edit: weird tumblr layout cutting off half my pictures, click on the smaller ones to see full view
regarding that last picture: the frame withe explorers was empty for a very long time. i was going to put music for the masses there. but then tom decided to make this gorgeous object available to everyone so now it gets the last place of honour.
what i like about owning something like this, especially the hand-written note, is that a physical object creates a sort of connection that you don’t really get when you’re the silent online fan. i know that tom put an immense amount of work into this, that this record was the result of many many decisions on his part, and that he has held it in his own hands. now i have the record, i can hold it in my own hands, and i can feel all the work that was put into it. the physical object brings a sort of reality to the situation which otherwise is comprised solely of computer data.
Explorers 6 by Tom Milsom arrived on vinyl today. I’ve been excited for this for quite some time now and it’s lovely to finally have the actual package in my hands! Before I get on to the music, let’s talk about the packaging. The packaging, in my opinion, is lovely. A lot of albums, when released on vinyl, can lack on nice packaging. I felt like I was getting something that someone had put a lot of effort into designing with this package, and I loved Tom’s inclusion of a drawing done by him and the number out of 300 that this particular album was (mine was 50, which was lovely). There’s also a little photocopied note from Tom congratulating you for purchasing the album. The cover design is lovely (and done by Vondell Swain I believe) and the record itself is a beautiful shade of blue (though my shitty phone pictures do it absolutely no justice).
The music is of course also great, but I won’t go into that too much now. I’ve already sung my praises for the music, it’s more the packaging I’m focusing on here.
I’m just so glad it has finally arrived and Tom Milsom should be very proud of himself for creating a wonderful album, and Vondell Swain should be proud for creating such wonderful packaging.