Reissues — February 24, 2014 at 9:22 am

Reissue of XTC’s ‘Skylarking’ with ‘corrected polarity’ finally coming to CD

XTC, 'Skylarking'

Back in the summer of 2010, Andy Partridge announced that XTC’s 1986 album Skylarking was being reissued later that year “as it was intended to sound, but never has due to human error” — a new double-vinyl pressing that corrected the polarity that had been reversed on all prior releases of the album, resulting in a thinner sound that was light on bass.

Nearly four years later, that new version of Skylarking is finally coming to CD, Partridge announced on Saturday via Twitter: “Corrected polarity SKYLARKING CD being pressed up right now folks.”

No further details have been announced, including whether the new CD reissue will include the original “banned” artwork (as seen above) that was restored for the vinyl reissue in 2010. The new CD edition presumably will be sold through Partridge’s Ape House Records, which handled the Skylarking vinyl reissue and a more recent 5.1 Surround mix of Nonsuch.

As for other reissues in the pipeline, a 5.1 mix of 1979’s Drums and Wires is coming “soon,” according from a tweet last week by Partridge: “DRUMS 5.1 soon man,rawer but good, I’ve heard it.”It’s not clear whether Drums and Wires will also be receiving the vinyl reissue Partridge first suggested was coming in 2011.

 

 

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16 Comments

  1. yum yum

  2. Nick Wilhelmy

    I think the first article I read on Slicing Up Eyeballs was about the vinyl reissue with the corrected polarity. I added SUE to my Google Reader feed, thinking that way I’ll know right away when they reissue the album on CD, too.

    So here we are four years later, and I can finally remove this site from my RSS feed! (just kidding)

  3. ugh. Can we stick to the Geffen Records art please? Much classier.

  4. Next SUE poll: best pubic hair album cover – The Black Crowes, Roxy Music, Ween, or….XTC?

  5. Yes, I am deeply offended by images of the human body as well. Jeesh.

  6. Christopher Bloom

    I believe Andy answered the question about the sleeve art on the CD a few weeks ago:

    https://twitter.com/xtcfans/status/431082289221480448

  7. When XTC was putting out their great albums I thought that they would be the one band that was still putting out great albums decades later. Sadly, I was wrong,

  8. Ramin Dadmanesh

    What’s with the obsession over the cover art? Is anyone interested in the content?

  9. I only see a link to view the cover art but not to listen to the content, Ramin. That’s all we have to comment on?

  10. Have there been any reports of other LPs produced at Todd Rundgren’s studio around the same time having the same polarity issues?

  11. I have looked at the audio from an old Skylarking CD every way that I can think of and it damn sure seems to be in phase to me. Not only are the channels in phase, but the absolute phase seems to be correct.

  12. I agree, there are no polarity issues. It is a little bass light but that was the trend at the time. XTC have been pseudo-scienced.

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