Exorcising Ghosts

Product Information

Japan’s 1984 compilation Exorcising Ghosts will be reissued as a half-speed mastered 2LP vinyl set, in October. The album was compiled and produced in consultation with lead singer David Sylvian, two years after Japan dissolved. I used to have this on vinyl and it includes all their best known material from 'Quiet Life', 'Ghosts' and 'Night Porter' to the less familiar but equally brilliant 'Other Side of Life'. It also gives a good idea of what the band were about by including a couple of interesting instrumentals - A Foreign Place the Quiet Life b-side in particular sounds really good here. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

David Sylvian and Mick Karn etc produced some great songs during their time together and this CD encapsulates that period brilliantly. Unfortunately, what was true in Japan was not true in the UK; therefore, the album's promotion, mentioning 'unreleased tracks', was incorrect for the domestic market, attracting criticism at the time.

If you are expecting to hear a comprehensive collection of all the band's chart singles then I'm afraid you will be disappointed; similarly, because this is a truncated version of the original vinyl LP which featured 16 titles, other devoted fans of the group will be annoyed. It must be mentioned that the selection of tracks was most definitely geared towards the Japanese market, with a large proportion of tracks previously unavailable on an album in that country.

Mastering on LP1 was warm but a bit murky (vocals), however the instrumentation definitely did seem crisper and more detailed - just a shame neither copy were playable throughout. And while I was always a bit dismissive of this compilation because I had all of the tracks, listening to it now, it's really well sequenced - it flows really well. As to fit the album onto a single disc, the original CD release omitted five of the sixteen tracks; "Swing", "A Foreign Place", "Taking Islands in Africa", "Sons of Pioneers" and "Voices Raised in Welcome, Hands Held in Prayer".It’s notable for a few song variations, including the 1981 remix of ‘Taking Islands in Africa’ and the extended version of ‘The Art of Parties’.