Vinyl Blogs Worth Reading: OMG Vinyl

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One of the dangers of being a vinyl junkie–especially one that loves old-school Italian soundtrack imports, industrial LPs and old KLF 12 inch singles–is that it’s easy to get lost in back catalog crate digging and forget about the large volumes of equally worthy vinyl being released today.

While nobody has the market cornered on reporting about new vinyl releases, it must be said that OMG Vinyl does a stellar job of covering the new stuff, and the writing is absolutely top-notch.

One of the best opening lines of any vinyl blog posts in recent memory comes from OMG’s coverage of new stuff by Four Tet; “We don’t post about techno 12?s much anymore, not in this economy. However, Four Tet’s Text label is pretty much impossible to ignore, easily releasing some of the best platters around featuring partners in crime like Thom Yorke and Burial…”

OMG Vinyl posts reviews, samples and news on the latest vinyl across a staggering variety of genres including noise, dub, and post-rock in addition to the usual suspects in the indie, hip-hop, garage and psych categories. It’s easy to get hooked on this site, especially when they’re posting new material by Four Tet and reviewing CASSETTE releases, too…recommended.

–Joe Wallace

Laser Turntable Demo Featuring Stelvio Cipriani

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Mr. Sanju Chiba, of the ELP Corporation, demonstrates the ELP laser turntable, which actually does play vinyl records using a laser beam instead of a record needle. According to Chiba-san, this system is 100% analog and will play back a vinyl record perfectly.

But what’s totally exciting about this video clip for a soundtrack junkie is Chiba-san’s choice of vinyl. The track played in this video clip is by none other than Stelvio Cipriani, who is well known by Italian cinema obsessives for his soundtrack work on films like Twitch of the Death Nerve, The Lickerish Quartet, The Bloody Hand of the Law and many others. So geek out TWICE on this clip–the idea of a laser turntable is truly awesome, and you can also have a better sounding sample of this track courtesy of the second clip…viva Cipriani!


Vinyl Wax Records Documentary

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Back in 2009, CrateKings.com posted this video clip, Vinyl Wax Records, featuring a great cross-section of people geeking out on vinyl records.

There’s nothing more gratifying than seeing people like those in this video getting enthusiastic about vinyl records–not just interested, but REALLY into it. Some of the best moments in this are when turntablist Swan is doing his thing–but especially when he’s explaining why his vinyl has stickers all over it. Pretty awesome stuff.


 

WTF Album Covers: Enochian Night Monumental Evil

WTF?

Being a complete outsider on the metal front, I am constantly bewildered at the never-ending hit parade of metal bands wearing Kabuki face makeup. I get that Kiss started this as a “cool idea” meme, but really! Face paint AND sword-n-sorcery references? And from the title of this record, I have a hard time figuring out what part of this album cover is “evil”.

There has to be a word for the kind of goofiness that’s going on with this album cover. The fire breathing is a nice touch though–at least Enochian has taken it a step up from “I wear spikes and look like I might be grumpy enough to tweak your nipple” to “Hey–I actually BREATHE FIRE and could burn your face off.”  So they get danger points for being brave enough to do something edgy and kinda dangerous, as opposed to sitting in a cemetery someplace looking like they just got grounded. You know, like THESE GUYS in Pagan Altar: