News

Date: June 27th, 2006 3:05:14 p.m.

All you need to know (the Island Years)

June 27, 2006

Various questions have been asked about the content of the Island remastered CDs being released next month, so we thought we'd better explain the process that these releases went through.

From our position, the journey to get the first three Ultravox albums re-issued has taken almost ten years. It's easy to forget, but the thing we never appreciated in the beginning is that rarely are these types of projects completed within months as a tremendous amount of work is put in by all involved to get something released. Even albums which, at the time this started for us, were up to 20 years old...

We first approached Island Records back in 1996 after we'd completed the artwork for both "Monument - The Soundtrack" and "The Gift" for the EMI Gold label. We sent copies of these albums to Island as examples of what we had been allowed to produce. Seeing these (and being impressed by them we assumed), Island expressed their interest in involving us to work on re-releases of the "Ultravox!", "Ha! Ha! Ha!" and "Systems of Romance" albums. They provided us with details of the material they held in their tape archive, and from this we suggested track-listings for each album, initially ensuring that every track that had formally been released at that time was included.

As you may be aware, there are a number of other tracks which we know (from various sources) were also recorded during this period of the band. We identified a number of these to Island - "I Came Back Here To Meet You", "TV Orphan", "I Won't Play Your Game", "Do the Mutation", "Dark Love", "The Day the World Ended", "The Riff", "Radio Beach", "Storms of Things", "You Were Someone Else Then", "The Joker", "Car Crash Flashback" and "City Doesn't Care".

As well as identifying preferred track selections for the albums, we provided John with 'rough' lyrical transcriptions for the tracks that would be included (as well as some which didn't make the final cut) to help with the compilation of the definitive lyrics, a number of which will appear in the final artwork. Rob sourced over seventy original press interviews, reviews and articles. These were in turn forwarded to Steve Malins who was responsible for writing the extensive sleeve notes as well as coordinating all of the research material which included a series of new interviews. Rob also contributed a large number of high resolution scans (many of which were retouched by him) which included the following: the three album sleeves (including the inner sleeves and, in the case of "Ultravox!", the image through the centre of the gatefold), all of the single sleeves which were designed by John ("Young Savage", "ROckwrok", "Retro", "Sl ow Motion" and "Quiet Men"), as well as several press advertisements and a series of promotional photographs dating from the appropriate periods the individual re-releases relate to.

Additionally, whilst we were going through material provided by Chris Cross and Warren Cann for Anthology we also came across a number of alternate versions ('work in progress' and 'live') of more familiar tracks from this period. Whilst these would not be appropriate for Anthology (as that is set to only cover Ultravox from 1980 onwards), a number of these were put forward for inclusion on the 'Island' albums.

As we've previously mentioned, helping (or assisting) on music releases doesn't always prove easy - we've learned so much as progress started, then stopped, then started, with the process repeating (seemingly untroubled) numerous times. On the Island re-releases, we've encountered and negotiated our way through set-backs and false-starts (examples being changes of record company staff and changes in catalogue priorities, etc) which all inevitably resulted in delays whilst relationships were re-made and project directions redefined. However, despite these occasional blips, Island have always continued to be very supportive of these projects and of our involvement throughout.

In May 2005, Island's interest in re-releasing the albums resurfaced and so the process once again started when we were asked to provide thoughts as to what tracks could be included. Given the time from when the process had originally begun in 1996, we believed this now could be the only time the albums would ever be re-released. With this in mind, it was suggested that each album could be coupled with a second disc featuring live material from corresponding live shows, which was known to also be available in the vaults.

Taking all of this into account, tapes were sourced and 'listening' discs of all the material that we had identified were produced by Island and distributed for comment. However, a consensus of opinion could not be reached on whether unreleased material that had not previously been made available should be included on these CDs. In deference to this, Island made the decision to remaster and release only what has been previously available.

As far as we're aware (and despite what may have been indicated to the contrary in the music press) there are no plans for a disc of 'rare' tracks to be released at any future point. This is not to say that these tracks may never see the light of day (we genuinely do not know whether they will or not) as Islands priorities towards the Ultravox material may change as download technology begins to play an increasingly important role in music delivery. So, although we will "never say never", from our perspective we can only state that these albums are pretty much (as far as we're concerned) closed unless we are asked by the record company to help revisit available material for them at a future date. Realistically, our influence on what will and won't be released in the future is limited. For us also, it is perhaps time to step back a little and let others set the pace rather than for us to continue hounding record companies on what we feel they should and shouldn't be doing.

With the Island re-releases, we won't enter into discussion as to exactly what was contained within our suggested track-listings for obvious reasons. We appreciate that these releases weren't quite what some of you may have been expecting, but it is the way these things go sometimes, despite our best efforts. We are fans ourselves (again, something it is easy to forget sometimes...), and we do appreciate that it is frustrating as we too would love to see everything released in some form so that it could be enjoyed. But it's just not possible, sadly. Whichever way you look at it, when these albums are finally released, they will have all been re-mastered, will contain extra tracks, will contain lyrics and sleeve notes and will be as definitive as possible given what Island have allowed for inclusion. In our opinion, these elements alone will make them an essential addition to all of our collections.

We hope this answers all your questions. Thanks for your continued support in this!

Cheers,
Rob & Cerise.