other titles...
CD (2023 Mixes)
1. Wake Up
2. All You Pretty Girls
3. Shake You Donkey Up
4. Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her
5. This World Over
6. The Everyday Story Of Smalltown
7. I Bought Myself A Liarbird
8. Reign Of Blows
9. You’re The Wish You Are I Had
10. I Remember The Sun
11. Train Running Low On Soul Coal
Additional tracks
12. Red Brick Dream
13. Washaway
14. Blue Overall
Blu-ray
Album and additional tracks of 2023 Mix in Dolby Atmos, Hi-Res Stereo and DTS-HD MA Surround Sound & instrumental mixes in Hi-Res Stereo all mixed by Steven WIlson
Plus album and additional tracks of original mix in Hi-Res stereo, with additional out-takes.
Additional out-takes:
15. Broomstick Rhythm (guide vocal)
16. The Troubles (Big Express Version – Backing Track)
Album and additional tracks in demo form in 16/48 Hi-Res stereo with additional demos of songs written for The Big Express
Additional demos:-
15. Now we all Dead (It Doesn't Matter)
16. Work
17. Gangway, Electric Guitar is Coming Through
18. Broomstick Rhythm
19. Shiny Cage
20. A Patriotic Romance
XTC
Big Express (2023 reissue)
panegyric / ape house
XTC’s seventh album, “The Big Express” was virtually ignored on release, much as its immediate predecessor “Mummer” had been.
If Mummer was XTC’s quiet album, this was its polar opposite: bright, brash, noisy - even cluttered on occasion if the song demanded it - as it became a concept album of sorts, a partly autobiographical reflection on growing up in an industrial town, Swindon, with its history of engineering and railway accomplishments. Of course the songs were as good as on any other XTC album - a very high standard indeed – but they went largely unheard. Given that position, it would be easy to conclude that the timing was wrong for the album. But the best musicians follow the music and allow the times to catch up with that; precisely what happened when XTC released its next album “Skylarking” in 1986.
Just as “Mummer’s” reputation (and sales) has increased over the years, “The Big Express” is now regarded as a ‘neglected classic’ of its era. Now remixed by Steven Wilson in stereo, 5.1 Surround Sound & Dolby Atmos, the full impact and power of the album can be appreciated. Already given studio quality previews to an invited audience in London and LA at L-Acoustics studios, the reaction was one of collective awe at the amount of newly apparent detail & clarity in the Atmos mixes. As ever with XTC, the full package on the Blu-ray disc includes every recorded song from the era, ranging from demos through to the aforementioned Spatial Audio mixes.