Closing The Slits

Viv Albertine is going to close the circle on the Slits by releasing one last record:

Writing on Twitter, Albertine said: "Me and Tessa are going to release last ever Slits song 'Coulda Shoulda Woulda' from 1981 on cassette. We will hand draw covers. A healing thing."

Might be worth trying to track down one of those last few tape walkmans to have something to play it on.

Punkobit: Ari Up

Ari Up, one of the great European punks, has died, according to a website posting by her stepfather John Lydon:

"John and Nora have asked us to let everyone know that Nora's daughter Arianna (aka Ari-Up) died today (Wednesday, October 20th) after a serious illness," he wrote. "She will be sadly missed. Everyone at JohnLydon.com and PiLofficial.Com would like to pass on their heartfelt condolences to John, Nora and family. Rest in Peace."

Born Arianna Forster, Up formed the Slits when she was just 14, embarking on a couple years of astonishing dubbed-punk until they split in 1981. And sounding like this:



Roaming the world after the band broke up, Ari continued to make music - she was part of On-U Sound's New Age Steppers in the 1980s, and worked as a solo artist under the labels Baby Ari, Madussa, and Ari Up.

The Slits reformed in what felt like it might have been an ill-advised move in 2005, but you know what?



They still worked.

Ari Up was 48.

Embed and breakfast man: Viv Albertine

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Fresh Slits

The Slits have been floating about in a reunited form for a couple of years now, so it's only with a slight feeling of trepidation that we hear they're about to release an album of new material:

"We've always wanted to do an album," [Ari] Up tells Spinner. "We just never had a chance to. Apparently we're still a revolution and we're still a threat to society. So now we got the album finally, which we've been wanting to do for a long time, but we didn't have the money to do it. We got signed to a record deal [with Narnack Records], and that's why we did the album."

This is the sort of comeback we like the sound of.

Slits: Music and heated debate

The Slits turned up to do a session for Fair Game - which is good; they then had a bit of an inter-band falling out over which Democratic Presidential hopeful to throw their weight behind. (Nobody, it seems, wanted Edwards to re-enter the race.)

Cuts and cuts again

Coming on the 22nd November: A remastered and repromoted Return Of The Giant Slits, the band's 1981, second and final record.

The press release promises a second disc:

The new package is released with new artwork, photos by Anton Corbijn and a bonus CD featuring rare dub mixes, B Sides and an American radio interview from 1980 that initially came on a freebie 7” single with limited copies of the album in ’81.