I distinctly remember ordering this record, which is not something that can often be said for the fairly soulless experience of ordering something online; there's none of the usual enjoyment that comes from buying something in person in a shop, but this one stuck with me.
It was the day after I'd turned 30 and we'd just returned to Bergen having been out in the fyords the night before. We'd checked into our hotel for that night and were getting ready before going out for a meal (in a bar that sold metal-themed burgers). I was catching up on Twitter and saw that Restorations had tweeted about this record being available and there only being 300 copies of it available. I immediately clicked through to wherever it was on sale and added it to my basket. All in, it came to £12, which under any other circumstance is a horrific price for a 7" record. But I was in Norway, where every beer I'd drunk had cost about £9. I knew £12 was a lot, but if I could justify £9 for a beer that gave me less than half-an-hour's enjoyment, I could justify £12 on a record I'd have for many years to come.
On top of that, the song on this 7" is 12-minutes long, so not far off the amount of time it takes to drink a beer anyway (depending on the night out and the beer). I think I knew some of the context around this release when I pressed "buy", but was willing to chance it regardless. The premise here is that Restorations wrote a 12-minute long instrumental song (with the cracking title Alright Boys, When We Get to the Airport, There Will be Absolutely No Place to Land) and then 16 local writers wrote short stories in response to it (call and response). The record comes with a huge book of all the responses. Because I'm a horrendous person, I've not read all of them. In fact, I'm not even sure I've read most of them. Not gonna apologise, that's just the sort of person I am it turns out.
I have, however, listened to the song a lot. Given how far from usual Restorations territory it lies, it's a great song; they're not the first band you'd think of to write either an instrumental song, or a 12-minute long song, let alone both at the same time. It doesn't get boring and does a lot of things in its runtime. As an added quirk, there's a locked groove at the end of the a-side, so the song essentially goes on for as long as you like. It's the only record I have where the locked groove appears halfway through a song.
Format: 7", book, numbered (233/300)
Tracks: 1
Cost: £12 new
Bought: Online
When: 29/10/14
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
