Handsome

Somewhere in the late 90s someone told me about a band called Handsome. I don't know how they heard of the band, although to be fair I can't remember how we found out about anything pre-internet. Anyway, the main attraction to the band seemed to be that Tom Capone was in it and it sounded vaguely like Quicksand. What I remember most though was a local record shop had a huge pile of the band's full length CD on sale dirt cheap pretty much as soon as it came out. I think I bought one for about £3 brand new... and this was in an era when CDs were £10-12 as standard. The album was pretty good, although not as good as Quicksand. But it always felt weird that this band had seemingly come out of nowhere, put out an album on a major label which probably didn't do very well, and then disappeared. At least, that's what it felt like happened from where I was sitting... which was a few thousand miles away.

Fast forward to 2013 (a full 16 years after the album was first released) and 6131 Records decided to release it for the first time properly, i.e. on vinyl. There were 100 on clear vinyl (which sold out fast and I missed) and 400 on 'silver' vinyl.

So the thing I don't understand is why, after sixteen years of no vinyl existing for this thing, two labels both put this out within a few weeks of each other. Like I said, I got mine from 6131 Records. Only a few weeks later, Shop Radio Cast (a weird label that only seems to put out vinyl releases of older CD only albums) also put it out as an LP with a bonus 7" included. I have never heard of two labels both simultaneously re-releasing an old record before. Did these two labels both know the other was putting out the same record? Are the labels somehow connected? Was it planned? Is it a coincidence? Does anyone know? Does anyone else care?

Fucking weird.