Things Found in Liner Notes, Volume 2

More treasures that make it worth buying the CD. Volume 1 is here.

• The booklet that accompanies Low's Drums and Guns album is, appropriately enough, filled with pictures of drums and guns:

• Open Season by British Sea Power comes packaged with this lovely sentence fragment from Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal: "To spend our days betting on three-legged horses with beautiful names."


• Alternative covers for Holiday by The Magnetic Fields:

Pick your favourite!

• The cover art for Boys Outside, the first solo album from Steve Mason, is an indistinct black blur. Look at the liner notes, however, and you'll be rewarded with a series of progressively less indistinct blurs. The photos zoom further and further out to reveal that the cover photo is just an extreme close-up of a man falling:

• The inlay for Goat's World Music contains the following passage in Swedish:

Oändlig är Själen, dess syn utan gräns av Tid och hindrande Rum,
oändliga vägar med vingade fötter den vandrar i Etern stum.
Omslutande länder och stjärnor och hav bakom rymdernas förlåt den når,
otröttlig, omätlig och ensam på härskarnas vägar den går.
Till den okände Guden vår dyrkan!

Rough translation:

Infinite is the soul, its vision unlimited by time and obstructions,
Infinite paths with winged feet, wandering in the ether.
Enveloping countries and stars and seas without apology,
Untiring, immense and lonely, down the road it goes.
To the unknown God, our worship!

Translation brought to you by Google Translate and some (un)educated guesswork.

•  On Avery Island by Neutral Milk Hotel comes packaged with this cool double-sided poster:

• Recommended Record by It Hugs Back has some rather unusual musician credits: "Scream by Lily. Lawn Mower by Julia. Engine Noise by The Monster."


• The third Young Knives album, Ornaments from the Silver Arcade, comes with a booklet that, in addition to all the lyrics, contains several very bright photos of the band members and their surroundings. One of the photos depicts several jars of pig's feet - "boneless" and "packed in vinegar".


• In the booklet that comes with Too Long in This Condition, Scottish folkie Alasdair Roberts writes about the traditional songs heard on the CD, giving us a little more information about their various backgrounds. If you like the sound of "ancient fratricide ballads" and "murderous behaviour" then the album and its liner notes are well worth a listen/read.


• Instead of lyrics, the booklet for Saint Etienne's Tales from Turnpike House simply has a nifty little drawing for each track on the album:

Closing thought: it's kind of amazing how many of these CDs - some bought very recently indeed - still contain 'Text this number for official ringtones!' slips.