Paul McCartney to mix it up again?

A limited run of mystery ‘white label’ 12-inch pressings featuring two remixes of Paul McCartney‘s Band On The Run album closer Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five have appeared on a legitimate website, prompting speculation that the ex-Beatle might be preparing a remix album or similar project…

Vinyl Factory’s Phonica Records today listed the record without crediting it to McCartney (instead putting ‘Unknown Artist’ by the product) although the ‘detail’ text was a little less coy:

“Anthem alert! Mysterious edits of Paul McCartney and his post-Beatles band Wings classic ‘Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five’. UK Exclusive. Limited to 300 copies worldwide”

The two tracks are Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five (Remix) and Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five (Club Mix) and you can hear short previews of both on the site. They clearly utilise stems from the original multi-track, meaning that this can only have been created with McCartney’s cooperation.

The question is why has Paul snuck this out into the marketplace? He issued a few similar vinyl records prior to his 2005 remix project Twin Freaks (an album yet to receive an official CD release) so perhaps a similar remix-fest is on the way? On the other hand, before the Wingspan project in 2001, Paul put out some promo remixes of Silly Love Songs, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that he’s pausing the album-centric Archive Collection Series, and will issue some kind of broader multi-disc post-Beatles rarities/anthology.

This mysterious tweet from Paul McCartney today is likely to be connected to the appearance of this ‘white label’.

Let us know what you think might be about to happen (if anything!) by leaving a comment. In the meantime move quickly if you wish to grab one of only three hundred of these records by visiting the Phonica Records website.

Paul McCartney performs Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five in 2010