[bong]

for those vintage shoegazers who still hold the torch, or for those who are still alive...

Slowdive will be releasing reissues of their three albums with Just For a Day and Souvlaki gaining bonus discs of songs from corresponding EPs of those era. shame... i already have most of those EPs.

i think i'll go play "Morningrise" now...

here's the Pitchfork article:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/news/0...shtml#slowdive

Slowdive to Receive Reissue Treatment

Matthew Solarski reports:
Once upon a time in England, that magical island which birthed the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Stephen Patrick Morrissey and, yes, Ali G, four lads and a lass got together and decided to make guitars glimmer and soar like none had before. They were Slowdive, and over the course of a six-year career, the quintet (in various incarnations) graced us with three glorious full-lengths and a few EPs, and left a patina which continues to imbue the songcraft of countless contemporary acts.

Though often lumped into the same early-90s shoegaze set that included My Bloody Valentine, Curve, Ride, Chapterhouse, Revolver, and the Boo Radleys, Slowdive was treated as revelation by fans. People cried at their shows, overcome by the compelling pulchritude of Slowdive's music (and, quite possibly, drugs). Folks still clamor for their rarer releases on eBay, while discussion lists and several fansites remain to tout Slowdive long after they dissolved into Mojave 3 and Monster Movie.

Now, hardly a year after the release of Slowdive's 9.5-rated anthology Catch The Breeze, Sanctuary Records plans to treat ‘gazers young and old with lavish reissues of each of the band's three celebrated full-lengths. Both Just for a Day and Souvlaki will feature bonus discs compiling sought-after EPs. According to Sanctuary, Just for a Day and the bonus discs have been "re-done", but former Slowdive singer/guitarist Neil Halstead saw no need to tinker with Souvlaki or its follow-up, Pygmalion.

Pygmalion, Slowdive's criminally underrated third and final long-player, is the real reissue treat here, as it has been fetching upwards of $50 on a certain e-auction house. The disc's sparse, ambient soundscapes alienated many, including several members of Slowdive, and precipitated the act's demise. Though dismissed in its day, the haunting ultimate opus has since garnered considerable acclaim, with Pitchfork'a Nitsuh Abebe extolling it as a post-rock cornerstone. So, in a small way, this is Big.

Just for a Day is set for a November 14 release, with the other two following shortly. Until that hallowed date arrives, why not turn your gaze to these delectable tracklistings?:

Just For A Day:

Disc 1:
01 Spanish Air
02 Celia's Dream
03 Catch the Breeze
04 Ballad of Sister Sue
05 Erik's Song
06 Waves
07 Brighter
08 The Sadman
09 Primal

Disc 2:
01 Slowdive
02 Avalyn 1
03 Avalyn 2
04 Morningrise
05 She Calls
06 Losing Today
07 Golden Hair
08 Shine
09 Albatross
10 Catch the Breeze (Peel Session)
11 Song 1 (Peel Session)
12 Golden Hair (Peel Session)

Souvlaki:

Disc 1:
01 Alison
02 Machine Gun
03 40 Days
04 Sing
05 Here She Comes
06 Souvlaki Space Station
07 When the Sun Hits
08 Altogether
09 Melon Yellow
10 Dagger

Disc 2:
01 Some Velvet Morning
02 So Tired
03 Moussaka Chaos
04 In Mind
05 Good Day Sunshine
06 Missing You
07 Country Rain
08 In Mind (Bandulu Mix)
09 In Mind (Reload Mix)

Pygmalion:

01 Rutti
02 Crazy gor You
03 Miranda
04 Trellisaze
05 Cello 07 Visions of La
08 Blue Skied An' Clear
09 All of Us

According to Sanctuary, the reissues were overseen by the members of Slowdive and will feature liner notes penned by Melody Maker and NME scribe Ian Watson. According to me, the reissues will also be fecking brilliant. Believe it.

 

[elrod-tom]

My brother tells me that they are already re-released.

Check amazon.uk link from the Creation Records website links. Both Souvlaki and Just for a Day are shown with two-disk sets with a release date of November 21, 2005.

Supposed to sound amazing...

EDIT: These are now available on amazon.com here stateside (as imports)...just bought em.

 

[DarkAngel]

Got mine month ago at alldirect.com for $21.70 Castle Music UK label, USA release date was 1/10/06.
Slowdive

BTW......looks like I should have bought them from Amazon shop since couple sources have these for $17

 

[markl]

Anyone know how sound quality is on the Catch the Breeze set?

 

[bong]

yeah, the UK sets have been released, but i think i'll go for the stateside ones. i already have most of the early EPs so i didn't want to spend import prices on the majority of songs i already have, honestly the only things i need are the Peel Sessions and the In Mind remixes. i wonder if the sound quality on the reissues has improved though...

as for the Catch The Breeze best-of set, i've yet to pick that one up as well... lots of Slowdive stuff to catch up on.

 

[Masonjar]

Not only were Slowdive the seminal Shoegazer band (along with MBV), they also released one of the best post-rock albums with PYGMALION. It's right up there with Talk Talk's SPIRIT OF EDEN & LAUGHING STOCK and Bark Psychosis' HEX. I snagged it a few years back before it fell of the face of the planet, so I probably won't get that reissue, but the other two have my mouth watering.. it will be great to get "Shine" on disc, it's one of my favorite Slowdive songs.

-jar

 

[DarkAngel]

I was listening to new Just for a Day 2CD reissue and will have to sell my original old CD, sound is really sweet now......most noticeable on main album tracks vs bonus CD tracks.

Now I am more interested in recent Catch the Breeze collection if similar sound was acheived????

MBV.......please pay attention, they could easily reissue 2 albums again each with bonus CD containing tracks from EPs and non album early material like Slowdive, that would really bliss me out......

 

[DarkAngel]

Before this thread dies its usual premature death, let me plug two other great collections of shoegaze material:

Ride - OX4 (15 tracks plus bonus CD)

Curve - The Way of Curve (2CD collection, 31 tracks total)

 

[elrod-tom]

Ride's OX4 is a great album...Nowhere and Carnival of Light are two of my favorite albums.

I've not heard Curve...thanks for bringing it to my attention. Looks like there's a bunch of it to listen to on Yahoo! Music!!

 

[markl]

Looky what I found, Ride-- Nowhere remastered with bonus tracks, just came out today apparently:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=glance&n=5174

I used to love that album...

 

[elrod-tom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by markl Looky what I found, Ride-- Nowhere remastered with bonus tracks, just came out today apparently: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=glance&n=5174 I used to love that album...

I'm thinking that this is the same album that I've had for a while, but maybe it really was recently re-released. I'll check it out and report back.

 

[Davey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by elrod-tom I'm thinking that this is the same album that I've had for a while, but maybe it really was recently re-released. I'll check it out and report back.

Yeah, they remastered them in 2001 with the EP tracks. Don't know what is different about this. Maybe they wanted to punch them up some more or something. Maybe had gone oop?

 

[bong]

sorry to break it to you guys, not My Bloody Valentine, not Slowdive, but RIDE is THE seminal shoegaze band... end of story!

but seriously, that Nowhere remastered reissue has been out for quite a while now, but IIRC they were only UK releases through Ignition Records. all their studio albums got the treatment, along with added tracks from EPs/Singles of that era.

Nowhere (originally only 8 tracks, but later issues gained "Taste" "Here and Now" and "Nowhere" left off from the Fall EP) gained the Today Forever EP ("Unfamiliar" "Sennen" "Beneath" "Today").

Going Blank Again gets "Going Blank Again" "Howard Hughes" and "Stampede" from the Twisterella single, and the awesome 10 minute instrumental "Grasshopper" from the Leave Them All Behind single.

Carnival of Light gets "Don't Let it Die" and "Let's Get Lost" from the Birdman single and "At The End of the Universe" from the How Does it Feel to Feel? single.

Tarantula ends with all three b-sides from the Black Nite Crash single, "Nothing Lasts Forever" "Slave" and "A Trip Down Ronnie Lane."

yeah... i love RIDE.

Curve is great, thanks to DA for introducing me to them. nice mix of dance beats and shoegaze elements. i remember Chapterhouse followed a similar path...

while we're on a shoegaze bent, i'm gonna recommend Catherine Wheel's first two albums, Ferment and Chrome. i prefer the latter.

back to Slowdive, i gotta get at least get Catch the Breeze if not the recent reissues, so at least i'd have some songs remastered. dunno if i want to rebuy the albums for the EP tracks i already have.

 

[Masonjar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bong sorry to break it to you guys, not My Bloody Valentine, not Slowdive, but RIDE is THE seminal shoegaze band... end of story!

I like Ride too.. but I just don't think they were quite the songwriters that MBV and Slowdive were. There's just too many songs that come off as underdeveloped or "filler." When they were great they were awesome, and yes, NOWHERE is pretty flawless. But other than that, it's a song-by-song basis for me. While GOING BLANK.. had some fantastic songs, it's not as great of an album end-to-end as some of the other albums that came out around the same time. They're definately a band that should be mentioned when talking about shoegaze music, I just don't rank them #1 myself..

-jar

 

[bong]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Masonjar I like Ride too.. but I just don't think they were quite the songwriters that MBV and Slowdive were. There's just too many songs that come off as underdeveloped or "filler." When they were great they were awesome, and yes, NOWHERE is pretty flawless. But other than that, it's a song-by-song basis for me. While GOING BLANK.. had some fantastic songs, it's not as great of an album end-to-end as some of the other albums that came out around the same time. They're definately a band that should be mentioned when talking about shoegaze music, I just don't rank them #1 myself.. -jar

really? i feel RIDE's only album that doesn't gell well was Carnival of Light. it feels like two separate mini albums (which in reality it was, besides the cover "How Does it Feel to Feel," most of Mark's stuff on the first half and Andy's stuff on the second half). i could listen to Nowhere all the way through without skipping a single track, and Going Black Again only has a small blemish ("Making Judy Smile"). as for songwriting, it's mostly your basic pop song structure, isn't it? but hey, they make it work. besides... at the end of the day, history dictates that My Bloody Valentine originated the Shoegaze genre (which isn't too fair IMO because Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy should have equal credit), and RIDE made it popular. everyone else caught their wake.

i always thought Slowdive fits your description of RIDE, Just For A Day and Souvlaki both has their share of blissed out instrumental passages (that could arguably be called "filler") but it's beautiful noise nevertheless.

of course, we all have Alan McGee to thank for all our shoegaze arguments.