Records! Vinyl! Who doesn’t love records and vinyl! No one we want to know! Of course, there are folks who love records and vinyl a little too much. You know the type: endlessly droning on about audio quality, judging loved ones and strangers alike by what they listen to, and regaling anyone within earshot with stories about impossibly obscure artists like Talking Heads and Television (you probably haven’t heard of them). Like we said, you know the type. Ugh.
Okay, we’re probably all guilty of being this type of person at one time or another, which only makes “Record Collection”—a.k.a. the latest sardonic single from Milwaukee’s The Beat Index—even more cutting. Take it away! (Damn, that 13th Floor Elevators vinyl looks nice…)
The Beat Index is the pandemic solo project of Harrison Colby (NO/NO, Rexxx, Sex Scenes). The project “was an opportunity to combine a ton of different sounds in a way that made sense,” Colby says. “It’s a freedom that you don’t have when you have to think about putting together a band or how it all translates live, because right now none of that is possible.”
“Record Collection,” meanwhile, comes from The Beat Index’s upcoming album, Juvenilia, due July 31 on Madison’s No Coast Records. “The song is sort of a Strokes send-up that pokes fun at music pretentiousness and using one’s record knowledge as a litmus test for ‘cool,'” Colby says. He continues:
“The Beat Index is a sort of tongue-in-cheek compilation series. It’s an opportunity to examine different artistic constructs and experiment with them through music, video and design. Volume One, Juvenilia, focuses on nostalgic ‘filters,’ and their impact on modern media, using this sonic and visual nostalgia in a modern application. Like retro instagram filters and vintage treatments in music.”
To that end, the 40-minute Juvenilia will get quite the release on the 31st: a cassette with a digital download code that features another 40 minutes of bonus tracks and outtakes, music videos, and a “textbook” lyric zine. Want a hard copy of the zine? Be among the first 25 pre-orders HERE.
Also, shout-out to Carmella D’Acquisto, who plays the exasperated and condescended-to date in the “Record Collection” video. We’ve all been there, too. (Some more than others.)