R.E.M.'s debut EP to be reissued on CD

Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, R.E.M.’s debut EP CHRONIC TOWN will be released for the first time ever as a standalone CD with extensive liner notes by the original producer Mitch Easter (Let’s Active). It will be released in three different formats: CD, Picture Disc, and Cassette on August 19 via I.R.S./UMe and can be preordered here.

As a debut release, R.E.M.’s Chronic Town became an anomaly. A record that didn’t quite fit into the constraints of what was played on the radio. So instead of trying to fit into a genre, R.E.M. helped create their own: College Rock. The follow-up to their breakthrough single “Radio Free Europe” which was released in 1981, Chronic Town served as the entry point to what would become one of Alternative Rock’s biggest bands. “One might fancifully say that Chronic Town was the sound of an expedition, ready for anything, setting forth,” says Easter fondly about the EP. “If R.E.M. ‘Radio Free Europe’ single was a signpost, the Chronic Town EP was the atlas."

The EP was critically hailed both upon release and in retrospect. 

Track listing:

1. Wolves, Lower
2. Gardening At Night
3. Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars)
4. 1,000,000
5. Stumble