ROUND THE EDGES

Guess everyone who collects (or collected) vinyl eventually went through the stage of unhealthy interest to obscure LPs. As for me, I had 40-year experience of collecting vinyl, and went through that stage as well. However, believe or not, the original edition of the only studio album by Dark is the only rare/obscure/valuable vinyl that I never wanted to buy. No, not due to its high price. I heard about the band Dark since my youth. Many people told me that owning this megarare ('rarest in the world'!) record is every collector's dream. Judge for yourself. Only 64 copies were made in total. And, despite of the hyper limited quantity, as many as five versions of the original cover exist! Namely, 12 colour gatefolds, 2 'special' colour gatefolds (I even don't know what it means...), 1 white doodle on sleeve (oh this one is familiar to me, no need to say that I never held it in my hands but I saw the photo), 12 black & white gatefolds and 37 black & white single sleeves. (See Discogs.) What a luxury! Just become a millionaire, grab a copy of each one, and pride! Yes. Really the most wanted vinyl on the Globe. (See Discogs again: 62 have, i.e. almost the entire initial run is reported to be owned by collectors, and 1883 want.)

And - on the other hand - probably one of the most boring musical works on the Globe. The album is quite short (about 39 minutes), but it cost me a lot of effort to listen to it to the end. (In early 1990s, a mate bought a copy of the first UK vinyl reissue at Gorbushka, so I was able at last to get acquainted with this legendary record.) Mott The Hoople meets Necromandus and they sadly miss each other because Necromandus gets lost - that's how I would describe the music. Many years ago I heard the gossip that the band experienced serious difficulties with distributing the original vinyl, up to that some copies were offered at gasoline stations as a change. No idea if it's true or not, but as for me (sorry for cynicism), I would better get a copy as a change in a shop than pay even $50 for the Akarma reissue, not to mention $35000 for that 'white doodle' orig (see above). I'd say the only track of interest is Maypole, it's based on a very pleasant musical theme. However, this theme repeats during 5 minutes without any development, so it also finally becomes boring. The album is usually considered heavy prog and/or heavy psych. But how could it be compared to (for example) early Rush if we speak of heavy prog, or (for example!) Lava if we speak of heavy psych?