Coldplay consist of Guy Berryman (bass), Jonny Buckland (guitar), Will Champion (drums / vocals) and Chris Martin (vocals / guitar). On April 26th 1999 they released the ‘Brothers & Sisters’ EP on fierce panda records and then…well, then things went a bit weird.

To celebrate the anniversary of the release fierce panda launched a perky reissue of the EP in August 2019. The original ‘Brothers & Sisters’ release was a two-track 7” (‘Brothers & Sisters’ and ‘Easy To Please’) and a three track compact disc single, with ‘Only Superstition’ as the third song. The catalogue number was NING 68. Both limited edition formats sold out immediately, with ‘Brothers & Sisters’ roaring into the charts at number 92.

We suspect demand for CD singles these days is somewhat diminished by the vagaries of technology. So after a bit of hi-fallutin’ pencil-chewing in the top secret second panda office (ie the White Swan on Highbury Corner, N1 1RY) we came up with a sweet way of delivering all three tracks in one fresh manner across two limited edition gender-smashing coloured vinyl 7” singles, as outlined above. The two singles were released on the same day in 2019.

Aside from a version of ‘Brothers & Sisters’ appearing on their ‘Trouble’ single a year later on Parlophone, legend (and the global internet) has it that these three tracks have barely been touched by the hand of Coldplay since released. In which case 7” single aficionados may like to know that this is the first, and quite possibly, only time that ‘Only Superstition’ has ever been, or indeed ever will be, released on vinyl.

The fierce panda label is itself recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, which means they were not even five years old when they first encountered Coldplay at the Camden Falcon in November 1998.  Fascinatingly scruffed at the edges they were too (the band, not the label, although…), and ‘Shiver’ and ‘Bigger Stronger’ alone suggested an epically subtle song-crafting potential that was to hold them in pretty good stead for the next two decades.

The panda was instantly smitten and over the following six months they were to book Coldplay into Station Studios in Southgate to record the three ‘Brothers & Sisters’ tunes. They also booked them in to open the year of gigs at Pandamonium ’99 at the Bull & Gate on January 7th, followed by a headline show at the very same Kentish Town venue on April 1st. In between days Coldplay were introduced to the airwaves by Radio One’s Evening Session and infiltrated the pages of the NME and generally impressed all and sundry with a mix of charm, chutzpah, top tunes and the odd cheeky Curly Wurly bar chucked casually into the unsuspecting crowd.

The Falcon venue and Station Studios are long since gone and the Bull & Gate has gone the ghastly way of the gastropub but the fierce panda label lives to fight another exhausperated day. As for the Coldplay band, who could say whatever happened to those unlikeliest of likely lads…?