John Avery, a member of Sheffield electro-funk group Hula, is an English composer and sound designer for theatre. He has been a collaborator with the theatre group Forced Entertainment since a long time and many of his solo projects fed into music for their performances. John's work has been described as a juxtaposition of melody and noise and is characterised by a sense of narrative. Using dialogue, taped voiceover, soundtrack and choreographed action, Jessica in the Room of Lights explores a blurred storyline about a cinema usherette whose real life becomes mixed with films she’s absorbed at work. Moving from the suburbs to the city, Jessica’s story, a failed romance, is retold in contradictory versions as a form of incomplete memory.

The first performance by Forced Entertainment, Jessica established many of the motifs and strategies that would be present in the work for the next five years: use of taped voice rather than live speech, use of soundtrack, choreography of actions drawn from narrative and an approach to storytelling based on the collision and contradiction of fragments rather than on linear unfolding of events. Originally released in 1986 on short-lived Technical Records, this is the first ever release on CD.