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CD
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GG 366CD
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"Officer! was founded by Londoner Mick Hobbs. His roots were in the Rock In Opposition scene of the late '70s and early '80s. Initially he worked as guitarist in The Work, subsequently he became closely associated with This Heat and their Cold Storage Studio in Brixton, working with artists like Family Fodder, Catherine Jauniaux or Zeena Parkins. The band's first album 8 New Songs By Mick Hobbs came out in 1982 on cassette only. It was followed by the second album, Ossification. Paragraphs And Principles is the most ambitious album yet by the experimental, maverick pop group Officer! The band has surprised itself with this dazzling yet almost dangerous collection of pieces that keep alive the glorious memory of composer Cornelius Cardew -- comrade and champion. His work, while of its time, remains strangely contemporary. It is difficult music -- mystifying perhaps, idealistic certainly, and contentious without doubt. That said, Cardew was also drawn to rousing, goose-bump melodies that wear their politics on their sleeves. Since his untimely and sinister death in 1981, the world has come full circle and Cardew's desire for rebellion, democratization, rejection of crass popularism, and a revolution in politics, thought and approach have all become relevant once more. Officer!'s tribute to Cardew features several dynamic re-interpretations of his key works, as well as new music that draws inspiration from his principles and philosophy. For this outing, Officer! is Mick Hobbs, Felix Fiedorowicz and Bill Gilonis alongside a stunning line-up of 30 performers from eight countries. No one knows quite how this project came about -- it's almost an international conspiracy, and certainly a closely guarded secret. We hope only that upon their unleashing, these fierce new sounds may be heard by as many ears as possible."
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CD
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GG 265CD
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"Officer! was founded by Londoner Mick Hobbs. His roots were in the RIO scene of the late 70s and early 80s. Initially he worked as guitarist in The Work, subsequently he became closely associated with This Heat and their Cold Storage Studio in Brixton, working with artists like Family Fodder, Catherine Jauniaux or Zeena Parkins. The band's first album 8 New Songs By Mick Hobbs came out in 1982 on cassette only. It forms the first half of this CD re-issue. With the exception of two songs that came out on 7" on Blackest Ever Black in 2014, the album has never been re-issued in any form, the cassette is nearly impossible to get. It marked the birth of a unique songwriter and improviser with a gift for melodies, difficult arrangements and poignant lyrics. The second album, Ossification, arrived a year later and has been made available on CD. The third album, Cough was recorded and released in France in 1985. It is often overlooked in the band's discography, a fate that many cassette releases share. Again, this is the first time that these songs are being made available. Both tapes have been remastered in 2018 and are presented here for the first time ever in digital quality. Officer! are one of the most important bands in the British art rock scene. Don't miss this rare chance to get hold of two long lost albums."
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7"
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BLACKEST 030EP
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The first vinyl release of an essential song by Officer!, the project of Mick Hobbs (½ Japanese, The Work, The Lowest Note, Flaming Tunes). Backed here by the gloriously surreal "Dogface," the ecstatic, anguished "Life At the Water's Edge" was released on the 1983 cassette 8 New Songs By Mick Hobbs, recorded at Cold Storage with Hobbs (vocals, bass) accompanied by Rick Wilson (drums), Terri Robson (violin), Anna Piva (vocals), Richard Wolfson (keyboards), and Family Fodder's Alig (guitar). Presented in picture sleeve with printed lyric sheet insert. Remastered and cut by Matt Colton at Alchemy, January, 2014. Edition of 300.
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2LP
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BLACKEST 006LP
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Gatefold double LP version.
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CD
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BLACKEST 006CD
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Blackest Ever Black presents to you Dead Unique, an album by Officer! recorded in 1995 but -- outrageously, inexplicably -- never before released into the public domain. This then is not a reissue or a revival; it's a new record that just happens to have been maturing in the cask for, oh, a little shy of 20 years. It also happens to be a lost classic of English art-rock, and the crowning achievement in the career of its mercurial creator, Mick Hobbs. Londoner Hobbs' roots are in the fecund RIO scene of the late '70s and early 1980s, initially as guitarist in The Work (alongside Bill Gilonis, Rick Wilson and Henry Cow's Tim Hodgkinson), and subsequent related groupings The Lowest Note, The Lo Yo Yo, and The Momes. Over the course of the decade he became closely associated with This Heat and their Cold Storage studio in Brixton. Officer! -- the project that this incorrigible collaborator and connector calls his own -- surfaced in 1982 with a cassette tape entitled Eight New Songs By Mick Hobbs. It marked the blossoming of a singular writer and improviser, with a gift for plangent melody, ingenious arrangement and lyrics at once caustic and courtly, playful and profound (two songs from this tape, "Life at the Water's Edge" and "Dogface," have been remastered for a forthcoming limited edition 7" release on Blackest Ever Black). The Cold Storage-recorded Ossification LP arrived a year later, followed by Cough (1985) and Yes Yes No No Yes No Yes (1988). Megaphone Records, responsible for Ossification's recent 30th anniversary reissue, rightly describe it as "one of the most unusual, pleasurable and character-filled 'pop' records anyone has heard -- a timeless anomaly in the history of recorded music." By the start of the 1990s Hobbs had joined Jad Fair's Half Japanese. In the early months of '95, Half Japanese were in Baltimore to record their Hot LP; Hobbs stayed on to cut the bulk of the songs that comprise Officer!'s Dead Unique -- songs drawn from a rich store of material written and refined in the seven years since the band's last outing -- with a talented assemblage of local and visiting musicians. Returning to the UK, Hobbs brought the tracks to producer Julia Brightly to mix at her 16-track home studio in Bethnal Green; by the end of the summer, Dead Unique had taken shape. And then? Nothing. For reasons that no one, least of all Hobbs, can remember, Dead Unique was shelved, all but forgotten about until 2012, when Blackest Ever Black chanced upon it while trawling the Officer! archive maintained for Hobbs by Andrew Jacques. Finally, rightfully, this album is available to all for the very first time. A complex but thrillingly immediate avant-pop song cycle that charms and confounds at every turn, Dead Unique will give immense pleasure not only to Officer!'s existing cult following, but to anyone with an appreciation of piquant, idiosyncratic songcraft -- fans of Kevin Ayers, Flaming Tunes, Art Bears, Woo, Dislocation Dance, R. Stevie Moore, Robert Wyatt, Cleaners From Venus, Lol Coxhill or The Monochrome Set should especially pay attention. It touches upon ragged-raw rock 'n roll, sumptuous chamber music, pastoral folk, blowsy prog-jazz and paranoid dub-space, effortlessly shifting from skronking abstraction to rousing harmonic refrain and back again. The tension between composition and improvisation is key to the LP's power, with Hobbs abetted by an extraordinary supporting cast that includes Tim Hodgkinson (bass clarinet), Pleasant Livers' Fred Collins (vocals), Legendary Pink Dots' Patrick Q (violin), filmmaker/animator Martha Colburn (vocal), Gilles Rieder (drums), Jad Fair (vocals) and Jason Willett (bass, keyboards, trumpet). Special mention must go to John Dierker, whose superbly expressive clarinet and saxophone parts are a fixture throughout, and to Joey Stack, who takes lead vocals on "Good" and the show-stopping "Elephant Flowers." Nonetheless, it is the voice of Hobbs -- as principal writer, performer and protagonist of these songs -- that resonates most powerfully. Blurring the roles of storyteller, poet and prankster, he turns memorable line after memorable line, booby-trapping them with mischievous puns, fleet-footed literary allusions, sudden digressions and shifts of register, nonsense rhymes and other wordplay. But his acute wit and flair for the absurd is moored by a deep romantic sensibility, and though it delights in the minutiae of the human comedy, Dead Unique ultimately addresses its biggest themes: love, loss, commitment, independence, the mutability and inconstancy of all things.
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CD
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MEGA 025CD
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Officer! is either Mick Hobbs (The Work, Family Fodder, Half Japanese) alone or Mick Hobbs with friends. Ossification is like an amazing party held at This Heat's Cold Storage Studio, with friends like Felix Fiedorowicz, Tom Cora, Tim Hodgkinson, Bill Gilonis, Zeena Parkins, Patrick Q, and Catherine Jauniaux. The output of this party is one of the most unusual, pleasurable, and character-filled "pop" records anyone has heard. Fourteen songs that contain the spirit of pop, rock, classical, medieval, avant garde, R.I.O., The Work, Family Fodder, This Heat, Look de Bouk, Legendary Pink Dots, Henry Cow, and more. Ossification is a timeless anomaly in the history of recorded music. Remastered by Tim Dimuzio. Recorded in This Heat's Cold Storage Studio in 1984. Includes an eight-page lyric booklet.
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LP
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MEGA 025LP
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Officer! is either Mick Hobbs (The Work, Family Fodder, Half Japanese) alone or Mick Hobbs with friends. Ossification is like an amazing party held at This Heat's Cold Storage Studio, with friends like Felix Fiedorowicz, Tom Cora, Tim Hodgkinson, Bill Gilonis, Zeena Parkins, Patrick Q, and Catherine Jauniaux. The output of this party is one of the most unusual, pleasurable, and character-filled "pop" records anyone has heard. Fourteen songs that contain the spirit of pop, rock, classical, medieval, avant garde, R.I.O., The Work, Family Fodder, This Heat, Look de Bouk, Legendary Pink Dots, Henry Cow, and more. Ossification is a timeless anomaly in the history of recorded music. Limited to 700 copies on 180 gram vinyl with an insert. Remastered by Tim Dimuzio. Recorded in This Heat's Cold Storage Studio in 1984.
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