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Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise audiophile vinyl box set

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Classic Album Sundays, those celebrators of the vinyl record listening experience, have teamed up with ZTT Records and will produce an audiophile vinyl box set of the Art of Noise‘s 1984 album Who’s Afraid Of The Art Of Noise.

Like last year’s Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s Inside The Pleasuredome extravaganza the box set is being offering via PledgeMusic. The proposed box (it is not guaranteed to happen unless they reach the 100% pledge target) will contain the following:

  • • A 2LP 45RPM pressing of the album remastered by Darrel Shienman of Gearbox
  • • A 12-inch re-issue of the Art Of Noise EP, Into Battle, repressed on audiophile quality vinyl.
  • • Extended 12-inch sleeve notes presented as a book, detailing the history of the band and the album. The sleevenotes will be written by band member Paul Morley and Classic Album Sundays founder Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy. The booklet will also include archive photos of the band and potentially some new and unseen photos.
  • • High-end audiophile slipmat with Art Of Noise imagery.
  • • Contemporary 12-inch remixes of ‘Moments Of Love’ and ‘Beatbox’.
  • • 12-inch screen print created by The Flood Gallery featuring artwork inspired by The Art Of Noise.

This box will cost £75 including postage and packing. Fans can also ‘pledge’ on just the double vinyl and sleeve notes for a price tag of £33.50.

In the usual PledgeMusic fashion other items are available such as white label test pressings signed by Trevor Horn and as with the Frankie box there will be a playback event to launch the album featuring a full playback of the album and a Q&A session featuring members of The Art Of Noise.

Advanced warning to those of you overseas that “due to licensing restrictions this campaign is NOT available to Pledgers in the US, Canada or Japan”.

Head over to PledgeMusic now for more information and to pledge for this box set.

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27 Comments

27 thoughts on “Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise audiophile vinyl box set

  1. Very late here, but for Derek (comments above): the original cassette edit of “Love Beat” (4.44, with no spoken intro and the slow fade-up) is available as “(Three Fingers of) Love” on the _Daft_ compilation CD. No idea why ZTT renamed it, but I think it is the version you want.

  2. lesson learned here- content needs to good enough for take up. I mean, I know some more words for Paul Morley are a great draw, but it simply wasn’t enough.

  3. So far, this is what the £88.50 box set is about:
    – One album on vinyl…previously available on vinyl.
    – One EP on vinyl….previously available on vinyl.
    – One 12″ with new mixes (remixers to be announced).

    …these new mixes should better be good!

  4. To be honest, I hope this doesn’t pave the way for a similar Propaganda set. If there is to be some sort of anthology, a simple multidisc set (triple digipack would do) without the luxury price tag would be better. No cassettes, no slip mats, just music, simple packaging and good liner notes.

    1. I agree with Mike, while I can understand there being a shortage of unreleased period Art of Noise tracks after we’ve had so many reissues, Propaganda hasn’t been mined for material nearly as thoroughly. My preference would always be for more unreleased material from the 80s, on CDs. The same goes for Frankie’s Liverpool, there are so many amazing demos floating around in low quality that it deserves a really comprehensive multi-cd version, not a simple ‘remastered’ issue like this.

    1. There was also a mistake with Into Battle on the 4CD set too! A gap was introduced somewhere on part (side) 2 that wasn’t there on the original cassette or vinyl editions.

  5. The wrong version of Love Beat appeared on the What Have You Done box. The cassette version begins with a slow fade-in. No talking. Coming right after the slow down and fade-out at the end of Beaten, it makes for a great transition between the two. But they used the version of Love Beat from the 12″ which has talking at the start.

  6. I’ve signed up for this, but I have to admit it’s a bit underwhelming compared to the Frankie box. No unreleased archive content, no ‘Close (to the Edit)’ to draw in casual buyers, more modern remixes (sigh), a slipmat (er… thanks?), no CD or DVD, and a bonus disc that’s just the less interesting half of the 2011 record store day reissue, and they appear to be using the second album cover, not the classic ‘statue’ one you’ve used in the picture. Let’s hope they can at least add a digital download to sweeten the deal a bit, or I can see this one missing it’s pledge target.

  7. Seems very over-priced for what we are offered, especially when compared to the FGTH set.

    One hopes this a stepping stone to a Propaganda box set, then ‘Liverpool’.

  8. Looks great, but again, not really interested in new remixes. Would much prefer they include the cassette versions of Close To The Edit & Moments. The What Have You Done… box didn’t get the Moments cassette right – wrong version of one of the tracks. This would be a great opportunity to get that reissued properly for the first time.

  9. I seem to remember that with the Frankie boxset, that the views of the ‘ordinary’ fan in the street have some bearing on exactly what is included in Salvo’s boxes. But its too expensive for me.

  10. And not available to US, Canada or Japan – 15% of their goal and all items sold out with 99 days to go. Hilarious.

    I still want to know what happened to the In Visible Silence expanded set that was supposed to be out years ago.

  11. Limited edition? ZTT?
    No comtemporary remixes please.

    I just sold my last sealed copy of Into Battle so a new copy would be nice.

    I’m sure a lot of people will have their say about what should be included.
    Why don’t you take a box and put in all the stuff that’s missing?

    Only thing i’d like is a Making of classic albums sort of thing.

  12. OK, this is my all-time favorite album. I hope, like the Frankie box, that it becomes available to buy from foreign Amazons to the US.

    That said, this is not the most compelling package. I realize a huge amount of demos and unreleased material from this era has been made available on the 4CD box set and the other re-releases, but new contemporary remixes, really? Unless it’s Aphex Twin or Four Tet, not really interested.

    And while I love the Into Battle EP, does anyone else think this would have been a great opportunity to release Worship on vinyl?

    Could’ve used a little more inspiration, I think.

      1. Ha! I just looked that up – it was so limited (500, not in my country) I didn’t even know it existed. Shame on me. You learn something new every day.

        Still, would’ve made a great add to this box.

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