Expanded 15th Anniversary Vinyl Reissue With Gatefold Jacket, 3 Rare Tracks, Alternate LP Art And Unique Etching
… And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead’s landmark album, Source Tags & Codes, will be released as an expanded vinyl edition via Interscope/UMe to commemorate its 15th anniversary. Housed in a gatefold sleeve, the album, which will also be available digitally, will be pressed on black vinyl as a double LP for the first time ever and include three tracks previously only available on various rare and international releases (“Invocation,” “Life Is Elsewhere,” and “Blood Rites”). The back cover will be a replica of the Japanese version which features a drawing of a teenage boy while the iconic image of a cackling Henry Miller from the compact disc and North American back cover will be represented with a unique etching on Side D of the second LP. A very limited amount of 500 copies will be available on midnight navy vinyl exclusively via The Sound of Vinyl.
Few albums in 2002 were as highly anticipated as Trail of Dead’s major label debut, Source Tags & Codes, which saw the band making the leap from venerable indie Merge Records to Interscope. Having already amassed a rabid fanbase off the strength of two acclaimed albums and their legendary, nihilistic live shows, the Austin, Texas-based band – fronted by dual vocal powerhouses and multi-instrumentalists Conrad Keely and Jason Reece and rounded out with Neil Busch and Kevin Allen – had many waiting with baited breath to see what their move to the majors would produce. Armed with the biggest recording budget of their career, the band teamed back up with producer Mike McCarthy who helmed their sophomore album, Madonna, and secluded themselves at Prairie Sun Recording Studio, in Cotati, Calif., a sleepy town located north of San Francisco in Sonoma County wine country. Free from financial and time constraints and the distractions of home they were able to focus, experiment and fully realize their distinctive sound.
“Source Tags & Codes was our moment to take a stab at creating a timeless album,” says founding member Reece. “We had the chance to have that freedom to experiment with new sonic possibilities while messing with the major label paradigm. It was truly a chaotic, strange and beautiful time in our young lives.”