Received an e-mail from Soul Temple earlier tonight regarding the shipping issues they’ve been having lately which explains the delay on my instrumental copy of Twelve Reasons To Die that I ordered a few weeks ago. In response to this issue they have released an exclusive/unreleased track from RZA’s vault titled Execution in Autumn which features RZA, U-God, Raekwon, and Inspectah Deck and production from Frank Dukes which you can hear above. What’s really awesome though is that they are releasing the track and instrumental on a “pay what you feel basis” 7-inch record which can be purchased until May 31st. Nice track and awesome deal on the 7-inch, definitely makes up for the slow shipping in my opinion. You can download the song and purchase the 7-inch over here.

The e-mail from Soul Temple can be read in the spoiler: Show ▼

Cool “unboxing” video for the vinyl copy of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories which releases next Tuesday. The album is currently being streamed on iTunes for free and I must say that this record really does meet the incredible hype it has received over the last few months. I imagine that this will be very high on my favorite releases of year. Fantastic album, my favorite track from this one so far is “Touch” with Paul Williams (absolutely incredible song). Check out the free stream while you can if you aren’t sure about it for some reason, it’s definitely worth checking out. Ordered my copy on wax tonight from Amazon, looking forward to listening to it next week.

Post in progress! Will be completed soon

Aloe Blacc – Fireside Chat (Stream)
Anika – Live at Benicassim 2011 (Stream)
Breakestra – Fireside Chat (Stream)
Dam-Funk – Headphone Highlights (Stream)
Dam-Funk – Live at Simachev Loft (Stream)
Dam-Funk – London Session (Stream)
Dimlite – Live at Brainfeeder Sessions, Fabric (Stream)
DOOM – Live at Sonar Sao Paulo 2012 (Stream)
DOOM – The Message Behind The Mask (Stream)
Egon – Fireside Chat
Egon – Live at The Sleep-Over
Emmanuel Jagari Chanda – Zamrock Special
Guilty Simpson – Headphone Highlights
Guilty Simpson & MED – Live at Free Your Funk, La Bellevilloise
J Rocc – Live at Brainfeeder Sessions, Fabric
J Rocc – Live at GLK and Friends, The Mayan
James Pants – Live at La Casa Encendida
Karriem Riggins – Fireside Chat
Mayer Hawthorne – Fireside Chat
Mayer Hawthorne – Headphone Highlights
Oh No – Fireside Chat
Peanut Butter Wolf – Stones Throw Special
The Heliocentrics – Live at Broad Casting
The Stepkids – Headphone Highlights
The Stepkids – Live at Play, Japan!
Witch – Fireside Chat

Saw this cool drawing apparatus at various blogs last week, pretty neat way to do some artwork. It seems like an inexpensive setup too, curious if others have tried this out before. Below is artwork made using what you see in the video above:

I linked to this video in my last post and was surprised to see I haven’t shared it here yet. I’ve posted some photos of my turntable and record collection from college in the past but no video. This was made back about 4 years ago when I was showing off my copy of Peter Lipa’s English version of Moanin’. Mainly picked this up for My Album which was featured on Madlib’s Mind Fusion Volume 2, easily one of my favorites off those mixes.

My old setup used to consist of an Audio Technica AT-PLH50 and some cheap Logitech computer speakers. When I moved back home after college I stepped up to some better speakers but was still running my Audio Technica turntable until last Fall when I finally picked up a Pro-Ject Carbon Debut. While the Audio Technica was on the cheap side I still think it’s a pretty nice table for super entry level folks (like I was back when I purchased it!). While the $400 Pro-Ject table sounds great, it’s still disappointing about there not being automatic features like my old Audio Technica has.

It’s been over a year since sharing my collection, figured it’s about time for an update here. As you can see from the photo above, a job can make a huge difference in the amount of records I buy… This was getting pretty crazy last year especially with a bunch of stops to record stores in Seattle. I’m living a lot closer to the city now and with some extra spending money it was hard to resist going over there and dropping a bit of cash. I’m still picking stuff up pretty regularly these days but not splurging as often as I had when first starting my job. Not only have I picked up a lot more records, but my turntable setup has seen a much needed improvement as well. What I have now is definitely a lot nicer than what I was rocking back in college.

I also really like my new way of storing records. The old plastic crates I was using back in the day were alright, but the Expedit shelve system from Ikea feels like it was designed specifically for record collections. After reorganizing some stuff a few nights ago I was surprised to notice I am starting to outgrow the 2×2 system I have right now. I will probably be getting another shelve (thinking 4×1 for next one) here pretty soon. The size of the shelve I have now is also perfect for handling my setup too as you can see in the photo.

Right now I have my records organized in a certain way. The top left is my Stones Throw vinyl and the bottom left are my newer records. The top right is a mix of older/used records and my newest records I’ve added to my collection. The bottom right is where I’m storing my box sets and larger gatefolds. I will probably sort these out alphabetically some day but for now the order of records on each shelve is pretty random (newer stuff or those I’m listening to more often are on the left basically).

Well that’s my collection right now! Since taking the photo I’ve already gotten a few more records in, so my collection is still continuing to grow. I might just make a yearly collection update to see just how much progress I’ve been making as time goes on. It’s interesting to me to look back at my post from last year and compare it to where I’m at now. Below is a nifty GIF with closer photos of each shelve I have.

Earlier this month I shared some tracks from my buddy Avant-Garde’s new album Pigeon. Happy to say that the full project is finally out today. I’ve listened to this a few times now since getting an advance last week and I have to say that it really turned out great. Avant-Garde is always nice on the mic and I’m digging all of the production choices too. Really hoping that this will get some exposure as it’s definitely worth a listen.

You can listen to the full album above. If you like what you hear, it’d be awesome to throw a few bucks the dude’s way too over on Bandcamp. The album can be downloaded here for any price (including free if you’re being cheap…)

Below is an interview with Avant-Garde from the folks over at EveryDeJaVu:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0xt-iDcRgQ

For this year’s Record Store Day I decided I would get an early start over at Easy Street Records. This is the first time that I’ve done this, as in the past I have just come in at some point during the afternoon to pick up some random records. This time around I actually had my eye on some of the exclusives that were put out for the day including the 4LP Liquid Swords boxset which includes a full chess set, the colored vinyl reissue of Elephant, and the red colored reissue of Tame Impala’s EP.

Easy Street is the first shop to open in Seattle at 7AM, so I decided to get there around 5AM to wait in line. I was actually a little surprised by the amount of those ahead of me at this point, I was maybe the 15th to 20th person in line. I brought along my tablet to watch Shaun of the Dead which helped during the wait, but I made the mistake of bringing my lighter jacket which left me a little cold while in line. As the store got closer to opening, employees began giving out free coffee and bacon which was pretty awesome.

Easy Street Records owner Matt giving out some delicious bacon. This pile was MUCH bigger when he came out, this was left for seconds.

The post over on the Easy Street Records blog describes what it was like as the doors opened at 7AM:

Right on time, at 7am sharp, we opened the café door and customers were let loose while the DJ appropriately played Jimi Hendrix wailing “The Star Spangled Banner” from Woodstock, as customers ran upstairs and around the corner to find their prized releases! We had the 7” singles downstairs, while all the 10” and 12” releases were spread out upstairs. Within minutes, the store was filled to the brim with close to 300 anxious audiophiles, all searching for releases…

The real pandemonium was upstairs as customers tried to maneuver through the tight aisles to get to the RSD section. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Easy Street’s vinyl section so packed – we had 2-3 people upstairs all day, helping customers locate specific titles. Downstairs was just as crazy, as the checkout line began to form. We had to snake customers up and down the aisles, all the way back to the stairs and eventually back up into the vinyl section.

It was quite the experience coming in. I’ve been to a few early morning Black Fridays, but this was probably the craziest shopping experience I’ve ever had I think. Fortunately I was one of the first people in line so I got enough time to grab everything I wanted, but the crowd in front and behind me at the 12″ selection upstairs was quite hectic. I made it to the checkout line in the perfect amount of time as I only had to wait about 10-15 minutes (if I had waited about 10 mins longer to head back downstairs I probably would have waited 30+ minutes). Below is a picture of what it was like upstairs:

You can see me picking up the awesome GZA set before heading downstairs to pay for everything (the trip was spendy but worth it!). Overall I had a good amount of fun heading over for the opening of Record Store Day. Next year I might try checking out another store as the layout at Easy Street Records didn’t make it too comfortable to shop given the at least 100-200 other people surrounding you while trying to grab your picks. With that said though, the employees were very nice and keeping everything running smoothly while I was there so props to them.

Below is what I ended up picking up for myself. I did get every record that I wanted for the day so I was pretty happy.

Previous Record Store Day Posts:
2012

It’s that time of the year again, today is Record Store Day 2013! I had planned to stop at a few shops today but I ended up spending a little too much on exclusives over at Easy Street Records so I decided to head home after I was done there. This was the first year I’ve lined up early and I stayed up all night waiting to head over so I’m pretty tired right now. I will be sharing some of my thoughts about the day and photos of my pickups tomorrow.

Above is a pretty interesting video that Pitchfork put up for the day which discusses the current state of record stores and vinyl pressing. Many people go over the good things and to my surprise some of the negative aspects of there being an official Record Store Day (I personally think the good definitely outweighs any bad). It has some discussion that I hadn’t really thought about before so I’d recommend checking it out if you have any interest in the topic.

Earlier today the Quasimoto Facebook page hinted at the following: “Now playing — Quasimoto “Yessir Whatever” LP test press”. Shortly after a post to Instagram showed a test pressing which you can see above.

Many around the internet have been incredibly excited about this, most thinking a new Quasimoto album is in the works. When I was at work I was getting excited about the idea myself. After coming home though I looked at the test pressing photo a little more closely and noticed that they already had a catalog number posted which is “STH 2326″. A quick search on Google has found that rather than a new album, Yessir Whatever will be a compilation of harder to find tracks from various sources and maybe some unreleased material (Here is the screenshot for evidence of this). The track list can be seen below and I’ve linked to where info can be found for each song (Stones Throw can be nazis about songs online so not all can be heard here):

1. Broad Factor
2. Seasons Change
3. The Front
4. Youngblood
5. Astronaut
6. Planned Attack
7. Brothers Can not See Me
8. Catchin ‘the Vibe
9. Am I Confused?
10. Sparkdala (Original Version)
11. Green Power (Original Version)
12. LAX to JFK

It’s too bad but I guess a new Quasimoto album was too good to be true. It will be nice to have a release with some of these tracks though since a lot of folks might not have heard this material before. The fact that this was said to be coming out in June 2013 makes a lot more sense given this new info. A thread over at STMB from back in November also mentioned the possible release of a Quasimoto compilation.

Screenshot with album info: Show ▼