Photo by Jo Harvey Allen, 1974.
Since long before PoB was even a twinkle in our collective Paradisiacal Eye–back when we were actual bachelors–two albums always have enjoyed pride of place as our ultimate holy grail reissues. These perennial favorite LPs have been never far from our turntables and whiskey glasses, and in our estimation, they’re two of the most important songwriter albums ever recorded: Terry Allen‘s genre-defying art-country classics Juarez (1975) and Lubbock (on everything) (1979).
So we are thrilled, humbled, and frankly still a bit awed, to announce our authoritative legacy editions of both albums, beginning with Juarez on May 20, and following with Lubbock in the fall. These are without a doubt the most extensive, detailed, and deluxe reissue projects we’ve undertaken to date, and we’re damn proud of the results.
We can–and have–discoursed endlessly about these albums and Allen’s fascinating career, but for now let us offer a brief introduction to Terry and his debut album Juarez. If you haven’t yet experienced these life-changing records, we envy you. Each contains worlds.
PRE-ORDER JUAREZ:
$10.00 – $42.00
Other ways to purchase this release: iTunes | Amazon | Bandcamp
Legendary Texan artist Terry Allen occupies a unique position straddling the frontiers of country music and visual art; he has worked with everyone from Guy Clark to David Byrne to Lucinda Williams, and his artwork resides in museums worldwide. Widely celebrated as a masterpiece—arguably the greatest concept album of all time—his spare, haunting 1975 debut LP Juarez is a violent, fractured tale of the chthonic American Southwest and borderlands.
Produced in collaboration with the artist and meticulously remastered from the original analog tapes, this is the definitive, deluxe edition of the art-country classic: the first reissue on vinyl; the first to feature the originally intended artwork (including the art prints that accompanied the first edition); and the first to contextualize the album within Allen’s fifty-year art practice.
Please stay tuned for more information about Lubbock (on everything), which will be available later in 2016. As Terry says, “Today’s rainbow is tomorrow’s tamale.”
The LP, pressed on 140g virgin vinyl, features a heavy-duty tip-on expanded gatefold jacket, printed inner sleeve, download code, and 24 pp. album-scale book with related artwork, lyrics, and essays by Dave Hickey, Dave Alvin, and PoB. The CD edition features scale replica gatefold jacket, inner sleeve, and 48pp. book. Digital edition includes a PDF liner note booklet. More details here.
Pre-orders include an immediate 320k MP3 download of the remastered “Cortez Sail,” which the good people at NPR Music’s Songs We Love have premiered here.
We anticipate shipping pre-orders about a week in advance of the May 20 release date.
With Juarez, Allen conjures a still-Wild West, at once romantic and grotesque, nourishing and mystical… It’s a dialogue between the freedom to move, to flee, to choose one’s destination, and the power to dominate — or the powerlessness of being dominated. The juxtaposition of such notions makes human agency feel vital, tenuous and jealously guarded indeed. The fact that Allen isn’t the least bit hung up on being linear or realistic in his telling of these tales make them all the more riveting.
– Jewly Hight, NPR Music’s Songs We Love
People tell me it’s country music, and I ask, “which country?” – Terry Allen
Mr. Allen’s magic strength is that he can keep two or more big ideas in the air at once, juxtaposing them without explicitly merging them until they kind of belong together: sex and real estate, love and colonization, greed or guilt… He’s pretty close to a master lyricist. – The New York Times
Allen’s songs extract strangeness from the known world and use it as a means of acquiring greater knowledge. – The New YorkerHis catalog, reaching back to 1975’s Juarez, has been uniformly eccentric and uncompromising, savage and beautiful, literate and guttural. – Rolling Stone
Nobody else does country music like Terry Allen… There’s not a wasted word or extraneous musical lick. – Los Angeles Times
He’s one of the last wild geniuses left who hasn’t been commercialized by the media. For 50 years, he’s sung neo-honky-tonk art songs in a thick-tongued Lubbockian drawl that makes Waylon Jennings sound as patrician as William F. Buckley Jr. – Observer.com
A masterpiece, one of the great songwriter records. It stands equal with classics like Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks and Newman’s Good Old Boys, and it stands equal (or above) any made in the decades since. – Dave Alvin
The single greatest concept album of all time. – PopMatters
Grounding high art. It will stay with you like a tattoo. – Richard Buckner
A vortex of sex and violence. – David Byrne
One of the more fascinating country albums of its time, like Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger as reimagined by Tarantino. – AllMusic
Throw Lynch’s violent masterworks Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart in a blender with Burroughs’s Naked Lunch, and you’re getting warm. – Houston Press
