The Wedding Present X Marks The Spot / Strike!

This year The Wedding Present have been releasing a new 7" single every month throughout the first half-year and will continue to do so until December! And now, finally, the first six volumes are available in G/s/a for indie record stores too! This fascinating project - which goes under the name of 24 Songs - comes thirty years after the band's similar Hit Parade series of 7"s in 1992 and features - you may have already guessed - one WP original as well as one cover version. Each of the records comes in a beautifully designed sleeve featuring brutalist photography by Jessica McMillan. Each single will be limited to 2,400 copies ww. - May 2022: David Gedge says: "One problem you encounter when you have a platinum-album-selling guitarist in your ensemble is that they occasionally need to go and play with their platinum-album-selling band. Fortunately, when Sleeper required that Jon Stewart temporarily return, recently, Sam Beer-Pearce [guitarist on our `Going, Going_' LP] was happy to be re-enlisted and, during rehearsals, we wrote `X Marks The Spot' with him. The verse has an odd chant-like structure which features, once again, evocative singing from Melanie Howard. Jon didn't write the other side, either - the punky `Strike!' was originally recorded by a previous incarnation of The Wedding Present on a BBC 6 Music session for Shaun Keaveny in August, 2019. In the `Before Times', it was called `Don't Ask Me', though!"