It’s not often that I ever come into contact with a record that I’ve cut once it has gone in the post. Sometimes people will send me the sleeves and any other packaging so I can make my own copy of something I particularly like – I’ll post a couple of examples of those soon – but in general I don’t feel the need to hang onto ‘one for myself’. However, a notable exception turned up in the post yesterday.
It’s an EP (or mini-album maybe, it’s 25 minutes long) by tenebrous LIAR, a group founded by Steve Gullick in the mid-2000s. If his name sounds familiar, then you may also know him as a photographer of some repute. Even if it doesn’t, I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll recognise some of his work if you do a quick internet search. So, obviously the visual presentation of his music isn’t going to be anything run of the mill. I supplied him with the cut 12″ discs in blank, black card sleeves, with white labels. The card sleeves were stamped and hand numbered, with an A3 photo print wrapped around it providing the main artwork. Inside, the discs are in black poly-inners, with the labels hand stamped. There’s also an A4 matte card print, the album credits* printed onto (what I presume to be) a vellum sheet, and a paper bag containing a numbered print of the full cover art. It’s all really quite something. The main photos here are from the Bandcamp listing incidentally, as I don’t have a camera which will do it all justice.
I cut 20 discs in all, and they all sold pretty quickly. Mr. Gullick was very happy with the discs, I’m knocked out by the end product, and hopefully the owners of the other 19 copies are as well. Good luck getting a product of this quality from Elasticst*ge.
* Massive thanks to Steve for giving me a mention on the credits as well. It doesn’t happen as often as you might expect…