Portion Control release ‘Displaced Hybrid Refugee’ video as their first archive box set arrives
Portion Control released the “Displaced Hybrid Refugee” video on August 14, 2026, the day their 4xCD box set landed on Artoffact Records.
Portion Control released a video for “Displaced Hybrid Refugee” on August 14, 2026, the same day their first archival box set, “1983-86 – Hit The Pulse to Purge…”, arrived on Artoffact Records as a 4xCD set, a digital edition and a limited red vinyl LP. The London electronic and industrial group posted the video to their own Portion Control VMAG channel.
Table of contents
Portion Control rebuild ‘Refugee’ as ‘Displaced Hybrid Refugee’
“Displaced Hybrid Refugee” sits at track 56 of the 77-track set and reworks “Refugee”, originally on the 1984 album “..Step Forward”. The band explain where the footage came from rather than what the song means: “This song is a rework of ‘Refugee’ and the video is built from the visuals used whenever we play it live.”
It is the second rebuild of that song to surface from the project. Rhys Fulber of Front Line Assembly produced “Refugee (Rhys Fulber Rebuild)”, the first preview issued when the box set was announced.
What the ‘Hit The Pulse to Purge’ box set collects
The set gathers the 1983 mini-LP “Hit The Pulse”, the albums “..Step Forward” (1984) and “Psycho Bod Saves The World” (1986), the 12-inch singles “The Great Divide”, “Go-Talk” and “Raise The Pulse”, and the “Purge” EP (1986), plus B-sides, compilation tracks, rarities, remixes, demos and two concert recordings from 1984 and 1985. Paul Lavigne remastered all 77 tracks at Kontrast Mastering. Sixteen are previously unreleased and a further twelve appear on CD and digitally for the first time. The 4xCD edition comes in a five-panel ecopak with a 24-page booklet of archive photos, designed by Stefan Alt of ant-zen. The red vinyl LP carries ten tracks.
Side-Line covered the set when Artoffact announced the box set “1983-86 – Hit The Pulse to Purge…” in June. Two further previews followed over the summer: the live recording “Tex-Mex”, taped at Dolce Vita in Lausanne in December 1985, and the demo “H.O.T. Matter” from the “Psycho Bod Saves The World” period. All three earlier tracks are on the box set alongside “Displaced Hybrid Refugee”.
The 4xCD box, the LP, the digital edition and a run of six vinyl test pressings are sold through Bandcamp. The set is also on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music, with physical copies handled in the UK by Lexer Music.
Portion Control live dates
- October 24, 2026 – Zwickau, Germany – Elektrisch Festival
- July 1-4, 2027 – Canterbury, United Kingdom – Shadowlands
About Portion Control
Portion Control formed in South London in 1979 around Dean Piavanini, Ian Sharp and John Whybrew. The group built a minimal, rhythm-led sound from sequenced synthesisers, drum machines, early samplers and clipped vocals, and issued a run of cassettes before their first vinyl album, “I Staggered Mentally”, in 1982. The mini-LP “Hit The Pulse” followed in 1983 and “..Step Forward” in 1984, the year they toured with Depeche Mode. “Psycho Bod Saves The World” closed the period in 1986. Their records from these years are cited as an influence on Nitzer Ebb, Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, Nine Inch Nails and Orbital.
The band stopped in the late 1980s and returned in 2004 with “Wellcome”, followed by “Filthy White Guy” (2006) and “Pure Form” (2012). Side-Line spoke to them in 2020 in an interview with Portion Control, and covered the 2022 reissue of the “Dissolve” material after the original run was pressed on self-destroying discs. Three “SEED” EPs appeared between 2020 and 2025, the last of them, “SEED EP3.1”, marking the point where Portion Control joined Artoffact in late 2025. “1983-86 – Hit The Pulse to Purge…” is the first box set in the reissue programme that deal set up, and “Displaced Hybrid Refugee” is the track the band chose to mark its release.
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