Frightened Rabbit/The Twilight Sad - Demos split cassette

About a month ago, the music-collectors' paradise (or hell, depending on your monetary situation at the time) that is Record Store Day occurred. For those of you who don't know, RSD is a day every year in which a whole load of record labels do limited releases that only get stocked in independent stores. This year's list was predictably big, but there wasn't a lot that excited me personally. There were two Mastodon releases (a split with ZZ Top and an extortionately priced vinyl issue of their recent live album) and a Deftones covers album, but they didn't really pique my interest enough to hunt them down and spend a not-too-small amount of money on them. No, there was only one release that I really wanted, and this is it. A split cassette tape of demos from personal favourites (if you've read much of this blog, you'll realise they come up every few posts) Frightened Rabbit and fellow Scotsmen The Twilight Sad. As it turned out, I was visiting some friends on RSD and didn't really want to drag them into town early-morning just so we could queue outside a little record store, so I asked my good friend John if he could try and pick this up for me. He did, and then decided it would be a birthday present for me. So no money spent. Ace.

I know this is (predominantly) a vinyl blog and this is a cassette, but it's awesome so I don't have any qualms over posting about it. The cover is just a piece of parcel paper with a lovely design printed on it. I really like it, the style fits well with the lo-fi nature of the recordings.

Hey, at least it's not black! I don't really find this cassette as aesthetically pleasing as I would a lovely piece of vinyl, but I really like that the side names and catalogue code have been hand-written. As per usual, Fat Cat continue to be awesome and include download codes. I've edited mine out again, just because. So, the songs. The Frightened Rabbit side consists of some very early recordings of some very good songs, and I enjoy it a lot. Everything sounds scratchy and unrefined, but it's fascinating. The recording of Snake is a particular favourite, due in no small part to it being one of my favourite Frabbit songs. The other side of the cassette features a few of The Twilight Sad's demos and, amazingly, a cover of Be Less Rude by Frightened Rabbit. The recording quality on this side is even more unrefined (the tracklist itself describes the songs as "recorded with 1 really shitty mic") but still very enjoyable. The Frightened Rabbit cover is, predictably, my favourite song though. It's not massively different to the original, it's mostly that hearing James singing in place of Scott feels odd but works. Scott's voice is so key to Frabbit's sound that this minor change makes the song feel massively different. It's worth a listen, so here's a youtube link.

Now, let's talk pressing numbers (because I'm a nerd for numbers). The Fat Cat website itself says there is a UK version limited to 400 (which I can safely presume mine is one of) but also that there is a US version limited to 777? I can't seem to find any information on this anywhere else though, so if anyone knows about it I'd appreciate your knowledge.