Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth

In their short lifetime, Young Marble Giants (Alison Statton and brothers Stuart and Phil Moxham) released one album, a handful of singles and a Peel Session; the album, 1980's acclaimed Colossal Youth, is one of the most definitive records of the post punk era. Taking the unprecedented step of making their first ever release a long player certainly paid off. Colossal Youth became a parallel soundtrack to the unsteady stabs of the post punk early eighties, and quickly became one of (the then nascent) Rough Trade Records best sellers. Becalmed, resigned and a little tense, it created a new vocabulary for song.

Since its release the sound of Colossal Youth has seeped into the vocabulary of personal music. Young Marble Giants made the abstract immediate and the introspective warm and natural. Their influence can be heard in every generation of indie and post-punk music that followed, and there is something almost canonical about the album's use of voice, muted instruments and space. Colossal Youth's attention to sparse detail is now a modus operandi for haunted electronica auteurs and spectral singer-songwriters alike, but ultimately, only the Young Marble Giants sound like Young Marble Giants.

1. Searching for Mr. Right
2. Include Me Out
3. The Taxi
4. Eating Noddemix
5. Constantly Changing
6. N.I.T.A.
7. Colossal Youth
8. Music for Evenings
9. The Man Amplifier
10. Choci Loni
11. Wurlitzer Jukebox
12. Salad Days
13. Credit in the Straight World
14. Brand - New - Life
15. Wind in the Rigging

1. THIS WAY
2. POSED BY MODELS
3. THE CLOCK
4. CLICKTALK
5. ZEBRA TRUCKS
6. SPORTING LIFE
7. FINAL DAY
8. RADIO SILENTS
9. CAKEWALKING
10. ODE TO BOOKER T
11. HAVE YOUR TOUPEE READY
12. N.I.T.A.
13. BRAND - NEW - LIFE
14. ZEBRA TRUCKS
15. CHOCI LONI
16. WIND IN THE RIGGING
17. THE MAN SHARES HIS MEAL WITH HIS BEAST
18. THE TAXI
19. CONSTANTLY CHANGING
20. MUSIC FOR EVENINGS
21. CREDIT IN THE STRAIGHT WORLD
22. EATING NODDEMIX
23. ODE TO BOOKER T
24. RADIO SILENTS
25. HAYMAN
26. LOOP THE LOOP

LP pressed on heavyweight vinyl; double-CD includes the original album plus the FINAL DAYS single, TESTCARD EP and SALAD DAYS album; both formats include extensive liner notes by Simon Reynolds.