On Record Store Day 2011 (Saturday 16th April) I got up very early, headed into Brighton’s town centre and began queuing outside of Resident Records in order to get my hands on some of the limited edition records being released that morning. When the sun eventually rose and the smiling staff of Resident arrived, myself and the other Record Store Day devotees were rewarded with a package of free promo CDs.

One of said promo CDs is pictured above. It was from an artist/band called I Am Voyager 1.

Opening up the package revealed a golden cardboard CD sleeve, a hand numbered CD (mine was 31/125), a rubber band, a post office crayon, a five pence piece from 1978, a wedding trivia question card and a folded piece of paper with the CDs track listing and a story about guitars written on it.

This interested me further, my sleep deprived mind filled my head with ideas of grandious power pop, or bizarre synth rock. Either way I was excited to get it home and have a listen.

However, when I did eventually get home and had another look through the package I was a bit more skeptical. A crayon? What are you trying to say with this? And why have I been given a five pence piece from 1978?

This promo was beginning to look more like a sixth form art project and a lot less like a carefully thought out marketing campaign. Still, I decided to hold back judgement until I’d listened to the music. That was what was important, that’s what I should care about, not the packaging.

I listened to all four tracks of the I Am Voyager 1 CD and I can tell you that you should not do the same, no matter how much the packaging may, or may not, interest you.