ALTERNATIVE TV - Primitive Emotions
"A collection of Alternative TV songs during recent years that have appeared on vinyl-only releases or compilations and suchlike. Includes "This Little Girl", "Negative Primitive", "The System", "Radiator", "Walls", and "Chinese Burn", amongst others. "Chinese Burn" will be a different version to the one which appears on the "Low Expectations" compilation 10" on Fourth Dimension. Even if you own some of the vinyl, this will be a neat way of listening to the tracks as they map out an arc in the group's more recent development that makes perfect sense hearing them all together on one release. As Mark Perry himself said, this release actually sounds more like an album in its own right than what's otherwise tantamount to a compilation gathering together various loose ends. However you choose to look at it, the CD makes for another great entry in the band's illustrious career, once again underlining that fine balance between commentary strewn songwriting that itself can sway perfectly between the melodic and more intense, plus pieces that nod to Mark's own love of electronic music drawing from the worlds of early industrial music and the avant-garde. As with only a few groups who initially came out of the cultural shift of the late '70s, Alternative TV always kept moving forward and exploring new ideas without completely abandoning everything that made them (a not so blind) force to be reckoned with at the outset." - Winter Hill Recordings .