On April 8, Electronic, the collaborative duo of Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner begun in 1989, are reissuing their self-titled debut album, originally released on Factory Records in 1991, as a double-disc special edition (artwork above) via EMI — stream it exclusively here:
The duo got together following Marr’s departure from The Smiths and, with Sumner taking a break from New Order, they began creating music in the vein of the emerging nineties electronic scene, with the results of their work first emerging as ‘Getting Away With It’, their 1989 single, borne out of working with the Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe.
In new sleeve notes written by James Nice, Marr says: "We were two musicians who wanted to get away from the suffocating politics of the band. At the same time it was OK for duos and DJs and non-groups to make records, and that really appealed to Bernard and me. We saw ourselves more in the tradition of David Byrne and Brian Eno, with a lot of technotronics and FX, and Kraftwerk was a very important touchstone for Bernard. So the times were perfect because it was all right to make records with machines, and not have to be four guys stood up against a wall."
As well as the original album, remastered by studio engineer Frank Arkwright, the special edition features a number of previously unreleased tracks, alongside Stephen Hague’s 7" version of ‘Disappointed’, an instrumental version of ‘Getting Away With It’ and ‘Turning Point’, the B-side to ‘Second Nature’.
