Kill Rock Stars will revisit their 2006 Delta 5 CD compilation Singles and Sessions 1979-81 with a vinyl and cassette release due out this November. The label reports they have pressed 200 limited edition copies to baby blue vinyl, with classic black also available. Additionally, there is an option on cassette, and all come with a poster, Bandcamp streaming access, as well as downloads.
Part of the UK’s fertile post-punk movement in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Delta 5 hailed from Leeds. At the time, the scene centered around the Leeds’ University Art Department and local bands like Gang of Four and The Mekons were garnering buzz and attention. Originally an all-female trio that included guitarist/vocalist Julz Sale, bassist Ros Allen, and bassist/vocalist Bethan Peters, the band might have formed “on a lark” but their funk-driven bass attack and feminist politics soon earned them a place in the thriving local scene.
The original trio would go on to add guitarist Alan Riggs and drummer Kelvin Knight, who also played for a spell with Gang of Four during Hugo Burnham‘s absence. This affiliation would turn out to be a boon when Gang of Four donated some of their studio time during the recording of Entertainment! to the young band. Delta 5 would go on to record the singles “Mind Your Own Business” and “Now That You’ve Gone” while the Gang played a 1979 gig in Camden with Madness and The Specials.
Recalling the experience in a recent Bandcamp write-up for Singles and Sessions 1979-81, Alan Riggs explains:
“”You” was supposed to be the first recording but it wasn’t happening so we changed tack and recorded both songs in about 8 to 10 hours. We had only been together a few months and done about 3 or 4 gigs by this time.”
Rough Trade would release “Mind Your Own Business”/”Now That You’ve Gone” in December of 1979 and John Peel would go on to play a pre-release copy of it twice in one night. He would also invite the band into the studio to record and the February 1980 sessions yielded tracks like “Delta 5,” “Make Up,” “Anticipation,” and “You.” With Peel as their champion, the quintet was “off and running” gigging around the UK and Europe with Gang of Four, as well as bands like Echo and the Bunnymen, B52s, Teardrop Explodes, U2, and Pere Ubu to name a few.
The band would return to work with John Peel in September of 1980 and Kill Rock Stars’ Singles compilation includes the track “Triangle” from the session. That month the band would also travel to the United States touring along the East and West Coast. Singles and Sessions features a tour stop at the Berkeley Square in Berkeley, CA yielding the live tracks “Shadow,” “Circuit,” and “Journey.” Also included here are the cuts “Try” and “Colour,” recorded back in the UK in October of 1980 with the Bad Manners’ horn section, as well as the songs “Innocenti,” “Train Song,” “Final Scene” and “Singing The Praises” recorded with the British broadcaster Richard Skinner in July 1981.
Delta 5’s only full-length See The Whirl’.., released by PRE Records in 1981, includes many of the tracks on Singles and Sessions, but the album’s clean production style was not a hit either critically or commercially. Reflecting on the Rak Studios effort, Alan Riggs says the band “experimented quite a bit on the album” before explaining, “…the session versions included here are more a reflection of how we were live as they were all recorded quickly in one or two takes.” Indeed, Singles and Sessions captures Delta 5 at their best. There’s a palpable energy to these recordings and the fact that they had to be done quickly only seems to fuel the band’s urgency.
