Image Publique S.A.* – Paris Au Printemps = Paris In The Spring

I have a UK first pressing of this with a Paris in the Spring poster included.
Anyone else got one?

Very nice post punk record by PIL and sounds very well.

so did the 2012 remaster ever happen?
what did it sound like?

What's astonishing is how PiL could slip into these songs and moods, despite the chaos around them. I bought this when it came out in 1980 and now have a SHMCD i bought in Japan. The sound is faithful! There is a weird dropout where Lydon starts singing on Careering. It's always been there. Theme here is extraordinary, especially from Levene. No wonder he was pissed off when someone (below) slagged off his tone!!

John Lydon has described this 1980 live disc as "not very good", and he's right: no one went to any trouble to conceal the fact that "Paris au Printemps" was a hasty, slapdash affair. Cheaply recorded on a reel-to-reel machine, it was intended to counter bootleg sales and to cover the costs of PiL's second studio album "Metal Box" (1979). The most flagrantly infuriating thing here, from the paying customer's perspective, is that the first three songs aren't even complete; the recording punches in at some random point after the actual performance has begun. (This is most obvious on 'Theme', which lacks the ominous bass guitar intro of the studio version.) Yet this album *does* have a certain something. I wouldn't call it inspiration, exactly--the band sounds less than entirely devoted to what it's doing--but there's a compelling edge to 'Bad Baby' and 'Poptones' which transcends even Jah Wobble's annoyingly out-of-tune bass. Two and a half stars.

all 4 of my copies of the UK V2183 have a pressing problem that causes a jump in "Chant" after the words "pointing fingers" my Venezuelan & German pressings don't have this issue.
(oved 50 is no better as every one I've seen is just a rebadged V2183)
with PiL's music being so jagged its not surprised this wasn't noticed, people who's grown up with this version must have been surprised when the CD came out

Under rated LP which rarely gets a mention nowadays. The tracks from Metal Box are superb versions and in my opinion 'Poptones', 'Bad Baby' and 'Chant' are better than the studio versions. Sadly the tracks from 'First Issue' aren't as good, for some reason the guitar sounds really phased rather than sharp and spikey. This is strange as all bootlegs I've heard from this era the guitar sounds really good. Maybe someone mucked about with the mix in a studio?

Edit (2021) - have since learnt that the guitar was meant to sound 'phased' and wasn't added post-production. I asked Keith Levene on Twitter (when he had an ) and he was less than pleased with my reservations about the guitar sound on some tracks!