Friday, January 29, 2010

Plugpoint Music - Last Chance (1987)

Well, I know Phil from the incredibly great blog A Viable Commercial has been looking for this one for quite a while. So, I guess I couldn't help myself. It doesn't hurt that it's a quite outstanding minimal synth gem. A private release out of Germany, the exact release year doesn't seem to be posted anywhere, so perhaps if someone out there knew they could share? (Update in comments below). Seen this pop up on eBay a few times now, and hasn't gone for terribly unreasonable prices (whatever that means), so if you're looking for it, keep an eye out. Until then... enjoy!

Track List:

A1 - Maybe It's Love
A2 - Sunny Days Are Holidays
A3 - Lonely Is The Night
A4 - Forever Wind Forever Winter
A5 - Fire In The Street
A6 - In The Deepest Throat
B1 - Flowers And Wimen
B2 - Requiem For A Lonely Soul
B3 - Whatever You Need
B4 - Samba Transistora
B5 - Sadness In Your Eyes
B6 - Classical Thing

Download (link removed 11/30/2020 per request of Minimal Wave Records - you can purchase this reissue soon at: https://minimalwave.com/releases)

13 comments:

bX-59cppw said...

Kick-ass post -> it really couldn't get better than that! ;-)

Anonymous said...

GREAT POST. ONE OF THE BEST BLOG HERE

Anonymous said...

According to the artist, this was recorded in 1987 all by himself, there were only 200 copies made and given to record labels as he was trying to find a record label. He said that the lp was never available to the shops.

Vanilla Face said...

Thank you for that update, Anon.

Anonymous said...

Great stuff. You should post more LPs on this blog.

Anonymous said...

I had never heard of this before. Definetely fits into the minimal-synth-wave facet exactly. Very kool. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

What an excellent record ! Thank you for sharing and congratulations for your blog, top!!!

frankie teardrop said...

hey dude,
has anyone ever mentioned that some of your audio files are a bit screwy and need to be opened in audacity before importing into itunes? some of them start with a digital pop that doesn't allow them to import or play until it's removed and re-saved. just wanted to let you know, but otherwise, keep up the good work!

bX-59cppw said...

...regarding the pops at the beginning that you hear in iTunes,
if really interested in the whole story and patient,read the following pages...

1)http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=48231&st=136
2)http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Gapless#Poor_design
3)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapless_playback#Delayed_output

The kinda short answer/conclusions...
1) Most of Vanilla Face's rips are usual LAME vbr-encoded files,no custom/weirdo tags whatsoever i've noticed,
that could probably cause audio data corruption/playback stutter issues etc...
Meaning,if iTunes' mp3 playback implementation isn't 100% compatible with LAME (the most widely used mp3 encoder),
then that's something most probably to ask and/or possibly complain to Apple's customer support i'm afraid. :-/
Audacity that you mentioned,uses LAME and ffmpeg libraries as well,
thereby not really sure why you would have to transcode again in there before playing...
You could try asking over at Hydrogenaudio forums as well about the iTunes playback issue,
if Apple doesn't seem like an option - it's by far the most respected forum for audio encoding issues out there...
2) Personally,I've never had any major playback issues under MPlayer,VideoLAN or any other properly-coded,
"free as in beer" and lightweight audio/video player - except if the file itself was indeed seriously damaged/corrupted.
In such cases,you can always try using an app like mp3val for validating mp3s (and fixing - if needed):
http://mp3val.sourceforge.net/download.shtml
If using exclusively a MacOSX system,you could give a try here...
http://triq.net/mac/mp3-validator-mac-os-x
The general rule though is,the less someone fiddles around with lossy-encoded files,the safer it is...

goutroy said...

OH HELL YES!!!!!

frankie teardrop said...

i can open the files in audacity without a problem and they will play, but the first second or so of these tracks are met with a harsh digital crack. i don't hear the pop in itunes, as the tracks won't even import into the library. the crack is noticed when opening the file up in audacity and giving it a test play, and always the first second of the song before it properly begins.

the issue worked itself out over the past few weeks of posts, but is back with this album entry.

otherwise, i'm content with taking the extra (and possibly lossy) step just to give the tracks a listen (not the best plan, but i can deal with it), but i just thought it might be prudent to note in case other users are having similar problems. thanks for the potential solutions- but still not sure why this would be the case with just vanilla face's blog, but not others i've come across. just want to let him know in case it's indeed something in the ripping process.

this blog's definitely a killer, so hoping to nip any issues others may have right in the bud!

Diablo Rules said...

agree, I can't import the tracks on itunes...even more tracks appear at low frequency (32000) and high bitrate (416 kbps)...need to re-encode them but not sure what was the original bitrate...I'll try at 320 kbps.

Diablo Rules said...

got it, they are at 192 kbps.