In 1990, Neil Hannon signed his first record deal and began releasing album after album under the name The Divine Comedy…
Over the last three decades, Hannon has released 12 critically acclaimed albums and now, in celebration of his 30th anniversary, nine of them are being reissued in the form of Venus, Cupid, Folly & Time. The albums receiving the reissue treatment are: Liberation (1993), Promenade (1994), Casanova (1996), A Short Album About Love (1997), Fin de Siècle (1998), Regeneration (2001), Absent Friends (2004), Victory For The Comic Muse (2006) and Bang Goes The Knighthood (2010).
The albums have been remastered at Abbey Road Studios by Frank Arkwright – the mastering engineer who’s worked with the likes of Blur and The Smiths – while engineer and producer Guy Massey, whose work on the Beatles Stereo Remasters won him a Grammy Award, oversaw the audio across all the releases.
Each LP release consists of the original remastered album, cut at Abbey Road, packaged with a download code for the album and various bonus tracks. The LPs are heavyweight black vinyl in a gatefold sleeve, accompanied with photos, credits and Neil’s liner notes.
To mark the special occasion, The Divine Comedy will also play 5 nights at London’s Barbican in early September and later that month 5 nights at Paris’ Cité de la Musique. Performing as an 11 piece ensemble, the band will play 2 albums from their catalogue in full each night.