Slow Children: Mad About Town + – US – CD-R [2020]

1. One More Trauma
2. Late Night Transatlantic
3. Unplugging The Vacuum
4. Vanessa Vacillating
5. Suspense
6. President Am I (Extended Version)
7. Respective Sides
8. Skill Of A Caveman
9. Missing Missiles
10. East Berlin By Rail
11. Who’s Gonna Kiss Me Goodnight?
12. Vanessa Vacillating (Special Re-mix)
13. Unplugging The Vacuum (Special Re-mix)

Has it really been a year since I had made my CD-R of the Slow Children sophomore album, “Mad About Town?” Time is speeding out of control. It feels like I can barely pause for breath [not to mention sleep] and I’m another year older; deeper in debt. I’m six titles lagging in the posting department here as details of my increasingly obscure and niche hobby of making personal CD-Rs of the titles that haven’t made it to the silver disc [though mine are gold…] are competing with current musical events and my ever increasingly busy life to fall by the wayside. If only I were retired on a moderate income! You’d see this blog transformed like unto an oasis in the musical desert! But these are mere castles in Spain at this point. Until such time we will try to make PPM an eclectic and worthy stop for any eyeballs that care to join in. We’re not monetized in any way so rest assured I do it all for the love, maaaaan. We’ve already reviewed the music, so here’s all about putting it on a CD-R.

1982 was quite a year to be a Slow Children fan. Their debut album was recorded in 1980, but not released until a year later; coming out in Europe in 1981. While the American band only got a deal in America afterward; so their two year old album was released in early 1982 in the States. And the band had their follow up ready to release by the fall of 1982 for a nearly immediate sophomore album.

The winning team from the first album continued their work with the band’s sound, branching out from the new wave vibe of the first album. The biggest outlier of their growth and changes this time was the moody acoustic blues of “Suspense.” the album cover was another Jean Cocteau cinematic reference; this time to the famous “la Belle Et La Bête.

Ensign were determined to push the old single “President Am I” by including it on this album as well in its 12” remix. This album only seemed to have gotten a North American release and the UK and Europe were skipped over that time. The single this time was “Vanessa Vacillating” b/w “Unplugging The Vacuum” which got an extended 12” promo single in America. Duly included here, of course, as bonus tracks.

But the reaction, apart from in my home, must have been a disappointment to RCA/Ensign and the band was dropped to fade away with Pal Shazar opting for a solo career by the mid 90s, by which time she had married her producer Jules Shear. But against all expectation, Slow Children regrouped for a third album in 2016 with the remarkably consistent “Cottoncloud 9” with Shear and Hague once again producing and playing synths and bass as if the 34 years hadn’t passed at all.

The remastering process was fairly uneventful. The vinyl was clean enough, and the software I lean on to do the work these days [ClickRepair, Audition] was not throwing me any annoying curve balls. I did investigate the Slow Children Soundcloud channel and saw that an unreleased track from the sessions was posted there, so I had to pop “Kiss Me Goodnight” in there with the 12″ mixes already in my collection. You may listen below in this world of immediate gratification.

It was gratifying to finally make the disc of this one. I bought the album when it came out in 1982 and traded it off in the Great Vinyl Purge of ’85; assuming [incorrectly] that there would be a silver disc of it eventually. I re-bought the LP in 2011, and was sitting on that for almost a decade before getting town to business, but much of that pause was down to sourcing the one UK 7″ I needed for bonus material on the other Slow Children CD I planned to make of their first album, which was a lot more complex than their 2nd album was.

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