Fractures in a Mirror

Fractures in a Mirror is a Sisters of Mercy compilation album compiled by C.Syde65. Originally compiled in 2010, the compilation would undergo many numerous changes to the tracklist, that by 2016 when the core of the compilation was finalised, only 4 of the original tracks were left on the compilation.

Originally titled Bury Me Deep in 2010, the album originally consisted of 8 tracks - "Floorshow", "Gimme Shelter", "Afterhours", "Blood Money", "Bury Me Deep", "Emma", "Finland Red, Egypt White", and "You Could Be the One".

The intention of this compilation was to collect all the songs by The Sisters of Mercy that were on my PC that weren't part of any other albums that I had at the time - First and Last and Always, Floodland, Vision Thing, and A Slight Case of Overbombing: Greatest Hits, Volume One.

All 8 of these tracks originated from MP3 files at 128 kbps, though I later converted all the MP3 files at 128 kbps of Sisters of Mercy songs that were on my PC at the time to Wma files at 192 kbps. In addition to obtaining the Japanese version of the compact disc release of First and Last and Always, I obtained the 2006 remaster of the British version of the album, featuring some bonus tracks including remastered copies of "Blood Money" and "Bury Me Deep".

This caused me to delete the old copies of those songs and eliminate them from this compilation. Upon discovering that "Emma" and "You Could Be the One" had been included as bonus tracks on Floodland and Vision Thing respectively, I followed suite. Eliminating them from this compilation in favour of them being bonus tracks on Floodland and Vision Thing respectively.

This left the compilation with only 4 of the original tracks. And it wasn't long before the 4 tracks that got removed from the compilation were replaced in 2011-2012. The new tracks were "Alice", "Phantom", "Valentine", "Jolene", and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door". The version of "Alice" that is included on this compilation was originally released as a single in November 1982 and an EP in March 1983, while the version of "Jolene" that is included on this compilation was featured as a bootleg in 1992.

But still, it was only 4 years later that I wanted to obtain more Sisters of Mercy songs to be featured on this compilation. 7 additional tracks were added. The first version of "Body Electric" that is included on this compilation was originally released as a single in April 1982. The second version of "Body Electric" that is included on this compilation was originally released on the Body and Soul EP in June 1984.

After it was discovered that the version of "Floorshow" that I'd had on my PC for more than a decade was not the version that was originally released as a single in November 1982 and the Alice EP, I sought to obtain that version for this compilation as well. The version of "Floorshow" that had been on my PC for over a decade that I had believed to be the version released as a single until 2016 was actually a live version that was featured as title="sisterswiki:Floorshow (Bootleg)">a bootleg in 1990.

The version of "Temple of Love" that is included on this compilation was originally released as an EP in October 1983. The mix presented on this compilation is the extended mix. In addition to the version of "Jolene" that was already included on this compilation, a second version of "Jolene" was added in 2016. This second version of "Jolene" is a live version recorded in 1990, though I haven't been able to find out what bootleg it was released on, if any. "Adrenochrome" and "Train" are the other 2 additional tracks that were added to this compilation in 2016.

In 2019, the live version of "Ribbons" that was included as a bonus track on the 2006 reissue of The Sisters of Mercy's third studio album Vision Thing was included on this compilation. Though it is 13 seconds shorter than on Vision Thing, as the first 13 seconds of the intro is omitted from the copy presented on this compilation. And with that, the compilation Fractures in a Mirror was until further notice completed.

The "no pause between tracks" box would be ticked when burning this compilation, to prevent the Nero Express Essentials software from adding 2 second pauses between tracks, to free up more space on the CD - not that there wouldn't be enough space to fit 9 and 8 songs on the first and second discs respectively anyway. The "normalise all audio files" box would also be ticked, to set the volume of all the tracks to a standard volume.