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: The The
RELEASE: Tony: A Soundtrack by The The
BACKSTORY: Matt Johnson’s first new The The album since 2000’s NakedSelf — released with little fanfare last year via the band’s website — this week makes its commercial debut in the U.K. Featuring 32 tracks, the disc is mostly, if not all, instrumental — a score that accompanies the British indie serial-killer film (read more here).
BUY IT: Tony: A Soundtrack by The The via Amazon.co.uk
ARTIST: Scritti Politti
RELEASE: Absolute
BACKSTORY: The Green Gartside-fronted outfit this week releases, in the U.K., its first career-spanning best-of collection, which includes two new songs — “A Day Late and a Dollar Short” and “A Place Where We Both Belong” — co-written with David Gamson, their first collaboration since 1999’s Anomie & Bonhomie.
BUY IT: Absolute via Amazon.co.uk
ARTIST: Mike Watt
RELEASE: Hyphenated-Man
BACKSTORY: The bass warrior this week releases his third punk opera, a 30-track opus the rocker says was inspired by listening to his old Minutemen music (”I was digging how ‘econo’ those tiny tunes were — no filler, right to the point and distilled down to the bare nada”) as well as the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. (See tracklist here.)
BUY IT: Hyphenated-Man via Amazon.com
More new releases from The Baseball Project, OMD and This Mortal Coil after the jump…
ARTIST: The Baseball Project
RELEASE: Volume 2: High and Inside
BACKSTORY: The baseball-themed supergroup — R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Steve Wynn of The Dream Syndicate, Young Fresh Fellows’ Scott McCaughey and Linda Pitmon of Wynn’s Miracle 3 — returns with a second album this week, with help from members of Death Cab For Cutie, Yo La Tengo, The Decemberists and Los Lobos.
BUY IT: Volume 2: High and Inside via Amazon.com
ARTIST: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
RELEASE: “History of Modern (Part 1)”
BACKSTORY: The classic synthpop outfit, which about to embark on its first U.S. tour in years, this week releases the title track of its new album as its latest U.K. single. Available in multiple formats, the expanded CD single includes eight different remixes of “History of Modern (Part 1),” plus the song “The Grand Deception” and a cover of The xx’s “VCR.”
BUY IT: “History of Modern (Part 1)” via Amazon.co.uk
ARTIST: This Mortal Coil
RELEASE: It’ll End in Tears
BACKSTORY: The 1984 debut from the iconic 4AD collective is reissued this week on 180-gram, audiophile vinyl — in standard black or limited-edition white pressings — by Original Recordings Group. The album features members of the Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance performing songs by Alex Chilton, Tim Buckley and more.
BUY IT: It’ll End in Tears via Amazon.com
