Good grief, has it really been 13 years since we’ve heard from Howard Devoto; The Most Important Man Alive™? When the world bestowed a new Magazine album upon us only thirty years since the previous one? And prior to that, it had been a gulf of nine years since the prior Devoto sighting; with Pete Shelley in the ShelleyDevoto project – “Buzzkunst.” So by those standards, yes. We’re due transmissions from Planet Devoto right about now and so they have materialized. I can’t deny that every six months for the last three years I’ve wondered to myself whether we’d heard the last of Mr. Devoto.

Devoto’s management company/label Wire-Sound will be releasing a previous Devoto project albeit in a new, larger, longer form. The ShelleyDevoto album of 2002, “Buzzkunst,” will finally make it onto the licorice pizza. Having been only on the silver disc in the 2002 commercial environment. But the devil is in the details. The album will be re-sequenced and enhanced with previously unreleased material. That’s where my ears perk up. Especially if they’re only selling this on a 2xLP configuration. First, let’s review the original issue.

ShelleyDevoto: Buzzkunst – US – CD [2002]

1. Can You See Me Shining?
2. Strain Of Bacteria
3. Deeper
4. ‘Til The Stars In His Eyes Are Dead
5. On Solids
6. Self-Destruction
7. You Are Still There
8. God’s Particle
9. A World To Give Away
10. Stupid Kunst
11. System Blues
12. So There I Was
13. Wednesday’s Emotional Setup
14. Going Off

The new version will be re-sequenced and re-designed and it comes with a second album of Devoto material recorded shortly after the “Buzzkunst” album period. Shelley had instigated the project by showing Howard how to create music on a computer and sent his tracks to finish off that formed the basis of the “Buzzkunst” album. Energized, Devoto then created the solo excursions that he is now releasing from the “tape cupboard.” The Clive Barker painting is still on the cover but the layout references “Spiral Scratch.” The group name is now Buzzkunst and the album itself? “Special Sauce.” The latter coined by the late Mr. Shelley.

Buzzkunst: Special Sauce – UK – LP [2024]

1. Self-Destruction
2. God’s Particle
3. So There I Was
4. On Solids
5. Psychosomatic
6. Stupid Kunst
7. Strain Of Bacteria
8. Deeper
9. Till The Stars In His Eyes Are Dead
10. Wednesday’s Emotional Setup
11. Going Off
12. Punk Of Me
13. System Blues

Fascinating, captain. I cannot fail to notice that three songs from “Buzzkunst” are missing from “Special Sauce.” “A World To Give Away,” You Are Still There,” and my favorite track on the album, “Can You See Me Shining.” Oh dear! Losing that last one hurts. On the other hand, “Psychosomatic” was a track the artists liked but was completed too late to make the release date. It’s worth mentioning that Devoto had discussed all of this revisionism with Mr. Shelley a year prior to his death, so it’s not just Devoto running rampant. On the other hand again, the second album full of solo Devoto material was exactly that.

Howard Devoto: Designoid – UK – LP [2024]

1. The Presentation Of The Self In Everyday Life
2. Designoid
3. Like Elvis (Hello Mr Curtis)
4. Bungled Existence
5. Once In Montecorto
6. Theme From Goodbye Antarctica
7. Under A Lenient Moon
8. Breakdown
9. It Mattered
10. Your Talking Sense
11. Bet Your Mind

These tracks are a mixture of songs and instrumentals, just like the “Buzzkunst” album proffered. A few will be familiar to Devoto cognoscenti. “Like Elvis [Hello Mr. Curtis]” would appear in a later form on the “No Thyself” album and, well…everyone knows “Breakdown,” right?  It was a case of Devoto returning to the scene of the crime as it were by re-recording his earliest song under dramatically different circumstances.

So my copy is already pre-ordered. This is, after all, Howard Devoto, we’re discussing. I’ll take any fresh entries into his canon I can grab. The 2xLP is on blissfully normal black vinyl [a rarity!] and is presumably pressed on “conventional” 140g platters. There are only 1000 copies being pressed and the price is a not bad £30.00 [solely from Cargo Records UK], though with shipping across the big pond I was looking at £45.00 and a less comfortable $57.60 at the going rate today. But it’s not every day when a “new” album from Howard Devoto is being issued. Join us after July 5th to discuss among ourselves. Until then, DJ hit that button.

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