Gift reissue plus extras

[abridged]

Why would anyone go through the trouble of registering at Heartland just to post this?

I forget my account details and it's just easier to use a throwaway account since I don't post often.

Album still is junk though..... i would rather have the new songs recorded.

Each to their own etc but I disagree completely and think it's a great album. It doesn't matter the circumstances of its release at the time. In fact if it was just a redoing of Rain from Heaven I would buy it just for that.

[Being645]

Why would anyone go through the trouble of registering at Heartland just to post this?

I forget my account details and it's just easier to use a throwaway account since I don't post often.

Album still is junk though..... i would rather have the new songs recorded.

Each to their own etc but I disagree completely and think it's a great album. It doesn't matter the circumstances of its release at the time. In fact if it was just a redoing of Rain from Heaven I would buy it just for that.

I love it too ... Giving Ground is another great track on it with a gripping bass line and the atmosphere of the entire album is so dark and fascinating. I can listen to it again at any time.

Fortunately, there is no choice at all to be made between releasing this one again or the new songs. So what.

[Suleiman]

I hope we get an extra version of Giving Ground and Rain From Heaven with guitars! Like the live versions.

[Gothicbiff]

Although I knew the answer to the question, i emailed Cadiz yesterday for an update. This is their reply

Hi Liz

You are indeed correct.

Covid, and the fact that AE likes to work slower than a snails pace.

But be assured, money has been paid to produce the release, it is in pre-production, it will happen.

We just need this to all clear and get going again and we can push Mr AE over the line to get it finished.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Charlie]

Although I knew the answer to the question, i emailed Cadiz yesterday for an update. This is their reply

Hi Liz

You are indeed correct.

Covid, and the fact that AE likes to work slower than a snails pace.

But be assured, money has been paid to produce the release, it is in pre-production, it will happen.

We just need this to all clear and get going again and we can push Mr AE over the line to get it finished.

Cheers

Ian

 

These Cadiz emails always make me laugh, they're so casual about Andrew, most bizarre but amuses me greatly!

[Being645]

Indeed ... "push Mr AE over the line to get it finished" ... ...

[Swinnow]

Twas ever thus, Cadiz join an ever increasing list.

[Scardwel]

He had such a work ethic in 1983. I wonder what the hell happened?

[czuczu]

He had such a work ethic in 1983. I wonder what the hell happened?

1984

[Todashi]

Well, he's done A LOT in the last six months, covid-panic aside. 16 new tracks have been written, arranged, rehearsed and a load of them performed. There's no reason to think they wouldn't have all been played by now if they were still touring, probably with a few left back for the back end of the year.

So, I'd say it's a case of priorities. Gift is great, but he's not nostalgic and probably sees re-releasing it as a bit pointless. It's interesting that he's doing it anyway, because people want it, and he's obviously been asked, but I'd guess it's taken him a while to get over the rogering that happened with the rereleases of the main albums.

I got the impression he didn't have much to do with those releases.

[mh]

The difference is that Von still owns the rights to Gift, whereas he sold/lost the rights to the Sisters LPs, and so Gift can be confidently assumed to be a rodgering-free zone.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

Why would anyone go through the trouble of rereleasing this POS? It was just a throwaway to snatch the name usage.

Will there be a boxset for SSV next?

Honestly who can sit through more than one listen?

Gift wasn't released to snaffle the lucre or to safeguard the name "the sisterhood" -those vitally important tasks had been fulfilled with the release of the giving ground 7". Really there was no need for Gift at all, so we can assume it was released for the same artistic weasons [sic] as any other record: for it's music to be heard and appreciated for its own sake.
However, it was i believe a Gift -in English a Present- given (to us) to commemorate a Job Well Done (by them).
It was the airbursting insult to add to the groundzeroed injury; the "just in case" motorhead-motorhead encore at the end of No Sleep; the (as)salt rubbed with relish into the gaping wounds and the childish yet amusing farty noise we all make whilst flicking the v's at our defeated enemy after we've stuffed them big time and danced on their graves singing bloody hallelujah -the noise we'd expect to hear in fact from "the raspberry reich" as indeed, in german, the word Gift means poison..

as history is most often writen by the victors -and Eldritch never being one to do things by halves- the album's various digs and jibes (some subtle, some less so and some so blatant that even as-yet non-existant below-the-video yootoob commentors couldn't miss them) ensure that Elldritchs message is not only unmistakeable but also final - the matter is closed. He even has the generousity to "forgive as we forget"; although the chances of anyone who owns the album EVER forgetting are slim...

now then, the album was never going to be what anyone expected musically was it? for starts there isnt a single contributing member of the Sisters (yet) on it. even the good Doktor was a new shining MIDI'd-up version of the DMX used on FALAA . but then it's not meant to be The Sisters is it? This corrosion was always going to be the next eldritch-sung release, being as it was the next part of The Plan, and no amount of reneging vis-a-vis monickers was going to change The Plan. glad really that wayne and craig DID do the whole sisterhood thing cuz a) f**k knows what The Sisters would have ended up being called otherwise and b) we got Gift. a bucking feast of an album.

so-we have (in reverse order) The Quality Of Mercy, featuring as it does the 2nd best intro to a song EVER. no one here needs to be told the first is Kiss The Carpet do they? good. then before that we have some fascinating facts about everybody's favourite assault rifle and destroying personnel (yes, thats one of the less subtle jibes). preceded by a longer yet kinder lyrics-wise Giving Ground after flipping from Colours. now we can all here the ner-ner nah ner-ner of you will reap what you sew but the marching men reference and the meaning of the titular colours are both very clever digs at -well, everyone who isn't eldritch or gary marx. probably too clever for some of you so go and read the research and come back when you know the answers. but dont tell me ok? i already know...

which brings us to the hilariously (lyrically) but historically important (musicall) Jihad.
now, whether you agree or not (and if you dont youre wrong) Jihad is the very first recorded and released, in it's properly recognised form, techno track anywhere anytime ever. 2 years ahead of any other release in the genre in fact.
and before anybody says 'Kraftwerk' , whilst being a massive influence on every techno producer ever, Kraftwerk werent themselves making 'techno'. they were electronica which isnt the same (alll techno is electronic but not all electronica is techno. simples as some badly anthropomorphised meercats may say.
however the people who Von was hanging with and being influenced by -the nascent Berlin Underground- were making techno (albeit so far ahead of the curve that it would be 2 years before Detroit -and to a lesser extent Chicago house- caught up and called it techno (previously it was called amongst other things 'european hardcore') by which time the berlinese innovators had invented acid house as well, as something to do whilst waiting. Eldritch's paeon to religious warfare (and £25,000) is in every way sonicaly structurally and emotionally PROPER TECHNO.THE first techno track. so there.

[whyme]

PROPER TECHNO.THE first techno track. so there.

Maybe you are right and maybe I should revisit this record. I still don't think it will sell many copies, maybe to diehard fans at the shows.

Surprisingly if you go to Youtube and watch the very famous TechnoViking https://youtu.be/UjCdB5p2v0Y video and play Jihad as the sound it actually works...like a Wizard of Oz/Dark Side of the Moon thing.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

PROPER TECHNO.THE first techno track. so there.

Maybe you are right and maybe I should revisit this record. I still don't think it will sell many copies, maybe to diehard fans at the shows.

Surprisingly if you go to Youtube and watch the very famous TechnoViking https://youtu.be/UjCdB5p2v0Y video and play Jihad as the sound it actually works...like a Wizard of Oz/Dark Side of the Moon thing.

bang on ! i know 2 people in that video as well! my mate Grants in it for about 3 secs right at the start! yes all of that spiral tribe / lee newman /Underground UK stuff is from that very early style. good spot sir!

my techno/free party credentials in this vid @0:06 secs in- thats me in the baldy/shades marching across the screen:lol:
we took 20k of our techno rig to that czech teknival. thats what i did for 15 years -put on illegal raves on all over uk and europe.

[markfiend]

Jihad is the very first recorded and released, in it's properly recognised form, techno track anywhere anytime ever. 2 years ahead of any other release in the genre in fact.

Testify brother. I've been saying for ages that Gift is the first ever Techno record.

[iesus]

Jihad is the very first recorded and released, in it's properly recognised form, techno track anywhere anytime ever. 2 years ahead of any other release in the genre in fact.

Testify brother. I've been saying for ages that Gift is the first ever Techno record.

I agree on that mention too. And would like also to add that techno artists don't give it that credit that it deserves.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

Jihad is the very first recorded and released, in it's properly recognised form, techno track anywhere anytime ever. 2 years ahead of any other release in the genre in fact.

Testify brother. I've been saying for ages that Gift is the first ever Techno record.

I agree on that mention too. And would like also to add that techno artists don't give it that credit that it deserves.

however top UK techno producers of my aquaintance -Tobias Schmidt, Neil Landstrum, Surgeon, - all agree with us. it is a fact.

[Being645]

No wonder ... ... at the time I first listened to it I also thought it a good path to proceed further for The Sisters ... ...

Only Floodland & Vision Thing showed clearly that this was not what Andrew would chose to do ... ...

Somewhat a shame, but hell, they are great records, so all is fine... ...

[paint it black]

No wonder ... ... at the time I first listened to it I also thought it a good path to proceed further for The Sisters ... ...

Only Floodland & Vision Thing showed clearly that this was not what Andrew would chose to do ... ...

Somewhat a shame, but hell, they are great records, so all is fine... ...

In the kingdom of the blind.

The one eyed man will make everyone wear shades and call it a democracy.

[markfiend]

It may be interesting to speculate on how things would have progressed had Eldritch continued with the name The Sisterhood. Perhaps very differently, perhaps exactly the same.

[iesus]

Now that we made it to "Fringe" direction.
I believe there is an alternate parallel universe that Sisters did made records and recordings

[Being645]

No wonder ... ... at the time I first listened to it I also thought it a good path to proceed further for The Sisters ... ...

Only Floodland & Vision Thing showed clearly that this was not what Andrew would chose to do ... ...

Somewhat a shame, but hell, they are great records, so all is fine... ...

In the kingdom of the blind.

The one eyed man will make everyone wear shades and call it a democracy.

... ... can well be.

But in a post-Nazi leader future utopia, everyone is wearing shades

and the youth are trying to get rid of them to acutally feel something again... ...

[Electrochrome]

This is such a random thing, re-issuing GIFT. I can only hope there's something extra to include, demos or something but generally I don't see AE as one to release "studio chatter" and the only demo that comes to mind is The Some Kind of Stranger demo from the FALAA re-release which he wasn't even part of.

Never thought of it as the first techno album, but makes sense. Still a good listen and "fun" in its own way.

[XidiouX]

It may be interesting to speculate on how things would have progressed had Eldritch continued with the name The Sisterhood. Perhaps very differently, perhaps exactly the same.

That's a very interesting point to speculate on, Mark. After all he, won the court case and had proved his point. In a sense, Eldritch was ultimately as dishonest as Hussey & Co. by going back to the TSOM name as both parties had pledged not to do this.

There's also the question of what would have happened if both parties had kept their word? Maybe the Hussey camp would have become The m*****n straight away. As for Eldritch, would he have returned in a band with a completely different name? As a solo artist? We'll probably never know.

[Swinnow]

Struggling to recall any actual court case although he was partial to a legal letter allegedly.