XTC - Skylarking (2016 Steven Wilson Mix)

The 1986 masterpiece Skylarking is an album unlike anything else in XTC's back catalogue. Produced by Todd Rundgren, dense orchestrations and a more organic soundscape were deployed in servicing some of the band's most melodically rich and sophisticated songs.

XTC's most commercially successful album was, for many years, also its most mythical with tales of "lost" multi-track tapes (sadly true of other XTC albums but not this one), and a song originally dropped from the album only to be replaced when it inadvertently became a hit single in the USA. A perfect match, on paper, between the ideal Britpop band a decade before the term was invented and an Anglophile super-producer that turned rather imperfect in personality terms but still resulted in a classic album.

This heavyweight vinyl edition produced by Ape House in 2024 and features the 2016 Steven Wilson remix. Lacquers cut by Jason Mitchell At Loud Mastering.

TRACKLISTING:

1. Summer's Cauldron
2. Grass
3. The Meeting Place
4. That's Really Super, Supergirl
5. Ballet for a Rainy Day
6. 1000 Umbrellas
7. Season Cycle
8. Earn Enough for Us
9. Big Day
10. Another Satellite
11. Mermaid Smiled
12. The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul
13. Dear God
14. Dying
15. Sacrificial Bonfire