It has felt like a busier start to the vinyl year than we’ve seen in a while, both in terms of exciting releases and the news of wonderful pre-orders. 2022 is where we’ll truly see the impact of the pressing backlog, with plenty of titles already being nudged back further and further. Will the jewel in the format’s crown, Record Store Day, proceed unaffected by manufacturing delays? And will the format in the jewel case make a resurgence to fill the gap in physical product? All that lies ahead, but here’s what’s already out there.
Freshly Pressed
It has been heartening to see such strident promo around the new album from Elvis Costello & The Imposters as it has occasionally felt like his remarkable legacy and on-going musical curiosity has become rather underrated of late. In recent times, he has collaborated with The Roots, revisited ‘This Year’s Model’ with an array of contemporary Spanish vocalists and published a gloriously intimate autobiography. For this latest release, he has worked with his regular touring band The Imposters once again and these songs have been drawing favourable comparisons with highlights from his vast catalogue.
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That said ‘The Boy Named If’ is not a retread. The organ sound is going to be familiar given it’s still the wondrous Steve Nieve on the keys and, if anything, what this set captures perfectly is the ebb and flow of these musicians when they take to the stage. A Costello gig is always a delight, never short on songs and taking stylistic turns at pace. This album manages to distil that, with the aching ballad ‘Paint The Red Rose Blue’ nestling alongside the scratchy mid-paced rock of ‘What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love?’
It’s a sharp and cohesive record which will surely translate well to live performance in the summer and one of his most immediate sets of songs in many a year. Costello’s digital releases have a habit of being rather loud and squashed these days, so the vinyl pressings are normally the best way to consume his music. American purchasers look to have a cut done by Chris Bellman, while Europeans will receive a GZ pressing that lacks his initials in the deadwax. That said, the discs are largely quiet, relatively dynamic and housed in a sturdily pleasing gatefold. It brings this clearly excellent album to life in the room and the intriguing artwork works best at full size. Try ‘The Difference’ if you need convincing.
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When the long talked about reissues of the entire catalogue of Neil Hannon’s The Divine Comedy finally emerged in 2020, fans were delighted by the breadth of the bonus material, the intricacy of the remasters and the splendour of the packaging. A remarkable songwriter with a sincere gift for melody, Hannon has developed a reputation for arch, bombastic pop that often does his complex and beautiful craft a disservice. It is possible to find the light in the dark while still taking your work seriously and producing affecting songs that endure.
Building on that glorious nostalgia, and repackaging a strong selection of highlights for the less committed audience, ‘Charmed Life – The Best Of The Divine Comedy’ offers an excellent overview of thirty years of music making. The majestic account of growing up in Northern Ireland in the latter quarter of the twentieth century, ‘Sunrise’, sits alongside the emphatic lovesick croon of ‘Everybody Knows (Except You)’ while the woodshed, Alfie and the bus all put in an appearance too.
‘Come Home Billy Bird’ features Lauren Laverne on backing vocals, ‘To The Rescue’ is the most grandiose song about a charity for horses you’ll ever hear and ‘Norman And Norma’ surpasses its title by some distance. Add in a gloriously sweeping new track ‘The Best Mistakes’ and this is a very fine double vinyl retrospective. Although there is a limited edition yellow pressing, this column sampled the standard black. Pressed at Optimal, it is very well cut indeed and ensures that lengthier sides don’t struggle with inner groove distortion. The highs are reined in a little towards the centre of the disc but all four sides are near silent and the technicolour artwork is the final touch on a tremendous package. And wait for the images inside the gatefold! Highly recommended.
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Although your most recent exposure to his work could well be the soundtrack to the BBC’s remarkable Martin Freeman vehicle ‘The Responder’, composer, producer and musician Matthew Herbert released one of his more straightforward house albums last year, under the usual abbreviated guise of Herbert, and the vinyl edition has recently landed. Amongst the collaborations and big band work, it’s possible to forget his capacity for captivating electronic music. ‘Musca’ is the third instalment of a series of sorts that goes back to 1998’s ‘Around The House’ and 2001’s ‘Bodily Functions’, both of which have been recently reissued.
While addressing the combined effects of climate change, populism and a pandemic, these tracks are blessed with a sizeable arsenal of vocalists. All eight were new to Herbert and worked on the record from their individual corners of the world. ‘Hypnotised’, featuring Mel Uye-Parker, and ‘Be Young’, sung by Daisy Godfrey, are among the highlights and the double vinyl Optimal pressing serves the music well. There is very minimal surface noise across all four sides and the bottom end is pronounced but not excessive. Much more than just well marshalled beats, this album has the potential for real staying power.
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Illustrator, artist and emcee, Kid Acne has released a very attractive vinyl package via Lewis Recordings which continues to emerge in novel variants. ‘Null & Void’ is his fifth record but this Sheffield based musician is new to this columnist. Musically, this is an album of frustration and protest, which seems to find its roots in pandemic life and political anger. Near its conclusion, a Stewart Lee sample from his routine on social media appears which compares us to dolphins driven mad by their own noise. It sits fittingly amongst Kid Acne’s own words which appear keen to initiate a response to passive acceptance of current circumstances.
The edition which Just Played sampled features a silver, hand screen-printed cover which is augmented with individually applied spray paint and contains an electric pink disc. Pressed at GZ, it cleaned up well and played with minimal noise. The soundstage is solid and the all important bottom end is sufficiently taut. Keep an eye on his Bandcamp page for different editions for different budgets, but rest assured that this is vibrant hip-hop on a pressing which sounds decent.
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Having initially been released on black vinyl at the start of 2021, U-Roy’s ‘Solid Gold U-Roy’ has received a limited gold edition one year on. The final record from a reggae great, it is packed with a remarkable array of collaborators – easy, Damon – and this vinyl cut, done through GZ’s Canadian arm Precision Record Pressing, is largely silent and pretty pleasing on the ear. Bass is well controlled and prominent, without subduing other instrumentation and the vocal sound is fairly open. Santigold puts in a fine performance on a compelling ‘Man Next Door’, Shaggy has great fun on ‘Rule The Nation’ and Big Youth is a perfect partner for the seismic ‘Every Knee Shall Bow’, which ends proceedings.
Originally released in the summer of 2021, Rose Riebl’s ‘Do Not Move Stones’ finally made it to vinyl at the end of last year following a lengthy spell in the manufacturing backlog. It is a collection of piano and cello pieces which frequently sound like the soundtrack to high-end drama, lyrical in their composition and with a delicate sense of the power of dynamics. Headphone listeners should rush to sample it, but what of the delayed physical format?
The clear disc pressing from Iceland’s Inni label is largely decent, rendering the open recording effectively and presenting an involving soundstage. It’s not without some clicks here and there, sadly, but this is a common issue for the neo-classical fan. By whatever means, be sure to give it a listen and start with ‘An Ending, Go Back To The Beginning’ to get a sense of this quiet but direct instrumental wave of sound.
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There was some consternation at the deluxe only release plans for the – cue fanfare – great lost David Bowie album, ‘Toy’. Subject to a low quality bootleg and many, many column inches, it was a set of recordings completed between ‘hours…’ and ‘Heathen’ which focused on updating his early songs for a new era, along with several new but similarly styled pieces. The Nineties had not been an especially welcoming decade for Bowie, although those releases are beautifully anthologised in the ‘Brilliant Adventure’ set which came out late last year. A joyful reconnection with his past makes some sense after a number of years spent being criticised for keeping up with the contemporary scenes.
There’s much to enjoy on this mammoth 6×10” box set, however, even if Bowie lost interest in the original project prior to completion. Tracks like ‘You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving’ and ‘The London Boys’ capture the symbiotic relationship between him and his band at that point, also witnessed during the feted 2000 Glastonbury performance and the superlative BBC Radio Theatre gig which made it into last year’s big box. Of most interest will be the alternative versions, which form the bulk of this substantial edition.
Debating whether the unplugged or alternative mixes of ‘I Dig Everything’ are better is for another time, but it’s actually on those bonus discs where this release sounds best. Pressed through Optimal and packaged as three wide-sleeve double 10” sets inside a sturdy lift-off box, these are largely silent discs with only a few patches of noise on the main album itself. The accompanying booklet is pretty minimalist but it contains some lovely photography and is on pleasing paper stock. It’s a satisfying set for the completist but possibly a little excessive for the casual consumer at around £100.
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For years, unofficial coloured vinyl Can live releases in transparent sleeves haunted the racks of numerous record shops, hailing from Russia and obviously not approved by the band. It was only recently that the decision to put some of their recordings out in the world was taken and the programme began in 2021 with ‘Live In Stuttgart 1975’. As the year came to a close, the next title – ‘Live In Brighton 1975’ – emerged on a triple gold LP set. While this series is clearly for the hardcore, they’ll not be disappointed.
Restored from an original tape recording, this Vinyl Factory pressing sounds excellent with very minimal surface noise across all six sides. This columnist’s experience suggests that gold is a curiously problematic colour for vinyl, but no such problems this time around. The performance is blistering in the main, but notably steps up a gear just prior to the halfway point. The nature of the recording is such that it ends up giving a very plausible gig experience, capturing some sense of the space in the room and dirtying the sound a little as if the listener is tucked to the side of the venue. Splendid tri-fold gatefold packaging too. As ever, Mute are doing it right.
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Snap, Crackle and Pop
Those who have been buying vinyl for some time and didn’t pause during the years when most shops and labels attempted to kill it off, may recall the days of the mid to late Noughties when US pressings could be purchased for around a tenner delivered via third-party sellers on Amazon’s Marketplace. Caiman USA is a name which springs to mind, but there were others. It was always a bit of a lottery, but the prices made it rather inviting. Sliding out those curved, paper inner sleeves was the last stage before finding out if you’d got a bargain. There’s something of this process about a recent opaque yellow vinyl double disc pressing of Shakira’s breakthrough record, ‘Laundry Service’.
Cut at SST in Germany, it is a solid but unspectacular rendering of an album which offers a portal back to the turn of the millennium. I should also point it out that it has proper printed inners and that the comparison to those US pressings is all about the sound. Everything sits in an intermittently muddy rectangular soundstage, never quite escaping the speakers. Occasional shrill high end or sibilant vocal passages really took me back to the days of vinyl for vinyl’s sake rather than getting the best out of the material. When classic single ‘Underneath My Clothes’ transitions from verse to chorus, there is a curious sensation of Shakira’s vocal feeling almost a little recessed as there is no shift in dynamics in the master. Not the quietest discs either, sadly. Enjoyed hearing these songs again, mind you.
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Going Round Again
This month’s retro-indie dust off comes from Starsailor. Their debut album, ‘Love Is Here’, is a beautiful collection of songs that got lumped into the same bracket as Travis and early Coldplay but it is a very different beast. Emphatic organ swells, nods to the singer whose album inspired the band’s name and even some Muscle Shoals textures combine around James Walsh’s barely tethered vocals.
Often raw and blessed with some intriguingly narrative-focused lyrics, the tracks here are still imbued with purpose and intent, partly as a result of not being especially in step with the times when first released in 2001. Another anniversary edition making its appearance a little late thanks to industry delays, this 2LP set features the original record on the first disc and a mix of re-recordings and contemporary bonus bits on the second. The 2015 reissue, cut by Miles Showell and pressed at Optimal, was decent but a little sibilant and has since become rather hard to find.
This new edition, manufactured in Ireland and so presumably at Dublin Vinyl, and cut by elusive figure ‘The Wizzard’ sounds good. The bottom end lacks a little nuance but the midrange is open and the highs are clear but controlled. There’s a spattering of light noise here and there, but these are poly-bagged alongside printed inners and shipped in an environmentally friendly card outer bag to avoid the usual shrinkwrap, making for an endearing package. The new versions are inessential, a more muscular ‘Good Souls’ aside, but the bonus bits add a little extra context, especially with the covers of ‘The Way Young Lovers Do’ and ‘Grandma’s Hands’.
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Over the past few years, the first three albums by The Band have had a fiftieth anniversary remix and remaster as part of a series of deluxe box sets. Each has had CDs including live performances, a high-resolution audio blu-ray, a bonus 7” and a fresh LP pressing. To date, those remixes have been relatively subtle, limited by source and keen not to upset the faithful too much. However, for ‘Cahoots’, those involved have tinkered a little more.
Bob Clearmountain’s remix pulls out a great deal more nuance than can be found on the original, after Robbie Robertson advised him to treat the 1971 version as rough mixes and start from scratch. While it doesn’t quite remove the sense that some of the material isn’t quite of the standard of what has come before, it does produce a full-bodied, more welcoming listen than ‘Cahoots’ has been in the past. The new versions of ‘Life Is A Carnival’, ‘Volcano’ and ‘The River Hymn’ are especially wonderful.
This column doesn’t subscribe to the view that remixes are sacrilege. They very rarely remove access to previous versions and often offer a fresh take on something the target audience already know well. How many casual fans are going to be buying a box with a bootleg live recording and a replica of an original Japanese 7” single? This is for the keen folk to take a different look at a beloved work and that’s what this does. It doesn’t sound very early Seventies in its finished production, but it’s a very enjoyable experience through a more modern filter. The box contains a DMM half-speed cut of the remix on vinyl, pressed at GZ, and it plays with almost no surface noise and a decent representation of the open soundstage. This mix can also be enjoyed in high-resolution via the blu-ray. The standard vinyl release appears to use the same plates, should you be on a budget.
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The finest reissue programme of recent years slowed down as we neared the end of 2021, presumably thanks to the turnaround time on pressings. It is an absolute joy to play the new cut of PJ Harvey’s ‘Let England Shake’, one of the finest albums in her remarkable catalogue. A visceral record of angry protest, it was originally poorly served by a GZ pressing from the days of their murkiest discs. This Optimal pressing features a Jason Mitchell cut through Loud, as ever, and replicates the original sleeve meticulously. If you could get past the ticks and pops, the 2011 mastering was a decent job from the late John Dent, but his colleague has built on that work for this fresh edition.
The bottom end is especially well defined here, which is important on album where Harvey’s vocals are often situated more centrally within the soundstage. ‘The Glorious Land’ has a magnificent rumble to it and samples like ‘Summertime Blues’ on ‘The Words That Maketh Murder’ and ‘Kassem Miro’ on ‘England’ possess their own discreet textures amongst this phenomenal music.
One suspects that you’ll need to ensure your cartridge is correctly aligned and weighted to avoid a little distortion towards the centre of the disc as there is a lot going on in those channels. The same is true of the utterly essential and genuinely fascinating demos companion. Opening title track ‘Let England Shake’ features Harvey singing straight across a loop of ‘Istanbul (Not Constantinople)’ by The Four Lads and it’s captivating. While all of the accompanying releases have offered a glimpse behind the process, this might well be the most revealing. In short, if you have an original it’s well worth the upgrade and if you’re new to this then you’re in for a treat.
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Assuming your tastes in music collide with those artists featured in Flood Gallery’s occasional series of aesthetically beguiling photo books, you’ll know that their capacity to deliver a quality product is undeniable. Their collection of R.E.M. photography by Tom Sheehan is especially essential. They’re now branching out to vinyl box sets, and ‘Preaching The Blues’, a collection of 7” replicas and exclusive material from The Gun Club, is predictably excellent. When seeking to capture some of the magic of this band, who else might one turn to than the old EMI plant, The Vinyl Factory, which has a reputation for working on extravagant projects?
A US post-punk band with a healthy sense of the blues, their career – admittedly simply a name for frontman Jeffrey Lee Pierce for the latter stages – lasted seventeen years and this set collects together the original vinyl singles that accompanied a run of seven studio albums. While never proponents of the highest audio fidelity, these discs mostly play with only minimal noise and clatter out of the speakers with emphatic brevity. While this is likely to be one for the hardcore, it’s actually a hugely appealing taster set too.
Henry Rollins, Mark Lanegan and Thurston Moore are among effusive contributors to the splendid 54-page book and there’s also a new edition of Gun Club fanzine ‘Fire Of Love’ to up the physical appeal. The band’s music is well worth seeking out and, in assembling something with such attention to detail for a niche but appreciative audience, Flood Gallery have highlighted that costly boxes like this needn’t feel like a careless cash-in.
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Although he became something of a figure of fun in the latter stages of his pomp, Jay Kay’s soulful funk throughout Jamiroquai’s Nineties imperial phase has retained its charm. Originally scheduled for the tail-end of 2021, so as to warrant the label ‘25th anniversary edition’, a new yellow double disc release finally emerged in January. Featuring alternative artwork, an additional sleeve note and several extra tracks, it’s an attractive proposition – but how does it sound?
It’s a Takt pressing with printed card inners and this column’s copy played with fairly limited surface noise. The cut is by Barry Grint for Alchemy’s venture with Air Studio which has its own sonic signature compared to what has gone before. Although I wasn’t able to do a shoot out with an original, it was possible to compare it with the 2013 edition from the remasters campaign that was put out by Music On Vinyl. The soundstage is more balanced and open on that previous version which uses the same Tim Young mastering but doesn’t bloat the bass as on the 2022 cut. The midrange seems to have been swallowed up, although high-end percussive elements are crisp.
It’s not awful, but it feels a little like a pop-up book where the glue has given up and nothing quite emerges as it should. His collaboration with M-Beat, ‘Do You Know Where You’re Coming From?’ and the Dimitri From Paris Remix Edit of ‘Cosmic Girl’ are appended to side D for this latest pressing, offering decent value if not the sonic experience that might justify a fresh outing.
At The Front Of The Racks
This column has previously raved about a variety of recent Blue Note reissues, but it’s worth restating what is currently happening. There are two programmes running concurrently: the deluxe Tone Poet series plucks less obvious titles and splashes session photography across Stoughton tip-ons while the Blue Note Classics series offers up more high profile corkers in standard card sleeves. The latter are a good ten to fifteen pounds cheaper than the former but, crucially, both are cut all analogue by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio. This month sees two more additions to the Classics run, with Don Cherry’s ‘Where Is Brooklyn?’ and Jackie McLean’s ‘Destination…Out!’
While the Tone Poets are pressed at highly regarded American plant RTI, their lower-priced cousins are done at Optimal. Normally a dependable bunch, there were some issues with non-fill ripping noises on some of the 2021 titles. However, the immediately good news here is that both discs played back almost silently and no such sign of those problems could be found on either record. Indeed, all there is to focus on is the remarkable sound of these analogue recordings.
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And, my, do they sound good. The space at the start of ‘Love And Hate’, the opener to ‘Destination…Out!’, is palpable and transports you to the studio space. McLean’s alto sax completely escapes the speakers and seems to be moving the air in front of you. As a fan of Bobby Hutcherson’s work on the vibes, it’s really noticeable how his often understated parts are clearly defined rather than being subdued behind the main characters.
Arguably even better is the Cherry title. Edward Blackwell’s phenomenal drumming is set to onslaught mode from the early seconds of ‘Awake Nu’ and feels three dimensional, with different parts of the kit occupying their own part of the soundstage. Rather more free than the relatively conventional McLean album, ‘Where Is Brooklyn?’ captures some impassioned interplay between a ferociously intuitive band in fine form. Closer ‘Unite’ is an absolute workout for any pair of speakers and a fine demonstration of the quality of these vinyl cuts. If you’ve not yet tried the Classics then now is the perfect time to start. Be warned though, you won’t stop at two.
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All of the titles reviewed above were cleaned before playback using the ultrasonic record cleaning machine, Degritter. A full review of its capabilities can be found in a previous column. – – –
Words: Gareth James (For more vinyl reviews and turntable shots, follow @JustPlayed on Twitter)
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