Paul McCartney track unearthed

ZTT Records releases The Art of the 12" Volume II this coming Monday, 20 Feb 2012.

It's the follow-up to 2011's acclaimed The Art of the 12" and compiles two CDs of classic 80s 12" remixes, many of which are appearing for the first time on CD. The Art of the 12" Volume II contains a recently unearthed Paul McCartney track from the mid-1980s: the full length version of the Art of Noise remix of Spies Like Us.

"McCartney called in the Art of Noise to remix the track in the summer of 1985," explains project curator (and author of the 2001 biography 'The Unknown Paul McCartney'), Ian Peel. "It was a mad, cut-and-paste retake that turned the song – McCartney's last US top ten hit – into a left-field electronic collage. Members of the band have since recalled how both Paul and Linda McCartney joined them – Anne Dudley, JJ Jeczalik and Gary Langan – in the studio for what sounds like a very experimental session. The finished remix was released on 12"
vinyl in November 1985 and has never appeared on CD. Art of Noise are the linchpin to ZTT's Art of the 12" series, so their remix of Spies Like was top of my list of inclusions for this new Volume II."

"Paul McCartney and his team kindly granted permission for the track to be included but, when the master tapes arrived from their studio, we got a little surprise. The version they sent was timed at 5:26, but the original vinyl release was 3:58. Where had this extra minute and a half come from? I cross referenced the 'new' version with a copy Anne Dudley had saved on cassette from the original sessions and that also turned out to be the full length, 5:26 version."

"So it seems that when the original 12" was pressed, the manufacturers inadvertently cut the track short, shaving off a wonderful minute and a half's-worth of intro and build up."

"So what everyone will hear on The Art of the 12", Volume II is the complete collaboration between Paul McCartney and Art of Noise, for the first time ever."