Leave it to John Vanderslice, one of the most accessible musicians to his fans, to take a vinyl-only track and make it available as a digital download – encoded at 256 kbps (VBR), no less. The Kingdom is (er, was) a vinyl-only addition to the Pixel Revolt LP, available on lovely 180-gram vinyl. (Seriously, 180-gram is beautiful; those records are as thick as dinner plates and probably more durable.)

In an interview with The Red Alert, Vanderslice called The Kingdom, a pretty piano ballad, “a song about someone who finds a way to live in post-apocalyptic America.” Obviously, the war weighed heavily on his mind during the writing of Pixel Revolt:

“there’s no way to win a shadow war
when every radical you stab excites a hundred more
there’s a place, the rust belt, I’ve heard it’s free
it was hardest hit, we were busy fighting the wrong enemy”

(Also notice when you download the song, JV tagged the genre as “Hip Hop/Rap” … nice.)

John Vanderslice | The Kingdom (via www.johnvanderslice.com)