Roxy Music – the debut album – 45th anniversary four-disc deluxe box set will be released on 2nd February 2018, featuring previously unreleased demos, outtakes, radio sessions, rare footage, 136-page book, and the whole album remixed in 5.1 surround sound by Steven Wilson. Also available as a deluxe 2CD set with 24-page booklet, extended digital edition, and 180g Vinyl LP.
Included are the John Peel BBC Sessions which saw the group honing their craft as they prepared to record their debut album. The second CD in the set captures something very special with unheard glimpses into Roxy’s working methods in the studio. Alternate session versions are offered for every album track, plus their first single, Virginia Plain.
The original album is presented in the 1999 Bob Ludwig master, while the remainder of the audio has been mastered by Frank Arkwright at Abbey Road.
The DVD includes promos and BBC TV appearances as well rare footage of Roxy at the Bataclan Club in Paris in November 1972, the only surviving visual document of this line up live on stage. To round off the audio/visual elements of the set, lifetime admirer Steven Wilson has mixed the album into 5.1 DTS 96/24 and Dolby AC3 Sound.
The box set also contains a 136-page book featuring many rare and previously unpublished photographs, and an essay by aforementioned Guardian journalist and author Richard Williams, the man who first wrote about the group in Melody Maker in 1971.
Speaking today about the band’s debut guitarist Phil Manzanera commented “At 21, my musical dreams came true, recording this album with these wonderfully talented and unique band members. Magical times, magical music”.
Saxophonist Andy Mackay recalls “Late 71/72 Roxy was our Arts Lab. The place where we exchanged ideas and dreams freely and created and explored a new sound landscape. We stepped into Command studios with a complete album in our heads (and half the next one) and it only needed the tape to start running…no album was as easy to record again”.
Drummer Paul Thompson: “The first Roxy Music album was my opportunity to create. I wasn’t used to this type of line-up, I was used to being in guitar-based bands but always wanted to broaden my horizons and here was my chance. A landmark in the history of pop!”
Looking back on the album Bryan Ferry reflected: “We never really felt accepted, I can see how the old guard would have felt threatened by it, because it was so jammed full of ideas and a massive amount of energy. But we hadn’t paid our dues, not in the same way. And we’re still not a part of it, not really, even to this day. That’s been very hard over the years, to try and make it work without being one of them. The ‘them’ is always different, but we’re not part of it. It’s been one of the triumphs, that we’ve managed to stay sane. Or sane-ish. We’re a part of it all, somehow, but still on the outside.”
Pre-Order Now from the Official Roxy Music Store
DISC 1 – THE ALBUM (Included in the 2CD Edition)
Re-Make/Re-Model
Ladytron
If There Is Something
Virginia Plain
2 H.B.
The Bob (Medley)
Chance Meeting
Would You Believe?
Sea Breezes
Bitters End
DISC TWO – DEMOS & OUT-TAKES
EARLY DEMOS April/May 71
Ladytron
2 HB
Chance Meeting
The Bob (Medley)
ALBUM OUT-TAKES
Instrumental
Re-Make/Re-Model
Ladytron
If There Is Something
2 H.B.
The Bob (Medley)
Chance Meeting
Sea Breezes
Bitters End
Virginia Plain
DISC THREE – THE BBC SESSIONS (Included in the 2CD Edition)
THE PEEL SESSIONS 4/1/72
If There Is Something
The Bob (Medley)
Would You Believe?
Sea Breezes
Re-Make/Re-Model
THE PEEL SESSIONS 25/5/72
2 HB
Ladytron
Chance Meeting
THE PEEL SESSIONS 25/5/72
Virginia Plain
If There Is Something
BBC IN CONCERT 3/8/72
The Bob (Medley)
Sea Breezes
Virginia Plain
Chance Meeting
Re-Make/Re-Model
DISC 4 – DVD
The full album remixed in 5.1 by Steven Wilson
VIDEOS
Re-Make/Re-Model / The Royal College Of Art, 6/6/72
Ladytron / The Old Grey Whistle Test, 20/6/72
Virginia Plain / Top Of The Pops, 24/8/72
Re-Make/Re-Model / Full House, 25/11/72
Ladytron / Full House, 25/11/72
Would You Believe / French TV, Bataclan, Paris, 26/11/72
If There Is Something / French TV, Bataclan, Paris, 26/11/72
Sea Breezes / French TV, Bataclan, Paris, 26/11/72
Virginia Plain / French TV, Bataclan, Paris, 26/11/72