Vinyl Destination

When the randomly-generated number came up and pointed me in the direction of this record, I have to admit that at first I had no idea what it was and could not recollect even the slightest fact about it. But as I scrolled through my spreadsheet to reveal Trensmat as the label behind the record, things started to make sense.

Trensmat started up (out of Dublin, I think) a few short years ago, and since then has kept up an impressively relentless release schedule – around twenty releases within perhaps three years. Their first couple of releases were of such quality that they were quickly added to my ‘labels that I’ll happily buy everything from’ list.

Lately their releases have been in this format – a very limited edition lathe-cut record (mine is number 014 – I don’t know how many exist), wrapped* in a mysterious sleeve that also contains a CDR with the recordings from the record along with more. I like this combination format: CDRs are great for listening to music, but don’t look too beautiful; lathe-cuts’ sound quality can sometimes leave a little to be desired, but they look fantastic and somehow otherworldly.

One thing Trensmat has been good at is introducing me to some weird and wonderful new artists (normally at the noise/weirdo folk ends of things). In the case of this record however, I’d actually heard of the artist – or at least the artist behind the name. Our Love Will Destroy The World is in fact Campbell Kneale of Birchville Cat Motel, who is something of a minor starlet in the very specifically The Wire-type axis of odd musics. Once he released a record in collaboration with Neil Campbell of Vibracathedral Orchestra (amongst a million other things). You have to love the rarity of that kind of team-up being able to happen! If I ever come across somebody with the reverse of my name, I’m releasing a record with them whether they like it or not.

*A note about the wraparound sleeves used by Trensmat. They have their opening on the left-hand side, rather than the more traditional right-hand ‘book-style’ opening. This maddens me, for some reason. It’s like when a record’s spine is printed the other way up to usual. What are these people thinking?