Looper have returned, with details of a box set compilation, entitled ‘These Things’. The 5-CD collection features tracks from their entire catalogue, including the new album, ‘Offgrid:Offline’.

The box is released at the same time as digital versions of previous long-players: debut ‘Up A Tree’, 2000’s ‘The Geometrid’, ‘The Snare’, as well as ‘Offgrid:Offline’. The CDs forming the boxset comprise of their back catalogue rearranged into various categories, like a kind of mixtape setup: lexiphonics, kinokraft, voxtrot, transmitte and melos (no, us neither).

Accompanying the CDs there’s artwork in cut-and-paste collage form, telling the story of the band from old reviews and articles from the original releases. That’s compiled by Karn David – wife of the band’s mainman Stuart and director of early Belle and Sebastian videos. The band has also featured, for most of its 17-year or so existence, Stuart’s brother Ronnie Black, plus Scott Twynholm, keyboard player with Hoboken and recent collaborator with Gav ‘onthefly’ Brown on the soundtrack to Alasdair Gray documentary ‘A Life In Progress’.

There are also sleeve notes from Tim Burgess of The Charlatans, who, the story goes, provided spare batteries for their sampler when they ran out during a show in LA.

The album(s)are due for release on April 13th.

More at www.looperama.co.uk