Search & Destroy: New Vinyl Pressings (And Reissue Pressings) What's Worth Buying?

i know ian started that comus thread about bad reissue pressings, but i wanted one place for all new stuff and all new reissue stuff and people's thoughts on them. With vinyl reissues of old stuff averaging, like, 20 bucks a pop, it would be nice to have some opinions. what labels are most reliable? any info is good, if you ask me. also, if you buy something that is just notably cool package-wise, sound-wise, etc. and, of course, let us know if you feel like you got ripped off by some pricey shiny new bauble.

gotta say, ian's employer academy is four for four in my book. first with that world psych comp and then those three african reissues. great sound, nice packages, good info. of course, picking great source material is key.

well, the world psych comp was put out by a diff label, but the mastering was done by Tim Warren, who's done the majority of our releases so far. I'm not sure where that initial comp was pressed (want to say Brooklyn Phono?) but everything since then has been pressed in the czech republic.

I think everything's being pressed in the CZ.

Those EMI "Record Store Day" singles look of a kind...

what labels are most reliable?

4 Men With Beards.

There are a bunch of pressing plants in the US; I dunno 'bout abroad. There's a local plant, to be unnamed, who press a lot of the captured tracks stuff as well as some other local label action; I don't think their quality is so hot, in general.

i do worry that when the older places close down that new vinyl will become even more unaffordable to younger people (to put out on their own or just to buy). it's already pretty unaffordable to me! luckily there is no store around here with lots of new vinyl to tempt me like there was on martha's vineyard. in the 90's when new vinyl buying was at a low it was still a bargain to buy new stuff. especially indie stuff. CDs would be 15 bucks and new vinyl would often be under ten dollars. (and the vinyl was fine back then without everything being super heavy virgin 180 gm etc collector stuff)

Gotta say I'm glad Matador has put out cheap, 120 gram versions of the classic pavement titles--hopefully they'll follow with Yo La Tengo, Bardo Pond, GBV, whatever. $11 retail is good these days, and the quality is fine.

afaik the preferred pressing plant for 45s in the USA is still United.

what labels are most reliable?

4 Men With Beards.

― naus, Tuesday, April 20, 2010 12:51 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

i don't know... my copy of Scott is kinda thin sounding.

yeah mid-1990s was a golden era for buying vinyl, used and new, simply because it just wasn't nearly as coveted as it is today. and the pressings were definitely better than those of the '70s and '80s, on the whole.

case in point: sarah records 7"s were in all the reckless records bins for like $2–3... everybody just wanted to find the CD comps. now those things are way harder to come buy and will cost you much more...

also (xpost) yeah the scott walker reissues on 4mw/bds seem to lack something.

metal box reissue on 4mwb is heavy.. and their pressing of jorge ben's forca bruta is very nice as well

can't speak for all impulse represses, but the reissue of journey in satchidananda is wonderful and super full-bodied

definitely agree with you there about Journey

Thanks for the heads up on the Scott reissues. I was basing my opinion on Metal Box and the James Chance reissues they did. Anybody know the quality of the Wire reissues they released?

reissue of huntington ashram LP on impulse is good too

i bought two of the scott reissues and i don't remember having a problem with them. i should listen again. i actually like the american pressings on smash of scott records. i think i had the first two on smash.

4menwithbeards wins gold medal from me for the big star vinyl alone. that thing is worth all the tea in china. sounds sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good and way better than any other version i have heard.

destroy: $30 silk degrees reissue making the rounds. sounds like a needle drop and everyone should still be able to find a good og copy for under $5, i'd think.

also i got excited finally seeing a reissue of donald byrd's ethiopian knights last year... but it sounds awful... like transferred from a nth generation cassette or something.

what's the consensus on sundazed vinyl? i've found them to be very hit or miss, but the copy of after bathing at baxters i got is totally legit. a lot of depth to the sound... and the bass sounds terrific (huge and ballsy but with plenty of definition). bass definition is crucial when it comes to airplane records, imo.

it would be totally worth it to have a nice copy of baxters, cuz there are so many shitty pressings and you kinda gotta look around to fine a decent original. you could say that about a lot of airplane stuff.

i am mostly pro sundazed. last thing i probably bought was the live byrds thing, so can't really judge by that. thinking i might buy their new reissue of red weather cuz all i have is a bad akarma boot and i never seem to have money to buy an original. or when i have money i forget to look for one. a clean promo copy just sold for 30 bucks on ebay. *sigh*. one of my fave albums of all time. used to sell for 100+.

Man, this Sundazed press of the Bubble Puppy LP is a joke. So bad. Original tapes *that* bad? I suppose they are, sigh.

huh. i've had an original for years and i love how it sounds. maybe the tapes got weird with time. i don't mind vinyl sources for reissues if people do it right. they can sound great. was listening to satwa on youtube yesterday and even on youtube it sounds amazing. and i'm guessing the youtubes are just from time-lag needledrop cd.

I thought I'd seen something somewhere already that these reissues are a bit dodgy. We need a thread on vinyl reissues to avoid really. They're bringing out so many cool things on vinyl now but I've read various things about the quality of a lot of them being terrible.

― Kitchen Person, Wednesday, January 15, 2014 8:46 AM

my 4 Men With Beards copy of the 1st Cluster album was garbage, surface noise all over that shit right out of the shrink

as noted on the Rudimentary Peni thread, they ruined the remaster for the new vinyl pressing of Cacophony and it is brickwalled mud.

The Steve Ignorant & Paranoid Visions - When LP that came out late last year sounds horrible, like they mastered it from a CD turned up too loud or something

that's the spirit

I have the Mars Audiac vinyl reissue. It sounds fine, but no better than the CD and from what I read somewhere, it is in fact actually just a vinyl press of the CD, not from the master or anything.

― akm, Wednesday, January 15, 2014 1:22 PM

hate this shit so much, wtf are they thinking

see also: Plain Records

i have a 4mwb reissue of marquee moon that i didn't buy new but sounds fine. the packaging is pretty bad though, like they couldn't a hi-res enough scan and it came out all pixelated, looks like a bad bootleg. that kind of pisses me off

this isn't really the thread for it but that reminds me that I saw so so many shitty pirate LP versions of regular Nick Cave and Tom Waits records when I was in Portland last month. Also Coil & Swans pirate records. lame, but not surprising. the covers looked like bad color copies.

4MWB pressing quality is way hit or miss, ime. I have copies of "more moondog" and "faces first step" that are just loaded with distortion, pops, etc.