KIM WILDE Love Blonde - The RAK Years Release Date: February 24, 2024 PRE-ORDER

Kim Wilde has blazed a trail ever since she made her debut with the indelible ‘Kids in America’ back in 1981. Kim’s early hits on Mickie Most’s RAK Records blend angsty new wave energy with the innate pop sensibility she shares with her chief collaborators, brother Ricky and father Marty.

‘Love Blonde: The RAK Years’ is the most comprehensive collection of Kim’s RAK output ever assembled. Boasting 50 tracks across four CDs, it brings together three classic studio albums, ‘Kim Wilde’, ‘Select’ and ‘Catch as Catch Can’, each remastered and expanded with bonus tracks, plus ‘Special Disco Mixes’. Featuring era-authentic artwork and previously unseen photos, this exclusive remix album features 12” versions of ten singles, extended and reinvented in the spirit of the 80s. Six of these mixes have been newly commissioned especially for this package.

This package features an impressive roll call of UK hit singles: ‘Kids in America’ (#2), ‘Chequered Love’ (#4), ‘Water on Glass’ (#11), ‘Cambodia’ (#12), ‘View From a Bridge’ (#16), ‘Child Come Away’ (#43), ‘Love Blonde’ (#23) and ‘Dancing in the Dark’ (#67). Kim’s global appeal also led to further overseas releases such as ‘Bitter Is Better’, ‘Take Me Tonight’ and ‘House of Salome’. Bonus material including B-sides and album out-takes from the album sessions rounds out a complete survey of Kim’s RAK years.

Presented in a stunning lift-off lid box with special print finish, each album in this package is housed in a gatefold sleeve featuring the original vinyl artwork. The 48-page booklet features lyrics, a RAK discography, rare photos and new sleeve notes written by Kim Wilde expert Marcel Rijs.

Kim’s diary looks as busy as ever, with live dates across Europe lined up for 2024 and a new studio album on the horizon. We are delighted to continue our successful partnership with this perennial icon of British pop!

CURVE Unreadable Communication Anxious Recordings 1991-1993 Released February 23, 2024 PRE-ORDER

Formed by two relative veterans of the musical landscape in London in 1990, Curve blazed a trail with a fresh new sound during the first few years of that decade, fusing heavy electronics with layered guitars and sweetly dark vocals. The British music press was instantly enamoured, and the band went on to score a succession of critically acclaimed underground hits through a series of classic EPs and two futuristic albums.

Released on Dave Stewart’s (Eurythmics) Anxious imprint, these records chart the course of a band who burned brightly but briefly in their original incarnation, taking their cues from the scene around them and creating a new sound which many would mimic (most notably, Butch Vig’s Garbage). But this is the original flavour. The real deal. Original and daring. Homespun yet worldly.

Featuring the classic early EPs and those two seminal long players, ‘Unreadable Communication’ demands a re-examination of a band who set the standards of their own time and place, and who continue to be referenced and appreciated by shoegazers, industrialists and ethereal pop kids across the world.

The Dream Academy were a British band featuring singer/guitarist and songwriter Nick Laird-Clowes, multi-instrumentalist Kate St. John, and keyboardist/songwriter Gilbert Gabriel.

In I985 the group achieved worldwide success following the release of their first single ‘Life In A Northern Town’ which saw their subsequent debut album going into the American Top 20.

Their atmospheric music was the result of an unusual musical line-up of oboe and cor anglais, string synthesiser and acoustic guitar, while their three albums for Warner/Reprise brought them a large and devoted following.

Their close musical association with David Gilmour saw him co-producing two of their three albums. Other co-productions included both Lyndsey Buckingham and Hugh Padgham.

The cinematic nature of their recordings saw the band being asked to contribute music to films by both John Hughes (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Trains, Planes and Automobiles) and Diane Keaton (Heaven).

The group disbanded in 1990 and the intervening years have seen extensive sampling and cover versions of their debut single, (most notably by Dario G’s ‘Sunchyme’ and Sugarland And Little Big Town’s reworking of ‘Life In A Northern Town’) resulting in further international chart success and a Grammy nomination.

All three members remain active in the music business with Nick Laird-Clowes’s subsequent career as a film composer, Kate St John in demand as both musical director and string arranger while Gilbert Gabriel’s doctorate sees his continued involvement with both film music and multi-media exploration.

Nick Laird-Clowes has searched the Warner Bros archives to find rarities and unreleased tracks and has been closely involved with remastering, creating all new artwork, and choosing photographic material as well as writing comprehensive liner notes for the set.

• Seven CD box set of the complete recordings of The Dream Academy.
• Featuring their three official albums and including all official B-sides and remixes.

Release date: February 23, 2024.

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• 5CD anthology featuring the music of new wave pop innovators, Kissing The Pink.

• A comprehensive collection bringing together for the first time the band’s three studio albums, plus many of the extended versions, B-sides and remixes from the associated single.

• Plus eight previously unreleased remixes and new recordings. Over 30 tracks/mixes appearing on CD for the first time.

CD1: The band’s 1983 debut album ‘Naked’ plus bonus tracks including ‘Love Lasts Forever’ (7” Mix), ‘The Last Film’ (Extended Hymn Version) and the B-sides ‘Shine’, ‘Garden Parties’ and two versions of ‘Water In My Eye’.

CD2: Kissing The Pink’s second studio album ‘What Noise’, originally released in 1984, including the extended versions of ‘The Other Side of Heaven’ and ‘Footsteps (Black Sash Remix)’ plus the B-sides ‘Celestial’ and ‘The Rain It Never Stops’ (Short Version).

CD3: The first CD re-issue of the much sought after 1986 album ‘Certain Things Are Likely’ album containing the hits, ‘One Step’, ‘Certain Things Are Likely’ and ‘Never Too Late To Love You’. Produced largely by Peter Walsh and mixed by the legendary producer/remixer/ engineer Phil Harding. Also included are various remixes and edited versions that accompanied the single release from this album.

CD4: ‘Remixes & Extended Versions’ includes eight Phil Harding mixes of the band’s hits ‘One Step’, ‘Never Too Late To Love You’ and ‘Certain Things Are Likely’, all previously unavailable on CD. Other mixes include the early mixes by Colin Thurston of ‘Underage’ and ‘Water In My Eye’, sourced from the tape archives for the first time since the early 1980’s.

CD5: ‘Remixes & New Recordings’ features 14 rare tracks sourced from the band’s own archives and includes their final single ‘Stand Up’, plus B-sides. ‘Also Spying On Me’ is included on a release for the first time along with two new tracks, three new mixes of ‘The Last Film’ and ‘One Step’ including a new remix by Visnadi & Sirone plus two live recordings.

All presented in a clamshell box with each disc housed in a printed card sleeve. The 32-page booklet features an exclusive interview with the band, a new design by digital artist, Sam Howard and a UK discography.

Release date: February 23, 2024.

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