It's hard to believe that EMI shelved this album after the release of the single No Ties No Strings. If the single had charted the album would have followed very quickly, but that's the way it is with a lot of good albums. After Pilot disbanded, David continued with his session work and enjoyed the challenge and experience of working with a variety of main stream artists through the 80's and 90's. At a playback for the new Chris Rainbow album he was approached by EMI and asked to sign with them as a solo artist. Work began on No Ties No Strings in Abbey Road with Tony Clark coproducing in 1980. For the die hard Pilot fans who knew about the unreleased album The Search is a very welcome missing piece in the brilliant career of David Paton.
The majority of the songs on this CD are re-recordings of the songs from the lost 1980 EMI solo album No Ties No Strings There was no way this album was going to see the light of day so the only way of getting the songs heard was to re-record them, not an easy task as the originals were recorded in Abbey Road. However with technology as it is now the songs were reproduced fairly accurately and even enhanced with some new ideas and arrangements. The collection includes two new songs Time to Talk and Halfway There, sympathetically chosen to blend with the mood of the existing songs. The Japanese release on the Cool Sound label also has a bonus track called System.
