Good find.

I really hope that not the commercial (as opposed to promo) cover art for Psonic Psunspot. That's heinous looking (if not just plain old fugly). The original cover art is beautiful. That's not. And I can't think of a legitimate reason why the original cover art shouldn't be reproduced properly. I'm still not sure how I feel about the "XTC as..." billing. Before I just wrote it off on the 2002 Caroline release as it being label stupidity and just dumbing down for the record store employee. Doesn't "XTC as..." contradict/defeat the whole elaborate purpose of the Dukes very existence. I'm guessing Andy forgot.

One thing is slightly alarming. It being referred to as "limited edition". It's fairly off-putting to an XTC collector. If they are in fact "limited edition" then what is the exact # of copies? The label "limited edition" in and of itself screams "exploitation of collector" and in this case the XTC fan. I own basically (almost) every (UK) Vinyl LP, 12" single, 7" single, CD single, CD album, ETC. I've spent a lot of money on XTC. I didn't buy very many of these when they first came out (i.e. in the would-be "limited edition " space of time). I'm not going to purchase these right away. Hey, times are tough - I don't need these releases right away. In fact, I purchased the 22 Caroline/Toshiba reissues (American and Japanese) over the course of a year or so.

Hopefully, like any other label, APE will be forthcoming about the new releases and their details. It's coming close to a proposed release date and still nothing on their label. That's not good.

That's seriously too funny.

In addition to the seven or so B-Sides (plus original version of "Heaven...")
It would be nice if the following outtakes were included on the new English Settlement Reissue:

"Hangin' Around",
"Lazy Day Play",
"My Brother Ralph",
"Snowflakes in a Mound",
"Still at War with the Japs".

I've not heard these five songs ever but have always wanted to.

I posted this on the Dukes Posting but I'll talk here considering it's virtually my two-cents about the reissues, Dukes or no Dukes.

About the reissues for 25 O'Clock hopefully they'll include: Susan Revolving, Nicely Nicely Jane (both have beautiful acoustic demos begging to be issued - finally), Big Day (25 O'Clock Version) and Have You Seen Sydney? (pre-Jackie).

Plus the "My Love Explodes" demo would be nice without Andy's idiotic (although I'm gonna guess he was amused) introduction of "Omnibus" that was on Fuzzy Warbles (...yeah, he introduced it not on it's own individual track - not that it warrants an introduction in any case - but on the actual same track as "My Love Explodes" while the guitar is still ringing out. You have to wonder...). And the "25 O'Clock" and "Bike Ride To The Moon" demos to boot. Maybe the Tuli Kupferberg stuff? Studio laughter? Alternate versions?

I'm hoping all this will be included with lyrics (in full colour). This is still only a mere seven bonus tracks to the initial five tracks, clocking in at a whopping twelve tracks (that's even a would-be small amount for even a standard album release).

Psonic Psunspot has no known recorded outtakes. Just alternate Lilly Fraser spoken stuff - some of which were on the Coat Of Many...box set.
Nothing hugely substantial. Just alternately trippy.

Considering other albums have much, much more in way of still-not-legitimately-released outtakes (25 O'Clock and not Black Sea?!?) I'm still wondering how 25 O'Clock could legitimately warrant a reissue, aside from the obvious (more money).

You never want to think that but, considering there has been zero real information and it's supposed release in one month's time, it's beginning to feel a lot like this is the case. And seeing that Beeswax, Explode Together and Rag & Bone Buffet are simply (supposedly) being reissued as opposed to being corrected, perfected and completed it really seems like this is in actual fact the case. These compilations were always pretty random at best and in the case of Rag & Bone edited, non-chronological and with, irritatingly, crossfading all over the place to feel less like a compilation and more like and "experience" (dramatically rolls eyes). It'd be nice to see Go + issued as bonus tracks for Go 2 (as it should've been in 2001 with "Instant Tunes") and Mr. Partridge's Take Away...be issued on it's own with cover art faithfully restored - I'm surprised it wasn't done with the Japanese mini-LP sleeve collection in 2001.

I guess we'll just have to wait and be left in the dark about the whole affair (crosses fingers in vain).

I've probably said this before, but I don't mind the crossfading. I like the "experience" Andy creates. He's obviously a big fan of sequencing seemingly disparate tracks into a unified whole.

I recently listened to all the Fuzzy Warbles again, and I think they're very smartly presented, zipping along at a nice pace (except for "That Wag", which loses its charm after a few listens, and "Jacob's Ladder", which sounds to me not much more than an extended "Over Rusty Water"), with nice thematic groupings (nautical tracks, masturbation tracks, etc.).

Not sure what's going on with the delays. Surely there must be some way to blame Todd Rundgren for all this!

I've always been more annoyed than awed by any so-called experience. I can't sit in Andy's lap with this (so-to speak). I still find it to be aggressively pretentious (I know the songwriting, recording, mixing and sequencing process well-enough and I can even see you standing right behind the curtain!!). I don't need the songs to rounded in up in groups by subject (please). Chronologically? Yes! Give me the facts! Fuzzy Warbles doesn't even function in a historical context as a result of all of Andy's interfering. We already know they are demos - please don't exercise your little compulsive habit here as well.

I'm already paying in cash for these sketches which cost you nothing to make - must you tape them together?

I simply don't want to hear the next song while I'm still listening to this one...

I don't know shit about this, but is it perhaps to stop you taking a complete clean copy of the track to sell on or something. Like I said I don't have much interest or idea in this side of things, just a suggestion.

Pretentiousness from Sting I understand - but from Andy Partridge makes little sense. And the crossfading on 'Beatles At The BBC' also constantly reminded me that it was a wildly-incomplete half-baked compilation of about 10% of what's actually out there.

That could be a reason - but I'm pretty hard pressed to believe that would actually stop someone who is inclined to do that sort of thing. And to punish all the fans with such nonsense because of some hypothetical of a bootlegger (umm with file trading no one makes money off that anymore anyhow Andy this is the digital age) is pretty short-sighted, to say the least. To assault the fans with this because of the oft-chance of a bootlegging possibility - that's pretty stupid. And the very fact that an ARTIST (no, Lars Ulrich is a drummer) would be so consumed with this to taint his own recordings is moronic.

*Favoritething you said that Andy is "very touchy about this kind of subject re: the "digital pops" episode involving Warbles 3 & 4". Could you elaborate? I'm not familiar but I'm not surprised that he's touchy. People can sometimes be defensive when being second-guessed about a mistake.

There are digital pops all over the place - it's painful. The very fact that he is touchy about this (read: defensive) just exposes the fact that he probably knows it but he's being a stubborn old man about it. Let's face it - it sounds stupid and the overuse of it undermines the 5% of the time when it does work. I've had non-fans - actually three audio engineer friends and two guys in bands (okay..."musicians") ask me as we were listening to Warbles "what's with all the cross fading - didn't you say this was a demos compilation?" a few months ago I and I just realized - wow, this sounds awful. And there is no creative point - because it doesn't work all the time so why do it...all the time.

Well I'm a musician (guitar, bass and vocals....and kazoo if pressed). But I never refer to myself as such - and I've known these guys for years and don;t refer to them as "musicians" either.

After Warbles 3 & 4 came out, someone at the Idea forum mentioned hearing "digital pops" in several of the songs on those volumes. (When told exactly where they were, I could clearly hear them, but otherwise I doubt I would have noticed.) Andy vented openly about this, I believe in the "Andy and Colin Reply" section, saying in effect it was extremely nitpicky. Then in the liner notes of Vol. 5 he makes an oblique (but unmistakable to those familiar with the story) reference to it. As far as I know, the rest of the Warbles were squeaky clean.

He vented openly re: people bringing the fact that there were digital pops to the attention of other fellow fans?!? Wow, that speaks worlds. "How dare you complain about an error made on our end" or "No, of course we don't QC (Quality Check) this before we sell it - so I'm going to yell at you".

Wow. One thing's for sure - never confuse the artist with the art because from what you say - I'd think he was nothing more than a defensive, paranoid and bitter...shady businessman.