Caustic Window – Caustic Window LP

Description Back in 1994, there were plans of releasing a full LP of music from Richard D. James, aka The Aphex Twin, under his "Caustic Window" moniker on his own label, Rephlex Records.This album unfortunately never saw the light of day until around 1999, when Mike Paradinas (aka µ-Ziq) granted a rare interview with the Aphex Twin fansite,joyrex.com (no longer active). In the interview, Mike described the tracks in detail, and went on to explain that only 4 people at the time were known to have a vinyl test pressing of the album - Richard James, Chris Jeffs (aka Cylob), Grant Wilson-Claridge (co-founder of Rephlex Records) and Mike himself. Each person was sworn to never make copies of the music, and for 20 years, not a single track had ever been commercially released (with the exception of two tracks that appeared on compilations).Until now.Fast forward to 2014, when a mysterious seller listed the album on the music website Discogs for sale at a high asking price. We Are The Music Makers, aka WATMM.com, which succeeded joyrex.com as the web's premiere source for electronic music, discussed the possibility of this "holy grail" of electronic music releases finally seeing the light of day, albeit from unfortunately leaking online once a buyer had obtained it.Jokingly, the suggestion that the WATMM community band together and "crowdfund" purchasing the album was made, and I began to ponder the possibility - could we band together and purchase the legendary non-release?Of course, the main issue with doing such a thing is distribution - individuals (even lots of individuals) don't have the right to copy and distribute music they don't have the rights to - then, an idea came to me - why not raise the funds for the record, buy it, then strike a deal with the record label to purchase the rights for everyone who chipped in a digital copy of the tracks?A few emails later, and such a deal had been struck - the label and Richard James himself agreed to offer one-time distribution rights so the people contributing to this Kickstarter would have a once-in-a-lifetime to own tracks from arguably one of the rarest electronic music (non) releases of all time (and some damn fine music too).So, with official blessings from Richard James and Rephlex Records, if you contribute 16.00 USD (little under 10.00 GBP or around 11.20 EUR) and become one of the only people legally allowed to own a digital copy of the famed Caustic Window LP ripped straight from the vinyl in a lossless audio format that we will as a community vote and decide on. It's a superb way to the artist by legally purchasing something you will never get to purchase otherwise - Rephlex has no plans and will not press this record commercially.Be a part of this unique opportunity and show your hardcore fan for Richard's music and own some awesome electronic music!The Kickstarter was a resounding success, and now is your chance to own one of the most rare and expensive records in history!More info: http://www.discogs.sitioby.com/Caustic-Window-Caustic-Window-LP/release/482493A portion of this auction will be going to charity, as chosen by the WATMM community: http://forum.watmm.com/topic/83473-time-to-choose-which-charity-will-get-half-the-proceeds-from-the-ebay-auction-of-cat023/PLEASE NOTE: Grant @ Rephlex HQ has the record in his possession, and he will be shipping it out to the winner from the UK - we will you in regards to how it will be shipped, insurance, etc. once the auction ends. Please me if you have any questions. On Jun-19-14 at 14:21:48 PDT, seller added the following information: Just so there is no confusion about the sale of this record: No rights of duplication, public performance or distribution are given or implied. This is simply the sale of a very rare, very famous second-hand record for private consumption.

Im actually really pleasantly surprised how good this sounds when you consider its the birth child from a recording of the original vinyl being played and then recorded digitally and then pressed onto a vinyl.

With that it mind, its never going to be full and dynamic sounding as an original pressing but as someone else mentioned it really doesnt sound that different from some of the other early AFX / Caustic Window releases that i own. It sounds slightly compressed but not too lo-fi, overall the reduction in quality doesnt take away from the listening experience at all whatsoever.

The actual pressing itself there are a few snap crackle and pops but nothing major. My second LP the hole is slightly off centre so the needles travels a bit !

But basically if you're reading this then you already know its an absolutely WICKED album, and as an AFX obsessive myself I personally would much rather own and be able to listen to this album at say 70% quality than not at all :) Is this this bootleg worth £50? Not in the normal world no, but in the parallel universe that is Discogs Aphex Twin Collectors World its basically in the bargain bin. :)

Anybody know how this ting plays? Some of the other boots are supposed to be pretty pants if the comments on this site are anything to go by, ha.