Details Nothing Changes Under the Sun - 20 Year Anniversary Reissue

On 30 October 2020 Memphis Industries will reissue their “Nothing Changes Under the Sun” by the artist Blue States to mark its 20th year anniversary. It will be only the second vinyl pressing of the album since 2001 and comes with a limited edition bonus disc of previously unheard songs entitled “Trinity Tapes” and an exclusive print – whilst stocks last from Blue States webstore.

Do you know that feeling when you first hear music, and you realise that you may have stumbled across something that will become a part of your life forever? Music that gradually unlocks those treasured endorphins and lets them loose to run throughout your very being. Blue States ‘Nothing Changes Under the Sun’ is one of those records, sounding as timeless and out of time today as it did on its first release twenty years ago.

‘Nothing Changes…’ was created by Andy Dragazis, working in his bedroom, locked away with a rudimental little set up – a sampler, a sequencer, and a few keyboards. Andy confesses that he was far from certain what he was working on, but, encouraged by fledgling label Memphis Industries, he released a series of 12” EPs in 1998-99, each to increasing acclaim.

Having studied at film school Dragazis was been in movie scores so echoes of Roy Budd and John Barry and Ennio Morricone can all be heard, as can the music of his musical hero Vangelis (legend has it that Dragazis father Dimitri was related to Demis Roussos and jammed in a proto version of Aphrodite’s Child). The Yé-Yé Euro girl groups of the 60s were also touchtones a plus Dragazis’ love of the Cliffless Shadows and progressive psychedelic groups including The United States of America and The Electric Prunes

Complete artistic freedom can lead to self-indulgence and musical cul-de-sacs, but by the time ‘Nothing Changes…’ was released in September 2000, the results of Andy’s experimentation had been honed, refined into something very special indeed. A record that held its secrets close, ‘Nothing Changes…’ set Blue States apart from the downtempo contemporaries that were flourishing at the time, full of sweeping melancholia and glorious retro-futurism.