Wilco may be working on a new album, but they’re not above looking back either. In 2001, Wilco released their masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot online, and the album was finally officially released in April 2002. At the moment, Wilco are in the middle of a series of shows playing Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in full. Today they also announced an upcoming deluxe reissue of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot which will feature a staggering number of unreleased tracks.
The foxtrot sessions at the Yankee Hotel were so notoriously difficult that they almost tore Wilco apart, and the new box set version of the remastered album – 11 vinyl LPs and one CD, along with a book – will feature many of the different versions of Record songs that Wilco recorded prior to the album’s completion. The new box set will include demos, instrumentals and alternate takes, as well as a 2002 live show recording and a 2001 radio set and interview. It has a total of 82 unreleased tracks, which is a lot of tracks. Wilco just released one of those 82 tracks, a 2002 version of “Reservations” recorded live at the Pageant in St. Louis. You can hear that below.
Wilco also had the opportunity to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on TV last night. The band was a musical guest on friend Stephen Colbert’s Late Show and teamed up with string ensemble Aizuri Quartet to play the YHF classic Poor Places. Here is her performance:
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Deluxe Reissue Releases September 16th On Nonesuch; pre-order here.