“Vinyl makes me think of my Mom, first and foremost. One of the earliest memories I can access from my childhood is of dancing around her studio, flailing my every limb, listening to Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA. Of course, I had no real-world idea that in 1988, vinyl’s hibernation was about to begin.”
“It was the sort of dancing that happens in a vacuum; none of my movements were planned. I was made of jello for a handful of minutes, mimicking my mom’s goofy dance moves and absorbing all of that good Bruce Springsteen vibe.
When I turned 17, my Mom took her record collection out of storage and gave it to me as a gift—a rite of passage, in a way. At that point, vinyl was essentially a museum piece. It was the beginning of the mp3 age, towards the end of the CD age. But making my way through original pressings of Hendrix, Cream, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Bob Marley, and even some great early blues recordings, made me realize that my Mom was a super hip lady in her heyday. That is an inherently difficult realization for a 17-year old to make about his mother.
Vinyl to me now represents a commitment to honoring the object of music, not just the hip shit, not just the buzz band shit, but the album as a symbol of an artistic effort; of output, and above all as a manifestation of the emotional capital required to put forth a collection of songs. However, notwithstanding its place in the greater music business architecture, vinyl to me is about my Mom.
Releasing our album Free My Animal on vinyl is essentially our own way of rewarding our efforts in recording the album ourselves. We summed all of our files through a great analog Nieve console, bounced it all to tape, and that treatment I think warrants an analog product. The goal ultimately is to have the music mean something to someone else other than ourselves, and I think providing a vinyl option helps with that goal.
Plus, vinyl is just plain sexy if you ask me…”
—Nathan Lithgow, Bass, Vocals
NØMADS’ debut release Free My Animal arrives in stores on April 8, 2014.
