M+M/Martha and the Muffins - The World Is a Ball (Expanded)

[profil]

The last of their 80's albums has been finally re-released as a 30th Anniversary Edition remastered and expanded with 4 bonus tracks.
3 versions of the album's single "Song In My Head" (12" Dance + Dub Mix and 7" Single Mix) and the B-Side "Riverine".

Available at CDBaby - like their other fantastic early 80's albums "Danseparc" and "Mystery Walk".
Both albums include as bonus tracks all the respective 12" versions and B-Sides. Which leaves only the 7" versions of "Black Stations / White Stations" and "Cooling the Medium" to be unreleased on CD - as far as I know.

https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/marthaandthemuffins4

[postpunkmonk]

Yeah, they funded this remaster with a PledgeMusic campaign a couple of months ago. The CD is wonderful; one of my favorite of their albums, and well mastered, but the bonus tracks are not perfect. The band forgot an early "basement version" of "Only You" and enabled it as a DL for pledgers. Also, the B-side from "Someone Else's Shoes" CAN 7" was not included. The track, "Million Dollars" was an early version of the song that eventually showed up on their next album in 1992. Still, this was a title I waited 30 years for the CD, so I can't say I'm too disappointed in the two tracks not being there. I'm happy to see that the CD is widely available past their pledge campaign [unlike China Crisis, grrrr.] The PledgeMusic price was $21, not too bad. The $12.95 on CD Baby probably does not include shipping from Canada, so it wasn't too much of a premium to pay. I m happy to kick in a bit extra for this band.

[Rubellan]

I read that the CD has been heavily brickwalled, which doesn't surprise me because Mystery Walk was squashed and had some bad tape hiss reduction applied to delicate parts that ruined it. I preferred the One Way 2-fer. I used to own The World Is A Ball LP but parted with it many years ago. I liked a couple songs but it was clear the sounds of Trance and Dance, as well as This Is The Ice Age were long gone.

[omar]

I downloaded it from Amazon today. Yes, it does seem a little loud but not as loud as Mystery Walk.