Tom Waits to reissue Island Records studio albums from 1983 to 1993

Tom Waits has announced a reissue of five albums that were released by Island Records between the ’80s and ’90s.

The reissues, which were personally overseen by Waits himself along with his wife Kathleen Brennan, consist of 1983’s ‘Swordfishtrombones’, 1985’s ‘Rain Dogs’, 1987’s ‘Franks Wild Years’, 1992’s ‘Bone Machine’ and 1993’s ‘The Black Rider’.

According to a press release, all the 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 ½” production master tapes while ‘Rain Dogs’, ‘Franks Wild Years’, ‘Bone Machine’ and ‘The Black Rider’ were sourced from the original ½” flat master tapes.

Tom Waits' entire metaphoric & groundbreaking mid-period Island Records studio catalog newly remastered from original tapes and prepped for release on vinyl, CD and digital for the first time. Pre-order & listen now!https://t.co/BmxrHYTG14 pic.twitter.com/1kgL2UPqWq

— Tom Waits (ANTI-) (@tomwaits) July 12, 2023

‘Swordfishtrombones’, ‘Rain Dogs’ and ‘Franks Wild Years’ are set for release on September 1 while ‘Bone Machine’ and ‘The Black Rider’ will follow on October 6. All of the reissues will be available on CD, 180-gram black vinyl, and color variant vinyl. You can pre-order them here.

The new vinyl editions will come with specially made labels featuring photos of Waits from each era in addition to artwork and packaging that had been recreated to replicate the original LPs, which have been out of print since their initial release. ‘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.

In other news, Waits’ music agent recently announced that the singer had returned to writing music.

The update came from the singer-songwriter icon’s longtime Irish music agent Paul Charles — discussed as part of his new memoir Adventures In Wonderland.

“[Waits] did a bit of recording, and then he basically got distracted by the movie world for a while. The news is that he’s started writing again. We’ve all got our fingers crossed for another return visit,” wrote Charles in his memoir.

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