Tanita Tikaram To Drink The Rainbow

Tanita is best-known for Twist In My Sobriety, but in the ensuing decades, she’s amassed an incredible body of work. As she’s matured, her curiosity and enthusiasm have helped shape a very different artist to the teenage Virginia Woolf obsessive a lot of people remember from those early Top of the Pops appearances. No-one else sounds like her; and when it comes to direct, emotionally disarming melodies, she’s one of my all-time favourites.

Pete Paphides

Tanita Tikaram celebrates her 50th birthday with the release of this brand new collection of 14 songs spanning over thirty years and nine albums.

To Drink The Rainbow – An Anthology 1988-2019 is the third release on the Needle Mythology label. Of the release, Pete says,

Tanita collaborated closely on the selection of songs for the record, providing notes for each of the twelve songs on the record. Standouts include Only The Ones We Love, featuring beautiful harmonies from Jennifer Warnes, who reached out to Tanita after hearing her multi-million selling debut album Ancient Heart; the startlingly raw intimacies of My Love and the title track, of which she says, “There’s a scene Fantasia where the cherubs drink the rainbow. The symbolism of the rainbow touches on a lot of different things that are close to me.”

To Drink The Rainbow, follows on the heels of the label’s universally acclaimed expanded reissues of Stephen Duffy’s I Love My Friends and Ian Broudie’s Tales Told. As with those records, the artwork of To Drink The Rainbow is unique to this release.

The 14 songs were specially mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road for 180g vinyl. The album has been pressed at the old EMI pressing plant in Hayes Middlesex, now operated by Vinyl Factory.

To Drink The Rainbow is released on gatefold vinyl and CD. The vinyl pressing comes with a two-track seven-inch EP featuring two songs previously unavailable on vinyl – an acoustic version of Valentine Heart, and an early version of Glass Love Train which has never been released in any format.

The main album will also feature specially written liner notes and lyrics to all the songs – eight of which have never previously been available on vinyl. The CD will feature all twelve songs on the album as well as the two extra tracks.

Tanita has been been touring To Drink The Rainbow in mainland Europe throughout September and October, with more dates to follow in 2020, coinciding with the release of her tenth studio album.

TO DRINK THE RAINBOW, AN ANTHOLOGY 1988-2019 – LP

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TO DRINK THE RAINBOW, AN ANTHOLOGY 1988-2019 – CD

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