The “Lament” 40th anniversary ultrabox that just arrived last month is something that I’ve just begun to get into in the last week of pseudo-normality. It was seven CDs and a DVD with the Steven Wilson 5.1 surround remix as the 8th disc. But it was not the alpha and omega of that reissue campaign.
As we noted, this time there was also a Blu-Ray Dolby Atmos® mix disc. Also from the peripatetic desk of Steven Wilson. This was one of the SuperDeluxeEdition releases that come and go fairly swiftly in the window of opportunity. Even though I don’t have a DolbyAtmos® rig, the sound is said to “fold down” to 5.1 in a different mix from the extant 5.1 DVD as disc #8 in the “Lament” ultrabox. Phew! Got that? Because anyone paying attention over the last four years knows what’s coming next…
RSD BLACK FRIDAY 2024: STEVEN WILSON “LAMENT” 2xCD 2.0/INSTRUMENTAL REMIX
Ultravox: Lament Steven Wilson Vocal/Instrumental Mix – US – 2xCD [2024]
Disc 1: Steven Wilson 2.0 Remix
- White China
- One Small Day
- Dancing With Tears In My Eyes
- Lament
- Man Of Two Worlds
- Heart of The Country
- When The Time Comes
- A Friend I Call Desire
Disc 2: Steven Wilson 2.0 Instrumental Remix
- White China [inst.]
- One Small Day [inst.]
- Dancing With Tears In My Eyes [inst.]
- Lament [inst.]
- Man Of Two Worlds [inst.]
- Heart of The Country [inst.]
- When The Time Comes [inst.]
- A Friend I Call Desire [inst.]
This set of discs drops on November 29th, as Record Store Day’s Black Friday push. There will be, as usual, a 2xLP edition [also pictured] in the UK and US, but the 2xCD seems to be exclusive to the US [!] in en edition of [don’t laugh…] 420 copies. Someone’s making sport, obviously. So I’ll make the effort to grab one of these if local or not. The color variation will be something new to the designer black orgy that is every other copy of “Lament” in my record cell. But wait, there’s more…now how much would you pay?
DISC #9: LAMENT EXTENDED REMIXES CD
Ultravox: Lament Extended Re-Mixes CD – UK – CD [2024]
- White China (Steven Wilson Re-Mix)
- Man Of Two Worlds (Steven Wilson Re-Mix)
- When The Time Comes (Steven Wilson Re-Mix)
- A Friend I Call Desire (Steven Wilson Re-Mix)
- One Small Day (Odder Re-Mix)
- White China (12” Instrumental Mix)
- Lament (12” Re-Mix 2024)
- When The Time Comes (Extended Re-Mix)
We were blindsided by this news last night when catching up after the hurricane on the Steve Hoffman Forums. I was perusing the “Lament 40th Anniversary Boxed Set” thread and saw that Chrysalis was releasing the other mixes commissioned but rejected by band consensus for the disc #3 of the “Lament” ultrabox. Where an alternative mix of the album was made. There were said to be four mixes left over which reach our ears only here [red], but Chrysalis have added all four Steven Wilson extended remixes that were issued on the RSD EP earlier this year.
These were also added to the Blu-Ray of “Lament” but this marks the only time that Wilson’s excellent extended remixes of “White China” and “Man Of Two Worlds” were on CD format. There were 500 LPs of this pressed up but they’re all gone now.I have no idea when this was announced because I was offline for half a month, but there are still copies of the CD of “Disc #9” as we’ll call it for £11.00/$15.00. Lets be thankful for small miracles of CDs of music we want.
But caveat emptor…I tried to buy this last night in Firefox browser and it didn’t like the coding of the official Ultrabox webstore. I wasn’t allowed to choose the US or Global stores. It showed me just the two items [the 8 disc box and the 2xLP reissue of “Lament”] available to US store buyers. I then logged into my VPN from Manchester and it still cut me off from the goods I wanted. It wasnt until I tried a different browser [DuckDuckGo, if you want to know] that I was able to successfully buy the ninth configuration of “Lament.” The CD is released this Saturday, October 19th so if you’d like to hear these “Salon de Refusés” remixes act now! DJs hit that button!
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![Want List: Visage DLX RM […finally!]](https://i0.wp.com/postpunkmonk.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/visage-dlxrmuscda.jpeg?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1)
Post-Punk Monk 
I never shared this with you, happened right before nature upended your life.
I received my box and was thrilled and step 1 in my cell is to rip ANY new purchase for backup purposes (Amazon gave me a free mp3 version of Quartet when I bought the SDE from them but NOT Lament….why? I dunno).
So I am in my favorite easy chair with my laptop on…my lap…and a cord hooked up to an external drive that is ripping one of the cds and the damn thing falls onto the floor mid rip. I don’t know what the laser in that thing did but it scotched a few tracks on the disc. Unrippable, unplayable and on day 1. LAMENT INDEED.
Lesson learned, rip new cds on a stable table surface
Sigh more disks. I will hunt down the instrumental one as those are required in my world, I doubt that I will try to find the other one.
Considering how much money we sink into buying these boxes it is kind of a kick in the pants to make us buy the instrumental versions as a separate item purchase. I am gravitating more to Paul Sinclair’s SDE BRs, I think I have….three? four? coming before years end. That so-and-so has got me buying so many of them I can’t keep track.
Am happy to see that your life is resuming. Have a thousand questions about how life has been but have tried not to bug you, figure the rhythm of life post natural disaster like that makes different demands of your time and resources than life prepares any of us for. Take good care.
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Ah, Tim, I’m sure Monk has you beat with terrible stories right now, but don’t sell yourself short. What happened with your box set is awful. You have my sympathies.
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I can’t get over how stupid and clueless of Ultravox to release the dull, lifeless and dated ‘One Small Day’ over the fizzing ‘White China’-and even before the album is out. They’re lucky people bought it for itself and not that wretched song. So ‘White China’ got extended hey? Yet it still didn’t get made a single!
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markgcjsck33 -I’m here to tell you I felt exactly the same way in 1984! I was befuddled by the “retrograde” “One Small Day” then but at some point in the last 20 years, I’ve come to find it the other second high point of the “Lament” album. The first being “White China!” “Day” won me over in spite of the rockism [dating myself there] of the track. I have to respect the lyrics citing depression as a factor to be resisted; hardly the typical stuff of a top 40 hit. But it’s the way the band are singing it and playing the song as though they really mean it that gets my vote in 2024.
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hi markgcjack33,
sure, it would have been great to have it as a single. but i’m more than happy with the mixes, and other releases too.
i first heard the razormaid remix, which for once, was actually great, before discovering the actual remix on the cd.
and now with all the new versions, instrumentals etc. i have no problem with that, and even one small day, which is still a great song to me. maybe not as good as white china. but who knows if it was the bands choice.
i consider these releases good for making up what was never done in the past, especially filling in the gaps with the other remixes for the other songs off the album.
i’m not sure if this is the last deluxe release. but if it is, its great to go out on a high point, and put out everything you can for, what to me, is their best album.
later
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ne gative1
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negative1ne – You’re aware that I don’t rate “Lament” as their best album, but all of the detail of this campaign and the remixes have really boosted it in my esteem. I like the Wilson remixes a lot. It’s like he’s gone back in time to re-produce it in a better light. I wonder if it stops here. I can’t imagine a box for “Monument” since each of the boxes has a full live show from their respective tours. I like the differences that the band brought to many songs over the course of their “imperial period.” Great stuff showing them still moving forward through time.
They re-made one of Bowie’s worst albums in a new version that basically kept his vocals and re-recorded the music around it [“Never Let Me Down 2018”] but that’s Bowie. Quite frankly I can’t be bothered chasing down even well-intentioned revisions of Bowie’s mistakes. I don’t think it would be worth the cost and effort to make “UVOX 2026.” I only bought that album once no matter how many other bonus tracks they added to later remasters.
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If they make a box set out of UVOX it will be NOTICEABLY absent from my collection of these UltraBox sets.
Now where the hell is a combo UltraFoxx Box, hmmmm?
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chasinvictoria – I have not bought any version of “UVOX” in the last 30 years… why should I start now?!
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mr chasinvictoria,
hey we all have different tastes. people will definitely ignore u-vox, if it comes down to it.
but for me, i’ll make up by ignoring ultravox pre-midge ure. and wouldn’t buy anything with john foxx with a 10 foot pole. can’t stand his music, any album he’s been on, and especially being proto ultravox. not for me.
i doubt they’ll even consider it, considering how little interest there would be.
to each their own.
later
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ne gative1
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You make a very apt point here, and I do enjoy when certain arty people, like John Foxx are criticised because there’s too much snobbery in music, and just because something goes more commercial, like with The Human League when the girls thankfully joined and they started making proper melodious music as opposed to soundless, annoying art-school stabs at noise, doesn’t make it bad. I’m okay with John Foxx, some of his singles are quite nice but I don’t play them regualrly and often forget about him, there’s no doubt Ultravox became worthy and commerical when the line-up was shook up and Ure took over the helm.
“U-Vox” somehow managed to chart artifically high briefly as die-hards clung on them still in 1986, but it was obvious the creative fires had died, though I found the singles fine. Even Ure hismelf is dismissive of the album and strongly hates it, which I know many fans must know. I even remember a fan, some years ago, fondly remembering when he met him and had a copy of “U-Vox” and got him to sign it and thanked him for making such a “wonderful album” to which he replied something like: “Ain’t you sweet, it’s a piece of shit, but thanks for the compilment!” Says it all. But obviously some completists will want this album redone, hell they haven’t even redone all of OMD’s yet, now that IS rude, especially when they’re missing out on one of their best: “Crush”. Yet the equally grand one before it, “Junk Culture” was stunningly cut-up when 2 songs on disc 1 of the original album didn’t even feature properly, being cut off before their time-and these were overseen BY the actual group, so oh dear even!
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markgcjack33 – “Junk Culture” is one of my favorite OMD albums. It was a stunning departure in 1984 to have this somewhat arty band making song as emotionally direct and visceral as “White Trash.” But by the next album they were making songs as commonplace as “So In Love.” What they gained with “Junk Culture” had begun to be squandered by the time of “Crush.” But even that one had some strong tracks, still. “Native Daughters” and “La Femme Accident” in particular.
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The thing is, while ‘So In Love’, ‘Secret’ and ‘Hold You’ seem commonplace, they still do not outweigh the very individual songs on the album, and to be honest, it was a lovely transition-I feel their last 80s album ruined them and that was all down to the immense and offensive pressure Virgin was putting on them to keep up their profile in American, and it says it all about America that a song like ‘So In Love’ broke them over there when none of their earlier stuff, as great as it was, wouldn’t! That’s the Yanks for you, no taste unless you bend to their awful level, nonetheless ‘So In Love’ is still ages above what many of their contemporaries were doing.
At least “Crush” has 10 tracks on it, the 1st album to do so, which is quite tight of them, and at least they’d dispensed with the 80-85% instrument/20-15% sung words that they leaned too heavily on in their early years, which does begin to grate when you just want songs. “Junk Culture” was the first album to do that, while remain very much them, and no bad thing. The fact I find “Crush” one of their absolute best proves them right in what they were doing, sadly the follow-up album did not continue that streak, it was all right, and improved thankfully by adding to it the 2 unreleased tracks available in 2019 that Andy wanted on there, and by dumping the wretched ‘Southern’, but it still left some weak songs, but every act that matters delivers something relatively weak and at odds with their usual standard, as they’ve been back to their usual standard since their 2010 return (though the album of that year was more finding their feet as opposed to usual greatness) and nothing as weak as “The Pacific Age” will be made again in album terms, but I still keep it as, for me, they’re one of those acts incapable of making an album I wouldn’t want to own, nonetheless it gets played as sparingly as his 2 last solo ones from the 90s without Paul.
Love the 2 songs you mentioned, what aligment you have because both those ace tracks you mention are my two 1st faves on the album, ‘Secret’ being a 2nd. If “Crush” was a sellout, I only wish more acts ‘sold out’ so brilliantly, but even though it took ages, least we have them back as cool as they ever were now. Though there was no need for a virtual rewrite of Goldfrapp’s weakest ever single from the last album, and then for them to make THAT a single, oh dear. Still, never mind.
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markgcjack33 – You mention a topic I often think of… best “sellout” album. I will come right out and tell you mine, even though I need to make this a post one day: “Man Of Colours” by Icehouse. Details later, I hope! And yes, “Slow Train” was as sad as the three songs on “History of Modern” that had no reason being there.
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With regards to the Lament box set, I don´t understand how everyone was satisified with some of the remixes. Steven Wilson did such an outstanding job and it is beyond my understanding why he was not asked to completely remix the album? The Moby mix is okay at best, with clashing tones at the end, making me turn it off instantly. There are transitions which are simply don´t match (especially when you count the beats) and Blank & Jones have offset Midge´s vocals at some place that I can hardly stand it. With the stem separation feature in Logic Pro X, I have crosschecked my observation and moving the vocals to the correct bar finally gave a proper result. All in all, Lament was a tremendously expensive purchase (with almost 50 EUR taxes added on top) and it was – for me – the biggest disappointment, except for what Steven Wilson has added. He is simply a genius.
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girltech – Welcome to the comments! I’ve been working long hours for a delivery date and am just catching up. I’ve only managed a single listen to the “Lament” box so far. I I need to listen for the Blank + Jones gaffe you cite. I also enjoyed some of the radical shifts and creative segues in the live album. But by now I’d trust Steven Wilson with the reins to any album I love. In cases where I simply could not imagine improvements, he’s managed to make them on his many campaigns.
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Thanks for the tip about the remix CD – now a fresh Ultravox record is on the way to my record cell for the first time in ages.
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p33t3r – Welcome to the comments! If you’ve not gotten the big box, the presentation managed to really give the album as a whole a boost for me. I have all four of the boxes, but this is the one where the album itself raised in my esteem via the remixes made for the project.
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