tuxedomoon and solo releases

New and re-issued recordings from the Tuxedomoon Royal Academy of Recording Arts

the return of night air BLAINE L. REININGER "NIGHT AIR" (LTMCD 2339)

Digital remaster of the classic 1984 Crepuscule solo album from Tuxedomoon lynchpin Blaine, aided by Sleepers guitarist Michael Belfer and mixed by Gareth Jones. The ten original album tracks are joined by six bonus cuts: Mystery & Confusion 7", Bizarre Bizarre, Windy Outside, Broken Fingers, Crash and Crash (Residents Remix). The latter two Reininger/Belfer tracks, originally released as Tuxedomoon and long unavailable, appear here on CD for the very first time. Guest musicians include Steven Brown, Winston Tong and Marc Hollander. Full sleevenotes including recollections by Blaine and Michael. Original Another Side artwork.

Reviews: "A major album - highly atmospheric, steeped in mist and melancholy, and redolent of Dashiel Hammett and Tom Waits, or even Brian Eno with a latino croon" (Libre Belgique, 9/84); "Night Air seeks to combine modern classicism with a new approach to atmospheric chanson. Reininger is way ahead of his time" (Rock This Town, 6/84); "Crash is a rare and marvellous achievement, and the only truly honest record of the week" (NME, 1980)

Long overdue reissue of this superb collection of instrumental and soundtrack material recorded between 1982 and 1987, with guests including Vini Reilly and Durutti Column, Steven Brown, Mikel Rouse and Wim Mertens. The 15 tracks include: La Douleur, Contempt, La Belle Epoque, Les Choses de la Vie, Le Dernier Amant Romantique, Side Wind, The Sea Wall, Petite Piece Chinoise, Metallic Mosquitoes, Les Nuages, Travelling, Basso Pomade, Licorice Stick Ostinato, Music #2, Bay Bridge. Full sleevenotes. Original Crepuscule artwork reproduced.

Reviews: "Instrumentals is a miscellany of short pieces that reflect the spirit of his musical ideas through the years. It's a feast of appetizers, but that doesn't make them any less beautiful or haunting in their variety" (Option, 1991); "Runs smoothly from the sentimental to the experimental - a polished and intriguing exploration of one man's many-faceted work" (USA Press, 1991)

BLAINE L. REININGER "BROKEN FINGERS" (LTMCD 2355)

Broken Fingers is Blaine's first solo album for Crepuscule (TWI 068), recorded in February 1982 with assistance from fellow Moonies Peter Principle and Steven Brown. This digital master also restores the original artwork by Saskia Lupini and features extensive sleevenotes plus five fascinating bonus tracks, including a trio of Blaine solo tracks performed by Tuxedomoon!. Full tracklist: Broken Fingers, Nur al Hajj, Magic Time, Petit Piece Chinoise, Right Mind, Greasy Gigolo, Spiney Doughboys, Sons of the Silent Age, Uptown, Les Nuages, Magnetic Life, Playin' Your Game, Birthday Song (Tuxedomoon demo 1983), Nur Al Hajj (Tuxedomoon live 1988), Broken Fingers (Tuxedomoon live 1982).

Reviews: "Broken Fingers' juxtaposition of violin and electronics is ripe for re-evaluation" (Record Collector, 5/03)

BLAINE L. REININGER "LIVE IN BRUSSELS BIS" (LTMCD 2358)

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Live in Brussels originally appeared on Les Disques du Crepuscule in 1986 (TWI 637). Recorded on stage with a four piece band in February of that year, the powerful set includes versions of several of Blaine's best known solo numbers, including Broken Fingers, Birthday Song and Mystery and Confusion, as well the Tuxedomoon classics What Use? and Volo Vivace. Most surprising of all is his ultraviolent take of Uptown, an extended essay in urban paranoia. Long unavailable, this new extended, remastered edition also includes six bonus songs not included on the original issue. The CD now runs for 70 minutes and features extensive sleevenotes. Full tracklist: Intro, Volo Vivace, Night Air, The Birthday Song, What Use?, Uptown, Broken Fingers, Ash & Bone, Paris En Automne, Radio Ectoplasm, Burn Like Rome, Mystery & Confusion.

BLAINE L. REININGER "BYZANTIUM" (LTMCD 2385)

Byzantium is his fourth solo album for Crepuscule, recorded in 1986/87 with noted engineer Gilles Martin. The original eight tracks have now been increased to 16, and now include the whole of the 1985 mini album Paris In Autumn, never before available on CD, plus the rare track Bizmillah and a remix of Blaine's wry Kraftwerk tribute Rolf & Florian Go Hawaiian. This new expanded version of Byzantium has been digitally remastered, and features extensive sleevenotes plus new artwork. Full tracklist: Rolf & Florian Go Hawaiian, Blood of a Poet, Teenage Theatre, Some Fine Day, Japanese Dream, Too Cool to Die, Bird on a Wire, Rosebud, Paris En Automne, Singular World, Burn Like Rome, Raise Your Hands, The Homecoming, Bizmillah, Radio Ectoplasm (demo),Rolf & Florian Go Hawaiian 7" remix).

Reviews: "Spiky and sophisticated and poppy all at the same time" (Whisperin' & Hollerin' 5/04); "Some truly fine Reininger moments, with some welcome bonuses in the form of the Paris in Autumn ep" (All Music Guide, 10/04)

BLAINE L. REININGER "NIGHT AIR 2" (LTMCD 2314)

Night Air #2 is intended as a sequel to his keynote 1984 album Night Air, a bittersweet meditation on life in exile in a hostile city. The sequel, carefully selected from several albums recorded between 1989 and 1999, captures many of the same moods, ranging from cinematic on Night Ride, expatriate angst on Invisible and modern electronica on Arc en Ciel. Full tracklist: Night Ride, Invisible, Silly Boy, Flame On, Al Haqq, Manic Man, Music Box, Europe After the Rains (Parts 1-3), Night Street, Nocho Lluviosa, Ghosts of the Arbat, Arc En Ciel, Voice of the Hive.

Reviews: "Virtually a one-man band, he creates a panoramic spread of violin, viola, mandolin, keyboards, guitar and programmed beats. Europe After the Rains is particularly vivid; Night Street is a calm chamber piece, and Ghosts of the Arbat reels around the circus ring" (The Wire, 09/04); "Like the original Night Air, these songs evoke the sombre loneliness of a traveller half numbed, half thrilled by the ghosts of a continent much older, more self-protective and less welcoming than his native America. Reininger is a unique and prolific nomad of the soul" (Whisperin' & Hollerin', 07/04); "A fine showcase for his abilities as a lush, often classically cinematic work" (All Music Guide, 10/04)

"These songs evoke the experience of walking across wet cobblestones slick with rain, ducking under awnings of sidewalk cafes and antiquarian bookstores, aimless and anonymous in an unfamiliar city at night. The songs switch freely between spoken-word beatnik recitations and refrains sung in English or French. Reininger is fascinated by noir expressionism, and his paranoid, cinematic atmospheres perfectly capture this zeitgeist. Night Air 2 displays an intelligence and elegance so rare in modern pop music that at first listen it seems entirely foreign, but is all the more welcome for it" (Brainwashed)

Blaine L. Reininger | Book Of Hours bis

Book of Hours was first released by Les Disques du Crepuscule in 1989. Guest musicians on the album include Tuxedomoon members Steven Brown, Luc van Lieshout, Paul Zahl and Ivan Georgiev, as well as Ludus guitarist Ian Devine, while the single was a surprise funereal cover of El Paso by Marty Robbins. The CD has now been remastered with five bonus tracks, including Bay Bridge, the rare film soundtrack contribution Blackout and two tracks (Cosey Little Planet, Burnsday) from the rare single Orphans, released in a limited run of 100 copies in 1997. The CD also features all-new artwork.

"the songs of Book of Hours are ravishingly well stuffed. Each one glistens with boldly expansive themes, lavish synth parts, knowing lyrics and soaring tunes. The magnificent "Software Pancake House" has a huge horn section and unstoppable rhythm section, carrying a bizarre monologue from Reininger's culturally twitching imagination (including a space craft which "routinely exploded off camera" and the Mohair Sushi Gods � Bowie-eclipsing pop stars for another, better age) It has something of the Philip K. Dick about it � with more luxury and less despair. Just imagine the video. "Letter from Home" is lovely haunting thing that makes me shiver.

One great surprise is the Marty Robins tune "El Paso", in album and single versions. It is a fine tune, and the hyperdramatic story fits perfectly with the grandiosity and confidence of the whole album. It�s Reininger lording it in Hollywood, if it�s anything. These songs are big, bold, sumptuously recorded and fabulously evocative of a finer grander life than you or I, dear reader, will ever know. Not in a comic book rich kids Duran Duran style on the boat with the birds. But in a filmic, Scott Fitzgerald, darkly underpinned flourish of wealth, dreams, passion and (always) disappointment.

Tracks 11 to 15 are singles and a film tune "The Flying Game", used by Karamaghilos in "Black Out". There's no shift in quality or style though, it just means we get to stay for a full hour in the company of a master of his craft. One of Nice's significant contributions to this series has been the way that additional tracks sit happily with the core material. Remastering, careful choices and artful sequencing are very well done."

BLAINE L. REININGER "ELEKTRA/RADIO MOSCOW" OST (LTMCD 2482) �10

Two haunting instrumental soundtracks composed by Blaine for Elektra (2006), a play directed by Angela Brouskou at the Athens Festival, and Radio Moscow (1995), a film by Nicholas Triandafyllidis. Produced by Blaine L. Reininger and Gilles Martin. Booklet features images and biography. 19 tracks, 70 minutes of music. Full tracklist: House of Atreus, Orestes, Miroloyia, Khrysothemis, Third Stasimon, Prayer to Apollo, Paedagogus' Journey, Vengeance, Death of Klytemnestra, Death of Aegistos, Radio Moscow Theme, Night Ride, Portemanteau, Polar Orbit, Moscow Calling, Night Street/Lone Pianist, The Czar's Music Box, Arbat Cafe Orchestra, Bolshoi Bolshoi.

Blaine L. Reininger "Glossolalia"

Glossolalia is Blaine's first solo album since 1999, and probably his best-ever so far. Close your eyes and travel through old black and white Italian and Greek movies from the '60s, or cross the ocean and feel the colors and the heat from Mexico. Glossololia is a mixture of all the places and people that Blaine has encountered in the last 10 years. It is full of poetry and faith in the world -- a musical journey that is magic for the ears.

Blaine L. Reininger/ William Lee Self "The Hamburg Sessions"
The first album of songs from Reininger since 1999's "The More I Learn the Less I Know" is a collaboration between Reininger and old friend Lee Self. Read more

BLAINE L. REININGER & STEVEN BROWN "LIVE IN LISBON 1989"(LTMCD2431) �10

Live In Lisbon 1989 was originally released in shorter form by Les Disques du Crepuscule as 100 Years of Music. This pristine 60 minute recording captures the Tuxedomoon duo live in Portugal, performing selections from their celebrated piano and violin show. As well as solo material, the set includes Tuxedomoon classics and selections from their soundtrack work together. Full tracklist: Iberia, Egypt, The Fall, Les Odalisques, Piano No 1, L'arrivee dans le jour, Music No 2, Salad Variation, Fanfare, The Waltz, Licorice Stick Ostinato, Volo Vivace, Litebulb Overkill, Souffle Coupe.

Reviews: "Triumphant! Lean, articulate passages of truly gorgeous, avant and original classical pieces" (The Big Takeover, 03/05); "Beautifully remastered, the studio quality of this recording of modern classical music is a document of the partnership at its peak. The opening Iberia is a mournful piece rivalling Ravel's Bolero for swooning grace, Brown's solo piano compositions drip with an elegiac quality and L'Arrivee Dans le Jour is a piece of pastoral loveliness" (Leonard's Lair, 03/05)

Tuxedomoon Catalog

TUXEDOMOON "CABIN IN THE SKY"

2004's "Cabin in the Sky" was the first studio release from Tuxedomoon since 1987. Online journal "Whisperin' and Hollerin'" says

"Cabin in the Sky" is a glorious swathe of virtuoso composition, realisation and sound collage. Like FRANK ZAPPA without the vitriol, like ROXY MUSIC without the Rockisms, TUXEDOMOON look down from a great height, waving an elegant handsignal of louche disregard for the pilled up masses on the dancefloor below. Pearls before swine? Who gives a shit. This is the luxury end of the market ....."

GO BUY THIS........