So. There’s been a bit of excitment going on amongst the more hardcore ABBA fans recently. On April 23rd, a special deluxe edition of ABBA’s ‘The Visitors’ album will be released. And as well as some standard bonus fare in the same style/vein as what they’ve included on previous deluxe editions of other albums, there’s the almighty occurance of an unreleased track. It’s actually the first time they’ve put something unreleased out since 1994.
The track in question is ‘From A Twinkling Star To A Passing Angel’. And it’s basically a nine minute edit of the various demos of ‘Like An Angel Passing Through My Room’. This site gives more info on the track itself;
Polar have released a few more details about the Extra Bonus Track, ‘From A Twinkling Star To A Passing Angel’ . It traces the evolution of ‘Like An Angel Passing Through My Room’, the closing track on The Visitors. Back in 1981, this particular song was one of the more challenging tunes during original recording sessions for the album. With the first demos and backing tracks being laid down in May 1981, it wasn’t until several different versions later, in November 1981 – only three weeks before the album reached record shops! – that ABBA finally landed on the version heard on the album.
As the Deluxe Edition of The Visitors was put together, ABBA’s Benny Andersson had the idea that it would be interesting to revisit the various recordings of the song and put together a medley. And this he did in October and November of 2011. The nine-minute medley takes us from the very first demo, with vocals by Björn, to a run-through with Benny on electric piano and Frida on lead vocals, similar to the final version. In between are a demo recording by Frida and Benny (on grand piano) with alternate lyrics entitled ‘Another Morning Without You’; a completely different “disco” attempt, played by a full band and with the final lyrics in place; and a ballad interpretation, also with a full band backing, featuring Frida on lead vocals. “It was fun to put this thing together, just to show what the process can be like,” says Benny Andersson. “It’s an interesting observation on how you labour over things before you reach the final result.
ANYWAY. Ahead of its release on April 23rd, it actually got its first play on BBC Radio 2 this morning, which is quite exciting.
They’ve uploaded the show online, and you can LISTEN TO IT HERE. Just skip 1:40:50 to the mark.
Or you can listen to it below, in slightly lesser quality than the radio link above.
