Jim Salveson of XS Manchester talks to Saul Davies about each track on the Laid album and bonus Yummy content
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Jim Salveson of XS Manchester talks to Saul Davies about each track on the Laid album and bonus Yummy content
Read full article (external link)
This re-issue of Laid and Wah Wah combined both albums as originally intended by the band, and was released 9 years ago. The boxset includes two extra CDs of rehearsals, demos, B-sides and radio sessions. The boxset also include a booklet, prints and badges.
Disc 1 – Laid:
Out To Get You / Sometimes (Lester Piggott) / Dream Thrum / One Of The Three / Say Something / Five-O / P.S. / Everybody Knows / Knuckle Too Far / Low Low Low / Laid / Lullaby / Skindiving
Disc 2 – Wah Wah:
Hammer Strings / Pressure’s On / Jam J / Frequency Dip / Lay The Law Down / Burn The Cat / Maria / Low Clouds / Building A Fire / Gospel Oak / DVV / Say Say Something / Rhythmic Dreams / Dead Man / Rain Whistling / Basic Brian / Low Clouds / Bottom Of The Well / Honest Joe / Arabic Agony / Tomorrow / Laughter / Sayonara
Disc 3 – Rehearsals, Demos & Jams:
Carousel / Unknown Track 8 / Dream Thrum / Chicken Goth / Jam J / You Were Born / Bruce Jam 1 (Mix 1) / Jam D Rhythmic Dreams / Jam E / Jam 11 / Jam 12B / Jam P / Jam P2 / Jam Q / Jam R / Who Is Gospel Oak? / Falsetto / Jam 13
Disc 4 – B-Sides, Radio Sessions & Live:
America / Building A Charge / Wah Wah Kits / The Lake / Seconds Away / Say Something / Assassin / Laid / Low Low Low / Sometimes / Tomorrow / Five – O / Jam J (Arena Dub) / Jam J (Sabresonic Tremelo Dub)
Release Name: | Laid / Wah Wah Super Deluxe Edition |
Artist Name: | James |
Release Date: | 23rd March 2015 |
Format: | Compilation Box Set |
Catalogue: | ASIN B00RYGDNQ6 |
According to Tim Booth, Laid and Wah Wah are “the culmination of playing four or five hours a day four or five days a week in Manchester and the new band adapting to that. It is about the transition of becoming more of a band but with Brian at the helm.” Booth remembers jamming “hundreds of songs that never saw the light of day” and guitarist Larry Gott suggests it might have been “as many as 340 tracks.” The simultaneous, coupled reissues are particularly notable, however, due to the fact that producer Brian Eno and the band had originally favoured releasing the records as a double package.
Recorded concurrently in 1993 during a frenetic six week period at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Complex, the albums were always intended as companion pieces – Laid being referred to as the “song” album whilst Wah Wah was known as the “experimental” or “jamming” album – but the record company’s decision to release them months apart put paid to this conception: Laid, released in the UK in October 1993, reached the No.3 spot in the UK and became the band’s biggest album to date in the US, selling 600,000 copies and breaking the band in the USA in the process but the subsequent follow-up Wah Wah effectively sunk the band over there and – according to Booth – “put paid to us breaking America at all!”.More pertinently perhaps, by the time Wah Wah came out, U2 (and Eno) had released Zooropa and “everyone thought we were copying off them instead of the other way round!”The 4CD 12’x 12’ Super Deluxe box set features 20 previously unreleased recordings.
Compilation release not related to gigs.
CDR promo of reissue of Laid album including bonus tracks
Out To Get You / Sometimes (Lester Piggott) / Dream Thrum / One Of The Three / Say Something / Five-O / P.S. / Everybody Knows / Knuckle Too Far / Low Low Low / Laid / Lullaby / Skindiving / Laid (live) / Sometimes (live) / Five-O (live) / Say Something (Saying Nothing Mix)
Release Name: | Laid (reissue CDR) |
Artist Name: | |
Release Date: | 1st December 2001 |
Format: | Promo Album |
Catalogue: | n/a |
CDR promo of reissue of Laid album including bonus tracks
Laid is James’s fifth album and a follow up to Seven. It features a more stripped-back sound and contains the US breakthrough single Laid. It was released 31 years ago in 1993, reissued with 2001 with additional tracks, and reissued again in 2015 with a second CD of b-sides, radio sessions, demos and jams.
Out To Get You / Sometimes (Lester Piggott) / Dream Thrum / One Of The Three / Say Something / Five-O / P.S. / Everybody Knows / Knuckle Too Far / Low Low Low / Laid / Lullaby / Skindiving
Laid (live) / Sometimes (live) / Five-O (live) / Say Something (remix)
America (Live In The US, September / 1992) / Building A Charge / Wah Wah Kits / The Lake / Seconds Away / Say Something (New Version) / Jam J / Assassin / Laid (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Five-O (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Sometimes (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Say Something (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Low Low Low (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Tomorrow (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Dream Thrum (Rehearsal) / You Were Born (Early Version Of “One Of The Three” / Outtake) / Bruce Jam 1 (Early Version Of “Knuckle Too Far”) / Carousel
Release Name: | Laid |
Artist Name: | James |
Release Date: | 27th September 1993 |
Format: | Studio Album |
Catalogue: | LP – 514 943-1, CAS 514 943-4, CD 514 943-2; CD 548 787-2 (re-issue); Deluxe Edition 2xCD 0602547095947 |
Following the success of Seven, Andy Diagram left the band to pursue other musical interests, taking the distinctive trumpet sound of the album with him. The acoustic tour of America with Neil Young had a profound influence on the band’s sound, playing acoustically focusing the band on producing a more simple “stripped and naked” sound.
The other distinctive factor in the sound of Laid was the appointment of Brian Eno as producer. Where Seven sounded like a band striving for perfection, “Brian encouraged us to improvise, encouraged us to use takes where we didn’t know what we were doing. He made us realise that this imperfection was a good thing.” (Jim, Q 1993).
Most of Laid was recorded over a six-week period in the spring of 1993 at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios. Using two separate studios, one for the album “proper” and one for jams, the band recorded over fifty tracks, which also spurned the double album Wah Wah, which was released in 1994. The band did actually also try to record a live album at the same time playing a one-off gig at the Moles Club in Bath, but had underestimated their ability to play the new material live. Present at the show however was Peter Gabriel who approached the band to join the US WOMAD tour that summer.
Unlike previous albums, very little of Laid had been played live before it was recorded – Say Something had been in the set since April 1992 and Low Low Low had began life as a six-minute improvised trumpet epic. Read Tim’s track-by-track commentary on the album by clicking on the above link.
Laid received mixed but generally positive reviews in the music press. The stripped-down sound was seen as a welcome return to the band’s folky roots and a step back from the perceived stadium rock sound of Seven. The two singles released around the album, Sometimes and Laid, received surprisingly positive reviews, but only achieved moderate chart success.
The album peaked at Number 3 in the UK charts. Internationally, the band’s German record company initially refused to promote the album, claiming that without an obvious lead track and single it would not sell. The album went to Number 1 in Portugal. But the major breakthrough of Laid was in America where the album peaked at number 68, but sold over 600,000 copies as the band spent most of the first half of 1994 touring, starting with a number of support slots with Duran Duran followed by two headline tours, culminating in an invitation to play Woodstock 2 in August in front of 300,000 people.
Japanese version of Laid with OBI sleeve and lyric booklet in Japanese and English.
Out To Get You / Sometimes / Dream Thrum / One Of The Three / Say Something / Five-O / PS / Everybody Knows / Knuckle Too Far / Low Low Low / Laid / Lullaby / Skindiving / The Lake / America
Release Name: | Laid (Import, Japan) |
Artist Name: | |
Release Date: | 27th September 1993 |
Format: | Studio Album |
Catalogue: | PHCR-68 |
Japanese version of Laid with OBI sleeve and lyric booklet in Japanese and English.