Idiot Prayer - Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace

Is the LP in a giant jewel case or in a cheap cardboard LP sleeve?

 

Why do you think I don"t own any vinyl anymore? I hated these sleeves!

(Besides that, I'm owning 8000 cds. What if these were LP's... How to stock these...)

 

Not a digipack but a cardboard outer cover holding each cd in cardboard sleeve and the booklet .

 

Anyone know anything about the recording techniques for the album? I am thoroughly enjoying the album, but am curious about the recording's provenance. I've looked in a number of places, but have yet to find any specifics. If I have missed it somewhere obvious, please accept my regrets.

 

I went to the cinema release of this 2 weeks ago and was looking forward to picking up the vinyl, pending reviews on quality here. I've had a run of returns and replacements for defective product lately and not sure if I have the will to go through the process again if I choose one off the shelf that's a mess. Maybe I'll just stream this for now or pick up the CD in a Black Friday sale. I suspect the vinyl quality will frustrate me.
I thought the performance was good when supported with the film footage but lacked some variance (even with the excellent renditions of Mercy Seat and Papa Won't Leave You, Henry that helped to break up the pace). Straight after the film I felt I might struggle with the whole 1hr 24mins length without the visual stimulation, and I'm huge Nick Cave fan!

 

Same, managed to get a high res file, sounds great. LP(s) returned to Amazon for refund. You do expect better than this though and I often wonder if the artists take an interest, after all, it is their name this garbage of quality control it is sold under.

 

I've had the same issue with the quality of the vinyl pressing. Lots of pops and cracks even after a good cleaning. $52 AUD so not impressed. I've just picked up a replacement so fingers crossed. Possibly the worst quality pressing of a new record I have picked up in the last couple of years. I'm hoping it's a single abberation but based on the comments here possibly not.

 

I can get the vinyl at a local store with %%% for 18,50€ which is too good to pass up....

 

Good news - the replacement was not perfect, but was a substantial improvement. Anyone that gets a dud pressing take it back ASAP and hopefully you'll have the same sort of luck on the replacement.

 

Fantastic album. Wonderful sounding and great pressing. Nice dynamics. My copy is super quiet. Not one click or pop.

 

Great. Another time I bite myself in the butt for buying it in a local indie store. Due to the ongoing COVID measures, they remain closed until mid December. I wonder if they will still replace the album a month after I bought it :/
Listening to my vinyl copy makes me sad, knowing how wonderful the digital version sounds - and knowing that some of you guys got lucky with good pressings. The vinyl game is such a gamble these days...

 

I feel for you, I really do. Hopefully your support of your local indie store will be honoured by them making good with a replacement once they reopen. Isn’t that part of the unspoken deal with indie stores nowadays? I.e we support them and they on turn support us? Good luck.

 

Well there are good vinyl copies out there. Two of us bought these (in the same house temporarily) and we listened to them both and they are perfect.

Rega RP8 with Hana ML cart.

 

I presume they have the same matrix numbers as discogs and as the others with noisy pressings have? Unlikely to be from two different plants for this one I imagine. Good to know there is some hope. Odds seem tipped the wrong way though currently. I was prepped to purchase last Friday then held back over reports of noise. Like most of his releases in modern times I doubt it will be long until a repress is out anyhow.

I've been daydreaming of someone like 'Chasing the dragon' doing a direct to disc recording of Nick like this... Or a 'Boatman's call' supervinyl onestep...

 

Just take my $$$ on this...
I too have been holding off due to noisy pressing reports. My local store has a big pile of these so I might try now that I know there are good one's out there, and there's a chance that pile has at least one acceptable copy!

 

This morning Nick Cave got together with Blixa Bargeld and Mick Harvey on the Bad Seeds Teevee channel and listened to Murder Ballads. It's not one of my favourite albums of his, but it was very special to have the three of them back together again, and they all seemed on very good terms, with Warren Ellis occasionally piping in as well. Some very amusing moments - when the video for Henry Lee came on, complete with very intimate video between Nick Cave and PJ Harvey (I'd forgotten what a gorgeous video it is), Nick immediately commented: "Uh-Oh..."

 

My vinyl is far from perfect, but much better than Skeleton Key or Ghosteen. It sounds really good overall. And wha5 a performance!

 

Got my vinyl copy too and it’s a long way from perfect! I hoped for the best but struck a noisy one. Lots of distracting little crackles over all sides. I’ll try a replacement one and see if I get lucky on it. Otherwise it’s streaming or CD for this one. Such a pity as it does sound great during the few parts where the surface noise is less obvious. I was really looking forward to this release and 2020 bites again...

 

Lot's of complaints regarding noisy pressings on this one. I don't know if the complainers are cleaning these before playing, but I am, and my pressings are pretty much perfect. Nice listening on quiet Saturday afternoon.

 

Yes it was thoroughly cleaned in my Spin Clean prior to playing. Will clean again and hope for improvement.

 

Got my CD(s) today - sound quite good on my system. Great tracklist. None of these versions will replace the originals for me, but this is a really nice visit from Nick Cave in 2020.

 

Got a replacement vinyl copy today. Fingers crossed - I actually dare to open it after listening to two new perfectly pressed albums right before (live drugs and odins raven magic).

 

It's so strange as both ghosteen and skeleton key sounded near perfect on my turntable. Only with high end headphones I could spot some imperfections. Idiot Prayer, on the other hand, sounded like a vg- record straight out of the dollar bin, except it was shrink wrapped, mint and costed 32 times more :/ I'm curios and fearful how my replacement copy will sound.

 

Spin Cleaned again after initial play and had good reduction of noise on next playback. Have cleaned again following that in a fresh Spin Clean tub, there was a surprising amount of fine black dust in the bottom of the spin clean tub following that third clean! I’m yet to see if this improves the noise problems further but can only imagine it will... seems like my copy at least was mostly just filthy with dust rather than noise from pressing flaws. I wish I had an ultrasonic cleaner to give it an even deeper clean! Great album from Nick!!

 

Just a gorgeous album imo. My copy is pretty pristine, even through headphones on my main system. Has some of the spatial resonance that I’d hoped would come through from recording in that space (a bit reminiscent of Cowboy Junkies Trinity Sessions really).