GENERAL NEW RELEASE SPECULATION TOPIC

[Nottoolate]

There is no pepe silva.

I've got boxes full of album theories

[2020k]

I just checked my copy of the repress, not seeing any grooves...

https://imgur.com/a/ZyqZ2

My pressing doesn't look like this. It's a repress and there are very distinct grooves going around the vinyl...they're spread out.

Uhhhhhhh...I go home tomorrow. I'll take some pics.

It's probably just a mess up with the pressing, we know there were some problems...but omg if it's not.

No one get their hopes up, obviously.

[Mexicola]

If he plays it and it says 'Cheers for all the hype about the ARG. Love you 2020K' I will lose my shit.

[Valotonin]

My guess is that it is just a blank grove that is usually placed around the edge of a record by default, the 'buffer zone' before the content begins so that one can drop the needle without having to be too precise about where they are dropping it at the start of a record. If you take a very close look at the grooves you should be able to see if they are straight cuts or if they have waveforms, though. If the latter is the case, give it a play ! !

[drixlin]

This is seriously the best visual way to describe this whole thread - hahahahaha!

[northernlite]

I just checked my copy of the repress, not seeing any grooves...

https://imgur.com/a/ZyqZ2

My pressing doesn't look like this. It's a repress and there are very distinct grooves going around the vinyl...they're spread out.

Uhhhhhhh...I go home tomorrow. I'll take some pics.

It's probably just a mess up with the pressing, we know there were some problems...but omg if it's not.

No one get their hopes up, obviously.

Oh strange! I wonder.... Please follow up

[Mexicola]

Me and 2020k are in video conference about this as I type.

To be continued...

[2020k]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r9f1lwqe6jy4d ... M.mov?dl=0

This is all I got. No apologies for the crude humor . I tried dropping the needle on various places but..nothing, and I don't want to ruin the record or my player searching for something that's not there.

Anyone's repress look like this? John told me his pressing is 100% groove free, but his is the OG press.

[Mexicola]

Uploading mine to compare in a second. Interesting. There's definitely something on 2020s that is NOT on mine. Suspect it's a foible of the pressing method but who knows? Video to follow..

[breadmaker]

People are having so much fun with RDJ's new webstore, I am insanely jealous as a BoC fan. I hope they go a similar route someday.

Hmm, I have mixed thoughts about this. Obviously it's been great hearing all these RDJ unreleased tracks, especially since many of them are clearly better than what ended up on the official releases. However how he's gone about making these tracks available has been a little . . . messy. The Aphex store is a bit clunky and awkward, with some new tracks tacked onto the end of previously existing albums that they don't necessarily feel a part of, some tracks mistakenly marked as "new" that have previously been released (and vice-versa,) tracks that previously showed up in the Soundcloud dump now appearing in the online store under new names (some remastered, and some not,) bonus tracks having different volume levels than the proper albums their attached to, tracklists changing and then returning to their original order over the course of a day, and there's even one new track on "orphaned deejay selek, 2006-2008" that is identified as being from . . . 2004! It's all a bit haphazard, not to mention a discographer's nightmare, which I suppose is very RDJ in a way. It's obviously not out of character for him to be a bit anarchic, and maybe that all gives the store a certain mischievous DIY charm. But - I can't help but shake the feeling that it's diluting the Aphex legacy a bit. Part of the appeal of the old, classic Aphex albums (or anyone's older work for that matter) is that they were definitely tied to an era, that they were fixed in time, and now Richard has pulled back the curtains and made the back-catalog malleable and unstable. Definitely something is gained by getting to hear all these amazing tracks from the vault, but also the mystique RDJ had prior to his Syro "rebirth" is all but gone (for me, at least.)

There is also the sense that flooding the world with so many new Aphex tracks all at once makes any individual track seem less special than if they had appeared little by little. BOC's music is so special in part because of scarcity value, and the long gaps of time between releases leaves people with years and years to pore over every sonic detail and pounce on every tiny bit of new music that comes out as though it may be their last (which is always a possibility.) The news of the Sexual Objects remix showed up on the same day the Aphex store launched, and I have to admit I was just as excited about the prospect of 4 minutes of new BOC as I was for 80+ new Aphex tracks. Maybe that says more about my level of fandom for BOC vs. Aphex, but in my circle of friends I wasn't alone in this opinion, so perhaps it's significant.

Anyway if BOC do ever launch some kind of online repository of music, I would hope they would be able to do this without totally demystifying themselves. I think if anyone is capable enough of achieving this balance, it would be them.

[Opothecary]

Too bad it turned out to be nothing, I was hoping for a repeating sequence of 10s and 11s, hah.

My copy of the repress has a ring along the outer edge of the vinyl but it doesn't look like a groove that you would be able to play, if that makes sense.

The thirst continues to be real...

[Valotonin]

Oh wow! The grooves are there throughout the entire side of the record it seems.
Its possible that there was a bit of a Gaff at the factory but it seems unlikely as these are pressed.
Given that the 'nuclear family' could be etched instead of pressed, there is potential for error there.

Or, alternately (and actually this sounds pretty likely) Sometimes when a side is left as a blank on a record there are grooves that lead from the outside to the inside in a spiral of maybe about ten turns that your needle can pick up on so that if someone where to drop the needle on it, no damage would be done and it is guided to the inner edge. Perhaps they had several truly blank sided records for Geogaddi (so that they could be etched) and someone didn't notice that they had used a standard blank with grooves instead of a 'blank blank' for etching the family.

In that case, you have a one of a kind

[Opothecary]

When it rains it pours in this thread!

I won't quote the wall of text but I agree with you about RDJ breadmaker.

It's nice to have this new stuff, but its definitely keeping within his aesthetic of chaos and mischief that he has always had, I think its something that you need to come to terms with as a fan of his. It requires a different kind of patience compared to being into BoC, where it's just a lot of waiting for things to happen, but once they do its pretty straightforward.

Regarding the online store, I look it as kind of a commercialized version of his Soundcloud dump. I wouldn't want BoC to take this exact approach but could you imagine something like Geogaddi growing a few of its unreleased tracks recorded around the same time as the rest of the album, here and there over time? It would be great, but tying into what you said, Geogaddi is Geogaddi, it shouldn't be messed with, and I think BoC has too much respect for the form to fiddle with their proper releases like that. They've never come out and said that specifically, it's just a feeling that you get.

Lastly, I agree that I was a lot more excited about 4 minutes of new BoC than I was about his online store (I guess that's why we're here), but I'm very happy to have both...

[Mexicola]

Here you go folks. As you can see, the original pressing has nothing like 2020's markings. Or mine doesn't anyway. Anyone else?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hwr2cni1grzeg ... R.mp4?dl=0

[Chroma02]

When it rains it pours in this thread!

I won't quote the wall of text but I agree with you about RDJ breadmaker.

It's nice to have this new stuff, but its definitely keeping within his aesthetic of chaos and mischief that he has always had, I think its something that you need to come to terms with as a fan of his. It requires a different kind of patience compared to being into BoC, where it's just a lot of waiting for things to happen, but once they do its pretty straightforward.

Regarding the online store, I look it as kind of a commercialized version of his Soundcloud dump. I wouldn't want BoC to take this exact approach but could you imagine something like Geogaddi growing a few of its unreleased tracks recorded around the same time as the rest of the album, here and there over time? It would be great, but tying into what you said, Geogaddi is Geogaddi, it shouldn't be messed with, and I think BoC has too much respect for the form to fiddle with their proper releases like that. They've never come out and said that specifically, it's just a feeling that you get.

Lastly, I agree that I was a lot more excited about 4 minutes of new BoC than I was about his online store (I guess that's why we're here), but I'm very happy to have both...

You know, I never imagined BOC would do a deluxe edition package for any of their records. I can see further reissues like we saw a little while back but Warp doesn't seem to pressure their artists to do deluxe packages if they don't want to. I was thinking about this before the RDJ store and thought that he too was holding out from deluxe releases and bonus tracks, but everything seems very much on his terms in this case. For whatever reason, I won't buy deluxe edition albums unless I have to, I just like keeping the original work as it is. The industry is really pushing them right now though, I recently moved on from working in a record store and we saw deluxe editions and extended reissues in every shipment.

I just wish that Stone in Focus would get a proper digital release

[Chroma02]

Also I know it's more RDJ news, but did anyone else see a new SAW 1.5 incoming and Day for Night digital in a few weeks?

[breadmaker]

You know, I never imagined BOC would do a deluxe edition package for any of their records. I can see further reissues like we saw a little while back but Warp doesn't seem to pressure their artists to do deluxe packages if they don't want to. I was thinking about this before the RDJ store and thought that he too was holding out from deluxe releases and bonus tracks, but everything seems very much on his terms in this case. For whatever reason, I won't buy deluxe edition albums unless I have to, I just like keeping the original work as it is. The industry is really pushing them right now though, I recently moved on from working in a record store and we saw deluxe editions and extended reissues in every shipment.

perhaps BOC have realized that sometimes these super deluxe expanded anniversary (etc etc) editions of albums, with all their bonus tracks and demos and other bells & whistles, often don't actually increase your enjoyment of the album itself. They just give you a new precious object to obsess over, one that transforms the original album into something more self-consciously important and fussed-over, and creates a heightened expectation that the music has to now live up to. Mind you, I always buy these re-issues by my favorite artists, simply because I can't not buy them if I know they exist, and there are often revelations to be found in the updated editions. But I know that appreciating an album in legacy mode is a much different and weirdly less satisfying experience than enjoying an album the first go around, when its initially released. (Though some of that has to do with aging and nostalgia too.)

BOC putting out that remastered Hi Scores with new artwork in the inner sleeve might be as revisionist as they get.

I just wish that Stone in Focus would get a proper digital release

technically it's already had a proper digital release here:

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Excursions-In-Ambience-The-Third-Dimension/release/59922

This is where I got it back in the day, long before I knew it was a Selected Ambient Work . . .

[Chroma02]

You know, I never imagined BOC would do a deluxe edition package for any of their records. I can see further reissues like we saw a little while back but Warp doesn't seem to pressure their artists to do deluxe packages if they don't want to. I was thinking about this before the RDJ store and thought that he too was holding out from deluxe releases and bonus tracks, but everything seems very much on his terms in this case. For whatever reason, I won't buy deluxe edition albums unless I have to, I just like keeping the original work as it is. The industry is really pushing them right now though, I recently moved on from working in a record store and we saw deluxe editions and extended reissues in every shipment.

perhaps BOC have realized that sometimes these super deluxe expanded anniversary (etc etc) editions of albums, with all their bonus tracks and demos and other bells & whistles, often don't actually increase your enjoyment of the album itself. They just give you a new precious object to obsess over, one that transforms the original album into something more self-consciously important and fussed-over, and creates a heightened expectation that the music has to now live up to. Mind you, I always buy these re-issues by my favorite artists, simply because I can't not buy them if I know they exist, and there are often revelations to be found in the updated editions. But I know that appreciating an album in legacy mode is a much different and weirdly less satisfying experience than enjoying an album the first go around, when its initially released. (Though some of that has to do with aging and nostalgia too.)

BOC putting out that remastered Hi Scores with new artwork in the inner sleeve might be as revisionist as they get.

I just wish that Stone in Focus would get a proper digital release

technically it's already had a proper digital release here:

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Excursions-In-Ambience-The-Third-Dimension/release/59922

This is where I got it back in the day, long before I knew it was a Selected Ambient Work . . .

Thanks! I meant more as an official RDJ release but I bought that comp almost as soon as I read what you said about it. Very good point about the deluxe packages not increasing enjoyment and adding expectation, I see that I've led myself to believe records are good more for the fact that they were getting updated editions more than anything else.

I do make exceptions for standalone compilations of would-be deluxe materials, like B12's new Electro-soma II. You can buy it separate from the new remaster and it exists apart and tied together at the same time. I just can't stand buying some classic record to hear 3 lo-fi, half-baked tape demos tacked on to the end or having to buy 6-disc Smashing Pumpkins deluxe editions to hear some exclusive track that I wanted to hear. Makes more sense to stream at the end of the day but I love owning music

What I do see in the future for BOC is a boxset with their classic records and visual material, similar to the Autechre EPs box, but I'd give it some time.

[drixlin]

Just checked my repressing - I don't have any grooves of any kind on that side. I have a few scuff marks and some cat fur, but neither of those are playable

[2020k]

Oh wow! The grooves are there throughout the entire side of the record it seems.
Its possible that there was a bit of a Gaff at the factory but it seems unlikely as these are pressed.
Given that the 'nuclear family' could be etched instead of pressed, there is potential for error there.

Or, alternately (and actually this sounds pretty likely) Sometimes when a side is left as a blank on a record there are grooves that lead from the outside to the inside in a spiral of maybe about ten turns that your needle can pick up on so that if someone where to drop the needle on it, no damage would be done and it is guided to the inner edge. Perhaps they had several truly blank sided records for Geogaddi (so that they could be etched) and someone didn't notice that they had used a standard blank with grooves instead of a 'blank blank' for etching the family.

In that case, you have a one of a kind

This makes sense. None of the grooves guide the record to the end though. The needle just kind of stays in place...

Hmm...One of a kind.

I'll hawk it on eBay starting at double the Record Store Day vinyl goes for.

Get ready, guys! It is cool to have a misprint. Maybe I should reach out to Bleep to see what's up with it or start its own thread to see if anyone else has this "issue" now.