Following on from the Falkirk Miserabilist’s reissue of their back catalogue on vinyl in the Scenes of a Sexual Nature box-set, Chemikal Underground have seen fit to reissue the Strap’s first two albums as double CD sets which include bonus discs of live material broadcast by the BBC, including two sets recorded for the late John Peel.

Designed to offer some valuable augmentation to two already splendid albums, these reissues are both backed by a bonus disc featuring the BBC Peel Sessions and Live Recordings contained within the ‘SOASN’ box.

As can be expected, both The Week Never Starts Round Here and Philophobia sound as great as ever, and Philophobia still has the greatest opening lines ever recorded in the shape of “Packs of Three”. The live discs have sets from King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in 1996 (the Strap’s live debut “recorded in all its full, ramshackle glory”) and their performance at T in the Park 1998* supplementing the Peel sets; the quality of all of them is excellent, as you’d expect from BBC recordings. Additionally, the performances may be ramshackle, but they capture the low-fi, frequently squalid nature of the band themselves. They’re also excellently tailored to their live settings (“The First Big Peel Thing” on The Week Never Starts Round Here is a real standout). If you couldn’t afford the vinyl set, then these are super subs.

Both sets are available from Amazon, and all the other usual retail suspects.

If you think you’d like to grab Scenes of a Sexual Nature, then prepare to get ripped off via eBay: Chemikal Underground’s own shop cheerfully inform us:

Oh Dear, you’re too late: out of stock… What a disappointment after reading all the guff up there eh? It was a belter too.

*I was there! But I missed the Strap, alas.