no doubt, mastodon is among my top five of favourite bands and they are ranking pretty high. therefore it always was important to get all their full length releases on vinyl. i accomplished this goal two years ago and extended the collection with this year's release of "emperor of sand". so all the records sit on my shelf in the m-section, waiting right there for listening purposes. almost all. three years ago i bought the box-set re-issue of the band's debut "remission" dircetly from relapse.
as i feel that my box-sets deserve a special spot on my shelf, i placed them seperately. the problem was that this kind of ruined my full mastodon album set in the m-section. there were two possible solutions. first one was to place the box among the other mastodon records which was pretty much out of the question for me, second one was to get a regular gatefold version of "remission". the nerd-o-meter was heavily responding here and i knew it, that is why i was hesitant in the past.
i even let a purple and black spit copy of the sixth press slip through my fingers at blitz record store in kiel because i felt that i didn't really need another copy. but in terms of record collecting the word "need" is misplaced right from the start. of course, i don't need all my records but it's fun to have and to spin them. with this insight i embraced the ninth pressing that emp mailorder had to offer and finally filled the vacant space in my mastodon album set in the m-section. peace at last.
the re-press itself looks very nice. the two vinyl discs cut at 45rpm come on a colour-inside-colour pattern which is pretty en vogue these days. aqua blue inside ultra clear with multi colour splatter vinyl - wow, what a description. the cover sleeve features some artwork on gatefold inside and back which is not included in the box-set version. more reasons that tame my conscience. this pressing is limited to 1500 copies. crazy, ninth pressing and still the demand for these mastodon records is high. quality work here, i guess. relapse records. 2002/2017.