Rose McDowall's solo album is coming back

You know what? It's thirty sodding eight degrees outside and I'm hot, so I'm going to paste a press release in here and that's okay because it's worth reading, alright?

Born in times of difficulty and adventure, Cut With The Cake Knife is the debut album from Rose McDowall, solo-artist and ex-member of cult pop group Strawberry Switchblade. Originally recorded in 1988-89 and now re-mastered and getting the re-issue treatment from Sacred Bones Records (U.S.) & Night School Records (UK, EU)

Marking the beginning of an extensive archive project spanning Rose’s 34 year career, Cut With The Cake Knife will include unreleased recordings alongside unseen photographs and detailed new sleeve notes.

Recorded in various locations around the UK and Iceland following the break up of Strawberry Switchblade, the original 9-track Cut With The Cake Knife album featured songs written and demoed for the group’s fabled second album.

Rose McDowall began her career in her hometown of Glasgow, operating within the nascent punk scene with her first group The Poems. After a meteoric rise to pop stardom, which saw Strawberry Switchblade achieve chart success, world tours and global fame, McDowall’s relationship with partner and friend Jill Bryson disintegrated. The aftermath of her pop career saw McDowall earn a new reputation as an underground artist, collaborating with Coil, Felt, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound among others. Cut With The Cake Knife was recorded against this tumultuous backdrop and is one the most affecting collections of direct pop songwriting committed to tape.

The album opens with one of McDowall’s most heartfelt, honest moments: Tibet; a simple song written with absolute truth about the loss of friendship. For errant Switchblade fans it’s a prime example of why McDowall’s legacy is so important: shorn of unnecessary ornament, it’s one of many songs here that speak loudly and clearly about universal emotional states. Production values throughout lie somewhere between glossy, 80s studios and home-recorded demos but it’s a sound that only heightens the poignancy in McDowall’s voice: her best instrument and one that can evoke vulnerability, as in the near-angelic harmonies on Sixty Cowboys or swirling excitement as in the number 1 hit that never was, Crystal Nights. But perhaps her prowess is best summed up by the album’s title track, written for the 2nd Switchblade album yet thriving here, in which Rose projects a powerful protagonist, tinged with violence but still playful. At the heart of even the most upbeat, transcendently “pop” moments is a beautiful melancholy, a nagging heartache McDowall can call her own.

As Rose writes in the 2015 edition sleeve notes: “They’re real sad songs, about real life.”

Cut With The Cake Knife is out September 18th on Sacred Bones (U.S.) / Night School (UK / EU)

Could I make this 'exciting news/half-arsed post' even more so? Yes. Here's a YouTube embed:

N'Sync: The last to know

Were you surprised at the recent release of the two-disc Essential N'Sync collection?

You weren't the only one:

Sony released the two-disc album on Tuesday, July 29. Member Lance Bass, however, tweeted his frustration at the label for not informing him and his bandmates.

Bass wrote: "I love when the record label doesn't even tell you they are releasing a new 'NSYNC album tomorrow !"

"Guess the label didn't expect all our amazing fans to still be there for us," he added later on.

I'm not quite sure how Bass thinks that would work - presumably Sony thinks there's still a bunch of middle-aged people desperate to cling to their youth by repurchasing tracks they have already got at least twice already ("still a massive fanbase") otherwise they wouldn't have released the record at all.

Unexpected re-release of the week: Donna Allen

I usually restrict todoing a tweet about the most unexpected re-release of the week, but Donna Allen's Perfect Timing is worthy of a closer look.

You'll probably best remember Donna Allen from this single - which was, genuinely, a thing of wonder:



But BBR might be worried the rest of Allen's career, and thus the rest of this album, might not chime so strongly in the memory.

So here's how they've dealt with that, as they expanded the tracklist from the original:

1. Serious
2. Sweet Somebody
3. Satisfied
4. Daydreams
5. Wild Nights
6. Perfect Timing
7. Bit By Bit
8. Another Affair
9. Bad Love
10. Serious (12 Inch Extended Remix Bonus Track)
11. Satisfied (12 Inch Long Version Remix Bonus Track)
12. Sweet Somebody (12 Inch Dance Mix Bonus Track)
13. Serious (Single Version Bonus Track)
14. Satisfied (Single Version Bonus Track)
15. Sweet Somebody (Single Version Bonus Tracks)
16. Serious (12 Inch Delirious Mix Bonus Track)

Yes, that's Serious four times. 25% of the tracks. And just three songs account for 62.5% of the entire tracklisting. My love, tell me: are you serious?

[Buy: Perfect Timing]

Bikini Kill: New thrill

This year, it's twenty-five years since Bikini Kill started.

How do you mark an occasion like that? Turns out by launching a record label of the same name:

As our 25th anniversary approaches, Bikini Kill has decided to start our own record label called Bikini Kill Records. The Bikini Kill back catalog is currently available digitally via bikinikill.com, eMusic & iTunes. The Frumpies and Casual Dots are also up for sale now. We are working towards reissuing the physical Bikini Kill records one at a time. There are brand new Bikini Kill T Shirts available from bikinikill.com at this time with more merch to come in the near future.

Bikini Kill's Self-Titled EP will come out in the fall of 2012 to commemorate the 20 year anniversary of its original release. We also plan to re-release our original demo tape, which contains songs that were previously unavailable and/or hard to find on vinyl & CD. We are currently going through our archive, which include photographs, practice tapes, live recordings, unreleased songs, films, video, writing, interviews, zines and flyers that we intend to feature on future releases and document on our website. Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive news about our progress.

Best. Jubilee. Ever.

Lydon draws attention to single he doesn't want you to buy

John Lydon is livid - livid - with the re-release of God Save The Queen. Livid, I tells you:

In a statement, Lydon said of the re-release: "It is certainly not my personal plan or aim. I am proud of what The Sex Pistols achieved and always will be but this campaign totally undermines what The Sex Pistols stood for.

"This is not my campaign. I am pleased that the Sex Pistols recordings are being put out there for a new generation, however, I wish for no part in the circus that is being built up around it."

'Yes,' continued Lydon, 'those singles that are available in all good stores, via Amazon.co.uk and to download from iTunes certainly don't have my blessing. I'm certainly doing my best to stop people from noticing what otherwise would have been an insignificant and frankly embarrassing re-release by trumpeting quite loudly how I don't approve of people buying them'. He then got a box of records from the boot of his car, yelling 'roll up, roll up' as he sold them, tutting in the face of everybody as he pocketed their cash.

Streaming now: The Cure

Generous bunch of streamable stuff over at the site promoting The Cure's re-release of Disintegration.

Buggles: back again

A press release with the heading "The Return of The Buggles" can only be opened with a sense of trembling anticipation. And, being a press release, can only lead to a slight "oh" of disappointment.

They're not returning. But Trevor Horn's post-Geoff Davis Buggles album, Adventures In Modern Recording, is getting a spiffed-up re-release. With extra demo stuff. Including Videotheque being demoed by Buggles, who were going to do it orignally. Before Horn gave it to Dollar. It would make a bit more sense as a Buggles track, when you think about it.

This is all out on the 19th April, on the Salvo label. Salvo are working their way through the archives of ZTT:

This album is part five in the Element Series, a brand new stream of reissues of classic albums from the Zang Tuum Tumb label. Look out also for Element 06: Welcome To The Pleasuredome (Deluxe Edition) by Frankie Goes To Hollywood (out 26.04.10) and Elements 01 to 04: deluxe, double-CD reissues of 808 State's ten year legacy of dance innovation (out 22.03.10).

Can this mean a reissue of Das Psych-Oh Rangers stuff is in the future?

Coming around again: Apple Boutique

Exciting news from the Creation Records blog: Apple Boutique's Love Resistance is getting a re-release.

Highly limited to 59 copies, and only on three inch CDs (so happy hours to be spent there trying to fish the thing out of your iMac). But even 59 copies is probably going to double the number of copies available in the world.

Saint Etienne: Return to Foxbase

Some sublime news from the Saint Etienne camp:

Rumours have been flying left right and centre, but we can finally confirm that disco dynamo Richard X has taken Foxbase Alpha and re-arranged it into a brand new beast called FOXBASE BETA. Using the original masters, adding cellos, electrix, choirs, and the spirit of Brian Cant he has created something really special - spruced-up yet reverential, it is essentially a 2009 up-date of Foxbase Alpha, given a shot of vodka and a loving caress. We're chuffed. It feels unnervingly like jumping into a Tardis.

FOXBASE BETA will be issued, via the fan club, as a limited, numbered 2CD set of 3,000 copies, which will also include FOXBASE EXTRA, three unreleased recordings from the original album sessions: a just discovered coda to Girl VII (we'd forgotten it existed), a summery instrumental called Richard III, and the first, very different, take of Kiss And Make Up, which was the very first Saint Etienne recording. We cut it one afternoon in January 1990, and then Only Love Can Break Your Heart in the evening! It was all so simple then. These tracks won't be available anywhere else.

There's also to be limited 12", gig-only versions and all manner of highly collectable whatnot. Let's just not think about how young we all were when the original came out. Let's not think about that. Don't THINK ABOUT IT.

Beatles: No explanation as to why

Hey, here's a funny coincidence - Paul McCartney and Ringo Aviva sharing a stage together just a couple of days before the announcement of another round of Beatles remasters. A crazy, crazy coincidence.

EMI and Apple Corps are very excited indeed:

London, England - April 7, 2009 - Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music are delighted to announce the release of the original Beatles catalogue, which has been digitally re-mastered for the first time, for worldwide CD release on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 (9-9-09), the same date as the release of the widely anticipated "The Beatles: Rock Band" video game. Each of the CDs is packaged with replicated original UK album art, including expanded booklets containing original and newly written liner notes and rare photos. For a limited period, each CD will also be embedded with a brief documentary film about the album. On the same date, two new Beatles boxed CD collections will also be released.

How does one embed a CD, however briefly? Do they mean that the first run of the CDs will also have a movie file on them?

The albums have been re-mastered by a dedicated team of engineers at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London over a four year period utilising state of the art recording technology alongside vintage studio equipment, carefully maintaining the authenticity and integrity of the original analogue recordings. The result of this painstaking process is the highest fidelity the catalogue has seen since its original release.

Surely if they started this in 2005, the state of the art equipment they were using is now going to be as out of date as John Lennon's driving licence? Is that why it's taken so long, then - every time they just got finished, they discovered that technology had improved and had to start all over again?

Let's not even start to unpick how you can digitally remaster something as if it was the original analogue version. Frankly, the only people who are interested in rebuying the Beatles records are going to be at a stage in life where their hearing would probably not notice if the tracks on the new CDs were recorded off a poorly-tuned-in FM radio onto an elderly and slightly stretched C90 tape.

This will mark the first time that the first four Beatles albums will be available in stereo in their entirety on compact disc.

No, really. EMI & Apple simply haven't bothered before.

Within each CD's new packaging, booklets include detailed historical notes along with informative recording notes. With the exception of the 'Past Masters' set, newly produced mini-documentaries on the making of each album, directed by Bob Smeaton, are included as QuickTime files on each album. The documentaries contain archival footage, rare photographs and never-before-heard studio chat from The Beatles, offering a unique and very personal insight into the studio atmosphere.

I suppose the choice of Apple's video format might have been a wry joke on the part of the project team.

It's hard to believe that there's any useful Beatles studio chat that hasn't already been exposed to the public ear, so god alone knows what they'll be dredging up for these.

A second boxed set has been created with the collector in mind.

Because, of course, 'buying all the Beatles albums on CD - again' isn't a collector impulse in its own right. There is a large market of people, I'm sure, who don't already own all the tracks in sixteen manifestations who have just been waiting forty years for a digitally remastered edition to make the commitment.

Still, digital remastering; computer games. It might have taken decades to get to this point, but at least Apple Corps is catching up with the times, right?

Discussions regarding the digital distribution of the catalogue will continue. There is no further information available at this time.

Oh. Sometime mid-2015 for the Limited Edition Zune, then?

Vaseline reapplied

More forthcoming-record-news-excitement: SubPop are re-releasing Enter The Vaselines in May, in a luxury double-CD package. Which can sometime mean a disc full of old rubbish, but this being The Vaselines, has got a pretty delicious sounding listing:

1. Son of A Gun (demo)
2. Rosary Job (demo)
3. Red Poppy (demo)
4. Son of A Gun (live in Bristol)
5. Rosary Job (live in Bristol)
6. Red Poppy (live in Bristol)
7. Rory Rides Me Raw (live in Bristol)
8. You Think You’re a Man (live in Bristol)
9. Dying for It (live in London)
10. Monsterpussy (live in London)
11. Let’s Get Ugly (live in London)
12. Molly’s Lips (live in London)
13. The Day I Was a Horse (live in London)
14. The Day I Was A Horse (Again) (live in London)
15. Sex Sux (Amen) (live in London)
16. I Didn’t Know I Loved You (‘Til I Saw You Rock ‘n’ Roll) (live in London)
17. Teenage Superstars (live in London)

There's a pre-release gig at the Forum on March 28th as well.

Downloadable: In Motion

To mark the re-release of In Motion's The Language Of Everyday Life - and, to be honest, its original 1990s incarnation was so small it actually constitutes a release - Indiecater Records are offering a free sample mp3 download of Hollow Blow.

Listen to the free track, but consider buying the whole thing. If you need any further persuasion, the band are giving any money they make to an Irish depression charity.

Will Anything Happen again?

Cherry Red - who, let's face it, would probably get National Lottery funding if they put the care they bring to looking after indie heritage into any other artform - are about to re-release The Shop Assistant's mighty Will Anything Happen?

In a mini celebration, here's the first of two posts featuring the album's highlights. I Don't Want To Be Friends With You:



[Enjoy Safety Net as well]

The Cab came back

Death Cab For Cutie celebrate their 10th anniversary - yes, we're all getting old - with plans for re-release of their debut Something About Airplanes. This is going to include an extra disc, with what's being pushed as "a recently unearthed" tape of their first Seattle gig ever.

Recently unearthed? It probably is, but only in the sense of someone saying "have we got that tape of the Daeth Cab Seattle gig? Rootle about in that cardboard box, will you?"

From the album - although not the performance on the free disc - this is President Of What:

A return to Vienna

Ultravox - what Midge Ure did before he became the bagman for Bob Geldof - are re-releasing Rage In Eden and Vienna, both in luxurious double CD editions. September 22nd is the US release date; they're calling them the Remastered Definitive Editions, which means the best you can possibly imagine until they do the next re-release.

Sebadoh's Bubble redoubled

The process of re-releasing upgraded versions of Sebadoh's back catalogue has reached Bubble and Scrape. As part of its brush-up, the album is getting a second disc's worth of extra acoustic and demo stuff strapped on.

Here's a slice of what to expect - track 10, Emma Get Wild, being strung out live during the band's 2007 reunion tour:

Return to Guyville: Phair reorders affairs

Having badly misjudged her embrace of Avril Lavigne's writer-producers, Liz Phair is regrouping. She's signed to ATO and is starting to try and rebuild an audience that vanished in the search for "promotional dollars".

First move: bringing Exile In Guyville back into print, with the requisite extra-bits-and-pieces.

Second spurt

Nocturnal Emissions' um, seminal 1985 album Songs Of Love And Revolution is getting a limited edition re-release. This time, the CD is being mastered from the vinyl album rather than the original tape, on account of how bad the first CD version sounded; fans also get the 12" No Sacrifice tracks. There's only 400, so don't hang about washing sheets at 2am if you want one.

Pornographers' art refreshed

Neko Case is re-releasing her most recent three albums, including Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, which only originally emerged last year and seems a little early to be getting the shake-down. Fox comes in a new package, which includes a whole extra disc of... you know, the usual 'buy this record all over again' stuff.

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.