Mel (30th Anniversary Reissue)

by East River Pipe

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daveb393 I’m so glad that apparently it was decided to make sure the Mel vinyl 30th Anniversary version is both available for further releases as well as available for shipping to the U.S. I’m a very, very long time fan and have purchased every East River Pipe release on CD and Vinyl…..so I definitely would have been extremely disappointed if I was unable to obtain a Vinyl 30th Anniversary release of Mel. But I have made a purchase just now. Thanks for everything East River Pipe.

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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
- 30th anniversary pressing, back by popular demand! Please Note: Expected to ship in late April, 2026.

- Long out of print, this vinyl reissue features two additional tracks ("Miracleland" and "The Way They Murdered Me"), a rearranged track sequence, and new, expansive liner notes by Barbara Powers.

- Standard weight black vinyl in a jacket + 10" x 10" printed lyric insert

- Cover art by Marv Newland

Includes unlimited streaming of Mel (30th Anniversary Reissue) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download available in 16-bit/44.1kHz.

ships out within 3 days

Purchasable with gift card

$24.98 USD or more
Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

Download available in 16-bit/44.1kHz.

$9 USD or more

1.	The Club Isn't Open 01:49	buy track
2.	I Am a Small Mistake 01:50	buy track
3.	Spotlight 02:14	buy track
4.	Beautiful Worn-Out Love 02:19	buy track
5.	New York Crown 03:21	buy track
6.	Kill the Action 02:37	buy track
7.	We're Going to Nowhere 05:43	buy track
8.	Lonely Line Away 01:53	buy track
9.	Miracleland 02:47	buy track
10.	Prettiest Whore 03:32	buy track
11.	The Way They Murdered Me 02:11	buy track
12.	Guilty as Charged 02:50	buy track
13.	Take Back the Days 05:24	buy track
14.	Life Is Born Today 05:24	buy track

about

Mel, the second East River Pipe album released by Merge Records, will be reissued on vinyl this January as the label’s first entry in the Secretly Society. Going beyond bringing a long out-of-print classic back to wax, the reissue represents the first time Mel has been available in full on any physical format, as “Spotlight,” exclusive to Merge’s 1996 LP and CD, is joined here by “The Way They Murdered Me” and “Miracleland,” which were exclusive to the Shinkansen CD issued outside of North America.

Like all of East River Pipe’s output, Mel was written, performed, recorded, and mixed by F.M. Cornog on a Tascam 388 mini-studio at his home, which was then a small apartment in Astoria, Queens. Within that space, he conjures nothing less than the fullness of life beyond it, the characters and moods of New York, the way a city can feel limitless and isolating all at once. It’s a daunting accomplishment, one which led The New York Times to call him “the Brian Wilson of home recording.” Mel is an intricately-textured indie pop tour de force, its layers of keyboard and reverb-drenched guitars giving flight to Cornog’s voice, which observes the doomed figures of the city with the intimacy of a documentarian and the egolessness of someone who has been through despair and survived.

Mel is an offering like few others, its 14 peerless gems a direct channel from F.M. Cornog’s heart to yours. Shelter from the storm, you might call it. Uplift for the downtrodden. A masterpiece, even among Cornog’s considerable catalog, this edition of Mel is perfect for both kinds of East River Pipe fans: those who’ve been around for years, and those who didn’t know they needed these songs in their life until now.

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released January 16, 2026

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about

East River Pipe New York, New York

F.M. Cornog is an odd one. He is an anomaly in this well-fed world of information—a diamond so deep in the dirt he’s likely to be glimpsed only by a keen-eyed few. Under his pen name East River Pipe, he has recorded extraordinary albums, all recorded and mixed entirely on a cheap multi-track mini-studio, with a bare minimum of outboard gear. ... more

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