Ashley Henry
Beautiful Vinyl Hunter

Listening notes

Ashley Henry's debut album, Beautiful Vinyl Hunter, was released in 2019 on Sony Music (catalog number 19075891581) and issued on vinyl as a double LP, spanning four sides. The album sits within the contemporary jazz and jazz genres, and its fifteen tracks are spread across sides A through D, each side carrying four tracks with the exception of side C, which holds three.

The tracklist itself offers some indication of Henry's range of reference points. Side A opens with "Star Child" and moves through "Realisations," "Between The Lines," and "Introspection" — titles that suggest an inward, reflective orientation. Side B includes "Colors," a cover of Solange's "Cranes (In The Sky)," "I Still Believe," and "Elipsis (Interlude)," the last of which functions as a transitional moment within the album's structure. Side C carries "Sunrise," "Dark Honey (4TheStorm)," and "Pressure (Instrumental)," the latter's parenthetical noting its instrumental character. Side D closes the record with "Ahmed," "Lullaby (Rise & Shine)," "Battle," and "The Mighty."

The double LP format — four sides, fifteen tracks — gives the album considerable physical weight as a listening object, and the title Beautiful Vinyl Hunter directly acknowledges the format in which it appears. Whether that title represents a philosophical position about recorded music, a reference to the collector culture surrounding vinyl, or something else entirely is not something the available information confirms.

As a Sony Music release with a standard catalog number, this pressing exists within a major label context for a contemporary jazz artist. Collectors and listeners interested in Henry's work will find the vinyl edition a substantive document: four sides of material in a format that the album's own title seems to regard with some degree of intentionality.

This is an unreviewed draft. All claims should be verified against primary sources before publication.