Stereolab - new vinyl press

Liner notes? Does "Peng!" have them too? Man.... they really want me to rebuy their vintage albums.

Now.... the next batch is going to be.... interesting!

 

yea just a short write up on each song and the conception of the album by Tim I believe. I believe they came with the 2008 Groop Played as well but this is definitely a much superior reissue. No word on Peng since I didn’t get that one yet but I suspect it is of the same high quality

 

Peng! does indeed have liner notes. No DL card either.

 

The sound! How does it sound?

 

I’m about half way through listening to it now - sound quality is really nice actually. And the liner notes are fun. I took some pictures but not sure how to get them up!

I have a warp in mine which you can hear - I’m going to send it back for a replacement (which I very rarely do). Some surface noise as well in places - if I was keeping it I would put it on the VPI, but let’s see if it was just an unlucky defect.

Looking forwards to this series continuing - I hadn’t expected it, but so much great stuff to come (presuming they continue).

 

Picked up a copy of Aluminum Tunes at my local shop. As others have mentioned it does have a strong PVC smell too. It's not horrible but it does smell odd, worse than other PVC sleeves I've owned. I'm not sure, but I thought the PVC was more of a problem if it was used as an inner sleeve for the vinyl, like "Blackstar" where it touched and reacted with the PVC in the vinyl. Otherwise it's more of a problem with off gassing. From an anecdotal side, I have a bunch of Simply Vinyl LPs in these style of outer sleeves; they're over a decade old and the vinyl seems fine.

Anyways, aside from some noisy fill on side E it's a nice press; I guess 5 out of 6 sides is the best we can hope for in 2018. Otherwise, it sounds really nice, so I'll be keeping a lookout for a few others in this series.

 

The smell on Aluminum Tunes isn't from the PVC. The paper stock itself is scented. (A graphic designer friend of mine suspects it's actually mixed into the ink.) Neither Switched On nor Refried Ectoplasm is scented.

 

INK stink! I knew it (actually I know nothing). "Scented" would imply a something pleasant; maybe if it smelt like those old mayonnaise scented mimeographs... ahh school days. Thanks for that as I was getting set to try washing the PVC sleeve.

 

The liner notes are cool but man the Peng! ones are hard for my old man eyes to read with that white type on the light orange background!

 

These new 2 reissues appear like they are part of a completely different campaign from the first 3. Sealed in cellophane, a hype sticker from the Beggers Arkive, (thankfully) poly-lined inners and totally different info in the deadwax (much less info, all stamped - not etched). There are only UK pressings for these, right? I haven't had time to play them yet, but I did open Peng out of curiosity, and so just the visual differences immediately caught my attention compared to the first 3....

 

They're different campaigns. The Switched On reissues are Duophonic (Martin Pike and Tim Gane) and the others are Beggars Banquet, who own Too Pure, who originally released those two.

 

Right, Peng and Groop Played have always been on Too Pure. I think the hope for a full reissue campaign springs from the timing of these 5 reissues which hopefully illustrates a demand for more stereolab vinyl as well as, from my understanding, the band regaining publishing rights to their catalog (based on the bandcamp release from a few years back)

 

A bit of an aside but I updated your Discogs entry for ‘Groop’ with some details from my copy (catalogue no, matrices and some credits) - would you be so kind as to check these against your copy as it appears there may be two pressings?

 

This is all good news considering where Stereolab originals have climbed in terms of price. I understand Duophonic are pretty good, can someone confirm the quality of the Too Pure reissues?

 

I’ve just got my replacement copy as the first was warped and a little noisy in places. This one is flat! Just spinning it now - sounds good to me, but will give it some deeper listening.

Definitely different programs - Duopohinic and Too Pure - but as I mentioned upstream, both sets are remastered by Bo @ Calyx, Berlin (that’s where Tim lives now, right?), both clear vinyl. So different, but the same! Don’t know where these are pressed.

I would post some pictures of the hype sticker and insert but not quite sure how best to do that.

Edit. What is kind of weird is that there is some surface noise right at the start of Side 2 - just before the vocals start. It is exactly the same on both copies I have had.....anyone else?

 

Will Emperor get a reissue? I only have the US Elektra and that needs to be a 2LP.

 

Hoping to get these two later today. I see someone on Discogs got an off-centre copy. Hopefully it's just one-off bad luck.
Stereolab - The Groop Played "Space Age Batchelor Pad Music"

 

Yeah; that's my concern, too. The Duophonic's are done so nicely (PVC aside) that I was a little shocked when these new one's appear to be different. It makes sense that these would be a different campaign, I guess. I could never keep up with what was on which label back in the day; Duophonic, Too Pure, Slumberland, Elektra, (UK/US) etc... they moved around a lot. Hoping more good reviews come in for these. I sure hope they move on to the Elektra stuff and that it has the same care put into them as the Duophonic's.

 

So the Duophonic were done by Calyx that is doing quite a bit of all analogue mastering so it has good chances to be such (I've emailed them anyhow to confirm). I'm unclear about Too Pure however.

 

Too Pure are by Calyx as well.

 

I know, it's insane how expensive the original Stereolab releases are now. I've noticed a lot of original 1990s vinyl (Garbage, Beck, REM, etc.) has gone up in price.

 

Well.... not really "insane", in fact prices haven't really changed much in the last ten years. Prices have only gone up for the last couple of albums and ironically the most expensive Lab vinyl records are now the later stuff.

But maybe we have just different definitions of "insane" prices. Check out "Cole's Corner" by Richard Hawley. Or various PJ Harvey titles. Now that's.... insane!

 

Stereolab originals are 50GBP and upwards.

 

It seems there are two pressings of the new '..."Space Age Bachelor Pad Music"' - like with other recent Beggars reissues (e.g. Breeders) there's a GZ pressing and an MPO pressing. I have the MPO and think it sounds really good.

 

Crap.