Blaine And Steven Live In Porto, 24 November 1989

A historical live recording by Blaine L. Reininger and Steven Brown, founders of legendary post-punk band Tuxedomoon, here in their parallel guise as a classical piano and violin duo, one they have maintained throughout the decades.

This is the "other" 1989 Blaine and Steven concert in Portugal, performed two days after the Lisbon gig immortalised many moons ago on "One Hundred Years of Music". "Live in Porto 1989" is undoubtedly the better of the two gigs (just listen to "Iberia"!…), but the occasional distortion and hum on the recording deemed it unsuitable for release at the time. Fast forward to 35 years later and perhaps our ears have become somewhat more forgiving, particularly when the preservation of such prime content is at stake. A careful mastering by Alex FX in 2024 has further cleaned up the sound which, save for the odd, aforementioned issue, was pretty outstanding to begin with.

Besides marking the public première of this recording, this edition also provides us with the first chance to listen to a full Blaine and Steven performance from 1989, as the Lisbon CD had left various of the pieces performed that night off of the official release. And this includes an unexpected second encore…