Rarer, new compilation of b-sides and rarities

Andy’s second collection of hard-to-find and unreleased songs, Rarer, is available exclusively from our website and Andy’s Bandcamp as a CD or a digital download (you can listen as well as download/order on Bandcamp).

It’s the long-awaited follow up to Rare, and contains 14 songs stretching from an unreleased track recorded in 1987 right up to the present day. Check out the video for Man in the Middle!

Six of the songs were released as the B-sides of singles only available in Ireland and the UK, three from fanclub-only releases, and there are five songs you have never heard before. All have been remastered and edited for this compilation.

Rarer is available on CD as well as digital download. We’ve tried to keep the price as low as possible because post from Australia is slow. However, Andy will be sending them by hand so, if you request it, he can sign the CD and write you a postcard.

Andy writes:

I’ve been taking looking through my back pages over the past while. When Rare went online I listened to it again and liked the surprises it threw up since the songs were not written or originally sequenced together. Went back to my quarter-inch tapes, cassettes, CD singles and digital files, knowing there were other songs you might not have heard, but together could tell their own story.

There are songs from the early days, including one from a recording session that took place after Rave On and before Kiss The Big Stone. Listening on headphones to the studio chat before the song began I was transported back to 1987. Incredible. There’s a live version of a Prince song you’ve asked about, that originally came out on the B-side of the In a Groovy Kind of Way. Another from the Out There demo session, written in Berlin at the same time as Berlin 6 a.m. There are songs from CD singles and fanclub albums you might not have heard, a 2020 lockdown track and two poems. The riff of the opening track has been in my head since 2007.

Sequencing them, yes, they tell a story for today. For me, it’s to do with engaging with the outside world while digging deeper into an internal one. Hopefully you’ll find your own one. Have fun with it and see you soon. I might even see you on tour early next year. What could be rarer?

AW

 

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