Robert Bloemkolk
Probably one of the reissues of the year. Could be compared to the early Jayhawks but they really were in a category of their own. Should have been a worldwide hit. Bought the vinyl & received this 24 track download. Amazing find.
LP + digital download includes the album and bonus tracks.
30th Anniversary re-issue with sleeve notes by Jon Savage.
"among the best bands of the era" - Shindig Magazine ★★★★
"Life-affirming jangle pop reissued with singles and rarities."- Uncut Magazine 9/10
"As Drop Out continues, it is clear this ten-track album is one of finest spawned by the UK’s independent music scene of the early Nineties." - The Arts Desk (Re-Issue Of The Week)
"For afficionados of that brief MDMA+indie-guitars era, it’s a solid addition to the canon." - The Arts Desk.
Includes unlimited streaming of Drop Out
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 5 days
Purchasable with gift card
£30GBPor more
Streaming + Download
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
£10GBP or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
30th Anniversary re-issue with sleeve notes by Jon Savage.
Limited edition double disc CD edition
"among the best bands of the era" - Shindig Magazine ★★★★
"Life-affirming jangle pop reissued with singles and rarities."- Uncut Magazine 9/10
"As Drop Out continues, it is clear this ten-track album is one of finest spawned by the UK’s independent music scene of the early Nineties." - The Arts Desk (Re-Issue Of The Week)
"For afficionados of that brief MDMA+indie-guitars era, it’s a solid addition to the canon." - The Arts Desk.
Includes unlimited streaming of Drop Out
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 5 days
Purchasable with gift card
£15GBPor more
LP + Circles 7"
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
HVNLP3 • LP + Bandcamp exclusive 'Circles' 7" - The long out of print 7” Circles b/w Here It Comes (HVN6).
+ digital download includes the album and bonus tracks.
Includes unlimited streaming of Drop Out
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
30th Anniversary reissue with sleeve notes by Jon Savage
Released on January 12th, 2024.
Limited edition vinyl and a special double disc CD edition via Heavenly Recordings.
HVNLP3 + HVN6 • LP + Bandcamp exclusive 'Circles' 7" - The long out of print 7” Circles b/w Here It Comes.
HVNLP3 • LP + digital download includes the album and bonus tracks.
HVNLP3CDX • includes digital download and bonus tracks.
Note to potential record buyers outside of the UK: Drop Out is being distributed globally so please check in with your local record shop before paying out for expensive shipping from the UK.
"Jangly Byrdsian melancholy was back in vogue for a spell, and the recordings of London groups East Village, led by brothers Paul and Martin Kelly, help place them among the best bands of the era."
"The best of the songs 'Back Between Places,' 'Cubans in The Blue Fields' - still sound like some wonderful amalgam of the Postcard label and The Jam at their most introspective, the sturdiness to East Village's approach helping steer them clear of their more shambling contemporaries." - Shindig Magazine ★★★★ -
"Shipwrecked is impossibly romantic...there's real heft on Silver Train and Black Autumn." - Mojo Magazine ★★★★ -
"For afficionados of that brief MDMA+indie-guitars era, it’s a solid addition to the canon." - The Arts Desk -
•••
An autumnal treasure, East Village’s Drop Out has spent the past thirty years finding new ears to bewitch and new hearts to melt. The only album from this British four-piece, recorded and released in the early nineties, it’s long been considered one of the hidden jewels of its time, and is talked of with hushed reverence by people who know. Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne once called it “an elegy for a particular brand of eighties guitar music, sweet minor chords and Dylanesque lyrics”, which captures what makes it so special; in summarising its era, though, it also effortlessly transcends it.
Like all great guitar gangs, East Village fell together as a four-piece; having relocated from High Wycombe to London in mid ‘80s, brothers Martin and Paul Kelly on bass and guitar, set on forming a group together, were joined by John Wood (guitar) and Spencer Smith (drums). Wood and the Kellys shared writing and vocal duties; it was an ideal combination, and one of the many charms of East Village is their various song writing voices, a tip of the hat, seemingly, to the 60s folk-rock groups who influenced them.
Originally influenced by garage-rock and freakbeat, the band eventually came through via the same scene as groups like Felt, The Go-Betweens, The Weather Prophets, and Primal Scream. They’d formed as Episode Four, releasing an EP, Strike Up Matches, in 1986, which has gone on to become one of most sought after releases of the C86 era. Their first two singles as East Village, ‘Cubans In The Bluefields’ (1987) and ‘Back Between Places’ (1988), were released on Jeff Barrett’s Sub Aqua label.
When it came time to record Drop Out, East Village found a supporter in Bob Stanley, who bankrolled the album sessions until Barrett re-signed the band to his new imprint Heavenly Recordings in 1990. The album that took shape is dusky, heartfelt, lamplit, full of chiming minor chords, close harmonies, rattling organs, all buoyed by a rhythm section that moves as one, steady and elegant. There’s melancholy here, certainly, on songs like ‘What Kind Of Friend Is This’, but also pleasure and freedom, on ‘When I Wake Tomorrow’ and ‘Silver Train’. The group were obsessed with Dylan’s Eat The Document at the time, and the album’s rich with references to the film; Drop Out’s character is also somehow close to the thin wild mercury sound of Blonde On Blonde, and the lambent light of the Byrds’ Notorious Byrd Brothers.
In one of life’s gentler surprises, ‘Silver Train’ became an unexpected radio hit in Australia when released there as a single in 1993. The story of East Village seems marked by such unexpected turns and surprising events. None was more surprising for their fans at the time, though, than their onstage split in 1991, leaving an unreleased album in the can. Encouraged by Jeff Barrett the band revisited the tapes two years on and while mixing the album for its posthumous release in 1993 invited Debsey Wykes (Dolly Mixture, Coming Up Roses, Saint Etienne, Birdie) to sing the quietly devastating album closer, “Everybody Knows”, a perfect, sad-eyed sign-off.
Listening now to Drop Out, its timelessness is clear. It could have been recorded by young folk-pop hopefuls in the late sixties, taking their shot at the big time; but it could just as easily have been recorded yesterday, by a group that’s both reverent to music’s past, but forward looking in spirit and temperament. It’s that kind of album. Drop Out’s pop poetry is fully formed, with a singular charm that takes in wistfulness, romance, and good times, and a clutch of deeply moving songs that are overflowing with melody and gracefulness. It’s pretty much everything you’d want from a guitar pop record.
It's also an album that’s slowly accrued its own legend. From its stunning cover art, photographed by Juergen Teller originally for a Katherine Hammett campaign, to the ten perfectly formed songs within, Drop Out’s significance in the scheme of things is such that, a decade ago, it was given a rare 10/10 rating in Uncut magazine, who called the album “the lost classic of its era”. Drop Out comes round every decade or so, each edition introducing new fans to its understated beauty, and this latest reissue is its most elegant and deluxe yet.
The 30th anniversary edition of Drop Out lands in two formats: an LP with tip-on style jacket and four-page insert, designed to partner with the 2019 vinyl reissue of their singles and rarities compilation, Hot Rod Hotel; and a double CD, featuring an extra disc compiling the group’s early singles and alternative versions. This CD edition previously has only been available in Japan, though it now features a new, superior mix of their second single, ‘Back Between Places’. Both feature new, typically eloquent liner notes from writer Jon Savage.
The members of East Village have all gone on to do inspired things: Martin Kelly joined Jeff Barrett at Heavenly and has managed label mainstays Saint Etienne since 1993; Paul Kelly formed Birdie with Debsey Wykes, and is now a renowned film director and graphic designer; both Paul and Spencer Smith played in Saint Etienne’s live band; John Wood moved to China to teach, and released a lovely, understated folk album, Quiet Storm, in Japan in 2006. But with the hazy perfection of Drop Out, they’ve all already etched their names in the firmament.
What a joy to find this on bandcamp, having missed out on the vinyl rerelease. I'd only heard Strawberry Window prior to this, but I love that song and have done since first hosting it on Radio Scotland, back in the late 80s. This is exactly my kind of music, layered, anthemic guitars and great melodies. At times, it brings to mind another great lost band, The Train Set. Fabulous stuff. richardw27
The metal’s band revelatory new record crosses genres and styles, effortlessly combining seemingly incompatible subgenres. Bandcamp Album of the Day Apr 26, 2024
The greatest to ever do it, do it again! Sometimes lush as a warm blanket, sometimes all the angles of a dance party, always suspended in and out of time _hopskipjump
