The Trampling Hooves Of The Feistodon: RSD 2012

I had a very busy day Saturday, but did not let that stop me from making a visit to the wonderful Toadstool Sounds in lovely Peterborough New Hampshire for Record Store Day 2012.  I must admit that I was fairly disappointed in this year's titles, however there were a couple that kept me content.

The faithful repress of Patti Smith's 1975 full length debut Horses takes the prize.  The original audio has been tastefully remastered and finds itself now pressed to high-grade, medium-weight vinyl just for RSD.  The last US vinyl pressing of Horses was in 1977, so this was long overdue.  The remaster was performed with a great attention to detail; we get a bit more bass and the upper midrange distortion has been nearly eliminated.  Because we also still get a little bit of the hissing S's, it tells me that rather than risking over-processing the original masters things were performed with a fairly light touch and a devotion to maintain the character of original recording.  Arista also did a great job of keeping the classic look and feel of the record with detail right down to the labels on the disc.  It has a sweet retro flavor, and I love it.

Be sure to look for Patti's new record, BANGA, due out this June!

When I first read the RSD 2012 list I thought someone may have made an error: a Mastodon/Feist split?  Indeed, the Feistodon 7" just seemed too cool to be true yet here it is in my hand.  Side A contains Mastodon's cover of Feist's A Commotion, from Metals:

Side B contains Feist's cover of Mastodon's Black Tongue, from The Hunter:

I rather enjoy when a cover is adapted into the performing artist's style and these two are great examples of just that.  Here's to hoping that next year we see more interesting titles and/or limited represses of hard-to-find gems.  Thank you to Patti, Leslie, and the men of Mastodon for making my RSD 2012 experience worth it, and thank you to Eric and Megan of Toadstool Sounds.