Philophobia Undressed by Arab Strap

Recorded live in Glasgow in December 2023, this show was part of a celebratory tour in honour of our second album, Philophobia, in the year of its 25th birthday. We were pretty focused on new material at the time – and we’d recently released an album that began with the line “I don’t give a fuck about the past” – so plans for a big, full-band production were soon abandoned in favour of a more intimate show. The Philophobia Undressed tour would feature the album in full, but performed by just the two of us, in mostly cosier venues. Not so much a big birthday bash, then, but rather a quiet wee toast in good company.

It turned out to be one of our favourite tours ever, and while the line-up was stripped back, it certainly wasn’t an acoustic show. The set began with very gentle versions of Packs of Three and Soaps, but soon gave way to heavy drum machines and bit-crushed synths, ambient loops and field recordings, a touch of melodica and harmonica, and some live drums. We also found ourselves reworking some arrangements and structures – My Favourite Muse was particularly fun to play – fixing out-of-tune keyboard parts (One Day, After School), and Aidan was actually singing the songs now, in ways he couldn’t manage in 1998. He even updated some of the lyrics, sharpening their focus and softening some edges here and there, and sometimes just for the fun of it. The final result was – hopefully – exactly what we wanted: a reflective, remixed rendition of an old album we’re very fond of, played and sung with another 25 years of life baked in.

The album was recorded by our longtime live engineer, Richie Dempsey, then mixed and mastered by our evenlongertime recording engineer, Paul Savage, at our regular studio, Chem19. Like the original Philophobia LP, it’s a double vinyl set (following the original’s side split running order exactly), while the sleeve and labels include photos of the show by Elliot Hetherton; it also includes a copy of the actual channel list and stage plot we used for the tour. On top of that, all orders will include an accompanying double-sided signed postcard.

Thanks to all who've been supporting these vinyl releases, they're a bit of a labour of love for us. Philophobia Undressed will be the last one for awhile, as we focus on new songs and plans for our birthday next year. The next Archive LP is planned for sometime in 2027. Cheers!

"The Proclaimers from Hell" – some newspaper in the '90s

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