Early next year, Jethro Tull will release The Zealot Gene, their first studio album in over 18 years. The album began to take shape as early as 2017 and was intended to be released in 2020 before the pandemic intervened. The album is said to explore themes of Biblical storytelling, as Ian Anderson explains:
“While I have a spot of genuine fondness for the pomp and fairytale story-telling of the Holy Book, I still feel the need to question and draw sometimes unholy parallels from the text. The good, the bad, and the downright ugly rear their heads throughout, but are punctuated with elements of love, respect, and tenderness.”
Looking back on the earth-shaking disruption of the Coronavirus pandemic… It was so sudden”, says Anderson. “Amidst the concerns and warnings of the scientific community and a few more enlightened politicians, we all retreated in disbelief to our homes to wait out the storm.”
You can preview ‘Shoshana Sleeping’ from the album, below.
‘Shoshana Sleeping’ from the new album The Zealot Gene
The Zealot Gene is available across a number of formats. The 2CD+blu-ray edition offers a bonus disc of demos and a blu-ray which features a 5.1 surround sound mix (by Jakko Jakszyk). Sleeve notes include an interview with Ian Anderson conducted by Tim Bowness.
The 2LP vinyl edition includes a large format art book and comes with a CD of the album, while a deluxe box set also contains the booklet along with three white vinyl LPs (one is exclusive and contains demos) along with two CDs and the 5.1 blu-ray. This also includes a turntable slipmat and a hand-numbered print.
The deluxe box set of The Zealot Gene (click image to enlarge)
There’s also an indies 2LP red vinyl edition which also comes with the CD and large format art booklet.
The Zealot Gene will be released on 28 January 2022, via InsideOut Music.
Midge Ure will release In A Picture Frame, later this month, a new photo book that documents his life with Ultravox in the early 1980s.
Between 1980 and 1985, the Scottish musician travelled with his trusty Canon A-1 camera while on tour, in the studio or undertaking promotional duties with the band. Healso documented holidays and far flung road trips.
Selections from In A Picture Frame (click image to enlarge)
Ure’s photographic archive has now been scanned and retouched from the original negatives to showcase these images and produce this 240-page travelogue (which has dimensions of 290mm x 220mm x 32mm and weighs in at 2kg).
Big vinyl and CD box sets features all four London shows from 2004
The Pixies’ triumphant live shows at Brixton Academy in 2004, which ended an 11-year hiatus, are to be released as Live in Brixton early next year and will be available as large format 8CD and 8LP coloured vinyl box sets.
Over the course of the four sold-out shows the band played almost all of the big hitters and fan favourites from the Doolittleand Surfer Rosa; key songs and obscurities from the rest of their catalogue; and covers in the shape of Neil Young’s Winterlong, Peter Ivers’ ‘In Heaven’ (from theDavid Lynch film Eraserhead) and The Jesus and Mary Chain’s ‘Head On’. Each of the four set lists was pretty different.
The 8LP coloured vinyl box set of Live in Brixton (click image to enlarge)
The audio has been newly mastered by Phil Kinrade at Alchemy Mastering. The vinyl box set is spread across eight 180g LPs with each show split between two translucent coloured records. June 2nd is red, June 3rd is orange, June 5th is green, and June 6th is blue.
The vinyl is housed within a “beautifully crafted deluxe slipcase box” featuring silver foil detail that depicts the Brixton Academy venue.
There is also a second version of the vinyl box set for independent retailers. The only difference here is that the records are clear vinyl with colour ‘splattered’ on them.
The 8CD box set of Live in Brixton comes in large format packaging (click image to enlarge)
The 8CD box set again uses the same colours for each night, with each show spread over two CDs. It will be packaged within a large format deluxe casebound book, with similar artwork to the two vinyl versions.
All formats include a 24-page booklet which includes photos and memories and paraphernalia from fans who attended the shows. To top it all off, the packages are completed by a 68 x 48 cm fold-out poster which features the new Live In Brixton box set artwork.
Live At Brixton will be released on 25 February 2022 (was 28 January).
Eighties pop fans enjoying Now That’s What I Call Music‘s new Yearbook series will be interested to know that a supplementary compilation to June’sNow Yearbook ’83 will be released in December.
Now Yearbook ’83 Extra offers 60 more tracks from this superb year and features a bevy of usual suspects (Wham!, Paul Young, Eurythmics, Culture Club etc.) while showcasing the rise of some ‘alternative’ artists (including The Cure and Echo and The Bunnymen). There’s some quirky selections to keep things interesting such as Tears For Fears‘ ‘The Way You Are’, Elvis Costello & The Attractions‘ ‘Everyday I Write The Book’ and ‘Two Hearts Beat As One’, the non-top 10 hit from U2‘s 1983 album, War.
Now Yearbook ’83 Extra is a three-CD set and features 60 tracks (click image to enlarge)
No vinyl for this release and sadly no deluxe ‘book’ packaging this time around. This will be presented very much in the style of the non-deluxe Yearbooks.
Nevertheless, a worthy companion to the original compilation, this Now Yearbook ’83 Extra three-CD set will be issued on 10 December 2021.
A few years back, SDE was delighted to offer some signed copies of the super deluxe reissue of Saint Etienne‘s Tiger Bay album. It was a memorable experience in many ways, not least because I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for! The logistics were horrendous and involved me unpacking and unwrapping 300 box sets (so the band could sign the lids). I then had to pack them up again, rent a van, drive to north London (where the band were rehearsing for their 2019 Barbican show) and then – with the help of a good friend of mine – get Saint Etienne (actually only Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell – Bob came round to SDE HQ on the Saturday morning and did his separately!) to sign all the box sets in some ‘downtime’. Of course, afterwards we had to load the van, drive back, unload all the boxes again and then pack and ship them off to everyone who had ordered them! Phew! Remind me not to do that again…
SDE editor Paul Sinclair with Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell in 2019
Except we are doing it again – sort of – since we are pleased to offer what are effectively the last copies of the band’s brand new, and acclaimed, album I’ve Been Trying To Tell You in its super deluxe edition guise.
This time, thankfully, it’s not quite so arduous, since these are already signed inside. This a lift-off lid box that matches the dimensions and presentation of both the Foxbase Alpha and Tiger Bay box sets. It’s first and foremost a vinyl box set, but here’s a list of what it contains:
a black vinyl edition of the new Saint Etienne album*
an exclusive 10 inch single with two songs ‘Escalade’ and ‘Hello Holly’ unavailable elsewhere
a DVD of the Alasdair McLellan film ‘I’ve Been Trying To Tell You’ packaged in a special card eco wallet (PAL format, region 0)
a folded 94cm x 69cm (37 x 27 inches) film poster
two Alasdair McLellan band portraits personally signed by Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs – 30cm x 30cm (12×12 inches) each.
a 30cm x 30cm print personally signed by director Alasdair McLellan
5 more 30cm x 30cm prints of Alasdair McLellan images from the film
2 exclusive enamel badges
a download card for all the music contained in the box
two ‘road sign’ stickers for the vinyl LP *note the album contained in this set does not include the clear plastic outer sleeve that usually carries these
The contents of the I’ve Been Trying To Tell You super deluxe edition (click image to enlarge).
It’s very nicely done. There’s eight prints, three of which are personally signed (one by Bob and Pete, one by Sarah and one by the director of the film Alasdair McLellan). The film poster is massive and of high quality, the enamel badges are actually very cool and of course there’s the album on vinyl, the feature-length film to go with the album (be aware the DVD is PAL, although it is region-free) and two exclusive songs on the 10-inch single. This also comes with a download card for all the music.
‘Pond House’ from I’ve Been Trying To Tell You
This box is limited to 2,000 units worldwide and as I say, there’s only a few hundred left, so now’s your chance before they go out of print. Secure your copy today from the SDE shop by clicking on this link or using the button below (fans in the EU please be aware of possible extra import/admin charges before ordering).
We will ship these early next week!
What’s in the box!
Tracklisting
I’ve Been Trying To Tell YouSaint Etienne/super deluxe edition vinyl box set
BMG continue their coloured vinylSlade reissue series with a limited edition of Slade In Flame pressed on yellow and red splatter vinyl.
The soundtrack to their much admired 1974 film (“The Citizen Kane of British pop movies” according to Mark Kermode”), the band’s fifth studio album was released in November ’74. In contains the single ‘Far Far Away’ which was Slade’s 12th consecutive top five hit on the UK singles chart.
Slade In Flame is reissued on yellow and red splatter vinyl
This reissue follows similar editions of 1972’s Slayed? and Old New Borrowed and Blue (which was issued in February 1974).
Slade In Flame will be reissued on 26 November 2021 via BMG.
Superb price in Spain for the 5CD+blu-ray super deluxe edition of The Beatles Let It Be. This features Giles Martin’s new stereo mix, two CDs of outtakes/sessions, the Glyn Johns 1969 mix of the album and the ‘Let It Be EP’. The blu-ray has Dolby Atmos and 5.1 mixes. This comes with a 100-page hardcover book. It’s about £80 including shipping if you are ordering from the UK. Alternatively, you can buy direct from Amazon in the UK for £93
Tangerine Dream/Pilots of Purple Twilight10CD box set
Cracking price in Italy for the retail edition of Neil Young‘s superb Archives Vol II (1972-1976). Shipping to the UK is less than £4 and there’s no issues with import duty etc. because it’s under the £135 threshold.
Great discount on the pre-order for the forthcoming Waterboys deluxe set. Five CDs and a DVD from the Fisherman’s Blues / Room to Roam era, plus a 240-page book.
British rock band Porcupine Tree return in 2022, after a hiatus of over a decade, with a new studio album Closure/Continuation and dates in place for a UK/European tour.
Porcupine Treeare Steven Wilson, Richard Barbieri and Gavin Harrison, a hugely influential, ‘genre-defying’ rock band dreamt up by Wilson in 1987 as an outlet for experimental recordings he was making outside of his synth-pop duo No-Man. They released ten albums between 1992’s On The Sunday of Life and 2009’s The Incident, including the critically acclaimed In Absentia from 2002. Following their biggest live show up to that point at the Royal Albert Hall in October 2010, it all went quiet.
Porcupine Tree photographed by Alex Lake
The new album, Closure/Continuation is described as being “over a decade in the making” and you can preview a track from the album, Harridan, below.
The band have the following to say about it:
“’Harridan’ and a few of the other new songs have been in play since shortly after the release of The Incident. They initially lived on a hard drive in a slowly growing computer file marked PT2012, later renamed PT2015, PT2018, and so on. There were times when we even forgot they were there, and times when they nagged us to finish them to see where they would take us. Listening to the finished pieces, it was clear that this wasn’t like any of our work outside of the band – the combined DNA of the people behind the music meant these tracks were forming what was undeniably, unmistakably, obviously a Porcupine Tree record. You’ll hear all of that DNA flowing right through ‘Harridan’.”
Closure/Continuation is a seven-track album (the track listing hasn’t been revealed) and will be available on CD, 2LP black vinyl, 2LP blue vinyl, cassette and as two limited edition box sets (3LP or 2CD+blu-ray).
The limited edition 3LP box is a 45RPM pressing on audiophile approved crystal clear vinyl and includes two bonus tracks.
The 2CD+blu-ray deluxe set includes three bonus tracks, instrumental versions, 5.1 and Dolby Atmos versions plus hi-res 96/24 stereo. This comes in a large format art book presentation.
The 2CD+blu-ray deluxe box set of Closure/Continuation (click image to enlarge)
The bad news is that the album isn’t released until June next year and those tour dates will follow in October/November 2022. The good news is that all pre-orders at the official shop offer access to pre-sale tickets for those UK and European dates. Dates for the Americas and Canada will be announced shortly.
Closure/Continuation will be released on 24 June 2022 via Music For Nations/Sony.
After all the build-up and all the hype, ABBA‘s first studio album in over 40 years is finally out this week. The SDE shop has a few copies of the limited blue vinyl available.
SDEtv takes a close look at the standalone reissue of the ‘remixed & updated’ versions of Pink Floyd‘s 1987 album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Half-speed mastered 2LP vinyl and CD+DVD box set are examined. Watch the video below:
Elvis Costello and The Imposters will release a new studio album, The Boy Named If, early next year.
The record is described as having “urgent, immediate songs with bright melodies, guitar solos that sting and a quick step to the rhythm”. Costello himself says that the album is a collection of thirteen snapshots “That take us from the last days of a bewildered boyhood to that mortifying moment when you are told to stop acting like a child – which for most men (and perhaps a few gals too) can be any time in the next fifty years”. You can preview ‘Magnificent Hurt’, below.
Costello goes on to explain the album’s title. “The full title of this record is ‘The Boy Named If (And Other Children’s Stories).’ ‘IF,’ is a nickname for your imaginary friend; your secret self, the one who knows everything you deny, the one you blame for the shattered crockery and the hearts you break, even your own”.
The record has been produced by Sebastian Krys & Elvis Costello and is available on CD, 2LP black vinyl and limited 2LP purple vinyl. The official store (UK link) offers the CD in a book, signed by “the artist” (?) for £44, which feels rather overpriced. Is it too much trouble to tell us the NAME of the artist!! There are other bundles too.
The Boy Named If will be released on 14 January 2022.
Acid Jazz founder and Mod enthusiast Eddie Piller has curated a new 100-track compilation called British Mod Sounds of The 1960s which captures the essence of ‘60s Modernism, across six LPs or four CDs
Piller has a family connection to Mod royalty The Small Faces (Eddie’s mum ran the Small Faces’ fan club) and in 1979 he co-founded Mod Revival fanzine Extraordinary Sensations. Since then he’s become a well-known figure within the music industry, setting up and continuing to own the Acid Jazz record label, signing artists such as Jamiroquai and The Brand New Heavies, collaborating on compilations with Martin Freeman and broadcasting via his own Totally Wired Radio station.
This new collection mixes the Mod mainstays (the Small Faces, The Who in embryonic form as The High Numbers, The Action, The Fleur De Lys), with a generous selection of future superstars (David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Marc Bolan, Jeff Beck and Graham Gouldman of 10cc are all represented here), and a few artists so obscure, so rare, that they never got to release a record in the ’60s, but Eddie has managed to track down the tapes nonetheless!
The same 100 tracks are on the 4CD set and the 6LP edition and both CD and vinyl versions are available as limited edition SIGNED (by Eddie) editions on Amazon in the UK. Signed 6LP black vinyl is also available for a limited time via Rough Trade in the UK, who also have unsigned 6LP clear vinyl edition.
In addition, there’s a 34-track ‘highlights’ version which is available as a 2LP set on black vinyl or red and blue coloured vinyl via indie stores, like Rough Trade in the UK.
All formats include sleeve notes by Paul ‘Smiler’ Anderson, author of the best-selling and highly regarded books ‘Mods: The New Religion’ and ‘Mod Art’.
Eddie Piller presents British Mod Sounds of the 1960s will be released on 18 February 2022.
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Tori Amos releases here new album Ocean to Ocean this week. The 11-track long-player includes the songs ‘Speaking With Trees’ and ‘Spies’ (which have already been made available online) and a European tour follows in February next year. SDE recently caught up with Tori to discuss the new record.
SDE: I was admiring your massive greenhouse [which Tori posted a picture of, on twitter]. You seem very connected with nature from your home in Cornwall and that’s something that seems to come through with the new album Ocean to Ocean, since there’s lots of references to flowers, water, ocean, trees etc. Is that really important to you these days, to be at one with nature?
Tori Amos: It became important; it became a lifeline. And you know, it was here all the time but it just became something so valued by me. I really appreciated it, maybe for the first time in this way, the depth of it.
And that must have been increased I suppose, because of the whole lockdown situation. You were trapped, if ‘trapped’ is the right word. You were in that environment for an extended period.
My American friends say I was exiled here [laughs], but if you’re going to be somewhere, this was a beautiful place to be. We all know Cornwall. Even when it’s rainy, it’s telling a story; you’re part of some kind of story. But in March of this year, as winter turned to spring [it was a joy] seeing what Mother Earth was up to, while all of us had been in lockdown. And that she was busy. Yes, she was fighting fires across the world and fighting floods later on, in other parts, but here she was regenerating. And oh God, it was a relief. It was a relief to see that.
I was I was sorry to hear about your mum [Tori’s mother passed away between Native Invader and Ocean to Ocean]. How much did writing and recording this album, and specifically ‘Speaking With Trees’, help you process your feelings of loss?
Yes, that one and ‘Flowers Burn To Gold’ are very much for her and contain her energy in them. She was quite something. Somebody said to me,”You know, Tori, you mourn the mother you have, or the mother you wish you’d had”. And this person said to me I mourned the latter when my mother died. So if you can hold on to the fact that you’re mourning the mother that you had, because she gave so much love, then hopefully at least that can give you some kind of comfort. And I know that’s a bit of tough love talk, but sometimes you need to hear that stuff.
The record itself sounds a lot more of a band album than maybe the last two records were. Did you get the band back together?
Yeah, I got them involved. They’re playing on almost every track. And I think it just felt time to do that. We did it during Christmastide, which was the EP that came out this time last year, and we realised that our process could work. That using Martian down here, the studio – it’s not a home studio, it’s a proper studio – as a control, and then going out to the satellite, recording studios, wherever they needed to go, so to Matt [Chamberlain, drummer] in California, and Jon [Evans, bass player] in the Cape [Cape Cod], and the tracks would keep coming back to us, and we would be working on the tracks before we send them out again and so would be building these layers.
Putting the lyrics aside, how do you approach the sound of your next record? In terms of the production, the arrangement, the instruments. Do you give a lot of thought to that beforehand, or do you just see where the muse will take you?
Each song is different. There are times when, when Mark [Hawley, Tori’s husband and recording engineer] will just set up a bunch of keyboards, different sounds, so maybe some Wurley [Wurlizter], the B3 [Hammond], the CP80 [Yamaha electric grand piano], the Bösendorfer [piano] and then the synths, of course, and it was freeing, in that I would go from keyboard to keyboard, working on, even a different part within a song itself, and trying different sounds. And then, you know, he would bounce back off me. But he’s ‘Mac Aladdin’ [the once mysterious – but still used – pseudonym that was eventually acknowledged as Mark Hawley] so this isn’t new. We’ve been doing this a long time. And so we would start developing what sounds [good] in the mids, we would work with the mids, and [establish] what was working together there, because once we cracked that, sometimes we’d send that idea to Matt [Chamberlain], or sometimes we just send the keyboard knowing we’d cracked the mids and what was going to happen there. But that was very important, to get what works with the melody, and what is working between keys and guitar – because they can stomp all over each other, they can really argue for space. And so if they’re going to argue for space it has to be part of the story. Like in ‘How Glass Is Made’ we’re allowing the guitar to take over that space, because of what the story is. So that’s that’s how we address the mids and the upper-mids. And then that’s when it goes to ‘rhythm land’.
Do you demo everything? Do you have piano and vocal versions of all your songs? Is that part of your process?
No… Well, I have a recorded reference of them with a keyboard and a voice somewhere, as they’re developing, so that we can clock if I’ve lost something along the way. I go back a version and say, “Oh my god, I really changed that middle eight. What did I do?”. Things like that. So that they’re referencing things all the time. But usually now what I do is… yeah, I do a scratch track, that I redo once the real drums come in. Because I’m gonna play to that drummer. This time that was Matt Chamberlain, but whether it’s programmed drums or whatever, once I did a scratch and once things get tightened up on the rhythm side, I’m going to play back to that, because I’m going to be tight. I’m going to be in that pocket.
You don’t appear to have to worry too much about what is ‘commercial’ anymore. Is that is that the case? Is a new album for you, these days, fairly much purely a creative process?
Yes, it is [laughs]. And I think that… Look, it doesn’t mean that I don’t work really hard on the structures, I do. But I’m not scanning what people – or what the music business – think is commercial, because I just can’t get my head around all that. I just can’t. I just have to create what I think will resonate.
And ‘veteran’ acts – people who have been around for a while – having hit singles doesn’t really happen much anymore, anyway.
That’s its own game. Yeah. And I think you know about that. Yeah. I just I just make the music that I think is the music I should be making.
You’re an amazing live performer. I saw you at the Royal Albert Hall on your last tour – you with just a piano and a keyboard on stage. How much have you missed live performance?
Well, it’s been the longest time since I’ve been on stage in my life, and I think most live musicians would tell you, it’s been really tough to describe because of all kinds of things. Because of the collaboration you have with an audience; that kind of voltage that you get in a live setting; how things can change from minute to minute. And that being gone, it’s been a huge loss.
You’re going on tour again next year. Is that going to be a solo tour or are you going to have the band with you? What’s the plan?
I’m not exactly sure of the configuration yet because we had to move that American tour twice. So people that had committed to that had then committed to other things down the line, if you follow me, whether that’s crew or music people. So I’m having to figure that out as we speak. But the Bösendorfer and I will be there, and hopefully there’ll be other people too.
You’re extremely prolific. This is your 16th solo album. Where does that that drive, that work ethic, that creativity… where does that all come from?
I don’t know [laughs]. I’m not sure. I really don’t know the answer to that.
Is songwriting something that you would just do, regardless? You know, just get up and write a song? Or do you have long breaks and then then have a big period of working?
It depends on the projects I’m working on. Sometimes there’s a moment when I’m doing some research or something, and then that inspires other things. There’s an intake period of just new information. And sometimes you find, or I find anyway, that I’m writing on the road. Because you’re in a new town, every day, you’re experiencing new things. And that starts to sort of rattle the rhythms, and rattle the melodies and the ideas.
Tori says they “will be doing something” to mark Little Earthquakes 30th anniversary
Your Little Earthquakes album is going to be 30 years old next year. That’s obviously quite a special album to a lot of people. Have you got any plans to mark the anniversary or do anything special around that record?
I think we do [laughs]. I think we have something going on. It’s not announced yet. And I have to make sure that it’s what I think it is. But yeah, it is 30 years, so I do think we will be doing something.
Are you likely to play more tracks from that album on the tour, do you think, because of the anniversary?
That’s a good question. I haven’t really got my head around what the repertoire will start off being, because it will change. It will change because we were going to add to it.
One of the good things with you is you do genuinely change the setlist, from date to date, don’t you? Not everyone does that.
Yeah, I think it keeps me fresh. It keeps everybody very focused and alive at the shows and we can’t fall into patterns; we have to be really alert. And there’s something quite exciting, I think, about that. And there’s something about adding new material – and when I say ‘new material’, it can be 20 years old from my back catalogue – but I find that when you add a new scene, a new chapter into the story every night, that it changes the story. And it can it can help us go somewhere different, say on the second London show than the first London show. And I think that’s really important because then we’re not repeating ourselves. We’re always telling a somewhat different story, even if we only have three new songs in that night.
How much material did you write for this new album, because there’s 11 tracks on the record, and I noticed there’s no kind of deluxe edition with any bonus tracks or anything like that. Is that Is there a reason for that?
There were a bunch of songs from before, that just were not in the same kind of energy space. They were for a different project. So I had to really make a clear decision, to say, okay, this sounds like it’s in a different world, almost a different galaxy than some of these other things, even just energetically. And so I don’t want to bring any confusion to it.
You had some quite long albums in the past, with 15 or 16 tracks. Have you made a concerted effort to try and make shorter records?
I think it’s a project to project and that might have been a time, in my canon when I was doing that, and maybe those days are gone. I’m not sure unless I write a song-cycle again, or something like that.
Thanks to Tori Amos who was talking to Paul Sinclair for SDE. The new album Ocean to Ocean is released on CD on Friday, 29 October 2021.The vinyl edition follows next year.
The Wedding Present have announced a new project for 2022 called, simply, 24 Songs.
The idea, which echoes what the band did with Hit Parade in 1992, is that each month next year, The Wedding Present will release a seven-inch single with two new songs, giving a total of, you guessed it, 24 songs for the year!
This initiative sees David Gedge writing with Sleeper guitarist Jon Stewart for the first time, and the first release, We Should Be Together, is a duet featuring David and Louise Wener. It is backed with another new track called ‘Don’t Give Up Without A Fight’ which combines classic Wedding Present feistiness with a Krautrock finale.
Talking about this concept, David Gedge says: ““Even though The Wedding Present have never been known for taking the easy route, the idea of recording 24 tracks and releasing them in this way could seem daunting to any band.
I’ve been utterly inspired by the music that has been written since Jon and Melanie joined the group
David Gedge
However, I’ve been utterly inspired by the music that has been written since Jon and Melanie joined the group. The thought of celebrating this exciting new line-up with an exciting new series has motivated us all… and I suppose we also didn’t want any of these songs to be hidden away in the middle of an album!”
The idea is that fans subscribe to the 24 Songs and get sent a single each month, although there is also the option to buy individually and singles will also be available via participating record shops. All the details can be found here.
SDE competition!
SDE is excited to announce that we are giving away a 24 Songs subscription to one reader which is worth at least £175. The competition is open to all and if you’d like to enter, do so using the poll below. The winner will be announced at some point in November.
Joni Mitchell/Archives Volume 2: The Reprise Years (1967-1971)CD, Vinyl
The delayed Volume 2, a second five CD box set of Joni Mitchell‘s Archives is released this week. The Reprise Years (1968-1971) is sequenced chronologically to follow Mitchell in real time through one of the most creative periods of her career.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer / Out of this World: Live (1970-1997)
New Emerson, Lake & Palmer box set offers almost three decades of the prog-rock giants and is available as a 7CD package or a 10LP vinyl offering. Mastering is by Andy Pearce and this includes a previously unreleased live show of Phoenix 1997.
Dead or Alive / Fan the Flame Part 2: The Resurrection
In 2016, Pete Burns and Steve Coy indicated that they wanted to revisit an album that they had started to record in 1990. Fan the Flame (Part 2): The Resurrection Is the culmination of the work that Pete and Steve recorded over the next four years but which was never completed. This 2CD edition includes the extended versions of both singles, as well as instrumental versions of all ten vocal tracks.
Having not even tweeted about the 25th anniversary of George Michael‘s third solo album Older on 13 May this year, the very next day GM’s official twitter account promised fans ‘something special’ later this year, in way of celebration. That now will not happen with George’s team citing “reasons beyond our control”.
“Older is my greatest moment”. Celebrating 25 years this month. There’s also something very special to come later this year…
— George Michael Official (@GeorgeMOfficial) May 14, 2021
The full statement posted yesterday on twitter was as follows:
For reasons beyond our control, due to global supply and manufacturing difficulties, it is with great regret that we have had to delay plans to mark and celebrate the 25th anniversary of Older until the first half of 2022.
Team George Michael via Twitter
We still don’t know what these ‘plans’ actually are, but manufacturing difficulties only really applies to vinyl right now so clearly a vinyl reissue of Older is the minimum we can expect. There are no such issues with CD manufacturing, so they could have chosen to split the ‘celebrations’ and issued something on CD this year with vinyl to follow next. The fact they haven’t done this makes SDE wonder if CD are in their plans at all.
While it’s certainly true that there are great challenges right now with vinyl production, one suspects that the team started work far too late on these plans to ‘mark’ the 25th anniversary of Older (which is already five months past). The lead time for vinyl is around six months at the moment, so if they’d got their act together in the autumn of 2020 they could have easily have delivered something in May (or early summer) this year. And let’s face it, there were no production issues in late 2019, when the Symphonica album was being prepared to be reissued on vinyl. TWO YEARS LATER there’s still no sign and Amazon France now have a pre-order listing showing a release date of September 2022! George Michael fans need the patience of a saint.
Sadly, this is yet another case of SOMETHING NOT HAPPENING on the watch of George’s de facto manager, David Austin. Since George’s untimely death on Christmas day in 2016 there has not been one single reissue campaign of any Wham! or GM album (Listen Without Prejudice was all but completed before George died). The Japanese Wham! Singles Collection: Greatest Hits CD+DVD was admittedly an interesting release, although it seems unlikely that was driven by the team in the UK.
For now, we wait with interest to see what exactly the Older plans are and if they can keep to the promised timetable of “first half of 2022”.
Out yesterday was Duran Duran‘s 15th studio album, Future Past. SDE has already published a track-by-track review and now presents for your viewing pleasure an unboxing video that explores all the formats.
The Band‘s fourth album, Cahoots, will be reissued for its 50th anniversary in December across four physical formats, including a five-disc super deluxe edition.
All releases feature a new stereo mix of the 1971 album by Bob Clearmountain and the two-CD and box set editions offer eight bonus tracks in the form of outtakes/alternate mixes plus Live at the Olympia Theatre, Paris, May 1971, which is described as “a rousing bootleg partial concert” consisting of 11 tracks culled from a European tour.
The super deluxe edition (which is 2CD+blu-ray+vinyl LP+seven-inch) adds Dolby Atmos and 5.1 surround mixes of the album (also by Clearmountain) and four bonus tracks. The box set also includes a reproduction of the Japanese pressing of the ‘Life Is A Carnival‘/’The Moon Struck‘ seven-inch single (these are the new stereo mixes).
The box set also includes a black vinyl edition of teh album, a 20-page booklet with new notes by Robbie Robertson and sleeve notes by Rob Bowman and three lithographs.
Cahoots super deluxe edition features two CDs, a blu-ray, vinyl LP and seven-inch single (click image to enlarge).
Interestingly, for the stereo mix, Bob Clearmountain was told to “transform” the original mixes based on what was lacking. He says: “Robbie told me, ‘Just think of the original mixes as rough mixes. Pretty much don’t pay attention to the mixes themselves'”. Robertson concurs: ““I told Bob, ‘There are no rules. So, every mix we do, I want to start from scratch. I don’t even want to listen to the original. I want to listen to the way we hear it now and be fearless and experimental with it”.
As before with The Band reissues vinyl will be available separately and a half-speed mastered gatefold vinyl edition will also be available via specific channels.
Cahoots is reissued on 10 December 2021 via UMC. Super deluxe box set is delayed until 21 Jan 2022.
Singer-songwriters Beverley Craven, Judie Tzuke and Julia Fordham‘s Woman to Woman tour of 2018/19 is to be released early next year as a two-CD set or 3LP vinyl box set, with both formats available with signed prints.
Woman to Woman: The Live Concert saw the trio performing renditions of their hits and classics (with a full band) including ‘Happy Ever After’, ‘Promise Me’ and ‘Stay with Me Till Dawn’. There’s 23 live tracks in total on the forthcoming release.
Both vinyl and CD sets come with signed art cards
The 3LP vinyl box set comes with a 12-inch art card signed by Beverley, Judie and Julia, while the two-CD set (in casebound book packaging) comes with a five-inch art card also signed by the three singer-songwriters.
The Woman to Woman tour played to sold-out rooms across the UK and struck an emotional note with everyone who was lucky enough to attend.
Woman to Woman: The Live Concert is being produced in limited quantities with only 750 vinyl boxes available. This will be released on 28 January 2022. You can pre-order the album on your format of choice via the official shop.
With no premium above the standard CD, and at only £10.99, the signed edition as a bit of a ‘no brainer’ and if the previous album (Shine a Light) is anything to go by, this will sell out quickly. You can preview the title track, below.
The 12-track album is also available on vinyl LP, with a limited ‘indies’ clear vinyl edition also available. There’s also a box set with a signed photo. The Amazon signed CD isn’t available to all territories, but it seems that fans in America should be able to pre-order.
So Happy It Hurts will be released on 11 March 2022 via BMG.
