I actually ordered this on Boxing day and forgot about it until today.

My first album purchase of 2019:

Zavvi had a sale on 2 for £26 on UK Criterion, which is probably the best price I've found them for since they launched the UK range.

Thanks for the rec, Colin. Really loving this. Reminds me a lot of Piece of Time-era Atheist. But what's with the album and song titles? Someone got a bit carried away with the dictionary me thinks. 'Viral Exogence'. 'Sentient Transmography'. 'Pyrophoric Seizure'. God damn 'Mordirivial Dissemination'. Even that album title... I can't even.

^^Also received Death In Venice blu-ray (Criterion)

I've gone nuts buying blu's this month, mostly due to the Criterion Barnes and Noble sale.

Statters, are you familiar with the respective Criterion and Artificial Eye releases of Solaris and Stalker? Just wondering which are the better options, I've seen the AE versions locally.

The Criterion Solaris is superior mostly because of the features. The transfer is similar. The AE one is a tad brighter. I don't know if it's more accurate or not.

Stalker is more controversial. The colour scenes are far superior on the Criterion disc, but the sepia sections of the film have a yellow tinge that is absent from the AE disc and doesn't seem accurate to the original colour timing. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that an employee of Mosfilm basically said that Criterion messed with their original transfer, or something along those lines.

For comparisons:

Solaris: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film5/blu-ray_reviews_73/solaris_blu-ray.htm

Stalker: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare5/stalker3.htm

Nice one, I'll persue that when I get in from work. At a quick glance, the AE Solaris has a 7 mins. longer running time, I know it's hard enough to get a complete version.

Doesn't seem to be a Region B Criterion Solaris, so that's that decision made. Might as well pick that up at least.

My DVD version is an Australian import with the dubbed English audio as default. A small thing but I never think of changing it and it always takes me out of it.

I don't think the AE version is actually longer.

The picture is pretty good. Worth buying for sure.

Yeah, I was looking at the DVD's running time.

ITP:
Slomatics: Canyon CD (finally!)
Pair of Adidas runners.

Slomatics live CD & T-shirt
Cursed Monk Records T-shirt