Going two weeks in between trips to Newbury Comics feels like less of an accomplishment when it’s put in writing. This purchase also included an issue of Magnet, a magazine I hadn’t purchased a stray issue of in a few years. This particular issue is their fifteenth anniversary issue, which is impressive for a glossy magazine ostensibly covering alternative/indie music, but their broad scope is large enough to interest casual scenesters on a bi-monthly basis. That scope contributes to my hesitation for subscribing to the magazine, since too many of the issues focus a Big Indie Band of the Moment or a Classic Indie Standby. The fifteenth anniversary celebration acts as a compendium of the latter artists, but it’s interesting to get a perspective on which artists they still want to talk about a decade later.

23. Four Tet – Ringer LP – Domino, 2008 – $10

Someone please explain this vinyl pressing to me. Ringer has four tracks spanning a total of 31:33, with neither half lasting longer than sixteen minutes. Yet it was pressed on two LPs with one song per side. I would have understood this decision if the sides played at 45 rpm like the audiophile-oriented vinyl pressings from Bottomless Pit (and those more expensive Metallica reissues), but instead they run at 33 rpm. Is this format what DJs prefer? That might make sense, since Ringer is more “techno” in nature than other Four Tet releases, but some of the DJ-styled twelve-inches in my collection have multiple tracks per side. The record certainly sounds great, but $10 should be the regular price, not the mark-down price for Ringer, and a single LP would justify that price.