This morning, I travelled to Devizes in Wiltshire to visit Discovery Records. Headline not a wasted journey. Kieran Moore my host, gave me the five bob guided tour – look don’t touch – around their set up. Can only say an impressive organisation. The functional administration office opens into the warehouse wall to wall to near ceiling cds, Folk, Classical, World Music and I think some pop. Of course as a distributor when you look at the racks it is lots of the same as they deal in bulk. I didn’t take pictures but it looks impressive.

Kieran lead me across the yard to the jewel in the crown of their site, rather like a young boy with a dirty secret he opened the door and guided me upstairs, not only a distributor, but a producer too. A team press, assemble and pack cds. So they are able to support smaller producers and artists who require smaller numbers, so your local garage band who is moving from the handful of home pressed EPs can move to the lower hundreds. I was shown the packaging and assembly line where the sleeves and inserts are added, good quality and they should be rightly proud of their set up. They even have a machine that applies that annoying film wrap which is so hard to get off.  You will hear move of Discovery Records as they are good, local and need recognition.

That annoying film wrap was was I got home to with today’s mail delivery. In amongst the daily junk mail delivery our post lady handed Jun a package from JapanCD, which is early than I was expecting so a welcome surprise. The latest offering from Rami, formerly vocalist with Aldious, her solo album Aspiration. That blend that Japan is mastering so well at the moment, pretty girl with a sweet voice fronting heavy metal. The use of orchestral backing and an opening overture puts it more in the melodic end of heavy metal, but it makes for pleasant listening as I write. The bonus was a dvd of Jimi Hendrix, but I shall have to wait until later to watch that.