Graham Crabb and Adam Mole celebrate 40 years of Pop Will Eat Itself as project PWEI.40 - with a mammoth new release, an unlikely cast of collaborators and four exclusive live appearances.
“So, me ’n Crabbi had this idea… collaboration.”
One year on from that conversation, PWEI.40 resurfaces from the vaults clutching four decades of sonic noise pollution, hell-bent on revisiting, restructuring, regurgitating and generally bastardising its own back catalogue.
Forty years of designer chaos, radical innovation and a continuing determination to push boundaries, seek new places and further our own brand.
LIFE BEGINS @ PWEI.40
Tracks subjected to the treatment include 1000 X No, Get the Girl, Kill the Baddies, There Is a Psychopath in My Soup, Mother, Dance of the Mad, I'm Sniffin' with You Hoo, 88 Seconds & Still Counting and Bulletproof.
Along for the joyride are Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire), Brian Tatler (Diamond Head/Saxon), Meryl Streek, Karl Willetts (Bolt Thrower/Memoriam), Rachel Mayfield, Fluke and Clams Baker (Warmduscher).
There's a reimagining of Wasted Youth's I Wish I Was a Girl, alongside Ken Scott and Rocco Barker, plus two brand-new PWEI tracks — something we originally intended to avoid, until we got carried away.
I Don't Wanna Dance features Vita from THR0B, discovered at Bearded Theory and subsequently pestered into collaboration. Night Shift Riot features blistering guitar from Mark Gemini Thwaite (The Wonder Stuff/Peter Murphy).
But wait. There's more.
A bonus vinyl collection of lost treasures and unearthed gems features recordings never before officially released on a physical PWEI product, accompanied by extensive sleeve notes from Adam Mole and Paul Snell.
A special 7-inch single sees Ich Bin Ein Ausländer reimagined by original PWEI member Clint Mansell and Los Angeles experimental hip-hop outfit clipping., featuring Sara Taylor (Youth Code) and Sharon Udoh.
And the love affair continues with Ian Anderson and The Designers Republic, providing another iconic sleeve design nearly four decades after four starry-eyed grebos from the Black Country first wandered into Sheffield's FON Studios wondering how to get into all this technology shit.
Now Crabb and Mole take PWEI.40 on the road for four exclusive live appearances.
Forty years on, still dismantling the machinery, making a racket and occasionally wondering who's responsible.
Expect the unexpected.
