The Triffids - Latest Re-Issues

Twenty to twenty five years after the songs were originally recorded, Domino are to reissue The Triffids’ ‘The Black Swan’ and ‘Treeless Plain’ albums along with an album called ‘Beautiful Waste and Other Songs’, which comprises a series of recordings the band made between 1983 and 1985 which didn’t quite make it to full length album.

These releases continue the Triffids reissue programme Domino started in Summer 2006 with the reissue of the band’s classic ‘Born Sandy Devotional’ album, and which has also seen the likes of ‘Calenture’ and ‘In The Pines’ remastered and released as deluxe CDs with additional music and sleeve notes in the style of Dylan’s ‘No Direction Home’ and Pavement’s ‘Crooked Rain’. Along the way there have also been two singles, ‘Wide Open Road’ and ‘Save What You Can’, a limited edition 7” singles box set; very unexpected live shows in Belgium and Amsterdam, and even the honouring of the band with a Blue Plaque in London!

Originally released as a single album, ‘The Black Swan’ is reshaped to the sprawling double album it was always intended to be, and can now be seen as their ‘White Album’, whilst ‘Treeless Plain’ has been remastered and wonderfully updated. The tracks on ‘Beautiful Waste and Other Songs’ all pretty much appear on CD for the first time.

In addition to these album reissues and the two previously mentioned live shows, 2008 also sees the five remaining members of The Triffids and a select group of friends reuniting for the first time in their native Australia to celebrate the music and memory of David McComb as part of the Sydney Festival in January 2008.

All the above, with a hardback book written by Bleddyn Butcher about David McComb and The Triffids due to be published soon, helps to cement an enduring testament to a unique group and, in David McComb, one of the finest songwriters to come out of Australia - or anywhere come to that. The Triffids could have been contenders but, somehow, their epitaph was destined to be the music itself and David’s songwriting.