Lost Coldplay Bond demo and early studio tapes are going up for auction

A remarkable collection of early Coldplay recordings is going under the hammer through auction house Wax Poetics. The heart of the collection is archive material that producer Chris Allison preserved from the sessions he oversaw for the band's second EP, The Blue Room, released in October 1999. That EP was Coldplay's first release on their then label Parlophone, which they signed to in April 1999 while still studying at University College London.

The most striking lot is a cassette recording of a track titled The World Is Not Enough, an acoustic demo sung by Chris Martin with guitar accompaniment. According to the auction, Martin intended the song as the title track for the James Bond film of the same name from 1999, starring Pierce Brosnan. That commission ultimately went to the band Garbage, who recorded the official theme song. Whether Martin ever actually submitted his version remains unknown. The recording has never been released and has never previously been documented. That Coldplay has an affinity with the Bond universe is hardly surprising, by the way: the band noted on its own website that when writing the song Spies, from the debut album Parachutes released in 2000, they consciously drew on Bond composer John Barry as a source of inspiration.

Alongside the Bond demo, the auction includes original master tapes from the Blue Room sessions, recorded at London's Orinoco Studios. These contain previously unheard alternative versions of three songs that eventually ended up on Parachutes: Spies, We Never Change and Shiver. There is also an alternative version of the EP track Bigger Stronger. Allison describes the material as one of the most significant and direct surviving documents from Coldplay's early years. The auction also features a cassette with nine early recordings, including rehearsals of Shiver and We Never Change, and two songs that have never been released in any form, among them a track with the intriguing title Ode to Deodorant.

Parachutes, which came out in July 2000, reached number 51 on the Billboard 200, was later certified double platinum in the United States and won a Grammy for Best Alternative Album. Since then Coldplay has grown into one of the biggest stadium bands in the world, making these early tapes a rare glimpse of the band long before that global breakthrough.

The offerings at Wax Poetics go beyond Coldplay alone. Allison also produced the Beta Band, another Parlophone act, and tapes from that band are available covering the early EPs The Patty Patty Sound and Los Amigos del Beta Bandidos, their self titled debut album and frontman Steve Mason's solo project King Biscuit Time. There is also extensive archive material from The Wedding Present, with recordings for their debut album George Best from 1987, the Ukrainian John Peel Sessions EP from 1988 and the second album Bizarro from 1989. Bidding is open until 19 July. Allison is donating a portion of the proceeds to Restore the Music, an initiative that funds instruments and equipment for schools with limited resources.