His Name is Alive, the long-standing ethereal darkwave project of Michigan musician Warren Defever, have released repressings of the band’s first three records on 4AD – Livonia, Home Is In Your Head, and Mouth By Mouth – out now.
Recently reissued in 2024 as part of a quickly sold-out coloured vinyl boxset entitled How Ghosts Affect Relationships: 1990-1993, with audio sourced from the original analogue tapes and remastered by Defever himself, each album will now be available on Standard Black LP and CD (with the CD editions of each record featuring exclusive bonus material sourced from the 2024 boxset).
New His Name Is Alive merchandise will also be available exclusively via the 4AD store, to coincide with these repressings. This includes: a cap bundled with Home is in your Head; a water bottle bundled with Livonia; and a T-shirt bundled with Mouth by Mouth. The items are also available individually.
His Name is Alive has a long history with 4AD, signed to the label in 1989, after label founder Ivo Watts-Russell fell in love with their dark and fragmented sonic inclinations via cassette demos sent in the post. While His Name Is Alive’s sound was in line with the gothic echoes of labelmates Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance, they also had a different, nonpareil quality, something existing on the boundary of this earth and another realm further underground.
The 2026 reissues for His Name Is Alive’s Livonia, Home Is In Your Head, and Mouth By Mouth are out May 8. For more information, and to pre-order, head HERE.
HIS NAME IS ALIVE – LIVONIA
4AD0409
Formats: Standard Black Vinyl | CD
TRACKLISTING
- As We Could Ever
- E-Nicolle (Introduction)
- If July
- Some and I
- Fossil (Verse)
- E-Nicolle
- Caroline’s Supposed Dream
- Fossil
- Reincarnation
- You And I Have Seizures
- How Ghosts Affect Relationships
- Darkest Dreams
CD ONLY – BONUS TRACKS
- July (Strings)
- Caroline (Strings)
- Fossil (Strings)
- Ghosts (Strings)
- Livonia (Ryko Version)
His Name Is Alive’s 1990 4AD label debut Livonia cemented the band’s presence among 4AD’s well-established ethereal lineage, reinventing and refracting the label’s sound through a prism. A tender and slightly deranged dream-pop record, it packages nearly ten years of Warren Defever’s home recordings – brought to haunting chorus via the spectral, feminine vocals of Karin Oliver. Produced and mixed by Ivo Watts-Russell and This This Mortal Coil collaborator John Fryer, the record is a powerful opening statement, inviting intrigue via noisy refrains and textural guitar. It examines the dual themes of love and loss, woozily delivered as if dreamlike.
HIS NAME IS ALIVE – HOME IS IN YOUR HEAD
4AD0410
Formats: Standard Black Vinyl | CD
TRACKLISTING
- Are You Comin’ Down This Weekend?
- Her Eyes Were Huge Things
- The Charmer
- Hope Called In Sick
- My Feathers Needed Cleaning
- The Well
- There’s Something Between Us and He’s Changing My World
- The Phoenix, A Pool of Ice
- Are We Still Married?
- Put Your Finger in Your Eye
- Home Is in Your Head
- Why People Disappear
- Her Eyes Are Huge
- Save the Birds
- Chances Are We Are Mad
- Mescalina
- Sitting Still Moving Still Staring Out
- Very Bad A Bitter Hand
- Beautiful And Pointless
- Tempe
- Spirit And Body
- Love’s A Fish Eye
- Dreams Are of the Body
CD ONLY – BONUS TRACKS
- Man on the Silver Island
- Are We Still Married?
- Is This the Way the Tigers Do?
- We Hold the Land in Great Esteem
- The Dirt Eaters (Original Version)
- Tempe (Rehearsal)
- Her Eyes Were Huge Things (Live)
- Dreams Are of the Body (Live)
- Man on the Silver Mountain (Demo)
- Mass
- Slow Train Crash
The band’s second album with 4AD, recorded in Warren Defever’s home studio and remixed by Ivo Watts-Russell and John Fryer (as with their debut), sees 23 songs quick-firing through emotions, with moments of soothing calm soon clashing with white noise and visceral chaos. Highlights include “Her Eyes Were Huge”, on which lightly strummed acoustic guitar uplift Karin Oliver’s swooning, gossamer drawl; the synth-led, inquisitive and prickly “Are We Still Married?”; and pensive instrumental waltz “Siting Still Moving Still Staring Outlooking” (synced in 1996’s Jerry Maguire). A varied yet grounded compilation of new material and old (some dating back to Defever’s junior high days), it found the band entering a confident creative stride, leaving listeners enthralled by both its beauty and darkness and proving Defever’s inspired productions utterly unique.
HIS NAME IS ALIVE – MOUTH BY MOUTH
4AD0411
Formats: Standard Black Vinyl | CD
TRACKLISTING
- Baby Fish Mouth
- Lip
- Cornfield
- In Every Ford
- Lord, Make Me a Channel Of Your Peace
- Drinks, Dress, and Ink
- Where Knock Is Open Wide
- Can’t Go Wrong Without You
- Jack Rabbits
- Sort Of
- Sick
- Blue Moon
- Ear
- Lemon Ocean
- The Torso
- The Dirt Eaters
CD ONLY – BONUS TRACKS
- The Homesick Walz
- Endless Things
- My Moon’s in Your Yard (Demo)
- Harmonic Song (Demo)
- Roky (Demo)
- My Dad (Demo)
- Gospel (Demo)
- London Lost (Demo)
- Drink, Dress, Ink (Demo)
- Baby Fish Mouth (Demo)
His Name Is Alive’s third record on 4AD, the first where the band controlled all processes including mixing, saw a marked shift; their most diverse, yet accessible catalogue entry. The project’s soaring growth over time allowed Warren Defever to employ an extraordinarily adventuring approach to the record’s sound and vision, indulging his love for all kinds of music, be it tastes of looped dub (“Lord, Make Me A Channel of Your Peace”, “The Homesick Waltz”), sugar-sweet 1960s pop (“Baby Fish Mouth”, “Lip”), distortion-laden dream-gaze (“Can’t Go Wrong Without You”), evocative alt-noise (“Sick”), or strummy folk (“Where Knock Is Open Wide”). Embracing the surreal and turning their experimentalism up a notch and with Defever’s studio skills truly blossoming, many see this as a high point for the band.
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