Fatboy Slim brings Halfway Between back in deluxe form

Fatboy Slim will release a deluxe re-issue of Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars on 1 June through Skint Records and BMG Chrysalis. The set is framed around the 15th anniversary of the 2000 album, which went platinum in the UK and produced the Top 10 singles Sunset (Bird Of Prey) and Weapon Of Choice.

The re-issue will be sold as a double LP, remastered for vinyl, and as a 2CD set. It gathers unreleased remixes by Josh Butler, Autograf, Lazy Rich and Spieltape, alongside established reworkings by X-Press 2, The Chemical Brothers and Stanton Warriors. An exclusive bonus remix of Star 69 by Kalyde is already available to stream.

From Housemartins bass to big-beat charts

Norman Cook’s route into that sound was long and deliberately restless. In the 1980s he played bass for the Housemartins, the Hull indie band who took an a cappella cover of Caravan of Love to number one in the UK. After the split he moved to Brighton and formed Beats International, scoring another chart-topper with Dub Be Good to Me. Further spells with Freak Power, Pizzaman and the Mighty Dub Katz kept him on the dancefloor before the Fatboy Slim alias took hold and the sample-heavy big-beat records began to travel far beyond the clubs.

Better Living Through Chemistry, the 1996 debut under that name, helped drag the style into the open. Around it sat a run of EPs — Punk to Funk, Santa Cruz, the two parts of Everybody Needs a 303, Gangster Trippin’ — that fixed the vocabulary of breaks, bass and irreverent hooks. The album’s 30th anniversary falls this September; the official site has been marking the moment while newer tracks such as Funk Drunk, made with Felix Da Housecat, Carola and 7KY, keep the name in current rotation. Later catalogue entries, from Where U Iz in 2017 through Bus Stop Please and Role Model in 2024 to Satisfaction Skank in 2025, show the alias still in active use decades on.

Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars arrived four years after the debut and widened the reach. The singles carried the music onto daytime radio and into rooms that had never set foot in a rave, while the album itself locked in the platinum certification. Keeping remixes by The Chemical Brothers on the new edition underlines the shared ground of that late-nineties electronic boom: two acts who took club energy onto a broader stage without toning down the kick drums. Stanton Warriors and X-Press 2 sit in the same company on the classic side of the package; the unreleased cuts by Butler, Autograf, Lazy Rich and Spieltape hand the same material to a later generation of remixers.

Catalogue, festivals and the road ahead

Beyond the vinyl and CD formats, the announcement has not yet set out a full track-by-track breakdown or a firm pre-order window. What is clear is the mix of archive and new remix work, and the choice to put the Kalyde version of Star 69 out early as a taster.

Live dates continue in parallel. Fatboy Slim remains active on the festival circuit, and an Australian tour is confirmed for March 2027. The re-issue therefore sits inside an ongoing run of gigs and fresh releases rather than as a one-off catalogue exercise. For listeners who first met the music through Weapon Of Choice, Sunset (Bird Of Prey) or the earlier 303-driven singles, the deluxe set offers a chance to hear how those tracks sit beside both their original-era remixes and newer readings. Whether 1 June brings further unreleased material beyond the named remixes remains open; for now the shape of the package, the Skint and BMG Chrysalis partnership, and the anniversary framing are the solid facts.