Record Rack: A round-up of the week’s new albums, expanded reissues and/or box sets, appearing each Monday on Slicing Up Eyeballs.
ARTIST: Pet Shop Boys
RELEASE: Ultimate
BACKSTORY: The synthpop duo this week releases — in Europe only — a new 19-track greatest-hits collection, featuring the new brand-single “Together” and, if you buy the CD/DVD edition, 27 different BBC performances filmed between 1985 and 2006, plus the group’s entire performance at the Glastonbury festival last summer. (See tracklist here.)
BUY IT: Ultimate via Amazon.co.uk
ARTIST: The Jam
RELEASE: Sound Affects: Deluxe Edition
BACKSTORY: The 1980 album from Paul Weller and Co. — home to U.K. No. 1 single “Start!” and the classic “That’s Entertainment” — is reissued this week in the U.K. as a double-disc 30th anniversary edition featuring 22 bonus tracks, eight of which are previously unreleased. (See tracklist here.)
BUY IT: Sound Affects: Deluxe Edition via Amazon.co.uk
ARTIST: INXS
RELEASE: “Mystify”
BACKSTORY: This new DVD, released this week in the U.S., was filmed at the Loreley Festival in Germany on June 21, 1997 — just five months before the tragic death of frontman Michael Hutchence — for the German TV series “Rockpalast.” The DVD includes the band’s 18-song set — including some of the group’s biggest hits, such as “Devil Inside,” “What You Need,” “Need You Tonight,” “Never Tear Us Apart” and “Suicide Blonde” — plus an additional six songs filmed for “Rockpalast” in Hamburg on May 8, 1984, featuring such favorites as “Original Sin,” “Don’t Change” and “The One Thing.”
BUY IT: “Mystify” via Amazon.com
ARTIST: Brian Eno
RELEASE: Small Craft on a Milk Sea
BACKSTORY: The famed producer and ambient-music pioneer returns this week with his first new album in five years, a collaboration with musicians Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams inspired by music from soundtrack albums and film scores. As Eno says: “As they stand, they are the mirror-image of silent movies — sound-only movies.”
BUY IT: Small Craft on a Milk Sea via Amazon.com
More releases from UB40, The Motels, The Fall and more after the jump…
ARTIST: UB40
RELEASE: Signing Off
BACKSTORY: The seminal 1980 debut from the British reggae act — that would achieve worldwide fame later in the decade as a glorified covers band — receives an expanded 2CD/DVD reissue in the U.K. this week, filled out with a bonus disc of B-sides, 12-inch mixes and BBC sessions, plus a DVD with videos and a 1981 live performance.
BUY IT: Signing Off via Amazon.co.uk
ARTIST: The Motels
RELEASE: Motels/Careful
BACKSTORY: The early ’80s New Wave act this week in the U.K. reissues its first two albums — originally released in 1979 and 1980, and including track such as “Closets and Bullets,” “Total Control,” “Days Are OK (But the Nights Were Made for Love)” and “Whose Problem?” — in a new 2CD, digitally remastered set.
BUY IT: Motels/Careful via Amazon.co.uk
ARTIST: Elvis Costello
RELEASE: National Ransom
BACKSTORY: The rocker re-teams with producer T Bone Burnett for the fourth time on this new album, due out this week in the U.S. (it was released last week in the U.K.). The disc features members of The Imposters and The Sugarcanes, as well as high-profile guests Vince Gill, Jerry Douglas, Marc Ribot and Buddy Miller. (See tracklist here.)
BUY IT: National Ransom via Amazon.co.uk
ARTIST: The Fall
RELEASE: The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall: Omnibus Edition
BACKSTORY: Beggars Archive this week releases in the U.S. (it was out last week in the U.K.) a 4CD “Omnibus Edition” of Mark E. Smith and Co.’s 1984 album. The 50-track box set will include a remastered edition of the original album, a second disc with singles and rough mixes, a third disc of BBC session recordings and a fourth disc featuring a concert broadcast on Dutch radio. (See tracklist here.)
BUY IT: The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall: Omnibus Edition via Amazon.co.uk
