EAST VILLAGE - DROP OUT VINYL (LTD. 30TH ANN. DELUXE ED. LP)

LIMITED 30TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION VINYL

Release Date: 12th January 2024

"An autumnal treasure, East Village’s ‘Drop Out’ has spent the past thirty years finding new ears to bewitch and new hearts to melt. The only album from this British four-piece, recorded and released in the early Nineties, it’s long been considered one of the hidden jewels of its time, and is talked of with hushed reverence by people who know. Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne once called it “an elegy for a particular brand of Eighties guitar music, sweet minor chords and Dylan-esque lyrics,” which captures what makes it so special; in summarising its era, though, it also effortlessly transcends it. Like all great guitar gangs, East Village fell together as a four-piece; having relocated from High Wycombe to London in the mid-1980s, brothers Martin and Paul Kelly - on bass and guitar, and set on forming a group together - were joined by John Wood (guitar) and Spencer Smith (drums). Wood and the Kellys shared writing and vocal duties; it was an ideal combination, and one of the many charms of East Village is their various song writing voices, a tip of the hat, seemingly, to the 1960s folk-rock groups who influenced them. Originally influenced by garage rock and freakbeat, the band eventually came through via the same scene as groups like Felt, The Go-Betweens, The Weather Prophets and Primal Scream. They’d formed as Episode Four, releasing an EP, ‘Strike Up Matches’, in 1986, which has gone on to become one of most sought-after releases of the C86 era. Their first two singles as East Village, ‘Cubans In The Bluefields’ (1987) and ‘Back Between Places’ (1988), were released on Jeff Barrett’s Sub Aqua label."