Ten years ago, three Londoners recorded a debut that sounded like a jazz band falling into a rave at the edge of the solar system. Now The Leaf Label has announced Exploding In Slow Motion: The Complete Channel The Spirits Recordings 2013-2017CE, a 28-track box that gathers The Comet Is Coming's first album, both of its EPs and a pile of rarities, including four tracks nobody has heard before. It lands November 20, 2026, and the first unearthed cut is out today.
Who is in the band
The Comet Is Coming are a trio that use their stage names on everything. Shabaka is saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, one of the most important figures in the London jazz scene of the last decade. Danalogue is keyboardist and synth player Dan Leavers, and Betamax is drummer Max Hallett. Leavers and Hallett produced and mixed every track here, and most of it was engineered at Total Refreshment Centre, the East London studio and venue that became a hub for that whole generation of players.
Channel The Spirits came out in 2016 and, as the label puts it, was named a Mercury Music Prize album of the year. It turned a sax, a synth and a drum kit into something closer to a sound system, and the band spent the next few years taking that live show across five continents.
What is inside
The set runs in order. First the twelve album tracks, from "The Prophecy" through "Space Carnival," "Journey Through The Asteroid Belt" and "Lightyears" with poet Joshua Idehen, who also turns up on "Final Days Of The Apocalypse." Then the Prophecy EP, the Death To The Planet EP, and a section called The Ancient Tapes.
The four previously unreleased tracks are the reason to look twice:
- "Late Night Party Jam 2," taken from the earliest known Comet recordings, out now
- "Neon Baby," from a John Kennedy X-Posure session first broadcast on Xfm on November 2, 2016
- Live versions of "Final Eclipse" and "Space Carnival"
The label timed the announcement to the Draconids meteor shower, which is exactly the kind of joke this band would make. "Late Night Party Jam 2" does what the title says. It is loose, loud and built on a groove that refuses to quit.
The pressings to know
This is where it gets serious for collectors. Every edition gets new maximalist artwork from Fabrice Bourgelle and Tilly Mint, with design by Oli Bentley, and the triple vinyl sleeves are printed inside and out, with a die-cut slipcase and a 60 x 60 cm fold-out poster.
- Ring Nebula 3LP: splatter and color-in-color discs, 500 copies, only from Bandcamp and Rough Trade. Bandcamp lists it at £52.99.
- Translucent 3LP: violet, blue and orange vinyl, 1,500 copies for the world, in record shops. Bandcamp lists it at £46.99, and its share was down to 90 copies when we checked Wednesday morning.
- Double CD: gatefold wallet with eight tracks on CD for the first time, £14.99.
- Rave case double cassette: Bandcamp only, made to order and never to be repressed, £17.99.
Every physical order on Bandcamp comes with the digital pre-order, so you get 25 tracks to stream right away.
Our call
This is a Signal. Plenty of anniversary boxes are padding, but this one fixes a real problem: the early Comet catalog was scattered across an album, two EPs and radio sessions, and now it lives in one place, in order, with the live energy finally on record. If you only know the band from later records, start here. If you were there in 2016, the Ring Nebula edition is the one to chase before it goes.
If you are building a shelf around records like this, our list of gifts for vinyl collectors is a good next stop. For more spiritual jazz pressed in small numbers, read our take on Damon Locks and D-Composed's Dawning, and if you want to hear it on a proper system, here is how to find a real listening bar.
Pre-order on Bandcamp · Pre-save and other stores · The Comet Is Coming
