My Picks For Record Store Day '19

Record Store Day has, over the last five years or so in particular, become a sort of international holiday for collectors of vinyl. It’s a great opportunity to support your local record store, and so with RSD 2019 fast approaching (Saturday 13^th April), here are seven releases you should be looking to pick up. To find out more about the event, head over to www.recordstoreday.co.uk.

Delta Sleep – Ghost City Rarities (ft. Tricot)
https://recordstoreday.co.uk/releases/rsd-2019/delta-sleep/

Brighton math-rock extraordinaires Delta Sleep released one of my favourite records of 2018 in the form of the wonderful Ghost City. It’s an album with such rich imagery and atmosphere that it almost offers the same experience as watching a film rather than a piece of music, and I’d recommend it as a listen for anybody, regardless of genre preferences. You can read more about it in my Albums of the Year list from last December.

For Record Store Day this year, Delta Sleep have elected to release a four-track EP of re-workings of songs taken from Ghost City. Two of these will be acoustic renditions of choice cuts from the album – Single File and Sans Soleil. The other two are versions of the record’s first and final songs (Sultans of Ping and Afterimage) turned into collaborations featuring Tricot, another of the best math-rock outfits in the world right now. Sultans of Ping (ft. Tricot) is up on YouTube already, and the implementation of female, Japanese-language vocals gives the song an absolutely stunning new meaning, and it makes me fall in love with the world of Ghost City even further. This’ll be my number one choice for RSD ’19, especially considering it’ll be pressed on gorgeous, pink, etched vinyl.

The Menzingers – No Penance/Cemetery’s Garden
https://recordstoreday.co.uk/releases/rsd-2019/menzingers-the/

The Menzingers are one of my absolute favourite bands, and for good reason. Their Springsteen-esque, Americana-spiked brand of rock music is a joy to listen to every single time, and their most recent album - 2017’s After the Party – has become one of my all-time favourites in the two years since its release.

It’s no surprise, then, that two of the unreleased tracks from the After the Party recording sessions (produced by the best in the world, Will Yip) being put out for RSD ’19 would make me very excited. Obviously I can’t comment on these particular songs, as they haven’t yet been released, but if they’re even half as good as Charlie’s Army or Your Wild Years, this is a release that’ll undoubtedly be worth picking up next Saturday.

Chapterhouse - Whirlpool - The Original Recordings
https://recordstoreday.co.uk/releases/rsd-2019/chapterhouse/

I don’t pretend to be a connoisseur of dreampop or shoegaze, so when I actively rep for an album from those genres,  it has to be something special.

Chapterhouse’s Whirlpool is perhaps the only shoegaze record I listen to on a regular basis (if we disregard Deafheaven’s Sunbather), and that’s not just because I share some hometown pride with the band. A lot of the genre is dominated by dreary, uninteresting soundscapes, but this record, by comparison, sounds refreshing and uplifting for the most part. Songs like If You Want Me and Breather sit somewhere between the soundtrack to a summer daydream and an earnest student indie film.

Not only is Whirlpool an actual genre-defining classic, it can be just as easily appreciated by somebody who hasn’t heard anything of the sort before. There’s a lot of influence from new wave bands like The Cure and Joy Division, especially in the guitarwork and dreamy atmospherics (even if it is a lot less dreary). A few of the songs, as well, like Guilt, feel very much ahead of their time in their experimentalism, crafting industrial soundscapes that utilise discordant synths and all-encapsulating sound effects.

The songs here are not, however, the actual finished album – they’re the original recordings, before they were remixed by Ralph Jezzard, Robin Guthrie, and John Fryer into a more polished-sounding version for wider release. Thus, the cuts on this vinyl (on wax for the first time ever this year) will be much more raw and, in a weird way, punky. Whether you’re a fan of dreampop and shoegaze or not, I definitely recommend checking it out.

Death Grips - Steroids (Crouching Tiger Hidden Gabber Megamix)
https://recordstoreday.com/SpecialRelease/10817

Death Grips, if you’ve been living under a rock for the past seven years or so, are perhaps the biggest name in experimental music today. They relish in subjecting their listeners to an all-out aural assault through a combination of hip-hop, electronic music, and elements from every other genre under the sun.

On Steroids, a 22-minute long track which Frankensteins together several separate songs, the group creates a brilliant self-portrait that encompasses everything that makes them so interesting and enjoyable. Vocalist MC Ride is like a man possessed all over this mix, with his trademark unrefined yells cutting right through a swamp of electronic-sample madness which itself goes from one extreme to another like nobody’s business. From Throbbing Gristle-style industrial passages to trap-influenced hip-hop verses to the (frankly insane) final few minutes, there's nowhere that this piece of music doesn't go, and it never lets up on how unapologetically confrontational it is. 

As someone who rarely delves into electronic music or hip-hop, Death Grips are one of the acts with a foot in both worlds who really stand out for being so ahead of the curve. This release demonstrates why.

Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica
https://recordstoreday.co.uk/releases/rsd-2019/captain-beefheart/

The most infamously arty record of all time, perhaps, Trout Mask Replica has all but passed into musical folklore. Made by one of rock music’s most eccentric characters (a fact reflected tenfold in the sound), the blend of blues rock, free jazz, and outright weird experimentation on this album is unprecedented, and its’ bizarreness has yet to be outdone by anything released since – and that’s in 50 years of music.

I won’t pretend to understand Trout Mask Replica, and it’s not something I listen to on the regular, but I have a level of respect and reverence for it, largely down to Beefheart’s sheer ballsiness in creating it. Yes, for a first time listener (especially someone with little experience in experimental music), it’ll just appear to be a band playing out of time and out of key with each other, setting a backdrop for the vocalist to go all alternate-dimension-Screamin’ Jay Hawkins to. But then music, for me, is all about eliciting a reaction in a listener, and I’ve never met someone who feels ambivalent to the sound of this record, for better or for worse. That’s impressive. It does legitimately sound like a violation of the ears, and I love that.

Captain Beefheart Trout Mask Replica will be back on vinyl this Record Store Day for the first time in 35 years, to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of it’s release. If you’re a fan of left-field experimental rock, it’s probably the genre equivalent to Nevermind, Dark Side of the Moon, or Sergeant Pepper, so get on it.

Mastodon - Stairway To Nick John
https://recordstoreday.co.uk/releases/rsd-2019/mastodon/

Prog-metal legends Mastodon recently posted about the reason behind their RSD release on social media, and it’s a touching story. Here it is, straight from the mouth of the Facebook page:

“In early September 2018, we lost one of our closest friends and our biggest fan, our manager Nick John. He was essentially the band’s Dad. From our highest highs to our lowest lows he was always there. Every single move we made went through him first as our trust in him was marrow deep. His favorite band besides us and Gojira, was Led Zeppelin. We were asked to perform “Stairway to Heaven” at his funeral. Afterward, finding out that someone had recorded it, we figured we should record a studio version and release it on Record Store Day as a tribute to Nick with all the proceeds to be donated to pancreatic cancer research. We would not be the band we are today without the help of Nick John. We miss him dearly and think of him always. We love you buddy.”

On top of this release being both a lovely tribute and a fundraiser for a great cause, you can guarantee it’ll be a storm of musical brilliance. Mastodon are one of the greatest metal bands of the 21^st Century, and I’d take them over Led Zeppelin any day, but to hear them cover - and most likely improve - one of the most iconic songs ever recorded is an opportunity too good to miss.

My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade Is Dead!
https://recordstoreday.co.uk/releases/rsd-2019/my-chemical-romance/

If I had access to my own time machine, there are three gigs I’d like to travel back to and witness for myself before anything else. Those shows are The Chariot’s final show in Douglasville, Nirvana at Reading ’92, and My Chemical Romance touring the Black Parade.

As I grew up and first discovered I really loved rock music, I must’ve listened to this live album from MCR a good hundred times. It’s a victorious rendition of the best album of all time (yeah, I said it), and the sound of one of rock music’s greatest bands at the peak of their career and the height of their powers. Gerard Way, at the forefront of it all, sounds almost maniacal at points, and you can really hear the energy the man pours into his performance (and that’s not just because he’s out of breath the whole time). When you hear a crowd of 26,000 screaming along with him to songs like Mama and Welcome to the Black Parade, it really puts the grandiose scope of the original record into proper perspective.

Through the fantastic mixing job on this live album, each member gets to shine on an equal pedestal. The band are tight throughout, and moments like Ray Toro’s modified solo on I Don’t Love You serve as a reminder that part of what made My Chem such a phenomenon was the fact that everyone involved offered something different. Like the Spice Girls with a lot more eyeliner. 

Though my love for this band may seem a little hyperbolic by typical standards, it cannot be denied (whatever your tastes) that few have made such sizeable waves in music in the 21^st Century as My Chemical Romance. This live album is a brilliant snapshot of a time when a band this good could be one of the biggest on the planet.