Martina Topley-Bird’s ‘Quixotic’ Getting Expanded Vinyl Reissue
Topley-Bird’s 2003 debut was nominated for the UK’s prestigious Mercury Prize.
Quixotic, the acclaimed debut album from Martina Topley-Bird, will soon be reissued on vinyl. On Sept. 6, Craft Recordings and Independiente will release an expanded 2xLP version of the album in a gatefold sleeve, featuring the original tracklist plus three B-sides and an alternate mix of lead single “Sandpaper Kisses.” The release will also be available digitally.
Originally released in the UK on July 13, 2003, Quixotic was widely hailed as a triumph. The album was shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Prize, honoring the best album released in the UK and Ireland each year. Mojo praised it as a “sensual, endlessly inventive record,” while Q described the Quixotic experience as “beyond human” and Pitchfork wrote that “Topley-Bird’s voice continues to be a strange and beautiful thing.”
Quixotic saw limited US release in 2004 under the name Anything, but the new reissue will be its first physical Stateside release under the Quixotic name. This release also brings Quixotic to vinyl for the first time in any territory. The album features contributions from Queens Of The Stone Age members Josh Homme and Mark Lanegan, DJ and composer David Holmes, and trip-hop pioneer Tricky, Topley-Bird’s longtime collaborator and a founding member of Massive Attack.
A decade before Quixotic, Tricky discovered Topley-Bird, then a teenage student at Bristol’s Clifton College, singing to herself while sitting on a wall near his home in Bristol. She introduced herself to the world with extensive appearances on Tricky’s groundbreaking 1995 debut Maxinquaye—also nominated for the Mercury Prize—earning widespread praise for her atmospheric vocal performance.
Topley-Bird continued working closely with Tricky on subsequent releases Nearly God, Pre-Millennium Tension, and Angels With Dirty Faces. She has since collaborated with Massive Attack, Gorillaz, Common, Diplo, and The Prodigy. In 2011, The Weeknd interpolated Quixotic’s “Sandpaper Kisses” on “The Birds Pt. 2” from one of his early star-making mixtapes, Thursday.
