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THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN

The Jesus And Mary Chain

Upside Down / Vegetable Man - 40th Anniversary Edition

    To celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Jesus And Mary Chain’s debut single ‘Upside Down’ is being reissued on 7” vinyl which - as per the original pressing of the release - comes with a colour variation of the original artwork design. To be released on 6 December 2024.

    Originally released in November 1984, it put the band on the map selling 50,000 copies and subsequently became one of the first major successes for the now iconic British independent label Creation.

    The b-side is a cover of the Syd Barrett written ‘Vegetable Man’, a track not officially released on a Pink Floyd album until 2016’s The Early Years 1965–1972 box set, but a track that caught the imagination of the band in the early-mid 80’s and their cover is an unmistakable and celebrated version.

    The single topped the UK Indie Chart twice, once in February 1985 and then again in the March. It stayed in the Indie charts for a huge 76 weeks making it one of the biggest selling indie singles of the 1980s.

    Hailing from East Kilbride in Scotland, The Jesus And Mary Chain revolves around brothers Jim and William Reid, the bands founders and only consistent members. The band are recognised as being key to the development of the shoegaze scene and have remained uncompromising in their sound releasing eight albums, most recently ‘Glasgow Eyes’ released earlier this year.

    William And Jim Reid

    Never Understood: The Story Of The Jesus And Mary Chain - Record Store Edition

      For 5 years after they'd swapped sought-after apprenticeships for life on the dole, brothers William and Jim Reid sat up till the early hours in the front room of their parents' East Kilbride council house, plotting their path to world domination over endless cups of tea, with the music turned down low so as not to wake their sleeping sister. They knew they couldn't play in the same band because they'd argue too much, so they'd describe their dream ensembles to each other until finally they realised that these two perfect bands were actually the same band, and the name of that band was The Jesus and Mary Chain.

      The rest was not silence, and picking up those conversations again more than 40 years later, William and Jim tell the full story of one of Britain's greatest guitar bands for the very first time - a wildly funny and improbably moving chronicle of brotherly strife, feedback, riots, drug and alcohol addiction, eternal outsiders and extreme shyness, that also somehow manages to be a love letter to the Scottish working-class family.

      William And Jim Reid

      Never Understood: The Story Of The Jesus And Mary Chain

        For 5 years after they'd swapped sought-after apprenticeships for life on the dole, brothers William and Jim Reid sat up till the early hours in the front room of their parents' East Kilbride council house, plotting their path to world domination over endless cups of tea, with the music turned down low so as not to wake their sleeping sister. They knew they couldn't play in the same band because they'd argue too much, so they'd describe their dream ensembles to each other until finally they realised that these two perfect bands were actually the same band, and the name of that band was The Jesus and Mary Chain.

        The rest was not silence, and picking up those conversations again more than 40 years later, William and Jim tell the full story of one of Britain's greatest guitar bands for the very first time - a wildly funny and improbably moving chronicle of brotherly strife, feedback, riots, drug and alcohol addiction, eternal outsiders and extreme shyness, that also somehow manages to be a love letter to the Scottish working-class family.

        Paula Mejia

        The Jesus And Mary Chain's Psychocandy - 33 1/3

          The Jesus and Mary Chain’s swooning debut Psychocandy seared through the underground and through the pop charts, shifting the role of noise within pop music forever. Post-punk and pro-confusion, Psychocandy became the sound of a generation poised on the brink of revolution, establishing Creation Records as a tastemaking entity in the process. The Scottish band’s notorious live performances were both punishingly loud and riot-spurring, inevitably acting as socio-political commentary on tensions emergent in mid-1980s Britain.

          Through caustic clangs and feedback channeling the rage of the working-class who’d had enough, Psychocandy gestures toward the perverse pleasure in having your eardrums exploded and loudness as a politics within itself. Yet Psychocandy’s blackened candy heart center – calling out to phantoms Candy and Honey with an unsettling charm – makes it a pop album to the core, and not unlike the sugarcoated sounds the Ronettes became famous for in the 1960s. The Jesus and Mary Chain expertly carved out a place where depravity and sweetness entwined, emerging from the isolating underground of suburban Scotland grasping the distinct sound of a generation, apathetic and uncertain.

          The irresistible Psychocandy emerged as a clairvoyant account of struggle and sweetness that still causes us to grapple with pop music’s relation to ourselves.

          The Jesus And Mary Chain

          Glasgow Eyes

            Marking 40 years of The Jesus And Mary Chain, ‘Glasgow Eyes’ was recorded at Mogwai’s Castle of Doom studio in Glasgow, where Jim and William continued the creative process that resulted in their previous album, 2017’s ‘Damage and Joy’, becoming their highest charting album in over twenty years. What emerged is a record that finds one of the UK’s most influential groups embracing a productive second chapter, their maelstrom of melody, feedback and controlled chaos now informed more audibly by their love for Suicide and Kraftwerk and a fresh appreciation of the less disciplined attitudes found in jazz.

            Jim Reid says, “But don’t expect ‘the Mary Chain goes jazz.’ People should expect a Jesus and Mary Chain record, and that’s certainly what ‘Glasgow Eyes’ is. Our creative approach is remarkably the same as it was in 1984, just hit the studio and see what happens. We went in with a bunch of songs and let it take its course. There are no rules, you just do whatever it takes. And there’s a telepathy there - we are those weird not-quite twins that finish each other’s sentences.” ‘Glasgow Eyes’ not only extends The Jesus and Mary Chain's story, but feels simultaneously like a return to roots. From the incendiary ‘Psychocandy’ debut and its classic ‘Just Like Honey’ onwards, the Reid brothers steadily became the misfits who made good without compromise.

            STAFF COMMENTS

            Andy says: A gentle tweak of the template brings electronic bleeps and keys to that trademark Mary Chain sound. Hear the new track and you'll be left in no doubt. JAMC Forever!!

            TRACK LISTING

            1. Venal Joy
            2. American Born
            3. Mediterranean X Film
            4. Jamcod
            5. Discotheque
            6. Pure Poor
            7. The Eagles And The Beatles
            8. Silver Strings
            9. Chemical Animal
            10. Second Of June 1
            1. Girl 71
            12. Hey Lou Reid

            The Jesus And Mary Chain

            Munki - 2023 Reissue

              To celebrate the album’s 25-year anniversary, The Jesus And Mary Chain reissue their long-sold-out sixth studio album ‘Munki’. 

              Originally released June 2nd 1998 on Sub Pop / Creation Records, ‘Munki’ was – up until the Mary Chain’s reformation in 2007 – an experimental rock’n’roll masterclass turned swan song for the Reid brothers, whose fractious in-fighting culminated in the band’s break-up less than a year after its release. It was perhaps fitting, then, that ‘Munki’ is argued by some as the definitive Mary Chain record in the way it seemed to chart the full array of musical directions the band had ploughed over the five records that came before.

              The decision to bookend the album with Jim’s rousing sing-along ‘I Love Rock 'N' Roll’ and William’s caustic white-noise anthem ‘I Hate Rock 'N' Roll’ perfectly captures the two-fold tension at the heart of the Mary Chain at that time – a tension between noise and melody, and warring brothers. Across the album’s 17 tracks and 70-minute running time, there are the expected abrasive noise-rock epics ‘Cracking Up’ and ‘Degenerate’ by way of fuzzed-out pop hits like ‘Fizzy’ and the tender acoustic slow-burner ‘Never Understood’. Between the Reid’s Glaswegian snarls and unapologetically insolent lyrics – "I'm a mean motherf*cker now, but I once was cool”, “McDonald’s is sh*t!”, “Children are fools!” being just a few lyrical highlights – ‘Munki’ also features two great guest appearances. Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval returns for another Mary Chain duet on ‘Perfume’, which has a swagger that’s equal parts menacing and bittersweet, and the Reid’s younger sister Linda.

              TRACK LISTING

              1. I Love Rock 'N' Roll
              2. Birthday 
              3. Stardust Remedy 
              4. Fizzy 
              5. Moe Tucker 
              6. Perfume 
              7. Virtually Unreal
              8. Degenerate 
              9. Cracking Up 
              10. Commercial 
              11. Supertramp 
              12. Never Understood 
              13. I Can't Find The Time For Times 
              14. Man On The Moon 
              15. Black
              16. Dream Lover 
              17. I Hate Rock 'N' Roll 

              The Jesus And Mary Chain

              Live At Barrowland - 2022 Reissue

                In November 2014 The Jesus and Mary Chain celebrated three decades of their incendiary cult-classic debut album, ‘Psychocandy’, with a run of tour dates in which the infamous Scottish group played the album in full for the very first time in the band’s history. As part of the ‘Psychocandy’ tour, the Mary Chain descended on Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom – a legendary venue down the road from where the Reid brothers grew up in neighbouring East Kilbride – and tore through the songs that would propel them to worldwide acclaim upon ‘Psychocandy’s release in 1985.

                The Barrowland performance – an equal-parts deafening and blinding assault on the senses – was cut to vinyl by engineer Noel Summerville and originally released in 2015. Fast forward to 2022 and the ‘Live at Barrowland’ album is now being reissued by Fuzz Club Records. 

                The influence that ‘Psychocandy’ and its pioneering sonic belligerence had on popular music cannot be overstated. 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’.

                TRACK LISTING

                1. Just Like Honey – Live
                2. The Living End - Live
                3. Taste The Floor - Live
                4. The Hardest Walk - Live
                5. Cut Dead - Live
                6. In A Hole - Live
                7. Taste Of Cindy - Live
                8. Never Understand - Live
                9. Inside Me - Live
                10. Sowing Seeds - Live
                11. My Little Underground - Live
                12. You Trip Me Up - Live
                13. Something's Wrong - Live
                14. It's So Hard - Live

                The Jesus And Mary Chain

                Damage And Joy - 2022 Expanded Reissue

                  Originally released in 2017 on the band’s own label Artificial Plastic and now being reissued by Fuzz Club Records, ‘Damage And Joy’ is the seventh studio album from Scottish alt-rock legends The Jesus and Mary Chain. The long-awaited follow-up to 1998’s ‘Munki’, ‘Damage And Joy’ was the band’s first studio album in nearly two decades and contained brand new material alongside reimagined versions of songs that had been released in various forms by the Reid brothers in between the Mary Chain’s 1999 break-up and 2007 reunion. Coproduced by Youth (Killing Joke) and featuring the lead singles ‘Amputation’ and ‘All Things Pass’, ‘Damage & 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’).

                  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.

                  As Pitchfork wrote at the time of the album's release: “It will take more than a nearly twodecade recording hiatus to diminish the band’s intrinsic ultraviolet vibe. ‘Damage And Joy’ carries the reassurance that now, more than ever, The Jesus and Mary Chain are united in holy acrimony.”

                  TRACK LISTING

                  1. Amputation
                  2. The Two Of Us (feat Sky Ferreira)
                  3. All Things Pass
                  4. Always Sad
                  5. Song For A Secret (feat. Isobel Campbell)
                  6. War On Peace
                  7. Black And Blues (feat. Isobel Campbell)
                  8. Los Feliz (Blues And Greens)
                  9. Mood Rider
                  10. Presidici (Et Chapaquiditch)
                  11. Get On Home
                  12. Facing Up To The Facts
                  13. Simian Split
                  14. Black And Blues (feat. Sky Ferreira)
                  15. Ono Yoko
                  16. The Two Of Us (feat Isobel Campbell)
                  17. Can't Stop The Rock


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