Blackest Ever Black are set to release the first ever vinyl issue of Gareth Williams and Mary Currie’s Flaming Tunes album. Williams, formerly of seminal post-punkers This Heat, recorded the album with Currie just after he had left the band. Flaming Tunes originally saw release in 1985 on cassette, and was bootleg released on CD a decade later (mistakenly billed as ‘This Heat’s final demo recordings’, much to Williams’ chagrin). It was remastered and definitively issued on CD by Life & Living Records in 2009 – eight years after Williams’ death from cancer at the age of 48.
This release marks the second of Blackest Ever Black’s resurrections of older material this year, following on from the stunning industrial/cyberpunk cityscapes of Black Rain’s Now I’m Just A Number. Together they represent an intriguing direction for a label that’s already established itself as a unique prospect: as well as releasing new material from the likes of Raime, Regis and Vatican Shadow, they’re proving unafraid to reach deeper, back to the roots and influences of the newer music they’re supporting.
Flaming Tunes is also a welcome broadening in the label’s sonic range, away from largely electronic sounds and scorched instrumentals towards music that draws for very British folk and punk sounds. Listening closely, it’s possible to detect early pre-emptive echoes of the haunted folk and samplework of the likes of Broadcast, The Caretaker and the Ghost Box label. Says Blackest Ever Black label head Kiran Sande: "[the album is] in my view one of the most unique, poignant and poetic ever to emerge from the British underground, its visionary power matched only by its playfulness and intimacy".
The new vinyl version will have new artwork – the front cover will feature a photo booth portrait of Williams and Currie together – and its audio is taken directly from the 2005 CD remaster. It’s set for release sometime in July, though a limited number of copies are available to pre-order from the Blackest Ever Black site now. You can read more about the album and listen to clips of it at the Flaming Tunes site.
