Paul: My first memory of vinyl is from when I was nine or ten years old stealing my elder sister’s copies of “Ziggy Stardust” and “Aladdin Sane” and playing them to death on my parent’s old gramophone. I would spend hours listening, taking in all the lyrics and looking at the imagery Bowie created to compliment the sound. I seem to recall my sister practicing the Aladdin Sane make-up on my face many times over! I actually still have the original albums framed on the wall in my home and occasionally get them out for an airing, although the inner paper sleeves are pretty delicate nowadays! From the moment I was earning money from various little part time jobs I would head to the local record store and buy as many albums, 45’s and 12” Singles as I could afford including lots of imports, picture discs and rarities that I still have in my collection to this day. I still much prefer a physical product to a download as it is far more tactile and the audio quality is so much better. I think somewhere I also have my parent’s collection of 78’s with loads of Nat King Cole and Sinatra. My father was a bit of a crooner in his day and his “Moon River” is second to none!

When I was thinking about the format for the Glitch Code album I was adamant from day one that it needed to be on vinyl as well as the usual formats. The reemergence of vinyl in recent years has been great to see and to be able to buy new releases in the old format has breathed new life in to my old collection. I was lucky to be working with Barry Grint on this release as he is from the “old school” of mastering engineers with his own lathe and years of experience cutting lacquers for some of the biggest artists in the world. It was an amazing experience to actually be there watching the album we had worked on for the last two years come to life in a format I had collected since I was a kid. I also wanted to replicate the inner sleeves I knew from when I was growing up and getting in to music. I wanted some striking imagery and of course the lyrics, as I know how much I enjoyed reading the words and trying to work out what the song was about and what it meant to me. It was probably the most rewarding moment of my musical career when I put on the test pressing of Gifted_Damaged and heard the ten tracks sounding the best they sonically could. When put together with the artwork and lyrics I have an album I am extremely proud of being released on my favourite format and it feels like I have come full circle and can share the experiences I had as a kid with my own children who are fascinated by this “new” format!

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