In the ever-evolving landscape of contemporary music, few artists possess the enduring influence and innovative spirit of Paul Weller. A recording career that began in 1977 now takes in the release of his 17th solo album and his 28th in total.

Weller has always demonstrated an unwavering commitment to pushing artistic boundaries while staying true to his roots. "66" promises to be no exception, offering a captivating journey through his continuing musical evolution.

As the title and artwork by Sir Peter Blake (his first for Weller since 1995’s Stanley Road) indicates, Paul Weller’s new album marks the completion of his 66th journey around the sun and is released on May 24th – the day before his 66th birthday.

“66” is quite a reflective and inward thinking album that pulls back the camera lens and shines a light on the way Weller’s creativity interacts with his wider world.

Continually finding new ways to alchemise the miracle of living and the meaning of it all, he draws on fragments of real life, ruminations on spirituality and even childhood memories. There are songs touching on faith, changing circumstances and the fractured realities of life in this turbulent age . But ”66” is positive at heart, bursting with the wisdom and perspective accrued by the business of someone who has really lived and loved.

The 12 songs on “66” were worked up in Weller’s Black Barn studio over the course of three years with a host of guest musicians. In the recent past, Paul has been an enthusiastic collaborator, but “66” feels like the most fully-realised celebration of that process. Here, there are lyrical contributions from an esteemed roll-call including Suggs, Noel Gallagher and Bobby Gillespie (“Ship Of Fools”, “Jumble Queen” and “Soul Wondering” respectively). “66” also sees the co-writing return of Erland Cooper and duo White Label, and string arrangements from Hannah Peel. Additionally, there are two collaborations with French producer and recording artist Christophe Vaillant (Le Superhomard, while acclaimed Brooklyn trio Say She She add vocals to “In Full Flight”. Peppered throughout the album are turns from an array of old friends including Dr Robert, Richard Hawley, Steve Brooks and Max Beesley.

"66" is set to be a landmark addition to Paul Weller's illustrious discography, further solidifying his status as one of the defining artists of his or any other generation.

TRACK LISTING

Ship Of Fools
Flying Fish
Jumble Queen
Nothing
My Best Friend’s Coat
Rise Up Singing
I Woke Up
A Glimpse Of You
Sleepy Hollow
In Full Flight
Soul Wandering
Burn Out

From creator Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders, SAS Rogue Heroes) comes new drama This Town. A 6-part series set in 1981 Birmingham, which follows a bands formation amid the violence and social tensions of the time. The music from the Original BBC Series brings together the show’s genre-wide mix of timeless classics, brand new music, and iconic hits of the era. It features an eclectic, world-class mix of artists paying tribute to this hugely formative period and includes original covers from Self Esteem, Ray Laurél, Mercury-nominated breakthrough Olivia Dean, GRAMMY-winning powerhouse Gregory Porter, BRITs Rising Star nominee Sekou and Academy Award nominee Celeste. Additionally, the songs played by Fuck The Factory - the band at the heart of This Town - have been created by trailblazing producer Dan Carey (Fontaines D.C, Wet Leg) in collaboration with singer-songwriter ESKA and musician, novelist and poet Kae Tempest in work that adds another chapter to the story.

TRACK LISTING

1. Self Esteem - You Can Get It If You Really Want
2. Ray Laurél - Somewhere Over The Rainbow
3. Fuck The Factory - Estella
4. Olivia Dean - The Harder They Come
5. Fuck The Factory - Birdsong
6. Fuck The Factory - Pelicans
7. Celeste - Blue Moon
8. Fuck The Factory - Farewell To Matty And Her Flowers
9. Gregory Porter - The World’s Going Up In Flames
10. Fuck The Factory - This Town
11. Sekou - Wonderful World, Beautiful People

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The first track from Celeste's highly anticipated sophomore album. Includes a stunning rendition of Love Will Tear Us Apart.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 20TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

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Re-imagined version of Holly's hit single, ëInto Your Roomí, featuring MUNA. Available on purple 7" vinyl.

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Recorded live from the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge: Olivia Rodrigo covers Noah Kahanís breakout hit Stick Season, while Kahan delivers his stunning rendition of Lacy from Rodrigo's sophomore album GUTS. Available on 7inch coloured vinyl exclusively via Record Store Day.

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Recorded live at Racket, NYC on October 19th 2023. Previously only available as a bonus disc on the 2CD version of Hackney Diamonds, the band's first studio album since 2005. Heavyweight solid white vinyl.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 20TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 22ND.

Taken from Paul Weller's upcoming seventeenth studio album. Available on transparent red 7" vinyl.

elbow return with their tenth studio album, ‘AUDIO VERTIGO.’ Recorded throughout 2023 at the band’s home studios, Migration Studios in Gloucestershire, The Dairy in London and mixed at the band’s facility at Blueprint Studios, Salford, the album marks a significant step change for the group following 2021’s ‘Flying Dream 1’.

In the words of lead singer and lyricist Guy Garvey, ‘AUDIO VERTIGO’ was built from ‘gnarly, seedy grooves created by us playing together in garagey rooms’ and is both more direct and sonically varied by purpose that its predecessor.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Elbow bring us their comfortingly familiar but sonically surprising 'Audio Vertigo', a perfect mix of the melodic leanings and swooning choruses that have won us over so many times over the years, and a more gritty garage-rock scuzz. Jagged drums and frantic percussion give way to Garvey's beautifully emotive vocals and airy guitar stabs. A welcome return for a beloved band in perfect control of their craft.

TRACK LISTING

1. Things I’ve Been Telling Myself For Years
2. Lovers’ Leap
3. (Where Is It?)
4. Balu
5. Very Heaven
6. Her To The Earth
7. The Picture
8. Poker Face
9. Knife Fight
10. Embers Of Day
11. Good Blood Mexico City
12. From The River

The Mess We Seem To Make is the eagerly anticipated debut album from Crawlers. Digging deeper into what fans already know and love about their eclectic alt-rock sound, it builds on the relationship of trust they have with producer Pete Robinson and engineer Tom Roach at Liverpool’s Coastal Studios and takes on a whole range of challenging topics; trauma, sexual politics, mental health, the general goings on in a young person’s life.

TRACK LISTING

Meaningless Sex
Kiss Me
Hit It Again
Better If I Just Pretend
Would You Come To My Funeral
Golden Bridge
Come Over (Again)
Kiss Me To Be Kind
What I Know Is What I Love
I End Up Alone
Call It Love
Nighttime Affair

Hackney Diamonds, the hugely anticipated new album by The Rolling Stones, is released on October 20th on Polydor Records. Following the release of 2016's Grammy Award winning Blue & Lonesome, which featured brilliant versions of blues tracks that helped shape their sound, Hackney Diamonds marks the band’s first studio album of original material since 2005's A Bigger Bang.

Late drummer Charlie Watts features on two tracks, ‘Mess It Up’ and ‘Live By The Sword’. ‘Live By The Sword’ additionally features bass from former Stones bassist Bill Wyman. ‘Sweet Sounds Of Heaven’ featuring vocals from Lady Gaga and keys & piano from Stevie Wonder, ‘Bite My Head Off’ with bass from Paul McCartney, and ‘Get Close’ and ‘Live By The Sword’ with piano from Elton John.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I mean, it's the Rolling Stones man, you know what you're getting. The lads are getting on a bit, admittedly, but that doesn't dampen any of the furious rock and / or roll spirit and pure musicianship oozing out of the speakers.

TRACK LISTING

1. Angry
2. Get Close
3. Depending On You
4. Bite My Head Off
5. Whole Wide World
6. Dreamy Skies
7. Mess It Up
8. Live By The Sword
9. Driving Me Too Hard
10. Tell Me Straight
11. Sweet Sounds Of Heaven (Feat. Lady Gaga)
12. Rolling Stone Blues

Sweet Sounds Of Heaven, the second single from The Rolling Stones' highly anticipated new studio album, Hackney Diamonds, is released physically on 13th October via Polydor Records. Featuring vocals by Lady Gaga, alongside Stevie Wonder on Fender Rhodes, Moog and piano. 

Playing Robots Into Heaven follows the critically acclaimed Friends That Break Your Heart and will see James return to the electronic roots of his Hessle, Hemlock and R&S Records days.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautiful juxtaposition of the smooth post-dubstep bread & butter of musical polymath James Blake, and a wonderfully implemented selection of jagged modular synth lines and tense, rich atmospheric drones. For me, the perfect combination of his already established sound and a more exploratory instrumental direction. Stunning.

TRACK LISTING

1. Asking To Break
2. Loading
3. Tell Me
4. Fall Back
5. He’s Been Wonderful
6. Big Hammer
7. I Want You To Know
8. Night Sky
9. Fire The Editor
10. If You Can Hear Me
11. Playing Robots Into Heaven

Santa Monica, CA – GRAMMY®-winning recording artist Olivia Rodrigo will release her new album, GUTS via Geffen Records. She recorded the album with producer Daniel Nigro, who also collaborated with her on SOUR, her chart-topping, 4x Platinum debut album.

“For me, this album is about growing pains and trying to figure out who I am at this point in my life,” says Olivia Rodrigo. “I feel like I grew 10 years between the ages of 18 and 20—it was such an intense period of awkwardness and change. I think that’s all just a natural part of growth, and hopefully the album reflects that.” On “vampire,” the album’s first single, Rodrigo’s increased maturity and bold confidence are apparent.

TRACK LISTING

1. All-American Bitch
2. Bad Idea Right?
3. Vampire
4. Lacy
5. Ballad Of A Homeschooled Girl
6. Making The Bed
7. Logical
8. Get Him Back!
9. Love Is Embarrassing
10. The Grudge
11. Pretty Isn’t Pretty
12. Teenage Dream

Angry, the lead single from The Rolling Stones' highly anticipated new studio album, Hackney Diamonds, is released on 8th September via Polydor Records.

Available on Limited edition 10" single including an etching on the b-side and a Limited edition slim jewel case CD single.

'Paradise' single LP in oversized slipcase to also hold 'Born To Die' LP.

(please note that this does not contain 'Born To Die' 2lp, sold seperately).

"Even after selling nearly three million copies of her debut album worldwide, Lana Del Rey still faced a challenge during 2012: namely, proving to critics and fans that Born to Die wasn't a fluke. In that spirit, she released Paradise, a mini-album close to Christmas, one that finds her copying nearly wholesale the look and feel of her vampish Born to Die personality. The sound is also very familiar. Strings move at a glacial pace, drums crash like waves in slow motion, and most of the additional textures in these songs (usually electric guitar or piano) are cinematic in their sound and references."

TRACK LISTING

1. Ride
2. American
3. Cola
4. Body Electric
5. Blue Velvet
6. Gods & Monsters
7. Yayo
8. Bel Air

Recorded at the band’s two sold out Madison Square Garden shows in September 2022, Dance Fever (Live at Madison Square Garden), the new live album from Florence + the Machine, features live versions of tracks from the much-lauded new album Dance Fever—including “Free”, “King” and “Dream Girl Evil”—plus classics from throughout the band’s career. Available as a gatefold 2LP on heavyweight black vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

Heaven Is Here (Live At Madison Square Garden)
King (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Ship To Wreck (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Free (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Daffodil (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Dog Days Are Over (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Girls Against God (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Dream Girl Evil (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Cassandra (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Morning Elvis (Live At Madison Square Garden)
June (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Choreomania (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Kiss With A Fist (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Cosmic Love (Live At Madison Square Garden)
My Love (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Restraint (Live At Madison Square Garden)
The End Of Love (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Never Let Me Go (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Shake It Out (Live At Madison Square Garden)
Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) (Live At Madison Square Garden)

The debut full length album from boygenius, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus. Bridgers has called the formation of the group "kind of an accident," wherein each of the members were simply fans of each other's work and then became friends. 

The long-awaited album is produced and written by boygenius. It was recorded at Shangri-la Studios in Malibu, California.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There was never any doubt that the wonderful boygenius would pull out a perfectly paced, emotionally rich debut after the roaring reception of their self-titled EP. ‘the record’ starts with a touching piece featuring the unadorned vocals of Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers. It’s an arresting and perfectly telling show of the skill and camaraderie that exists between these musicians, and a beautiful starting point for something truly special. There are some more tender moments, like the touching and incredibly open “Emily, I’m Sorry” or the folky meanderings of “Cool About It”, but It’s the contrast from these pieces to the more dynamic overdriven behemoths that really show their comparative merits all the more clearly. “Satanist” easily fills any need you may have for screaming grungy mayhem, with both rolling bass and squealing guitars making an appearance before fading once again into the ether.

The three vocalists all have notably different voices too, and while their sound definitely carries over from their respective solo acts, there’s something intangible that’s added when they all work together, turning this from a project that’s some musicians playing alongside each-other into a fully formed band that just happens to be made up of three of the best indie musicians of the last decade. Boygenius are easily one of the most emotionally devastating, life-affirmingly beautiful acts around today, and ‘the record’ is just the start of their journey. A perfect album in every way.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1) Without You Without Them
2) $20
3) Emily I’m Sorry
4) True Blue
5) Cool About It
6) Not Strong Enough
7) Revolution 0
8) Leonard Cohen
9) Satanist
10) We’re In Love
11) Anti-Curse
12) Letter To An Old Poet

Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd is the ninth studio album from acclaimed singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey, comprising 16 tracks and interludes with features including Father John Misty, Tommy Genesis, Jon Batiste, Bleachers and more. It follows the prolific artist's 2021 albums Chemtrails Over The Country Club and Blue Banisters. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: I've only semi-recently become, as you kids say, a Lana stan after her one-two punch releases of 'Norman Fucking Rockwell!' and 'Chemtrails over the Country Club'. I can safely say, this is another banger in her catalogue. Clocking in at just under 80 minutes, 'Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd' is a sprawling opus full of rich storytelling and absolutely spellbinding vocals and instrumentation - perfection!

Inhaler return with their 2nd album Cuts & Bruises in 2023. The album includes the singles These Are The Days & Love Will Get You There. Cuts & Bruises is the follow-up to Inhaler’s debut It Won’t Always Be Like This which debuted at no.1 in both the UK & Irish Official Charts. It Won’t Always Be Like This became the fastest-selling debut album on vinyl by any band this century and saw Inhaler become the first Irish group to top the Album Charts with a debut in 13 years. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Just To Keep You Satisfied
Love Will Get You There
So Far, So Good
These Are The Days
If You’re Gonna Break My Heart
Perfect Storm
Side B
Dublin In Ecstasy
When I Have Her On My Mind
Valentine
The Things I Do
Now You Got Me

Jamie T returns with his new album ‘The Theory of Whatever.’ The album includes the lead single ‘The Old Style Raiders’ and follows the 15 years anniversary celebrations of ‘Panic Prevention,’ Jamie T’s seminal debut album which went platinum in the UK this year.

Jamie T has been away, and done a lot, but now he’s back. And he has a lot to say.

TRACK LISTING

1. 90s Cars
2. The Old Style Raiders
3. British Hell
4. The Terror Of Lambeth Love
5. Keying Lamborghinis
6. St. George Wharf Tower
7. A Million & One New Ways To Die
8. Thank You
9. Between The Rocks
10. Sabre Tooth
11. Talk Is Cheap
12. Old Republican
13. 50,000 Unmarked Bullets

14. Bonnie & Clyde (Exclusive To Deluxe CD Format)
15. Kill Kill Kill (Exclusive To Deluxe CD Format)
16. Run Of The Mill (Exclusive To Deluxe CD Format)

Dance Fever was recorded predominately in London over the course of the pandemic in anticipation of the world’s reopening. It conjures up what Florence missed most in the midst of lockdown -clubs, dancing at festivals, being in the whirl of movement and togetherness -and the hope of reunions to come. It’s the album that brings back the very best of Florence – the festival headlining Boudicca, wielding anthems like a flaming sword.

Just before the pandemic Florence had become fascinated by choreomania, a Renaissance phenomenon in which groups of people - sometimes thousands - danced wildly to the point of exhaustion, collapse and death. The imagery resonated with Florence, who had been touring nonstop for more than a decade, and in lockdown felt oddly prescient.

The image and concept of dance, and choreomania, remained central as Florence wove her own experiences of dance - a discipline she turned to in the early days of sobriety - with the folkloric elements of a moral panic from the Middle Ages. In recent times of torpor and confinement, dance offered propulsion, energy and a way of looking at music more choreographically.

Starting, as ever, armed with a notebook of poems and ideas, Florence had just arrived in New York in March 2020 to begin recording the record with Jack Antonoff when Covid-19 forced a retreat to London. Holed up at home, the songs began to transform, with nods to dance, folk, ‘70s Iggy Pop, longing-for-the-road folk tracks a la Lucinda Williams or Emmylou Harris and more.

Once back in London, ‘My Love’ was one particular track that shapeshifted from one entity to another with the help of Dave Bayley from Glass Animals. Welch had written the song in her kitchen as a “sad little poem”, and when she recorded it acoustically it just didn’t seem to work. Bayley suggested using synths and it soon expanded with floor-filling, chest-thumping energy.
With Dave’s love of synths and Florence’s fascination with all things gothic and creepy a kind of “Nick Cave at the club” sound started to emerge to shape the record. Lyrically, she took inspiration from the tragic heroines of pre-Raphaelite art, the gothic fiction of Carmen Maria Machado and Julia Armfield, the visceral wave of folk horror film from The Wicker Man and The Witch to Midsommar.

Dance Fever is an album that sees Florence at the peak of her powers, coming into a fully realised self-knowledge, poking sly fun at her own self-created persona, playing with ideas of identity, masculine and feminine, redemptive, celebratory, stepping fully into her place in the iconic pantheon.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The great Florence Welch returns, machine in tow for her most bombastic and exuberant outing yet. The ever-present gothic leaning synth anthems take on a more confident and operatic tone, lending further evidence (as if any were needed) that Welch and to a lesser extent, The Machine are here to stay. a Majestic and impeccable collection.

TRACK LISTING

King
Free
Choreomania
Back In Town
Girls Against God
Dream Girl Evil
Prayer Factory
Cassandra
Heaven Is Here
Daffodil
My Love
Restraint
The Bomb
Morning Elvis

A band well and truly into their stride, Homesick sees Sea Girls, Henry Camamile, Rory Young, Andrew Dawson and Oli Khan, deliver thirteen measures of guitar driven pop brilliance including 2 bonus Deluxe tracks.

A deeply personal record, lead singer Henry Camamile returned to his childhood home in Lincolnshire at the wake of the pandemic, finding himself having to address and reflect on events from his past, both good and bad. A cathartic process, Henry leaves nothing to the imagination with his astute storytelling and candid lyrics. Delving into some of his darkest moments, the uplifting album comes as a sense of relief, a gratefulness for survival. Lyrically raw and packed to the brim with hooks, the band step into new realms with an added sense of maturity and a bigger ambitious sounding record.

Teaming long-term producer Larry Hibbitt with Grammy Award winning Producers Jacknife Lee, Jonny Coffer and Cass Lowe to co-produce the record, Henry reflects on the process: “Imagine us locked down in the studio in rainy Brixton working with the producers remotely on the album in California’s Topanga Canyon. That clashing of worlds is the sound of this record, the DNA. Making an album this way, remotely and 5000 miles apart, was a crazy idea and shouldn’t have worked, but it did”

Premiered by Arlo Parks as the ‘Hottest Record’ on BBC Radio 1 and debuted live on the band’s frenetic mainstage slot at Latitude Festival, the band drop the album’s first taste with the infectiously honest ‘Sick’.

“Sick is me listing things I’m pissed off with and feeling sorry for myself, it’s a growing up song where I realise I’m no longer a young child. It’s me in my bedroom at home ranting with my thoughts and going down the hole of being pissed” Henry said of the track. “I am sick of everything - from things I used to love through to things that feel vacuous, like consuming and buying. All these emotions are piling up and it's me just asking for a reset, a childish solution”

“It was a turning point in the writing for this album where the songs became about worrying for other people and how they were feeling. The pivot where I started writing clearly with a bigger perspective. I literally feel myself growing up throughout this song”

Sea Girls, one of the most exciting guitar bands to have emerged in recent times, are the torchbearers for the next wave. Delivering sing-along anthems for the masses, the band’s journey is well and truly on its way.

TRACK LISTING

CD & Vinyl Tracklist
Hometown
Sick
Lonely
Someone’s Daughter Someone’s Son
Sleeping With You
Paracetamol Blues
Again Again
Lucky
Higher
Cute Guys
Friends

Deluxe - Track Listing
HOMETOWN
SICK
LONELY
SOMEONE’S DAUGHTER SOMEONE’S SON
SLEEPING WITH YOU
PARACETAMOL BLUES
AGAIN AGAIN
LUCKY
HIGHER
CUTE GUYS
FRIENDS
WATCH YOUR STEP
I GOT YOU

FTHC is the ninth solo album from British punk and folk artist Frank Turner. Initially striking out as a vocalist in the punk rock band Million Dead, Turner then turned his focus towards a folkier, acoustic-based solo career. Since that time, he has reached international acclaim as a chart-topping, award-winning singer-songwriter. Taking inspiration from early '80s US hardcore band logos, FTHC stands for Frank Turner Hardcore.

Paul will be releasing the audio from his live performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley with special guests, Celeste, Boy George and James Morrison.

An Orchestrated Songbook spans Paul’s career and includes ‘You Do Something to Me’, ‘English Rose’ and ‘Wild Wood’ alongside tracks from his latest two number 1 albums On Sunset and Fat Pop.

TRACK LISTING

1. ANDROMEDA
2. ENGLISH ROSE
3. MY EVER CHANGING MOODS
4. ON SUNSET
5. CARNATION
6. GLAD TIMES
7. BROKEN STONES (With James Morrison)
8. GRAVITY
9. IT´S A VERY DEEP SEA
10. BOWIE
11. EQUANIMITY
12. YOU´RE THE BEST THING (With Boy George)
13. STILL GLIDES THE STREAM
14. MOVIN ON
15. WILD WOOD (With Celeste)
16. ROCKETS
17. YOU DO SOMETHING TO ME
18. WHITE HORSES

Elbow release their much anticipated ninth studio album, ‘Flying Dream 1’. 

Like most bands I imagine, Elbow spent lockdown in isolation, writing and exchanging musical ideas remotely. These 'little love notes' as Guy calls them formed the basis of the LP and the band finally convened at the empty Brighton Theatre Royal to perfect, perform, and record the songs.

 For the most part, it's an album about love and relationships, family and friends. Things that have been brought sharply into focus for many people over the last 18 months. And Guy's lyrics are as wonderful as ever: poetic, romantic, nostalgic but never cloying.  

There are no big anthems here, instead we're treated to lush melodies and delicate instrumentation, twinkling keys, brushed drums and Guy's soothing tones, even the inclusion of clarinets, saxophones and backing vocals are done with subtlety and grace, adding depth without stepping too far out of the lulling mood. It's a wonderfully understated album that feels somehow fitting for these strange times. 40 odd minutes of calm, amidst the turmoil and anxiety of the world. 

Beautiful.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Flying Dream epitomises that dreamy, melodic sound we've come to know from Elbow, and is full of the spine-tingling euphoric moments that have peppered albums of recent years. Lead single 'Six Words' is classic, beautiful melodic fare and is echoed throughout the rest of this collection. A worthy addition to any collection.

TRACK LISTING

Flying Dream 1
After The Eclipse
Is It A Bird
Six Words
Calm And Happy
Come On, Blue
The Only Road
Red Sky Radio (Baby Baby Baby)
The Seldom Seen Kid
What Am I Without You

Voyage is ABBA’s first new studio album in 40 years.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Still Have Faith In You
2. When You Danced With Me
3. Little Things
4. Dont Shut Me Down
5. Just A Notion
6. I Can Be That Woman
7. Keep An Eye On Dan
8. Bumble Bee
9. No Doubt About It
10. Ode To Freedom

Lana Del Rey’s highly anticipated eighth studio album, Blue Banisters, features the previously released songs 'Blue Banisters,' 'Wildflower Wildfire' and 'Text Book.'

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's always a welcome arrival when Lana Del Rey brings out a new LP, and Blue Banisters has everything you'd expect. Gorgeous downplayed melodies and minimalistic instrumentation, topped with her instantly recognisable athletic country-tinged vocal style. It's hard to imagine anyone else pulling off this sound, classic Lana.

TRACK LISTING

1. Text Book
2. Blue Banisters
3. Arcadia
4. Interlude - The Trio
5. Black Bathing Suit
6. If You Lie Down With Me
7. Beautiful
8. Violets For Roses
9. Dealer
10. Thunder
11. Wildflower Wildfire
12. Nectar Of The Gods
13. Living Legend
14. Cherry Blossom
15. Sweet Carolina

Features the singles ‘Start Me Up’, ‘Waiting On A Friend’ and ‘Hang Fire’.

Mercury Music Prize and GRAMMY®Award winning UK singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer James Blake drops his first album in two years, "Friends That Break Your Heart". His tear-jerkingly poignant, auto-tuned & self-produced style has become a symbol of greatness across the UK scene, and his deeply personal songwriting and lyrical prowess shine through every release.

Adding a shimmering patina and haunting presence to soul and pop music's existing framework, James Blake is widely celebrated as a visionary and pioneering UK artist. "Friends That Break Your Heart" sees him emerging into the New Normal with plenty to say, with that familiar, rain-soaked melancholy and sentiment here to ease you through your next heartbreak or internal crisis. Blake makes the sadness more palatable but underlying it all is a sense of overcoming your insecurities & demons, and bettering yourself for times in which we live. It’s a positive message that holds it all together.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: James Blake has carved out a unique niche of mournful post-dubstep, moving from strength and landing on this, possibly his most emotionally raw outing yet. There are melodies here shrouded in the usual trundling electronics and loungey jazz-indebted ambience, topped with Blakes athletic vocal takes, sometimes simply unadorned and in other instances, stretched with Blake's trademark autotune.

TRACK LISTING

CD Tracklist:
1. Famous Last Words
2. Life Is Not The Same
3. Coming Back (feat. SZA)
4. Funeral
5. Frozen (feat. JID & SwaVay)
6. I’m So Blessed You’re Mine
7. Foot Forward
8. Show Me (feat. Monica Martin)
9. Say What You Will
10. Lost Angel Nights
11. Friends That Break Your Heart
12. If I’m Insecure

LP Tracklist:
Side A
1. Famous Last Words
2. Life Is Not The Same
3. Coming Back (feat. SZA)
4. Funeral
5. Frozen (feat. JID & SwaVay)
6. I’m So Blessed You’re Mine

Side B
7. Foot Forward
8. Show Me (feat. Monica Martin)
9. Say What You Will
10. Lost Angel Nights
11. Friends That Break Your Heart
12. If I’m Insecure

The Off-Season is the sixth studio album by American rapper J. Cole. The album was executive produced by Cole, Ibrahim Hamad, and T-Minus. It features guest vocals from Morray, 21 Savage, Lil Baby, Bas, and 6lack. 

This time sees Cole relaxing a little from the incendiary fire of 'KOD', with things getting a little looser in the production front too. It's a fine line between sloppy and laid-back, and though 'Laid-back' was never something Cole could come close to, on 'The Off Season', we get a little more of the unhurried production that could easily veer into the more loose side of the hip-hop spectrum. 
 
There are moments of Cole's trademark drive though, with both 'My Life' and 'Applying Pressure' acting as superb grit ofsetting the more languid offerings. It's yet another wonderful outing from Cole, and one that will surely go down as a turning point in his already considerable skillset.  

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Hydraulic subs, rapid-fire trap beats, that guttural east coast drawl; the busiest (and richest) rapper in the business returns with masterpiece no. 6

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. 95 South (3:17)
2. Amari (2:30)
3. My Life (3:31)
4. Applying Pressure (2:59)
5. Punchin' The Clock (1:54)
6. 100 Mil' (2:45)

Side 2
1. Pride Is The Devil (3:40)
2. Let Go My Hand (4:26)
3. Interlude (2:14)
4. The Climb Back (5:00)
5. Close (2:33)
6. Hunger On Hillside (4:04)

Inhaler’s debut album ‘It Won’t Always Be Like This’ a record that sees Elijah Hewson, Josh Jenkinson, Robert Keating and Ryan McMahon turn their early promise into something special, an album teeming with expansive indie-rock grooves and soaring anthems.

Includes the single Cheer Up Baby, a swooping, epic singalong alongside newly recorded versions of early fan favourites My Honest Face and title track It Won’t Always Be Like This.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's pretty clear these lot are going to be big. Huge melodies and stadium rock progressions are met with athletic vocal performances and classic songwriting. What more could you want?

TRACK LISTING

1. It Won't Always Be Like This
2. My Honest Face
3. Slide Out The Window
4. Cheer Up Baby
5. A Night On The Floor
6. My King Will Be Kind
7. When It Breaks
8. Who's Your Money On? (Plastic House)
9. Totally
10. Strange Time To Be Alive
11. In My Sleep 

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2021 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY JUNE 12TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 6PM ON THE SAME DAY (SATURDAY JUNE 12TH).

May 2021 will be 20 years since elbow's debut 'Asleep In The Back' was released. To celebrate this the band are releasing The Newborn EP on limited Blue 10" and The Any Day Now EP on limited Red 10" for Records Store Day 2021

We may be cursed to be in the midst a global pandemic, buffeted by all of its stresses and pain. But everyone knows that art provides succour, that music is the most reliable balm. And for many there is further significant comfort to be drawn from the knowledge that Paul Weller is in the midst of an unbelievably prolific purple patch. Paul Weller will not let us down when we need him most.

On May 14th, Paul Weller releases his 16th solo album since his self-titled debut in 1992, his fourth in as many years and his second in just under twelve months following June 2020’s magnificent, chart-topping On Sunset. It’s not hyperbole to state that this new album, titled Fat Pop (Volume 1), is among his most compelling collections, bar none, including all of his era-defining work in the 1970s and ‘80s with The Jam and The Style Council. It’s an absolute scorcher.

When lockdown was declared in March 2020, Paul Weller decided immediately that he wanted something to focus on, since it seemed unlikely he’d be able to tour On Sunset as planned that summer.
“I had lots of ideas stored up on my phone,” he explains down that same handset, speaking from outside his London home, “and at least this gave me an opportunity to develop them.” So he started to record songs on his own, doing just vocals, piano and guitar, then sending those sound files to his core band members such as drummer Ben Gordelier, Steve Cradock on guitar and various other instruments, and bassist Andy Crofts for them to add their parts. “It was a bit weird not being together, but at least it kept the wheels rolling. I’d have gone potty otherwise.”

The band reconvened at Weller’s Black Barn studio in Surrey during the summer when restrictions were lifted to finish the work, with several of the songs being cut live. By this stage, the shape of the album was clear to all. Weller wanted to deliver an album of singles, twelve short, distinct blasts, each strong enough that they could stand alone if so desired.

“That was a conscious decision,” he confirms. “I even thought about putting every song out as a single first then gathering them all on an album, but that wasn’t practical at the moment. They all have that strength and immediacy, I think, and they’re all short, three minutes or so maximum.”
Producer Jan ‘Stan’ Kybert was so taken with the concept that he half-jokingly suggested that the album be called Greatest Hits. “I quite liked the idea and every song does stand up as a single, I think,” chuckles Weller, “but no, we couldn’t do that really.”

Instead, he plumped for Fat Pop (Volume 1). “I thought we’d add Volume 1 to it just to keep my options open in the future for a second volume!” The title track, a tight, heavy blast of ultra-modern funk, is itself the conceptual key to the whole album. “It’s a celebration of music and what it’s given us all. No matter what situation you are in, and we’re in one now, music doesn’t let you down, does it?”

As ever, Weller’s sonic masterplan was to avoid whatever had recently preceded it. “After [2018’s] True Meanings I thought I wouldn’t have any acoustic guitars for a little while, so I’ve largely avoided those with On Sunset and with Fat Pop,” he says. “But more than anything I wanted something vibey, something we could play live.” He laughs ruefully at the irony of that. “God knows when that will be, bearing in mind where we are with the virus. But in the imaginary gig in my mind I can see us playing all of the songs on Fat Pop live, along with the songs from On Sunset, blending them with some of the old favourites too. What a great set that would be.”

Live is where he imagines On Sunset and Fat Pop (Volume 1) working in tandem, because they don’t act as companion piece albums otherwise. “On Sunset was quite lavish in places, whereas with this one I wanted to limit it in some ways, make the production less expansive.”

Beyond that desire to keep it frill-free and tight, sonically Fat Pop (Volume 1) is a diverse selection of sounds. No one style dominates. There’s the synth-heavy, future-wave strut of Cosmic Fringes, the stately balladeering of Still Glides The Stream, Testify’s moving-on-up soul, and the kind of dramatic three minute pop symphonies on Failed, True and Shades of Blue with which Paul Weller has hooked in generation after generation of devotee.
More than sonic plans, though, Weller set himself the same task as he does before any recording. “Whenever I make an album I’m always just trying to at least match what’s gone before because each time I think the bar’s been raised. If all goes to plan, sometimes I manage to go over that bar too.”
Sometimes he does, sometimes he really does.

TRACK LISTING

CD
Cosmic Fringes
True
Fat Pop
Shades Of Blue
Glad Times
Cobweb / Connections
Testify
That Pleasure
Failed
Moving Canvas
In Better Times
Still Glides The Stream

3CD Box
CD1 – Standard Album
Cosmic Fringes
True
Fat Pop
Shades Of Blue
Glad Times
Cobweb / Connections
Testify
That Pleasure
Failed
Moving Canvas
In Better Times
Still Glides The Stream

CD2 – Mid-Sömmer Musik
On Sunset - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Old Father Tyme - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Moving Canvas - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Failed - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Village - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
More - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Testify - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Still Glides The Stream - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Rockets - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Mayfly - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020

CD3 - Fat Pop Bonus
Round The Floor
Serafina
Crowboy
Into The Sea
Pure Sound
Fat Mix

Vinyl
Side A
Cosmic Fringes
True
Fat Pop
Shades Of Blue
Glad Times
Cobweb / Connections
Side B
Testify
That Pleasure
Failed
Moving Canvas
In Better Times
Still Glides The Stream

Louis Vuitton Creative Director, Off-White Founder and DJ, Virgil Abloh, remixes Michael Kiwanuka’s "Solid Ground" into a crowd pleasing, jazzy DnB smasher with maximum radio potential! It's a classic formular executed to the letter by Abloh, complete with breathless drops, advanced bass plumes and incredible drum programming. Yes selectah! 

Earlier this year, Abloh selected "Solid Ground" to introduce his Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2020 Paris Fashion Week Show, and has extended his appreciation of the track with the remix. One sprawling epic for the club, one night n tight, succinct version to tease the radio listeners. Truly great stuff, reminds me of late nineties jazz-n-breaks but brought right up to date. Inside! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Jazz-n-breaks business from Abloh whose intimidatingly cool credentials allow him to do whatever the fuck he pleases with Kiwanuka's humongous crossover soul hit.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Solid Ground (Virgil Abloh Remix)

Side B
1. Solid Ground (Virgil Abloh Remix – Radio Edit)

Lana Del Rey reads fourteen select poems from her upcoming debut poetry book Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass accompanied by music from frequent collaborator, Grammy Award-winning musician Jack Antonoff.

"Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many. Some of which came to me in their entirety, which I dictated and then typed out, and some that I worked laboriously picking apart each word to make the perfect poem. They are eclectic and honest and not trying to be anything other than what they are and for that reason I’m proud of them, especially because the spirit in which they were written was very authentic."- Lana

TRACK LISTING

Vinyl
Side A
LA Who Am I To Love You
The Land Of 1,000 Fires
Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass
Past The Bushes Cypress Thriving
Salamander
Never To Heaven

Side B
SportCruiser
Tessa DiPietro
Quiet Waiter Blue Forever
What Happened When I Left You
Happy
My Bedroom Is A Sacred Place Now – There Are Children At The Foot Of My Bed
Paradise Is Very Fragile
Bare Feet On Linoleum

CD TRACKLISTING:
LA Who Am I To Love You
The Land Of 1,000 Fires
Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass
Past The Bushes Cypress Thriving
Salamander
Never To Heaven
SportCruiser
Tessa DiPietro
Quiet Waiter Blue Forever
What Happened When I Left You
Happy
My Bedroom Is A Sacred Place Now – There Are Children At The Foot Of My Bed
Paradise Is Very Fragile
Bare Feet On Linoleum

Their 11th UK studio album, recorded in Jamaica, Los Angeles and London as their last collaboration with producer Jimmy Miller, Goats Head Soup came in the wake of the Stones' landmark 1972 double album Exile On Main St. The new set was introduced by the single that became one of their most exalted ballads, the endlessly elegant “Angie”, completed by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards during a songwriting sojourn in Switzerland.

The timeless love song, showcasing Jagger's yearning lead vocal and Nicky Hopkins' beautiful piano motif, topped the charts in the US, where it was certified platinum, and went to No. 1 across Europe, Australia and beyond. “We decided to do something different, and it worked,” Richards told Rolling Stone of “Angie”. “Maybe a lot of people bought it that would never buy a Stones LP.” Interestingly in a recent interview with The New York Times, Bob Dylan chose “Angie” as one of three Rolling Stones songs he wished he had written.

Goats Head Soup, with its famous David Bailey sleeve, featured the Stones' vintage 1969-1974 line-up of Jagger, Richards, Mick Taylor, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, with the addition of some essential collaborators. On an album on which their trademark rocking sound was often augmented by more low-key, reflective material, there were no fewer than four featured piano players: Hopkins, Billy Preston, Ian 'Stu' Stewart and Jagger himself.

“Angie” was the only single to be released from the LP in the UK, where it spent two weeks at No. 5 in September. In the US, the exhilaratingly funky, horn-filled “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)”, featuring Mick Taylor's wah-wah lead guitar, followed it into the top 20 in February 1974.

The many other highlights of the album included the majestically brooding opener “Dancing With Mr. D”, the lithely strutting “100 Years Ago” and “Star Star” and the graceful “Winter”. Richards' rueful lead vocal on “Coming Down Again” featured another Stones stalwart, saxophonist Bobby Keys. “Silver Train”, the b-side of “Angie”, would be revived after a gap of some 40 years, during the Stones' 14 On Fire tour of 2014, when Mick Taylor reprised his original guitar part in shows in Tokyo and Brisbane.

When the album was first released, reviewers lined up to sing its praises. “This is music which could only come from good musicians who know each other really well,” ruled the late and esteemed writer-broadcaster Charlie Gillett in Let It Rock. “The Stones succeed because they rarely forget their purpose — the creation of rock & roll drama,” said Bud Scoppa in Rolling Stone. “It’s deepening and unfolding over the coming months will no doubt rate as one of the year's richest musical experiences.”

TRACK LISTING

2020 Stereo Mix (Standard Vinyl)

SIDE A
1. Dancing With Mr D
2. 100 Years Ago
3. Coming Down Again
4. Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)
5. Angie

SIDE B
6. Silver Train
7. Hide Your Love
8. Winter
9. Can You Hear The Music
10. Star Star

2020 Stereo Mix (Deluxe 2xLP)
SIDE A
1. Dancing With Mr D
2. 100 Years Ago
3. Coming Down Again
4. Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)
5. Angie

SIDE B
6. Silver Train
7. Hide Your Love
8. Winter
9. Can You Hear The Music
10. Star Star

SIDE C
1. Scarlet
2. All The Rage
3. Criss Cross
4. 100 Years Ago (Piano Demo)
5. Dancing With Mr D (Instrumental)

SIDE D
6. Heartbreaker (Instrumental)
7. Hide Your Love (Alternative Mix)
8. Dancing With Mr D (Glyn Johns 1973 Mix)
9. Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) – (Glyn Johns 1973 Mix)
10. Silver Train (Glyn Johns 1973 Mix)

With a creative peak that continues to shoot skyward, Paul Weller releases his 15th studio album “On Sunset” on June 12th on Polydor Records.
On Sunset features ten classic yet modern Paul Weller songs. On Sunset is a soul album. At the same time it’s also an electronic album, an orchestral album, an album packed with masterly pop songs and heart-tugging ballads, and an album filled with touches of experimentalism. It’s also an album that sees Weller taking a rare glance into the rear-view mirror as he speeds into the 2020s. 

Weller started work on “On Sunset” soon after finishing 2018’s masterpiece “True Meanings”. Opening track “Mirror Ball” was from the TM sessions and originally slated as a b-side. Thankfully it was rescued for On Sunset as it’s shimmering opener. 

As ever, Weller retains a rigorous forward-looking focus when it comes to seeking out the best contemporary sounds and music. But lyrically, Weller – back on his old home, Polydor Records for the first time since the Style Council days – is also starting to look back on the past with the insight of age especially on songs like “Old Father Thyme”.

Most of the album sees Weller multi-tasking on various instruments with accompaniment from his regular band - Ben Gordelier appears on all tracks and Andy Crofts on most whilst Steve Cradock pops up with his guitar on 4 songs. An eclectic and sometimes surprising gathering of guests appear on On Sunset including Slade’s Jim Lea contributing violin to the Bonzos-esque “Equanimity”, and Paul’s old Style Council chum Mick Talbot adds his signature Hammond Organ sound to 3 tracks. The beautifully lush “More” features a verse sung by French singer Julie Gros, from the band Le Superhomard (whose album Meadow Lane Park was one of Weller’s favourites of 2019) as well as the return of The Strype’s guitarist Josh McClorey. English folk trio The Staves contribute backing vocals for 3 tracks. Once again Hannah Peel sprinkles her magic over the album with string arrangements and The Paraorchestra were invited to add their expertise to 4 tracks.

TRACK LISTING

1. Mirror Ball
2. Baptiste
3. Old Father Tyme
4. Village
5. More
6. On Sunset
7. Equanimity
8. Walkin’
9. Earth Beat
10. Rockets

Deluxe CD Bonus Tracks:
11. 4th Dimension
12. Ploughman
13. I’ll Think Of Something
14. On Sunset (Orchestral Mix)
15. Baptiste (instrumental Version)

Haim return with their third album Women In Music Pt. III. The album was produced by the trio’s frequent collaborators Rostam Batmanglij and Ariel Rechtshaid. Standout tracks include The Steps which pushes guitar to the forefront in a way the band has not done before. Clean, chorused electric guitar, overdriven lead lines, and strummed acoustic 12-Strings lock in together to generate what feels like an endless chug. The result is one of Haim’s fastest and heaviest songs to date. The breezy and beautiful Summer Girl, poignant reflective ballad Hallelujah and emotionally charged Now I'm In It are all gems.

Lady Gaga releases her highly anticipated sixth studio album Chromatica via Interscope Records. The album is executive produced by BloodPop® and Lady Gaga. The album comes on the heels of Friday’s release of the high-energy pop smash Stupid Love, which debuted at #1 on iTunes in 58 countries.

Queens of the Stone Age's 2005 release Lullabies to Paralyze debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard album charts. Along with the hits "Little Sister" and "Burn the Witch," Lullabies to Paralyze features guest appearances by Jack Black, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, Shirley Manson of Garbage and Jesse Hughes of the Eagles of Death Metal.

The new vinyl release of Lullabies to Paralyze features a gatefold jacket with the album's original album art in the U.S. for the first time, and includes the original three vinyl bonus tracks: "Infinity," "Like A Drug" and "Precious And Grace."

TRACK LISTING

This Lullaby
Medication
Everybody Knows That You Are Insane
Tangled Up In Plaid
Burn The Witch
In My Head
Little Sister
I Never Came
Someone’s In The Wolf
Infinity *vinyl Bonus Track
The Blood Is Love
Like A Drug *vinyl Bonus Track
Skin On Skin
Broken Box
Precious And Grace *vinyl Bonus Track
“you Got A Killer Scene There, Man…”
Long Slow Goodbye

2007's Era Vulgaris finds QOTSA touching on a variety of styles, incorporating electronic and acoustic textures alongside the band's trademark heavy rock crunch. The album includes such fan favorites as "Sick, Sick, Sick," "3's & 7's" and "Make It Wit Chu," with guest appearances by Julian Casablancas of The Strokes and frequent QOTSA collaborator Mark Lanegan.

The previous LP edition was on 3x 10” LPs, this LP edition marks the first-ever release of Era Vulgaris on 12" vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

Turnin’ On The Screw
Sick, Sick, Sick
I’m Designer
Into The Hollow
Misfit Love
Running Joke *exclusive Vinyl Track
Battery Acid
Make It Wit Chu
3’s & 7’s
Suture Up Your Future
River In The Road
Run, Pig, Run

‘Giants of All Sizes’ was recorded at Hamburg’s Clouds Hill Studio, The Dairy in Brixton, 604 Studios in Vancouver and Blueprint Studios in Salford with additional recording taking place at various band member’s home studios spread across Manchester. As with their previous four studio albums, ‘Giants’ was produced and mixed by Craig Potter. Guests across the album include Jesca Hoop, The Plumedores and South London newcomer Chilli Chilton.

Guy Garvey describes the album as “an angry, old blue lament which finds its salvation in family, friends, the band and new life.” It is a record that lyrically takes in moments of deep personal loss whilst reflecting its times by confronting head-on the spectres of injustice and division not just in the UK but across the world. It is a record that could only have been made in the 21st Century.

Given such bleak, if ultimately redeemed, subject matter, it is also, perversely, the most relaxed record which elbow have made in some time. On ‘Giants of All Sizes’, each band member extended their usual process of working on demos alone and followed their vision to its conclusion rather than, as Craig Potter puts it, ‘taking the edges off things to find compromise’. In tandem with this, they returned to playing live in the studio, encouraged to experiment with the banks of analogue equipment at Clouds Hill in Northern Germany, giving songs a looser, more live feel.

The result is the most starkly dynamic record from the band in recent times, “Sonically unabashed”, as Guy would have it. Whilst album closer ‘Weightless’ has the gossamer melodies and communal harmonies for which the band have latterly been known, this album echoes earlier elbow work at times whilst also breaking new ground.

‘White Noise White Heat’ is motorik, metal machine soul driven by a vocal that is rage incarnate, ‘Doldrums’ mixes John Carpenter with The Plastic Ono Band to brilliantly disturbing effect and ‘On Deronda Road’ hitches stark bass beats and glitches to an ad-hoc choir. ‘Empires’ delivers dark resignation via an insidious melody and ‘Seven Veils’ continues the subversion by inverting the perception of elbow as a band for lovers into a band for haters, a double-barrelled fuck-you song par excellence. ‘The Delayed 3:15’ marries mariarchi guitars to jazz dynamics, Morricone via Buddy Rich, and ‘My Trouble’ is a clockwork, analogue shuffle housing a delicate melody that builds over the course of the song into a fragile monolith to the power of love.

Lead track, ‘Dexter & Sinister’, released on 10” ahead of the album, encapsulates the whole. A seven-minute musical journey that blends deep bass grooves, sudden keyboard stabs, dislocated piano and guitar runs and soul stylings then abruptly shifts gear, parts the storm clouds and takes wing, flying towards the heat of the sun. It is the soundtrack for these ‘hope free, faith free, charity free days’, a denial of the divine and a reconciliation, two songs in one song, two emotions for one emotion, human, fragile and brilliant like the album which it opens.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dexter & Sinister
2. Seven Veils
3. Empires
4. The Delayed 3:15
5. White Noise White Heat
6. Doldrums
7. My Trouble
8. On Deronda Road
9. Weightless

In 2000, Queens of the Stone Age achieved a creative and commercial breakthrough with their major-label debut Rated R, featuring the breakout tracks "The Lost Art of Keeping A Secret" and "Feel Good Hit of the Summer."

This new LP edition marks Rated R's first U.S. vinyl pressing, and is the first vinyl edition worldwide to feature the album's original blue artwork. This LP augments the original album with the international bonus track “Ode To Clarissa," as well as a unique 12"x24" insert.

TRACK LISTING

Feel Good Hit Of The Summer
The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret
Leg Of Lamb
Auto Pilot
Better Living Through Chemistry
Monsters In The Parasol
Quick And To The Pointless
In The Fade
Tension Head
Lightning Song
I Think I Lost My Headache
Ode To Clarissa *intl Vinyl Bonus Track

The self-titled record usually marks a definable phase of a musician’s career; an embrace of personal mythology, perhaps, or merely a shift to ‘take me as I am’ straightforwardness. But “Kiwanuka”, the single eponymous word that heralds Michael Kiwanuka’s third album, holds a resonant, complex significance. It signals, for one thing, a swift, pointed rejection of the stage personas that artists have historically donned as both a freeing creative mask and a protective shield. It is an act of cultural affirmation and self-acceptance: a young British-African, contemplating the continued struggle for racial equality, and proudly celebrating the Ugandan name his old teachers in Muswell Hill would struggle to pronounce. It is a nod to a suite of arresting, ambitious soul songs that – while they deftly recall the funkified epics of artists as varied as Gil Scot-Heron, Fela Kuti, Bobby Womack and Kendrick Lamar – cement the singular, supremely confident sound that made 2016’s Love & Hate such an undeniable step up.

Now, following ‘Money’ – the lauded summer single collaboration with Tom Misch – and a sunset Park Stage set that was the talk of Glastonbury 2019, the long-awaited follow-up to that record can be announced. And “Kiwanuka”, like its creator, contains multitudes; it offers both the triumphal, grin-widening empowerment of opener ‘You Ain’t the Problem’ and the ruminative, candlelit intimacy of ‘Solid Ground’. It looks inward and out, across widescreen sonic landscapes constructed in recording studios in London, Los Angeles and New York, and provides a sumptuous showcase for the honey-poured mahogany of Kiwanuka’s voice. It skilfully crosses the streams of the personal and the political. No other name would really have done.

“I remember when I first signed a record deal, people would ask me, ‘So what are you going to be called?’” laughs the man himself, considering the thought process that inspired the title. “And I never thought of that; calling myself Johnny Thunders or whatever, like singers from the past. But I have thought previously, would I sell more records if my name had an easier ring to it? So [on this album] it’s kind of a defiant thing; finally I’m engaging with who I am and I’m not going to have an alter ego, or become Sasha Fierce or Ziggy Stardust, even though everyone's telling me I need to be this, that or the other. I can just be Michael Kiwanuka.”

In many ways this self-possession is a direct consequence of Love & Hate. That record added an unexpected Mayfieldian groove and scope to to the scuffed, ‘70s-infused mellowness of Home Again, Kiwanuka’s Mercury-nominated 2012 debut. Album number two, of course, got its own place on the Mercury shortlist (not to mention a No 1 chart position, a Brit Award-nomination and the wide cultural blast radius afforded by songs that featured on shows like The Get Down, When They See Us and, most notably, HBO’s Emmy-winning Big Little Lies).

“Kiwanuka” marks a reunion of the team that conjured ’s acclaimed, pulsing soulscape – namely Gnarls Barkley hit whisperer Brian ‘Danger Mouse’ Burton and British hip hop producer Inflo – and it actually began life not long after the 32-year-old had finished touring its predecessor. Early Los Angeles sessions – in May, 2017 – proved wildly productive. Maybe, in fact, too productive. The trio had sketched out around eight songs – including lyricless, early versions of ‘You Ain’t the Problem’ and the spine-tingling, wintry ballad ‘Piano Joint (This Kind of Love)’ – at such a breathless gallop that Kiwanuka felt some of his old doubts and insecurities creep back. “It was all so fast,” he reasons. “I remember having a conversation with Danger Mouse where I even asked, ‘Is this my album?’” He chuckles at the memory. “That was the lack of self-belief and me beating myself up.”

An extended recess was called and, when the team fully reconvened in New York in November 2018, Kiwanuka returned to the project with a new vigour, confidence and a clear sense of this new record’s themes and immersive, sonic textures. It was here that he actualised the lyrically knotty, comforting message of ‘You Ain’t the Problem’ (“It almost made me feel like being a rapper,” he grins); where he turned ‘Hero’ into a shape-shifting, thunderously percussive mini-movie, partly inspired by slain civil rights activist Fred Hampton; here that he crafted the hazy refrain – “” – that allied with Danger Mouse’s rhythm guitar playing to give psych-gospel highlight ‘I’ve Been Dazed’ its eerie, hypnotic power.

“We had three weeks and every day I would just do this half hour walk from my hotel by the Brooklyn Bridge to the studio in Red Hook, listening to backing tracks and scribbling lyrics on hotel paper or in my little scrapbook,” he says, more than a little wistfully. “It felt like being 15. And that excitement and childish imagination really helped me forget that it was a scary process.” This youthful sense of play also led to the invocation of some, possibly surprising, tonal influences from Kiwanuka’s childhood as a skater kid who loved Nirvana and Green Day as much as Outkast and Lauryn Hill. Using the cinematic skits and interludes of a record like by The Fugees as a springboard, Kiwanuka wondered if the horn-drenched grandeur of previous lengthy songs like ‘Love & Hate’ and ‘Father’s Child’ could be intensified and transformed into something even more atmospheric, more immersive.

The result is the unhurried, auterish poise that may be one of “Kiwanuka”’s most striking features. ‘Piano Joint (This Kind of Love) Intro’ sets the scene with windblown harmonies and a rumbling, canyon-deep baritone to rival Isaac Hayes (it’s actually Kiwanuka, detuned). ‘Another Human Being’ features a jolting gun shot and a quote taken from a participant in the Civil Rights ‘sit-in’ protests that swept through North Carolina in 1960 (‘Interlude (Living All the People)’ also features the voice of congressman and activist John Lewis). ‘Hard To Say Goodbye’ is a dawnlit, 7 minute opus that Kiwanuka garnished with the sampled sound of twittering birds. “I was really influenced by the vividness of something like ,” he explains, about the desire to create such a rich, inhabitable world.  And he even allowed himself to be coaxed towards stretches of musical terrain that he would never have ordinarily explored. When Danger Mouse first started working towards the skipping, almost ‘80s rhythm of ‘Final Days’ – about as far from “Home Again”’s retro soul as this new record gets – Kiwanuka was hesitant. “It’s kind of spacey so I took a lot of convincing,” he admits. “But we went the whole hog with it and it’s one of my favourite songs now.”

It tells its own story that Kiwanuka – who came up in the pub rooms of London’s acoustic scene before winning the BBC’s Sound Of 2012 poll – is now so happily embracing musical touchstones and styles that may have once seemed contradictory. The revelatory, confessional core of ‘Black Man in a White World’ (which grappled with identity and Kiwanuka’s status in communities where he was conspicuously the only ethnic minority) has evolved into something a little more certain. Now, Kiwanuka’s reengagement with his Ugandan heritage (he hopes, he notes, to play some shows there soon) manifests in skittering Afrobeat drums and guitar lines that he hopes possess “the feeling of a Fela track”.

TRACK LISTING

You Ain’t The Problem
Rolling
I’ve Been Dazed
Piano Joint (This Kind Of Love) Intro
Piano Joint (This Kind Of Love)
Another Human Being (Interlude)
Living In Denial
Hero
Hard To Say Goodbye
Final Days
Interlude (Loving The People)
Solid Ground
Light

The highly anticipated album was mainly produced and co-written with Jack Antonoff and will include ‘Venice Bitch,’ ‘Mariners Apartment Complex,’ ‘hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but I have it,’ and the current release, a cover of Sublime’s ‘Doin’ Time’.

TRACK LISTING

Norman Fucking Rockwell
Mariners Apartment Complex
Venice Bitch
Fuck It I Love You
Doin’ Time
Love Song
Cinnamon Girl
How To Disappear
California
The Next Best American Record
The Greatest
Bartender
Happiness Is A Butterfly
Hope Is A Dangerous Thing For A Woman Like Me To Have – But I Have It

Madonna’s highly-anticipated 14th studio album. Influenced creatively by living in Lisbon, Portugal over the past several years, Madame X is a collection of 15 new songs that celebrate Madonna’s career-long affair with Latin music and culture as well as other global influences.

Singing in Portuguese, Spanish and English, highlights on the album include “Medellín,” which was co-produced by Mirwais and captures the spirit of Maluma’s hometown, the anthemic song “I Rise,” the Jamaican dancehall vibes of “Future” featuring Quavo, and co-produced by Diplo, as well as the sonically innovative Mirwais produced “Dark Ballet.” Recorded over 18 months in Portugal, London, New York and Los Angeles, Madonna collaborated on Madame X with longtime producer Mirwais, as well as with producers Mike Dean and Diplo, among others.

TRACK LISTING

Medellin (feat Maluma)
Dark Ballet
God Control
Future (feat Quavo)
Batuka
Killers Who Are Partying
Crave (feat Swae Lee)
Crazy
Come Alive
Extreme Occident
Faz Gostoso (feat Anitta)
Bitch I'm Loca (feat Maluma)
I Don't Search I Find
Looking For Mercy
I Rise

Honk collects 36 essential Stones’ tracks – including eight Top 10 singles, “Brown Sugar”, “Tumbling Dice”, “Angie”, “It’s Only Rock And Roll (But I Like It)”, “Fool To Cry”, “Miss You”, “Emotional Rescue” and “Start Me Up”. Bringing the band’s story up to date, Honk also contains hit single “Doom & Gloom” – recorded in 2012 – as well as “Just Your Fool”, “Ride ‘Em Down” and “Hate To See You Go” from the band’s 2016’s Grammy Award-winning, No 1 album, Blue & Lonesome. 

Winners of 2017’s Best British Group at the BRIT Awards, The 1975 release their 3rd album ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships.’

The album is a follow up to ‘I like it when you sleep for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it,’ which charted at Number 1 on both sides of the Atlantic going Platinum in the UK in the process. 

TRACK LISTING

1. The 1975
2. Give Yourself A Try
3. TooTimeTooTimeTooTime
4. How To Draw / Petrichor
5. Love It If We Made It
6. Be My Mistake
7. Sincerity Is Scary
8. I Like America & America Likes Me
9. The Man Who Married A Robot / Love Theme
10. Inside Your Mind
11. It’s Not Living If It’s Not With You
12. Surrounded By Heads And Bodies
13. Mine
14. I Couldn’t Be More In Love
15. I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)

The Rolling Stones are set to release a new album, ‘On Air’, a selection of BBC recordings from the 60’s. The track-listing will comprise of original Stones tracks along with some covers. The audio has gone through an extensive process called ‘Audio Source Separation’ at Abbey Road. In short, it means a de-mix process ahead of a traditional multi track remix and master.

Global superstar Lana Del Rey releases her 4th album ‘Lust For Life’ which features collaborations with A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, Sean Ono Lennon, The Weeknd and Stevie Nicks.

Following the UK platinum debut album Haim’s highly anticipated new album ‘Something To Tell You’ will be released on July 7th, they announced the release of ‘Something To Tell You’ with an in-studio video version of album track ‘Right Now,’ which was shot and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, Boogie Nights). HAIM released ‘Want You Back,’ the first official single from ‘Something To Tell You’, which Pitchfork awarded Best New Track saying “Whiplash is starting to feel like a theme of pop in 2017” going on to praise “Haim are pulling the rug out from under our feet in the run-up to releasing their second album.”

Feist’s first album in six years reflects on secrets and shame, loneliness and tenderness, care and fatigue and is at its core a study on self-awareness. As the fourth full-length from the Canadian singer/songwriter born Leslie Feist, Pleasure builds off the warm naturalism of the Polaris Prize-winning Metals and emerges as her most formally defiant and expansive work so far. Recorded over the course of three months—in Stinson Beach, Upstate New York, and Paris — Pleasure was co-produced by Feist with longtime collaborators Renaud Letang and Mocky. Following the album’s title-track, Feist has now shared ‘Century’, which features Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker in addition to reaffirming Feist as a cagily inventive guitar player, the album threads her shape-shifting and often haunting vocals into sparse and raw arrangements. Released on a Limited Ed Digi and 2LP set

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: From the mournful lo-fi balladry of 'I Wish I Didn't Miss You' to the country-tinged minor key melodies of 'Any Party' and stomping cyclic rock of century, this is a confident and cohesive collection of classics from one of the all-time masters in the field. Feist smashes it again.

TRACK LISTING

1. “Pleasure”
2. “I Wish I Didn’t Miss You”
3. “Get Not High, Get Not Low”
4. “Lost Dreams”
5. “Any Party”
6. “A Man Is Not His Song”
7. “The Wind”
8. “Century”
9. “Baby Be Simple”
10. “I’m Not Running Away”
11. “Young Up”

‘Little Fictions’ was recorded in Scotland and Manchester and sees the band collaborate with the string players of The Hallé Orchestra, the Hallé Ancoats Community Choir, members of London Contemporary Voices and session drummer Alex Reeves. As with the previous three elbow albums it was produced by Craig Potter.

‘Little Fictions’ is emphatically a band album. Having written individually for its chart-topping predecessor, ‘The Take Off and Landing of Everything’, sessions this time were collective affairs, with all four members gathered initially in a house in Scotland before moving to Guy’s attic in Prestwich and finalising recordings in the familiar setting of Blueprint studios, Salford.

‘Little Fictions’ is an upbeat album. All the band talk of the sessions being ‘joyful’, Mark summarises it as ‘the sound of four people who love what they do and each other’, of an album that came into being naturally and, at times even unconsciously. Lead single ‘Magnificent (She Says)’ was embraced for the joyous, thrilling piece of music it is, positive and outward looking. Mark never even considered his audible switch towards electric guitars, most notable on the psychedelic lushness of ‘All Disco’, until the very end of the process.

The departure of drummer Richard Jupp prior to commencing the writing and recording process in earnest saw early sessions characterised by new approaches to rhythm, with the band utilising percussive noises, sampling and loops to build tracks. The grooves that run through much of the album, from the go-go beats of ‘Gentle Storm’ through the jagged trip hop of ‘Kindling’ to the soulful ‘Firebrand & Angel’ represent both the band’s widest musical palette and a newfound sense of experimentation borne from both necessity and desire. That desire fuelled the title track, an eight minute piece that is epic without at any point feeling excessive. As a shorthand for the album it is perfect, crossing musical genres and experimenting with sound in ways that demonstrate the confidence and enthusiasm of the band throughout the recording process.

‘Little Fictions’ is, therefore, more than just yet another brilliant elbow album. In many ways it marks the start of a new chapter for the band, characterised by a rediscovery of shared purpose in doing the thing that has always brought them together, the place that Mark describes as ‘the creative space where we all meet’.

TRACK LISTING

Magnificent (She Says)
Gentle Storm
Trust The Sun
All Disco
Head For Supplies
Firebrand & Angel
K2
Montparnasse
Little Fictions
Kindling

Soulful and raw, Londoner Michael Kiwanuka’s critically-acclaimed debut album ‘Home Again’ (April 2012) staked his claim on the list of great British singer-songwriters. Having taken a deep breath and relaxed into his musical approach, Kiwanuka is back, and has delivered his eagerly anticipated second album - and it packs a powerful punch. 'Love & Hate', produced by Danger Mouse, Inflo and Paul Butler, is an outward-looking, drenched with emotional density and rich, soulful production at the helm. Two years in the making, the British Ugandan Londoner has worked with new talent and created a canvas which sees his vulnerability take centre stage. Honest, unabashed, and ambitious, this is Kiwanuka proving that he is ready to secure his position as one of our most exciting homegrown talents. It’s a new world since his debut, and it seems that it’s his for the taking.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cold Little Heart
2. Black Man In A White World
3. Falling
4. Place I Belong
5. Love & Hate
6. One More Night
7. I'll Never Love
8. Rule The World
9. Father's Child
10. The Final Frame

The follow-up to the quartet’s million-selling self-titled debut. It is a bold and brilliant record made up of infectious pop hooks and sprawling electro sonics, an ambitious stride forward for one of the UK’s most exciting young bands.

Dre's back with his first album in 16 years. Apparently inspired by seeing his younger self portrayed in the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton, he ditched the work from the much delayed 'Detox' album (a "hip hop musical"!) and started afresh. The result is 'Compton', an album that looks back to Dre's past, but also brings a fresh perspective by including a roll call guest MCs (Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Anderson .Paak etc). Beat building and production-wise, 'Compton' shows Dre hasn't lost his touch, layering live and digital percussion and instrumentation, plus samples and raps into one killer long player. Includes breakout track 'Genocide' featuring Kendrick Lamar - G anthem for the Michael Brown era.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Intro
2. Talk About It (feat. King Mez & Justus)
3. Genocide (feat. Kendrick Lamar, Marsha Ambrosius & Candice Pillay)
4. It’s All On Me (feat. Justus & BJ The Chicago Kid)
Side B
5. All In A Day’s Work (feat. Anderson .Paak & Marsha Ambrosius)
6. Darkside/Gone (feat. King Mez, Marsha Ambrosius & Kendrick Lamar)
7. Loose Cannons (feat. Xzibit, Cold187um & Sly Pyper)
8. Issues (feat. Ice Cube, Anderson .Paak & Dem Jointz)
Side C
9. Deep Water (feat. Kendrick Lamar, Justus & Anderson .Paak)
10. One Shot One Kill - Jon Connor (feat. Snoop Dogg)
11. Just Another Day - The Game (feat. Asia Bryant)
12. For The Love Of Money (feat. Jill Scott, Jon Connor & Anderson .Paak)
Side D
13. Satisfiction (feat. Snoop Dogg, Marsha Ambrosius & King Mez)
14. Animals (feat. Anderson .Paak)
15. Medicine Man (feat. Eminem, Candice Pillay & Anderson .Paak)
16. Talking To My Diary

The album was recorded between Los Angeles and New York.

This is the 3rd studio album from Lana Del Rey, her last record ‘Ultraviolence’ when to #1 in 74 countries and she has worldwide album sales in excess of 9 million. Following the global first play and interview on Zane Lowe's Beats1 show, Annie Mac had 'High By The Beach' as her Hottest Record on Radio 1which included two spins of the track back to back and an interview with Lana. 

‘Sticky Fingers’ was recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Stargroves, Mick’s country home and Olympic Studios in London and produced by regular confidant Jimmy Miller, ‘Sticky Fingers’ was released shortly after the Stones became exiled in the south of France, leaving Britain after a sensational farewell tour. It also featured some of the most ground breaking artwork in rock history by Andy Warhol with its famous working zip on the front cover. (Recreated in the Super Deluxe and Double Vinyl Deluxe Editions of the new package.)

‘Sticky Fingers’ has been repeatedly hailed as one of the Stones’ all-time great albums, capturing their trademark combination of swagger and tenderness in a superb collection. It continued the incredible outpouring of creative energy that had produced 1968’s ‘Beggars Banquet’ and ‘Let It Bleed’ in 1969. After ‘Sticky Fingers’, the Stones’ relocation to the south of France led to the double album masterpiece ‘Exile On Main St.’ The highly acclaimed ‘Sticky Fingers’ showcased the ever more inventive song writing of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and formidable guitar licks from Mick Taylor.

TRACK LISTING

CD1
1. Brown Sugar
2. Sway
3. Wild Horses
4. Can't You Hear Me Knocking
5. You Gotta Move
6. Bitch
7. I Got The Blues
8. Sister Morphine
9. Dead Flowers
10. Moonlight Mile

CD2
1. Brown Sugar (Alternate Version With Eric Clapton)
2. Wild Horses (Acoustic Version)
3. Can't You Hear Me Knocking (Alternate Version)
4. Bitch (Extended Version)
5. Dead Flowers (Alternate Version)
6. Live With Me (Live At The Roundhouse, 1971)
7. Stray Cat Blues (Live At The Roundhouse, 1971)
8. Love In Vain (Live At The Roundhouse, 1971)
9. Midnight Rambler (Live At The Roundhouse, 1971)
10. Honky Tonk Women (Live The Roundhouse, 1971

1. DVD
2. Midnight Rambler (Live At The Marquee, 1971)
3. Bitch (Live At The Marquee, 1971)

Brand new album from platinum, Grammy nominated recording artist Lana Del Rey! The album features the hit songs 'West Coast' and 'Shades of Cool' along with typically Del Rey-ish songs: 'Fucked My Way To The Top' and 'Pretty When You Cry'. She's not veered to far away from the script of her first album: 50s noir meets Blue Velvet atmospherics meets modern day pop nouse, and if you're a fan then you won't be disappointed.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Wow! Incredibly, this record is much stronger than Lana's smash debut!? There's no "Video Games", obviously but you don't need it when every track is deeper, darker, grander and sadder than before. A brilliant surprise.

TRACK LISTING

1.Cruel World
2.Ultraviolence
3.Shades Of Cool
4.Brooklyn Baby
5.West Coast
6.Sad Girl
7.Pretty When You Cry
8.Money Power Glory
9.Fmwuttt
10.Old Money
11.The Other Woman

Following a series of LA based studio sessions with producers Ariel Rechtsaid (Major Lazer, Vampire Weekend, Usher) and James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Florence & The Machine, Simian Mobile Disco), San Fernando Valley sisters HAIM have emphatically taken all the strengths of their live shows and transformed their songs into nuggets of golden pop.

‘Days Are Gone’ is a record that wrestles with that early live potential and fully realises it, showcasing the breadth of their collective and individual talents. Having performed live together on stages from a very early age, it’s that innate understanding of each other’s musicianship that acts as both the strength and catalyst behind everything the band do.

Plenty has already been made of the band’s R&B influences, but it’s a shimmering guitar-fuelled, West Coast pop that surfaces across the 11 tracks on the LP. Sharing all the songwriting between themselves, ‘Days Are Gone’ is a record that features songs that stretches right back to when the band first formed ('Forever', 'The Wire', 'Let Me Go'), and songs written in the latter stages of 2012.

Opening on their 2013 Spring EP release ‘Falling’, it’s smartly followed by the song that introduced them back in March 2012, ‘Forever’. ‘The Wire’, a huge live favourite and forthcoming single, receives a slick production but loses none of the energy and passion that makes it so enticing on stage.

The sultry ‘If I Could Change Your Mind’ is the first of four brand new songs that HAIM are yet to have aired live, ‘Days Are Gone’, ‘My Song 5’, and ‘Running If You Call My Name’. Another regular live track, ‘Honey & I’ is one of the many standout tracks on a record that is more than simply the sum of its parts.

TRACK LISTING

1. Falling
2. Forever
3. The Wire
4. If I Could Change Your Mind
5. Honey & I
6. Don't Save Me
7. Days Are Gone
8. My Song 5
9. Go Slow
10. Let Me Go
11. Running If You Call My Name

Every so often an artist comes along who changes the musical landscape, an artist who brings something different to the game... Step forward Kendrick Lamar.

Hailed as the new face of West Coast Rap, the 24 yr-old Compton-native has already been making his mark on the music scene, first with his sought-after mixtapes - ‘Training Day’ and ‘C4’. Then with his self-titled debut EP, 2009’s ‘Kendrick Lamar’ which featured his trademark singles ‘P&P’ and ‘She Needs Me’, followed up by 2010’s ‘(O)verly (D)edicated’ powered by the singles ‘Michael Jordan’ and ‘Cut You Off’. In 2011 he independently released ‘Section. 80’ becoming one of the top digital hip hop albums of the year.

Fast-forward to 2012 and with the weight and backing of Dr. Dre (the two recently had a joint XXL cover), Kendrick is ready to release his highly-anticipated major label album ‘Good Kid, m.A.A.d City’. Hot single ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)’ serves as a good taster to the album, alongside the previously released warm-up single ‘The Recipe’ ft. Dr. Dre and the recently announced collaborative single with Lady Gaga called 'Partynauseous'. As well as scene stealing features alongside The Game, Drake, Rick Ross and others - Kendrick is poised to be the first artist in a long time to not only change how the country views West Coast hip hop, but how the world sees Hip Hop as a whole.

“The coolest shit to say used to be the gangsta shit,” Kendrick says. “But now, the real cool shit to talk about is supporting your family.”

TRACK LISTING

CD Tracklisting:
1. Sherane AKA Master Splinter’s Daughter
2. Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe
3. Backseat Freestyle
4. The Art Of Peer Pressure
5. Money Trees - Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock
6. Poetic Justice - Kendrick Lamar, Drake
7. Good Kid
8. M.A.A.d City - Kendrick Lamar, MC Eiht
9. Swimming Pools (Drank)
10. Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thirst
11. Real - Kendrick Lamar, Anna Wise
12. Compton - Kendrick Lamar, Dr. Dre
13. Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe (Remix - Featuring Jay Z)
14. Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe (International Remix - Featuring Emeli Sande)

Vinyl Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Sherane A.k.a Master Splinter’s Daughter
2. Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe
3. Backseat Freestyle
4. The Art Of Peer Pressure

Side B:
5. Money Trees - Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock
6. Poetic Justice - Kendrick Lamar, Drake
7. Good Kid
8. M.A.A.d City - Kendrick Lamar, MC Eiht

Side C:
9. Swimming Pools (Drank)
10. Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thirst
11. Real - Kendrick Lamar, Anna Wise

Side D:
12. Compton - Kendrick Lamar, Dr. Dre
13. The Recipe - (Bnus Track)
14. Black Boy Fly (Bonus Track)
15. Now Or Never - Featuring Mary J. Blige (Bonus Track)

Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock, the group’s 1991 final album, took a year to make, and yet it has required decades to fully appreciate. Following up on the abstract 'Spirit of Eden', which sufficiently alienated pop fans of the band’s earlier material, 'Laughing Stock' took spaces in recorded music to new extremes, with layers of silence breathing through strings, woodwinds, percussion and Mark Hollis’s delicate vocals.

The record exists as one complete thought, albeit with jagged diversions and tangents. Hollis’s and producer Tim Friese-Greene’s goal from the beginning was to create an album that completely enveloped the listener. During recording, microphones were placed at distances as far as 30 feet from the instruments they were recording, and passages were captured with no clear intention as to where they would finally be placed. Before ProTools made the cut-and-paste, drag-and-drop process standard in songwriting, Hollis and Friese-Greene were in the studio with flugelhorn and viola players, capturing notes and phrases they collected and combined into the six tracks that became 'Laughing Stock'. Everything was recorded straight from the original instruments, as Hollis continued reacting against the synth artificiality of his past. It was released on jazz label Verve, further declaring that 'In A Silent Way' was a greater influence than any pop group to which Talk Talk had been compared in the past. 'Laughing Stock' grows like vines in a garden out of any speakers. The full power of the music is as engrossing as it is oblique, like wrapping oneself in a blanket of thoughts. Talk Talk’s music is unapologetic in its obscureness, caressed in the gentle beauty of subtlety and warmth.

TRACK LISTING

1 Myrrhman 5:33
2 Ascension Day 6:01
3 After The Flood 9:27
4 Taphead 7:01
5 New Grass 9:46
6 Runeii 4:59

Few records make such an instant impression as 'Home Again', the debut album by Michael Kiwanuka. Immersing the listener in a sound that is both modern and at the same time as familiar as the classics, it manages to strike the balance between being contemporary and somehow utterly timeless.

“I just wanted to make a record that, when someone puts it on, it takes them to a certain place,” says the 25-year-old north Londoner. “I wanted it to have the lush-sounding instrumentation and feel of older records, to be warm and peaceful and put the listener in this little world, which is rich with vibes and sounds and colours.”

For Kiwanuka, key musical touchstones include Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Shuggie Otis, Roberta Flack’s 'First Take', Bill Withers’ 'Live At Carnegie Hall' and D’Angelo’s modern soul landmark 'Voodoo'. Citing the latter album in particular as Exhibit A in refuting suggestions that his listening tastes are rooted exclusively in the 1970s, Kiwanuka calmly shrugs off any “retro” accusations that might be levelled at his music.

“The truth is there was no intention behind any of it,” he states. “There was no intention for my voice to sound old. The songs come out like they do because I like the sound of stuff like that. I didn’t start writing songs to get a record deal. I wrote songs to express myself and they ended up sounding old.”

Moreover, given the fact that he was born in 1986, to Kiwanuka’s impressionable young ears, even the music of the past was fresh to him. “To me, those records sounded new,” he says. “Growing up, I didn’t have records at home. I didn’t even know any Beatles albums. For me, it was all completely brand new music, even though it was recorded decades ago.”

Born in Muswell Hill to Ugandan émigré parents, Michael Kiwanuka was brought up in a home from which music was largely absent, with his first introduction to rock (Nirvana, Radiohead) arriving at the same time as he began to hang with the skater kids in the north London suburb during his early teenage years. Later coming across a soul compilation album given away with a music monthly, he was enthralled by the sound of Otis Redding’s studio talkback discussions with his engineer while recording an outtake version of '(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay'. From this point on, he resolved to make music that sounded raw and authentic.

As a guitarist, however, the session work that Kiwanuka managed to find in his early career as a musician was entirely in the urban genre, notably with Bashy and Chipmunk. While he says he learned much from these experiences, it chiefly taught him that his musical passions lay elsewhere. “My head was in other music,” he admits, “so this was just a means to get there. It forced me to try and write my own songs because I didn’t feel this other stuff in my heart.”

Though deeply into soul and jazz, he found real inspiration in the cross-pollination of the two styles with folk in the music of Bill Withers. “Bill Withers was very rootsy and earthy,” he points out, “but people branded him as a soul singer. To me, he was a folk artist. So that encouraged me to keep going, ‘cause I didn’t know where I would fit in as a black guy with an acoustic guitar.”

In beginning to perform on the acoustic circuit around London, Kiwanuka quickly attracted interest and made connections, not least with his current manager who in turn garnered the attention of Communion Records, the label that in 2011 released the singer’s first two acclaimed EPs, 'Tell Me A Tale' and 'I’m Getting Ready'.

Both of these EPs - as with 'Home Again' - were produced by Paul Butler (The Bees) in his vintage equipment-stuffed basement studio at his house in Ventnor on the Isle Of Wight. Together the pair played almost every instrument to be heard on the album, with Butler’s remarkably intimate, detailed productions - adorned with everything from flute to brass to sitar to aching strings - perfectly matching Kiwanuka’s visions for his songs. “The way we made the record was very modern,” the singer points out. “There was loads of editing. We manipulated it to get exactly what we wanted.”

From the opening bars of the stirring 'Tell Me A Tale', it is instantly clear that 'Home Again' is a very special album. While its more upbeat characteristics are embodied in the Prince Buster-like loping of the lovelorn but irresistibly catchy 'Bones' and the rolling soul groove of 'I’ll Get Along', elsewhere it proves itself to be a record of real stripped-down beauty. In 'I Won’t Lie', with its gospel-infused echoes of The Staples Singers, Kiwanuka offers something akin to a modern spiritual, while in 'Rest' he turns in a tender “love lullaby” and in 'Always Waiting', he blends classical elements with the confessional intimacy of Roberta Flack.

It is with the title track of 'Home Again', however, that Michael Kiwanuka feels the record’s sounds and themes are ultimately encapsulated. “That’s the song that really for me ties everything together,” he says. “It’s one of the earliest songs I wrote for the album and even though I progressed and changed stuff in the studio, it was the one I could never throw away. Like a lot of them, it’s a hopeful song. I use home as the metaphor for contentment and peace within.”

Other parts of the record, on the other hand, find Kiwanuka struggling for peace of mind and using his songs as a form of self-empowerment, not least in the soulful 'I’m Getting Ready', the darker, unburdening 'Any Day Will Do Fine' and the self-explanatory 'Worry Walks Beside Me'. “It can really paralyse you, if you worry too much,” the singer admits. “I do tend to overthink things. All of these songs are me talking to myself, really. Trying to encourage myself to believe.”

TRACK LISTING

Tell Me A Tale
I'm Getting Ready
I'll Get Along
Rest
Home Again
Bones
Always Waiting
I Won't Lie
Any Day Will Do Fine
Worry Walks Beside Me

"Born To Die" the album is a collection of tracks about which Lana says "The songs I've written are an homage to true love and a tribute to living life on the wild side." Album tracks include "Video Games", "Million Dollar Man", "Off To The Races", "Blue Jeans" and "Carmen".

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: For sure this is a slick 'pop' album, but with her sultry vocal delivery (ALA Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval) and stunning dark cinematic songs such as "Video Games" and "Blue Jeans", there's more than enough here to keep an indie kid happy.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1:
01 Born To Die Album Version 04:46
02 Off To The Races 05:01
03 Blue Jeans Album Version Remastered 03:29
04 Video Games Album Version Remastered 04:42

Side 2:
01 Diet Mountain Dew 03:43
02 National Anthem 03:49
03 Dark Paradise 04:04
04 Radio 03:35

Side 3:
01 Carmen 04:09
02 Million Dollar Man 03:50
03 Summertime Sadness 04:25
04 This Is What Makes Us Girls 04:00

Side 4:
01 Without You 03:51
02 Lolita 03:41
03 Lucky Ones 03:45

Following the long awaited and well deserved success of their previous album "The Seldom Seen Kid", Elbow make a much anticipated return.

"Build A Rocket Boys!" features guest contributions from the Halle Youth Choir, retaining Elbow’s strong links with both their home town and the Halle itself, with whom they collaborated on a very special show at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall in 2009.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lippy Kids
2. The Birds
3. With Love
4. Neat Little Rows
5. Jesus Is A Rochdale Girl
6. The Night Will Always Win
7. High Ideals
8. The River
9. Open Arms
10. The Birds (Reprise)
11. Dear Friends

The Boy Who Trapped The Sun is 25 year-old Colin MacLeod - the 'Boy Who' moniker, he says, 'feels bigger and less lonely'. Originally from the Isle of Lewis, a windswept outcrop of the Outer Hebrides, MacLeod was discovered swinging round the rafters of an Aberdeen bar, dishing out Deep Purple covers and, he says, 'generally acting like an arse'. Having smashed his guitar and knocked himself unconscious on stage, he set to cleaning up both the broken instrument and his act. Thus The Boy moved to London, to become a solo artist and an adult.

And so emerged "Fireplace", with MacLeod playing all the instruments bar the strings himself. Hazy opener "Golden" sets the scene, with MacLeod gently drawing the listener into his world. New single "Katy" is more upbeat, a catchy paean to avoiding commitment. Title track "Fireplace" was written when MacLeod was housebound for four days as a fierce storm battered Lewis, while the loose, bluesy "Home" was written in London, about being displaced in the big city - 'This city's not a home, but it's somewhere to get lost'. "Walking In The Dark" is an achingly pretty piano-led track, while the waltz-y, wry "Dreaming Like A Fool" is the tale of ex-girlfriend who tried to stab MacLeod. 'Lately it feels like we're drifting apart', he sings. 'It could be because you're insane'.
Riding on a dream-like descending riff "Copper Down" features exquisite harmonies and a deft, mid-song change of pace. The final track is the haunting, beautifully arranged "Antique Cobweb". There follows the hidden spoken-word outro "Poem", its second verse in Gaelic, wonderfully evocative of the Isle of Lewis and the sea that defines it. "Fireplace" is a beautifully realised debut from an authentic new talent. Listen again and again.

TRACK LISTING

1. Golden
2. Katy
3. Fireplace
4. I See You
5. Home
6. Thorn In Your Side
7. Walking In The Dark
8. Dreaming Like A Fool
9. Telescope
10. Copper Down
11. Antique Cobweb / Poem (Hidden Track)

Upon its release more than three decades ago, 'Exile On Main Street' innovatively wove varying musical genres, instruments and even artists into a compelling rhythmic masterpiece.

The original 18-track double-album was recorded in various stages at multiple locations, including Olympic Studios in London, Keith Richard’s mansion Nellcote in France, and in Los Angeles where the literal “Main Street” influenced the album title. These atypical circumstances surrounding the recording process greatly affected the album’s outcome which was highly reflective and influenced by the sociopolitical turbulence that marked the late `60s and early `70s. The Stones nixed the influences of a flower-child era and directed their creative process with the edgier, excessive, “more is more” approach of the `70s. Exile reveals a sprawling mix of genres with undertones of blues, country, R&B and gospel mixed with lyrics that fervently demand for release and liberation.

The album pulled together an electric array of talent including Dr. John, the late Billy Preston and pianist Nicky Hopkins. Guitarist Mick Taylor, who replaced Brian Jones in the band shortly before Jones died in 1969, is a magnificent blues player who brought an intensity and elegance to these epic tracks. At times, these musicians and others lived on the recording studio premises with the band creating an extremely open and creative collaboration for the album.

TRACK LISTING

1. Rocks Off
2. Rip This Joint
3. Shake Your Hips
4. Casino Boogie
5. Tumbling Dice
6. Sweet Virginia
7. Torn And Frayed
8. Sweet Black Angel
9. Loving Cup
10. Happy
11. Turd On The Run
12. Ventilator Blues
13. I Just Want To See His Face
14. Let It Loose
15. All Down The Line
16. Stop Breaking Down
17. Shine A Light
18. Soul Survivor

Part synth-pop classic, part future pop blueprint, the unforgettably catchy "I'm Not Your Toy" is set to be La Roux's next instant classic and is as sure to take up residence in your brain as its predecessors. With her own sci-fi disco ice queen style cut from the same iconic androgynous mould as Grace Jones and Annie Lennox and looking as otherworldly as Tilda Swinton in an electro remake of the Man Who Fell To Earth, La Roux has ripped up the 2009 pop star rule book, already becoming an accidental fashion heroine, a pop star as beloved of fashion journalists as much as radio DJs. Both 12" and CD single features remixes come from Data (big main room electrohouse smasher) and Jack Beats (another of their monster fidget jackers).

Very few things in life compare to the spine tingling, adrenalin rush that comes when you hear a great single for the first time, so I reckon the day the Yeah Yeah Yeahs walked into their record company, demanding that the opening track on “It's Blitz” should be “Zero” was, in general, a good day at the office for their A&R man. 'You want the best single of the year so far to be the first track on your album? Erm, yeah, I think we can probably live with that’. “It's Blitz” is no one hit wonder though. Awash with synths, it's an album of conflicts that finds Karen O at her most vulnerable while the band, with a sly wink to NYC disco, create what can only be described as an epic soundscape behind her. Yes, the guitars have (no doubt begrudgingly) conceded top billing to Nick Zinners vintage Arp but at its heart, “It’s Blitz” is still a great ROCK record.

TRACK LISTING

1. Zero
2. Heads Will Roll
3. Soft Shock
4. Skeletons
5. Dull Life
6. Shame And Fortune
7. Runaway
8. Dragon Queen
9. Hysteric
10. Little Shadow

Already garnering rave reviews, "Everything's The Rush" is packed with technicolour hits and singles-in-waiting - simply a joy of a record. The schoolboy friends and band-mates for a decade (brothers Greg and Aaron Gilbert, Colin Fox and Rowly) are geared up and ready to go. Recorded over twenty days with acclaimed producer Youth, "Everything's The Rush" is the sound of Delays striding confidently into a new chapter. The tunes are even brighter, the choruses even bigger. 'We recorded at Youth's villa in Grenada, which is high up in the mountains' explains Aaron (keyboards/vocals). 'When you're staring at a mountain in a room full of amps, you want to make a sound that's as big as the sky'. The songs may be the musical equivalent of a huge gulp of alpine air, but listen closer and the lyrics reveal a darker aftertaste. Explains Greg (vocals/guitar). 'A song like "Hooray" sounds really uplifting, but it's actually about me having O.C.D' he laughs. 'For us', says Aaron 'melody is king. We want to make music which sends a shiver down your spine'. Hear it in the rich swell of "Keep It Simple", the sky-scraping stomp of "Touchdown", the rich pop melodies of "Love Made Visible" and the string-soaked cornerstone of the album "Pieces".

Delays return with this blast of insanely catchy, upbeat, sunshine pop taken from the forthcoming album "Everything's The Rush".

Harder, fatter and more disciplined than their, gold-selling debut LP "Through the Windowpane", but equally ambitious, "Red" sounds like nothing else. It's darker and angrier, but also more beautiful, and the band's knack for melody is matched this time round by an endless cavalcade of inspired beats, bass and loops. From the jagged string stabs that unleash mutant disco-glam opener "Kriss Kross", to the desolate late-night pulse of final track "Take Me Home", it's a tour-de-force that marries Guillemots' natural melodic flair with a sense of dancefloor abandonment, not heard since Prince's 80s wild pop adventures. Other stand out tracks include the sleazy r'n'b raunch of "Big Dog", the gorgeous perfection of "Falling Out Of Reach", cyber-electro club-classic-in-waiting "Last Kiss", the haunting simplicity of "Words" and the tribal electro stomp of first single "Get Over It".

This collection spans Morrissey's stellar 20-year career as a solo artist, including two new songs - forthcoming single "That's How People Grow Up" and "All You Need Is Me" - recorded with Jerry Finn, producer of 2004's widely acclaimed No.2 album "You Are The Quarry".

"The Black And White Album" is a record of inhuman proportions, recorded all over the world 'because we thought it was time to have other people involved besides ourselves and our closest friends'. After some initial recording at Hive Manor, for the first time The Hives ventured outside of Sweden to put music to tape. The majority of the album was recorded in Mississippi with producer Dennis Herring (Modest Mouse, Elvis Costello). They also met with Pharrell Williams in Miami and 'made some music with him too' ("T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S" and "Well Allright!"). A week in London at the historic Olympic studios with Jacknife Lee (U2, Bloc Party, Editors) also bore fruit ("Hey Little World"). Back home another song was recorded with fellow Swede Tomas Oberg from the band Bob Hund. All in all, a lot of songs, and more than enough great ones to choose from.

"Era Vulgaris" sees Queens Of The Stone Age return to their deepest, darkest roots, with shadowy riffs reminiscent of the desert sounds of the Kyuss days combined with multi layered industrial power guitar and organ blasts of a new era. It was produced by long time Queens production cohort Chris Goss and Josh Homme himself at their hideaway in the dunes of Joshua Tree. Julian Casablancas from The Strokes and Mark Lanegan appear as guests on various tracks.

"Release The Stars" is a 12-track masterclass in songwriting and production - this is his first new material since 2005's remarkable "Want Two". The album is written and produced by Rufus himself, with Neil Tennant as executive producer. Long time collaborator, Marius de Vries, has also sprinkled magic dust over the tracks in the mix.

This limited edition triple disc set features the 29 track 'greatest hits' double CD plus a bonus live EP featuring: "Move On Up", "Get Yourself Together", "The Great Depression" and "But I'm Different Now".

More 80s infused pop from The Bravery. Wailing Robert Smith-esque vocals over chunky synths riffs and choppy guitars that create a relentless, infectious rhythm.

Beautifully crafted and at times lo-fi acoustica from this highly acclaimed Canadian songstress. Described by iD as having '...one of the warmest purest voices you'll hear all year'.

A subtle selection of downbeat tracks with soulful electronic leanings and global vocals (Howie himself, Marina Heredia, Sweetie, Gavin Friday, Karmen Wijnberg etc). This is accessible, gentle leftfield music.

12 tracks from Oldham's finest prog rock exports Barclay James Harvest at £5.99 who can complain.