Reissue series features pivotal albums due this fall

Personally overseen by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, Waits spectacular middle-period albums—released on Island Records between 1983 and 1993—have been newly remastered from the original tapes and will be reissued on vinyl and CD this fall via Island/UMe. Waits’ transformative creative breakthrough, 1983’s Swordfishtrombones, its sprawling and superb 1985 sequel, Rain Dogs, and the trilogy-completing, tragi-comic stage musical 1987’s Franks Wild Years, will kick off the series September 1st, 40 years to the day that Swordfishtrombones was released into the wild, ushering in a new and critically acclaimed musical era for Waits and his longtime songwriting and production partner, Brennan. The epic song-cycle, Bone Machine (1992) and the under-appreciated Waits (with Robert Wilson and William S. Burroughs) musical fable, 1993’s The Black Rider, will follow October 6th. September, incredibly, marks the 40th anniversary of Swordfishtrombones, and the 30th of The Black Rider.

Ahead of their physical releases, all of the albums are available to stream now featuring the newly remastered audio, allowing fans to hear how these landmark recordings now sound better and more vivid than ever.

In addition to streaming and download, each album will be released on CD and in two vinyl options — 180-gram black vinyl and a limited edition color variant that will be available exclusively via TomWaits.com and UDiscover Music. Swordfishtrombones will be pressed on canary, Rain Dogs on opaque sky blue, Franks Wild Years on opaque gold, The Black Rider on opaque apple and Bone Machine on translucent milky vinyl.

All albums were mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering under the guidance of Waits’ longtime audio engineer, Karl Derfler. Swordfishtrombones was sourced from the original EQ’ed half-inch production master tapes while Rain Dogs, Franks Wild Years, Bone Machine and The Black Rider were sourced from the original half-inch flat master tapes. Bellman meticulously transferred the tapes and then remastered the audio in high resolution 192 kHz/24-bit. The lacquers for all titles were cut by Alex Abrash at AA Mastering. The new vinyl editions will come with specially made labels featuring photos of Waits from each era in addition to artwork and packaging that has been painstakingly recreated to replicate the original LPs, which have been out of print since their initial release. Surprisingly, The Black Rider and Bone Machine were never released on vinyl outside of Europe and will be making their vinyl debut in most of the world.

These critically acclaimed works are a monument to an artist’s ability to break through into new creative territory.

Waits went from ‘70’s-era “bluesy, boozy” wordsmith and melodist with seven albums behind him to sound sculptor, miner of the subconscious, abstract orchestrator, sonic cubist—while retaining his innate lyricism, melodic invention, humanity. A rough analogy: Picasso switching from exquisite literal depictions to pouring his brain and id out onto canvas. Waits was still painting, in other words, but the frames were made of blood and bone and feathers and old carburetors.

Working with experimental composer Francis Thumm, and taking inspiration from the music of found-object composer Harry Partch—plus Waits’ friend, Captain Beefheart—the renowned singer-songwriter reinvented his sound, album by album.

Not that Waits’ early albums were devoid of artistic progression. There were the piano-based jazz-folk ballads of his remarkable debut, Closing Time (just remastered for its 50th anniversary), the beat/jazzy/smokey flavor of Nighthawks at the Diner, the piano-bass-sax-drums sagas of the landmark, Small Change, the experimental tone poem, “Burma Shave,” on Foreign Affairs, the grit and grunge of the stripped-down Heart Attack And Vine… All this would stand alone as a great body of work if the man had never written another note.

But with Swordfishtrombones and the albums that followed, Waits shifted gears, or rather, deliberately ground them.