MC Tunes – Trevor Horn – ZTT – ex-Tony Rigg original master reels for Damage By Stereo

We have acquired directly from Tony Rigg a lot of one-off master reels for the ‘Lost’ album ‘Damage By Stereo’, that was produced by Trevor Horn for ZTT, but remained unreleased until 2015 on Peter Hook’s Hacienda Records label. These fantastic tapes come in the original box with barcode stickers and hand annotations by AMR Studios, who did the digital conversion

The History

Following the success of his 1990 debut, ‘The North At Its Heights’, which featured his two hit singles with Manchester
dance pioneers 808 State; ‘The Only Rhyme That Bites’ and ‘Tunes Splits The Atom’, MC Tunes [Nicky Lockett] signed a
deal with celebrated label ZTT and recorded his next album ‘Damage By Stereo’ with Trevor Horn, who produced the album
at Sarm Studios in London. All was not well, however, and MC Tunes parted company with the label after a disagreement with ZTT, returning his advance in exchange for the master tapes for the album. The master tapes were filed away and pretty much forgotten about as MC Tunes moved on to other projects such as the cult band Dust Junkys.

The unreleased album tapes were subsequently lost.

[Time passes ….] Over twenty years later, the tapes resurfaced. With the help of analogue experts AMR in Manchester, the tapes were fully
restored to their former glory and, with encouragement from Peter Hook, were finally released on his Haçienda Records
label in 2015. Acclaimed artist Jay Smith created the cover art for ‘Damage By Stereo’ by painting live on canvas throughout the launch
event at Factory 251 on Saturday 19 April that year.

So, what do you do with Master Tapes that have now been digitised, filed, mastered and officially released (albeit twenty
three years late) ?

You’re looking at the answer.

Directly from entrepreneur and former Ministry of Sound Operations Director, Tony Rigg, here we have one of those very
nearly lost master tapes mixing MC Tunes with Trevor Horn’s production.

To accompany the tapes, Jay EE-Go Smith has supplied signed prints of the album artwork, each individually hand
numbered, to go with each of the seventeen reels and tape boxes.

For fans of MC Tunes, Trevor Horn, Jay Smith or the Manchester Scene in general, this has to be the ultimate memorabilia!

Find them all here