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LP
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RER NFB2
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ReR Vinyl present the first vinyl reissue of News From Babel's Letters Home, originally released in in 1986. Recorded at the legendary Cold Storage studio in London and first released in 1986 this is one of the greatest chapters in the '80s post-Henry Cow/Art Bears era. News From Babel was the song project inaugurated by two ex-Henry Cow, Lindsay Cooper (bassoon, sopranino and alto saxophone, keyboards) and Chris Cutler (drums, electrics) plus Zeena Parkins (harp, electric harps, accordion). A band that created a totally new sound as result of the combination of unusual instruments and arrangements. A highly integrated mixture of avant-rock, chamber music, and Brecht-Eisler cabaret-oriented songs, not much like anything else recorded before or since. Letters Home is the band's second album and it features contributions by Bill Gilonis (The Work) on bass and guitar and vocals appearances from four master singers such as Robert Wyatt, Dagmar Krause, Phil Minton, and Sally Potter. This is the art of extended song form at its peak and it's of course highly recommended to anyone looking for adventurous new sounds. Remastered by Bob Drake, this is the first-ever vinyl reissue with full texts and illustrations enclosed.
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3CD
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RER NFBOX
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"This is the first time that these two long out-of-print LPs have appeared separately on CD. Both have been carefully re-mastered and re-packaged. This slipcase edition contains an extra illustrated CD of the 7" single, Contraries, which was issued originally only to subscribers to the original release of Sirens. News from Babel was Chris Cutler's second song project, following Art Bears in 1979. Lindsay Cooper, also late of Henry Cow, was the main composer and Zeena Parkins completed the group, making her recording debut, on acoustic harp. 'I first met Zeena when she was in The Janus Circus; she was an accordion-playing bear (that costume was wild to be in; I tried it) and a lion tamer there. Then I discovered she was also a harpist, and we made the plan to do a record there and then.' --Chris Cutler. The incomparable Dagmar Krause took the singing chair for the first LP, and was joined on the second by Robert Wyatt, film director Sally Potter and Phil Minton. Most of the recording was done at This Heat's Cold Storage, engineered by The Work's Bill Gilonis, who also played a little bass and guitar. There was still a close knit community of musicians back then. Chunks of 'Letters Home' were recorded in the thick of the Brixton riots, which the band were blissfully unaware of until it came time to go home, when they stepped straight into the middle of them. Henry Cow's second bassist, Georgie Born, also appears. She has since retired to academia -- her weighty anthropological studies of IRCAM and the BBC are notorious and she teaches at Cambridge University. These records were, like Art Bears' records, conceived for the studio and were never meant to be performed. Harp, bassoon, piano, accordion, saxophones and voice was even then an eccentric line-up for what was essentially a kind of rock group -- or at least thought of itself that way."
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