We never know what to do with test pressings here at Catsup Plate. Fairly soon after we approve them we have commercial copies of the record, so the test pressing usually go into a box somewhere. Save them for the grandkids or something like that.
For our upcoming 3LP boxed set of live and unreleased Animal Collective music, entitled Animal Crack Box, we've decided to do something a bit more positive with a set of the test pressings and offer them up for auction with 100% of proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, a Nobel Peace Prize winning medical humanitarian organization who do a tremendous job in offering impartial and non-political help to victims of violence, neglect, or catastrophe around the world. You can read more about them at:
www.doctorswithoutborders.org
Copies of the full boxed set won't be available for a couple months yet (PLEASE don't contact us about it -- we simply don't know all the details as to when it will be available). There will be 1000 copies total, with no CD release. Copies will most likely not go through any traditional distributor channels, which means you won't find these at your local record store or through amazon.com or anything like that. All the art is silkscreened by the good folks at VG Kids, the LP jackets, the slipcase and the outer strip, everything. The amazing illustrator Jon Vermilyea did the drawings and the whole package was designed and art directed by Rob Carmichael, SEEN. We're very excited about this project.
One generous person can have the opportunity to obtain all three approved test pressings, housed in the very same screenprinted packaging that the "real" edition will be in. This is a one-of-a-kind item. We will not be selling any more of the test pressings.
Just to be 100% precise for potential buyers out there -- these are copies that we have listened to a couple of times -- they're the copies that we Catsup Plate folks used to determine that we approved of how the record sounds. So I guess they aren't "new" in the strict sense of the word. But they've only been played those 2 or three times. Also, the sharpie writing was done here in-house to help keep straight which records were which (test pressings don't include the final printed labels and can be hard to tell apart).
The music here is all recorded live to MiniDisc at various locations over the course of the course of the first three years or so of the band. The songs veer from the early percussion/feedback wailings to the Campfire Songs style acoustica to wall of sound forest children vocal chanting. The sonics are rough in places as these were recorded more for reference than for an actual release, but the power of the songs and the band's uncompromising intensity are apparent all the way through.
