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From the twisted minds of one of rock’s most celebrated drummers came a burst of tongue-in-cheek post-punk by Klark Kent, a mysterious presence who made a brief cameo on the U.K. pop charts. Now, the Klark Kent album – out of print for over 25 years – gets a generously expanded double-CD reissue next month with 14 previously unreleased bonus tracks!

Dig past the lofty liner-notes of the original Klark Kent EP – pressed on green 10″ vinyl with a K-shaped die-cut sleeve – and you’ll find the unmistakable rhythms of Stewart Copeland, co-founder and drummer for The Police. At the time, the trio – Copeland, singer/bassist Sting and recently-hired guitarist Andy Summers – were struggling to gain attention for their unusual blend of rock and reggae. With Sting handling most of the writing for the group, Copeland took a song of his the frontman rejected, the snotty “Don’t Care,” and put it together himself, playing drums, guitar and bass and singing.

To everyone’s shock, “Don’t Care” became a modest hit on the U.K. singles chart, peaking at No. 48 in the late summer of 1978. (For comparison: the first release of “Roxanne” earlier that year missed the charts entirely, and follow-up “Can’t Stand Losing You” would only reach just a bit higher at No. 42 that October.) Things got even wilder when “Kent” was invited to perform on Top of the Pops. With Copeland up front in shades and silver space-age makeup, he recruited Sting, Summers, longtime Police roadie Kim Turner and Curved Air drummer Florian Pilkington-Miksa (whom Copeland replaced in prog combo Curved Air before he founded The Police) to back him up on-stage in disguises. (The sight of Sting pretending to play guitar through the teeth of a gorilla mask must be seen to be believed.)

Two years later, with The Police a growing presence in the U.K. and abroad, the full Klark Kent album, featuring “Don’t Care” and singles “Away from Home” and “Rich in a Ditch,” was released. While it wasn’t hard to note the similarities to both The Police’s sound and the cockeyed everyday-horror lyrics of Police album cuts like “Does Everyone Stare” and “On Any Other Day,” Copeland would only cop to helping “Kent” score a record deal. Around the release of 1993’s Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings, a few years before the Kent oeuvre was released on CD as Kollected Works (1995) , did Copeland (and Sting) go on record about the album. (“Stewart is good at being arrogant in a funny way,” Sting opined of “Don’t Care.”)

Copeland briefly resurrected Klark Kent early in the COVID-19 pandemic with “It’s Gonna Rain,” a song recorded at his home studio (known as “The Sacred Grove”). It’s that song that kicks off the new deluxe edition of Klark Kent, followed by the original album and seven additional B-sides and outtakes, some of which were released on Kollected Works. (Those tracks were recorded after The Police unofficially dissolved in the mid-’80s.) The 18-track expanded album will be complemented by a bonus CD of Copeland’s Kent demos, released here for the very first time. A double vinyl edition will include the contents of the first disc.

Both sets are available November 17 and can be pre-ordered below.

Klark Kent (Deluxe Edition) (BMG, 2023)

2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

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* previously unreleased

Disc 1: Expanded album

1. It’s Gonna Rain *
2. Don’t Care
3. Away from Home
4. Rich in a Ditch
5. Grandelinquent
6. Guerilla
7. Old School
8. Excesses
9. Kinetic Ritual
10. Thrills
11. Office Girls
12. Too Kool to Kalypso
13. Stay Ready
14. Strange Things Happen
15. Love Lessons
16. Yo Ho Ho
17. Someone Else *
18. Office Talk

Tracks 2-9 released as A&M AMLE 68511 (U.K.) / I.R.S./Kryptone SP-70600 (U.S.), 1980
Tracks 10-11 released on “Don’t Care” U.K. single – A&M AMS 7376, 1978
Track 12 released on A&M U.K. single KMS 7390, 1978
Tracks 13-15 released on Kollected Works – I.R.S. 72438 29690 2 0, 1995
Track 16 released on Just in Time for Christmas – I.R.S. X2 13052, 1990
Track 18 released on “Away from Home” single – A&M AMS 7532 (U.K.) / I.R.S. IR-9012 (U.S.), 1980

Disc 2: Demos *

1. Away from Home (Demo)
2. Rich in a Ditch (Demo)
3. Grandelinquent (Demo)
4. Guerilla (Demo)
5. My Old School (Demo)
6. Excesses (Demo)
7. Theme for Kinetic Ritual (Demo)
8. Don’t Care (Demo)
9. Thrills (Demo)
10. Office Girls (Demo)
11. Too Kool to Kalypso (Demo)
12. Strange Things Happen (Demo)