Exactly one year after the release of their last LP, Fragments, Bootblacks find themselves reflecting a little bit. Their record label, Manic Depression wanted to reissue their first EP Narrowed (which only previously saw a cassette pressing) on CD, along with their recently recorded Part Time Punks session. But to make the outing a little more special, the band decided to add a couple of new tracks to the compilation. First, Captives, an unreleased song that was completely rewritten and recorded specifically for this release, along with a cover of the song Touch (Part One) by Secession.
Frontman Panther Macdonald says, “This is an interesting record for us because it contains a lot of firsts. It’s the first time we’ve covered a song for a record. It’s also the first time we’ve gone back and taken an older song and reworked it to our current musical sensibilities. It was a fun project to try to make someone else’s song our own while also trying to make our own song sound more like us now. The Part Time Punks Sessions were also another first. Recording a live set for release is something out of the ordinary for us. The live style of recording was a great time and imparted a totally different energy to the songs. There’s something fantastic about the minimalism of the live session recordings because of the bareness and finality of them.
We also worked with a ton of really talented people in these tracks. Xavier Paradis, Josiah Mazzaschi, Hillary Johnson, Brian Scott Herman. Recording is collaboration & we were lucky to have done so with such awesome people.”