By all appearances, XTC’s 1989 album Oranges and Lemons is next up in the band’s current series of audiophile reissues, as bandleader Andy Partridge has been tweeting in recent weeks about work on the 5.1 Surround mix, including an attempt to transfer the baked album tapes that were “in a very bad way.”
This week’s new releases include a huge number of reissues, with re-released titles coming from Siouxsie and the Banshees, XTC, The Afghan Whigs, The Wedding Present and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, plus a brand-new live album from The Fall compiled by Mark E. Smith.
The audiophile reissue of XTC’s classic 1979 album Drums and Wires — with its new 5.1 Surround mix that frontman Andy Partridge last summer boasted is “so good it’s upped my opinion of the album” — finally arrives Oct. 27 on CD and Blu-ray, with the latter format stuffed with bonus material.
This week’s new releases include XTC’s “corrected polarity” version of ‘Skylarking,’ finally arriving on CD, plus Johnny Marr’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 soundtrack, a live set from The Fixx on CD and DVD, plus a reissue of The Godfathers’ 1993 self-titled album.
Back in 2010, Andy Partridge announced that XTC’s 1986 album Skylarking was being reissued “as it was intended to sound, but never has due to human error” — a new double-vinyl pressing that corrected the sound polarity that had been reversed on all prior releases of the album.
This week’s new releases include an expanded 2CD/1DVD reissue of David Bowie’s 7-month-old album ‘The Next Day,’ featuring five brand-new songs, plus an audiophile reissue of XTC’s ‘Nonsuch’ with multiple new mixes, and a new studio album, ‘Tres Cabrones,’ from The Melvins.
XTC will follow up its just-announced expanded reissue of 1992′s Nonsuch with a similarly made-over re-release of the band’s classic 1979 album Drums and Wires sometime next spring that will feature a new 5.1 Surround mix that Andy Partridge reveals is “so good it’s upped my opinion of the album.”
XTC this week launched the first of what promises to be a new series of expanded reissues, beginning with the band’s 1992 album Nonusch, which will be re-released this fall with new 5.1 Surround, stereo and high-res stereo mixes as well as Andy Partridge home demos and Colin Moulding work tapes.
For this week’s “120 Minutes” Rewind, we take a trip back to 1988 for an “120 X Ray” segment on the legendary XTC, filmed during the band’s recording sessions for Oranges & Lemons, which would be released the following year. In this clip (via MrPhilrand), we get a bit of insight into the recording process.
For this week’s installment of Vintage Video, we present a delightfully odd clip of XTC members Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding tucked away in bed (a sleeper sofa, to be precise), where they are being interviewed by onetime Utopia keyboardist Moogy Klingman and Lisa Yapp for New York a cable-access TV show.
XTC mastermind Andy Partridge took to Twitter this morning to announce that the band’s 1992 album Nonsuch will receive a new 5.1 Surround mix by Steven Wilson, the frontman for prog-rock act Porcupine Tree who has worked on remasters for King Crimson, Emerson Lake and Palmer and Jethro Tull in recent years.
XTC’s Andy Partridge has re-teamed with singer-songwriter Peter Blegvad for a follow-up to the duo’s 2004 album ‘Orpheus: The Lowdown,’ and are previewing the record — titled ‘Gonwards’ — with a video for the track “Sacred Objects.” The song features lyrics and vocals from Blegvard set to music by Partridge and Stu Rowe.
Welcome to the Week in Rock, where we round up all of the headlines posted on this site over the past week. This edition includes items about Dinosaur Jr, XTC, The English Beat, The Dream Syndicate, The Cure, Peter Murphy, The Stone Roses, The Replacements, Dead Can Dance, Elvis Costello and more.
For this week’s installment of Vintage Video, we bring you another classic performance filmed for the German TV show ‘Rockpalast’ — this time a full 70-minute concert by XTC filmed in 1982, just two months before the band would play its last-ever tour date before retiring as a live act due to Andy Partridge’s stage fright.
This week’s link round-up includes celeb chef Jamie Oliver finding old Joy Division and New Order master tapes in a Manchester basement, plus XTC’s Andy Partridge on ‘English Settlement,’ Jerry Harrison pining for a Talking Heads reunion and a Kickstarter campaign to fund a second volume of Smiths-inspired comics.
EMI this week released the first in a new series of Peel Sessions compilations, a 2CD set called ‘Movement: BBC Radio 1 Peel Sessions 1977–1979′ that compiles recordings by 41 different punk, post-punk, reggae and 2 Tone acts including Joy Division, XTC, The Jam, Simple Minds, The Specials, Public Image Ltd. and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
The celebrated third album from dancefloor-ready post-punk act Shriekback — 1985′s ‘Oil and Gold,’ featuring signature song ‘Nemesis’ — will be reissued next week in the band’s native U.K. as a 2CD set featuring a remastered edition of the original album and a bonus disc with 10 B-sides and live tracks,
The classic third album from XTC — 1979′s ‘Drums and Wires’ — appears to be next in line to receive an audiophile vinyl pressing following last year’s ‘Skylarking’ reissue, which was ‘corrected’ and re-released ‘as it was intended to sound, but never has.’
British record producer Martin Rushent — who helmed The Human League’s genre-defining 1981 album ‘Dare,’ as well as beloved post-punk/New Wave-era records and singles by The Stranglers, Buzzcocks, XTC, The Go-Go’s and more — died Saturday. He was 63.
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