Tapestry Records

Anyone familiar with this reissue label out of Liechtenstein? I'm guessing they're like Get Back.

I'm listening to their reissue of Supernatural Fairy Tales. Nice glossy reproduction of the cover and heavy vinyl. Decent sounding. Not audiophile grade by any means, but doesn't sound to be a needledrop either.

 

their releases are cd sourced........

 

The only thing surprising about that is that I've only ever seen their vinyl over here (and only just on that). Still, I'd imagine that's the case for most of these psych issues, unless they come out on Sundazed.

 

What's your evidence for this, please?

 

a friend of mine who distributes them in spain told me, besides I checked their caravan first LP and it was indentical to the HTDCD65 from 1996 , same tape issues on policeman.........

their rights to licence some titles is also questionable,

 

Strictly Carole King titles only. Also includes music written by her but performed by other artists.

 

With respect the first is hearsay and the second could just mean they are using the same digital source. You may be right but I don't think any of us can say for certain how the records are sourced - except we can be fairly sure they aren't taken from the original masters since they would tell us if they were.

Tapestry certainly aren't up there with Speakers Corner, Classic Records, Sundazed or MFSL but for what it's worth they have been spoken of quite warmly on this forum. See for example:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=156518&highlight=fairport

I have four of their LPs and like them all.

 

Taking into account the location of their registered office, their variety of titles, and to some extent their choice of distributors, an impartial observer could be 99% certain that not only are the titles exclusively CD-sourced, but also that several are not licensed from the respective copyright owners.

Seem to remember this topic coming up before. Liechtenstein: not a member of the EC and therefore not bound by any common treaties or legislation; low business taxes; a global centre for mail-box business... it's difficult not to be cynical.

 

ths guy who told me is a spanish collector of really obscure psyche and prog records with a huge collection of original pressings a la hans pokora and knows a lot about the stuff apart of knowing the label and the people who are behind it----

the tapestry LP mimic the cd soundwise they might be derived from the same source???-----I don't think so........ what its sure is that the MGM from the 70's sounds much better to my ears...what I don't like about these labels is that they sell a bad product which is not cheap at all and probably against copyright rules and that's not fair to the artists

 

I think I asked a similar question on this forum when I was looking at the first Camel album on Tapestry. I got similar answers to the ones in this thread. I didn't feel confident what I was getting from Tapestry so I didn't buy it. I ended up getting the Camel album through Musicstack. An original UK pressing, very nice.

 

I agree with pretty much all of the above. Call me a pedant, but I'm just trying to maintain a distinction between supposition and fact.

Also, as I said earlier, some of these Tapestries actually sound quite nice.

 

"A bad product?" You base this one one sample? I have four LPs from them. I can assure you that none of those four LPs are bad products. "legitimate" labels like 4 men with beards should do such bad product. The Fairport convention LP beats the original A&M hands down. It cost all of 25 bucks. Not sure how that qualifies as bad product. I think this speculation about copyright infringement is really unfair. If some one actually *knows* this to be true based on something more than heresay or speculation please come forward.

 

To be fair, it really isn't that difficult to make a decent sounding vinyl pressing of a rare album these days. CD copies of almost every title known to man are available cheaply somewhere, and those will represent perfectly adequate sources for all but the most discerning listener. This especially applies with more scarce albums when familiarity with original pressings is less likely.

With respect to the allegations of impropriety on the part of Tapestry, I would turn this question around. Some of the material they have issued has been next to impossible to license for legit repressing in the UK, so I may be slightly partisan. Point us to the internet presence. Provide contact details for someone at the label (not a distributor or other third party). Give us evidence that the label uses anything other than CD sources. I would genuinely love for someone to prove my suspicions unfounded.

Cue lengthy silence...

 

Sure. They probably cut some of them from decent sounding CDs.

Other cases, no such luck.

They are certainly an illegal pirate company. How anyone would question this eludes me. It's not just because of their (supposed) location, but other blatantly obvious factors. Many have been pointed out by florette69.

Yeah, I'm sure Universal is licensing out their stuff to a company in Liechtenstein while at the same time doing their own vinyl reissues.

 

I am not insensitive to the wrongs of pirating. But I still kind of believe in the old U.S. concept of presumed innocent until proven guilty. Seriously, how would any of us go about proving that a small private label in Liechtenstein has legitimate licencing agreements with long time defunct obscure English folk groups? If you want to put it to the test then ask the folks at Island if the Fairport Convention LP is an authorized issue. At least they are not so obscure and it is fair to assume that they did renew the copyrights to the Fairport Convention albums. I would like to know how they managed to better the A&M original without a high quality source tape.

 

I believe the Fairports were done by 4 Men With Beards...which one did Tapestry do?

 

Island is owned by Universal.

You really think there's any hope here? I stick up for small labels against negative talk frequently; including people's assumptions about things based on place of origin, but come on.

Tapestry is apparently no more, but they pirated far more than English folk. They issued LPs by Pink Fairies, Family, Black Cat Bones, Ashkan, Caravan, Kaleidescope, Human Instinct, Camel, Fantasy, Sir Lord Baltimore, Blodwyn Pig, Love and more.

Maybe the problem is that you're using the A&M original as the measuring stick?

Have you compared the vinyl you like with, say, the original Island CDs or even the Island/Universal remasters from a few years ago? Methinks they will provide your answer as to what those LPs you dig were cut from.

 

bad wasn't appropiate, questionable sources and probably not legit that's what I meant............maybe the problem is that some people expect more from vinyl that something that is likely cd sourced and in my humble opinion 25 $ for that is a steal when you can get directly the cd for much less in some cases...

quality? pressings, yes probably they are not noisy vinyl but that's all......

I agree with what some other people have said, some of these material is so obscure that few people have ever had access to the original LP's........so the comparision is not that easy......

BTW I've bought 3 Lp's from them, I usually don't evaluate based on one sigle experience.......

sunbeam for instance is not my cup of tea r in sonic terms either however I must admit they are top-notch regarding artwork , vinyl pressings and being respectful with copyright and their releases are always legit.......

the problem is that pirate labels are doing much harm to serious labels and that is something that is not debatable...

 

Tapestry disappeared within a few months in 2007 and then morphed into Timeless spring of last year. In each case a raft of titles then nothing else. The sound on the releases I bought was pretty good and most are titles that are ultra rare and expensive to get an original in any condition such as Mellow Candle and Kalaedoscope. They are probably sourced digitaly but they are well mastered and pressed. They are not obviously digital sounding. Strangely the Fairport reissues (Holidays and Self Titled) sound pretty close to early UK pressings - perhaps they had a mole smuggling masters out of Universal?

 

Not quite legit by my understanding of the word. Perhaps in one or two cases, but predominantly they seem to have an agreement with the artist, which is completely different from licensing from the copyright owners (rarely the same people, especially with older recordings). I agree about the packaging though: excellent quality, but possibly a little deceptive in relation to the quality of the contents.

 

taking into account the obscurity and ambiguity of the contracts many of these artists signed then, I'm not surprised at all..... but at least they are a company with people clearly defined behind and they are focused releasing excellent quaility products..................they are not audiophile by any means and some of their releases don't sound particularly ok but they are not in the same league as akarma, radioactive, tapestry an others........

 

I know you're not being serious, but there's not a chance of smuggling anything beyond a plastic drinks cup out of Universal. They rarely license anything out of house, and even if they do their fees can be quite shocking. Actually the same applied back in the PolyGram days. I remember back in 1986 a quote of £10,000 for a then mightily obscure 1969 album which sold a dozen copies at the time. And that was just licensing - it didn't include a suitable master.

When you say the vinyl pressings do not sound obviously digital, what precisely do you mean? Not harsh or glassy? Easy. Take one consumer CD, transfer to a PC, use some eq shareware, roll off the higher frequencies. Job done.

 

Agree generally, but I can assure you contracts with major recording companies are rarely ambiguous. Ordinarily they are several pages of small text with lots of subclauses. Any legit licensing will require an experienced legal agent.

 

The 4 Men with Beards reissues are different and IMO stink. Tapestry did a reissue of What We Did On Our Holidays.