I got what I thought was the last three outstanding Depeche Mode deliveries for 2022 from eBay/Discogs today, but as you’ll see when I unwrapped them, I was wrong.
Ultra Rare Trax is what Discogs call an ‘unofficial release’ from 1993 and features a dozen remixed tracks, half of them remixed by Razormaid. Razormaid were a San Francisco-based remix service for professional and club DJs during the late Eighties / early Nineties known for their clear sound appealing to European clubbers. The other mixers are the familiar Shep Pettibone, and unknown to me The Bogus Brothers, Steve Smith and Steve Lyon. If you want a remix talk to Steve. I’ve not had chance to listen to the tracks yet, but might report back in another post.
The package pretending to be DM was in fact a Recoil CD. CDSTUMM173 a.k.a. Liquid is an experimental 10-track album from 2000. If you didn’t already know, Recoil is a musical project that Alan Wilder was working on while he was in Depeche Mode and one that he continued with when he split with the band in 1995. ‘Jezebel’ and ‘Strange Hours’ were the two singles off the album, and the video for ‘Strange Hours’ is on the end of the album. To date, I think he’s done six studio albums of various sizes and I’m gradually adding them to my ‘spin off’ collection as I come across them. Hydrology, the second album, is the only album I own from the original time of release way back in 1988, and I think it’s great.
‘John the Revelator’ is a double-A side with ‘Lilian’ from the 2005 album Playing the Angel which really doesn’t feel like 17 years ago. I’m leaving it sealed as I can listen to the curiously titled Robag Wruhme Slomoschen Kikker version of Lilian on YouTube:
couchmagpie 