Second Birth

 Well break out the fancy glasses and hold the ice - guess what's finally coming to the party?

Yes, thirty-six years late is better than never, for The Chills' Brave Words remaster - long dreamed for by its chief architect, is finally being realised in a matter of weeks.

I have a long attachment to this album; bought two years after its release, it was one of a few of avid purchases (most of them from the Flying Nun stable) that paved the way to my leaving home and second identity as a 'Scarfie', a 'muso', and a fan. Even then, reading in interviews the disappointment of Martin Phillipps in the production and engineering of the band's first full album, I was pretty happy with my lot. Sure, the sound is muffled and distant, coming across as though recorded beneath a duvet - but so what? The Dunedin Sound was never known for its high fidelity, and this muted, compressed version issuing from my turntable was the perfect soundtrack to what I expected and got in the southern city - damp, dim, disconsolate and dreaming of better things. Little wonder The Chills were the ideal I latched onto in my own musical efforts for a year or so.

Still, Phillipps was insistent, and critics agreed; Mayo Thompson's production lacked the sparkle of The Chills live, and what I'd taken for hushed intimacy was read as lacking the immediacy of the real thing. Years passed, the band and its leader grew older, changed and courted several untimely demises - and then this, and something of a return to form, critical reappraisal, National Treasure status, and... 

So, next month, then. Spoken Bravely, the Remix promises the original album reinvented, remastered and complemented by a bevy of bonus tracks, including the House With a Hundred Rooms EP (a European release which I never managed to track down) and 'I Think I Thought I'd Nothing Else to Think About', B-Side to 'Wet Blanket', the album's one single. Possibly enough to get me to fork over my readies. But I've also heard the aforementioned B-Side and House's 'Party In My Heart' and been won over. More to come when the album drops, as the kids say, but I can't wait to hear a refreshed 'Night of Chill Blue' and 'Dark Carnival'. 

Cheers, Chills.