Category: Compilation albums

Posted on

Year by Year: Cocteau Twins – 1982

An opening post in a long-running series that will be appear periodically, the aim is to document one of my long-standing, enduring favourites – Cocteau Twins. This is a band where I bought their records from the very first release, ‘Garlands’, shortly after its release, and onwards. Much like another of my favourites, Durutti Column, the Cocteau Twins have an interesting discography to examine since they were very much an act where you found fine quality work not only on albums but on 12″ EPs (a Cocteau Twins speciality) as well as gifted to obscure compilations (more often than not exclusive tracks or versions).

Cocteau Twins assemblage of releases
^ An assemblage of Cocteau Twins releases from over the years

Year by year, the plan is to document when a primary release first made an appearance and to highlight the obscurities that can be found here and there on compilations and the like. Like other post-punk acts of the era, there have been re-issues over the year, in some cases where bonus tracks have ended up removed so as to restore original album running orders to match the original vinyl releases. (Wire also spring to mind here…)

Continue reading “Year by Year: Cocteau Twins – 1982”

Posted on

Bauhaus – ‘4AD’ UK Mini-Album (4AD, BAD 312, 1983)

Having worked away steadily and with increasing pressure since 1979, Bauhaus finally arrived into the upper ends of the UK charts with the double impact of the ‘Ziggy Stardust’ single (top 20) and ‘The Sky’s Gone Out’ album (top 5) in late 1982. The early months of 1983 would see two more singles and further success, a major tour and then the belated release of ‘Burning From The Inside’ following the band’s implosion in the summer of 1983 and split. It all seemed premature and left a void, such that the pent up demand for their work would see numerous digs into the archive over the next couple of years and beyond – undead, the maschine rolled on, starting with this ‘4AD’ mini-album in September of 1983…

Bauhaus - '4AD' UK Mini-Album front cover design
^ Bauhaus – ‘4AD’ UK Mini-Album front cover design

Continue reading “Bauhaus – ‘4AD’ UK Mini-Album (4AD, BAD 312, 1983)”

Posted on

Side by side: Brian Eno – Music for Films Volume 2 (1983) and More Music For Films (2005)

Having already taken a deep dive into the complexities and version craziness of Brian Eno’s ‘Music For Films’, we are by no means done here. There is plenty left in the tank with the variations of the belated follow-up volume – with a particular focus on how you might piece together a digital version. (The answer is, not completely…)

Brian Eno - 'Music For Films Volume 2' 1983 front cover
^ Brian Eno – ‘Music For Films Volume 2’ 1983 front cover

Continue reading “Side by side: Brian Eno – Music for Films Volume 2 (1983) and More Music For Films (2005)”

Posted on

Brian Eno – ‘The Drop’ and ‘Iced World’ version craziness

A simple joy of physical format products – the ability to pinpoint precise times and places associated with them. For me, Brian Eno’s 1997 album release ‘The Drop’, (All Saints, ASCD32), always takes me back to a summer morning on the ground floor of HMV’s flagship London Store on Oxford Street, on a brief city break, where I was loaded up with a shopping list of records to look out for across the many and varied record shops of the great city. New and exotic, second-hand and scarce – the list was long. This album had only just come out and was on that list…

Brian Eno - 'The Drop' - 1997 Japanese 2 x CD edition
^ Brian Eno – ‘The Drop’ – 1997 Japanese 2 x CD edition

Continue reading “Brian Eno – ‘The Drop’ and ‘Iced World’ version craziness”

Posted on

A Tourist’s Guide to ‘Life In Tokyo’ – Part 4

So, now that the long anticipated super deluxe re-issue of ‘Quiet Life’ and its accompanying supplementary extra ‘Life In Tokyo’ CD EP, has finally been released, time for a final instalment in this series and take stock of what’s new and what’s what.

Japan 'Life In Tokyo' CD EP 2021 front cover
^ Japan ‘Life In Tokyo’ CD EP 2021 front cover

Even more version craziness!

In a maddening example of baffling record company thinking, putting together a whole CD EP that was (seemingly) intended to gather up all official mixes of ‘Life In Tokyo’ into one place manages to come undone from the off by the inclusion only on the ‘A Quieter Life’ CD of the super deluxe box set edition of a newly unearthed version – and leave it off of the CD EP! Continue reading “A Tourist’s Guide to ‘Life In Tokyo’ – Part 4”