Following an eight part thread here at PPM dedicated to the 25th Anniversary of Billy MacKenzie’s tragic death, the new BSOG that was pre-announced by The Affectionate Bunch fan group on the commentary to the thread is now live for pre-order. Our friends at Cherry Red are putting this one out and it is a focus on the work that Billy wrote and recorded with Steve Aungle. Steve was heavily active in writing and recording with MacKenzie during the final years of his life, along with his friend Paul Haig, and an attempt to reconnect with Alan Rankine.

Much, but not all, of this material has filtered out in posthumous album like “Beyond The Sun” and “Eurocentric,”which were largely recorded and mixed after his death. Piquing our interest, over a third of these songs have never been released before, giving us even more new MacKenzie recordings a quarter century after his passing. I’m pleased to see that titles hinted at on Aungle’s blog, like “Consenting Holograms Have More Fun” will now reach our ears. As well as the song “McArthur’s Son;” the tune that convinced Nude Records to sign him in 1996.

Disc 1: Winter Academy

1. Sing That Song Again
2. Winter Academy
3. Wild Is The Wind
4. Blue It Is
5. The Soul That Sighs
6. Mother Earth
7. And This She Knows
8. When The World Was Young
9. Tallahatchie Pass
10. Baltimore
11. Nocturne VII
12. Beyond The Sun
13. Return To Love

Disc 2: Consenting Holograms

1. 3 Gypsies In A Restaurant
2. Falling Out With The Future
3. Put This Right
4. Diamanda
5. Hornophobic
6. 14th Century Nightlife
7. Consenting Holograms Have More Fun
8. Fear Is My Bride
9. Here Comes The Rain Again
10. Eurocentric
11. Mysterious Lover
12. Return To Love 2
13. Give Me Time (remix)

Disc 3: Liberty Lounge

1. Tomorrow People
2. The Mountains That You Climb
3. McArthur’s Son
4. Liberty Lounge
5. Sour Jewel
6. 14 Mirrors
7. Give Me Time
8. At The Edge Of The World
9. Satellite Life
10. 14 Mirrors 2
11. Velvet
12. Your Own Fire
13. Van Hamburg

It looks like the material has been carefully sequenced to follow the Winter Academy/Outerpol/Case thematic frameworks that the songs were written in. One reason why Billy had to walk away from the Associates reunion with Rankine was that he could not in good conscience agree to limit his output to just Associates. Billy wanted to create for multiple bands happening at once to try to contain all of the disparate ideas that he and Aungle were exploring. When an artist is exploding, it behooves no one to try to put him in a box. Until now.

Right now the box will make perfect sense. Cherry Red is taking preorders for the three CD set that will see release on April 22nd for the great price of £18.95 [$25.07] with standard shipment to The States for the set a modest £4.90 [$6.47] which is FAR, FAR LESS than it would cost to ship three CDs from America to the UK. Memo to self: It’s time to buy all of those Cherry Red sets I’ve been thinking about but not buying for the last seven years! Anyone reading this far has no excuse. Hit that button below and join the Billy MacKenzie scene which is still happening in 2022! Tomorrow we’ll return to the Blow Monkeys Rock G.P.A. thread that was planned for today. Honestly.

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