RECORD TURNOVER 80s HITS #177
Canadian label Séance Centre have put out some great reissues over the years, this one included. Princess Demeny was a singer, filmmaker, painter, and poet from Montreal who was meant to release an EP in the mid-80s called Distant Voices. She was working with a producer called Jean Mineau, who was her partner at the time. He sadly passed away from cancer and the recordings were never released.
A new version of “New York Grief” eventually appeared on a record from Veni Vidi Vici. This 12″ came out on NDC Records in 1989. In 2019 the London label Platform 23 reissued this on vinyl but without the two tracks featuring Princess Demeny. Check out the pronto-house sound of “Pleasure Garden”.
It wasn’t until 2021 that both versions of “New York Grief” re-appeared on a record – the 1986 recording for the first time. The digital download also includes a cover of Yoko Ono’s “Listen the Snow Is Falling”.
“New York Grief was inspired by several trips to New York City in the mid eighties. I was in love with the city’s nightlife. At times, I would stay awake and watch the city that never sleeps as its night creatures came out to play, and I would watch as they would vanish, replaced by the suited nine-to-fives, waking up and starting the machine of the metropolis madness again and again. It felt to me as though, in New York, there was more darkness by day than at night.”
This quote is clipped from the label’s bandcamp.
