First time on DVD and CD for 1994 concert film

The Pet Shop Boys‘ concert film, Discovery: Live in Rio 1994, will be released as a 2CD+DVD set in April.

The concert film marked the Pet Shop Boys first visit to Brazil at the end of 1994, and was issued on VHS and laserdisc in 1995.

The set list includes classic hits including ‘West End Girls’, ‘Suburbia’, ‘Being Boring’, ‘Go West’, ‘Rent’ and ‘Always On My Mind’, as well some interesting covers, including a rendition of Blur’s ‘Girls and Boys’ (which the Pet Shop Boys remixed at the time of release).

The show was filmed by Brazilian director Roberto Berliner with a local TV crew in December 1994 in front of an enthusiastic Rio audience. It was shot on SD video, so to “keep the integrity of the original” the decision was made to restore and present the concert in its native SD format on DVD, rather than upscaling to HD for Blu-ray.

A new booklet features candid on-tour photographs, an interview by Chris Heath conducted during tour rehearsals and an exclusive on-tour diary by Neil Tennant. This release marks the debut of this set on CD as well as DVD. There is no vinyl edition.

Discovery: Live in Rio 1994 will be issued on 30 April 2021.

1979 album remastered and expanded for new deluxe box set

BMG reissued Japan‘s third album, Quiet Life, across a number of formats, including a deluxe box set.

The 1979 album (issued a few weeks late, in January 1980, in the UK) was the final album on Hansa Records and became a forerunner for the alternative/new wave sound of the new decade.

The single ‘Quiet Life’ reached number 19 in the UK, but almost two years after the album (having originally been a B-side for non-album single ‘I Second That Emotion’). The Quiet Life album was a creative, rather than commercial success and Japan singles only started to chart once Gentlemen Take Polaroids and Tin Drum (both issued on Virgin in 1981 and 1982 respectively) raised the band’s profile.

The Quiet Life box features  three CDs and a 180g half-speed mastered vinyl LP

Quiet Life is being reissued as 3CD+LP box set that features a new 2020 remaster of the album on CD and vinyl (the vinyl is half-speed mastered at Abbey Road) along with a disc of alternate mixes, remixes, singles and rarities. This same disc also includes the four-track EP Live in Japan (taken from the March 1980 Budokan show) which had a limited vinyl release in Europe in July of that same year. The third CD in the box set is that same Budokan gig, in full.

In addition to the box set, there are standalone 2020 remasters of the album available on black vinyl, red vinyl (both half-speed) and CD.