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We're now taking orders for Trick Mammoth's Floristry and copies ordered now will start shipping next week. This is your chance to get your hands on it well before official release in late February and, when purchased from us, you get a CD thrown in, plus initial copies bought from us come with a gorgeous poster:
We also have a number of other Fishrider titles in stock, including the Males album Run Run Run/MalesMalesMales (again, LP with CD included when bought from us) and The Prophet Hens' Popular People Do Popular People CD, which has been making quite a lot of "best of 2013" lists. Tomorrow we'll be announcing news of a special Occultation Sale which includes a special offer on buying all three of these together at a much-reduced price, along with bargains on items by The Wild Swans, The Distractions, Factory Star, The Granite Shore and The June Brides, amongst others.
Just a quick note to thank everyone who ordered The Wild Swans The Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years Super-Deluxe Edition and hasn't yet received it for your patience. We're packing up all orders right now and they'll go out either tomorrow (Friday 29/11/13) or Monday at the latest. As they're all going by courier rather than by post, they should reach you fairly quickly - though it'll depend where in the world you are, of course. Thanks again for your support and your patience, this has been by far the biggest project we've ever undertaken and we hope you'll all agree it's been worth waiting for.
We'd like to thank everyone who's already ordered our Wild Swans Coldest Winter vinyl editions. The Super-Deluxe is now sold-out, although we've held a few back in case of any issues and may be able to sell some of those in a few weeks' time.
The thing that's now holding us up is that Incandescent has been delayed again. This is beyond our control, all the pressing plants are struggling to keep up with demand for vinyl as Christmas approaches and a lot of records on many labels are delayed. We expected to have both albums in August! We're talking to Vinyl180, the label releasing it, every day and they tell me both the Gatefold and Hardback editions will be here over the next week or two.
As soon as we get them, all orders for the SDL will ship as quickly as we can get them packaged up. Thanks to everyone for their patience, it'll be worth it!
Orders for the Coldest Winter Deluxe and Standard editions only are shipping more or less immediately. We'd like to remind you that the Deluxe is a very lovely thing in its own right (see pictures below):
It's only available from us, if you buy from the usual retailers you'll only get the double LP, lovely though that is.
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We're now taking orders for the Deluxe and Standard editions of The Wild Swans Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years double vinyl LPs. The Standard edition is 2x180g
LPs in a heavy-duty gatefold sleeve and inners, and it'll be on general
release, though the Deluxe (pictured) is only available here. It comes
in a specially-designed full-colour outer package containing 1) double
LP, 2) shrinkwrapped CD in outer/inner sleeves 3) poster 4) postcard 5)
badge 6) "Coldest Winter" insert. It's gorgeous and a Mr P. Simpson of
Liverpool has declared himself "completely happy" for the first time
ever.
We also have savings on Vinyl180's vinyl Incandescent if you buy both. There's a gatefold edition similar to Coldest Winter and a special hardback book version, we should have stock of both soon.
Some items are heavy and need to be sent by courier or other signed-for service so shipping is expensive. For orders from outside the UK and Europe Zone 1, we've
negotiated lower courier prices for a limited period based on shipping
all orders at the same time, but prices in some zones will rise in
November. As most of the material is previously released, there's no download but if you buy the Super-Deluxe or Deluxe you get a CD anyway.
If anyone wants to buy any configurations not shown, or with other items from our shop, please e-mail us for a price.
Finally, we've just half a dozen of the very limited "Super-Deluxe" edition left, we'll be offering these to the public soon but you can still order by choosing your region here. There's a comparison table and a gallery for the different editions.
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Remaining copies of the Wild Swans Coldest Winter Super-Deluxe Edition are now in single figures. If you want one click here then choose your region. We'll be taking orders for the Deluxe and Standard editions, plus both versions of Incandescent in a few days' time.
We've recently posted pictures of the top-of-the-range Super-Deluxe Edition (SDL) of our Wild Swans The Coldest
Winter For A Hundred Years reissues. and it's a thing of staggering beauty and presence. However the Deluxe (DL) is also gorgeous and will cost around half as much. In addition to the Standard (SD) version, which is "just" (!) a double LP in a heavy-duty gatefold sleeve with inner sleeves, the Deluxe includes the following extras, which are pictured above:
1) A shrinkwrapped CD containing all 22 tracks
2) A poster
3) A postcard
4) A badge
5) A special insert with the lyrics to the title track
6) A specially-printed full-colour outer box.
The DL edition isn't quite as limited as the SDL - though it is limited and only available from us and a few selected partners - and we hope to have stock of the LPs over the next few days (there've been delays at the pressing plant, there's nothing we can do about this, technical hitches, we're told) and we'll then be ready to start shipping them. The SDL will take a little longer as we've had to commission special protective packaging for it, to make sure it arrives safely.
The Standard 2xLP and CD editions will be available in shops in a couple of weeks' time.
Yes, we know, it's all taken far longer than expected... The thing that's holding it all up is the actual double LP, there've been delays, totally beyond our control, at the pressing plant but we've been promised we'll have them in a week or so, and we'd hope to start shipping the "Super-Deluxe" edition around the official release date of 29/9/13.
We now have almost all the other components and, to prove its existence, we thought you might like to see a few photos. First this is the box with most of what goes inside it, but minus the main letterpress insert and the double LP:
The letterpress insert has been printed but needs to be left to dry for a few days before it's sent to us, to make sure there's no smudging. The artist responsible has sent us this picture:
As we hope you can see, this is the work of a craftsman, not some mass-produced plastic tat. You don't really get a sense of how special the boxes are from these photos, but wait until you've got them in your hands.
Now this is the bit where you need to pay attention: those of you who put your names down for these will be getting an e-mail probably over the next week or so, with details on how to pay for the Super-Deluxe edition. You'll then have a limited time to place your order. We'll send the payment details out in the order in which people signed up to the list but it'll be first-come, first-served and we're unlikely to have enough for everyone. We're just waiting for confirmation of the cost of insured courier delivery and for special protective packaging to be custom-made as we want to make sure these reach you in perfect condition, wherever in the world you are. We're keeping prices down as far as we can and we're not charging for all the hours we've put into this, but they've been very expensive to produce as so much of it is custom-made and we've got to send them by insured courier delivery to be safe.
As soon as we get the LPs we'll also have the Deluxe and Standard editions available. We'll have news on those soon.
Finally, as some of you will know, Paul Simpson will be making an in-store appearance at Rough Trade East on Friday 4th October, a few days after official release, any of you in the London area on that day are more than welcome to come along and say "hello", it'd be lovely to see you.
We're almost there and it really is going to be worth it, when the boxes arrived the other day we were absolutely stunned at how gorgeous they are.
We can announce that, on Friday 4th October 2013, there'll be a special in-store appearance at Rough Trade East in London to mark the reissues of two Wild Swans albums on vinyl. These are The Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years and Incandescent, both making their first appearance in 2xLP format. Further details will follow nearer the time.
Deluxe edition, artist's impression, above.
Work-in-progress photo of Super-Deluxe edition, above.
We thought we should let you know what's
happening with the Wild Swans' Coldest Winter reissue.
The original idea was simply to reissue the album on vinyl but
it quickly gathered momentum and grew into by far the most
complicated thing we've ever done, with several editions, LPs
and CDs plus boxes, postcards, posters, other special inserts,
etc. All this has to be designed, approved and manufactured,
then it has to be delivered to us so we can assemble it (by
hand!) then put it some proper protective packaging and send
it all over the world by insured courier delivery. We expect
to have stock of all the components well before the end of
August, but until we've got a more definite idea we're not
going to take anyone's money. The whole thing's been a lot of
work and has taken far longer than expected, but we're
confident that it'll be worth it.
The Super-Deluxe edition is now
fully-subscribed, but we have a reserve list in case anyone drops out or
we have any copies left over, if we do it'll be a handful at the most.
You can sign up for the reserve list here.
The Deluxe edition, which is almost as
spectacular, will be available only from us and perhaps a few of our
partners. Again it'll be limited to a few hundred.
The Standard edition will be available from us hopefully in August or in shops at the end of September.
The vinyl Incandescent has also been delayed and we've
been told it'll probably be ready in September. We should
stress that this is being released by our friends at Vinyl180
rather than on Occultation, but
we'll be getting copies and there'll be a discount for anyone
who's bought the CW vinyl reissue from us.
In the meantime, we'll keep you informed.
Thanks for your patience, it will be rewarded...
Our list for the Super-Deluxe edition of The Wild Swans' The Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years is now complete. It's not going to be practical to make any more of these but we will now be opening a "reserve list" so that if anyone from the main list drops out or we find we've got any spare copies at the end of the process the people on it will get the first chance to buy them. You can sign up for the reserve list on the same page as before.
Above are a couple of photographs showing work-in-progress on the Super-Deluxe edition of the forthcoming Wild Swans vinyl reissue. The SD is now almost fully-subscribed, only a couple of places on our list left, though we'll then have a reserve list in case anyone drops out, we've already doubled our planned limited edition of this and we simply can't make any more as it's a huge amount of work. The sign-up page is here, first-come, first-served.
As you can see, they're very high-quality boxes, they'll be laser-engraved and then backed with a material to produce the final effect. The SD will also come with a few extras that won't be included in the Deluxe edition, whereas the Standard will be just a double LP, although it'll come on 180g vinyl in a high-quality gatefold sleeve with inner sleeves.
More information will follow, we're a little behind schedule on this but we should be ready to start taking orders soon, once we've worked out final costs.
As some eagle-eyed fans have already spotted, we're planning a 2LP reissue of The Wild Swans' The Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years
in a few months' time. A lot of people have shown an interest in a
vinyl edition so we'd like your input before taking any definite
decisions. We're suggesting a double LP on 180g vinyl, with the original
album on the first LP and all non-album Occultation tracks collected on
the second, including the Tracks In Snow EP, featuring three tracks only officially available on a limited CD that sold out over a year ago. Like the album, these tracks have never been out on vinyl.
If
enough people want it, we'd consider doing an even more limited
"super-deluxe" version, but we want to know what you'd like to see. If
you click on the image above or here you'll be taken to a short questionnaire which'll help give us an idea of numbers and how you'd like us to go about it.
If that weren't enough, we're also working with partners on a 2x180g reissue of the classic Incandescent compilation
.We're aiming to release both at the same time which'd mean we'd be
able to offer special pricing to anyone who buys both together. Again,
most of this material has never been on vinyl and the original CD is
long out of print. There are even plans for a truly spectacular deluxe
hardback book format version.
More? Well, the band's classic debut single, The Revolutionary Spirit, has recently been chosen as the opening track on Cherry Red's huge Scared To Get Happy boxed set, due out in a few months. The box has further Occultation connections as it features Blue Orchids' Dumb Magician and The June Brides' Every Conversation.
2013 will also see a Distractions retrospective released - with Occultation involvement - by our friends at Hidden Masters, including everything the original band released and more.
In other news, work will be getting underway soon on the Granite Shore album and, after the success of Moon / Cloud, we're hoping to coax The June Brides back into a studio too. As The End Of The Pier
has done so well, there are radical plans NOT to wait 32 years before a
third Distractions LP, although we'll have to see... We still have a
few copies of the limited version of the 180g LP including a free poster
when ordered from The Occultation Shop.
There's an interview with Occultation boss Nick Halliwell on Penny Black Music - one of our favourite sites, they've supported the label from the very early days. It includes hints about upcoming Occultation releases and goes into some depth about the label's origins and plans.
We've now set up a form allowing you to tell us your opinions on the forthcoming (2013) reissue of The Wild Swans' The Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years album. Click here to let us know what you think.
A number of people have asked why the Wild Swans album, The Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years, wasn't available on vinyl. The answer is that it was delivered to us when we were least expecting it. We couldn't wait to get it out, but it was as much as we could do to find the cash for a small first pressing of CDs plus the limited edition Tracks In Snow EP.
Things've changed at Occultation since then with a series of successful releases and the forging of new partnerships - to cut a long story short, we're now planning an expanded Coldest Winter reissue. It'll be a while yet: we've obviously got other releases to focus on, there are a couple of issues to be resolved and these things need planning properly, but we'd like to know what fans think. We can't promise we'll be able to take all ideas on board but we will listen.
 Current thinking is a 2x180g LP+expanded CD. The first LP would be the original album, the second would feature all the non-album WS tracks released on Occultation to date. Ideally we'd like to remaster the tracks that've not previously been on vinyl (i.e. most of them) for that format but this'll add to the cost. Then there are sleeve options: would you rather we kept the price down or are you happy for us to go for broke and pay a bit more? We'd like a heavy-duty sleeve, as with previous Occultation LPs (e.g. Enter Castle Perilous and The End Of The Pier)
 It'd be really helpful if we knew how many of you would be interested in buying this deluxe reissue so we can cost the whole thing out. We've not yet decided whether it'd be a limited edition offered only on our website (and our partners' sites) or a full retail release - again, this'd depend largely on demand.
Anyway, for now we just want to announce that this will be happening. We'll be setting up a page allowing you to register your interest fairly soon. We must stress that although this reissue is being planned, we're in the early stages and no release date has been set. We just thought that as so many of you have already bought the album on CD it'd only be fair to consult you on the idea of a reissue. There'll be more on this soon and we will take your ideas into consideration, we promise.
Unless any copies turn up unexpectedly having strayed from their allotted boxes (fairly unlikely now), we've sold out of The Wild Swans' Tracks In Snow EP. We'd like to thank everyone who did buy the album, with or without the EP, directly from the Occultation Shop; you've no idea what a difference this makes when running a small label nowadays. Not one of us makes a penny out of Occultation, in fact a number of generous people have put money in with no realistic prospect of seeing it again.
Although the EP is now gone, we do still have copies of all other Occultation releases, including the two earlier singles by The Wild Swans (both are different from the album versions and have non-album 'b' sides), the two Granite Shore singles, the two EPs by The Distractions, the Factory Star album and single and Jonathan Beckett's She's A Vampire EP. We're probably going to have a little New Year sale starting over the next few days, offering special deals... So keep an eye on the Occultation Shop.
The Wild Swans' The Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years is one of the contenders for Slicing Up Eyeballs' "albums of the year" category, so perhaps some of you might like to vote for it? We think the Factory Star album should be on the list too but you can't have everything... You can either click on the image above or else here.
We're enormously proud of both albums we released in 2011 and 2012 will see no let-up with The Distractions set to release their follow-up to 1980's Nobody's Perfect a mere 32 years later - frustratingly no, that's not a record, although it's fairly close. There will also be a Granite Shore album and all sorts of other things...
"[...] perhaps Sergeant is pondering throwing his lot in with former Bunnymen bassist Les Pattinson. He came out of musical retirement to join a re-ignited version of their early eighties support act, The Wild Swans. Currently knocking them dead in the Philippines, it should be remembered that the sole Wild Swans release during their original, all too brief life-span, was bank-rolled and produced by original Bunnymen drummer, the late Pete de Freitas.
Sergeant has played live with The Wild Swans already in Liverpool, and also features on the band's just-released album, The Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years, an album which possibly says more about Liverpool than any other recorded."
We couldn't possibly comment, of course...
 There's a review of the Wild Swans album on the Italian Beatbear site here.
Below is a VERY rough translation into English (my Italian isn't totally fluent so it may be a little free in places and clunky in others...):
"The Wild Swans set off on their journey through the post-punk era in Liverpool in 1980 when Paul Simpson left the Teardrop Explodes (one of the brightest stars in the post-punk firmament). Although they’ve never had a hit in the UK, they’ve become a cult band in various countries over the years and members have left to form bands such as the Lotus Eaters, who produced a kind of dreamy pop which still had links to their origins. The group retained close ties to the Liverpool scene (and its insistence upon rising above pompous London artists) they’ve worked with bands such as Echo & The Bunnymen. Having split up on a number of occasions, Simpson got them playing again in 2009 and this now brings us to The Coldest Winter For a Hundred Years, released by Occultation Recordings and featuring Bunnymen stalwart Will Sergeant.
This is a delicate pearl which is at the same time soft and melancholic, leaning more towards indie folk sounds with electric interludes than the darkness of the post-punk sound, leaving just its decadent attitude. The opening “Falling to Bits” is ravishing, with the gentle arpeggios of the piano accompaniment. The voice is delicate and demands to be heard because “this town is falling to bits, and I don’t like it”. On “Liquid Mercury” an electric sound pushes its way to the fore and the guitars sketch out a folk-rock made up of peaks and troughs; this is a melancholic track which only begins to leave its mark after many listens. “Chloroform”, meanwhile, is a piece of very elegant Brit-pop, the guitars at the beginning give way to Simpson's expressive vocals which are highly reminiscent of Al Stewart - a very beautiful, intense song. The album continues with a series of acoustic and electric ballads; “English Electric Lightning” is particularly striking with its aching nocturnal visions and heart-warming piano. Things only change with a few interludes such as the syncopated “Underwater” which is rockier and weaker than some of the other tracks. Then eventually we come to slow, atmospheric songs such as “Glow in the Dark”, because “there’s not enough time to get what I want in this world”.
All things considered there isn’t a lot of darkness in this comeback, the dominant colours are the pastel shades of melancholy, the sweetness of remembrance and the restraint of the music and vocals, embracing the hints of electric indie folk. We should be grateful to the Wild Swans for this tender magic, offering us an oasis and some respite from the cynicism all around us.
Luigi Zampi"
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