Mark Lanegan Bubblegum

Beggars Arkive in conjunction with the Estate of Mark Lanegan, are honored to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Mark Lanegan’s acclaimed 2004 album Bubblegum. On August 23rd, we will release Bubblegum XX - a set of releases that include a remastered double LP edition of the original album and a 4XLP/3XCD release containing 40 remastered tracks, 12 of which are previously unreleased.

Beggars Arkive in conjunction with the Estate of Mark Lanegan, are honored to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Mark Lanegan’s acclaimed 2004 album Bubblegum. On August 23rd, we will release Bubblegum XX - a set of releases that include a remastered double LP edition of the original album and a 4XLP/3XCD release containing 40 remastered tracks, 12 of which are previously unreleased.

Beggars Arkive in conjunction with the Estate of Mark Lanegan, are honored to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Mark Lanegan’s acclaimed 2004 album Bubblegum. On August 23rd, we will release Bubblegum XX - a set of releases that include a remastered double LP edition of the original album and a 4XLP/3XCD release containing 40 remastered tracks, 12 of which are previously unreleased.

In 2002, Mark Lanegan was looking to make some changes in how he approached his music – the Screaming Trees had finally collapsed at the end of the '90s, he'd found a new fan base as a frequent guest vocalist with Queens of the Stone Age, and the spare, blues-leaning solo efforts Lanegan cut for Sub Pop were no longer side projects but the first chapters of a new career. As Lanegan was strategizing his next move, he went to Houston, Texas and in five days recorded a dozen songs with a handful of talented local musicians, including guitarist Ian Moore and longtime Willie Nelson sideman Mickey Raphael on harmonica, with Justice Records founder Randall Jamail as producer. While the sessions were meant to be demos for a stack of songs Lanegan had written for Jamail's publishing house, the finished product sounded good enough to be an album, and in 2015 Lanegan finally released the material under the title Houston: Publishing Demos 2002. The jolly irony is that while these are supposed to be demos, in many respects the performances sound more polished and "commercial" than most of Lanegan's early solo efforts, capturing a laid-back but buoyant mood that's informed by country and blues as much as rock, and Lanegan seems comfortable singing with the group, rather than simply laying his vocals over the top.

Those who liked the moodier, more atmospheric material on the last Mark Lanegan Band offering, 2004's Bubblegum, will find much to enjoy on Blues Funeral – an album that has little to do with blues as a musical form. Lanegan has been a busy man since Bubblegum. In the nearly eight ensuing years, he's issued three records with Isobel Campbell, joined Greg Dulli in the Gutter Twins, guested on albums by the Twilight Singers and UNKLE, and was the lead vocalist on most of the last two Soulsavers offerings. Produced by Eleven guitarist Alain Johannes (who also fulfills that role here as well as playing bass, keyboards, and percussion), Blues Funeral finds Lanegan in a musically ambitious place.