Frightened Rabbit - Be Less Rude/The Greys

So I've posted about Frightened Rabbit before. I make no apologies for the fact that as of late I've been semi-intentionally collecting all the Frabbit vinyl I can get my hands on. I say semi-intentionally, I've just happened to stumble upon a few bits (more of which shall becoming soon). This single I found in the same box as the Sky Larkin single (it's a link frenzy today), for the same cheap price of £1, similarly from an old first album, and similarly a double-A side single. What a coincidence.

Ohhh Frabbit. I love your artwork so much. This is a lot like the cover of the album the two songs come from (here it is for comparison's sake) in that it's largely grey with a little bit of colour, which stands out a lot. I like the almost hand-drawn style of the pattern too. Top notch.

Black vinyl it is. Bit of a shame that The Greys (the song) is not on grey vinyl, but I'm being fussy yet again. This also features some fantastic labels, with the multicoloured rainbow from the cover being stretched all the way across. Isn't it pretty? So yes, our two songs on here are Be Less Rude and The Greys. Both fantastic songs, The Greys is a fast-paced and comparatively "heavy" with respect to the rest of the band's output. Be Less Rude is a lot more like what we're used to, and features the delightful lyric "I'm afraid you've been misled, your high horse is in fact a pony". No idea of the pressing info for this one, I'm afraid. It's awesome regardless.

Sky Larkin - Molten/Keepsakes

Onwards!

Since my last post about Sky Larkin, I've pretty much fallen in love with them. I listened to Kaleide an awful lot for a few weeks, and managed to find their first album The Golden Spike on CD for £3 and subsequently listened to that loads too. They're great, really. While noseying through the reduced price vinyl in a local record shop, I spied this single from that first album for £1. It's nice when things work out.

This is its cover. It's absolutely lovely. Colourful, well laid-out, just plain nice.

And here's the (black) vinyl and back cover. It's nice to note that the vinyl came with a dust sleeve, something I haven't seen all that often with 7" singles. Excellent. I suppose it's about time I spoke about the music as well. Okay. It's a double-A side, so let's just begin with Molten as it's listed first. It's not my favourite song on the album, but it's still great. A fast-paced pop song with heavy guitars, and an instrumental middle section. The other song on this vinyl is Keepsakes, probably my second favourite song on the album (after the incredible Matador). It's a slightly slower song, with the delightful key lyric of "gonna cut you into pea-sized keepsakes/gonna do it as long as it takes/gonna put you in boxes and jars/and keep the bigger bits in the boot of the car". Magic. Two great songs, good artwork, and it was cheap. I'm a happy customer.

Bon Iver - Blood Bank EP

As of Friday, my second term of university is over. There's a lot of work to be done over Easter, but the prospect of a break is awesome. I plan on updating this blog with a few pieces of vinyl I've bought recently, including several posts tonight (a first!), and there's a chance we might have a few guest posts in the coming weeks which should be pretty interesting. Watch this space

The first item for tonight is Bon Iver's Blood Bank EP. Bon Iver (pronounced like the French for happy winter - "bon hiver") is primarily a vehicle for the work of the multi-talented Justin Vernon, with the help of a select few others. This EP is his second release, after the amazing debut For Emma, Forever Ago. The music itself is acoustic, drifting behind Justin's beautifully haunting voice. This is the soundtrack to winter blues, and I love it. I picked this piece of vinyl up on the same trip that got me the Thom Yorke remixes, and it cost a measly £4. Let's look at it.

Oh. Well there's some winter, right there. It's a lovely cover, fairly low-key like the music. I really like the use of the thick white border as well, it frames the image really nicely. Not a lot more to say here.

Ah. Now here's the thing. There's no vinyl here. And there's a reason for that. You might also have noticed these pictures are a bit shiny. That's because it's still sealed, and I've decided to leave it as such. Why? Well, I already own this EP on CD, so I have the music from it. The vinyl itself is plain black, so it's not going to add an awful lot to the picture. And after a bit of research it seems the only extras in here are a lyrics sheet and a download card, neither of which are ground-shakingly awesome enough for me to be that bothered by. So I'm leaving this pristine until either I get a turntable that doesn't utterly suck, Justin Vernon dies or he ceases to make music as Bon Iver. There you have it. Some pointless nerdery. Enjoy.

Radiohead - Nude

So, it's vinyl time again! I've been really, really busy of later with uni work and keeping up another blog (which I started for World Book Night, it's here if you don't know) and so this has been put on the back-burner. Apologies. It's almost Easter now though, and I'm considering starting the sizeable pile of Biffy vinyl during the time off. Watch this space.

For tonight though, it's Radiohead. I've done a couple of posts about Thom Yorke before, but never one about Radiohead. I'm going to assume you know what they sound like because if you don't, I don't understand your life. I really, really like Radiohead. They manage to be utterly massive and yet absolutely refuse to back down on what they want to do. If Biffy can at some point go this way, everything will get better in life. This single is Nude, a track from the (at the time) ground-breaking "pay as much as you want" In Rainbows album. I honestly cannot remember where I got this from. It may have been in some kind of online order with a few others but I can't out and out pinpoint where it was from. Ah well. It's still a really good song, although I have a pretty big issue with this vinyl.

But let's start with the cover. It's ace. A continuation of the typography from the In Rainbows album cover, but with what looks like the roots of a tree in the background. The coloured font on the grey image looks really good, and I like this a lot.

More plain black vinyl. In an ideal world this would have been grey to match the artwork, but then again in an ideal world very few pieces of vinyl would be black. It's alright though, and the labels are pretty cool. The A-side, as previously mentioned, is the lovely Nude. A particularly melancholy track, even for Radiohead, it's peaceful and nice and yeah, all-round great. The B-side is called 4 Minute Warning, but I haven't managed to listen to it. For once, this is not for want of trying. The problem, and the reason why this thing will frustrate me eternally, is that there is a small scratch on the B-side. When trying to play it, the track skips and loops after a couple of minutes. This is possibly the most annoying thing in the world. Not cool.

¡Forward, Russia! - Eighteen

Hi! It's been a little while since I last posted, and you have my apologies for this. This term's been mega-busy and when I finally found the time (and motivation) to do another post, I couldn't find my memory card. Argh. A week or so and a successful bag clearing-out later, and here we are. Time for some vinyl.

It's only going to be a short one today. This piece of vinyl is one by a band I don't particularly like, and have never listened to. In fact, I saw this band (supporting Biffy Clyro, no less) before they split up. So I hear you asking, dear reader, why did I buy it? Well, be patient. First, the cover.

So yeah. It's kind of nice. I'm a big fan of purple, and the use of the exclamation mark and inverted exclamation mark in the artwork is cool. You can also see I got this for the princely sum of 49p (the same shopping trip that I got my Maxïmo Park and Marmaduke Duke vinyl from. It was a good trip), which is rad.

But this is what we came for. This is why we made the purchase. Clear vinyl. Is there anything cooler in all of the lands? I really like it, to the extent that it almost makes me feel bad I don't like the band. Ah well.

That's all for this time. Sorry it's brief, but I really don't have anything more to say about it. I've got some pretty cool new vinyl recently/in the pipeline though, so I'll do some more updates soon. Promise.