"Companion albums"

I think this may be a "real" category (tho probably a small one) – albums whose concept relates very specifically to an earlier album by the same artist; but which also "stand on their own" artistically (i.e., are something other than a deluxe edition, reissue w/bonus tracks, or a remix album). Here are a few examples:

Cassandra Jenkins - (An Overview on) An Overview on Phenomenal Nature
This is sort of an "afterthought" (though not in a dismissive sense) of the same year's An Overview on Phenomenal Nature – containing "previously unreleased sonic sketches, initial run-throughs, demos, and sound recordings from the cutting room floor" from that album, along with new material.

Fiery Furnaces - Take Me Round Again
Matt and Eleanor record new versions of songs from I'm Going Away – with the twist that each of the two "covers" songs written by the other, and gives them entirely new melodies.

Unrest - Twister
This one may be more of a stretch – but it's a collection of "juvenile versions of songs that appeared in more developed forms on the acclaimed Malcolm X Park album." You don't need to be familiar w/that album to appreciate it, though.

Does this make sense? Any others come to mind?

Thought of another one (again, sort of) –

The Red Krayola, Fingerpainting
This was a modern rethinking of The Parable of Arable Land concept: composed "songs" – at least one dating back to the Parable days – alternating with "Free-Form Freak-Outs" (although not called that this time).

To further extend the idea, this was followed by Fingerpointing, containing "Jim O'Rourke's alternate mixes, made from the same "paint" as the original release, but the colors are a different shade." That one may fall under the more straightforward "remix album" category, though.

Current 93 – Crooked Crosses For The Nodding God

"This is a remixed, re-structured, and re-recorded version of Swastikas For Noddy, thus the before and after Iceland colours are now complete.

As Swastikas was dedicated to Diana and Steven's first child, Lilith, this is dedicated to their second. A long and joyful life to Nyida, sun and moon.
"Then he stayed at Driche cave, manifesting sickness." from The Life of Milarepa.

All very David Tibet

And don't forget this!

Operation: Mindcrime II is the ninth studio album by the American progressive metal band Queensrÿche, released internationally on March 31, 2006, and in the United States on April 4, 2006.[4] It was the band's first album to be produced by Jason Slater.

It is a concept album and the sequel to the group's third studio album, Operation: Mindcrime (1988). The album resumes the story of Mindcrime, which is that of Nikki, a drug-addicted political revolutionary who had worked as an assassin before his disillusionment and arrest. Nikki had been jailed for the murder of prostitute-turned-nun Sister Mary at the end of Mindcrime, with his sanity slipping as he genuinely didn't know who had killed Mary and had grown close to her before her death. As Mindcrime II begins, eighteen years later, Nikki is released from prison and begins to plot his revenge against Dr. X, a manipulative demagogue from the first album that had treated Nikki as his puppet.

Vocalist Pamela Moore reprises her role as Sister Mary for the album. The role of Dr. X (played by actor Anthony Valentine on the first album) went to famous heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio. Singer Geoff Tate handles the vocals for the protagonist.

Thanks for those!

I guess Slapp Happy’s Acnalbasac Noom may belong here, too – even though it was actually recorded before Slapp Happy aka Casablanca Moon. Maybe that one’s the companion album!

Autechre's SIGN and PLUS are companion albums, the latter being a surprise release about three weeks after the former.

John Cale's M:FANS, reimaginings of songs from the Music For a New Society album.

The first N.E.R.D. album came in a hip-hop version and a "rock" version, maybe they count as companions to one another.

Warm, and Warmer by Jeff Tweedy. They were recorded during the same sessions but released a year apart, which maybe makes them companion albums?

Steve Hillage's 1982 synthwave (is that a genre?) album For to Next was accompanied by an instrumental companion album, And Not Or. Although I guess that's maybe more of a double album split into songs/instrumentals and released separately?

You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone by Saint Etienne is a sort of companion album, as it was initially released as a bonus disc with So Tough.

Aw, C'mon and No, You C'mon by Lambchop.

not quite the same, but this is a double album designed so that any of the sides can be mixed together, I own two copies

https://www.discogs.com/master/61571-Charles-Curtis-Charles-Curtis-Trio-Ultra-White-Violet-Light-Sleep

see also Current 93 and Nurse With Wound's "sister albums" both titled Thunder Perfect Mind, designed to be played simultaneously like Zaireeka iirc

The Resident's 'The Big Bubble' was an album of music supposedly composed by a band of musicians from within the storyline of The Mole Show trilogy.

Haruomi Hosono's Hosono House and Hochono House

I haven't heard it, so I have no idea if it stands on its own, but Welcome 2 My Nightmare by Alice Cooper must surely relate in some (many?) ways to his much-earlier Welcome To My Nightmare.

I suppose this would qualify, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Out_of_Hell_II:_Back_into_Hell

(I didn’t think about “sequels” like those, but I guess that’s a fairly common thing… especially for rap albums?)

Things you were this old when you learned - I didn't know that about Thunder Perfect Mind. I only have the Current 93 one, never heard the NWW one

Human Touch and Lucky Town, maybe?

UB40 - Present Arms (in dub)

speakerboxx / the love below

Tubular Bells I, II and III

kid a / amnesiac

My Generation/Quadrophenia? I know the temptation would be to pair the latter with Tommy, but it's really the former's era that Quadrophenia addresses.

church gone wild / chirpin hard

Harvest/Harvest Moon an obvious pairing.

I feel like albums released simultaneously (Springsteen, GN'R...) don't quite fit what I thinking about. Kid A / Amnesiac may be a good one, tho

Fly Like an Eagle/Book of Dreams

Released a year apart, but recorded during same sessions with same producers and personnel.

Beck's Morning Phase acquired a reputation as a sequel to Sea Change.

The Legendary Pink Dots' Island of Jewels is a sequel to The Tower, but good luck following the story.

Frank Zappa was working simultaneously on We're Only In It For the Money and Lumpy Gravy, and regarded them as two parts of the same whole.

I think this may be a "real" category (tho probably a small one) – albums whose concept relates very specifically to an earlier album by the same artist; but which also "stand on their own" artistically (i.e., are something other than a deluxe edition, reissue w/bonus tracks, or a remix album). Here are a few examples:

Cassandra Jenkins - (An Overview on) An Overview on Phenomenal Nature
This is sort of an "afterthought" (though not in a dismissive sense) of the same year's An Overview on Phenomenal Nature – containing "previously unreleased sonic sketches, initial run-throughs, demos, and sound recordings from the cutting room floor" from that album, along with new material.

hmmm. so would something like "so dna" count? for me, i _do_ think that record stands on its own artistically, and is more in my wheelhouse than the actual _so_ album... but not everyone might feel that way?

Amarok as the companion to Ommadawn.

I had to look up So DNA – but sure, why not?

Tim Hecker’s Konoyo and Anoyo are the pair that spring to mind for me - from the same sessions with the same players, released pretty close together but not simultaneously

Probably there is some Wire record that counts - like didn’t they revisit Document and Eyewitness recently?

Changes Becomes Us

Change*

Keiji Haino's two Black Blues records (soft version/violent version) seem to fit.

Sons And Fascination / Sister Feelings Call
Star Wars / Schmilco
Wire / Nocturnal Koreans
Snowflake Midnight / Strange Attractor
Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam / Sounding The Ritual Echo (Atmospheres For Dreaming)
When I Was Cruel / Cruel Smile
Very / Relentless
Go2 / Go+
The Division Bell / The Endless River
Bandwagonesque / The King
Saturnalia / Mini

Oh, that reminds me of a good one – Telegram (the only Björk album I was ever really into) is categorized as a remix album (of Post), but I totally thought of it as its "own thing" that stood on its own. (Maybe the new song also helps push it in that direction?)

Masseduction and MassEducation.

One that seems from the titles like it could count but absolutely doesn't are the Divine Comedy's Fanfare for the Comic Muse and Victory for the Comic Muse

mewithoutyou’s untitled had a companion EP, also called untitled, released a few months beforehand

songs of innocence/songs of experience by U2

In Fripp's mind, there was Exposure, Sacred Songs and Peter Gabriel 2.

songs of innocence/songs of experience by David Axelrod

Songs of Innocence / Songs of Experience by David Axelrod!

oh uh, xpost

George’s Older and Upper

Another "fake" pairing is A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races.

Do remix or dub versions count? If so Massive Attack’s Protection and No Protection, the Mad Professor dub versions.

There's gotta be a lot of them from Marcus Garvey/Garvey's Ghost to Reset/Reset in Dub

(There ofc probably are earlier examples of an entire album versioned than Garvey's Ghost but none come to mind rn.)

The first Loose Fur album always felt like a companion piece to Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Canadian fiddler Ashley MacIsaac followed up his rock album "Hi, How Are You Today?" with one titled "Fine, Thank You Very Much", which spotlighted his traditional East Coast Celtic folk music.

Scratch My Back/And I'll Scratch Yours

Robert Wyatt is quoted on the Drury Lane album's Wikipedia article as saying he considered Julie Tippetts' Sunset Glow to be the "companion piece" to Rock Bottom

Steve Hillage - For To Next and And Not Or.

Pumpkins' Machina and Machina II

maybe an obvious example but Apple Venus and Wasp Star

The Kinks - Preservation Act I and Preservation Act II
Ray Davies - Americana and Our Country: Americana Act II
Zappa - Joe's Garage Act I and Joe's Garage Acts II & III

Panda Bear & Sonic Boom's Reset has two companion albums: Reset (Songbook Instrumentals + Remixes) and Reset In Dub

Apple Venus Volume 1 has three then - Homespun: The Apple Venus Volume One Home Demos, Instruvenus and indeed Wasp Star (itself with Homegrown: The Wasp Star Home Demos and Waspstrumental)

James: Laid (the polished songs) and Wah-Wah (the improvisational stuff from the same Eno sessions)

James also have The Night Before and The Morning After

Ghost:
Snuffbox Immanence
Tune In, Turn On, Free Tibet

Getting really nerdy here but King Crimson's VROOOM EP preceded THRAK, which included new/re-recorded versions of all the songs on VROOOM. Can't think of another example of a band doing that...lots of times the demos come out after the album, but not before.

they did the same thing later with Power to Believe and whatever that ep was that came out first.

Yeah I guess they were big fans of showing the work, at least in the latter days (or maybe just releasing everything possible).

Hooverphonic released No More Sweet Music in 2005, 2 cds of the same album of songs in same order, but different song versions on each cd. More a twin release than referencing an earlier album per OP, but I like it for the different directions they take each song.

They Might be Giants did that for a lot of the songs on Mink Car. I think nearly every tune on the album was already released in some form.

also not everything on VROOOM wound up on THRAK. "Cage" didn't, unfortunately, plus there was one improv tune on there I think

Ornette Coleman released two albums simultaneously in 1996: Sound Museum: Hidden Man and Sound Museum: Three Women. Different performances of the same songs by the same band.

He also released New York Is Now! and Love Cry in 1968 and 1971, both recorded with the same band at the same sessions, but I don't know if that was his idea or Blue Note's ("Hey, there are enough leftovers for another album, and since he's on Columbia now, we don't have to ask his permission!").

Frank Ocean, Endless and Blonde

Neil Young - Storyline (2-disc version with orchestrated and solo versions of the same song)

Neil Young - Living with War (limited edition "In the Beginning" version released later with the massed choral voices removed)

folklore/evermore?

the national are about to release one of these, laugh track, from the same sessions as their earlier release this year first two pages of frankenstein

Sounds like the new AnCo LP may be one (and in fact Pitchfork says so in their review’s subhead).

Surprised no mention of Microcastle and Weird Era Contd. - my favourite example of this I think.

Oh yes! – and that reminds me of another pair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Women_and_Holy_Ghost_Language_School

Cousteau Twins - Tiny Dynamine / Echoes in a Shallow Bay EPs

Primal Scream's XTRMNTR and David Holmes's Bow Down to the Exit Sign used to feel like companions to me; I think they appeared at a similar time and have a similar feel. There's some overlap in personnel; even the covers felt similar to me.

He also released New York Is Now! and Love Cry in 1968 and 1971, both recorded with the same band at the same sessions, but I don't know if that was his idea or Blue Note's ("Hey, there are enough leftovers for another album, and since he's on Columbia now, we don't have to ask his permission!").

If that counts, then so might Ornette's Science Fiction and Broken Shadows, despite being released 11 years apart.

Like it or not, the last two Red Hot Chili Peppers came from the same sessions.

*albums

Touches on a very similar if not identical theme
https://intocreative.co.uk/great-sister-albums/

Twist with Chubby Checker (1960)
Let's Twist Again (1962)

great-sister-albums

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9b/Philosophy_of_the_World.png

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f3/TheBreedersLastSplash.jpg

As its rival release, Pin Ups is a better 'sister' to These Foolish Things, as my friend who shared this to me pointed out.

Also listening companions to books, like Lipstick Traces. Marcus's buddy xgau panned it though; I haven't heard it.

from The post-disco pre-house clubbing scene

As mentioned upthread, Life & Death On The New York Dance Floor 1980-1983 is a 2-disc listening companion to Tim Lawrence's excellent book of the same name, and it's all streaming here:https://reappearingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/life-death-on-a-new-york-dance-floor-1980-1983
Also, Soul Jazz Records released double-disc The World of Keith Haring to synch with an exhibit, and it's prob still on YouTube. Both of these comps are pretty heady, I think.

― dow, Tuesday, April 27, 2021 4:03 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

(As I said at some length on prev. years' Rolling Reissues.)

― dow, Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Also, there's one for the first book in Lawrence's NYC trilogy, Love Saves the Day : A History Of American Dance Music Culture 1970​-​1979 Takes some turns I wasn't expecting, like a long, mostly instrumental Chuck Mangione wonderland, and a comfortably inebriated-sounding jazz fusion limo ride around Manhattan, but mostly grew on me quite a bit. I'd start with the above follow-up though. And unlike Love Saves The Day, it's streaming on Bandcamp:
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2858224731_10.jpg

that link again:
https://reappearingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/life-death-on-a-new-york-dance-floor-1980-1983

I think of Nick Cave’s Your Funeral…My Trial and These Immortal Soul’s Get Lost (Don’t Lie) as sisters/companions. A few years and a few records past The Birthday Party flinging apart because it couldn’t get any more intense, the two songwriters arrive at a similar inky and depleted romanticism.

I’m gonna try shuffling the tracks together, see how it sounds.

Tom Waits: I still think of swordfishtrombones, rain dogs, and frank's wild years as a trilogy, though there really is no reason to. Alice and Blood Money came out at the same time and were both written for Robert Wilson plays.

> though there really is no reason to.

I think those are commonly grouped together, and there a song in the first album that titles the third.

It was often called a trilogy

Vince Martin made "If The Jasmine Don't Get You..." working at night in the studio that Dylan had block-booked 24/7 for "Nashville Skyline", with Bob's band.

Alongside David Comes To Life, Fucked Up released a companion “world building” album, David’s Town, that was purported to be the soundtrack of the world of the titular character. The companion album rules and I listen to it more frequently than I do the main album proper

Xpost didn't Bob's band ever get to go home, or sleep etc?

Here’s a fairly recent one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-Glo_(Based_on_a_True_Story)

Okkervil River - The Stage Names and The Stand Ins

What's Going On? (May 1971)
There's a Riot Goin' On (Nov 1971)

the church
the hypnogogue / eros zeta and the perfumed guitars