We have to admit that being able to plug a guitar cable into a vinyl record to tap into onboard effects hasn't really been on our wishlist. But now that Romanus Records and ADD Pedals have actually built such a thing to mark the release of Brother O Brother's Skin Walker album, we so want one.
Based in Indianapolis, the fuzz-rock duo Brother O Brother is no stranger to, well, strange limited-edition formats for its vinyl releases on Romanus Records. The band's Neon Native album was treated to its own LED light show in 2017, and other label releases have mixed vinyl with such bizarre and diverse ingredients as dinosaur bones, broken records, psychedelic liquid and colored sand.
The limited-run Skin Walker outing that's caught our attention actually comes as two records, one for the A side and the other for the B side – each about an inch thick. They are playable, though listeners will need a turntable with vertical adjustment so that the tonearm can rise above the grooves.
Inside that significant girth is arguably where the real fun starts, courtesy of a collaboration with pedal maker Audio Disruption Devices from Mooresville, Indiana.
One record is home to a sweet delay circuit with four parameter knobs to the top half of the label and a push switch on the lower half. The other hosts an overdrive/boost circuit, also with control knobs and a switch on the label.
Either way, there's an instrument jack to the record's chunky edge for plugging in a guitar and an output for routing the signal to an amp. This of course means that you won't be able to spin the record on the turntable and make use of the effects wizardry at the same time, but that's a moot point anyway as it looks as though all 35 of the US$400 limited-run lots have been snapped up.
Chris Banta of both Romanus Records and Brother O Brother has revealed that a second batch will be created at some point in the future, and will be open to international buyers. In the meantime, the new album from Brother O Brother is available for pre-order in other colorful vinyl non-FX editions. You can get a taste of what's what in the video below.
Source: Romanus Records