KC RULES OK 20TH ANNIVERSARY RE-RELEASE
King Creosote is re-releasing the KC Rules OK album on the 26th of September 2025 in honor of it’s 20 year anniversary this year. The album will be available in a limited edition white vinyl and 2CD with bonus & remixed tracks.
The KC Rules OK vinyl will be the first time the album has been available in this format since it’s release in 2005.
The 2CD will feature bonus tracks such as ‘Casino Clubbing’ and ‘Little Heart’ as well as remixed tracks by artists such as Jon Hopkins, Hot Chip & more. What a treat!
The album is available to pre-order from the 12th of August 2025.
Both the LP and 2CD will be available from the 26th of September and both will be available to buy at the London Hackney Church show on the 11th of October 2025.
A word from kc on the 20th anniversary re-release…
“I’ve reached a point in life where nearly everything good is in the rear view mirror. When in spring 2005 the Earlies adopted king creosote to record a 4 track EP for ‘Names On Records’, the brief outlined a look back on a decade’s worth of unreleased homespun recordings, dig up a few gems worthy of polishing. Two heavily flawed diamonds – ‘Marguerita Red’ and ‘Bootprints’ – were buried deepest below several failed bands and a 2:1 in late 80s Electrical Engineering.
Tom Knott at Airtight Studios fast introduced me to digital recording, and in the space of a fortnight, 4 songs quickly became 16, a bewildering work rate compared to my previous experiences with quarter inch tape. Other than the machine driven ‘teek-tok-tok-tok’ for a metronome, everything was to be played on real instruments by Lancastrian red rosy hands, directed by Christian Madden’s unerring ability to not only settle on a good idea, but to land on the right idea first time, every time. Despite our 4 song budget netting 16 completed songs, our just desserts looked awfully small and still a long, long way off.
20 years on, with my binoculars the right way round, I can properly see (and hear) every detail in the record we made, a timeless album grown so old already that in a few months it might just sound like the future again.”
KING CREOSOTE AND THE EARLIES 20TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW
Saturday 11th of October 2025, The Hackney Church in London – Tickets on sale this Wednesday the 2nd of April from eatyourownears.com/king-creosote
From Christian Madden:
Twenty years ago, and already forty albums into his astonishing career, King Creosote decided to venture out of the Kingdom of Fife and share his singular music with the world via a small, new label called Names Records. Names had only released one album so far, a psychedelic masterpiece known as These Were the Earlies created by the sprawling transatlantic collective of the title. King Creosote and The Earlies were paired together in the studio for ten days in which, they arranged, recorded and mixed 17 of Kenny Anderson’s finest songs with joyous ease. These recordings became the still loved King Creosote classic KC Rules OK with enough overspill to later populate the bonus collection Chorlton and the Wh’Earlies. The two acts came together to perform the album in full ten piece chaos only three times in the summer of 2005 before parting company. King Creosote moved on from strength to strength to become the national treasure he is. The Earlies wheezed and limped to a halt in 2007 never to be seen again.
While the Earlies were faltering and King Creosote was moving on, Alela Diane came to Names’ attention after a friend had chanced upon her performing in her hometown of Nevada City, California. A 30 odd track cdr was given, MySpace messages were sent back and forth and a simple deal was made. The Pirates Gospel was released in 2007 and was awarded album of the year by Rough Trade Shops. As the conventional music industry was crumbling all around her Alela Diane somehow managed to sell 100,000 copies of her intimately beautiful album.
It feel time to celebrate this little corner of the music industry and bring back together the various characters of its story. Reunions happen all the time whether we want them or not. Everybody from the 1950s onwards who isn’t dead is touring, relentlessly turning nostalgia into money without the least pretence of ever stopping. Many of these reunions last multiple times longer than the original careers that spawned them. It’s a crowded marketplace. What’s the difference between this reunion and the countless others in this year of many, many more reunions?
The difference is that this one will happen for one night only. There are only a few of us who remember these bands and these albums and we’re scattered and aging. There aren’t enough of us to fill a stadium or an arena tour but we’re out there. We dust off these precious albums a couple of times a year and tell anyone who’ll listen that we were there, that we loved it and that it mattered. The world might not need this reunion but we need it. This was music made by people who cared about nothing else and it soundtracked our glorious summers in the early years of this wayward century. For one night we can all come together and celebrate this wonderful little label and the timeless albums it produced.
King Creosote, The Earlies and Alela Diane will appear at the Hackney Church on the 11th of October 2025 before bidding each other farewell again. They’ll be playing songs from These Were the Earlies, KC Rules OK and The Pirate’s Gospel. You might think you’ve got other plans. There might be another show you think you’d like to watch. There might be a friend’s party. You might work Weekends or have a holiday booked. Whatever your excuse is, in twenty years time the only thing you’ll be able to remember is that you weren’t there.
So say you’ll be there
C Madden
Spring 2025