Siouxsie And The Banshees - Twice Upon A Time - The Singles 1993

Siouxsie and the Banshees were a British rock band, formed in London in 1976 by vocalist Siouxsie Sioux and bass guitarist Steven Severin. They have been widely influential, both over their

contemporaries and with later acts. Q included John McKay's guitar playing on "Hong Kong Garden" in their list of "100 Greatest Guitar Track Ever", while Mojo rated guitarist John McGeoch in their list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" for his work on "Spellbound". The Times cited the group as "one of the most audacious and uncompromising musical adventurers of the post-punk era".
                                              

Initially associated with the punk scene, the band rapidly evolved to create "a form of post-punk discord

full of daring rhythmic and sonic experimentation". Their debut album "The Scream" was released in 1978 to widespread critical acclaim. In 1980, they changed their musical direction and became "almost a different band" with "Kaleidoscope", which peaked at number 5 in the UK Albums Chart. With "Juju" (1981) which also reached the top 10, they became an influence on the emerging gothic scene.
                                                                                    

In 1988, the band made a breakthrough in North America with the multifaceted album "Peepshow", which received critical praise. With substantial support from alternative rock radio stations, they achieved a mainstream hit in the US in 1991 with the single "Kiss Them for Me".
                                                                            

[ Artist Biography by Jason Ankeny

Siouxsie and the Banshees were among the longest-lived and most successful acts to emerge from the London punk community; over the course of a career that lasted two decades, they evolved from an abrasive, primitive art punk band into a stylish, sophisticated unit that notched 18 Top 40 hits in the U.K. as well as a left-field Top 40 hit in the U.S.
                                                                

Throughout its numerous lineup changes and textural shifts, the group remained under the leadership of vocalist Siouxsie Sioux, born Susan Janet Ballion on May 27, 1957. She and the Banshees' initial lineup emerged from the Bromley Contingent, a notorious group of rabid Sex Pistols fans; inspired by

the growing punk movement, Dallion adopted the name Siouxsie and formed the Banshees in September 1976. In addition to bassist Steven Severin and guitarist Marco Pirroni, the band included drummer John Simon Ritchie, who assumed the name Sid Vicious; they debuted later that year at the legendary Punk Festival held at London's 100 Club, where their entire set consisted of a savage, 20-minute rendition of "The Lord's Prayer."
                                                                             

Soon after, Vicious joined the Sex Pistols, while Pirroni went on to join Adam and the Ants. The core duo of Sioux and Severin, along with new guitarist John McKay and drummer Kenny Morris,

reached the U.K. Top Ten with their 1978 debut single, "Hong Kong Garden"; their grim, dissonant first LP, "The Scream", followed later in the year. Two days into a tour for their 1979 follow-up, Join Hands, both McKay and Morris abruptly departed, and guitarist Robert Smith of the Cure (the tour's opening act) and ex-Slits and Big in Japan drummer Budgie were enlisted to fill the void; although Smith returned to the Cure soon after, Budgie became a permanent member of the group, and remained with the Banshees throughout the duration of their career. ]
                                                                

[Ben Hewitt
Fri 26 May 2017 17.58 BST

“What I really resent about people sticking labels on you,” said Siouxsie Sioux in 2004, “is that it cuts off the other elements of what you are, because it can only deal with black and white: the cartoon.” This sometimes threatens to become the legacy of Sioux, who turns 60 tomorrow: to be fixed in time as the aloof monochrome priestess who defined a subculture. “I hate all that,” she grumbled to the Guardian in 2005, while discussing her tiresome reign as “the queen of goth”.
                                                            

    
Sioux might hate “all that”, but it was that macabre mystique that first made me fall for the Banshees. I

wish every band could look and sound like a nightmarish glam-punk gang summoned from the netherworld. I adore their fourth album, "Juju", a fantastic dark swirl of spooky sounds and old-magick themes that’s both their quintessential goth statement and a sacred text for the subgenre (the track titles read like a shelf of old penny dreadfuls: Spellbound, Halloween, Voodoo Dolly, Sin in My Heart). The problem, as Sioux herself has argued, is in the glibness of other people’s interpretations.
                                                     

“Gothic in its purest sense is actually a very powerful, twisted genre, but the way it was being used by by journalists – goff with a double f – always seemed to me to be about tacky harum-scarum horror, and I find that anything but scary,” she once said. “That wasn’t what we were about at all.” You can see her point: "Juju" also includes, for example, the truly terrifying sci-fi horror of Monitor, a grinding death disco-throb with her shrieking, grim, Ballardian visions of CCTV-ruled dystopia over a loop of twisted metal guitars.
                                                               

Blinkered fools also tend to overlook how adventurous and many-hued Siouxsie and the Banshees could be, especially in their later years. The wonderfully modern "Cities in Dust" from 1985’s

"Tinderbox", for example, or "Peek-a-Boo", the lead single from 1988’s "Peepshow", a chopped-up hybrid built around a backwards-sampled loop and quick jump-cuts, throwing together shuffling hip-hop rhythms, booming drums, discordant guitar and stabs of brass. The end result sounds a little like a futuristic swing band jamming in the Red Room from Twin Peaks. By the time they’d released their 11th, final album, "The Rapture", in 1995, they’d spent 20 years not just outlasting nearly all of their peers, but outthinking them, too.
                                                                          

Some of Sioux’s strangest, most striking work didn’t come with the Banshees at all. In 1981, she and the band’s drummer (and her future husband) Pete “Budgie” Clarke formed the vocal and percussion duo "the Creatures", providing them with a more avant garde outlet for their riskier, more experimental ideas. It’s still a peculiar thrill to hear her voice, so often surrounded by guitar-driven gloom, clattering against Budgies’ thudding tribal rhythms, as it does on their sinister, skeletal rework of the Troggs’ Wild Thing, the title track from their debut EP, or the frantic stomp of Mad-Eyed Screamer.
                                                               

"The Creatures"’ first full-length album, 1983’s Feast, was recorded in Hawaii and so they immersed themselves in the local culture by flirting with exotica and mellower tropical sounds, with the

breezy Miss the Girl pairing Sioux’s vocal with skittish marimba; they even recruited the Lamalani Hula Academy Chanters to provide backup vocals, and used recordings of waves crashing on the beach to add further atmosphere. Trying to second-guess what they’d decide to do next was near impossible: just a couple of months later, their jazzy cover of Herbie Mann’s "Right Now", released as a standalone single, threw up parping trumpets, honking brass and timpani, with Sioux gleefully snapping her fingers like a 60s big band swinger.
                                                                           

Given Sioux and Budgie’s full-time commitments to the Banshees, the Creatures seldom got the chance to release full albums. The flamenco, jazz and blues-inspired Boomerang didn’t arrive until 1989,

spearheaded by the remarkable Standing There. It starts with sultry sax and Sioux cooing like a femme fatale in a smoky cabaret bar, before the whole thing’s upended in a storm of drums and horns, and she admonishes sexist catcallers with a tumbling avalanche of withering put-downs: “How empty and pointless your life must seem.” When the Banshees’ split allowed them to take centre stage, they used 1999’s Anima Animus to switch to menacing electronica and thumping – if you’re after a sleepless night, try listening to the relentless apocalyptic synths of Exterminating Angel, with Sioux bellowing “I wanna fuck it up” like a short-circuiting Terminator.
                                                          

Sioux and Budgie separated shortly after their final album, 2003’s Anglo-Japanese hybrid Hái!, which

featured the taiko drumming group Kodo from Sado Island. But Sioux moved forward again, releasing her solo debut, "Mantaray", in 2007. “Feelings so strong can’t be ignored / I burst out, I’m transformed,” she crowed on one of its standout songs, the gritty, glammed up Into a Swan - still hungry for another defiant reinvention, still peeling off the unwanted labels, daring you to define her wrongly again.
                                                                    

This article was amended on 27 May 2017. An earlier version said the band had been together 30 years when they released The Rapture in 1995, when in fact they had been together almost 20 years.]

Label: Polydor ‎– 517 160-2, Wonderland (3) ‎– 517 160-2
Format: CD, Compilation, Reissue
Country: Europe
Released: 1993
Genre: Rock
Style: New Wave, Goth Rock, Synth-pop

TRAXS

01. Fireworks     4:21
02. Slowdive     4:18
03. Melt!     3:47
04. Dear Prudence  (Written-By – Lennon, McCartney)  3:51
05. Swimming Horses     4:04
06. Dazzle     5:30
07. Overground     3:51
08. Cities In Dust  (Mixed By – Steve Churchyard)  4:07
09. Candyman  (Mixed By – Steve Churchyard)  3:43
10. This Wheel's On Fire  (Written-By – Dylan, Danko)  4:03
11. The Passenger  (Written-By – Osterberg, Gardiner)  4:09
12. Peek-A-Boo  (Written-By – Harry Warren, Johnny Mercer)  3:10
13. The Killing Jar     3:58
14. The Last Beat Of My Heart  (Producer – Charles Gray)  5:26
15. Kiss Them For Me     4:29
16. Shadowtime     4:20
17. Fear (Of The Unknown  (Remix – Junior Vasquez)  4:19
18. Face To Face  (Written-By – Danny Elfman)  4:23

 

BONUS TRAXS

01. Cascade
02. Paradise Place
03. Halloween
04. Hong Kong Garden
05. Happy House
06. Israel
07. Christine
08. Dizzy
09. Into The Light
10. Sin In My Heart
11. Arabian Knights
12. Green Fingers
13. Cocoon
14. Stargazer
15. Morrissey & Siouxsie - Interlude (Single version)

SPELLBOUND LYRICS

From the cradle bars
Comes a beckoning voice
It sends you spinning
You have no choice

[Pre-Chorus]
You hear a laughter
Cracking through the walls
It sends you spinning
You have no choice

You hear laughter
Cracking through the walls
It sends you spinning
You have no choice

[Chorus]
Following the footsteps
Of a rag doll dance
We are entranced
Spellbound

Following the footsteps
Of a rag doll dance
We are entranced
Spellbound
Spellbound
Spellbound

Spellbound
Spellbound
Spellbound
Spellbound

And don't forget
When your elders forget
To say their prayers
Take them by the legs
And throw them down the stairs

When you think
Your toys have gone berserk
It's an illusion
You cannot shirk

[Pre-Chorus]
You hear laughter
Cracking through the walls
It sends you spinning
You have no choice

[Chorus]
Following the footsteps
Of a rag doll dance
We are entranced
Spellbound

Following the footsteps
Of a rag doll dance
We are entranced
Spellbound
Spellbound
Spellbound

Following the footsteps
Of a rag doll dance
We are entranced

Following the footsteps
Of a rag doll dance
We are entranced
Entranced, entranced
Entranced, entranced

CITIES IN DUST  LYRICS

 

 

Water was running, children were running
You were running out of time
Under the mountain, a golden fountain
Were you praying at the Lares shrine?

But ohh, oh your city lies in dust, my friend
Ohh, oh, your city lies in dust, my friend

We found you hiding, we found you lying
Choking on the dirt and sand
Your former glories and all the stories
Dragged and washed with eager hands

But ohh, oh your city lies in dust, my friend
Ohh, oh your city lies in dust, my friend
Your city lies in dust

Water was running, children were running
We found you hiding, we found you lying
Water was running, children were running
We found you hiding, we found you lying

Your city lies in dust, my friend
Ohh, oh, your city lies in dust, my friend

 

Hot and burning in your nostrils
Pouring down your gaping mouth
Your molten bodies, blanket of cinders
Caught in the throes

And ohh, oh, your city lies in dust, my friend
Ohh, oh, your city lies in dust, my friend
Ohh, oh, your city lies in dust, my friend

 

Twice Upon A Time:

MP3 @ 320 Size: 178 MB
Flac  Size: 488 MB

 

Bonus Traxs

 

MP3 @320 Size: 133 MB 

Flac  Size: 380 MB

The Creatures LP on Urban Aspirines HERE

 

Siouxsie & The Banshees (Teatro Tenda 31-03-1984) Bologna Italy

31 Μαρτίου σκάμε στη Μπολόνια - Ιταλία γιά να παρακολουθήσουμε τη συναυλία των Siouxsie And The Banshees στο "Teatro Tenda". Μετά από αρκετή καθηστέρηση εμφανίζονται, με τον Robert Smith στην κιθάρα, αλλά σταματούν να παίζουν έπειτα από 3 περίπου λεπτά. Κάτι λέει στο μικρόφωνο η Siouxsie, και σύσσωμη η μπάντα εγκαταλείπει τη σκηνή. Με τα πολλά, από στόμα σε στόμα φθάνει και στ' αυτιά μας ότι το συγκρότημα δεν παίζει εάν δεν αποσυρθούν από το Teatro Tenda κάτι πελώριες ταμπέλες που διαφημίζουν τη μεγαλύτερη Γουνεμπορική της Ιταλίας, την "Pelicceria Roberta". 20000 εξαγριωμένοι Πάνκηδες, Νιου-Γουεβάδες και Γκοθάδες είναι έτοιμοι να τα κάνουν όλα ρημαδιό, έτσι και δεν κατέβουν οι τεράστιες ταμπέλες της "Roberta", η οποία είναι ο βασικός σπόνσορας του σταδίου. Επειτα από μεγάλη καθηστέρηση, οι διοργανωτές έρχονται σε συνεννόηση με τη μπάντα, στέλνουν συνεργεία, ξηλώνουν τις επίμαχες πινακίδες και επιτέλους αρχίζει η συναυλία. Στο γυρισμό, μας σταματούν οι Carabinieri στο σταθμό των τρένων γιά εξακρίβωση και στοιχεία και το μόνο που εξακριβώνουν είναι το τεράστιο λιώμα μας.
O TEMPORA O MORES!!!