My record collection
Recent acquisition #06: Dean & Britta - L'Avventura (RSD 2024)

This is the deluxe edition of Dean & Britta’s first album L’Avventura that was released for Record Store Day on the 20th April 2024. As well as the album it also contains the tracks Sonic Boom remixed for the Sonic Souvenirs EP, and tracks from the Words You Used to Say single, neither of which have had a vinyl release until now.

Dean & Britta - L'Avventura (RSD 2024)

As, I’ve probably said too many times, I don’t really do Record Store Day. I don’t like crowds or queues and those seem to be two certainties of RSD, so I tend to avoid record shops on the day and sometimes visit them in the following weeks to mop up any leftovers that might interest me. Fortunately I have managed to acquire all the AHFoW related RSD releases - mostly thanks to the nice people in the bands!

There are some oddities about this release - highlighted by John on Facebook

• The tracklisting of L’Avventura is different than on the single disc edition from 2008 - Indian Summer is moved from the end of side two and onto the second disc.
• Only four of the tracks from Sonic Souvenirs are inlcuded - the EP had a hype sticker saying that “Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3, E.A.R., Spectrum) has his way with 6 songs from L’Avventura by Britta Phillips & Dean Wareham (Luna)” - so why are two missing?
• The Words You Used to Say single came out in 2006, three years after L’Avventura, and was the lead single from Dean & Britta’s second album Back Numbers and so should have been saved for the deluxe edition of that one?

This release only made it to the US record shops and so with crazy overseas postage prices it was likely to be an eye-watering expense when it did get into the mail order shops. Luckily Dean kindly offered me a copy and said he’d post it to me while he and Britta were passing through London on their way home from mixing their Christmas album in Portugal with Sonic Boom. It just so happened that when Dean and Britta were going to be in London, so was I. I was in town to work my last days at The National Archives before retiring, so suggested to Dean that we could perhaps meet up to save a bit of postage.

So, on the Monday after RSD 2024, Dean and Britta paid a visit to The National Archives and we sat in the cafe and jawed for a while and Dean handed over the record. My imminent retirement is why Dean inscribed the cover “+ new adventures” when he signed it. I said some foolish things about Luna that I regret because I’m an idiot - there’ll be more on that later in the series.

Me, Dean and Britta outside TNA

I know I keep saying this but we (the fans) are so lucky that we are fans of such lovely people. Hopefully they’ll be over again soon… with their instruments.

• Catalogue Number: AHFOW 12/098
• Artist: Dean & Britta
• Title: L’Avventura
• Notes: Deluxe edition for RSD 2024
• Packaging: Gatefold sleeve
• Format: 2xLP
• Buy ‘L’Avventura’ on Bandcamp

Previously in my record collection:

• #115: Dean & Britta - Sonic Souvenirs (CD)