Light in the Attic Kicks Off Lizzy Mercier Descloux Reissue Series

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Jun 23, 2015

Light in the Attic's long-in-the-works retrospective series on French punk and new wave figure Lizzy Mercier Descloux will officially begin in earnest this summer via a reissue of her 1979 offering, Press Color.

The upcoming repress will be delivered as a double-LP on August 14. It will be the first of five full-lengths in the series, which the label had previously announced would showcase "impassioned poet, painter, actor, and prolific, self-taught musician Lizzy Mercier Descloux."

Press Color finds Descloux described as "the French answer to the UK group the Slits or New York's own ESG," though the songs apparently took shape following the artist's move from Paris to New York City in 1977. There, she got involved with the ZE Records scene, who issued the original LP, as well as artists likes Patti Smith and Richard Hell.

Though the initial release featured eight songs, Light in the Attic's upcoming re-release boasts an 18-song tracklisting. The collection flirts with Afrobeat, disco, punk and art-pop and leads with a cover of Arthur Brown's "Fire," which Light in the Attic had reissued on 7-inch in 2014. The collection also includes a collaboration with Smith called "Morning High."

Light in the Attic notes: "It's neither played nor sung with any great skill, but it has feel and character in spades and a looseness that's all too rarely achieved. "

The rest of the series details have yet to arrive, but presumably it will include updated versions of 1981's Mambo Nassau, 1984's Zulu Rock, 1985's One for the Soul and 1988's Suspense. Descloux passed away in 2004 after a battle with cancer.

Press Color:

1. Fire
2.Torso Corso
3. Mission Impossible
4. No Golden Throat
5. Jim On The Move
6. Wawa
7. Tumor
8. Aya Mood
9. Mission Impossible 2.0
10. Rosa Vertov
11. Decrypted
12. Herpes Simplex
13. Larousse Baron Bic
14. Tso Xin Yu Yin
15. Nina con un tercer ojo
16. Birdy Num-num
17. Hard-Boiled Babe
18. Morning High


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