James, who’ve sold more than 25 million albums worldwide and just completed another sell-out tour of the UK, have announced that their Laid and Wah Wah albums are due to be re-released as a box set on March 24.
The albums will be released as a 4CD 12’x 12’ Super Deluxe box set featuring 20 previously unreleased recordings – including rehearsals, out-takes, jams, B-sides, radio sessions and live tracks - totaling 68 tracks in all. The four discs will be accompanied by a 56-page hardcover book (featuring an essay by Phill Savidge, rare photos and memorabilia), four button badges and four postcards. The release will also be made available as a 2CD Deluxe package with 28 page booklet, a double 180g LP Laid package featuring printed inner sleeves and a double 180g LP Wah Wah package featuring printed inner sleeves.
According to Tim Booth, both CDs are “the culmination of playing four or five hours a day four or five days a week in Manchester and the new band adapting to that. It is about the transition of becoming more of a band but with Brian at the helm.”
He remembers jamming “hundreds of songs that never saw the light of day” and guitarist Larry Gott suggests it might have been “as many as 340 tracks.” The simultaneous, coupled reissues are particularly notable, however, due to the fact that producer Brian Eno and the band had originally favored releasing the records as a double package.
Recorded concurrently in 1993 during a frenetic six week period at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Complex, the albums were always intended as companion pieces – Laid being referred to as the “song” album whilst Wah Wah was known as the “experimental” or “jamming” album – but the record company’s decision to release them months apart put paid to this conception: Laid, released in the UK in September 1993, reached the No.3 spot and became the band’s biggest album to date in the US, selling 600,000 copies and breaking the band in the USA in the process but the subsequent follow-up Wah Wah effectively sunk the band over there. By the time Wah Wah came out, U2 (and Eno) had released Zooropa and “everyone thought we were copying off them instead of the other way round!”
James is not the first artist to release an experimental follow-up to their most successful album to date – in James’ case Laid was the follow-up to the UK success Seven: others surely include Radiohead, R.E.M., Lou Reed and the Stone Roses – although it is possible that some of these did so unintentionally!
Track listing:
4CD SUPER DELUXE
CD1 Laid
1. Out To Get You
2. Sometimes (Lester Pigott)
3. Dream Thrum
4. One of The Three
5. Say Something
6. Five-O
7. P.S.
8. Everybody Knows
9. Knuckle Too Far
10. Low Low Low
11. Laid
12. Lullaby
13. Skindiving
CD2 Wah Wah
1. Hammer Strings
2. Pressure's On
3. Jam J
4. Frequency Dip
5. Lay The Law Down
6. Burn The Cat
7. Maria
8. Low Clouds
9. Building A Fire
10. Gospel Oak
11. DVV
12. Say Say Something
13. Rhythmic Dreams
14. Dead Man
15. Rain Whistling
16. Basic Brian
17. Low Clouds
18. Bottom Of The Well
19. Honest Joe
20. Arabic Agony
21. Tomorrow
22. Laughter
23. Sayonara
CD3 Rehearsals, Out-takes & Jams (all previously unreleased)
1. Carousel (rehearsal demo of Say Something)
2. Unknown Track 8 (rehearsal demo)
3. Dream Thrum (rehearsal demo)
4. Chicken Goth (rehearsal demo)
5. Jam J (Additional Jam) (rehearsal jam)
6. You Were Born (Take 1) (early version of One of the Three)
7. Bruce Jam 1 (Mix 1) (early version of Knuckle Too Far)
8. Jam D / Rhythmic Dreams alt. (rehearsal jam)
9. Jam E (out-take) (rehearsal jam)
10. Jam 11 (Slow Jam - Grotesque/Angular) (rehearsal jam)
11. Jam 12B (Dreamy Later Singing) (rehearsal jam)
12. Jam P (Fabulous Melody But Unusual Bass)(rehearsal jam)
13. Jam P2 (Later) (rehearsal jam)
14. Jam Q (early version of Honest Joe) (rehearsal jam)
15. Jam R - Beefheart Jam (rehearsal jam)
16. Who Is Gospel Oak? (early version) (rehearsal jam)
17. Falsetto (instrumental version of Skindiving)
18. Jam 13 - Fast Marcus Has Mixed (rehearsal jam)
CD4 B-sides, Radio Sessions & Live
1. America (Live In The U.S. 9/92) B-side of Sometimes
2. Building A Charge B-side of Sometimes
3. Wah Wah Kits B-side of Laid
4. The Lake B-side of Laid
5. Seconds Away B-side of Laid
6. Say Something (New Version) double A-side with Jam J
7. Assassin B-side of SaySomething/ Jam J
8. Laid (Acoustic 99x, Atlanta 26/2/94) B-side of Say Something – US promo CD
9. Low Low Low (BBC Session 27/9/93)
10. Sometimes (BBC Session 27/9/93)
11. Tomorrow (BBC Session 27/9/93)
12. Five-O (BBC Session 27/9/93)
13. Jam J (Arena Dub / Amphetamine Pulsate) 12" remix
14. Jam J (Sabresonic Tremelo Dub / Spaghetti Steamhammer) 12" remix
2CD DELUXE: LAID
CD1 Laid
1. Out To Get You
2. Sometimes (Lester Pigott)
3. Dream Thrum
4. One of The Three
5. Say Something
6. Five-O
7. P.S.
8. Everybody Knows
9. Knuckle Too Far
10. Low Low Low
11. Laid
12. Lullaby
13. Skindiving
CD2 Bonus disc – Live, Radio Sessions, B-sides, Rehearsal Demos & Jams
1. America (Live In The U.S. 9/92) B-side of Sometimes
2. Building A Charge B-side of Sometimes
3. Wah Wah Kits B-side of Laid
4. The Lake B-side of Laid
5. Seconds Away B-side of Laid
6. Say Something (New Version) double A-side with Jam J
7. Jam J double A-side with Say Something (New Version)
8. Assassin B-side of Say Something (New Version) / Jam J
9. Laid (BBC Session 27/9/93)
10. Five-O (BBC Session 27/9/93)
11. Sometimes (BBC Session 27/9/93)
12. Say Something (BBC Session 27/9/93)
13. Low Low Low Low (BBC Session 27/9/93) (previously unreleased)
14. Tomorrow (BBC Session 27/9/93) (previously unreleased)
15. Dream Thrum (rehearsal demo) (previously unreleased)
16. You Were Born take 1 ( early version of One of the Three) (previously unreleased)
17. Bruce Jam 1 (Mix 1) (early version of Knuckle Too Far) (previously unreleased)
18. Carousel (rehearsal demo of Say Something)
19. Falsetto (instrumental version of Skindiving) (previously unreleased)
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