Beggars Arkive – The Bolshoi – ‘Friends’ Reissue Announced

“Trevor Tanner’s songs scraped away at the surface of suburban normality to uncover the darkness beneath, and he knew how to deliver a bombastic powerchord and reverb drenched riff.” – Q Magazine

“The Bolshoi’s strength lies not only in the clever use of knobs and strings and keys and things, the juxtaposition of profanity and purity, innocence and lies, but also in the dank, darkly secret passages of their will.” – Melody Maker

Released on The Beggars Banquet label in 1986, Friends, the debut record by The Bolshoi has been out of print for more than 30 years. Today Beggars Arkive are excited to announce a new reissue, pressed on white vinyl, releasing on 12 July.

The original tracks have been remastered by Sean Magee at Abbey Road. Sean is celebrated for his remastering work for artists such as The Beatles, The Ramones, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Tina Turner and The Sex Pistols.

Based in London, the band consisted of Trevor Tanner (vocals, guitar), Nick Chown (bass), Jan Kalicki (drums), and Paul Clark (keyboards). With powerful live shows The Bolshoi built a substantial following before disbanding in 1988. Debut album Friendscontains some of the band’s best known work, including hits ‘Sunday Morning’ and ‘Away’.

Often categorised plainly as goth, The Bolshoi were different. Their songs were dark and subversive, but on debut album Friends – they combined genres and styles to find a sound which was entirely their own. Whilst Trevor Tanner oozed dark, pensive lyrics, he was backed up by inventive pop-goth guitar, the band were nearly impossible to categorise.

FRIENDS TRACK LISTING:

A1. Away

A2. Modern Man

A3. Someone’s Daughter

A4. Sunday Morning

A5. Looking for a Life to Lose

B1. Romeo In Clover (Call Girls)

B2. Books on the Bonfire

B3. Pardon Me

B4. Fat And Jealous

B5. Waspy

About Beggars Arkive

Beggars Arkive is the catalogue and archive department for past and present Beggars Group labels and artists. Beggars labels include 4AD, Matador, Rough Trade, XL Recordings and Young, they also handle legacy labels including Beggars Banquet, too pure, Wiiija, Situation Two and more. Beggars began in 1977 and has over 40 years of catalogue to work with. The utmost care is given to sound quality, artwork and occasionally some very fancy packaging.

Over the last ten years, Beggars Arkive have reissued albums by Bauhaus, Gary Numan, The Cult, The Fall, Pixies, Cocteau Twins, The Mortal Coil, Freeez, Buffalo Tom, The Charlatans and many, many more. Beggars Arkive releases are done in full cooperation with the artists, oftentimes with them leading the charge. The Arkive itself is also a physical archive space, containing a wealth of Beggars Group musical and visual history. The Arkive as a label are continually working on maintaining, growing and cataloguing the archive, now a great source of materials and a perfect space for research.