I couldn't actually tell you when I last bought a vinyl album, it would be some goodly while ago. We're talking decades, and possibly as a gift rather than for my own listening pleasure. In an age where streaming music is the latest way to access tunes (Is it the latest? I have never been an early adopter, so probably wouldn't know), we still have a cabinet of CDs, there's a box buried in the garage which has tape cassettes in it, and my vinyl collection, such as it is, resides in the loft.
It was over a year ago when we attended Niteworks' penultimate gig in Aberdeen, as we couldn't make it to Glasgow for their final performance. Judging by comments on the band's Facebook posts since then, I think hope had been high amongst their fans that there might be a DVD of the last tour, but this was not to be. Instead, a double vinyl album has been released, complete with a booklet, plus a free digital download of the album. The digital download is available separately for those of a more minimalist persuasion.
The album arrived earlier this month, but I have not had a turntable primed ready to go since before the inception of this blog. So when I eventually got around to unearthing a box marked "HiFi" from the garage, it was to discover that the CD/Radio was defunct and likely prohibitively expensive to repair. Disaster! Instead, I opted for a simpler solution and ordered a phono to jack cable which I could use to connect the turntable to a sound bar.
Yesterday, the arrival of the postman ushered in a moment of truth, as I managed to create some space behind the tv to wire up the turntable and a small pre-amplifier, before attaching the pre-amplifier output to the sound bar.
Unwrapping the album and placing it on the deck felt quite spiritual, a remembrance of carrying out similar acts in times past and the emotion of physically acknowledging the band's retirement, all combined with the nervousness of wondering whether the turntable and associated wiring would actually work.
The reverential nature of the occasion was somewhat spoilt by my lack of checking that the speed was set to 33rpm, not 45rpm, but that was quickly remedied and I was soon listening to Niteworks in a way that I had never done before. In all their analogue glory... or at least with the least digital discreteness I have experienced for some time.
Perhaps when next Megan takes Mocha to the vet, I might try and "crank the dial to 11". Although obviously, there isn't a dial and, scarily, the buttons go to somewhere north of 30.
Solas Na Maidne - Morning Light
Although I am not Scottish, I have read enough history of the English enclosure acts, walked many a sheep-wrecked or muir-burnt Pennine fell and noted the abandoned buildings marked on Ordnance Survey maps, so that the sentiments of Somhairle are not simply the distant history of another time and place. They are felt viscerally.
https://youtu.be/KOY0UB6BoU4?si=jRhOvZgEGrrBrq9k
There's also an unofficial Youtube version, same music but with a film by Andrew Ditton which, if anything, is even more evocative:
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