Spanning 1978 to 1995, ‘Downside Up’ collects 49 B-sides by Siouxsie and the Banshees, offering an alternative route through the band’s catalogue. Originally compiled in 2004, the collection stretches from their earliest recordings to their final years, bringing together songs that often found the group at their most experimental and unpredictable. The recordings have been remastered from the original tapes.
Siouxsie And The Banshees “Downside Up” is a long-awaited re-appearance for the band’s chronologically sequenced collection of B-sides from 1978 to 1995, its vinyl debut as a 5LP boxset and also as a 3CD set. “Downside Up” is an alternative history of Siouxsie And The Banshees’ audacious and uncompromising work, highlighting the more experimental side of the band who pioneered a daring aesthetic which continues to be influential and yet still, somehow underrated.
This new version of the collection has been remastered from the original tape sources and cut to lacquer by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios. Speaking about “Downside Up” at the time of its release, Siouxsie was quoted as saying, “It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long, long time. To me, the B-sides are very spontaneous. The singles are very definite; we know what their purpose is for, but the B-sides I always think allow something spontaneous to happen to complement the A-sides.”
Both formats of “Downside Up” contain detailed booklets, 68 pages for the CD, 32 pages for the LP set, featuring an introduction by Siouxsie, song lyrics, and commentary from founder members Siouxsie and Steven Severin and additional imagery drawn from their original single sleeve artwork.
The fourth CD in the original set, the four-track “The Thorn“, is being lined up for a stand-alone reissue. The two live tracks that were included on the CD single of ‘O Baby’ have been removed to reinforce the studio-only nature of the set.
“I always want to be moving forwards,” she says “But there’s always that link to your past.” Looking back on the band’s catalogue, she adds: “Reappraising it. Re-evaluating it. It’s a great thing to do. Otherwise it would be like being on a treadmill.”
Elsewhere, Siouxsie discusses the relationship between music, imagery and empowerment, reflects on the pressures and freedoms of life inside one of Britain’s most distinctive bands and hints at work on new material. “When I’m ready, I’ll talk about some new material,” she says.
Meanwhile, Severin recalls the spontaneous circumstances under which many of the recordings were created. “The shackles were off,” he says of the B-sides. “It didn’t matter what we put on them because we didn’t have to reproduce it live.” Reassessing the material today, Severin estimates that the collection amounts to “something like 50 songs. That’s five albums’ worth of material. Five extra albums that we crammed into those 20 years.”
5LP box set on UMR. Remastered from the original tapes and cut to lacquer by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios. Includes 32-page booklet.
Due 20th November 2026.
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