Wild Opera was originally released back in 1996 on the 3rd Stone label and marked a turning point in their career, moving away from their poppy trip-hop sound and bringing in many elements of progressive and art rock into their sound. Now KScope have rereleased it in a remastered and expanded format.

The tracks on Wild Opera range from the energetic/rocky dance types - such as opener Radient City and the Nine Inch Nails groove of Infant Phenomenom - to the trip-hop soundings of Pretty Genius and Sheeploop, via alt-jazz workouts like Sinister Jazz. The albums "hit single" Housewives Hooked on Heroin sounds as fresh today as it did back then.

Probably one of the best things about this album is that the awkward tracks, such as the experimental Libertine Libretto, are fairly short and as such, don't intrude. Rather they tend to accentuate the positives of the surrounding songs. Like the soulful Taste My Dream, a foretaste of their post-2000 work.

This reissue comes repackaged with the follow-up EP Dry Cleaning Ray. Even at the time, this was considered as a companion to the main album, containing as it does remixes and reworkings of the original's tracks alongside other songs taken from the recording sessions. This version has the original CD's nine tracks along with a couple of b-sides and four previously unreleased tracks.

If you've only recently got into no-man during the post-prog years, this is a good place to start checking out their earlier material.

The album is released through kscope music and can be bought from Burning Shed store.