Description
A message from Kirk on ‘Janus’
Hello Friends, Enemies, Undecided ….. many people have written/messaged me about what exactly is our new album ‘Janus’…… I hereby explain…….
This is an album that has been virtually 2 years in the making. To clarify what it is….. The 1980s Virgin Records album’s ‘The Price You Pay’ and ‘Outland’ we have re recorded. Some may say why re record, and in a definite sense that is a good question, the reason is that I wanted them to sound as close to what I originally thought they should have sounded like. Which is way different from what both albums did in fact end up sounding like.
In particular ‘Outland’ which was principally recorded on a Fairlight 3 program. In fact some of the ‘Outland’ songs like ‘Land of Shame’ were originally scheduled to have been in contention for the earlier ‘World Service’ album but never made it to the selection. Criminal in reality. Record companies shy away from controversial lyrics…
So, with the musicians I have largely been playing with for the last 20+ years, we went back, as we have done with ‘Grapes of Wrath’ ‘One Eyed Jacks’ and ‘World Service’ , and done an interesting, I hope, re interpretations of my original ideas. For the record, ’Soldier Soldier’ has had the missing last verse put back in. It had to be, as it was as much part of the story as the other verses.
A Janus, as I’m sure you all know, is the Roman god who looked in two directions…. beginnings and ends, duality, transitions, doorways….. At the time of making, ‘The Price You pay’ often in its lyrics, had a backwards looking take on my previous life experiences, several being very personal. ‘Outland’ with its dystopian lyrics looked forward. Being done what on what was at the time state of the art programming, Fairlight 3. Lyrically it faced the ever increasing out of phase reality we are now firmly in.
The track selection on ‘Janus’ is my own selection from each albums time period.
This includes B Sides/12 inch songs that I really felt should have been on these two albums
but were omitted by the company as not being presumably commercial enough. I beg
to differ, and are here now included on this re recording. I hope you the listener enjoy these re recordings when you hear them, and that what has been done here stands on its own as a set of recordings. I have to gratefully thank as ever, Steve Allen Jones, Phil Martini, Craig Adams and Adrian
Portas and Clive Osborne for bringing these songs back to life from a major record company
cemetery.
SIDE 1
1 Land of Shame
2 Strangers In Our Town
3 Whole Worlds Waiting
4 Never Take Me Alive
5 Embassy Song
SIDE 2
1 Outlands
2 Jack Straw
3 The Traveler
4 Pumpkin Man
SIDE 3
1 The Jungle
2 Soldier Soldier
3 Radio Radio
4 Spirits
5 View From A Tree
SIDE 4
1 Tinseltown
2 March Or Die
3 The Price
4 So In Love With You
GENRE: Rock/Alternative/Post Punk
BARCODE: 0644161188315
RELEASE DATE: 02/05/2025
