Notes From The House of The Dead

Featuring no less than 72 remastered tracks and many rare and unreleased mixes, this collection serves to highlight the pioneering pop/house crossover sound created especially for Mel & Kim by songwriting and production powerhouse Stock Aitken Waterman and the PWL studio team. ‘Respectable’ became SAW’s first own composition to top the UK charts (they’d merely produced Dead or Alive’s ‘You Spin Me Round’ stomper) and while there are online debates about it, ‘Showing Out’ is widely considered the first ever British house record.

Canadian singer/songwriter/guitarists Stephen Fearing, Colin Linden, and Tom Wilson all have successful solo careers, but sporadically put their individual projects on hold to record under the Blackie moniker. This album, the occasional band's fourth, comes only a few years following 2004's Bark, yet finds the trio – backed by a quartet of similarly talented musicians on bass, drums, and keyboards – in terrific form…

Wisely, the Cure decided to start fresh upon signing with their new label in 2004 by cleaning house, remastering the old albums, and bringing their fans Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities, 1978-2001. Not only is it the ultimate companion to the official releases, but it is, in a way, the new-super-deluxe-updated version of that cassette release of Staring at the Sea. Every B-side is included, in order, with cleaned-up sound, liner notes, and explanations by the man who made it all happen. All tracks, from "10.15 Saturday Night" (the B-side to the debut single "Killing an Arab") to covers of "Hello, I Love You," "Purple Haze," and "World in My Eyes," to entries from the Bloodflowers singles, are an indication that while the Cure made both strong albums and singles, they were not afraid to experiment along the way, and more importantly, they didn't let pride keep them from not making them available to those who were willing to look for them…