Duster: Stratosphere (25th anniversary edition, 180g) [NUMERO]

Why you'll love it

Numero's numbered 25th anniversary edition puts Stratosphere on 180g vinyl with a lyric sheet and poster. It's the record that built Duster a devoted following long after it first came out, and it's now counted among the key albums of slowcore and lo-fi.

This edition

• 25th anniversary edition
• 180g vinyl
• Numbered
• Lyric sheet
• Poster included

About the album

Some records arrive with a fanfare; Stratosphere drifted in, hung around and slowly took over. Clay Parton and Canaan Dove Amber formed Duster in San Jose in 1996, fresh from a short-lived screamo band called Mohinder, and swung hard the other way: quiet vocals, sparse arrangements and the warm hiss of cheap analog gear.

They made it at home, in a studio they called Low Space Orbit, and Up Records put it out in 1998. Sixteen songs pass like weather systems: the hazy "Moon Age" and "Heading for the Door," the slow-burning "Inside Out," "Topical Solution," the title track and "Constellations," all space rock, slowcore and shoegaze melted into one. Parton and Amber wrote and recorded nearly all of it between them, and the warm tape hiss is part of the charm.

Its reputation grew by word of mouth, through online forums and collectors, until Numero Group gave the band's catalogue a full reissue in 2019 and Duster came back after nearly two decades away. The studio name is about as close to a mission statement as the band ever issued.

Also at Kops: more Duster on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Numero Group (cat# NUM925), a reissue of the 1998 album.