The first thing I ever heard by Arab Strap was their final release that coincided with their breakup. Bollocks!! Ever since then, I’ve been picking up albums and singles and trying to complete my collection. I found out about this fantastic box set while looking for the Girls of Summer EP, which is among the countless treasures found in this box. Here’s what you get: five LPs containing the first two fantastic albums, The Week Never Starts Around Here and Philophobia, as well as a two-LP collection of the first two Peel Sessions, rare tracks (that, with the Singles CD included here, make the expensive/rare Japan-only Singles CD unnecessary to track down) and a brand new song that the duo reunited to complete just for this box. You get a cassette repro of the demo that got them signed to Chemikal, in all of its lo-fi goodness. And there’s another CD with two full concerts, both recorded for the Peel show, including their first ever gig in full! The song “Gilded” from this show is pretty quick and rough for an Arab Strap song and was included on their farewell album, and that drunken energy is unleashed here. What a fantastic live band. And lastly, there’s a data disc included that gives MP3s of all of the vinyl and cassette only portions of this box. Having the Peel Sessions and the rare tracks digitally is great, but the best part is hearing the demo in full whenever I want to. And as if that’s not enough, there’s a SURPRISE! file on the disc that includes the other five bedroom demos not ever released before! Plus plenty of reading material in poster-form of clippings from the era collected here from local Falkirk papers, plus the autographed and numbered (out of 1000!) card from Malcolm and Aidan, well, you’d have to be completely knackered to not think this is a great find. If you love the emotional, out-there, thick-brogued Strap, then you’d be mental to pass this up. (Chemikal Underground, www.chemical.co.uk) Patrick Michalishyn
Winnipeg music & culture since 1989