His Name Is Alive: Home Is in Your Head (remastered) [4AD]

Why you'll love it

Warren Defever remastered this edition himself at Third Man Mastering. The album grew from his home four-track tapes, mixed by 4AD's Ivo Watts-Russell and John Fryer into one of the label's dreamiest records.

This edition

• Remastered by Warren Defever at Third Man Mastering

About the album

Twenty-three titles on one LP sounds like a packing problem, but His Name Is Alive dealt in hazy fragments as much as songs. Defever built the pieces at home, then let 4AD shape them at Blackwing Studios, and the result drifts like a radio slowly tuning between stations.

Karin Oliver and Denise James sing, Defever, Melissa Elliott and Jymn Auge layer guitars (pencil guitar included), and Damian Lang adds drums and what the credits call a rainmaker. "There's Something Between Us And He's Changing My Words" covers a song by Defever's earlier band Bone Machine, "Her Eyes Were Huge Things" and "Mescalina" shimmer, and "Sitting Still Moving Still Staring Outlooking" later turned up in Jerry Maguire. Vaughan Oliver and v23 designed the sleeve.

Stay put after "Dreams Are Of The Body": following a moment of silence, a demo called "The Other Body" begins, and it stops exactly when the tape ran out. That's one way to settle an argument about running order.

Also at Kops: more His Name Is Alive on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On 4AD (cat# 4AD0410LP), a reissue of the 1991 album.