Howdy Drifters -
We know you've been waiting a long time for your Hyper Light Drifter vinyl.
So have we.
Vinyl, as you can imagine, follows an intensive production process. It's very analog with lots of room for error. And as perfectionists, we're keen on continuing iteration until everything is JUST RIGHT.​
With the Hyper Light Drifter soundtrack, that iteration has been intense because of its super custom packaging. It doesn't follow a prescribed template, and as such, is a difficult thing to get right.
After MUCH back-and-forth with our plant representative, we JUST received the final Hyper Light Drifter vinyl package.
The vinyl look lovely.
The packaging, mechanically - with an embedded magnet enclosure - works in a unique and satisfying way.
However, the outer shell suffers from discoloration, an ill-centered image and oddly, artwork that was altered AFTER the proofing stage. "Proofing" is important to the printing process because it requires that design documents receive a signature of APPROVAL before going to print. Unfortunately, after that part of the process here, changes were made to the artwork without our explicit permission.
The result is outer artwork that we're simply not happy with, and in good conscience, we've recommended to Heart Machine and Disasterpeace, that we correct the errors enabled by this unfortunate meddling on the production side.
We take this very seriously, and as such, have expressed our disapproval to our production representative, going as far as to threaten our ongoing working relationship (which up to now has been 7+ years strong). Suffice to say that our excitement about collaborating with them in the future has been curbed.
To remedy this issue, we're taking matters into our own hands, and have already implemented a solution that will take approx. 3-4 weeks to complete.
Again:
- The vinyl is lovely... and sounds GREAT!
- The core structure of the package is classy as hell!
It's simply the outer "wrap" that suffers from unauthorized alteration, and requires us to do a full reprint of the packaging.
We appreciate your patience and will honor any requests for refunds. That said, we think you'll be quite pleased with the inevitable arrival of a pristine and perfected package mere weeks from now.
Also, your patience won't go unrewarded, as we're working with Heart Machine to develop some premium vinyl stickers to include as a complimentary pack in with all shipments. It's a small token of our appreciation.
Please feel free to reach out to
store@iam8bit.com with any questions.
And THANK YOU for your patience.
The iam8bit Team