The Tom Waits Island Catalog Receives Long Overdue Reissue

When Tom Waits released Swordfishtrombones in 1983, it was a turning point. His early material had been released on Asylum Records, but he had outgrown the label which he felt didn’t really see him as much of a priority as their big-name acts like Queen and Linda Ronstadt. Waits had begun spreading his wings more than ever, even forming a relationship with director Francis Ford Coppola who offered him his first soundtrack work and whom he’d continue to work with in the future. The songwriter had paid his dues throughout the 70s earning some notoriety for his craft, but he was also looking to branch out artistically. He went from very early piano ballads into increasingly more gruff vocals, while incorporating more and more guitar into his work. There was a lot more that he planned to explore and it wouldn’t be happening with Asylum.

Just prior to Swordfishtrombones, Waits had gotten married to artist and scriptwriter/analyst, Kathleen Brennan and moved to New York. Under Brennan‘s suggestion, he fired his longtime manager, who was likely stealing from him, and ditched the more jazz-oriented production of Bones Howe, who Asylum had paired him with for every album following his debut, to take on the task of producing Swordfishtrombones himself. Featuring a much more experimental sound peppered with shambolic percussion and carnivalesque moments, the results reflect the musician’s newfound obsession with the music of Captain Beefheart, which Brennan introduced him to and would go on to inform the rest of his career. A partner in every sense, Brennan would become a vital collaborator with Waits and a major catalyst for what would prove a career-defining shift. This new album was light on keys and, when they did appear it was often in the form of a Hammond B3 or harmonium. His contract was up with Asylum and, as fate would have it, they had no interest in releasing the final project that he brought them, anyway. Instead, Island Records stepped up providing both Waits and his latest masterpiece a new home. The more adventurous label, which already had such acts as ENO, King Crimson, and Kevin Ayers on their roster, was more than happy to bring on the proven talent at a point where he was hungry to reinvent himself. The result was a string of classic albums that redefined his career over the following decade; much of which hasn’t seen a proper reissue, until now.

As cliche as it might be, Rain Dogs is the album that made me love Tom Waits. With its weeping horns, percussive thumps, and marimba sprinkled in, the follow-up to Swordfishtrombones has a bleak and dreary yet lively and invigorated soul to it that begins with the feeling that you’ve been Shanghai’d in a rainsoaked cobblestone alley by a drunken sea captain and locked in an old-timey steampunk boiler room. It’s a brilliantly executed and incredibly visceral project noted for the appearance of Keith Richards on multiple tracks. Criminally under-mentioned is the distinctly original guitar work by Marc Ribot that shapes tracks like “Jockey Full of Bourbon” and “Diamonds And Gold” with sensual Latin melodies and eerie, almost Tim Burton-esque, jazz phrasings, respectively. While Swordfishtrombones has been reasonably available, Rain Dogs hasn’t had an official US vinyl pressing since its original release in 1985. The news that this will finally be remedied is what has me most excited this morning.

The new Tom Waits reissue series will consist of the artist’s 5 landmark Island-era studio albums released between 1983 and 1993. The project was personally overseen by Waits and Brennan who have remastered them from the original tapes. The first wave of releases will arrive on September 1st, which marks 40 years to the day that Swordfishtrombones was originally released. This initial batch will include Swordfishtrombones; Rain Dogs; and the critically acclaimed, Franks Wild Years (1987), the soundtrack to a Waits/Brennan-written stage play of the same name which Waits starred in and was directed by Gary “Lt. Dan” Sinise. The release of Bone Machine (1992) and Blackrider (1993) will follow on October 6th. Upping the “machine sounds” and the goblin-like vocals, the aptly titled Bone Machine has been among the most difficult Waits titles to track down, along with Black Rider, which soundtracks another stage collaboration, this time with famed experimental theater director, Robert Wilson (Einstein On The Beach, the CIVIL warS) and legendary beat poet/author, William S. Burroughs.

All 5 albums will be available in CD and vinyl formats with 180-gram color vinyl variants available now through the Tom Waits web store. At a minimum, the standard black vinyl should begin to pop through the usual retailers. I feel like these could have been nicely combined into a pretty solid vinyl box set, but I’m still plenty happy to see these out-of-print titles become available individually. Those who are interested in grabbing the black vinyl can pre-order a bundle of all 5 LPs from Stranded Records.