The Fall

Reformation Post TLC is an album by The Fall, released in February 2007, and the product of a sudden line-up change. When Ben Pritchard, Spencer Birtwistle and Steve Trafford walked out during an American tour in April 2006, Mark E. Smith rebuilt the group with American musicians and took them into the studio. This expanded edition sets the album beside its rough mixes, alternate versions and a London concert from April 2007.

Alongside Smith and his wife Elena Poulou on keyboards, the record features guitarist Tim Presley, bassist Rob Barbato and drummer Orpheo McCord, the three emergency recruits, with Dave Spurr also on bass. Gary Bennett and Pete Greenway appear as special guests on guitar. The Americans share writing credits with Smith on half the album, including Reformation!, Fall Sound and Scenario, and Poulou co-wrote The Wright Stuff.

The album runs from the opening Over! Over! to the ten-minute Das Boat and the eight-minute Systematic Abuse, and includes a cover of Merle Haggard's White Line Fever. Disc two gathers the 2007 single, including the uncut Reformation! and rough mixes of Over! Over! and My Door Is Never, followed by the vinyl mixes from the UK double LP. Disc three goes back to early rough mixes from 2006, including pieces that never reached the album, such as The Boss, 60's Wack and Blonde. Disc four is the concert at Hammersmith Palais on 1 April 2007. There the new band take on Frank Zappa's Hungry Freaks, Daddy alongside Theme from Sparta F.C., White Lightning and Blindness.

The American line-up did not last. By the next album, Imperial Wax Solvent, only Poulou and Spurr remained, with Greenway now a full member alongside a new drummer. In the United States the record came out on Narnack in 2007, without The Usher and with three videos added, among them Hungry Freaks, Daddy. The Hammersmith concert had first appeared in 2009 as Last Night at the Palais.

4CD expanded edition on Cherry Red (CDEXRED800), April 2020, in a 10-panel digipak with a 24-page booklet, with notes by Daryl Easlea and remastering by Andy Pearce.