ParlophoneA new five-CD David Bowie box set called Conversation Piece, featuring rare home demos and other recordings from 1968 and ’69, as well as two mixes of the late rock legend’s 1969 self-titled album, will be released on November 15.
The new collection includes all of the tracks that have appeared on the vinyl Bowie box sets that have been released this year in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of “Space Oddity.” There are also additional rare late-’60s recordings, plus 1969 and 2019 mixes of the David Bowie album, which was reissued in the U.S. in 1972 as Space Oddity.
Among the tracks featured on Conversation Piece are home demos, BBC radio sessions and studio recordings made by Bowie solo, with guitarist John “Hutch” Hutchinson, and with David’s experimental mime and performance group Feathers.
The new mix of the Space Oddity album adds the song “Conversation Piece,” which was originally omitted due to the time constraints of vinyl at the time. The track’s updated mix is available now digitally.
“It was so much fun to find hidden gems of musicianship with more time to mix the second time around,” producer Tony Visconti says of the new mix.
Among those gems, Visconti says, are “a guitar twiddle here, a trombone blast there, [T. Rex frontman] Marc Bolan‘s voice in a group choir and more detail in general that we overlooked all those years ago when the label gave us a week at the most to mix this album.”
The 2019 mix of Space Oddity will also be released separately on CD, digital formats and vinyl. A limited-edition colored-vinyl version will randomly feature either a silver or gold disc.
The Conversation Piece box set will also be available digitally.
Here’s the track list of the CD version of the collection:
CD 1: Home Demos
“April’s Tooth of Gold”*
“The Reverend Raymond Brown (Attends the Garden Fête on Thatchwick Green)”*
“When I’m Five”*
“Mother Grey”
“In the Heat of the Morning”
“Goodbye 3d (Threepenny) Joe”
“Love All Around”
“London Bye, Ta-Ta”
“Angel Angel Grubby Face” (Version 1)
“Angel Angel Grubby Face” (Version 2)
“Animal Farm”*
“Space Oddity” (Solo Demo Fragment)
“Space Oddity” (Version 1)+
“Space Oddity” (Version 2)+*
“Space Oddity” (Version 3)+
“Lover to the Dawn”+
“Ching-a-Ling”+
“An Occasional Dream”+
“Let Me Sleep Beside You”+
“Life Is a Circus”+
“Conversation Piece”*
“Jerusalem”*
“Hole in the Ground”#*
CD 2: The ‘Mercury’ Demos
“Space Oddity”+
“Janine”+
“An Occasional Dream”+
“Conversation Piece”+
“Ching-a-Ling”
“I’m Not Quite (aka Letter to Hermione)”+
“Lover to the Dawn”+
“Love Song”+
“When I’m Five”+
“Life Is a Circus”+
CD 3: Conversation Pieces (Mono)
“In the Heat of the Morning” (Decca Mono Version)
“London Bye, Ta-Ta” (Decca Alternative Version)
BBC Top Gear Radio Session with the Tony Visconti Orchestra, recorded May 13, 1968
“In the Heat of the Morning”
“London Bye, Ta-Ta”
“Karma Man”
“When I’m Five”
“Silly Boy Blue”
“Ching-a-Ling”
“Space Oddity” (Morgan Studios Version – Alternative Take)+*
“Space Oddity” (U.K. Single Edit)
“Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud” (Single B-side – Mono Mix)
“Janine” (Mono Mix)
“Conversation Piece”
BBC Dave Lee Travis Show radio session, recorded October 20, 1969
“Let Me Sleep Beside You”
“Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed”
“Janine”
CD 4: David Bowie, a.k.a. Space Oddity — 1969 Stereo Mixes
“Space Oddity”
“Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed (including ‘Don’t Sit Down’)”
“Letter to Hermione”
“Cygnet Committee”
“Janine”
“An Occasional Dream”
“Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud”
“God Knows I’m Good”
“Memory of a Free Festival”
The Extras
“Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud” (Single B-side Stereo Mix)
“Letter to Hermione” (Early Mix)*
“Janine” (Early Mix)*
“An Occasional Dream” (Early Mix)*
“Ragazzo Solo, Ragazza Sola” (Full Length Version)
CD 5: Space Oddity — 2019 Mixes (all previously unreleased)
“Space Oddity”
“Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed”
“Letter to Hermione”
“Cygnet Committee”
“Janine”
“An Occasional Dream”
“Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud”
“Conversation Piece”
“God Knows I’m Good”
“Memory of a Free Festival”
The Extras
“Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud” (Single Version)
“Ragazzo Solo, Ragazza Sola”
* = previously unreleased track
+ = with John “Hutch” Hutchinson
# = with George Underwood
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