Brian Eno - Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks [12", LP]

I've been playing this APOLLO: ATMOSPHERES & SOUNDTRACKS album by BRIAN ENO really a lot over the past weeks. It's always been one of my favourite Eno albums, but i found it very hard to get my hands on a copy on vinyl. A few weeks ago i did, and since then it's been on heavy rotation. Eno's younger brother ROGER ENO and DANIEL LANOIS collaborated with him on this project, which was inspired by the Apollo moon missions. The result is a beautiful serene, ethereal, and sometimes a bit eerie and spooky ambient album. If you close your eyes and imagine yourself floating in space, this is the perfect soundtrack. Since it's such quiet music, it's important that your vinyl copy is in perfect condition - and mine is, fortunately. My favourite track of the album is without doubt the astonishing An Ending (Ascent). I learned it's a popular "funeral tune" these days, and that doesn't really surprise me, but i'm not loving it less because of that. It's simply other-worldly.
Fun fact: Slowdive always have a tape playing with Deep Blue Day before they go on stage, and And Ending (Ascent) when their show is over. It makes their wonderful live shows complete.

Label: EG
Cat.nr.: 813 535-1
Year of release: 1983

SIDE A:
01. Under Stars
02. The Secret Place
03. Matta
04. Signals
05. An Ending (Ascent)
06. Under Stars II
07. Drift

SIDE B:
01. Silver Morning
02. Deep Blue Day
03. Weightless
04. Always Returning
05. Stars

Lovesliescrushing - Shiny Tiny Stars [12", LP]

LOVESLIESCRUSHING is a project by Scott Cortez and Melissa Arpin-Duimstra. Scott's other band is Astrobrite. I'm not too familiar with this band, but as far as i could see on Discogs, this SHINY TINY STARS album is their only vinyl release, except for a 7" single released in 1994; the rest they ever released is all CD or digital. The recordings for this album were done way back, between 1991 and 1997. No idea why they waited another 15 years before releasing this album, but i'm happy they did because it's an amazing piece of work. The album contains 7 tracks of pure ethereal ambient dreampop bliss. Soft layered guitars, loops and patterns with distant vocals, sounding like unrecognisable lullabies. If it needs to be compared to a better known band, i'd say it comes closest to the more ambient sounding songs by Slowdive like Erik's Song, Losing Today and Albatross. Great stuff.

Label: Handmade Birds
Cat.nr.: HB-DIS028
Year of release: 2012

SIDE A:
01. Shiny Tiny Stars
02. Blurbrightblued
03. Gloxina
04. Luminareal

SIDE B:
01. Snowfell Husher
02. A Color Gone
03. Overdose

Harold Budd, Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie, Simon Raymonde - The Moon And The Melodies [12", LP]

Because the COCTEAU TWINS collaborated with HAROLD BUDD on this album, they didn't want it to be released as one by their band, but as an album by the four individuals. So the band name is nowhere present, although the sound is unmistakingly Cocteau Twins on most of the album. I like the parts with Budd's icy piano sound a lot as well (Memory Gongs, for example). Wasn't too familiar with the man's work before i bought this. The ambient instrumental wailing guitar track Why Do You Love Me? is probably my favourite track of this album. For some reason it reminded me a lot of a track called Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann) by the otherwise completely different band Tool. If you compare them, they definitely do not sound alike, but they have the same kind of atmosphere - to my opinion at least. Anyway, this is a great album. Glad i picked it up secondhand somewhere last year.

Label: 4AD
Cat.nr.: CAD 611
Year of release: 1986

SIDE A:
01. Sea, Swallow Me
02. Memory Gong
03. Why Do You Love?
04. Eyes Are Mosaics

SIDE B:
01. She Will Destroy You
02. The Ghost Has No Home
03. Bloody And Blunt
04. Ooze Out And Away, Onehow

Slowdive - Pygmalion [12", LP]

Only a few months ago i wrote about the original pressing on Creation of this album, and that it was the only one of the three SLOWDIVE albums that had not been reissued yet by Music On Vinyl. They did a mighty fine job with Just For A Day and Souvlaki earlier. But the time has come now: they are completing the trilogy and here we have the reissue of PYGMALION. It's an exact replica of the original edition from 1995 when it comes to the sleeve (plain grey paperboard). A small difference in detail i noticed, however: on the original, the tracklisting on the back of the sleeve simply runs from 1 to 9 without specifying the tracks per side. On this reissue the sides are specified. No idea why that was done, but it must have had a reason.
But of course the biggest difference is that these are numbered to 1000 copies (with stylish embossed golden digits at the bottom left corner of the back side) and that they're on coloured vinyl. It's white, with a slight touch of green mixed through it. Looks really nice.


Label: Music On Vinyl
Cat.nr.: MOVLP 604
Year of release: 2012

SIDE A:
01. Rutti
02. Crazy For You
03. Miranda
04. Trellisaze

SIDE B:
01. Cello
02. J's Heaven
03. Visions Of LA
04. Blue Skied An' Clear
05. All Of Us

Slowdive - Pygmalion [12", LP]

SLOWDIVE's third and final full length, PYGMALION, is nowadays one of their most sought after vinyl releases. It's the only one of their albums that has not (yet) been reissued recently by the Music On Vinyl label, and the counterfeit bootlegs that are floating around are of pretty bad quality.
Recently i was talking with a friend of mine about vinyl. He said he didn't play any vinyl anymore, but that he had some things in his collection that i'd told him i was still looking for - and this album was one of them. So we agreed on a trade for some other titles (mostly CD's); and as of today, i'm the lucky owner of this rare album. The funny thing is that apparently i even gave it to him for his birthday, years ago - i really couldn't remember.
Musically, i must admit it's never really been my favourite Slowdive album. It always was a little too abstract, too ambient for me. I'm a sucker for fuzzy reverbed guitars and that's something you won't find at all on this LP. So Blue Skied An' Clear is my favourite song here, because it comes closest to the band's "older" sound. But then again, Pygmalion in its genre is a timeless, brilliant album and it does make a perfect soundtrack for the late evenings, for example. So i'm really glad i can finally add this gem to my Slowdive vinyl collection.

Label: Creation Records
Cat.nr.: CRELP 168
Year of release: 1995

SIDE A:
01. Rutti
02. Crazy For You
03. Miranda
04. Trellisaze

SIDE B:
01. Cello
02. J's Heaven
03. Visions Of La
04. Blue Skied An' Clear
05. All Of Us