A new anthology revisits the golden age of the Birmingham post-punk underground.
Released through Easy Action, Un-Scene! Post Punk Birmingham 1978 – 1982 brings together 19 tracks from some of the Second City’s best-known acts from the era, including The Nightingales, The Prefects, Swell Maps, TV Eye and the Au Pairs, as well as not so well-known bands like Denizens, Fast Relief, The Pinkies and Dance.
Other acts appearing include The Hawks – featuring a young Stephen Duffy pre-Tintin and Lilac Time fame – whose archive album Obviously 5 Believers was released last year, and Cult Figures, who made a belated return last year with the acclaimed new album Deritend. The collection also includes a previously unreleased track by DADA, featuring a pre-Duran Duran John Taylor.
Compiled and designed by former DADA, TV Eye and Prefects drummer Dave Twist, the album also features a sleevenote by comedian and writer Stewart Lee, who recently wrote and featured in the Nightingales documentary King Rocker.
“The lockdowns of a year or so ago provided me with the space to pull together a notion that had half-formed around the time – pre-pandemic – that I’d met up with John Taylor to film our contributions for King Rocker,” Twist explains. “Our conversation centred on the important part that Robert and The Prefects had played in setting us – and so many others in the city – off on whatever path we’d go on to take. That there were strong, but pretty much unknown, connections between such disparate artists seemed to call for some kind of document, or celebration, or whatever… so here it is. At last.
“I’d also been using Instagram to share my own archive…” he adds. “Memorabilia of my fandom from the glam age and the punk and post-punk eras. I’d established a design aesthetic in the construction of that and so the artwork for the album just fell into place.”
Continuing the theme of Birmingham post-punk, Easy Action are also releasing double compilation of early recordings by the band Fàshiön.
Formed in 1978, the hotly tipped band featuring Luke Sky (vocals/guitar), Jon Mulligan (bass/synth) and Dik Davis (drums), signed to IRS and toured with The Police, The B52s and U2 before Sky departed, the other two continuing as part of the New Romantic scene with a new line-up and hit album Fabrique in 1982.
Fàshiön Music compiles the UK and US singles and demos recorded by the first lint-up between 1978 and 1980 across four sides of vinyl, while a double-CD adds a previously unreleased live set.
The label is also issuing a limited edition 7″ of the band’s ’78 demo versions of the singles ‘Sodium Penathol Negative’ and ‘Steady Eddie Steady’.
Un-Scene! is out on 25 March while Fàshiön Music is out on 1 May.
Both Un-Scene! and the Fàshiön releases are available to pre-order here.
