Upcoming Seefeel Reissues From Warp Records

Seefeel — who pioneered a blend of shoegaze textures, ambient dub, and techno beats back in the early ’90s — have announced that their various mid-’90s recordings for Warp and Rephlex are all getting reissued.

The Seefeel releases that are getting reissued include two albums, Succour (1995, Warp Records) and (Ch-Vox) (1996, Rephlex) and two EPs, Starethrough and Fracture/Tied (both released by Warp Records in 1994). The band is also making available 22 bonus tracks, many of which are previously unreleased. All of the material has been mastered from the original DAT transfers by Pole’s Stefan Betke.

The various reissues can be ordered as individual releases or in a single box set titled Rupt and Flex.

It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to any of Seefeel’s Warp output (though their debut album, Quique, is in pretty common rotation here at Opus HQ). But even a cursory listen to these songs reveal them to be a good bit more surreal and abstract than Quique.

Songs like “Meol,” “Utreat (Complete),” and “Ch-vox” are largely beatless affairs, with drifting, alien tones that have far more in common with Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II than, say, My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. And when the beats do arrive on a song like “Extract” or “Hive,” they still have a strange, alien aspect to them — as if Seefeel were composing mixes for a party at V’Ger’s own personal discothèque. Meanwhile, “Starethrough” and “Spangle” hearken back to the “traditional” Seefeel sound, thanks to Sarah Peacock’s ethereal voice and dubby basslines — but in a more stripped down and skeletal form.

All of the Seefeel reissues will be released on May 14, 2021 by Warp Records, but you can pre-order them today.