Motörhead's seventh album Orgasmatron returns on 6 November in a fortieth anniversary edition, and it arrives twice over.
The original recordings have been remastered and cut at half speed from the original tapes. Beside that sits something else: Cameron Webb, who produced the band's later records, has built a brand new remix and remaster from the original stems.
That is not a neutral decision and the band's team did not pretend otherwise. Orgasmatron was produced by Bill Laswell, whose approach to it has been argued about for four decades. “Part of that is down to the stylized production of Bill Laswell, who approached the work from a unique perspective,” they said, adding that Laswell's work stands in its own right in the Motörhead library. Both versions are in the box, which is the only way to settle an argument that old: put them next to each other.
The 1986 line up was Lemmy, Phil Campbell, Würzel and Pete Gill. The record pushed the band heavier without dropping the speed, and Orgasmatron, Deaf Forever and Built For Speed stayed in the live set for the rest of the band's life.