The Fat Angel Sings

Here is the sixth and final unboxing videos looking at the Be Bop Deluxe – Super Deluxe Edition Box Sets from Esoteric Recordings and Cherry Red Records. Esoteric Recordings is proud to announce the release of a new re-mastered six-disc deluxe expanded boxed set limited edition (comprising 4 CDs and two NTSTC – Region Free DVDs) of “Drastic Plastic” the classic 1978 album by Be Bop Deluxe.

“Drastic Plastic” would be the final Be Bop Deluxe album and was recorded in the summer of 1978 in the South of France at The Villa Saint Georges, Juan-les-Pins, utilising the Rolling Stones mobile studio, with final sessions taking place at The Manor Studio and Abbey Road Studios. The record saw Bill Nelson (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Charles Tumahai (bass, vocals), Andy Clark (keyboards) and Simon Fox (drums) venture into new musical styles, with the album being ground-breaking in its move to more “art rock” and “new wave” influences. In many ways it can be seen as the signpost to where Bill Nelson would head with his Red Noise project with a desire to continue to progress as an artist by pushing musical boundaries.

Co-produced by Bill Nelson and John Leckie, “Drastic Plastic” was another hit album in both the UK and the USA and featured such classic material as ‘Electrical Language’, ‘Panic in the World’, ‘New Mysteries’, ‘Islands of the Dead’ and ‘Surreal Estate’. The recording sessions produced many more tracks which would appear as singles (such as Japan) and others that were originally planned for release as an EP set (‘Autosexual’, ‘Lovers are Mortal’, ‘Speed of the Wind’, ‘Quest for the Harvest of the Stars’, ‘Face in the Rain’), all of which eventually appeared on the retrospective compilation The Best of & the Rest Of… later in 1978.

This expanded deluxe reissue has been newly re-mastered from the original master tapes and features an additional 88 tracks, (43 of which are previously unreleased), drawn from stunning new 5.1 surround sound & stereo mixes from the original multi-track tapes by award winning engineer Stephen W. Tayler, previously unreleased out-takes from the album sessions, a BBC Radio John Peel Show session from January 1978, along with a CD of Bill Nelson’s previously unreleased demos for the album, “A Feeling of Playing”.

Also included is an additional DVD featuring Be Bop Deluxe in the South of France, (a collection of Bill Nelson’s 8mm home movies shot whilst recording “Drastic Plastic”) and the band’s Sight & Sound In Concert performance for BBC TV from 1978.

Another highlight of this limited-edition boxed set is the lavishly illustrated 68-page book with many previously unseen photographs and an essay of recollections by Bill Nelson. Additionally, the set includes postcards and a replica poster. This special deluxe limited-edition boxed set of “Drastic Plastic” is a fitting tribute to the creative vision of Bill Nelson and the musicianship of Be Bop Deluxe.

Released by the Major Minor label in 1968, the self-titled July album has long been acknowledged by genre enthusiasts as one of the classic UK psychedelic one-shots, mixing the ambition and experimentation of “Sgt. Pepper” with a lo-fi charm and endearing garage band artlessness.

The third Disc contains “The Second Of July”, a collection of pre-album demos that appeared in the mid-Nineties to capitalise on the band’s growing reputation as original copies of their LP began to sell for increasingly large sums of money.

The remainder of the boxed set consists of more recent July recordings following their triumphant return to live work a few years ago. Disc Four is the aborted album “Temporal Anomaly”, which was recorded circa 2010 but which gains a first-ever release, while Disc 5 is the appropriately-titled “Resurrection”, which received a limited release in 2013.

Disc Six comprises the latest July magnum opus, “The Wight Album”, which has been pieced together over the last few years by Tom Newman and Peter Cook at Tom’s own recording studio on the Isle of Wight. Now finally completed, “The Wight Album” – described by Tom as “the greatest July album” – brings the July story bang up to date.

This definitive 6-CD overview of the band’s activities includes newly-remastered versions of the album in both mono and stereo formats (the latter only previously available on the original 1968 American release) as well as the various single issues, including a completely different recording of album nugget ‘The Way’.

Housed in a clamshell box, and with a 40-page booklet containing a 7000 word essay on the band featuring new quotes and some priceless period photos, “The Complete Recordings” is an epic look at the studio activities of one of the biggest cults to emerge from the original British psychedelic scene.

It is also become one of the most hotly-pursued artefacts of the British psychedelic era, with an original UK copy (only graded at VG++) recently selling on eBay for around £3700.

The Electric Prunes came together in Southern California during 1966 and soon became regarded as one of the seminal US psychedelic groups, thanks to the hit singles ‘I Had Too Much (To Dream Last Night)’ and ‘Get Me To The World On Time’.

Through their various incarnations, the Electric Prunes recorded five albums for the Reprise label between 1967 and 1969 with legendary producer Dave Hassinger helping to create their unique and distinctive psychedelic sound.

Featuring the first CD issue of the mono mix of the ‘Mass In F Minor’, the collection also compiles the original dedicated mono 45 mixes, plus rare cuts, early demos, and extended takes, as well as the legendary live recording of the band captured in Stockholm during their European tour in late 1967, all lovingly remastered by Alec Palao.

Under the direction of composer and arranger David Axelrod, the Prunes helped pioneer the Religious Rock genre with the ‘Mass In F Minor’ and ‘Release Of An Oath’ LPs.
This collection brings together their entire output for the very first time, including stereo and mono versions of their first three albums. Aside from their two bona fide hits — “I Had Too Much (To Dream Last Night)” and “Get Me To The World On Time” I never really paid much attention to The Electric Prunes. But maybe it’s time to give them a closer look. And obviously, there’s never been a better time.

The new six-disc anthology “Then Came The Dawn – Complete Recordings 1966-1969” collects the band’s entire output, along with rarities, live tapes and demos. And even a cursory spin makes it clear they should be regarded as more than two-hit wonders. Tracks like “Train For Tomorrow, Try Me On For Size” and the magnificently titled “Are You Lovin’ Me More (But Enjoying It Less)” are hits that should have been, while plenty of other cuts find the group bouncing between garage-rock, psychedelia, paisley-pop and even folk and jazz. Maybe that lack of focus was one of their problems — that and the fact that they really, really overused that signature tremolo effect. Plus, evolving into a grandiosely overblown religious rock band probably didn’t help them either. At least, that’s where they lost me. But even if “Then Came The Dawn” ultimately taught me how much Electric Prunes is too much, it certainly enlightened me about the band. To complement these unique psychedelic sounds the box set includes a comprehensive history of the group by Gray Newell, featuring in-depth recollections from original vocalist James Lowe, and from key member of the later incarnation of the band, Richard Whetstone, making this the definitive Electric Prunes’ collection.

An extensive 6CD box set devoted to one of the key innovators of the ‘60s psychedelic sound featuring their entire output, rarities and demos.

Recorded live in Paris – nine urgent Dinosaur Jr classics performed at arguably the band’s 90s peak as a live outfit. At the head of this joyous sound was J Mascis, putting his drawling vocals through the mic, and guitar that echoed Neil Young and his contemporaries, while stalwarts Lou Barlow and Murph laid the table, retaining that solid backline.

Paris played host to the band on the 2nd March 1993 and, for the first time, “The Black Session“, having been remastered from the original tapes, are offered for your delectation. It starts with ‘Quest’ from the band’s 1985 album “Dinosaur”, but the second track is a real treat as these grunge heavyweights present their take on The Cure’s ‘Just Like Heaven’ and this works, perhaps even better than Smith’s drawl, contentious I know,.

A rather polite audience signifies the next track and in juxtaposition ‘Lung’ begins. Taken from 1987’s “You’re Living All Over Me” and by this point, a recognisable track, as Mascis sings “…No way to collapse the lung, raise the doubt in everyone…”, with his stern guitar and familiar riff, you can’t but love this number. Performed live, it is even more adorable, with its swooping guitar and Murph’s drums.

The master of ceremonies introduces what follows and I wish I’d paid more attention during my French lessons, as the band launch into the recognisable ‘Freak Scene’, and if you’re unsure, I have to ask, where have you been? The penultimate track on side 1, shows just how raw and loved this band is, from a show recorded at Maison de la Radio, Studio 105 in Paris, 1993 – a fan favourite session that has been remastered from the original tapes. It sounds as fresh as the day it was recorded.

Side 2 commences with ‘Drawerings’ and is an opportunity to bathe in Mascis’ New England vocal drawl and his guitar playing eloquence. At times, pinpoint accurate, while others are as sprawled as the greatest modern art. As Jimi Hendrix once sang, it has to be “experienced”, both guitar and vocal. As ‘Budge’ signifies the penultimate track, this steam train rattles on, its riff sounding like the horn at the front of the engine. Then it’s left to ‘Thumb’ to ride until the end of the rails, as it’s clear this performance will soon draw the drapes. A track that was first released in February 1991, this is as near to perfect as a number is going to get. Starting with a brief ride on the phaser pedal, the man at the helm tonight playfully strides in at the end of the first verse singing “…why can’t you move without a goal…” and as we’re left to consider this question, as he sings “…There never really is a good time…”, as I decide that the message is just to swim in this sea of sound. I would now consider Mascis and co. to be the godfathers of the scene. The music is rich and this performance displays the band at their 90s peak. Only 9 tracks, but I would encourage anyone to immerse themselves in these 41 minutes of sounds and in the process feel the energy of one of the best bands grunge had to offer.

Produced in conjunction with the band and INA, France. A companion piece to 2022’s best-selling ‘Seventytwohundredseconds’ MTV EP.

High Tide featured the intense guitar playing of Tony Hill, the violin and keyboard skills of Simon House (later to join the Third Ear Band and then Hawkwind), bassist Pete Pavli and drummer Roger Hadden. Signing to Liberty Records soon after formation, the band recorded ‘Sea Shanties’ at Olympic studios, an album featuring some of the heaviest gothic progressive rock recorded at that time. This stunning album is now regarded as a true classic of its time notable for including the violin as a rock instrument. The cover artwork was drawn by Paul Whitehead..

 On “Sea Shanties“, there’s nothing fey and flowery in Hill’s bleak lyrics or his doomy Jim Morrison-like delivery, and psychedelia’s melodic whimsy is supplanted by a physicality more in line with the visceral heft of metal progenitors…High Tide weren’t a power trio, though, and it was the interplay of Hill’s guitar with Simon House’s violin that created the band’s unique signature. Showing that rock violin needn’t be a marginal adornment, House whips up an aggressive edge that rivals the guitar… High Tide had the muscularity of a no-nonsense proto-metal band, but they also ventured into prog territory with changing time signatures and tempos, soft-hard dynamics, multi-part arrangements, and even some ornate faux-Baroque interludes… Far from the collection of nautical ditties its name suggests, “Sea Shanties” is an overlooked gem encapsulating the shifting musical currents in late-’60s British rock.

This official gatefold LP vinyl edition fully restores the original LP artwork, has been remastered from the original Liberty master tapes and has been cut at Abbey Road studios.

Though it met with a scathing review in Melody Maker, reviews in the underground press were universally positive, and sales were just enough to convince Liberty to give the green light to a second album

Extensive box set exploring Cranes’ output on the Dedicated label, 1989-1997. Includes albums, b-sides, remixes, rarities and live recordings. Curated in association with cranes founder and vocalist Alison Shaw. Artwork by 4ad graphic design legend Chris Bigg.

Formed in 1986 by siblings Alison and Jim Shaw, Cranes remain one of the most distinctive bands of the late 1980s and 1990s, their ever-mutating sound defying categorisation and existing outside of the zeitgeist. Their recorded output during their initial ten-year incarnation is collected together here for the first time, from the raw 1989 mini album “Self-Non-Self” (originally released on Bite Back!) through to the sophisticated 1997 epic “Population Four”.

Curated and overseen by singer Alison Shaw on behalf of the band, and resplendent in artwork by 4AD legend Chris Bigg (with detailed liner notes and discographic information), “Collected Works Vol 1” serves as timely reminder of Cranes’ magnificence as they evolved from stark, noisy soundscapes to bolder, more elaborate instrumentation and arrangements. With hints of ethereal rock, dream pop, shoegaze, industrial and neo- classical, theirs was a sound truly like no other.

A must for fans and a perfect all-in-one deep dive for the curious, “Collected Works Vol 1” is an emotionally charged time capsule showcasing one of the finest bands of the 1990s.

Bruce Springsteen will release a project called “Tracks II: The Lost Albums” the singer announced on social media Wednesday morning. No further information was provided, but the first volume of “Tracks” was  4-CD, 66-song collection of unreleased material from across his career that was issued in 1998.

The video accompanying the announcement, which is soundtracked by instrumental music, shows studio paperwork dated from 1993 (the session for his Oscar-winning song “Streets of Philadelphia”) and 1997 and includes the tagline, “What was lost has now been found.” It also includes the date April 3rd, 2025 — tomorrow — but it’s unclear whether the album, or merely more information, will be unveiled on that day.

“TRACKS II: THE LOST ALBUMS are seven unreleased Bruce Springsteen albums recorded between 1983-2018. With 82 new songs, The Lost Albums completes chapters of Springsteen’s extensive trajectory, while offering a valuable insight into his life and work as an artist. ‘The Lost Albums” were complete records, some of them included until they were mixed and not published’, says Springsteen. ‘I’m glad that you finally have the opportunity to listen to them. I hope you enjoy them.’

From the lo-fi exploration of LA Garage Sessions ’83, which serves as a crucial link between “Nebraska” and “Born in the U.S.A.”, to the drum and synthesizer sounds of Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, The Lost Albums offers a context without precedent for Springsteen’s 35 prolific years of composition and home recording. “The ability to record at home whenever I wanted allowed me to go in a wide variety of different musical directions,” Springsteen explained. Throughout the album, this sonic experiment takes the form of film soundtracks (for a film that is never seen) in “Faithless”, country combos with pedal steel in Somewhere North of Nashville, frontier stories richly woven in Inyo, mid-sixth-century noir music with orchestra in Twilight Hours and E Street’s favourite rock in “Perfect World“. “The Lost Albums” are available in a limited edition of a nine LP and seven CDs, including the original packaging of each unreleased album, with a hardcover book bound on a 100-page canvas with photos from a few common archives, notes on each lost album by essayist Erik Flannigan and a personal introduction about Springsteen’s own project.”

Springsteen, who launches a European tour next month, teased the album earlier in the week, and his fan network immediately sprung into action, some not only accurately guessing what the project is, but also what might be on it.

Not surprisingly, the most popular guess was the full-band version of his “Nebraska” album, which Springsteen recorded but then abandoned in 1981 and ’82, electing instead to release his solo demos, as he felt they had a spirit and rawness that the band didn’t or couldn’t capture. With the biopic of the making of that album — “Deliver Me From Nowhere,” starring Jeremy Allen White — slated for release later this year, it seems likely that at least some of those songs will be on the collection.

Springsteen has released multiple archival collections since the first “Tracks” dropped nearly 27 years ago, including expanded anniversary editions of his classic albums “Born to Run,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and “The River,” as well as dozens of live recordings available on his website.

The first volume of “Tracks” spanned 1972-1995 but featured just five post-1990 recordings, so it seems likely that the bulk of the material from this new edition will be from the past 30 years. However, Vol. 1 featured just one “Nebraska” outtake, a glaring omission that has tantalized fans for decades.

Springsteen said in 2017, “We’ve made many more records than we released. Why didn’t we release those records? I didn’t think they were essential. I might have thought they were good, I might have had fun making them, and we’ve released plenty of that music [on archival collections over the years]. But over my entire work life, I felt like I released what was essential at a certain moment, and what I got in return was a very sharp definition of who I was, what I want to do, what I was singing about. And I still basically judge what I’m doing by the same set of rules.”

A 20-track, single CD / 2LP highlights release called “Selections From The Lost Albums Track” will also be available. “Tracks II: The Lost Albums” will be released by Sony on 27th June 2025.

As a member of Big in Japan, The Slits and, most famously, Siouxsie and The Banshees and The Creatures, ‘Budgie’ became one of the era-defining drummers in the much-mythologised post punk scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Growing up in working class St Helens in the 1960s, Peter Clarke lost his mum as a young boy and it’s her ‘absence’ that haunts the pages of this book. Disenchanted with art school inLiverpool, Peter became Budgie and befriended the likes of Jayne Casey, Holly Johnson, Pete Burns, Bill Drummond and other luminaires of the legendary Eric’s’ Club, before taking off for London and the big city heat of punk. Budgie’s unique technique and musical sensitivity endeared him to the all-female group The Slits, who asked him to play on their debut album “Cut”. Subsequent touring with former members of the Sex Pistols and others from the post punk aristocracy firmly established Budgie’s reputation for innovation.

 “When in 1973 Pink Floyd said ‘I’ll see you on the dark side of the Moon’, they didn’t realise that Hawkwind had been there, done that and bought the spacesuit a full two years previously. Released in October 1971, “In Search Of Space” the second studio album from Hawkwind, touched down a little over a year after the Hawks’ self-titled debut, and it’s light years ahead of that fledgling far-out fandango.

“This three-disc set includes the original album mix remastered, new stereo mixes, and a Blu-ray disc in 5.1 surround sound. (The big bonus is the inclusion of pamphlet The Hawkwind Log, available only with the earliest vinyl copies.)”

Bass player John A Harrison left just after recording the first album, replaced by Thomas Crimble who in turn was replaced by Dave Anderson from Amon Düül II for this album, and who in turn would be gone before its release. Electronics player Dik Mik Davies had also temporarily left so the band’s live sound engineer Del Dettmar was pulled in as a replacement, whilst Huw Lloyd-Langton had departed after a bad LSD experience at the Isle of Wight Festival.

Recorded in 1971, the album was Hawkwind’s first true masterwork, featuring such classic tracks as ‘You Shouldn’t Do That’, ‘Master of the Universe’ and ‘We Took the Wrong Step Years Ago’. “You Shouldn’t Do That” is an extended piece they had been playing live from Crimble’s time in the band and he asserts he should have received a writer’s credit for the central bass line on which this is based. It was recorded for a BBC Maida Vale session on 19 May 1971 for the Sounds of the 70s show, a bootleg version of the session can be found on The Text of Festival. It was the encore for the “Space Ritual” show but omitted from that album, later appearing in 1976 on the compilation album “Roadhawks”. It has been part of the live set at various times throughout their career,

“We Took the Wrong Step Years Ago” is a twelve string guitar number with a band jam in the middle section and its lyrics bemoan the direction of society. A new acoustic version of “We Took The Wrong Step Years Ago” was included on “The Road to Utopia” produced and arranged by Mike Batt with additional orchestrations.

“Adjust Me” is a band improvisation. “Children of the Sun” is an acoustic guitar number, although after the vocal passage the repeated heavy riff is augmented by electric guitars and bass. The bonus track “Seven by Seven”, originally the b-side to “Silver Machine”, uses the riff from late 1960s English psychedelic band Leviathan’s “Flames”.

‘In Search Of Space’ saw Hawkwind fully realise their unique brand of Space Rock and was greeted with acclaim upon its release in October 1971 and was the band’s first Top 20 hit. The record was subsequently and deservedly hailed as one of the Greatest Hundred British Rock albums of all time by Classic Rock magazine.