First up is the classic Microphones album "The Glow Pt. 2". This was easily one of my favorite albums from 2001 and this is a really great K records reissue. It is a 3xLP set with an extra lyric/notes/picture book. The first 2 LP's are the full Glow Pt. 2 album and the third is all bonus content. The bonus content is a little hit or miss, but it is still nice to be included in this set.
I do have one complaint of The Glow Pt. 2 LP though. The packaging, while being beautiful visually, is a huge pain in the dick to get the records in and out safely. This is especially bad with the second LP. I have always been bothered by 3x gatefolds for this exact reason. Besides that this is a great release. Also, this album has one of my favorite opening tracks ever!
Next I got Mount Eerie - Black Wooden Ceiling Opening 10". I usually hate 10" records and here is why. I don't have very many of them(maybe 5 or 6) and they don't fit nicely with my other records. For example, I have all the Radiohead full length LP's lined up all together, but the Amnesiac and Kid A 2xLP 10" get lost in the shuffle because they are 2" too small. It bothers me to no end. It literally keeps me up at night thinking about it! Anyway, this is a good record from Mount Eerie. I remember years ago I saw Elverum play a tiny show in San Luis Obispo. It was a really bizarre show too, solo acoustic steel drum. Seriously. It was just him and a steel drum for an hour plus. At the show he was wearing an old Deadguy "Death to False Metal" hoodie, so naturally I did what every metal music dork would do and went up and talked to him about how awesome Deadguy was. We talked about metal for about 20 minutes and at the end of the conversation he told me how much he really wanted to make a metal album. I sort of laughed it off and said, "Sure Phil, you just played a steel drum for an hour, I guess you can make a literal metal album, but I wont be holding my breath for a chung-chung mertal album." Well, he did it...sort of. This is his first attempt at a more "metal" sound and it is actually a pretty great EP. The vinyl release also comes with a cd version of the EP and includes a pretty wacky bootleg of one of his shows.
The last Phil Elevrum record I got was the release he did with Julie Doiron and Frederick Squire called "Lost Wisdom". Apparently between tours Doiron and Squire just spontaneously showed up at Elverums house one day and they wrote some songs and recorded an album a few days later. Elverum had wanted to work with them for a while, so he was excited and nervous to be able to record this record.
This release comes on clear vinyl and the sleeve for it actually folds out to a 2 sided giant poster!
The last record I am putting in this post is one I got yesterday at Vacation Vinyl. I went by there to get some clear record sleeves, but couldn't walk out of there without a new record to put in my sleeves. Up on the wall I saw a beautiful gem staring back at me. It was an original pressing of the Baroness "Blue Record" that just happened to be signed by the entire band on the insert. Now even though I already own this LP(a 4th pressing on AMAZING coke bottle blue with rainbow splatter colored vinyl. I will post this some other time, it is one of my favorite looking records) I had to have this copy of it. This particular pressing came on seafoam green and included a different insert than the version I have. As always it has GORGEOUS artwork and layout by guitarist/vocalist John Baizley. I have several of the releases that he has done artwork for and I will do a post on them some other time. Needless to say, I am very happy to add this LP to my collection.
The Microphones album "The Glow Pt. 2" is definitely a classic. Nice choice!
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing him perform live around the time of its release, and that was equally stunning. Real good times back then, and even better music!