Thank you for buying this record. What follows is its documentation: the pressing identified, the matrix / runout transcribed by hand from the dead wax, and the condition as assessed before it was listed. It is yours to keep with the record.

— Paul, Vinyl Curator

Leonard Cohen

New Skin for the Old Ceremony

1974 · Columbia KC 33167 · Stereo · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Columbia
Catalogue number	KC 33167
Year	1974
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Folk Rock / Singer-Songwriter
Producer	Leonard Cohen, John Lissauer
Musicians	Leonard Cohen (guitar, jew’s harp, vocals), John Lissauer (woodwinds, keyboards, drums, percussion, arranger), Erin Dickins (vocals, Lewis Furey (viola), Ralph Gibson (guitar), Armen Halburian (percussion), Janis Ian (vocals, trumpet), Jeff Layton (banjo, mandolin, guitar), Barry Lazarowitz (drums, percussion), Roy Markowitz (drums), John Miller (bass), Don Payne (bass), Gerald Chamberlain (trombone), Emily Bindiger (vocals), Gail Kantor (vocals)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  PAL-33167-2A MASTERDISK G.K. A
Side B:  PBL-33167-2A MASTERDISK G.KONG C 3

Condition

Cover: NM
Vinyl: NM

Variant chronology

1974 - US Columbia KC 33167, red label, original Rosarium Philosophorum (nude) front cover
1974 - US Columbia KC 33167, red label, replacement black-and-white photo front cover  <- this copy
1974 - Canada Columbia KC 33167
1975 - US Columbia PC 33167 repress
1981 - Europe CBS 40-32660 reissue

This Pressing

1974 Columbia US stereo pressing - standard red Columbia label, black-and-white photo front cover (the cover that replaced the original nude artwork within the release year).

The Album

New Skin for the Old Ceremony was Leonard Cohen’s fourth studio album, recorded in 1974 after he parted ways with producer Bob Johnston and turned to arranger-producer John Lissauer, who built a denser, more theatrical chamber-pop sound around Cohen’s songs. The record moves between stark confession and gallows humor, taking in a direct account of an affair remembered on ‘Chelsea Hotel #2’, a meditation on mortality and performance on ‘A Singer Must Die’, and Cohen’s own setting of the Yom Kippur liturgy on ‘Who by Fire’. Coming after the acclaim of Songs of Leonard Cohen and the darker Songs of Love and Hate, it marked a turn toward fuller arrangements - horns, strings, backing vocalists - while keeping the spare, literary voice that had already made Cohen one of the era’s most distinctive songwriters. Critics at the time were divided over the new instrumental color, but the album has since been reassessed as one of the strongest and most emotionally direct records of Cohen’s 1970s run. Its mix of romantic devastation and religious imagery would echo through the rest of his catalogue, and several of its songs, especially ‘Chelsea Hotel #2’ and ‘Who by Fire’, became fixtures of his later live performances and are now regarded among his core body of work.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Is This What You Wanted
2. Chelsea Hotel #2
3. Lover Lover Lover
4. Field Commander Cohen
5. Why Don’t You Try

Side 2

1. There Is a War
2. A Singer Must Die
3. I Tried to Leave You
4. Who by Fire
5. Take This Longing
6. Leaving Greensleeves

The Label

Both labels are the red Columbia design used from the early 1970s into the 1980s: a red field with COLUMBIA repeated around the rim in yellow-orange type, the walking-eye logo set between each repetition, and black lettering for the title, catalogue numbers and track list in the centre. The centre carries a ℗ 1974 CBS Inc. line, the catalogue number KC 33167 with side-specific AL/BL 33167 numbers, and ‘Printed in U.S.A.’ at the foot of the rim - this is the standard Columbia label of the period, not a deep-groove or earlier six-eye design, and it places the pressing no earlier than 1974. The same label design was used for the catalogue number for years afterward, so the label alone does not separate this pressing from a slightly later repress; that is read instead from the cover state and the runout stamper letters.

Fidelity

The lacquers were cut at Masterdisk in New York, with the engineer’s initials stamped in the runout alongside early-generation (2A) stamper codes on both sides, pointing to a pressing close to the start of this cover state’s run rather than a late repress. Collectors generally rate the original Lissauer-era Columbia pressings of this title as solid, full-bodied transfers without the thinness sometimes heard on later reissues of the catalogue, though New Skin for the Old Ceremony has not attracted the audiophile reissue attention given to Cohen’s debut. Among pressings of this title, an early-stamper US Masterdisk cut such as this one ranks at or near the top of the fidelity hierarchy for the album.

Notes

This is a 1974 Columbia KC 33167 US stereo pressing on the standard red Columbia label of the period. The front cover is the black-and-white photo of Cohen that replaced the original Rosarium Philosophorum artwork shortly after release, rather than the initial, more controversial design. The runout carries a Masterdisk lacquer-cut credit with early (2A) stamper letters on both sides, consistent with an early pressing from this cover state rather than a later repress. No deep groove or six-eye-era features apply to a pressing of this date.

Documenting collections

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