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THIS 002CD
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"Few will need introduction to This Heat's second studio album, Deceit. As with Blue and Yellow, it stands out as a high-water mark in the extensive field of post-punk/avant- progressive/experimental rock music dating from the early '80s. It differs from the band's debut album inasmuch as the great majority of the pieces are thoroughly composed songs, but the penchant to push the boundaries of sound manipulation is still highly apparent, and at the forefront of their motivations. The lyrics are more overtly political on Deceit and, while sung by all three group members, are most disturbing when delivered by drummer Charles Hayward, in his trademark, barbaric, growling, angrily-screeching manner. This perfectly compliments the musical scenarios as they simultaneously unfold and implode upon themselves in an onslaught of tricky drum patterns, outstanding guitar work and imposing bass thuddery."
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THIS 003CD
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"Between Blue & Yellow and Deceit came the 3" EP, Health and Efficiency. It bridges a gap between the mostly improvisational former, and the highly composed latter, showing great diversity in the band's sound in general, as well as nicely documenting their two extreme directions. The title track is This Heat's single most high-energy piece ever, and is a tour de force of singing, ensemble playing and sound texture. It is propelled along by Charles Bullen's signature guitar strumming & ratcheting harsh picking, and includes an extended coda section, where the solos are tape loops and field recordings of such unlikely 'instruments' as dishes clanking around in the sink, a children's playground, metal clangings, hoots & howls, as well as tons of tonalities whose impetuses can only be guessed at now. It evokes the darkest aspects of This Heat's musical beauty, and the drumming throughout is explosive. 'Graphic/Varispeed' is a completely different kettle of fish; a trance-like VSO experiment meant (on vinyl) to be listened to at 33 1/3 and 16 rpm, as well as the original 45 rpm (the version on this disk): A single tape loop from a section of the first album is processed to the point of unfamiliarity, stripping it of almost all motion, save for the changing of pitches, which become increasingly more radical as the piece unfolds. It is one of the band's most experimentally sound moments, and serves as the direct antithesis to the title track."
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THIS 006CD
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"Until now, the only live This Heat has been a long-deleted cassette version of a concert from Krefeld, Germany, from 1980. At last, we are able to officially release private recordings from the band's live repertoire, circa 1980-1981, taken from concerts in Tilburg, Nijmegan, Arhus, Appledoorn, Vienna and Rheims. The trio rip through some highly-charged versions of classic pieces from both Blue & Yellow and Deceit, as well as an improvisation ('Aerial Photography,' the tone of which could well be the backing track for their classic, 'Triumph') and one previously unheard song ('The Rough With The Smooth,' circa Deceit). This disk is a must for all This Heat fans: it gives us alternate versions of their classics, whilst documenting the immense energy and tonal quality of their live shows from that period."
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THIS 004CD
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"This Heat's earliest public recordings came from two sessions for John Peel's BBC radio show, in April and October of 1977. Peel was one of their greatest enthusiasts at the time, hearing excellence in the band's mixed repertoire of post-Krautrock songs and uniquely approached improvisation. Of special merit here is the band's maverick use of real-time tape loops to augment their basic three-piece sound, as well as their choice of pre-recorded noises; both helped to create the pioneering effects later honed on their first two official releases. From the classic, Blue & Yellow record, we are treated to alternative versions of 'Horizontal Hold' (where the guitar strumming and drum-work resemble helicopter blades slicing effortlessly thru stormclouds !), 'Not Waving' and 'The Fall of Saigon.' 'Makeshift Swahili,' from the band's second full-length release, also appears here, with a radically different sound structure, though the composition runs essentially the same. Plus, we are treated to four tracks of This Heat's ground-breaking ensemble work as electro-acoustic improvisers, which can be found nowhere else: 'Rimp Romp Ramp,' 'Sitting,' 'Basement Boy' and 'Slither.'"
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THIS 005CD
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"Repeat is This Heat's fourth album proper, posthumously released in 1993. It harbors the most extreme musical side of This Heat's experimental tendencies on disk, and is assuredly the band's most radical offering. The title track is an oxymoron: An extended/edited version of the piece '24 Track Loop,' which had been previously issued on the Recommended Records' double-disk sampler in 1981, heard here sans the harmonizer effect. The original tracks were produced by David Cunningham (Flying Lizards) and Anthony Moore (Slapp Happy-Henry Cow). 'Metal' follows, and is essentially the late Gareth Williams leading the others in the band on a acoustic foray: '...recording metal sculptures, mostly -- rejects from someone's studio -- some corrugated asbestos, and a lot of scrap metal,' as Charles Bullen recollects many years later. The result can only be likened to the works of master electro-acousticians Denis Dufour and Francoise Bayle; an approach as far removed from rock music as can be, elucidating the cutting-edge nature of This Heat when not confined to the premises of compositional thought. 'Graphic/Varispeed' is an alternate, 33 1/3 rpm version of the piece heard on 'Health & Efficiency.' Originally released on 12" vinyl, the speed setting and track timing were not specified, leaving the listener in a quandary as to its intent, but ultimately (and altruistically) leaving the public to decide the fate of the piece. HOWEVER, by issuing both versions on two separate albums, the enigma cleverly lives on."
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6CD BOX
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THIS ISBOX
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2021 restock. "The complete official lifetime releases of This Heat: This Heat, Deceit, Health and Efficiency, Made Available and Repeat, re-mastered and re-packaged, with a substantial (48pp) book of interviews, recollections, information, documents and photographs in a sturdy box, PLUS a new CD of concert recordings."
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THIS 001CD
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Restocked. "This Heat, the band, emerged in early 1976 on the leading edge of what became the New Wave, but they were always apart, more scary and more subtle. Known as the most left-field, and at the same time most hard-edged, band in all of England, their concerts attracted experimental, punk and new wave audiences alike. Just a handful of performances made them the band everyone had to see, and every journalist had to interview. And the more we knew, the more enigmatic they became. This Heat was a passion. The band worked day-in, day-out for years in their own, now legendary, studio in Brixton (Cold Storage - sited in an old industrial meat refrigerator), or they were away somewhere touring abroad. In this hothouse environment, their material evolved and grew, and became increasingly intense; on the one hand more cuttingly simple, on the other more layered and more dense. When their first LP -- itself several years in the making -- finally appeared on David Cunningham's Piano label in 1979, with its distinctive blue and yellow sleeve, it acquired immediate iconic status. And over time it has also proved itself prescient; there are musical innovations here that anticipate genres that would take another 15 years to reappear. This Heat, the record was a landmark release. It tore up the book and laid new rules for band composition and performance. The music was without precedent; the musicians uncompromising; the recordings hammeringly intense and the sound deep, radical, and rich. This was music stripped back to the bone but never simplified. And it hasn't aged. This edition, the first on the new This Is label, re-mastered and repackaged by the group, will be doubly welcome. It is the first of a series of historical This Heat re-editions and unpublished works by the band to be released on this dedicated label."
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