Final Fantasy - He Poos Clouds

I totally assumed I'd already written about this, but I've actually just written about every other Final Fantasy/Owen Pallett record I own except this one. He Poos Clouds was the first Final Fantasy record I got, but somehow possibly the album of his I'm least into. Has a Good Home has The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead, the first song of his I heard and still one of my favourites, Heartland I just (eventually) tried really hard with and In Conflict is really incredible, so it gets a lot of play. As a result, this one doesn't get played all that often. It's an interesting album, but also one of the hardest to listen to - he rarely stays in the same place very long and few songs have an obvious structure to them. Of course, it's no wonder that it won the Polaris Music prize, since they almost always pick something edgy and difficult (in a good way).

There are some strong songs - the title track, This Lamb Sells Condos, Song Song Song and Many Lives -> 49 MP. The latter I eventually picked up on a 7" single, because I felt bad I hadn't found anything else I really wanted to buy. I found this LP in Bart's CD Cellar in Boulder on what turned out to be the first Record Store Day (or the before, or after, I can't remember). After being so impressed with The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead I was definitely pretty excited to play it, although I couldn't say exactly where it sat in the pile of records I brought back from that trip.

Format: 12", gatefold
Tracks: 10
Cost: £8.13 new
Bought: Bart's CD Cellar, Boulder
When: 18/04/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: none

El-P - Collecting the Kid

As soon as I heard El-P's I'll Sleep When You're Dead on Hugh's kitchen hi-fi in Swansea I knew I wanted to hear more of his music. The next opportunity I got was from this copy of Collecting the Kid which I found in Bart's CD Cellar in Boulder, Colorado (worth noting that the LPs at the time were on the first floor; I'm not sure there even was a cellar. Or a Bart). I had no idea what was on the album, but the words "Limited Edition" helped convince me further that it was worth buying.

Collecting the Kid is, as the name implies, a collection of odds and ends from around the time of Fantastic Damage. The songs are mostly instrumentals, but some are beats El-P made for other rappers, so we get their vocals too - Jukie Skate Rock and Oxycontin are great examples of the latter, featuring my introduction to Central Services. The instrumentals vary from quite good to absolutely amazing. Intrigue in the House of India from High Water is quite possibly the highlight of the album and is one of the finest instrumental hip-hop tracks I know. One of my favourite raps on Run the Jewels is when Killer Mike drops "Producer gave me a beat / Said it's the beat of the / I said El-P didn't do it / get the fuck out of here". This album is further testament to Mike's words. Slow Sex, Constellation and The Dance are all great too.

Whilst Collecting the Kid wasn't the best album to hear after becoming a fan on I'll Sleep When You're Dead, it's a great listen. It also showed me a hugely different side to his work that I might not have discovered so quickly otherwise. A short while later I found a copy of Company Flow's Funcrusher Plus, which might have been a more obvious sequel for me. Over the years I've listened to El's work in various form and all of it has been mind-blowing in some way - it's impressive that one man can excel in so many areas of music.

Format: Double 12"

Tracks: 11

Cost: £9.21 new

Bought: Bart's CD Cellar, Boulder

When: 18/04/08

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Centro-matic - Fort Recovery

I often wish I liked Cento-matic more than I actually do. Will Johnson has an incredible voice and the songs are lovely and interesting. In fact, trying to put my finger on what makes me not like them as much as I should is turning out to be very difficult. On paper, I should adore this band, but instead I just casually and occasionally enjoy them. I just feel that maybe I'm missing something; lot's of people love Centro-matic but I can't quite get there. Maybe it'll come in time.

A series of excellent events ended in me buying a couple of Centro-matic albums (which is how all my favourite "how I got into this band" stories start). It goes back as far as August 2003 when I accidentally discovered one of my all-time favourite bands, The Paper Chase, but really starts 15 months later when I bought the split 7" they did with Will Johnson. I'd never heard of him at this point, but enjoyed his simple guitar-and-harmonica, 6-minute version of I Did a Terrible Thing greatly, so did some research. For a couple of years I thought little more about the name Centro-matic until, in the depths of exam-season of my final year of university, I found a copy of their 2003 album, Love You Just the Same, in the Oxfam Books and Records shop in Lancaster. I can't begin to explain quite how unexpected this was - the Oxfam in Lancaster had yielded very little indeed of any worth over the three years I lived there and yet on this day it had an album by a band I'd meaning to listen to for years for only £4. Centro-matic albums aren't exactly easy to come across at the best of times, so to find one like that in Lancaster (of all places) was quite a shock.

I enjoyed the album and picked up this copy of Fort Recovery on double vinyl in Colorado whilst visiting a friend (and later a promo-copy of Dual Hawks, a split album with Will's other band South San Gabriel). I neglected the album slightly upon getting home having bought far too many record whilst away, and I've never quite got into it as much as I'd have liked. Listening to it now, I'm certainly enjoying it, but still not as much as I feel I ought to.

Format: Double 12"
Tracks: 15
Cost: £8.13 new
Bought: Bart's CD Cellar, Boulder
When: 18/04/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Lucero - The Attic Tapes

I can't recall the first time I heard Lucero, nor can I remember the first time I heard about them, but I can narrow it down to sometime between the start of September 2007 and 7th December 2007. The first date is when I moved to Cardiff, and the second is when I saw Lucero for the first time. It's probably slightly more narrow than that, because I don't really remember anyone mentioning Lucero the first month or so I was in Cardiff - I think I just started hearing their name more and more - and I bought the ticket in advance, so I definitely knew about them before I saw them.

One of the nice things I found when I lived in Cardiff was that when there was a buzz about a band, that buzz really travelled around everyone I knew. I remember when that buzz was about Chuck Ragan, and I have some memories of the buzz about Lucero. They played Le Pub in Newport that December with Kevin Devine and Tournaments supporting, and everybody I knew was going. I think there ended up being six or seven of us on the train down that night. Sadly, the first time I saw Lucero was a night I don't really remember that well; fittingly, I was quite drunk. The 7th of December 2007 was also my work Christmas party, and we'd had the afternoon off for a meal and drinks. I snuck off about 8 and met my friends at Cardiff Central, got changed on the train, and continued to drink at Le Pub. I'm pretty sure we missed Tournaments but saw Kevin Devine. I don't really remember his set at all, which is a shame because I went on to be quite a fan of his solo work and of Miracle of 86. I also remember very little of Lucero, except a general feeling of enjoyment.

Luckily, Lucero came back to south Wales the following year in May, and I saw them (much more sober) in Clwb Ifor Bach. They were excellent, and a few slight memories of the December show came back to me. As it happens, that evening was also double-booked, as Jonah Matranga was playing just around the corner in the Barfly. Luckily, the curfew on the Lucero show was really early, so we had time to head over and catch Jonah (Hugh knew the guy on the door who let us in for free - Hugh's band were playing there soon, so it was on the premise that we were going to hand out flyers for that show). I ended up bumping into a colleague there having not realised he was a fan beforehand, but that's drifting off topic.

Anyway, a month before that Welsh Clwb show I picked up this reissue of Lucero's first LP, The Attic Tapes, whilst on holiday in Boulder. I found it in Bart's CD Cellar on Record Store Day. I was keen to pick up any of their albums, but this was the only one I found. The promise of a limited edition bonus 7" convinced me further. It's a pretty lovely package too; on top of the original nine songs, there's three bonus tracks on the 12" and another two on the 7", and a booklet full of notes by Brian and Ben. Musically, it's a bit slower and stripped back than some of their later recordings (as they mention), but I guess that's the nice thing about it being some old home 4-track recordings.

My personal favourites are Into Your Eyes, In Lonesome Times, A Heart so True (a great break-up song) and the cover of Jawbreaker's Kiss the Bottle on the 7". The other song on the 7", My Best Girl, is a love song to a guitar, and would sound ridiculous if it wasn't sung so sincerely.

My Lucero LP collection still has many holes, but I hope to fill them before too long. They're a great band and I'm pretty excited to see them at Fest soon.

Format: 12", 7", booklet
Tracks: 14
Cost: £7.04 new
Bought: Bart's CD Cellar, Boulder
When: 18/04/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Les Savy Fav - Go Forth

I've shockingly neglected this record. The problem with buying a huge amount of records in one go is that it's all to easy to not give them the time they deserve, and that's what happened here: I was in Colorado visiting a friend and spent a great deal of time in Bart's CD Cellar and Albums on the Hill. I spent my first ever Record Store Day in those two shops (RSD hadn't long been a thing, and this was long before the queues and exclusive records of modern times) and came home with this in the middle of a large stack of vinyl. I played all the albums shortly after getting back and even made mp3s of this one (although the often-shitty quality of my USB turntable might be to blame for the lack of plays).

The first time I heard of Les Savy Fav was by the way of a comparison to The Paper Chase when I first got into them (or rather, slightly before that. More details are here), however that wasn't what got me into them. Towards the end of my first semester in Australia I saw a girl in my halls-of-residence who I hadn't noticed before. I noticed her this time because she was wearing a Les Savy Fav t-shirt and so I assumed she at least had a cool taste in music (this was true. Too cool in fact, as I've mentioned here and here). At the start of my second semester there we were introduced by a mutual friend called Jimmy and she got me into a lot of bands I might not have heard otherwise. Despite all of this, I still didn't actually listen to Les Savy Fav until I got back to the UK and found a copy of Inches on cd in London. I'd heard about the concept (nine 7"s over their career put together to make an album) and thought it was pretty cool. I enjoyed them, but found I was way more into the earlier records than the later ones (Our Coastal Hymn is a mixtape staple).

Anyway, I've gradually picked up their back-catalogue (except for The Cat and the Cobra, which I really must buy). Playing this now, I don't know why I don't play it more often. Hopefully this realisation will be the catalyst that gets me listening to it more. Daily Dares and Pills are definitely highlights and it ends nicely with the line "This giving in is wearing thin" over and over and a locked groove of fuzz and feedback. Good stuff, but Inches is still a more rewarding listen.


Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 11
Cost: £7.04 new
Bought: Bart's CD Cellar, Boulder
When: 18/04/08
Colour: Black
Etching: Side A: "Steppin' me to death, steppin' me to death" Side B: "Shovolve"
mp3s: no