Silver Sun - Julia, Lava & Too Much, Too Little, Too Late

Before I begin this post properly, I'd like to dedicate it to Rick Martin of the NME for his piece of crap article about Record Store Day. This blog is all about physical music, and for this brief moment in time I'd like it to stand as two fingers raised to this silly little man. May physical music continue to bring joy for many years to come.

Now I'm doing this post as a 3-in-1 as I bought the three of them in a bundle from an ebay seller (for a little over £3 delivered, amazing) and they're by the same band, so it sort of makes sense. Silver Sun are my favourite band you've never heard of. They were (maybe "are", but their website hasn't been updated for over three years so maybe not) a mid-90s power-pop band and their self-titled debut (and best) album is one of those albums that will always remind me of my childhood, and something I will always listen to in summer. It's joyful and happy and utterly brilliant. When I saw these singles on ebay, I just couldn't say no.

In order from left to right we have Julia, Too Much, Too Little, Too Late and Lava. Julia and Lava are from the aforementioned self-titled album, Too Much... is from their second album Neo Wave (less good, this song is still ace though). Of the three covers, I think Julia is my favourite. I like that she's a fighter pilot. Just because. The Lava one's a bit weird, and the Too Much... is a bit boring for my liking. No band shots, ta.

So these are our actual records. 2 coloured, one not. It's a good mix. I like that the colours of Lava and Too Much... match their artwork, and they're both lovely colours. They're in pretty good condition for used vinyl too, which is always nice. As for the songs themselves? Well, I haven't heard any of the B-sides due to not having a record player at uni and the lack of these songs on Spotify. The Too Much... tracks are all covers though, which I am intrigued to hear. As far as the A-sides go, let's do a couple of sentences for each:

Julia is a good song, very indicative of some of the more slower-paced Silver Sun songs. It is, as my dad told me when I was probably about 13 or 14, about a man getting a sex change. Lovely.

Too Much, Too Little, Too Late is similarly fairly slow. I like it, but not as much as some of the songs from the self-titled album, and it's not as good as I'll See You Around from Neo Wave. Like it lots still though.

Lava is probably one of my favourite songs the band has done. It's fast-paced, energetic and utterly joyful. It is also, as I found out in that same conversation with my dad, about masturbation. Yeah, now the cover seems a bit more sinister. You can download the song for free here (right-click, save target as) and I strongly recommend you do. Just in time for the sunny days in Spring.

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.

Thom Yorke - The Eraser Rmxs

So having said not long ago that there wouldn't be much new vinyl coming up on here, I managed to end up buying 3 bits of vinyl in the space of about a week. Whoopsy. While I have maths to do and zero motivation, I've decided to delay work some more by doing a post about the first of the three. That fine with you? Yeah. Awesome.

So it's some Thom Yorke vinyl again. I've explained before how much I love Thom Yorke (clicky), so I don't feel the need to do that again. This piece of vinyl, however, is a collection of remixes and I've also expressed my (rather negative) feelings toward remixes before. So, why did I choose to buy a release of solely remixes, I hear you ask. Well, the reasons are twofold.

This is the first. The cover is great. More of the same style of artwork from the Harrowdown Hill single and the album, but printed with a shiny gold foil cover. It's also a 12" record, so the art is lovely and big. Notice the man in the bottom left is from the cover of Harrowdown Hill. Continuity is great.

Again, some more black vinyl, and this time my second reason for buying it. The first track on the vinyl is a Four Tet remix of Atoms For Peace. Now I love Atoms for Peace and quite like Four Tet, and this combination turns out to sound pretty good. It's different enough from the original to be worth listening to, without taking too much away from the song. The other two songs (only 3 songs on a 12" feels a bit like a waste to me, but that's just me being a bit fussy) are both remixes of Black Swan by some man called Christian Vogel. I have no idea who he is, but they're okay. Nothing outstanding but decent enough. Now, the pressing info I found for this said it's limited to 2000, which is probably fairly limited for someone of Thom Yorke's stature. There's also another 2 "The Eraser Rmxs" (awful spelling) vinyls with similar artwork, so I might try and pick them up if I find them cheap.

Twin Atlantic - You're Turning Into John Wayne

First of all, I'd like to apologise for the almost total lack of updates over the past few weeks. Starting back at uni has been stupidly hectic, and I just haven't found the time to keep on top of this as well. However, it's Friday afternoon and I don't feel like working so I think it's as good a time as any to bring the vinyl rain. YEEEEEAH!

So, the blog is back in business and back to Scotland. Twin Atlantic, like so many of their Scottish peers, are fucking ace. The best way I'd describe them is like if Biffy Clyro had gone mainstream two albums earlier (yeah, more Biffy comparisons. Soz). That sounds like a negative thing, but it's really really not. It's like an unholy marriage of the choruses of Puzzle and the heaviness of The Vertigo of Bliss. I made the long journey to Sheffield to see them on Saturday, and it was well worth the journey. A really solid live band who know how to put a smile on your face (despite not playing I Cave In). Moreover, the first time I saw them I ended up buying their mini-album and a t-shirt from the lovely lead singer Sam (holder of possibly the strongest Scottish accent in my music collection - a fairly impressive title) who was genuinely lovely and appreciative of people buying things from him. Always nice.

This particular single (there's another double-single post coming soon-ish) is the song You're Turning Into John Wayne. I picked it up from what I think is the only independent music shop in Stoke-on-Trent's city centre (the wonderful Music Mania) for about £2. Bargain.

So yeah, here's the cover. It's got loads of green TVs on it and looks pretty cool. Now you may or may not be able to tell from this picture, but this has been signed by the band, which is nice BUT it was like that when I bought it. It wasn't long after they'd played a gig at the Sugarmill in Stoke so maybe they popped in and signed it or something. Who knows. All I know is it means I still haven't met the mighty Barry McKenna. One day I will and that day will be amazing.

Plain black vinyl, yet again. The labels and back cover remind me loads of Fallout 3. Always a good thing. So there's two songs on this vinyl, as per. The A-side is ...John Wayne itself, a very enjoyable song indeed. Not entirely sure what it's about, but that doesn't make screaming "YOU'RE TURNING INTO JOHN WAAAAY-AYYY-AYYY-AYNE" any less awesome. The B-side, intriguingly, is an acoustic version of the song. Now, I think this is something that should definitely be done more often, probably largely because this acoustic version is really good. The pace of the song slows a lot and it becomes very different to what it was before. Top marks.