“A huge thing for this record was to make it feel as close to our live show as possible,” says Tom Sharkett of W.H. Lung’s latest album. “We didn’t want it to sound live but we wanted to capture the excitement of the live performances.”

This is something that has become paramount to the group in recent years as they have undeniably blossomed into one of the most joyous and arresting live bands in the country. “The reason I’m in a band is to play live music,” says singer Joe Evans. “For me, music is live music. That’s what it’s for, to be played with people.”

The five-piece band, also featuring Chris Mulligan, Hannah Peace, and Alex Mercer-Main, decided to try something new on their third album after two incredibly successful collaborations with previous producer Matt Peel. In order to capture the energy, spirit and dynamism of their live shows, they relocated to Sheffield to work with Ross Orton (MIA, Arctic Monkeys, Working Men’s Club) who was able to harness this side of the band to remarkable effect. “Ross is the Sheffield Steve Albini,” says Evans. “He’s the king of not overthinking it and trusting the process of the art of recording songs. He was always there to stop us fucking around with cerebral stuff and get it down.” Sharkett echoes this too: “He was the exact producer we needed without us even realising. His productions and mixes are bombastic, lively and in your face and that’s exactly what we wanted.”

However, while this album is rooted in a sense of capturing a moment and a sparky liveness, that’s not to say it’s a raw or ragged record. It is still a meticulously composed, delicately layered and pristinely produced piece of work that, in true W.H. Lung style, runs the gauntlet from dance to pop to indie while still capturing that distinctly unique quality that is unquestionably their own. “It was a really big thing for me to realise what made us sound like us on this record,” says Sharkett. “I think the album sounds a lot more confident and self assured because of it. Some songs sound just so much like Lung and I’m really proud of that. I’m not sure we’ve done that as consistently across the other records.”

While the band have drilled deeper into finding their own singular identity, it’s not a record resting on its laurels. It’s a significant leap forward, expanding on their solid foundations while also breaking new ground. “The big difference with this record is its directness in every sense,” says Sharkett. “The songwriting is more upfront. Previously we’d focused a lot on vibe and production as opposed to just writing songs. The overall mission here was to revert to a classic songwriting structure and for the production to come afterwards.”

And so what you have on this record are deeply considered and well-crafted songs, then recorded with blistering intensity in the moment, and then given a touch of experimentation afterwards. Then throw in Orton’s contributions to the band and it’s proven to be a real winning formula. “He brought a real dose of magic to the songs we’d written,” says Sharkett. “And brought an extra bit of wonk and quirkiness each time.”

Such quirkiness is apparent from the opening ‘Lilac Sky’ which very briefly samples a learn to speak Spanish 12” before whirring atmospherics, hypnotic bass, and shimmering synths began to propel the song for launch. “I like it when there’s really clear punctuation at the start of a record,” says Sharkett. “It’s almost like a statement of intent and I wanted something like that, where if people knew the tune they could identify it within the first second.”

It’s also the perfect album opener in more than one way, setting the tone for an album rooted in exploration. “I went out onto Hampstead Heath one day when it was dusk and the sky was mad and I’d just taken some mushrooms,” recalls Evans. “I was thinking: just remember this, this is how things really are. So maybe this track acts like an invocation or a calling for the rest of the album. It’s about listening closely, paying attention, and being overwhelmed with an open heart.”

On ‘Bliss Bliss’ the band almost veer into anthemic indie territory, with its rousing chorus, euphoric lashes of synths and a vocal delivery that is festival headline worthy. “I sang it like I was singing a song I’d forgotten from when I was a teenager,” says Evans of his impassioned performance. It was a fresh approach for the band. “I thought the guitars felt too college rock at first but I just went with it,” says Sharkett. “It’s a completely different style of guitar playing for me and something much more traditional in the indie world but I was enjoying that.”
In many ways this was another foundational song for the LP. “This was the first instance of us writing more traditional songs for the album,” says Sharkett. “It kind of embodies our balance between being a live conventional guitar band and the shiny, synthy side of Lung to me. It feels like the perfect culmination of our experience as a band so far.”

The band’s ability to write more traditional and conventional songs is clearly a skill they’ve taken to with ease, at times there’s an almost Springsteen-like quality – but if he'd ever had an ecstasy period – to tracks such as ‘Thinner Wine’ and ‘Bloom and Fade’. While ‘How to Walk’ was constructed with one thing only in mind: that it would absolutely slay on stage. “I can’t wait to play this live,” says Evans. “We wanted a song to represent our live set, a new big one, and this is it.” Once again it leans towards the anthemic, with its driving, propulsive charge complete with incandescent synths and vocal melodies so irresistible you can already hear them being sung in unison by a crowd.
It’s an incredibly difficult feat to pull off a record that is more rooted in traditional songcraft while also capturing the power of a live performance, as well as pushing sonics into experimental new directions while working with a brand new collaborator. But here the band has managed to do just that.

And the album’s closing song ‘I Will Set Fire To The House’ is a perfect example of such a thing. It’s a song that feels immaculately constructed but also very much alive and of the moment as its radiating synths engulf from the off, and Evans’ vocal is silky but powerful and in perfect symbiosis with Peace’s. It’s a song that captures the endless joys of music playing long into the night. “It may be a bit of a bloody bombastic way to end an album saying ‘and we’ll dance into the sunrise’,” says Evans. “But fuck it.” 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Lilac Sky
Bliss Bliss
Thinner Wine
Bloom And Fade

Side B
How To Walk
Flowers In The Rain
I Can’t Lie
The Painting Of The Bay
I Will Set Fire To The House

Compiled by Jason Boardman ( Before I Die Records) Celebrated Manchester club-night curator & record Label Owner , DJ & digger - supreme.

An album of early 1980s Post-Punk era musical bedroom & small studio innovations & DIY Inspirations - Featuring rarely / never heard cuts from that period. Including tracks sampled by DJ Shadow & a singular Post-Punk era back-handed tribute JCC track :-) From Coventry's 2-Tone associated Skeet to Surface Mutants Cabaret Voltaire facilitated Dub & the out-there pastoral Post-Punk spaciness of The Dealers ..A rich vein .

"This is a snapshot of a fertile time in UK music, a time of independent artists, studios, labels & distributors collaborating to do it themselves, sidestepping the majors to take their shot at the big time. It didn't always work out but they made a record and that's what counts. It is a collection of the lost and overlooked - not intended to be a definitive guide to the period but an opportunity to shine a light on the creative output of these artists and share them once again so they can get the recognition they deserve." (Jason Boardman May 2024).

TRACK LISTING

Side 1:
Bally O’Brien - Tell Me Why The Tape Wobbles
Anorexia - Inanimate Objects
Methodishca Tune – LFD
Sprout Head Uprising – I Wish, I Wish
The Four Kings – Disgraceful Version
Swamp Children – Call Me Honey
Cathy La Creme -I Married A Cult Figure
57TH Parallel-Psalm Fifty Seven

Side 2:
Surface Mutants-Train Dub
Khartomb - King Skin (Rough Mix )
The Dealers - Share The World (Part 2)
Skeet - Avril In The Alps
Group Therapy-Arty Fact
Club Of Rome- Bedroom Scenes
APB - Help Yourself
Sirons-Cruise Missile Blues

Forty years since their inception, and almost two decades since their last release, art-synth auteurs Propaganda return with a brand new chapter in their enthralling story. This self-titled set from principal songwriting partnership Ralf Dörper and Michael Mertens embodies the depth and drama of their early work, while exploring fresh sounds and styles, and reflecting the personal and societal changes since their last outing. Conceived and crafted entirely in their native Düsseldorf, a deliberate decision to help them stay true to themselves, and featuring guest appearances from the acclaimed Hauschka and ascendant Thunder Bae, this is Propaganda at their most essential.

Though an embryonic incarnation was formed by Ralf Dörper, former synthesist with electro-punks Die Krupps, and Andreas Thein in 1982, it wasn’t until the addition of Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra percussionist Michael Mertens that the outfit emerged as the dark synth-pop powerhouse which would see chart success as part of the ZTT machine. Upon signing with Trevor Horn’s irreverent imprint in 1983, Propaganda, now comprised of vocalists Claudia Bruecken and Susanne Freytag alongside Dörper and Mertens, delivered their classic debut LP A Secret Wish and a slew of international hit singles, “Dr Mabuse”, “Duel” and “P Machinery”, leaving an indelible mark on the alternative scene and securing an enduring place within the pantheon of synth-dance greats. After a late 80s hiatus spent escaping their unfavourable contracts, during which the singers went their separate ways, the project returned on Virgin in 1990, with a new line-up, including Betsi Miller on vocals and former Simple Minds rhythm section Derek Forbes and Brian McGee. Working alongside producers Ian Stanley and Chris Hughes, the ensemble delivered the smoother sophomore offering 1234, featuring collaborations with the likes of Howard Jones and David Gilmour. After which our protagonists pressed pause and pursued separate goals, Dörper resurrecting Die Krupps and Mertens moving into TV and Film composition and providing a conduit for Düsseldorf’s experimental electronic scene via his Amontillado Music label. The intervening decades passed with the persistent rumble of reunion from outside voices, but it was a 2015 remix request from Zang Tumb Tuum chum and former Frankie Goes To Hollywood frontman Holly Johnson which finally prompted the pair to reconvene behind the console. The success of those sessions behind them, Dörper and Mertens began to consider what the Propaganda of the present would be. A lot had changed since 1990 – they had changed since 1990, and a new incarnation of the project would have to reflect that. So they waved goodbye to the Pop-aganda of the past, left the clubs to the kids, and pressed forward with complete creative freedom. The result is the immersive, emotive tour de force Propaganda.

At once sleek, sensual and cerebral, album opener “They Call Me Nocebo” is the perfect introduction to their sonic evolution. This taut and toxic love/lust song is imbued with the nocturnal mood of vintage Propaganda but expresses itself within the context of the IDM and electronic sounds reverberating through the 21st Century. “Purveyor Of Pleasure” provides the perfect foil, as a rhythm section of infectious synth drums and swelling bass recalls the dance floor preoccupations of the past, but sates itself with a supporting rolehere, allowing the widescreen chord progressions and Thunder Bae’s expressive vocals to take centre stage. Their lyrical lineage of subversive subject matter remains intact, but these meditations on sex and sin contain seasoned self-reflection. The operatic inflections and cinematic grandeur of “Vicious Circle” (emphatically reworked from its 1234 origin), “Love:Craft” (with its lyrical homage to the American master of cosmic horror) and neo-classical instrumental “Dystopian Waltz”, attest to Propaganda’s perennial penchant for the dramatic, now enriched through Mertens’ subsequent soundtrack work into searing, swooning heights. Elsewhere, “Tipping Point” offers an ecological poem set to the trancelike chug of swirling arpeggiators, and “Distant” dissects loneliness and isolation, particularly poignant after the shared experience of lockdown. The beautifully gothic “Wenn Ich Mir Was Wuenschen Duerfte” closes both the album and a loop, its English translation “If I Had A Wish” harking back to the title of their debut album, while the song itself continues the exploration of new sonic territories. A German standard from the thirties, written by Friedrich Hollaender and popularised by Marlene Dietrich’s 1960 recording, the song presents sadness as political strength, and remains as pertinent and powerful now as it ever has. This rich and textured rendition, featuring haunting prepared piano from Hauschka, a long-time musical acquaintance of Mertens’ and now AcademyAward winner, is a fitting finale to this powerful album. And make no mistake, this is an album. In an era of impermanence, Propaganda wanted to produce something real - to be played from start to finish, with artwork and packaging which allows a deeper understanding of the theme of the release. Finding the perfect label to match their ambitions in Bureau B, Propaganda have delivered a third album well worth the wait.

TRACK LISTING

LP (Black/Yellow LP/CD)
A1) They Call Me Nocebo
A2) Purveyor Of Pleasure
A3) Vicious Circle
A4) Tipping Point
B1) Distant
B2) Love:Craft
B3) Dystopian Waltz
B4) Wenn Ich Mir Was Wünschen Dürfte

Tracks On LP2/CD2
C1) Not Good For You
C2) Solace In Sin
C3) World Out Of Joint
D1) I Feel Mysterious
D2) The Calling

Joe Goddard has been thinking about thinking. For the past few years, the producer, songwriter, and all-round polymath of UK dance and indie music has been trying to get more in touch with his own intuition. “This idea of trying to divorce your conscious mind from the music-making process – not trying to force meaning on the music or your collaborators, allowing that process to be very empathetic.”

The wonderful result is his third solo album 'Harmonics', a record rooted in instinct and empathy. Across 14 tracks of left-of-centre dance music – touching on UK garage, house, hip-hop, pop, and disco – Goddard opens the floor for a number of collaborators. The voice of Ibibio Sound Machine’s Eno Williams rides the afro-house groove of 'Progress', while starry-eyed boom-bap track 'When Love’s Out of Fashion' features UK rapper Oranje. Former Wild Beasts frontman Hayden Thorpe lends his uniquely expressive vocal to the low-slung house of 'Summon', and Joe’s Hot Chip bandmates Alexis Taylor and Al Doyle both appear on the gleaming half-step ballad 'Heal Your Mind'. Other guests on 'Harmonics' include Tom McFarland of the London dance-pop group Jungle, Bronx-raised singer Fiorious, Guinean vocalist Falle Nioke, and UK jazz musician Alabaster DePlume.

For all the collaborators that Joe brings into his world, there are a handful of solo songs like 'Follow Me' that capture the more reflective and inward-looking side of his music. “With all the different people on this record, I’ve been working on how to respect the contribution they make and not trying to be the one who has to lead everything,” Joe says. “That follows through into the songs where I’m singing. I tried to write words without having too much of an idea of what I’m trying to express, where I’m just writing a stream of consciousness.”

This openness towards collaboration and the acceptance of people’s individual human nuances is where 'Harmonics' gets its name from. The history of dance music is replete with words like ‘ecstatic’, ‘euphoric’, and ‘uplifting’ – but here, those words do not describe hands-in-the-air clichés, but the spiritual and human side that Joe explores in his music. “Part of the reason why I wanted to call this Harmonics is that I was trying to create something very inclusive and empathetic, something harmonious,” Joe says. “There’s a lot of aggressive division in the world, and I wanted this to be loving, romantic – and fun.” This is the soulful thread that runs through all of Joe Goddard’s favourite music – genres from soul and funk, to house and garage, that were born in Black America and adopted by the UK. Harmonics is not just a title but a promise fulfilled – an unbridled celebration of compassion, collaboration, and creation.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Beautifully produced, warm electronic pieces that ooze pop sensibilities but without ever coming across too sickly, including a host of guest vocalists and continuing a legacy of beautiful songwriting from his Hot Chip tenure. There are moments of divine euphoria and arm-raising joy but equally, a good amount of room for rumination and unease. A beautifully paced, electronic pop gem.

TRACK LISTING

1. Moments Die Featuring Barrie
2. Progress Featuring Ibibio Sound Machine
3. Destiny Featuring Findia 4. New World (Flow) Featuring Fiorious
5. When Love’s Out Of Fashion Featuring Oranje
6. Follow You
7. On My Mind
8. Summon Featuring Hayden Thorpe
9. When You Call Featuring Findia
10. Out At Night
11. Mountains Featuring Alexis Taylor And Al Doyle
12. Ghosts Featuring Tom McFarland
13. Miles Away Featuring Falle Nioke
14. Revery Featuring Alabaster DePlume

The Wrekin Crew is back for a seance outing on the peerless Is It Balearic? This new offering rather continues where the first one left off with two tracks of immersive sonics for sunny days. First up is 'Vapour Trails' which melds lush Italo disco melodies and nice emotional pop of the sort you would expect to hear in this duo's DJ sets. Goldsuite also step up with a remix to smooth the edges and lay down moon-lit Balearica then closer 'Broken Wings' has more meaningful vocals but this time over grooves more suited to a late-night setting. Cosmic arps finish it in style with plenty of dubby undercurrents.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Edit wizards Wrekin Havoc collaborate with Greg Bird to release their second EP of original material on Is It Balearic. While 'Camino' satisfied the disco and boogie fans, this latest offering is (excuse the pun) most definitely balearic, but no less moody, and is nicely rounded up with a remix and dub by Goldsuite and Woolfy.

TRACK LISTING

Vapour Trails
Vapour Trails (Goldsuite Remix)
Broken Wings
Broken Wings (Woolfy Rub Dub)

woooahh there playboy, let's slowww things down a little - get a bit lOoSe..

La Rama is one of those labels we go nuts for here at Picc HQ. Understated Canadian dance music made with love, sentiment and shunning and notable trends for something authentic, rock solid, and made to last. The equivalent of a good pair of shoes...

Bunzinelli drops the second essential release on the label here with four tracks which stradle cosmic, EBM and fresh-as-you-like night club trickery in one succinct package. Excited? You should be.

Immediately causing one Jason Boardman to purchase a copy upon hearing about 3 bars, "Call In Blue" is the club weapon you've always wished you had. Built around a beat n bass structure as impenertrable as an army bunker, these narcotic vocal chops are layered overhead in an effort to channel pure shamanic energy into the dance. Serious, if you're not wiggling to this after 30 seconds I doubt there's any circulation to your hips. Breathtaking, incredible, and coming in at under 110BPM to boot!

"Godspeed" follows, a EBM-infused chugger charged with electrostatic and creeping forward with a tectonic force. "Nova" mixes said energy with a baggy flavour, keeping Andrew Weatherall and Baldelli fans equally engaged with with a mid-session roller that'll have the floor in a coital throb.

Finally, Bunzinelli lets loose with a 130BPM techno rocket from inside the bunker. Machine gun snares and more of that highly charged electrical energy coursing through its stems. Sure to blast away all but the most ardent rave goblin come the witching hours of the morning....

Bunzinelli has been personally involved in serving sonic treats to the world via his label and mix series Chambre Noire. He was also part of the team behind Cosmic Tones which in 2019 released "Montreal Pleiades" featuring his first musical outing alongside local major players Priori, Dust-e-1, URA, Temple's M. Salaciak & R. Weng (the wizard behind the first DJ Medallion release on La Rama Records).

Trust me, if your job is to make a mass of people move in unison, you need this tool in your arsenal!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Unparalleled club tool that due to its restrained tempo should find favour across a variety of tribes. That A1 track man, "Call In Blue" - literally unmissable if you play in nightclubs.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Call In Blue
A2. Godspeed
B1. Nova
B2. Yellow Feeling

Nothing said new or modern or futuristic quite like a synthesiser in the 70s and 80s. If you were shooting an advert and you wanted your product or your company to appear forward-thinking and ahead of the game, then you would want something electronic, something out of the ordinary. When TV producers and advertising directors started searching for music that sounded like “Tubular Bells” – and then Tomita, and later Jean Michel Jarre – music libraries such De Wolfe, Bruton, Parry and Chappell had to have the tracks readily available.

Compiled by Bob Stanley, “Tomorrow’s Fashions” varies from advertising jingles and TV themes to space exploration and gorgeous, beatless ambience. Though it’s 40-to-50 years old there’s a real freshness to this music. Older jazz players Brian Bennett, John Cameron, Alan Hawkshaw and others seized the chance to operate a synth; younger pups including John Saunders and Monica Beale were simply intrigued by the new technology being wheeled into the studios. There’s a tangible sense of adventure. 

“Tomorrow’s Fashions’” brand of electronica anticipated new age and ambient music. It also had both a direct and indirect influence on pop – the early Human League and the future sounds of Warp Records are all over this collection. Electronic library tracks have been sampled by everyone from MF Doom to Kendrick Lamar.

One person’s primitive and experimental is another person’s space-age lullaby. This was music made in the shadows – in Soho’s secretive music library studios – that has now become desirable and influential. The chances are chunks of it will be sampled and used on hit records that have yet to be written. If the musicians’ aim was to soundtrack tomorrow’s fashions, they couldn’t have got it more right.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE ONE
1. COASTER - Simon Park
2. RIPPLING REEDS - Wozo
3. LEAVING - Sam Spence
4. NORTHERN LIGHTS 1 - John Cameron
5. SPAGHETTI JUNCTION - Peter Reno
6. SPACE WALK - Rubba
7. PROSPECT - Paul Hart

SIDE TWO
1. TOMORROW'S FASHIONS - Geoff Bastow
2. BLUE MOVIES - Brian Wade
3. VIDEODISC - Trevor Bastow
4. INTERFACE - Astral Sounds
5. STARWAYS - Brian Chatton
6. OPTICS - Unit 9
7. ATOMIC STATION - Wozo

SIDE THREE
1. FUTURE PROSPECT - Adrian Baker
2. PLANNED PRODUCTION - Warren Bennett
3. FUTURE PERSPECTIVES - Anthony Hobson Aka Tektron
4. WATERFALL - Chameleon
5. TELECOM - James Asher
6. EAGLE - Simon Park Aka Soul City Orchestra
7. ASTRAL PLAIN - Alan Hawkshaw

SIDE FOUR
1. DRIFTING IN TIME - Paul Williams
2. EARTH BORN - Brian Bennett
3. SOFT WAVES - Harry Forbes
4. TOPAZ - Astral Sounds
5. ETERNITY - Alan Hawkshaw
6. INFINITY - John Cameron 

Jon Savage's second eclectic voyage through Post-Punk era Electronic music, Disco, Experimental & Proto-Techno 1978-82.

Re-mastered with care & attention from the very best available audio sources for maximum listening pleasure..

This compilation is selected and curated by renowned cultural commentator, writer and film-maker Jon Savage. Amongst many highly revered projects Jon has produced the definitive work on Punk Rock in “England's Dreaming” and the documentary & book “Teenage” The Creation of Youth, 1875 - 1945. He is also the biographer of Joy Division & author of the top 10 Sunday Times best seller "This Searing Light, The Sun & Everything Else" The Oral History Of Joy Division in 2019. His new book The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Resistance Shaped Popular Culture (1955-1979) is published in in 2024.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Dee D. Jackson-Automatic Lover 4:07
A2 Telex - Moscow Diskow (Original 12" Version) - 5"20
A3 Soft Machine - Soft Space 8"56
B1 Qondile-African Dawn 2"54
B2 Gaz Nevada - I.C. Love Affair 6"30 (Original 12" Mix Version)
B3 I Signori Della Galassia - Archeopterix 4"00
B4 Cerrone - La Secte De Marrakech Suite 4"33
C1 John Foxx-Burning Car 3”15
C2 Thomas Leer & Robert Rental – Monochrome Days 4”01
C3 Cabaret Voltaire-Red Mask 6”54
C4 Caution – UFO 5"30 (Original 12" Mix Version)
D1 Martin Rev - Nineteen 86 4"36
D2 Pascal Comelade - Sequence 1 2"55
D3 The Flying Lizards - An Age 2"31
D4 Throbbing Gristle - Beachy Head 3"39
D5 Terminal City -Mugin For Unknown 5”40

This riotous, psychedelic Latin funk anthem, taken from Martín Buscaglia's 2006 classic album "El evangelio según mi jardinero", sees its very much requested first time on a 7". To celebrate this, and thinking about the AA side, we decided to ask Bosq for a remix.

When we approached him, he said "This track is wild, I love it!" and he started to make his thing. When he finished it, he told us, "I resisted the temptation to bump it up closer to 120 bpm – the world needs more midtempo dancefloor treats!". We couldn't agree more on the midtempo bit, but especially we couldn't be more chuffed with the remix. Bosq has added his magic and a tad of cumbia feel as well and the result is way more than a treat, it's an everyone-smiling-on-the-dancefloor kind of track.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cerebro, Orgasmo, Envidia & Sofía (Original) [feat. Arnaldo Antunes]
2. Cerebro, Orgasmo, Envidia & Sofía (Bosq Remix) [feat. Arnaldo Antunes]

Comprised of Clams Baker Jr., Benjamin Romans Hopcraft, Adam J. Harmer, Marley Mackey, Quinn Whalley, and Bleu Ottis Wright, Too Cold To Hold is undoubtedly their best and most ambitious album to date. Taking on board the repetitive and polyrhythmic grooves of gqom (an alluring South African take on house music), adding in a dash of hip hop flavours and even jazz, and then harnessing that to their punk-funk, disco pogo, it’s a spellbinding mix. The album is produced by the band’s Ben Romans Hopcraft alongside Jamie Neville.

Talking about the first track to be taken from the album, ‘Fashion Week’, which is a joyous account of fashion’s die-hard fans rather than the more visible arrivistes or dilettantes, Clams said: “Those that will do anything to become that thing. That creation. And live it. It’s real artistry when you don’t have the means and you’re doing it. You’re hustling to get on the guest list, you get in, you’re done up by means that you can’t really afford, whatever you do… It’s a celebration of people who will do whatever to look good and feel good and step above wherever they are in their own minds.”

TRACK LISTING

1. An Introduction By Irvine Welsh
2. Fashion Week
3. Pure At The Heart
4. Top Shelf
5. Body Shock
6. Cleopatras
7. Immaculate Deception
8. Out Of Body
9. Staying Alive
10. Too Cold To Hold
11. Weeds In The Garden

Following on from the recently released limited edition “Nice Town” 12”, celebrating the legendary Metronomy’s signing to Ninja Tune, the band bring the second chapter in their Posse EP series out on Friday 12th July. The Posse EP series, where Metronomy invite a hand-picked selection of rising talent to collaborate, Posse EP Volume 2 expands on the series, including the previously released “Nice Town”, a collaboration with Pan Amsterdam.

The first Posse EP came out in 2021, and featured the likes of Biig Piig, Spill Tab, Sorry, Brian Nasty and Folly Group. The lead single from the EP, “405”, has since become one of Metronomy’s biggest tracks with more than 15M streams on Spotify alone.

Volume 2 sees Joseph Mount continue to flaunt his tastemaker talents, showcasing the likes of Nourished by Time, Lynks, Miki, Master Peace, Faux Real, TaliaBle, SPIDER, as well as Naima Bock and Joshua Idehen, who join him on new single “With Balance”, which will be released alongside the EP’s announcement.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Nice Town - Metronomy X Pan Amsterdam
A2. With Balance - Metronomy X Naima Bock X Joshua Idehen
A3. Contact High - Metronomy X Miki X Faux Real

B1. My Love - Metronomy X Nourished By Time
B2. Typical - Metronomy X Lynks X SPIDER X Master Peace X TaliaBle

Alexis Taylor – front man of celebrated indie-electro band Hot Chip – joins the eclectic Paris-born DJ and producer Pilooski (real name Cédric Marszewski) on a remix of Weller’s recent single ‘Flying Fish,’ while British drummer, producer and engineer Richie Stevens of virtual band Spacemonkeyz reimagines the track ‘Nothing.’

TRACK LISTING

A: Flying Fish – Alexis Taylor & Pilooski Remix
B: Nothing - Richie Stevens Smudge Remix

The Swedish stallion comes correct once again with another clutch of mash-ups. This time turning his hand to the poppier end of the spectrum, as Tailor Swift, Peggy Gou and many more are given the Beatconductor treatment.

Pre-orders advised!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: He's been keeping bar DJs on trend and Karen's at bay for over a decade now, Beatconductor can mashitup like no one else! This one's gonna be a big one, the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card; as it features the monolith that is Taylor Swift.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Fallin'
2. Sugar And Spajs

Side 2
1. Tell Me U Luv Me
2. Peggy Swift

J Axel and Eva Essa find magical harmony on this new collaboration on the Do It Now Recordings Vinylized label. 'Turned Your Back' is a perfectly heart-melting, life-affirming bit of soul-drenched and intimate deep house with gorgeous vocals and super smooth drums all healing you to your core as the gentle rhythms wash over you time and time again. It's a faultless original but one that is also ripe for remixing and who better than Atjazz who slightly ups the tempo but keeps the deep, wavy rhythmic vibes and adds a little cosmic magic in the synths. A sublime package indeed.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: An earworm that sits somewhere between indie pop and soulful house, the A-side is perfect Sunday afternoon listening while Atjazz gets the original club-ready on the flip...

TRACK LISTING

Turned Your Back (Extended)
Turned Your Back
Turned Your Back (Atjazz Extended Remix)
Turned Your Back (Atjazz Extended Remix Instrumental)

Spanning the tracklist of the original album, the fresh, exciting, and utterly surprising reinterpretations create new content for longtime Talking Heads fans and introduce a new generation to the magic of the music. The brilliant selection of artists recontextualizes 'Stop Making Sense' in popular music and culture, with a focus on generational and stylistic breadth.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A baffling collection of some of the biggest names in pop music today 'cover' tracks from The Talking Heads and redesign them to fit in with today's musical trends and production aesthetic. It's brilliantly done, and shines a light wonderfully on the brilliant original compositions while giving their concepts room to breathe.

TRACK LISTING

1. Miley Cyrus - Psycho Killer
2. The National - Heaven
3. Blondshell - Thank You For Sending Me An Angel
4. The Linda Lindas - Found A Job
5. Él Mató A Un Policía Motorizado - Slippery People
6. Paramore - Burning Down The House
7. Dj Tunez - Life During Wartime
8. Teezo Touchdown - Making Flippy Floppy
9. Jean Dawson - Swamp
10. The Cavemen - What A Day That Way.
11. Bad Bad Not Good (Feat. Norah Jones) - This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)
12. Kevin Abstract - Once In A Lifetime
13. Toro Y Moi (feat Brijean) - Genius Of Love
14. Girl In Red - Girlfriend Is Better
15. Lorde - Take Me To The River
16. Chicano Batman (Feat. Money Mark) - Crosseyed And Painless

Fat Dog are the most exciting breakthrough band of the past few years, conjurers of the sort of frenzied and wild live shows not seen in the capital for years and now the creators of ‘WOOF’., a brilliant and mind-bending debut album. A thrilling blend of electro-punk, rock’n’roll snarling, techno soundscapes, industrial-pop and rave euphoria, ‘WOOF’. is music for letting go to or, in the words of frontman Joe Love, “screaming-into-a-pillow music”.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Vigilante
Closer To God
Wither
Clowns

Side B
King Of The Slugs
All The Same
I Am The King
Running
And So It Came To Pass

Two revered dance music institutions come together here as Pye Corner Audio steps up to Emotional Response with his debut EP for the label. What's more, it is a two-parter with the first half also available now. This one from Martin Jenkins finds him making an homage to the acid house he has always loved with opener 'Stegan Acid' starting with slow grocers and foggy moods run through with subtle 303 modulations. 'Magnetic Acid Three' is another deep and stripped-back sound with rumbling drums and bass coloured with soft acid contours and 'Thermionic Acid' gurgles a little more as the icy hi-hats cut through a mutant deep techno swamp. 'Magnetic Acid One' is one final meditation on acidic house depths.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: If anything, this is the more sonically downbeat of the two offerings, contrasting the perky hands-in-the-air acid of 'Acid 1' with a slightly more dubby set of slow-building crackly numbers and weird blissed-out crackle. They're both brilliant, and quite different to what he's done before. A perfect addition to Emotional Rescue.

TRACK LISTING

Stegan Acid
Magnetic Acid Three
Thermionic Acid
Magnetic Acid One

Pye Corner Audio shows off his love of acid on the first of two EPs for Emotional Response that drop simultaneously. This first one is his debut on the label and comes with a gorgeous cover that perfectly encapsulates the sounds within. 'Dust Acid' is a sparse cut with dusty drums and meandering basslines that slowly sink you in, then 'Magnetic Acid Two,' which like all of these was recorded live, is another expertly reduced brew of murkiness with plenty of frayed edges and vintage analog sounds. 'Wanna Show U Acid' is a late-night acid dream and 'Magnetic Acid Four' shuts down slightly more bite. Four timeless backroom cuts, make no mistake.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Two stunning EP's of PCA acid mayhem. We've heard a little of his acidic excursions under the 'Head Technician' moniker, but this time has all of the bristling tension and building groove of classic 'cid with PCA's more recognisable saturated tape hiss business. 'Wanna Show You Acid' is particularly reminiscent of the Black Mill Tapes days. Amazing.

TRACK LISTING

Dust Acid
Magnetic Acid Two
Wanna Show U Acid
Magnetic Acid Four

This album was created by SOPHIE and some of her most cherished collaborators. Close to completion when she tragically died, it has been lovingly finalised by those who hold her closest. As SOPHIE’s studio manager and most trusted sounding board for over a decade, Benny Long was heavily involved in the release of Oil Of Every Pearl's Un-insides, with mastering, production and mixing credits to his name. The two then worked together over several years developing the concept and production of this follow-up album, which Benny has lovingly completed, honouring SOPHIE’s vision.

'Transparent Eyeball' marks a new era for Liela as she advances into a more daring sonic direction. Working with production duo IYEARA (Mark Lanegan), Liela has created a dramatic, menacing sound characterised firstly by the ominous ‘Reward’ and, now, the atmospheric 'Conditional Love'. Spacey, glitchy and breathtakingly stylish, Conditional Love’s slick production combined with Liela’s powerful vocal, provide a glimpse of what can be expected on the record.

TRACK LISTING

1. Prism
2. Dark Kitchens
3. Conditional Love
4. Reward
5. Something I Left Behind
6. Blue
7. Sticky
8. Freedom Likes Goodbyes
9. Real Future Begins
10. Superior

Following their critically-acclaimed UK Top 20 album “As Days Get Dark”, Arab Strap return with their 2nd long player for Mogwai’s Rock Action Records with the excellent titled “I’m totally fine with it - don’t give a fuck anymore”. Almost 28 years after their debut, Arab Strap have never sounded more essential, and this new record is a fierce testament to their laser focus on wider horizons. Written and performed exclusively by Malcolm Middleton & Aidan Moffat, and finessed with longtime collaborator Paul Savage, the album furthers the band’s transformation from swooning, slow-core romantics to raging, alt-pop chroniclers.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A typically massive sounding, visceral blast of indie-adjacent avant-pop and shadowy electronica that's both instantly recognisable as Arab Strap, but furthers their already vast sonic explorations. With the uncompromising wit of Moffat & Middleton shining through every note, this really couldn't have been done by anyone else.

TRACK LISTING

1. Allatonceness
2. Bliss
3. Sociometer Blues
4. Hide YOur Fires
5. Summer Season
6. Molehills
7. Strawberry Moon
8. You’re Not There
9. Haven’t You Heard
10. Safe & Well
11. Dreg Queen
12. Turn Off The Light

Andy Votel says: "Working with Halo Maud's song came extremely naturally to me, and I thank Jeff [Barrett, of Heavenly] for recognising this connection. The contrast of her strong melodic songwriting combined with the fragility of her vocals is a real secret weapon and much more than just a breathy pastiche. I think Maud effortlessly captures many unique subtleties in French language music which so many contemporary bands seem to forget, and it's ingredients like these which gave me the confidence to take a more minimal route with this mix, which I appreciate.

"In the past I could only dream of finding a singer that comes close to Léonie Lousseau or Ann Sorel so working with Maud's vocals was an enjoyable experience and I already regard this short track as one of my personal favourite production achievements.... which I can't wait to play on the radio... off 7" vinyl naturally."

Maud says of the track, "I wrote the basis of the song in a few minutes, the day before a show. It was just the guitar and the voice, very simple. The rest of the track is a mix between a band jam, improvisations, ambient sounds, happy studio accidents, and all this material has been re-cut and tinkered with, until I felt it made sense. "It’s an amazing feeling to discover another vision of your own song, and Andy Votel’s version really overwhelmed me, in a good way. This is another song, but it’s still me. Thank you for this huge present.”

The original song features on Halo Maud's debut album, Je Suis Une île (which translates as "I Am An Island"), released on Heavenly Recordings last May.

From Dusk, through to Dawn. A collection to accompany the change of the fields, the coastline the colour of the sky outside your window as you take your journey. From the compiler of Music For The Stars comes the next collection for Brighton label Two-Piers. Featuring artists such as J.J Cale, Chris & Cosey, The B-52s, The Asphodells, Bob Lind, Linda Perhacs and The Menahan Steet Band.

…This choice of tracks is just one journey, a celebration of the the beauty created by musicians, the space & sound, the dark & light.

All aboard….The Night Train.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Edward Hollcraft – South Bound Amtrak 716
A2. J.J. Cale – Cherry
A3. Bonnie Dobson – Milk & Honey
A4. H.P. Lovecraft – Spin Spin Spin
A5. The Rationals – Glowin’
A6. Linda Perhacs – Hey, Who Really Cares

B1. B-52’s – Deep Sleep
B2. Nine Circles – Twinkling Stars
B3. The Asphodells – Another Lonely City
B4. Tangerine Dream – Love On A Real Train

C1. Chris & Cosey – Dancing Ghosts
C2. Johnny Harris – Fragments Of Fear
C3. Bill Frisell – 1968
C4. Bob Lind – City Scenes

D1. Tony Joe White – Rainy Night In Georgia
D2. Menahan Street Band – There’s A New Day Coming
D4. The Byrds – Goin’ Back
D5. Earth, Wind & Fire – Drum Song
D6. Leon Russell – Out In The Woods 

Limited edition repress of the 2014 mini album from Royksopp & Robyn.

‘Do It Again’, is an “accidental pop song” written after a night out together in Bergen. An effervescent, effortlessly uplifting electro-pop tune.

Elsewhere, the mini album covers big thumping house in the shape of the club-ready ‘Sayit’. On the other end of the spectrum there is the closing ‘Inside The Idle Hour Club’, which utilises Robyn's vocal discreetly to create a pensive, slowly evolving soundscape that's worth diving headlong into.

“… this doesn't sound like Röyksopp featuring Robyn or Robyn produced by Röyksopp, it's just something else entirely”, “The word 'collaboration' has never before been more justified in the world of music!” (Röyksopp)

“In the beginning we just knew we wanted to do something together and then it started to feel more like a band thing than songs for a Röyksopp or Robyn album so we´re releasing this music together as a band you could say.” (Robyn)

TRACK LISTING

1. Monument - Royksopp & Robyn
2. Sayit - Royksopp & Robyn
3. Do It Again - Royksopp & Robyn
4. Every Little Thing - Royksopp & Robyn
5. Inside The Idle Hour Club - Royksopp & Robyn

The music of Washed Out has always levitated over a timeless frontier. You can sense it in his immersive, amorphous vocals, the expansive soundscapes, the wistful storytelling. It’s a sweet spot where, says its creative force, Ernest Greene, “any sort of association or memory from the past can transport you instantly. I love that.”

Greene’s transcendent output has earned him the moniker of “Godfather of Chillwave” by Pitchfork and a co-sign from Portlandia, which borrowed his track, “Feel It All Around,” for its utopian theme song. His latest, 'Notes From a Quiet' Life arrives after delivering more than a decade of distinct and disparate creative re-imaginations at a remarkably high level (five albums, two EPs). Notes is bold in its intuitiveness: Greene has left the treadmill of music-as-a-business, instead letting his artistic interests lead the way. “Each album,” says Green, who also paints and sculpts, “is a world-building exercise.”

The Georgia native left Atlanta in 2021 to move back to the countryside he knew growing up. Where escapism once flooded his thoughts, today he is preoccupied with the universe of wonder in the reality around him. He named the former horse farm he moved to “Endymion” (after the pastoral John Keats poem about a lovesick shepherd — its opening line: “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever”), and it has shaped all that he’s created there, from his music to his albums’ creative direction to his planned large scale visual-art experiments.

“I’ve read that every five, maybe 10, years, you’re practically a different person — like literally, on a cellular level,” Greene explains. “The things that you’re going through will end up changing you, and you’re kind of a different person. This album is a reflection of that. Experimenting with painting and sculpture helps my music. They influence each other. That was a kind of realization for me. I don’t want to look back on my life one day, and be like, ’Oh, it was all about maximizing productivity,’” he says. “I want to enjoy this.”

That purity of vision is what makes 'Notes From a Quiet Life' so potent. It’s the first album Greene wholly self-produced, with some mixing assistance from Nathan Boddy (James Blake, Mura Masa) and David Wrench (Caribou, Florence + the Machine). “Early in my career, I had a lack of technical skill, and there were some things I wasn’t 100% enthusiastic about,” he says, noting Jean-Michel Basquiat’s distinct, self-driven method as an inspiration. “Something that I was looking for was...I didn’t want any illusion of anyone else’s influences. I wanted to see this through to the end. And honestly, that was a big challenge.

Illustrating that, Greene’s list of influences for 'Notes From a Quiet Life' are mostly sculpture icons: minimalist legend Donald Judd, abstract expressionist Cy Twombly, and modernists Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. Of the latter, he observes, “The majority of his working life was spent on his country estate, and he wasn’t living a cosmopolitan lifestyle. He was focused on just making good work, you know?”

STAFF COMMENTS

Ashley says: Flicking melodies and glitchy delay, bucolic ambience and soaring synth lines beneath bursts of Greene's jubilant vocals. It's a perfect mix of rippling downbeat electronica and bright, soaring pop.

TRACK LISTING

1. Waking Up
2. Say Goodbye
3. Got Your Back
4. Hardest Part
5. A Sign
6. Second Sight
7. Running Away
8. Wait On You
9. Wondrous Life
10. Letting Go 

If Los Bitchos’ electrifying 2022 debut album Let the Festivities Begin! Was the rowdy build up to the big night out, then Talkie Talkie is the Technicolor explosion of the dancefloor. Made up of lead guitarist Serra, who carries both Australian and Turkish heritage, Uruguayan synth and keytar player Agustina Ruiz, Swedish bassist Josefine Jonsson and British drummer Nic Crawshaw, the group are united by a commitment to having fun. It’s a contagious energy they’ve had no problem transmitting to the world: since the band officially arrived in 2019 with two sell-out 7" singles, they marked themselves as one of London’s brightest bands to watch. Since then, they’ve found a home in beloved indie label City Slang, ripped stages across the most coveted stages the globe over (such as Glastonbury and Coachella, as well as supporting Pavement and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard), and radiated the verve of their personalities and cultures through their exploratory take on rock’n’roll. The London-based quartet’s new album is glistening with charisma, sonic experimentation and a puckish spirit. Named after a fictional club of the same name Talkie Talkie is a late-night paradise brimming with freedom and possibility; a place where partygoers can escape reality in the dance or daydream along to the invigorating soundscapes.

Los Bitchos promise to turn the global indie rock scene upside down in 2024!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Hi!
A2. Talkie Talkie, Charlie Charlie
A3. Don’t Change
A4. Kiki, You Complete Me
A5. Road
A6. 1K!
B7. La Bomba
B8. Open The Bunny, Wasting My Time
B9. It’s About Time
B10. Naughty Little Clove
B11. Tango & Twirl
B12. Let Me Cook You

2024 repress of the 2008 album on limited edition mustard yellow gatefold vinyl.

What we said in 2009: "Walking On A Dream" is the debut album offering from Empire Of The Sun – a psychedelic project led by Luke Steele from Perth's The Sleepy Jackson and Pnau's Nick Littlemore. Their sound has been likened to a Balearic Fleetwood Mac, prompting one writer to note that if Lindsay Buckingham joined forces with Daft Punk they might produce music as polished and perfect - for the bedroom, for the dancefloor - as this. This is going to be this year's MGMT, you can take our word for it!!!"

TRACK LISTING

1. Standing On The Shore
2. Walking On A Dream
3. Half Mast
4. We Are The People
5. Delta Bay
6. Country
7. The World
8. Swordfish Hotkiss Night
9. Tiger By My Side
10. Without You

Adored alt-pop duo Cults announce their fifth studio album TO THE GHOSTS out July 26 via IMPERIAL. The NY-based duo compromised of multi-instrumentalists Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion, confidently and clearly perfect their vision with the cinematic new album.

To the Ghosts was meticulously crafted; the earliest ideas dated back to the pandemic when they wrote music on weekdays from 10am-5pm with no deadlines or distractions. The album was written and recorded in Brian’s apartment; in 2022 they traveled to Los Angeles to collaborate with longtime producer and trusted creative confidant Shane Stoneback, because “nobody can read our minds like he can,” jests Madeline. To the Ghosts was co-produced by Cults & Shane Stoneback, mixed by John Congleton, and mastered by Heba Kadry NYC.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Hazy emotional pop pieces, swimming with soul and bolstered with tastefully applied modern production techniques, Cults' fifth LP is their most dynamically rich yet. Wistful, hook-laiden and brimming with melodic beauty.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
A1. Crybaby
A2. Left My Keys
A3. Onions
A4. Crystal
A5. Leave Home
A6. Eat It Cold

SIDE B
B1. Honey
B2. Knots
B3. Behave
B4. Open Water
B5. Cells
B6. You're In Love With Yourself
B7. Hung The Moon

Influential industrial pioneers Skinny Puppy welcomed audiences into the embrace of the seminal Too Dark Park in 1990

One of the band's most influential records, it includes "Tormentor," "Spasmolytic," and more. In addition to praise from Vice and many more, Metal Hammer fittingly named it one of the "10 Best Industrial Albums," and Spin summed it up best as a "return to the bloodbath." A menacing and massive pastiche of H.P. Lovecraftstyle cosmic horror, addiction, mental disarray, and the disintegration of nature, Too Dark Park remains a cataclysmic and chaotic classic through and through.

Now available on vinyl for the first time in 30 years to celebrate the 35th anniversary since release. Legends of electronic industrial music. Restored to original art on classic black vinyl. "10 best industrial albums - metal hammer"

TRACK LISTING

Convulsion
Tormentor
Spasmolytic
Rash Reflection
Nature's Revenge
Shore Lined Poison
Grave Wisdom
T.F.W.O.
Morpheus Laughing
Reclamation

Fifth album from the UK Grammy Award-Winning electronic artist, Tourist (aka William Phillips). The project will come as a delightful surprise after the deeply emotional album ‘Inside Out’ last year.

Album Narrative by Tourist: With this next album, my sole objective has been to write something that “whisks you away”. Where my previous music was often rooted in personal experiences, “Memory Morning” is written from a place of pure escapism. I think it’s the result of “Inside Out” being so deeply tied to personal events that I wanted to write from a completely different perspective. I’ve joked that “Memory Morning” is my least personal, but most artistic album yet.

I want to disorient people in the nicest way possible. I want it in-still nostalgia in people for something that may or may not have happened. I like the idea of music being a place for people to “visit”, and this new album - along with all of this new work is rooted in that concept. That feeling of being all consumed by something and losing time is at the heart of “Memory Morning”.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lifted Out
2. A Little Bit Further
3. Valentine
4. Siren
5. Ithaca
6. Blink
7. EST
8. Second Nature
9. Crush
10. Memory Morning

'Dunya', the title of Mustafa’s masterfully crafted and breathtakingly tender full-length debut, roughly translates from Arabic to “the world in all its flaws.” It’s a lofty subject for a young songwriter, but as with every theme at the heart of the Sudanese-Canadian artist’s work - from religious devotion to childhood trauma, gang violence to romantic intimacy - he approaches it through a personal lens. Blending genres and moods, weaving novelistic details into instantly memorable folk songs, he has crafted a record that feels like a series of personal breakthroughs, arriving one after the other.

The first thing that strikes you about Mustafa’s music has always been his writing: a simple, piercing tone that can make any story feel as raw and earnest as the words to a love song. With a hushed delivery that can silence his surroundings, Mustafa evolved swiftly from a child prodigy reciting poems throughout his native Toronto to a behind-the-songs pop songwriting force. On 'Dunya', he becomes a full-on auteur in his own right.

“I’m trying to preserve and celebrate the ordinary life in the hood,” Mustafa notes of his lyrical inspiration. Exploring his upbringing and trajectory onward, these songs are equally disarming in their simplicity and multilayered in their emotional breadth. Featuring appearances from collaborators such as
Aaron Dessner, Rosalía, Clairo, Nicolas Jaar, and more, alongside Mustafa’s longtime creative partner Simon Hessmann, the music reveals a confident, distinctive voice that’s never sounded more poised for the masses. Even when it sounds like he’s taking on the world, Mustafa is speaking only for himself: a story that he knows is just getting started.

TRACK LISTING

1. Name Of God
2. What Happened, Mohamed?
3. Imaan
4. What Good Is A Heart?
5. SNL
6. I’ll Go Anywhere
7. Beauty, End
8. Old Life
9. Gaza Is Calling
10. Leaving Toronto
11. Hope Is A Knife
12. Nour

To honour twenty years since the release of Sugababes iconic debut album One Touch, the band release a series of brand-new remixes. The reworks from Majestic, Metronomy, Blood Orange and MNEK offer a fresh take on classic singles Overload, Same Old Story and Run For Cover.

TRACK LISTING

Run For Cover (MNEK Remix)
Same Old Story (Blood Orange Remix)
Overload (Metronomy Vs Tatyana Remix)
Overload (Majestic Remix)

Dark Entries looks to Portugal for this new and swinging collection of vintage Iberian synth, post-punk and wave. Rock Rendez Vous: Musica Moderna Portuguesa 1985-1986 is the sound of a legendary club which opened in 1980 and helped to usher in a new wave of sound for local emerging bands. They drew from national musical identity and fused it with contemporary international influences and came up with some of the prime indie tunes you hear here, from brooding post-punk 'Levante' from Jovem Guarda to more playful and Balearic-laced synth-pop stunners like D. W. Art's 'Mate'. This one is perfectly presented with a double-sided insert featuring lyrics and liner notes.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Brilliant comp showcasing a variety of Portuguese synth and new wave adjacent sounds from the 80s. Big tip!

TRACK LISTING

Balladium - "Andromeda"
DW Art - "Mate"
Prece Oposto - "Homem Do Leme"
Jovem Guarda - "Levante"
Taquicardia - "Enfarte 11"
Zona Proibida - "Musak"
Der Stil - "Flores Do Vicio"
Projecto Azul - "New Sides"
Essa Entente - "Festa Final"

Fast rising UK soul-pop star Olivia Dean releases her long-awaited debut album Messy. Featuring the singles ‘Danger’ and ‘UFO’, Messy cements Dean as one of the most original and versatile voices in UK pop.

Crafting classic yet conversational hooks with genre-fluid tinges, she’s honed a way of exploring universal themes of love, loss and everything in between with razor-sharp but open-hearted storytelling. Of her debut album, Olivia shares, “Going into making the record, I'd just done this ‘Growth’ project. And for ages, I was like, well, my debut album needs to be what I've grown into, I need to have the answer. And that really confused me for a while. Then I realised, I'm always going to be growing. So this doesn't have to be a destination, it's just where I’m at now.”

New Natural Sciences from Andre Uhl melding dark ambient and early industrial. Recorded on the edge of Berlin in a semi-deserted building complex formerly used by the East German Sociality party, André Uhl's debut on the label taps into the spectral frequencies of the space and the ritual practices of recording.

Created in isolation amongst this decaying structure and surrounded by lakes, dense forestry and the sounds of boars and unknown wildlife outside, Every Step Causes a Crack is a title that reflects Andrés connection to the environment around him and the death or glory stance of the artist, with field recordings, electric doom synthesis and lurching drum tracks temporarily fracturing the darkness before being pulled back through the void.

Limited vinyl release of 150 copies.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Every Step Causes A Crack
A2. Monitor View
A3. Fly High
A4. Do You Have What It Takes
A5. Faking It The Whole Time
A6. Batman
B1. Always Forward
B2. Hellsbells
B3. When It Comes, We'll See It Coming
B4. You're Fading Away
B5. Out Of Town

The Berlin-based duo hackedepicciotto have returned with The Silver Threshold, their fourth full length album. This cinematic and hypnotic release combines swirling electronics, shimmering autoharp and the beautiful vocal harmonies of Danielle de Picciotto (co-founder of Berlin’s legendary 'Love Parade', prolific solo artist and illustrator) and Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten), blended with a plethora of instruments from around the world. Danielle and Alex have contributed to a vast and varied legacy of electronic music, although The Silver Threshold is their the first album in partnership with Mute, they are not new to the label, with both Danielle and Alex members of the last incarnation of Crime and the City Solution and Alex a member of Einstürzende Neubauten whilst also contributing to releases by Phew and Miranda Sex Garden.

TRACK LISTING

1 Ouvertuere
2 The Silver Threshold
3 Meteor’s Reign
4 Evermore
5 Babel
6 Trebbus
7 Journey East
8 Meeres Stille
9 Kirchhain
10 The Watered Garden

“Glistening synth-pop number” - Dummy

“This track is the highest grade of electronic pop” - i-D

'They Know' combines pop vocals, synth textures and clipped garage beats, while exclusive track 'White Noise' shuffles along on electro rhythms. Richard Norris is brought in for the remix, utilising his know how as the Grid for a house remix of 'They Know'.

Amateur Best is the alias of Birmingham-based “personal pop” musician, songwriter and producer Joe Flory.

His second album ‘The Gleaners’ was released via Brille Records (The Knife, Gwilym Gold, John Wizards).

‘They Know’ follows the release of single ‘Marzipan’ which picked up radio support from Radio 1’s Annie Mac and Huw Stephens and XFM’s John Kennedy and Eddy Temple Morris.

TRACK LISTING

They Know
White Noise
They Know (Richard Norris Remix)

After more than 1 billion streams, 800k records sold and sold-out world tours, the duo with the mythical cross come back with 'One Night/All Night' starring Tame Impala and 'Generator' from their fourth album: 'Hyperdrama'. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There are a lot of people since the mid 00's that have tried to sound like Justice, but though some have somewhat successfully replicated the rhythmically dense compositions and dj-mix motion of their instantly recognisable pieces, nobody sounds like justice. Hyperdrama proves the purveyors of the sound continue to be the frontrunners.

TRACK LISTING

1. Neverender With Tame Impala
2. Generator
3. Afterimage With RIMON
4. One Night/All Night With Tame Impala
5. Dear Alan
6. Incognito
7. Mannequin Love With The Flints
8. Moonlight Rendez-Vous
9. Explorer With Conan Mockasin
10. Muscle Memory
11. Harpy Dream
12. Saturnine
13. The End With Thundercat

- Portable LP record storage carry case
- Robust vinyl covering
- Protective chrome effect trim on corners and all edges of the box
- Hinged lid with 2 closing clasps and carry handle in matching colours
- Holds approx up to 50 LPs / 12"s in their sleeves
- 3.8 KG

- Portable LP record storage carry case
- Protective chrome effect trim on corners and all edges of the box
- Hinged lid with 2 closing clasps and carry handle in matching colours
- Holds approx up to 50 LPs / 12"s in their sleeves
- 3.8 KG

Nadine Shah announce her fifth album Filthy Underneath, the follow up to 2020's critically acclaimed Kitchen Sink and 2017's Mercury Prize nominated Holiday Destination.

Filthy Underneath chronicles a period of unprecedented turbulence in Nadine Shah’s life. And yet, the experience of listening to it is oddly life-affirming – a parade of ghosts spanning the entirety of Nadine’s thirty-seven years, moving with balletic beauty to the music that Nadine and long-time co-writer and producer Ben Hillier have created around them, with renewed emphasis on placing melody and movement front and centre.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Shah's wonderfully emotive brand of majestic call-to-arms rock takes a perfectly manicured turn into the outer reaches of synth, stadium pop and world music. It's a beguiling and perfectly measured whole, and one that proves that Shah has *plenty* more where 'Holiday Destination' came from. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

1. Even Light
2. Topless Mother
3. Food For Fuel
4. You Drive, I Shoot
5. Keeping Score
6. Sad Lads Anonymous
7. Greatest Dancer
8. See My Girl
9. Twenty Things
10. Hyperrealism
11. French Exit

The Moonlight Edition is a celebration of what can only be described as the album of a generation. Future Nostalgia was the most streamed album in a day by a British female artist globally, in the UK & UK. Dua spent more weeks at the top of the album and radio chart than any other artist last year. Future Nostalgia will go platinum in the UK at the end of Feb, just ahead of its first birthday at the end of March.

Future Nostalgia (The Moonlight Edition) features four previously unheard tracks ‘We’re Good’, ‘If It Ain’t Me’. ‘That Kind of Woman’ and ‘Not My Problem (feat. JID)’ and will include the top 10 smash hit single from Miley Cyrus Feat Dua Lipa ‘Prisoner’ which has reached 250m streams worldwide. Also on the album is ‘Fever’ with Angèle, which spent three weeks at #1 in France and 11 weeks at #1 in Belgium and J Balvin, & Bad Bunny ‘UN DIA (ONE DAY) (Feat. Tainy)

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Future Nostalgia
2. Don’t Start Now
3. Cool
4. Physical
5. Levitating
6. Pretty Please

Side B
7. Hallucinate
8. Love Again
9. Break My Heart
10. Good In Bed
11. Boys Will Be Boys

Side C
12. Fever With Angèle
13. We’re Good
14. Miley Cyrus Prisoner (feat. Dua Lipa)
15. If It Ain’t Me

Side D
16. That Kind Of Woman
17. Not My Problem (feat. JID)
18. Levitating (feat. DaBaby)
19. J Balvin, Bad Bunny & Dua Lipa - UN DIA (ONE DAY) (Feat. Tainy) 

Much like 2011's "London Sessions" (a live set recorded in the wake of their triumphant Glasto performance, "Electric Lady Sessions" captures LCD Soundsystem at the height of their powers in the midst of the riotious "American Dream" tour. Taking over New York's Electric Lady studios in January 2018, the band ripped through some of the finest moments from their latest album alongside fan favourites "You Wanted A Hit", "Get Innocuous" and "Home" as well as a trio of cover versions. 
Incredibly, the group manage to pack the power, precision and loose limbed energy of their live shows onto wax, most notably when the Talking Heads-styled "Home" morphs into a KDJ-meets-Terje take on Chic's ecstatic "I Want Your Love", an ultimate record geek freak out. UK fans will also enjoy the Sheffield synth pop classics which bookend the set, namely James & co's versions of Human League's epic "Seconds" and Heaven 17’s disco-not-disco killer "(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang". The best band in the world at their best folks!

TRACK LISTING

1. Seconds
2. American Dream
3. You Wanted A Hit
4. Get Innocuous
5. Call The Police
6. I Used To
7. Tonite
8. Home
9. I Want Your Love
10. Emotional Haircut
11. Oh Baby
12. (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang

Artist, producer, DJ and cultural trailblazer Peggy Gou announces details of her long-awaited debut album. One of the most hotly-anticipated debut records in recent years, I Hear You will be released on 7th June 2024 via XL Recordings. The ten track album is the culmination of years of work for the Korean-born artist, who’s uniquely revered as both an underground icon and global sensation, sticking by her own unwavering vision to become one of the most in-demand electronic music artists and DJs in the world. Featuring previous singles, the 2023 chart-topping global hit “(It Goes Like) Nanana” and her Lenny Kravitz collaboration “I Believe in Love Again”, the LP sees Gou stepping into the next level of her artistry and boldly claiming her voice through the kaleidoscopic lens of ‘90s house music.

Talking about I Hear You, Peggy Gou says:
“I Hear You is more than just my debut album. It embodies countless hours of dedication in my journey to create something timeless, and is a testament to the power of listening, to ourselves and to each other.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Nostalgia hits differently doesn't it? The shining clarity of modern house music certainly has something about it that's satisfying, but has anything in the past ten years come close to tickling the same nostalgic 90's rave / breaks / house receptor that Peggy Gou's music has? Definitely not. A brilliant and long-awaited debut album from one of the hottest names in the dance music world.

TRACK LISTING

Your Art
Back To One
I Believe In Love Again
All That
(It Goes Like) Nanana
Lobster Telephone
Seoulsi Peggygou (서울시페기구)
I Go
Purple Horizon
1+1=11

- Portable LP record storage carry case
- Protective chrome effect trim on corners and all edges of the box
- Hinged lid with 2 closing clasps and carry handle in matching colours
- Holds approx up to 50 LPs / 12"s in their sleeves
- 3.8 KG

Fat Dog’s second single, ‘All The Same’, b/w exclusive b-side, ‘Land Before Time’.

With artwork designed by Peter Saville, History Of Modern was originally  release in 2010, following a 14 year haitus. It was described by Andy McCluskey as their  "best album since Architecture and Morality" - high praise indeed.

TRACK LISTING

1. New Babies: New Toys
2. If You Want It
3. History Of Modern (Part I)
4. History Of Modern (Part II)
5. Sometimes
6. RFWK
7. New Holy Ground
8. The Future, The Past, And Forever After
9. Sister Mary Says
10. Pulse
11. The Night
12. Bondage Of Fate
13. The Right Side?

To celebrate twenty years since the release of Sugababes’ iconic debut album “One Touch”, the band release a special anniversary edition of the album including rarities, demos and new remixes.

Made up of Keisha Buchanan, Mutya Buena and Siobhán Donaghy, the Sugababes represented a fiercely independent and creative UK scene at the turn of the millennium. Different from much of what was out at the time, “One Touch” crossed over from the purely pop world and became an oddball curveball across clubland and it’s after hours scenes with its clubber-friendly, downbeat hooks, flurries into UKG and hip-hip informed production. One Dave Walker who used to work here was a big proponent of the Sugababes when he and Huw Morgan (of Electriks fame) used to do a night at Harter Street Lounge here in Manchester. It's a bona fide classic of UK pop music which recalls a proud time for the industry. 

Download card includes 35 (!!!) extra tracks including new remixes by MNEK, Metronomy, Blood Orange and Majestic. Featuring the hit singles ‘Overload’, ‘Run For Cover’ and ‘Same Old Story'.

Remastered and expanded editions including unheard demos, rarities and classic/new remixes.

TRACK LISTING

Vinyl Tracklist:
Side A:
One Foot In
Same Old Story
Just
Let It Go Look At Me
Soul Sound

Side B:
One Touch
Lush Life
Real Thing
New Year
Promises
Run For Cover

CD1 One Touch: Remastered                          
1. Overload                    
2. One Foot In                                          
3. Same Old Story                                    
4. Just Let It Go                                    
5. Look At Me                                        
6. Soul Sound                                      
7. One Touch
8. Lush Life
9. Real Thing                                  
10. New Year                                        
11. Promises
12. Run For Cover                                    
+  Bonus Tracks
13. Don’t Wanna Wait                                  
14. Sugababes On The Run                            
15. Forever                      
16. Little Lady Love [Original Mix]                
17. Sometimes                  
18. This Is What You Need [Demo]                  
19. Girls' Nite Out [Demo]

CD2  Remixes And Alternative Versions                     
1. Always Be The One [Demo]                            
2. Run For Cover [MNEK Remix]      
3. Overload [Majestic Remix]                    
4. Same Old Story [Blood Orange Remix]
5. Overload [Metronomy Vs Tatyana Remix]                  
6. Just Let It Go [2001 Version]                              
7. Look At Me [Alternative Mix]                              
8. Real Thing [Original Mix]                        
9. Soul Sound [Alternative Version]                  
10. One Touch [C.R.E.A.M. Remix]                    
11. New Year [Non Christmas Version] [a.k.a. 2001 Edit]         
12. Promises [Acoustic Mix]
13. Little Lady Love [About 2 Remix]                
14. Overload [Ed Case Remix]                          
15. Run For Cover [G4orce All Things Nice Dub]        
16. Real Thing [2-Step Radio Mix]


In this world, nothing is certain except taxes, death and Confidence Man. They are unstoppable, unquenchable, undeniable, and if you get in their way, you’re gonna get hurt. Not even a global pandemic could stop Janet, Sugar, Reggie and Clarence from producing an album so fierce, flirty and full of anthems that you might need to sit down before you hit play. Welcome to Tilt, Confidence Man’s second album released on Friday April 1st 2022 on Heavenly Recordings.

Holiday, the first track to be lifted from the album and today premiered with an as you’d expect technicolour video, was an epiphany. All of a sudden it was there and somehow complete from the get go. Conceived in just a 6 hour session and born from a warped mashup of Underworld and MIA, it’s a child so wrong it’s simply perfect. If life gives you lemonade, drink it.

Confidence Man’s debut, Confident Music For Confident People, was one of the joys of 2018, laced with savage lyrics and rapturous melodies; a north star of euphoria in an increasingly joyless world. Since then they’ve teased us with the occasional dance-floor snack, but with their follow up album Tilt they are finally serving us the main meal.

“We’ve been trying for the most epic, hands up, euphoric anthem for a while and this is the first time we’ve come close… Turns out it’s pretty difficult, but nothing’s too hard for con man.” Sugar Bones circa 2021

“No one tells Confidence Man what to do. Who said a Holiday can’t last forever? Spend big and live free, that’s our motto. And it can be yours too. A vacation is just sunburn at premium prices but a holiday is a state of mind.” Janet Planet circa 2021

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As we see from Confidence Man's newest outing, they've not calmed down any and are still bringing the same level of unfettered optimism and inimitable party spirit. Swimming with influence from dance music over the ages but coming together like a seamless entity in it's own right this is a rightful follow up to one of the best LP's of '18.

TRACK LISTING

1. Woman
2. Feels Like A Different Thing
3. What I Like
4. Toy Boy
5. Luvin U Is Easy
6. Holiday
7. Trumpet Song
8. Angry Girl
9. Push It Up
10. Kiss N Tell
11. Break It Bought It
12. Relieve The Pressure

Next Wave Acid Punx DEUX is the second compilation for Eskimo Recordings compiled and curated by Berlin-based Musician and DJ Luca Venezia, aka Curses, to explore the darker side of club music. Spread across 3CDs and three 2LPs Next Wave Acid Punx DEUX features a mammoth 49 tracks that join the dots between early industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle, EBM legends like Nitzer Ebb and the post-punk experiments of people like Malcolm McLaren and Big Audio Dynamite with some of the most exciting artists around today, such as Boy Harsher, Nuovo Testamento and Years of Denial.

Where the first Next Wave Acid Punx compilation was a personal journey for Luca, a lockdown inspired exploration of his record collection to find the thread that ran through the music that had soundtracked much of his life, DEUX is a celebration of that music let loose on the world, the thrill of music performed live, the smoke and strobe filled clubs you'll hear it in and the artists you'll find on those stages.

"After our enforced break, getting back out there and playing live again really brought home to me so much of what I love about the scene I'm in but also just how important live music has been and is to club culture over the years," Luca explains. "Too often we think of club nights and live gigs as these separate things, but throughout the years it's where the two meet, the friction that can cause, that you'll find the most vibrant scenes."

"There's an energy, an atmosphere that you get with live music, an unpredictability where at any moment something can go wrong or even better right in a way you never expect. I think about a live set we played at a Lebanese festival where our MPC drum machine froze up because of all the dust and sand trapped in the pads. We had to improvise half our set, jamming bass and guitar and pedal FX and vocals, embracing this surreal environment and experience, something that could only happen in the moment."

"With Next Wave Acid Punx DEUX I wanted to celebrate those bands and artists, past and present who, to me, represent that spirit. Both full live bands and makeshift electronic duos alike, the kind of acts that you might have found wedged between DJs back in the day at The Hacienda in the 80s, Trash in the 00s or today at nights like Berlin’s MILK ME, EXBTN in Paris, Night Terrors + SC&P in London, New York City’s Synthicide or Ukraine’s Worn Pop."

"So I've put this compilation together much like my favourite kind of night, going out to see some bands play, hitting up a club where live music and DJs blur together, before the serious business of the after party. On Chapter 1 you'll find bands like Vicious Pink, DAF and Cabaret Voltaire, some of these acts are more obscure than others, some flirted with pop and even the charts but they were all embracing new ways of working in the late 70s and 80s that both set them apart and set the scene for much of what we think of as club music."

"Chapter 2 moves the night on, and this is the sound of the clubs I love to both play and just hang out in these days, clubs where the people involved put a lot more time into digging through the crates than working on their Instagram Reels. These are places where you're as likely to find a band on stage as you are a DJ, where 80's German electro pop by a band like Boytronic seamlessly flows into tracks like Silent Servant’s Non Fiction. Timeless music that can be romantic, dreamlike and ethereal one moment, then veer into dark, industrial sounds the next."

"Then finally we get to that part of the night where you probably should go home but if it's too late for good decisions there's still time for good music. Things are a bit wilder here, the drums a bit harder, the synths are more aggressive, tracks like The Hacker's Monopoly, Zanias' Tryptamine Palace or EVA's Industrial Hope that don't let up, don't let you go, just subjugate you to the beat and keep you there till you stumble out blinking into a new day." 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another absolute stormer of a comp from the Eskimo crew. this time it's split into three, and it's REALLY hard to say which i'd go for given the chance. Throbbing Gristle, Cab Voltaire, DAF, The KVB and literally tens more. A perfectly curated selection of dark dancefloor grit and soaring synthy groove.

TRACK LISTING

Chapter 1:
A1. Throbbing Gristle - Distant Dreams, Pt. 2
A2. Mary Möör - Pretty Day
A3. Sad Lovers & Giants - Things We Never Did
A4. Malcolm McLaren - Madam Butterfly (Un Bel Di Vedremo)
B1. Big Audio Dynamite - The Big V
B2. Cabaret Voltaire - Blue Heat
B3. Nitzer Ebb - Hearts And Minds (Mix Hypersonic)
B4. Clan Of Xymox - Obsession
C1. In Sotto Voce - In Sotto Voce
C2. Psyche - Prisoner To Desire (Single Mix)
C3. Propaganda - The Murder Of Love
C4. DAF - Brothers (Gabi Mix)
D1. Book Of Love - Modigliani (Lost In Your Eyes) (I Dream Of Jeanne Mix)
D2. Vicious Pink - Cccan’t You See
D3. Absolute Body Control - Total Control

Chapter 2:
A1. Boytronic - Voloczny
A2. The KVB - Still Warm (2023 Version)
A3. Cardinal & Nun - Freak And Weak
A4. Jennifer Touch - Altars
A5. Matrixxman - Assembly Line
B1. Silver Tears - Always Shine (Wait For The Rain)
B2. Essaie Pas - Retox
B3. Aili X Transistorcake - Dansu
B4. Years Of Denial - It Sucks
C1. Dina Summer - Darkness
C2. Patriarchy - Suffer
C3. Maelstrom & Louisahhh - Hate Machine
C4. Dame Area - Buon Cittadino
C5. Kris Baha - Into The Dark
D1. Desire - Love Races On
D2. Blind Delon Feat. I Hate Models - Flashback
D3. Poison Point - Altered Beats
D4. Roe Deers - Muscles

Chapter 3:
A1. Boy Harsher - Machina (feat. Mariana Saldaña) (Dark Remix)
A2. Silent Servant - Non Fiction
A3. J.W.B. Hits The Beat - Body On Body (Curses Revamp)
A4. Hungry Boys - Toi
B1. Nuovo Testamento - Heartbeat (Curses Remix - Edit)
B2. Autumns - Repeat Prescription
B3. Buzz Kull - A Place (That’s Meant To Be)
B4. Soft Crash - Dolce Morte
C1. Dame Bonnet & Mufti - Pleasure Dreams
C2. Ultra Sunn - Night Is Mine
C3. Neu-Romancer - Burning Eyes
C4. EVA - Industrial Hope
D1. Andi Vs Randolph & Mortimer - Formidable Truths
D2. Zanias - Tryptamine Palace
D3. The Hacker - Monopoly
D4. Paradox Obscur - Evo-Devo

As King Krule, 18 year old south east London based singer / producer / songwriter Archy Marshall has quietly and stealthily crafted a reputation for himself as one of the most raw and startling voices of a new generation. With his unexpectedly deep and mournful baritone tracing fissures of disappointment and social disorientation to devastating effect, Marshall has harnessed the inchoate frustration and fury of youth and translated it into a series of brilliant singles released on the likes of True Panther Sounds and Rinse over the past couple of years.

Now comes ‘6 Feet Beneath The Moon’, his first full-length on XL Recordings / True Panther Sounds, and with it, the much anticipated unveiling of the full scope and scale of Marshall’s vision. Over the course of 14 tracks, Marshall’s passions and confusions are rubbed raw and laid bare, the only connective tissue throughout it all being one of searing lyrical clarity paired with a confounding musical deftness which utterly belies his tender years.

From the opening clarion call of ‘Easy, Easy’ it is abundantly clear that this is a breathtakingly bold and arresting sonic worldview, as his songs, produced by Marshall along with Rodaidh McDonald (The XX, Savages), open up to become a loose knit meditation on regret and discontent, loss of faith and renewal of hope, and optimism in the face of desperation.

Eschewing much of his previously released material, ‘6 Feet Beneath The Moon’ firmly yet soundly rejects any notion of contemporary trends or peers to occupy its very own unique place on the music landscape, oscillating gently between the classic 50s soul of Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley to the minimal, avant-garde experimentation of Penguin Café Orchestra, to even the electronic smog and dub textures of Marshall’s beloved Rinse FM. This is a record where the nakedly bluesy stomp of the likes of ‘A Lizard State’ and ‘Easy, Easy’ sit effortlessly next to the low-end frequency and shimmering beats of ‘Neptune Estate’ and ‘Will I Come, after all. It is reflective as much of Marshall’s own eclectic tastes as it is of the frenetic pulse and rhythm of the city around him, particularly the rapidly changing south east areas in which he grew up.

There is a genuine grittiness and world weariness ingrained here, as exemplified so succinctly when Marshall sings, “Hate… runs through my blood” on the stunning ‘Out Getting Ribs’, the track which started all the fuss.

All these esoteric textures and fidgety, off-kilter rhythms make perfect sense as an album however, especially when you consider that incredible voiceWhether he is singing ruefully of youthful disaffection and “the heat of my own treason” (‘Ceiling’), or spitting out venomous lines like “I’m not going to crack like you cracked… I don’t want to be trapped in the black of your heart” over the jittery ‘A Lizard State’, its clear that something which marks Marshall out is his stunning ability to turn intense emotional peaks and troughs into spectacular pieces of artful, atmospheric and anthemic balladeering.

Some of the imagery is disturbing to be sure (as on the closer ‘Bathed In Grey’ where he offhandedly murmurs that “there was blood… found a body in the dark”) but the songs are also imbued with genuine heart as well. Taken as a whole, ‘6 Feet Beneath The Moon’ is the sound of a young man growing up - not for nothing is this album being released, unconventionally enough, on Saturday, which also marks Marshall’s 19th birthday - and attempting to grapple with the realities of the world he inhabits, an unsparing dissection of the social decay that has begun to set in around him - and a fascinating, brutal journey it is too.

THE PICCADILLY RECORDS ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2007

Recorded in upstate New York over the summer of 2006, "Sound Of Silver" is an ambitious step up from LCD Soundsystem's eponymous debut album. Not only does it drop all those stylistic references we love here at Piccadilly Records (punk-funk, Krautrock, early 80s Euro-disco, post-punk guitar music etc), going far beyond the simple pastiche of many bands around vying for the LCD crown, but then combines these with some excellent song writing from James Murphy. So, the expected disco-pogo guitars-meet-synths club anthems of "North American Scum", "Us V Them" and "Watch The Tapes" mingle with emotive home-listening songs like "Someone Great", "All My Friends" and "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down". Where "LCD Soundsystem" came across as a collection of singles (albeit brilliant singles!), "Sound Of Silver" feels like a proper, well thought out long player. In short: Same sound, better songs.

TRACK LISTING

1. Get Innocuous!
2. Time To Get Away
3. North American Scum
4. Someone Great
5. All My Friends
6. Us V. Them
7. Watch The Tapes
8. Sound Of Silver
9. New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down

20 years of The Go! Team’s Thunder Lightning Strike, 20 years of lasers through tracing paper, orange tone oscillations, cable access hangover, music made through sunburnt circuits, a K-tel dream sequence, a haunted vision mixer, station wagon-core, straight to video, VHS in distress, something in the fog, fluff on the needle, chromakey constellations, a hovercraft on the fret board, maxing the minute maid, faxing a car alarm, a Morse code pep talk, etch-a-sketch jackknife, a daily Haley’s comet, light sound colour motion, a holiday from yourself…

TRACK LISTING

1. Panther Dash
2. Ladyflash
3. Feelgood By Numbers
4. The Power Is On
5. Get It Together
6. We Just Won't Be Defeated
7. Junior Kickstart
8. Air Raid GTR
9. Bottle Rocket
10. Friendship Update
11. Hold Yr Terror Close
12. Huddle Formation
13. Everyone's A V.I.P. To Someone

Mid Air is an album about celebration, sanctuary and salvation on the dance floor. It's an album that deals with love, grief, relationships, identity and sexuality and is a love letter to the queer clubs where Romy found community and connection. It’s a coming-out album in a way, although she came out in her personal life a long time ago, but it’s also a coming-through album – through grief and heartache, towards euphoria.

Mid Air sees Romy working alongside producers Fred again.. and Stuart Price, as well as her bandmate Jamie xx on recent single “Enjoy Your Life”. Also featuring the previous single (and crossover anthem) “Strong”, Mid Air is the perfect encapsulation of a sound Romy describes as “emotional music to dance to”. It’s a sound that’s set to unify dancefloors, distilling Romy’s love of club classics and classic song writing and finding the sweet spot – like much of Romy’s favourite music – between euphoria, escapism, sadness and melancholy.

To celebrate news of the album, Romy today releases her latest single, the Fred again..-produced “Loveher”. It’s a pivotal track for Romy and acts as both the album opener and the first song to be written for the record. Romy and Fred were first paired together to write songs for other people, but their fast friendship and musical connection proved to be a spark for something new. After writing “Loveher”, a declarative pop song about the intimacy of falling in love with a woman, “Fred asked me, who could this be for?” explains Romy “and I tentatively said… ‘maybe me?’”. A proud and positive queer love story, this was the beginning of Mid Air.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Romy of XX fame present a wonderfully evocative set of crystalline dancefloor bangers, high energy synth lines and her instantly recognisable vocals, calling upon Fred Again, Jamie (of aforementioned band) and a lovely bit of sampling of the endlessly talented Beverly Glenn-Copeland on 'Mid Air'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Loveher
2. Weightless
3. The Sea
4. One Last Try
5. DMC
6. Strong Ft. Fred Again..
7. Twice
8. Did I
9. Mid Air Ft. Beverly Glenn-Copeland
10. Enjoy Your Life
11. She’s On My Mind

Features A4 insert - 12" containing remixes by BXP, Big Hands, Elena Colombi and Front du Cadeaux.

Unveiling the upcoming release – a captivating remix of La Serpiente's "You Are Dreaming!” Immerse yourself in the sonic journey as BXP delivers a psychedelic rework with its unique loop and arrangement style. Front de Cadeaux explores downtempo techno, Big Hands introduces trippy polyrhythms, Elena Colombi contributes an energetic uptempo track, and (exclusively for digital download) enjoy a 15-minute mind-blowing remix by Wang Inc. Together, these remixers redefine musical boundaries, promising a dynamic and eclectic experience. Get ready for a transcendent odyssey through diverse sounds and styles. This record has been realized with the contribution of the Bologna Unesco City of Music and Comune di Bologna.

Artist Bio:

Marco Segato is a sonic explorer, producer and live performer currently based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He's the co-founder of Rete Neurale Milano E.S.T. - an event born in the infamous Milanese multi-cultural space Macao - and curator of the mix series Empty Signal Transmission. He was a Red Bull Music Academy alumnus in 2016 Montréal (Canada) and graduated in Audio Production at SAE Institute Milan in 2017. During the last few years, Marco released his music under three different monikers: La Serpiente, MS, and Narvalos (a duo project with Alessio Costantino aka Askmeaboutdogs). Across these projects, his sound maintains a sense of mysticism brewing with eerie tension, influenced and incorporating sounds of broken beats, post-industrial experimentations, and ritualistic elements to conjure psychic immersion. He produces and performs live sets with analog and digital hardware, with a sonic outcome that always saturates the mind with extra-musical ideas. Marco has released on labels such as Brokntoys, XCPT Music, Random Numbers, Sons of Traders, Communion Records, Dionysian Mysteries, Vastechoses, etc... as well as on many solidarity compilations like Перамен! A Compilation for Belarus, Despertar: Chile, SONIC RESISTANCE. A Compilation For Rojava. Recently, he has started a journey of sharing his extensive music selection with his monthly residency “Searching for the Sublime” at Tbilisi’s Mutant Radio.

TRACK LISTING

You Are Dreaming!
You Are Dreaming! (Front De Cadeaux Remix)
You Are Dreaming! (BXP Remix)
You Are Dreaming! (Big Hands Remix)
You Are Dreaming! (Elena Colombi Remix)

Un-American Activities is the 11th Studio album by Molly Nilsson. Written and recorded entirely on location in California at the former home of writer, poet and early opponent of the National Socialist regime in 1930s Germany, Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta. An album of experimentation, genre-mashing and, above it all, Nilsson’s instantly recognisable melodic skill and empathy, it continues the songwriter’s explorations of power, freedom, oppression and its opposing force, a love unbound.

After accepting an artist residency as part of the Villa Aurora program, Nilsson began work crafting a new album from scratch in a new environment, afforded the freedom, space and time to challenge her practice and take her music into new territory. The resulting work, Un-American Activities, is a love note not only to the artist who was among the very first to be declared an “enemy of the state” by the Nazi regime but also to both the eternal struggle he fought and the human spirit that pervades all of Nilsson’s best work. It is also a double-pointed poison pen letter: a critique of the new forms of oppression wielded by her temporary adopted country of the USA but also an acknowledgement of the promise it always offers but never fulfils.

Along with the novel use of colour and photography in the artwork for Un-American Activities, there are swathes of new techniques, genres and timbres new to Molly Nilsson’s music in evidence, 16 years into her music career. On Jackboots Return is an icicle-cold New Beat track that deals directly with the current situation in Germany and the resurgent Nazi-affiliated AfD. The question the song asks is, what’s the timeframe we’re talking about? Is this the 30s, or somewhere a lot closer to home? The beat is picked up on The Communist Party, Nilsson’s deepest bow to House music, evoking the early 90s Rave pioneers, Belgian 80s music and Vogue-era Madonna. Here the lyrics are direct quotes from the McCarthy-era, anti-Communist pamphlet 100 Things You Should Know About Communism in the U.S.A. The Beauty Of The Duty does to pounding Electro what Nilsson’s last album Extreme did to Metal: subsume it into the Molly Nilsson aesthetic. It goes hard.

While Un-American Activities finds Nilsson experimenting, creating instinctive music on a first-thought-best-thought basis there are still “classic” Molly moments liberally spread throughout. Excalibur feels like the Molly of old, an absolute star of a chorus refrain smudged with the vaseline of fuzz and hope, Red Telephone is wide-eyed, slathered in reverb and chorus effects, distorted with soaring melody, a heart-tugger that tugs the body upwards to the heavens with each evolving wave. Glistening digital tones wash through the album, providing a Y2K etherealness to Nilsson’s audacious Stars and Stripes reference to Wetcheeks. Perhaps the album’s standout, however, is Palestine (Somewhere Over The Rainbow), which is suffuse with empathy, solidarity and, in referencing the classic socialist-penned canon song from The Wizard Of Oz, speaks directly to the tradition of fighting oppression with full hearts of hope.

TRACK LISTING

1. Prologue - Proud Destiny
2. Excalibur
3. Palestine
4. Jackboots Return
5. Wetcheeks
6. Red Telephone
7. Naming Names
8. The Communist Party
9. The Beauty Of The Duty
10. Point Doom

Compiled by label founder Dom Ore Miles Away: One is a collection of tracks that spans continents, era and genres. Rooted in soul this compilation features recordings from legendary musical figures side-by-side with perhaps lesser-known soulful gems – all beautifully bought together in one cohesive long player.

Setting the tone is Idris Muhammad's spiritual-jazz recording I'm A Believer before moving into the modern soul and funk selections Miles Away have built their reputation around. We have the crossover-soul rarity Yes It's You by Eugene Smiley, the remarkable foot-to-the-floor soulful dance cut She's So Good by Solid Gold Revue, enduring soul funk explosion No Communication by True Transfusion, the gospel-infused Fantasy Ride by Uneda Dennard & the full length extended version of Superstar by Ruth Waters. Many tracks appearing here for the first time since their original release.

On the second disc the compilation begins to weave a slightly different direction compared to the output from Miles Away thus far. Here you'll find soundtrack and library music cuts from the likes of Czech artist Milan Kymlicka, renowned Argentinian composer Oscar Lopez Ruiz and noted Italian song-writer Paolo Zavallone alias Bimbo E I Milionari (edited by Ric Piccolo). Oddities and curiosities come in the form of Be My Friend by Laine August - an 80s electro-pop gem courtesy of Freeez keysman Andy Stennett. There's the stripped back street-soul-sounding Deeper by Colour and the breezy Latin American sounds of Paulina Virgo's Vale Valor. Finishing the set is Lady Africa Margaret Singana's timeless cover of the Stretch track Why Did You Do It.

Painstakingly researched and officially licensed from the artists, producers and labels that originally put out this wonderful music. In-depth liner notes go into great detail about each artist depicting their histories, stories and music - something which has been at the heart of Miles Away from day one. This music deserves to live on long in the memory!

TRACK LISTING

1. Idris Muhammad - I'm A Believer
2. True Transfusion & Linco - No Communication Pt.1
3. Uneda Dennard And The Shandells Band - Fantasy Ride
4. Sold Gold Revue - She's So Good (feat. Ray Crumley)
5. Eugene Smiley - Yes It's You (feat. Essence Of Love)
6. Ruth Waters - Superstar (Extended Version)
7. Oscar Lopez Ruiz - Las Venganzas De Beto Sanchez
8. Paulina Viroga - Vale Volar
9. Laine August - Be My Friend
10. Colour - Deeper
11. Margaret Singana - Why Did You Do It
12. Bimbo E I Milionari - Milionbimbo (Ric Piccolo Edit)
13. Milan Kymlicka - It's Over

“They blend the voices of the past with the music of the present to astounding effect” Independent
“Genuinely original, innovating and amazing” Artrocker Best Electro Act 2013

Public Service Broadcasting release their debut album which will be accompanied by an extensive 46-date UK tour in February, March and May.

Taking in archive material from the BFI and StudioCanal along with classic American public information films (such as the brutal driving-safety messages found on single ‘Signal 30’), the album sees the corduroy-clad J. Willgoose, Esq. and his faithful drumming companion, Wrigglesworth, seeking to fulfil their mission statement over a wide range of subject matter and styles.

Through both the record and their uniquely spell-binding live audio-visual ‘Transmissions’, audiences will witness the band weave samples from these films around live drums, guitar, banjo and electronics, creating an array of diverse tracks. What emerges is, by turns, thrilling, moving, funny and powerful; or, if you will, informative, educational and - most of all - entertaining.

The Independent’s Simon Price said of the band : “In their love of history, and their understanding of the dignity of the wartime generation, they remind me of British Sea Power, although Stereolab are closer sonically. PSB are progressive without the florid ornamentation of Prog, dense and complex with not a semiquaver wasted. It's an industrious, diligent sound, and, in the flesh, surprisingly danceable: slamming chemical beats accompanied by old cine footage, providing a peculiar opportunity to party to Pathe news”

TRACK LISTING

Inform – Educate – Entertain
Spitfire
Theme From PSB
Signal 30
Night Mail
Qomolangma
ROYGBIV
The Now Generation
Lit Up
Everest
Late Night Final

Homosexuality has been a part of post-war popular music since its very inception. Until the early 70s, however, it wasn’t talked about openly in that world: it was coded, hidden, secret. This of course mirrored society - during the 50s and 60s, the gay community felt like outcasts: harassed by the police, demonised by the media and politicians, imprisoned simply for being who they were.

This compilation spans the time before and after Bowie, reflecting both the coded nature about the topic in the 50s and 60s and the greater openness that occurred in the early 70s. It begins in late 1955, with the extraordinary success of Little Richard; continues through early-60s pop and pop art; Tamla and soul, glam rock, the early 70s funk and disco that was played in the underground New York clubs, and then moves on to the omnipresence of disco, in the late 70s.

This double CD compilation is about freedom - and freedom for all. Whilst some of the artists identify as LGBTQ+, then or now, some are included simply because they were played in gay or lesbian clubs — where their lyric or sound proved useful and enjoyable to the patrons - or because they were shaped in some way by the gay aesthetic or gay managers. It’s a love letter to the entwined world of music and sexuality in all its many guises and we hope you enjoy the ride.

TRACK LISTING

Disc One
1. I Hear A New World - Joe Meek & The Blue Men
2. Tutti-Frutti - Little Richard & His Band
3. Esquerita And The Voola - Esquerita
4. Wondrous Place - Billy Fury
5. Strawberry Blonde (The Band Rocked On) - Frank D'rone
6. Foot Stompin' - The Dovells
7. Johnny Remember Me - John Leyton
8. Peppermint Twist (Part 1) – Joey Dee & The Starliters
9. Sally, Go ‘Round The Roses - The Jaynetts
10. You Don't Own Me - Lesley Gore
11. Needle In A Haystack - The Velvelettes
12. Get Down With It - Bobby Marchan
13. I'll Be Your Mirror – The Velvet Underground & Nico
14. Heaven Must Have Sent You - The Elgins
15. Stand Up Straight And Tall - Jackie Shane
16. Women Is Losers – Big Brother & The Holding Company
17. No Stranger Am I - Norma Tanega
18. Pretty Golden Hair - Al Stewart
19. David Watts - The Kinks
20. Nothing But A Heartache - The Flirtations
21. Stand! - Sly & The Family Stone
22. Life & Death In G & A - Abaco Dream
23. Nathan Jones - The Supremes
24. Walk On The Wild Side - Lou Reed
25. Coochi-Coo - Polly Perkins
26. I'm A Man - Jobriath
27. Soul Makossa - Manu Dibango
28. Law Of The Land - The Temptations

Disc Two
1. Get Dancin' Part 1 – Disco Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes Featuring Sir Monti Rock Iii
2. Lady Marmalade - Labelle
3. Nobody's Gonna Change Me – The Dynamic Superiors
4. Ain't Nobody Straight In L.A. - The Miracles
5. I Need A Man (12-Inch Version) - Grace Jones
6. I Feel Love - Patrick Cowley
7. Orgasm Addict - Buzzcocks
8. Fuck Off - Jayne County & The Electric Chairs
9. Glad To Be Gay - Tom Robinson Band
10. I Was Born This Way (12-Inch Version) - Carl Bean
11. Prison (12-Inch Version) - Space
12. Disco Dance (Mega Mix) (12-Inch Version) - Michele
13. I Need Somebody To Love Tonight (12-Inch Version) - Sylvester

Desire, I Want To Turn Into You is Polachek’s first album release since her 2019 experimental pop masterpiece PANG which cemented her as a generational talent. Her profile has grown exponentially since – landing her everywhere from the direct opening spot on Dua Lipa’s 2022 North American Future Nostalgia Tour, Coachella, Lollapalooza, Glastonbury, Primavera, All Points East, Governors Ball, Pitchfork Music Festival and Outside Lands, and involved with campaigns & shows for Loewe, Dior, Eckhaus Latta and Chloé, to late night performances on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Late Night Show with James Corden. Standout viral tracks like “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings,” have contributed to the album’s 175M global streams and counting and ignited a dance trend on TikTok.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ethan says: Back in 2019, Caroline Polachek’s first fully-realised solo outing was a surprising-yet-welcome entry into the slowly emerging glitch and ‘hyperpop’ scene. By comparison, ‘Desire, I Want to Turn into You’ is an equally polished yet more outlandish attempt at pop perfection. Every track has some left-field eccentricity over a beautifully-executed synth-pop backing that keeps you thoroughly entertained, from the flamenco guitars of “Sunset”, to a children’s choir on my personal favourite track “Billions”, to even a bagpipe solo on “Blood and Butter”.

That’s not to say that the album isn’t enjoyable as a standard synth-pop experience; production from hyperpop-aficionado Danny L. Harle ensures you’re filled with a desire to bounce around the room. However, no song on this project would work without the glue that is Caroline’s exceptional vocal performance, highlighted through a virtuosic solo in the opening seconds of the album. This opening moment guarantees you know what a talent-filled, delicate and charming listening experience you’re in for; and I guarantee you’ll listen again just for the choruses!

TRACK LISTING

Welcome To My Island
Pretty In Possible
Bunny Is A Rider
Sunset
Crude Drawing Of An Angel
I Believe
Fly To You
Blood & Butter
Hopedrunk Everasking
Butterfly Net
Smoke
Billions 

After bursting onto the scene with a string of brilliant and brutal electro-disco bangers in the mid-noughties, Justice have toured the world rocking clubs and festivals, won a Grammy (for their killer remix of MGMT's "Electric Feel") and generally speaking been a couple of complete and utter dudes. They followed up their dope debut "†" with the proggy wig out of 2011's "Audio, Video, Disco", pushing their sound into unknown territories and taking the club crowds along for the ride. Brand new LP "Woman" finds the French duo older, wiser and more comfortable, celebrating the finer things in life and soundtracking summertime drives with your loved one and children. The brutal noise of their debut has been tamed and polished by love, offering instead a shimmering electro-funk complete with exultant pop motifs. Let there be Justice for all!

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Gaspard & Xavier return with their third LP, offering an older, calmer and more mature take on the disco-flecked electro which saw them conquer the world a decade ago. "Woman" is an optimistic offering of shimmering synth pop for daytime discos with your nearest and dearest.

TRACK LISTING

1. SAFE AND SOUND Justice
2. PLEASURE Justice
3. ALAKAZAM ! Justice
4. FIRE Justice
5. STOP Justice
6. CHORUS Justice
7. RANDY Justice
8. HEAVY METAL Justice
9. LOVE S.O.S Justice
10. CLOSE CALL Justice 

The first new album from Lilacs & Champagne in nearly a decade. Features members of Grails, Om, Holy Sons, Zombi, and NickeL Plated.

Nearly a decade after their last album, Lilacs and Champagne picks up right where that record, Midnight Features Vol. 2: Made Flesh, left off. With bizarre excursions into pillowy, sentimental made-for-TV music – and children's choirs incanting the blackest dread-filled music the band has conjured to date Fantasy World is both transcendent and traumatic.

Despite sharing two founding members of Grails (multi-instrumentalists Emil Amos and Alex Hall) Fantasy World only peripherally resembles their core group. Lilacs & Champagne have exaggerated their early record's implications and accelerated their mercurial rearranging of music history by deftly incorporating live instrumentation and samples with equal amounts of deference and disregard. Previously existing primarily in a realm adjacent to instrumental hip-hop (J Dilla, Clams Casino, Madlib), Fantasy World exposes Lilacs & Champagne's deeper lineage as playful tape-collage culture jammers in the vein of legendary sound satirists, Negativland and Severed Heads.

It embraces the effect of a child entering a dollar store: the immediate euphoria felt upon discovering the seemingly endless aisles piled impossibly high with novelty toys, utensils, party decorations, and toiletries eventually gives way to the overwhelming realization that they're actually just a tourist in a perilous mountain of colourful garbage. From those mountains, Lilacs & Champagne mold monuments to curiosity and confusion. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Ashley says: There isn't an Emil Amos project I don't love. Grails, Holy Sons, Watter, Om, I love them all. Obviously I was over the moon that sleazy b-movie outlet Lilacs & Champagne are returning, and bring with them another glitzy mix of found-sound glitchy electronica and lounge-adjacent horror pop. It's as mad and brilliant as it sounds.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ill Gotten Gains (2:49)
2. Rude Dream (3:13)
3. Fantasy Land (2:19)
4. Melissa (2:37)
5. Betraying Yourself (2:44)
6. Ready Rubbed Blue (2:03)
7. Evil Has No Boundaries (2:42)
8. No More Sherry (2:59)
9. Gentle Man (2:31)
10. Leprotic Phantasies (2:06)
11. 144 York Way (2:40)
12. Last Frontier (2:16)
13. Dr. Why (3:14)
14. Ordinary Man (4:08)

TVAM self-released his much-acclaimed debut Psychic Data in the autumn of 2018, something of a cult-classic, the album joined the dots between Suicide’s deconstructed rock ’n’ roll, Boards of Canada’s irresistible nostalgia and My Bloody Valentine’s infinite noise. Psychic Data spawned an ‘Album Of The Day’ at BBC 6Music whilst signature tune ‘Porsche Majeure’ featured in HBO’s smash-hit ‘Succession’.

Fast forward the VCR to 2022, High Art Lite takes a different tilt to its predecessor by emphasising the immediate and the personal.The colours are blown-out and the brightness is cranked up.TVAM’s take on role models, fictional movie character tropes, and fables of good and evil, are all tackled with the same suspicious cynicism but this time with an urgent belief in the human condition.

A heady mix of Black Mirror’s modern fables, JG Ballard’s gated communities of sun-drenched wealth, and Mulholland Drive’s boulevard of broken daydreams, High Art Lite offers an all-inclusive package of redemption.

High Art Lite is the first-ever Dinked Edition collaboration with Invada Records.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Future Flesh
Every Day In Every Way
Club Nautico (Part 1)
Piz Buin
Double Lucifer
Shallow Ends
Side B
Semantics
Say Anything
Host
Club Nautico (Part 2)
High Art Lite

The Sunset Violent began in a disused frat house in the American Yucca Valley. Kimbie’s founding members Dominic Maker & Kai Campos began work on their first proper album together since 2017’s Love What Survives – the decision was made to leave London. Campos and Maker relocated for a month to a town in the middle of a desert. The resulting album, finished in London with longtime confidante Dillip Harris and their band mates Andrea Balency-Béarn and Marc Pell, is 37 minutes of Mount Kimbie at simultaneously their most daring and their most giddily infectious.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Mount Kimbie have taken a little swerve with 'The Sunset Violent', taking their usual sound and injecting it with a concept that's both perfectly conceived and accomplished. While all the usual MK sounds are in-situ here, there outer reaches of their sound swerves into synth-pop, gritty electronics and moody post-punk.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Trail
2. Dumb Guitar
3. Shipwreck
4. Boxing (Feat. King Krule)
5. Got Me
6. A Figure In The Surf
7. Fishbrain
8. Yukka Tree
9. Empty And Silent (Feat. King Krule)

British artist Douglas Dare announces the release of his fourth album Omni. Seen by Douglas himself as a bold rebirth and embrace of the electronic, Omni is all at once a throbbing, avant-garde, queer, dark and cinematic record imbued with a love of rave culture and sense of fearless storytelling that’s deeply evocative. Omni will be released on May 10 via Erased Tapes. To mark the announcement, Douglas today shares the first taster of the record with ‘Mouth To Mouth’, a pulsing, synth-laden track that begs to be played loud. ‘Mouth To Mouth’ sees a collaboration with label mate Daniel Brandt who appears on production duties, with beats supplied by Rival Consoles. Speaking on the track, Douglas says, “life, death, fate and orgies; this is the heartfelt club track I always wanted to write.” Since 2013, Douglas has blurred classical, chamber-pop, folk and avant-garde to dazzling effect, with a startling voice that can stop you in your tracks. It’s why he’s played with luminaries like Nils Frahm, Perfume Genius and Ólafur Arnalds, and was selected by David Lynch and The Cure’s Robert Smith for their respective cultural festivals in Manchester (MIF) and London (Meltdown). But Douglas’s fourth album, Omni, is a fresh awakening. Encouraged by Erased Tapes founder Robert Raths, he decided to step away from acoustic instruments, especially the piano he grew up playing, and swapped them for synths and drum machines. His new music has much in common with Arca and the late SOPHIE, two artists for whom self-expression meant liberation. “I got to hang out in the studio with her,” says Douglas of the latter musician, “the way she made music made a big impression on me.” And yet Omni is steeped in the kind of deft storytelling, sweeping strings, elegant contrasts and fairytale atmosphere that marks Douglas out as a crucial and singular voice. It’s not often you hear a strutting electro banger that could have been straight out of 90s Soho, with vocal loops inspired by US experimentalist Meredith Monk. For Douglas, Omni is about reconciling all those different sides of himself – the songwriter, the raver, the lover, the observer. It’s a hugely queer record: seductive, sexy, lusty, untethered from the genre binary. “It’s even got sailors on it!” laughs Douglas. “You don’t get more queer than that.

‘Tongue Tied’ is the sophomore album from Gemma Cullingford (Sink Ya Teeth). Written and produced from Gemma's humble home studio in Norfolk, ‘Tongue Tied’ blends many styles of electronica from 70's experimental and new wave, early 80's electro, acid house and techno to noughties electro clash, topped with her own vocal style to produce a unique and fresh sound. It explores relationships and the different emotions they can bring, from paranoia, yearning and helplessness to lust, shyness and just downright wanting to dance.

‘Tongue Tied’ is a progressive follow up to her debut ‘Let Me Speak’ which garnered support from the likes of Steve Lamacq, Amy Lame, Nemone, Chris Hawkins, Jamz Supernova, John Kennedy and James Endeacott, plus glowing reviews in Mojo, Uncut and Electronic Sound.

For the cover artwork on ‘Tongue Tied’, Gemma has collaborated with visual artist Kelda Storm who shares Gemma's love for bright, contrasting neon colours and minimal bold designs. She uses the iconography of feminine lips across her work as a symbol of speech and voice.

RIYL: Sink Ya Teeth, Lonelady, A Certain Ratio.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Accessory
2. Tongue Tied
3. Bass Face
4. Holding Dreams
5. Mechanical
Side B
6. New Day
7. No Fail
8. Chronicle Of Sound
9. Red Room
10. Daisy

Martin Dupont was a French collective of immense talent originally founded by Alain Seghir in Marseille in 1980. Seghir called upon several different collaborators across the collective's career including the likes of Beverley Jane Crew, Brigitte Balian and Catherine Loy and all of them managed to tune into the same creative frequencies while serving up music that was colourful, enthusiastic, delicate, melancholy, and mysterious. Their seminal 1987 album Hot Paradox now arrives via a first-ever reissue on Minimal Wave and is one that transcends a tag as simple as new wave with its vibrant and emotive, sombre yet bright sounds that have made it something of a modern cult classic.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Goth pop at it's finest. Very excited about this one!

TRACK LISTING

Full Moons & Mouths
Hot Paradox
My Analyst Assez
Pressure
Berlin Wall
He Saw The Light
Inside Out
I Never Tried
Where To Find It
Like A Lion

The excellent Minimal Wave serves up a long-awaited LP here that features unreleased treasures from the influential UK duo, Vicious Pink, who first met at The Warehouse night-club in Leeds in the late 1970s and went on to reshape synth-pop. They notoriously lent their backing vocals to friends Soft Cell but went on to have success as a duo with avant-garde singles that defied norms and climbed the UK dance charts between 1982 and 1986. Now, Unexpected offers glimpses into their creative process and is packed with pop experiments recorded on the fly, some of which are with Dave Ball of Soft Vell/Grid fame. A true collector's gem.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: If I had to describe the perfect song it would probably contain the words catchy and weird. This compilation of previously unreleased Vicious Pink tracks is full of songs that match that description - some are more catchy than weird, some more weird than catchy, others find the perfect balance. Can't wait for this to land and annoy everyone by playing it to death.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
So You Want To Love Me
Alien Patience
South Side
Chaos 303
Move Up Closer

Side 2
Undercover
Not Your Kind Of Girl
Slightly Ahead
Perpendicular
Night Drive

What we said way back in 2004: 'The debut album from James Murphy and his DFA buddies finally arrives and it's well worth any hype that's surrounded it. Along with Tim Goldsworthy, Nancy Whang, Phillip Mossman, Patrick Mahoney and Tyler Pope, Murphy has created a brilliant LP that not only rides the top of the zeitgeist wave of current post-punk / punk-funk revivalism, but goes way beyond there too, taking in loose electro-acoustic disco-not-disco, anthemic electroclash, fierce guitar-driven hardcore and intimate melancholy. Not to be missed!'

TRACK LISTING

1. Daft Punk Is Playing At My House 5:16
2. Too Much Love 5:42
3. Tribulations 4:51
4. Movement 3:03
5. Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up 4:50
6. On Repeat 8:02
7. Thrills 3:43
8. Disco Infiltrator 4:56
9. Great Release 6:35

As mui zyu, Hong Kong British artist Eva Liu searches for a portal, wandering between nothing and everything in her pursuit of peace. On her second full-length album nothing or something to die for she looks outward, embracing the chaos with each tentative step.

mui zyu's debut album Rotten Bun for an Eggless Century saw her explore her heritage, as she dived inward to find acceptance and healing. Now, instead of searching for answers from the inside, Liu raises her head to look at the world around her. As she attempts to understand the complexities and significance of human existence, she observes apathy alongside overwhelming chaos; the technological advancements of connection with the lack of meaningful bonds and the frustrations of upholding standards set by others. nothing or something to die for tries to decipher these juxtaposing truths, holding both the weight of those trying to destroy the world with the utter futility of it all.

Working with co-producer and fellow Dama Scout band member Luciano Rossi, the sonic world of nothing or something to die for encapsulates both the fleeting tranquility of serenity and the dissonance in chasing it. After all, our reality can change in an instant. Like the psychedelic tones of Ryuichi Sakamoto's Thousand Knives, the urgent techno-pop of Miharu Koshis Parallelisme or the eerie wanderings of Angelo Badalamenti's work for Twin Peaks, nothing or something to die for expertly toes the line between disorder and clarity.

Lead-single “the mould,” which is inspired by moving on from the past and pushing against the grain to attain inner peace. “Missing the dread, obsessed with it,” Liu sings over a shifty instrumental, carried by blocky drum machines, sharp guitars, and woozy synthesizers.

The track is accompanied by a psychedelically youthful video inspired by creepy ‘90s kids shows, directed by 3D artist and Dama Scout member Danny Grant. Creatively toying with VR sculpting techniques, the otherworldly visuals came to life as Grant intentionally misused the high-end VFX software Houdini. It plays into the song’s wonkiness, heightening its empowering transcendence.

On the track, Eva Liu shares: "'the mould’ is a frosted glacial sweetie about the many meanings of mould. mould is very cool, and the right kind can give you super powers. unfortunately though, it’s less than ideal to be squeezed in to a mould that doesn’t fit snuggly. so i’m at the bottom of the rotten jelly bowl trying to work out what mould is the good kind, and what is the bad kind, and maybe realising none of it really matters at all, as long as i can get out of this steep, slippery bowl. this also marks a new approach for my writing indicative of the whole record in a kind of anti-overture-y way."

TRACK LISTING

Satan Marriage
The Mould
Everything To Die For
Donna Like Parasites
The Rules Of What An Earthling Can Be
Please Be Okay (feat. Miss Grit)
Telephone Congee I
Speak Up, Sponge
What’s The Password Baby Bird?
Hopefulness, Hopefulness
Telephone Congee Ii
Sparky (feat. Lei, E)
In The Dot (feat. Pickle Darling)
Cool As A Cucumber
Ɖ

Obliques and Atmospheric are very happy to present their new album “Golden Apples of the Sun”. It is the result of a close cooperation between Suzanne Ciani and Jonathan Fitoussi. The American electronic music pioneer (5 time Grammy award-nominated) has joined the French composer to sign a four-hand album around mythical synthesizers like Buchla, Moog and Ems...

Mainly recorded in California, facing the Pacific Ocean, the white sound of synthesizers mixes constantly with the sound of the waves and wind. The music generated is directly blended with the surrounding elements of nature. It is both organic and live, hypnotic and rhythmical, powerful and dreamlike.

Suzanne is a five-time Grammy award-nominated composer, electronic music pioneer, and neo-classical recording artist who has released over 20 solo albums. Her work has been featured in films, games, and countless commercials as well. She was inducted into the first class of Keyboard Magazine's Hall of Fame alongside other synth luminaries. Most recently, she is the recipient of the Independent Icon Award from A2IM. Suzanne has provided the voice and sounds for Bally's groundbreaking "Xenon" pinball machine, created Coca-Cola’s pop-and-pour sound, designed logos for Fortune 500 companies, and carved out a niche as one of the most creatively successful female composers in the world.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Golden Apples Of The Sun
A2. Coral Reef
A3. Time Lapse
A4. Pinwheel

B1. Oceanium
B2. Rainbow Sequence
B3. Sonar
B4. Spirit Rock

Riding high on the inexplicable tech-house adoption of their last release, Talking Drums return with hit number six. This desert island disc finds the family bagging a last minute flight to sunnier climes, where the cocktails are strong and the seas are calm.

On 'Air Ecosse', the crew provide an engine overhaul to a middling slice of Scotch boogie, squeezing maximum thrust out of the new beat-y intro before a bubbling bassline and chiming chords provide some serious uplift. The captain takes the comms for a late deadpan vocal, hinting at a little Pet Shop Boys karaoke prior to touchdown in paradise.

The percussion pals kick off the Birkies on the B side, boarding the bateau with a pair of proper harbour heaters. 'Too Yacht To Handle' bubbles along like Mick'n'Keef in disco mode, oozing grooves under a swooning vocal a la Nicolette Larson. A hazy arrangement lets the music play, indulging the instrumental breaks, soaring synths and subtle delays in true 12" Extended Mix stylee, perfect for peak-time at poolside or la playa.

Dropping the tempo to a sunset strut, 'AORwaves' provides the perfect cool-down, as TD cut back the fat on a forgotten soft-rocker to create a cosmic yacht bomb. Low slung, sleazy and spaced out, this is gonna rock a bar set and beyond.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Oh hello there... what's this sultry little number? Air Ecosse has to be up there with my all-time favourite TD edits, Too Yacht To Handle does exactly what it says on the tin and you can literally feel the sleaze ooze out of AORwaves - in the absolute best possible way. Cosmic after hours tackle at its finest from my favourite percussion posse!

TRACK LISTING

Air Ecosse
Too Yacht To Handle
AORwaves

Möbius is an aerial ballet created by Cie XY in collaboration with the choreographer Rachid Ouramdane, and composers Jonathan Fitoussi & Clemens Hourrière.

One of the most sensitive sets of ears in Paris, GRM affiliate Jonathan Fitoussi meets Clemens Hourrière for a beautiful 3rd album called "Möbius". After their acclaimed "Five Steps" [2015] & "Espace Timbrés" [2018] on Versatile records, Fitoussi & Hourrière tethered again to the classic Buchla modular synthesiser, but this time composed the soundtrack of an amazing aerial ballet in collaboration with Cie XY and famous choregrapher Rachid Ouramdane.

‘For Möbius we have teamed up with two composers, Jonathan Fitoussi and Clemens Hourrière; for several years now they have shared a common passion for electronic instruments with their unique incredible sound. We soon found there was a lot of common ground between our own acrobatic research and the way they create music : their sounds meeting, colliding or clustering together in a slow and finely nuanced progression, requiring the same continuous adjustment as our own process. This constantly evolving music with its expansive percussion will leave the door wide open to flights of the imagination, transporting us to strange atmospheres, at times disturbing, at others invigorating...’ Cie XY

TRACK LISTING

Pendulum
Lune D'Afrique
Valse
Syncussion
Aqueduc
Poissons Volants
Vague
Magma
Murmuration

David Potts, formerly of Monaco, ‘What Do You Want From Me?’ taken from ‘Music For Pleasure’ is usually supplying vocals and guitar for Peter Hook & The Light. During a break from their extensive touring, David has had the opportunity to simultaneously release TWO new albums entitled ‘The Blue Tree’ and ‘The Red Tree’ this Spring. A follow up to a series recent of EPs.

These two simultaneous releases shine the spotlight on his own crafty crafted pop gems, brim full of quirky yet modern pop that sounds huge. These are surging anthems of crystalline and perfect northern indie. The type of songs that could resonate around festival fields all summer long, dripping in lovelorn melody and classic sixties pop tunes. There are so many great tunes spread across all the sides. These are albums to get lost in. Full of moods and melody and subtle shifts in texture and sound, the albums are perfectly crafted guitar-pop beauty. This could become one of the surprise hits of the year. John Robb @ Louder Than War.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bar Des Oiseaux 04:12
2. Ready To Blow 05:31
3. I Think It's Gonna Rain 04:45
4. Goodbye 04:20
5. Hotel Ping Pong 03:45
6. Bearhug 04:28
7. My Satellite 03:35
8. Seasons 04:26
9. Joy And Wonder 04:21
10. Uke Song 04:08

David Potts, formerly of Monaco, ‘What Do You Want From Me?’ taken from ‘Music For Pleasure’ is usually supplying vocals and guitar for Peter Hook & The Light. During a break from their extensive touring, David has had the opportunity to simultaneously release TWO new albums entitled ‘The Blue Tree’ and ‘The Red Tree’ this Spring. A follow up to a series recent of EPs.

These two simultaneous releases shine the spotlight on his own crafty crafted pop gems, brim full of quirky yet modern pop that sounds huge. These are surging anthems of crystalline and perfect northern indie. The type of songs that could resonate around festival fields all summer long, dripping in lovelorn melody and classic sixties pop tunes. There are so many great tunes spread across all the sides. These are albums to get lost in. Full of moods and melody and subtle shifts in texture and sound, the albums are perfectly crafted guitar-pop beauty. This could become one of the surprise hits of the year. John Robb @ Louder Than Wa

TRACK LISTING

1. One Summer 03:55
2. Feed My Love 03:43
3. Run 04:08
4. Read The Signs 03:23
5. TV 05:14
6. Bullet In The Head 04:53
7. Show Me Love Show Me Life 03:45
8. Two For The Road 03:52
9. Carlos The Chicken 02:51
10. Take It On The Chin 03:13
11. Meet Françoise 03:33

The iconic Is It Balearic heads to the slightly less iconic - in Balearic terms - West Midlands to retrieve this great EP of electric dance effort gems from Wrekin Havoc. 'Camino' is a loose, melody-rich sound with silvery drums and real nostalgia, then 'Moon Dance' it's a more laidback and zoned out sonic daydream for lazy and sunny afternoons by the pool. There is an electro vibe to 'RLTW' which is a reworking of a Christopher Cross Yacht classic then a T Kurt Remix reworks it into a boogie banger. Another varied and vital EP of grown up dance sounds.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Ooooff, Wrekin Havoc can do now wrong. Here they join forces with Is It Balearic to serve up 4 ultra smooth yet moody house-y disco and boogie cuts. Insert fire emoji!

TRACK LISTING

Camino
Moon Dance
RLTW (feat Gemima Gallier)
RLTW (T Kutt Version Warehouse)

This beautifully packaged compilation includes liner notes by Tom Colebrooke and excerpts from Tom and Alexis’ interview of Mike Maguire, one of the pioneers of Goa trance. Check the liner notes for more info about the early Goa history!

A little town in India, which was a haven to a bunch of hippie outcasts, was throwing outdoor parties since the day those freaks put their flag down. What was once a gathering around live music blew up into a rave as electronic music started to appear, paving the way to what would eventually become Goa trance.

Full Circle, the duo of Alexis Le-Tan and Joakim, started 10 years ago when Alexis accidentally discovered that some of his old Goa trance records he was about to sell sounded great when played at the wrong speed: 33rpm instead of 45rpm. He called his long-time friend and collaborator Joakim to work on edits of those tracks that became the sound signature of this DJ duo - a slow, heavy and trippy sound that would eventually infiltrate the fringes of the underground club scene via like-minded DJs such as Vladimir Ivkovic, Jane Fitz, Ivan Smagghe and many more.

10 years later and a bunch of releases and remixes behind them, Full Circle decided to tell the story of how this Goa sound came to life. At a time when Trance has made a major comeback and infiltrated many sub-genres of club music, it felt right to look back at where it all started - going full circle, when the seeds of tripped out dance music were being sown.

After all, there are countless compilations about Balearism, the Italian Cosmic scene, The Loft, The Paradise Garage etc but none about the roots of this Goa sound (except for the "Gonzo Goa" compilation, also released this month! - Ed).

This is a compilation of the best tunes played by the pioneer Goa DJs like Laurent, Goa Gil, Mike Maguire amongst others, between the late 80s and early 90s. Proto-house, new beat, early techno, industrial, with a distinct psychedelic tone, a few arpeggios here and there, acid lines, chopped up vocals, all elements of what would later constitute a genre of its own.

TRACK LISTING

Front Line Assembly - Enemy Number One
Joi - A Desert Storm
Agrumh. - Petite Fugue
Clock Dva - Sound Mirror
A2l - Come On
Van Belle - Dreams Final Dance
Syntech - Discontented
Cccp - Orient Express Pogo Mix
Cabaret Voltaire - Here To Go Little Dub
Bleep - Mr Barth In The Sahara
3 Times 6 - You Can Run Razormaid Mix

Christine and the Queens return with new album PARANOÏA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE, released on 9 June via Because Music.

The record’s first single, ‘To be honest’ is an ethereal, synth-driven first glimpse into the French phenomenon’s most personal and ambitious album to date. PARANOÏA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE is written, performed and produced by Christine and the Queens, with co-production by Mike Dean (Lana Del Rey, Beyonce) and guest appearances from 070 Shake and Madonna.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The wonderful Christine And The Queens make a very welcome return for the spellbinding new LP, 'PARANOiA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE'. With hefty synths, gorgeous cinematic intensity and a flawless ear for melody, Chris has continues the legacy he laid out so perfectly in the previous slices of emotional synth-pop genius. It's rich, deep and infinitely rewarding.

TRACK LISTING

TRIPLE 180 GRAMS VINYL EDITION
VINYL 1 :
A1 Overture
A2 Tears Can Be So Soft
A3 Marvin Descending
A4 A Day In The Water
B1 Full Of Life
B2 Angels Crying In My Bed (Feat. Madonna)
B3 Track 10
VINYL 2 :
C1 Overture (Feat.Mike Dean)
C2 He’s Been Shining For Ever, Your Son
C3 Flowery Days
C4 I Met An Angel (Feat. Madonna)
D1 True Love (Feat. 070 Shake)
D2 Let Me Touch You Once (Feat. 070 Shake)
D3 Aimer, Puis Vivre
VINYL 3
E1 Shine
E2 We Have To Be Friends
E3 Lick The Light Out (Feat. Madonna)
F1 To Be Honest
F2 I Feel Like An Angel
F3 Big Eye

TRIPLE CD EDITION
CD 1:
1 Overture
2 Tears Can Be So Soft
3 Marvin Descending
4 A Day In The Water
5 Full Of Life
6 Angels Crying In My Bed (Feat. Madonna)
7 Track 10
CD 2:
1 Overture (Feat.Mike Dean)
2 He’s Been Shining For Ever, Your Son
3 Flowery Days
4 I Met An Angel (Feat. Madonna)
5 True Love (Feat. 070 Shake)
6 Let Me Touch You Once (Feat. 070 Shake)
7 Aimer, Puis Vivre
CD3:
1 Shine
2 We Have To Be Friends
3 Lick The Light Out (Feat. Madonna)
4 To Be Honest
5 I Feel Like An Angel
6 Big Eye

Music For Pleasure is the 1997 debut studio album by Monaco, a side project of New Order bassist Peter Hook. When New Order went on a hiatus after 1993’s Republic, Hook took the group’s sound and spirit with him and founded Monaco together with David Potts. Hook’s distinctive pulsating bass lines united New Order’s marriage of post-punk and pop, creating an identity so recognizable that Monaco’s first single, “What Do You Want From Me?”, was often mistaken for a New Order track. Upon its release, the album hit #11 on the UK album charts and sold more than 500.000 copies worldwide Music For Pleasure is for the first time available as an expanded edition featuring 6 bonus tracks, including remixes by Joey Negro and Farley & Heller.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. What Do You Want From Me?
2. Shine (Someone Who Needs Me)
3. Sweet Lips
4. Buzz Gum

Side B
1. Blue
2. Junk
3. Billy Bones
4. Happy Jack

Side C
1. Tender
2. Sedona
3. Bicycle Thief *Bonus Track
4. Ultra *Bonus Track

Side D
1. Coming Around Again *Bonus Track
2. Shattered *Bonus Track
3. Sweet Lips (Farley & Heller’s Ambient Mix) *Bonus Track
4. Sweet Lips (Joey Negro Aka Dave Lee Main Slice) *Bonus Track

REWIND…

15 years ago, they shared their first song online. Blogs & record labels immediately took notice & swarmed. Our introduction to the elusive Swedish duo was the now classic “I’ll Be By Your Side”, a shimmering Italo Disco track with ethereal vocals that hypnotized everyone who heard it. Johan’s elegant production was years ahead of what anyone else was doing at the time, & the elusive falsetto of the dreamlike singer was unforgettable. In 2007, their debut album, Disco Romance, was revered by the press. The album was nominated as “Best Dance/Electronic Album of the Year” & was given a spot in Pitchfork’s Top 50 albums of 2007. Their sound was a unique take on the romantic club music of the mid 1980’s. At the time you could count the artists exploring this territory on one hand. Johnny Jewel began corresponding with Johan later that year resulting in Agebjörn’s remix of Glass Candy’s “The Chameleon”. The seminal After Dark compilation had come out that summer & the kindred spirits kept in touch.

Their debut album sees remixes by other likeminded producers like Lindstrøm, Tensnake, Junior Boys, CFCF, & Juan MacLean. In 2009, My Guilty Pleasure, picks up where Disco Romance left off. They collaborated with Electric Youth (known from the ”Drive” soundtrack) on their third album Somewhere Else in 2013. Johan is a fixture on European dancefloors collaborating with Lindstrøm, Glass Candy, Annie, Wolfram, Hercules & Love Affair, & more. In 2018 he produced the addictive Samantha Fox single “Hot Boy”.

PAUSE…

Sally is notoriously shy, remaining shrouded in anonymity. To this day she insists on recording her vocals alone in the studio & refuses to perform her songs live. In 2016, the duo went underground & released what was thought to have been their final single.

FAST FORWARD…

Working in deep seclusion over the last half decade, they recorded an incredible collection of material out this fall via Italians Do It Better. A gorgeous bouquet of pure electronic bliss mixed by Johan Agebjörn & Johnny Jewel. The enigmatic duo re-surfaces from the underground this week with “Fading Away”, a first look at a new era.

PLAY…

TRACK LISTING

1. Forget About You
2. Believe In Me
3. Down This Road
4. Sad City
5. Dulcinea
6. Falling Clouds
7. Love In Slow Motion (Feat. Electric Youth)
8. Million Ways
9. Tell Me How (Feat. Tommy ’86)
10. Christmas Escape
11. Fading Away

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of OMD’s fourth studio album, Dazzle Ships, UMR/EMI are pleased to announce the release a brand new expanded version of the album. The set comprises of the original album, plus a bonus LP of unreleased demos and rarities which has been compiled and mixed by Paul Humphreys.

TRACK LISTING

LP1 - Side A
Radio Prague
Genetic Engineering
ABC Auto-Industry
Telegraph
This Is Helena
International
LP1 - Side B
Dazzle Ships (Parts II, III And VII)
The Romance Of The Telescope
Silent Running
Radio Waves
Time Zones
Of All The Things We've Made
LP2 - Side A
Telegraph 82 (Very Early Demo)
Silent Running (Demo)
Sold Our Souls (the Avenue Demo)
Shakespeare 82
LP2 - Side B
Untitled Instrumental 82
In Heaven Above (4- NEU Demo)
Telegraph Live 1984

1CD
Radio Prague
Genetic Engineering
ABC Auto-Industry
Telegraph
This Is Helena
International
Dazzle Ships (Parts II, III And VII)
The Romance Of The Telescope
Silent Running
Radio Waves
Time Zones
Of All The Things We've Made
Telegraph - Very Early Demo / 1982
Silent Running - Demo
Sold Our Souls - The Avenue Demo
Shakespeare '82
Untitled Instrumental '82
In Heaven Above - 4- NEU Demo
Telegraph - Live 1984

Written, recorded, produced and mixed by OMD – Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys – ‘English Electric’ is a 12-track letter to technology, space, love and a grand return to form for a band whose 1980 hit ‘Enola Gay’ occupied the world’s stage at last year’s Olympics Opening Ceremony.

As percolating synth-pop is pulled along at different speeds and executed with needle-sharp finesse, late night electro ballads collide with big sounding club cuts on a record which also features three interlude tracks, including dystopian missive ‘Please Remain Seated’ and ‘Decimal’, which is accompanied by this suitably mechanical video, directed by German motion and graphic designer Henning M. Lederer.

As Andy McCluskey says of the album; “the overarching feel tends to be a sense of loss, of melancholia, that things haven’t turned out the way you wanted them to, whether it be with technology or personal relationships.” The title itself – taken from a British industrial manufacturing company – has further resonance for the pair as locomotive enthusiasts and self-confessed technology geeks.

TRACK LISTING

1. Please Remain Seated
2. Metroland
3. Night Café
4. The Future Will Be Silent
5. Helen Of Troy
6. Our System
7. Kissing The Machine
8. Decimal
9. Stay With Me
10. Dresden
11. Atomic Ranch
12. Final Song

Originally released on Island Records in June 1969, this re-issue faithfully
eplicates the original UK release and is pressed onto high quality 180g vinyl. A collaboration between David Vorhaus, Brian Hodgson and Delia Derbyshire, White Noise's 'An Electric Storm' is the very epitome of a cult album.

Its capitalized rear sleeve message told prospective listeners all they needed to know: MANY SOUNDS HAVE NEVER BEEN HEARD BY HUMANS: SOME SOUND WAVES YOU DON'T HEAR BUT THEY REACH YOU. 'STORM TECHNIQUES' COMBINE SINGERS, INSTRUMENTALISTS AND COMPLEX ELECTRONIC SOUND. THE EMOTIONAL INTENSITY IS AT A MAXIMUM.

Derbyshire and Hodgson worked for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Vorhaus, a student at North London Poly, attended a lecture by them and wanted to fuse his ideas with their pioneering sound capabilities. By blending electronics, tape loops and vocals with live percussion, future sounds of the strange are embedded here Hawkwind, Tangerine Dream and avant garde noise collagists Throbbing Gristle all owe a debt. The vocals, delivered by three unknowns (Annie Bird, John Whitman, Val Shaw) are like untutored folk singers offering lullabies to the unknown, against beds of cries of ecstasy and pain distant thunder, car crashes and more.

While the first side offers moments of Beach Boy harmony and lightish relief ('Here Comes The Fleas' for example), phase II of the album 'The Visitation' and 'The Black Mass: An Electric Storm In Hell' is a bleak, chilling and exhilarating listen. White Noise's 'An Electric Storm' was the sound of the underground, a soundtrack to an unmade turn- of- the-70s horror film; a secret collection for insiders that continues to unnerve well into the 21st century.

TRACK LISTING

1. Love Without Sound
2. My Game Of Loving
3. Here Come The Fleas
4. Firebird
5. Your Hidden Dreams
6. The Visitation
7. The Black Mass: An Electric Storm In Hell

Continuing their endless string of essential releases, Caroline True bring us the latest collaborative project from the mighty Matt Sewell, this time with london producer DrumTalk. Taking to the Secret Sundaze studio, DrumTalk drifts away from the club-focus of his releases on Tru-Thoughts, Soundway and Huntley & Palmers, syncing into the sublime vibrations of A Crushing Glow for two meditative synth suites. On the A-side, "Out Of The Blackness, Into The Blue" delivers drum box bossa, dreamlike sequences and celestial bliss-tones, making a connection with a wider cosmic consciousness. If you dig on the library styles of Clara Mondshine, the spacier, synthier end of the kosmische spectrum or the slow and spangled moments of Patrick Cowley's porn oeuvre, you're gonna love this. The flip continues the cosmic voyage, enjoying a little extra thrust from a blorpy bass synth as we lose ourselves in the nebulous goo of e-flute, fluttering sine waves and warming white noise. I imagine this is what Arthur C Clarke's Starchild listened to when he was getting stoned...

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Well this is a delight! Aside from the sublime space-prog sleeve art, and eye catching coloured disc, this release holds a pair of stunning intergalactic synthscapes, perfect for fans of European library music, Berlin school electronics or Patrick Cowley's post-orgasmic bliss outs.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Out Of The Blackness, Into The Blue
B1. The Celestial Garden

If ‘Convenanza’, released in February, was a distillation of all Andrew Weatherall’s influences in one place then ‘Consolamentum’ takes that instinct a step further. Here he invites friends old and new to rework the tracks from Convenanza in their own style.

On board are redoubtable musical architects such as David Holmes (under his new ‘Unloved’ guise), Justin Robertson (wearing his ‘Deadstock 33s’ hat) and the legendary Bernard Fevre of Black Devil Disco Club notoriety.
Leading the charge by the new guard are Heretic, Red Axes, Solar Bears and Vox Low whose tracks have twisted into existence a quiet storm on ALFOS nights.

TRACK LISTING

01) We Count The Stars (Unloved Remix) ***
02) The Confidence Man (Justin Robertson?s Deadstock 33s Remix) ***
03) Frankfurt Advice (Red Axes Remix) ***
04) The Last Walk (Vox Low Riding The White Horse Version)
05) Disappear (Duncan Gray Remix) ***
06) Thirteenth Night (Timothy J Fairplay Remix) ***
07) The Confidence Man (Sons Of Slough Remix)
08) Frankfurt Advice (Heretic Remix) ***
09) Kicking The River (Solar Bears Remix)
10) The Last Walk (Black Devil Disco Club Rework)
11) Ghosts Again (Scott Fraser Vocal Dub)

Please Note The LP Version Is 8 Tracks And Includes *** Plus
The Confidence Man (The Emperor Machine Dub)
Ghosts Again (Scott Fraser Ghosts In The Piano Mix)

The brilliant Dark Entries celebrates its 15th anniversary by going back to its roots and offering up a reissue of its inaugural release: New York collective Eleven Pond's 1986 classic, 'Bas Relief'. This mega-rare record has become a stone-cold cult classic album revered by dark pop devotees. It features James Tabbi, Jeff Gallea, Jack Schaeffer, and Dan Brumley on a mix of guitars, synths, vocoders and drum machines and is a sound inspired by seminal labels like 4AD and Factory Records, and moody acts like Joy Division and Fad Gadget. For this reissue, it has been remastered to correct previous reissue flaws and comes in a screen-printed jacket with a lyric sheet, postcards, and a bookmark. Only 500 copies have been pressed so don't sleep on this one.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
Tear & Cinnamon
Watching Trees
Days Hence
Tightrope
Portugal

Side 2
Asterisk
Moving Nowhere
Changing Face
Temporeal
Ignorant Father
Ask

'Mahogakko' is the new album by Hakushi Hasegawa (They/Them pronouns) – a musician/singer-songwriter based in Tokyo, Japan, and the first Japanese artist signed to Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label. The record includes the singles ‘Mouth Flash (Kuchinohanabi)’ – featuring bass wizard Sam Wilkes (Leaving Records) – and ‘Boy’s Texture’ plus ‘Gone’ with rapper KID FRESINO. Consistent with Brainfeeder’s ethos of seeking out artists operating outside the confines of genre since the label started in 2008, Hakushi’s music is tricky to categorize as it straddles a few genres: alternative, electronic, jazz, pop/J-pop. Sometimes it’s pretty, at times it’s very intense and fast-paced. The FADER described ‘Mouth Flash’ as “wild-eyed free-associated beat poetry delivered through achingly beautiful melody”. Their music’s singular character has earned Hakushi plaudits from Crack Magazine, Needledrop (Anthony Fantano), XLR8R, Paste, Jazziz, Bandcamp Weekly, and Tone Glow.

TRACK LISTING

1. Departed
2. Gone Feat. KID FRESINO
3. Mouth Flash (Kuchinohanabi)
4. Repeal (Tekkai)
5. The Blossom And The Thunder
6. KYOFUNOHOSHI
7. NENNEKOKOROMI
8. Forbidden Thing (Kimmotsu)
9. Mahōinter (v2)
10. Boy’s Texture
11. Enbami
12. Outside (Soto)

‘Empires into Sand’ is the first album of new material from Normil Hawaiians in 40 years. The group first refined their sound during the early 80s, hitting on a pastoral experimentalism that drew on ambient drone, motorik impulse and post-punk pep.

‘Empires into Sand’ came together in the familiar manner of their original three albums, with improvisation and nuance informing the blueprint of the tracks. It was with the official release of this last record ‘Return of the Ranters’ (originally recorded in 1984/85, but then unconsciously shelved) in 2015 by Upset The Rhythm that led to the group reconnecting with the intention of playing music together again. Normil Hawaiians played a launch show for that ‘lost album’ and followed that up with more concerts, including an appearance at Supernormal, a residency at the Edinburgh Festival, gigs at Cafe OTO. They were even chosen by Richard Dawson to perform with him in London.

Throughout this time, Normil Hawaiians revisited their original songs for live performance. However for a group always so interested in evolving their sound, it came as no surprise that they shirked at the idea of a faithful retread. The band pushed their songs into new inventive dimensions, still progressive at core, but now imbued with a cosmic uncanny. A cinematic approach that was always quietly present has come to the fore. The quaint weirdness of folk song, the humanity of communal practice and the group’s ecological mindedness have all found a place in Normil Hawaiians’ current sound world.

When Normil Hawaiians write and record music they prefer to gather in a remote location and live together for a while, such is their communal ethos. Being far-flung across the UK, the Family Hawaii (numbering seven key members) decided to encamp to Tayinloan, a small village on the west coast of the Kintyre peninsula in Scotland. They set up their own studio in an isolated, windswept house overlooking the sea and started the tape rolling. Noel Blanden from the band explains the process neatly: “we set up and began playing, slowly and patiently, allowing the music to take its own shape based on where we were staying and our ongoing friendship. We recorded for days, capturing everything. A lot of new and rich ideas began to emerge”.

Normil Hawaiians took their time to develop these threads at their own pace, allowing songs to mutate and settle over months. Simon Marchant deftly produced and recorded the album whilst also performing in the band, this marked the first time the band had total control of their own sound. The last few years has seen the band reconvene in Herne Bay, Faversham, London and Leith to record new parts, constantly responding to the changing form of these quietly spectral songs of defiance.

‘Empires into Sand’ incorporates samples from old rehearsals and live music into the new finished pieces, this is in continuum with their previous records. Snippets of sound from the static of short wave radio and satellite transmissions also embellish the work. In fact the whole album is stitched together with interludes, creating an acutely immersive 45 minutes. ‘Exiles’ opens the album amid swirling atmospheres, synth flights and recordings of Vilnis Egle (father of Zinta Egle from the band) retelling his experience of fleeing his home in Latvia during Soviet occupation in 1942. George Bikandy also features on this track talking about his flight from Syria in 2014. ‘Ghosts of Ballochroy’ is a winding river of a song featuring a lively discourse in Scots courtesy of Rodney Relax. There’s a commitment to truth telling present across this hopeful album populated with angels, incoming tides, long shadows and the rose-washed sun. “From our broken windscreen, we feel the breeze” soars Guy Smith triumphantly over the driving beat of ‘Waterfalls : Bedford 330’. ‘Big City Sky’ flutters and sparkles with rapid synth runs, tape-looped drums and Jimmy Miller’s commanding vocal. With ‘In The Stone’ Zinta’s melody is deliberately jagged and blunt, exaggerated by octave-layered vocals and interjections from Guy.

This is thought-provoking, boundary-bothering music. Honest in intent, a solidarity of vision. The album’s title is derived from a poem by band member Mark Tyler, who sadly passed away during the recording process and the transience of life is felt heavily throughout. Noel best coins the group’s wish for the album: “we wanted to create an album that acknowledges our history and also reflects who we are today. We remained true to ourselves and we wanted to make something beautiful without removing the edges.” ‘Empires into Sand’ certainly does that, it’s an echo from the past, an echo from the future.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
01. Exiles
02. Ghosts Of Ballochroy (ft. Rodney Relax)
03. Waves NR728524
04. Back Home To The Stars
SIDE B
05. Waterfalls / Bedford 330
06. We Stand Together
07. Big City Sky
08. In The Stone (Luddenham Mix)
09. North Atlantic

CD Bonus Tracks
(The LP Version Will Also Feature These Via The Download Card.)
10. Where Is Living?
11. Ornament Of The Tribe
12. In The Stone (Scratch Mix)
13. Deep Beneath Snow

Aerials live, dials tuned, Transmission Towers broadcasting. On either side of the river Mersey, transcendental communications are traded back and forth. Two late-night revellers, one firing messages filled with music, the other returning them laced with lyrics. The result, a dopamine hit of oddball machine soul, melded with a highlife, Afrofuturist touch. Wonky and murky yet deeply emotional, Transmission One, is a debut album that also marks the first release on Luke Una’s É Soul Cultura label, encompassing expertly the off-kilter atmosphere the label sets to orbit.

A synthesised landscape with a Northern charm, Transmission Towers marry the musical worlds of two artists that last collaborated over a decade ago. 10 years have passed, lives have been led, but a gravitational pull has placed Mark Kyriacou and Eleanor Mante back in each other’s spheres on opposite sides of the city of Liverpool. Energised with a newfound desire to strip it all back to the sounds that influenced their formative years in the late ‘80s and ‘90s - astral travelling, intoxicated on Motor City techno, Black Dog IDM and mystical Sun Ra.

Mark half Irish, half Greek Cypriot, Eleanor half Nigerian, half Ghanian, the music contained within is an alchemy of those roots and the pivotal acts that buried deep into their minds. A cosmic contrast, part machine-made, part distinctly human. Take the opener ‘UP’, an ESG-channelling, sci-fi punk beatdown or the polychromatic hyperspace anthem ‘Roller Skater 23’.

Transportive throughout, you ride the solar waves, pace and emotion ebbing and flowing. Tracks like ‘Go Slow Heart’ and ‘Cosmic Trigger’ step to a slower beat but hit with a punch. The former, a slo-mo blast of celestial tenderness, the latter an otherworldly, chugged-out lunar excursion, micro-dosing on whacked-out Wah Wah and Eleanor’s ethereal vocals. Beaming love letters to space and back, ‘Sparse’ marries the organic with the artificial, pianos and percussion circling around synth pads and broadcasting bleeps.

Elsewhere, vibrations move faster. ‘Mega’ strikes, fusing sonic tribalism with psychedelic swirls, as ‘Everything’ sweeps you up in its extra-terrestrial new wave grip. Synth stabs and basslines fizzing from every angle.

Demos of Transmission Towers music surfaced on Luke Una’s radar, making him stop in his tracks. Something magical was emerging, perfectly aligned with the E Soul guardian’s tastes. Guidance followed, quickly turning into conversations about Transmission One becoming the first release on Luke’s own label.

Escapist and futurist yet grounded and relatable. Transmission One is synthesis meets sentiment with a deep, spine-tingling soul at its core.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Luke Una's É Soul Cultura compilations were a big hit in the shop, so it's a delight to be able to celebrate the first release on his eponymous label, from Liverpool's Transmission Towers. Smooth-af street soul and deep, snapping electronic synth lines come together into an LP that's perfect for the dancefloor but just chilled enough to make for a particularly rowdy front-room disco.

TRACK LISTING

1. Up
2. Roller Skater 23
3. Planetary Alignment
4. Go Slow Heart
5. Cosmic Trigger
6. Mega
7. Everything
8. Sparse
9. One
10. Affirmation Of Love
11. My Shadow (CD Only)
12. The Universal Drift (CD Only)

Blind On A Galloping Horse serves as David Holmes’ first solo album since 2008’s The Holy Pictures.

A 14-track interrogation of the last decade, time spent watching a decaying, fraying Britain visibly buckling in real time while tending to his own battles with mental health. Holmes’ soundtrack to this inquiry is at times claustrophobic, often euphoric, driven by the rattle and snap of analogue drum machines, wild oscillations of droning analogue synths and the voice of Raven Violet which beguiles and commands in a way that could part oceans.

On this record, there are songs of hope for an age of uncertainty; love songs to leap the barricades to and, on ‘Necessary Genius’, a comprehensive roll call of the great and good - those ‘dreamers, misfits, radicals, outcasts’ that we’ve lost and just a few who’ve managed to cling on in the churn of the 21st century. And there are elegiac electronics evocative of an endless Europe where pulsating, crackling rhythm tracks fuse with dreamlike textures and the underground pulse of psychedelic therapy to form something unique that feels nothing less than radical. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's no wonder we (the shop) or we (Manchester) have taken to David Holmes, with the snappy post-industrial synth-gloom of 'Necessary Genius' referencing Tony Wilson by name and by design. It's yet another bit of evidence that Holmes' musical skills know no bounds. Rich, evocative works throughout and produced as you'd expect, perfectly.

TRACK LISTING

1. When People Are Occupied Resistance Is Justified
2. It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love
3. Emotionally Clear
4. Hope Is The Last Thing To Die
5. You Will Know Me By The Smell Of Onions
6. Necessary Genius
7. Yeah X 3
8. I Laugh Myself To Sleep
9. Too Muchroom
10. Agitprop 13
11. Stop Apologising
12. Tyranny Of The Talentless
13. Love In The Upside Down
14. Blind On A Galloping Horse 

‘BRAT’ is the eagerly awaited follow up to 2022’s ‘CRASH’, which reached number 1 on the UK’s official album chart, and promises to be an exhilarating club record built around high art references and social commentary.

Avant-pop and electronic superstar Charli XCX has become an iconic figure in the arts, having helped expand the landscape of popular music over the last decade by seamlessly traversing the underground and mainstream with her artistic output. Over the course of a trailblazing career, the multi-hyphenate creative has earned critical acclaim for her innovative style and entrepreneurial spirit and seen her forward-thinking approach reshape pop culture in the process.

Her lasting impact was cemented last year when Charli was honoured with the Visionary Award at the annual Ivor Novellos in London, while she also received the Powerhouse Award at Billboard’s Women In Music ceremony in Los Angeles in March.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A perfectly presented, effervescent pop album that's as perfectly produced as it is brilliantly written, lurching from airy, jagged PC Music grooves (it was also produced by AG Cook of PC Music) into thumping, spine-tingling four-on-the-floor power. It's brilliantly off-piste when it needs to be, but in the most part, impeccably written, beautifully textured pop bliss.

TRACK LISTING

1. 360
2. Club Classics
3. Sympathy Is A Knife
4. I Might Say Something Stupid
5. Talk Talk
6. Von Dutch
7. Everything Is Romantic
8. Rewind
9. So I
10. Girl, So Confusing
11. Apple
12. B2b
13. Mean Girls
14. I Think About It All The Time
15. 365

Hot on the heels of Phoenix and Digitalism, who previously selected and mixed the 'Kitsuné Tabloid' compilations, Rio's finest - The Twelves - deliver not one, but two full-of-funk eclectic mixes.

For this third edition of the 'Kitsuné Tabloid', Brazilian producers The Twelves have picked and mixed together some of their favourite tracks to create their dream compilation. Famous for their hot remixes of the likes of MIA, La Roux, Yelle and Kylie Minogue, the pair have carved a niche for themselves in the international dance community and have become renowned producers.

The first part of this mix ('A Side') is composed of unreleased dubs of some of their own remixes, with amongst others Munk’s meaningful 'Violent Love’, TDCC’s indie dance piece ‘Something Good Can Work’ and one original composition from The Twelves themselves, 'Handshake’. The second part ('B Side') is the perfect synthesis of electro, synth pop and very 70s-like disco funk, with an exciting selection of tracks including Ratatat’s ‘Wildcat’, Twin Shadow’s ‘Shooting Holes’ or Shit Robot’s ‘Take ‘em Up’.

TRACK LISTING

A Side:
01. The Twelves – Handshake (dub)
02. Munk – Violent Love (The Twelves Tabloid Dub)
03. Zeigeist – Humanitarianism (The Twelves Tabloid Mix)
04. Metric – Help I’m Alive (The Twelves Tabloid Mix)
05. Two Door Cinema Club – Something Good Can Work (The Twelves Tabloid Dub)
06. Black Strobe – Me & Madonna (The Twelves Tabloid Mix)
07. French Horn Rebellion Vs Database – Beaches & Friends (The Twelves Tabloid Mix)

B Side:
01. Ratatat – Wildcat
02. Reverso 68 – Piece Together (Part 1)
03. Sasse Feat Kiki – Loosing Touch
04. Chaz Jankel – Without You
05. Spirit Catcher – Rollercoaster
06. Siriusmo – Last Dear
07. Shit Robot – Take ‘Em Up
08. Pol Rax – For You
09. The Paradise – In Love With You
10. The Juan Maclean – The Simple Life
11. Alexander Robotnick – Problèmes D’Amour Demo (Fafa Monteco Edit)
12. Daniel Wang – Echo By Midnight
13. Alan Braxe & Fred Falke – Palladium
14. Tommy Seebach – Bubble Sex
15. Zombi – Sapphire
16. Zongamin – Painless
17. Twin Shadow – Shooting Holes

Secrets Of Sound sold out their first release in quick fashion and now they return with a second instalment in the Exotic Origins series, designed to take you a million light years away from your current reality and deep into the far depths of space with eight superbly cosmic explorations of ambient and downtempo magic. Italians Do It Better man Johnny Jewel kicks off with some sultry sax-laced sounds, David Lynch's musical partner Dean Hurley crushes on shimmering pads and Pye Corner Audio bring a little intergalactic tension. Elsewhere there are sugary synths from Legowelt, suspensory pads from TM Solver and plenty more to help you escape to another dimension. Add to that the fact it arrives on a random variety of different vinyl colours and comes with a download code, and you've got rather a nice package.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Secrets Of Sound follow up 'The Last Resort: Balearic At The End Of Time' with another compilation showcasing a variety of new electronic sounds. SOS 001 didn't hang around long so don't snooze on this one!

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Johnny Jewel - Many Moons
2. Dean Hurley - Outlands
3. Pye Corner Audio - Jupiter Orbit 707
4. RAMZi - Existenz

Side 2
1. Legowelt - Nebia Vera Pelliccia
2. TM Solver - Serious Ambient (SOS Edit)
3. State Azure - Azimuth
4. Lord Of The Isles - Meet Me At The Portal

Originally released in 2013, Kero Kero Bonito’s debut mixtape, Intro Bonito, was a monumental success in the underground hyperpop scene bubbling up throughout the band’s hometown of South London. The trio, featuring Gus Lobban, Jamie Bulled, and Sarah Midori Perry, started crafting their unique blend of electronic pop music after school friends Gus & Jamie met Sarah on the internet. With Perry’s unique singing style (featuring lyrics in both Japanese and English), the band went on to write influential tracks such as “Sick Beat,” “I’d Rather Sleep,” “Pocket Crocodile,” and others that were inspired by J-pop, dancehall, and video game music.

The Intro Bonito mixtape paved the way for Kero Kero Bonito’s rise from underground glitch pop wizards to a monumental act within the PC Music scene and beyond. Since its release, the trio has built up a devoted fanbase across the globe, racked up over 500 million streams & video views across multiple albums, EPs, and singles, collaborated with numerous high-profile artists (e.g. 100 gecs, Porter Robinson, Felicita, Soccer Mommy, Ashnikko, etc), and performed at festivals around the world.

TRACK LISTING

TRACKLISTING
1. Bonito Intro
2. Intro Bonito
3. Sick Beat
4. My Party
5. Cat Vs. Dog
6. Kero Kero Bonito
7. Babies (Are So Strange)
8. Bonito Jingle
9. Homework
10. Pocket Crocodile
11. Cat Vs. Dog
12. Park Song
13. Let's Go To The Forest
14. Small Town
15. I'd Rather Sleep

ADDITIONAL TRACKS FOR CD:
16. Bonito Shopping
17. Fans (Are So Cool)
18. Flamingo
19. Build It Up
20. Chicken
21. My Party - Bo En Remix
22. Sick Beat - Danny L Harle Remix
23. I'd Rather Sleep - Et Aliae Remix
24. Cat Vs. Dog - Kane West Remix
25. Pocket Crocodile - Toby Gale Remix
26. Small Town - Spazzkid Remix
27. Flamingo - Julien Mier Remix
28. Flamingo 

HEALTH's DISCO4::GENERATIONS brings the highly desired & highly collaborative DISCO4::PART I & DISCO4::PART II into a cohesive singular project. Step into the unconventional world of DISCO4::GENERATIONS and discover the totality of HEALTH directly from the band & those who inspire them.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0.
2. Body
3. Prison
4. Power Fantasy
5. Judgement Night
6. Innocence
7. Full Of Health
8. Colors
9. Hate You
10. D.F. Looks
11. Mass Grave
12. Delicious Ape
13. Hard To Be A God
14. Dead Flowers (Vinyl Version)
15. Isn't Everyone
16. Murder Death Kill
17. Identity (Vinyl Version)
18. Cold Blood (Vinyl Version)
19. Ad 1000 (Vinyl Version)
20. Gnostic Flesh
21. Mortal Hell (Vinyl Version)
22. The Joy Of Sect (Vinyl Version)
23. Still Breathing (Vinyl Version)
24. No Escape (Vinyl Version)
25. Excess (Vinyl Version)
26. These Days 2.0.2.1. (Vinyl Version)

The L.A. industrial-rock band HEALTH’s new album RAT WARS is the most violent yet vulnerable LP of their career. It is somehow fitting that such a brutal collection of songs is at the same time their most comprehensive artistic statement.

Meticulously aggressive production detail collides with painfully personal confessions and a strange savage grace is paired with icy gallows humour… surprisingly it’s still fun as hell.

RAT WARS joins the lineage of ground-breaking heavy acts like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, which re-drew the borders between metal, electronic and pop music. It also speaks directly to the band’s young, fervent online subculture.

It’s The Downward Spiral for people with at least two monitors and a vitamin D deficiency. Written during the most emotionally trying period of the band’s life, the album builds on their chaotic yet re-invigorating pandemic years.

In that time, HEALTH cut dozens of tracks with heroes and inheritors like Nine Inch Nails, Lamb of God, 100 Gecs, Poppy, and Pertubator on DISCO4. RAT WARS captures all the fury and ambition their LP’s have until now aspired to. It’s their boldest statement on the insanity and the insipidness of contemporary life.

TRACK LISTING

1. DEMIGODS
2. FUTURE OF HELL
3. HATEFUL Featuring SIERRA
4. (OF ALL ELSE)
5. CRACK METAL
6. UNLOVED
7. CHILDREN OF SORROW
8. SICKO
9. ASHAMED
10. (OF BEING BORN)
11. DSM-V
12. DON’T TRY

In 2007, HEALTH walked into a windowless, sweat-stained venue in downtown Los Angeles to record its debut album.

The band - then composed of singer/guitarist Jacob Duzsik, bassist John Famiglietti, drummer Benjamin Jared Miller and guitarist Jupiter Keyes - was locally renowned for its violent, fifteen-minute live sets. Its squalls of tribal drums, shredded guitar noise and eerily plaintive vocals sounded like nothing else in the city.

At the time, that rank Skid Row venue known as The Smell was becoming arguably the most influential DIY venue in the world. The scene around it would launch the band to international acclaim.

Crystal Castles remixed HEALTH’s single “Crimewave” on their own debut LP, becoming a breakout single for each act. (The group would continue that pattern on its lauded “HEALTH::DISCO” electronic remix series). Later that year, HEALTH opened for Nine Inch Nails on its “Lights in the Sky Tour,” refining its chaotic live set to command some of music’s biggest stages.

In 2009, they released their second LP “GET COLOR,” a significant step up in fidelity and ambition. The heaving single “DIE SLOW” became an underground hit and remains one of the band’s signature tracks. DIY bills soon turned into festival slots at Pitchfork Fest, Primavera Sound and other marquee events. Their second remix compilation included the single “USA BOYS,” recorded with Trent Reznor and Alan Moulder.

As they began a much-anticipated followup, however, an unexpected new project proved just as compelling. Rockstar Games, the creators of the “Grand Theft Auto” franchise (the most valuable media title in all of entertainment), approached them to score “Max Payne 3,” the latest installment of the noir action series.

The 2012 game re-imagined the very concept of a video game score, looping electronic drones and pulsing percussion into a bleak modern shooter. HEALTH’s video game work, including the “Max Payne” single “TEARS” and “Grand Theft Auto V’s” original cut “High Pressure Dave,” won over a generation of young musicians and gamers alike, and continues to influence both worlds.

In 2015, the band finally released “DEATH MAGIC,” its third LP, on the prestigious indie label Loma Vista Recordings. Years of work with producers Lars Stalfors (Lil Peep, St. Vincent), Andrew Dawson (Beyonce, Kanye West) and Haxan Cloak yielded the most precise and diverse album of their career, drawing on black metal, New Romance synth pop, beat music and industrial sounds alike.

HEALTH, now a three-piece after Keyes’ departure, played prime slots at Coachella, earned a lengthy profile in The New Yorker magazine, performed alongside acts as varied as The Neighbourhood and Deafheaven and covered New Order’s “Blue Monday” for the Charlize Theron action film “Atomic Blonde.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Psychonaut
2. Feel Nothing
3. God Botherer
4. Black Static
5. Loss Deluxe
6. NC-17
7. The Message
8. Rat Wars
9. Strange Days (1999)
10. Wrong Bag
11. Slaves Of Fear
12. Decimation 

4AD release ‘Blue Film’, the debut album by LA-based producer Lo-Fang (née Matthew Hemerlein).

Classically trained in violin, cello, bass, piano and guitar, Hemerlein’s soulful falsetto floats above a rich blend of classical, R&B and electronic music, telling stories of love, loss and deceit.

The album was written and recorded during Hemerlein’s world travels everywhere from a farmhouse in Maryland to a hotel in Cambodia to studios in London and Nashville. He completed the album at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles with GRAMMY Award winning producer Francois Tetaz.

Noted filmmaker Grant Singer (Sky Ferreira, Kendrick Lamar, DIIV) directed the stunning twopart video for album track ‘Look Away’. The first half nodding to the op-art movement, with the latter half filmed in an abandoned mansion in the Hollywood Hills where Steven Spielberg once shot scenes from Columbo.

Celebrating 45 years of Blancmange, Everything Is Connected (Best Of) is the first collection to be curated by Neil Arthur, tastefully blending a mixture of hits and personal favourites. Originally from the UK’s post punk DIY scene, Blancmange found success in 1982, long player ‘Happy Families’ selling Gold in the UK, and its 3 singles becoming international hits. They went on to have 7 Top 40 hits and 70 weeks in the UK album charts. Long-standing admirers include Moby, John Grant and Honey Dijon, who states that “British synth pop was hugely influential in the burgeoning house music scene and Blancmange was a big part of that.”

TRACK LISTING

LP:
Side One
1 Living On The Ceiling
2 Waves
3 Blind Vision
4 Don’t Tell Me
5 The Day Before You Came
Side Two
1 What’s The Time?
2 Distant Storm
3 Mindset
4 Reduced Voltage
5 Some Times These

CD:
Disc 1
1 Sad Day (Original Version)
2 I’ve Seen The Word
3 God’s Kitchen
4 Feel Me
5 Living On The Ceiling
6 Waves
7 Game Above My Head (12 Inch Version)
8 Blind Vision
9 That’s Love, That It Is
10 Vishnu
11 Don’t Tell Me
12 The Day Before You Came
13 What’s Your Problem
14 Lose Your Love
15 Why Don’t They Leave Things Alone
16 Drive Me
17 I’m Having A Coffee
18 The Western
19 Just Another Spectre
Disc 2
1 The Fall
2 Last Night (I Dreamt I Had A Job)
3 Jack Knife (Red Shift EP)
4 What’s The Time?
5 We Are The Chemicals
6 Anna Dine
7 Distant Storm
8 I Smashed Your Phone
9 Not A Priority
10 Mindset
11 This Is Bliss
12 Clean Your House
13 Commercial Break
14 Some Times These
15 Reduced Voltage
16 Take Me
17 Again, I Wait For The World
18 Wish
19 Empty Street 

Magdalena Bay, the Los Angeles-based duo of Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin, create magical pop music that floats in the ether of our collective social cosmos.

While they call California home, their essence lies in the clouds, emitting unique yet familiar frequencies of synthesized nostalgia, kitschy catchiness, and warped neo-hooks. Suited for the times, Magdalena Bay blends the known and felt with innovative sonic landscapes.

Tenenbaum and Lewin met as teenagers in a Miami high school music program. Tenenbaum, who moved from Buenos Aires to Florida at age one, and Lewin, a guitar shredder influenced by his dad's prog and concept rock records, quickly recognized their kindred spirits. They formed a prog band called Tabula Rasa and began a romance. Both were skilled musicians; Tenenbaum a pianist and singer, and Lewin self-taught in production and music theory. Despite attending different colleges, they maintained their band, traveling hours to rehearse before realizing two things: their relationship was undeniable, and prog rock wasn't resonating with young audiences. Shifting their focus to pop, they explored its craft, leading to the creation of Magdalena Bay.

They learned the complexities of pop writing and production, striving to create something interesting within the genre. Describing their music broadly as "pop," they released several EPs and singles before debuting their album, "Mercurial World," in 2021. Praised for its melodic hooks and meticulous production, it was often labeled as "synth-pop."

TRACK LISTING

She Looked Like Me!
Killing Time
True Blue Interlude
Image
Death & Romance
Fear, Sex
Vampire In The Corner
Watching T.V.
Tunnel Vision
Love Is Everywhere
Feeling DiskInserted?
That's My Floor
Cry For Me
Angel On A Satellite
The Ballad Of Matt & Mica