Better Late Than Never (re-posted due to extra interest)

Fantastic news - Green Gartside has finally OK'd the re-release of Scritti Politti's pre-"Songs To Remember" singles and EPs. The album is called "Early" and will be out in mid February in the UK so pre-order it here right away why don't you?

He's consistently treaded water on a re-issue of this material throwing out words like 'embarrasment' and 'juvenile' to denote his displeasure at this era of the band. You can read some of his thoughts at Stephenage where a section of a larger interview has been posted. In some ways I can understand an artist having this attitude but at this point in time - 25 years after the recordings took place - this is musical history we're really talking about. And this is especially true for a band whose later, glossy incarnation was very, very popular indeed.

These singles and EPs were very important to me and, I think, most of my friends in the Sydney Post-Punk scene. The sound was completely unlike anything we'd heard with scratchy, thin guitars, Green's lovely voice and melodies and a rhythm section that seemed at odds with everything else. And I was so impressed with how difficult to play they sounded - my prog-rock tendencies coming to the fore. We tracked their little career and marvelled at the slight, important changes. But, in some ways more importantly, these hand crafted messages from the UK defined a level of autonomy in terms of record production and distribution that made us aware of how easy it might be to do the same thing ourselves. And so we did.

This is the "Early" track list:

1st single
1. Skank Bloc Bologna
2. Is And Ought The Western World
3. 28/8/78

Peel Sessions
4. Scritlocks Door
5. Opec - Immac
6. Messthetics
7. Hegemony

4 A-sides
8. Bibbly-O-Tec
9. Doubt Beat
10. Confidence
11. P.A.S.

1st "Songs to Remember" single
12. The "Sweetest Girl"
13. Lions After Slumber

Now I know I may be asking too much of poor Mr Gartside's aesthetic sesibilities but why has the rest of the Peel Session material been excluded? Surely this CD should have been treated as a complete historical document with carefull re-mastering of the previous releases PLUS the same carefull treatment applied to any other available recordings from the time PLUS a detailed, informative booklet. If the Slugfuckers can manage to find 2 cds worth of releasable material then I'm sure that Scritti Politti must have something more in the archives.

In the cause of all that is good and pure, I post the rest of the Peel Session material here:

mp3: The Humours Of Spitalfields : This is quite similar to the Skank Bloc songs although it's not as fully realized.

mp3: Knowledge and Interest : a dubby jam slowly falling apart until the vocals cut in.

mp3: Doubt Beat : an earlier version of the 4 A-Sides track with clearer vocals and finger snapping!

mp3: 5.12.78 : a version of 28.8.78 with the radio samples at the end replaced by studio talk by the band.

Some Links :

the Scritti Crush Connection for all your SP links
a possible site for the re-release(??) that's currently got nothing on it
the Trouser Press entry
the AMG entry