Browse by Label: VIRGIN (UK)

Artist:	GONG
Title:	Angel's Egg
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	CAR 66556CD

Part II of Radio Gnome Invisible. 2004 remaster of the 5th Gong album, originally issued 1973; with 4 bonus tracks. "Two definitive '70s progressive rock classics digitally remastered from the original masters. Each CD features previously unreleased bonus tracks and an expanded, illustrated booklet. Angel's Egg is the rock equivalent of a mad tea party, with lyrics involving Pothead Pixies, Octave Doctors and Radio Gnomes; all set to Pierre Moerlen's tight and sophisticated drumming, Didier Malherbe's multicoloured sax and flute leads, Steve Hillage's cosmic guitar soloing, and Daveid Allen's amusing vocals and glissando guitar layers."

Artist:	MAGAZINE
Title:	Play
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.50
Catalog #:	EMI 87347CD

"Formed by original Buzzcocks lead singer Howard Devoto, Magazine featured a line-up that included Robin Simon of Ultravox, and Barry Adamson, who became a key member of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds before launching a critically praised solo career. Magazine's combination of punk rock's nervous energy and art rock's experimentalism pushed the boundaries of music. Little wonder that this top post-punk group has been cited by today's top post-rock group, Radiohead, as an influence, with Radiohead even paying tribute by performing Magazine's 'Shot By Both Sides' during their Kid A live shows. But Magazine's influence doesn't stop there. It also includes fans like U2's The Edge, Blur, Maxīmo Park, Manus, Manic Street Preachers, Elastica, Morrissey (who covered 'A Song From Under The Floorboards'), and both Ministry and Peter Murphy who each covered 'The Light Pours Out Of Me.' Play is the only live document ever released by this legendary band. Recorded in Melbourne in 1980, it is a veritable live hits collection that also includes tasty extras such as their broodingly sinister cover version of the Sly & The Family Stone classic 'Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).'"

Artist:	FAITHFULL, MARIANNE
Title:	Kissin Time
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	VIR 20092

Marianne Faithfull's best work since Broken English (1979), featuring collaborative tracks with the likes of Beck Hansen, Blur, Jarvis Cocker, Dave Eurythmic Stewart and Billy "Somebody Forgot To Kill Me" Corgan. Apparently not destined for US release. "Faithfull's cracked growl and painfully personal lyrics are an acquired taste. But if you can deal with sexual and emotional honesty, as well as deliberately eclectic tunes and textures, you'll be treated to bold, bitter, and elegantly profane pop art."

Artist:	FAUST
Title:	IV
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	VIR 56362CD

2006 digital remastered version, double CD. Bonus disc features rarities, alternate takes, a BBC John Peel radio session and expanded liner notes. The fourth and final album to be released during Faust's original lifespan, originally released by Virgin Records in 1973. Opens with one of their most relentlessly mantric tracks, "Krautrock", a searing post-VU drone, and then delves into what is some of the most accessible Faust material ("The Sad Skinhead," "Jennifer," etc. Less revolutionary than its predecessors (Faust, So Far, Tapes), but still contains many memorable moments & this is the definitive version.

Artist:	SCRITTI POLITTI
Title:	Songs To Remember
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	VIR 10242

Mid-line reissue of their first album, originally released by Rough Trade in 1982. "Wire had Foucault and FM rock; Gartside had Derrida and digital dancehall. The Scritti double A-side 'Asylums In Jerusalem/Jacques Derrida' [both included here] took Nietzsche, sunny Jamaican pop styles and noted the Frenchie deconstructivist to Number 43 in the hit parade...Lovers Rock and Left Bank intellectualism have rarely combined more fruitfully." -- Mojo.

Artist:	CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & HIS MAGIC BAND
Title:	Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	VIR 87137CD

1990's CD reissue of this classic 1979 Captain Beefheart album; not available on CD in the US for a number of years now. A massive return-to-form following the hard to discuss A&M Albums Unconditionally Guaranteed & Bluejeans & Moonbeams. Featuring the line up of: Jeff Moris Tepper, Bruce Fowler, Eric Drew Feldman, Richard Redus, Robert Arthur Williams & Art Tripp. "The album is certified Grade A 100% Beefheart. There is something for everybody here, from the architectonic disco chugalug of 'When I See Mommy, I Feel Like a Mummy' (Philip Wylie momism meets Im-Ho-Tep) to the primal assertiveness of 'You Know You're a Man' (more question-begging for the identity-bereft children of the Me Decade). 'Tropical Hotdog Night' sports a delirious Ricky Ricardo-esque conga line and a don't-stop-the-carniValium ambiance, Fowler phallus-flaunting his 'bone and the Beef in his best 4Ŋ-octave voice inviting the women 'to meet the Monster tonight. Everything's wrong at the same time it's right!' Great glottal display there. 'Suction Prints,' the Magic Band's concert-opening blast for years, is a demonstration of ferocious instrumental chops. But it's an 'Owed t'Alex,' one of the oldest numbers in his repertoire, that Don Van Vliet sustains his greatest moment on Shiny Beast. Ostensibly a tale of a biker's lonely vigil ('Five miles back I took a spill, thought I almost paid my bill'), there is a prolonged laugh from Beefheart at the end -- mocking, slightly bitter hoot of triumph over adversity that says he ain't never gonna pack it in. Meanwhile, the guitars and horn pump out a magisterial, goddamn noble riff which Beefheart sails over with some of the bluesiest, most free-spirited harp he's ever blown. This from a man who's seen his entire corpus picked clean of the most accessible elements by mewling, puking moon-calves from Devo to Root Boy Slim. No matter. Captain Beefheart is making the most meaningful, adventurous, and delightful music of his career. And Shiny Beast is the Party Album of the Year." -- Gary Lucas (1979).

Artist:	PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED
Title:	Paris au Printemps
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	VIR 12183CD

The last document of the quintessential line up of Lyndon/Levene/Wobble/Atkins, originally released in 1980. Recorded in Paris in January of 1980, in front on of many confused French lunks. Seemed somewhat unnecessary at the time, now sounds like an amazing last gasp & quite pleasing to hear. Has never been released in the US. "Lydon says he hates live albums. Paris Au Printemps -- PAP -- the best of two nights recorded in Paris this spring, is consumer service for people that would have shelled out vast sums for low-fi bootlegs of the (currently) extinct species, PiL live. It was cut for the cost of two reels of tape, and edited down in two hours, with none of the overdubbed parts common in live LPs Parisian non-comprehension of PiL in the spring of 1980 seems daft, given the quality of the music. But then, PiL's instinctive suspicion (and frequent rejection) of the way things like music and its means of production generally toddle along means they're disturbing, hence often resented. PiL seem to feel most secure when they're poised over the live wire in the Underground, checking out the noise of the onrushing train for possible recording potential. The bedrock is solid drumming, deliberately straightforward, the least imaginative element. Beyond that, it's Wobble's steady bass, teetering on the brink of the nimble jazz runs that displeased Lydon and Levene. Excellent, actually. Beyond that, it's Levene's extraordinary relationship to music; an obsessive perfectionism that leads him to loathe sounds that do not extend the known boundaries of contemporary Western popular music. Lydon luxuriates in his words, method acting the themes: greed, ignorance, stupidity. The intelligence is fierce, the delivery 3-D. The meaning behind the moaning gets clearer all the time." -- Vivien Goldman/NME 1980. Tracks: "Theme", "Chant", "Careering", "Bad Baby", "Attack", "Poptones", "Lowlife".

Artist:	CAPTAIN BEEFHEART
Title:	Doc At the Radar Station
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	VIR 71362

Apparently out of print in the US, this is an European pressing of this 1980 classic, featuring the lineup of: Don Van Vliet, Jeff Moris Tepper, Eric Drew Feldman, Robert Williams, Bruce Fowler, John French and Gary Lucas. "Filled with junkyard rhythms and effortless, delirious poetry, Doc At The Radar Station marked a return to the more familiar side of Captain Beefheart street. Hardcore Captain Beefheart, the album is as extreme as anything this side of Trout Mask Replica."

Artist:	CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & HIS MAGIC BAND
Title:	Ice Cream For Crow
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	VIR 86739CD

UK issue of the final Captain Beefheart studio album, originally released in 1982. "The best thing about Ice Cream is that it meshes up the best elements of Beefheart: rampaging garage rock, Delta blues, dislocated jazz/avant-garde rhythms, and most of all, very catchy songs. The bulk of the record borders on twisted pop, much like Safe As Milk: a mixture of wild R & B/trash-rock and maudlin, schlocky harmonies. This album was released at a time when 'rock' music of any stripe wasn't very fashionable, yet it rocks harder than the bulk of its contemporaries. Whilst many admirers of Beefheart from the punk era had either gone New Wave, synth-pop or completely underground Beefheart sounds oblivious to it all. The rough, earthy sound of Ice Cream for Crow, along with its stunning sleeve art comprising of a mournful photo of The Man placed on top of an original, desert-tinged painting by himself, always brings to mind visions of Beefheart heroically sailing off to his caravan in the Arizona desert for a lifetime of retirement after one of his strongest artistic statements." -- David Lang.

Artist:	PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED
Title:	Live In Tokyo
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	VIR 87470CD

Obscure live album, recorded July of 1983. Featuring the line up of Lydon, Atkins (drums), Louie Bernardi (bass), Tom Zvoncheck (keyboards) & Joseph Guida (guitar)! These guys were theoretically members of Westside Frankie and the Inglewood Jerks?? Can't imagine this has ever been released in the US. Decent track listing, sleepy performance. Of note due to the fact that it was an early all-digital live recording. "Particularly appalling is Lydon's call-and-response shtick with the crowd and the soulless versions of the once haunting 'Death Disco' and 'Flowers of Romance.' Only one track, 'Religion,' comes across as adding something to the original version, with a new organ introduction and an astonishingly biting performance from Lydon. Ironically enough, because the group recorded with such sophisticated equipment, the sound is phenomenal, capturing a mediocre band in crisp, rich tones." -- All Music Guide. Tracks: "Annalisa," "Religion," "Low Life," "Flowers Of Romance," "Death Disco," "Solitaire," "This Is Not A Love Song," "Bad Life," "Banging The Door," "Under The House."

Artist:	PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED
Title:	Metal Box
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD BOX
Price:	$26.00
Catalog #:	VIR 87473CD

Limited UK version of the 2nd P.I.L. album (a.k.a. Second Edition in the US), reissued in mini-metal film canister, ala the original 3x12" vinyl release from 1979. This came out a while ago and seems to have been repressed recently... "Public Image Ltd. managed to avoid boundaries for the first four years of their existence, and Metal Box is undoubtedly the apex. It's a hallmark of uncompromising, challenging post-punk, hardly sounding like anything of the past, present, or future. Sure, there were touchstones that got their imaginations running -- the bizarreness of Captain Beefheart, the open and rhythmic spaces of Can, and the dense pulses of Lee 'Scratch' Perry's productions fueled their creative fires -- but what they achieved with their second record is a completely unique hour of avant-garde. Originally packaged as a trio of 12" records played at 45 rpm, the bass and treble are pegged at 11 throughout, with nary a tinge of midrange to be found. It's all scrapes and throbs (dubscrapes?), supplanted by John Lydon's caterwauling about such subjects as his dying mother, resentment, and murder. Guitarist Keith Levene splatters silvery, violent, percussive shards of metallic scrapes onto the canvas, much like a one-armed Jackson Pollock. Jah Wobble and Richard Dudanski lay down a molasses-thick rhythmic foundation throughout that's just as funky as Can's Holger Czukay/Jaki Leibezeit and Chic's Bernard Edwards/Nile Rodgers. It's alien dance music. Metal Box might not be recognized as a groundbreaking record with the same reverence as Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols, and you certainly can't trace numerous waves of bands who wouldn't have existed without it like the The Sex Pistols record. But like a virus, its tones have sent miasmic reverberations through a much broader scope of artists and genres." -- Andy Kellman/All Music Guide

Artist:	PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED
Title:	First Issue
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	VIR 87475CD

UK-only issue of the legendary debut Public Image album, originally released by Virgin in 1978. Never issued in the US. John Lydon, Jah Wobble, Keith Levene, Jim Walker, at their 2nd best (1979's Second Edition was their unequivocal masterpiece). "One of the simplest notion in all of rock'n'roll -- repetition -- is what carries this highly combustive LP, fused together brightly with only the extremest elements of Krautrock, dub, and punk all in a 'Space Ritual' type racket. Recorded in September and issued December, 1978, the album was so repetitious and even more in your face than the Sex Pistols, journalists wrote this and subsequent P.I.L. albums off as 'anti-art,' in a futile and utterly misread attempt to explain a sound so downright abrasive and previously unheard -- read as: unremembered. It was in no way, shape or form a prank, but for 1978, it was totally alien in its extremity, fuelled by the precise anger of Lydon's voice that manage to push the whole album at Mach whatever speed through innumerable red lights -- about as much as the rhythm section, graced by the never-ending poise of Jah Wobble's bottomless dub bass and drummer Jim Walker's drum hits that resound like repeated gunshots in the dub-contained, airtight studio." Tracklisting: "Theme," "Religion 1," "Religion 11," "Annalisa," "Public Image," "Low Life," "Attack," "Fodderstompf."

Artist:	NYMAN, MICHAEL
Title:	Decay Music
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$26.00
Catalog #:	VIR 98979CD

First ever CD issue of this classic minimal album, originally released on Brian Eno's Obscure label, in 1976. Features: "1-100" (for piano), "Bell Set No. 1" (for percussion), "1-100 (Faster Decay)" (for piano). "Michael Nyman, composer, musicologist and critic, asserts his place in musical history with this re-release -- in celebration of his 60th birthday Virgin/EMI have remastered and repackaged Decay Music. When he discovered his musical style (in the mid-'70s), Nyman had for many years been listening to American minimalism, The Beatles and the Velvet Underground. This music is echoed in his use of repetition, his pop sensibility, and in the rawness of his recordings. Decay Music, whose CD notes include an excellent short essay by Brian Eno, the pioneer of ambient music, features two original compositions by Nyman. In '1-100' (Faster Decay) four separate recordings of 100 sustaining chords played on the piano are superimposed. The real magic in this soundscape comes from the unintentional microfine pitch deviations between the four superimposed piano recordings (due to the analog nature of the tape recorders). A re-listening of Decay Music should make the classical-music world think twice about not taking Michael Nyman seriously as a composer." --Hans Biørn Lian



       Nyman's comment: "Composed in 1976, '1-100' for multiple pianos demonstrated a curious confluence of free and fixed musical processes. The fixed systems control the background harmonic language and overall textural density... The free(-ish) process is designed to create unwritten harmonic (and rhythmic) divergences by overlapping the juxtaposition brought about by the fact that each individual reading of the chordal text is independent of those of the other players, since each pianist may only move to the next chord after the preceding one has decayed. Individual touch and hearing are therefore indeterminate factors causing the desired out-of syncness as the overall motion of the piece decelerates - as the chords get lower, they get thicker and the decay process slower."

Artist:	JAPAN
Title:	Gentlemen Take Polaroids
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	VIR 91016CD

"Influenced by Roxy Music, David Bowie and Brian Eno, Japan's stylish synth-pop sound made them one of the more intriguing and successful artists of their time. Featuring David Sylvian on vocals, bassist Mick Karn, guitarist Steven Jansen and drummer Richard Barbieri, Japan's atmospheric approach to pop captured fans of groups like Duran Duran, Ultravox, Talk Talk and Bill Nelson. After a series of successful albums the band split with each of the members releasing solo projects, the most successful being the series of David Sylvian solo albums (which will also shortly be issued in remastered and repacked form). Seven years after their split, nearly all the members of Japan reformed for a one-off album project under the name Rain Tree Crow a highly sought-after release which has been unavailable for several years."

Artist:	SYLVIAN, DAVID
Title:	Gone To Earth
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	VIR 91309CD

2003 digital remastered edition, in deluxe foldout digipak; originally recorded 1985-6. "Featuring King Crimson's Robert Fripp, Bill Nelson, and Mel Collins (flute and saxophone sessionist for Bryan Ferry, King Crimson, and Dire Straits). Gone To Earth was Sylvian's ambitious double album project moving between atmospherically textured songs and ambient instrumentals, which has now been expanded to a double disc set including 7 additional tracks."

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Artist:	VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR
Title:	World Record
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	EMI 32957CD

Artist:	MASSIVE ATTACK
Title:	Special Cases
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	12"
Price:	$9.00
Catalog #:	VST 1839

Artist:	RAIN TREE CROW
Title:	Rain Tree Crow
Label:	VIRGIN (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	VIR 91025CD