Domino is releasing 'The Glasgow School' a compilation of Orange Juice's highly influencial Postcard label recordings. This is a good thing since most of the tracks have been deleted and unavailable for a long time.

The album compiles all their Postcard singles/b-sides and the album they scrapped (Ostrich Churchyard) when they jumped ship, abandoning their own indie label to sign with the major Polydor.

Unfortunately for me there is no material that I don't alread have and unfortunately for you they haven't included the Peel Session (the PS version of Dying Day is to my mind the best thing they ever did but then I'm infused with disturbing quantities of Caledonian Romanticism).

Anyway, if Alan Horne had anything to do with the sleeve notes (which he better have) it should be worth buying for the CD booklet alone and that's what I'll probably do.

Released June 28th.

Very nice.

Sweet! I haven't upgraded any of my OJ albums to CD yet.

Where should I start with this band?

Awesome. So much of their stuff is OOP and expensive on CD at present.

Tough call, but I think this Glasgow School comp that Konstantinl just alerted us to will be the ideal place to start.

Songwise, my all-time fave of theirs is the 12" single version of "Rip It Up" - it's way different than the album version and one of the funkiest slices of post-punk you'll ever hear. Album-wise, You Can't Hide Your Love Forever is solid, as is The Orange Juice. You can also pick up a quickie release credited to Edwyn Collins/Orange Juice that compiles a bunch of Edwyn's solo tracks with a sampling of OJ tunes - it's probably found for cheap at half.com.

Cool, thanks.

Everything on half.com was pretty pricey except for that Edwyn Collins comp which was like $13 at the lowest. I think I'll just wait for this new comp.

By the later period of Orange Juice, Edwyn Collins had something approaching a singing voice, they had brought in good musicians (Malcolm Ross, Zeke Manyika) and they actually had access to proper recording facilities.

By contrast earlier Orange Juice couldn't sing, play and recorded their tracks in a pub in Paisley. Frankly they were verging on shambolic. But you know what? It's those records I love the most. They have an amateur charm and arch sense of humour their later records, good as they were, didn't have.

In fact I'd go as far as to say I get a little misty eyed when I hear the wonky completely out-of-time bass drum kick into 'Falling and Laughing'. There have been many better bands than Orange Juice but none I've loved quite as much.

Nico "Some Orange Juice is OK but I don't like the people at all"

great news--i can't wait to finally hear some orange juice after years of you and others raving about them.

the cover:

Crap, wish I'd know, I'd've thrown some on your NCAA mix, which is still sitting here waiting to be re-recorded because my pieceofcrapcdrecorder dumped a bunch of static on a few tracks.

Ooooh, exciting times!!