In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea has attracted a great deal of fervent praise and no small measure of derision in its time. As is to be expected, given that I own a copy, I count myself among its admirers. It was already five years old before I'd even heard of it. Come 2003, intrigued by laudatory reviews I'd found on-line like this one, I downloaded an mp3 copy via LimeWire. A first cursory listen to a few snippets failed to impress me, but my on-line peers kept going on about it, and in due course ('04) I ordered a CD copy from Amazon.

On sitting down to properly listen under headphones for the first time I became a convert within its first five minutes. By the end I was deeply impressed and moved. I revisited it very often in the years that followed, and tried to spread the word among my off-line friends and acquaintances (absolutely none of whom were interested). Not only did I find it a fascinating work of art in its own right, it also served as a gateway to further wonderful discoveries, as I've mentioned before.

Last year I felt the urge to replace my well-worn 15+ year-old Elephant 6 CDs with vinyl copies, In The Aeroplane Over the Sea being one of the last of those "upgrades". I bought a copy of the 2020 re-press from HMV. It wasn't unreasonably-priced (as new LPs go) and is a well-pressed disc, nicely-packaged in its distinctive gatefold sleeve. Having done so, I've played the new copy all of about twice so far: I shall take it out and give it another spin this afternoon.

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Complete String Quartets

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Ein Schattenspiel, etc.

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This is a Recording

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