Sold Date: October 24, 2020
Start Date: September 21, 2020
Final Price: $21.50 (USD)
Seller Feedback: 148
Buyer Feedback: 0

Georgio Moroder, David Bowie
Cat People Original Soundtrack LP
MCA VIM-7282
Japanese Pressing (famous for their fanatical quality control & pure vinyl formulations)
Contains 1-page Lyric Sheet with notes in Japanese and Lyrics in English
With OBI Strip
Awarded "SPECIAL MERIT:Film and Broadway Score" By The Absolute Sound magazine (TAS)

Item Details
Manufactured By: Victor Musical Industries, Inc. Tokyo, Japan
Recorded: At Carla Ridge Beverly Hills, and Mountain Recording, Montreux
Original Issue: April 2, 1982
This Issue: 1982
Label: MCA VIM-7282
Runout Deadwax Matrix Numbers:
Side 1: MCA-2968 1 1 1 ⁛ (etch:) T (stamp:) ∧ X
Side 2: MCA-2969 1 1 1 ⁛ (etch:) R R S
Was bought new by this seller many years ago and now offered from his private collection (you have absolutely known provenance). Has had just a few plays only on an expertly setup high-end audiophile turntable, arm, and cartridge. Has never been exposed to heat or tobacco smoke and always stored vertically in a specially designed record cabinet (Rackit) to prevent warpage.
Was cleaned on a VPI HW 16 with Audio Intelligent solutions and ultra-pure water rinse (50X purer than distilled water) before my pre-sale sound check. I wear nitrile surgical gloves while cleaning and play testing to avoid any chance of transferring finger oils to the vinyl.
Very sensitive play testing was performed straight off my Ayre P-5xe fully balanced phono preamp over Sennheiser HD 600 headphones using a Schiit Audio Valhalla 2 tube headphone amp fitted with Voskhod Soviet matched tubes (see last photo).

Track list
1: Cat People (Putting Out Fire), The Autopsy, Irena's Theme, Night Rabbit, Leopard Tree Dream.

2: Paul's Theme, The Myth, To The Bridge, Transformation Seduction, Bring The Pod.

I never take "distant" photos nor the so-prevalent type with the LP sticking halfway out of the jacket. I take close-ups under photo lamps so you can see nearly everything I describe in the jacket grading. It is virtually impossible to know the true vinyl condition from any photograph. That takes very bright and close visual inspection PLUS play testing with thorough coverage on high resolution equipment.
Grading Details
Note: Record grading by text characters is subjective and does not fully describe quality levels. Please see photos and my detailed descriptions below.

Outer Jacket Inspection:
NM
There are a couple of very short microscopic trails of rubbing wear on the top and bottom edges. There is a single tiny rub mark on the middle of the spine edge. The corners have the tiniest amounts of rub wear. The front and back jacket faces are perfect. There are no creases or corner bumps. The OBI is NM. Please examine my photos carefully so you can judge the grading to your own personal opinion.

Vinyl visual inspection:
After cleaning, surface visuals were inspected under high intensity halogen light. I rotated and tilted the record in multiple angles with my eyes a few inches away from the vinyl. On side 1 I found one trace at the beginning of Track 1 that looked like the result of a light tone arm bump causing the stylus to slip. Since there was possibility of causing repeating ticks or clicks per revolution I made a note to check it carefully during play testing (see below). Otherwise Side 1 looked perfect, as did Side 2. I applied the LAST vinyl wear prevention treatment to both sides before my very first play. Thus the stickers you see on the labels.

Play Testing:
NM/NM
Extensive play testing was performed after visual inspection. I listened to the beginning, middle, and end of each track for a few minutes on each needle drop. I also listened to all lead-in, lead-out and transition grooves between each track. Some tracks were played all the way thru when digitizing my favorites to 192k/24-bit WAV files. Continuous written notes were taken. Here is rundown of each track from my notes.

Side 1 Play
S1:T1 is the main theme and at the starting instrumental the sound stage is a mile wide and deep. When Bowie begins the vocal he absolutely kills it right from start to finish. This is the most outstanding track on the whole record. I'm happy to report that the trace I found during my visual check did not result in repeating ticks. I listened very carefully and heard nothing but the music. But because I also digitized Track 1 I went into ProTools and listened again, both on the phones and my near-field monitors. I heard one nearly imperceptible tiny tiny tick in the vocals but wasn't sure if I was within or past the area of that artifact. True to typical Japanese mastering and pressing quality the audio has crisp transient detail, crystal clarity. incisive attack, and a soundstage that is a mile wide and a mile deep. If you are fan of electronic music and synths take a look at the list of them on the rear jacket. There many impressive synth riffs on this LP such as in T3. The rest of side 1 showed exceptional quality. The transition grooves were very quiet and that was indicative of the overall very low vinyl noise floor keeping music clean and without distractions.

Side 2 Play
Track 1 was a refrain of the main theme and had really impressive bass-synth passages. On Track 2 Bowie vocalizes a refrain of the main theme heard on S1:T1. Everything good I described about Side 1 was just as good on Side 2 with its own individual gems. As I was play testing I found myself staying on tracks longer and sometimes losing a sense of time because the music and audio quality just pulled me in to an almost  meditative state. No question in my mind that both sides qualified for an NM play grade.

Packaging Record will be placed outside the jacket to protect against seam splitting. Original inner sleeve is included separately as is the notes and lyric sheet. Record has been placed into a new MFSL-style "rice paper" sleeve, as the original, even though plastic, may be holding onto some dust. This will keep vinyl surfaces clean during shipping and ultimate buyer usage. Outer jacket is contained in a new clear polyethylene protective sleeve. Sent in good quality record mailer with cardboard stiffeners.
Shipping Shipping will be via USPS Media Mail for a flat charge of $3.98 per single album sale. A combined shipping discount is available on multiple sales completed within 5 business days($3.98 plus $0.50 for each additional LP). If you intend to buy more than one LP please let me know and do not pay immediately but wait for my all-combined invoice. A discount for the combined items will show on that invoice. Then, once payment is received, the items will ship.