People Of The Sun

Another Revelation test press that I got from an ex Rev employee, and this one is Rev 56, which is the 'People Of The Sun' 10" by Rage Against The Machine. This one was released in 1997, and when it came out I thought it was a slightly weird release. At the time, RATM were a huge band and even though Rev was possibly at it's peak in terms of sales and distribution, RATM were clearly too big for the label. God only knows how this one ever actually came to be.

This EP was released as a 6 song record, which is interesting as the major label release on CD had only 3 songs. At the time it came out I couldn't care less about it, as at that point I had decided that RATM was garbage. I bought a copy when it was released just because it was on Rev, but I don't think I listened to it even once. WHat is even stranger is that as the years have rolled on, this has been repressed several times on different colours of vinyl. To me this really does feel like a 'time and place' type record, and not really one that should have been kept in print. I'm not sure I can really explain why, but that's how I feel about it.

Well anyway, even though I am not the biggest fan of this record, I still jumped at the chance to grab this test press. As with a few other releases from the same period, there were only 4 test pressings made, so this is a nice one to have for sure. Also, it barely shows in the photo, but this one has a slight whisp of white in it on each side, which looks kinda cool in real life.

Sadly I hadn't kept up on buying all the colours of this one over the years. But I'm definitely wanting to grab the copies I missed after picking up this test. So here's the 2022 clear vinyl repress:

There's also now a grey vinyl pressing from this year that I need to pick up. But interestingly, both the clear and grey were pressed at a different pressing plant to the earlier pressings, and there is (you guessed it) another test press from this plant. So plenty to keep collectors going.

I still need the red vinyl from 2014 (with '2014' stemped on the label) and the green vinyl version. If by any chance anyone can help I'd be very grateful.