Stepping Out Of Line - The Anthology

This is it — every studio recording made by Au Pairs, one of the smartest, sharpest bands of the post-punk era. Stepping Out of Line contains the two albums, 1981′s Playing with a Different Sex and the following year’s Sense and Sensuality, as well as all the non-album material, three tracks from a BBC session, a live version of “Piece of My Heart,” one previously unreleased track, and a handful of demos for a third album that never materialized. Most of the non-album material surfaced on RPM’s reissues of the two albums, but those discs vanished shortly after release, and an attempt on the part of Cherry Red to condense the best of it all onto one disc in 1999 came up short. No one could possibly give this band’s output too much attention. – Andy Kellman