Judging by the title of this, everyone should know what it's about.
Brand New - 44.5902N104.7146W (Science Fiction) - Procrastinate Music Traitors - CD - 1st Press - 9/500
This is the first part of post, following what was probably the most tense pre-order since the Valentines Day press of Is Survived By by Touche Amore.
Long story short (for if you're out of the loop with this Brand New pre-order deal), Brand New dropped pre-orders via their own Procrastinate Music Traitors label seemingly out of the blue. There was no artwork, no track list, no album title and no options. You either bought a blind $45 pre-order bundle or you missed out (or so we thought at the time - if you want all the rumour mill that followed see one of the hundreds of Reddit wormholes you really want to fall in). I wasted no time in dropping the money for this, and patiently waited to see what would turn up.
Plain white sticker to seal the envelope (if I didn't mention, the packaging for this CD is an envelope that is hand numbered with a live photo glued on as the cover).
On with the story.
A few days later the album surfaces via a soundcloud link online with the above title (which are the co-ordinates for Devil's Tower - the setting for Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Much the same as this CD, the stream was all 12 tracks collapsed in to one single track with no individual titles, but seemingly the artwork had surfaced. A few hours later, the album becomes available as a download with an album title, artwork and track titles. I listened to it at least three times in full that night; with each listen clocking in at just over an hour, I barely slept.
The CD is presented on a cut out piece of cardboard with a CD stopper (similar to what you'd find in a digipack tray) glued in the middle for the disc to sit in.
I'm assuming this breaks down as 1 X 61 Minutes : 27 Seconds : 45 Milliseconds
The insert is printed on blue paper, but has photographed a lot lighter. It contains dialogue and a set of chess moves, taken place by HAL and Dr. Poole from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The story now becomes a rabbit hole. You can tie in the two cinematic influences and the album title (Science Fiction) together. You can also tie in the chess moves to the Your+Favorite+Weapon album art; creating a link between debut and closing chapter. You can tie in the 18 year predicted lifespan of the band to the Soco Amaretto Lime lyrics (18 Forever). A bunch of the lyrical themes on this record (particularly the track 'In the Water') recall previous lyrical themes and audio sampling.
A quick note on the packaging, it's completely DIY - and a little fragile so I'm really reluctant to mess about with it more than I have to. A CD held by a stopper glued to piece of cardboard placed inside an envelope that is hand numbered with a photocopied live shot glued to the front. Thankfully Customs didn't get their hands on it else who knows what condition this would've turned up in.
We're still all clueless as to what this means for the bundle. I'm assuming the CD's correlate that 500 pre-order mystery bundles were made available. Maybe there are more, the CD's were sent out at random and I just got lucky. All I know is that number 9 is the lowest number I've seen in circulation so far.
Brand New have been one of my favourite bands for over a decade. I still don't really know how I'll feel without them around. If this record really is their last, it's a remarkable way to go out and I'll keep you posted as more stuff arrives!
