| The Virgin Years – Souvenir Box | |
| Type: | box |
| Artist: | Henry Cow |
| Cover: | HenryCow AlbumCover HCBox VirginYears.jpg |
| Recorded: | 1973–1975, 1990 |
| Genre: | Avant-rock |
| Label: | Recommended (UK) East Side Digital (US) |
| Producer: | Henry Cow and others |
| Prev Title: | Western Culture |
| Prev Year: | 1979 |
| Next Title: | Henry Cow Box |
| Next Year: | 2006 |
The Virgin Years – Souvenir Box is a three-CD limited-edition[1] box set by English avant-rock group Henry Cow. It was released in 1991 by Recommended Records and East Side Digital Records, and contains three albums Henry Cow made for Virgin Records between 1973 and 1975: Legend, Unrest and In Praise of Learning. Included in the box set is a 24-page souvenir booklet and a Henry Cow fold-out family tree.
The CDs in this box set are as released by East Side Digital Records in 1991, which include bonus tracks and remixed versions of Legend and In Praise of Learning.
Disc 1 is a remixed version of Legend by Tim Hodgkinson and Fred Frith at Cold Storage and Red Shop Studios in May/August 1990. The bonus track "Bellycan" is an outtake from Henry Cow's Greasy Truckers Live at Dingwalls Dance Hall recording session in November 1973.[2]
Disc 2 was not remixed. The bonus tracks "Torchfire" and "The Glove" were derived from raw material recorded during the Unrest sessions, and were mixed by Hodgkinson at Cold Storage Studios in 1984.[3] A remixed version of "Bittern Storm over Ulm" appears on limited-edition EP The Last Nightingale.
Disc 3 is a remixed version of In Praise of Learning by Frith, Hodgkinson and Martin Bisi at BC studios, New York in April 1985, and at Cold Storage studios by Hodgkinson. The bonus track "Lovers of Gold" is an alternate version of "Beginning: The Long March" created by Chris Cutler. It includes texts by Cutler and sung by Krause near the beginning.[4]