Top 10 Vinyl Finds of 2025
The first of three “Top 10” posts cataloguing vinyl purchases of 2025. “Top 10 Reissues of 2025” and “Top 10 Irish Albums of 2025” will follow.
Photographs by Paul McDermott.
A Top 10 of secondhand vinyl finds I purchased in 2025. These were picked up in record shops in London, Puglia, Arles, Dublin and Cork. There is nothing rare here, just a bunch of records I couldn’t leave behind. Notes on all ten secondhand records below…
Special Mention
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
F♯ A♯ ∞
CD, Kranky Records, 1997
“The car’s on fire and there’s no driver at the wheel”
A special mention for a CD. I purchased F♯ A♯ ∞, Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s debut album, on vinyl in 2002 from the merch stand when the band played the Ambassador.
Years later I realised that the CD and LP versions of the album have different tracklistings and durations: the LP comes in at around 38 minutes while the CD is 63 minutes long. I’ve been on the lookout for the CD ever since. In August Pitchfork reported that GYBE had removed its music from streaming services, a few weeks later I found the CD in a secondhand record shop in France. Score!
F♯ A♯ ∞ (LP, Constellation Records, 2000 pressing) and F♯ A♯ ∞ (CD, Kranky Records, 1997). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
Flyer (front and back) for Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Sigur Rós and Fly Pan Am gig, 02 April, 2000. The flyer mentions Hq but the gig was moved to the Temple Bar Music Centre. Flyer scanned by Paul McDermott.
Top 10 Vinyl Finds 2025
10. New Order
‘Ceremony’ 12”
(Factory Records, 1981)
A few months ago I mentioned in my “Record Store Day: A Top 10” post that I was still after the original version of New Order’s ‘Ceremony’ on 12”. I finally found it.
I’ve had the original version on 7” for years and I found the second 12” version, which the band re-recorded once Gillian joined the band, about 15 year ago.
That second version is slightly shorter and features Gillian on guitar. No. 1 in my “Record Store Day: A Top 10” was a 12” from 2011 that compiles both the New Order and Joy Division versions of the same songs: ‘Ceremony’ and ‘In a Lonely Place’.
This first version of the 12” has a lot of ringwear and a seam split along the top but the vinyl’s in nice condition. Despite the sleeve’s condition, it was still lovely to find “in the wild”. One of the first things I ever purchased online was a bottle green New Order ‘Ceremony’ t-shirt with the gold typography. ‘Ceremony’ has always been one of my favourite New Order songs. Do I need four versions of ‘Ceremony’?
Yes!
JD/NO - ‘Ceremony’ (12”, FAC 33, RSD 2011), NO - ‘Ceremony’ (7”, FAC 33, 1981), NO - ‘Ceremony’ (12”, FAC 33, 1981). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
9. Lift to Experience
The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads
(Mute Records, 2017)
The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads, Lift to Experience’s only album - “a concept album that casts Texas as the Promised Land”, was originally released on Bella Union in June 2001. This is the fifteenth anniversary edition of the album (although considering it was released in 2017 it’s actually the sixteenth anniversary).
“Lift to Experience burst out of Texas, released this album and promptly disappeared. But what the trio left behind is both startling and unique. It’s a post-rock-country hybrid that burns with religious fury and genuine conviction from angelic singer Josh T Pearson, on a harrowing trip through damnation to salvation.” That’s how The Guardian described The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads back in 2007 when they included the album in their feature series 1000 Albums to Hear Before you Die.
A few weeks after the release of the album Lift to Experience played Witnness festival at Fairyhouse Raceourse in Co. Meath. The Texans played in one of the small tents in an early-afternoon slot to about 100 people. It was an absolutely extraordinary performance. Before their gig the band had taped a giant poster to the centre pole of the tent. After the gig I carefully peeled the poster off the pole, folded it neatly and handed it to my buddy Derek who placed it in his bag for safe keeping. Whenever I play The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads I think about that gig and I can see myself folding the poster.
Lift to Experience
In November 2016, Pearson talked to Vice about the recording of the album and its reissue: “We’re having the record coming out remixed, which is exciting for me because my regret with it was the way it was mixed. It wasn’t mixed properly because we couldn’t be there for the mixing. Nobody wanted to put the record out except Bella Union, and they didn’t have any money to fly me over to mix it or send money for us to mix it here. They said they had an extra week to mix it there and put it out, yes or no. And we tried for a year to find some other label, and they were the only takers. So my only regret is that it wasn’t mixed properly. It didn’t sound like the band. We just had no money. We paid for the recording ourselves. Had we any confidence at all, I would’ve scraped together 500 bucks and flown over. But it was different times. I was drinking a lot, my guitar and amps were in the pawnshop, and I had a record that I thought was my gift to God. And it was unmixed and unwanted by anyone but the Cocteau Twins, which is just crazy.”
8. Various
Beat At Cinecittà Volume 1
(Crippled Dick Hot Wax!, 1996)
I missed the vinyl LP of Beat at Cinecittà Volume 1 when it was released in 1996 and had to make do with a CD. I picked up LPs of Volumes 2 and 3 in 1997 and 1999 respectively. But was always annoyed that I didn’t have the set on vinyl. 29 years later I found it, unfortunately it’s got a few marks on the sleeve but the vinyl in mint condition.
Crippled Dick Hot Wax! was a German label that focused on “Sleazy Listening”, releasing long lost soundtracks to cult B-movies. After the huge success of Manfred Hübler & Siegfried Schwab’s Vampyros Lesbos: Sexadelic Dance Party (music from Vampyros Lesbos, Jesus Franco’s 1971 cult erotic horror) the label embarked on a series of Italian soundtrack compilations, described as: “a sensual homage to the most raunchy, erotic film music from the vaults of Italian 60s & 70s cinema.” It features some of the most acclaimed Italian composers of all time: Bruno Nicolai, Pierro Piccioni, Armando Trovajoli, Luis Bacalov, Riz Ortolani and others.
Beat At Cinecittà: Volume 1 (1996), Volume 2 (1997) and Volume 3 (1999). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
Beat At Cinecittà: Volume 1 (1996) - inner gatefold. Photograph by Paul McDermott.
7.
Power of Dreams
2 Hell With Common Sense
(Polydor, 1992)
“It’s been suggested that there’s an underlying theme of death on the new LP. If that’s so then it’s probably to do with the death of our innocence.” Power of Dreams’ Ian Olney (NME - 15 February 1992).
I originally had 2 Hell With Common Sense, Power of Dreams’ second album, on tape. That tape didn’t survive the great Cassette Purge of 1998. This lovely clean copy of the LP was always coming home with me.
“One day they’ll do something. One day they’ll have a life to write about,” was the last sentence of Ian Watson’s dismissive Melody Maker review. Jim Carroll’s review in NME was kinder: “2 Hell With Common Sense does just what its title urges and comes up with a startling, confident clutch of songs.”
2 Hell With Common Sense was the stereotypical difficult second album. It was always going to come up short after the band’s exceptional debut. 33 years later the album sounds great to my ears. Two singles were released from the album: ‘Slowdown’ in February 1992 and ‘There I Go Again’ in April 1992. The first failed to chart in the UK Singles Charts but ‘There I Go Again’ made No. 65. It was the highest POD single to chart in the UK and would also mark the last time the band dented the chart. I can remember at the time being really annoyed by the stylised use of the number “2” instead of “To” in the album title. I’ve mellowed a bit, now it just slightly annoys me.
6.
Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell
Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell
(Capital Records, 1968)
Capital Records brought two of its biggest pop/country stars together for this collection of duets. Released in September 1968 it (unsurprisingly) topped Billboard’s “Top Country Albums” chart in the US.
“Sometimes you can take two wonderful things, blend them together, and the chemistry just doesn’t perform the way you hoped it would. Occasionally though the result is fabulous: some the world’s treasures have resulted from the bringing together of things that belong together - like Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell, as it turns out.” Original sleevenotes
“Here is one of those happy instances in popular music in which the whole adds up more that the sum of its parts,” wrote Hi-Fi Stereo magazine in its January 1969 review of the the album.
“Taken separately, Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell are each gifted with an agreeable, easy charm and disciplined expertise. Together they are devastating,” continued the review.
“Whether they are offering an especially satisfactory duet of ‘Gentle on My Mind’, or celebrating the simple joys of marital love in ‘Little Green Apples’, or calling for a summit meeting between jealous lovers in ‘Heart to Heart Talk’, this happy team never hits a false note, or a strained one. An especially gratifying arrangement of the folk song ‘Scarborough Fair’ brings to a sweet and honest close an unaffected program of hits that deserve their popularity.”
Record World (5 October, 1968).
5. Tracy Thorn
A Distant Shore
(Cherry Red, 1982)
Last year I found North Marine Drive, Ben Watt’s debut (Cherry Red, 1983) and earlier this year I found Thorn’s A Distant Shore. Everything But the Girl’s debut 7” had been released in mid-1982 and Eden, their debut album would appear in 1984. The duo released their 11th album, Fuse, in 2023 and played live for the first time in a quarter of a century this year.
“When A Distant Shore came out in 1982 I was 19 years old and in my first year at Hull University,” writes Thorn in the sleevenotes to Cherry Red’s 2024 CD reissue of the album.
“My band the Marine Girls had already released an album on Cherry Red Records but were now separated by geography,” continues Thorn.
“I had recently met Ben Watt, and we’d started making music together, but without any commitment to the idea of forming a group. I was writing songs at a prodigious rate but without any real idea what I wanted to do with them.”
The songs on A Distant Shore were recorded as demos. Thorn recalls sending them to Mike Alway, the A&R man at Cherry Red, who thought they were just perfect and, “needed nothing further added to them, and should be released immediately as a solo mini-album. And so A Distant Shore was born.”
In her Melody Maker review of A Distant Shore, Penny Kiely wrote: “At first the record comes as a bit of a shock, sounding almost like a collection of demos: just the bare bones of a record, with voice, words, and guitar. The effect though is deliberate, and the reasons and the rewards become apparent with time.”
Kiely continued: “It’s the songs that are important, and clothed with Tracey’s unusual, richly expressive voice they need little more adornment.”
“This is a demanding record to listen to, both emotionally and intellectually. Intellectually, because ears used to a busier bombardment must concentrate hard to discern the strengths of this kind of music; emotionally, because having done so, what is revealed is such honest passion that it can’t fail to hit.”
Side 1 of A Distant Shore ends with Thorn’s gorgeous cover of the Velvets’ ‘Femme Fatale’. In 2001 Billboard said it, “remains breath-taking after all these years.” 24 years on from that review and 43 years on from its original release that cover version and the album it comes from still remain breath-taking.
4. Marcel King
Reach For Love (Singles 1983-1988)
(Factory Benelux, 2023)
A gorgeous RSD release from 2023 on the great Factory Benelux label, picked up in a Spindizzy sale. I wasn’t even aware that this had been released.
“‘Reach For Love’ - Marcel King (Factory/A&M). A new singer backed with force by New Order. Marcel King, the vocalist, has the sweet soulful voice while New Order does the daring dirty work. Hot! Hot! Hot!” The Gavin Report (31 August, 1984).
“Marcel King’s ‘Reach For Love’ (A&M 12”) is just a great club cut, with a determinedly upbeat message; we hope radio will go for it. Billboard (13 October, 1984).
Notes from the Factory Benelux website state that: “Limited to just 1000 copies, Reach For Love: Singles 1983-88 features both sides of the infectious electro single co-produced by Bernard Sumner (New Order) and Donald Johnson (A Certain Ratio) and released as Fac 92 in April 1984, as well as a previously unreleased demo for 'Love To Shine', the planned follow-up single on Factory produced by Tony Henry of 52nd Street. The album also features ‘Hollywood Nights’, a later single cut by Marcel with Gee Bello of Light of the World, along with a rare US remix of ‘Reach For Love’ by noted New York DJ Mark Kamins, and extended dub and instrumental versions.”
A beautiful release of one of my favourite Factory singles. Had I picked this up earlier it could easily have made my “Record Store Day: A Top 10” list.
3. Harmonia
Deluxe
(Lilith, 2006)
2025 marks the 50th anniversary of Deluxe, the second album by Michael Rother of Neu! and Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster as Harmonia. In October 1975 US radio tipsheet Walrus! reviewed Deluxe writing: “Similar to Kraftwerk, Harmonia organizes a flowing rhythm upon which they lay lovely melodies. Using dynamics well, their tunes can be delicate or harsh.”
“In Germany, a wacky series of sci-fi rockers, overladen with modulators, synthesizers, theremins, and probably microwave ovens, began a fad that would become known as Krautrock in England, where most of these bands became popular,” wrote Down Beat Music Handbook in 1976.
“A couple of groups avoided the kozmik kook syndrome, and in doing so demonstrated how rock could fuse even more solidly with electronics than it had before,” continued the feature. Harmonia were without doubt one of those groups.
Deluxe was No. 33 in Julian Cope’s “A Krautrock Top 50”, his appendix to Krautrocksampler (1995). “Even in general Krautrock terms Deluxe is an unknown and often dismissed record. That it is a classic will soon be recognised,” writes Cope.
Thirty years on from the publication of Cope’s “Guide to the Great Kosmische Musik” Deluxe is undoubtedly recognised as a classic.
2. The Triffids
In the Pines
(Bloodlines, 2024)
In the Pines was originally released in August 1986, a mere five months after the band’s second album Born Sandy Devotional.
“The Triffids release another LP this week on the Australian HOT Records label,” wrote Record Mirror on 29 November, 1986. “In The Pines was recorded in a woolshed 600kms south-east of Perth, straight into an eight track recorder. The LP, described as “a surprising companion piece to Born Sandy Devotional”, will retail at no more than £4.99,” continued the news item.
I have Domino’s 2007 reissue on CD but the second I spotted this 2024 red vinyl reissue in the secondhand bins it was coming home. The hype sticker states: “Remixed & remastered from the original analogue eight track tapes. Includes five bonus tracks recorded during the Woolshed Sessions.”
“Australia’s noblest, The Triffids, chose to retreat to the deserts of their homeland this summer, ensconce themselves in a shed full of sheep-shearing equipment, and record lots of songs to see what would happen,” wrote David Quantick in his NME review of in November 1986.
He continued: “The result is In the Pines, and it’s entirely remarkable.”
In June 1986 Bleddyn Butcher, friend of the band and photographer, travelled from London to Perth and then on to the edge of the Nullabor Plain to witness The Triffids record In the Pines.
“Ignoring industry wisdom and the mire of voguish production values, they elected to record their next collection of songs in a woolshed,” he wrote. Butcher then described the woolshed:
“The laboratory in which this hocus pocus was conducted is a large corrugated tin affair, some 40 feet wide by 80 long. As if Perth itself weren’t sufficiently remote from civilisation as we know it, the shed is some 360 miles to the south east, standing in the cleared mallee scrub ten miles north of the coastal town of Hopetoun. Inside, the shed is divided roughly in half by the drive shaft which powers the shears. On one side of this barrier are the marshalling pens, on the other a clear wooden floor. Six shearers work side by side, separating each beast from its valuables in the space of two minutes. Once shorn, the sheep are flung naked into a chute returning them to the outside world. In ten days this gang can account for the farm’s 11,000 sheep.”
In the Pines was recorded for a total of AUD$1190 according to the album’s seevenotes.
I can never decide which Triffids’ album is my favourite: Born Sandy Devotional (1986) or Calenture (1987) - the two albums that were released before and after In the Pines.
Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time with In the Pines, it could just be my new favourite Triffids’ album.
1. Easterhouse
Contenders
(Nuevos Medios, 1986)
Easterhouse hailed from Manchester but were named for a Glasgow housing estate. The band was the vehicle for the Perry brothers’ socialist agenda and this is a Spanish press of their debut album that came out on Rough Trade in the UK.
In the mid-80s Andy Perry was described as “the best political commentator in pop music today” and the writer of “explicitly lyrical broadsides that triumphantly succeed in their incisive narrative simplicity”.
Meanwhile, brother Ivor Perry was called the best guitarist since Johnny Marr. In 1983 Easterhouse played their first gig supporting The Smiths in London and in 1985 they were the support band on the 7-date Scottish leg of the Meat is Murder tour. The following year the NME claimed that, “Rough Trade label boss Geoff Travis rates Ivor as the best guitarist since The Smiths’ Johnny Marr”. Ivor was even drafted in to play guitar on a Smiths’ session after Johnny had left the band.
Easterhouse
I’ve been aware of Easterhouse for decades but I’ve only ever heard one of their songs: ‘Whistling in the Dark’. This brilliant single from 1986 was included in the 2017 Cherry Red 7CD compilation Manchester North Of England (A Story of Independent Music Greater Manchester 1977-1993). I’ve been on the lookout for Contenders since I was in my late teens, when I first read about Easterhouse and their connections with The Smiths.
About ten years ago I spotted a copy of their ‘Inspiration’ 12” (Rough Trade, 1986) with its Bobby Sands sleeve in one of the record shops on London’s Berwick St. The sleeve was completely battered so I left it in the bins but I couldn’t help wonder how this record was received by the UK music press in 1986.
Easterhouse were signed to London Records in 1985 and their debut release for the label was a 4-track 12” called In Our Own Hands. Ian Broudie produced the lead track ‘Coming Up for Air’. Two of the B-Sides - ‘Man Alive’ and ‘Endless March’ - were produced by Martin Hannett and ‘One More Time’, the fourth track on the 12”, was produced by legendary Rolling Stones’ producer Jimmy Miller. The record came with a catalogue code “EIRE X1” and on the back sleeve was printed: “In Remembrance of the Easter Rising”. The Perry’s Irish Republican sympathies, that would land them in trouble the following year, were there for all to decipher from the very beginning.
‘Whistling in the Dark’ (7”, Rough Trade, 1985). Photograph by John Harris, taken during the Miner’s Strike.
A move from London Records to Rough Trade followed. ‘Whistling in the Dark’ was released in January 1986. “A blast of passion from the frontline. Andy and Ivor Perry offer their dissertation on the state of the nation and, simultaneously, bring the protest song back to life,” wrote NME, awarding the song “Single of the Week”.
‘Whistling in the Dark’ (7”, Rough Trade, 1985). 7” has a close-up detail from John Harris’ photograph.
The NME review continued: “But whether or not you agree with the message - the sell-out of the TUC [Trades Union Congress] and the confusion of the proletariat - it’s the way Easterhouse get it across that’s so impressive.” On 25 January 1986, the Perry brothers graced the cover of NME, “Brothers in Arms: Easterhouse Rising” declared the headline. In fairness that’s a very clever headline from the NME subs that probably went over most readers’ heads.
‘Inspiration’ (12” - Rough Trade, 1986). The familiar photograph of Bobby Sands on the cover.
The ‘Inspiration’ 12” with its Bobby Sands sleeve came next.
“Their commentary on Ireland,” wrote NME. “Isn’t a token gesture towards nostalgia or romance. Slamming the Labour government for sending in the troops; ‘Inspiration’, which looks for a modern working class hero and finds it in Bobby Sands; and ‘Johnny, I Hardly Knew You’, the closest Easterhouse ever get towards folk - a straight up rendition of the First World War ballad about the recruitment of Irish soldiers into the British Army.”
In June 1986 Record Mirror announced that Easterhouse’s ‘Inspiration’, “has been banned from the [BBC] Radio One airwaves for daring to mention that thorny old subject, Northern Ireland.”
“Actually, technically speaking, an official ban hasn’t been issued,” continues the Record Mirror news item. “The official explanation is that Radio One simply doesn’t like it.”
In June 1986 The Irish Press noted that, “‘Inspiration’ is a harsh record that sets the nerves jangling and one which uses the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands as its focal point. It’s funny that for all our closeness to the situation in the North, no Irish band has yet come up with songs as brutally honest as Easterhouse have.”
Contenders (CD - Rough Trade, 1986).
Contenders came next. The reviews were mixed.
“With the ‘Inspiration’ EP and this mavellous Contenders album, the Mancunian five-piece named after a housing estate in Glasgow have at last revealed the full range of their exceptional talent and insight,” wrote Roger Holland in his glowing Sounds review.
Holland continued: “Yes, Easterhouse support the Revolutionary Communist Party. ‘Get Back to Russia’, you say. No chance, says singer Andy Perry. “England made me, and here I’ll stay… let England deal with me”. Perry’s songs are almost pamphlets. The structures and the images are crisp and irrepressible. The logic compelling and undeniable. The passion genuinely shocking. And when his sharply inspirational words are forged to the versatile steel patterns by his guitarist and brother Ivor, then the blade which eventually emerges from the furnace is a beautifully conceived and sternly momentous collection of oblique confrontation and immense classical rock power.”
Stuart Bailie, a recent guest on my podcast (To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited - Bonus Episode No. 8), reviewed the album for Record Mirror. He wasn’t convinced.
“Press-wise, Easterhouse is an ideal band; they’re radical, opinionated and regularly confront ‘risky’ subject matters. But they also make exceedingly dull records,” wrote Bailie.
“‘Whistling in the Dark’ successfully combines understatement with a driving rhythm, while ‘Get Back to Russia’ boasts a melody line and the hint that the musicians are actually enjoying themselves. But there’s nothing here to match the fire of recent EP track, ‘Johnny, I Hardly Knew You. Don’t listen to all the liberal apologies for this band, and don’t be swayed if you hear they’ve been given the Morrissey seal of approval.”
‘Get Back to Russia’ (7” Promo - Rough Trade, 1986).
I fall somewhere between Holland and Bailie. ‘Whistling in the Dark’ is definitely a highlight but there are a couple of other standout tracks on Contenders. It’s a really solid album.
Ivor quit the band soon after the release of Contenders. He formed The Cradle with Craig Gannon. Andrew kept the Easterhouse name and in 1989 released a second album: Waiting for the Redbird.
Years later Ivor Perry told the BBC’s Mark Radcliffe that, “the politics ended up being a counterproductive way of advancing a band. We had a record out called ‘Inspiration’ and we had a tune on it called ‘Nineteen Sixty Nine’ which a lot of people considered to be a fairly strong song, with a chance of being a sort of hit, it was a really good tune as well and I thought it was the best thing on the record but because of the political thing, the cover had Bobby Sands on it, and the track ‘Inspiration’ was a sort of tribute to Bobby Sands, so Andrew decided to put Bobby Sands on the cover and naturally it got no radio play, it was sort of completely ostracised by the radio community. It consequently did quite a bit less than ‘Whistling in the Dark’.”
Interviewed on the C86 podcast 2018, Ivor told David Eastaugh said: “Easterhouse were obviously a political band who were defined by Andrew’s very strong ideological commitment to socialist and left-wing ideas but I approached Easterhouse from the point of music, I wanted to make a great band and move people with big stirring songs that could get people buzzing. Andrew had an ideological agenda that came with it. We always found Red Wedge to be weak and cowardly and not addressing real issues of society at the time. The big issue in politics in those days was Republicanism and attitudes towards Irish freedom. Nobody talked about it, for example the Socialist Worker’s Party or the Redskins wouldn’t address that because that was like the limits of the British State. We went further.”
In 2023 Ivor told Greg Shanks on the Pale Blooms and Beyond videocast: “The politics came very much from Andrew, but I was supportive of it. In the end it spoiled the group, it’s a rock group not a political party and in the end he let it overtake the group. At some of the gigs he’d lecture the audience for a bit, it just got on my nerves.
Contenders - easily my No. 1 vinyl find of 2025.