World Party has confirmed the April 10th release of Arkeology: a massive, 5 CD collection of 70 never-before-heard tracks packaged in a unique Any Year Diary for fans personal use. Spanning the bands 25-year history, Arkeology is at once a new albumwith songs finished as recently as 2011and an unreleased, unheard history of rare studio gems, live sessions, concert recordings, radio interviews, covers, demos and B-sides.
As much a throwback to the 60s rock that World Party leader Karl Wallinger grew up loving as it is a reinvention of it, Arkeology showcases some of Wallingers strongest work to date. New songs like Waiting Such a Long Time (2008), Everybodys Falling in Love (2011), and Photograph,a sprawling piano anthem recorded over a period of seventeen years (1994 to 2011)are more evidence of Wallingers already-known talent for writing infectious pop hooks.
The entire collection is packaged in the Any Year Diary, a 142-page, full-color day calendar for fans personal use that features rare photos, clips of articles, and World Party memorabilia from Wallingers personal archives, as well as his notes and commentary about various shows and recordings. The reason its all inside an any-year diary, Wallinger says, is because I just got so sick of the CD packaging. Im glad the whole CD format is dying, but I really didnt want to put something out that was only digital.
Arkeology also provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse at Wallingers quirky humor and love of studio experimentation with several genre-bending demos, some recorded as early as 1985. A pitch-shifted, effects-heavy rendition of What is Love All About (from 1993s Bang!) for instance, wouldnt be out of place on a contemporary R&B record. And live versions of familiar hitsincluding an ascendant crowd sing-along of Ship of Fools from Boulder, CO in 1998, and fan favorites like Love Street from 2006s Bonnaroo Festivalcapture the band at some of its finest moments.
Formed in 1986, as Wallingers solo project, (previously of cult heroes The Waterboys), World Party has amassed a collection of hit singles over its history, including “Ship of Fools”, “Put the Message in the Box,” “Is It Like Today?” and the chart-topping “Way Down Now,” while contributing to movie soundtracks for Reality Bites and Clueless. In recent years, Wallinger has taken World Party to the stages of Bonnaroo, Bumbershoot, San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and elsewhere.
World Party on the web:
http://www.worldparty.net/
