hissyfit: Vinyl?

Thursday, 14 November 2013

Vinyl?

Ok folks; I need your help again.
Marcus and I have been discussing the format for the forthcoming release of 'To the Bone'.
Marcus reckons vinyl is the way ahead; will open up a whole new world of listeners to us.
Not having a record player I am a little reluctant. I get his point but don't want to add plastic to that pile of unsold MM cds in the attic. It is not cheap either. Manufacturing costs for decent vinyl can be upwards of £4 a unit as apposed to @ £1.50 a unit for decently packaged Cds...
We will be making the album available as a Hi Res download with Linn; they do all of the variables of download too; CD quality/MP3 etc.
What about not doing it on CD?
Does anyone buy CDs anymore.
Discuss...
Help...

18 comments:

The Daily Bear14 November 2013 at 18:54
Vinyl, Trevor. One listen and it'll all make sense.
Steve
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Anonymous14 November 2013 at 20:05
Cd for me. I haven't got as i guess most people haven't a system good enough to spot the difference. (maybe you need to do your own Pepsi challenge!)
you may get a bit of publicity from people looking to do a rebirth of vinyl story but then there is the hassle of getting copies out there.
on dodgy territory disagreeing with the scientist but i am not sure how it will open up to a new audience, especially if you have to match price of other vinyl releases as i think you will end up preaching to the converted. As a fan i,d buy but if i wasn't not sure i would take the punt .
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Anonymous14 November 2013 at 21:12
CD for me Trev, my Ruark R4i doesn't play vinyl ! I have a record player but rarely (if ever) use it. Too much hassle cleaning the blooming things.

Mel A Sheffield
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Meetwood Flac14 November 2013 at 22:47
Lets start with this. More to come tomorrow :) http://ourvinyl.com/insights-into-music-formats/
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Tim Patrick15 November 2013 at 07:01
CD please. Have a hard time inserting LP's into my car stereo.
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Hissyfit15 November 2013 at 08:24
Ha! All well in your winter haven?
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Anonymous15 November 2013 at 12:03
CD for me too. I don't own a record player. I download more and more due to CD's going missing in the post and the amount of time it sometimes takes to get to our sunny shores.
Phil
Tel Aviv
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Séamus Duggan19 November 2013 at 08:45
The heart says vinyl but the pocket says CD. I have to make an effort to play vinyl, although I still do. Mostly I commit the capital crime of burning everything onto a hard drive and playing through my laptop and a pair of pretty crappy speakers. Don't have the money to set up anything more satisfying at the moment and the kids would probably wreck it so you can put me down as undecided. Helpful?
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Meetwood Flac24 November 2013 at 12:55
Well, I can only say that going Back to Black was the best move I've made this year. What people forget is that playing vinyl is not just about listening to the music. It's also about the ceremony of it. When you look at the cover, take in the artwork and actually be able to read the text. Admitedly with glasses these days. Have room to actually read the words to the songs. TREV, you're such a good lyricist (don't like that word, seems to devalue the words - ok, wordsmith), your words AREworth reading. Then it's about cleaning the record and needle and placing the needle on the record. I would love to able to get a copy of any MM or jones work on vinyl. Let's face it, the majority of the people who buy your music must be of an age to remember playing vinyl. I hope it comes off :)
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Hissyfit24 November 2013 at 13:03
Thanks Nick; I guess that was another of Marcus's points; that the kind of folk who take the time to listen to our stuff are of a certain age and disposition. I recognise that there's a quality to our music that would appeal to the world weary audiophile...
I only recently really remembered the thrill of the 'ceremony' of vinyl . So perceptive, hammer to nail sir! It was during the initial recordings of this album. Marcus has invested in much vinyl. We had an evening of total engagement with music. So unusual for Marcus who, after a day of toiling with sound usually craves silence. A holy reconnection; ceremony indeed...
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Meetwood Flac24 November 2013 at 13:11
Do you know, that when I listen to certain albums on cd I can still anticipate the clicks and jumps of the vinyl equivalent that I purchased many moons ago. You should hear Paddy's Crimson Red on vinyl. It's lovely. It has a warmth that is missing on cd. And don't talk to me about downloads. I hate them. In the words of Richard Hawley, I wouldn't buy any music I can't hold. But sometimes we just have to. I only use MP3 to put on the player as a means of portable music. I change the bit rate to 320 wherever possible but it's not the same.
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Hissyfit24 November 2013 at 13:18
Ha! My 'shagging' record at college was Hall and Oates 'Silver' album. I still anticipate the jumps and scratches when I hear those songs now. I remember the dusty clicks better than the lusty chicks. Funny that...
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Meetwood Flac24 November 2013 at 13:23
Thanks for sharing that. I'll never listen to Hall & Oates in the same way again :(
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‘Jones’ is Trevor Jones; principle songwriter with the critically acclaimed duo Miracle Mile, where he works alongside collaborator, arranger and musical partner Marcus Cliffe. Together they have produced nine albums, the latest of which was 2012’s ‘In Cassidy’s Care’, rated ‘Album of the Month’ by HiFi News, with respected journalist Johnny Black noting that Miracle Mile were “far and away the most unfairly unsung musical wizards ever to emerge from this sceptered isle. Big on memorable tunes wrapped around honest-to-goodness emotionally involving lyrics.”

Trevor Jones has also previously produced four solo albums: ‘Hopeland’ (2009), ‘Keepers’, (2010), ‘To the Bone’ (2014) and ‘Happy Blue’ (2016). Co-produced again with Marcus Cliffe, ‘Carver’s Law is another triumph of intimacy.
Previous critical acclaim for Trevor Jones:

“Gorgeous, as ever. Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; gently beautiful and genuinely moving. You may cry.” The Sunday Times

“Masterpieces of subtlety and observation clothed in sumptuous, lush melodies.” R2

“Jones is in a class of one. Near-perfect explorations of the human heart. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me.” Americana UK

“Achingly tender.” Folk Radio UK

“Intellectually as well as emotionally engaging.” MOJO

"Meticulously orchestrated, careful and complex, this is canny songwriting leavened by bona fide humanity." Q

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.” Maverick

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard.” Uncut

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised. Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving” The Times

Miracle Mile: A User's Guide by Johnny Black

Despite being based in a home studio in a rural backwater on the outskirts of West London, Miracle Mile chose to name themselves after a fictional gold rush main street half a world away where, according to adventure yarn spinner Jack London, ragged 49ers would blow their hard-won nuggets on booze and broads.
They apply a similarly unorthodox approach to their career in general. The band’s core duo of singer/guitarist Trevor Jones and multi-instrumentalist/arranger Marcus Cliffe have been relentless in their pursuit of the perfect song. Not the fastest, the gnarliest or the loudest, not even the most instantly commercial, but the song whose melody, lyrics, arrangement, performance and spirit might stand the test of time, giving pleasure to listeners not just for years but centuries.
They’d be the first to admit they haven’t yet found that perfect song and maybe never will, but I’d argue that their albums — the documentary evidence of that search — deserve a place alongside the best work of time-tested tunesmiths as elevated as Randy Newman, Elvis Costello or Tom Waits.

Marcus Cliffe wasn’t yet on board when the first album, Bicycle Thieves, arrived in 1997 but already it was evident that frontman Jones didn’t fit in with the prevailing mode. There was no rage, bitterness or self-loathing in his songs and nothing at all turned up to eleven. Instead, he offered meticulously orchestrated slices of ordinary human life, transforming the mundane into the marvellous with carefully crafted lyrics sincerely delivered. Even here, though, the hypnotic sample-based "Recycletwo" revealed a willingness to experiment that marked Jones out as more than just a pop craftsman in the vein of Crowded House or Aztec Camera.

What had started essentially as a recording project had become a five-piece live band by the time the follow-up, Candids, was released in 1998. Loaded with nagging guitar hooks and dynamic vocal interplay, it included one particularly affecting piece, "Small Ad," which featured just one line of lyric, the heart-rending couplet, "Baby’s shoes, never used." With those four words, Jones conjured up a yawning abyss of grief that other writers might struggle to evoke in an entire album.

Jones quickly realised that live performance was not his forte and retired to the womb of the studio for 1999’s third album, Slow Fade, which also saw the birth of the partnership that would lift Miracle Mile higher still above the norm. Marcus Cliffe, in demand as a player for Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Mark Knopfler and others, was drafted in on upright bass.
Immediately the music took a more intimate turn, with Jones exploring the little things that illuminate the big things. Almost every song offers up at least one unforgettable line, like "I'd rather be ashes than dust" in "Everybody Loved You," or the concept of filling the void left by his loss of faith "with despair and metalware" in "Starwatching."
Slow Fade was further enhanced by the delicately filigreed swirls and swoops of England’s finest steel guitar maestro, B.J. Cole, whose style sat so well with Jones and Cliffe that he has become virtually a full-time member of the band.

And then, out of nowhere, catastrophe struck. Trevor Jones’ beloved sister died in tragic circumstances. It’s typical of the man that, rather than wallowing in his grief as he had every right to do, he dealt with his loss in the quiet, honest dignity of "Sister Song," the achingly lovely tribute that concludes the fourth album, Alaska. It can’t have been coincidence that the album, despite its meltingly beautiful musical landscape, was named for one of the coldest places on earth.

By the time of Stories We Could Tell in 2004, Miracle Mile were drawing critical plaudits in every significant British magazine and newspaper, along with comparisons to such pop pluperfectionists as Prefab Sprout and the Blue Nile. Critics were noting that Miracle Mile was fast becoming a repository of timelessly romantic music fueled by the same shamelessly emotional human concerns that inspired the great standards. More than this, it was being noticed that while most bands go into decline after two or three albums, Miracle Mile were getting better, perhaps because they’d avoided the trap of trying to be contemporary, and had no need to be more outrageous than the competition, largely because they didn’t see music as a competitor sport.

The sixth album, Glow, showed up in 2005 and found Jones and Cliffe further expanding their musical palette mixing Celtic folksiness with slow, semi-industrial percussion on the inspirational "An Average Sadness," blending Badalamenti guitars with Bacharach horns on "What Kate Did Next," and opening "Strange Sympathy" with a beautifully synthesised string orchestration before letting the song melt seamlessly into a laid-back country-rock rumination on the gap between aspiration and acquisition. Glow was also their most lavishly packaged disc, gorgeously presented at no small cost to themselves.

Album No. 7, Limbo, offered fifteen songs overflowing with sensitively wrought melodies and heart-fluttering lyricism. If it’s not a contradiction in terms, Limbo was even more quietly passionate than usual, deliciously understated and, at times, devastatingly tear-jerking.

‘Cassidy’s Care’ followed in 2012 and received similar critical acclaim.
Miracle Mile may just be too concerned with timeless quality for their own short-term commercial good. They’ll never sink a fang into the jugular when they can plant a whisper of a kiss on that sensitive spot at the nape of the neck and set off a tiny ripple that will, in the fullness of time, explode in the heart. I, for one, wouldn’t want it any other way.
Johnny Black

“Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; Marcus Cliffe anchors it in the sweetest pop. Gorgeous as ever. You may cry.”
Sunday Times

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard."
UNCUT

“Gorgeous melodies, hooks galore, intelligent lyrics that demand and repay careful listening, beautifully produced instrumentation, and an overall effect that combines poignancy and joy in equal measure. Music and words come together in a state as close to perfection as makes no difference, and leaves you with a delicious ache that makes you hug yourself with the sheer overwhelming joy of hearing such wonderful music. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me."
Americana UK

“A little oasis illuminated by musical creativity, glimpsed like a lovely mirage. Intelligent tunefulness that doesn’t kowtow to passing trends has always been as rare as fish fingernails, but it’s here.” Mojo

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised” The Times

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.”
Maverick

“A tender sadness. Songs that have universal resonance.”
Netrhythms

"Trevor Jones has produced a gorgeous pop album that few will hear — unless there’s justice in the world.’ The Wall Street Journal

“Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving”
The Sunday Times