Elektrischer Blumen Zirkus

Let's quickly clarify something here. I have a bit of a late pass on this band; not because I didn't hear of them until recently, but more due to just not being that in to them until recently. Well, that is not strictly true, as I was into it in a way. I really dug the artwork throughout the releases; I liked the way that they fired out a bunch of 7''s on various labels. I really like that despite being affiliated with loads of cool labels, they decided to self release their debut full length (well, that's pretty much the story). I just couldn't get into their music until recently. I knew it was going to happen, and now it has so I'm probably going to be playing catch up a little bit this year. 

Give - Electric Flower Circus - Adagio830 - 1st Press - Black /400 

In truth, I wanted a US press of this way more, as I thought the art was a little cooler and the whole 'self released' copy appealed to me as opposed to the Euro release. However, this looks pretty great in person. As an added upside, the vibrant colours against the flat black background kind of makes for a pretty clear photograph so we can see a little more of what is going on here. 

There was also a green variant /100, but it's a pretty murky colour and although I'm a sucker for a limited colour way, black won it for me this time around (also meaning I could grab it from distro for cheap!). 

Back Cover // B-Side

From a design perspective, this is pretty neat. The centre label matches the colours of the back cover (and insert) titles. Nothing too fancy really, just a nice touch.

All the small print is stuff like band personnel, guest musicians, recording/ mastering/ artwork/ photography credits. There's also a mailing address to write to the band too. It kind of reminds me of early Alkaline Trio releases, I'm sure they left their mailing address on the back of the first few records too. The photography is great on this record too, more on that in a second though. 

Insert 

Angela Owens handled the photography throughout this LP. Funnily enough, she also did the photo shoot for the US Press of this record too. I mean, both records look very different from one another and it's just cool to see a few common themes running though. 

Insert 

As all of the info is on the back sleeve of the record; this side of the insert is used solely for lyrics and a few more live photographs of the band. As far as I can see, there are no thanks on this LP. It's all good though. It's a little different for what I've been getting into lately, and Give certainly stand on their own as far as their sonic output is concerned. However, I'm falling for this band pretty hard. I'm glad I didn't try forcing it on myself too early, just letting it catch on naturally. I wonder what other great bands my younger ears had dismissed...