Martyn Barker, Barry Andrews, and Carl Marsh today

Gloryoski! In the two months that I was on a minimal posting schedule [no more lunch hours] the busy beavers of sound who are Shriekback were not binge watching streaming TV junk. They gave been hitting the archives to activate yet more releases of Shriekstuff for any ears with an interest. Their webstore has a number of new, DL only titles made available in the last three months, with the latest cracking the egg only on Friday. What’s in store? Let’s round ’em up!

Shriekback | 2020

Shriekback: Live At Larry’s Hideaway ’82 DL [2020]

1. Sexthinkone
2. Sway
3. Brink Of Collapse
4. Grapes Into Lettuce
5. Considerable
6. Mothloop
7. A Kind Of Fascination
8. Despite Dense Weed
9. My Spine (Is The Baseline)
10. Lined Up

A bootleg quality live tape from the band’s initial North American tour. Digitized for your listening pleasure. Price: £7.00

Shriekback | 2020

Shriekback: Reconfigurations DL [2020]

1. Berlin – Ausgang remix
2. Berlin (remix by Transglobal Underground)
3. The Fire has Brought Us Together remix #1 by Martyn Barker
4. The Fire Has Brought Us Together REMIX 2 by Martyn Barker
5. Cloud of Nails (Pump Up A Storm) Remix by Adrian Sherwood
6. Mistah Linn He Dead (Hand on My Heart remix by Adrian Sherwood)
7. Jumping on the Ribcage with the Digital Rasta remix by Groucho Smykle
8. Nemesis extended mix
9. Nemesis Arch-Deviant mix by Gavin Mackillop
10. Cayenne Sisemen (acoustic Tex-Mex Nemesis)
11. Fish Below the Ice Dance mix
12. Fish Below the Ice (plankton enriched mix)
13. Petulant (Dancing Years version)
14. Nerve (Dancing Years version)
15. Brink of Collapse (BA version)
16. Midnight Maps (BA version)
17. Into Method (BA version)
18. Into Method (Planet Mix)
19. Black Light Trap Remix by Martin Freeland
20. Get Down Tonight (Acid mix!)

“Reconfigurations” was an extra lengthy [we scoff at CD limitations] 20 track playlist of everything that was not nailed down earlier archival releases. As well as things never released for reasons of industry collapse or some such. For example, remixes of “Berlin” from “Naked Apes + Pond Life” will provide the 12″ that never was, from the dark days [hah!] of the 90s, while Martyn Barker remixed two versions of “The Fire Has Brought Us Together” from last year’s still warm, “Some Kinds of Light” opus. There are three Barry Andrews versions of some “Care” era tracks, and several of Shriekback’s biggest hits here in remix form. Most have obviously been sourced from digital masters while others are shocking needle drops. Price: £10

Shriekback | 2020

Shriekback: Go Bang! DLX DL ED [2020]

1. Intoxication
2. Shark Walk
3. Over the Wire
4. Newman
5. Nighttown
6. Go Bang!
7. Big Fun
8. Get Down Tonight
9. Dust and a Shadow
10. Newman DEMO
11. Over the Wire DEMO
12. Purified DEMO
13. Got Heat DEMO

Hmmmm. The sticky wicket of “Go Bang!;” the album that for all appearances had Shriekback crashing and burning in a blaze of plasticity back in 1988. Proof that the Mid-80s Malaise® sometimes affected bands in the late 80s instead! I haven’t owned this cartoonish excursion in many years now, but have tentatively penciled it in for re-assessment. At the very least sampling the demo of “Over The Wire” revealed the Shriekback tune skulking beneath the reductive fluorescent clarity of the “Go Bang!” album as produced by Richard James Burgess. We’ve liked and even loved some prior Burgess’ productions…but not this one. Three more band-produced demos must surely also be worth hearing? One has to love that buying any single song from any Shriekback DL album is fully possible, and the band make the tracks available in uncompressed WAV format. Price: £7.00

Shriekback | 2020

Shriekback: Waiting At The Wire [out-takes + jams – early 80s] DL [2020]

1. Waiting At The Wire
2. White Out 12″ Mix
3. White Out (KPM Demo)
4. Gankathon
5. All Boxes Ticked
6. Cry Your Eyes Out
7. So Hard So Hard (Instrumental)
8. Stepping Out (With The Human Animal)
9. Terblatt
10. Mercy Dash (Rough Mix)
11. Mercy Dash Demo
12. Hasselbag

Released freshly last Friday, here is the group’s  latest dip into an album’s worth of rare material. All of it from some form of master tape. This looks like a sister volume to the wonderful “Aberrations” from the early noughts. A dip into the samples on the store page revealed the sort of enervated, neurotic  funk that Shriekback borrowed from Talking Heads and made their own. “Hasselbag” is an anxiety-provoker like few I’ve heard since Wall Of Voodoo’s “Grandma’s House.” Price: £7.00

Right now the Shriekstore has put a moratorium on mailing CDs. Some of these may or may not make the transition to the realm of the physical at such time as we are no long in a pandemic. So take a look at the many digital wares of the Shriekback webstore and buy them all, or cherry-pick with laser accuracy.  Either is possible and remember, the buy-in nets you uncompressed WAV files in any case. The button below takes you there.

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