Matt Berry (3) – Witchazel

My sealed copy had the inner paper sleeve VERY crumpled inside, obviously it was packaged incorrectly. The creases made an impression on the outer sleeve and there's a visible mark where the bulging inside messed up the outside too.

Ignoring the somewhat turdish shade of brown this 'caramel' coloured vinyl, the main issue for me with this pressing is the amount of paper crud from the cheap inner sleeve my copy was coated with from the first time I pulled it out of the sleeve. Honestly, sought after vinyl, that you pay a premium for, and they ship it in the cheapest, paper sleeve that covers the album in crud. Not good enough, I expect more from a label like acid jazz. Despite an initial clean there's a couple of spots of what look like paper wedged into the vinyl, so a disaster really. A shame, as it's a great album.

my copy arrived nice and clean, sounds excellent to me. very happy to have affordable access to Matt's earlier records.

This is a fantastic record, but a pretty horrific pressing unfortunately, really bad worse new record I have received in years. That does not mean they will all be bad, but I have had to buy another copy will up date once I get it. Not much I can really say, its literally covered in scuffs and scratches out of the shrink, the paper inner is rough, and was full of debris for good measure, clicks and pops galore, totally unacceptable. £24.00 retail, no download, no poly inner, shame but my copy is a complete disaster.

Got my copy from Acid Jazz's online store which arrived this morning. The record looks more like a poo colour than caramel. It feels fairly thick with a good flat clean edge like a 200g release. However I did weigh it to check and it actually comes in at 145g, must be a trait of the compound used.
Sadly again just a cheap paper inner sleeve that leaves debris on the vinyl, I'll be grabbing another mofi sleeve to protect it.

There's barley any surface noise, during the few seconds of lead in I looked to see if I actually had the amp up. The audio is very good the highs are crisp the lows are clean, everything is separated nicely. When you've spent a bunch of time and money on your system a recording like this makes it all worthwhile.
I've been a bit late to the Matt Berry party and musically I do prefer his later releases. That said I'm still very glad I was able to get this in my collection.

My System:
Nagoaka MP-500
Technics SL-1210GR
Yamaha AS1200
KEF R7
Rel T5x