Circles

Product Information

Both Swimming and Circles are pretty sub-par pressings, but Swimming is especially poor with a lot of surface noise and pops. The album contains two bonus songs, respectively titled “Right” and “Floating,” the latter featuring vocals and instrumentation by Thundercat. A routinely great artist, much of Sufjan's universal appeal comes from his skills as a gifted narrator, pairing personal musings on love and devotion with commentary on American culture, whilst welding folk and electronica, the ambient and existential. Over the last few months he has disarmed packed rooms of rowdy concert goers, leaving them silent as they hold fast to every syllable sung.

I'd recommend picking up the albums separately, I don't see any merit in choosing this instead, unless you really like the colour or something. It wasn't just the surface noise (which was terrible), but general playback sounded muted and muddy with painfully rolled-off treble. Now with a massively successful US tour opening for sweet soul darlings Thee Sacred Souls behind him, 2023 is sure to be a propitious year for Daptone's newest signee. His full length debut on Daptone Records is equal parts raw feeling and elegance and exudes confidence and charm.

Listeners will hear shades of some of the album's influences in its songs, from the T-Rex guitar tone of Surf to the Plastic Ono Band-era John Lennon feel of its production and the inspired cover of Arthur Lee's 1972 single Everybody's Gotta Live. Made in the EU" printed on back cover and LP labels, yet runouts indicate GZ Media plating (in Czech Republic) and Precision Record Pressing manufacturing (in Canada).

Back cover and LP labels say "Made in Czech Republic" yet runouts indicate GZ Media plating (in Czech Republic) and Precision Record Pressing manufacturing (in Canada). Circles" is what I hear complained about the most with posthumous releases , most of the beats feel looped and ideas seemed pasted together rather than cohesive.

After the announcement and eventual release of Mac Miller’s first, and only, posthumous album Circles, released on January 17, 2020, after Mac’s untimely accidental drug overdose. I was almost about to give up before taking a chance with the solid white version, which I can honestly say is at least equal in quality to the high-end digital versions.