I don't really get this whole vinyl revival thing.
In my youth (he says through his dentures), we listened to records because the sound quality was better than cassettes. (Which, perhaps unsurprisingly, are also getting a revival.) But CDs, when they appeared in the mid-80s, blew records away. Sure, the initial CD onslaught brought with it some well dodgy "remastered classics", but the boffins seemed to figure that out over the following decade or so. Also, the data was supposed to physically eat through the discs within 10 years. But I have plenty of 30-year-old CDs that are still going strong.
It seems to me that if you are paying over the odds for a vinyl album with an MP3 download card you are really getting the worst of all possible worlds: an artifact that your grandkids aren't going to thank you for, and less than perfect sound quality, at an exaggerated price.
But people are quick to pick on CDs. And I just don't understand it.
For some things, you really want access to all of the frequencies. Fennesz is one of those things. If you happen to be able to listen to any of "Endless Summer", "Venice", "Black Sea" or "Becs" on compact disc through a reasonable system, you are in a good place. On record, you could never be certain whether the various pops and clicks were artistic intention or vinyl imperfection. And an MP3 is an MP3.
So it's kind of sad that this new release seems to be available only as a download. It's better than nothing. "Tom" in particular (which first appeared around the same time as "Becs") is peak Fennesz, wringing a truckload of emotion out of what seems to be, on the face of things, just guitar and noise. It's worth it, even if you only listen through tinny computer speakers.
