Thursday, October 27, 2022

Elastica - Cleoptra - Non-Album Tracks (1993-1996)

I really love the mostly female British band Elastica. (The band was made up of three women, who sang, plus a male drummer, who didn't.) They only put out two albums, one in 1995 and the other in 1999, but the 1995 one (simply called "Elastica") is a stone cold classic in my opinion. The key to me is great songwriting, and they had multiple talented songwriters in the band. But there's also something special about lead singer Justine Frischmann's vocals, which are expressive and sexy.

The one frustrating thing for me is that their recorded output is relatively small. After their debut album was a hit, success went to their head. The band members started partying hard and taking lots of drugs, instead of staying focused on the music. They never reached the heights of their debut album again, and broke up in 2001. Frischmann then quit the music business and moved to the US, expressing a desire to "become a nobody." She's been a successful painter ever since.

Luckily, the band has a bunch of songs that never made it onto either of their two studio albums. There are so many that I was able to make two albums of stray tracks for them. This first one is the better one, because it deals with their musical peak around the time of the debut album.

The first song is an unreleased studio outtake. The next seven are B-sides. The ninth song was released on a flexi-disc only, and the 12th is another B-side. The 15th track, "Pull Up the Bumper" is an unreleased studio outtake of a cover of a hit by Grace Jones.

The remaining six songs are all unreleased songs that were only played in concert. They're all pretty good, and they come from very good sounding bootlegs. However, they all shared a sonic flaw, in my opinion, of having the vocals too low in the mix. So I used the X-Minus audio editing program to boost the vocals. I also did that to "Pull Up the Bumper." That's why those seven song have "[Edit]" in their titles.

Most of the songs are original, as far as I can tell, other than "Bumper." But "Cleopatra" and "Paranoid" are also covers.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Cos Cos [Demo] (Elastica)
02 Rockunroll (Elastica)
03 Pussycat (Elastica)
04 Blue [Acoustic Demo] (Elastica)
05 Spastica (Elastica)
06 Gloria (Elastica)
07 Car Wash [Demo] (Elastica)
08 Brighton Rock (Elastica)
09 Cleopatra (Elastica)
10 What I Want [You] [Edit] (Elastica)
11 Keep It on Ice [Edit] (Elastica)
12 Ba Ba Ba [Bar Bar Bar] [Demo] (Elastica)
13 I Want You [Edit] (Elastica)
14 The Other Side [Edit] (Elastica)
15 Pull Up to the Bumper [Edit] (Elastica)
16 Welcome to L.A. [Edit] (Elastica)
17 Paranoid [Edit] (Elastica)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15111397/Elastca_1993-1996_Clptra_atse.zip.html

The cover is a publicity photo from around 1995.

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , ,

9 comments:

  1. Jeff GreensteinOctober 27, 2022 at 9:24 PM

    Thanks so much for this. The holy grail for me has always been their cover of Psycho Killah (sic). Good luck finding it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. jmanOctober 29, 2022 at 1:27 AM

    Thankyou, great stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  3. EZ6October 29, 2022 at 7:52 AM

    Thank you! Great underrated band, surprised they weren't more successful

    ReplyDelete
  4. heartsofstoneOctober 29, 2022 at 7:50 PM

    This looks great. Unfortunately, I am getting the dreaded "The connection for this site is not secure" message. No issue with other downloads. Is anyone else having an issue?

    ReplyDelete
  5. heartsofstoneOctober 31, 2022 at 4:29 AM

    Could I possibly trouble someone for a re-up of this link? I am still having issues. Thanks so much.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. PaulOctober 31, 2022 at 8:40 PM

      Here's some advice:

      If you're having trouble downloading things from my blog, for instance you click on a ZippyShare link and get an annoying ad, I have a few recommendations.

      1) Try right clicking on the link, and opening it in a new window. People say that helps.
      2) Use an ad blocker add on or extension for your browser. That's what I do, and it leaves Zippyshare free of all the crud. Plus, it's a good thing that helps you avoid ads when browsing on the Internet in general. There's a bunch to choose from, and they're generally free.
      3) Use a VPN. That stands for Virtual Private Network. Zippyshare is banned in a few European countries, so this is a way to hide what country you're in. Actually, it's a good (and perfectly legal) thing to do when browsing the Internet in general.
      4) Use the Tor browser. This is a modified Firefox browser with extra privacy features. This is said to work particularly well for people in countries where Zippyshare is blocked.
      5) If all else fails, I also share everything I post on my blog through the music file-sharing program SoulseekQT. It's free, no strings attached, and super easy to use. Just search for the artist and album title, plus "atse" (which stands for "Albums That Should Exist").

      Delete
    2. heartsofstoneNovember 1, 2022 at 9:31 AM

      Thanks so much. And thanks so much for doing so much for all of us.

      Delete
  6. Active ListenerNovember 22, 2022 at 10:18 AM

    This is great - are you planning on publishing the second collection of Menace era stuff that you mentioned? I'd be pretty keen to hear that too.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)