Gomez Announce 20th Anniversary Reissue Of ‘Liquid Skin’
The album shot to Number 2 in the UK Album Chart on its initial release in September 1999.
Mercury prize winning, British band Gomez have announced the 20th anniversary release of their second album Liquid Skin. The band have also shared a previously unheard track from the Liquid Skin sessions called ‘Throwin’ Myself Away’, which you can check out below.
Abbey Road’s Frank Arkwright has delved into the archives to remaster ‘Liquid Skin’ from the original tapes which will be released via Virgin/UMC on 12 July as a special 2CD or 2LP standard & coloured vinyl edition featuring 19 unreleased tracks.
Surrounded by instruments, broken toys and a four-track recorder, Gomez recorded large parts of their debut album Bring It On in a garage in their hometown of Southport. To create its follow-up, Liquid Skin, the group would expand their horizons sonically and geographically, visiting America, an ill-fated English stately home & some of the finest recording studios in the world between 1998 and 1999.
There was no pause between Bring It On and Liquid Skin – the records were released just 518 days apart. “The first album and this one merge into one in a lot of ways. A lot of the tracks were written at the same time” explains singer/guitarist Ben Ottewell. “There’s a song called ‘Bring It On’ on Liquid Skin, which says it all really. They were made very closely together, so it seemed like part of the same process. We were constantly making records”.
As a result, writing and recording for Gomez’s second album did not so much have a definitive start but instead it emerged out of the same creative energy as their debut, although it soon took its own distinctive path.
Gomez’s drummer Olly Peacock commented; “Liquid Skin was the step from the four track and recording in a garage to us accepting – in the most ridiculous way – that we were now doing music professionally. ‘Oh s_t we somehow got our record deal, we are a band and we go to the studio now. We’re not going to be hacking it all together.’ There was an excitement because there were less limitations.”
“We were just using things we had access to… and for this album we had access to an orchestra! We just had a broader palette and we were getting more confident” added Ottewell.
Going to Number 2 in the UK Album Chart on its release in September 1999, Liquid Skin not only justified the label’s faith to allow the band to work how and where they wanted, but it saw the British band crystallize their unique sound & grow audiences in America, Australia and other parts of the world, confirming that their Mercury Prize-winning debut was no fluke.
The new Liquid Skin deluxe 2CD will include 5 previously unreleased tracks, 4 previously unreleased alternate versions and 9 live tracks recorded at The Fillmore in San Francisco in 2000. There will be an accompanying remastered double LP release on black 180g vinyl and a limited D2C transparent edition too.
In support of the release, Gomez have also recently announced a string of special headline dates and festival performances this July such as Latitude, Kendall Calling and London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire. The band also tour Australia and New Zealand later in the year, and will perform both Bring It On and Liquid Skin in their entirety at both the Auckland and Brisbane shows. For details of all the shows, please visit the band’s official website.
Liquid Skin will be released on 12 July. Scroll down to read the full tracklist and buy it here.
CD1: Liquid Skin
‘Hangover’
‘Revolutionary Kind’
‘Bring It On’
‘Blue Moon Rising’
‘Las Vegas Dealer’
‘We Haven’t Turned Around’
‘Fill My Cup’
‘Rhythm & Blues Alibi’
‘Rosalita’
‘California’
‘Devil Will Ride’
Previously unreleased demos:
‘Throwin’ Myself Away’
‘Nobody’s Girl’
‘Someday’
‘Brother Lead’
‘Summer’
CD2: Previously unreleased alternate versions:
‘High On Liquid Skin’ (Demo)
‘We Haven’t Turned Around’ (No Orchestra)
‘Rosalita’ (Kit Version)
‘Las Vegas Dealer’ (Ben Vocal)
Live at The Fillmore, San Francisco, 2000:
‘Hangover’
‘Blue Moon Rising’
‘Rhythm & Blues Alibi’
‘Rosemary’
‘Do’s & Don’ts’
‘Las Vegas Dealer’
‘We Haven’t Turned Around’
‘Devil Will Ride’
‘Bring It On’
‘Gomez In A Bucket’
UK English
