Pitchfork: Gang of Four to Re-Record Band's Classics for New Album

Gang of Four to Re-Record Band's Classics for New Album

From here, Gang of Four's influence over the last quarter-century of music looks incalculable. Spoken/shouted vocals, disco punk, minimalist funk, punk-funk, jagged guitars, dance rock-- all phrases you're probably quite used to reading on your favorite music website, whatever website that might be. Ten years ago, listeners who still cared about the Gang of Four had their illusions shattered by a pair of poorly-received reunion albums (Mall and Shrinkwrapped). Now, half of this decade's buzz bands cite them as an influence; it was only a matter of time before the post-punk pioneers took a crack at their own legacy, and they'll do just that when V2 releases Whitey's Gift on September 20.

Featuring the original lineup of Andy Gill, Jon King, Dave Allen, and Hugo Burnham (who have not recorded together since 1981's Solid Gold), Whitey's Gift is a collection of re-recordings of some of the band's classic songs. In the UK, some copies will be sold with a second disc containing remixes and covers of the Gang of Four songs done by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Ladytron, Hot Hot Heat, the Dandy Warhols, the Others, Amusement Parks on Fire, Faultline, the Rakes, Phones, Go Home Productions, and Tony Kanal of No Doubt, but no details on who's tackling what have come out yet. Disc One tracklist:

01 Not Great Men
02 To Hell With Poverty
03 Damaged Goods
04 I Love a Man in a Uniform
05 Natural's Not in It
06 Ether
07 Paralysed
08 What We All Want
09 Why Theory?
10 Anthrax
11 At Home He's a Tourist
12 Capital
13 He'd Send in the Army
14 We Live as We Dream, Alone

In October, V2 will release a separate U.S.-only remixes/covers record that will contain some tracks that were on the UK bonus disc and some that weren't. So far the only live date we've heard about for any of this is a gig at the Barbican in London on September 24, at which the band will perform Entertainment straight through as a sardonic comment on the commodification of art. At least, we hope that's why they're doing it.

href="http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/g/gang-of-four/entertainment.shtml">Gang of Four: Entertainment!
href="http://pitchforkmedia.com/news/05-04/01.shtml#gang">Gang of Four to Reissue Entertainment!
* Gang of Four: http://www.gangoffour.us

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