It’s Record Store Day on Saturday; a kind of weird, but necessary I guess, annual event that’s become a critical point in release schedules. I’ve been going through the lists of releases at recordstoreday.com and thought it might be worth picking out a few things that are worth looking out for.
Increasingly, a fair amount of the day’s business is built on canny catalogue management aimed at collectors (especially vinyl fetishists), and there are a bunch of things here that fall roughly into that sector:
At The Drive-In – Relationship of Command (Twenty-First Chapter) 12″ LP; 4000 copies.
Orange Juice – You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever/Rip It Up/Texas Fever/ The Orange Juice (Domino) 12″ LP; 750 copies each of the first two, 400 each of the second two.
R.E.M. – Live In Greensboro EP (Rhino) CD; 5000 copies.
This one’s a five-song teaser of the 21-song live set from ’89 that comes as an extra disc with May’s “Green” reissue. Specifically: “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)”/“Feeling Gravitys Pull”/“Strange”/“King of Birds”/“I Remember California”.
Bob Dylan – Wigwam/Thirsty Boots (Columbia) 7″ single; 9500 copies
Unreleased demos from the forthcoming “Bootleg Series Vol. 10”, but I imagine you probably knew that.
Husker Du – Statues/Amusement (Numero Group) 7″ single; 2700 copies.
The first Husker Du single from 1980, from before they’d hit the gas and evolved on from these post-punk moves. Couple of contemporaneous demos here, too, and a promise of more archive raids to come.
Charlie Poole with the Highlanders – Complete Paramount and Brunswick Recordings (Tompkins Square) 12″ LP; 1500 copies.
Various Artists – Imaginational Vol. 6: Origins of American Primitive
Guitar (Tompkins Square) 12″ LP; 1500 copies.
Two excellent sets from Tompkins Square. Poole and the Highlanders are a good-time string band recorded in 1929 (The extended soap opera of “A Trip To New York” is well worth a listen), while “Inspirational Anthems 6” is a superb new addition to TS’ flagship series that, this time, collects John Fahey and the Takoma School’s antecedents rather than their followers. Sylvester Weaver, Sam McGee and more recorded between 1923 and 1930. In an increasingly common RSD practice, these two will have wider and more orthodox releases at the end of the month.
There’s a reissue of The Grateful Dead – Rare Cuts & Oddities 1966 comp (Rhino) CD; 5500 copies, but Dead fans might also be advised to look out for this one, from Casal, keeping himself busy while the Black Crowes tour puts CRB on hiatus…
Neal Casal – Mountains Of The Moon (The Royal Potato Family) 7″ single; 500 copies
Ty Segall’s year off continues to be amusingly productive, and after the Fuzz activity there’s now a follow-up to his bracing T.Rex covers set from a couple of years back…
Ty Segall – Ty Rex 2 (Goner) 7″ single; 1500 copies.
The flipside features “Cat Black (Wizard Hat)”.
Some other stuff:
Thurston Moore & Loren Connors – The Only Way To Go (Northern Spy) 12″; 2000 copies.
Moon Duo – Circles Remixed (Sacred Bones Records) 12″ LP; 1100 copies.
Dan Deacon Konono Ripoff No 1 (Domino) 7″ single; 250 copies.
Then of course there’s this Steve Gunn/Hiss Golden Messenger album that I’ve been going on about a lot for the past month or two….
Golden Gunn – Golden Gunn (Three Lobed) 12″ LP; 870 copies.
And this which, going by the clip below, is going to be a whole lot better than one might’ve expected…
Stephen Malkmus and Friends – Can’s Ege Bamyasi (Domino/Matador) 12″ LP; 1200 copies.
Oh, and I’ve just been told there’s an EP of Oh Sees stuff from the “Floating Coffin” sessions called “Moon Sick”.
Knock yourselves out, anyway…
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