Home Brew album reissued for 11th anniversary

Home Brew's sole album came out 4th May 2012, with a 48 hour launch party at a former brothel. It started 10am May 5th and went til Monday 10am. I remember going to check it out on the Sunday afternoon and everyone there was looking pretty jaded. The album hit number one on the charts. They had clocked NZ hiphop. 

The album was a double CD - the vinyl version came out a few years later via a German label, who pressed it on 4 LPs. I have a memory of seeing it when that hit the shops here and seeing the price and thinking 'nah, happy with the double CD,' it was mad expensive.  Not as expensive as it is now - there's a copy on Discogs going for over $500. 

Home Brew went on hiatus not long after the album came out - Tom Scott moved to Melbourne and started a crew called Average Rap Band, before returning to Avondale for the birth of his child and  kicking off Avantale Bowling Club. 

Home Brew returned to occasional live performances on the festival circuit around 2018, with a series of shows described as fundraisers to buy the rights back to their album. The spine of the LP reissue has '10th anniversary edition' written on it then crossed out, with '11th anniversary edition' next to it, so I'm guessing this was delayed a bit. 

In late August this year, Tom Scott of Home Brew announced they were reissuing the album both on CD and vinyl for Sept 15th (then 29th due to delays). It was remastered by Ben Lawson, who was originally involved in recording some of the album at Red Bull Studios. He didn't master the original album like the press blurb says, that was Andy Submariner Morton and Chris Chetland.

I was going to write something here about how the reissue LP has a track missing (Last Days) which I'm guessing got dropped to fit it all on two LPs. So it's only a partial reissue, like the Che Fu / Dimmer / Nathan Haines vinyl reissues. But no one cares cos they just want the album in their hands. Too right. 

The artist behind the original cover, Guy Brock, produced some reimagined art and some new work for the reissue, using a cover photo for Volume Magazine as the source. Volume was a short-lived mag ably helmed by Sam Wicks for APN/NZ Herald. He came up with the wild idea to let Home Brew take-over one issue in May 2012 and there's some gold in there, as the below photos prove.

My fave is the letter to DJ Substance, noting that they might finally win an award that year, will get up on the podium and probably forget to thank him, so they write it instead. And Tom's dad turning down the offer to join uk band Madness at the height of their fame cos he's off to play Top of the Pops, with the Wombles. 

Haz's mum reviews the album, plus Haz writes some horoscopes. Click on the pics to make em big.

ADDED 7 Oct 2023 -  The album hit number one on the charts this week (congrats, fellas), it's now topped the charts in two different decades. Possibly the only nz hiphop album to achieve this? 

LP gatefold