The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - Formlessness

I think I've made it fairly plain over the history of this blog that Big Scary Monsters is my favourite record label by some way. In terms of a consistently strong output and making nice things that I actually want to buy, Kev has got it pretty much nailed. However, as of late Topshelf Records have been quietly worming their way into my heart through a combination of some excellent releases and a strong commitment to coloured vinyl. To top it off, they also decided to open a European webstore (found here) to make getting those coloured records a whole lot easier. Needless to say, within a day of finding out it had opened, I'd already bought three records. Oops. Here's the first of a trio then.

Hmm. Not sure about this cover really. There's a bit too much going on for my liking and my brain finds it tough to work out what's happening. Is that someone kissing someone else on the cheek, or whispering sweet nothings to them? It's a nice thing to do either way, but it's a bit of a difference in gesture. There's an alternate cover to this that was used for at least a cassette version which I much prefer. Oh well, no big deal.

Right. There's a reason why I'm posting a picture of the back cover without the record. The sleeve is just one large folded piece of card, and I needed the weight of the record to hold down the fold so the inside was properly visible. The back cover is fairly plain, again a little too busy for my liking but no bother.

So here we have it. Yet another coloured record, this time the shade most frequently referred to as "coke bottle green". This is a colour I like a lot. It is, for pressing nerds, from the 6th pressing and out of an oddly specific 1032 copies. There are a full 10 different colour variants that have been released before this one. I don't think I'll be tracking any of them down any time soon, which can only be a good thing for my bank balance. The inside of the sleeve contains lyrics (always welcomed) but also the statement that:

The track "Walnut Street is Dead (Long Live Walnut Street)" was left off this record due to time constraints.

Big shame! I can totally understand it but it's a great song and a sad omission.

This was the first TWIABP EP, the first release other than a demo CD from the band. My word, what a way to start. Through the exquisite build and crash of Victim Kin Seek Suit, the stop-start impatience of Gordon Paul and the sky-gazing one-two of Walnut Street Is Dead (Long Live Walnut Street) and Eyjafjallajokull Dance (try saying that when you're drunk. Or sober) this EP brings more to the table in under 15 minutes than a lot of albums do. Did I mention that there's a free download link to it on their own bandcamp? Because there totally is. After that, there's not much more for me to say. Go. Download it. Feel your heart swell.