Hamell On Trial reissue ‘Choochtown’ on CD and digital download album with 11 bonus tracks from the original recording sessions with Billy Nicgorski. ‘Choochtown’ will also see its first proper vinyl release worldwide. The vinyl version, pressed on coloured 150g vinyl, is a remastered version of the original album released in 1999.

Ed Hamell on ‘Choochtown’: “I was living in Brooklyn, constantly on the road, and been dropped from my major label deal on Mercury/Universal. I really had nothing to lose and I was very inspired, if I remember, by the movie Pulp Fiction and the Biggie Smalls record: Ready To Die. I recorded anywhere I could. My friend Billy Nicgorski had an analog one inch studio in his basement, his younger brother had a band and I would use them. I also did a bunch of it in my basement in Brooklyn which had a dirt floor and I set the recording gear up on plastic paint pails. Used them as drums sometimes too. I released it on my own label Such-A-Punch and it got licensed to Evangeline in the UK where it got rave reviews and established my career over there. After all the press I got for my first two albums on a major I couldn’t get shit over here in the States, only that CMJ magazine which took their silliness pretty seriously who basically said, ‘We don’t know what it is but it’s art.’ Duh.

“I’m pretty proud of all my records, I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve always been able to maintain complete creative control but this one I was particularly proud of because every inch of it, from the recording which one track as you’ll see was recorded on my boom box, to the artwork, was all mine.”

“Amazing and entertaining and poignant” – The Stereo Times Online Magazine

“High-spirited… manic energy.. artful” – CMJ

“Absolutely brilliant!” – Uncut (*****)