New York, NY (Top40 Charts) On Record Store Day, the annual nationwide celebration of vinyl and record retail to be held this year on Saturday, April 21, 2018, Omnivore Recordings will make available a deluxe Chris Bell 7" set, an autographed
Linda Perhacs LP with bonus tracks, and a new album by John
Wesley Harding featuring cover songs and some head-turning special guests.
Chris Bell: "I Am the Cosmos" 40th Anniversary 7" gatefold single.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the one, and only, Chris Bell single, the legendary "I Am the Cosmos"/"You and Your Sister." Originally released on Chris Stamey's label, Car Records, it was the only solo recording released under Bell's name in his lifetime. Last year, Omnivore paid tribute to the Big Star co-founder's work by releasing an expanded and definitive deluxe edition of I Am the Cosmos, as well as collecting his pre-Big Star work in Looking Forward: The
Roots of Big Star. At the end of 2017, all tracks on the aforementioned titles were given the deluxe vinyl treatment in The Complete Chris Bell.
Now to wrap up the Chris Bell campaign, this 40th anniversary edition repressing of the original Car Records single is packaged in a gatefold sleeve and includes liner notes excerpted from Car Records founder Stamey's forthcoming book, A Spy in the House of Loud: New York Songs and Stories (University of
Texas Press) detailing the story of how the single came to be. An insert features Stamey's original Car Records agreement, signed by both Stamey and Bell, and the Car Records press release.
Original copies, if they can be found at all, fetch high collector's prices. This special repressing for Record Store Day should satisfy fans seeking a copy of this masterwork.
Linda Perhacs: I'm a Harmony 2-LP with four bonus tracks.
Until 2014,
Linda Perhacs had only issued one album, Parallelograms, in 1970. It immediately fell into obscurity, but gained fans over the ensuing years as artists as disparate as Devendra Banhart, Daft Punk, and death metal group
Opeth sang its praises. As the status of Parallelograms continued to rise in the 21st century, Perhacs found her way back to recording thanks to talented fans like Fernando Perdomo, Julia Holter, and Chris Price. In 2014, another fan, Sufjan Stevens, released Linda's 44-year follow-up to Parallelograms, The Soul of All
Natural Things (produced by Perhacs, Chris Price, and Fernando Perdomo), on his label Asthmatic Kitty. Perhacs' long overdue return to music was joyously welcomed, with MOJO magazine describing the release as "a spectrally hypnotic work of prismatic beauty."
In 2017, Perhacs joined the Omnivore family with a critically acclaimed new album, I'm a Harmony, produced by Pat Sansone (Wilco/The Autumn Defense) with Perhacs and Perdomo.
For Record Store Day, I'm a Harmony will see new life as a double LP on vinyl with four previously unissued tracks including demos featuring Price and Perdomo, as well as a collaboration with singer/songwriter/producer Augustin. Composer/multi-instrumentalist/producer Holter appears on the original album's 11 tracks, joining Sansone and John Stirratt (The Autumn Defense/Wilco), Nels Cline and
Glenn Kotche (Wilco), Banhart (offering up a spoken word segment on "We Will Live,") and producer/remixer Mark Pritchard bringing his production talents to bear on "You Wash My Soul in Sound." Additional contributions from John Pirrucello,
James Haggerty, Leddie Garcia, Greg Wiezorek, and singers Michelle Vidal and Durga McBroom grace tracks throughout the project. Half the pressing was autographed by Linda; the autographed copies are randomly inserted into the run.
Hear
Linda Perhacs the way the world first discovered her. On vinyl.
John
Wesley Harding: Greatest Other People's Hits, an LP of covers, with appearances by Bruce Springsteen, The Minus Five,
Fastball and more.
First hitting the scene in the late '80s,
Wesley Stace, professionally known then as the singer-songwriter John
Wesley Harding, scored some musical success, especially on the college radio airwaves with songs like "The Person You Are," "The Devil in Me," and an unlikely cover of Madonna's "Like a Prayer." More than 20 albums and collections later, he tends a multi-faceted career as a novelist, singer-songwriter, festival curator, university professor, and variety show host.
Now, on Record Store Day, he can add singer of "greatest other people's hits" to his long list of accomplishments, with this fantastic compilation of songs by artists as varied as Bruce Springsteen,
George Harrison, Roky Erickson, Madonna, Pete Seeger, and Serge Gainsbourg, among others. The collection features Harding's renditions of songs by these great composers, as well as performances with the Minus Five, Fastball, Eric Bazilian, The Universal Thump, and Bruce Springsteen.
This title will be expanded and available on CD and
Digital in May.
Track listings for Omnivore's three Record Store Day titles may be found here:
www.omnivorerecordings.com/shop/i-am-the-cosmos-45/
www.omnivorerecordings.com/shop/im-a-harmony/
www.omnivorerecordings.com/shop/greatest-other-peoples-hits/
