VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Left Banke arrived in 1966 with their hit singles “Walk Away Renee” (ranked #222 on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list in 2004) and “Pretty Ballerina,” which put them on the forefront of the genre now known as Baroque Pop. Founder Michael Brown left the band before their second album (The Left Banke Too — featuring “There’s Gonna Be a Storm,” the title of the long out-of-print and collectible anthology of their Smash Records repertoire), going on to involvement in other influential groups including Montage, Stories, and the Beckies.
In 1978, original members Steve Martin Caro, Tom Finn, and George Cameron reunited to record tracks for Finn’s new publishing deal. The tracks would emerge in 1986 in the US as Strangers on a Train, and in the UK under the title Voices Calling.
Flash forward to 2001. Brown, who’d remained an active songwriter, invited Caro to lay down vocals on new material he had written in hopes of sparking a Left Banke resurgence. The tracks were circulated to industry insiders, but were not heard by the public at large. Six bonus tracks from the 2001 sessions now augment the Strangers on a Train reissue, making it a cohesive document of not only the last Left Banke album, but what exists of what could have been another.
All of it is available on CD for the first time worldwide from Omnivore Recordings, due out February 25, 2022. The new issue is produced for release by Daniel Coston, Scott Schinder, and Grammy® Award-winner Cheryl Pawelski, with new liner notes by Schinder and restoration and mastering by Grammy® Award-winning engineer Michael Graves at Osiris Studio. Strangers on a Train presents the culmination of this groundbreaking band, whose influence is not only still felt, but heard.
Track Listing:
Strangers On A Train
Heartbreaker
Lorraine
Yesterday’s Love
Hold On Tight
And One Day
You Say
I Can Fly
Only My Opinion
Queen Of Paradise
Bonus Tracks:
Airborne
I Don’t Know (2002 Version)
Until The End
Buddy Steve (Long Lost Friend)
Meet Me In The Moonlight
High Flyer
