It's been some time since the last update, so it's about time we updated everyone on what has been happening.

Kindergarten - 'The lost tapes'

Back in December we mentioned that we were progressing on the new album as well as working in the 'lost tape' for the 1983 Kindergarten EP. The original master tapes for this went missing around the time that Keith Bagley (owner of Illuminated Records) was burgled. He had a number of master tapes at home at the time and Kindergarten was believed to be amongst the stolen items.

We were forced to re-mix and re-master, opting for Elephant studios in Wapping, London, (where the Pogue's 'Fairytale of New York' was recorded, for those who are interested). This was the version release by Illuminated in 1983 (IL1712).

Some months after the release, the original tapes were discovered, but never used. Having dusted these off last year, we have subsequently managed to retrieve and digitally record from the original tape, after some baking in Martin Lloyd's now famous tape oven (thanks Martin!).

The good news is that three of the four recordings had retained most of their reproduction quality, with only 'Dance' being deemed truly lost. The other good news is that there are plans to release the previously unheard versions of 'Kindergarten' and 'Asylums in Beirut' in 12" Vinyl EP format before the end of this year; we are in discussion with a New York label currently - more news soon.

The debut album - 'A Kiss from the Creche'.

We are nearing completion on this and looking forward to completing in the next couple of months. We had originally intended to release before the year is out, although this is now in question due to personal commitments from the band.

Upcoming release

We are planning to release some of our new material ahead of the album in the form of an early / demo pre-release. We are yet to confirm the details but have entered into an agreement with some of our music friends in Germany to do a 7" vinyl release in 2007. Watch this space for more news on that.

Live dates

Back in our first news letter we mentioned that we were hoping to perform a couple of European dates and were recently looking at attending an event in Germany in October. Sadly, we will no longer be doing this in 2007, but we do still have plans for early next year. The remainder of this year will be focused on completing the album and preparing new material. Thanks to everyone who has shown an interest in us performing and apologies to those organizers of the event where we were provisionally scheduled to appear. That's it for the August update. Many thanks for keeping interested and look out for an update very soon.

Best regards - Sudeten Creche