Sunday, 26 October 2014

It's the Floor I'm Reaching For

I've had this record a little while now, and it's a great one so I guess I should get writing. Also, a bit of a funny/ kind of annoying and not so funny story about this one too, but more of that a little bit later. 


Prawn - Kingfisher - Topshelf Records - 1st Press - Orange / Bronze ASide BSide /900. 

This was the most common colour for the 1st press and I bought this through a seller on Amazon. I purchased this with an Amazon voucher I got a couple months back for my birthday. I was a bit unsure of what to buy, and after hearing good things, liking the artwork and trusting the vast majority of what Topshelf works with I decided this could be a good shout. 


Back Cover / B-Side. 

I do like a variant where the A Side and B Side are different from one another in colour. This LP is already in to it's 2nd press now, and the one colour of that press has tackled a similar idea but with Electric Blue and Bone. However, this colour perfectly sums up this record for me. The artwork and overall sound is very autumnal. This LP really clicked for me a week or so back when I was biking through some woods a few miles from my house, and probably goes some way to explaining why I've been holding off on this. 


This copy came in one of those Japanese style sealing poly-sleeves that I always treat with caution as they have the potential to take a chunk of artwork in the adhesive seal. More to the point though, it came with a sticker from VICE / Noisey on the poly-sleeve. I don't get the problem people have with VICE Media; they come out with some utter balls and they occasionally get things pretty on point. Just like most journalist media? At least Noisey push some cool bands and do something interesting from time to time right? 


On to the inside of the gate-fold (oh yes, sorry it comes in a gate-fold sleeve with a real thick spine. The whole thing feels remarkably sturdy). All of the artwork for this record was handled by Charlie Wagers, who has done some great art for David Bazan and Mewithoutyou among many others. This art is no exception, it's wonderful. 


Close up of some of the inside art. Completely fluent and brilliant concept.


However, something that's kind of cool but also not so cool at the same time. I ended up with another copy on my birthday. Only problem was, I really wasn't supposed to end up with another copy of this. 
In short, Silver Bullet fucked up pretty big. 


So, I was supposed to end up with a copy of the new Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate) LP from Silver Bullet, on Black vinyl courtesy of my wife for my birthday. Instead, this turned up after already being a couple of weeks late. They got the colour right at least I suppose? After a couple of emails back and forward to the Silver Bullet store and after hearing some other issues they had been having, I decided to email Topshelf directly and get an answer as to what was going on. Long story short, Seth over at Topshelf is a complete dude and is sorting out a problem that was completely out of his hands. I should be getting a copy of the new E!E! any day now and I'll keep you posted. 


Money shot. Well kind of. There's another couple of variants of this out there. I'll grab them if I stumble across them.










No comments:

Post a Comment