Vinyl Review: David Bowie – Earthling (Music On Vinyl Edition)
Re-issue label Music On Vinyl has been on a bit of a Bowie tear this year. First they re-released Heathen, both as a standard black LP and an insanely limited edition brown/orange variant that was made exclusively available via the V&A web store (which I managed to get). They followed that up with a re-issue of Outside, which was also made in two flavors; a standard black LP and another brutally rare colored variant sold exclusively through the V&A website (which I didn’t manage to get and that makes me sad).
Now they’re finishing out 2013 with yet another Bowie re-release with a new vinyl pressing of Bowie’s 1997 album Earthling, which is mighty nice of them considering original vinyl copies of the album are currently going for over $300.
Collection Recollection: Tangerine Dream (And Company)
I’ll be heading off to Japan in a few months, and unfortunately my records won’t be coming with me. It’s probably for the best though, I don’t know where I’d store 3,000+ records in a tiny Tokyo apartment. But before I shovel them away to a storage locker, I want to take some time to write about the records that mean the most to me. Today I’ll be taking a look at my shockingly comprehensive Tangerine Dream collection.
I own over 20 Tangerine Dream albums.
I have no idea how the fuck this happened. Continue reading
Vinyl Review: Patrick Cowley – School Daze
Although most have never heard his name, Patrick Cowley was an monumentally important artist in the development of electronic dance music. He first made his mark on the dance scene in 1977, delivering a legendary remix of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” that stretched out the tune to 15+ minutes, turning it into a wonderful frenzy of synthesizers and sequencers. From there, he worked with the great Sylvester, performing, producing and/or co-writing on many of the late great diva’s best tracks, including “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and “Do You Wanna Funk,” which remains one of the greatest dance numbers of all-time.
Cowley passed away in 1982, an early victim of the AIDS virus, but his legacy has lived on thanks to the artists he influenced, such as the Pet Shop Boys and New Order. But the Hi-NRG and synthpop sounds he helped to create were only part of Cowley’s musical output. Because in addition to his fast-paced, club-friendly dance classics, Cowley also composed some of the most compelling and interesting synthesizer instrumentals of the 1970s.
It’s just that most people haven’t heard them because, well, they were used as the soundtracks to gay porn flicks.