Music Arcades: Pere Ubu: Datapanik in Year Zero

I always keep an eye out for a bargain. Last August a message on the Pere Ubu email list tipped us off that the re-issue of this four-CD boxed set was available for pre-order on Amazon for the princely sum of £7.79. That works out at less then 10 pence per track. I had passed on the original (1996, five-CD) set because it was too much to pay when I already had some of the material in other forms. But £7.79, and the chance to get one over on Amazon (we all assumed they'd made a mistake), proved irresistible.

For me it shapes up like this:

Disk One, 1975-1977: this is the stuff that first got me hooked on Ubu. It rocks harder than anything they did until 1996's Raygun Suitcase, and I still love it. Good to have the songs from Terminal Tower
Disk Two, 1978-1979: even when they rocked, Ubu were did so off the beaten track, but here is where they start to leave the trail behind altogether. I already had the Dub Housing half of this disc, but my old version sounded foggy and muddy, while this one has more bite.
Disk Three, 1980-1982: and now, to mix metaphors as clunkily as I can, they're not just off road, but they've slipped their moorings as well. Aside from a handful of tracks I got from eMusic, I'd never heard the two albums that make up this disc. Fascinating, though not something I'd often want to listen to all the way through in one sitting. Chronologically, and probably stylistically as well, this is the missing link through to David Thomas's 'solo' albums.
Disk Four, Rarities from the Cleveland years: I've only listened to this once, so I may have it wrong, but it sounds like a historical appendix, rather than main body of work.

The booklet isn't lavish, but the writing in it is oustanding. The mythology Ubu built around themselves and the rust-belt urban decay of Cleveland always reminds me of Forced Entertainment's relationship with Sheffield in their early days.