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ROSE MCDOWALL confirms Don’t Fear the Reaper RSD 12” plus headline performance at Monorail’s RSD celebrations‏

March 13, 2015
Gilbert Blecken

Gilbert Blecken

ROSE MCDOWALL
(Of Strawberry Switchblade/The Poems/Sorrow)

Returns with new 12″ single, Don’t Fear The Reaper

Headline dates at Monorail in Glasgow for RSD & London’s St Pancras Old Church in May

Rose McDowall’s trajectory from punk provocateur to chart-subverting pop star to underground neo-folk legend has been one fraught with strain and adventure. Night School Records is attempting to tell the story of Glasgow’s wayward daughter through a schedule of reissues and unreleased material. Saturday 18th April – Record Store Day 2015 – sees the first fruit of this collaboration, an official release of the unapproved 12” single, a cover of Blue Öyster Cult’s ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’. Listen below…

To celebrate its release, Rose will be headlining Monorail’s RSD celebrations in Glasgow.

Originally waxed by McDowall in 1988 the track has been remastered and re-edited by legendary engineer and selector Sean Pennycook for 2015.

McDowall’s clear-as-crystal vocal performance sails above a latin-flavoured disco beat with the original’s doomy chord changes revitalized into a shiny, gloriously hedonistic brew. Accompanied by “Crystal Days” – an original track that featured on McDowall’s self-released “Cut With The Cake Knife” demos. On the flip Sean P cuts up the original Reaper into an Italo-ized disco re-edit before the instrumental plays out.

McDowall’s treatment of Don’t Fear The Reaper speaks volumes of where her head was at in 1988. It was the singer’s first solo release after the break up of Strawberry Switchblade and even then it was unapproved. Rush-released by a collaborator and without her consent, Reaper quickly vanished and has become the stuff of legend for pop, disco and Strawberry Switchblade fanatics alike.

Now fully approved and with new, minimal artwork by Russell Elder, Rose invites us to take her hand.
Rose McDowall plays:
18th April – Monorail, Glasgow
28th May – St Pancras Old Church, London
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/309198

TRACKLIST
A1. Don’t Fear The Reaper
A2. Crystal Days
B1. Don’t Fear The Reaper (Re-Edit)
B2. Don’t Fear The Reaper (Instrumental)

Artwork:

CONNECT
http://nightschoolrecords.com/

 

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