Beaucoup Fish - 4 CD Remastered Deluxe Box Set (8/25/2017)

[pandamagic]

I realize that mostly I've been griping in this thread about what's missing from & disappointing about this reissue, so I thought I'd focus on what's great about it. After all, they didn't have to reissue this album & dig up the unreleased tracks so it does feel a bit entitled to turn around and complain that it's not perfect. That other UK electronic duo, Boards of Canada, are quite happy to leave all their unreleased music sealed up in a vault forever so any generosity on UW's part is appreciated.

Nifter - quite nice to hear the Please Help Me lyrics in a clearer form. I enjoy how bare and stripped down this is compared to more dense stuff like Kittens and Moaner.

King of Snake Garage Mix - this is a lot of fun, especially the bass line that comes in at 2:36 that sounds very "late 90s dance music" to me. also nice to hear the lyrics in a non-shouty way for a change.

Something Like a Mama Alt Mix - the original has always been my favorite track off Beaucoup Fish so hearing this is a bit of a revelation. Even better would be to have an ambient version with just those lovely, evocative chords.

Ramajama - as many have accurately noted, this is the best of the unreleased tracks on disc 2 for sure. It's a bit odd that this didn't end up on any of the BF singles, since after Please Help Me there weren't any further (non-remix) bonus tracks from that era. That fade-out is a little abrupt and unceremonious, though, even for a demo.

As for the remixes on the other 2 bonus discs, there's several that I'm glad to finally have in better quality, namely Dave Angel's King of Snake and Adam Beyer's Push Upstairs mix 2. Both Futureshock mixes are solid. The Roger S Push Upstairs dub mostly just makes me want to listen to the superior, vocal version. The Sugar Hit mix of Jumbo is great but a bit frustrating to listen to since it starts fading out during an especially lovely bit and you know it's supposed to go on for another minute and a half. The Bungalow mix of King of Snake would have been great here too, and there would have been plenty of room for it. I'm assuming the original master for that would have been easier to track down than, say, those Italian KoS remixes. A missed opportunity for sure. But oh - I forgot I'm not supposed to be complaining here.

The Micronauts mix of Bruce Lee has long been my favorite version of that track and I've played it out DJing many times over the years, though usually my own 6:50 long edit version. The Buffalo Daughter remix - I did spend a bit of $ getting the Japanese Bruce Lee cd single back in the day just to get this track, and I remember finding it okay but a little inconsequential and so it made me wonder if the expense had been worth it.

The remaster job on the album is fine but also a bit unnecessary since the original master was fine to begin with. I made the decision to not buy the physical box set this time around (after having bought the first two) since the somewhat perplexing choices made on the bonus discs soured my impression of the whole thing a little bit. Though I'm a big fan of the art direction from this era so maybe I'm regretting my decision a tiny bit now. The BF album and singles may be my favorite design scheme for any release campaign ever (though Depeche Mode's Violator era releases are a very close second.)

One thing that I've realized about Beaucoup Fish now that I'm revisiting it is how much I hate the ending of Kittens. It never bugged me that much before but now it just seems like such a cliche, pompous, "ta-da!" kind of ending, like something that Jean Michel Jarre would do at the end of one of his millennium Pyramid concerts or something like that.