More Record Store Day First Looks
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As promised, a quick bonus email for RSD Eve. Below are some photos to help you get a feel for another quartet of releases, along with some production and sound info.
I’ve also included a few videos if you fancy trawling YouTube for some audio-visual excitement.
And then there’s one other little tip tucked away at the end.
Remember, almost everything will appear online on Monday evening. Plenty of it will end up in indie store sales within months if not weeks. While the FOMO is strong, we’ve all been RSD casualties at some point. Remember that Death Cab For Cutie album sampler 7”? Enjoy the event, if you’re popping to a shop tomorrow. It’s always fun to browse people’s hauls online, as well as watching the madness of Discogs and eBay. Suspect some flippers will get caught out again this time.
Anyway, let’s crack on, as it’s Friday night.
First Look
Dusty Springfield is a pretty regular presence for RSD and 2023’s contribution is a fresh reissue for ‘Cameo’, now available on blue vinyl from GZ. Geoff Pesche at Abbey Road has done the master and cut. An initial listen suggests it’s quiet noisy even after a good clean, with a warm though slightly congested sound. Certain details shimmer and the bass playing is pretty nuanced, but the clarity at the high end is somewhat absent. The songs are, of course, superb. The Bill Withers-y opening to ‘Easy Evil’ is especially splendid.
Some aren’t fussed and obviously I’d rather we were pressing on with the Archive Collection, but I’m rather fond of the half-speed mastered Paul McCartney series that began with his self-titled solo debut for RSD 20. We’re up to ‘Red Rose Speedway’ for this year’s big event and, once again, Miles Showell has conducted the cut. His work on ‘Ram’ remains a revelation to me and the other two sounded superb also. One noticeable change this year is the switch from Optimal to GZ for manufacturing. The bizarre decision to persist with white paper inners continues, however. The braille embossing also, more pleasingly, remains on the back of the gatefold.
The precision on the acoustic guitar in ‘Big Barn Bed’ signals what you can expect. Some will find it too clean, but I’m partial to that kind of detail and the driving sense of rhythm is well executed here and across the album. Annoyingly, the review copy had a few clicks here and there and, while that’s not especially unusual, the only reason for this series to exist is surely the fidelity - so maybe ensure it’s pressed, er, elsewhere or at the very least given a protective inner. Nevertheless, sonically it more than delivers.
Yusef Lateef’s ‘Detroit Latitude 42° 30' Longitude 83°’ is a jazz-funk corker from 1969, restored to vinyl via a Bernie Grundman cut using the original analogue tapes. It’s the latest release on the reissue label curated by Gilles Peterson, plucking highlights from his Brownswood Basement. The audio sounds sensational and the tip-on jacket is superb. Regular readers may have spotted my shock at a rather scratched copy on Twitter a couple of weeks ago. I asked if a second copy was possible, so as to confirm it was the likely result of a one-off issue in the factory and, thankfully, the replacement has no such markings. It’s a fairly quiet pressing but it’s all about the rich soundstage, which is full of depth.
Elton John has had some notable RSD titles down the years, especially ‘17’-11-70+’ in 2017 and 2021’s ‘Regimental Sgt. Zippo’. ‘The Thom Bell Sessions’ were well treated in 2022 after being needlessly truncated in 2016. For this year’s event, 1972’s ‘Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only The Piano Player’ gets extended to include a second disc with session demos of most tracks. Presumably an Abbey Road master and cut - as with all of his recent reissues, even though credits for this version are hard to find - it sounds very nice indeed. Remember, the opening of ‘Teacher I Need You’ clearly inspired at least a third of Ben Folds’ solo debut ‘Rockin’ The Suburbs’. Expect a little noise thanks to the red and white marbled GZ pressing, but poly-lined inners have taken care of the discs. The colour effects look to be a bit hit and miss from copy to copy. One suspects a standard black edition will follow, using the variant as a way to pump it out first for RSD.
Even more
Got £400 burning a hole in your pocket? Fancy an already released compilation spread over nine 10” discs pressed at GZ? Keen to see reasonably pleasant artwork turned white for no reason? The always lovely Andrew Dixon had his early and showed it for you here:
Paul at Super Deluxe Edition has been doing some themed video unboxings this week that can be found here:
A quick rattle through much of the US list with Mike from The In Groove:
And, finally, if you fancy keeping track of the live action, this superb Twitter list has many of the UK’s finest indie record shops all in one place: