The Wake 2 x LP Box Set Here Comes Everybody + Singles / Factory / Joy Division

	£		20
	$		26

Special and sumptuously-packaged super limited edition 2 x vinyl LP box set on the Captured Tracks label (CT152) for the worldwide Record Store Day a few years back. The LPs in the box are still sealed, the box has some very minor outer edge ware and there is a small split on the bottom left on the back sleeve of the box. Also contains the pink booklet. Overall excellent condition. LPs also include download cards. The first 12" being the original 8 track album and the second 12" being the singles and EP tracks. Much-maligned Factory band The Wake were forever being criticised and dismissed as inferior Joy Division / New Order copyists by the music press at the time. Although their output on the label was paltry, taking in just four singles and two albums, their influence on a lot of the post-80s indie/janglepop/synth fraternity cannot go unnoticed. Legendary Sarah band The Field Mice, for instance, owe a good chunk of their sound and influences to not just New Order and the Go-Betweens, but, tellingly, The Wake too. Their 1989 single "If You Need Someone" is a direct lift melodically and instrumentally of the sound and mood of this 1985 album - considered now in hindsight by many more discerning music fans to be The Wake's definitive crowning achievement. For all their alleged debt to the sound of New Order, "Here Comes Everybody" is a giant step up from their patchy and rather drab debut 1982 effort "Harmony", in that the tunes are much stronger and the arrangements far more accomplished. In fact if there is one main gripe about this album, it's the apparent uniformity of sound that occurs throughout - the same instruments on every track making it sound somewhat samey (it's completely dominated by Carolyn Allen's synths). However, from the gorgeous, tearjerking opener "O Pamela" onwards, with its pleading sentiments ['will you take a walk with me by the ocean, O Pamela, before it's too late....?'], it's like a bittersweet dream unravelling...... emotions seesawing between euphoria and despair. "Send Them Away" is more reflective still, and even here the keyboards which hold the track crank up another notch at the 1.26 minute mark, like the sun suddenly bursting out from behind a cloud, to blinding effect. "Melancholy Man" is one of those songs that does exactly what it says on the tin.... impossibly self-descriptive to the extent of pulling off two sucker-punches: the words "long grey overcoat which trails upon the ground" within the first verse and then quoting wholesale a couplet from Don McLean's "Vincent" right at the end. The short, upbeat and sweet "World Of Her Own" is probably the sunniest track on the album, Caesar's harmonica and Carolyn's backing vocals adding a bit of icing to the prominent synth arrangements which STILL dominate every note, whilst "Torn Calendar" and the title track slow the pace down a little, the latter reintroducing the dubby bass lines which The Wake made much use of in their earlier recordings. With The singles LP as a bonus LP this makes 16 tracks of pretty consistently good quality which makes an outright mockery of the accusations of The Wake being just another New Order copyist act. For anybody who has yet to investigate the back catalogue of this previously-forgotten band who are, happily, going through a bit of a critical renaissance right now (and deservedly so!), this is probably the best starting point. Tracks : Tracklist : A1 O Pamela A2 Send Them Away    A3 Sail Through A4 Melancholy Man B1 World Of Her Own B2 Torn Calendar B3 All I Asked You To Do B4 Here Comes Everybody C1 Talk About The Past 12" C2 Of The Matter C3 Gruesome Castle C4 Pale Spectre D1 Furious Sea D2 Plastic Flowers D3 Host D4 Of The Matter (Version)

Payment for this is by Paypal only. Postage rates are as follows : UK £5 / Europe £10.00 / Rest Of The World £13.00. All items are posted out with cardboard protectors  and in thick record mailers or jiffy bags