Lots of visitors today, but first off, Sarah and I went to the old stereos shop to pick up the speaker leads. We had to wait for them to reopen after lunch, so we went there after 2.30, but they weren’t back yet, I guess lunch is loose. I thought we should take the time to go down and pick up the Judith Hill record from the record store that I knew would be waiting. It was warm in the sun and the rain had stayed away, so we rolled down the hills on the beams of spring and hit Tubitek. Inside, Judith Hill, Beth Gibbons and Jessica Pratt.
Back via the stereo shop to pick up the speaker leads. They did a great job, it was trickier than I had imagined with all kinds of thin wires and plus and minus and positive and negative and green and gold and banana plugs. Back at The Archive, we were meeting Carlos from the music store. He is going to help me empty the boxes of dupes into the marketplace, otherwise I’ll be surrounded by boxes forever. Maybe I can swap records with him too.
The mysterious traveller from Florida dropped in to pick up a copy of Olivia’s poetry book and we all hung around listening to music, looking through records and marvelling at some classics on the shelves. I made Mr Mystery aware of Rustin Man as he was always a big Talk Talk fan, he knew .O.rang, but not these two albums from Talk Talk’s bassist Paul Webb, which also feature Lee Harris on drums. Drift Code was released in 2019 and Clockdust in 2020. Coincidentally, the other solo album he released, Out Of Season, was in 2002 with Beth Gibbons. Music, music, music – music is out there, music that you would love, it might even change your life, so look for it, don’t wait.
Over dinner, we watched Southampton make Wembley and then got the speakers plugged in with their new leads – they were so happy. After Spotify through the television, LPs through the stereo is another world. Having said that, I discovered that the pressing of the brand-new remix of Animals is poor – surface noise, clicks and straight out of the shrink wrap. I only listened to side one because I wanted to compare with the special DSOTM collector’s item that I got, it was much better but still had some constant clicks on On The Run. Earlier we had listened to Band On The Run (coincidentally) on Spotify, so we went and picked out an old album version, it was so sonically rich and the surface noise was minimal. This is a record from 1973, does it mean that modern pressings are just not cared for anymore? I will be testing them out over the coming days as I get the opportunity to listen to recent purchases I haven’t been able to play due to box hell.
Music today was Band On The Run because we listened to it twice, once through the tele and once on the turntable – the difference of sonic depth and detail was quite startling and to think most people’s listening apparatus has regressed so far out of convenience is quite incredible.