WAITS’ ENTIRE METAMORPHIC AND GROUNDBREAKING MID-PERIOD ISLAND RECORDS STUDIO CATALOG NEWLY REMASTERED FROM ORIGINAL TAPES
REISSUE SERIES PERSONALLY OVERSEEN BY TOM WAITS AND KATHLEEN BRENNAN
BONE MACHINE AND THE BLACK RIDER FOLLOW RECENT RELEASES OF TRANSFORMATIVE TRILOGY: SWORDFISHTROMBONES, RAIN DOGS AND FRANKS WILD YEARS
ALL REMASTERED ALBUMS ALSO AVAILABLE ON CD AND DIGITAL VIA ISLAND/UMe
Los Angeles – October 6, 2023 – Following the recent releases of Tom Waits remarkable, transformative trilogy of Swordforfishtrombones (1983), Rain Dogs (1985) and Franks Wild Years (1987), his epic song-cycle, Bone Machine (1992) and the Waits (with Robert Wilson and William S. Burroughs) musical fable, The Black Rider (1993), are now available on vinyl for the first time in the U.S. and most of the world. All albums have been newly remastered from the original tapes for release, which are also available on CD and for streaming and download via Island/UMe. The remastering process and reissue series has been personally overseen by Tom Waits and longtime songwriting and production partner, Kathleen Brennan.
The records are available in two vinyl options: 180-gram black vinyl and a limited edition color variant available exclusively via TomWaits.com and UDiscover Music. The Black Rider is on opaque apple red vinyl and Bone Machine is on translucent milky clear vinyl. Swordfishtrombones is on canary, Rain Dogs on opaque sky blue, Franks Wild Years on opaque gold vinyl.
Purchase or stream the albums here: https://tomwaits.lnk.to/IslandVinylReissuesPR
The reissues of Waits spectacular middle-period albums – released on Island Records between 1983 and 1993, coincide with the 40th anniversary of Swordfishtrombones and the 30th anniversary of The Black Rider, which were both in September, and celebrates this acclaimed musical era for Waits and Brennan which was ushered in with their transformative creative breakthrough, Swordfishtrombones.
All albums were mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering under the guidance of Waits’ longtime audio engineer, Karl Derfler. Swordfishtrombones was sourced from the original EQ’ed ½” production master tapes while Rain Dogs, Franks Wild Years, Bone Machine and The Black Rider were sourced from the original ½” flat master tapes. Bellman meticulously transferred the tapes and then remastered the audio in high resolution 192 kHz/24-bit. The lacquers for all titles were cut by Alex Abrash at AA Mastering. The new vinyl editions include specially made labels featuring photos of Waits from each era in addition to artwork and packaging that has been painstakingly recreated to replicate the original LPs, which have been out of print since their initial release. Surprisingly, The Black Rider and Bone Machine were never released on vinyl outside of Europe and make their vinyl debut in most of the world.
These critically acclaimed works are a monument to an artist’s ability to break through into new creative territory.
Waits went from ‘70’s-era noir romantic wordsmith and melodist with seven albums behind him to sound sculptor, miner of the subconscious, abstract orchestrator, sonic cubist—while retaining his innate lyricism, melodic invention, humanity. A rough analogy: Picasso switching from exquisite literal depictions to pouring his brain and id out onto canvas. Waits was still painting, in other words, but the frames were made of blood and bone and feathers and old carburetors.
Working with experimental composer Francis Thumm, and taking inspiration from the music of found-object composer Harry Partch—plus Waits’ friend, Captain Beefheart—the renowned singer-songwriter reinvented his sound, album by album.
As he put it in a 1983 interview: “I tried to listen to the noise in my head and invent some junkyard orchestral deviation—a mutant apparatus to drive this noise into a wreck collection.”
Not that Waits’ early albums were devoid of artistic progression. There were the piano-based jazz-folk ballads of his remarkable debut, Closing Time (just remastered for its 50th anniversary), the beat/jazzy/smokey flavor of Nighthawks at the Diner, the piano-bass-sax-drums sagas of the landmark, Small Change, the experimental tone poem, “Burma Shave,” on Foreign Affairs, the grit and grunge of the stripped-down Heart Attack And Vine… All this would stand alone as a great body of work if the man had never written another note.
But with Swordfishtrombones and the albums that followed, Waits shifted gears, or rather, deliberately ground them. New York Times music critic Stephen Holden wrote: “Miles away from the (music) he used in the ‘70s to evoke the wrong side of the tracks, his evolved style is an abrasive, lurching honky-tonk that at its most adventurous suggests a fusion of Captain Beefheart’s Dadaist extensions of the delta blues with the Kurt Weill of ‘Threepenny Opera.’”
THE BLACK RIDER:
The Black Rider, Waits’ next project after Franks Wild Years, is an extraordinary melding of the art of three extraordinary persons: Waits, experimental director Robert Wilson, the late legendary writer, William S. Burroughs. (Note: The Black Rider music was written in 1988-89, recorded in ’89 and ’93, and the Waits album was released in ’93.)
Based on the 19th century German/Bohemian folk tale of a young clerk who makes a deal with the devil (“Der Freischütz,” famously an 1821 opera by Carl Maria Von Weber), The Black Rider is Waits at his most surreal, playful, musically gnarled. Think: 1929 Berlin cabaret meets “Frankenstein” if F.W. Murnau movie sets could sing. This two-and-a-half-hour musical fable (Wilson calls it an opera) premiered March 31, 1990, at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, Germany, and is still part of standard repertory in Europe. Waits did not sing or appear in the production, which featured a cast of eleven (Marianne Faithful played “Pegleg”—the devil—in a 2004 Wilson world-touring revival), and has been extensively staged in the U.S., Canada, Australia.
Wilson—famed for staging Philip Glass’s opera, “Einstein On the Beach,” sought Waits out to write the BlackRidermusic, and most of the lyrics. Burroughs contributed words to three songs, and wrote the book. Waits moved to Hamburg to compose in collaboration with his longtime bassist, the multi-instrumentalist, Greg Cohen, and Gerd Bessler of The Music Factory studios.
Explained Wilson in an interview: “I love to hear Tom Waits sing. His deep interior sense of music touches me and moves me deeply.”
As for Waits, it was an offer he couldn’t refuse: “Wilson’s stage images,” he said at the time, “had allowed me to look through windows into a dusting beauty that changed my eyes and my ears permanently.”
The weird and madcap musical fruit of this venture was half recorded in Hamburg in ‘89, and half at Prairie Sun Recording Studios in Cotati, Calif. Critics seemed confused, with notable exceptions like Rolling Stone, who wrote: “Its songs offer the morbid excitement of a ride on a decrepit old Tilt-a-Whirl,” with “dark and wickedly funny melodies.” The New York Times said The Black Rider “evokes a playful union of German Expressionism and Japanese Kabuki with American vaudeville, musical comedy and silent-movie clowning.” In 2020, the album spawned a doctoral thesis at the University of Michigan by one Jacob Arthur.
The Black Rider is a nearly hour-long rabbit hole of grim narratives, hellacious carnival barking, fragile ballads, the eerie declamation of Burroughs poetry recited by both the author and Waits, and instrumentals. The “house band,” dubbed “The Devil’s Rhubato,” makes liberal use of horns, viola, cello, oddball keyboards, train whistle, contrabassoon, and sinister bass clarinet. The flavor of the music falls between the extremes of the poignant serenade, “The Briar and the Rose,” and Burroughs’ spooky “Tain’t No Sin,” which features a lyric that inspired Waits’ overall approach to the project:
“’Tain’t no sin to take off your skin / And dance around in your bones… ”
BONE MACHINE:
Bone Machine was, to borrow a cliché, a smash—released in 1992 to universal critical acclaim, followed by a GRAMMY® for Best Alternative Music Album. Waits co-wrote half of the album’s sixteen works with Brennan, and special guests included David Hidalgo, Les Claypool (bass), and Keith Richards (who co-wrote “That Feel.”)
Recorded in Prairie Sun Studios in Cotati, Calif.—described by Waits as “just a cement floor and a hot water heater”—the album was a radical redesign of Waits’ soundscapes and writing technique. The songs weren’t composed—they sound more forged, hammered, chiseled, bent. Waits and Brennan seem to have conjured the record out of dirt, cracked pavement, broken tree branches, and bird song. Their move to a rural area of Northern California heavily influenced the ideas and music of the record.
Some of the press: Musician: “a raw-boned masterpiece.” New York Times: “Nothing short of breathtaking.” Rolling Stone: “Rich with spiritual longing.” Chicago Tribune: “bursts with color and emotion.” Billboard: “One of the finest records of the year.” Washington Post: “His finest album.” Melody Maker: “Ragged glory.” New Musical Express: “Scary, mournful, morbid and easily one of Tom’s best.” Select: “Tom Waits’ supreme achievement to date, his ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude.’”
“Bone Machine” is a sound-sculpture of clattering sticks, rusted farm equipment, choking demons, newspaper clippings, thundering stomps, Biblical myths, phantoms, marching skeletons, madmen, murders, lost friends, little kids, and a little rain. It is a clutch of prayers and short stories and protests and tragedies. The music grabs you by the collar, shakes you around, strokes your head, drops you in a ditch, laughs up its sleeve, tickles, bitches, and comforts. There is righteous indignation (“The bald headed senators / Are splashing in the blood. . .”) and world weariness (“I’m not all I thought I’d be / I always stayed around. . .”) and devastating journalism (“She was fifteen years old /And never seen the ocean /She climbed into a van / With a vagabond /And the last thing she said / was ‘I love you mom’…”)
Waits called the songs on Bone Machine “little movies for the ears.” He sometimes wrote them entirely from a percussion pattern, which he played on an array of largely homemade instruments. One, the “conundrum,” was essentially a large iron crucifix with crowbars and found metal objects hanging off of it. As Tom explained at the time, “I have a lot of very strong rhythmic impulses, but this is not my world. I just pick something up and I hit it, and if I like the sound, it goes on. Sometimes my idiot approach serves the music.”
Mortality is a recurrent theme, from “Dirt In The Ground” (“We’re all gonna be. . .”) to “All Stripped Down,” “The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me” (a tale of contemplated suicide), “Jesus Gonna Be Here,” the rambunctious paean to childhood, “I Don’t WannaGrow Up,” and certainly the broken-hearted, confessional classic Waits ballad, “Whistle Down The Wind,” which was beautifully covered by Joan Baez on her titular 2018 album. Waits explained at the time: “Yeah, ultimately, it will be a subject that you deal with. Some deal with it earlier than others, but it will be dealt with. Eventually we’ll all have to line up and kiss the devil’s arse.”
The press wrote that this was Waits’ first album in five years, but in point of fact, he had been extremely busy since Franks Wild Years with many projects, large and small—from writing and half-recording The Black Rider to the evocative, mostly-instrumental album soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch’s film, “Night on Earth” (1992, Island Records). Bone Machine further established Tom as one of the most inventive and prolific artists of our time, and presaged even more daring music to come.
THE BLACK RIDER
VINYL
Side A
Lucky Day Overture
The Black Rider
November
Just The Right Bullets
Black Box Theme
‘Tain’t No Sin
Flash Pan Hunter/Intro
That’s The Way
The Briar And The Rose
Russian Dance
Side B
Gospel Train/Orchestra
I’ll Shoot The Moon
Flash Pan Hunter
Crossroads
Gospel Train
Interlude
Oily Night
Lucky Day
The Last Rose Of The Summer
Carnival
CD/DIGITAL
Lucky Day Overture
The Black Rider
November
Just The Right Bullets
Black Box Theme
‘Tain’t No Sin
Flash Pan Hunter/Intro
That’s The Way
The Briar And The Rose
Russian Dance
Gospel Train/Orchestra
I’ll Shoot The Moon
Flash Pan Hunter
Crossroads
Gospel Train
Interlude
Oily Night
Lucky Day
The Last Rose Of The Summer
Carnival
BONE MACHINE
VINYL
Side A
The Earth Died Screaming
Dirt In The Ground
Such A Scream
All Stripped Down
Who Are You
The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me
Jesus Gonna Be Here
A Little Rain
Side B
In The Colosseum
Goin’ Out West
Murder In The Red Barn
Black Wings
Whistle Down The Wind
I Don’t Wanna Grow Up
Let Me Get Up On It
That Feel
CD/DIGITAL
The Earth Died Screaming
Dirt In The Ground
Such A Scream
All Stripped Down
Who Are You
The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me
Jesus Gonna Be Here
A Little Rain
In The Colosseum
Goin’ Out West
Murder In The Red Barn
Black Wings
Whistle Down The Wind
I Don’t Wanna Grow Up
Let Me Get Up On It
That Feel
SWORDFISHTROMBONES
VINYL
Side A
Underground
Shore Leave
Dave The Butcher
Johnsburg, Illinois
16 Shells From A 30.6
Town With No Cheer
In The Neighbourhood
Side B
Just Another Sucker On The Vine
Frank’s Wild Years
Swordfishtrombone
Down, Down, Down
Soldier’s Things
Gin Soaked Boy
Trouble’s Braids
Rainbirds
CD/DIGITAL
Underground
Shore Leave
Dave The Butcher
Johnsburg, Illinois
16 Shells From A 30.6
Town With No Cheer
In The Neighbourhood
Just Another Sucker On The Vine
Frank’s Wild Years
Swordfishtrombone
Down, Down, Down
Soldier’s Things
Gin Soaked Boy
Trouble’s Braids
Rainbirds
RAIN DOGS
VINYL
Side A
Singapore
Clap Hands
Cemetery Polka
Jockey Full Of Bourbon
Tango Till They’re Sore
Big Black Mariah
Diamonds And Gold
Hang Down Your Head
Time
Side B
Rain Dogs
Midtown
9th & Hennepin
Gun Street Girl
Union Square
Blind Love
Walking Spanish
Downtown Train
Bride Of Rain Dog
Anywhere I Lay My Head
CD/DIGITAL
Singapore
Clap Hands
Cemetery Polka
Jockey Full Of Bourbon
Tango Till They’re Sore
Big Black Mariah
Diamonds And Gold
Hang Down Your Head
Time
Rain Dogs
Midtown
9th & Hennepin
Gun Street Girl
Union Square
Blind Love
Walking Spanish
Downtown Train
Bride Of Rain Dog
Anywhere I Lay My Head
FRANKS WILD YEARS
VINYL
Side A
Hang On St. Christopher
Straight To The Top (Rhumba)
Blow Wind Blow
Temptation
Innocent When You Dream (Barroom)
I’ll Be Gone
Yesterday Is Here
Please Wake Me Up
Franks Theme
Side B
More Than Rain
Way Down In The Hole
Straight To The Top (Vegas)
I’ll Take New York
Telephone Call From Istanbul
Cold Cold Ground
Train Song
Innocent When You Dream (78)
CD/DIGITAL
Hang On St. Christopher
Straight To The Top (Rhumba)
Blow Wind Blow
Temptation
Innocent When You Dream (Barroom)
I’ll Be Gone
Yesterday Is Here
Please Wake Me Up
Franks Theme
More Than Rain
Way Down In The Hole
Straight To The Top (Vegas)
I’ll Take New York
Telephone Call From Istanbul
Cold Cold Ground
Train Song
Innocent When You Dream (78)