Slapp Happy / Henry Cow - Desperate Straights (Mega Blowout Sale)
SKU
ReR HCSH1
“Slapp Happy meanwhile was planning its second record for Virgin. One night the trio showed up at the quartet's door and proposed that the two groups make the second Slapphappy LP together...Henry Cow jumped at the chance and Desperate Straights was the result. It's still a gem to my ears, and now at last it's possible to release it, properly re-mastered (by Bob Drake), its sound closer to the original tapes even than our earlier Nimbus vinyl pressing. Great songs, great arrangements, great performances and Dagmar on top of her form... real people in a room together, playing straight to tape. Those were the days..”-Chris Cutler
This was the first co-mingling of Slappy Happy and Henry Cow DNA, and it created a unique art-song monster! This was also the album that introduced the excellent and unique voice of Dagmar to many of us and as Chris says, she is in absolute top, top form here.
This was remastered by Bob Drake. "It's from the original 1/4" mix tapes. As in all my mastering jobs every step of the process was done with only the most transparent and high-resolution gear with my fastidious attention to details. The old CD release was very low resolution and suffered from the harsh unpleasant sound of early A/D converters. The vinyl, as always, has less detail than the master tapes. So listening to the new CD is the closest thing you'll get to listening to the master tapes, except I made some things even better of course, in my extremely subtle ways."