Well, this is getting embarrassing now. Maybe I’ve just started noticing more of these, but I was in the charity shop just yesterday and I noticed yet another “injket warrior” CD. Good lord, I really need to come up with a better name for those. Any suggestions welcome in the comments. But for new viewers, these are basically bands, or individuals that release their own music on CDRs, before online streaming was a thing, and the disc covers and/or labels were produced on a consumer inkjet printer. I happened to be browsing the Alice House Hospice, in the lovely fishing village of Hartlepool, when this beauty emerged from the rows of bloody Perry Como and Il Divo…
This one instantly piqued my interest, namely “Okus Dolphin – Dark Sirens Of The night” . It was a single. Normally, these type of homebrew ones appear in the charity shops as albums. It also included a club mix of some sort, so it certainly wasn’t going to be your run-of-the-mill country CD or anything like that.
The case wasn’t in the greatest shape, but I could see, lying on the grey plastic tray underneath was my nemesis. A CD with another printed label. Well, how could I resist? Would it play? Under the shop lights it looked fine. No scratches, and no obvious damage. My heart was pounding with excitement, as I threw over a shiny pound coin to the shopkeep, who, before my interruption was carefully sticking coat hangers inside ladies’ clothers.
33p later, I took it home, went out for a few bevvies, came home and was excited to listen to it. I pressed play… My heart sank. There was the all-to-familiar audio crackle that proves, once again, the bloody CD label has ruined this otherwise perfect CD. I was gutted. I listened to track 1 through the crackles, namely “Dark Sirens Of The Night”. A catchy little number. No idea of the lyrics, or what it was about, but I really quite liked it (turns out the lyrics are printed on the inside ofn the sleeve… a nice touch!). A couple more plays… nope, no better.
Sadly, another one I didn’t get to in time.
As you can see from the disk, something odd appears. You can see the original branding of the CDR showing through. Not something I’ve noticed with other ruined CDs, but, yes, there are also the telltale black spots showing, and maybe it’s just the light in that photo, but the dye seems a little discoloured too. Thanks to the damage, I can see this was a “Master” branded CD-R, wich I believe were sold exclusively in Staples.
I wasn’t intending doing a write-up of this disk until much later, but then I noticed that Okus Dolphin was active on Twitter (it’s not X, it never will be X), 21 MINUTES before I listened to the CD… considering this disk is now 23 years old, I didn’t expect that.
Turns out, this is the first case where a ruined disc isn’t lost media! Apparently, all of the tracks are available on Spotify, thanks to an album dated 2008
There’s a demo version of “Dark Sirens Of The Mind” on there too, but it also seems the tape was used as a multitrack or a drum loop too, so it’s pretty unlistenable.
Overall, it’s a shame the CD didn’t survive, but I’m over the moon that I’d discovered a catchy, original song I actually like. I don’t expect that to happen too often during this journey.
