The Heads: 25th Anniversary Relaxing With… 2LP out June 25
A quarter-century later, The Heads are still too much vibe for the planet. Come back in another 25 years and maybe humanity will be caught up to the Bristol lords o’ space, but frankly, I don’t think we’re there yet as a species. Relaxing With… (discussed here) was indeed released before the turn of the century, and it continues to resound with past-as-future, out-of-time relevance, too weird for its day and so continually timeless. In any case, it’s more than earned the 25th anniversary release it’s being given on June 25 through Rooster Records, paired with the band’s of-the-era Peel Session — I walked by that studio in Maida Vale last time I was in London; it’s in a very posh neighborhood — as well as some other BBC odds and ends from ’95/’96. My freshman year of high school. I was nowhere near cool enough to be listening to The Heads. I’m still not, but one has aspirations.
The PR wire sent this along, doing the thing it does:
Announcing 25th Anniversary Silver Jubilee Vinyl Edition of THE HEADS Debut Album Relaxing With… on Rooster Records
IT’S 25 YEARS (THIS MONTH) Since the first Heads album was released.. .so.. for 2021..Rooster has decided to get the album back in print on vinyl.. but changing the artwork. With some silver foiling and bordering, the single sleeve has been boosted to a sweet gatefold, Rooster also got the Radio 1 sessions from the time remastered, and re-cut along with the huge b-side to their Television 7″ “Jellystoned Park”.
So there you have it, a double vinyl silver jubilee reissue of a fantastic debut album!
Tracklist
LP 1 Original Album: Silver Vinyl Pressing
Side A:
1. Quad
2. Don’t Know Yet
3. Chipped
4. Slow Down
5. U33
Side B:
1. Television
2. Woke Up
3. Widowmaker
4. Taken Too Much
5. Coogan’s Bluff
LP 2 Radio Sessions & 7″ B-side
Side C: First John Peel Sessions:
1. Chipped (Peel Session, Maida Vale 10/11/95)
2. Widowmaker (Peel Session, Maida Vale 10/11/95)
3. Theme (Peel Session, Maida Vale 10/11/95)
4. Woke Up (Peel Session, Maida Vale 10/11/95)
5. Spliff Riff (Peel Session, Maida Vale 10/11/95)
Side D: More Radio 1 Sessions / B-side:
1. Quad (Live BBC Radio 1 Rock Show, Glasgow 31/03/96)
2. U33 (Live Mark Radcliffe BBC Radio 1, Manchester 02/05/96)
3. Television (Live Mark Radcliffe BBC Radio 1, Manchester 02/05/96)
4. Jellystoned Park ( b-side of Television 7″)
From the original reissue sales notes:
“The Heads had self-released a couple of 7″‘, and then Cargo Uk’s inhouse label Headhunter UK got to release a further 7″, and then the Debut album in 1996. Amidst a world suffocating in Britpop smarm, the Heads cut a timely swathe with their unkempt rock psychedelique. The album contained 10 tracks of guitar driven, amp destroying rock, with cues taken straight from the US underground, Stooges, MC5, Mudhoney, Pussy Galore, early Monster Magnet too but with a disitinctly British stamp, some of the drone and fuzz from Loop / Spacemen 3, some of the attitude of the Fall, Pink Fairies and Walking Seeds and overlaid with the spaced rock of early Hawkwind. It was obvious that the four members of the Heads were music obsessives. The debut album was recorded at Foel studios (owned by Dave Anderson from Hawkwind) and engineered by Corin Dingley, it was mastered by John Dent at LOUD.”
https://www.facebook.com/The-Heads-282801075465/
https://theheads1.bandcamp.com/
