Not To (disc 2) tracks 1 - 4 were recorded solo in West Norwood and are obvious precursors of their album counterparts. Tracks 14 - 21 were also recorded solo in West Norwood and supplied material for a concert at the Venue, while 5 - 13 were recorded solo in Gloucestershire, on Robert's borrowed 4-track and were part of an attempt to write a follow-up to Not To.
The final recording was made at Scorpio Sound (where all 3 orginal albums were recorded) and was the second A-side'to the single 'We Means We Starts'/'Not To' and featured Simon, Charles Arthur & Linn drum programming by Scritti Politti's Tom Morley.
Colin Newman's 3 classic early 80's solo albums A-Z, provisionally entitled the singing fish & Not To originally released on Beggars Banquet / 4AD re-released on his own new imprint Sentient Sonics.
VINYL - unavailable for many years'remastered original albums on single vinyls.
CD - the 3 remastered original albums each accompanied by a companion CD of extra tracks, b-sides & demos - quite a lot of which have never been released - released as 3 double digipacks.
The Original 3 albums:
These albums were recorded and released between 1980 & 1982 in a 'post 154' rush of activity. While all the albums bear the name Colin Newman they differ in that A-Z & Not To were recorded as 'band' albums with Colin being joined by Wire's Robert Grey, Mike Thorne (who also produced, as he had the first 3 Wire albums) & Desmond Simmons on A-Z and Robert, Desmond & Simon Gillham on Not To. provisionally entitled the singing fish was more an 'actual' solo album in that everything was played by himself. Colin produced the latter 2 albums with Steve Parker engineering.
The 2nd discs (included only with the CD versions)
Tracklisting:
Not To (Disc 1):
1. Lorries
2. Don't Bring Reminders
3. You, Me and Happy
4. We Meet Under Tables
5. Safe
6. Truculent Yet
7. 5/10
8. 1, 2, 3, Beep, Beep
9. Not To
10. Indians!
11. Remove for Improvement
12. Blue Jay Way
Not To (Disc 2) CD ONLY!:
Home Studio Demos
1. Truculent Yet
2. Remove for Improvement
3. You, Me and Happy
4. 1, 2, 3, Beep, Beep
5. I'm Still Here
6. It's Just My Heart
7. If Time Had Been
8. Hello Mr. Sandman
9. Greensleeves
10. This Time
11. Keeping It to Myself
12. You Must Decide
13. Don't You Disagree?
14. Lunaris
15. At Rest
16. A Word in Your Ear
17. Where Was I?
18. Wo Hoe
19. But Either Way
20. We Means We Starts
21. Ye Rama Dabble Am
Studio Recordings
22. We Means We Starts