rounder sale

The best record shop in Brighton, the redoubtable Rounder Records, held their annual sale today (prices starting at 19p per CD), which meant I got out of bed early and struggled down the hill in a tremendous gale so that I could be amongst the first in the store. To no avail. It was busy already, and getting to the racks involves much careful feinting. In the end, I completed my dash around with the following CDs in my hand ready for evaluation and whittling down:

1. St. Etienne - Foxbase Alpha: wonderful record I never upgraded to CD.
2. Faust Vs Dalek - Derbe Respect, Alder: left field rapping krautrock crossover.
3. Tyrant - Fabric Mix (CD1): gorgeous packaging, and the (second) best mix CD of the year but...
4. Tyrant - Fabric Mix (CD2): ...mystifyingly separated into two CDs, meaning hardly any saving of price, sadly.
5. Wu Tang Clan - Disciples of the 36 Chambers: wonderful live recording and presumably one of ODB's last stuff on tape.
6. Wedding Present - Hit Parade: Another one I never got round to getting on CD.
7. a Javanese Gamelan collection which looked ace.
8. Kathy Davey - Something Ilk: I was impressed by a Kathy Davey track I heard on fluxblog so tempted by this one.

Couldn't buy them all, obviously, but trimmed the selection down to 3 which I'm pleased with. More interesting is this year's 'hall of shame'.

Jonathan's Rounder Records Hall of Shame*:
1. Claire Sweeney LP
2. second Electric Soft Parade LP
3. Westlife sing Brat Pack LP
4. some Stereophonics LPs
*participants being the five cheapest, most often-seen CDs on the racks. The Bargain Bin, in other words.