"Be a ghost tonight, be a ghost tonight..."
June was all about tension and release. After the two shows last month at Primo Maggio and WAM which contained no new material, we continued to wait patiently to see if the band would drop something into the setlist to whet our appetite for E6. Maybe The Pulse would return? Or perhaps they'd hit us with something that we hadn't heard before? The answer to theory number 1 was a resounding "Nope", but as for option number two...
The setlist information and footage that made its way to YouTube after the slot at Sideways in Helsinki revealed something very interesting. Three new Editors songs had been aired and they were called Cold, Hallelujah (So Low) and Magazine. Of course the most pressing thing any of us were feeling next was the uncontrollable urge to hear the songs in full. The problem was that a lot of the footage of them was either incomplete, or the quality wasn't pristine enough to accurately hear everything we needed to hear. So we looked further down the campaign schedule and saw hope in the form of Hurricane or Southside. Both of these events have been streamed before, and so the prospect of professionally shot coverage took the edge off the fact that we'd have to wait over a fortnight to find out. In the end, Hurricane had no live stream but Southside did, and that was where we were finally able to really get a good look at some unheard Editors goodness.
Cold has been the set opener in June and while at first it seems like it's another slow starter like No Harm was, it shifts up a gear later on. It's another brave move on Tom's part because, as with No Harm, there's very little music behind him when he starts singing. It's also the first song of the set which means he's not fully warmed up yet, meaning the potential for vocal disaster is ever present. But he does it anyway, which I think sums up the mood and approach for all the unreleased stuff we've heard so far. I love the guitar sound on Cold from Mr Lockey, which is very reminiscent of the mighty Slowdive.
Hallelujah is totally immediate. If you watch the Southside footage you can see the crowd getting into it straight away, and considering that's a mixed audience of fans and casual folks, it's a positive sign. One thing I noticed, again while watching Southside is that the band seem at their most animated when they're playing the new songs. It's like a switch gets thrown and they're all fully awake. There can be a tendency, in boxing terms, to be a little "flat-footed" during some of the tracks they've played 1000 times or more, but they appear to come alive again when they're delivering the newer material. As an example, just look at the big old smile on Tom's face after the false ending in Magazine.
On that subject, I feel like we either need a lyrics sheet or a better recording of Magazine, because some of the clips we have now make it difficult to discern what Mr Smith is singing. Unless it really is:-
"It takes a bucket, do you want a tight shit?"
Not sure it is. The song may be a coded complaint about the horrors of on the road toilet facilities? Probably not.
OK, time for some speculation. As it stands, and if we include the curiously absent The Pulse (where the hell did it go?), we've heard 4 songs which could all be on the new Editors record. Possibly. The total number of tracks across all five of their current albums ranges from 9 to 11, so if all of the songs we've heard live made it to E6, we've almost heard half of it. That would mean that we could at least start to form some kind of opinion as to what it will sound like. On the evidence so far, it seems like it's got a lot of energy, loud guitars and electronics in equal measure. I think that all five of the members of the group might have reached that point with their third album together that the original lineup did with ITLAOTE; namely they're gelling in such a way that there's a power when they play together, but you can separate and identify their individual strengths and what they contribute as you listen.
Then there's the question of what will be the song that will launch E6, in the way that No Harm did for In Dream? Are any of the tracks we've heard so far single material? There may be something up their sleeve that we don't even know about. For example, when they posted the white board photo in November last year with all those song titles, Cold wasn't even on it. There were, however, 11 others:-
Counting Spooks (Holding it Together)
Darkness at the Door
Hallelujah So Low
Harder
It Came From the Quiet
Magazine
Never Belong to Em
A Part of Me
The Pulse (shit name?)
Nothingness/Tenderness
When We Were Angels
So adding Cold into the mix makes 12, plus any of the songs that were formed from "Justin's Sketches" or "Sketches 1 - 6".
What might actually happen is that some of the songs we've heard don't end up on the album at all, or maybe end up on Japanese versions of E6. They may even end up being given away in an auction or competition to two lucky souls who will possess the only copies, and the rest of us will never ever never EVER get to hear it. Yes, that's right, there's always room in an Editors Instagram post for a whinge about Dream Dark as Your Heaven. Still unreleased. Still sad about it.
The other main event of June was the 10th Anniversary of An End Has a Start. After the reluctance to climb on board the nostalgia train for "10 years of The Back Room" celebrations, it's no surprise that there's been radio silence in terms of official acknowledgement. Although in true cryptic Editors fashion a poster advertising gigs from the beginning of 2006 did appear on their Instagram profile out of the blue at the end of the month.
They are on the cusp of releasing E6 and so looking backwards makes less sense than forward to the immediate future. However, that second album was so important for us as fans and I think that's why it got more attention among the community. Plus, it really does deserve to be celebrated. Some like it because it's a good record, but most of us would agree that if you are listening to Editors in 2017 then you owe a debt to E2 and its success. If it had tanked, turning out to be a total dud full of awful songs possibly featuring several washboard solos by Ed, or Mr Smith indulging his long held (and possibly non-existent) forbidden passion for yodelling, who knows if they would have been able to continue? That second record by a band can burn you if it's bad, so much so that you won't be returning for any further potential disappointments when the third one appears. If it even does.
As it turned out, they've been able to build their success gradually in incremental steps and AEHAS was a crucial one in that process. If The Back Room was all about telling the world "We're here..", then An End Has a Start was the band saying "...and we're sticking around". Happy Anniversary AEHAS.
The fact that the band are on the road and the late discovery of several new sources for material this month, means that there's 112 items in the zip, which is a pretty healthy score. Among the photographs and videos are some more of Justin's black and white airport snaps, which I love. There's also a small video shot from the back of a car of a girl on a motorcycle, in what I'm assuming was a random moment, that shows off Mr Lockey's eye for the cinematic. The way she drifts into shot and then out again, wonderful stuff. All in all it's been another cracking month to be both an Editors fan and memorabilia junkie, download the zip and submit to the wonderful insanity of it all ;)
Editors Instagram - June 2017
download here or download here
For all of Editors' previous Instagram posts, go here.
brought to you with lots and lots of lemming-love :) x 
