Man. I wish the iTunes Music Store folks would get their acts together and consistently update the New Releases and Just Added pages. As a music addict, I generally await Tuesdays like I await my first cup of coffee in the morning, and I just can’t get going without my fix. So it’s a good thing that the store’s banner ads at least are up to date; they advised me that the new release from Spoon, Gimme Fiction, is available.
I was looking forward to the release because the lead single, “I Turn My Camera On,” was excellent—a bit like an indie white boy version of Prince, only more swagger-y. But after the disappointment with the new music listings, I thought, I wonder if it’s available at eMusic instead? Sure enough. And buying a fifty-song booster pack let me download the album, plus recordings by Ali Farka Toure, Gene Ammons, Red Garland, and Material for just a few dollars more than the Spoon album by itself would cost at the iTMS.
Also available, and according to Fury worth hearing, is the new recording of Pierre Boulez conducting his own Le Marteau Sans Maitre. (And thanks to Fury for hipping me to the Gurgling Cod, which just got added to my list of favorite Boston area blogs.)
Finally, I happened to be in our local indy record store (okay, chain) this weekend, and found a copy of Godspeed You Black Emperor’s F#, A#, (∞) on vinyl, about which the band’s official discography page says it best:
initially limited to 500 numbered copies, then repressed. hand-made jacket, with one of three actual photographs glued on to the front. comes with a bag of goodies, including a penny flattened by a train. each track fills a side, and is made up of different pieces. side b runs out into a locked groove.
It is not a knock against the recording to say that last night, in a somewhat exhausted state, it took me about ten minutes to realize that the album runs out into a locked groove; the musical effect is quite consistent with the rest of that side. F#, A#, ∞, indeed. But what a cool album (even without the bag of goodies). And apparently, the only way to get the experience is on vinyl, since the band remastered and re-recorded portions for the 1998 CD release. (See the aforementioned discography page for some MP3 samples of the CD version.)