Tellison & Tubelord - split 7"

It's now been almost 18 months since Tubelord split up, and I'm definitely still not over it. One of my coping mechanisms has been to slowly try to acquire every piece of vinyl they release. There are a few bits that will be tough to get, but I managed to get this from Banquet with little fuss. Moreover, it's a split release with Tellison, who I adore but have never written about here. Bonus!

This artwork is incredible and despite having had the release digitally for a few years now, I never fully realised until I had the 7" in my hands. For one, the various elements of the artwork are clearly handmade, which is a nice touch. Then there's the fact that nearly everything about it is a reference to a line from one of the two songs. It's a tremendous effort, all told. Apart from the obvious wasp and pencils to reference the two song titles, there are references to at least all of the following lyrics:

• "I hate the river"
• "My imagination was the first apple tree"
• "You wore a sign around your neck and it read not for sale today"
• "We're bigger than Memphis"

That level of attention to detail is something I can completely get behind.

Plain black vinyl this time, limited to 500 copies apparently. The back cover not only has track info, but dates from when the two bands toured together way back in 2008. I wish I'd gone to that Birmingham Academy gig. Oh well.

I don't think I really need to talk about how much I love Night Of The Pencils any more than I previously have done. I spoke fairly recently about it, the short version of which is "it's one of my favourite songs ever". I hope that will suffice. What I'll do instead is spend a little while talking about how great Tellison are. Musically this split makes a lot of sense, as the band are not a million miles from Tubelord in terms of sound. A little less yelpy, a little more traditionally "indie", Tellison excel in writing gloriously catchy poppy indie. Wasp's Nest is a prime example of this - a "ba da ba ba-da" refrain, a danceable chorus and some memorable (but slightly nonsensical) lyrics. It's surprising that this never made it onto an album proper, but fortunately it still seems to find its way into the band's setlists. This I am very happy with.

Good split all told, and another one knocked off the list of Tubelord to find.

Nai Harvest - Hold Open My Head

Pre-orders are fun, aren't they? Even better when they turn up earlier than expected. The latest Nai Harvest 7" arrived a month or two ago, and I was delighted to find it on the doormat. Then I managed to avoid posting about it for an age, and here we are. Oops.

I appreciate the slightly childish charm of the cover, though it's doubtless not for everyone. Is that a big apple on the right hand side? Better not get sued, boys.

Fully-printed insert, yes please. Lyrics, as always, are a plus though printing in a thin yellow on red is mildly headache-inducing.

A nice creamy blue and yellow mix, I will take that. It offers quite a contrast to the large swathes of red elsewhere. This colourway is limited to 400 out of a total first pressing of 1000, for you numbers nerds.

There's a second reason why I've taken so long to write about this, beyond my usual laziness when it comes to writing posts. In some ways, I was uncertain about whether I should write about this at all because, well... I don't like it. For all my usual relentless positivity, here is something I wanted to like but I can't connect with it. It's not even really the songs that are the problem - it's the way it sounds. The deliciously crunchy guitars of Whatever have been smoothed out and, for me at least, it hugely dulls their sound. Where Whatever was brash and almost sneering, this feels a little lethargic. This is most frustrating me at about 1:30 in I Don't Even Know where a slow-paced intro gives way to an enticing drum fill and I'm waiting for the guitars to bite and they just.. don't. They come in, sure, but it feels underwhelming. Sorry guys, this one isn't for me.

Kid Canaveral - Who Would Want To Be Loved?

Going to gigs alone is a fairly regular occurrence for me, and I'm okay with that. Having a phone with the internet makes it a far less lonely experience than it could be, and I worry far less about getting excessively emotional when there's no-one I know nearby who might find it weird. That being said, when Kid Canaveral announced a Valentine's Day gig with Randolph's Leap I realised that would be a step too far. Of all the gigs to be a (non-deliberately) creepy-looking lonely guy at, that would be the most uncomfortable. That they then announced that ticket-holders would get a free 7" made me extra-sad to be missing it. Fortunately, a few of the records ended up on the Lost Map webstore, so I snagged one to soften the blow.

No artwork, but it's only shaped like a heart! Amazing. My first non-record shaped record and it's a bloomin' heart! I'm delighted by this.

Two songs here, then. The A-side is, appropriately enough given the shape, a song called Who Would Want To Be Loved? and comes from the latest Kid Canaveral album (coming to a blog near you when I decide to stop listening to emo constantly). It's a nice piece of breezy, Scottish, mildly twee guitar-pop that I fully expect to come into its own when Summer finally rolls around. The B-side is what I was mainly interested in, though. It's a cover of I Can't Dance To This Music Any More by fellow Scottish twee-poppers Randolph's Leap (another band soon to arrive here once my emo kick is over), and is pretty interesting. While the original is Adam Ross at his introverted melancholy best, the cover has a much fuller sound and at times sounds almost triumphant. Does it improve the song? I don't think so, but I will always commend them for being willing to take a risk. Also, did I mention it's shaped like a heart? A heart!

Snowing - I Could Do Whatever I Wanted If I Wanted

The flood of emo records continues. This time I decided to get a bunch of records from Count Your Lucky Stars, a lovely label from the US who managed to get records sent to me within a week of my order being placed. Best. Three records in total, here's the first.

An absolutely sublime cover. It's like a flannel-y reproduction of the Lion King, which I'm sure we'd all agree would be a better film. I would definitely like to stroke that cat.

Double-sided insert? Check. Another cat photo? Check. Incredible lyrics? Big check. The layout of the lyrics sheet is so nice as well, the spacing is very pleasant. Good addition.

Yeah more orange vinyl! I feel as though there have been quite a lot of orange on this blog recently. This colour is described as "tangerine" by the label and is from what I assume is the eighth pressing. Eight pressings! That's impressive. No idea what the rest of the pressing info is, but let's take a closer look at the record:

It's like a pulpy tangerine! Amazing. Slightly terrifying labels though, especially this close.

In the past few weeks, I've listened to this album probably once or twice every day. It's emo for sure and there's a bit of twinkle here, but Snowing are a more aggressive, cathartic band than a lot of what I've been posting recently. The lyrics, as I mentioned briefly earlier, are absolutely sublime. A lot of them are quite personal (in particular, Memo Yeah That's Fine Man) and yet it still manages to be surprisingly relatable. More than that, the album features one of my favourite song lines of all time - the Arrested Development referencing "Tobias Fünke, why am I not underwater?" that has absolutely no relevance to anything else on the album and no need to exist but is utterly perfect. The album itself is pretty close to perfect - there are a couple of tracks that I skip, but the rest are glorious. The majority of songs sit on the precipice of chaos, threatening to completely fall apart at any moment but just about keeping it together. It makes for good walking music, though having to stop myself from screaming in the faces of strangers is always tough. My favourite song? That'd probably be the slightly yelpy joy of It's Just A Party. As was the case with Joie De Vivre, this album is a mere $3.50 from the Count Your Lucky Stars bandcamp. You know you should.

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

Following on from my Formlessness post, here's the second of the trio of records I got from Topshelf's Euro store. Unsurprisingly, it's more TWIABP.

I'm not sure if this man even is Josh, but I'd like to hope he's not dead. Pretty jealous of his ampersand shirt, too. Maybe I can have it if he is dead after all.

It's a single sheet sleeve with two folds. Left side of the fold lists the A-side tracks, right side lists the B-side tracks. This pleases me disproportionately.

I am a big fan of TWIABP's commitment to non-black vinyl. This is a delicious red, a touch darker than it looks in this photo. There is even a little hint of white in it, slightly obscured by the reflection in this photo (my bad) but visible a little in the bottom right corner. This I believe is from the second pressing, described helpfully as "dark red" and limited to 250. It's pretty nice, whatever it is.

This was the TWIABP release I had most difficulty getting into. It's less space-y than their usual fare, with slightly lower recording quality and it's less immediately engaging than their other releases as a result. Given time though, it grows on you. There are but three tracks on this record - Blank #9 is an instrumental interlude that has to be split over two sides due to space constraints (this seems to be a common thread in TWIABP releases) - and, really, the highlight here is "To Miss Catherine (A Birthday Gift. Sorry I can't do better, but still...)". A bit of a mouthful to say, but it's an absolute beauty of a track. It starts off a little claustrophobic, but gets a little more reassuringly twinkly as it goes on, featuring some glorious shouted backing vocals and ending with a great instrumental section. Be Neon With Me is similar in tone, though is definitely less twinkly. They're both very good songs, is what I'm trying to say. The EP only a dollar on bandcamp, where there's even a sneaky mediafire link if you're feeling too stingy for that. Be sure to give it some time to grow, though.

The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - Whenever, If Ever cassette

I hate cassettes.
I hate cassettes.
I hate cassettes.
.....I bought another cassette. Not just a cassette, but a cassette of an album I already own on vinyl. Why? Well, let's have a look shall we.

The cassette itself has a nice thick card outer sleeve. IT LOOKS LIKE SPACE and I like that.

Take off that sleeve, and there's a lovely minimalist cover which, when you take it out, unfolds...

...and wow! This is why I bought it. The artwork is absolutely top-notch, and really fits the album. That it uses only two colours adds to the aesthetic, and I'll be on the look-out for more of this guy's work (his website is here, if you're also interested).

Here is the cassette itself. It looks like a cassette, albeit slightly less ugly than most. This release was limited to 150, for those pressing nerds among you, and is now sold out.

Obviously, the fact that I already own this album on vinyl means I have gone over why I love it so much in rather a lot of detail once already. Since I made that post, my opinion has not changed - indeed, my prediction that it would be my favourite 2013 release turned out to be absolutely correct. It's brilliant in every way. I need to stop buying cassettes though...

Joie De Vivre - We're All Better Than This

For all of my love of physical media, I buy quite a lot of music digitally. Bandcamp is obviously my favourite, but I also have a soft spot for a website called Soundsupply. Every couple of months, they pick 10 albums and release them as a digital bundle for $15. I've bought quite a few of them in time, and each one seems to have an album or two that I enjoy. This album was included in their 9th drop, and it probably gives you a hint as to what will come when I talk about this album at the end of this post that I felt the need to buy a physical copy as well. I have a bit of a bad habit of googling album titles and the word "vinyl". Usually this ends with staring at US webstores and weeping over the cost of shipping records, but this time I ended up finding a UK label who co-released the record and still had (still have) copies of the first pressing in stock for a rather ludicrously cheap £8. Few things make me happier than that.

So very green. I didn't even realise this album had ducks on the cover until I got this in the post - the tiny itunes thumbnail wasn't detailed enough for me to notice. I like it a lot though, the almost complete lack of anything in the water apart from the ducks is pleasing to me.

Yeah so it turns out they are big on ducks. The two-sided insert has ducks on both sides. What have ducks got to do with this album? I have no idea. The lyrics are great, and having them printed is always a plus to me.

Ohhhhh boy. I have no idea why I've never owned (possibly never even seen?) a translucent light blue record before but wow. This might be the nicest-looking single colour record I own. Absolutely gorgeous. This, as I previously mentioned, is from the first pressing. It's out of 350 and is described as "electric blue" by the labels that released it. I'd dispute that description - it's more a baby blue to me - but who cares when it looks this nice.

Yeah so I had this album digitally but still felt the need to seek out a vinyl copy. As a result, it should come as no surprise that I absolutely adore this album. It's a beautiful adventure in slow-paced twinkly emo, with poignant lyrics and brassy trumpets. When an album begins with the line "we all die alone, so why care so much about living with someone else" you know what you're getting yourself in for. It's introspective and melancholy, an album mired in the uncertainty of post-youth. It has burrowed its way into my head and into my heart, where I think it will stay for a while. Picking a highlight is difficult when the entire album is top notch, though it'd probably be the magnificent That Dude Leads A Depressing Life. This album is $3.50 on the Count Your Lucky Stars bandcamp. Go buy it. Get sad with it.

Gold Panda - Quitter's Raga (repress)

Generally speaking I do pretty well when it comes to getting records in the post. I'm yet to have anything turn up damaged and most of the time stuff tends to turn up pretty promptly. Most of the time. This, however, managed to get lost somewhere between Wichita Recordings and me. Within days of sending an email to the label about this, though, I had a replacement copy. Excellent service.

More hipstery record sleeves. Gotta love nature and symmetry. I do really enjoy the shade of red used for this cover.

After such a prolonged run of colourful records, it's almost nice to have something on plain black again. Almost. No idea about pressing info for this one but, as the post title suggests, it's a repressing. I really don't mind. A bit of googling says that this is limited to 600 so there you go.

It's amazing to think that this was Gold Panda's first single. I mean really, it's difficult to think of many debut singles that have been better than this. B-side Fifth Ave is pretty good, the kind of laid-back  that makes for a perfect soundtrack to a train journey. Really, though, this is all about the A-side. The shuffling rhythm that starts the song is quickly overpowered by a glorious Eastern-inspired melody that carefully burrows its way into my head. Lasting just under two minutes, I find it near-impossible to listen to it just once. Is it the best Gold Panda song? It might just well be.