Bend The Truth

Some new music from Cold Cave will always be welcomed with open arms from me. The further Wes and Amy delve into the minimal Darkwave sound they do so well, the more I fall in love with what they've got going on. 

Around Valentines Day they dropped the new single 'Nothing Is True But You', and not long after that I pre-ordered the new single sold exclusively through Wes' label Heartworm Press. 

Around a week or so this dropped through my door in an all black mailer. 

It's a single sided square flexi disc, with the Cold Cave logo in the middle. It looks great, and sounds pretty great considering the format too. This press was limited to 500 copies and this was the only variant, which is now sold out. I'm not sure if there are any current plans for a repress.

This release also came with this pin badge. It's a neat addition to my badge collection but I'll likely never wear it through fear of losing it. 

I've been a big fan of the Singles series that Cold Cave have been doing since Cherish The Light Years dropped, but I really do hope to hear a little more news on that Sunflower LP this year. Here's to hoping right?

Cheers!

Big Love Leadership

I'm always on the lookout for Cold Cave stuff I don't already own; and it's not very often that something just pops up on eBay from a UK seller without much in the way of interest. Somehow this one must have slipped through the cracks as I got it without much hassle for about a fiver plus shipping. 

Cold Cave - New Morale Leadership - 1st Press - Big Love Records - Clear Shell /100 

This tape originally came out through Hospital Productions in 2010, and the variants were distinguished by the colour of the cover and the colour of the text. This copy came out around a year later through Big Love Records in Japan featuring completely different artwork as a benefit for the Tsunami in Japan. The money generated by the 'Suns and Lovers' EP by Nothing was also donated to the same cause I believe. The label name does not appear on the shell or J-Card.

The J-Card contains a tracklisting and the Heartworm Press logo. The release is not numbered from what I can see. 

Spine View 

One side of the cassette shell has a pink glitter heart. I assume all copies came like this and mine hasn't been fucked with. There's a copy on the Discogs release page with a similar looking thing going on. The other side of the shell is blank. 

Made In Japan embossed on the outer shell. 

Lastly, this cassette came shipped in this weird polysleeve. I'm not sure if this came from the seller or it came from the label; but it's the first time I've seen something like this. I'd assume it was from the label, but either way it's a little bit quirky and I'm into it. I need to put up the shelving I bought for my cassettes really. Rapidly running out of room for stuff! 

Deathwish Mail Day (kinda)

I like doing mail day posts. I kind of feel they give an idea of where my buying habits are at in a certain point in time. This year, Deathwish Inc. have been killing it consistently, and this post is nothing more than showing a couple additions to the family. At this point I have ran out of storage room and all of these are on the floor by my bed which I'm not too chuffed about. But, buying records over buying record storage any day. 

Cold Cave - Full Cold Moon - Deathwish Inc. - 1st Press - Black / 1742 

This record originally came out on CD through Eisold's Heart Worm imprint, with different cover art. I nearly jumped on that but held out in the hopes of a vinyl version. Thankfully, Deathwish delivered and I am a huge fan of how this turned out, 

Back Cover // B-Side 

Do I own most of these songs on vinyl already? Of course. Was I going to pass on owning the Nausea, The Earth And Me EP on vinyl when it was digital only until now? Of course I wasn't. The centre labels are cool too, the CC logo that frames the track-listing each side is a nice touch. 

Insert 

Originally used for the 'God Made The World' 7'' Picture Disc, this side of the insert is printed on photo paper I think, extremely high gloss. It looks great, but watch out for all the finger smudges that will no doubt get all over this! 

Insert 

Whilst lyrics are cool, I thought I'd concentrate on the small list of thanks and this poem Wes leaves us with. I'm not sure if this has been used previously as I'm not as familiar with his written works as I would like to be. This is definitely spurring me on to grab some stuff as I come across it. 

Finally , this sticker was on the shrink which I clumsily peeled off and stuck on the dust cover. This sticker displays the 5 EP's that make up the compilation. Cool right? 

Self Defense Family - Heaven Is Earth - Deathwish Inc. - 1st Press - Clear /2100

Another quick minute, another SDF release. At any given time I am missing at least 3 or 4 records from this band. I know that I'm missing the Talia 7'' from recent months and weirdly enough the Scotland 7'' too. Not because I lost interest, purely because this band release so much I cannot keep up. However, I saw this and couldn't say no. I'll definitely grab what I'm missing, but this intrigued me to the point of needing to grab right now! 

Back Cover // B-Side 

Although any colour of this would've looked great, the most common colour will do just fine. My favourite part of the layout is how the back cover acts as an insert for this one. As a result, you get a dust sleeve and a download card. Compared to the relatively lush layout of 'Try Me', this one seems a little stripped back, but that's not a problem at all. Some of my favourite SDF songs are here, and with every listen I get sucked in more. 

Again I'm skipping over the lyrics on the back cover for the more interesting part. This record was recorded over 4 different studios, with 4 different producers coming from a range of genres. This small section explains what songs were recorded where. Weirdly, this record seems remarkably consistent and although you can hear a difference in the tracks it doesn't sound remotely disjointed. 

Again this record came with a sticker on the shrink, but after the bodge job I made on getting the Cold Cave one off, I thought I'd leave this one be. 

This post proves another point for me. With how vinyl is coming such a popular thing nowadays and how my love for music is ever expanding, I'm overwhelmed with how much there is to buy. As a result, I don't pre-order every record in hopes of scoring the rarest variant and in this case, I settled for whatever Amazon had and it cost me about 2/5's of what it would've cost in shipping from the label direct. Not Deathwish's fault at all and that's cool, and you can bet that I'll still chase variants a bunch. However, sometimes I would rather settle on a more common variant and buy more records? 

Thanks for reading!

Easel/ Edsel/ Etsel??

Here's a post on another Cold Cave record I picked up recently. 

Now here's the fun bit. I believe it's title is 'Easel and Ruby', as is listed on the Cold Cave site. However, some people have it listed as Edsel and Ruby, or Etsel and Ruby. This is probably due to the print quality of the cover, and the font used. 

Close up of the cover. The writing below the two figures indicate the track listing on the EP. All of these songs exist on the Love Comes Close LP, although to my ears the tracks seem mastered a little differently. This was also released prior to Love Comes Close as I understand things. The additional information are recording and mixing credits, the pressing number (/300) and indicated speed (45rpm), and finally there are some lyrics to the song 'Heaven Was Full'. 

The covers were plain, with this information sheet attached. All on black vinyl. My copy seems to not have been glued too well, which is a shame. Below is the artwork, hopefully a little sharper quality for those interested:

This is the back cover / B-Side label. The label indicates the B Side tracks (Cebe and Me // Heaven Was Full // A-Side song is Love Comes Close) and the label designation WYR ? 0409. What's Your Rupture? is responsible for the pressing of this. 

Past this, information gets muddled beyond belief. I heard these were for a tour, but that may not be true. Furthermore, I have heard that all copies were in plain white jackets, but I have seen black jacket copies of this release too. 

According to Discogs, the titles of the tracks are supposed to be handwritten on the A-Side label and back cover. The labels on my copy are printed or stamped and contain individual side listings; and the back cover is plain as you can see. 

Discogs also mentions an insert with this record, but my copy (and others from what I have seen) has no insert. 

Basically, past owning it and being quite fond of it, I seem to know very little about it. This is obviously a DIY release with hand glued covers, plain jackets etc. so there may be slight discrepancies from copy to copy. I don't know. Maybe Discogs has it completely wrong. If anyone has a copy or knows anything about this release, I'd be interested to know what the deal is here. 

Sex Ads

I don't think I've posted about Cold Cave before. Odd, as I am incredibly fond of pretty much anything Wes Eisold is a part of. Cold Cave particularly resonate with me though. From the music, to the artwork, to the merch, to the aesthetic, it's all just spot on. So over the past year or two I have neglected my CD copies a little and have been delving more and picking up anything as and when I see it. Never particularly hunting out anything, but slowly expanding the collection. 

This is the Painted Nails 7'' by Cold Cave, and I believe it was their first 7'' release. I really love the songs here; more abrasive than what's normally on show but still just as great. These were both released through Hospital Productions, and both are /500 to my knowledge. 

1st press on black. Hand-drawn arrow on the A-side label. The artwork is really suited to the release, kind of beautiful and dark and a little bit gritty. Also, everything looks better in black and white.

Back cover/ B-Side labels. Two arrows this time, and that's how you can tell the sides apart (well, you could play them I guess). The back cover contains the A/B side track listing and the lyrics to the song 'Sex Ads'. In the bottom left corner, the Hospital Productions logo sits. No insert. 

In the sleeve though was this small Hospital Productions card. Kind of odd, as everything else is black and white so it sticks out like a sore thumb. But it's okay I guess. Also, the card only came in this copy, not in the second press. Which brings us onto: 

2nd press, clear/ 500 again with hand-drawn arrows on both labels. I picked up this copy some time ago, but only picked up the 1st press recently so it made sense to hold off talking about it until now. Since then there have been no other presses of this, and I won't go in for a test unless it practically falls into my hands. 

B-Side/ Back cover. From what I can tell, the jackets are identical for both presses. There is some word of the 1st press being a tour only deal too, but i'm not too sure on that. In fact, a bunch of Cold Cave releases seem to have conflicting information, or at least some kind of puzzling aspects. I'll be writing about another odd(ish) one before long.