Hugh Janus (late January update)

These headings are getting worse and worse. I guess the workload is hitting hard.

Reissues

👉Tip: I have made a spreadsheet of current album re-issues, as the number of partner labels has grown. Please click here to see updates of our re-issues and estimated current stock levels.

I was reminded by Dark Entries that I was supposed to be working on a 2LP re-issue of Cuisine with Piscatorial. Maybe I just put it out of mind because, well, it’s really not my favourite album and I’ve fussed around over the years trying to make it less meh. It’s not awful (some sections like Piscatorial are quite the thing) but it came about in 1990-91 after a tour – in a messy period of early digital – the DAT machine, the early music workstations, Amiga 8-bit sequencers. And I had some odd inspirations about Country and Western – that led to the much better Fußßßball recordings later that year.

Dark Entries prefers to include original takes, so we’re back with tracks like Finder which I killed off soon after the album came out. But we will have some Fußßßball tracks on side D. Updated: these tracks are split off for a future project. There are now more Piscatorial tracks.

(I actually don’t know if there was ever a vinyl LP … I’ve only ever seen a CD and a cassette.)

More music partners are coming on board, and I’m hopeful about a new label in the USA that will take on the more recent albums – recent as in this century. The first item under discussion is Rhine, which was once a thumb drive. I’ve got out all the fragments and parts and looking at a Rhine+. Did you know that Rhine started with remnants from a 2013 project called My Puppydog Face? There actually was a track called My Puppydog Face on the album. The truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Will that track be included? I look in the archive and ponder. After that we might do Barbara Island.

I’m also looking at a Blubberknife release as a CD with another label. That’s always a hard album to resurrect – the electronic TV casing is just not going to be viable… so what IS viable? How to present it? We are developing and planning.

Live Shows

Much work under way on the two live shows. The Petrol mega mix is near complete, a Hot With Fleas mega mix is in early stages. A couple of tracks from the Seances and the PicNic show are in the mix for London. From PicNic we will have Yogi Command and Teddy Bears. This show was originally performed without video, so again much workload to make new ones. Teddy Bears will feature bears and trees which are made out of metal fragments found on the street by my wife. She arranges them to make forms – my job is to somehow get these forms into 3D so as to construct a metallic Woods, should you Go Down there.

Please be reassured that we are not starting up again, that idea makes me instantly feel weary and wary. Too many early morning airports, hotel corridor carpets and back stage pretzels. I have other things I would like to do next.