Alongside contemporaries such as Pylon, R.E.M and the B-52’s, art rock pioneers Love Tractor helped found and define the sound of Athens’ ’80s alternative music scene. Following a hiatus that began in the early ’90s, Love Tractor returned in 2001 with their fifth album, The Sky At Night, and is currently in the process of recording a sparkling new album. In the meantime, the band has been chipping away at reissuing its catalogue, starting with its self-titled debut last fall, and with 1983’s Around the Bend and 1986’s This Ain’t No Outerspace Ship in the works for next year.
Today, the band shares “Hey Mess (Brendan O’Brien Mix)” off of the expanded, remastered reissue of Themes From Venus, the band’s fourth album originally released in 1988.
“We tried to demo this song a couple of times and we could not get it quite right,” says the band. “It all came together for us when we went to Mitch Easter’s Drive-In Studio back in 1987, and the final product is the second song on side two of Themes from Venus. This alternate mix by Brendan O’Brien is also quite good. There are a few noticeable differences, can you spot them? For the ending of the outtake version, we did a power cut similar to what Emerson, Lake & Palmer did on their song ‘Knife-Edge.’ For the power cut ending, we simply cut the power on the song and the song slowly dies, in slow motion.”
The reissue of Themes From Venus is scheduled to be released via Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records on Nov. 19. Available digitally and on CD and vinyl, the album includes liner notes by Mitch Easter, Peter Buck of R.E.M., Bob Nastanovich of Pavement and music journalist Annie Zaleski. Keep up with the band on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Bandcamp.
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