And Your Bird Can Sing

No car boot today; I have no transport and it's been pretty wet too.  Last Sunday however, was dry and I got a couple of records.  First for £1 was the 12" of Comfortably Numb by the Scissor Sisters:

Scissor Sisters - Comfortably Numb (2003)

As well as the single version of my favourite Scissor Sisters record (sorry Floyd fans!) there are two remixes.  Unusually this 12" singles plays at 33.3rpm instead of 45 and the wider groove spacing allows for a wider dynamic range and therefore better sound quality.  This slower speed really enhances the low end, which makes the bassy Paper Faces Mix sound fantastic.

Next was one of my all time favourite albums; the mighty Revolver:

The Beatles - Revolver (1966)

Rear of sleeve

After delving in to the fascinating, complicated and often contradictory world of online Beatle record label and matrix number bingo I figured that this is a fourth UK pressing, probably from 1971.

It's a stereo two-box "The Gramaphone Co. Ltd. ..." label, matrix numbers Side 1 Yex 605-1, Side 2 Yex 606-2, Doctor label which meant nothing to me until now and which I'll probably have forgotten by the time I finish typing this sentence.  It's probably worth about £15-20 in it's excellent condition, which is fab because the seller was asking £16 and I haggled her down to £12.50.

Beatle-nerdery aside, as well as being in lovely condition, the sound is absolutely sublime.  I'm no audioslave but even to these cloth-ears it sounds wonderful - full, fresh and vibrant from the opening "One, two, three, four..." of Taxman to the cacophonic close of Tomorrow Never Knows.

Here's my favourite song from Revolver, with on-screen lyrics if you fancy a bit of Beatles karaoke: