 337 [April 2025], the key players recall the sessions at Château d’Hérouville outside Paris for Bowie’s Low album – and its hit single, “Sound And Vision”. Don’t you wonder sometimes…

A reflection of Bowie’s fragile state of mind

IN 1976, David Bowie is exhausted. Increasingly heavy drug use, the breakdown of his marriage and a split with management company MainMan lead him to flee the US and seek refuge in Europe. There, he began work on the visionary ‘Berlin’ Trilogy – Low, “Heroes” and Lodger with Tony Visconti and Brian Eno.

As it transpires, Low is a reflection of Bowie’s fragile state of mind. One of the first tracks recorded for the album at Château d’Hérouville outside Paris, “Sound And Vision” the ultimate retreat song: “I was going through dreadful times,” Bowie told Melody Maker in 1978, “wanting to be put in a little cold room with omnipotent blue on the walls and blinds on the windows.”

“Sound And Vision” is built around a simple beat laid down by the DAM rhythm section – Dennis Davis on drums, Carlos Alomar on rhythm guitar and George Murray on bass. It came out as a single a month after the album’s release, reaching No 3 in the UK. It was Bowie’s biggest hit since 1973’s “Sorrow”.

“I heard Low for the first time on the day it came out, like the fans”

But “Sound And Vision” did little to prepare listeners for the rest of the album. Even Carlos Alomar wasn’t aware of quite how revolutionary Low sounded until he got hold a copy of the album on release day. “We did this throughout the Berlin trilogy,” he says. “When it came to Side One, the side with the hits, that had to be done with the rhythm section only. Once we finished, we could go home and leave Side Two to Brian Eno. So I heard Low for the first time on the day it came out, like the fans.”

After the DAM Trio had laid down the rhythm and gone back to the US, “Sound And Vision” was completed by the LP’s other trio – Visconti, Bowie and Eno – who added Ricky Gardiner’s lead guitar. Eno and Bowie overdubbed piano and synths, and a backing vocal came from Visconti’s wife – Mary “Those Were The Days” Hopkin – who was staying at the chateau with their two children. Also present during the sessions was Iggy Pop, who joined the musicians in unwinding with a glass or two of wine and episodes of Fawlty Towers and Monty Python.

This was a long way from the coke-fuelled intensity and bizarre diet of Station To Station as Bowie entered one of the most creative parts of his career while still finding a balance between art and pop. “When it came to ‘Sound And Vision’, we had to make something for the record company,” explains Alomar. “David knew he had to give them something poppy because with the rest of the album he was really thrusting them into an area they weren’t into.”

“We had a dungeon next to the wine cellar”

LAURENT THIBAULT: David and I spent three months at the chateau recording The Idiot with Iggy. They finished that in Munich and then David came back in September to make his own record with Tony Visconti and me as engineer. The incredible thing with David is that even when he took an idea directly as you suggested it, it was transformed into a David Bowie idea and you do not recognise it. It can be the exact notes you suggested but it’s not yours any more.

CARLOS ALOMAR: The chateau was fantastic. We had a dungeon next to the wine cellar and we were eating langoustine with the eyes on. I’m from the Bronx, this was luxury.

GEORGE MURRAY: There weren’t many conveniences. The nearest village was a few miles away. They had a club, so Dennis went and sat in one night. He always found a way to sit in. Was it a clean session? It was downright sterile! There was nothing to enjoy but some beer or a glass of wine.

THIBAULT: David liked rabbit and realised that Tony didn’t want any so took perverse pleasure in asking our cook for some once a week. No-one was ill during Low, except David, who had diarrhoea due to his heavy consumption of bottled beer. I had to translate the exchange on this subject between our local doctor, who didn’t speak English, and David. It was not easy.

“It was luxurious but a trap”

ALOMAR: One thing people might not realise about David Bowie is how calculated he could be. For the Station To Station tour he invited us all to Jamaica to rehearse. Dude, I’m in Jamaica, nobody can reach me and I’ve nothing to think about but David Bowie music all day and all night. This was what he did with the chateau. He isolated us so we could only think about him and his music. It was luxurious but a trap.

THIBAULT: The studio was on the second floor just under the roof with really nice acoustics.

MURRAY: Brian Eno was there, Iggy was around. He was pretty tame and kept his shirt on. There weren’t many of us in the sessions: Laurent, the engineer who owned the studio, Tony, David, Carlos, Dennis and I, plus Brian sometimes.

THIBAULT: David said before the session that Tony would want certain things, such as having his wife sing on the record. David wanted us to discuss what he wanted beforehand so I could make suggestions to Tony during the recording. I said this was impossible, Tony wouldn’t like it, but I did it, and it was terrible. Tony didn’t want to work with me and the atmosphere became very heavy.

“David introduced us to Monty Python”

JESSICA LEE MORGAN: My dad [Tony Visconti] had known David since the 1960s but my mum [Mary Hopkin] had met him more recently. They had a Victorian terrace behind Shepherd’s Bush Empire where Tony decided to build his own studio and David brought Diamond Dogs round as he was struggling to mix it. My parents hadn’t got round to buying the furniture, so David bought a dining table, chairs and cutlery so they could have dinner.

ALOMAR: This was when David introduced us to Monty Python. He brought video tapes of Python and Fawlty Towers.

MURRAY: We watched those tapes over and over again and laughed until we cried.

MORGAN: Tony loves Monty Python. You need something to do as you spend a lot of time making an album and it can get very intense.

ALOMAR: David and Brian understood that with the advent of the computer, it would become much faster to implement electronic music, but they knew we couldn’t do that on every song. “Sound And Vision” had to be poppy and simple.

“He wanted it basic”

MURRAY: “Sound And Vision” was played to us by David on piano. He demonstrated the chord structure and basic arrangement. Everything came directly from David or David with Brian.

ALOMAR: We started a little Bo Diddley kind of thing as it wasn’t supposed to be very complicated. During that time, the DAM Trio were kind of flipping arrangements back and forth. But when it came to “Sound And Vision” he didn’t want us playing 6/8 and all that jazz stuff. He wanted it basic.

MURRAY: It was simple to the degree that I wanted to ensure it felt comfortable. I didn’t want to make a mistake. So I was very careful because I had no idea what would be going on top of it. I think we had a scratch vocal of David’s but no idea what else would come.

ALOMAR: As a trio we were always mindful that you had to simplify it but not dumb it down. Then when the chorus comes in, we understand that is the name of the song so you want people to repeat it.

“Nobody had heard anything like that before”

MURRAY: Tracking it was very easy. The chords were represented, the structure was very simple. We played it through a few times and that was pretty much it. The feel was there by the second take.

ALOMAR: We didn’t record with Brian Eno. When I do my arrangements, I don’t want to hear a piano player. He has 10 fingers and with that little pinkie he will be playing all sorts of leading tones that tell David what to sing. I hate that. My view is you need a clean palette. Just give him the nuance of what to hear, not a leading tone that dictates the melody.

MURRAY: All the first side of Low was done in this way. With Carlos, Dennis and I tracking to a guide vocal. Then Dennis and I went home, Carlos stayed for a few parts. But the overdubs and second side was all done with Brian and David.

THIBAULT: One day, while recording The Idiot, somebody came to the chateau with a new piece of equipment from Eventide. David was very interested. We decided to use it on the drums and it sounded fantastic. We later found out that it was not meant to be used for this. It was a harmoniser. But we put the drums through it and David loved it.

MURRAY: They used this on the snare drum for “Sound And Vision”. I was dumbfounded, nobody had heard anything like that before.

“He could put all the weird stuff there”

THIBAULT: The Idiot was a sort of practice for Low. A lot of ideas that David and I had on The Idiot appeared on Low, including the Eventide Harmoniser.

ALOMAR: Bowie felt that people didn’t bother flipping over to Side Two of an album. So he could put all the weird stuff there.

MURRAY: David was getting near the end of his contact with RCA. He had a couple more records to give them. He was happy to give them some more experimental stuff before he was done. I felt incredibly fortunate to be involved in those three albums. Of course, he wanted them to be successful. But I don’t know whether he thought about some songs having commercial value. I’m not sure he compartmentalised that way. It was all music to him.

MORGAN: The chateau was a lovely place and my mum went out to visit my dad. I was six weeks old and we had my brother, Morgan, who was three.

THIBAULT: Mary was pushing the baby round in a pushchair. But David was right: after a moment Tony said, “Oh, Mary must sing on ‘Sound And Vision’.” At first, she didn’t want to do it.

“We were all excited”

MORGAN: She was in the lounge and the phone rang. Brian asked her to come up and sing a backing vocal for “Sound And Vision”. He had written what mum describes as a twee little riff and they sang together into the same mic. She doesn’t remember Brian being particularly quiet. But he was obviously doing a Mary Hopkin impression as you can’t hear him.

ALOMAR: We were all excited because she wasn’t just Tony’s wife, she was Mary Hopkin.

MORGAN: When they did the playback, she thought it would be low in the mix. But David decided to whack the faders right up so her vocal is really blasting out. She is still quite embarrassed about that. My brother Morgan also contributed to Low. He sat at the piano playing ABC ABC over and over. Brian heard this, moved him aside and turned it into the opening notes of “Warszawa”.

THIBAULT: I was in the restaurant and David came with a cassette. He asked me to listen to a pre-mixed version of the album. He didn’t ask questions, he just watched and waited. When it was finished, I said it was beautiful, but when was he going to record his vocals?

“David had the ability to encrypt everything with a hidden meaning”

ALOMAR: I heard Low for the first time on the day it came out. I turned out all the lights, lit a few candles and let it engulf me with a warm embrace. That’s the first time I heard the impact of what I’d done. It’s an amazing thing to not be aware of your own contribution in its entirety until the release.

MURRAY: I had no idea how experimental Low was going to sound until it was released. The first thing that struck me was the title – why name a project Low? Then I put the album on and that’s where I first heard what he’d done after we left. He created something that sounded a lot different to when we recorded the tracks. There was a whole side without us even on it.

ALOMAR: “Sound And Vision” takes on a greater aspect when you understand that everything comes as sound and vision. David had the ability to encrypt everything he does with a hidden meaning. He was able to present sound and vision at some of the concerts and tour. He’d plant something visual and then combine it with the music. The concept of him delivering these things in both formats – sound and vision – kept going throughout his career. That is the brilliance of Bowie.

“It follows you around”

MORGAN: I play with my dad and Woody Woodmansey in the Holy Holy Best Of Bowie band. We are heading out on tour this year and I play 12-string and saxophone just like David, so no pressure.

MURRAY: Carlos and I will be performing songs from the Berlin trilogy in Europe, including “Sound And Vision”. We’ll have to update the songs and present them, not as new or improved, but contemporary. We aren’t trying to make them exactly the same as the records – we don’t have David. Or a big enough budget.

ALOMAR: I can’t represent the Spiders, I can’t do Tin Machine, but I can do this. Afterwards, I want to do the soulfulness of David Bowie with an all-black cast. If I do the DAM tour and the soul tour, I’ll have done my bit for David and myself.

MORGAN: My mum is very proud of being associated with the song. I hear it when I’m out and think, ‘Oh, that’s my parents.’ When I went to visit my dad recently at Abbey Road, we walked in the gift shop and “Sound And Vision” was playing. It follows you around.

The DAM Trilogy tour continues this week, UK dates as follows:
Mon 24 Nov – Liverpool, Philharmonic
Wed 26 Nov – Glasgow, The Old Fruitmarket, City Halls
Fri 28 Nov – London, Barbican
Sat 29 Nov – Bristol, Beacon Hall