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.
Ruby is one of those few people who could solo with a pipe organ, who could improvise with such an unusual instrumental background. It requires a very special ability - flexibility, ingenuity, and invention. Ruby, of course, is his own man. Like his idol, Louis Armstrong, he commands the center of attention, even if the background is something as odd as a theatre organ. The tonal colors of a pipe organ are its great glory. Above all, I'm stimulated by being able to orchestrate on the spot. And once you launch into a bright swinging tempo with the instrument sounding perhaps a beat behind the fingers, the sensation is like leading a herd of galloping elephants. You don't dare look back.
A sequel to 2014's Torsten the Bareback Saint, this 2016 release continues the collaboration between Erasure vocalist Andy Bell and theatrical writers Barney Ashton-Bullock and Christopher Frost and revives their Torsten character, who is described completely in the opening "Statement of Intent." "Used to be someone doesn't mean that I'm a has-been" it goes, but this thoroughly modern Millie also proudly crows "I'm gonna do it all before I go to seed." Later titles "Blow Jobs for Cocaine" and "The Slums We Loved" prove that Torsten's "do it all" is different than the everyday "do it all," but debauchery rarely comes framed in such artful flair, as Torsten joins Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Hedwig, and Quentin Crisp on the Mt. Rushmore of the queer and aggressively inquisitive…