This CD is basically a re-release of Clan of Xymox's self-released 5 track EP from 1984 with 6 additional demos of songs from their full-length debut album. The recordings are a bit rough and less produced than their later incarnations due to the fact that the EP was recorded on a 4-track portastudio and the other demos were recorded on 8-track. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The raw quality of the songs actually seems to add a sense of life and immediacy to the songs.

"Going Round", which was later re-recorded in rock/industrial form for 1997's Hidden Faces album, appears here as a wonderful dark synthpop track that, in my opionion, far outshines its later incarnation. The 3 songs that were never re-recorded are all excellent and fit seemlessly into the band's classic early catalogue.

The 6 demos that would later be re-recorded for their self-titled album are all excellent. "a day" carries all of the urgency and emotion of it's later incarnation in a somewhat more subdued mix. The production on "no words" adds a notably different melancholy atmosphere to the song that is absent in the later album version. "stranger" is a bit more straightforward here, with some excellent electronic bits that wouldn't make it into the final version. I actually the majority of these six demos better than their album counterparts.

If you're a fan of early Clan of Xymox, don't miss out on this one. It's a definite gem!

For devoted fans of Clan of Xymox the early version of Muscoviet Musquito is quite an enjoyable listen, the song was re-recorded for the 4ad Lonely is An Eyesore compilation and until this release the only other way to get a hold of this song other than the initial pressing was by purchasing a now defunct magazine called Abstract. The rest of the album (well I had forgotten about mining used records bins for this little gem many years ago)

Thank you for making this record available to the rest of us.

This album is probably mainly for Clan of Xymox die-hards. The music was recorded on very primitive equipment and therefore some might not actually like this record for it's apparent harshness. Still if you've got spare cash and want this CD there should be nothing to stop you from it - Enjoy

It's the best CD of Clan of Xymox because it's unique. The others albums of the band are similar with the majority of the others dark-gothic-pop (or something like this) bands. So, this CD has an atmosphere that you'll never find again! The question of quality of the sound is, in this case, irrelevant. É o relançamento de uma raridade (há anos procuro) que nos leva de volta a um som que há muito foi abandonado pela própria banda.