Today, Pale Saints announce an expanded reissue of their 1992 album In Ribbons, featuring previously unreleased demos and two reworks by The Tintwistle Band.  Missing its original release date last year due to Covid delays and production plant woes, the record, which Pitchfork named one of The Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time, is finally getting the 30th Anniversary celebration it deserves with a special double LP / CD release.

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“An album of such sulky charisma that Option magazine crowned the co-vocalists ‘the Glimmer Twins minus the heroin.’”
- Pitchfork (The 50 Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time)

“Pale Saints’ command of dynamics — their ability to build up layers of sound, knock them down, and put them together again in a slightly different and satisfying fashion — is all over In Ribbons.”
- Brooklyn Vegan

“Meriel Barham’s and Ian Masters’ voices complement one another beautifully, wandering in and out of the songs’ moody yet warm glow.”
- SPIN

Today, the band has shared a previously unreleased demo of 'Kinky Love'.  You can watch in the player above or here. 

The first disc features the UK version of the album with the second featuring a bonus disc of never before heard demos that include their first attempt at Slapp Happy’s ‘Blue Flower’ and Ian Masters’ rare 4 track recording of their beloved Nancy Sinatra cover ‘Kinky Love,’.  Additionally, the bonus disc features two brass band versions by The Tintwistle Band (previously only heard on a limited, bonus 7” with the initial UK LP pressing). 

Arriving in a beautiful gatefold sleeve, the limited double LP edition is being pressed on unpigmented vinyl by The Vinyl Factory in West London. A single disc, black vinyl version is also being released, as well as a double CD edition.

The 1990 debut album from Pale Saints, The Comforts of Madness, is an outstanding record that owed as much to post-punk and L.A.’s Paisley Underground scene than it did to shoegaze. Shortly after its release, Lush founding member Meriel Barham joined the Leeds trio of Ian Masters, Graeme Naysmith and Chris Cooper, as a second live guitarist, bringing a new dynamic to the band.

Having previously worked on their Flesh Balloon EP (1991), producer Hugh Jones (Echo & The Bunnyman, Modern English, The Sound) did a brilliant job capturing their second album, In Ribbons (1992), despite some studio tensions.

A year after Pale Saints released In Ribbons, Ian left the band: “I had to leave the band as my arms had become too long.” Drafting in former Heart Throbs bassist Colleen Browne, Pale Saints recorded another album for 4AD (Slow Buildings, 1994), before calling it quits. Meanwhile, Ian formed a duo, Spoonfed Hybrid, with Chris Trout of A.C. Temple, releasing a self-titled album in 1993 on 4AD’s short-lived sub-label, Guernica, which is also scheduled to be re-released soon.

Pale Saints - In Ribbons Expanded 30th Anniversary Reissue
4AD0407

A1  Throwing Back The Apple
A2 Ordeal
A3  Thread of Light
A4  Shell
A5  There Is No Day
A6  Hunted

B1  Hair Shoes
B2  Babymaker
B3 Liquid
B4  Neverending Night
B5  Featherframe
B6  A Thousand Stars Burst Open

C1  Babymaker (Demo) 
C2  Kinky Love (Demo) 
C3  Hair Shoes (Demo) 
C4 Shell (Demo) 
C5 Hunted (Demo) 
C6 Featherframe (Demo) 

D1 Blue Flower (Demo) 
D2 Throwing Back The Apple (Demo) 
D3 Ordeal (Demo) 
D3 Untitled Instrumental (Demo) 
D4 A Thousand Stars Burst Open
(Tintwistle Band Version) 
D5 A Revelation
(Tintwistle Band Version)