Vinyl Pickups – May 2022

Every once in a while I’ll make trip to a local goodwill to try and find anything useful, usually with an eye for organizational tools. Recently I made a visit and was able to pick up a large cast-iron skillet, some vinyl, and a couple other miscellaneous things. I haven’t quite gotten around to listening to any of them but I did go through my ritual of dusting, cleaning, and replacing paper sleeves with new anti-static ones. As I did this the smell of the larger collections was just like that of older books, so I did some cursory research and found that both were released around 1938. If you look on the inside of the back cover of either they list other vinyls the companies are selling with prices as high as $6.50. The Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 also has a mild fracture in the second and third vinyl. I’ll just have to see how well they play.

Though I haven’t listened to my Goodwill vinyl, I ordered some off the internet. First from iam8bit was Johto Legends, an orchestral scoring of the music from Pokemon Gold and Silver. I’ve listened through all four sides a few times already. The album progresses with the childish and adventure themes giving way to more japanese-folk inspired music and finally becoming more dramatic overtures. Second was the soundtrack from Final Fantasy X from the Materia Collective. First off the packaging is really weird and I was concerned it was a knockoff at first, and this is my first album with picture disc. It gave me weird vibes, but after a few listens I didn’t mind either way. The music is a little ecclectic as it jumps between the different themes but it does give this sense of moving through different locales. The standouts here being all of the village/town themes, as traditionally in JRPG’s village music is the best.

Finally as I was about to post this I remember I also picked up the vinyl for Polyphia’s New Levels New Devils. A good addition to my growing set of albums fit for general consumption.

Edit: After a thorough cleaning the older albums all still pop with some frequency. I intend to hit them with some cleaning solution and a microfiber cloth and see if that alleviates some of it. Also the Tchaikovsky Symphony no. 6 is only the sleeve, it actually holds The Irish Rovers’ Tales to Warm Your Mind.

Polyphia – New Levels New Devils

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