It's a sad but oft-repeated tale in music business: an artist releases an album. Their label folds and all corporate support for marketing and promoting it evaporate. Such was the fate of World Party's impossibly wonderful Egyptology. I reviewed an advance copy and eventually stopped writing for the publication where I freelanced because the meddling editor challenged my perfect rating for it. But around the time that it was hitting the store shelves in 1997, the Enclave, the label behind the US release, was killed off by parent Chrysalis. The album was ignored and is now out of print. The good news in the UK was that Robbie Williams held the album in the same high esteem that I did, and his cover of "She's the One" was a big hit there, but Williams has never found an audience in the US.

Dumbing Up, the follow-up to Egyptology, is finally coming out in the US, a mere six years after its UK release. World Party mastermind Karl Wallinger is releasing it on his own label Seaview. More details about the project, the band's recent history and upcoming US tour dates are at http://www.worldparty.net.