IEX Half-Speed Mastered on Double 180-Gram Vinyl

2023 marks 50 years since Waits released his landmark debut album, Closing Time. Called “a minor key masterpiece filled with songs of late-night loneliness” by All Music Guide, Closing Time features the distinctly lyrical storytelling and blending of jazz, blues and folk styles that would come to be Waits’ hallmark sound. In Rolling Stone’s original 1973 review of the record, writer Stephen Holden immediately detects elements of pathos and bathos that will be poured over by fans and journalists in Waits’ records for years to come, saying that Waits “parodies the lounge music sub-genre so perfectly that we wonder if he’s putting us on or if he’s for real, and it is his especial triumph that in the end he has it both ways: He is able to deliver whole both the truth and the sham of the music.”

The album’s 50th anniversary vinyl is available for the first time as a double 180-gram LP cut at 45 RPM with half-speed mastering by London’s Abbey Road Studios. The gatefold jacket was also specially created with thicker board and black poly-lined inner sleeves.

IEX: Clear
STD: Black

Released: 6/2/23