Phish "Slip Stitch and Pass" (Knitted Pressing)

Slip Stitch and Pass is Phish’s eighth album and second live record,  available in a 2-LP vinyl set.  The album was recorded on 32-track digital multitrack tapes on March 1st, 1997 at Markthalle Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany near the end of Phish’s winter 1997 European tour.  Slip Stitch and Pass was recorded by front-of-house engineer Paul Languedoc, produced by Phish, and mixed by engineer John Siket to 1/2” analog reels.  Celebrated designer Storm Thorgerson designed the album cover.

Slip Stitch and Pass showcases Phish in an intimate club setting fourteen years into their career – and five years into major label recording – at a time when much larger arena and festival shows had become the standard.  Hamburg 3/1/97 was also when Mike made the full switch to his new Modulus bass, which signaled a time of transition for the band into a funkier, more groove oriented approach to their music.

The nine album tracks were compiled from both sets of the 3/1/97 Markthalle show and sequenced as a 73-minute continuous live set.  Slip Stitch and Pass offers transcendent jams (“Wolfman’s Brother”, “Taste”) a trio of covers (Talking Heads’ “Cities”, ZZ Top’s “Jesus Just Left Chicago” and the barbershop-quartet standard “Hello My Baby”) as well as the first official release at the time of longtime concert favorite, “Mike’s Song” >(combined into a hot ‘Mike’s Groove’ for the only time with “Lawn Boy” >) “Weekapaug Groove.”  The Hamburg “Mike’s Song” is also of note for its unique Doors-gone-Pink Floyd interlude referencing Jim Morrison’s recitation in the Oedipal drama “The End.”

Slip Stitch and Pass was originally sequenced by Fred Kevorkian, mastered by Bob Ludwig, and released by Elektra October 28, 1997 on CD and cassette. In February 2018, Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering cut the lacquers for the vinyl edition from the 1/2" flat master reels.  Slip Stitch and Pass vinyl Limited Edition (color splatter) was originally released November 23rd, 2018 at Record Store Day Black Friday and is now available in a new Knitted Edition.