Saturday 20 February 2016

Poly(kinda)vinyl

Polyvinyl have rapidly become one of my favourite US labels. For a start, you have a decent look at what they have put out and then think about how important some of those releases are. Also, from a shipping perspective it's cool that you can get a tape or 7'' to the UK for a super reasonable price; especially coming well packaged and with free sweets. 


Now, I didn't really need this at all. I have the LP twice, and a CD copy. I also even have a bootlegged cassette of it that I made myself when I bought my first car that came with a cassette deck. However, I just wanted it and this record is a true classic that you can never have enough copies of. As an added bonus, this has all of the deluxe tracks on too. The art has been squashed down a little, and I like how it looks in this context. 


If you buy the cassette from the label, you get the full booklet as a PDF; but there is enough in the J-Card to keep you entertained too so I really don't mind. The different coloured text on the shell is a nice touch. Also, I know nothing about the pressing info of anything here. I know they are all 1st presses and most likely still in print/ easy to find. 


The lyrics for the LP are also in the J-Card which is nice to see. However, the font is (necessarily) small and my eyes can't follow it. I guess it's good to know it like the back of my hand though. 


At the time of ordering, Polyvinyl were doing a Buy One, Get One Half Price deal I believe and so I took a dive on this Owen cassette. For years I've had The Rutabega split on CD but never ventured past that. Since grabbing this, I've fallen in love with Owen and am slowly but surely grabbing a copy of each full length on vinyl. Sadly, I will end up grabbing this again I assume as just having one record on one format that doesn't fit the others will do my head in. This is one of my favourite record covers from Owen, and the title L'ami Du Peuple is French for 'Friend of the People' and I suppose it refers to a newspaper written by Jean-Paul Marat during the French Revolution. 


Neil Strauch produced the record, and has worked with a bunch of great dudes like Iron & Wine and Dads, to Polyvinyl roster Owls and Joan Of Arc. Kevin Leary is the tattooist who designed the cover. If you're into tattooing, he's a great artist worth checking out. No lyrics this time around, but the printed shell is neat so I don't mind too much. 


Finally, with my order came a free White Reaper cassingle and sticker/ temporary tattoo. This was to promote their newest LP, and contains a remix on the B-Side by Deerhoof. Housed in a wrap around O-Card. It's a cool song and I should probably check out their record. 

There we have it. I also ordered another few things from Polyvinyl recently, so expect another post in the not too distant future! 








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