Category: Vinyl

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: Spiritualized “Sweet heart, sweet light”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Spiritualized
Album Title: Sweet heart, sweet light
Year released: 2012
Details: Limited edition, 2 x LP, white

The skinny: Spiritualized’s latest record “Everything was beautiful” ended up on the top of my list of best albums for last year and to celebrate, I decided to kick off this new year with a ‘Vinyl love’ post featuring that very same record. Then, I thought, why stop there? And so, you’re now in for a prolonged Spiritualized ‘Vinyl love’ series, starting their 2012 release, “Sweet heart, sweet light”*, and going backwards chronologically from there. To be honest, this one is the least played in my collection. Not but because I dislike it, understand, but because it was nearly the last one to be added to my shelf. I remember seeing it on the merch shelves when I saw Jason Pierce and company touring for the record, thought about, but opted instead for a copy of it on CD because I was still very new to collecting vinyl and didn’t yet have a turntable. I’ve often heard that the only regretted purchases are the ones not made and I definitely did regret leaving that record there. I finally remedied my error a few years ago at a record store in Toronto.

Standout track: “Hey Jane”

*I’ve already featured Spiritualized’s 2018 album “And nothing hurt” in this space.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Spiritualized “Everything was beautiful”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Spiritualized
Album Title: Everything was beautiful
Year released: 2022
Details: Limited edition, pink, 140gram, removable pill box cutout

The skinny: I just finished wrapping up the countdown of my favourite albums of 2022 a few days ago and this latest by Spiritualized came in at the top spot. I told the story in that post about how I resisted the urge to listen to the album before I received the physical copy, despite having the digital copy included with the preorder from Bandcamp. “Everything was beautiful” was exactly as advertised and everything I’d come to expect from Jason Pierce and more. For me, it plays like “a sum of all of Pierce’s ideas and work, like you can hear pieces of all his career on this album”. When placing my pre-order, I went with Bandcamp to get the deluxe version of the release, pressed to 140 gram pink vinyl and with the special packaging that features a pop-out pill box on the cover. Classic Spiritualized.

Standout track: “The A song (Laid in your arms)”

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Stars “From Capelton Hill”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Stars
Album Title: From Capelton Hill
Year released: 2022
Details: Limited edition, gold foil

The skinny: In just a few short days, we should start to see some end of the year posts on these very pages, counting down my favourite albums of the year. And while (spoiler alert) the latest from Montreal-based indie pop quintet, Stars didn’t quite make the cut for 2022, it’s still a very fantastic record that is definitely worth your time. I’ve been following the group since they released the very fine “Set yourself on fire” back in 2004. Though that one is still considered by many to be the band’s high water mark, I am of the firm opinion that they have released many great albums over the years. Their 9th finds them doing exactly what they do best, literate and romantic indie pop, sometimes danceable and always immersible. I pre-ordered this gold foil, limited edition pressing off of the Last Gang Records’ (the group’s label) web store on the back of the title track and of course, the song below and have not been disappointed with the rest.

Standout track: “Pretenders”