Flotation Toy Warning: is it the world’s affairs we’d like to stop ?
Why, two decades later, are we still so attached to this album ? How can we explain our perpetual return to it ? The passing years ? The diminishing years that remain? Is it a desire to make the world stand still ?
Before “Bluffer’s Guide to The Flight Deck”, in 2002, the band released two EPs:. “I Remember Trees” & “The Special Tape”. These two EPs are now available on 10-inch vinyl, limited edition (350, but only 325 copies will be for sale), They have been numbered by hand and are available exclusively from the Talitres webstore and Bandcamp.
Here are below some notes from Paul Carter:
“I Remember Trees” (July 2002)
Our debut release, and for all of us our first ever proper musical release of any kind. At the time, like undried paint and glue on some rickety home-made flying machine, the ’sound’ of Flotation Toy Warning was yet to solidify. The culmination of two or three years of flailing around trying to figure out how to be a band, this EP went a very long way in defining exaclty what that sound was. And as everyone says, you always remember the first time.
“The Special Tape” (November 2002)
Listening back to The Special Tape feels rather like rediscovering a long forgotten sturdy wooden box at the back of some elderly relative’s attic, hidden behind an overly large, dust encrusted painting. Concealed inside are a fascinating array of shiny, angular objects rescued from an old, long demolished clothes factory. This is the only place you’ll find ’Live From The Lake In The Sky’ and ’Best Boy Electric’. Even ’Popstar Researching Oblivion’ is dressed more eccentrically here than in its bolder Bluffer’s version. “If you face was a plate, I’d be late for every dinner...”
