E'voke

E'voke were a female vocal duo from the mid 1990's who had several club hits in the UK. The two members - Marlaine Gordon and Kerry Potter - both went to the Sylvia Young stage school and upon graduating went on to star in the BBC sitcom "Us girls". Marlaine also went on to star in Eastenders between 1994 and 1995 as Lydia. In 1994, they released their first single on the FFRR label, a dance cover version of Stevie Wonder's "I Believe" (backed with a track called "It's my life"). Although it was not a commercial hit (only reaching number 79 in the charts), it did fairly well in the clubs. The track was produced by Barry Leng and Duncan Hannant who went on to write E'voke's original hits. In late 1995, they released the track "Runaway" on Ffrreedom/FFRR Records which reached number 30 in November. The lead remix of the track was very similar in sound to N-Trance's "Set you free" that had been a massive hit earlier in the year. In 1996, E'voke scored their biggest commercial and club hit with "Arms of Loren". Two mixes, vastly different in sound were created. The Steinway mix, which is still played today in clubs, being the more commercial and the Nip n Tuck mix being the main radio edit. Once again, the song was released on a different record label- Manifesto Records. The song was widely played in clubs and the radio and was touted to become a major hit upon it's release, but only reached number 25 in August 1996. All was quiet until early 1998 when a new E'voke record was promoted (this time on Pulse8 Records), a dance cover of John Waite's "Missing you". However, due to the closing of Pulse8 Records, the song was delayed, and was picked up by yet another record label- Eternal Records/WEA. However, there proved further delays and despite a "Christmas Version" being commissioned, the track was not released until early 1999. The track was not a hit, missing the Top 100 altogether and E'voke split up. In 2001, the head of Inferno Records, who had always believed that "Arms of Loren" had never reached its potential, played the track down the phone to DJ Ferry Corsten. Corsten liked the track so much that he created his own remix to the track, basing it on the Nip N Tuck mix from the 1996 release. The remix was picked up by Inferno Records (being the sixth record label E'voke were signed to) and scheduled for release in early 2002. There was a lot of excitement regarding the re-release which had proved to be a big success in clubs. A promo video was shot (which did not feature Marlaine nor Kerry) and there was even talk of the girls reuniting to promote the track, although this never happened . However despite all the hype, the track failed to set the charts alight, charting at number 31 in January 2002 - six places lower than the original version. Since then, Kerry has appeared in bit parts in Casualty and the League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse. There are no listed TV appearances for Marlaine since E'voke disbanded. In 2006, All Around The World records commissioned new remixes of Arms Of Loren (including remixes by Dancing DJ's, Love To Infinity and Kenny Hayes) but these were unreleased. In 2011 the E'voke back catalogue was released digitally by Demon and in 2012, Pinball Records licenced new remixes of both Arms of Loren and Runaway, stating that in 2013 two brand new E'voke singles would be released ahead of an E'voke album.