Originally released on 12th March 1993, the album hit the No.1 spot in both the UK and Ireland and sold over 6 million copies worldwide. The four disc box set contains the album on the first CD and bonus material spread over three further discs. Of course all of those previous bonus tracks are included, but so too are unreleased early demos, a live performance from 31 July 1994 at the Féile Festival in Ireland and a series of radio sessions from 1992-1993. The box includes a poster and four postcards.
It's interesting to note that Hot Chip's string of great albums - beginning with Made in the Dark - coincided with their exploration of the joys of long-term relationships. Celebrating monogamy while avoiding monotony applies to how they make music, as well: on the surface, Why Make Sense? is another album of wry, kinetic electro-pop from a group that has mastered the style, but it also builds on Hot Chip's roots - and dance music's origins - in ways that sound fresh. The band reunited with In Our Heads producer Mark Ralph, and they expand on that album's joyousness, this time imbuing it with elements of R&B, hip-hop, and, especially, disco. "Huarache Lights" feels like the album's mission statement, from its slow and steady groove and un-ironic talkbox to its sample of First Choice's "Let No Man Put Asunder," a sizzling disco testament to commitment that was also sampled by the prime movers of house and techno's early days…
While Jimmy Hughes' second album (from 1967) was titled Why Not Tonight?, this CD is more an expanded version of that LP rather than a straight reissue. The first ten tracks are indeed the Why Not Tonight? album in its original sequence, but it's followed by 11 bonus tracks from the same era, essentially doubling the length of the original LP and adding historical liner notes. Hughes isn't much known outside the soul collector world for anything besides his 1964 hit "Steal Away," but this is a quite solid collection of mid-'60s Southern soul.
In 1981, Barry Andrews and Dave Allen formed Shriekback. Carl Marsh joined the duo, and shortly thereafter Shriekback formed Y records. It was through Y Records that they released their debut EP, the classic Tench, in 1982. This was followed in 1983 by their debut album, Care. Shriekback were on their way. Now, in 2018, Shriekback are back with their first studio album since 2015’s Without Real String Or Fish. As with that album, the line-up is Barry Andrews, Carl Marsh and Martyn Bakerr (drums) who has been working with the band since 1984 providing loops and drums. Allen left the band in 1986. Shriekback became a collective, of sorts, based around the trio of Marsh, Andrews and Baker.