Record Store Day 2012

So I'm back from the annual Record Store Day pilgrimage to Rough Trade East - obviously I go there at other times during the year, but this special day in April is always a 'must-do'. Having arrived at 6.30 there seemed to be less people in the queue than last year, although they soon built up behind us. The shop was more organised than ever before, with the albums & 12"s arranged alphabetically in racks, and a special counter for the 7"s. Having filled up the baskets that Spencer handed to us Pete & I made our way to the back of the store to tally up our purchases, faint at the cost, and then sift out some of the less essential pieces. You can see the evidence of my haul at the top, here's a list of what I got (left to right, back to front):

1. Ty Seagall & White Fence - Hair - white vinyl 12 (ltd. to 180)
2. DJ Food - Amorphous Androgynous remixes - orange marble 12" (ltd. to 1,000)
3. Tinariwen - Tassili remixes - orange vinyl 12" (ltd. to 500)
4. Lanterns on the Lake - Low Tide - white vinyl 12" (ltd. to 500)
5. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds -  white vinyl 12" (ltd. to 1,000)
6. Richard Hawley - Leave Your Body Behind - 10" (ltd. to 750)
7. Big Deal vs S.C.U.M - split 7" - (ltd. to 250)
8. The Wedding Present - 4 Chansons EP - clear vinyl 10"
9. The Civil Wars - Billie Jean / Sour Times 7"
10. Gorillaz - Do Ya Thing - one-sided 10" picture disc (ltd. to 500)
11. Elbow - McGregor - one-sided 7"
12. Dirty Beaches / Xiu Xiu - split 7" (ltd. to 300)
13. Field Music - Actually, Nearly - 
14. The White Stripes - Handsprings / Red Death at 6.14 - black / red swirl vinyl 7"
15. Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine? / Electricity - purple vinyl 7" (ltd. to 1,750)
16. The Black Angels - Watch Out Boy / I'd Rather Be Lonely - orange vinyl 7"
17. David Lynch - Noah's Ark (Moby Remix) - 12" (ltd. to 500)
18. Moby - David Lynch & Photek Remixes - white vinyl 12" (ltd. to 300)
19. Hot Chip - Night and Day (Daphni Mix) - one sided 12" (ltd to 1,000)
20. LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge

I do have one complaint, which is that very few (i.e. only 2) of the things I bought this year came with download codes. I know that one of the points about the day is to get people to buy vinyl, but when you've spent 8 or 8 quid on a single, or £20-upwards on an album, it'd be nice to be able to listen to it somewhere other than in the same room as your turntable. Record companies take note and do more of this next year please!

Track of the Day: 'Fucking Around' by Peter and Kerry

An upbeat, quirky pop song with an even quirkier video. I'm pretty sure they played this when I saw them at the Tom Ravenscroft Christmas Party at Corsica Studios last December.

Their first full length album is due out on Tape Club Records later this year - looking forward to it! Also, the band have been added to the XFM Exposure show at the Camden Barfly on May 9th which is being headlined by Milagres, So if you've already got a ticker for that you'll be lucky enough to see them, and if you haven't got one they're still on sale here.

Track of the Day: 'Lo Hi' by Peaking Lights

The first track to reach our ears from the forthcoming second album 'Lucifer' by Peaking Lights. The record is out on 18th June on Weird World Records and if this taster is anything to go buy it'll be a logical progression from their first release. 'Lo Hi' features dub rhythms, flutes, a child's voice and a whole host of other things designed to soothe your mind.

You can pre-order the album here.

Track of the Day: 'Mind Control' by Friends

As their album launch date gets ever nearer, Friends are teasing us with this cut, which is set to be the final track on the album. It's slinky, it's funky, it's a bongo frenzy, culling elements from the '70s, '80s and '90s , but still sounding fresh for now.

Having seen the band live earlier this year I know that there are plenty more tracks as good as this on the way - roll on June 4th  when the album 'Manifest!' is released...

Late Night Tales - DJ Cull

Inspired by the Late Night Tales series of releases, I've made my own selection of tracks for after-hours listening. If you've heard any of the previous ones, you'll know that there are always a couple of 'rules' that the compilers follow, so I've stuck to them as best I can. First off, there's the obligatory cover version, in this instance Zombie Zombie's version of the theme from 'Assault on Precinct 13'. And while I couldn't commission a new spoken-word piece for this, I've included a story / song by Jarvis Cocker at the end that does the job pretty well. To download the mix just right-click on the album cover above - here's the tracklisting:

1. Jarvis Cocker - Loss Adjuster (excerpt)
2. The Czars - Drug
3. Tim Hecker - Sketch 2
4. Jeff Buckley - Everybody Here Wants You
5. Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen (Acapella)
6. Clark - The Pining Pt.1
7. Lucky Paul - Thought We Were Alone
8. Radiohead - Paperbag Writer
9. Zombie Zombie - Assault on Precinct 13 Main Theme
10. Telefon Tel Aviv - The Birds
11. Deaf Center - New Beginning (Tidal Darkness)
12. Perfume Genius - Hood
13. Gold Panda - Marriage (Forest Swords 1am Hotel Room Redraw)
14. The Teardrop Explodes - Tiny Children
15. Jimmy Rosso - Ripped
16. Gonjasufi - Nikels and Dimes
17. Woods & Amps For Christ - From Oatmeal to Buttermilk
18. Pink Floyd - A Pillow of Winds
19. Rollo Jean - St. Tropez
20. Dominik Eulberg - Metamorphose 
21. Jarvis Cocker - Loss Adjuster

The mix has got some new tracks and some older stuff, some well-known and some less so. Hopefully there's something to keep you interested - let me know what you think!
Here's the download link again if you can't get the one in the picture to work: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/53817625/01%20LateNightTales.mp3

Recommended music: 'Quakers' by Quakers

Quakers (the name derives from Earthquakers, rather than the religious order) is a 35 member hip-hop collective helmed by 3 producers - Fuzzface (a.k.a. Geoff Barrow from Portishead), 7-Stu-7 (Portishead's engineer) and Katalyst. Disillusioned with a lot of the current hip-hop crop, they set out to make the kind of rap record that they'd like to listen to, and this is the result.

At 41 tracks there's a lot to listen to, although a lot of them are around the 2 minute mark so they come and go quite quickly. Here are the highlights of the album for me:

• Fitta Happier - based around a sample of a brass band cover of Radiohead's The National Album, and featuring Guilty Simpson and MED, this is a stomping powerful track, full of energy and attitude
• Smoke (feat. Jonwayne) - a prime slice of funk, evoking the west coast style of hip-hop
• Mummy (feat. Diverse) - quick lyrics and some weird, priest-like chanting over a more electronic backing make this one stand out from the crowd
• The Turk (feat. King Magnetic) - some hard beats and rhymes in the verse give way to a great middle-eastern sample and then, for no apparent reason, a helicopter
• There It Is (feat. The Champs) - another funky track with some great horn samples
• War Drums (feat. Phat Kat & Guilty Simpson) - starts off like Adam & the Ants (more people should sample them...) with a couple of great raps and some other interesting samples
• My Mantra (feat. Dave Dub) - lots of great chanting samples over which Dave Dub does his stoner-sounding rap, mentioning Brixton and Thin Lizzy in the lyrics
• Sign Language (feat. Aloe Blacc) - on which Blacc returns to his rapping roots and makes you wish that, now he's got a dollar or two to his name, he'd make more records like this
• Earth Quaking (feat. Akil) - 80 seconds of west coast rap over what sounds like a '70s Eastern European soul / pop song - genius!

The only minus points on the album go to 'Outlaw' -  the rappers name on this track is Deed but, given that he sounds like Justin Lee Collins, his voice is so out of kilter with the rest of the album that the records never really recovers from his contribution.

It's worth mentioning that this is the first album I've received from the new Stones Throw Digital Discography subscription service, under which you pay $10 a month, and in return you receive a download of every new album they release, together with exclusives and back catalogue releases (details here).

You can hear a few tracks from the album below: