The Vega Vault Project and Sacred Bones Records continue their meticulous excavation of Alan Vega’s sprawling posthumous archive, unveiling newly remastered editions of his highly influential 1980 self-titled debut solo album, Alan Vega, and its 1981 successor, Collision Drive. Remastered from the original tapes and available on streaming platforms for the first time ever, these essential works return in definitive form—preserving the volatility and voltage of Vega’s original recordings while bringing them to a new generation of listeners.
Accompanying the reissues is an expanded version of Vega’s debut solo album: the Alan Vega Deluxe Edition, a limited double-LP set featuring previously unheard demos, unseen photos, original track sheets from Vega’s 1978 Suicide / The Clash Tour Notebook, and newly commissioned artwork. It offers the most extensive look yet into the creative engine behind Vega’s first steps outside Suicide.
Released in 1980, Alan Vega arrived in tandem with Suicide: Alan Vega and Martin Rev, yet marked a decisive step outward. Vega sought to carve out a personal identity built from rockabilly roots, early rock n’ roll, and his lifelong devotion to Elvis Presley. Between Suicide sessions, he began performing solo with a boombox and skeletal arrangements, chiseling a sound that was tightly wound, minimalist, and unmistakably his.
A chance meeting with young Texan guitarist Phil Hawk proved catalytic. Vega, struck by Hawk’s “blonde Elvis” aura and intuitive playing, finally found the stripped-down collaborator who could match the vision in his head. Recording each drum part individually, blending live and electronic sounds, manipulating tape, and directing Hawk riff by riff, Vega assembled a fierce, elemental debut built entirely on instinct and precision. Its standouts, like the swaggering anthem Jukebox Babe, the blues-twisted Kung Foo Cowboy, and the radiant, melancholy Ice Drummer, cemented the album’s cult status and sent quiet shockwaves through New York’s underground.
Just one year later, Collision Drive expanded the palette: grittier, more volatile, and charged with Vega’s obsessions: street life, sci-fi, politics, comics, love, and cosmic mystery. With a live drummer and a hard-rock backing band, the album delivered a broader, more explosive vision.
Watch the video below for the Collision Drive track, Ice Drummer, directed by Douglas Hart (The Jesus and Mary Chain):
After Alan Vega passed away in 2016, his circle of friends, collaborators, and family began gathering and cataloguing the vast amount of unreleased material he left behind. His first posthumous album, It, emerged in 2017 on the Fader Label. In 2021, Sacred Bones released Mutator, drawn from material Vega recorded with his wife and longtime collaborator, Liz Lamere, between 1996 and 1998. Last year brought Insurrection, the most recent archival Vega release to date, via In the Red.
“Alan was always reinventing himself,” says Jared Artaud, co-producer of The Vega Vault Project. “He was refining variation while maintaining an identifiable aesthetic.”
“Alan’s music thrived on interpretation,” adds Liz Lamere. “He resisted explaining his lyrics. He believed listeners should bring their own meaning, and that openness is part of its power.”
With Alan Vega, Collision Drive, and the expanded Alan Vega Deluxe Edition returning on January 23, 2026, via Sacred Bones Records, the ongoing work of The Vega Vault Project continues to reveal the scope of Vega’s restless experimentation—bringing new clarity, new context, and new life to the legacy he built with such uncompromising intent.
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