Reissue CDs
Kieron Tyler
Punk rock, or what’s touted as punk rock, is practically inescapable right now. In London, a series of events tagged as Punk.London: 40 Years of Subversive Culture includes concerts by reanimated bands, exhibitions and film seasons. Backers include the British Fashion Council, the British Film Institute and the Design Museum. The Mayor of London is an official supporter. Sponsorship has come from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The year 1976 was apparently when punk began, and it’s time for these august bodies to celebrate the anniversary.Joe Corré, the son of Sex Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The names may be unfamiliar, but Folque and Undertakers Circus are as good as better-known bands. Despite being musical bedfellows neither Norwegian band is as esteemed as, say, Trader Horne and Trees or Colloseum and Lighthouse. Folque issued their eponymous debut album in 1974. Despite line-up changes, the band was active until 1984. Undertakers Circus issued two albums, the first of which was 1973’s Ragnarock. The original band ran out of steam around 1976. Original pressings of Folque fetch between £40 and £80. Ragnarock is very rare and sells for around £70. The reissue of each album is Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Adam Ant was one of the few who saw Sex Pistols’ first live show. On 6 November 1975, his band Bazooka Joe was playing Charing Cross Road’s St Martin’s School of Art. They found an uninvited support band had gatecrashed the evening. The impact of the interlopers on the then Stuart Goddard wasn’t instant, but he would go on to form The B-Sides and, then, Adam and the Ants, whose manager became Jordan, who worked at Malcolm McLaren’s King’s Road shop SEX. Adam was hotwired into what became codified as punk rock. But his music was never defined by templates.Mainstream impact took a while to come Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Last May, Malmö trio Death and Vanilla issued the To Where the Wild Things are album and it seemed they had arrived as a fully formed post-Broadcast proposition, harmoniously fusing vintage influences like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Italian giallo soundtracks and The United States of America. With its cover imagery evoking the British Ghostbox label, To Where the Wild Things are could have been dismissed as havng thumbed a ride on a musical excursion begun by others. But the album was so assured and stuffed with such dreamy melodies it transcended the inspirations. Death and Vanilla were Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Over the horizon they come; the anniversaries; joyous, arduous, remorseless.” The opening words of Stuart Maconie’s fine, nuanced essay in the book accompanying this 20th-anniversary reissue of Manic Street Preachers’ fourth album acknowledge the inescapable fact that today’s heritage rock industry is indeed largely about anniversaries and their close cousin the reunion. Bands tour to air one of their past albums in track-by-track order. Others reform to run through their catalogue of 20, 30 years ago. These living jukeboxes seek to revitalise music that was frozen in time, so kept fresh Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Ladies and gentlemen, in view of the controversy already aroused the producers of this film wish to re-emphasise what is already stated in the film: that there is no established scientific connection between mongolism and psychotic or criminal behaviour”. With these opening words, Twisted Nerve instantly defined itself as a film out to attract attention. Despite this questionable exploitation aspect, the genuinely unsettling 1968 work is ripe for reassessment.Like their predecessor feature The Family Way, Roy and Thomas Boulting’s Twisted Nerve starred Roy’s then wife Hayley Mills. She Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Any appreciation of Scotland’s The Associates is coloured by the knowledge that Billy MacKenzie took his own life at age 39 in January 1997. More than his band’s voice, he personified their unique approach to music. Between 1979 and 1982, with collaborator Alan Rankine, he created a string of vital records which defy genre pigeonholing and define their vehicle The Associates as one of Britain’s most wilful pop acts. Rankine split from MacKenzie in 1982 at the point when they had broken into the charts. MacKenzie, despite continuing to record as The Associates, solo and in collaboration, never Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The figures are approximate, but the Yardbirds’ first studio album has been issued on CD at least 12 separate times. With The Move, their debut album and its follow-up Shazam have each had a comparatively paltry eight outings on CD. As for vinyl editions, setting aside the UK originals in mono and stereo and contemporaneous worldwide pressings, similar quantities of reissues of the three albums have hit shops from the mid-Seventies onwards. The Move have not been afforded au courant hipster vinyl editions, but a few versions of the Yardbirds’ set have been issued over the past six or so years Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The immediate reaction to Close to the Noise Floor is “Why hasn’t anyone done this before?” This new four-disc set’s subtitle captures its objective in a nutshell: to collect Formative UK Electronica 1975–1984 – excursions in proto-synth pop, DIY techno and ambient exploration. While the stars include Blancmange, John Foxx, Throbbing Gristle and the big cult names Bourbonese Qualk, Legendary Pink Dots and Instant Automatons feature, the less well-knowns Sea of Wires, We be Echo and Muslimgauze are also collected.Close to the Noise Floor sets the moody electropop of Spöön Fazer’s previously Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Is there anything left to say about Sandy Denny? Sadly, she cannot say anything herself, as she died in 1978. So it’s left to what she released during her lifetime, posthumous appraisals and reappraisals, and packages and repackages to do the talking.In 2010, the career-spanning, 19-disc box set Sandy Denny was issued. That could have been the last word and was measured against her issued discography of four solo albums, the three with Fairport Convention, and one with Fotheringay, as well as sundry collaborations. Fotheringay were recently the subject of a box set and her solo albums have Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Turn the clock back to early 2007. It’s not so long ago, but at this point Nils Frahm had issued just one album, Ólafur Arnalds was about to release his first, Jóhann Jóhannsson was one year into what would be two-album relationship with 4AD, and Max Richter had made two albums for 130701, the British offshoot of FatCat Records. Christian Wallumrød was performing solo, but still recording collaboratively. What would become a recognisable genre-breaching, minimalist, post-classical groundswell hadn’t yet been quite codified but it was clear something was in the air.Hauschka was introduced into Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Is greatness there from day one, does it evolve or suddenly strike? Do artists – in any discipline – develop in steps or arrive fully-formed? How does the quotidian become exceptional? With the new triple-CD set Highlife-Jazz and Afro-Soul (1963-1969), the man who would be dubbed the Black President has what amounts to 39 musical baby pictures made easily available for the first time. As to how this release answers any of these questions, it is a question of degree.First issued in Japan in 2005, Highlife-Jazz and Afro-Soul (1963-1969) was a pioneering collection of the bulk of Fela Kuti’s pre Read more ...