Sananda Maitreya releases the newly remastered version of his visionary second album, 1989’s ‘Neither Fish Nor Flesh: A Soundtrack of Love, Faith, Hope & Destruction’.
It is the latest instalment in ‘Juvenilia: The Columbia Years’, a remastered album series which traces his artistic evolution, from breakthrough to reinvention, and from redemption to defiance.
Sananda Maitreya’s debut album ‘Introducing The Hardline’ was a global phenomenon, one of the biggest albums of the decade in both the UK and the US. It put the spotlight on a new talent who felt like the latest towering talent in the lineage of Michael Jackson, Prince and Sam Cooke: one whose creativity was heralded with both a BRIT Award and a Grammy. So expectations for ‘Neither Fish Nor Flesh: A Soundtrack of Love, Faith, Hope & Destruction’ were at fever pitch.
A more commercially-minded musician would’ve tapped into and repeated the qualities that made his first album, ‘Introducing The Hardline’ so successful. But Sananda Maitreya was and remains an artist, one innately more drawn to grander ideas, maximalist sounds, curious adventures and unorthodox experimentation – all further fuelled by his desire to create something explosive rather than pander to the will of his increasingly conservative record label. In doing so, ‘Neither Fish Nor Flesh’ became a seminal work at the very beginning of Post Millennium Rock, the genre Sananda would later define and name, while also anticipating what would soon be described as Neo Soul, laying its philosophical, musical and spiritual foundations years ahead of its time. All of which made ‘Neither Fish Nor Flesh’ an album quite unlike any other, that defied convention and expectation.
Sananda says, “I jumped into this album’s recording with a total lover’s leap of faith. If ‘The Hardline’ was the last of its breed, then ‘Neither Fish Nor Flesh’ was the initial stirrings of what was to evolve as Post Millennium Rock. I died for this record – and time said I was right.”
While the album didn’t scale the commercial heights of its predecessor, for some people it meant everything – a record so singular and boundary-pushing that it earned a cult of adoration. And in retrospect, it wasn’t devoid of critical acclaim either. NME’s 8/10 review praised “something startlingly unique and oddly effective… it feeds off the soul greats of the past and ‘60s progressive rock.” Meanwhile,Rolling Stone’s four-star examination described it as a “bona fide genius move, a self-produced, self-arranged and self-written musical statement that’s just as ambitious, brash and maddening as the boasts he’s made in interviews.” And a later reappraisal from The Guardian concluded, “‘Neither Fish Nor Flesh’ is everything Pop should be.”
Release Schedule
The releases will unfold in several stages:
On February 13th, Sananda Maitreya will release “SMNUK’25 !” (Shepherd’s Pie), a new live album recorded at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire during his 2025 UK tour. Capturing the power, immediacy and spirit of his recent UK tour, the album offers a raw and electrifying counterpart to the newly remastered studio recordings. On the same date, the full concert film Sananda Maitreya & The Sugar Plum Pharaohs ‘Shepherd’s Pie’ – Live in London at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire will premiere on YouTube HERE at 9:00 PM CET / 8:00 PM GMT / 3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT.
The six-vinyl box set ‘Juvenilia: The Columbia Years’ follows on March 13th. The meticulously curated set brings together his first four classic and groundbreaking albums ‘Introducing The Hardline’, ‘Neither Fish Nor Flesh’, ‘Symphony Or Damn’ and ‘Vibrator’ on 6 coloured vinyl. Presented together on premium 180-gram vinyl, the box set includes restored artwork, visual material and new liner notes by Sananda himself.
The remaining remastered digital releases follow in stages: ‘Symphony Or Damn: Exploring The Tension Inside The Sweetness’ on March 15th and ‘Vibrator’ on April 13th.
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