Quicksand - Slip

A week and a half ago, I headed to Banquet to finally catch up on 2013's new releases. I picked up most of the records I was after, but there were a few they'd run out of, so I had fewer records in my hand than I planned to splurge on. That's when I decided to pick up a copy of the re-release of Slip. I'd wanted to buy it for a while, but felt I should probably focus on new music rather than an album I've had on cd since 2005. On one hand it was pricey, but on the many other hands it's an incredible album, it looks excellent, it's hand-numbered (#922/1000) and I had spent enough to get another £10 voucher on my loyalty card. At £13, I'd be stupid not to (also, you could dubiously count it as a 2013).

So, 10 and a half years after I bought Manic Compression on vinyl, Slip finally joins my collection next to it. I'm pretty pleased to finally have both on vinyl, because they're both excellent. Someone recently passed comment that Walter Schreifels hasn't put out a bad record, and it's true; everything the man touches turns to gold. I was always more of a Manic Compression fan, but Slip was always a close call. It's a heavier album in a lot of ways. Fazer, Dine Alone (with it's comical lyrics) and Freezing Process have always been my favourites, but it's a brilliantly consistent the whole way through.

Shop Radio Cast have done an excellent job on the record because it sounds as good as it looks - subtly remastered and crisp. I've not got any of their other re-issues yet, but the Silverchair and Far records look pretty nice (as does You'd Prefer an Astronaut, but I already have that). I wasn't sure about the cover of The Smiths' How Soon is Now? tacked on the end at first, but it sounds alright (I'm not a Smiths fan at all). When I saw Rival Schools a couple of years ago Walter announced to the crowd they were going to play a song he used to play with Quicksand and my heart jumped with excitement that it might be Landmine Spring only to be instantly dashed by him saying it was a Smiths cover. I've never gone from so happy to so sad so quickly (earlier this year I saw him play it at a solo show, which has temporarily eased my desire). Anyway, this cover isn't terrible.

All this brings me to the big question of the summer: will I get to see Quicksand this year? So far they've announced two shows at Reading and Leeds Festivals but no others and, thus far, my pledging on SongKick's Detour hasn't come to anything. I'm pretty sure everyone is waiting for a London warm-up show, but it's nearly August and nothing has appeared yet. I spent a while on Sunday night discussing with a friend heading up to Leeds for the show up there (Reading is a Friday and my annual leave days are, quite literally, numbered). There's enough I'd watch on that day, but £100? It's a lot of money for a day, especially given that Quicksand are the only ones in the bands-I've-never-seen-before category. Of course, the sum of what I'd pay to see Deftones, Frightened Rabbit and Quicksand isn't far off (plus all the other bands I'd happily watch) but festival sets aren't like real sets. Furthermore, the last few times I've been to Reading and Leeds I've found myself hating absolutely everyone there; working on the bar probably didn't introduce me to the greatest festival-goers, but the 16-year-old kids starting circle pits during every fucking song are equally bad. Plus, it'll probably rain.


Format: 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeve
Tracks: 13
Cost: £13 new
Bought: Banquet Records
When: 18/07/13
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download

Silent Front - Dead Lake

The sun has been shining a lot lately, and the records I consider "summery" have been getting a great deal of play. However, I don't have very many "summer" albums, so my other/non-seasonal records have still be getting some time on my turntable. Dead Lake by Silent Front, I've decided, is the least "summer" record I own; somehow that doesn't make it a "winter" album, it just has the exact opposite effect of a "summer" album.

I've played this album on my mp3 player a few times when out and about lately and, no matter what mood I'm in or how sunny it is, within a few minutes I'm dragged down into the bleakest pit of despair I've ever known. I've even worked out the exact moment it happens - in the opener Loss, after the lines "shake off the dust / shake off the old skin / wash me clean", there's a scream that causes any positive thoughts in my head to disappear for the next 40 minutes. It's quite something. Within the length of my commute I can have gone from having had a great day to hating absolutely everything. This album and public transport would be a dangerous combination.

But it's important to say that I mean all of that in the best possible way. I can't think of any situation where I'd want an album to bring me down so far and crush my high spirits so thoroughly, but Dead Lake will do it. It's a great album in many ways, but it's control over my mood is truly incredible. I like to think of them as a bleak hardcore band, but you could equally see them as a very sparse, bass-y metal band. The best description I can think of is that it's like playing two Shellac records at once.

The story of how I got into Silent Front goes back 12 years (but with some long gaps in the middle). When I was 17 and living in Winchester, my friends and I had gone to a gig in The Railway Inn. Our friends' band Samo were playing alongside another band from Winchester called Caretaker. We had a good time and I bought Caretaker's EP at the end of the night. The band now jokingly refer to those early days as the "indie days" and sound very little like they did back then, but that cd has remained on heavy rotation over all the years that have passed. Eight years later when I met my friend Sarah and told her I was from Winchester, she asked me if I'd ever heard of Caretaker and I discovered that a) I wasn't the only one still loving their EP and b) they were still together, if a little heavier in sound than before. It turned out that she was friends with them - a strange coincidence, but a nice one nonetheless. A short while later, they were playing in the Old Blue Last with some bands we hadn't heard of, and we went along to watch them all. It was very odd seeing this band for the second time, nine years after the first (needless to say, they didn't play any of their "indie" songs, but it was still great). The band after them were Silent Front (finally getting to the point) who blew us away as well. We both became fans (Sarah much more keenly - she sees them as often as she can) and I often wonder if I'd have ever heard them had it not been for that evening watching Caretaker in the Railway.

This (long) story has a nice future as well as past: that night I remembered thinking that my friend Hugh would probably be into Silent Front too and, having just forgotten his birthday, I bought a copy of Dead Lake for him (I only finally bought a copy for myself this January). He thought it was great and his band ended up playing with Silent Front on the London leg of the tour they were doing with Castles the other summer. I always enjoy that feeling when a friend gets into a band because you recommended them, and that was a particularly nice one.

Strangely, in the time I've been writing this post, the sky has clouded over and it's begun raining on my part of London. I can't help but think playing this record somehow had an effect...

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 8
Cost: £8 new
Bought: Banquet Records
When: 04/01/13
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: CD

Bridge and Tunnel - Rebuilding Year

Bridge and Tunnel are another band who I've been introduced to because they have some connection to Latterman (and therefore the other related bands) and Rebuilding Year is their second album. I saw them play in the Windmill in Brixton with Above Them a year or so ago and thought they were pretty good. I kinda expected them to be, so it was nice to be proved correct. I think they'd played Kingston the week before, but for some reason I couldn't make it. Sarah had gone to the Kingston one and, since she's the only friend in London who might enjoy Bridge and Tunnel, I had to go to the Brixton show on my own. I don't mind going to shows on my own so much, but I feel way more conscious of it when it's a smaller crowd. Still, I knew a few people to say hello to, so it wasn't all bad.

Anyway, at the end of the show I wanted to pick up a Bridge and Tunnel LP, and opted for their second one because they'd played the first song and I quite liked it (it turned out to be one of favourites on the album). It's a nice gatefold and the No Idea website tells me that this is the second press (/250). Musically, it's great. It reminds me a lot of Small Brown Bike with a hint of Baroness (especially on Synchronised Swimming), but the dual male/female vocals add loads to it and the occasional smooth, gentle singing (like in the middle of Hands) works brilliantly.

Like Latterman, the lyrics mostly have a point to make, and lyrics to Footnotes, which is that academic research is often kept away from the real world, particularly caught my ear. Just yesterday I was having a conversation with a new colleague about that very subject - she studied chemistry where there was no way of getting research for free, and made the relative ease at which I found maths papers seem even more generous. But then, given that chemistry is considerably more useful than maths, shouldn't they be easier to access? I get that it costs money to run a journal (and even more to fund research), but it seems wrong that now we're in the "information age" some of that information is so hard to get at. All three of my papers are on the internet so that anyone who wants to read them can; it's partly because if anyone actually wants to read my work, I really want them to be able to (those papers will be read even less than this blog!), but mostly because I agree that research should be freely available.

So that was quite off-topic. Sorry. Nice record though, certainly worth checking out.


Format: 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £8 new
Bought: gig
When: 22/05/12
Colour: Transparent red
Etching: Side A: "Rebearding year" Side B: "Elevator pals forever"
mp3s: Download code

ONSIND - Anaesthesiology

Anaesthesiology is one of my favourite records of the summer so far. Of course, the end of my PhD funding has meant I've bought very few other records this summer at all, but I'm pretty sure this would be up there regardless. It's funny, because neither the stormy cover nor subject-matter of some of the songs really lend themselves to sunny days, but it works. Maybe it's the massive choruses and occasional-horns. It probably has a lot to do with how eager I was to hear some new ONSIND songs and the number of times I played the record/mp3s in those first few weeks.

I've raved about ONSIND on here a number of times, so it's no surprise that I pre-ordered the new album as soon as it came out (which came on clear vinyl and with a very nice pin-badge, as seen below). I'd watched the video to the album's closer Dissatisfactions beforehand, which only served to add to my excitement for the rest of the album. As ever, ONSIND tackle a bunch of topics and I felt slightly more knowledgeable for having listened to them. You've got to like a band who quote both Shakespeare and Terminator 2 and squeeze such witty lines into serious songs (God Hates Facts is full of them - "There's no such thing as booze for free" is one of my favourites).

Which brings me round to that song. I remember playing this record for the first time (although, to be fair, it wasn't all that long ago; I'm normally much slower at getting round to writing about records) and being amazed God Hates Facts. I'd been enjoying the eight songs that had already played but, for me, that song stepped it up a gear - the violins and the never-ending stream of lyrics blew me away that first time, and they still do now. The whole thing somehow creeps up on you, and I love it. It's almost certainly my favourite song on the LP, although Pokemon City Limits (with it's excellent chorus) and Dissatisfactions are both highlights too (ONSIND have a habit of putting some of my favourite songs at the start and end of their albums). I managed to catch the London show of their full-band tour recently, which worked brilliantly well - the newer songs have a fuller sound anyway, and Calvinball have taught me that Heterosexuality is a Construct sounds great as a full-band punk song.

I may have only been listening to this record for two and a half months, but we all knew I'd be praising it on here sooner or later.

Format: 12", a4 insert, metal pin-badge
Tracks: 10
Cost: £10.50 new
Bought: Website
When: 29/04/13
Colour: Clear
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Manic Street Preachers - Autumnsong

My Manics collection has long trailed off. I still buy the albums, but I've not sought out the singles for any of the more recent stuff like I used to back in the day. I have a scattering of singles from the last few albums and Autumnsong is one of them. My local HMV had a deal on where you could buy all three versions (7" and two cds) for £4.50 and the dormant collector in me couldn't resist.

Autumnsong is from the album Send Away the Tigers, which was (thankfully) more of a rock record than Lifeblood which came before it. Despite the Holy-Bible-era backwards R's, it would still be a few albums before the Manics but out anything as interesting and different as their first four records. Postcards From a Young Man was surprisingly excellent, and the new single has given me high hopes for LP #11. Autumnsong was some promising guitar bits, but still doesn't quite reach the heights of some of the Manics best singles.

Most interesting though is the b-side, which I'm pretty sure must be one of the very few instrumental Manics songs out there. I'm struggling to think of any at all, and I'm familiar with an awful lot of Manics songs. (A quick search tells me that the only other one in my collection is Horses Under Starlight, a b-side to Kevin Carter). All in all, an unexpectedly great song, which I'd totally forgotten about until now.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.50 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 23/07/07
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly - I Spy

This 7" has never had an awful lot of time on my turntable. The a-side is a nice enough song but the b-side is simply a remix. I can probably count on one hand the number of indie/rock remixes that actually added anything decent to the mix. This one sounds like it's being played through a 1980's games console, and not in a fun Horse the Band way.

I think when I bought it a lot of people were talking about both Get Cape and Metronomy, so I guess I picked it up based on the hype. Evidently it didn't cause me to get into either, since I didn't end up buying a Get Cape album for years and I've never really enjoyed Metronomy. I think another part of the reason I bought it was also the complete lack of vinyl in Lancaster and my need to buy records whenever I saw them at the time.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1 new
Bought: HMV Lancaster
When: 13/03/07
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Crackout - This is What We Do

Another 7" from Crackout's second album, and I picked it up at the same time as the other one. Again, I knew the a-side here so this one ended up in my record collection for two very similar reasons to the last 7": a) the b-side is a cover of Beyonce's Crazy in Love and b) it was also only 50p.

When I saw the 7" in the bargain box of 7"s at the stall they used to have at Reading and read the back, I had to hear the cover. For 50p I figured it couldn't be too bad, and it had the potential to be excellent. It turned out to be on the excellent side and, again, mostly only ends up on the turntable for the b-side. Crackout's floaty, laid-back cover sounds neither very much like Crackout nor like Beyonce, which makes it all the more enjoyable.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £0.50 new
Bought: Reading Festival
When: 27/08/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Crackout - Out of Our Minds

I'll save a longer chat about Crackout for when I write about their debut album, This is Really Neat. They've been mentioned here before, because they were supporting Vex Red on the NME Upstarts Tour, which was the first time I saw them.

This 7" is the first single and opener from their second album Oh No!, which I'd owned for a few months by the time I bought this. I'd been disappointed by their second record, especially because the first one had been so fun, but there are two reasons I bought this record: a) the b-side is a live version of the excellent song You Dumb Fuck from their debut, but with the word "fuck" replaced by "truck", which amused me and b) it was only 50p. (Actually, there's probably a third reason, which is that I sometimes can't stop myself from buying records).

Anyway, as I suspected, it was worth at least 50p for the b-side alone. The a-side isn't terrible, but the only reason this 7" ever graces the turntable is for You Dumb Truck. The song was always a fun, catchy song and this censored, acoustic version always puts a small smile on my face. The line "get the truck away from me" is a particular highlight.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £0.50 new
Bought: Reading Festival
When: 27/08/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

The Movielife - Face or Kneecaps

This is one of the worst sounding records I own. I have no idea how they made it sound so shitty. I remember thinking that when I first bought it, playing it through my old hifi, and it's still the case now on my separates (you can't polish a turd). Tinny and flat. The a-side sounds fine on the (cd) album, so I guess it's just piss-poor mastering. Probably also has something to do with the fact the record label clearly cheaped out on the vinyl itself, because it's so thin there can't be any depth to the ridges on either side. On one hand, what do you expect for £1, but on the other, were there no test pressings? Did no one (with ears) listen to this before they sent it out to the shops?

But sound quality aside, it's not a bad 7". Well, even that's not true - both the songs are on other albums - Face or Kneecaps is on Forty Hour Train Back to Penn and Up to Me is on the brilliantly titled, but missing from my collection, Has a Gambling Problem. I had Forty Hour Train when I bought it, so I guess I was mostly buying it for the b-side, strangely accurately predicting the fact I wouldn't get round to buying Has a Gambling Problem for at least 10 years. The a-side is a great song (when you can hear it properly) and one of two good songs on there (Jamestown being the other). Up to Me is distinctly more pop-punk than a lot of the songs on their final album.

The Movielife were briefly a very important band in my group of friends. When we were at college they were very cool and we saw them a handful of times. Most notably was the first time when we saw them in The Joiners with Thursday supporting, which was an excellent show (my friend Hugh still considers this one of his all-time favourite gigs). I wrote about that in the blog about Full Collapse here. Then we all went to university and The Movielife broke up and I guess I didn't think about them for quite a while. After moving to Kingston many years later, I noticed that the guys in Banquet still adore them and have put on shows by the various bands the singer has been in since. In my usual, apathetic way, I've not checked out any of his other bands or been to see any of the shows. I probably should make an effort in case I'm missing out.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £0.90 new
Bought: HMV Southampton
When: 08/06/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Pitchshifter - Microwaved

I've written so much about Pitchshifter on here before, I'm not sure there's much left to be said. I bought this 7" at a record fair in Southampton a very long time ago for £4, which might seem a bit much for two album-tracks (albeit their best album), but my weekend job at Sainsburys' left me with a surprisingly large amount of disposable income to blow on vinyl and I was probably impressed by the red vinyl.

And, if you could pick any two Pitchshifter songs to put on a 7" and play regularly, it would have to be Microwaved and Please Sir, although dot com was so strong you'd be better off just getting the whole album on vinyl (which I eventually did, making this record a little redundant). The b-side here is a live version of Please Sir recorded in France, with JS cracking out some impressive French. Still, a nice artefact from my early record-buying days.


Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £4 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 26/10/02
Colour: Transparent red
Etching: none
mp3s: no

RVIVR - The Joester Sessions '08-'11

The sun is shinning and I'm listening to RVIVR. My girlfriend recently commented that I don't have very much "summery" music, but I reckon that associating a season to a record or a song has to be one of the more personal attachments you can make; sure, some music lends itself towards summer or winter more clearly, but on the most part it must be about a time and a place. I have really fond memories of listening to the self-titled album sat out in the garden of my house a couple of years ago, so RVIVR are definitely summer music for me. Of course, she is correct - I don't have very much "summery" music (even in my mind) - but I guess my record collection is more tailored to the seasons we regularly see. I'm yet to pick up RVIVR's newest album (or pretty much any other 2013 album) but that will hopefully change later this week when I head to Banquet (which, I imagine, will be one of my last week-day visits. I'm going to miss being a student).

So, The Joester Sessions are a collection of songs from various EPs and 7"s (including the Dirty Water EP, which comes on a very nice etched, one-sided 12" but I have no reason to buy as I have all the songs here). The 11 songs are all pretty excellent, particularly Seethin' (for the horns), Had Enough of This Hell and Life Moves. The only new song Elizabethan Collar always struck me as a strange song, but it's also one of the catchiest. Somehow, the collection plays more like full-length album than a lot of other similar LPs.

Included in the sleeve is an eight-page newspaper full of pictures, flyers and lyrics, which I've (badly) photographed below. After the "re-used" sleeve on the self-titled album, this is another nice little treat from Rumbletowne Records.

Format: 12", eight-page newspaper insert
Tracks: 11
Cost: £11 new
Bought: Banquet Records
When: 14/09/11
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Modest Mouse - Heart Cooks Brain / Shit Luck

On Saturday I went to the Independent Label Market in Spitalfields and ended the longest period of not buying records since I started buying records - a whole two months. My job search was taking way longer than I expected and, sadly, record shopping wasn't a priority. For a while I still picked up the occasional record here and there, but that eventually dried up. However, I now have a job, so I can begin buying vinyl in earnest to make up for the past six months. I plan to head to Banquet very soon to stock up on all of 2013's new releases.

So, on Saturday, to celebrate finally being able to blow money on music again, I went out and blew a lot of money on new music. I'd not been to the Independent Label Market before and only really heard of it from last year when I distinctly remember wanting to go, but not being bothered in the end; East London often seems so very far away. The short summary is that a lot of independent record labels set up stalls in Old Spitalfields Market, and it turns out it's very nice to meet the people who run the labels. It's like going to the individual label's websites and doing an online shop, but instead of crazy-expensive postage, you get to have a nice chat. I like it. I also ended up with a stack of free promo cds and pin-badges of bands I've never heard of. The other LPs and singles I'll write about on here in the coming weeks and months (or years, at the pace I've been going lately).

Finally getting round to this record, one of the first stalls I properly looked at was the Matador stall. They had a box of 7"s at £4 each or three for a tenner and I found a couple I liked in there. At the very back was this Modest Mouse test pressing, only identifiable by the post-it note stuck to the front. I'm a fan of Modest Mouse and, like most, consider The Lonesome Crowded West to be one of their finest albums. I bought the cd years ago and Heart Cooks Brain was certainly one of the better songs. I always adored Shit Luck too for how heavy and different it was to all their other songs. It was like a punk Black Sabbath song, and that appealed to me. So, to have those two songs on a 7" seemed like a winner. If I had the album on vinyl, I might not have bothered, but I don't (yet).

Of course, the most notable thing about this record is that it's a test pressing. I've never really been one to dabble in buying test pressings - it's like the next level of record collecting and there are still LPs I want to hear and bands I want to get into before I can start putting all that time and effort into finding test pressings. Also, I always thought it would be impossible to complete a collection if you include test pressings, since they can be pretty hard to come by. However, since I've started this blog I've spent a lot of time reading other people's similar blogs and I'm very impressed by some of the test pressings some people have in their collections. I'm not such a big Modest Mouse fan that I'll seek out all their other test pressings, but I do enjoy having this one. Maybe this will be the first of many posts on here that I tag with "test pressing"...

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3.33 new
Bought: Independent Label Market
When: 13/07/13
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no