Manchester post-punk band Inca Babies share ‘Superior Spectre’ single and video from ‘Reincarnation’
Inca Babies (Photo by Simona Masoni)
Manchester post-punk / punk blues band Inca Babies has released the single “Superior Spectre” as a digital track with an accompanying video. The song is taken from the 2025 album “Reincarnation” out on Black Lagoon Records, which revisits and re-records material from across the group’s back catalogue.
The “Superior Spectre” video combines location footage from Rome with live material from a recent Inca Babies set at the Manchester venue Big Hands. It was directed by singer-guitarist Harry Stafford, with most of the Rome material filmed by photographer Jandi Moreno shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic.
You can watch the video below.
“Superior Spectre” is a long-standing part of the Inca Babies repertoire. The song already featured in the band’s 1984 John Peel Session and was later issued on the 2014 Record Store Day EP “Scatter”. It also appears in a live version on the 2020 cassette and digital release “Live At The Hacienda”.
For “Reincarnation”, the track comes as “Superior Spectre (Reincarnation25)”, a newly recorded version.
“Reincarnation”: re-recorded Inca Babies material
“Reincarnation” was released in late November 2025 on Black Lagoon Records. The album was recorded and mixed over two years at 6dB Studios in Salford, Greater Manchester, by producer Simon “Ding” Archer and Harry Stafford, with Archer also contributing additional sonic and dub treatments. Mastering was handled by Marco Butcher at Boombox Studio in North Carolina.
Harry Stafford describes the project as a deliberate return to older material adding that, when reviewing the catalogue, it became clear “that there were tracks that should again be made available in some manner” and that others would benefit from reinvention. The idea was to “inject new life into our favourite back catalogue,” presenting the songs “re-invented for contemporary consideration, re-awakened and ‘Re-inca-rnated’.”
The album gathers twelve re-recorded tracks from different phases of the band’s history.
- “Candy Mountain” (from “This Train”, 1986)
- “Buster’s on Fire” (7″ single on Constrictor Records, 1987)
- “Daniella” (from “This Train”, 1986)
- “Two Rails to Nowhere” (from “Evil Hour”, 1988)
- “Jericho” (from “Big Jugular” 12″ EP, 1984)
- “Devil in My Room” (from “Opium Den”, 1986)
- “Phantom Track” (from “Death Message Blues”, 2010)
- “The Diseased Stranger’s Waltz” (from “Rumble”, 1985)
- “Damnation” (from “The Stereo Plan”, 2014)
- “Thirst” (from “Opium Den”, 1986)
- “Superior Spectre” (extra B-side of “Scatter” 12″, 2014)
- “Cowboy Song” (B-side of “The Judge” 12″ single, 1984)
“Reincarnation” is available now on digital platforms including Bandcamp, Spotify and Apple Music, and on CD via Black Lagoon Records, with the Bandcamp edition carrying both download and physical formats.
About Inca Babies
Inca Babies is a Manchester-based band that formed in the early 1980s in the Hulme district, combining post-punk, punk blues and deathrock influences. The original line-up featured Bill Marten (bass), Harry Stafford (guitar), Julian Woropay (vocals) and Alan Brown (drums), with later early-period changes bringing in Mike Keeble on vocals and Pete Bogg on drums.
The band released their debut single “The Interior” in November 1983 on their own Black Lagoon label, followed by the albums “Rumble” (1985), “This Train” (1986), “Opium Den” (1987) and “Evil Hour” (1988). Over roughly five years they issued six singles and four albums, all of which entered the UK Indie Charts, and recorded four sessions for John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 programme between 1984 and 1987.
After disbanding in the late 1980s, Harry Stafford and Bill Marten worked together in Houndgod With A Tumour. Inca Babies returned to activity in 2007 for a Munich show, after which Stafford recruited Rob Haynes (The Membranes, Goldblade) on drums and, later, David Carmichael (Rat) on bass and Jim Adama on guitar. This line-up has continued the group’s recording and touring activities.
Since reforming, the band has issued several studio albums on Black Lagoon Records, including “Death Message Blues” (2010), “Deep Dark Blue” (2012), “The Stereo Plan” (2014), “Swamp Street Soul” (2021) and “Ghost Mechanic Nine” (2024), followed by “Reincarnation” in 2025 as a re-recording project. Their recent work has been documented in the 2024 film “The Making of Ghost Mechanic Nine”, which focuses on the band’s history and the production of that album.
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