Derek™

Did this band just cancel themselves?

Even as a fan of instrumental bands, I would be so annoyed if I bought tickets for a full band show and the vocalist was just not available. It's surprising to me that they're not cancelling and refunding tickets, but I guess the rest of the band needs to put food on the table? This all feels like it's right on the heels of someone – or multiple people – coming out with claims of sexual misconduct against Keith. Cut ties and create space as early as possible for damage control.

Especially since with those 2, you no longer even have to interact with anyone to get a cancellation through. But for your Contortionist PO, how far out was the delivery date from the time of ordering? If it was more than a month and a half, you could have definitely responded to their refund-denial with "Okay thanks anyway. " and then opened up a Paypal claim after 45 days. They'd have no choice. If copies were immediately shipping though, that's another story, and there's not much more you could do if they said nope.

Spied this on Reddit earlier; looks like TBIITO isn't far off now. Hopefully it gets paired with at least 1 more album to save on shipping with these reissues. Someone in the thread also confirmed with Polyvinyl that they'll be doing their own exclusives for each reissued album, too. You'll want to hit up both Numero and PV when they start popping up, to either decide on your preferred color [or to grab both].

I'm sure you're both aware of it but Bull Moose, Zia, and Rough Trade – probably others out there, too – do not charge until they ship, and are 1-click cancellations so long as you check out while logged in, and not as a guest. If I'm unsure about whether or not I'll truly keep a PO, I try to order through one of them just for the sake of convenience. When it comes to smaller labels who rely on selling all copies of a product, I understand that cancellations are kind of shitty. I definitely take an apologetic tone to the e-mail and ask for a refund – not demand one – which is a big part of why my few experiences have been pleasant, I imagine. But I also think that if a seller is stubborn or aggressively denying your request, you can probably get a Paypal refund if it's been months. Given the nature of POs these days, I always try to use Paypal so long as the release date isn't 6+ months out. Their refund policy is bulletproof if things ever get nasty – if you don't have the product in hand after something like 45 days, the claim / refund goes in your favor, no further questions needed.

Check Fatcat's webstore. [It's closer to $35 PPD.]

Why not just cancel the order? Do you feel bad or something? I don't know if it's frowned upon, but on the very rare occasion that happens, I've had 0 issues sending a friendly e-mail to the label or web-store and asking for a cancellation. It makes more sense to me to have them re-list it (if it's sold out), offering up my reserved copy to someone who may enjoy it more and can now buy it as MSRP. Versus me having to up-charge on Discogs or something just to break even, months later. From a label owner's perspective I guess I could see how it'd be frustrating to issue refunds left and right, but I think I've cancelled 1 or 2 POs at most in the last year.

Really though, they seem to be in the tradition of releasing a run of < 200, pricing it at $40+ PPD, and dropping it before sunrise in California. None of which are particularly convenient. Looking forward to having a break next year.

Indie [mom'n'pop] shops across the UK, I'd presume. Their equivalent of local record stores, Bull Moose, Zia, etc. here in the states.

Actually, jokes aside, there was this dude in a Facebook group for Boris who was gloating about keeping his latest purchases not only sealed, but contained within their mailers. I'm not sure if he thought that exposure to air would somehow taint the music but he received so much flack for the post – rightfully so – that he initially got defensive over other people "telling [him] how to spend [his] money", but quickly removed his posts when he couldn't keep up with the text abuse. I'll never forget that guy. One of his main interests on Facebook was sourdough bread.

Can't disagree with this at all, but I still think people are game to pay big bucks for Schrödinger's wrap.

They do not exist, and a few days ago the label (Elusive) confirmed that they are no longer pressing the record. Really odd since they had been working on it all year; I think they even had test presses in hand for a while now. I sort of suspect they had a falling out with the band… hopefully another label eventually swoops in and makes it happen.

I'm in a weird minority that actually quite enjoys Four. I still revisit that one. Hymns was irredeemably bad though; this band is too inconsistent these days. I will check out Alpha Games with an open mind but I don't think a pre-order is necessary for me.

Random drone / ambient updates in my neck of the woods. • New Jon Hopkins is pretty phenomenal. Should've / could've easily guessed he'd excel at a heady ambient record. The sound's been present beneath the surface on his prior albums, but he doubled down on it this time around and I'm really enjoying it for night listens, especially. • Yellow Swans' Drowner is available on vinyl for the first time. $46 PPD. Oof. • New Biosphere announced today. $45 PPD. Noticing a trend here. • Anyone ever get a lead on a US pre-order for Gas' Der Lange Marsch? Or am I really gonna' cough up $45 PPD on Kompact's bandcamp?

I know that the mockup on the bandcamp link you shared is your typical "recycled" sludge brown, but I will say that there's been a wide variety of colors and opacity with these new Eco presses. (Yet to be determined if they sound okay; I haven't picked up any for myself just yet.) At least there's not a 90% chance that they'll be some shade of purple, brown, or putty grey like the "mystery vinyl" of the last 30 years have been.

Probably / hopefully better since the other exclusives are from Optimal and not GZ.

We're 2 weeks out from December 2021.

There are some crazier tracks – or at least moments of tracks – but yeah, I would say the 2 singles do a great job at hinting the direction they've gone without giving too much away. They even dabble in distorted electronics [without it feeling too terribly forced or phoned in] and I think it works... but it won't be for everyone, that's for sure. I'm personally into the expansion of their sound because it's gonna' give their first 3 albums a lot more "bite" when I'm itching for their more chompy, riff-loaded sound.

Gotta' be their most artistic endeavor yet. Easily more mature than anything they've done to date – I'm so glad they've veered away from becoming too predictable. There are some undeniably nutty moments on this record but as a whole I think it lurches and burns slower than the riffy, urgent nature of Ultra Mono. I think they've been toying with this sound for a bit now, but this is the first time they're seeing it through on a full album scale. I don't think the album will be as immediately catchy or gratifying as the last couple, but I can already feel it as a grower for me.

Yeah, though my comment wasn't so much made to deny any possible defects of this press – I'm more than wiling to accept that's a reality. I was just attempting to warn about the general validity of the Discogs comment section. But yeah, a broken clock is still right twice a day.

Discogs is notorious for knee-jerk reviews from people who’ve never wet cleaned a record in their life, and are shocked that their entry level Audio Technica table is suffering distorted playback. I take the reviews and comments on that site with a massive grain of salt.

Ah, nice. If that was posted in this thread I must have missed it or completely forgot about... because while it does more or less confirm that this is intended to be a separate variant, like we've suspected this whole time, it still doesn't answer when and where it'll be available. To me, maximum bang for my buck would probably be releasing it as a "band exclusive version" on a bandcamp Friday. But what do I know. If they don't go that route someday, then I'm just going to assume it'll eventually be a tour exclusive. Seriously, that makes no sense to me. They're basically confessing to shipping negligence with that response.

I do like that smoke version more, yeah. I think above all else, I'm just moderately annoyed that no one has said or discovered anything going on with this "mixup". I even tried reaching out to the band to no avail – not that I was expecting a response. Once again, it's just unnecessarily secretive and I really don't get it. That said, at least the replacement splatter is of the nicer splatter variety, in my opinion. I dig TMR's "edge" splatter. A lot more than the streaky dump that everyone else is going with these days. Still think that mystery swirl better compliments the album though.

Big fan of the simple 1-color, translucent design they've been going with. Weird splits and splatters would feel so weird with their music. If they could keep the theme going with a clear royal blue Aegis and maybe an amber Takk or something, I could die happy.

Looks great. I was only recently surprised at what prior presses currently fetch. I wonder if they're eventually going to release colored variants for everything in their discography.