Datapanik in Year Zero

Datapanik In Year Zero

Datapanik in the Year Zero is a 1996 box set by Pere Ubu, which catalogues their initial phase of existence up to their 1982 break-up (which later turned out to be merely a hiatus). The title was first used by the band for a 1978 EP which compiled their first singles; the name was "recycled" for this release. The name appears to reference the Cold War film, Panic in Year Zero! (1962). As David Thomas father was a computer professor, the title could also be related to the Y2K bug in 2000.

This box set compiles the original EP of the same name, their first five albums (which were out of print at the time this set was released), along with a disc of live material, and another of related rarities. It omits "Use Of A Dog" from "Song Of The Bailing Man", '"Humor Me", 'Not Happy" and 'Lonesome Cowboy Dave" from "Terminal Tower" and the vocal version of "Arabia" from "The Art Of Walking." Since, according to David Thomas, Pere Ubu do not produce outtakes or alternate versions (aside from a few anomalies related to an early version of The Art of Walking), the rarities disc is unique in that it features groups that were sometimes only tangentially related to Ubu, in an effort to present an overview of the mercurial Cleveland scene out of which they grew.

In 2009, Cooking Vinyl released a remastered version of the box set. It restores "Use of a Dog" but omits the fourth disc of live recordings.