If you’re truly cool, you already know that, basically four decades ago, Brixton avant-post-punk trio This Heat put out three massively influential records records (1979’s This Heat, 1980’s Health and Efficiency, and 1981’s Deceit) that fused boring ol’ “punk rock” with everything from krautrock to dub to musique concrète and noise to industrial to Scottish bagpipe music (okay, good catch, that last one was a lie; just testing to make sure you’re truly cool).
Since you’re truly cool, you ALSO know that the Light in the Attic label, with the “full co-operation” of surviving members Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward, began a comprehensive reissue campaign a few years ago with the intent of bringing This Heat’s seminal sounds back to the the steaming hot turntables of truly cool motherfuckers everywhere.
And now, that campaign continues with the announcement of three of the band’s even rarer, even OBSCURE-ER, EVEN FURTHER OUT OF PRINT releases, all of which are probably being cast in delicious wax even as we speak: Made Available (a compilation of super-early John Peel sessions from 1977), Repeat / Metal (a sort of unofficial “posthumous album” recorded in 1979-80 buy not released until 1993), and Live 80 - 81 (a compilation of “rough cassette tape recordings of European gigs in Tilburg, Nijmegen, Ärhus, Apeldoorn, Vienna and Rheims between April 1980 and June 1981”).
But…just how RARE are these three albums, you ask? Well, Mr./Mrs. SNOOTY: The Made Avilable LP hasn’t been “available” on vinyl for 20 years, and the other two have NEVER been issued on vinyl before. All three of these badboys are currently being readied for your rapacious consumption on August 3 in a plethora of delectable format options (pre-order each of them from Light in the Attic here, here, and here, respectively).
And, needless to say, ALL THREE are somehow SIMULTANEOUSLY the most important record ever. Don’t even ask how that’s possible. (Besides, if you don’t already just intrinsically know, then you might not be truly cool.)
Made Available tracklisting:
01. Horizontal Hold
02. Not Waving
03. The Fall Of Saigon
04. Basement Boy
05. Rimp Romp Ramp
06. Sitting
07. Makeshift Swahili
08. Slither
Repeat / Metal tracklisting:
01. Repeat
02. Metal
Live 80 - 81 tracklisting:
01. Horizontal Hold
02. Paper Hats
03. S.P.Q.R.
04. Triumph
05. Aerial Photography
06. The Rough With The Smooth
07. Makeshift Swahili
08. Music Like Escaping Gas
09. A New Kind Of Water
10. Twilight Furniture
11. Health And Efficiency
More about: This Heat
