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this isn't a particularly rare vinyl release at all - it's still widely in print and very affordable. it's an album very very widely considered a classic. but it is, I think, the moment when I realised what makes buying music more satisfying of an experience than the lifetime of piracy I'd built up to that point.
it comes with a handful of prints and illustrations that really expand upon the feeling of the album. the record itself isn't even labelled, there's no tracklist, the sides are engraved with their descriptions "nervous, sad, poor" and "bleak, uncertain, beautiful". but most notably of all, each of these releases comes with a penny flattened on train tracks behind the studio it was recorded in. I've heard stories of copies of this album coming with handwritten notes of thanks from the label.
it was the first time I think I realised the love and the immense effort that goes into putting music out independently like this, even long after the recordings are done. I mean, I get that this one's a very special case - a lot of high-effort touches to really drive home the art, and to keep doing them decades after the album released. but I think picking this up is a big reason why I'm still buying vinyl ten years later.
the album still absolutely rips, of course.
it comes with a handful of prints and illustrations that really expand upon the feeling of the album. the record itself isn't even labelled, there's no tracklist, the sides are engraved with their descriptions "nervous, sad, poor" and "bleak, uncertain, beautiful". but most notably of all, each of these releases comes with a penny flattened on train tracks behind the studio it was recorded in. I've heard stories of copies of this album coming with handwritten notes of thanks from the label.
it was the first time I think I realised the love and the immense effort that goes into putting music out independently like this, even long after the recordings are done. I mean, I get that this one's a very special case - a lot of high-effort touches to really drive home the art, and to keep doing them decades after the album released. but I think picking this up is a big reason why I'm still buying vinyl ten years later.
the album still absolutely rips, of course.
Jan 10, 2025
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Wow! I love how detail oriented the packaging is. Really shows how much effort they put in and the pride the band and label have for their music!
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s/o @LLQ the format you used was good..
1. My X/1999 collection (ignore Ai) Actually Ai being included is kinda perfect. X was never finished but I love it dearly. I loved Oshi No Ko until it was finished because the ending was actually so bad it undermined everything that happened in the 4 year run it had. CLAMP's art is beautiful.. I stumbled upon it once many years ago online scraping through anime websites. Much later on I was trying to remember it's name and had to dedicate a few days of searching to rediscover it. Now I own it all as well as the short anime run it had. 2. Signed Tailwhip 7" Yeah so I camped out after the first Men I Trust headline show I went to. I waited outside with maybe 6 other people for an hour and a half. It was freezing mid December in Boston but it was a nice time talking with them. This was the first show I went to alone. To this day I feel awful about it because it was the last night of their tour and they probably wanted to just drive home but at the time I was ecstatic. Just saw them twice this weekend I love the band so much still 3. Cloud Cuckoo Land So I believe this is the first book I read as an adult outside of school. It was either this or Richard Powers' Overstory. Both of which are fantastic. This book in particular is a $50 Barnes and Noble collectors version which I bought for $2 at a used bookstore. It was essentially brand new. I then proceeded to nosebleed on it while reading in the car. So it is mine now and forever. 4. Quasi zine On their last run of US shows, I bought this on the first night up in Boston. Later that summer I spent a couple nights in Manhattan to see Liana Flores and Quasi again back to back. This was a week before my knee surgery and effectively the last cool thing I would be doing for the summer. I finally got to talk to Sam after this show. He's one of my favorite music people ever and was so surreal to talk to for a bit. 5. Lady Brown single The first record I ever bought. This is my favorite Nujabes song. Never took it out of the plastic 😛. I grew out of records anyways, too big and fragile.. I always treat them like I'm handling glass and it makes me anxious.. but anyways, he defined my late middle school/early high school music taste. The sample used would later get me *wayy* into classical guitar. On a lot of fronts this music was super formative for me and the record had a place on my wall for a very long time before moving it to a crate.
1. My X/1999 collection (ignore Ai) Actually Ai being included is kinda perfect. X was never finished but I love it dearly. I loved Oshi No Ko until it was finished because the ending was actually so bad it undermined everything that happened in the 4 year run it had. CLAMP's art is beautiful.. I stumbled upon it once many years ago online scraping through anime websites. Much later on I was trying to remember it's name and had to dedicate a few days of searching to rediscover it. Now I own it all as well as the short anime run it had. 2. Signed Tailwhip 7" Yeah so I camped out after the first Men I Trust headline show I went to. I waited outside with maybe 6 other people for an hour and a half. It was freezing mid December in Boston but it was a nice time talking with them. This was the first show I went to alone. To this day I feel awful about it because it was the last night of their tour and they probably wanted to just drive home but at the time I was ecstatic. Just saw them twice this weekend I love the band so much still 3. Cloud Cuckoo Land So I believe this is the first book I read as an adult outside of school. It was either this or Richard Powers' Overstory. Both of which are fantastic. This book in particular is a $50 Barnes and Noble collectors version which I bought for $2 at a used bookstore. It was essentially brand new. I then proceeded to nosebleed on it while reading in the car. So it is mine now and forever. 4. Quasi zine On their last run of US shows, I bought this on the first night up in Boston. Later that summer I spent a couple nights in Manhattan to see Liana Flores and Quasi again back to back. This was a week before my knee surgery and effectively the last cool thing I would be doing for the summer. I finally got to talk to Sam after this show. He's one of my favorite music people ever and was so surreal to talk to for a bit. 5. Lady Brown single The first record I ever bought. This is my favorite Nujabes song. Never took it out of the plastic 😛. I grew out of records anyways, too big and fragile.. I always treat them like I'm handling glass and it makes me anxious.. but anyways, he defined my late middle school/early high school music taste. The sample used would later get me *wayy* into classical guitar. On a lot of fronts this music was super formative for me and the record had a place on my wall for a very long time before moving it to a crate.
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Happy 2nd Birthday to what is, without a doubt in my mind, the greatest album ever made.
I found this band back in 2019 when their second ever single, sunglasses, popped into my youtube recommended. It had maybe a few thousand views at the time. That song was revolutionary for me, unlike anything i’d ever heard. I resolved to follow the band like a zealot from there on out. I read every interview, listened to every live bootleg, etc.
Their first record finally came and went in early 2021 with reasonable acclaim. I adored it and spoke about it with fervor upon release. I sent it to anyone and everyone. But there was a small nagging part of me that thought the band had not reached terminal velocity just yet.
I remember being slightly disappointed that a newer live staple “Basketball Shoes” (a 13 minute monster of a song) was noticeably missing from the track list. When I first heard a live recording of it in 2019, I already knew that it was quite possibly the best song ever written. (I looped this recording so many times that every aspect is committed to memory, even the distinct crowd noises.)
AFUT released 2 years ago today, and it was a revelation. A 10 track, hour long, jam packed record of nonstop hits. Anthemic and yet equally frenetic, Ants is nearly impossible to describe. I have to imagine hearing this album is what hearing Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea for the first time must have felt like. Somehow both alien and feeling as though it has always existed, it is impossible to imagine a world, or a time, where this record does not exist.
It is a generational record that words will simply never do justice. Thank you BCNR, Thank you Isaac Wood.
concorde will fly.
I found this band back in 2019 when their second ever single, sunglasses, popped into my youtube recommended. It had maybe a few thousand views at the time. That song was revolutionary for me, unlike anything i’d ever heard. I resolved to follow the band like a zealot from there on out. I read every interview, listened to every live bootleg, etc.
Their first record finally came and went in early 2021 with reasonable acclaim. I adored it and spoke about it with fervor upon release. I sent it to anyone and everyone. But there was a small nagging part of me that thought the band had not reached terminal velocity just yet.
I remember being slightly disappointed that a newer live staple “Basketball Shoes” (a 13 minute monster of a song) was noticeably missing from the track list. When I first heard a live recording of it in 2019, I already knew that it was quite possibly the best song ever written. (I looped this recording so many times that every aspect is committed to memory, even the distinct crowd noises.)
AFUT released 2 years ago today, and it was a revelation. A 10 track, hour long, jam packed record of nonstop hits. Anthemic and yet equally frenetic, Ants is nearly impossible to describe. I have to imagine hearing this album is what hearing Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea for the first time must have felt like. Somehow both alien and feeling as though it has always existed, it is impossible to imagine a world, or a time, where this record does not exist.
It is a generational record that words will simply never do justice. Thank you BCNR, Thank you Isaac Wood.
concorde will fly.
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😃Big Star is sort of before my time in the sense that it came out in the 70s, but both of these records were on heavy repeat by my father when I was growing up. Going back to them when I was older I realized that they might be the greatest things yet created by man.
You've probably already heard Anthems for a 17 Year Old Girl (a generationally defining song for like 3 generations now), but I promise that every single other song on YFIIP is just as good if not better. My pick for the greatest Indy record ever recorded
Big Star's #1 record is almost incomprehensibly good. If I told someone a record this good existed, where every song was *that* good, I wouldn't be able to properly convince them if it's existence without just showing them the record in full.
May 13, 2025
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the simplicity of exploring around on Google Earth meets the infinity of local radio from every single pocket of the globe. the thrill of the hunt and the joy of just hanging out. it doesn't get better than this folks
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it's only like 11°C outside in Dublin right now but the sensation of sunlight helps to elevate the cruel existence of Computer Work. so, fuck it! balcony season! allowing the Macbook to experience its true natural habitat of Somewhere That Isn't My Desk has made me a bit more appreciative of its possibilities. last summer I took the idea to its logical end point and brought my cheap usb dj controller out on the balcony with me, recording DJ sets for nobody in particular on my headphones as the sun sets. those days approach once more. now if only I could solve the glare problem
