Just Played - On The Record #3
Marginally improving Wednesdays for several weeks
I picked up the recent Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros ‘002’ vinyl box set at the weekend, after it was dangled before me at an all too tempting discount. I’d been hesitant based on the price and the news that it had been pressed at GZ, but I need not have worried. It’s a beautiful thing and all seven discs proved to be near silent. The gloss finish on the book is a very fine touch and there are some splendid sleeve notes too. However, the pressing quality is not why it remains on my mind. The set gathers together their three studio albums and appends a double-disc demos and outtakes collection. Those records are otherwise hard to get hold of and the mastering is excellent, making this an effective way to gather everything in one place. And, for me, that’s where box sets truly deliver.
As prices creep up and gimmicks are needed, it’s noticeable how many super deluxe takes on individual albums are getting the full vinyl treatment alongside the more conventional multi-CD editions. Whether it’s Prince, Wilco or A-Ha, all have headed merrily north of £100 to put every last outtake, live recording and faintly musical burst of flatulence onto 12” discs. Which is lovely from an aesthetic standpoint. Assuming you navigate the quality control minefield of that many records in one place, you're still left with the single least convenient way to listen to tracks that are, by their very nature, less likely to be amongst your most played. I’m guilty of it - I think the 11LP ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’ is a majestic thing and its presence on my shelf is oddly comforting. But has most of it been played more than once yet? No.
When production lines are still rammed, prices are only travelling in one direction and, as I observed last week, plenty of classic titles are still not in the racks, one can’t help doubting the need for these completist endeavours. The Beatles’ reissue programme has even bent to the format, with the CDs restricted by the length of their equivalent vinyl discs. That said, despite costing more than the Wilco set above, it was only 4LPs and a 7”. While I have plenty of time for those who argue that the phrase ‘Cash Grab’ isn’t accurate given people have a free choice when purchasing, let’s not pretend that the collector instinct isn’t a well known thing in the vinyl community. Clearly, that compulsion is being successfully mined as these sets keep coming. Their increasing prominence might even suggest that plenty of people want them, but it’s hard to resist the nagging logic that people are being encouraged to spend more than they might want on more than they might need for fear of missing out.
I’ve become aware of a number of shops that are choosing not to stock some of these titles for fear of them clogging up cash and stockroom space for months and months. How often are these the headline items in indie store sales? And, perhaps more importantly, how often are the same shops finding themselves left high and dry when Amazon slash prices on these to cut their losses? I’m sure a number of you reading this, just like me, have some of these in your collection, but I’m intrigued to know if you’re playing them much more than I am. The boxes to which I do return regularly are those packed with studio albums, be it Bowie, Blur, Joni, Can or The Beatles in Mono. As ever, largesse feels like the industry’s great illness.
Misc-Cogs
Did you know that the Discogs app has a neat feature for the indecisive mind? When on the collection tab, give your phone a shake and it’ll select something at random from your library. Each week, I flex my wrist and see which disc comes up. No censoring - if it’s Eternal’s ‘Always and Forever’, I’ll give you my thoughts on it. The first one was John Martyn’s ‘Solid Air’ and last week was Lone Wolf’s superb ‘Lodge’.
This is an overlooked gem in a catalogue full of wonder. I loved the two-part Stock, Aitken & Waterman documentary that Channel 5 showed recently and it was clear just how much they had enjoyed working with Kylie. Although her interviews can sometimes feel very guarded and performative, it’s obvious that she is a quite remarkable pop professional who has truly grafted for her art. Her unashamed acceptance of all walks of her career is a model to so many. If you can’t see the, ahem, magic in her work then I’m not sure what melody did to hurt you, but talk to someone, yeah?
As well as that solid gold early SAW work, there are many other albums worth your time, including the 1994 self-titled release for Deconstruction, 2001’s ‘Fever’, 2003’s ‘Body Language’ and 2010’s ‘Aphrodite’. Plenty of those I haven’t mentioned still have their moments, by the way. Just as the pandemic hit, Kylie was readying the kind of record that should have seen her deliver some sensational live performances: ‘Disco’. It did what it said on the tin and the version with all of the tracks in extended ‘12” mix’ form is especially euphoric. Unable to connect with her adoring audience, ‘Infinite Disco’ was devised. A fifty-minute technicolour burst of typically flamboyant performance, it was broadcast as a pre- recorded livestream towards the end of 2020 before getting a physical release a year later on the ‘Guest List Edition’ of the album that inspired it.
Knowing that Kylie retools her back catalogue for each era, I went in expecting something good but it was a powerfully uplifting delight. The audio finally came to a - slightly squashed sounding, due to length - vinyl edition in 2022 and these performances work just fine without the visuals. Try the sensational take on ‘All The Lovers’ with the House Gospel Choir, a thumping onslaught of ‘In Your Eyes’ or the reshaped evolution of ‘Slow’ that melds into Donna Summer’s ‘Love To Love You Baby’. The newer tracks fit perfectly in this company and the whole thing is pitch perfect in its execution.
First Look
Shall we have a look at BMG’s vinyl reissue of the 2015 expanded edition of A-Ha’s ‘Hunting High And Low’ that lands in shops on February 24th? The material appears to be the same as the CD set, but the main LP is a different cut to that reissued many times over recent years by Warner. This box is cut by Dave Turner at Curve Pusher and pressed at GZ.
Something for the ‘read all the way to the end’ folk
I occasionally experience a faint flicker of concern that there must be plenty of people out there for whom Ron Sexsmith would be one of their favourite artists, if only they were to actually hear his work. He has been quietly putting out wonderful music for three decades and I discovered him as a result of one of those gently coalescing venn diagrams that can occur from several trusted sources of music intelligence. His name popped up on a particular message board in the early 2000s, then he was there in a small section of Mojo before one of his songs was played on an appointment to listen radio show. Add in the good people at Diverse Vinyl in Newport striving to get his 2002 album ‘Cobblestone Runway’ a release on my preferred format and the stars aligned.
Soon after, I reviewed several of his records for The Word and I was cemented as a lifer. ‘Retriever’ is the one that I recommend for newbies, as the hooks are the size of your local generic shopping centre. ‘From Now On’, ‘Hard Bargain’ and, especially, ‘Not About To Lose’ are quite beautiful. Perplexingly, this one still hasn’t been rendered in the 12” format, but I live in hope. Once you’re sold, and I imagine you will be, there’s so much good stuff to explore in the catalogue. As well as the aforementioned ‘Cobblestone Runway’, ‘Blue Boy’, ‘Exit Strategy For The Soul’ and ‘Long Player Late Bloomer’ are all well worth a listen. The making of the last on that list was the subject of a fascinating and moving documentary, ‘Love Shines’, that I also heartily recommend. A star.