Cherry Red Records next year will reissue the NME’s legendary C86 cassette — a compilation of jangly guitar-based indie-pop so influential that its title became synonymous with the genre itself — in an expanded 2CD edition, curated by Neil Taylor, one of three writers at the U.K. music weekly who compiled the original tape.
The release was announced via the Facebook page of Cherry Red’s indie-pop box set Scared To Get Happy, which points to a new page created today for the C86 reissue, due out next May.
No tracklist has yet been announced for the reissue, but the new C86 page does include the original 22-song running order of the cassette, which was available from the NME via mail order in summer 1986 and released the following year on vinyl by Rough Trade Records. The cassette itself was a follow-up to the NME’s original C81 collection of New Wave acts.
The C86 tape included acts that were or would go on to be relatively well-known (Primal Scream, The Wedding Present, The Soup Dragons, The Mighty Lemon Drops), as well as some now-forgotten bands (Miaow, Stump, Bogshed). Many of them, including Close Lobsters, Mighty Mighty and The Shop Assistants, were celebrated on this year’s Scared To Get Happy box set.
Original C86 tracklist:
Side 1
1. Primal Scream, “Velocity Girl”
2. Mighty Lemon Drops, “Happy Head”
3. Soup Dragons, “Pleasantly Surprised”
4. The Wolfhounds, “Feeling So Strange Again”
5. The Bodines, “Therese”
6. Mighty Mighty, “Law”
7. Stump, “Buffalo”
8. Bogshed, “Run To The Temple”
9. A Witness, “Sharpened Sticks”
10. Pastels, “Breaking Lines”
11. Age Of Chance, “From Now On, This Will Be Your God”
Side 2
1. Shop Assistants, “It’s Up To You”
2. Close Lobsters, “Firestation Towers”
3. Miaow, “Sport Most Royal”
4. Half Man Half Biscuit, “I Hate Nerys Hughes (From The Heart)”
5. Servants, “Transparent”
6. MacKenzies, “Big Jim (There’s No Pubs In Heaven)”
7. Big Flame, “New Way (Quick Wash And Brush Up With Liberation Theology)”
8. We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Gonna Use It, “Console Me”
9. McCarthy, “Celestial City”
10. Shrubs, “Bullfighter’s Bones”
11. The Wedding Present, “This Boy Can Wait (A Bit Longer!)”
