Exclaim!'s Top 10 Releases to Hunt for This Record Store Day

BY Alex HudsonPublished Apr 20, 2012

For those of us who haven't given up on physical music mediums, Record Store Day has become one of the highlights of the year. Each time around, some of the world's biggest acts -- indie and otherwise -- pony up some exclusive and limited-edition releases to be sold at independent music shops, and the results are always intriguing, to say the least.

We've spent the past few months learning about all of the goodies that will be coming our way on April 21 of this year, and now the big day is finally almost here. Come Saturday, these are the releases that we'd advise you to hunt for in your local record store. And, hey, if you aren't lucky enough to come away with a copy, there's always eBay.

Exclaim!'s Top 10 Releases to Hunt for This Record Store Day:

10. Xiu Xiu/Dirty Beaches - Split Seven-Inch

These two acts have teamed up for a split seven-inch containing two new cover tunes. Xiu Xiu have taken on Erasure's "Always," while Dirty Beaches has recorded a version of Françoise Hardy's "Tu Ne Dis Rien." Given the gloomy inclinations of the artists involved, we're willing to bet that you won't find an eerier single than this on Record Store Day.

9. The Wake - Here Comes Everybody
Last Record Store Day, Captured Tracks reissued some singles from post-punk heroes the Wake. This time around, they're one-upping themselves with a fancy-schmancy double LP reissue of 1985's Here Comes Everybody. The second record contains non-LP cuts from the era, making this a must-have for Wake fans who haven't yet managed to track down the band's classic material on wax.

8. Tomahawk - Eponymous to Anonymous
Mike Patton's experimental rock group previously didn't release any of their three albums on vinyl, and this box set will remedy that. As the title suggests, it contains 2001's Tomahawk, 2003's Mit Gas and 2007's Anonymous. For fans of the band, the best part is this: the box set comes with a little extra room, so that you'll be able to fit Tomahawk's fourth album in there when it comes out sometime in the not too distant future.

7. Arcade Fire - Sprawl II/Ready to Start Remixes
What would Record Store Day be without a release from Canada's most celebrated indie band? This twelve-inch contains versions of The Suburbs stand-outs "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" and "Ready to Start," which have been remixed by Damian Taylor and Arcade Fire themselves.

6. Public Image Ltd - One Drop EP
John Lydon's post-punk (and post-Sex Pistols) band PiL haven't released an album in 20 years, and the four songs on this teaser EP will mark their long-awaited return. We'll have to wait until later in the year to hear the full album, but the singer has said that all of the new material is "rather all right." That's not the most compelling promise that we've ever heard, but we're still excited.

5. Various Artists - Smugglers Way
This inventive zine/flexi-disc package is coming out through Domino Records/Ribbon Music, and its five flexi-discs each contain a previously unreleased song. The contributors are Real Estate, Dirty Projectors, Cass McCombs, John Maus and Villagers. These singles come with a 24-page zine that brings together written and visual works from Laura Marling and Owen Pallett, plus members of Real Estate, Twin Sister, Wild Beasts, Black Dice and Lower Dens.

4. Animal Collective - Transverse Temporal Gyrus
Experimental pop unit Animal Collective have reportedly been working on new material, but an album has yet to emerge since their 2010 hiatus. Luckily, we've got this twelve-inch vinyl to tide us over. It contains the soundtrack to the band's 2010 Guggenheim Museum installation, which was previously paired with visuals by collaborator Danny Perez.

3. Dinosaur Jr. - The Electric Anthology Project of Dinosaur Jr.
Built to Spill previously gave themselves a synth-y makeover with their Electric Anthology Project, and Built to Spill's Brett Nelson has now helped Dinosaur Jr. to do the same. We'll get to hear these usually guitar-heavy tunes in a whole new light, and the icing on the cake is that Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis sings on every track.

2. Mastadon/Feist - Split Seven-Inch + Mastodon/The Flaming Lips Split Seven-Inch
Metal masters Mastodon are showing off their stylistic range this Record Store Day by teaming up with a couple of decidedly un-heavy acts. Their surprising split with Feist finds them covering her "A Commotion," while the Canuck songstress performs a version of the band's "Black Tongue." As for their split with the Flaming Lips, Mastodon have covered the psych-pop troupe's "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton." This is backed with the original version of the song.

1. The Flaming Lips - The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends
Easily the most hyped release of this year's Record Store Day, this double collaborative LP contains songs recorded with the likes of Bon Iver, Ke$ha, Nick Cave, Chris Martin of Coldplay, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Erykah Badu, Yoko Ono, Neon Indian, Lightning Bolt and many more. In the future, there may be a limited-edition version containing the contributors' blood. For now, these have been pressed on unique multi-coloured vinyl, with no two copies looking the same. If that won't bring people out to their local record store, we don't know what will.

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