I read in the sleeve notes to Bright Carving’s NTP “Upstaged” that Seelie Court’s reissue of NTP’s self-titled 10” on Deroy was “unofficial”. Is this true?
I have permission from Jon to post this regarding this release.
I was working with Seelie Court when the NTP LP 10” was re-issued (and actually I now own that copy!). What was missing was the envelope that contained the lyrics and the band details so there was no information anywhere on the sleeve or the label that would have helped track the band down and get their permission. SC did a fairly exhaustive search with what they had (Deroy, a Band Name, Song Titles) but nothing. So the label decided to release it anyway with a note on the rear sleeve explaining this and inviting the musicians to get in touch. This is known as “Anonymous Copyright” but it does mean the release was “Unofficial”, permission had not been granted. Incidentally Bright Carvings has released two “Unofficial” LPs in the same way: Monk and Music Box. In neither case, so far, have the artists come forward.
When the first copy of Upstaged emerged it DID have an envelope and it was possible to track down Robert Hickson. By then I had stopped working with Seelie Court and started my own label, Bright Carvings, and I secured the permanent, exclusive rights to all the NTP material (5 LPs and an EP), including the 10”. Robert was completely unaware of the existence of the reissue and more pleased than anything, he understood that without the envelope finding him would have been impossible. He agreed that it wasn’t worth making a fuss but, obviously, any subsequent release would be Official and on Bright Carvings. In due course it will come out (probably on CD as there are, I believe 600 vinyl LPs out there which probably fills that part of the market), but expanded with about 15 minutes of material from the Acetate EP that pre-dates it by about 6 months.
Thank you so much for the response. Keep up the great work you’re doing with Bright Carvings. I just received NTP and Tim Phillips. Both are excellent!
I have no horse in this race and I have no idea where Seelie Court are going to manufacture their “ecovinyl” but I do own the new ‘Selected Ambient Works II’ 4 LP reissue pressed by Optimal using BioVinyl (which I assume is something similar to the above mentioned “ecovinyl”) and it sounds fantastic. No problems with that one at all.
There’s some more info here in case anyone’s interested:
I am actually me and not anyone else. As I said above, I have no horse in this race. I’m here for the music. Life is way too short for me to argue over trivial matters with complete strangers on the internet. To be fair, I have crossed paths with Black-Shuck before (on Discogs), and let’s just say we see a lot of things in completely different ways.