We’re incredibly excited here at Backseat Mafia HQ that the seminal Jesus & Mary Chain have signed with London based independent (and consistently brilliant) label Fuzz Club Records, and have announced that new music is in the works.
Added to that, Fuzz Club are reissuing two of the bands albums; 2017 studio album ‘Damage and Joy’ complete with three new bonus tracks as well as their ‘Live at Barrowland’ LP, on which they storm through their incendiary cult classic ‘Psychocandy’ in full. They are both available to pre-order now ahead of their official release on April 22nd 2022.
On the signing, The Jesus and Mary Chain said: “Our recent legal bills reminded us that our big mistake in 1985 was to give our recordings to a major label. Fuzz Club and Cooking Vinyl are an entirely different species. Casper at Fuzz Club and Rob at Cooking Vinyl put huge effort and patience into making this deal happen. They’re exactly the right kind of people for us.”
Fuzz Club founder and managing director Casper Dee adds: “I’m not going to lie, it feels a bit like we’ve signed Messi! The importance of the Mary Chain can’t be overstated. They have been an inspiration to pretty much every band we’ve ever worked with and our musical landscape would be very different had it not been for the Reid brothers. So for us, it’s an honour to get the opportunity to work with a band of their stature. There aren’t many bands like this around! So we have an important task in front of us, not only to deliver successful album campaigns but to help steer a musical and cultural legacy.”
The Jesus and Mary Chain’s signing to Fuzz Club is part of a global label services and distribution deal with Cooking Vinyl which both labels kick-started in 2021. Rob Collins, Cooking Vinyl managing director, said: “When we started working with Fuzz Club, they had a dream signing and that was the Jesus and Mary Chain, so I’m really proud that we have been able to help them achieve that. We hope to be partners with the band and the label for a long time.”
Originally released in 2017 on the band’s own label Artificial Plastic, ‘Damage And Joy’ was The Jesus and Mary Chain’s first studio album in nearly two decades. Co-produced by Youth (Killing Joke) and featuring the lead singles ‘Amputation’ and ‘All Things Pass’, ‘Damage And Joy’ also featured guest appearances from Scottish singer-songwriter Isobel Campbell (‘The Two of Us’, ‘Song For A Secret’) and American alt-pop star Sky Ferreira (‘Black And Blues’).
‘Damage And Joy’ is now being given a deluxe, expanded vinyl reissue by Fuzz Club. The double LP is reissued on both black and coloured 180g vinyl with remastered audio by Pete Maher (U2, The Rolling Stones, Jack White, Liam Gallagher), a heavy tip-on-printed gatefold sleeve, printed inner-sleeves and a 16-page booklet, plus bonus tracks and an alternative track-order. Included in this reissue and available on vinyl for the very first time is ‘Ono Yoko’ (originally only available on the Japanese CD version of the album), as well as alternative versions of ‘The Two Of Us’ featuring Sky Ferreira and ‘Black And Blues’ featuring Isobel Campbell.
In November 2014 The Jesus and Mary Chain celebrated three decades of their cult-classic debut album, ‘Psychocandy’, with a run of tour dates playing the album in full and the ‘Live At Barrowland’ LP captures them descending on Glasgow’s iconic Barrowland Ballroom. Cut to vinyl by engineer Noel Summerville and originally released in 2015, this reissue of ‘Live at Barrowland’ comes with new artwork and on 180g black or coloured vinyl in a gatefold jacket with a booklet glued inside that features pages of photos from the Psychocandy tour and an interview with the Reid brothers and Alan McGee.
‘Psychocandy’ and its pioneering sonic belligerence had a profound effect on popular music. Taking bittersweet pop melodies and tearing them up apart through the medium of buzzsaw guitars, ear-piercing feedback and an unapologetic hostility towards their listeners, the band’s breakthrough album experimented with noise in a way that had never been done before and would inspire for generations to come. The ‘Live At Barrowland’ LP captures ‘Psychocandy’s complete 14 tracks in a live setting and in all their boundary-pushing and feedback-ridden glory. The CD and digital versions of the reissue – including the download card that comes with the vinyl – also feature seven bonus tracks taken from the prelude set on the night, including such fan-favourites as ‘April Skies’, ‘Head On’ and ‘Reverence’.
