Just spotted this:

https://www.uncut.co.uk/news/felts-second-five-albums-reissued-september-106366#1uLzGGxPOpKHO5Ya.01

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The second instalment of Felt's 'A Decade in Music' reissue series has been confirmed for September 14.

It comprises remastered and in some cases re-sequenced versions of the band's second five albums: Forever Breathes the Lonely Word, Poem of the River, The Pictorial Jackson Review, Train Above the City and Me and a Monkey on the Moon, originally released between 1986 and 1989.

Each album will be re-released on vinyl and CD, with the CD versions coming in a bespoke 7" box, complete with a 7" vinyl single pertaining to the relevant year of release, plus reproduction gig flyers, double sided wall poster and button badges.

The main alterations to the originals are for Poem of the River, on which two Robin Guthrie mixes have been replaced by the original Mayo Thompson mixes, and The Pictorial Jackson Review, whose tracklisting has been rejigged to include the songs Tuesday's Secret and Jewels are Set in Crowns instead of Sending Lady Load and Darkest Ending.

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The first part of that last paragraph is wrong, as Robin Guthrie only ever produced the last Cherry Red album, Ignite the Seven Cannons. Poem of the River was all Mayo Thompson. The second half of the paragraph is more interesting. So the instrumentals are coming off The Pictorial Jackson Review, to be replaced by a b-side (Tuesday's Secret, from the Space Blues single) and a title with which I'm not familiar. Unless Jewels are Set in Crowns is a re-titled but familiar track, this might be one from the vaults!

That is all very interesting... thank you!

Note that it says Robin Guthrie mixes. Unless the article is wrong it's not impossible that Guthrie had been called in to remix tracks on Poem, considering that Lawrence has always bemoaned the production of the album and that he was still working with Guthrie in 1987 (he produced the Final Resting single later that year).

The prospect of an unreleased track is exciting. Messing with the rest of the Pictorial Jackson tracklisting is not.

I doubt very much that it'll be an unreleased song. I'm pretty sure Lawrence has gone on record a few times saying that there is no unreleased Felt stuff. It'll more than likely be a song we already know but with its name changed.

Has anyone who bought the first 5 CD boxes changed their mind about getting these 5? I have!

Isn’t Jewels are Set in Crowns the Denim song Ape Hangers? Only four years early...

That seems to be correct... According to the bootlegs section of the discography, "Jewels are set in crowns (Ape hangers)" is listed as having been played live in Hamburg, 1987.

And Robert, one interesting fact.
Lawrence disbanded Felt in 1989 and said back then (and still nowadays) that he would reform Felt or play Felt tracks.
But the fact is, Ape Hangers IS A FELT SONG, released later with Denim, but nevertheless, a Felt song. Composed by Lawrence and played by the band.

Did LH really say he'd reform Felt? I thought he was always adamant that he wouldn't. If ever he did they'd mostly have to play post Deebank Felt music, as he'd be hard pressed to find a guitarist who could play the first five year catalogue of songs and instrumentals.

I'm guessing that Rui meant to type "wouldn't reform" there.

ahah! thanks for the correction Robert. It was a typo, Nigel, sorry.
In portuguese "to reform" means to put aside, to be inactive.
Cheers

Maurice, there's nobody I could think of, save perhaps Richard Lloyd, who could even get near your performances on those records.

hukjgh - Me too. I bought the first 5 CD boxes but am disappointed with the remastering. Whilst the overall sound is cleaner (and louder) the guitars seem to have lost their texture and the warmth and depth of the earlier cherry red CDs is gone.

Cherry Red is notorious for bad (re)masterings. Just simply LOUD. They compress all the subtlety out of a recording... Actually, this has been the general trend for the past 20 years. We have the best sound reproduction capabilities today but the worst sounding recordings. Louder is simply not better. It's actually worse.

Treasure your original releases. I do.

re the "Guthrie mixes" - he definitely mixed "Declaration".....this is Lawrence's quote from my interview with him in 2003.....

"The beginning of 'Declaration' is ridiculous! The regular engineer had been working on bands during the week. It was the middle of the night and he was tired, so he set his 16 year old son loose on it. Afterwards, we took the track to Robin Guthrie's new studio. He said, 'I knew you were in a fix, so I saved these as best I could, but if you credit me for this, I'll kill you!'"

Thanks Lee... I knew I'd read something about Guthrie being involved with this album.

In the same interview he mentioned that "declaration" and "silver plane" replaced "when the dawn starts creeping in" and an early version of " I can't make love to you anymore" - it's a pity that they didn't make it to this latest release. We can only get a studio version of "when the dawn" from the still unreleased Andy Kershaw session.

I'm against reissues in general. I hated it when Swans reissued White Light.Of course, I bought the last round of Felt reissues, but that was more of a question of availability.

But are any of these reissues worth it? I mean, really worth it? I object to ******* around with tracklisting, but if I get to hear something really different from the tracks that are already engraved on my brain then I may just go for it.

The reissues are very much worth it for anyone who wants to buy Felt records in 2018.

For those of us who are already fans, two of the albums are worth checking out... The remixing on Ignite the Seven Cannons has uncovered layers of instrumentation you may be surprised to hear. And the changes to Pictorial Jackson Review have re-made a lesser album into something arguably better.

I've long thought that they were overpriced, and that the CD+7" combo, with the vinyl albums only available as standalone products is a mismatch. Should have been vinyl box sets with the the posters, badges etc, and CD versions of the albums available on their own for about a tenner.

But I saw the first five boxes in the Notting Hill Music Video Exchange a couple of weeks back for £18, and I'd got £40 in exchange for what I was offloading, so I picked up the first four (I don't like Snakes/17th Century, no amount of remastering will change that).

They are all very nice to own, but there's nothing to make me think I should buy any more of the series. Actually found it quite galling that the Mexican Bandits 7" is two songs on vinyl that are also on The Splendour of Fear (same versions as far as I can tell).

The remastered albums sound great, but not to a point where it would change my mind about any one song or album. I didn't think they sounded bad before.

I had forgotten how much I like Strange Idol, and Crumbling wasn't as good as I remembered.

The best of the singles was My Face is On Fire, which I'd only previously owned as an MP3 (from this site?). And that was paired with The Splendour of Fear, which is by far my favourite Felt album. If I lost them all, that's the only way I'd replace like for like (and even then I'd baulk at the price)