Alan Vega - Alan Vega (Deluxe Remastered Edition) - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Alan Vega's name is synonymous with unfettered, tireless creativity. Beginning in the late 1950s, when he was a fine art student at Brooklyn College, through his years playing in Suicide, and all the way up until his death in 2016, Vega was constantly creating. That process naturally led to a wealth of material that didn't see the light of day immediately when it was recorded, which came to be known as the Vega Vault. Mutator is the first in a series of archival releases from the Vault that will come out on Sacred Bones Records. Mutator was recorded alongside Vega's longtime collaborator Liz Lamere at his NYC studio from 1995-1996, and it serves as a document of a particularly fertile time in his creative life. He had 11 full-length solo albums come out during the '80s, '90s and '00s - plus numerous collaborations, and Suicide records A Way of Life and Why Be Blue. Mutator wasn't shelved intentionally, but Vega's back-to-the-grindstone M.O. meant that he had moved on to making his next record before this one was finished. Lamere and Vega's friend and confidante Jared Artaud (The Vacant Lots) rediscovered the raw, unmixed recordings from the Mutator sessions in the Vault in 2019. Soon after, they mixed and produced them into the visionary album that was lurking within those tapes. InchOur primary purpose for going into the studio was to experiment with sound, not to 'make records,'Inch Lamere recalls. InchI was playing the machines with Alan manipulating sounds. I played riffs while Alan morphed the sounds being channeled through the machines.InchAt the time of the Mutator sessions, Vega was massively inspired by what was happening in the streets of New York - not only the hip hop scenes that were exploding throughout the outer boroughs, but also the literal sounds of the streets, the traffic noise and industrial ambience of city living. That influence trickled into th

Collision Drive is Alan Vega's second solo studio album, originally released in1981. If his debut laid the groundwork for a raw, minimalist take on rockabillyand blues, Collision Drive expands the palette with a grittier, more layered, andunfiltered energy. Here Vega's lyrics channel universal themes rooted in hisfascination with street life, science fiction, politics, comics, love and the mysteriesof the universe. It's a record that pulses with feeling and rebellion, displaying thefull spectrum of human experience and Vega's evolving vision.Alan was always reinventing himself, creating and refining his mastery of varia-tion while maintaining his own unparalleled and identifiable aesthetic. Sonically,this album is more dynamic than his first. Ditching drum machines for a livedrummer, and enlisting a hard rock band to back him, Collision Drive offered adifferent view of Vega's artistic vision. The aching punk rockabilly of InchMagdalena82Inch unfolds with a hypnotic blend of guitar slides and frenetic energy, whileVega's cover of InchBe Bop A LulaInch transforms Gene Vincent's classic into an aggres-sively charged, manic howl. Elsewhere, tracks like the hard-driving cosmic rockn roll InchRaverInch push into psychobilly territory. Vega was relentlessly innovative, continuously paving new ground.Newly remastered by Josh Bonati from the original tapes, Collision Drive receivesa reverent reissue from Sacred Bones Record.Here we witness the full ascension into his own mythology part rockabilly out-law, part cosmic preacher, part outsider visionary. Broader in scope than his debutbut just as uncompromising, Collision Drive is a bold and personal explorationof sound and identity. Raw, electrifying, and groundbreaking, it remains a cultcornerstone of outsider rock and a touchstone in the evolution of art-punk andexperimental pop from one of New York's most fearless icons. Al

Alan Vega's self-titled debut solo album was released in 1980 during the sameperiod Suicide released their second album, Suicide Alan Vega and Martin Rev.While Suicide's tag ZE Records was interested in pushing the duo toward asynthetic disco sound inspired by Moroder's production on Donna Summer'sInchI Feel Love,Inch Vega felt a pull in a different direction. He wanted to dig deeper intothe roots of his own sonic identity, fueled by blues, rockabilly, early rock n roll,and his enduring love for Elvis Presley. Filling the gaps between recording withSuicide, and fleshing out the songs he was writing on his own, Vega started creat-ing his first record and performing live to develop this sound.As with his visual art, Vega layered sound in a minimalist, dynamic and inten-tional way. The result was a fiercely singular album built from raw materials anddeeply rooted in Vega's artistic vision. Tracks like the classic anthem InchJukeboxBabeInch with it's jiving rhythm and minimalist swagger, captured that approachcompletely and went on to become a hit in France. InchKung Foo CowboyInch takes ona southern twist, strongly leaning into the blues, while the golden pop shine ofInchIce DrummerInch rings in melodic yet plaintive vocals, marching drums and a taste-ful harmonica solo. InchBye Bye BayouInch is a haunted slice of mutant rockabilly thatfuses 50s rock with Vega's eccentric performance style and was later reimaginedin the 2009 cover by LCD Soundsystem, introducing Vega's solo work to a newgeneration. Similarly, The Flaming Lips' cover of InchIce DrummerInch paid homageto Vega's outsider spirit.Now remastered by Josh Bonati from the original tapes and available on stream-ing services for the first time, Alan Vega has been faithfully reissued by SacredBones Records, preserving the raw intensity of Vega's original recordings whilemaking them newly accessible to listeners aro