Ritual (5)
The Vinyl Countdown

Listening notes

Released in 1987 on Warrior Records, "The Vinyl Countdown" by Ritual (5) is a single catalogued under WR12 001. The release presents one track, "Sore Lip," across three distinct mixes spread over both sides of the record.

The A-side is given entirely to the Club Mix of "Sore Lip," running at 6 minutes and 11 seconds — a length consistent with dance floor-oriented presentation of the era. The B-side carries two further versions: a Dub mix at 4 minutes and 34 seconds, and a Radio 7" edit at 2 minutes and 58 seconds, the latter trimmed to a duration more suited to broadcast formats.

Warrior Records assigned the catalog number WR12 001 to this release, the "12" in the sequence indicating a 12-inch format, which was a standard vehicle for extended mixes in the funk, soul, and jazz-funk spaces that the release is categorized within.

The presence of three versions of a single track — club, dub, and radio — reflects a release structured around multiple use cases, offering longer dance-oriented cuts alongside a condensed version, a configuration that was common practice in the mid-to-late 1980s for releases targeting both club play and radio airplay simultaneously.

Beyond what the release data confirms, details regarding personnel, recording circumstances, and the label's broader catalog are not established here and would require independent verification before publication.

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*Unreviewed draft — all claims should be checked against additional primary sources before publication. No personnel, reception, pressing details, or sonic assessments have been included, as these are not supported by the available data.*