Author: Paul Sinclair

Limited to 1000 copies • Cult classic album • Now expanded and reissued by SDE Records • Available to pre-order exclusively from the SDE shop

In 1991 duo Eg and Alice released 24 Years of Hunger, their only album, on Warner Music (WEA). The album was very well received critically at the time (Q Magazine gave it four stars, praising its “curiously unforgettable songs” and later saying it had “the class of Steely Dan and the intriguing detachment of the Blue Nile”) but sadly it came and went in the blink of an eye. Its two singles made little impact commercially after which Alice Temple left. It was over.

Eg stayed with the label and issued a solo album in 1996, but later pursued a very successful career as a songwriter and producer, crafting songs for others including Will Young’s UK No 1 ‘Leave Right Now’. White also co-wrote and produced James Morrison’s top 5 hit ‘You Give Me Something’, Adele’s ‘Chasing Pavements’, and many others. To date, he’s won three Ivor Novello Awards and has a few Grammy nominations for his songwriting.

Back to the early 1990s, and in Alice’s words “Eg and I were both completely obsessed at the time with Prince, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan and Curtis Mayfield” and those artists very much influence 24 Years of Hunger an album which also has hints of Prefab Sprout, Talk Talk and a dash of The Blue Nile (as Q pointed out).

The first single was ‘Indian‘ (there was no video) which you can hear above and the sparse funk of ‘Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me’ followed after the album’s release. The opening track ‘Rockets‘ is a wonderful example of the sophistication of 24 Years of Hunger and the album, remarkably, was mostly recorded in Eg’s kitchen in Notting Hill on two Fostex E16 analogue 16-track tape recorders.

Alice: “The studio took over the kitchen completely in the end, because of this proper old school analogue set-up. It got bigger and bigger, and there were wires everywhere. Eg put it all together and had his soldering iron out”.

Eg: “I got in deep shit from the neighbour underneath. It was a hot summer, and we just played with the windows open! So, we were getting in trouble… including from the Police”.

24 Years of Hunger has been out-of-print for well over three decades and has never been reissued, anywhere. SDE Records, the recently formed label from SDE, is proud to have chosen Eg and Alice’s only long-player as its first release on CD, issued with the full co-operation and involvement of Eg White and Alice Temple.

The reissue is a 2CD deluxe edition, which features the full 11-track version of 24 Years of Hunger – the original 1991 master, at Eg’s request – on CD 1 and a fantastic bonus CD of mostly unreleased songs and demos (newly mastered) from Eg and Alice’s personal archive.

As well as demos of key album tracks such as ‘Rockets’, ‘New Year’s Eve’ and ‘Indian’ this second disc features eight unreleased songs written and recorded in demo form – to a high level of sophistication, the word ‘demo’ doesn’t do them justice – by Eg and Alice in the years leading up to the release of 24 Years of Hunger. Amongst them is ‘Highway’, the very first song the pair recorded together; a demo that has remained unheard for over 35 years. In fact, the bonus CD offers two quite different versions of ‘Highway’ as Eg and Alice sought to develop the song. Demo 1 of ‘Highway’ can be heard below as a taster of the bonus CD which is almost like an alternate version of the album with all the new songs.

This album reissue has been a decade in the making. A check of my emails, confirms that I approached both Eg and Alice back in 2016 and I interviewed them individually, at length, in 2019, when I had no idea if we could actually make this happen. Those conversations have been edited into the ‘in their own words’ feature where the duo talk you through the album track-by-track and discuss the recording, release and promotion of the album; over 5,000 words. I kept pushing and while COVID put the brakes on progress for at least a couple of years, my interest in the album at least alerted Warners to its presence and result in 24 Years of Hunger appearing on streaming platforms a few years ago!

I persevered because have loved the album since I bought it on cassette in 1991. It has everything: fantastic songs, a wonderful production and a certain element of mystery. This is one of those albums where it’s always wonderful if you meet someone who knows it, because they will LOVE IT and you normally end up bonding over it! Speaking of which, it turns out that Don Letts is a big fan:

I’ve always said there’s no justice in the music business. How else do you explain a gem like this slipping beneath the radar? But dems’ the breaks. I can’t remember how ’24 Years of Hunger’ appeared on my radar (probably via my weekly trips to Rough Trade) anyhow, appear it did. Sounding like the aftermath of a long night in London—scarred, soulful, and stubbornly alive. Eg & Alice weren’t chasing trends; they were documenting survival and turning emotional scarcity into a record that breathes like a ghost of its own time.

Don Letts aka The Rebel Dread

24 Years of Hunger is somehow never dulled by repeated listening, and my hope is that this new edition will introduce the album to a wider audience who will be similarly seduced by its charms. For those that already cherish this record, the deluxe edition expands the story with the unheard songs, the demos and comprehensive notes from Eg and Alice.”

The 2CD set is presented in a high quality DVD-sized casebound book deluxe edition, with a matt laminated and spot varnished front cover. 36 pages offer the above testimony about 24 Years of Hunger and previously unseen photos of Eg and Alice during the recording of the album. This special physical edition is limited to 1,000 units worldwide and is an SDE exclusive available only from the SDE shop. You can secure your copy using this link or the button below.

24 Years of Hunger, the 35th anniversary 2CD deluxe edition, will be released on 24 April 2026 (was 10 April) via SDE Records.

Tracklisting

24 Years of Hunger Eg and Alice / 2CD deluxe edition

• • CD 1: 24 Years of Hunger
    1. Rockets
    2. In A Cold Way
    3. Mystery man
    4. And I Have Seen Myself
    5. So High, So Low
    6. New Year’s Eve
    7. Indian
    8. Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me
    9. Crosstown
    10. IOU
    11. I Wish
  • CD 2: Lonely Road: Demos & Remixes
    1. Here Come The Rockets (Demo)*
    2. Highway (Demo 1)*†
    3. Lonely For Too Long (See What I Mean) (Demo)* †
    4. Indian (Demo)*
    5. Bobby & Holly
    6. Shadow (Demo)* †
    7. New Year’s Eve (Demo)*
    8. Lazy Woman
    9. Under My Spell (Demo)* †
    10. Running To America (Demo)* †
    11. Crazy Bastard (Demo)* †
    12. Teenage Cinema Problem (Demo)* †
    13. Highway (Demo 2)* †
    14. It Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me (7” Version)
    15. It Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me (Jesus Loves You Mix)
    16. It Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me (Ambient Mix)

    *Previously unreleased
    † Unheard song