Crime & the City Solution’s second studio album, ‘Shine’, is reissued on gold vinyl. This is set to be released alongside ‘The Bride Ship’ and ‘Paradise Discotheque’.

A band out of time, Crime and the City Solution were perennial outsiders who could not rest in their native Australia, and instead found inspiration in the colder climates of London and Berlin. Their mesmeric, expressive music evolved through many incarnations and a great deal of adversity. The first incarnation of the band appeared in 1977/78, in the midst of Australia’s nascent punk scene and re-grouped in London in 1984 with Simon Bonney being joined by former Birthday Party stalwarts Mick Harvey and Rowland S. Howard, plus Rowland’s bassist brother Harry and one time Swell Maps drummer Epic Soundtracks.

With the departure of Soundtracks and the Howard brothers for the formation of These Immortal Souls, Bonney, Harvey and Adams settled in Berlin. Here they called upon Thomas Stern, Bronwyn Adams, DAF’s Chrislo Haas and Einstürzende Neubauten’s guitarist Alexander Hacke to create ‘Shine’.

‘Shine’ was recorded at Hansa Tonstudio in the second half of 1987 and later released in 1988. The album was more finely tuned, optimistic and delicately abrasive, with the reconstructed line-up admirably marrying Hacke’s post-punk-into-blues guitar with Adam’s feathered violin and Bonney’s gruff vocals.

Unavailable on vinyl since 1994.