THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Mustard coloured heavyweight 180 gram audiophile vinyl double LP with new artwork layout. Re-mastered by John Rivers at Woodbine Street Studio especially for first time vinyl release.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

The classic 1982 Associates (Billy Mackenzie & Alan Rankine) ‘Club Country’ single is re-issued exclusively for Record Store Day 2019. Released on 12” limited edition white vinyl the single was re-mastered from the original master tapes and includes the original b-sides, ‘A.G it’s you again’ and ‘Ulcragyceptemol’ plus a rare demo version of ‘Club Country’ available for the first time on vinyl. The single originally charted at number 13 in the UK charts.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2022 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

In 2018, Connan Mockasin proposed that the next of his yearly artist residencies at Mexican Summerís Marfa Myths festival, in Marfa, Texas, be used to make the album that had been stirring in his father, Ade, for 40 years or more. With a band made up of Connan as well as John Carroll Kirby, infinite bisous, Nicholas Harsant and Matthew Eccles plus production from Liam Finn, It's Just Wind is both a lifetime in the making and utterly impromptu. First time vinyl pressing of 4000 on gold color vinyl, exclusively available for Record Store Day 2022.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

TRACK LISTING

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Formed in Glasgow in 1979, Altered Images and their iconic frontwoman Clare Grogan were one of the brightest bands who emerged from the new wave scene of the early 1980ís. After being championed by Radio 1 DJ John Peel and supporting Siouxsie and the Banshees on their 1980 Kaleidoscope tour, they were soon signed to CBS and went on to have four top-20 singles. Available on vinyl for the very first time as a Limited Edition 12î white vinyl featuring reimagined 2022 recordings of four classic hits. The EP includes Happy Birthday, Donít Talk To Me About Love, See Those Eyes & I Could Be Happy.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

The ultimate ‘one-hit-wonders’, Uptown Top Ranking was a surprise International No. 1 smash hit single for the teenage due Althea and Donna. Entranced by Trinity’s hit ‘Three Piece Suit’, they wrote a ‘reply’ song - Uptown Top Ranking, which they cut for Joe Gibbs.
The success of the single, both in Jamaica and globally, secured them a deal with Virgin Record’s Front Line imprint, releasing this, their only album, in 1978.
The album features the cream of Jamaica’s reggae musicians – ‘The Riddim Twins' (Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare) gives the music the fat rhythms, while the legendary group of players, The Revolutionaries - the sublime horn section of Tommy McCook, Vin Gordon, and Herman Marquis; guitarist Earl "Chinna" Smith and keyboard player Bernard Harvey, provide the icing on the cake.
Despite the teenage girls’ lack of experience, this is a fabulous collection of roots reggae that swings from intense moody appeals to Jah, to brightly upbeat pop songs, and the Revolutionaries' outstanding contribution deserves the recognition it never received at the time.The title track has been covered many times, notably by Bristol trip-hoppers Portishead, in the late-'90s.This reissue includes two bonus tracks – It Mek, an album out-take unreleased at the time, and Going To Negril, a 12” single, also from 1978.
Remastered at Abbey road on heavyweight black vinyl.
Out of print for many years.
A BONA FIDE REGGAE CLASSIC!

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. No More Fighting 3:40
2. Jah Rastafari 3:42
3. Make A Truce 4:16
4. Oh Dread 2:37
5. Uptown Top Ranking 3:45
6. It Mek 3:50 (Bonus Track)
Side B
1. The West 3:48
2. Jah Music 3:54
3. If You Don't Love Yah 2:55
4. Sorry 3:57
5. They Wanna Just 2:51
6. Going To Negril 7:08 (Bonus Track)

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 22ND ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 24TH).

Tales Of Ephidrina is an ambient/techno album by electronica duo Amorphous Androgynous (also known as Future Sound Of London). To celebrate the 30th anniversary Brian Dougans has located 2 unreleased tracks from his personal archive and created 2 alternate versions of album tracks that are featured on the bonus 12”, Remastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis studios, this seminal album has only ever been pressed once. The remastered album will also be pressed on a 1CD package featuring the 4 bonus tracks
LP1 (Side A)
1. Liquid Insects
2. Swab
3. Mountain Goat
4. In Mind
(Side B)
1. Ephidrena
2. Auto Pimp
3. Fat Cat
4. Pod Room
12” (Side A)
1. Mountain path
2. Static Field

12” (Side B)
1. Sky-Scraper ( xtnd )
2. Swab ( alt )
CD
1. Liquid Insects
2. Swab
3. Mountain Goat
4. In Mind
5. Ephidrena
6. Auto Pimp
7. Fat Cat
8. Pod Room
9. Mountain path
10. Static Field
11. Sky-Scraper ( xtnd )
12. Swab ( alt ) 

TRACK LISTING

1. Liquid Insects
2. Swab
3. Mountain Goat
4. In Mind
5. Ephidrena
6. Auto Pimp
7. Fat Cat
8. Pod Room
9. Mountain Path
10. Static Field
11. Sky-Scraper ( Xtnd )
12. Swab ( Alt ) 

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Tales Of Ephidrina is an ambient/techno album by electronica duo Amorphous Androgynous (also known as Future Sound Of London). To celebrate the 30th anniversary Brian Dougans has located 2 unreleased tracks from his personal archive and created 2 alternate versions of album tracks that are featured on the bonus 12”, Remastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis studios, this seminal album has only ever been pressed once. The remastered album will also be pressed on a 1CD package featuring the 4 bonus tracks.

TRACK LISTING

LP1 (Side A)
1. Liquid Insects
2. Swab
3. Mountain Goat
4. In Mind
(Side B)
1. Ephidrena
2. Auto Pimp
3. Fat Cat
4. Pod Room
12” (Side A)
1. Mountain Path
2. Static Field

12” (Side B)
1. Sky-Scraper ( Xtnd )
2. Swab ( Alt )

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 22ND ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 24TH).

A match made in heaven as critically acclaimed star and Jazz FM’s Best International Artist Lady Blackbird, joins forces with pioneering producer, Richard Barratt under his Athletes of God moniker to offer up two mesmerising and magnetic cuts that have never before been on vinyl. They now find a welcome home on a limited-edition, Orange Crush colour 7 inch via Foundation Music.

Up first the duo join forces with legendary Sheffield songwriter/musician Michael Somerset Ward aka MSW - the man behind countless chart hits for the likes of Alison Moyet and Take That. ‘Fontella’ is an ode and recounting of the trials and tribulations of being a female singer, in this case the legend that is, Fontella Bass. A soaring funk fuelled party jam that has major radio support already lined up and was previewed last year on 6Music by the man that broke Lady Blackbird as well as so many other acts, Gilles Peterson.

On the flip, a track that has been getting serious attention across the airwaves including 6Music playlisting, the ethereal, Balearic and instantly captivating cover of Randy Crawford’s mid-‘80s number ‘Don’t Wanna Be Normal’. A track that harnesses all of Barratt’s experience behind the production controls letting Lady Blackbird’s incredible voice sing to its full potential, over the top of a chest-rumbling chugger of a backbone. Epic to the Nth degree.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Athletes Of God × MSW Ft Lady Blackbird - Fontella
B1 Athletes Of God Ft. Lady Blackbird - Don’t Wanna Be Normal

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Never before released on vinyl, no plans to repress. True RSD exclusive. No digital release until far in the fuutre. This was recorded live in Belgium in 2004 with a pick-up band. colour vinyl. CD is long out of print

Heavy South African cut, unearthed by Dene from LCT, All about the massive title track ''Got My Magic Working''...

The origins of Amajika is a tale of two worlds colliding at the perfect moment and begin in KwaMushu Township outside Durban. Here would be where a young Tu Nokwe would set up a school to help teach other aspiring youngsters like herself in music, dance and acting. This would become known as the Amajika Youth and Children’s Art Project and would be run from the Nokwe home, a common hangout for artists at the time. Some boast 2000+ pupils going through this program while others claim it wasn’t more than a backyard dance group, but for the lucky group of kids that were members in the mid 80s it would be their chance at stardom.


It was during these years that a young aspiring playwright and musician Mbongeni Ngema had come across Tu and her group of gifted youngsters at the Nokwe family home. Although he was touring extensively at the time with the plays Woza Albert and Asinamali, the latter which eventually ended up on broadway, he would spend any time off from the tour with Tu and her dance troop. After being inspired by the American group New Edition, Mbongeni envisioned Amajika as the South African answer and decided to bankroll a studio session.


The session would take place in a private studio in Durban.The release of the first single would follow very shortly. The lead track, Tomati-So is a fun swinging groove over some basic programmed drums. The song is dedicated to Tu Nokwe sings of her unique style and kind heart. On his next tour Mbongeni would take the remaining masters with him to the US and had the track remixed. Although it never materialized in a release States side he did return with the remixed tape and release it in South Africa the following year. Much like Tomato So the song was an ode and would be dedicated to the man who was making all their dreams come true. Got My Magic Working sings of going overseas and being a star on Broadway and TV and the man who is making it all happen. All these true predictions are sung on top of a groovy acid bass by a clearly matured troop of artists.


During these years of working with Amajika, Mbongeni became very impressed with the exceeding talent of one of the members and decided to cast her in his upcoming musical Sarafina. The other children also wanted to be a part of the Broadway show but not everyone would get a role. This would be the end of Amajika as the next years would be dedicated to creating success on the musical stage. The growing kids that formed Amajika became young adults and pursued their own careers after the fact. Tu Nokwe would leave the country to return years later as the wife of Shaka Zulu on the big screen. To this day she is still very active both on stage and screen while Mbongeni is still writing and adding to the South African Musical Theatre catalog.


Fast forward 30 years from the original release to a smokey club where ESA hears Got My Magic Working played by Rush Hours Store’s own Bonnefooi. Instantly he inquires about the track from his homeland and feels it a perfect addition the repertoire of the Afro Synth band he is quietly cooking up. The band’s instrumental take ended up as the B side on a mysterious and limited white label released by Rush Hour in early 2020 but quickly sold out.


Here you have compiled the two title tracks from original Amajika singles along with the instrumental version by ESA’s Afro Synth Band for The complete Amajika experience, past to present. 

TRACK LISTING

Amajika - Got My Magic Working
Amajika - Tomati So
Esa's Afro-Synth Band- Got My Magic Working (Dub Mix)

The two tracks from Andy Bell’s debut solo single reworked by Pye Corner Audio, with the original tracks remastered by Heba Kadry.

TRACK LISTING

1.The Commune (Pye Corner Audio Remix)
2.Plastic Bag (Pye Corner Audio Remix)
3.The Commune
4.Plastic Bag

On the eponymously titled final song of her debut album Land of No Junction, Irish songwriter Aoife Nessa Frances (pronounced Ee-fa) sings “Take me to the land of no junction/Before it fades away/Where the roads can never cross/But go their own way.” It is this search that lies at the heart of the album, recalling journeys towards an ever shifting centre - a centre that cannot hold - where maps are constantly being rewritten.

The evocative phrase is the result of a fortuitous misunderstanding. Reminiscing about childhood visits to Wales, Aoife’s musical collaborator and co-producer Cian Nugent, mentioned a train station called Llandudno Junction, which she misheard. “Land of No Junction later became a place in itself. A liminal space - a dark vast landscape to visit in dreams… A place of waiting where I could sit with uncertainty and accept it. Rejecting the distinct and welcoming the uncertain and the unknown.” Reveals Frances.

The songs traverse and inhabit this indeterminate landscape: the beginnings of love, moments of loss, discovery, fragility and strength, all intermingle and interact. Land of No Junction is shot through with a sense of mystery - an ambiguity and disorientation that illuminates with smokey luminescence. Yet, through the haze, everything comes down to what, where and who you are. Frances has built a universe full of intimacy and depth, with lyrics written through a process of free thought writing. It lends the record fluidity, each song in dialogue with the next not only through language, but the way each musical choice complements or threads into another.

Navigated by the richness of Aoife’s voice, along with the layers gently built through her collaborators’ instruments (strings, drums, guitars, keys, percussion), gives a feeling of filling up space into every corner and crack. A remarkable coherent sonic world: buoyant and aqueous, with dark undercurrents. The crossroads as a place where someone can be stuck, static in the face of the future, becomes instead an amorphous realm, where the remnants of the past and what is unknown meld together and come to an understanding. Where nostalgia and newness ebb and flow in equal measure.

TRACK LISTING

1. Geranium
2. Blow Up
3. Here In The Dark
4. A Long Dress
5. Less Is More
6. Libra
7. In The End
8. Heartbreak Junction
9. Land Of No Junction 

Romanticism is back and headed in a new direction with Loren Oden’s debut album, “My Heart, My Love”. Pure, with lyrical transparency and vulnerability, reminiscent of classic black soul and progressive R&B. Produced and orchestrated by multi-instrumentalist Adrian Younge, this is one of the most meticulously crafted albums ever to be released on Linear Labs. Being born into a musical family in Compton, Ca., Oden grew up in the church, studying gospel as well as secular greats like Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke.

Throughout the years, his affinity with lyricism and vocal arranging grew, catching the ear of his long-time friend, Younge. With this connection, Oden became the mellifluous bedrock of Younge’s psychedelic sound: Oden sings lead on most of Adrian Younge’s expansive musical catalog, including but not limited, to Black Dynamite, Something About April, and Marvel’s Luke Cage. Oden is one of the premiere vocalists on The Midnight Hour alongside icons like CeeLo Green, Raphael Saadiq, and Marsha Ambrosius. With the world-renowned success of The Midnight Hour, touring for the last six years, and being musically featured on Ava Duvernay’s When They See Us, it was only a matter of time before Oden finally released his own body of work. Loren’s undeniable connection to Marvin Gaye’s poetic susceptibility paired with the genius of Younge’s soothing orchestral creations, comparable to Quincy Jones, this is the collaboration you always wanted, but could never get. “My Heart, My Love” is a cultivated body of work, for the sophisticated lover, going deep into the guarded emotions we all try to avoid. The inspiration has always come from timeless music, and Oden and Younge have created an aural treasure that is sure to live on.

TRACK LISTING

1. My Heart, My Love
2. Galaxies
3. Is There A Way
4. Words To Say
5. Addicted
6. Queen
7. Don’t Be
8. All Roads
9. Waiting For
10. Matters Of The Heart
11. A Somber Sonnet
12. The Moment
13. Timeless Answers
14. Frequency 

A Certain Ratio’s greatest strength has always been their unpredictability. They’ve always moved with gleeful disregard for the boundaries of style and genre, their eye fixed firmly on constant progression. It’s an ethos that’s open-minded over all else, and that’s seen them take everything from experimental electronica to vintage funk, filtered through their own Mancunian lens.

And their latest studio album 1982 is no different in its unpredictable multidimensional nature. It shoots off in every direction, whether via searing Afrobeat, mind- melting jazz breakdowns or moody electronic experiments all with pop hooks and irresistible dance rhythms.

It might be called 1982, but it’s no nostalgia trip, fearlessly facing up to the future and running at it with full speed.

The album follows ACR Loco and EP:ACR in what is turning out to be the band’s most creative period, unmistakably ACR and unmistakably like nothing else.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There are few bands that manage to competently pull together as many influences as ACR do, and have been doing since the late 70's. It's no surprise then that '1982' is a groove-filled odyssey, dipping seamlessly into disco, afrobeat and funk as they are wont to do. Brilliantly inventive, endlessly innovative and most importantly, hugely enjoyable.

TRACK LISTING

1 Samo
2 Waiting On A Train
3 1982
4 A Trip In Hulme
5 Tombo In M3
6 Constant Curve
7 Afro Dizzy
8 Holy Smoke
9 Tier 3
10 Ballad Of ACR

A Certain Ratio’s greatest strength has always been their unpredictability. They’ve always moved with gleeful disregard for the boundaries of style and genre, their eye fixed firmly on constant progression. It’s an ethos that’s open-minded over all else, and that’s seen them take everything from experimental electronica to vintage funk, filtered through their own Mancunian lens.

And their latest studio album 1982 is no different in its unpredictable multidimensional nature. It shoots off in every direction, whether via searing Afrobeat, mind- melting jazz breakdowns or moody electronic experiments all with pop hooks and irresistible dance rhythms.

It might be called 1982, but it’s no nostalgia trip, fearlessly facing up to the future and running at it with full speed.

The album follows ACR Loco and EP:ACR in what is turning out to be the band’s most creative period, unmistakably ACR and unmistakably like nothing else.

TRACK LISTING

1 Samo
2 Waiting On A Train
3 1982
4 A Trip In Hulme
5 Tombo In M3
6 Constant Curve
7 Afro Dizzy
8 Holy Smoke
9 Tier 3
10 Ballad Of ACR

Manchester legends, A Certain Ratio, are back with their brand new 2023 EP on limited edition 12” vinyl.

This follows the release of their album 1982, and includes 3 remixes of tracks from the record and a brand new track ‘Day by Day’. The remixers on the EP are fellow mancunians Werkha and Jade Parker, as well as close friend Andy Meecham aka Emperor Machine, who originally contributed keyboards and electronic percussion to the very track he’s reworked, ‘Constant Curve.’ The EP also includes a remix of the popular single ‘SAMO’, which spent 4 weeks on the BBC 6Music playlist, accompanied by an animated lyric video paying homage to the graffiti tag it was named after by Al Diaz and American artist and wunderkind, Jean-Michel Basquiat. The final track on the EP is a remix of ‘Waiting on a Train’, presenting a new and special version of the original song, with the presence of the featuring artists, Ellen Beth Abdi and Chunky, remaining strong.

Formed in 1978 with a core line-up of Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson, A Certain Ratio emerged from the hallowed grounds of the late 70s punk scene, and from that day on they’ve moved forwards with gleeful disregard for the boundaries of style and genre, their eye fixed firmly on constant progression.

To celebrate their 45th anniversary and support the release on 2023 EP, ACR will be taking to the road to play a select number of shows in the UK and Europe, which will see them play all of their 45s in chronological order across 2 sets in one evening in venues hand picked by the band all with limited capacity.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Day By Day
A2 SAMO (Werkha Remix)
B1 Constant Curve - Feat. Ellen Beth Abdi (Emperor Machine Extended Rework)
B1 Waiting On A Train - Feat. Ellen Beth Abdi & Chunky (Jade Parker Remix) 

Back with their first new album in 12 years, a confident and revitalised ACR jumped back into the studio following their most successful tour in over 20 years. 

ACR Loco feels like an accumulation of ACR's DNA from point zero in 1977 through to 2020 and sounds like a band who have effortlessly perfected their craft. An album to dance to, cry to, fall in love to and most importantly, to party to. 

ACR Loco by the core ACR members Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson, are joined by long term partners Tony Quigley, Denise Johnson and Matt Steele, plus special guests Sink Ya Teeth’s Maria Uzor and Gemma Cullingford, Factory Floor’s Gabe Gurnsey and Manchester luminaries Mike Joyce and Eric Random.

TRACK LISTING

1 Friends Around Us
2 Bouncy Bouncy 
3 Yo Yo Gi
4 Supafreak
5 Always In Love
6 Family
7 Get A Grip
8 Berlin
9 What’s Wrong
10 Taxi Guy

THE PICCADILLY RECORDS REISSUE/COLLECTION OF THE YEAR 2018.

A Certain Ratio were born of the Manchester punk/post punk explosion of the late 70s, but while they took on the bleak aggression of the former and the spiky experimentation of the latter, they were rooted in another tradition. By the time their second single, the incredible opium funk dream of "Flight" was released in 1980 on Factory Records, it was obvious that the apparently unlikely union of brooding post punk with dub and funk rhythms was a marriage made in heaven - If heaven is the right word.

"Set" follows their current set list (hence the title), pulling material from across their incredibly diverse career. It's perhaps only fitting that two thirds of the collection dates from 1979-1986, while they were signed to Factory, when they arguably produced their finest and most inventive material. If "Shack Up" added a mutant snarl to the Banbarra classic and "Flight" was eerie and sublime, "Knife Slits Water" was a signpost for their future direction, moving away from the paranoia and angst of their earlier sound and introducing a lighter and more loose limbed samba, jazz dance and tropical funk groove. The brighter feel was further cemented by "Wild Party", a moody boogie blend incorporating street soul and electro which perfectly conjured it's title, and the P-funk genius of "Mickey Way” which went on, appropriately enough, to become a Hacienda favourite.

The move to A & M brought another diversion, into acid house euphoria, represented here by "Good Together"; this, and the silky, emotive pop of "Won't Stop Loving You", here remixed by Bernard Sumner, were both enhanced by the gorgeous vocal talents of Denise Johnson. There is new material here too, in the shape of "Dirty Boy" featuring Barry Adamson; but, even leaving aside the astonishing span and prolific nature of their output, what is truly amazing is that through all the extraordinary range of their sound they have always maintained a distinct and coherent identity. That takes real talent.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An essential package featuring some of the greatest ACR tunes to be committed to tape, with definitive 12" versions sitting brilliantly alongside a couple tracks exclusive to this release. An essential for any fan, and sure to make a few new fans as well!

TRACK LISTING

Do The Du (Casse) (1979)
Wild Party - 12” Version (1985)
Flight - 12” Version (1980)
And Then Again - 12” Version (1980)
Forced Laugh (1981)
Wonder Y (1992)
Mickey Way (12” Version, 1986)
27 Forever - 7” Version (1991)
Won’t Stop Loving You - Bernard Sumner Mix (1990)
Good Together - 12” Version (1990)
Be What You Wanna Be - 12” Version (1990)
Shack Up - 7” Version (1980)
The Fox - US 12” Version (1980)
Knife Slits Water - 7” Version (1982)
Si Firmir O Grido (1986)
Dirty Boy Extended - Featuring Barry Adamson (2018)
Make It Happen (2018)

‘Berlin’ is the second single to be taken from the new A Certain Ratio album ‘ACR Loco’, a remarkable piece of work that is steeped in 40 years of ACR DNA.

Includes the original version of ‘Dirty Boy’.

TRACK LISTING

Berlin
Dirty Boy (Original)

This is the latest instalment in an ongoing collaboration with Mute and follows the release of The Graveyard And The Ballroom, To Each, Force, acr:mcr, I’d Like To See You Again, Up In Downsville and the long out of print album Good Together.
Change The Station (1986) – An abstract album that sees A Certain Ratio bring the funk to laid back ambience in a way that only they could. The party is still there and it’s more hypnotic than ever.

TRACK LISTING

1 Listen To The Sound
2 Some Day
3 You're On Your Own
4 Waiting For You
5 Yeah Boy
6 Sister Brother
7 Desire
8 Samba 123
9 Pole
10 Do Du Beep
11 Golden Balls
12 Funk Off
13 Groove (E)

A Certain Ratio presents ‘EP:ACR’, the unity of their EP trilogy series on CD. This includes ‘ACR:EPA’, ‘ACR:EPC’ and ‘ACR:EPR’, and will be the first time that these 2021 titles are made available on CD.

The first part is ‘EPA’, dedicated to Denise Johnson. It features the band’s final recordings with Denise and came about when they used up some remaining time booked in the studio for a day jam with no fixed agenda, and the result is something very special.

Next up is ‘EPC’, a collaboration EP with Andy Meecham (Emperor Machine), Maria Uzor from Sink Ya Teeth, Jacknife Lee, and Chris Massey (who remixed their song ‘Dirty Boy’ back in 2019). The whole EP is dedicated to longtime ACR friend Andrew Weatherall, the inspiration for the song ‘Guv’nor’, which the band describe as “a collaboration in spirit.”

The final piece of the trilogy is ‘EPR’, which was recorded with the internal brief that ‘anything goes’. EPR includes Part 2 and Part 1 (in that order!) of the mesmerising ‘$ouls In The City’, followed by the insanely catchy ‘Night People’, ‘Big Boy Pants’ and the final track ‘Downtime Vibes’, a hypnotic piece of repetitive rhythms built up around a set of chimes that Jez found in the back of his car.

TRACK LISTING

Wonderland (Jam 6)
Keep It Together (Jam 5)
Down And Dirty (Jam 2)
Feel No Fear (Jam 1)
Emperor Machine (ACR Vs
The Emperor Machine)
The Guv’nor
YOYOGRIP (Long)
Musik Kontrol (ACR Vs
Massey)
$ouls In The City Part 2 & 1
Night People
Big Boy Pants
Downtime Vibes

Springing forth from the punk era of the late 70s, A Certain Ratio carved their own niche by marrying the gloom and gristle of the Manchester's Factory era with a whole load of groove. Hailed universally as pioneers of what became known as ‘punk funk’ thanks to the success of ‘Shack Up’ on both sides of the Atlantic, their sound is not easily pigeon holed and their influence can never be understated. The band introduced the avant-garde elements of funk, jazz, electronics, tape loops and technology to the pop song, wrapping it in a post punk aesthetic, adding great clothes and the coolest haircuts. 

Alive and well and on A&M after the Factory split, A Certain Ratio were in euphoric and emotive form for 1989’s Good Together. Bursting with the boundless positivity of the acid house era, the LP sees ACR divert their usual funk into the baggy sound of the time, exploiting conventional song structures to convey themes of togetherness and hope. Soulful, smooth and packed with proper anthems, including the saucy eyed serenade ‘The Big E’ and the wriggling acid pop of the title track, ‘Good Together’ remains the ACR of choice for ageing ravers everywhere.

TRACK LISTING

1 Your Blue Eyes
2 Your Little World
3 The Big E
4 God's Own Girl
5 Love Is The Way
6 Backs To The Wall
7 River's Edge
8 Every Pleasure
9 Coldest Days
10 Good Together
11 Repercussions
12 2000 A√:

Following the new wave classic Sextet, this Manchester/New York post-punk funk unit's third album, I'd Like to See You Again, points toward a more minimal, stripped-down funk sound. This was apparently influenced heavily by the New York club scene of the early '80s, in which A Certain Ratio immersed themselves following their formation in Manchester. The departure of vocalist Martha Tilson left the band working in a more rhythmic instrumental approach, eschewing the pop forms of Sextet and focusing on a harder electro-funk sound. While this revealed the influence of time spent in club culture and marked a radical departure from the melancholy Manchester sound of their previous albums, the band kept their melodic passages intact, which created a tension between bright and dark moods that was the striking characteristic of their best work. The fact that this album fared well on the dancefloor some 20 years after its release may indicate that A Certain Ratio was ahead of their time. Their influence could be heard cropping up in strains of the Brit-pop, techno, post-rock, and house of the late '90s. Hence, I'd Like to See You Again is an album that deserves a revisit. Essential listening for fans of the Factory sound that spawned the British club sound exemplified by New Order and the New York wave of minimal funk groups, like Liquid Liquid and ESG.. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Touch
2 Saturn
3 Hot Knights
4 I'd Like To See You Again
5 Show Case
6 Sesamo Apriti - Corco Vada
7 Axis
8 Guess Who

A Certain ratio release four special edition pressings to commemorate the release of their new album ‘ACR LOCO’. ‘I’d Like To See You Again’ is album number four and ACR pushed their sounds into new directions again. This is a more jazz-infused album that continues to receive critical acclaim today after the initial confused reaction, just like all the real classic albums that were misunderstood originally.

TRACK LISTING

Touch
Saturn
Hot Knights
I’d Like To See You Again
Show Case
Sesamo Apriti – Corco Vada
Axis
Guess Who

A Certain Ratio present their recording of the ‘Loco Live at Hope Mill Studios’ session, originally a live stream of the band’s sensational 2020 album ‘ACR Loco’.

After a 12-year hiatus releasing albums, ‘ACR Loco’ was created by a confident and revitalised ACR. The band had jumped back into the studio after their most successful tour in over 20 years to record ‘ACR Loco’, and in the lead up to the release, they filmed and recorded this live session at the heart of the Manchester music scene - Hope Mill Studios. The session featured Maria Uzor of Sink Ya Teeth on vocals and the recorded vocals of the much-missed Denise Johnson.

“‘ACR Loco’ feels more than anything like a celebration - the long awaited re-arrival of one of the best bands to ever bring post-punk to the dancefloor.” - Treble

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to ‘ACR:Loco’, a forward-looking genre-defying slice of musical majesty.” - Narc

“On their first new album in over a decade, Manchester’s funkiest post-punk band offer an imperfect distillation of their 40-year legacy, updating their classic sound with nods to contemporary beat-driven music and political strife.” - Pop Matters

TRACK LISTING

Friends Around Us (Live At Hope Mill Studios)
Bouncy Bouncy (Live At Hope Mill Studios)
Yo Yo Gi (Live At Hope Mill Studios)
Supafreak (Live At Hope Mill Studios)
Always In Love (Live At Hope Mill Studios)
Family (Live At Hope Mill Studios)
Get A Grip (Live At Hope Mill Studios)
Berlin (Live At Hope Mill Studios)
What’s Wrong (Live At Hope Mill Studios)
Taxi Guy (Live At Hope Mill Studios)

Following their latest trifecta of EP releases, A Certain Ratio return with the remix album Loco Remezclada. The remix album takes all 10 tracks from 2020’s ACR Loco + ‘Down & Dirty’ from EPA and puts them in the hands of a sensational selection of producers and artists including Lou Hayter, LoneLady, Lounge Society, The Orielles, Maps, Sink Ya Teeth, Skream, Doctor Pieter, Chris Massey, Colleen Cosmo, Number and Muddy Feet. 

TRACK LISTING

Double Vinyl Tracklisting
Down & Dirty (Mr Dan Remix)
Friends Around Us (Lou Hayter Remix)
Bouncy Bouncy (Chop & Drop Lonelady Mix)
Yo Yo Gimix (The Orielles Remix)
Supafreak (Massey Mix)
Always In Love (Skream Remix)
Family (Finger Tip Mix Suite)
Get A Grip (Maps Remix)
Berlin (Cosmodelica Remix)
What’s Wrong (SYT DMT Remix)
Taxi Guy (Number Rework)

Triple Vinyl Tracklisting
Down & Dirty (Mr Dan Remix)
Friends Around Us (Lou Hayter Remix)
Bouncy Bouncy (Chop & Drop Lonelady Mix)
Yo Yo Gimix (The Orielles Remix)
Supafreak (Massey Mix)
Always In Love (Skream Remix)
Family (Finger Tip Mix Suite)
Get A Grip (Maps Remix)
Berlin (Cosmodelica Remix)
What’s Wrong (SYT DMT Remix)
Taxi Guy (Number Rework)
Always In Love (Muddy Feet Remix)
Friends Around Us (The Lounge Society Remix)

CD Tracklisting
Down & Dirty (Mr Dan Remix)
Friends Around Us (Lou Hayter Remix)
Bouncy Bouncy (Chop & Drop Lonelady Mix)
Yo Yo Gimix (The Orielles Remix)
Supafreak (Massey Mix)
Always In Love (Skream Remix)
Family (Finger Tip Mix Suite)
Get A Grip (Maps Remix)
Berlin (Cosmodelica Remix)
What’s Wrong (SYT DMT Remix)
Taxi Guy (Number Rework)
Always In Love (Muddy Feet Remix)
Friends Around Us (The Lounge Society Remix)

Produced by Ratio in Manchester between 2006 and 2009, "Mind Made Up" marks a stunning return to hard-edged funky form. 'The songs are timeless and true to ACR's roots,' says Donald Johnson. 'The emphasis was placed on keeping it simple in the studio. Trickery was kept to a minimum and we never took more than three takes on any track.' Adds Martin Moscrop: 'Most songs we jammed in rehearsal one week and recorded the next, so that they were rough round the edges. And the lyrics are some of the best Jez has ever produced. You'll also hear old ACR influences throughout the album. "Teri" was actually the first song ACR ever wrote, but it has never been recorded or released until now.' 

TRACK LISTING

1 I Feel Light
2 Down, Down, Down
3 Everything Is Good
4 Way To Escape
5 Rialto 06
6 Mind Made Up
7 Teri
8 Bird To The Ground
9 Starlight
10 Which Is Reality
11 Skunk
12 Very Busy Man

Self-produced at Revolution Studio, Sextet saw the original Ratio quintet of Donald Johnson, Jeremy Kerr, Martin Moscrop, Simon Topping and Peter Terrell joined by co-vocalist Martha ‘Tili’ Tilson. Written and recorded following a transformative sojourn in New York in late 1980, the album reflects Latin, samba and even jazz influences (eg Skipscada; Day One), while still retaining Ratio’s signature brittle funk textures, heard in full effect on Lucinda, Gum and trancelike floor filler Knife Slits Water. .

“It all came together for us on Sextet really,” confirms bassist (and latterly vocalist) Jez Kerr. “We were all working together - more involved in the recording, and what went down onto tape. It's definitely got something that the other albums haven’t.” 

TRACK LISTING

1 Lucinda
2 Crystal
3 Gum
4 Knife Slits Water
5 Skipscada
6 Day One
7 Rub Down
8 Rialto
9 Below The Canal

This first album was originally only released on cassette and was compiled from a collection of early four-track recordings and a set of live tracks recorded when the band was opening for the Talking Heads. The sound is good for lo-fi recordings, and the band is, for all of their musical amateurishness, precise and controlled. Those seeking an idiosyncratic, interesting art-funk band can do no wrong with this release.

“A Certain Ratio embraced the ethic and culture of the late seventies post-punk explosion, but sounded like nothing else around them and refused to fit in,” reads the press notes. “ACR always do what I don’t expect, who wouldn’t want to work with artists like that?” Mute Records boss Daniel Miller adds. Though various members have come and gone, a core line-up of Jeremy Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson has always remained.

TRACK LISTING

1 Felch
2 My Spirit
3 Forced Laugh
4 Choir
5 Back To The Start
6 The Fox
7 Loss
8 Oceans
9 Winter Hill 

Springing forth from the punk era of the late 70s, A Certain Ratio carved their own niche by marrying the gloom and gristle of the Manchester's Factory era with a whole load of groove. Hailed universally as pioneers of what became known as ‘punk funk’ thanks to the success of ‘Shack Up’ on both sides of the Atlantic, their sound is not easily pigeon holed and their influence can never be understated. The band introduced the avant-garde elements of funk, jazz, electronics, tape loops and technology to the pop song, wrapping it in a post punk aesthetic, adding great clothes and the coolest haircuts. 

If Good Together saw A Certain Ratio translating the acid house ethos through conventional song, Up In Downsville was a sweat drenched return to the heart of the dance floor. Released on Rob Gretton’s plainly named imprint, the LP shuffles through melodic house, slick acid jazz and brooding electro-funk, pulling together the disparate strands of Manchester’s clubland into one infectious whole. The groove is king throughout but never hits harder than on LP closer Up In Downsville Pt.2, a flute led masterpiece of Mancunian funk which forms a wonderful contrast to enduring Balearic classic ‘Salvador’s (Fish)’, the album’s finest moment.

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracklisting
1 Manik
2 Turn Me On
3 Mello
4 Wonder Y
5 Up In Downsville Part 1
6 27 Forever
7 Tekno 4 An Answer
8 Salvador's Fish
9 Up In Downsville Part 2

CD Tracklisting
1 Manik
2 Turn Me On
3 Mello
4 Wonder Y
5 Up In Downsville Part 1
6 27 Forever
7 Tekno 4 An Answer
8 Salvador's Fish
9 Up In Downsville Part 2
10 27 Forever (Jon Dasilva Remix)
11 Mello (M People Remix)

1972 debut album by these unusually named Canadian psyche / progsters was originally released on the Daffodil label. Musically confident it veers from progressive, through to melodic pop / rock and winding up in a hard heavy psychedelic mode. Paul Naumann is a very talented guitarist and vocalist Alex Machin is so much better than most.

The moment the needle drops on Bite, the new A Giant Dog record, one’s conception of what an A Giant Dog record sounds like bends like space and time around a starship running at lightspeed. The biggest point of departure is that Bite is a concept album, concerning characters who find themselves moving in and out of a virtual reality called Avalonia.

A Giant Dog’s first album of original songs since 2017’s Toy, Bite finds the band Sabrina Ellis, Andrew Cashen, Danny Blanchard, Graham Low, and Andy Bauer at their peak as musicians, challenging themselves with more complex arrangements and subject matter that forced them out of their heads and into those of the characters who occupy this supposed paradise. “We had to find ourselves within, or project ourselves into, the principal characters. We developed them, got to know their minds, emotions, and motivations, and then expressed those in nine songs,” Ellis explains. Themes of addiction, gender fluidity, living ethically in a capitalist society, physical autonomy, avarice, grief, and consent bubble beneath the promised happiness of Avalonia. This is evident in songs like “Different Than,” where Ellis sings, “My body can’t explain the things my mind don’t comprehend” as if societal gender pressure is squeezing its protagonist out of their skin.

The songs on Bite are full of bombast, at turns calling to mind the spacefaring operatic rock of Electric Light Orchestra and the high drama of an Ennio Morricone film score. The album’s narrative sweep is epic in scope, its characters facing impossible odds and certain doom, existing as comfortably with the sci-fi grandiosity of Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak as it does with the high fantasy of Dio and Iron Maiden.

Appropriately, A Giant Dog came to this narrative armed to the teeth with new ideas, unleashing synthesizers and string sections to create what Ellis describes as orchestral, symphonic, futuristic punk. To achieve this, they left their home turf of Austin, Texas, for La Cuve Studio, just outside of Angers, France. Living in the French countryside, A Giant Dog laid down their vision of the future against a decidedly pastoral backdrop. On walks from Angers to La Cuve, Ellis says that they “would see many things, and also nothing at all. Swans on the river. Romani people living in little trailers, with a side hut built for their dog. A juggler on a unicycle—not fucking with you.” “We thought we wouldn’t be allowed back in France after this trip, to be honest,” they continued. “Five loud, stomping, clapping, rowdy Americans who ran through the streets of Angers for three weeks in November 2022.”

The experience capped two years of planning and writing, fleshing out the universe of Avalonia beyond the bounds of most concept albums. The resulting nine songs do not merely occupy this space: They’ve lived in it, and they want out.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Avalonia
2. Happiness Awaits Inside
3. I Believe
4. In Destiny
5. Different Than
SIDE B
6. A Daydream
7. Watch Me Sleeping
8. Watch It Burn
9. In Rainbows

A little more than a year ago Elefant released a very special album from a new project called THE LAST DETAIL, a super group, formed by FUGU and A GIRL CALLED EDDY. Or in other words, Mehdi Zannad and Erin Moran. Just over a year later, here they are releasing an album that many people didn't ever think would every come, the second A GIRL CALLED EDDY album.

While her debut came out in 2004 to much critical acclaim and was produced by Richard Hawley, it has been a while to say the least. But here is "Been Around" and yes, it was definitely worth the wait. Very much worth it. Throughout her career she has collaborated and provided vocals on projects as varied as Ron Sexsmith ("Exit Strategy Of The Soul"), SUPER FURRY ANIMALS, to French superstar Phillip Katerine's indie classic "Parlez Vous Anglais, Mr. Katerine?". Her debut album saw her out on tour supporting acts as diverse as Josh Ritter, Rufus Wainwright, THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH and THE CURE. And with that first record Moran has gathered a rather impressive list of fans: from Jane Birkin, Gilbert O'Sullivan, Tracey Thorn to Robert Smith, Don Henley, Jarvis Cocker and Burt Bacharach to name just a few. "Been Around" has arrived looking like a classic. Referencing her heroes from Laura Nyro, and Van Morrison, to Steely Dan and Prefab Sprout, she has put together a collection of songs that still sound completely her own. They bring an essence of the past and real heart to the present. To a 21st century desperately in need of this kind of elegance, soul and inspiration, it is welcome indeed.

The arrangements on this album work on a different level to Morans debut. Where that album was steeped in dark melancholy, this record seems to bathe in the warm yellow Kodachrome-glow of the best of the 1970's. A looking back, but not pastiche. A sense of genuineness and heart permeates every track. This is an album so full of detail and wonder that we could go on and on. "Been Around" is an enormous record. Made with love. Made the old-fashioned way. Perhaps that’s where its timelessness comes from. Is reaching this exceptional and rich level of composition and emotion justification for such a long silence from A GIRL CALLED EDDY? Is that a question even worth asking? You haven't heard an album like this in fifteen years. She's back. Dig in and enjoy.

Another much-needed repress from Surfin In Kansas. This one hanged ten just under three years ago and has since become one bodacious and highly sought after slice of beach grooving joy.

"I Love You" samples The Gap Band's "Big Fun", extending the percussive breaks, doing away with all the smoochy vocal bits and upping the tempo jussst a tad before adding smatterings of extra piano goodness.

On side B, Johnny Bristol 's "Love No Longer Has A Hold On Me" is reduced to a dubbed out vox and hefty raregroove lick; the Strat part chiming away over a foundation shaking b-line and manly horns. A hefty slab of soul which is perfectly snipped and tucked by A Good Christian.

This repress won't hang around long - you have been warned! 

TRACK LISTING

A. I Love You
B. Free To Be Me

A 4 song EP of remixes of songs from A Grape Dope's "Backyard Bangers" album. Featured remixers are Laetitia Sadier (of Stereolab), Four Tet, Jeff Parker (of Tortoise), and Roberto Carlos Lange (also known as Helado Negro).

Laetitia Sadier adds an air of whimsy, holding your hand as she guides you through the enchanted woodland of “Rat’s It Up”.

Jeff Parker's wobbly-refix reminds me of classic Derrick Carter! Shuffled and twisted to within an inch of toppling over; it's overlapping arpeggios, hushed robo-vox and multitude of intertwining melodies an overwhelming excursion into peak tech-house territory that'd make Suat squirm!

Side B begins with a more relaxed, jazz-indebted affair, Roberto Carlos' remix of "You Don't Have To" a traditionally informed, though rhythmically challenging number comprised of dry drums, piano, bass and some echo-drenched SFX.

Completing the record, Four Tet swirls the stems of "Rainbo Locals" into the stratosphere for a dizzying and highly elevating twist which seems destined to turn craniums inside out when unleashed on a mass of people.

Nice set of remixes to compliment a very nice album indeed. 10 outta 10.

TRACK LISTING

1. Rats It’s Up (Laetitia Sadier Remix)
2. Rats It's Up (Jeff Parker Remix)
3. You Don't Have To (Roberto Carlos Lange Remix)
4. Rainbo Locals (Four Tet Remix)

A Grave With No Name is the recording project of London’s Alexander Shields. The follow up to 2013’s ‘Whirlpool’, Shields’ first foray into a recording studio, eschewing the bedroom recordings of his previous releases, ‘Feathers Wet, Under The Moon’ sees him returning to a studio, this time trading the foggy confines of London for the rolling hills of Nashville, TN. Says Shields, “I travelled to Nashville on my own in April 2014 to record with Mark Nevers at his Beech House studio. Mark has produced loads of artists I admire such as Bonnie Prince Billy, Silver Jews, William Tyler, Lambchop (whom he is a member of ) and Vic Chesnutt. Mark and I worked on our own for a while and then we started calling in local Nashville musicians for overdubs such as guitarist William Tyler (who made one of my favourite albums of the past few years) and Tony Crow (who is from Lambchop, and the most amazing piano player I’ve ever seen). My best friend Daniel Blumberg (who now records under the name Hebronix and used to play in Yuck) came out to visit in the second week and helped out with some guitar and piano as well. The whole record took two weeks to track and then I travelled back to London and we spent a month sending mixes back and forth via email. It felt a long, long way away from recording alone in my bedroom.”

The approach to recording on ‘Feathers Wet, Under The Moon’ was an entirely new method of recording for Shields. In the past, he had been used to writing every note of each song and then performing and recording everything himself, or carefully instructing the players how he wanted it to sound. For this record, he presented the bare bones of a song to the group, then Mark would hit the record button and they would just play, often creating the arrangements on the fly. The resulting record however is an exercise in precision and restraint that belies its creation.

With slowly unfolding melodies, atypical song structures and a sense of meandering melancholy, ‘Feathers Wet, Under The Moon’ takes us on a personal journey that somehow feels universal.

TRACK LISTING

Nursing Home
Your Ghost By The Lake
Orion
Before The Morning Comes
Candle
Leaving
I Will Ride A Horse
Under The Ice
Waltz
Natural Light

"Mountain Debris" is the first full-length from A Grave With No Name, a haunting, bewitching history of the band thus far and a glimpse of the compelling future that awaits them A Grave With No Name have always mined their own distinctive vein of haunted, freaked folk/art rock, tracing delicate fissures in the emotional radiography of loss and longing to spellbinding effect. "Mountain Debris" collects together tracks from their (sold out) releases to date – the split 7" single with Natural Numbers and the self-titled EP, released earlier this year – and adds a slew of previously unheard recordings, to create a remarkably beautiful and cohesive whole, albeit one that always seems to be on the verge of imploding into itself, so rarefied and brittle is its beauty. But then, nothing about this record is remotely predictable. The fragile, windblown melodies of "The Sun Rises" and "And We Parted Ways At Mt Jade" open the album, only to be blown away by the stadium-sized guitars of "Sofia", which juxtaposes the galloping drums with AGWWN figurehead Alex Shields' odd, affecting refrain of 'pleased to meet you, I'm so sad'. Similarly, "Silver" roars out of the speakers with almost-anthemic immediacy and urgency, while elsewhere the trembling, piano-led "Underpass" sounds like the most moving song that Palace Music never wrote, and "Open Water" finds the band on fine, mischievous form. 16 songs long and yet still clocking in at just over half an hour, "Mountain Debris" is something of a small miracle.

‘Whirlpool’ completes a narrative trilogy of records for A Grave With No Name, beginning in 2009 with ‘Mountain Debris’, and continuing with 2011’s ‘Lower’. It’s a narrative that confronts the theme of loss, something which could be considered a well trodden path within popular music - yet Alex Shields, the songwriter behind A Grave With No Name, has managed to mine his own distinctive voice, tracing a delicate fissure in the emotional radiography of longing to spellbinding effect.

This record has seen a more collaborative approach to song construction, with contributions from the likes of Linda Jarvis (Echo Lake), Akiko Matsuura (Comanechi) and Alanna McArdle (Ides).

An album of contrasting beauty, from the hushed lullaby of ‘Bones’, to the euphoric glee of ‘Origami’, and the album’s opening song ‘Aurora’.

TRACK LISTING

(higher)
Aurora
Float
Dig Me Out
(lower)
Six Months
‘73
Bored Again
Origami
Bones
Streams
(lower 2)
The Steps
Balloons

Former Neutral Milk Hotel mainstay Jeremy Barnes returns with the second A Hawk And A Hacksaw album, a huge progression from 2004's self-titled debut. "Darkness At Noon" is a heady brew of accordian, piano and drum passages that spans Eastern European folk traditions, Klezmer, Mariachi, American folk and modern composition. Fans of the primitive-cum-American-heritage style folk of Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, Animal Collective etc, will find much to enjoy as will fans of anything from Calexico to Asa-Chang & Junray to Tom Waits.

The journey of A Hawk And A Hacksaw – Jeremy Barnes (vocals, accordion, drums) and partner Heather Trost (violin) - has embraced the sounds of myriad places and people. From the midlands of England, to France, the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary, via the pair's hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, this evolving musical story continues to enthral. "Délivrance" finds our protagonists forging deeper into the culture of the old East, and coming back with a suite of euphoric melodies for times of revelry. "Délivrance" encompasses sounds from a vast geographical region, and reflects particularly colourful exchanges Jeremy and Heather had during their Budapest stint. 'We like to think of music as a sort of borderless artform', says Heather. 'If anything I am trying to learn to not have any walls around myself, musically or otherwise. Travelling through Transylvania had a huge affect on me. The musicians we met had such a huge wealth of knowledge, about not only the music of their own and nearby regions, but textiles, artwork and pottery. It was very humbling to meet such open and warm people.' Recorded in Budapest during mid-2008 around the core of the Hun Hangár group, with a variety of specialists (Jeremy would often take the train to different places around the city and record musicians like Kálmán Balogh, one of the world's foremost gypsy cimbalom players), it is wholly evident that months of being submerged in the local culture and making music the focus of daily life has seeped right through Barnes and Trost's songwriting and playing. This is by far their most vivid, intense and confident work to date.

Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-yoku, is a term that means “taking in the forest atmosphere.” It was developed in Japan during the 1980s and has become a cornerstone of preventive health care and healing in Japanese medicine.

“Taking in the forest atmosphere” became the inspiration for A Hawk and A Hacksaw’s newest album. Their forest bath of choice is the Valle De Oro National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. This new album features ten original compositions by Heather Trost and Jeremy Barnes. The opening track “Alexandria” features Barnes on the Persian Santur, an ancient hammer struck dulcimer, and Trost’s string and woodwind melodies. The composition evokes the long trader’s route between what is now Bulgaria and the wealthy cities of Istanbul and Alexandria.

The band has always had a bird’s eye view of this part the world— looking for the connections between places and even eras: a belief in the power of music to reach across borders and unite. The band is based on the idea of collecting music and inspiration through travel. They are not of a place, but their music evokes places along a route. This is not urban music. It’s rural: songs of the woods and roads where there are no sidewalks or street lamps to light your way.

While the bulk of the music heard on this record is played by Barnes and Trost, they do have some incredible guest performances, namely the clarinet virtouso Cüneyt Sepetçi, from Istanbul, Hungarian cimbalom master Unger Balász, and closer to home, Chicago trumpeter Sam Johnson, Deerhoof’s John Dieterich and Noah Martinez, of the band Lone Piñon.

TRACK LISTING

1. Alexandria
2. A Broken Road Lined With Poplar Trees
3. A Song For Old People / A Song For Young People
4. The Shepherd Dogs Are Calling
5. Night Sneaker
6. The Magic Spring
7. The Sky Is Blue, The Desert Is Yellow
8. Babayaga
9. The Washing Bear
10. Bayati Maqam

Fusing the music of the Balkans with American folk, klezmer, Roma and Turkish music and Western pop, AHAAH have created something fresh, exciting and exuberant. The album was partly recorded in a remote Romanian village with members of the gypsy brass band, Fanfare Ciocarlia. Two members of AHAAH are also members of current hotshots Beirut, and this will certainly appeal to fans of them.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2014 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Classic albums from the early days of Thrill Jockey.

Originally released in 1996/1998 - these have been out of print on vinyl for nearly a decade.

Both albums are being re-issued and will be sold as a 4xLP set.

‘Flemish Altruism’ will feature new/updated artwork.

Both will include download coupons for the first time.

A Minor Forest recently reunited and played a very well received show in San Francisco (with a Bay Guardian cover story)

The band will tour the US in April & May of this year.

Limited to 60 copies for the UK and Ireland.

TRACK LISTING

Flemish Altruism
...But The Pants Stay On
Bill's Mom Likes To Fuck
Ed Is 50
So Jesus Was At The Last Supper...
Jacking Off George Lucas
Speed For Gavin
Perform The Critical
Straw Transfer
Dainty Jack And His Amazing Technicolor Cloth Jacket
Beef Rigger
The Loneliest Enuretic

Inindependence
The Dutch Fist
Erik's Budding Romance
Look At That Car, It's Full Of Balloons
... It's Salmon!
The Smell Of Hot
Michael Anthony
Discoier

Australian newcomer A Most Wanted Man joins with the Monologues Records family with a sumptuous debut EP that shows he's very much one to watch.

'Hep Cat' is a peppy, soulful slow-burner which gradually reveals a triumphant string sample, 'Voice From Above' is another buoyant beauty with feel-good strings and vocal cuts, and 'Importance Of The Hi-Hat' is a more stripped-back slice of warm deep deep house.

Fellow fast-rising Aussie, Jad & The, pursues his passion for tonking breakbeats on his remix of the latter, making for a spooky, mysterious workout.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Hep Cat
A2 Importance Of A Hi-Hat
B1 Voices From Above
B2 Importance Of A Hi-Hat (Jad & The ‘Kaos’ Remix)

A Mountain Of One return to the musical landscape with their brand new track “Custard’s Last Stand” on newly minted label Amore. It is the first new piece of music the band have released in over a decade.

”Custard’s Last Stand” shows the band, made up of musical soulmates Mo Morris and Zeben Jameson, have lost nothing in the past decade. Recorded over Skype during the coronavirus pandemic, with Mo now in Bali and Zeben in west London, it is a shimmering, modern classic, experimental but accessible, melodic and adventurous. As ever, it is utterly unique, made in a musical universe all of their own. Spheric bass bounces out the speakers, electronics whoosh and swirl and folkish guitar? Banjo? Mandolin? strums away giddily. It's good to have them back.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Custards Last Stand
A2. Custards Last Stand (Instrumental)
B1. Stars Planets Dust Me

A Mountain Of One enlist UK dub legend Denis Bovell to remix “Custard’s Last Stand”. True to dub music's evolving and technically advanced ethos, Denis' more recent output has been much more experimental and electronically guided than the traditional dub crafted by the original pioneers.

This release is no exception as the producer naturally takes to the strewn-out, long form nature of A Mountain Of One, drawing "Custard's Last Stand" into a psychedelic-prog-dub epic - throwing the entire stems through a vibrating dub delay, allowing huge waves of strings and choir vox to crash onto our ears and pushing to the foreground those buzzing lysergic synth lines that burrow right into our cranium.

Inna typical style we get a vocal and instrumental version; both awash with echo chamber dreaminess and presenting themselves as hi-definition tapestries for the rig. It's an exceptional outing from Bovell, and yet more reasons to love one of the best Balearic-soft-rock bands in recent history. Recommended! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: I've been really feeling Bovell's recent direction. Ditching the traditional tropes of original dub and tuning himself into the mixing board for a fresh take on the echo chamber.

TRACK LISTING

A. Custard's Last Stand (DUBfinity Version)
AA. Custard's Last Stand (DUBfinity Vocal Version)

Following their eponymous debut in 2007, Exploding Head is A Place To Bury Strangers’ most notable record, garnering the New York noise rock outfit critical praise and a cult fanbase. Lead by Oliver Ackermann, the band had a simple goal for ‘their first proper studio album’; “to create the craziest, most fucked-up recording ever."

Recorded at their Death By Audio studios in New York and released on Mute Records, the album was critically praised for its explorative sound, taking inspiration from shoegaze icons such as Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. Pitchfork described the album as “frustrated aggression, lacerating feedback… saturated with slender indie-pop melody."

AVAILABLE ONLINE ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 27TH FROM 8AM.

LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Hologram: Destroyed & Reassembled White Vinyl LP will be an LP of Remixes of A Place To Bury Strangers upcoming EP Hologram.

Featuring an awesome group of bands including Girl Band, Penelope Isles, Do Nothing, Bodega, Weeping Icon, Ganser, Ceremony East Coast, plus bands from our label including Randy Randall (No Age), Data Animal, Jealous, Plattenbau & more and two of our favorite remixers Grimoose & The Bodies Obtained.

TRACK LISTING

End Of The Night (Data Animal Remix)
I Might Have (Plattenbau Remix)
I Need You (Grimoose Remix)
In My Hive (Ceremony East Coast Remix)
End Of The Night (The Bodies Obtained Remix)
In My Hive (Jealous Remix)
End Of The Night (Daniel Fox/Girl Band Remix)
Playing The Part (Penelope Isles Remix)
I Might Have (Randy Randall Remix)
Playing The Part (Bodgea Ben Remix)
In My Hive (Do Nothing Remix)
Playing The Part (Weeping Icon Remix)
I Need You (Ganser Remix)

New York City's loudest band A Place to Bury Strangers have had their intense live performance captured and immortalized directly to 12” wax.

The post-punk legends are the 9th & latest entry in the Live at Levitation archival vinyl series. “Levitation 2021 was our second show as a new band and I felt so psyched to bring the new band members to such an epic festival. It was like a homecoming for me. Bob Mustachio was doing lights and playing with Ringo Deathstarr, Kikagaku Moyo & the Black Angels all on the same bill had me so rev’d up and excited. I knew it had to be an epic show. I remember right when we started I was flailing around so much like a freak on speed that I almost flung my guitar off the stage. By the time we got out into the crowd I thought I was gonna pass out. I remember we rented this PA speaker from Rock N Roll Rentals and for some reason they trusted us with this top of the line like $5000 12” monitor that we rolled around in the crowd while I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I love Levitation and Austin Psych Fest. They are always a UFO of a good time.” - Oliver Ackermann (APTBS)

TRACK LISTING

1. Dragged In A Hole
2. I Lived My Life To Stand In The Shadow Of Your Heart
3. Lets See Each Other
4. Ocean
5. Have You Ever Been In Love
6. We've Come So Far
7. Never Coming Back
8. Alone

Try, if only for a moment, to envision a scenario in which you could still be completely *surprised* by a rock band. It’s not easy. In fact, it’s increasingly rare.

A couple of years ago, A Place to Bury Strangers were in search of a new drummer. Lia Simone Braswell, an L.A. native, had recently moved to New York, and was playing drums in shows around Brooklyn "just to keep her chops up." As it turned out, APTBS bassist Dion Lunadon caught one of those shows and, after seeing her play, was moved to ask her if she’d want to come to a band practice sometime.

"I told some of my friends about it before I met up with them," Braswell says, of the rehearsal that would soon lead to her joining the band. "They told me, 'You’re just gonna have to keep up as much as you possibly can.’"

"To be fair, she had also never seen us live," Lunadon adds. "She didn’t necessarily know what she was getting into."

What she was getting into: For well over a decade now, A Place to Bury Strangers-Lunadon, founding guitarist/singer Oliver Ackermann, and, officially, Braswell-have become well known for their unwavering commitment to unpredictable, often bewildering live shows, and total, some might say dangerous volume. They don’t write setlists. They frequently write new songs mid-set. They deliberately provoke and sabotage sound people in a variety of cruel yet innovative ways. They can and will always surprise you. "When something goes wrong on-stage, a lot of bands will crumble under the pressure," says Ackermann. "We like the idea of embracing the moment when things go wrong and turning it into the best thing about the show."

This April marks the release of Pinned, their fifth full-length and an album that finds them converting difficult moments into some of their most urgent work to date. It’s their first since the 2016 election, and their first since the 2014 closing of Death By Audio, the beloved Brooklyn DIY space where Ackerman lived, worked, and created with complete freedom. "After DBA closed, I moved to an apartment in Clinton Hill," he says. "I couldn’t make too much noise, couldn’t disturb my neighbors. I would just sit there and write with a drum machine. It had to be about writing a good song and not about being super, sonically loud."

There are searing meditations on truth and government-led conspiracies ("Execution"), as well as haunting, harmonized responses to the tensions of our current political climate ("There’s Only One of Us"). It all opens with "Never Coming Back," a frightening crescendo of group vocals, vertiginous guitar work, and Lunadon’s unrelenting bass. "That song is a big concept," Ackermann says. "You make these decisions in your life…you’re contemplating whether or not this will be the end. You think of your mortality, those moments you could die and what that means. You’re thinking about that edge of the end, deciding whether or not it’s over. When you’re close to that edge, you could teeter over."

It’s a clear and honest statement of intent, not just for everything that follows, but for this band as a whole. "As things go on, you don’t want them to be stagnant," Ackermann says. "Being a band for ten years, it’s hard to keep things moving forward. I see so many bands that have been around and they’re a weaker version of what they used to be. This band is anti-that. We try to push ourselves constantly, with the live shows and the recordings. We always want to get better. You’ve got to dig deep and take chances, and sometimes, I questioned that. It took really breaking through to make it work. I think we did that."

They definitely did. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Throbbing bass, snappy distorted vocals and churning, machinated minimal-wave vox and NIN-esque claustrophobic ambience, all held withing a solid and impenetrable shell of gnarly, saturated guitars. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

Single CD/LP
Never Coming Back
Execution
There’s Only One Of Us
Situations Changes
Too Tough To Kill
Frustrated Operator
Look Me In The Eye
Was It Electric
I Know I’ve Done Bad Things
Act Your Age
Attitude
Keep Moving On

Double CD/LP
Never Coming Back
Execution
There’s Only One Of Us
Situations Changes
Too Tough To Kill
Frustrated Operator
Look Me In The Eye
Was It Electric
I Know I’ve Done Bad Things
Act Your Age
Attitude
Keep Moving On
When You’re Alone
The World Dies
She Goes Out With The Devil
Flickering Fly
Punch Back
Delusion Of Time
Now That You’ve Left It All
I Will Follow You

Psychic Yes and Tech Startup founder Rafael fortuitously met on a Berlin dance floor in late 2017. A long period of digital correspondence followed between Berlin and Seattle, culminating in the inaugural release of the Seattle-based Tech Startup label: "TS000001". The project is comprised of 5 tracks built up from initial recordings of percussion, trumpet, and synthesizers honed into drum-focused dance pieces in the melancholy Berlin winter of 2018. Split in function between the two sides, Side A features dancefloor-ready tracks with Side B containing introspective songs geared towards a home-listening environment.

Field recordings of Scottish stone slates mark the opening track "Stone Sound", a tribal-leaning dancefloor cut highlighted by syncopated, pounding percussion and discreet melodies. "Spacemaker" features organic, sparse breakbeats cloaked in bright, hazy melodies. "Delicated" is a track that delights as a series of melodic characters move around one another in a foggy electronic atmosphere. "Aldhini Theme" emerges as the standout track on Side B commencing with undulating sequenced bloops and bleeps that slowly build into a hypnotic slow-burner that resolves on a melody.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Stone Sound
A2. Spacemaker
B1. Delicated
B2. Aldhini Theme
B3. 12059

Debut release from Brooklyn, NY trio A Storm Of Light featuring Josh Graham (Neurosis, Blood And Time, Battle Of Mice and formerly Red Sparowes). Graham is joined on the album by bassist/vocalist Domenic Seita (ex-Tombs, ex-Asea) and drummer Pete Angevine of Satanized. Since this recording, rhythmic pugilist extraordinaire Vincent Signorelli (Unsane, ex-Swans) has signed on as second drummer. As you'd guess by the pedigree, A Storm Of Light is brutally hard-hitting. However, the group's haunting harmonic drone meshing guitar, vocals and subtle keyboard layers gives listeners a sense of slow suffocation in waves of noise rather than straightforward pummelling. Aided by master engineer Joel Hamilton (Book Of Knots, Battle Of Mice), Graham's slack-tuned guitar rumbles and groans while subtle keyboard lines and Seita's bass slither throughout the lowest ranges of the musical scale. Angevine's lunging rhythms add crashing and propulsive heft. The vocals sound as intricately layered as the other instruments, often sounding unclear how many voices are adding to the harmony... guitar notes, voices, synth chords all blur into a wash that quite suitably evokes a sense of deep sea water pressure.

It's been a while, but A Sunny Day in Glasgow are back with Sea When Absent, their third proper album. Sea When Absent situates itself in the science fiction that is life in 2014 and goes looking for what new myths might speak to us in our post-Fukushima, post-quantum, post-everything world.

Recorded over a year and half with Jeff Zeigler (War on Drugs, Kurt Vile) at his Uniform Recording Studios in Eraserhood Philadelphia, the album is a conscious move away from the bright-dark, ambient maximalism of the band's acclaimed double LP, Ashes Grammar, and a move towards a post-millennial, up-front pop sound. Sea When Absent is simultaneously A Sunny Day in Glasgow at their most accessible, most insane, and most rock.

“Sea When Absent has the quality of one of those spectacularly bright summer days when the color in everything seems a little over-saturated, and it induces the same dizzy, woozy feeling you get after staring directly at the sun. Play it loud enough to see spots.” - Pitchfork.

The third and last of the 'classic' Tribe records (preceding the addition of Jay Dee and the formation of the Ummah production team), "Midnight Marauders" sees the group at their most musically sophisticated, marrying the distinctive Tribe sound with groundbreaking sampling and adventurous rhymes. The logical evolution of the bop-influenced hooks which characterized "Low End Theory", "...Marauders" seemlessly balances jazz, soul and reggae influences with pure golden age hip hop, graduating from a cool school aesthetic to an electric jazz sound (reminiscent of fusion-era Miles Davis). Lyrically "Midnight Marauders" finds the group's abstract poetics in excellent form as usual, and Phife is miles ahead of the 'mayor-flavor' rhymes of "Can I Kick It." As per the title, the album develops the introspection of "After Hours" into a nocturnal feel which winds its way through "Midnight," the party-rock of "We Can Get Down," "Clap Your Hands" and the complex layers of "God Lives Through." No review of this LP would be complete without a moment in tribute to the majesty of the Ronnie Foster sampling "Electric Relaxation", a flawless cut which sees Q-Tip and Phife Dawg trading killer bars with effortless flow. All in all, a true classic from back in the day, which no home should be without.

TRACK LISTING

Midnight Marauders Tour Guide
Steve Biko (Stir It Up)
Award Tour
8 Million Stories
Sucka Nigga
Midnight
We Can Get Down
Electric Relaxation
Clap Your Hands
Oh My God
Keep It Rollin'
The Chase (Part II)
Lyrics To Go
God Lives Through

Just when it looked like The Avalanches had the 'unlikely comeback of the year' award sewn up, legendary hip hop ensemble A Tribe Called Quest return with their first album in eighteen years, months after the death of group member Phife Dawg. Recorded at Q-Tip's home studio after the group's reunion on Jimmy Fallon, the set sees Q-Tip, Phife and Jarobi swapping the mic at will, exchanging couplets and finishing each other's lines like they'd never been apart. Musically, "We Got It From Here..." finds the group flipping their well loved jazz samples into contemporary arrangements alive with collaborative performances from a whole host of A-list guests, while the free flowing lyrics meditate on culture, sociology and the total shit show which is US politics. As a longtime fan of ATCQ, I'd have been happy with a decent rehash of their early nineties stylings, but "We Got It From Here" excels with modern production and pointed subject matter, serving up a stinging critique of society's ills over the most infectious grooves. Simply put, it's a masterpiece.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Space Program
2. We The People...
3. Whateva Will Be
4. Solid Wall Of Sound
5. Dis Generation
6. Kids... 
7. Melatonin
8. Enough!!
9. Mobius
10. Black Spasmodic
11. The Killing Season
12. Lost Somebody
13. Movin Backwards
14. Conrad Tokyo
15. Ego
16. The Donald

As is the norm - a Tugboat tends to precede a Star Creature - and this week the two have both come into dock at planet Piccadilly. Bringing Balearic-boogie superstar A Vision Of Panorama & Sykes back to the label with remixes from Pool Boy - splish splash!

"Let Me" is a sun-flecked, late afternoon boogie-house jam with lavish instrumentation and even a highly accomplished clav solo! The vocal is deep and soulful, which lends itself to that 4/4 rhythm beautifully. Pool Boy's remix takes it right to the sun loungers, mellowing out the BPMs and adding languid keys and a delicate drum box; transforming the mood into a Balearic downbeat vibe which is equally as seductive as the OG.

"Move" sees AVOP return to a rugged house groove, galvanized with boogie flavoured instrumentation as decorated again with deep soulful vox by Sykes. Sultry and fiery, it'll sound great as the sun seeps behind the horizon after a clammy day dancing in the streets. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Summer's here! (is it?! - Ed). Let A Vision Of Panorama guide to the poolside, cocktail in hand, for a day of decadence splashing around with the ones you love or desire.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Let Me (4:25)
2. Let Me (Pool Boy Remix) (4:21)
3. Let Me (Midnight Mix) (4:15)
4. Let Me (demo Mix) (3:06)
Side 2
1. Move (4:06)
2. Move (instrumental) (4:06)
3. Let Me (Pool Boy Instrumental) (4:18)
4. Let Me (Midnight Instrumental Mix) (4:16)

'A Winged Victory For The Sullen' is the first installment of the new collaboration between Stars Of The Lid member Adam Wiltzie and L.A. composer Dustin O'Halloran. The duo agreed to leave the comfort zone of their home studios and develop the recordings with the help of large acoustic spaces, hunting down a selection of 9ft grand pianos that had the ability to deliver extreme sonic low end. Other traditional instrumentation was used including string quartet, French horn, and bassoon, but always juxtaposed is the sound of drifting guitar washed melodies.

The recordings began with one late night session in the famed Grunewald Church in Berlin on a 1950s imperial Bösendorfer piano and strings were added in the historic East Berlin DDR radio studios along the River Spree. One last session on a handmade Fazioli piano in a private studio on the Northern cusp of Italy, before the final mixes took place in a 17th century villa near Ferrara with the assistance of Francesco Donadello. All songs were then processed completely analogue straight to magnetic tape. Their secret to harvesting new melodic structures from the thin air of existence was for the duo to push themselves to dangerous territory, realising that clear thinking at the wrong moment could stifle the compositions.

The final result is seven landscapes of harmonic ingemination. In 'Requiem For The Static King Part One' - created in memory of the untimely passing of Mark Linkous - they have taken the age-old idea of a string quartet and then shot it out of a cannon to reveal exquisite new levels of sonic bliss. Of the 13 minute track 'Symphony Pathétique', Wiltzie says 'after almost 20 years of struggling to create interesting ambient drone music, I feel like I have finally figured out what I am doing'. Notable guest musicians include Icelandic cellist Hildur Gudnadottir, as well as Erased Tapes label comrade Peter Broderick on violin. A Winged Victory For The Sullen is not a side project - it is the future of the late night record you have always dreamed of.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: The coming together of Stars Of the Lid and Dustin O'Hallaran is a happy marriage of the sweeping, contemplative drones of the former and the filigree piano led delicacy of the latter. An exquisite and meditative neoclassical wonder.

Adam Wiltzie and Dustin O’Halloran return with their second studio album inspired by contemporary dance and new instrumentation.

After releasing a first glimpse in the form of the ‘Atomos VII’ EP earlier this year, A Winged Victory For The Sullen finally reveal their second full-length album entitled ‘Atomos’, which besides familiar piano, string and drone sounds also sees the duo introduce flurries of electronics, harp and modular synthesisers.

In 2011 A Winged Victory For The Sullen introduced themselves to the world with a self-titled album, showcasing their unique collaboration of ambient guitar drone from Stars Of The Lid member Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie and sparse piano tunes by contemporary classical composer Dustin O’Halloran, winning them fans around the world. "An immersive, and inevitably cinematic, ambient gem" ★★★★ – Mojo

Wayne McGregor, founder of Random Dance Company and resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet, was one of these fans and chose to play the album repeatedly during practices with his core group of dancers. After noticing the group's reaction with the music, he contacted Adam and Dustin to see if they could write the score for his new oeuvre. The duo were given complete artistic freedom and they treated the score with the same care and attention as their debut album. They recorded more than sixty minutes of music over a four-month period during the summer of 2013 across studios in Brussels, Berlin and Reykjavik, with the help of their long time collaborative sound engineer Francesco Donadello. During the recording process they realised, that this would become their official second studio album. McGregor provided them with the inspiration to expand their sound palette into more electronic territory, whilst keeping their signature chamber sound, resulting in a very unique record.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS:
“As a wise man once said, one who procrastinates their own choosing will inevitably have their choice served to them by circumstance. We had virtually no time for second guessing ourselves. That being said, we tried to balance the discordance between being creative, and fulfilling our duties for a commissioned soundtrack with a very strict deadline, and all the while staying true to our collective melancholy.” – Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie

“We never imagined 2013 would be such an explosively creative year. The first record took us two years from start to finish, but in the micro span of time over last summer we were able to change the formula for the way we write, record, and let go. It was incredibly liberating.” – Dustin O'Halloran.

TRACK LISTING

1. Atomos I
2. Atomos II
3. Atomos III
4. Atomos V
5. Atomos VI
6. Atomos VII
7. Atomos VIII
8. Atomos IX
9. Atomos X
10. Atomos XI
11. Atomos XII

Erased Tapes are pleased to announce the release of A Winged Victory for the Sullen's ‘ATOMOS VII’. The first installment leading up to the release of the second full length studio album 'ATOMOS', and score for choreographer Wayne McGregor's long form dance piece.

McGregor was heavily influenced by the duo's 2011 self-titled debut, playing it repeatedly during practices with his core group of dancers. After noticing the group's reaction with the music, he contacted Adam and Dustin to see if they could write the score for his new oeuvre. The duo recorded more than sixty minutes of music over a four-month period during the summer of 2013 in Brussels, Berlin and Reykjavik with the help of their longtime collaborative sound engineer Francesco Donadello. This EP also sees the involvement of Ben Frost, who composed the music for McGregor’s previous work 'Far'.

McGregor, mastermind behind the Random Dance Company and resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet since 2006, is known in popular culture circles for serving as movement director for the film 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'. He has also choreographed the Radiohead video 'Lotus Flower' and 'Ingenue’ by Atoms for Peace.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS:
‘While we were re-amping guitars at Greenhouse studios, Ben expressed interest and admiration in the sounds we had created. We were planning for the B-side to be a metamorphosis of part VII, and Ben seemed the obvious choice. With the multi-tracks transformed, it follows a trajectory that we had not felt comfortable with before. But with Ben's involvement and influence, it was a painless entrance to this crooked, distorted world.’
– Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie.

‘We never imagined 2013 would be such an explosively creative year. The first record took us two years from start to finish, but in the micro span of time over last summer we were able to change the formula for the way we write, record, and let go. It was incredibly liberating.’
– Dustin O'Halloran.

A Winged Victory For The Sullen, the otherworldly collaboration between Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie and Dustin O’Halloran, return with their third full-length titled Iris – available worldwide via Erased Tapes. Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie and Dustin O'Halloran first met the director Jalil Lespert after he had discovered A Winged Victory For The Sullen on a music search online. After listening to their music, he immediately knew: "it was the sound of my new film". With an excellent cast of France’s finest actors Romain Duris, Charlotte Le Bon, and the director himself, plus a script filled with tension, sexuality and darkness, they knew there was a lot of musical territory to mine. It was agreed that they wanted to explore more analogue electronique experiments as well as working with a large string ensemble, to create something that felt very modern and still cinematic.

“Despite A Winged Victory For The Sullen being associated with film score type music, trying to survive the process of creating the modern film score is not for people with fragile egos. It requires those who are the most responsive to change. The director and the film presented a new set of challenges, so we decided to stop thinking about cinema as an object, and moved closer to using the film’s images as triggers for experiences. The more we were able to let go, and see the music as something that happens, like a process – not a quality, the more we were able to reach a place that sounded like us. It was as if we were making our first record all over again, except being filtered through another language littered with dead metaphors”, the duo elaborate. The recording sessions began with their long time sound collaborator Francesco Donadello in the form of some modular synth sessions in Berlin. Dustin and Adam began working from the script in their own studios, and after filming commenced they continued to create music that could be used for first edits of the film – each day getting new scenes that triggered ideas that would become the base of the film score. Over the course of the next few months the two slowly crafted the music with weekly discussion from their studio to the editing room. The final sessions to what is now the score of Iris were recorded with a 40-piece string orchestra at Magyar Radio in Budapest.

Upon label founder Robert Raths' request the over sixty minutes of material were then edited down to a concise album listen at forty-one minutes with a physical release set for January 13, 2017. The digital bonus track edition includes two solo pieces by Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie entitled The Endless Battle Of The Maudlin Ballade Part 2 and The Endless Battle Of The Maudlin Ballade Part 3, as well as tracks by Petite Noir, dOP, DJ Pone and The Shoes which feature in the film. The artwork was created by Berlin based illustrator Stephanie F. Scholz who also created the iconic cover for Nils Frahm's Music for The Motion Picture Victoria.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: ‘Iris’ builds on their already stunning canon with a smattering of pulsing synthesis joining their trademark modern classical soundscapes.

TRACK LISTING

1. Prologue Iris
2. Retour Au Champs De Mars
3. Fantasme
4. Gare Du Nord Part One
5. L'embauche
6. Le Retour En Foret
7. Metro Part Three
8. Flashback Antoine
9. Galerie
10. Le Renversement
11. Normandie
12. Comme On A Dit

Purveyors of contemporary ambient and electronic inspired music, A Winged Victory for the Sullen make a bold return on new album “The Undivided Five”. The pair, made up of Dustin O’Halloran and Adam Wiltzie, have created iconic film scores and forward-thinking ambient groups, releasing a series of game-changing records for Erased Tapes and Kranky. On “The Undivided Five” they rekindle their unique partnership for only their second piece of original music outside of film, TV and stage commissions, creating an album that channels ritual, higher powers and unspoken creative energies. Their fifth release (following their debut album, two scores and an EP), they embraced the serendipitous role of the number five, inspired by artist Hilma af Klint and the recurrence of the perfect fifth chord.

This album sees them create bold new work built on their foundations in ambient and neoclassical. Since their 2011 self-titled debut, the duo have emerged as part of a much-lauded scene alongside peers like Max Richter, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Tim Hecker and Fennesz. Their 2014 album “Atomos” was the product of a commission to score a new performance by Royal Ballet choreographer Wayne McGregor, while 2016’s “Iris” was the score for director Jalil Lespert’s thriller, “In the Shadow of Iris”. They count the likes of Jon Hopkins among their fans, who included ‘Requiem For The Static King Part One’ on his 2015 Late Night Tales compilation. They composed the score for Invisible Cities, a specially-created performance to herald 2019’s Manchester International Festival, and have played some of the world’s most celebrated venues, including a sold out Boiler Room performance at London’s Barbican, and a 2015 BBC Proms show curated by Mary Anne Hobbs at the Royal Albert Hall.

They were first introduced by mutual friend Francesco Donadello in 2007, a close collaborator who’s gone on to mix all of the AWVFTS records. O’Halloran launched his reputation with two acclaimed solo piano albums, attracting the attention of director Sofia Coppola, who asked him to score her 2006 film Marie Antoinette, and he has since won an Emmy for his 2015 theme song for Jill Soloway’s Transparent series, and been nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe for his 2017 score with Hauschka for Garth Davis’ Lion. Wiltzie, meanwhile, founder of iconic drone outfit Stars of the Lid, has scored Hollywood films including Kevin MacDonald’s “Whitney”, Jake Scott’s “American Woman” and collaborated with Jóhann Jóhannsson for 2014’s The Theory of Everything.

This album sees them pay greater heed to the small details in their sound than previously, something they say has been encouraged by the move to a new label. It’s been their first opportunity since their debut to create something that’s solely guided by their ideas, and it represented an opportunity to call back to that first outing while also building on the various ways in which they’ve grown. “We understand that times have changed,” they say. “We have evolved, but we also didn’t want to forget the beginning.”

They channel influences such as Debussy, nodded to in the opening track, whose big chords and complicated arrangements inform a lot of their approach – parts that sound simple but require great skill to execute. Likewise, the artist Hilma af Klint – one of the first abstract Western artists – informed their ideas about drawing on spiritual influences to shape their work. “It’s like an invisible hand guiding things,” they say.

The start of recording sessions for the album were marred by the death of one of their closest friends. Within weeks after the funeral O’Halloran found out that he would be expecting his first child, and it was soon after that a visit to see the art of af Klint brought home a profound realisation of life, death, the afterlife, and the spaces in between. She belonged to a group called "The Five", a circle of five women with a shared belief in the importance of trying to make contact with spirits, often by way of séances. This chimed with the duo’s unspoken approach to collaboration, and nudged them to return to their writing process centered around the harmonic perfect fifth; the five senses, the divine interval – The Undivided Five.

The album was also shaped by the breadth of locations in which it was created, helping to shape its nuanced sonics. In addition to O’Halloran and Wiltzie’s respective Berlin and Brussels studios, the record took shape across six different sites. They recorded orchestral samples in Budapest’s Magyar Rádió Studio 22, re-recorded album parts in Brussels’ Eglise Du Beguinage’s unique, reverb-heavy surrounds (where Wiltzie has performed with Stars of the Lid and, in 2018, organised a tribute concert for Jóhann Jóhannsson), experimented with overdubs in Ben Frost’s Reykjavik studio, and recorded grand piano parts in a remote woodland studio in northern Italy. The duo pay close attention to the micro-level of sound, and each of these places was chosen for the qualities which could enrich the finished product. And it’s in Francesco Donadello’s studio in Berlin, where all of the previous AWVFTS material has been mixed, that the album was run through the studio’s analog board, binding the record’s different parts together.

It was their connection to Jóhannsson which partly shaped the direction of their new album. They were asked to create a remix for him, which he heard before his death in 2018, where they unlocked a new process in terms of how they work. They recomposed the strings, using modular synthesis, old synths and string and piano arrangements, a method they applied to album opener ‘Our Lord Debussy’. “It’s about going into the DNA of music and taking different strands,” they say.

The album is their debut for Ninja Tune, and comes as change is underway for O’Halloran, moving from Berlin – hence the title of ‘Keep It Dark, Deutschland’ – after a decade in the German capital. He’s headed to Iceland, the country where the pair shot their latest press photos and which is an important locale for both of them. The wide-spanning connections which have shaped the record are testament to their deep roots as artists. This album’s powerful energy is driven by the deep-rooted bond between them.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: ‘The Undivided Five’ is the newest outing from the masters of ambient classical music, A Winged Victory For The Sullen. Their debut album hit us all pretty hard back in 2011, and has continued to be on the player pretty much constantly since then. Though they’ve released a soundtrack and another LP since, this is really only the second full album, and it is every bit the spiritual successor. Soaring, spine-tingling swells of string and synth coalesce together into a perfectly organic, yet otherworld rush of emotion and heft. Brittle, tentative passages are suddenly engorged with indescribable euphoric joy, evocative but fleeting, bringing to mind their debut, but with every bit rendered in unparalleled definition. ‘The Undivided Five’ deserves every attention you can give it, every precious moment you spend with it revealing more secrets and more colours you didn’t even know existed. An unrivalled beauty.

TRACK LISTING

1.Our Lord Debussy
2. Sullen Sonata
3. The Haunted Victorian Pencil
4. The Slow Descent Has Begun
5. Aqualung, Motherfucker
6. A Minor Fifth Is Made Of Phantoms
7. Adios, Florida
8. The Rhythm Of A Dividing Pair
9. Keep It Dark, Deutschland

A.R. Kive collates the three most astonishing works from that most miraculous of duos - A.R. Kane - comprising the ‘Up Home’ EP from 1988 that signified the band’s dawning realisation of their own powers and possibilities, their legendary debut LP ‘sixty nine’ (1988) and its kaleidoscopic, prophetic double-LP follow up ‘i’ (1989).

In founder-member Rudy Tambala’s new remastering, the music on these pivotal transmissions from the birth of dream pop, have been reinvigorated and re-infused with a new power, a new depth and intimacy, a new height and immensity. Vivid, timeless and yet always timely whenever they’re recalled, these records still force any listener to realise that despite the habits of retrospective myth-making and the safe neutering effects of ‘genre’, thirty years have in no way dimmed how resistant and dissident to critical habits of categorisation A.R. Kane always were. Never quite ‘avant-pop’ or ‘shoegaze’ or ‘post-rock’ or any of those sobriquets designed to file and categorise, A.R. Kive is a reminder that those genres had to be coined, had to be invented precisely to contain the astonishing sound of A.R. Kane, because previous formulations couldn’t come close to their sui generis sound and suggestiveness. This is music that pointed towards futures which a whole generation of artists and sonic explorers would map out. Now beautifully repackaged, remastered and fleshed out with extensive sleeve notes and accompanying materials, ‘A.R. Kive’ reveals that 35 years on it’s still a struggle to defuse the revolutionary and inspirational possibility of A.R. Kane’s music.

A.R. Kane were formed in 1986 by Rudy Tambala and Alex Ayuli, two second- generation immigrants who grew up together in Stratford, East London. From the off the pair were outsiders in the culturally mixed (cockney/Irish/West Indian/Asian) milieu of the East End, with Alex and Rudy’s folks first generation immigrants from Nigeria and Malawi, respectively. The two of them quickly developed and fostered an innate and near-telepathic mutual understanding forged in musical, literary and artistic exploration. Like a lot of second-generation immigrants, they were ferocious autodidacts in all kinds of areas, especially around music and literature. Diving deep into the music of afro-futurist luminaries such as Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Lee Perry and Hendrix, as well as devouring the explorations of lysergic noise and feedback from contemporaries like Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers, they also thoroughly immersed themselves in the alternate literary realities of sci-fi and ancient history (the fascination with the arcane that gave the band their name), all to feed their voracious cultural thirsts and intellectual curiosity.

It was seeing the Cocteau Twins performing on Channel 4 show the Tube that spurred A.R. Kane into being - “They had no drummer. They used tapes and technology and Liz Fraser looked completely otherworldly with those big eyes. And the noise coming out of Robin’s guitar! That was the ‘Fuck! We could do that! We could express ourselves like that!’ moment”, recalls Tambala - and through a mix of confidence, chutzpah, ad hoc almost-mythical live shows and sheer innocent will the duo debuted with the astonishing ‘When You’re Sad’ single for One Little Indian in 1986. Immediately dubbed a ‘black Jesus & Mary Chain’ by a press unsure of WHERE to put a black band clearly immersed in feedback and noise, what was immediately apparent for listeners was just how much more was going on here - a tapping of dub’s stealth and guile, a resonant umbilicus back to fusion and jazz, the music less a conjuration of past highs than a re-summoning of lost spirits. The run of singles and EPs that followed picked up increasingly rapt reviews in the press, but it was the ‘Up Home EP’ released in 1988 on their new home, Rough Trade that really suggested something immense was about to break. Simon Reynolds noted the EP was: Their most concentrated slab of iridescent awesomeness and a true pinnacle of an era that abounded with astounding landmarks of guitar-reinvention, A.R. Kane at their most elixir-like.

If anything, the remastered ‘Up Home’ that forms the first part of ‘A.R. Kive’ is even more dazzling, even more startling than it was when it first emerged, and listening now you again wonder not just about how many bands christened ‘shoegaze’ tried to emulate it, but how all of them fell so far short of its lambent, pellucid wonder. This remains intrinsically experimental music but with none of the frowning orthodoxy those words imply. A.R. Kane, thanks to that second generation auto-didacticism were always supremely aware about the interstices of music and magic, but at the same time gloriously free in the way they explored that connection within their own sound, fascinated always with the creation of ‘perfect mistakes’ and the possibilities inherent in informed play.

‘sixty nine’ the group’s debut LP that emerged in 1988 had critics and listeners struggling to fit language around A.R. Kane’s sound. As a title it was telling - the year of ‘Bitches Brew’, the year of ‘In A Silent Way’, the erotic möbius between two lovers - and as originally coined by the band themselves, ‘dream pop’ (before it became a free-floating signifier of vague import) was entirely apposite for the music A.R. Kane were making. Crafted in a dark small basement studio in which Tambala recalls the duo had “complete freedom - We wanted to go as far out as we could, and in doing so we discovered the point where it stops being music”. There was an irresistibly dreamy, somnambulant, sensual and almost surreal flow to ‘sixty nine’s sound, but also real darkness/dankness, the ruptures of the primordial and the reverberations of the subconscious, within the grooves of remarkable songs like ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Crazy Blue’. Alex’s plangent vocals floated and surged amidst exquisite peals of refracted feedback but crucially there was BASS here, lugubrious and funky and full of dread, sonic pleasure and sonic disturbance crushed together to make music with a center so deep it felt subcutaneous, music constructed from both the accidental and the deliberate, generous enough to dance with both serendipity and chaos. ‘sixty nine’ remains - especially in this remastered iteration - ravishing, revolutionary.

The final part of this ‘A.R. Kive’ contains 1989’s astonishing double-LP ‘i’ which followed up on ‘sixty nine’s promise and saw the duo fully unleash their experimental pop sensibilities over 26 tracks, plunging the A.R. Kane sound into a dazzlingly kaleidoscopic vision of pop experiment and play. Suffused with new digital technologies and combining searingly sweet and danceable pop with perhaps the duo’s strangest and boundary-pushing compositions, the album did exactly what a great double-set should do - indulge the artists sprawling pursuit of their own imaginations but always with a concision and an ear for those moments where pop both transcends and toys with the listeners expectations. Jason Ankeny has noted that “In retrospect, ‘i’ now seems like a crystal ball prophesying virtually every major musical development of the 1990s; from the shimmering techno of ‘A Love from Outer Space’ to the liquid dub of ‘What’s All This Then?’, from the alien drone-pop of ‘Conundrum’ to the sinister shoegazer miasma of ‘Supervixens’ — it’s all here, an underground road map for countless bands to follow.” Perhaps the most overwhelmingly all-encompassing transmission from A.R. Kane, ‘i’ bookended a three year period in which the duo had made some of the most prophetic and revelatory music of the entire decade.

After ‘i’ the duo’s output became more sporadic with Tambala and Ayuli moving in different directions both geographically and musically, with only 1994’s ‘New Clear Child’ a crystalline re-fraction of future and past echoes of jazz, folk and soul, before the duo went their separate ways. Since then, A.R. Kane’s music has endured, not thanks to the usual sepia’d false memories that seem to maintain interest in so much of the musical past, but because those who hear A.R. Kane music and are changed irrevocably, have to share that universe which A.R. Kane opened up, with anyone else who will listen. Far more than other lauded documents of the late 80s it still sounds astonishingly fresh, astonishingly livid and vivid and necessary and NOW.

TRACK LISTING

UP HOME EP
1) Baby Milk Snatcher
2) W.O.G.S
3) One Way Mirror
4) Up

69 LP
1) Crazy Blue
2) Suicide Kiss
3) Baby Milk Snatcher
4) Scab 5) Sulliday
6) Dizzy
7) Spermwhale Trip Over
8) The Sun Falls Into The Sea
9) The Madonna Is With Child
10) Spanish Quay

i LP
1) Hello
2) A Love From Outer Space
3) Crack Up
4) Timewind
5) What’s All This Then?
6) Snow Joke
7) Off Into Space
8) And I Say
9) Yeti
10) Conundrum
11) Honeysuckleswallow
12) Long Body
13) In A Circle
14) Fast Ka
15) Miles Apart
16) Pop
17) Mars
18) Spook
19) Sugarwings
20) Back Home
21) Down
22) Supervixens
23) Insect Love
24) Sorry
25) Catch My Drift
26) Challenge

DIGITAL POSTCARD
1) Baby Milk Snatcher
2) W.O.G.S
3) One Way Mirror
4) Up
5) W.O.G.S (Slowdive Remix)
6) Baby Milk Snatcher (Tim Reaper Remix)
7) Baby Milk Snatcher (Louis Tambala Remix) 

Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Meath have been yodeling together for upwards of fifteen years – in the backseat of a Prius while on their first cross-country tour, on back porches and backstages. It’s what led them to Fruit, their debut release as The A’s – a joyous ten-song collection spanning genre and decades, with interpretations of traditionals, lullabies, and an original song, it weaves between the weird and the wonderful. “Why I’m Grieving,” originally recorded by the DeZurik Sisters, was the inspiration for the A’s existence. The A’s reach into the past to hold hands with the DeZurik Sisters, two farm girls from rural Minnesota who taught themselves to yodel amongst all their animals, in a continuing celebration of the tradition of folk eccentricity and whimsy.

The A’s played their first show together in 2013 after Sauser-Monnig first moved to North Carolina, where Meath had been living at the time, but it wasn’t until summer 2021 that they thought seriously about making Fruit. They decamped to Sylvan Esso’s Chapel Hill studio, Betty’s, for two weeks in the midst of a balmy and blooming Carolinian summer. They rehearsed during the day, deconstructing yodeling parts phonetically and staring absurdly into each other’s eyes as they practiced tongue twisting harmonies - and recorded in the nighttime, candles lit, a flickering glow against the windows framing the violet twilight outside.

“There was a lot of giggling during the session,” Sauser-Monnig explains. “At one point I was getting a tangle out of my hair and was like, oh, my God, that sounds really cool – the sound of my hands in my hair. And then I thought, what if we recorded hair for a percussion track? And then it just sort of snowballed.” Across the record, the A’s employ a bizarre-o ghost orchestra of strange noises that are percussive and melodic. The credits include nylon shorts, string (singular), hair, shoes, ice chunk, gravel, frog sample, and shoelace, among other unexpected makeshift instrumentation. The backing band is built out by a more traditional group of players: saxophone from Sam Gendel on “Copper Kettle,” backing vocals from Jenn Wasner (Flock of Dimes, Wye Oak) on “When I Die,” string arrangements from Gabriel Kahane on “He Needs Me,” and more.

Fruit is made up simply of songs the A’s love to sing – there are lullabies and love songs; “He Needs Me,” written by Harry Nilsson and first released by Shelley Duvall in the 1980 Popeye film; traditional ballads like “Swing and Turn Jubilee,” “Copper Kettle” and closer “Buckeye Jim,” a multiplying song about frogs and nature. The sole original track to appear on the album is the penultimate “When I Die,” written by Meath. It contains both wishes and instructions for the celebration of her death, a low synth bubbling beneath Sauser-Monnig and Meath’s voices. It’s a collection of ten seemingly incongruous songs, but with the throughline of Sauser-Monnig and Meath’s vocals and sense of humor working in tandem, they fit together into a cosmic yodeling-folk masterpiece. Fruit feels like blowing the dust off a precious artifact of decades past, but also winking and modern. Sauser-Monnig sums up their ethos on the project succinctly: “If it doesn’t make you cackle or cry, it doesn’t belong.”

TRACK LISTING

01 He Needs Me
02 Swing And Turn Jubilee
03 Wedding Dress
04 Why I’m Grieving
05 When The Bloom Is On The Sage
06 My Poncho Pony
07 Go To Sleep My Darling Baby
08 Copper Kettle
09 When I Die
10 Buckeye Jim

Featuring founding members of classic California hardcore bands Outspoken, Insted and Chorus of Disapproval. A18's message is not new, but their commitment is particularly refreshing. No room for compromise in their musical vocabulary. This is powerful, loud and demanding hardcore at its best.

One In A Million is the second studio album by Aaliyah. First released in 1996 by Blackground Records, the album features production from a variety of producers including Timbaland, Missy Elliot, Carl-So-Lowe, J. Dibbs, Jermaine Dupri, Kay Gee, Vincent Herbert, Rodney Jenkins, Craig King, Darren Lighty and Darryl Simmons. With countless accolades, One In A Million remains as one of the most influential albums in Hip-Hop & R&B and proved to be a major breakthrough in Aaliyah's career. Welcome to the new world of funk.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Beats 4 Da Streets (Intro)
A2. Hot Like Fire
A3. One In A Million
A4. A Girl Like You
B1. If Your Girl Only Knew
B2. Choosey Lover (Old School / New School)
B3. Got To Give It Up
B4. 4 Page Letter
C1. Everything's Gonna Be Alright
C2. Giving You More
C3. I Gotcha' Back
C4. Never Givin' Up
D1. Heartbroken
D2. Never Comin' Back
D3. Ladies In Da House
D4. The One I Gave My Heart To
D5. Came To Give Love (Outro)

Compared to Flying Saucer Attack, Azusa Plane, Labradford and Windy & Carl. Beautiful drifting guitars and electronics.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2020 RELEASE AVAILABLE ONLINE ONLY AS PART OF THE AUGUST 29TH DROP DAY AT 6PM.
LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Aashid Himons classic 1984 Electonic/Reggae/Boogie-Funk track finally gets a well deserved re-issue.Taken from the very rare sought after album 'Kosmik Gypsy.The EP includes the original mix, a lovingly remastered Fyraften 2019 version.Also includes 'In a Figga of Speech' track from Kosmik Gypsy.

Can anyone really justify pressing just one track on a piece of vinyl these days? With rising manufacturing costs not to mention the climate implications it seems pretty inconsiderate not to utilize at least half of the running time of these precious black discs...

Bloody good job the music's so good on Innermood's cheeky, carbon-sucking 12" here then.. Abacus providing a full side of sumptuous, cushion soft deep house that's in a similar vein to Ron Trent and Joe Claussell. All live bass and swirling leads, male vocal chops adding to the vibrant spiritual energy that's as uplifting as a bowl of acid punch at Body & Soul.

I guess the thinking that super limited, white label releases might appeal to the vintage fetishists out there, but I'm not sure there's any room for that line of thought in 2022! Anyway, rant over; the track's fucking great so if you're a vinyl deep house DJ in need of some upfront and exclusive tackle - look no further. They just better not release this digitally too can you imagine?! :P 

TRACK LISTING

A. Lausanna 

Serious Poke is the debut solo from Fred Abbott the London-based musician, until now, best known as lead guitarist and keyboard player in the recently disbanded Noah And The Whale.

A supremely talented multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, Abbott joined Noah And The Whale in 2009 and went on to huge success, especially notable being his contribution to 2011‘s Platinum-selling and highly acclaimed Last Night On Earth.

Abbott enlisted the help of his Noah And The Whale compadres and other friends for the recording of Serious Poke, with sessions taking place at West London’s British Grove Studios over the past year. The album was co-produced by Fred with Martin Hollis, whose diverse credits include Grinderman, The Rolling Stones and Take That.

TRACK LISTING

1: Adrenaline Shot
2: Funny How Good It Feels
3: Awake
4: Honey
5: Hollywood
6: One Hot Night
7: Learn About Love
8: Don't Look Like Him
9: Still Told A Lie
10: Lucky People 

Four years of slow-burning success on from the rolling primal rhythms and joyous arpeggios of his 2010 debut album 'Holkham Drones', Luke Abbott makes a bold return to the Border Community with his sublime second album offering ‘Wysing Forest’.

Named after the Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeshire who hosted Luke as their first ever musician-in-residence over a six week period during the winter of 2012, the album comprises a series of improvised live recordings, edited and compiled after a period of after-the-act reflection into one rapturous movement. The finished article’s 52-minute duration may have been chopped into nine track-sized chunks for its official album release, but this is most definitely an album which is greater than the sum of its parts, designed to be listened to in one immersive go.

“‘Wysing Forest’ has a very particular arc to it an the tracks only make sense in the context of that arc,” Luke explains. “Structuring the album to work as a whole was quite a challenge, almost more of a challenge than making the music, but I think I’ve ended up with something that has a kind of internal logic.” And though only a pair of tracks - ‘Free Migration’ and ‘Highrise’, together forming the subtle peak that marks the mid-point of the album - approach ‘Holkham Drones” idiosyncratic lumpen danceability, it is thanks to Luke’s perfectly judged elegant transitional dynamics that neither piece - although as dancefloor-directed as anything he has ever done before - feels out of place amongst the album’s more mellow moments.

'Translate' is the first solo artist album in six years from Norfolk synthesizer specialist Luke Abbott: a strikingly direct and assured return to the solo music-making game following a productive diversion into live improvisation with his experimental jazz trio Szun Waves.

At times dark and ominous, others bright and welcoming, these eleven electronic vignettes form a dramatic and undeniably cinematic body of work which functions as a fitting widescreen soundtrack to our new now.

The lumbering rhythms, strident synths and distinctive touchstones of 'Translate' represent a musical reconciliation with the directness of the wave-making rolling synth-kraut of Abbott’s forthright debut 'Holkham Drones'.

Newly-reinvigorated and with a new sense of musical purpose, this is Luke Abbott’s sound fully realised and never so sure of itself.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'Holkham Drones' was one of my favourite albums for many a year, and still gets a good playing nowadays but nothing has come close to the mind-melting electronic bliss-blanket of 'Translate'. Perfectly split between hypnotic electronic counterpoints and synthy, IDM levity.

TRACK LISTING

1) Kagen Sound
2) Our Scene
3) Flux
4) Ames Window
5) Roses
6) Earthship
7) Living Dust
8) River Flow
9) Feed Me Shapes
10) Luna
11) August Prism

Few albums define a particular era as does The Lexicon Of Love. It’s embedded deep in the fabric of popular culture. Namechecked, referenced and, now, frequently in “best of all time” polls, the album opened up the 80s wide, in full, glorious Technicolor. In 1982, ABC became the toast of the world with this album. It also launched the production career of Trevor Horn. Like the greatest landmark albums, it has transcended its origins and is simply there, an ever-evolving testament to its marriage of youth, wit, creativity, technology, emotion, masterplan and happy accident.

1LP Half Speed Master
A commemoration of the album that kickstarted the 80s. Half-speed mastered at Abbey Road by Miles Showell. In new gatefold sleeve with Abbey Road obi strip and certificate of authenticity

TRACK LISTING

Side A: 
Show Me
Poison Arrow
Many Happy Returns
Tears Are Not Enough
Valentine’s Day
Side B: 
The Look Of Love
Date Stamp
All Of My Heart
4 Ever 2 Gether
The Look Of Love (Part Four)

ABC perform their classic album "Lexicon Of Love" in it's entirety, plus their other greatest hits.

Sheffield's finest, ABC, were back in their hometown for a very special anniversary show which marked exactly 40 years to the day since the album was released on the 21st June 1982.

ABC were joined by the original orchestral team of Southbank Sinfonia and longtime collaborator and arranger Anne Dudley who conducted the evening.

TRACK LISTING

LP TRACKLISTING
Disc 1
Side 1
1. Overture
2. When Smokey Sings
3. Viva Love
Side 2
1. The Night You Murdered Love
2. (How To Be A) Millionaire
3. The Flames Of Desire
4. The Love Inside The Love
Disc 2
Side 1
1. Ten Below Zero
2. One Better World
3. Ocean Blue
4. Be Near Me
Side 2
1. Show Me
2. Poison Arrow
3. Many Happy Returns
4. Tears Are Not Enough
Disc 3
Side 1
1. Valentine's Day
2. The Look Of Love
3. Date Stamp
Side 2
1. 4 Ever 2 Gether
2. All Of My Heart
3. The Look Of Love (Part Four)
4. The Look Of Love (Encore)

2CD TRACKLIST
Disc 1
1. Overture
2. When Smokey Sings
3. Viva Love
4. The Night You Murdered Love
5. (How To Be A) Millionaire
6. The Flames Of Desire
7. The Love Inside The Love
8. Ten Below Zero
9. One Better World
10. Ocean Blue
11. Be Near Me
Disc 2
1. Show Me
2. Poison Arrow
3. Many Happy Returns
4. Tears Are Not Enough
5. Valentine's Day
6. The Look Of Love
7. Date Stamp
8. 4 Ever 2 Gether
9. All Of My Heart
10. The Look Of Love (Part Four)
11. The Look Of Love (Encore)

3CD TRACKLISTING
Disc 1
1. Overture
2. When Smokey Sings
3. Viva Love
4. The Night You Murdered Love
5. (How To Be A) Millionaire
6. The Flames Of Desire
7. The Love Inside The Love
8. Ten Below Zero
9. One Better World
10. Ocean Blue
11. Be Near Me
Disc 2
1. Show Me
2. Poison Arrow
3. Many Happy Returns
4. Tears Are Not Enough
5. Valentine's Day
6. The Look Of Love
7. Date Stamp
8. 4 Ever 2 Gether
9. All Of My Heart
10. The Look Of Love (Part Four)
11. The Look Of Love (Encore)
Disc 3
1. Overture
2. Show Me
3. Poison Arrow
4. Many Happy Returns
5. Tears Are Not Enough
6. Valentine's Day
7. The Look Of Love
8. Date Stamp
9. 4 Ever 2 Gether
10. All Of My Heart
11. The Look Of Love (Part Four)
12. The Look Of Love (Encore)

Three releases in and Surfing In Kansas had already shot to the top of our favourite labels, offering expert edits of grooving obscurities for the adventurous DJs and dancers out there. Their flawless record continues with the fourth instalment as Abel and A Good Christian once again wield the scalpel, creating classy cuts of a pair of low slung unclassics.

On the A-side we are finally blessed with a vinyl version of Abel's much lauded and frankly fantastic edit of "Feels So Good" by 80s pin-up and Gremlin loving sensation Phoebe Cates. Taken from her only LP, the semi-soulful but almost entirely shite "Paradise", this track is the proverbial stopped clock, a moment of musical magic as exceptional as its comrades are crap. Abel does his thing expertly here, providing subtle extensions and snips to create the 12" version that never was. If you're looking for a little moonlit boogie with a lot of heart, you'll never top this.

Meanwhile on the flip, AGC tackles Lipps Inc.'s "How Long", a marvelously melancholic bit of Italo inspired disco which some of you may remember from Justus Köhncke's Kompakt classic 'Timecode". Though it boasts a killer bassline, high grade synth riffs and a pretty catchy chorus, some segments of the OG are unfortunate, so I'm forever grateful to Christian for this much needed rearrangement.

This label always sells out in seconds, so get your skates on!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Large ups to Abel and A Good Christian who continue to promote edit excellence through their Surfing In Kansas imprint. Impossible to pick a fave here, as Phoebe Cates' B-word killer "Feels So Good" and Lipps Inc's Köhncke's sampled "How Long" get an essential upcycle. Bomba!

TRACK LISTING

A. Feels So Good Feels So Right (Abel Edit)
B. How Lo-O-Ong (A Good Christian Edit)

Abel's hallowed "Aegean Sea" edit gets a much needed reprint - this time for premium edit resource, Surfing In Kansas. As buzzy as it ever was, this is an essential addition for this summer's record bag.

A quite different flavour on the flipside with a cunningly chopped up section from a lost late night classic. Man has the golden touch. If you've a Argonaughty-shaped whole in your life since the last "Down To The Sea And Back" compilation, then this cheeky double header of yachty disco soul should have you swinging in your hammock in no time at all!

Limited copies - highly recommended! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Highly coveted edits from Abel which take us right Down To The Sea And Back (gerrit?). "Aegean Sea" even has a bit of The Hollies feel about it.

TRACK LISTING

Aegean Sea (Abel Edit)
Forget To Remember (Abel Edit)

Music From Memory / Redlight man Abel doesn't grace our release sheets that often, presumably kept busy by curating those killer labels and endlessly digging. It's a shame really because he basically has a flawless record in edit-land, selecting the coolest records you've never heard, ditching the dross and giving the good stuff the maximum space to sparkle.

When this power-platter first surfaced in 2019 it flew (I'm talking bird, plane, superman speeds), so we never got even a sniff of a copy. Thankfully the Surfing In Kansas fraternity have seen fit to repress and I get to share my enjoyment of this record with all y'all. It's straight to the discotheque on the A-side with the drum box snap and electronic gurgle of "Another Cigarette", an absolutely class edit of a Euro-imitates-Sheffield synthpop smasher. Half sung male vocals, white noise snares and that kind of Electrifying Mojo energy. Flip it for the freaky fun of "Klat Klat", another INCREDIBLE cut which emerges from a haze of billowing pads, treated vocals and skewed rhythm grids as a blast of vocoded boogie optimism. Finally "Raw" gives it ya with no trivia, but a whole load of digi-cowbell, DX7 chimes and nipple high bass work, mid tempo action for the Balearic fam.

TRACK LISTING

A. Another Cigarette
B1. Klat Klat
B2. Raw

If you find the time, please come and stay a while in abracadabra’s beautiful neighbourhood; a magically wonky wonderland where strangers leave as friends to a block party soundtrack as eclectic as it is infectious. The California duo’s album ‘shapes & colors’ is a dazzling collage of psych-fuelled synthscapes and contemporary Baroque-pop of anti-capitalist movements and escapism, precisely pieced around their own working lives in a blue-collar town. In the heart of Oakland’s industrial Jingletown above a former auto-repair shop in what was once a mechanics’ break room where poker rounds ensued, Hannah Skelton (Vocals, Synthesizers) and Chris Niles, (Bass, Synthesizers) constructed the angular 80s-tinged anthems (think John Hughes montages to Talking Heads) of their new album, to positively offset the pandemic’s amplification of dysfunctional society. “It reflects our current reality: a huge mess that is systematically broken but isn’t entirely lost,” Hannah tells. “We’re inviting listeners to conjure up every drop of hope and willpower left inside them, pour that into the giant vat of anger and frustration bubbling inside us all, and with this potion collectively enact the necessary change to bring love and light into this dark space.”

When Covid forced Hannah from her salon in San Francisco to become a backyard mobile hairdresser, what she saw inspired them both and the lyrical foundations for their new record. “I’d drive to mansions and people would complain about how hard the pandemic had been next to their swimming pool and tennis courts.” First meeting after the album’s co-producer Jason Kick (Mild High Club, Sonny and the Sunsets) recruited the pair for a Halloween band covering Eurythmics’ art-rock debut ‘In The Garden,’ the pair hit it off and shapes & colors is a product of the years that followed. It combines Chris’ own rhythmic demos following years on the road touring and opening for Amon Tobin, Matthew Dear and Generationals in Maus Haus with Hannah’s lyrical musings honed from project Cassiopeia, so even when topics are as heavy as the beats, they’re met with luminously positive arrangements of hope and warmth.

The by-product of a psychedelic New Year’s Eve escaping a monotonous 2020 reality, the title track itself captures fireworks over East Oakland as viewed from the pair’s couch whilst listening to Mort Garson’s Plantasia for 6 hours straight. The daydream collage of ‘inyo county’ is “a little souvenir taking me back into the bottled-up essence of a slow lazy morning, waking up in bed far from home,” Hannah tells recalling those enforced stay-at-home days. “It fell out of me because I was craving that blissful flavour.” Meanwhile ‘dawn of the age of aquarius’s new parallel reality evolved from a happy accident when their demos had reset to a drone which Jason reworked into a Laurie Anderson-esque breathy vocoder effect. Even bloops and beeps from a forgotten recording session at the Vintage Synthesizer Museum in Emeryville can be heard, where the pair used Mini Moog, Fairlight EMI and ARP 2600 to arrange their sound into shapes whilst distortion and dirt from mixing on 1979 Neve 5313 Console added to the recordings’ color.

Casting a brighter rainbow still, in all its pastel-hued glory, Hannah, also illustrated a self-portrait of the band for the album artwork. “It reflects our makeshift recording studio to encapsulate all aspects of that time and space,” she shares of their abode where, over an intense two-week period and fuelled by the aroma of fermenting vino from the winery below, their single chord, bass and drum-heavy, groove-first momentum took them on an unexpected journey whilst the next-door couple would fire pizzas in their yard and a grandfather across the road would sweep the street clean. “We’d drink coffee and start the day, consistently working, without interruption,” Chris tells of finding their flow. “The loft is a cool space with skylights, tall ceilings and no shared walls so we could be as loud as we wanted to be.”

Just as well. Diving into decades of electronica and crunchy sound effects, field recordings and animal sounds, blended with an infectious Latin influence, shapes & colors is bolstered by live percussionists Greg Poneris (drums), K. Dylan Edrich (Vocals, Percussion: congas, bongos, chimes, cow bells and wood blocks, tone drum and tri-tone whistle) and Tom Smith (Guitar, Synthesizers, Vocals). It shimmies with the charismatic energy of ESG, Tom Tom Club, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, and the dub hits of King Tubby, the melodic sensibilities of Prince, Stereolab, and idiosyncratic Deerhoof offering an ornate alternative to traditional guitar pop chord progressions as they layer wrecking ball-sized danceable motifs to rumble the dust off the cars on the street from the nearby concrete factory. “We take some big swings to create interesting moments,” Chris explains. NIMBY crews grab those earplugs now. abracadabra is your new noisy neighbour, and there’s no turning this party down.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Talk Talk
2. In A Photo
3. Telling Time
4. Swim
5. Inyo County
Side B
6. Don't Like U
7. Impactor
8. At The Zoo
9. Shapes & Colors
10. Dawn Of The Age Of Aquarius

In contrast to its ethereal title, Ben Abraham’s ‘Sirens’ is deeply human. Its songs were written over the artist’s developing years as a writer and the album has become a kind of musical documentary of the loss, longing and growth that carried Abraham from his very first lyric to this, his first album.

Abraham first found his voice writing songs whilst working in a hospital. Eight years on, he’s made an album, toured with Emmylou Harris, co-written with Grammy-nominated singer Sarah Barreilles and made ‘Sirens’, his debut album.

Originally self-released in Australia, ‘Sirens’ is now receiving a worldwide release via Secretly Canadian.

Ben recorded ‘Sirens’ with two local friends, Jono Steer (who was his live mixer) and percussionist Leigh Fisher. A number of other Melbourne musicians joined in on sessions, including Gossling, whose angelic voice can be heard in the opening track. Gotye helped produce the haunting vocals on ‘Speak’, while ‘experimental electronic producer’ Tim Shiel assisted on ‘This Is On Me’.

‘This Is On Me’, co-written / sung with platinum-selling artist Sara Bareilles, has its own story. After Abraham posted a song (‘To Sara, From Ben’) on YouTube, Bareilles’ fans began to tweet the video and it grabbed her attention. When she played Melbourne in 2011, she invited Abraham up on stage to co-sing a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’ and an original co-write was subsequently born.

TRACK LISTING

Sirens
Time
I Belong To You
She
You And Me
Collide
To Love Someone
Home
This Is On Me
Speak
Somebody’s Mother
Songbird
A Silent Prayer

Unique recording of this unique constellation of musicians. Featuring pianist Chris Abrahams of cult jazz band THE NECKS, guitar and experimental maverick Oren Ambarchi, and percussion experimentalist Robbie Avenaim.

Polymath Oren Ambarchi has a celebrated release career with a devoted new music following, his last solo album “Schebang” on Drag City ended on many 2022 top ten lists including The Wire, along with being listed in Pitchfork 50 Best Albums of the year.

Following nearly 20 years of working together as a trio, and numerous cross-collaborations in different configuration between them, Ideologic Organ presents Placelessness, the debut full-length by Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, and Robbie Avenaim, comprising two long-form works at juncture of ambient music, minimalism, rigorous experimentalism and improvisation, and machine music.

Having carved distinct pathways across a diverse number of musical idioms for decades, Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, and Robbie Avenaim are each, respectively, among the most noteworthy and groundbreaking figures to have emerged from Australia’s thriving experimental music scene. Ambarchi and Avenaim first encountered Abrahams when seeing the Necks - the project that has served as the primary vehicle for his singular approach to the piano since its founding in 1987 together during the late 1980s, not long after having met in Sydney’s underground music community. The pair’s collaborations date back more than 35 years, criss-crossing Ambarchi’s pioneering solo and ensemble work for guitar and Avenaim’s visionary efforts for SARPS (Semi Automated Robotic Percussion System), robotic and kinetic extensions to his drum kit.

In 2004, fate brought the three together in a trio performance at the What Is Music? Festival, the annual touring showcase of experimental music founded and run by Ambarchi and Avenaim between 1994-2012. For the nearly two decades since, Abrahams, Ambarchi, and Avenaim have intermittently reformed in exclusively live contexts, in Australia and abroad, cultivating and refining the fertile ground first tilled in that early meeting. Placelessness is the first album to present this remarkable trio’s efforts in recorded form.

Placelessness is the joining of three highly individualised streams, working in perfect harmony; the point at which friendship, mutual respect, and decades of creative exploration produce a singular spectrum of sound. Featuring Abrahams on piano, Ambarchi on guitar, and Avenaim on drums, the album’s two sides draw on each artist’s enduring dedication to long-form composition. Its two pieces, Placelessness I and Placelessness II, initially began as a single, 40 minute work, before being divided and reworked into distinct, complimentary gestures for the corresponding sides of the LP.

Beginning with restrained clusters of reverberant piano tones, Placelessness I progresses at an almost glacial pace, with Abrahams’ interventions increasing met by sparse responses, darting within vast ambiences, on guitar and percussion by Ambarchi and Avenaim. Remarkably conversational within its convergences of tonal, rhythmic, and textural abstraction, over the work’s duration a progressive sense of tension unfurls and contracts, refusing release, as each of the ensemble’s members contribute to an increasingly tangled sense of density at its resolve.

While an entirely autonomous work, Placelessness II rapidly realises a distillation of the energy hinted at across the length of its predecessor. Following a luring passage of harmonious calm, Abrahams’ launches into shimmering lines of repeating arpeggios, complimented at each escalation of tempo by Avenaim’s machine gun fire percussion work and Ambarchi’s masterful delivery of tonality and texture, as the trio collectively generate dense sheets of pointillistic ambience within which individual identity is almost lost, before slowly unspooling into unexpected abstractions and dissonances that deftly intervene with the work’s inner logic and calm.

What could easily be termed a maximalist take on Minimalism, Placelessness is a masterstroke of contemporary, real time composition, that blurs the boundaries between ambient music, experimentalism, free improvisation, and machine music. Drawing on Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, and Robbie Avenaim’s decades of respective solo and collaborative practice, and the culmination of nearly twenty years of working together as a trio, it’s two durational pieces - Placelessness I and Placelessness II - take form with a startling sense of effortlessness and grace, neither shying away from explicit beauty or rigorously tension within their forms.

TRACK LISTING

01 Placelessness I 18:28
02 Placelessness II 20:42

Rudolf Abramov is taking a step in a different direction from his last release on Höga Nord Rekords. This 7” contains the works of deep mining in an old hard drive during the introversion of the pandemic quarantine. These two gems have been given a bit of tasteful polishing before reaching the point of release and the result is a punk meets stoner rock experience propelled by hard sequencers and drum machines.

This record is as English / Irish as you find em: straight forward instrumentation and lyrical performance presented with a dirty and rough production. The beats are stripped with an edgy punch and the synthesizers are overdriven, giving them guitar like qualities.

The “Paracetamol / Clonex” 7” is a release of covid demons, and the sound of spitting out the bitter taste of isolation, or to use his own words: ‘On this 7" you will find absurd and desperate lyrics accompanied by heavy English and Irish accents, driven robotic drum machines, dirty synths, crunching bass, and as unpolished as your dad's old Angle grinder.’

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: One of the shining lights of the underground, Höga Nord Rekords, continues to usher in a crucial roster of artists eschewing music trends and Instagram stardom for a dark, nocturnal, gothy inspired sound all of their own. Equally at home in the rock club or warehouse; this is uncompromising music strictly for those who like it strange!

TRACK LISTING

A. Paracetamol Feat. Matthew Johnson
B. Clonex Feat. Brendan Cleary

Carolina Faruolo (ex-Los Bitchos) and Danny Lee Blackwell (Night Beats) had been friends and mutual admirers of each other’s musical projects for years, though with Faruolo residing in the UK and Blackwell residing in Texas, their interactions were limited. Yet as was so often the case for many of us during the shelter-in-place stretches of 2020, geographic proximity wound up being a non-issue as our socializations became almost exclusively online endeavors. In this era of isolation and uncertainty, Faruolo and Blackwell invented their own private escape to Latin rhythms, colorful vistas, and smoky revelries under the project name of Abraxas. Combining their shared love of Wendy Renee, Los Destellos, doo-wop and R&B, they crafted their debut album Monte Carlo by bouncing ideas across the Atlantic.

“Planet Abraxas is a world filled with jungles, mist-covered rivers, panthers lurking in the night, desolate shopping malls, Neolithic citadels and sand-worn walls,” Blackwell says of the muse behind Monte Carlo. “The nights are usually dense with fog and the air is filled with the sounds of cicadas and faraway drumming.” This visual manifestation of their sound stands in stark contrast to the environment in which the songs were written. “I remember the feeling I got the first time Danny added vocals to one of my tracks,” Faruolo recalls. “I was sitting on my sofa in rainy Manchester in the middle of winter. I pressed play and the song just made my heart jump. It instantly felt special and, more importantly, it felt like a perfect portrait of both of us.”

Uruguayan-born Faruolo grew up with the tropical beats of cumbia and the psychedelic flavor of classic chicha artists, and it became her mission to infuse those sunny influences in her work as a UK musician. Blackwell’s work under the Night Beats handle involves the fusion of outlaw soul and R&B with a resourceful DIY spirit. Despite the apparent contrast in their styles, the two musicians bonded over their reverence for Selena and Sade, exemplars of the humid pulse and sultry spirit of their respective approaches. As Abraxas, their distinctive musical perspectives created a sound that encompassed the tropicalia of Os Mutantes, the scrappy songwriting of Cleaners From Venus, and the trippy production of Lee “Scratch” Perry, though the duo is quick to assert that they were finding their own distinctive voices rather than adhering to pre-existing stylistic codes and constraints. And indeed, Monte Carlo feels rooted in tradition but blossoms into its own unique timbres and vibrations.

Monte Carlo opens with “Sunrise State (of Mind),” where a hypnotic cumbia beat serves as the bedrock for cosmic guitar leads, hazy choral melodies, and Blackwell’s seductive vocals. From there, the album continues its steady Latin pulse on “Mañana,” a perfect soundtrack to feverish nights in dancehalls, sipping on caipirinhas and sharing cigarettes with strangers on the dancefloor. Across its twelve tracks, Monte Carlo unfurls a myriad of exotic influences, from the Eastern melodies and guitar trills on “Sultan,” through the dub-inflected stomp and scorching fuzz of “La Estampida,” and on to the Anatolian psych-funk of album closer “Göbekli Tepe.”

Blackwell recorded his contributions with the assistance of engineer Chris Maciel at his studio the 22nd Dimension in Pomona, California and Faruolo recorded her parts in Manchester, England at Brunswick Mill. While Abraxas conceived their material in bedrooms and studios six timezones apart, the music on Monte Carlo sounds like a live band in the throes of an ecstatic performance. And Abraxas plans to make the live incarnation of the band a reality when conditions allow for it. Until then, listeners can bask in the invented world of Abraxas and all its exotic and enticing splendor across the twelve tracks of Monte Carlo. Suicide Squeeze Records is proud to present Monte Carlo to the world later in 2022 on digital and vinyl formats.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Sunrise State (Of Mind)
2. Mañana
3. Sultan
4. Monte Carlo
5. La Estampida
6. Hourglass
Side B
1. Prismatic
2. Yes
3. Golden
4. Fuji
5. Shapeshifter
6. Göbekli Tepe

Abstract Orchestra's composer, leader, arranger and producer Rob Mitchell has now added remixing to his already notable list of credits, in this case turning his hand to Abstract's MADVILLAIN project. Rob has worked with many artists during his busy career; The Haggis Horns, Rag 'n' Bone Man, Sharon Jones and the Dap–Kings, Brand New Heavies, and Slum Village, alongside many others but it was the orchestra's work he wanted to revisit. Seeing the pandemic as an opportunity to spend more time in the studio, Rob spent several months polishing his production skills before embarking on this remix project, he wanted to make sure he did it justice. Working under the moniker Ghostlife, a nod to the fabled anonymity of rapper MF DOOM, Rob has reworked the big band orchestration of Abstract, creating a beat led affair with greater dance floor appeal.

For Abstract Orchestra MADVILLAIN REMIXES, Ghostlife cherry picked ten tracks from Abstract's two-album project and plays with a higher BPM count within the hip hop aesthetic of the original. The tracks include "Raid", "Fancy Clown", "Curls", and "Figaro" and in this case Ghostlife has forgone the big arrangements Abstract is known for, rather he has coaxed out hooks and samples from their tracks and produced something he hope will appeal to a different crowd. There is dancefloor potential in "Eye","Accordian" and bass heavy "Borrowed Time" while the reworks of 'Fancy Clown" and "Curls" would fit well into any radio show.

TRACK LISTING

1. Raid (Ghostlife Remix)
2. Fancy Clown (Ghostlife Remix)
3. Eye (Ghostlife Remix)
4. Accordion (Ghostlife Remix)
5. Curls (Ghostlife Remix)
6. Bistro (Ghostlife Remix)
7. Borrowed Time (Ghostlife Remix)
8. Fire In The Hole (Ghostlife Remix)
9. Figaro (Ghostlife Remix)
10. Fluid (Ghostlife Remix)

Re-issue of Drexciya's 4th storm! Another seminal work of 6 futuristic deep & Drexciyan electro / techno tracks. Hypothetical questions translated into music by the visionaries of contemporary electronic music. ''Music beamed through Dimensional Waves by Abstract Thought...'.

Rightly deserved of its cult following, the album is the absolute epitome of underwater techno greatness - resplendent with Drexciyan tropes and containing some of the most skilled synthesis you're likely to hear on record.

First released in 2003 on Kombination Research. Remastered from the original session tapes.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bermuda Triangle
2. Synchronised Dimensions
3. Me Want Womans Punani
4. Consequences Of Cloning
5. Solar Pulse
6. Galactic Rotation

Composed, produced and arranged by Evangelia VS, the artist behind Abyss X, ‘Freedom Doll’ is the culmination of a year of emotional unloading through songwriting, offering an introspective journey into the ocean of her mind. Produced andorded between an artist residency near the Mayan jungle in Mexico and her Berlin home, the album chronicles transformations the performer tackled mentally during the writing process, tracing the rollercoaster of falling in love during the pandemic, as well as the pleasures and tribulations of womanhood.
‘Freedom Doll’ encapsulates the romantic escapade between her voice and the guitar. The amalgamation of seduction, sexual tension, vulnerability and assertiveness pulses throughout the entirety of the album, spiraling out of the cracks spawned from her vocal chords. From the twirling dance between her lush harmonies and the progressions of the acoustic guitar in tracks such as ‘Ascend’ and ‘From Hot to Cold’, to the explosive confrontation between the metallic and operatic qualities of her voice, the searing sound of the electric guitar in industrial rock / psychedelic anthems such as ‘Torture Grove’ and ‘Banyana’ and the cathartic momentum found in the gospel inclined chants in ‘A CHEW’ - ‘Freedom Doll’ untethers the dramatics and theatricality that defines Abyss X’s vocal performance and music production, while maintaining the sensual vibrations of her creative essence.

‘Freedom Doll’ is the encapsulation of the Minoan woman, the elusive harlequin tiptoeing her way through the circus of terror that is living and loving her way through womanhood. With this visual reference, Abyss X pays tribute to her ancestors and their groundbreaking ancient artistry. The back cover of the vinyl features a reiteration of depictions of bulls leaping found in Minoan frescoes; an inherently male cultural act that in the ancient Minoan times presumably gave expression to a tension that underlies man's somewhat tenuous mastery of nature. ‘Freedom Doll’’s artwork challenges this preconceived notion through an eco-feminist approach, bringing the Minoan woman slash Gaia in the seat of the bull leaper, taming the unhinged and predominantly male earth - threatening human force. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Another week another alluring and mystic synth-pop masterpiece from the outlying AD93 label. Abyss X has a yearning, pop sensibility which in my ears at least, has a little bit of Christine & The Queens about it. Not all the way through though - sometimes she dives down the industrial synth wormhole with completely contrasting results.

TRACK LISTING

A1 - Ascend
A2 - A Chew
A3 - Torture Grove
A4 - Oceans Of Heat
A5 - Vacuum (feat. Juliana Huxtable)
B1 - From Hot To Cold
B2 - This Strange Asylum
B3 - Banyana
B4 - Feeling A Type Away
B5 - Never Apart (feat. Juliana Huxtable)

The record opens up with the poisonous title-track 'Two Scorpios', where sharp analogue leads lean on a relentless disco-funk groove, thrusting us out straight against the sweaty walls of the Chicago's Muzic Box. The airy and enchanting spirals of 'Solenoid' create a detachment for a sonic trip through circling arpeggios and sparkles. On the flip side, we reconnect Abyssy to the Young Soulomon of early 90's by a warm and robotics 'Dusty House'. The mood turns definitely more freaky with 'Slomo Kid': sampling divertissement with a punkish flavour and emphatic rhythmics, it is the perfect tune to shake down the whole ball of wax. 

TRACK LISTING

A1: Two Scorpios
A2: Solenoid
B1: Young Soulomon
B2: Slomo Kid

This special 12" features two tracks that will not be on the vinyl version of the forthcoming AC Soul Symphony, Disco opus "Metamorphosis" featuring a 20 piece orchestra alongside a whole host top live players. That makes it an even more vital pick up because both are pure disco fire. 'I Want To See You Dance' has the title's classic refrain repeated over big Salsoul style string licks, funky basslines and soloing piano. 'The Talented Mr Adams' is a tribute to the legendary disco producer Patrick Adams and is a super sweet swooner with golden live strings and brass backing up a loose-limbed rhythm and vamping pianos that get you in the mood for love. These two tracks act as a fine teaser for what's to come on the much-anticipated album from a contemporary version of acts like MFSB and Love Unlimited Orchestra.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
I Want To See You Dance

Side B
The Talented Mr Adams

Legendary producer Dave Lee returns as AC Soul Symphony with the “Metamorphosis” LP - his most ambitious production project in his 35-year career.

With an inimitable CV and discography that includes over a thousand production credits to his name, hundreds of singles under renowned pseudonyms including Joey Negro, and three UK top 40 hits as Jakatta, Dave Lee is one of the UK’s most revered producers of disco and house music, defining each genre with a signature sound. Always looking to push the boundaries of what it means to make music, his latest project sees Dave return to one of his lesser-known pseudonyms – AC Soul Symphony – to deliver an epic disco record that takes the sound back to its roots in every way possible.

“A few years ago, I produced a remake of David Shire’s orchestral disco masterpiece Manhattan Skyline under the alias of AC Soul Symphony. I really enjoyed reworking that classic track in a way that retained my favourite parts of the original but also writing new musical sections that gave it more my own flavour.”

Comprising 15 beautifully arranged disco tracks that effortlessly span almost two hours, “Metamorphosis” is an album by definition, but at its core, much more than that – it is a labour of love, meticulously composed, arranged and crafted through a very tangible and human creative process which is unmatched by many modern producers.

“I do it because I love the process of creating something. My aim is to come up with an end result I genuinely think I’d want to buy, play and listen to if it wasn’t me.”

Inspired by happy memories from the golden era of TV and the soundtracks of his favourite childhood shows, “Metamorphosis” was borne of a desire to put the strings center stage and recreate the same analogue sounds that brought instrumental albums by Love Unlimited, MFSB and Salsoul Orchestra to life.

“I thought making a whole album of this mainly instrumental, string heavy, tv theme like music would be a really enjoyable project and one that would play to my strengths as a producer. It was also slightly new territory musically and a bit of challenge.”

Taking disco back to a physical place, “Metamorphosis” was an organic writing process that saw Dave lay down his ideas digitally, before reshaping the MIDI strings into a proper arrangement and recording them live with a 20-piece orchestra at RAK Studios. By his own admission, it is an album of pure indulgence, but by relying on digital production methods, it can be easy to lose sight of the soul that makes music such a unifying entity. Backing up the immaculate strings with catchy vocals and enough groove to level a discotheque, it’s this soulful energy that Dave has captured and expertly delivered with “Metamorphosis”.

TRACK LISTING

1. Windy City Theme
2. The Philly Avengers
3. I Want To See You Dance
4. Music For Your Pleasure
5. The Mystery, The Moment
6. It’s Got To Be Love
7. Metamorphosis
8. Tradewinds
9. AC Express
10. Losing My Mind At The Disco
11. Six Billion Dollar Man
12. Manhattan Skyline
13. Seneca Village
14. The Talented Mr Adams
15. K-Jee

Irish indie rock band The Academic are very excited to announce details of their new album, “Sitting Pretty” . The album was produced by Nick Hodgson at Snap Studios in London. Sitting Pretty is an album about navigating life in your 20s; the uncertainties and the ever-shifting sense of self. “It’s about the entrance into true adulthood and how that can alienate you from yourself, making you feel like you’re playing a supporting role in your own life,” the band explain. “In one moment feeling 100% certain about everything, only to become overwhelmed with feelings of aimlessness and lack of direction in the next.” 

Perfect for removing dust, grease and fingerprints from your precious vinyl.

Absolute smasher of a two-sider 45 out of Waycross Georgia. The 45 was licenced from original band member Michael George & Tim Gillans with help from DJ MR Big Happy & Daniel Mathes. We flipped the sides for the re-issue, the A side now being the more uptempo. 'What About Love' is a melodic spacey floater (you know I'm a fan already) with a brilliant vocal and top sax break. On the flip, 'Dream of a lady' is an absolute killer downtempo floater, I can't stress enough not to sleep on this side, it's a textural dreamy wonder.

TRACK LISTING

1. What About Love
2. Dream Of A Lady

Counting their early years in the scuzz-rock band Spinout, whose sole self-titled release came out in 1991 on Delicious Vinyl, guitarist Mark Lightcap, bassist Richie Lee, and drummer Steve Hadley played together for a total of 15 years. They disbanded in July 2001, when Lee committed suicide in the garage next to the house where the trio practiced. Afterwards, Rolling Stone ran a short obituary saying Acetone’s albums were “well received” but “failed to make any waves.” It was the first and only time they were featured in the national music press.

Between 1993 and 2001 the trio released two LPs and an EP on Vernon Yard—a Virgin subsidiary—and two LPs on Vapor, the L.A.-based label founded by Neil Young and manager Elliott Roberts. In that span, they were selected to tour with Oasis, Mazzy Star, The Verve, and Spiritualized. Against a rising tide of post-Nirvana grunge and slipshod indie rock, Acetone tapped into a timeless Southern California groove by fusing elements of psychedelia, surf, and country.

They rehearsed endlessly in an empty bedroom in northeast Los Angeles, recording hours of music onto cassettes that were subsequently stuffed into shoeboxes and left in a shed behind the drummer’s house. Those tapes are being released for the first time in this anthology, which also includes highlights from Acetone’s official releases. Taken together, the songs form a companion soundtrack to Sam Sweet’s book, which maps the character of Los Angeles as a place through the lens of these three unique characters bonded by music.

“I think our music is all about moods and feeling but hopefully it will get as weird as it possibly can,” said Richie Lee in 1997. “We want things to get weird in the way that you could hear an Acetone song and know that no one else in the world could make that kind of music but us.”

* First time band anthology.
* Includes 9 unreleased tracks.
* Audio restored and remastered from original tapes.
* Liner notes by Sam Sweet.

“Acetone are one of my all time favorite bands. Their music is still as electrifying and beautiful now as it was back then.” – Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star)

“A lovely mix of what would it be like if Dick Dale and Neil Young played with Isaac Hayes and The Velvet Underground. A seminal American band.” – Richard Ashcroft (The Verve).

TRACK LISTING

1. Shaker
2. All The Time
3. Louise
4. Return From The Ice
5. How Sweet I Roamed
6. Germs
7. Shore Power
8. Always Late
9. Things Are Gonna Be Alright (demo)
10. Midnight Cowboy
11. Chew
12. Too Much Time
13. Vibrato
14. Pico
15. Stray (demo)
16. Smokey

Originally released in 1997 on Vapor Records - Acetone (Full Album) was the bands most identifiable record - New West Records is proud to present this reissue with an expanded audio format pressed across two LPs and packaged in a full color gatefold.

TRACK LISTING

Every Kiss
All The Time
Germs
Might As Well
Shobud
All You Know
Good Life
Dee
Waltz
Another Minute
So Slow
Chew

Originally released on vinyl in 1993 via Hut Recordings (UK), Acetone's debut album is now available in an expanded 2LP format and packaged in a gatefold - The is the first pressing in over 30 years.

TRACK LISTING

Come On 
Pinch 
Sundown 
Chills 
Endless Summer
Louise
Don't Cry
No Need Swim 
Barefoot On Sunday

Acetone - "I'm still waiting" is a definitive, career-spanning 11 LP box set featuring Acetone EP, Cindy, I Guess I Would, If You Only Knew (On Vinyl for the First Time Ever), Acetone LP, York Blvd., & Prime Cuts (featuring 7 previously unreleased recordings)

Each box set includes a 60 Page, Full Color Book featuring extensive liner notes by J Spaceman (Spiritualized) and Drew Daniel (Matmos/ The Soft Pink Truth), never-before-seen photos & more.

This limited edition box set features records pressed on clear vinyl. Each record has been mastered for vinyl at RCA Studio A with lacquers cut at the world famous Abbey Road Studios.

"Acetone made music with a deep affection for all that preceded it. Hui Ohana, Kris Kristofferson, The Wailers (both sets), John Prine, Gram Parsons, The Velvet Underground, Brian Wilson... full of frailty, love, pain, satisfaction, and disquiet." - J Spaceman (Spiritualized)

"Acetone is a great band, a timeless one, and a band whose records deserve to be out there for a new generation of fans to discover." - Colin Meloy (The Decemberists)

TRACK LISTING

I'm Gone (Acetone EP - 45rpm)
For A Few Dollars More (Acetone EP - 45rpm)
D. FB (Acetone EP - 45rpm)
Cindy (Acetone EP - 45rpm)

Come On (Cindy - 33.3rpm)
Pinch (Cindy - 33.3rpm)
Sundown (Cindy - 33.3rpm)
Chills (Cindy - 33.3rpm)
Endless Summer (Cindy - 33.3rpm)
Louise (Cindy - 33.3rpm)
Don’t Cry (Cindy - 33.3rpm)
No Need Swim (Cindy - 33.3rpm)
Barefoot On Sunday (Cindy - 33.3rpm)

Juanita (I Guess I Would - 33.3rpm)
The Late John Garfield Blues (I Guess I Would - 33.3rpm)
I Guess I Would (I Guess I Would - 33.3rpm)
Sometime You Just Can’t Win (I Guess I Would - 33.3rpm)
All For The Love Of A Girl (I Guess I Would - 33.3rpm)
How Sweet I Roamed (I Guess I Would - 33.3rpm)
Border Lord (I Guess I Would - 33.3rpm)

If You Only Knew (If You Only Knew - 33.3rpm)
I Don’t Really Care (If You Only Knew - 33.3rpm)
In The Light (If You Only Knew - 33.3rpm)
I’ve Enjoyed As Much Of This As I Can Stand (If You Only Knew - 33.3rpm)
The Final Say (If You Only Knew - 33.3rpm)
When You’re Gone (If You Only Knew - 33.3rpm)
Hound Dog (If You Only Knew - 33.3rpm)
99 (If You Only Knew - 33.3rpm)
What I See (If You Only Knew - 33.3rpm)
Nothing At All (If You Only Knew - 33.3rpm)
Esque (If You Only Knew - 33.3rpm)
Always Late (If You Only Knew - 33.3rpm)

Every Kiss (Acetone - 33.3rpm)
All The Time (Acetone - 33.3rpm)
Germs (Acetone - 33.3rpm)
Might As Well (Acetone - 33.3rpm)
Shobud (Acetone - 33.3rpm)
All You Know (Acetone - 33.3rpm)
Good Life (Acetone - 33.3rpm)
Dee (Acetone - 33.3rpm)
Waltz (Acetone - 33.3rpm)
Another Minute (Acetone - 33.3rpm)
So Slow (Acetone - 33.3rpm)
Chew (Acetone - 33.3rpm)

Things Are Gonna Be Alright (York Blvd. - 33.3rpm)
Wonderful World (York Blvd. - 33.3rpm)
19 (York Blvd. - 33.3rpm)
Vibrato (York Blvd. - 33.3rpm)
Like I Told You (York Blvd. - 33.3rpm)
It's A Lie (York Blvd. - 33.3rpm)
Bonds (York Blvd. - 33.3rpm)
One Drop (York Blvd. - 33.3rpm)
Vaccination (York Blvd. - 33.3rpm)
Stray (York Blvd. - 33.3rpm)

O.I.E. (If You Only Knew Outtake) (Prime Cuts - 33.3rpm)
Shaker (York Blvd. Outtake) (Prime Cuts - 33.3rpm)
Nobody Home (Demo) (Prime Cuts - 33.3rpm)
Vibrato (Demo) (Prime Cuts - 33.3rpm)
Nothing At All (Live On CJAM Ontario) (Prime Cuts - 33.3rpm)
No Need Swim (Demo) (Prime Cuts - 33.3rpm)
Cindy (Live At The Lizard Lounge, Allston, MA 5-30-98) (Prime Cuts - 33.3rpm)
York Blvd. (Rehearsal Tape) (Prime Cuts - 33.3rpm)
She Belongs To Me (Rehearsal Tape) (Prime Cuts - 33.3rpm)

Originally released in 1995 on Vernon Yard Recording - If You Only Knew
is now available for the first time on vinyl - New West Records is proud to
present this record pressed across two LPs and packaged in a full color
gatefold.

TRACK LISTING

If You Only Knew
I Don't Really Care
In The Light
I've Enjoyed As Much Of This As I Can Stand
The Final Say
When You're Gone
Hound Dog
99 / What I See
Nothing At All
Esque
Always Late

Originally released in 2000 on Vapor Records - York Blvd was Acetones last record that they recorded - New West Records is proud to present this reissue with an expanded audio format pressed across two LPs and packaged in a full color gatefold

TRACK LISTING

Things Are Gonna Be Alright
Wonderful World
19
Vibrato
Like I Told You
It's A Lie
Bonds
One Drop
Vaccination
Stray

Acid Dad is an American alternative-rock band composed of singer-guitarists, Vaughn Hunt and Sean Fahey, and drummer, Trevor Mustoe. Vaughn first started recording the band in his Bushwick, NY basement releasing singles “Brain Body” and their first EP “Let’s Plan a Robbery.” Appearing live in the New York City rock scene in 2016, Acid Dad quickly moved to a world stage with their self-titled debut album, released by Greenway Records in 2018. During 2020, the band spent their time building a new studio space in Queens, NY, while continuing to independently produce all their own music, art and even building their own guitars.

With a new space and vision, the band produced their second LP, “Take It From The Dead,” set to be co-released in June 2021 by Brooklyn’s Greenway Records and psych powerhouse LEVITATION’s label, The Reverberation Appreciation Society. “Take It From The Dead” features an array of different influences ranging from 90’s neopsych, modern post-punk and 70’s rock-n-roll. Acid Dad has crafted a record that sounds new, yet feels nostalgic. In contrast to their earlier work, they make use of slower tempos and expand their sound to include songs that are both more intricate and more hypnotic. To accompany the new record, the band spent the last year collaborating with video artist Webb Hunt, producing psych and glitch art videos that form a visual counterpart to the dreamy distortions of their sound.

TRACK LISTING

1. Searchin'
2. BBQ
3. RC Driver
4. She Only Eats Organic
5. Good Time
6. Smile You're On Camera
7. 2 Face
8. Djembe

Following their standout debut on Nu Groove (‘Remote Area’) enigmatic Berlin duo Acid Jerks return with another solid EP on the long running and essential label. Continuing to demonstrate the two selectors’ breadth of influences and musical knowledge, the ‘Counter Balance EP’ showcases Acid Jerks ability to genre-bend. The A-Side traverses from the classic, piano house of the title track, to the tougher, industrial sounds of ‘Distant Power Plant’. On the flip the chugging, rolling sounds of ‘A Thousand Kisses’ opens, before the organ stabs and buttery synths of ‘Organ Grinder’ close out the EP, making for another unmissable release on a label deserving of its cult status.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Urgent, deep and impenetrable jack tracks / acid musica from Acid Jerks on the rejuvenated Nu Groove. High grade club sounds for the more discerning jocks.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Counter Balance
A2. Distant Power Plant
AA1. A Thousand Kisses
AA2. Organ Grinder

After 3 successful releases on Nu Groove and Refuge Rec. comes the fourth strike of the Acid Jerks.

Eighties and nineties inspired house music, powerful and stylistically confident; stripped back to the essential elements of rhythm and melody, straight no chaser.

RIYL: Dream 2 Science, Trax, Jamie Principle, Adonis etc etc.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Acid Jerks - Utopia Vision (07.04 Min)
A2. Acid Jerks - Instant (05.54 Min)
B1. Acid Jerks - The Catalyst (06.18 Min)
B2. Acid Jerks - Narcotic Illusion (05.11 Min)