Originally released in August 2001, the double-LP reissue marks the first appearance of The Clean's Getaway on vinyl and includes an 18-song bonus CD that compiles the hard-to-find, tour-only releases Syd’s Pink Wiring System and Slush Fund. A double-CD version includes the full album plus the bonus disc.
The live version of the pulsing, soaring “Stars”—along with a couple of other Getaway songs and Clean classics like “Fish,” “Side On,” “Quickstep,” and “Point That Thing Somewhere Else”—appears on the rare 2003 album Syd’s Pink Wiring System. That record is included with the Getaway reissue, along with the more experimental, piano-driven EP Slush Fund from the same era. These bonus tracks reinforce the idea of the Getaway-era Clean as especially plugged in, generating inspired and beautiful music almost on instinct.
Indeed, they’ve done justice to Getaway, a key album in t The Clean discography—a record that honors the band’s origins as garage-rock-loving New Zealand kids, excited just by the hum of a good, cheap amplifier. Songs like the twangy, easygoing “Crazy,” the jaunty acoustic snippet “Cell Block No. 5,” and the trance-inducing “Circle Canyon” are more fine examples of Robert Scott and the Kilgour brothers’ interest in immediacy and a strong vibe, applied to catchy melodies.