“For me, vinyl has always been the only true representation of a record album. When I grew up, it was the era of the cassette tape, giving way to the CD. But, my parents didn’t have much extra money, so our version of a stereo system was an old console hi-fi from the ’60s with a built-in turn table and AM radio tuner that they had somehow come across years earlier. I also had four older sisters who seemed to posses the pinnacle of cool music. So for the most part, all this music that I was being exposed to as a child was on vinyl.”
“I remember my parents had an eclectic mix of vinyl, from my mother’s Joni Mitchell, Beatles, and classical albums to my father’s jazz records, and then all the stuff my sisters had. I know I destroyed my share of records as a small child trying to get them on and off that console hi-fi.
In hindsight, my parents had quite a bit of patience to let me ‘put a record on’ by myself, and probably some forethought to the importance of self-guided music discovery. I never knew what new sounds would come from the next record I’d put on the platter, so I kept listening to the next one, and the next one… I am sure it sounded technically terrible, but I remember the records on that old hi-fi creating a warm, comforting, and entirely enveloping experience.
When one of my grandparents passed away, about ten folios of old 78 RPM records came to our house. They usually had four to six records in a booklet with brown paper sleeves bound together like a book. The one that sticks out in my mind was Nat King Cole. Each side contained one scratchy song on the heavy, brittle shellac and slate disks. But Nat King Cole’s smooth voice still cut through and translated on those disks. That started to give me a respect for the enduring and historical quality of a record.
So, when it came time for me to make my debut solo record, The End of Ours, I only could think of it on vinyl. A record has never felt quite ‘real’ to me when on CD or as some digital files… I wanted to make a REAL RECORD like the ones that kept me so enthralled as a child. A vinyl record has history, and meaning, and feel… the packaging, the artwork, the time it takes to listen to a side.
And did I mention that I’m not a big fan of ‘shuffle?’ You can’t shuffle vinyl LP’s… thankfully.”
—Alec Lytle
Alec Lytle & Them Rounders ‘The End of Ours’ was mixed by the legendary Bob Clearmountain, mastered by Bob Ludwig, with vinyl plates cut by Bernie Grundman Mastering.
It will be available on 180g vinyl with special edition tip-on style gatefold packaging and a full-size 12-page lyric and artwork booklet featuring paintings by Lisa Golightly.
