Vital Vinyl: Fake Blood

Join us as we delve deep into the record crates of the worlds best DJ's and uncover their most treasured slabs of wax… This week with Fake Blood

The album is the soundtrack to one of my favourite movies of all time - "The Andromeda Strain", from 1971.

The LP was pressed on hexagonal vinyl, and then packaged in a metallic sleeve, where the record was held within a 6-petalled lens, made of silver card flaps that interlocked to close around the LP, and then mounted on a thick card square of normal LP size.

Truly bizarre, and no doubt cost a bomb to make. The record also came with a printed warning:

"Dues to the unusual shape of this record, only use manual control on record player, or needle damage will result".

The music is incredible but highly strange electronic pulses, noise, warbles, and drones. It was composed by the legendary Gil Melle. Beautiful but creepy, just like the film, but hardly mainstream - and when combined with the strange packaging, made the album a complete non-seller, which is now quite hard to find. A real collectors' curio.

Theo