Make It Fit

Sometime last year I stumbled across the band Karate and quickly fell in love with their sound. Over the last few months I managed to pick up all their LPs and their records have been on constant rotation for all of 2024. 

I hadn‘t really been aware of the fact that the band was going to release a brand new record this year until Marcus made a post about Make It Fit on his blog. I eventually managed to find a mailorder carrying the new LP at a reasonable price and ordered a copy. This is a great listen. Perfect for quiet winter evenings for sitting on the couch and reading a book or getting some work done in the office. One of my favorites this year. 

1st Press on Crystal Clear (aka Bleach The Scene) on Numero Group /???

In Place Of Real Insight

There seems to be kind of a Karate resurgence be going on, at least in this little record blogger bubble. In his blog entry about the latest LP by Karate which was just released a couple of weeks ago, Marcus’ was kind enough to mention my posts about all the band’s records I picked up this year. Reading the entry, I noticed that one record I knew I already had was missing. Marcus hadn’t made a mistake, I simply hadn’t posted about the record yet for whatever reason. In Place of Real Insight is the band’s second LP, released back in 1997. I really enjoy this record. For me, it’s the whole package: Music’s cool, the minimalist artwork in combination with the haptic aspect aspect of the sleeve is awesome and the blue chosen for this repress works really well for me. This feels like a group effort to finally get me posting about this record. 

Also, this serves as a reminder that I need to pick up a copy of the new Karate LP after Marcus’ very positive review. 

Some Boots

One more puzzle piece down of the Karate discography. Some Boots is yet another stage of the band’s evolution and makes sense in the context of their whole catalogue. I sort of regret not getting the colored version for this record, but with records being as pricey as they are right now, I opted for the cheaper version. I really like the cover of this record. Very simple, very minimalistic, very good. 

2023 Repress on Black on Numero Group Records

 

Un/Solved

If you read my blog on a regular basis, you might have noticed that I really fell in love with the band Karate. And I mean really fell in love. Well, here’s another piece of their catalogue. This is so not what I usually listen to, but somehow it clicked. I sort of dig the black vinyl, but I wouldn’t have minded getting the clear/blue halo version. 

2023 Repress on Black on Numero Group /???

The Bed Is In The Ocean

One of my favorite discoveries of an old band in 2023 was the band Karate. The first record I got to know was their self titled debut, which I fell in love with head over heels. Luckily, all of their records have been repressed somewhat recently, although I had to wait what felt like forever until one of the distros I order from frequently had them back in stock. I’m usually not a big fan of striped vinyl, but it somehow works with this sleeve. The Bed Is In The Ocean is a Karate’s third LP and it’s also really good. It’s a little more jazz-influenced I guess, but that also makes it very interesting. 

2022 Repress on Lego Tri-Colour on Numero Group /???

As most records, this record also came in shrink-wrap. Personally. I hate shrink wrap. I get why labels do it, but I could do without it. It’s a waste of plastic and sometimes it deforms the records. In this case, the printed shrink-wrap this record came in left a permanent ink mark on the back of the sleeve. At least I’ll never forget this sleeve was printed in Canada. 

Karate

One of my favourite new discoveries of an old band last year was Karate. I picked up their s.t. LP after reading the description in the webstore of a mailorder I regularly order from. It sounded really interesting and I didn‘t get disappointed at all. There was a time, when all I listened to was this record. I just kept flipping it over and over and over again. Also, that green marble colour is awesome. It matches the artwork really well and if you hold the record up against the light, you can see that it‘s slightly transparent even though it looks solid when it lies flat on a surface. Just beautiful. 

The only drawback is that I haven‘t managed to get my hands on any more releases because they‘re sold out everywhere I looked. Oh well, I managed to spend decades without listening to this band. I guess, I‘ll manage for another few months. 

2022 Repress on Green Marble on Numero Group