Tag: Reissue

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Essex Green “Cannibal sea”

(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 Essex Green
Album Title: Cannibal sea
Year released: 2006
Year reissued: 2018
Details: Limited edition, peak edition, opaque blue marble vinyl

The skinny: In January 2007, I purchased tickets and went to see Camera Obscura play Barrymore’s Concert Theatre here in Ottawa and as per usual, I headed down to the show early enough to catch the opening acts. One of these was Brooklyn-based indie rock band The Essex Green, whose blend of rock, folk, and psychedelia slid comfortably right into my wheelhouse. I enjoyed the energy, groove, and male/female traded vocals so much that I purchased a copy of their recent CD from the merch table. (While so doing, I had a conversation with multi-instrumentalist Sasha Bell about their cover of Flying Burrito Brothers’ “Older guys” at the end of their set). “Cannibal sea” became one of my favourite new discoveries and albums from around that time but sadly, The Essex Green went on hiatus shortly after that tour. Two years ago, the band surprised everyone (perhaps even themselves) by surfacing with a new album and to celebrate, their label, Merge Records, reissued their previous two long players on special edition ‘Peak’ vinyl. Obviously, I had to get myself a copy of “Cannibal sea” for my collection and as you can see, the baby blue marbling is just as pretty and peppy as their tunes.

Standout track: “Don’t know why (you stay)”*

*This very song appears on the playlist I created last summer out of songs by bands I’ve seen live as opening acts.

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Smiths “Rank”

(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 Smiths
Album Title: Rank
Year released: 1988
Year reissued: 2011
Details: Remastered, includes promotional poster, double LP, part of box set that includes booklet and poster

The skinny: I’m finishing off this eight-part series (thankfully, for some) with the album that I will rarely be apt to spin, this out of all the pieces in this “Complete” box set. I am not really all that fond of live albums. Indeed, this is one of only three live albums in my vinyl collection and I likely would have never purchased this one had it not come included with the set. “Rank” was an obligatory release by the band’s British and North American labels, coming out over a year after the group split and over two years after the live show at which it was recorded.  It’s an interesting listen but would probably only be that to their most hardcore fans. However, it is one of only two places in this collection where one can hear the excellent track featured below, which as Morrissey admits on the live recording was the band’s newest single at the time.

Standout track: “Ask (Live)”

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Smiths “Louder than bombs”

(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 Smiths
Album Title: Louder than bombs
Year released: 1987
Year reissued: 2011
Details: Remastered, double LP, part of box set that includes booklet and poster

The skinny: Last week, I received another comment from fellow blogger, Aphoristical, with which I could not disagree: “Their discography is kind of annoying.” He was referring to The Smiths, of course, and this is the reason why purchasing this “Complete” vinyl box set of their full-length releases was an easy sell for me. “Louder than bombs” was released a mere three months after the focus of last week’s ‘Vinyl love’ post, “The world won’t listen”, rendering this latter one all but useless as compilation. Like a lot of their discography, the two compilations share a lot of the same tracks but each are missing songs the others don’t have and vice versa. For me, though, “Louder than bombs” is the ultimate introductory compilation, and this is mostly because it was my own intro to the band, the first album cover I remember seeing, the first spin in the CD carousel, etc. And yeah, the song below, mostly due to its short length, found its way on pretty much every mixed tape I made in the 90s. Cheers… and be safe and healthy everyone.

Standout track: “Please, please, please, let me get what I want”