Wavelets - Athaletics

Wavelets are a band I'd never heard of (let alone heard) when I bought this record. The fact I own this album is a testament to quite how trigger happy I get when ordering records from the states and how easily swung I am by a good offer. On the other hand, it's a great record so I'm very pleased I own a copy.

I was ordering a bunch of records from the Tiny Engines website and I decided to pick up the Dikembe album since we'd seen them at Fest and I thought they were awesome. The site had an offer where you could order the Dikembe and Wavelets albums together for a small saving and I figured I didn't have much to lose - the postage was already high enough another record wouldn't cost too much and records from the US are so cheap anyway. Plus the description said that Dikembe and Wavelets shared a singer and a guitarist (hence the offer) so it really couldn't go too wrong.

Athaletics isn't a long album (it plays at 45rpm) but they squeeze in some excellent moments. The album is book-ended by my two favourite songs - Julio Won't Get Out of the Car and Cannonball - two songs made excellent by the group-vocals (something that also works pretty well on My Dad the Manatee). The end of Cannonball, with the chorus screamed by a whole bunch of voices, is the highlight of the record for me.

Controversially, I think I might actually prefer the Wavelets album to the Dikembe album; both are excellent, but Athaletics comes across a more fun record and I think it works.

Format: 12", a4 insert
Tracks: 9
Cost: £8.70 new
Bought: Tiny Engines website
When: 10/01/13
Colour: Transparent red (/150)
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Dikembe - Broad Shoulders

Both times I've been to Fest I left having discovered so many excellent bands. The Sunday of the first of those two Fests was particularly exciting; I was pretty knackered after three-and-a-half days of watching bands and drinking so decided to hole up in Loosey's for the evening. Failures' Union were playing and I was keen to see them again. Beforehand were a band called Dikembe and afterwards was a band called Restorations. I'd heard of neither but both would shortly go on to completely blow me away. (As if that wasn't enough, on the way home we passed by Eight Seconds and ended up catching the end of The Underground Railroad to Candyland's set, which was also an excellent find. Beforehand all I wanted to do was sit down, but I couldn't tear myself away from that band.)

Anyway, I didn't buy any Dikembe records after their set but did make a mental note to check them out in the future. A year afterwards I finally did so by picking up their debut album, Broad Shoulders. I was ordering the new Run Forever album from the Tiny Engines website and was stocking up to make the most of the postage. I'd enjoyed their set so figured the album would be a safe bet. Luckily, it was as good as I remembered them.

There are some excellent songs throughout the album (like Librarians Would Kill For That Kind of Silence) but it's actually the sparse moments where there are just guitars and vocals like on Nothing, Stuff and Not Today, Angel that really make the album for me.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 10
Cost: £8.70 new
Bought: Tiny Engines website
When: 10/01/13
Colour: Light brown (/250)
Etching: Side A: "Take ya lemon and ya honey" Side B: "And get outta here!"
mp3s: Download code

Run Forever - Settling

Run Forever blew me away with their first album. I played The Devil, and Death and Me pretty much on repeat for ages and I had an excellent time watching them at Fest that year. It was a perfect band-crush. To a certain extent, I played that album too much, which meant I was pretty excited when they announced their second album was coming out; I was definitely in need of some new Run Forever music.

On first listen, I enjoyed the record, but it didn't knock me off my feet like the debut did. I was a bit disappointed but knew I'd probably built the excitement up in my mind to a point where it was never going to live up to expectations. Where Settling and The Devil... differ is that Settling is a grower. In the year-and-a-half that I've had this album it's gone from being this enjoyable punk-rock record to being a great album I want to go back to over and over again. At some point the albums shifted and Settling became the Run Forever album I'd go to first.

The highlights for me appear at either end of the album - Good Enough and Forget are both incredible songs. The former sets the scene for the album reflecting on past times but the latter looks forward optimistically. I like that a lot - Settling isn't just ten songs, but a journey of dealing with the past and moving on. There are great songs in the middle as well - Basement, Postcards and Drop Out are all brilliant too.

I'm not great at ordering records from the states - the exchange rate is usually pretty good but the postage soon adds up and every now and again Customs decide they want a slice of the pie too. When I do order from abroad, I tend to stock up (there'll be a bunch more posts on here about that particular shopping spree). I knew I'd have to order this record to get a copy - it certainly wasn't going to appear in any UK shops any time soon and I hadn't planned to go back to Fest at that point.

There were four colour options on the Tiny Engines website and I was a bit torn about what to do - the smoke-white vinyl sounded the nicest, but part of me wanted the least numerous press (the green in the picture). They also had the option to order all four colours. Normally I wouldn't go for this, but I'd been reading some blogs of some guys who obsessively hunted down every colour of records for certain bands and a part of me really liked that. Combined with my indecision about the colour, I decided to order all four. They've since released some other pressings (including one only available on a US tour), so my dream of owning every variant of their records was shot down pretty soon (although it's probably for the best - I know that a better use of my money is to spend it getting into other bands). Still, the four colours I do own look very lovely when all lined up.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 10
Cost: £9.30 (each) new
Bought: Tiny Engines webstore
When: 10/01/13
Colour: Green (/100), pink (/125), blue (/125), smoke-white (/150)
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Restorations - A / B

I've spoken about my love for Restorations at length before, so I'll spare you the details this time around. A few months after Fest I saw a pre-order for the new Run, Forever album go up on the Tiny Engines website. I'd been playing their first LP excessively for months so I was keen to get the next one. Shipping from the US is what usually puts me off ordering from there so I decided to stock up on everything I fancied, including this Restorations 7" (on green vinyl from the first pressing, /125).

Of the three Restorations 7"s, A/B is my favourite. It's a rare treat to have a 7" of non-album songs were both are so great. A peaks with a huge outro and B is a much heavier, punkier song. That's that slowed-down aggression in both which makes them even more enjoyable live.

It's easy to forget about 7"s in a record collection and to favour LPs, but A/B is a record I always want to be playing.

Format: 7", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 2
Cost: £5 new
Bought: Tiny Engines webstore
When: 10/01/13
Colour: Green
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code