Adding to the LP vs. CD discussion - some of my own thoughts. The LP experience is a bit different than a CD or digital download - you usually sit down and listen to an LP as a whole, maybe in one or two sittings. And there is an "intermission" when you have to flip it over and also for the "hidden" last track. CD's / digital files are easier to sample and flip through, quickly.

I agree with arcane93's feelings on the lossy downloads being inferior. And, in this particular case, even more so - I found a large amount of clipping on the MP3's being offered with the LP purchase (not that I was planning on using them, anyway. I just wanted the PDF and the one extra track being offered).

Lastly, I'm sure many of you have heard about the "loudness wars". Going on the "Castaways" download from TGA, I had assumed that the CD was going to be way too loud for my tastes - so, I opted for the vinyl and crossed my fingers that the vinyl master would be different than the CD master. So far, I'm happy with the sound of the vinyl and can even record them to my own 24-bit 48KHz FLAC's. I won't really know if those will have a better sound than the CD tracks unless I purchase the CD, as well.

Is there a list of the available b-sides? I was unaware of a few of these songs so it would help in my search to know what songs to look for.

If you have the 2CD Palo Santo, I think you have all of the extra tracks for that:
My Only Boy
Every Hook Every Eye (noise)
Special Rider Blues (Skip James cover)
Sing Little Birdie (unused 2007 rerecording)
Palo Santo (unused 2007 rerecording)
Discontinuities (noise)
Red Sea Black Sea (alternate version with violin)
Failed Queen (demo)

Except for:
Lilacs, a Baby Dee cover, which can be had with the vinyl download code or from iTunes. (TBH, my least-listened-to Shearwater track.)

There was also Fierce Little Lark from the Daytrotter session.

Rook had the Snow Leopard EP, which covers almost everything:
So Bad (Baby Dee cover)
North Col
Henry Lee (traditional murder ballad)
Rooks (radio session)
I Was A Cloud (radio session)
South Col/Snow Leopard (live)

The Rooks 7" single had The Rainbow, a great if too faithful Talk Talk cover, as a b-side. I think I recorded mine off YouTube.

The Golden Archipelago is easy, with only:
The Silver Bodies
Anak Rakata
False Sentinel

And don't miss the .

So far I'm So Glad is the only extra track from Animal Joy, but I expect that to change.

I'm ignorant of anything prior to Palo Santo, but there are some rare tracks only available on compilations:
Helix (Esopus magazine, out of print?)
Professor Nightmare (available from eMusic, elsewhere?)
Remember the Tiger (from Preserve Vol 1, out of print, on last.fm)

And some remarkable live recordings:
Tomorrow (Clinic cover)
(Eno cover)
Nibelungen (Nico a capella cover)
(Peter Gabriel cover)
What A Wonderful World (Louis Armstrong cover)
(Rodgers and Hammerstein)
Big Huge Valley (Vic Chesnutt a capella cover)
(Randy Newman cover)
(Tom Petty/Stevie Nicks cover by Sharon Van Shearwater)

Don't forget "Escape From Holy Mountain" from the Animal Joy demos.

All of the live rarities can be found .

Hi

Can I pick the brains of the collective on this same issue/thread ?

In the context of the box [not box but dossier] tour only issue about to happen.... here <https://shearwater.bandcamp.com/merch/the-complete-island-arc> I am interested to hear what ye think ?

JM says on FB that if you have all of their releases to date including bandcamp stuff, you will have most of this collection... but I have been waiting for 'Fierce Little Lark' for nearly a decade to arrive in CD-quality as it was only available on Daytrotter and elsewhere as 128kps stream/mp3. It is a special track and one I always return to and as a 7 inch with a fanzine, as planned initially, I don't know if it ever saw the light of day. In the Complete Island Arc, it is listed as an "uncollected" along with 'Helix' and 'Remember the Tiger', amongst others.

This is obviously a thread for completists (and I am not really one) and so I am asking, is this package worth it ?
In the past, I actually would have said that I would fork out €80 (?) for a HD version of this one track, but in the cold light of day I am thinking again. Book a ticket, get to the gig and fork out for the package if it is there and available at that venue to satisfy my need ?
It isn't available anywhere and won't be in the future, amirite ?

Would love to hear your thoughts on this,

thanks

b

That was actually me (the IT guy) recommending that you not. It's mostly intended for people who might have one or two of the Matador albums and don't realize most of this stuff exists.

The uncompressed studio recording of Fierce Little Lark is, as far as we know, completely lost. One of the casualties of the time the van was broken into in DC and JM's laptop stolen.

This one was provided to me in an mp3 archive along with Rook radio performances and demos. It sounds very similar to the Daytrotter one to my ears, and may be the same. I tried to get a lossless version of the Daytrotter one from the Daytrotter folks, but they appear not to have lossless recordings either. The Palo Santo demos likewise only existed as MP3s. Both were important to include for everyone who's never heard them at all, though.

Everything else in the bonus materials (see ) is CD-quality, though, and can be downloaded as wav/aif/flac. Matador does not yet support lossless audio downloads, so the studio albums are still 320 kbps mp3s.

We would like to release some pieces of this set separately, but it's not entirely up to us. We'll let you know as soon as we know for sure.