Miskatonic University Press

Sleep

music

Saturday night I was passing by Soundscapes, the best music store I know in Toronto, so I went in to see what they had. I usually only buy CDs at gigs now, because I use a streaming music service, but I saw something that isn’t available streaming and I would like to have as a real object: the full eight-hour performance of Sleep by Max Richter.

It’s eight CDs plus a Blu-ray that has everything on one disc. I don’t actually have a CD player any more—it broke a long time ago, and then my DVD player broke a couple of years ago—so I needed to rip it (I use FLAC) to listen to it. I put in the first disc and was very surprised: the disc wasn’t part of Sleep!

Not sleep

Rhythmbox recognized it as Toggo Music 41, which is some kind of compilation CD by many different artists. The disc is printed as CD 1 of Sleep and has the Deutsche Grammophon label on it, however. Very strange! What’s going on in the DG factory?

I phoned Soundscapes, and they said I should bring it back for credit or exchange. They only have one copy of the box in at a time, though. I asked how long it would take to get a replacement in and the fella said he didn’t know, I’d have to bring it in.

I wanted to buy a physical copy so a local store could get some of my money, but now because of this bizarre printing error I’m going to have to make three visits there just to get the right version. I think it’s important to go to some extra effort to support local businesses, but one doesn’t expect Nature to introduce glitch like this into everyday life. However, one must accept it.