“Vinyl is something that had been pushed aside by cassettes and CDs by the time any of us in the band were born, and all of these were pushed aside by iPods and iPhones by the time we were in school and actively consuming music (unaided by our parents). With the resurgence of vinyl I have been able to connect with it as an adult in a number of ways and observe how others connect with it.”
“There are the obvious things, such as listening to an album in its entirety (how music should be digested IMO), and the importance of artwork. Nowadays, some people buy vinyl to be used strictly for wall art and they don’t even listen to the album… hipsters! But there are 2 things I have really come to appreciate about vinyl that both revolve around the inflexibility of the this persistent technology:
1. Audio quality. Yes in theory audio quality today on phones and computers has the capacity to be just as good or better than vinyl, but not in practice for most people. Making digital copies of songs that are easy to stream requires a lot of compression to make the files small enough to share. If you are listening to your music through computer speakers or ear buds or worst of all…your phone speaker, you miss out on so much in terms of the fine details in the recordings.
Most songs you listen to have so much depth and the people who worked on that recording made hundreds of decisions that are so important to their vision, but so easily lost on poor quality playback. The inconvenience of vinyl forces you to listen through the proper stereo components.
2. The atmosphere. In my mind music is an activity best shared with others, so what beats putting on an album through great speakers and sharing that with family, friends or loved ones? Not only is vinyl a great social experience, but there is a certain ritualization that begins with taking the vinyl out, placing it on the turntable, putting the needle down, checking out the art… but this goes even further and includes the physical space in which you’re consuming the music—how you set up whatever room you’re listening in can become really important.
When we record at Bathouse Studios, we always play pool in the studio’s lounge when we aren’t writing/recording… we pop on records and it’s such a different listening experience. I personally loved listening to Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain while I played pool or just sat in that room. I went home and bought it on iTunes and have yet to listen to it from my phone, but whenever we go back to Bathouse I always put that record on in that room. There is just something so different about listening to that album on vinyl in that particular room that has become so special to me. When I am in that space I can listen to each note, flip through the liner notes feel the music in the room. It’s a tactile experience where I am engaging multiple senses while immersed in the music.
When I think about my first experience with vinyl, I suppose it was with Black Ash Dub – Sly & The Revolutionaries. It would’ve been towards the end of high school and I found the record in a closet and took it over to my parents vinyl player. It had never really crossed my mind to use the player but I think I was just really bored at the time. I fell in love with that album, and of course I’ve got it on my phone, but it’s always nice to sit down and revisit in on vinyl.”
—Boris Baker & Will Hunter
Kasador’s upcoming full-length release, Brood & Bloom is set to arrive in stores in the fall of 2019.
