From turntablism to essential dub rippers and pedal-stomping hallucinogens, everything sounds great, mate.
We start this week’s Best New Reissues with a genuinely lush 25th Anniversary Edition of Kid Koala’s Carpal Tunnel Syndrome on Ninja Tune, and it sounds absolutely fantastic. The Canadian scratch supremo and turntablist really did create something weird, woozy and utterly idiosyncratic with his debut LP. The album was laboriously created by hand-cutting vinyl records onto an 8-track recorder without computer splicing or samplers, in many ways a late icon of analogue recording. It all has ludicrously good grooves and plenty of humour, masking a little just how complicated it all is. Honestly, a proper feel good banger.
+ Pressed on limited Brown and Black colour vinyl.
+ Includes a bonus Flexi Disc.
Tyler, The Creator’s Cherry Bomb LP turned ten back in April - which was apparently originally released as part of Record Store Day 2015 - and receives a tenth anniversary pressing this week. The album - his fourth officially - was a departure of sorts from his earliest Odd Future work, and the first signs of his genre-blending sounds that would progress through the following Flower Boy and IGOR albums. Smart, but obnoxious as the metamorphosis truly began. Available with the original ‘Mask’ cover, and also a lurid new sleeve that has been promoted across big US retailers variously as the ‘pee-pee’ cover and the ‘piss’ cover. I mean, they ain’t wrong. Both are pressed on translucent double Blue vinyl. Both are pretty limited.
We have a couple of proper dub essentials via the Antarctica Starts Here sub label from Superior Viaduct. Backed by The Soul Syndicate Band, (a session superstar band of Sly & Robbie, Aston “Family Man” Barrett and Earl “Chinna” Smith, among others), Get Wise is a single collection from the inimitable Horace Andy. Dub Expression is a set of dubbed-up classics from Errol Brown & The Revolutionaries (who also feature Lowell “Sly” Dunbar). Honestly, a stone cold dub classic with liner notes from JR Gonne.
We also have a double Translucent Orange vinyl pressing of The Maccabees excellent Given To The Wild LP - the first time it has been pressed since its original release - and a very impressive-looking two-sided zoetrope edition of the band’s debut Colour It In LP… which hasn’t actually arrived yet, but it’s close.
Lastly for today then, So Tonight That I Might See is the second studio LP from Mazzy Star and my goodness is it ever dreamy. The lead track Fade Into You brought the California group unprecedented new-found fame, but that aside, the way the album pulled in Country hues, psychedelic loops and acoustic timbres alongside Hope Sandoval’s laconic drawl really is special stuff. It wasn’t of that time and it isn't of this time… it just floats across the stereo like a dream from sometime… Lush.
+ Pressed on Purple Splatter colour vinyl.
