Tag: Reissue

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Clientele “Suburban 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: The Clientele
Album Title: Suburban light
Year released: 2000
Year reissued: 2014
Details: 180 gram

The skinny: Okay. So I don’t usually make a habit out of posting two of these ‘Vinyl love’ pieces in a row. However, my most recent vinyl purchase, that of the long awaited reissue of “The violet hour“, and of course its requisite go-round on the turntable, immediately put me in the mood to listen to more of The Clientele. And while posting the piece a few days ago, I came to the realization that I hadn’t beforehand published a single ‘Vinyl love’ post on any of their long players, of which I now have all of them on my shelf. So I’ve decided to remedy (and perhaps overcompensate for) this oversight and run the gamut over the next few months, starting back at the beginning, with their debut, 2000’s “The suburban light”. The English dream pop trio cobbled together demos and rough (sometimes home) recordings for this debut, preferring their sound to the versions that resulting from time spent in proper studios and because of this, the album was oft mislabeled a compilation* rather than an album proper. My copy of the record was the one Merge reissued in 2014 with the original artwork and tracklist, as part of its 25th anniversary series, pressed to 180 gram vinyl using the original analogue tapes. So beautiful.

Standout track: “Rain”

*Indeed when I posted about “Rain” (the song above) for its entry on my Best tunes of 2000 list, I referred to the album as such.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Clientele “The violet hour”

(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: The Clientele
Album Title: The violet hour
Year released: 2003
Year reissued: 2025
Details: standard black

The skinny: Here’s one that’s been on my vinyl wish list for a very, very long time, perhaps even from day one of my collecting vinyl in earnest. “The Violet hour” was my introduction to London-based dream pop outfit The Clientele and to say I was obsessed with its gauzy sound for the larger part of the 2000s would be putting it mildly. I’ve been intently following the group ever since and every single one of their long players has found a place on my record shelves, all but this one… until now. As I wrote when the song featured below appeared on my Best tunes of 2003 list, the original recordings had been thought to have been lost, which was why this was the only album in their discography that hadn’t seen a recent vinyl reissue. When it was located, incidentally in the year of the album’s 20th anniversary, I was hopeful that this reissue would finally see the light. And now, two years later, here it is and I wasted no time in procuring a copy. It’s a thing of beauty.

Standout track: “Porcelain”

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Oasis “Time flies… 1994-2009”

(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: Oasis
Album Title: Time flies… 1994-2009
Year released: 2010
Year reissued: 2025
Details: 4 x LP, orange, green, pink, blue, 15th anniversary, RSD limited edition, 5363/15000

The skinny: In a parallel universe, I would be attending the first of two Oasis gigs at the newly constructed Rogers Stadium in Toronto with a handful of old friends tonight. The risk in procuring tickets over a year in advance of a gig is that there’s always a possibility that your circumstances could change. In this case, they did change and I needed to give up my ticket. But no fear, I take small comfort in two things. First, that I have seen them already once before*. And second, that I managed to procure this special Record Store Day, coloured vinyl, 4 disc box set reissue of their 2006 ‘best of’ compilation “Stop the clocks” from an online indie shop earlier this year. I’m not always convinced that compilations are the way to go, especially when I already have the best of the artist in question’s albums in my record collection. However, I made the exception for this one given how pretty it looked and that it included a couple of great tracks that I was still missing on vinyl, most importantly, the amazing non-album single featured below. And I’ve listened to set this a few times since it arrived and with all these great tracks, back to back, there’s been no regrets. For those attending tonight, I bet it’s going to be a great show, no matter their setlist, so please enjoy for me.

Standout track: “Whatever”

*That infamous gig at Virgin festival 2008 where a ‘fan’ ridiculously hid under the stage the whole day only to leap out while Oasis were playing and push Noel Gallagher from behind.