Philophobia (Deluxe Edition)

The DELUXE EDITION features a ten track second CD with Arab Strap's second Peel Session (recorded march 1998) alongside their entire live performance at 1998's T in the Park, courtesy of those world-beating newshounds, the British Broadcasting Corporation!

After gate-crashing the Britpop party in 1996 with The First Big Weekend, Arab Strap went on to produce eight albums (six of them on Chemikal Underground) over a period of ten years. Reflecting now, over a dozen years after the songs were initially recorded, we can start to appreciate just how influential Moffat and Middleton's output actually was. Favorites of Conor Oberst, Underworld and Helena Christiansen, they are regularly cited as primary influences for bands like The Twilight Sad and, in Aidan Moffat's lyrics, they shone a light under the rock of sexual politics with so much truth, honesty and insight that, had it not been for the fact they were so funny and, well. . . accurate all the time, we would have been barely able to look. This reissue explores Arab Strap's recorded material from their beginnings: sophomore album Philophobia, originally released in 1998.