The Black Keys “No Fun” split 7″ with The Stooges. Classic original b/w The Black Keys’ cover, on tye-died orange vinyl.

Mercury Rev are releasing outtakes and demos remastered from their original sources today. The Record Store Day special is pressed on white and clear vinyl and comes with rare photos and new liner notes by Jonathan Donahue and Grasshopper. “As we pulled these Deserted Songs to the surface,” Grasshoper writes, “whatever had been holding us hostage cracked and withered in the blistering power of this music, and these songs allowed us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time… It is the magic of the vibrating universe; the music of the ‘Angels’.”

Tracklist here.

Today The Flaming Lips are releasing perhaps their most ambitious (or at least craziest) Record Store Day project yet: Zaireeka – the album infamously issued in 1997 on four CDs designed to be played simultaneously using four separate stereo systems – re-released in a deluxe 4 vinyl package. Yes, that requires four record players to hear in full. It’s not a new idea – the group’s visual media expert George Salisbury mentioned it on their message board several years ago – just one of the least likely of the Lips’ many far-fetched schemes to actually become reality. “You want to be in the here and now thinking about the future and not the past,” Coyne explained to Spin.com earlier this year. “Luckily, the Flaming Lips have been around 30 years this year and part of our time is spent constantly and luckily revisiting these older records.”

The vinyl issue of “one of the most important and invigorating experimental albums,” like, ever, allows for new sound experiments. Each listen is different - and it can now be combined with the CD issue, and our new Zaireeka webplayer for even more options (more on that here https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=536272413089970&set=a.238587699525111.70645.238542309529650&type=1).

Find participating stores near you at http://www.recordstoreday.com/Venues (perhaps call first, not every store is getting copies).

The set comes with book of photos and excerpts from Mark Richardson’s 33 1/3 “Zaireeka” book.
4 LPs in opaque blue, red, orange and light green colored vinyl.
Re-mastered by the band especially for this release at Bernie Grundman Mastering.
7200 (or 7500, or 7000 - depending which source is reporting) copies available.
Costs $69.99…

Record Store Day’s “official ambassador” this year is Jack White.
In February recordstoreday.com’s announcement rationaled: “Owns a record store. CHECK. Heads a record label. CHECK. Makes all kinds of records. CHECK. We can think of no one better [than Jack White] to fly the flag for Record Store Day 2013, can you?“

As ambassador, Jack is reissuing the White Stripes’ Elephant for its tenth anniversary, and hosting performances by Karen Elson and Mark Watrous at his Third Man Records store. Jack is also unveiling the Third Man Recording Booth, “a refurbished 1947 Voice-o-Graph machine that records up to 2 minutes of audio and dispenses a one-of-a-kind 6″ phonograph disc to the user. Whether it be a song, a message to a lover, an audio postcard or just the curiosity of a process that has mystified so many folks for ages.“ This will be the only booth of its kind currently “operational and open to the public.”

“In one of my final acts as Record Store Day ambassador,“ Jack White (half-joking) declared, “I encourage everyone who comes to the Third Man Record Store in Nashville to be able to hear themselves on a vinyl record, and maybe even mail it to someone they love. Actively venturing to your local record shop is one of those honors and privileges in this life that we just shouldn’t take for granted. Certain beautiful experiences can only happen in the environment of a record store and I just thought that nothing could drive that point home more than a one-of-a-kind machine that lets you not only record your own vinyl record, but send it to anyone, anywhere in the world to share a song, poem, or private message with.”