Fashion - Fabrique de luxe (2021)

I’ve watched from afar the slow, stately process of vocalist Dave Harris and Zeus B. Held compiling and remastering all of the tracks surrounding the 1982 “Fabrique” album from Fashiøn. Word has bubbled under in the Fashiøn fan community for years on this issue. First Harris had overseen a re-issue of his Zee album he made after “Fabrique” with Pink Floyd’s Rick Wright. That took some time, then attention was focused on giving the world as much “Fabrique” as possible. The covid pandemic sure hasn’t greased the wheels of such endeavors, but now the train is getting ready to leave the station. MusicGlue now has up a “Fabrique Deluxe” page to pre-sell the ultrabox, which will ship out on January 31st.

I’ve also written earlier about my boundless esteem of this particular album campaign. In fact, I have every legitimate track from my long-planned BSOG [it would be 3-4 discs] mastered and waiting for me to finally get the final piece of the puzzle; the Razormaid mix of “Streetplayer Mechanik.” My BSOG OCD often sees me stalling for many years until I finally get the last track or mix for one of my projects. But now the real thing as mastered from original tapes, not my large and largely flawless collection of singles is about to enter the world. I realize that my project would have been more complete, with DJ pool mixes, US promo tracks, as well as De Harris’ solo version of “Love Shadow,” which was also produced by Zeus B. Held [with BVs by Brenda Bennett of Vanity 6 fame…] five years later in 1987! But as the song says, there ain’t nothin’ like the real thing! How does this ultrabox stand up?