Liquid Glass

Next up on my series of Revelation test pressings that I picked up from a former Rev employee is Rev 52, which is the second full length by Whirlpool, 'Liquid Glass'.

Originally released back in 1996, Whirlpool was a band fronted by Rodney Sellars, best known for playing guitar in both Sensefield and Reason To Believe. Back when this came out, Sensefield were a pretty big deal, so I'm not entirely sure why Rodney felt the need to do a second band, although I'm sure I read at some point over the years that he was at a creative peak, writing a lot of material, not all of which seemed quite right for Sensefield. So Whirlpool was formed, and also included someone from Mean Season, as well as the drummer from Sensefield.

I remember this one coming out, and I remember at the time thinking that it was a much stronger record than their debut LP. But as much as I did enjoy this record at the time, it hasn't really proved to be one that I go back to very often.

As the picture shows, I actually picked up two test pressings for this record. The first test press (on the left) is a two sided record, but for whatever reason the A side was rejected. This has actually happened with a few Rev records, and generally what happens is that a new test is made only for the defective side. So the second test press (on the right) is a one sided record, and contains a recut of the A side of this LP.

Fun fact - any record that was remade has the same matrix but for the addition of 'RE' (presumably meaning 'recut'). Sometimes just the defective side was recut as a new test, sometimes both sides. But it's quite fun to go through the Rev records and check out the matrix on either side. If you spot the 'RE' it means that there are at least 2 test pressings made for that particular record. Which also means more to collect, of course.