E Da Boss (The Pendletons, Myron & E) made his first Star Creature debut with his group Lucid Paradise. His return features Ishtar and new single "Pool 4 U" comes in two flavours - one produced by The Whole Truth and the other remixed by E. Live.

The A Side gets the E. Live, jazz-funk remix treatment while the B Side comes heavy with a foot stomping, boogie bomb, floor filling flavour throughout! Another essential modern classic from the Star Creature juggernaut. Limited copies! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: A brand new boogie bomb from the Star Creature camp that's of such a high pedigree I had to check it wasn't a cover version. Summery vibes across both takes, with a more galvanized production promoted by E.Live, while The Whole Truth offer up that original disco-boogie flavour.

TRACK LISTING

A. Fool 4 U (remixed By E. Live)
B. Fool 4 U (produced By The Whole Truth) 

With “New Yesterday”, E-Talking delivers an adrenaline-fueled and hypnotic three-tracker on his very own label, Nummer Music as we continue to feel the increased tempos and influence of trance onto modern dancefloors.

These three progressive journeys seamlessly blend the echoes of the past with modern synthesis, a skillful homage to the progressive trance scene of the late ‘90s / early ‘00s and the perfect follow-up to his “Cosmic Egg” EP released on Love On The Rocks in 2023, further defining E-Talking’s multi-layered sound. Tasty one!

TRACK LISTING

A1. No Future
B1. In Retrograde
B2. Regressive Jazz

E.VAX is the project of electronic-rock duo Ratatat’s Evan Mast. Heading it alone, without Mike Stroud influence or input, his self-titled solo project is a more intimate, personal and playful exploration of this singular producer’s expansive vision.

Half recorded at home, half at a friend’s art gallery in Montana, the imposed global lockdown lent itself to a more considered and exploratory approach. He’d play songs at the wrong speed to see how it changed what he heard, or deliberately leave a melody untouched for months and then improvise over it after playing it anew for the first time. Unable to get lost in real life, he got lost in music.

Mixing thick, blankety atmospheres with modern drum programming (referencing glitch, drill and boombap, alongside warped downbeat flavours) and utilizing shining, resplendent melodies and instruments, the album creates a nice contrast between light and dark textures, punctuated with futuristic rhythms and decorated with casual flurries of eclectronic genius. 

TRACK LISTING

A SIDE:
1. Rabindra
2.Karst
3. Always
4. What About You
5. Manila
6. Anything At All

B SIDE:
1. Kolkata
2. Pretty Good
3. New Words
4. Little Lung
5. Koko
6. Actual Air

“What came before you is why you’re here now,” declares the man born Eric Brandon Pulido. “So embrace both the past and the present.”

The current frontman of Texan legends Midlake embraces both past and present times for his glorious debut solo album, To Each His Own, under his new enigmatic alias E.B. The Younger. It’s a deeply personal record, rooted in Pulido’s love of warm, glowing rock, folk and country hues that came of age in the 1970s woven with contemporary recalibrations: guitars ripple, sigh and sizzle alongside gliding keyboards over crisp, choppy and becalmed rhythms. Pulido’s lyrics equally look back and forth, philosophising about his place in the world, the choices he’s made, and where they have taken him.

Or, as he describes To Each His Own, “an eleven-song journey through the life and times of a wayward Midlaker seeking to find purpose in an uncharted land. Will he find his way? Listen, and ye shall find.”

Pulido’s “wayward” phase began in 2014 with a break from Midlake, “to invest time in kids and musical projects less physically demanding”, he says. His first project was the transatlantic collective BNQT, a self-described ‘poor man’s Travelling Wilburys’ featuring Pulido, Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses), Fran Healy (Travis), Jason Lytle (Granddaddy) and Alex Kapranos (Franz Ferdinand) who recorded the 2017 album BNQT – Volume 1. But To Each His Own is all Pulido – or rather, E.B. The Younger.

“It’s an antiquated way of naming a younger member of a family,” he explains. “I’m expressing, simply, that something greater came before me. It’s countering the idea in today’s culture that everything revolves around ourselves, that we’re the most important thing in the world. I feel that humility is a lost virtue – you only have to look at America’s current leader - which I want this record to represent. Honesty, empathy, love.”

In this case, honesty begins at home. Solo debutantes typically distance themselves from their musical past, but Pulido freely acknowledges Midlake’s presence on To Each His Own, from the three Midlakers in his backing band to an album title that stems from his memories of band discussions.

Says Pulido: “It’s very common in bands to have artistic differences, and we were no exception. Saying ‘To each his own’ was almost a way to collectively acquiesce and move forward when differences would arise. It’s OK that we feel differently, because both opinions are valid. The phrase is also about me doing something on my own, a statement that it’s OK to define who you are outside of what has defined you before.”

With Pulido on lead vocals and acoustic guitar, he drafted in Midlakers (and BNQT contributors) Joey McClellan (electric guitar), McKenzie Smith (drums) and Jesse Chandler (flute), who dovetail with Scott Lee (bass), Daniel Creamer (keyboards) and Beau Bedford (keyboards) from local country-funksters The Texas Gentlemen to form an empathic ‘alt.Wrecking Crew’ of session

players. Bedford is also the album’s principal producer, while studio engineer and Centromatic drummer Matt Pence acted as the overarching producer, alongside Pulido, as well as adding percussion and occasional drums.

As Pulido explains, “Midlake self-produced and recorded everything, but as with BNQT, I wanted to embrace collaboration. I’d present songs with just voice and acoustic guitar and ask the musicians where they heard things going, and so we built the songs up organically.”

Within that organic build, Pulido still had specific ideas in mind. He singles out the late, great Harry Nilsson as a key influence. “Midlake songs were often cerebral and minor-key and I wanted some of mine to be more playful and buoyant and major key, which Harry did so well, while still making deep, thoughtful music.”

Pulido also hears traces of The Eagles, Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell, Wings and CS&N in To Each His Own, plus an “eighties vibe” to the record’s freewheeling lead single ‘Used To Be’, inspired by The Last Waltz, the film documentary about Pulido’s all-time favourites, The Band. As he recalls, “The guys are sitting backstage playing ‘Old Time Religion’, and Robbie Robertson says, ‘It’s not like it used to be!’, which has always stuck with me. But it’s OK by me that it’s not like it used to be. Embrace where you’re at, and look forward. Be both the old and the young.”

The Old and The Young is a familiar concept to Midlake fans, as a songtitle from the band’s last album Antiphon. In one sense, ‘The Young’ are also represented here by Conrad Lee Pulido, Eric’s three-year-old son, whose uninhibited dancing to calypso rhythms (from Harry Belafonte and Nilsson tracks) inspires the carefree Tropicália of ‘CLP’. A similarly summery vibe energises ‘On An Island’, inspired by an artist retreat (on the island of Nantucket) where Pulido, “focused on, and finished, several of the songs for the album.” But again Pulido finds a double meaning: “To be an island means you don’t live or march to the beat of anyone else’s drum.”

Self-determination also defines the sumptuous, soft-rocking “When The Time Comes” where Pulido gently mocks himself as the so-called ‘artist’ who chose to “follow the dream” but without any guarantee of job security or a pension. Moreover, the exquisite ‘Hope Arrives’ recognises that making art typically involves self-doubt, as Midlake experienced. As Pulido recalls, “I felt that fear controlled the obstacles that existed for the band. But when hope arrives, fear will disappear, and peace will come.”

Midlake also figure in the acoustic, sparse ‘Monterey’, named after the Californian idyll where the band played their last show to date, after which Pulido suggested a break would benefit all: to step off the merry-go-round for a while after riding it together for 15 years. “I said, we’ll pick things back up if and when it makes sense to everyone, trust me,” he recalls. “And I was at peace with our decision.”

The closing title track emanates a palpable sense of peace while crystalising Pulido’s past-present/old-young mindset: “I’ve been about all alone / I’ve never felt so good before… And what we did before / No I do not ignore”. With a new BNQT album in the works and, if all goes to plan, a Midlake album to follow, Pulido is already looking forward. But his present is E.B The Younger, and his effortlessly melodic, gorgeous songs invested with honesty, empathy and love. Listen, and ye shall find.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Half way between poppy Americana and folky Indie, Pulido is more than capable of penning an effective tune, with richly textured acoustic instrumental backdrops forming the perfect base layer for his unmistakeable vocal talents. Warm, rich and beautifully immersive.

TRACK LISTING

1. Used To Be
2. When The Time Comes
3. CLP
4. Down And Out
5. Don't Forget Me
6. Out Of The Woods
7. Monterey
8. Hope Arrives
9. On An Island
10. A Matter Of Time
11. To Each His Own

New solo album 'Just Like Fire' by E. VAX of Ratatat. Includes 'BEO', 'When I’m Gone' & 'Say'. 

TRACK LISTING

1. BEO
2. When I'm Gone
3. Nobody Else
4. Scower
5. Say
6. Wipe Your Feet At The Door
7. Caroline
8. 25 Years
9. The Love That I Have For You and How You Make Me Feel
10. Too Long
11. Can’t Live Without It
12. Labba
13. Please Don't
14. Just Like Fire

If one was to interpret the whole output of EABS in general, an inquisitive listener would notice that each subsequent album stems from the previous one. The overtones are similar and they can be treated as variations on the same theme. The only thing that changes is the background of the story. It is all about life and death, the beginning and the end of the world, and the role of human beings entangled in all this existentially. Following the futurism lessons from Sun Ra, the band travels to the year 2061, continuing their mission in space in the company of a living legend, Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski.

"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS – EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE." – this was the ominous message from the mythical Monolith of Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The quote became a metaphor for the situation the EABS crew found themselves in when the pandemic hit. It was not only Europe that became inaccessible, the whole world shut down. A reflection emerged that only empathy and cooperation could save humanity. We will not be able to face the greater threat that may come from the outside together by fighting wars among ourselves on Earth. A similar analogy can be seen in Arthur C. Clarke's book series, which was made even more famous by Stanley Kubrick with his iconic screen adaptation, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Released in 1986, the third part of the series has served as an inspiration for the fourth EABS album titled 2061, a soundtrack to the film that hasn't been made yet.

Collaborative work has always been the domain of EABS, which is even more audible with their new album as most of the instrumentalists brought their own compositions to the recording session. As a result, the album oscillates in orbits of many genres such as jazz, electronica and hip hop, in such mutations as Miami bass, trap and drill. It might come as a surprise that the role of the spiritual guide and mentor here is played by Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski who has taken part in all the quests in the history of Polish jazz, just like Dr Heywood Floyd traversing the galaxy aboard the Universe spacecraft.

The year 1986 is symbolic for EABS. Poland was then visited by Sun Ra with his Arkestra carrying a prophecy: "We are living in End Time, all right, but in the last daze. It’s after the end of the world. Don’t you know that yet?" – these words of the Saturnian alien were hovering over the group's previous project. That year Halley's Comet flew close to Earth, inspiring Arthur C. Clarke to write the third installment of A Space Odyssey. The next time we will be able to see this celestial body is not until the eponymous year 2061. In his book, the author envisioned the current decade as full of crises, scandals and disasters. Having been in space for years, Dr Heywood Floyd would observe cities in flames, a nuclear war outbreak, and all the other horrific events from his monitor window. With the nightmare unfolding on Earth, the cultural and linguistic differences that had arisen over the millennia began to disappear, and the appearance of a new sun named Lucifer only accelerated the process. The superpowers, destroyed by warfare against each other, achieved reconciliation and reunification, making the outbreak of further wars of this kind impossible. At last, the existing peace machinery began to choose life over death. The disintegration of the enormous parasitic military business resulted in the acceleration of world economic development. The moral equivalent of war has led to the undoing of centuries of damage and neglect caused by it. This latest EABS album stands for the time when Halley's Comet will again fly by very close to Earth. We should hope that in the light of recent events, the utopian vision of the author of A Space Odyssey will come true and peace will come to our planet. Fortunately, there will be no need to wait another 40 years for the album.

TRACK LISTING

1. Global Warning
2. The Mystery Of Monolith
3. Ain’t No Mercy
4. Dead Silence
5. Conscious Breathing
6. Human Hero
7. Lucifer (The New Sun)
8. The Odyssey Of Dr Heywood Floyd
9. A Farewell To Mother Earth (ft. Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski)

2023 was a breakthrough year for EABS in many ways. It was all thanks to the well received, fully self-produced album entitled In Search of a Better Tomorrow, recorded in collaboration with the Pakistani band Jaubi. EABS' forthcoming sixth album is a return to their roots – literally and figuratively. It is an in-depth study on rhythm, which materialised in the form of the album titled Reflections of Purple Sun.

The back to the roots part not only manifests itself in the lack of guest instrumentalists, but also in a renewed focus on the history of Polish jazz. The band's debut album Repetitions... was dedicated to Krzysztof Komeda. This time, the band picked up the entire Purple Sun album, which Tomasz Stańko recorded half a century ago. From the POV of Purple Sun fans, a hard-to-find and somewhat forgotten album, it may seem like a doomed undertaking. However, in order to pay tribute to one of the most iconic figures of Polish jazz, it was worth embarking on this mission and attempting to engage in a non-verbal conversation with the Slavic spirit that Master Tomasz Stańko undoubtedly was.

You can learn more about Reflections of Purple Sun through the comprehensive booklet accompanying the record. The cover art was created by the label's regular collaborator, Animisiewasz, whose design pays tribute to Pia Burri's original Purple Sun concept. Release date is 10 May 2024.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Boratka
A2. Flute's Ballad
A3. My Night, My Day

B1. Flair
B2. Introduction (for Janusz Stefański)
B3. Purple Sun

Following on from the “Eagles - The Studio Albums 1972 – 1979” vinyl box set released last October, the six albums are now being released individually. Each LP is pressed on 180 gram vinyl and replicates the original album packaging, which means that “Eagles” is reissued as the band originally intended, with no glue flaps, so the cover folds out into a poster.

Following on from the “Eagles - The Studio Albums 1972 – 1979” vinyl box set released last October, the six albums are now being released individually. Each LP is pressed on 180 gram vinyl and replicates the original album packaging (which means that “Eagles” is reissued as the band originally intended. “Hotel California” includes a replica of the poster from the original issue with band photos by Norman Seeff in full colour.

Following on from the “Eagles - The Studio Albums 1972 – 1979” vinyl box set released last October, the six albums are now being released individually. Each LP is pressed on 180 gram vinyl and replicates the original album packaging (which means that “Eagles” is reissued as the band originally intended.

Eagulls have become synonymous with a discontented, disillusioned kind of anger, moulded into bullets of post punk that’s rife with urgency and aggression.

Following the success of the first single ‘Nerve Endings’, whose obscure video awarded them a nomination at the NME Awards for Best Video, the excellent sophomore double A side single ‘Tough Luck’ / ‘Opaque’ and more recently the release of ‘Possessed’, which they recently performed on David Letterman, the Leeds punk quintet prepare to release their debut album.

“The punk soundtrack for a generation who know there’s still no future” - NME

“Eagulls are keeping the post-punk dream alive” - Mojo

“A dark, post-punk racket with echoes of The Stranglers” - The Times

Partisan Records present ‘Ullages’, the second album from Leeds-based band Eagulls.

‘Ullages’ is an altogether different record from the heady fuzz of Eagulls’ 2014 self-titled debut: the drawn out textured melodies recall the shimmering opulence of The Cocteau Twins and the melancholic majesty of The Cure.

Highlights of the last campaign included taking both ‘Later… with Jools Holland’ and ‘The Late Show With David Letterman’ in the US by storm, sharing stages with the likes of Arcade Fire and Pharrell, scooping a major NME Award and playing at some of the world’s most renowned festivals including Coachella, Latitude, Field Day and Reading / Leeds.

The artwork is a collaboration with British cult photographer Peter Mitchell.

“A title this sour never sounded so sweet” - SPIN (on ‘Lemontrees’)

“Their new work is brave, lyrically challenging and accomplished” - Loud & Quiet

“There’s always been more to Eagulls than just fire and brimstone. With ‘Ullages’ those widescreen ambitions finally look set to be fully realised.” - DIY

“A sparkling sonic environment situated somewhere between The Smiths, Shins and Stone Roses. It’s a lovely development.” - Stereogum

TRACK LISTING

1. Heads Or Tails
2. Euphoria
3. My Life In Rewind
4. Harpstrings
5. Velvet
6. Psalms
7. Blume
8. Skipping
9. Lemontrees
10. Aisles
11. White Lie Lullabies

A masterful mix of timeless American soul with vintage 1970s African samples in a most rewarding way – musical traveler Eamon teams with production duo Likeminds for No Matter The Season, his second album for Now-Again. “I’ve been singing since I was a tike, promoters used to call me ‘the boy wonder’, but with this record it felt new, almost like I was singing every note as if my life depended on it,” says Eamon from his home in Southern California, a far cry from his native Staten Island, New York City. But you wouldn’t know his birthplace from the way he sings, especially on No Matter The Season, where Eamon put a new spin on vintage samples from the Now-Again catalog, crafting beats from various African rhythms such as Amanaz’s Zamrock, the Hygrades Nigerian funk, and Ayalew Mesfin’s Ethiopian tezetas. Shortly after the release of his last Now-Again project, Captive Thoughts, he began working with the production duo on two original compositions that appear on No Matter The Season. But as time went on, he came upon the idea of completing the album by sending the duo samples from the Now-Again catalog to work with. Which were expanded upon with a multitude of live instruments. “There was something special about combing through the African records at Now-Again,” Eamon reflects. “I had never heard the variety of funk and soul that existed in places like Lagos and Addis Ababa, it was like a history lesson in Rhythm & Blues.

I was hearing the godfathers of the movement here in the US. I wanted to pay my respect to that lineage. Since singing in my father’s doo-wop group as a kid, I’ve always used music from the past to create and express something new in the present. But to be able to do that across continents and get back to the roots…that was really impactful for me.” Likeminds, helmed by Chris Soper and Jesse Singer, two East Coast transplants to LA who are as comfortable chopping up samples on an MPC as they are playing classic instruments, using vintage microphones, or recording to tape, offer up what could be described as a West Coast spin on the revivalist soul sound championed by Daptone Records. “For sure, the album is soaked in an old school feel, but to still tap into the depths of my soul today is always the end goal,” Eamon states. All but two tracks are based on Now-Again samples, using the classic rhythms as accompaniment to showcase Eamon’s emotional singing style that is still as honest and raw as when he was a 16, singing about heartbreak.

The end result, No Matter the Season, is a celebration of the musical relationship between Africa and America and the thrilling soul music that relationship has spawned since the 60s and 70s. “My hope is people know that I’m not leaving anything on the table in this chapter of my career,” Eamon reflects. “Only thing I can do is pour my heart out on every single line. Even though I’m writing and screaming to the heavens about my joy, my pain, my love…these are songs for everyone, everywhere, anytime. You’re gonna walk away feeling something. This is why I titled the album No Matter The Season.” Tracks : Believe In, Bury The Bones, Good News, Won't Stop Now, Ready For War, All I Need, Price To Pay, Come On Through, Never Sleep, Long Road Ahead

Although not released until 1996, Beyond The Pale was originally recorded in Northampton, back in 1992 at Angus Wallace’s Far Heath Studios. It was the first album from Experimental Audio Research (aka E.A.R) an experimental music collective formed around Sonic Boom (Pete Kember), founding member of Spacemen 3 (along with Jason Pierce), who, on this project works closely with Eddie Prevost (AMM), Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) and Kevin Martin (God). 

Earl Brutus achieved notoriety and cult status with the release of their debut album Your Majesty… We Are Here. Their attention grabbing interviews and gigs attracted wider interest and they sign to Island Records via Fruition. They released a second long player, Tonight You Are The Special One, and several singles including The SAS And The Glam That Goes With It and Come Taste My Mind (“masterful examples of raging techno-pop” - Select ) and Larky.

The band continued to play chaotic shows and the last ever gig is at Hammersmith Working Men’s Club on 7th April 2004 and the last track from that gig, Teenage Taliban, is included on the 2CD edition along with a demo recorded in William Reid’s (Jesus And Mary Chain) front room. Other bonus tracks include all the single b-sides sequenced by the band.

The art direction on this re-issue has been done by Scott King who realised the concepts for the original release and singles. The album sleeve is included in Q magazine’s 100 Best Album Sleeves Of All Time in 2001.

TRACK LISTING

DISC: 1
1: The Sas And The Glam That Goes With It
2: Universal Plan
3: Midland Red
4: God, Let Me Be Kind
5: Come Taste My Mind
6: Second Class War
7: Your Majesty We Are Here
8: Don't Die Jim
9: 99 P
10: East
11: Edelweiss
12: Male Wife

DISC: 2 (2cd Edition Only)
1: Nicotine Stain (Live)
2: Superstar
3: Larky
4: Tv Tower
5: William, Taste My Mind (William Reid Remix)
6: Gypsy Camp Battle
7: The Scottish
8: Teenage Opera
9: Come Taste My Mind (Live At The Astoria 1998)
10: Nice Man In A Bubble
11: England Sandwich
12: Teenage Taliban (Demo / Live From Hammersmith Working Men's Club, 7 Th April 2004

Guitarist Earl Slick never had a Plan B. Still doesn't. In fact, he doesn't believe in backup plans. "If you have a backup plan," said the guitarist who for decades worked alongside rock royalty including David Bowie and John Lennon among others, "then eventually you become the backup plan."

Which explains -- and fuels -- Slick's new album, "Fistful of Devils." Harnessing his musical roots as a child of the 60s when blues-based rock pushed its way to the front of the line and incorporating his decades as one of the most sought-after touring musicians in the business, Fistful is Slick as he's been from the start: an artist who fully mines the depths of the blues and guitar by drawing on a toolkit assembled from blues to glam to punk to rockabilly.

The 11-track album is no retread retrospective of Slick's run of 40 years as a professional guitarist; it's an audible demonstration of a virtuoso still pushing deep into rock and roll's blues roots. The instrumental album, Slick says, is acrobatics without a net.

Some of the tracks on Fistful were ideas that had been rattling around in his hear for decades. Some were wholly new. The sinister "Black," for example, seemed to flow up from the ground when they entered studio, he said. It was written, "in maybe 10 minutes," he said. "It's dark."

Contrast that with the soaring, diving number "Vanishing Point." That was born in a lick he'd saved nearly 30 years ago and only recently rediscovered in a sound file. He didn't know what do with it when he wrote it, so he tucked it away. But now, "all of these years later I came at it with a different head than I had then."

And this is what people are going hear in "Fist Full Of Devils" he said: That lifelong journey from Brooklyn didn't leave him empty handed; he brought back the prizes, the tricks, the scars, the influences and the tools from a road that never presented a detour. Or an end.

He's a man, after all, who knows a thing or two about persevering, about longshots and locked-in trajectories. Perseverance also had no backup plan when it was launched. It had to get there.

"I am," Slick said. "Exactly where I should be."

TRACK LISTING

Side A: 1.Bad Brew 2.Black 3.Far Away

Side B: 1.J.W.L 2.Vanishing Point 3.Lost*

Side C: 1.Fist Full Of Devils 2.One Arm Straight Jacket 3.Emerald

Side D: 1.The Lantern 2.Dr. Winston O'Boogie

THIS IS A BLACK FRIDAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 29TH 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 8AM ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 30TH).

Featuring the full deluxe tracklist across each side of the LP. Originally a surprise release in November 2019 between his third and fourth albums, it features El Toro Combo Meal featuring Mavi, MTOMB featuring Live, East, and more.

TRACK LISTING

74
EAST
MTOMB (feat. Liv.e)
OD
EL TORO COMBO MEAL (feat. Mavi)
TISK TISK / COOKIES
4N (feat. Mach-Hommy)
GHOST (feat. Navy Blue)
WHOLE WORLD (feat. Maxo)

'POMPEII // UTILITY' unites two kindred spirit rappers from opposite coasts within SURF GANG’s world-building genius. Structured as a true double album — MIKE on one side, Earl on the other — 'POMPEII // UTILITY' unfolds through a rotating cast of side quests and characters from within its shared creative ecosystem. Jadasea, Anysia Kym, Niontay, Na-Kel Smith, and Lerado Khalil all make appearances, passing through the album’s vast terrain, while behind the scenes, SURF GANG producers Harrison, EvilGiane, Elipropperr, and Flea Diamonds (with input from additional producers) wield the gritty, raspy, animated beats that build its container. SURF GANG's previous production credits include Baby Keem, Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky & Playboi Carti.

Arriving on the heels of 2025 albums from both rappers — MIKE’s 'Showbiz!' and Earl’s 'Live, Laugh, Love' — 'POMPEII // UTILITY' plays like a victory lap that traces their friendship back over more than a decade. Where two rappers going head-to-head might otherwise incite rivalry or comparison, 'POMPEII // UTILITY' offers something rooted and communal — a shared understanding of care, joy, grief, process, and responsibility to something larger than yourself. A joint release via all three artists’ respective labels: 10k, Tan Cressida and Surf Gang Records.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A duo of killer split from two of the biggest rap projects in the USA, joined together by production collective Surf Gang. While both sides are deep and industrial by design, 'Utility' is a little darker and more muddy while 'Pompeii' has a little more groove and rhythmic juxtaposition, in all both work together perfectly.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Fall
2. MY WORST (rebuke)
3. Da Bid
4. NOT 4TW
5. THE POPE
6. AFRO
7. Minty
8. F.E.A.R.
9 Tampering
10. Shutter Island
11. Back LA
12. Back Home
13. Kirkland
14. #FREE #MIKE
15. Man of the Month
16. this2shallpass
17. :( again :)
18. Home on the Range
19. React
20. Hot Water (Cahuilla)
21. rectangle lens
22. Leadbelly
23. quikk
24. Ew!
25. Earth
26. Chali 2na
27. Sisyphus
28. Locusts
29. Tour de France
30. Chicago
31. Book of Eli
32. AOK
33. Don't Worry!

Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist’s joint album VOIR DIRE is available now across all digital streaming platforms with an updated tracklist via Tan Cressida / ALC / Warner Records. Accompanying the album’s digital streaming platform encompassing debut, the duo tallies their third visual of the project with the release of a music video featuring album track "Vin Skully."

Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist surprised both the music and media landscapes at large with the initial August release VOIR DIRE, which arrived with the exciting lead single, "Sentry" ft. MIKE. As the anticipation for the album in its entirety continued to grow, the second DSP-accessible track, "The Caliphate" materialized alongside the release of its visual, featuring Vince Staples. Today marks the official release of the entire album in its original form and sequence — with two previously unreleased tracks including "Heatcheck," and "Mancala," the latter of which features Vince Staples for his second appearance on the album.

Supporting the album’s release, the duo is trekking an 11-stop tour spanning the month of November featuring Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist performing together with support slots from MIKE & Black Noi$e.

The Alchemist initially hinted that they put out a secret album on YouTube under a fake name but four years went by without any fans discovering it. Fast forward to this summer, a new series of clues led fans on a scavenger hunt that unearthed VOIR DIRE, the long-rumored and highly-anticipated album from Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I'm not sure how much I need to say here to be honest. Most of you will know Earl Sweatshirt, and his low-slung hip-hop drawl atop The Alchemist's famously brilliant beats is everything you could hope for. A perfect fusion of production and lyrics from two legendary figures in the scene. don't wait on this one.

TRACK LISTING

1. 100 High Street
2. Vin Skully
3. Sentry Ft. Mike
4. Heat Check
5. 5. Mancala Ft. Vince Staples
6. 27 Braids
7. Mac Deuce
8. Sirius Blac
9. Dead Zone
10. The Caliphate Ft. Vince Staples
11. Free The Ruler

'Doris' is the debut studio album by Odd Future member Earl Sweatshirt. Doris features guest appearances from Odd Future members Domo Genesis, Frank Ocean, Casey Veggies, Tyler, the Creator, along with Vince Staples, RZA and Mac Miller. Production was primarily handled by Sweatshirt under the pseudonym randomblackdude and production duo Christian Rich. Additional production was provided by Matt Martians, The Neptunes, RZA, Samiyam, BadBadNotGood, Frank Ocean, and Tyler, The Creator.

Upon its release, 'Doris' was met with universal critical acclaim from music critics, including perfect scores by The Guardian and Los Angeles Times, which praised Sweatshirt's rhyme schemes and lyrics along with the gritty underground production.

TRACK LISTING

1. Pre 2:53
2. Burgundy 2:07
3. 20 Wave Caps 2:12
4. Sunday 3:26
5. Hive 4:37
6. Chum 4:04
7. Sasquatch 2:48
8. Centurion 3:04
9. 523 1:32
10. Uncle Al 0:53
11. Guild 3:54
12. Molasses 2:16
13. Whoa 3:16
14. Hoarse 3:52
15. Knight 3:14

Odd Future rap collective member Earl Sweatshirt returns with his sophomore long player. From the album title onwards 'I Don’t Like S**t, I Don't Go Outside' in another introspective set of rhymes from Sweatshirt (Thebe Neruda Kgositsile to his mum) which eschew the wide scope of Kendrick or bombast of Kanye in favour of something smaller, more intimate. His mainly self-produced beats are pitched down and sludgy, lifted from the gloom by light-fingered jazzy keyboards here and there, while his vocal flow tongue-twists around the rhythms like a verbal dexterity veteran. At just 30 minutes in length the album doesn't have room for the usual look-who-I-know roll call of guest MCs, with just a handful of cameos from A$AP Mob’s Dash, Ratking’s Wiki, Cutthroat Boyz member Vince Staples and skateboarder Na’kel, leaving Sweatshirt to provide the lion's share of raps - a good thing in our book. A record that will leave you wanting more.

TRACK LISTING

01. Huey
02. Mantra
03. Faucet
04. Grief
05. Off Top
06. Grown Ups Feat. Dash
07. AM // Radio Feat. Wiki
08. Inside
09. Dna Feat. Na’kel
10. Wool Feat. Vince Staples

Earl Sweatshirt, acclaimed rapper, producer and one of hip-hop’s most uncompromising voices, has been a defining creative force for over a decade. His lyricism and singular vision have earned him critical acclaim, a devoted global following and a Grammy nomination for his contribution to Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange. Known for pushing boundaries and reshaping underground rap, Earl continues to evolve with each release.

He now returns with Live Laugh Love, his most expansive and conceptually ambitious project to date. Rooted in themes of wellness, growth and the philosophy behind its title, the album reflects Earl’s current way of life, choosing joy while staying grounded in truth. Across 11 tracks, he folds in irony, nostalgia and sharp observation, creating a body of work that embraces life’s contradictions: joy alongside darkness, levity alongside gravity.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ethan says: An optimistic outing from Earl Sweatshirt this time! Full of his trademark experimental jazz sampling, abstract beats, and loose unorthodox flows, while also being concise and straight to the point. Class!

TRACK LISTING

1. Gsw Vs Sac
2. FORGE
3. INFATUATION
4. Gamma (need The <3)
5. WELL DONE!
6. Live
7. Static
8. CRISCO
9. TOURMALINE
10. Heavy Metal Aka Ejecto Seato!
Exhaust

"Some Rap Songs" is the follow-up to 2015’s critically acclaimed "I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside". In the New Year of 2018, Earl promised the release of new music on Twitter, which would bring an end to his close to 4 year absence from the rap game.

After performing multiple unreleased tracks during live shows, and following a personally rough year for the rapper, including the death of his father, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Earl indicated on social media that new music was imminent as we neared the closure of 2018.

During the first week of November, Earl’s social media pages released three daily videos, each featuring complex visuals and snippets of forthcoming audio, strongly believed to be linked to the forthcoming album, with the final video confirming an upcoming single titled “Nowhere2go.”

The album was finally announced on Earl’s Instagram account, after having released the second single for the album, “The Mint.” Fans will not be disappointed: his distinctive, effortless drawl winding through suffocated, sweltering beats; taking cues from the stop-start, cut-n-paste ethic of Madlib and with a similar, trunk-boppin' weight in the low end. Infact, it's this attention to the low end that I guess sets it apart from the two albums which precede it, which tended to be lo-fi in nature and somewhat tailored towards headphone listening. This new album is gonna BANG in the jeep or the club, while his lyrical content is as on point and as poignant as ever; immediately introspective, cryptic and littered with observation. In short, there's no one quite like Earl, and "Some Rap Songs" sees the troubled rapper working through his trials and tribulations with an honest, analytical and at times heartfelt methodology. A masterpiece!

TRACK LISTING

1. Shattered Dreams 
2. Red Water 
3. Cold Summers 
4. Nowhere2go 
5. December 24 
6. Ontheway! (Ft. Standing On The Corner) 
7. The Mint (Ft. Navy Blue) 
8. The Bends 
9. Loosie 
10. Azucar 
11. Eclipse 
12. Veins 
13. Playing Possum (Ft. Cheryl Harris & Keorapetse Kgositsile) 
14. Peanut 
15. Riot! 

"What Are You Waitin' For?" is a provocative and instantly engaging electro-pop offering, with heavy bass lines, scratchy guitars and a melody so catchy you'll be stuck with it for weeks.

Husband and wife team who have both enjoyed previous success in their own right as well as together. Stacey's endearingly evocative style was first heard in 1990 in duet with her older brother, country renegade Steve Earle. "Never Gonna Let You Go" is their second album, built around the couple's obvious chemistry together.

Names Records in conjunction with Two Piers Editions are delighted to announce the long awaited 21st Anniversary reissue of the debut album from The Earlies. 'These Were the Earlies' was released on Names Records / 679 Recordings in July of 2004 and quickly became one of that summer’s essential albums.

Here's what we said about it on it's original release, and it still stands up today as an absolute Piccadilly Records all time favourite:

This is Music! No room for their romantic, cross-continental story (oh, ok: Texan / Manc. 4-piece combine on either side of the Atlantic and release a handful of 7" and 10" EP's which stun and awe those of us with record players) because this isn't 'lifestyle' or 'personality' fixated rock, this is pure music-loving artistry. If you like Mercury Rev or Spiritualized for scope, ambition and magic, then prepare yourselves to be blown away. The Earlies' sound is more a blend of folk and electronica than those two, but it shares a similar woozy, other-worldly, baroque, chamber-pop landscape. It's an enchanted place. They also pull in proggy, Krautrock directions (see Neu! for grooves and Stereolab for a love of melody) with long instrumental passages, cinematic and roving, stretching between the gorgeous lullabies which make up most of the songs on this album. All the singles are here, and they most certainly are Pop, but how many bands do you know that are capable of furnishing their songs with mellotron, melodica, flutes, oboes, sax, cellos, accordians, Hammond and mini-choirs? And no other band this year could even come close to the melancholic majesty of "One of Us Is Dead" or the insistent, pulsating groove and splendour of "Morning Wonder". The whole record really flows together; this is a proper album to be listened to all the way through, and with beautiful packaging and evocative lyrics (included) embellishing the lush widescreen soundscapes, you'll be going on a journey. You'll absolutely love it!

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: This is still one of my favourite records. It was my album of the year in 2004 and only narrowly missed out on the coveted top spot in the shop, with the mighty Sufjan Stevens' "Seven Swans' just edging it.
It's a glorious mix of folk, pop, gospel and electronica, that still sounds fresh and relevant today.

TRACK LISTING

1. In The Beginning...
2. One Of Us Is Dead
3. Wayward Song
4. Slow Man's Dream
5. 25 Easy Pieces
6. Morning Wonder
7. The Devil's Country
8. Song For #3
9. Lows
10. Bring It Back Again
11. Dead Birds

The Earlies follow their critically adored 2004 debut "These Were The Earlies", with the release of their second album, "The Enemy Chorus". Produced by The Earlies and Tom Knott and recorded in Texas, Manchester and Burnley, "The Enemy Chorus" builds on the approach of "These Were The Earlies" with a rich and expansive sound, textured with an original progressive edge. Standout tracks such as "Burn The Liars", "Foundation And Earth", "Enemy Chorus" and "When The Wind Blows" evoke elements of The Flaming Lips, Spiritualized, Brian Wilson and Sigur Ros, yet the Texan/Mancunian quartet remain resolutely individual. The sound here is deep, lush and with a tasty, more electronic bottom-end (Warp Records?) this feels like a more modern record than their debut. The layers and attention to detail are staggering; it's shaping up to be a proper headphone masterpiece, an album to go on a journey with and another mysterious chapter for one of our most trusted bands. They're magicians!

A 15 track compilation of Demo’s and B-sides and other unreleased tracks from 2001-2006. Only 100 copies were produced of this cassette only release to tie in with the rerelease of These were The Earlies. 

Presented by Acid Jazz on Roots Records, a first-time reissue of classic dancehall recorded for Jah Thomas ‘Midnight Rock’ label, previously only issued as a promotional ‘white label’.

Midnight Rock was home to many of the great voices of dancehall, with producer Jah Thomas at the helm, adding vocals to the high-quality rhythms recorded at Channel One studios with the legendary, de facto resident band Roots Radics. Thomas made some of the earliest recordings for both Early B and future super star Super Cat, and as Super Cat became the hottest name on the scene, Thomas lined up a showcase album featuring a side from each artist. A small number of white labels were pressed up, but the release never got further.

Side A gathered up four of Early B’s most well loved cuts including 'Visit Of King Selasie', 'Sunday Dish', 'Pedestrian' and 'Cane Man A Fe Bath'. It also included a track called 'Set Up Yourself Right', which was never released elsewhere, but Thomas himself remembers playing well from the various sound systems he gave test cuts to.

Side B featured the 5 cuts that Thomas had made with Super Cat, showing him fully formed even at this formative stage in his career. 'Dance Inna New York' has since had a second life since being sampled by Nas on 'Nas The Don', but every track from 'Way Dem A Fight Fa' through 'Ever Ready', to
'Walk A Ton' and on to 'Me Glad She Gone' are a great combination between producer and vocalist.

Presented on a striking and effective sleeve layout, evoking the records status as a lost white-label classic, with stamped ‘Midnight Rock’ logos across the sleeve and labels. 

Finally, the chance to own this elusive piece of reggae/dancehall history.

TRACK LISTING

1. Visit Of King Selassie
2. Sunday Dish
3. Pedestrian
4. Set Yourself Right
5. Can A Fe Bath
6. Way Dem A Fight Fa
7. Ever Ready
8. Walk A Ton
9. Dance Inna New York
10. Me Glad She Gone

One of the key 45s in the output of Prince Jazzbo's Ujama label during the digital era of the late 80s - originally reissued via NYC's Deadly Dragon some 15 or so years back - gets a much needed new cut & press via Death Is Not The End's 333 series.

The late Earlando Neil aka Early B first started performing on soundsystems in the late 1970s, often appearing with his young apprentice Wild Apache, later known as Super Cat. It was alongside Cat that he is credited as a key driver behind the popularisation of the King Majesty and Killamanjaro stables in the early 1980s, following which he had a string of hit records for the likes of Harry J's Sunset imprint, Ossie Thomas' Black Solidarity and Jah Thomas' Midnight Rock label amongst many others.

Following a run of stellar LPs in the mid 1980s Early B's output began to wane as the sound of digital production began to take precedence, but not without firing off one the most killer shots ever recorded on a computerized rhythm for Jazzbo's Ujama in 1987. Reportedly the first time around for the hallowed Replay version, Imitator's subject matter takes aim at the new kids on the dancehall block ripping off the veterans, while he simultaneously pays hard-earned dues to the dancehall's foundation deejays such as Jazzbo himself, U-Roy, Big Youth, Dennis Alcapone, King Stitch, Trinity & Dillinger.

TRACK LISTING

1. Imitator
2. Imitator Version

The Early Day Miners new album, "The Treatment", speaks to the powers of reinvention in more than one way. After years of building gorgeous and sprawling guitar rock epics, Early Day Miners have trimmed their sound into shorter, tighter songs with a decidedly pop edge to them. They have also slimmed their line up down from as many as eight members to the lean four-piece outfit of Dan Burton (guitar, vocals, keys), John Dawson (guitar), Marty Sprowles (drums) and Johnny 'Yuma' Richardson (bass). Even in the album's lyrics, the yearning allure of reinvention is ever present.

Alabama's native son, Early James, will release his sophomore album, Strange Time To Be Alive, on July 29th, 2022. The lyrical wordsmith conjures the ghosts of great southern gothic writers from Eudora Welty to William Faulkner, while channeling the haunted spirits of Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt. The album evokes a timeless amalgam of forsaken blues, wistful folk, and Tin Pan Alley crooning, anchored by the singer’s unmistakable voice that sways from gravel-filled shouts to pained, forlorn whispers – and songs that tread in the waters of darkly themed broken hearts, with the wry humor of the sad clown.

On the road again since August 2021, Early James will continue touring consistently through 2022. Confirmed upcoming tour dates are with The Black Keys and The Ghost of Paul Revere. Previously, Early James has played Newport Folk and toured with The Lone Bellow, The Marcus King Band, Zachary Williams, and Shovels & Rope.

The Early Years' new album, ‘Modern Moonlight’. It’s their first in a decade and just their third in 20 years, following their eponymous debut for Beggars Banquet in 2006 and ‘II’, which was released on Sonic Cathedral in 2016 and recently named as one of Uncut’s Greatest Albums of the 2010s.

It was worth the wait. It’s a stunning mix of Davids Bowie and Byrne, John Cage, Conny Plank, Brian Eno, Radiohead. “All the usual stuff,” says nominal frontman Dave Malkinson. “Loved ones and Italian red wine played a part, too, Oblique Strategies…”

There is nothing particularly oblique about the ten tracks here, though. ‘A New Way Of Living’ is a nod to not only Berlin-era Bowie, but also their own single ‘Like A Suicide’, the band’s first release for Sonic Cathedral back in 2008. The febrile funk of ‘Get Up Get Out’ is like The Stooges recoding the DNA of ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’. ‘The River’ – which snuck out as a single late last year – aims for an Eno / Moroder cross, but ends up sounding like James Holden. ‘Heaven Over There’ is huge and heartbreaking, a ballad for our times, up there with The Verve or even Elbow at their most anthemic and vulnerable. ‘Tired Eyes’, meanwhile, recalls ‘Fading Frontier’-era Deerhunter.

The start of the second half ups the tempo. ‘Shimmering Stone’ mixes LCD Soundsystem with what sounds like Gregorian chants. ‘The Gift’ sounds like a party in a studio, which it was, recorded at Monnow Valley in South Wales. ‘Three Quarters’ is a Beta Band meets A Certain Ratio-style groove based around a simple Steve Reich-esque loop with timbales. The title track is inspired by the more acoustic Verve tracks on ‘No Come Down’ and closer ‘Silver Lips (Champagne Eyes)’ sparkles and fizzes across its two halves, with vocals by Lorena Quintanilla from labelmates Lorelle Meets The Obsolete.

“I wanted the album to be called ‘III’, but the others vetoed that,” says guitarist Roger Mackin. “‘Modern Moonlight’ came about at 2am when we were writing the song.”

“Heroes don’t stand in sunlight anymore, they stand in the bluish glare of a phone at 2am wondering if anyone else is listening or even awake,” expands drummer Phil Raines. “Moonlight is not a thing, it’s a condition, light that has already touched something else. It’s borrowed. Reflected. Slightly late. It is the expectation of the present arriving after we’ve moved.

“So, this is not about our moon. It’s about how we’re all responding to the world we’ve found ourselves living in, hoping for utopia, but realising we’re all late to the party.”

In the case of ‘Modern Moonlight’, it’s better late than never.

TRACK LISTING

1. A New Way Of Living
2. Get Up Get Out
3. The River
4. Heaven Over There
5. Tired Eyes
6. Shimmering Stone
7. The Gift
8. Three Quarters
9. Modern Moonlight
10. Silver Lips (Champagne Eyes)
11. The River *HEX Edit* ^
^ CD-only Bonus Track

December 2012 I showed up totally exhausted in Vancouver BC after touring stupidly and relentlessly for however many straight months and got a job at a call centre raising money for the Red Cross. It was a scent free office but one time this woman cooked a piece of fish in the microwave for 10 minutes on low and hot boxed the whole office - we got sent home early no pay. There was the other woman I named the Call Centre Coltrane because her pitch and routine usually involved improvised flights of fancy that went off in both directions at once somehow landing back down with a credit card number and a donation. I used to sleep under the desk. I was there a few months and at the time I reconnected with John Brennan who I had played with briefly in Montreal at the Mutek Festival. In Montreal John was running an experimental music night at a burrito shop downtown called Garbage Night. While in Vancouver I began connecting with the music scene there and would go hang out with the Shearing Pinx lads who I think lived with Sydney the bass player at the time. I knew Nic and Jer from an AIDS Wolf Tour and was so stoked to get to know them both better. I really fell in love with that era of Vancouver's music scene.

Fast Forward to today. 2024

Actually it was the dying days of 2023 but you get it and John asks if I'll sit in with Earth Ball and I keep thinking about Earth Balance, the vegan butter everyone eats here. I brought my aching bones and my ipads on the beautiful ferry named the Queen of Oak Bay and out to Nanaimo BC, home of the nanaimo bar (a dessert treat - special to this region - that seems to be more popularly found under the weird glass sneeze guards in office building deli's out east in Ontario.... anyhoops ). No one in Nanaimo wants to talk to me about the famous treat. I asked a couple of people. Silence. Nanaimo is like London, Ontario but more fried and by the sea. The town is filled with blown out old sea dawgs with tin coffee pots and loose leaf tobacco, then there's the usual streetfolk you find in this part of the Canadian Pacific Northwest and a bunch of bohemians who I guess have left Vancouver behind - that fine city having become uninhabitable for those not making over 100k a year. And then up the way are all the retirees. Yup Nanaimo is a strange one. They mined the shit out of this region and Nanaimo is surely haunted by those buried in mining shafts or maimed by the heavy machinery or blown up by accident in the explosives store house. And when Earth Ball fire up the amps in Izzy and Jer's basement you can hear the voices of the ghosts hum through electrical lines and out the speakers, Kellen's hued feedback, Izy's sturdy basslines, Jer's paperbag guitar tone and rumble pack zaps, Liam's (aka the Kid) sheets of sound and Brennen's multidirectional drums. You wouldn't guess Earth Ball was auto-composing and from what my rat brain can tell - the lyrics are improvised too...Improvising lyrics and singing them is the hardest thing to do in all of music.. Izzy and Jer are pros. And their attitudes are pro too.

TRACK LISTING

1. Moon FM
2. Antifreeze
3. Through & Through
4. A Need To Cool Down
5. Flash In The Pan
6. Hollowgramma

Did you know there are horses on the cover of Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version? There are at least three in the right hand corner, gathered inexplicably near a white canvas tent, a human possibly perched among its folds. As widescreen and vast as the cover may seem, those little details—the horses, the possible human, the faint wisp of white clouds—give it depth and wonder, something to which the imagination can return.

Did you know that the music on Earth 2—repressed now for its 30th anniversary, back in its original artwork, and accompanied by a riveting set of remixes that demonstrate the reach of what Dylan Carlson long ago called “ambient metal”—works much the same way? The surface is massive and obvious, the meatpaw riffs of Carlson and bassist Dave Harwell pounding and swiping and pawing at the speakers, a true bludgeon in three-dimensional sound. Listen, though, for the details in the corners, for the finesse beneath the force, and Earth 2 reveals new levels of depth and wonder.

The widespread impact of Earth 2 suggests that others have indeed been leaning in, listening to these minutiae and making something new of them. A masterpiece without many genre precedents, Earth 2 surely helped send doom metal down its more modern drone, ambient, and avant-garde avenues. Those descendants are obvious. Perhaps more surprising and gratifying are the ways it has influenced electronic music, modern composition, and even hip-hop by realigning our senses of tempo, time, and texture. Earth 2 engendered a rearrangement of expectations, regardless of preferred form.

TRACK LISTING

1. Seven Angels
2. Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine
3. Like Gold And Faceted

Before they became Black Sabbath, the band were known as Earth - a blues-driven powerhouse already making a name for themselves in the mid-60s. This new release presents rare early recordings from that era, remastered from long-lost tapes and acetates. Featuring previously unheard tracks, demos, and alternative takes, the collection captures Earth’s evolution as they pushed toward the heavy metal sound that would soon change rock music forever.

TRACK LISTING

1. Blue Suede Shoes
2. Evenin’
3. Wee Wee Baby
4. “Untitled”
5. Free Man
6. Song For Jim (Guitar Version)
7. Song For Jim (Flute Version)
8. Wicked World
9. Warning

Earth’s third album, 1996’s 'Pentastar: In the Style of Demons', is a classic of languid riff-worship, oozing with a thick, fuzzed-out goop that melts together Black Sabbath, Hawkwind, Hendrix, drone, and ambient music. The result feels like a long, lonely drive through the desert, with inner and/or outer space as the only destination.

Arguably the band’s most rock-oriented album, 'Pentastar: In the Style of Demons' features the enduring “hit” single, 'Tallahassee'.

This 30th anniversary edition is on green vinyl, and features a limited-edition wraparound art print with a reinterpretation of the album cover by contemporary artists Matt McCormick.

TRACK LISTING

1. Introduction
2. High Command
3. Crooked Axis for String Quartet
4. Tallahassee
5. Charioteer (Temple Song)
6. Peace in Mississippi
7. Sonar & Depth Charge
8. Coda Maestoso in F (flat) Major

Commemorating thirty trips around the sun as one of metal’s most monolithic bands, Earth release their ninth studio album, Full Upon Her Burning Lips. A purge of the embellishment and panache from previous releases, Full Upon Her Burning Lips intimates Earth’s commitment to the minimalism of their primordial days.

Deconstructing the tried-and-true dynamic consisting of Dylan Carlson on guitar and bass and Adrienne Davies on drums and percussion, Full Upon Her Burning Lips taps into the Platonic ideal of Earth—an incarnation of the long running band bolstered by the authority of purpose, where every note and every strike on the drum kit carries the weight of the world. In addition to scaling back the flourishes of their hulking, drone-driven opuses, Full Upon Her Burning Lips was composed sans narrative, relying instead on their collective subconscious to hone in on the overarching muse as the songs developed.

The record was engineered, mixed, and mastered by long time associate Mell Dettmer at Studio Soli. Showcasing Carlson’s sepia-toned Bakersfield Sound guitars and Davies’ death knell drums, Full Upon Her Burning Lips mines for the expressive, nuanced, and tonally rich components of Earth’s arsenal of sound. And indeed, anyone that’s followed Earth on their journey will bask in the unadulterated hums, throbs, and reverberations conjured by Carlson and Davies.

“I feel like this is the fullest expression and purest distillation of what Earth does since I re-started the band,” Carlson says in reflection of Full Upon Her Burning Lips. And indeed, anyone that’s followed Earth on their journey will bask in the unadulterated hums, throbs, and reverberations conjured by Carlson and Davies.

TRACK LISTING

1. Datura's Crimson Veils
2. Exaltation Of Larks
3. Cats On The Briar
4. The Colour Of Poison
5. Descending Belladonna
6. She Rides An Air Of Malevolence
7. Maidens Catafalque
8. An Unnatural Carousel
9. The Mandrake's Hymn
10. A Wretched Country Of Dusk

Following on from their limited edition 7" only release "In The Garden", and fresh from being one of the most talked about bands at this years SXSW festival, Nottingham's Earth The Californian Love Dream return with another short blast of riffy, rock'n'roll. There's a touch of Queens Of The Stoneage about it with it's heavy chugging guitar and drums, but with a more youthful, punchy arrogance, and weighing in at under 90 seconds, it leaves you wanting more....

Ushering in a new era, Berlin based, New Zealand heavy psych duo Earth Tongue lower the castle gates on their third album 'Dungeon Vision', a trove of fuzz-drenched anthems produced by garage rock luminary Ty Segall in Los Angeles.

Guitarist Gussie Larkin and drummer Ezra Simons spent the Berlin winter of 2025 refining the album’s twelve tracks in their self-described “windowless cave” rehearsal space, crafting a record that channels both isolation and the duo’s live intensity. With the songs finally taking shape and a studio deadline looming, they flew to Los Angeles to turn their hard-won ideas into the real thing. Once there, the band and Ty captured lightning in a bottle, recording and mixing 'Dungeon Vision' in just ten days at Altamira Sound.

Tracked live to tape, 'Dungeon Vision' pulses with human energy, fuzz guitars, bone-battering drums, and hauntingly tuneful vocals. Ty Segall’s influence is all over the record with Ty choosing the best takes based on feel rather than technical perfection. The “king of fuzzy guitar tones” pushed the duo to find new sonic textures while championing their raw chemistry.

“Ty’s been a big driving force,” says Ezra. “We supported him in New Zealand back in 2023, and he’s backed us ever since even bringing us on tour through Europe and the UK in 2024.”

Since their emergence in 2016, Earth Tongue’s world-building, visuals, and relentless touring have earned them global attention and a cult-like following. Their 2024 album 'Great Haunting', also released on In The Red Records, received a Taite Music Prize nomination and saw them win Best Group at the 2025 Aotearoa Music Awards. They’ve toured extensively, sharing stages with the likes of Queens of the Stone Age, IDLES, Acid King, Brant Bjork and Kikagaku Moyo.

With 'Dungeon Vision', Earth Tongue deliver their most immersive work yet, a richly human, fuzz-soaked journey that bottles the magic of their live show and cements their reputation as one of the most exciting psych rock acts on the planet.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dungeon Vision
2. Demon Cam
3. Flashlight
4. Body Of Water
5. Watchtower
6. Orbit Of A Witch
7. Symmetry Dripper
8. 1000 Curses
9. Silver Eye
10. Living Hell
11. Harvester
12. Ritual

“All I can do is make my art from an honest place with an honest intention.” Earth-o-Naut.

Earth-o-Naut is a songwriter, drummer, musician and producer. He was born in Liverpool and raised in one of its satellite towns, Skelmersdale. He was raised by his mum and uncles on music from every genre, falling in love, amazement and awe with the groove and the craft of songwriting. Nothing has changed to this day. Songwriting has also always been a constant. That quest to create something original and use the songwriting process as some form of catharsis. Learning guitar and piano was the next logical step, to help with the creation of new ideas into new songs. A lot of time was spent playing drumming gigs and then taking his own songs on the road, solo with just an acoustic guitar, learning the ropes and serving his apprenticeship. Great songwriters The Beatles, Curtis Mayfield, Bill Withers, Neil Finn and many others inspire Earth-o-Naut to this day.

Earth-o-naut has worked hard for many years on his studio chops and is the writer, arranger, recording engineer, mix engineer and producer on all of his own material, and he also works with other artists as a producer. The debut album features UK drumming legend, Steve White and also the vocals of Amalia Estradas and Suzanne Maddock. 2026 will also see Earth-o-Naut take his songs on the road and play some live shows.st singular, emotive, and genre-defying releases of its era.

TRACK LISTING

1. This Is Day One
2. Come Out Swinging
3. Bring The Light
4. Am I Really Here
5. o.n.l.y.l.o.v.e.
6. Call Me
7. There’s Nothing Above Music And Love
8. Please
9. y.m.e.
10. It Ain’t What You Know
11. Everything. All At Once. All Of The Time
12. This Is Nowhere. This Is Everywhere

‘Actual Earth Music - Volume 1 & 2’ presents two caustic, yet alluringly unreal live sets from Canadian noise-rock entropy hunters Earth Ball. Following on from the group’s critically appraised ‘It’s Yours’ LP (released 2024 on Upset The Rhythm - UTR164) this release captures the band at the peak of their powers, playing live, composing spontaneously.

Side A features Earth Ball live at The Fox Cabaret in Vancouver, supporting Wolf Eyes on August 4, 2023. Jeremy Van Wyck from the band considers this “the gig that sent us into orbit, really. Causing Olson & Young to wax poetic about our interstellar jams to a fine bloke across the big sea. Upsetting our casual rhythm and forcing our hand. All that talk led to an LP, ‘It’s Yours’, and a full UK tour the following spring”.

Now, with the birth of this live series ‘Actual Earth Music’, it seems only fitting that Volume 1 should be this gig. It’s a doozy. Listening back is a pure revelation. Earth Ball whip up a vortex of thrashing wild energy, the ecstatic release is off the charts. “You don’t always catch every nuance of the jams as they come down. I mean, this one felt good, but upon listening back to the tapes, it sounded very good” confides Jeremy. “It reminded me of Von Trier’s Melancholia: the sound of a large sphere coming toward you to bring doom. However, this one reverses course, heading away to some other shore, bathing you in reflective bliss before saying goodbye—instead of ending humanity as we know it”.

Volume 2 occupies Side B of this LP, showcasing a collaborative summit from the second night of their recent Café OTO residency on May 21, 2024. This event featured Earth Ball laying down three separate sets—all collaborations. This second recording presents their opening performance and features pivotal UK improv luminary Steve Beresford on piano and free-jazz phenomenon Chris Corsano on drums.

TRACK LISTING

01. Live At The Fox Cabaret
02. Live At Café OTO With Steve Beresford & Chris Corsano

Running Time: 42 Mins 

EARTHBALL are an avant/noise/rock wrecking ball of a band from Nanaimo, Canada. Rooted in total improvisation, free expression, and a deeply psychedelic sensibility, EarthBall operate on pure instinct.

They hurtle onwards in a combustion of spontaneous composition, shooting from the hip, as they fall out of the sky ablaze. The group encompasses Isabel Ford (vocals, bass), John Brennan (drums, percussion), Jeremy Van Wyke (vocals, guitar, trumpet), Kellan Maclaughlin (guitar, talkbox), and Liam Murphy (saxophone). Each member brings a rich and varied musical history, with past and present projects including Shearing Pinx, Plan Your Future, Kamikaze Nurse, Eschatons, and Psychedelic Dirt. Collectively and individually, they have collaborated with artists such as Deerhoof, Raven Chacon, Chris Corsano, and William Hooker, deepening the band’s exploratory reach and collective language.

Since forming in 2021, EarthBall have released six cassettes and three fervently received LPs on Upset The Rhythm, including November’s widely acclaimed Outside Over There. Their latest release, Actual Earth Music - Volume 3 & 4, follows the first instalment in the series and captures two mind-quaking highlights from last winter’s European tour. This is EarthBall plunging to full fathom five, transforming into something rich and strange - channeling the fleeting moment as it fractures, erupts, and dissolves into the unknown.

Side A captures a thumping performance at Cave12 in Geneva. Frazzled from a white-knuckle alpine descent, the group settles into a hypnotic sprawl, stretching time and form across a colossal 53-minute set (with the first 22 minutes presented on the LP; the full performance appears on the CD edition). The Cave12 recording is a study in tension and release; ruminative, volatile, and barely contained. Drums stumble and surge, saxophone howls cut through the air, and Ford and Van Wyke’s voices briefly pull together the circle twice, before the tumult lapses into a spinning maelstrom.

Side B meanwhile presents a scorched excerpt from EarthBall’s crushing performance at Le Guess Who? Festival. As Van Wyke reflects: “Having the most excellent Dwarfs of East Agouza play before us only heightened our intention to bring the noise. Listening back, the thing that strikes me most is how we truly were operating in the ever-elusive but always sought-after ‘group mind’. Ninety-degree changes are super tight. Izzy and I are finishing each other’s sentences. Liam’s horn is cradling our outer and inner space. Kellan’s talk box rains down like the voice of a reawakened spirit, and all this havoc is safely stowed in the rumbling ox-cart of John’s solid drumming”.

Actual Earth Music - Volume 3 & 4 marks another ascent in EarthBall’s ever-expanding, totemic discography, an ecstatic storm of raw immediacy and unfiltered expression. 

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A 01. Live at Cave12
SIDE B 02. Live at EKKO

Heavyweight psychedelic improvisers EarthBall are back with their third and most monstrous record to date: ‘Outside Over There’. Born from the haunted basements of Nanaimo, Canada, the quintet thrives on spontaneity, shaping improvisation into jagged hallucinations and ecstatic eruptions.

Recorded live-off-the-floor in 2024 in Jeremy, Izzy, and Kellen’s basement, and mixed by drummer John Brennan, ‘Outside Over There’ is an album that feels both summoned and inevitable. Each track lands with uncanny purpose, as if uncovered rather than written.

The opener, '100%', features a cameo from comedian and English icon Stewart Lee, who lent his blessing for the band to use a fragment of his stand-up. The album was mastered by John Dieterich (Deerhoof), with liner text contributed by longtime comrade John Olson (Wolf Eyes). 

TRACK LISTING

1. 100%
2. Helsinki
3. Outside Over There
4. Seeing Docks Unlock
5. Hellfire Relations
6. Where I Come From
7. Behind The Mall
8. And Music Shall Untune The Sky

Jacob Long’s newest recordings under the Earthen Sea moniker deepen his compelling synthesis of shadowy rhythms and opaque atmospherics, drawing on the most potent qualities of melancholic ambient and dub techno.

“An Act Of Love” follows 2015’s “Ink,” released via Ital’s Lovers Rock imprint,
and was inspired by internal tribulations and the experience of exploring an empty nocturnal metropolis. Careful waves of tones drift and decay; beats materialize and pulse across twilit landscapes; a noir mood reigns.

Given Long’s background as bassist for revelatory tribal-punk trio Mi Ami, “An Act Of Love” showcases a musician in the midst of transcendent redefinition, crafting an immersive language of texture and motion.

From Jacob Long:
This record was made over the course of the most emotionally difficult and stressful year in my life thus far. As such, it is both a reflection of that experience and also something that gave me space to begin working through issues to see a way forward, to a better place both psychically and physically.
An idea that was also central to my thoughts while creating the album was the concept and reality of being out in the city at night, wandering around a large urban area after dark – the contrast of empty streets but with life still going on all around, and the openness and possibilities that can bring. This
music was an attempt to capture that feeling.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Present Mist
2. About That Time
3. Delicately In The Sunlight
4. Apparent Lushness
5. Exuberant Burning
6. Above The Clouds
7. The Flats, 1975
8. Also An Act Of Love

Jacob Long’s third Earthen Sea outing for Kranky, Ghost Poems, further refines his fragile, fractured palette into fluttering arrhythmias of dust, percussion, and yearning.

Composed during the first wave of lockdowns in New York, the pieces took shape patiently from samples of piano, texture, and domestic sounds (sink splashing, room tone, clinking objects), filtered through live FX to imbue them with an intuitive, immaterial feel. Wisps of melody splinter, shimmer, and refract, like light on water; pulses accrue and dissipate, as if mapping shifting sands. Throughout, there’s a sense of matter made animate, of absences felt.

Long cites notions of “the studio as a dub instrument” and the melancholy of “7th chords on a fake Rhodes patch” as central elements in his process, transforming raw materials into rare thresholds of symbiosis and hypnosis. This is music for night skies in hollowed out cities, for views across rivers towards unknown shores: restless, placeless, and profound.

TRACK LISTING

1. Shiny Nowhere
2. Stolen Time
3. Felt Absence
4. Oblique Ruins
5. Snowy Water
6. Rough Air
7. Slate Horizon
8. Ochre Sky
9. Fossil Painting
10. Deep Sky

Jacob Long’s fourth full-length for Kranky began as a notion to reimagine Earthen Sea as a “piano trio,” inspired by a year-long immersion in the ECM label catalog, but the compositions soon grew more complex.

Elements were chopped and resampled, then layered with bass, drums, percussion, and additional keys. The result is a fusion of live band acoustics and downtempo loops, sculpted into nine smoke-and-mirror dubs of fractured jazz, soft-focus noir, and trip-hop dust: Recollection.

Like the title implies, Long’s playing and production share a mood of pensive movement, shuffling and rippling like uncertain memories at strange hours.

From looming fog (“Present Day,” “Neon Ruins”) and shadowy breaks (“Another Space,” “Cloudy Vagueness”) to rosy glows (“Clear Photograph”) and smeared reverie (“White Sky”), Recollection deftly wields its palette of gradient color and subdued states of beauty.

His is a music of reduction and reflection, kinetic but oblique, attuned to the silhouettes of sound.

TRACK LISTING

1. Present Day
2. Another Space
3. Sunlit Leavin
4. A Single Pub
5. Neon Ruins
6. Clear Photograph
7. Cloudy Vagueness
8. Abstract, Tell
9. White Sky

There’s an ancient Japanese legend in which a horde of demons, ghosts and other terrifying ghouls descend upon the sleeping villages once a year. Known as Hyakki Yagyō, or the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, one version of the tale states that anyone who witnesses this otherworldly procession will die instantly—or be carried off by the creatures of the night. As a result, the villagers hide in their homes, lest they become victims of these supernatural invaders.

Such is the inspiration for the latest album from EARTHLESS. “My son is really into mythical creatures and old folk stories about monsters and ghosts,” bassist Mike Eginton explains. “We came across the ‘Night Parade of One Hundred Demons’ in a book of traditional Japanese ghost stories. I like the idea of people hiding and being able to hear the madness but not see it. It’s the fear of the unknown.”

Whereas 2018’s Black Heaven featured shorter songs and vocals from guitarist Isaiah Mitchell on much of the album—an unprecedented move for the San Diego power trio—their latest is a return to the epic instrumentals EARTHLESS made their unmistakable name on. Night Parade Of One Hundred Demons is comprised of two monster songs—the 41-minute, two-part title track and the 20-minute “Death To The Red Sun.”

The scenario that allowed for this kind of exploration was a stark contrast to that of Black Heaven. At that point, Mitchell was living in the Bay Area, which made it difficult for the band to get together and work on the type of long instrumental pieces they’re known for. But in March 2020, the guitarist moved back to San Diego. More specifically, he moved back the night the pandemic lockdown kicked in. Bad timing, perhaps—or maybe perfect timing.

Plus, they were all on the same page about not wanting to do another record with vocals. “In a way, I think this album was a reaction to our last record,” Eginton says. “Black Heaven was outside our comfort zone. I think it was a good record, but it was challenging to write songs in a more traditional verse-chorus-verse format. This one was more enjoyable. I’m sure we’ll do more vocal tracks in the future, but for the time being I see that album as a one-off.”

Given the record’s inspiration, it should come as no surprise that Night Parade of One Hundred Demons strikes a more sinister tone than the rest of the band’s catalogue. “It definitely has a darker, almost evil kind of vibe compared to stuff we’ve done in the past,” Rubalcaba says. “There’s more paranoia and noise, and some of Isaiah’s whammy-bar stuff kind of reminds me of these Jeff Hanneman moments in Reign In Blood, where it just seems like everything is going to hell. It’s pretty fun.”

Night Parade of One Hundred Demons was recorded in San Diego with Rubalcaba’s childhood friend Ben Moore, who’s worked with everyone from DIAMANDA GALAS and BURT BACHARACH to CEREMONY and HOT SNAKES. When Eginton wasn’t tracking his bass parts, he worked on the album’s incredible sleeve art. “He really dedicated himself to the project,” Rubalcaba says. “He’d be drawing in the studio with, like, a coal-miner’s lamp on his head while we were doing overdubs. He really knocked it out of the park.”

All told, Night Parade of One Hundred Demons isn’t just a return to the band’s traditional format—it’s a return to their very beginnings. “This album actually has the very first Earthless riff in it,” Eginton reveals. “We just recorded it 20 years after we wrote it. But we’re really happy with how this record came out. We feel it might be our finest to date.” 

Earthtones is the musical identity of Serge Bandura, an electronic artist, former jazz musician, meditation teacher and ritualist based in LA. Kevin Nathaniel channels sound as a universal healing force through traditional African instruments and is a former student of legendary master musicians such as Ephat Mujuru and Chief Bey K. Sending files back and forth during the pandemic, the two artists deepened a musical friendship and began a dialog between the Mbira Nyunga Nyunga, the Kalimba and analog synthesizers. Their music is offered in the spirit of peace + healing for all. ‘Of The Earth’ (Full Meditation) is 21 minutes long and the B side offers 25 minutes of music.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Chakra re-alignment therapy for troubled souls or those who are simply fuming about our lack of real summer. With a modest collection of instruments and sound devices Earthtones and Kevin Nathaniel achieve some miraculously trascendendant results.

TRACK LISTING

Of The Earth Meditation
Of The Earth
Slow Emotion
Sonrise

2023 Starts with a doubler sided disco action from East Coast Love Affair - Taking the vocal from obscure Minneapolis lo-fi band 'Quiet Storm' master tape (Big up Numero Group) and building a whole new deep disco 45. 'Get Down' is deep dance floor chugger using the O.G studio gear that would have been used at the time, strictly analog business. On the flip, 'Can You Deal' is a more uptempo boogie joint. Both killers as always. Lots more from ECLA this year!!

TRACK LISTING

1. Get Down (feat. Quiet Storm)
2. Can You Deal (feat. Quiet Storm)

Our close friend and fellow Scot, now Ibiza resident, Pikes resident DJ and island favourite, 'For Mankind' (Russ Forman) had talked about doing a studio collaboration for some time. Last winter, we finally managed to get in the studio and make some music.

Drawn upon our mutual loves of house music, dub and weirdo dance music by the likes of African Head Charge, Larry Heard and Sun Ra. We also added sprinkles of influence from other oddball tracks that make up our more interesting sets. We spent hours just pulling and listening to records from all our collections and talking about music before hitting the studio.

What resulted from the session is a beautiful and exciting blend of everyone's taste - dreamy, minimal, almost techno synthscapes, New York oddball house that sounds like some lost Sleeping Bag test press to almost Música Popular Brasileira.

At one point Russ, (For Mankind) grabbed the mic and hit us with his best pidgin Spanish, this snowballed onto a few more tracks, so we felt it only right the LP should also bear his name. Russ' vocal came as a surprise to us all, loose, funky, wild and carefree, (like the man himself), with positivity and a message: This music is for everyone. We should all work together, help and contribute.

Our good friend Hanna (Philomenah) also brings her giant talent on Brazilian influenced 'I Can't wait', expect to hear a lot more from this Shetland-born singer on Athens of the North and elsewhere.

TRACK LISTING

1. Musica Para Todos Ullal De Da Coloms (feat. For Mankind)
2. Ullal De Da Coloms
3. Punta Moscarter
4. Xylocopa Violacea
5. The Morrígan Sings (feat. For Mankind)
6. Stay Above With Love (feat. For Mankind)
7. I Can't Wait (feat. Philomenah)
8. A Gradual Precipitation

Over the last year, London-based East India Youth has combined strikingly original music with euphoric live performances and has quickly become recognised as one of the most experimental and captivating artists around.

Here he delivers brand new album, titled ‘Culture Of Volume’; his first since signing to XL Recordings. The record follows his critically acclaimed debut album ‘Total Strife Forever’ (released in January 2014 on Stolen Records) that went on to be nominated for the Mercury Prize.

‘Culture Of Volume’ opens with the synth sweep of instrumental track 'The Juddering', which does indeed judder. It then switches tack to 'End Result', an emotive, melancholic number featuring live instrumentation. 'Beaming White' and 'Turn Away', while 'Hearts That Never' and 'Entirety' head to the peak-time dancefloor with 90s rave beats, fidgeting keyboard lines and a touch of an unrelenting Underworld feel to it. Wearing its heart on its sleeve, solo vocal / synth number 'Carousel' sounds like a number U2 should have written for the Spiderman musical, but didn't. Firing up the club rhythms again, jittery 2-stepping drum & bass-ish cut 'Don’t Look Backwards' is catchy pop with fancy footwork. The album closes with the sparkling machine-pop of 'Manner Of Words' and 'Montage Resolution', which, like 'The Juddering', does exactly what it says on the tin. 

Mostly recorded and produced in his bedroom at home in London and named after a fragment of verse from the poem ‘Monument’ by Rick Holland, ‘Culture Of Volume’ was mixed by Graham Sutton (Bark Psychosis, Boymerang) and the artwork was created by visual artist Dan Tombs (inspired by Andy Warhol’s experiments with computer technology).

In a move that's certain to please the proper techno heads out there, East India Youth has finally seen fit to deploy the finest piece of dancefloor weaponary on his critically acclaimed debut LP in 12" form. Militaristic drums, driving sequences and swirling modular washes interlock into a pulsating nuclear core, well on its way to meltdown. Falling somewhere between the stripped back machine funk of Factory Floor and the unyielding energy of a Carl Craig classic, "Hinterland" is the kind of cut you build your whole set around. In other words, totally massive. On the flipside, the mysterious Katja Waske drops in to provide a face melting remix, which ramps up the aggression tenfold, turning "Hinterland" into raw techno filth. If you're after one of those thunderous stadium sized techno monsters usually released by either of the Kalkbrenner brothers, then this is your new jam. Serrated sequences, pounding percussion and searing drones combine perfectly to set the night on fire.

East of Underground was a multi-ethnic seven-piece band formed by American soldiers stationed in Germany in 1971, eager to make music and create a home away from home during their stay in Germany as the war in Vietnam was at its height. That year, the Army staged what they called "The First Annual Original Magnificent Special Forces Entertainment Showband Contest," and East of Underground were one of many groups that entered the competition. Playing a tough, enthusiastic fusion of R&B, funk and pop/rock tunes of the day (including numbers by James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Sly & the Family Stone, and Santana), East of Underground's sound was dominated by the vocal harmonies of Bobby Blackmon, Larry Watson, and Austin Webb, accompanied by tight, concise arrangements laid down by guitarists Lewis Hitt and Gus Marquez, and the rhythm section of bassist Ronald Hall and drummer George Daniels (the latter claimed to have worked with James Brown). East of Underground won second place in the contest; one of the judges was Kurt Loder, who later became a respected rock journalist, and in a review of the show he described them as "a beautiful soul band with three exceptionally good singers." Along with the first, third, and fourth place winners, East of Underground were given studio time in the Armed Forces Radio Network's recording facility in Frankfurt, Germany as one of their prizes, and they cut an album's worth of material. East of Underground's studio session was issued as a promotional album by the Army, but it received scant distribution and quickly fell into obscurity, and after the group's members finished their military commitments, the band broke up. Many years later, the album came o the attention of the crate diggers at the magazine Wax Poetics, and in 2007 the magazine launched their affiliated record label with a reissue of East of Underground's LP. At the time, little was known about the group and its members, and Wax Poetics produced a short film (also called East of Underground) about the album and the efforts to unravel the mystery of the band. So far, guitarist Lewis Hitt is the only member of East of Underground whose whereabouts have been confirmed; he works as an ambulance pilot in Alabama and still plays guitar in his spare time.

Vampisoul are pleased to make this wonderful and highly sought-after album available again.

The recording perfectly captures the spirit of young America through songs written by Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, Funkadelic, and Burt Bacharach (via Isaac Hayes, of course). High-level soul and funk performed by brilliant anonymous musicians. Virtually impossible to find in its original edition, Vampisoul are now reissuing it once again thanks to a collaboration with Now Again. Pressed on 180g vinyl.

Often, the most prized records by collectors hold unexpected stories. When they also feature incredibly high musical quality and only a few original copies are available, they become the holy grails of collecting. This is the case with this album.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Want To Take You Higher
2. Smiling Faces Sometimes
3. (Don’t Worry) If There’s A Hell Below, We’re All Going To Go
4. People Get Ready
5. Getting Over
6. I’ll Bet You / California Dreamin’
7. Pop Corn / Oye Como Va
8. I Love You For All Seasons
9. East Of Java
10. Walk On By

Originally released on the Sub Aqua label in 1988. It appears here on 7” for the first time. This is a previously unreleased version of Back Between Places. The band were never really happy with the original single release and having discovered the master tape of a superior version, it is to be mixed and released here for the very first time.
From East Village

Both tracks were recorded at Greenhouse Studios at the same one day session in August 88 and are technically unreleased.

‘Back Between Places’ is an alternate mix made at the time and better than the one we chose to release.

‘Violin’ is a completely unreleased recording. It was planned as the original B-side but ended up being replaced by two early recordings ‘Her Fathers Son’ and ‘Precious Diamond Tears’ on the actual 12” release.

We rerecorded ‘Violin’ at few months later at Scruttocks along with ‘Freeze Out’, ‘Vibrato’ and a couple of others that have appeared on the ‘Hotrod Hotel’ LP.

TRACK LISTING

Side A Back Between Places (alternate Mix From August 1988)
Side B Violin (original Unreleased Version From August 1988)

Aerial East’s music explores the space between the conscious and unconscious mind, between what was and what will be. She dives into what she has known - adolescence, heartbreak, coming into a new social consciousness, and managing a perpetual unanchored-ness - in order to find a most surprising place to rest inside: the unknowable.

As the daughter of a military family, East spent her late childhood in Europe and teenage years in Abilene, Texas. After dropping out of community college, she moved to New York City where she’d meet a group of musicians whom she would come to befriend and collaborate with (including Okay Kaya, Kelsey Lu, Wet + more). She hopes to tell stories we don’t hear often. “I want to tell stories about people in Texas,” she says, “I want to humanize different characters.”

‘Try Harder’ is a tight yet eclectic record, both sonically and emotionally. “I didn’t want to hear any drums,” East says. “I was going through a period of high anxiety,” she explains, adding that she listened to a lot of solo-piano to calm down during moments of ungroundedness. “I wanted to make a record to be soothing in the same way [as the piano was for her].” So, much to the initial skepticism of her collaborators, East decided against adding drums to her songs. “I just wanted it to be healing and calm, something you can listen to even if the world is ending,” a feeling we can all relate to. The end result is a beautiful ode to those of us who feel like life sometimes is a little bit harder, that we don’t quite fit in, that our edges are rough – an album-length anthem for sitting in our own discomfort and groundlessness and finding a specific peace with it. 

TRACK LISTING

A1 Try Harder
A2 The Things We Build
A3 Katharine
A4 Doin Somethin
A5 I Love Dick
A6 San Angelo
B1 Blue
B2 Angry Man
B3 Ryan
B4 Jonas Said
B5 Brennen
B6 Be Leavin

First time vinyl reissue, expanded and deluxe double gatefold 140g double vinyl, remastered audio with restored artwork and fresh liners written by Paul Hillery (Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours)

Alan James Eastwood's glorious 'Seeds' is a certified folk-funk lost-classic.

But who was Alan James Eastwood? He had never hit the big time and commercial success eluded him. By the mid-1970s, his musical career was pretty much over and he was almost unknown except among deep heads, amongst whom he would gain cult status.

Original copies of the 1971 vinyl release of 'Seeds' exchange hands for high sums, if you can find one. This expanded 2LP contains an extra record, collecting 9 rare non-album singles and is presented in a gatefold sleeve complete with freshly commissioned liner notes courtesy of Paul Hillery (Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours).

With the long overdue deluxe reissue of this prized artefact, we hope to finally shine a light on the unheralded genius of Alan James Eastwood. RIYL Nick Drake, Rodriguez, Richie Havens. 

TRACK LISTING

1. She's Getting Married In August
2. Evenin' Rain
3. Les Papillons
4. Zeena
5. Virgin Morn
6. Seeds 
7. Crystal Blue 
8. Lady Carole 
9. Lotus Child 
10. Last Prayer 
11. Hymn For Today
12. Boston 
13.Blackbird Charlie 
14. My Sun
15. Closer To The Truth 
16. Strange News
17. Moonchild 
18. Red Shoe Truckin' 
19. Beautiful 
20. Opal Blue Sunday

Talk about high concept: 'Dub Side Of The Moon' features the house band of noted New York reggae label Easy Star covering Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side Of The Moon' in the same sequence and in recognisable but reggae fashion. Here, the All Stars turn Floyd's strangely surreal world even stranger and more surreal, adorning the band's dark psychedelic music with slow reggae beats and head-spinning dub-style production that is both inspired and effective. "Money" opens with the sound of bong hits and coughing instead of the cash register, then grooves to a reggae beat as guitar and organ churn out the classic riff - there's even the mandatory sax break in the middle. The group hits it just right on "Great Gig in the Sky", retaining the soaring gospel voice, while the remake of the chiming bells on "Time" reveals a bit of irreverent humour. Tearing away at the alienation of the original, this infusion of new personality makes it all work, elevating the album's concept from the half-baked to visionary.

Celebrate a decade plus of this timeless and ingenious musical experiment with this release, which includes two new bonus tracks (including a new version of “Breathe” that features Rebelution’s Eric Rachmany along with Metric Man, Ruff Scott and Sluggy Ranks) and new artwork.

Easy Star All-Stars return with their first new tribute album in over a decade! Ziggy Stardub, a reggae re-imagining of David Bowie's entire The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars album. Features guest performances by Macy Gray, Steel Pulse, Fishbone, Alex Lifeson (Rush), Vernon Reid (Living Colour), The Skints, Mortimer, The Expanders, Samory I, Naomi Cowan, and many others.

TRACK LISTING

LP :
1. Five Years
2. Soul Love (feat. Mortimer)
3. Moonage Daydream
4. Starman
5. It Ain't Easy (feat. Samory I)
6. Lady Stardust (feat. SunDub)
7. Star (feat. Carlton Livingston)
8. Hang On To Yourself (feat. Fishbone And JonnyGO Figure)
9. Ziggy Stardust (feat. The Skints)
10. Suffragette City (feat. The Expanders)
11. Rock 'n' Roll Suicide

CD:
1. Five Years
2. Soul Love (feat. Mortimer)
3. Moonage Daydream
4. Starman
5. It Ain't Easy (feat. Samory I)
6. Lady Stardust (feat. SunDub)
7. Star (feat. Carlton Livingston)
8. Hang On To Yourself (feat. Fishbone And JonnyGO Figure)
9. Ziggy Stardust (feat. The Skints)
10. Suffragette City (feat. The Expanders)
11. Rock 'n' Roll Suicide
12. Five Years Dub (CD Only)
13. Moonage Daydream Dub (CD Only)
14. Lady Stardust Dub (CD Only)
15. All The Young Dudes (feat. Kirsty Rock) (CD Only)

Area Silenzio is eat-girls' debut record and it is both haunted and haunting. For the past four years, the French trio have been crafting their songs into little self-contained worlds with the patience of entomologists, taking them out all over the country and Europe to confront them with the wilderness of a live audience. The ten resulting tracks are a collection of electronic madrigals, groove-driven songs played on a mischievous multi-speed Victrola, ranging from languid dub drips to full-on drum machine cavalcades. Part no-wave disco rhythms, part post-punk throbbing basses, folk tunes and synthesizers in equal measures, with a perpetual attention to hooks and melodies.

Christopher Eatough writes and performs songs. His heartbreaking perspective on life has led people compare him to Ryan Adams, Rufus Wainwright, Neil Young and Sufjan Stevens. Over the past two years Christopher has played alongside Neal Casal, Lisa Mitchell, William Fitzsimmons, Rox, Starsailor and Mark Morriss, along with many others whilst attempting to recreate the tender atmosphere of his live performances on record. "A Creak in the Cold", his debut album, is the result of these efforts.

In a world of music lined with acoustic troubadours from basement to bar and venue to vault, it takes something truly inspirational to stand out from the crowds. "A Creak in the Cold" is proof of Christopher Eatough’s startling talent and vindication of a voice that has been stirring up so many words of acclaim around the North West for the past year. This is a record that will speak to you and sooth you. This is a record that will soften the edges. This is a record for anyone who has a heart, no matter if it is barely beating through the aching weight upon your chest.

“London electronica trio Eaux sound like Fuck Buttons on a comedown: all glacially moving synths and snowdrift vocals.” Q – '5 Songs You Must Hear'

When Ben Crook - one third of spectral electronic trio Eaux - describes his group's songs as "never finished, just abandoned" he's describing a creative process that burrows its way down and down until each track has to be wrenched away from their originator's hands, given the sheer amount of avenues that the three-piece manage to open up during conception. However Eaux's debut LP Plastics, out on ATP Recordings, also has the feel of abandonment to it, in the sense that to listen to it is to come across some long-lost gem, an unknown discovery amidst a box of records, an electronic album where influences past and present cancel each other out in stasis to create an album that exists in a timeless era.

Formed in London in early 2012, Crook, alongside Sian Ahern and Stephen Warrington, centre their foreboding towers of shadowed sound around the hypnotic release and repetition of techno; however, although Plastics does display minimalist tendencies, the group never allow their rhythmic patterns to become static, a heavily analogue approach to everything they do putting a very human face to this machine-made music.

Much of Plastics has evolved from live jams, the group holing themselves up in a personal rehearsal and studio space so that ideas form and bounce off each other. Having all come from more orthodox band set-ups, they found a freedom in experimenting with comparatively unfamiliar electronic technology, their limited knowledge of their tools meaning they could approach them with very little baggage. Ahern's vocal is another key element to the group's sound, offering a softer-edged, higher range than much of the simmering murmurs and oscillations rising and falling below her. Though aerial, sweeping through the likes of the Broadcast-esque ‘Movers and Shakers' and flowering above the pulsating after-dark drone disco of ‘Peace Makes Plenty', her voice largely works as another layer amidst what's a darkened but rich tapestry, an ethos of equality driving the group, all roles on a level with each other.

So it is that Eaux's music feels like it's trying to reach out from that clutter and acceleration of technology, tracks like ‘Evoke' pushing hard to find space away from their synthetic frequencies. Plastics, like its name suggests, is a collection of moulded, shaped forms; the result of collective electrical process. It's an album that takes in the bigger picture, with each component unable to do without any of the others.

TRACK LISTING

1. Head
2. Movers And Shakers
3. Pressure Points
4. Peace Makes Plenty
5. Sleeper
6. The Light Falls Through Itself
7. Blue Tunnel
8. Evoke
9. Zero Zero (CD Only – And On The Download That Comes With LP)

Newly signed to Ninja Tune without having released a single track. This five-track EP marks Ebbb’s first output. Emerging from the vibrant, avant-garde London live scene that spawned black midi and Black Country New Road – and despite being together for barely a year – the band have already landed on something truly singular. Fusing pulsing rhythms, immersive electronic production, sparkling melodies, layered vocal harmonies and beats that veer from ambient to industrial, the result is an idiosyncratic hybrid of sounds. One that the group describes as “Brian Wilson meets Death Grips”. But while the EP might be experimental, loose and unpredictable, it’s also deeply considered, taut, and absolutely flab-free.

TRACK LISTING

1. Himmel
2. Answered
3. Swarm
4. Torn
5. Seamlessly

The scope, variety and ambition of Ebbb’s debut album 'Shallow Hits' is clear from the off. 'Come Alive' whirs into being quietly before morphing into a sun-kissed, radiant piece of calypso-esque electronic pop; the Latin-flavoured 'Now You Know' feels destined to soundtrack sun-drenched festivals this summer; 'Shallow Hits' is as deft and detailed as it is big, bold and euphoric; while the wonky yet propulsive charge of 'Side On' sounds like a drum ‘n’ bass club and church choir combined.

A fervent eclecticism and unpredictable restlessness underpins the album. Latterly the record dives into the moody technoid textures and multi-layered harmonies that characterised their debut EP 'All At Once' - exemplified by ‘Youth’ and the closing track 'I’m Not Enough' that lands an emotional gut punch to an album that is already littered with them. However there’s a remarkable coherence and identity that underpins the album. Ebbb are exploring far and wide, deep and vast, yet they do so via an approach that remains unmistakably them.

'Shallow Hits' is an album bursting with ideas, textures, rhythms, detail and emotion. A bold and singular debut record from a group who truly do not sound like anyone else right now.

TRACK LISTING

1. Come Alive
2. Home Ground
3. Now You Know
4. Pander
5. Side On
6. Shallow Hits
7. Remedy
8. You’ve Got Me Where You Want Me
9. Moving On
10. Youth
11. I’m Not Enough

Dinked Edition Bonus 7":
Side A:
Book That You Like
Side B:
Manners

Two nice young men dropped into the shop over the weekend with their UK garage (or whatever we're calling it these days!) white label, which I present to you here. Both sides feature rough digital beats with fat bassline punches, topped off by strong MCing by Ivory. Not to be confused with Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder!

THIS IS A BLACK FRIDAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 29TH 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 8AM ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 30TH).

Echo & The Bunnymen's second single from their timeless fourth studio album Ocean Rain celebrates 40 years this year. Issued on 12" for the first time since original release, it includes the epic Tidal Wave version of the track.

Originally released in 1997, Evergreen marked a critical and commercial renaissance for the band after more than half a decade’s hiatus; an album that rightfully returned them to the Top 10 that sported three UK hits including the seminal ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’.

When Echo & The Bunnymen imploded at the end of the 1980s, the decade lost one of its greatest bands in the messiest of circumstances. Until then, theirs had been a magical rise: since 1979 they’d outgrown the Liverpool punk scene, outshone their alternative pop rivals of the mid-80s, and looked set to step into the big league. But by the end of the decade the magic that had kept them together was slowly unthreading. The die was cast in 1988 when Ian McCulloch quit after a tour of Japan. It should have marked the end for the band, but the remaining Bunnymen decided to persevere and seek a replacement. Unthinkable tragedy struck in 1989 when drummer Pete de Freitas was killed in a motorbike accident.

The finality – as it then seemed – of the Bunnymen was all the worse for the nagging sense that they hadn’t so much faded away as burned out before their time.

After a half-decade wilderness years of side projects and solo outings, in January 1997 Will Sergeant, Les Pattinson and Ian McCulloch decided to come back together in a recording studio for the first time in ten years. The reborn Bunnymen entered Doghouse studios in Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, as fate would have it at the same time as Oasis, then gliding on a post-Knebworth high as the biggest band in Britain. In a pivotal generational passing of the baton, the two legends of their eras merged on the killer ace nestling up McCulloch’s sleeve, ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’, featuring a 24-year-old Liam Gallagher on backing “yeah, yeah, yeah!”s and tambourine shakes.

Any doubts among fans that the Bunnymen might have been making a terrible mistake by regrouping were obliterated by the song’s first chorus, crashing the UK Top Ten at number 8 in June 1997, the first taster of the album, the highest new entry in the band’s career and equalling their best ever chart position for ‘The Cutter’.

The self-produced sessions at Doghouse were further embellished with strings, horns and vocal arrangements at the more imperious sounding Abbey Road and the resultant album achieved the almost impossible; commercial, conceptual and critical acclaim on a par with their past achievements. NME called it “impossibly good. The first comeback in history not to be dogged by a nauseous sense of distress, the first one to actually sound important”, the Melody Maker declared “the new songs are as good as the old songs, and probably better than almost anything you’ll hear this year”.

Former manager (and later KLF pop maverick Bill Drummond) spoke of their return at the time: “Within the soul of Echo & The Bunnymen there was a pure aspiration that transcended all those would-be dragged up memories. It’s as if The Bunnymen were going for some ultimate and indefinable glory.”

Ten years since they last graced the Top Ten Album Chart, Evergreen returned them there in July 1997. The Bunnymen had proved themselves not only deserving of a second wind but effortlessly welcomed by the musical landscape of the late-90s. Arriving in the season of Oasis’s Be Here Now and The Verve’s Urban Hymns, Evergreen was both of and beyond its time.

At the time, McCulloch proudly spoke of the album as the best he’d believed they’d ever made. Through the sepia lens of hindsight, today he understates its value as containing “at least three great songs, which is three more than most bands have in their entire catalogue.” By name, the ballads ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’, ‘Forgiven’ and ‘Just A Touch Away’. Beyond McCulloch’s holy trinity, Evergreen was just as notable for its snake-charming title track and the similarly serpentine ‘Empire State Halo’, both, like the best Bunnymen songs of yore, reaching our ears somewhere from Norris Green via Marrakesh. Elsewhere the Mersey shuffle of singles ‘Don’t Let it Get You Down’ and ‘I Want To Be There (When You Come)’ sees the brighter side of the band, as open and as relevant as their contemporaries past and present.

“Someone asked me the other day why I reunited the Bunnymen,” McCulloch commented that summer. “Well, I haven’t. I’ve re-ignited the Bunnymen. Having said that, they never stopped glowing somewhere in my heart.”

That glow made music, Evergreen still blinds.

TRACK LISTING

EVERGREEN (25 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION) LP
A1 Don’t Let It Get You Down
A2 In My Time
A3 I Want To Be There (When You Come)
A4 Evergreen
A5 I’ll Fly Tonight
A6 Nothing Lasts Forever 3:55
B1 Baseball Bill
B2 Altamont
B3 Just A Touch Away
B4 Empire State Halo
B5 Too Young To Kneel
B6 Forgiven

EVERGREEN (25 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION 2 X CD)
CD1
01 Don’t Let It Get You Down
02 In My Time
03 I Want To Be There (When You Come)
04 Evergreen
05 I’ll Fly Tonight
06 Nothing Lasts Forever
07 Baseball Bill
08 Altamont
09 Just A Touch Away
10 Empire State Halo
11 Too Young To Kneel
12 Forgiven
13 Watchtower
14 Polly
15 Hurracaine
16 Colour Me In
17 Antelope
18 Jonny
CD2
01 I Want To Be There (When You Come)
(Live At The Improv Theatre, 1999)
02 Rescue (Live At The Improv Theatre, 1999)
03 Lips Like Sugar (Live At The Improv Theatre, 1999)
04 Bedbugs And Ballyhoo (Live At The Improv Theatre, 1999)
05 Nothing Lasts Forever (Radio One Jo Whiley Session, 1997)
06 The Killing Moon (Radio One Jo Whiley Session, 1997)
07 Baseball Bill (Live At The Kilburn National, 1997)+
08 Just A Touch Away (Live At The Kilburn National, 1997)+
09 I’ll Fly Tonight (Live At The Kilburn National, 1997)+
10 Altamont (Live At The Kilburn National, 1997)+
11 Lips Like Sugar (Whyt Radio Acoustic Version, 1997)
12 I Want To Be There (When You Come) (Whyt Radio Acoustic Version, 1997)
13 The Killing Moon (Whyt Radio Acoustic Version, 1997)
14 Forgiven (GLR Robert Elms Acoustic Session, 1997)
15 Nothing Lasts Forever (Radio One Live Lounge Session, 1999)+
+Previously Unreleased

Echo & The Bunnymen released their fourth studio album Ocean Rain in 1984, enjoying an enamouring cult status following the success of their first three albums. Ocean Rain continued the band’s use of strings, creating a dark, ethereal aura throughout the album.

It produced three singles, Silver, Seven Seas and the massive anthem The Killing Moon; a track frontman Ian McCulloch once stated, “I know there isn’t a band in the world who’s got a song anywhere near that.” It reached #9 in the UK singles chart, and continues to transcend generations to this day, routinely featuring in films and television shows such as Donnie Darko.

The album’s iconic, atmospheric cover art was taken in the stunning Carnglaze Caverns in Cornwall by photographer Brian Griffin, who shot their three previous album covers. Ocean Rain went on to reach #4 in the UK album charts, being certified gold in the process, as well as charting in the USA.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Silver
2. Nocturnal Me
3. Crystal Days
4. The Yo Yo Man
5. Thorn Of Crowns
Side B
1. The Killing Moon
2. Seven Seas
3. My Kingdom
4. Ocean Rain

Echo & The Bunnymen’s first best-of compilation Songs To Learn And Sing is back on vinyl for the first time since its original release in 1985. The album is a comprehensive collection of the band’s first four albums, from their second single Rescue, to The Cutter and the anthemic The Killing Moon. It also includes Bring On The Dancing Horses, originally released in conjunction with Songs To Learn & Sing back in 1985. It arrives back on vinyl as Echo & The Bunnymen go back on tour to celebrate 40 years of magical songs throughout 2022.

ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN were formed in Liverpool in 1978 with Ian McCulloch on vocals and rhythm guitar, Will Sergeant on lead guitar and Les Pattinson on bass. They were soon joined by Pete De Freitas on drums and the rest, as they say, is history. By the time of Songs To Learn & Sing original release the band were a force to be reckoned with, pioneering the post-punk, new wave scene with four highly acclaimed studio albums.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Rescue
2. The Puppet
3. Do It Clean
4. A Promise
5. Back Of Love
6. The Cutter

Side B:
1. Never Stop
2. The Killing Moon
3. Silver
4. Seven Seas
5. Bring On The Dancing Horses

‘What Are You Going to Do with Your Life?’ is the eighth studio album by British post-punk legends Echo & The Bunnymen, released on April 16, 1999.

With an inspired selection of collaborators including strings from the London Metropolitan Orchestra and two songs featuring the American rap rock band Fun Loving Criminals, ‘What Are You Going to Do with Your Life?’ featured two singles, the title track, and the atmospheric fan favourite ‘Rust’, which would mark the band’s final Top 40 UK single.

TRACK LISTING

1. What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?
2. Rust
3. Get In The Car
4. Baby Rain
5. History Chimes
6. Lost On You
7. Morning Sun
8. When It All Blows Over
9. Fools Like Us 

Echo & The Bunnymen formed in Liverpool back in 1978, with Ian McCulloch on vocals, Will Sergeant on guitar, bassist Les Pattinson with Pete De Freitas on drums. Their first release came in the form of the single 'Pictures On My Wall' - which would appear on their debut album 'Crocodiles', released in 1980. Released amid the growing wave of post-punk, 'Crocodiles' cemented the band amongst the best around, with the NME at the time describing it as “probably the best album this year by a British band” and featuring amongst many greatest ever debut album lists.

The lead single from the album, 'Rescue', was produced by Ian Broudie who would later produce more Echo & The Bunnymen material, as well as later forming The Lightning Seeds in 1989. The single would enter the UK charts, with the album breaking into the top 20 and going on to be certified Gold. The original cover was shot by Brian Griffin near Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. The atmospheric, moody aura of the sleeve sets the tone for quintessential post-punk.

TRACK LISTING

1. Going Up
2. Stars Are Stars
3. Pride
4. Monkeys
5. Crocodiles
6. Rescue
7. Villiers Terrace
8. Pictures On My Wall
9. All That Jazz
10. Happy Death Men

Long out of print, the Bunnymen's self-titled album features the singles 'The Game', 'Lips Like Sugar' and 'Bedbugs And Ballyhoo'.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Game
2. Over You
3. Bedbugs And Ballyhoo
4. All In Your Mind
5. Bombers Say
6. Lips Like Sugar
7. Lost And Found
8. New Direction
9. Blue Blue Ocean
10. Satellite
11. All My Life

Following the release of their debut album 'Crocodiles' and the subsequent EP 'Shine So Hard', Echo & The Bunnymen returned with their second studio album 'Heaven Up Here'. The album spawned the single 'A Promise' as well as 'Over The Wall' in Australia. The album artwork was shot by frequent collaborator Brian Griffin, on a beach in the South Wales town of Porthcawl and won the Best Dressed LP at the 1981 NME Awards.

Seen as a darker album to their debut 'Crocodiles', the album was well-received by fans and press alike, cementing their cult status in the UK. 'Heaven Up Here' went on to peak at #10 in the UK album charts, being certified Gold in the process, as well as being the band’s first album to chart in the USA. It won the 1981 NME Best Album award and ranks amongst Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest albums of all time.

TRACK LISTING

1. Show Of Strength
2. With A Hip
3. Over The Wall
4. It Was A Pleasure
5. A Promise
6. Heaven Up Here
7. The Disease
8. All My Colours
9. No Dark Things
10. Turquoise Days
11. All I Want

Echo & The Bunnymen released their fourth studio album 'Ocean Rain' in 1984, enjoying an enamouring cult status following the success of their first three albums. 'Ocean Rain' continued the band’s use of strings, creating a dark, ethereal aura throughout the album.

It produced three singles, 'Silver', 'Seven Seas' and the massive anthem 'The Killing Moon'; a track frontman Ian McCulloch once stated, “I know there isn’t a band in the world who’s got a song anywhere near that.” It reached #9 in the UK singles chart, and continues to transcend generations to this day, routinely featuring in films and television shows such as Donnie Darko.

The album’s iconic, atmospheric cover art was taken in the stunning Carnglaze Caverns in Cornwall by photographer Brian Griffin, who shot their three previous album covers. 'Ocean Rain' went on to reach #4 in the UK album charts, being certified gold in the process, as well as charting in the USA.

TRACK LISTING

1. Silver
2. Nocturnal Me
3. Crystal Days
4. The Yo Yo Man
5. Thorn Of Crowns
6. The Killing Moon
7. Seven Seas
8. My Kingdom
9. Ocean Rain

Echo & The Bunnymen first released the single 'Back Of Love' in 1982, nearly nine months before the album’s release in 1983. It became the band’s first UK top 20 single as well as charting in Ireland. It led to the release of 'Porcupine' in 1983, with Ian Broudie, who would later form The Lightning Seeds, returning to production duties having co-produced their debut album 'Crocodiles'.

Initially rejected by the band’s label, the album was re-recorded with Indian violinist, singer and composer Lakshminarayana Shankar, who added strings to the tracks. The result was their greatest chart performance, with 'The Cutter' reaching #8 in the singles charts and 'Porcupine' finishing #2 in the album charts and went on to be certified Gold. 'Porcupine' featured on many end of year critics’ lists, with their single 'The Cutter' still remaining highly popular to this day.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Cutter
2. Back Of Love
3. My White Devil
4. Clay
5. Porcupine
6. Heads Will Roll
7. Ripeness
8. Higher Hell
9. Gods Will Be Gods
10. In Bluer Skies

A comprehensive collection of the Bunnymen’s first four albums, from their second single 'Rescue', to 'The Cutter' and the anthemic 'The Killing Moon'. It also includes 'Bring On The Dancing Horses', originally released in conjunction with 'Songs To Learn & Sing' back in 1985.

ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN were formed in Liverpool in 1978 with Ian McCulloch on vocals and rhythm guitar, Will Sergeant on lead guitar and Les Pattinson on bass. They were soon joined by Pete De Freitas on drums and the rest, as they say, is history. By the time of 'Songs To Learn & Sing' original release the band were a force to be reckoned with, pioneering the post-punk, new wave scene with four highly acclaimed studio albums.

TRACK LISTING

1. Rescue
2. The Puppet
3. Do It Clean
4. A Promise
5. The Back Of Love
6. The Cutter
7. Never Stop
8. The Killing Moon
9. Silver
10. Silver Seas
11. Bring On The Dancing Horses

Over the past few years orchestral instrumental music from outside the classical establishment has become huge, and Neil Leiter and Margaret Hermant of the Belgian Echo Collective have witnessed the evolution and extraordinary rise of this movement right up close. They've worked with some of the most important players, including Stars Of The Lid, Dustin O’Halloran and Adam Wiltze’s A Winged Victory For The Sullen and O’Halloran’s solo projects, as well as Jóhann Jóhannsson. And though the Echo Collective members themselves very much do come from within the classical music establishment, they don't care which side of the fence they are seen to be on. It was this which grabbed the attention of German music hub !K7's new sub-label 7K! - who have signed them for a two album deal: first to release the Amnesiac reinterpretation, then for a record of Echo Collective's own compositions.

TRACK LISTING

1. Packt Like Sardines In A Crushed Tin Box
2. Pyramid Song
3. You And Whose Army?
4. I Might Be Wrong
5. Knives Out
6. Morning Bell/Amnesiac
7. Dollars & Cents
8. Hunting Bears – Like Spinning Plates
9. Life In A Glasshouse

More vocal-orientated than any of his previous work, it's undoubtedly the finest Echoboy record to date. "Giraffe" was recorded with legendary producer Flood and features ten new tracks. From the driving bass melody of album opener "Automatic Eyes" to the gorgeous "Summer Rhythm", from the uplifting emotional edge of "Don't Destroy Me" to the uncomfortable sarcasm of "Good On TV", the album is full of original and imaginative pop songs.

There is something unique about Echolalia. Conjuring sonic magic in an ancient abbey off the English coast, this band of Nashville pros gathered far from the structures of Music City to create an alchemical haze of earthy audio adventures. Grounded in friendship and a sense of freedom to follow sounds through whatever windswept fields they found themselves in, the result of the collaboration is Echolalia. Pastoral and psychedelic, cosy and progressive, Echolalia is comfortable in its own oddness and creative in ways both familiar and unexpected.

“It was Jordan Lehning that decided to put it together,” says songwriter and pedal steel wizard Spencer Cullum, who performs alongside the likes of country super star Miranda Lambert and ambient jazz auteur Rich Ruth. “I told Jordan about this studio in a really desolate area on the Isle of Wight that a friend of mine runs called Chale Abbey. It's a beautiful old building from 1160 where monks used to live. The studio owners completely renovated it. Jordan had this idea - the four songwriters would have three songs and we'd work together to make a record of it”.

With the addition of multi-instrumentalists Eli Beaird, Juan Solorzano and Lehning’s brother Jason behind the board, the group gathered in Chale Abbey Studios for a very un-Nashville experience: no charts, no headphones, no isolation. No preconceptions, no expectations, just friends enjoying one another's talents, responding with a sense of joy. No obligations to corporate radio or shareholder value, no amp modelling and quantization - just musicians making music.

“Destination records are my favourite records to make,” says multi-instrumentalist Jordan Lehning, whose collaborators include Rodney Crowell and Orville Peck. “You feel like you're the only person on planet Earth making a record when you're out in the middle of nowhere doing it. In Nashville you’ll go to lunch and run into 15 other people that are also making a record. Going out to the middle of nowhere, where the coast is a seven minute walk, and in the wintertime, it's cold and foggy and beautiful… there's really nothing like it”.

Drummer Dominic Billett and bass player Eli Beaird round out the band with a rhythm section as lyrical as it is propulsive. Juan Solorzano’s guitar and synth contributions add otherworldly textures, tethering songs to the firmament as they begin to drift beyond the veil. Jason Lehning’s engineering brings a clarity and focus that lets the room’s character be a part of the band.

The magic of Echolalia may be that the moons aligned to let busy friends with careers and kids and schedules and side hustles actually hang out in a way that adulthood rarely allows. In that special place populated by special people, the music was allowed to blossom in its own way, and now it makes its way into the world, unbidden by pretensions or preconceptions.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dreams Of You
2. Odd Energy
3. Little Bird
4. Blood Moon
5. Rainbow Road
6. Twisted Hemlock
7. Pterri
8. I’m Starving
9. Never Cry
10. For Your Love
11. The Fox And The Grapes
12. In The Evening
13. In The Pub 

Chris Eckman is one of those songwriters with the alchemist’s touch. He’s proved it over the years as the songwriter of the Seattle rock-folk band The Walkabouts, as well as across a lauded six album solo career. His songs have been recorded by Townes Van Zandt, Steve Wynn, Willard Grant Conspiracy (and others), and his last album, the spare, haunted Where the Spirit Rests, won the prestigious German Record Critics Award (Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik) in 2021. Three and a half years later he’s back with 'The Land We Knew the Best', and new stories to tell.

Yet this isn’t just a continuation, it’s not the same character. Time has passed, but maybe more importantly, the geography has altered. The songs on 'The Land We Knew the Best' aren’t populated by the broken people and tumbledown, raw landscapes of the American West that has been the setting for much of his previous work. He’s lived in Ljubljana, Slovenia for many years, and it’s seeped into his consciousness. Not just the city, but also the mountainous and thickly forested nature that surrounds it. 'The Land We Knew the Best' has its own distinctive landscape. Its own emotional geography.

TRACK LISTING

1. Genevieve
2. Town Lights Fade
3. Running Hot
4. Buttercup
5. Laments
6. Haunted Nights
7. The Cranes
8. Last Train Home

Canadian go-slow master Eddie C is back with more of his sumptuous and sensuous grooves on the magnificent Funkyjaws Music. This new 12" kicks off with the emotionally intense and gospel-laced vocal sounds of 'Jesus Calling' with a passionate pastor lighting up the airways. 'Show Me The Way' is a more paired down sound this time with a raw soul edge and nice dusty drums, then 'Superior Disco' brings some lavish string stabs and funky basslines to some killer instrumental grooves. 'Loud Minority' closes out with some lovely jazzy organ work over more low-slung and dusty disco beats.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: In need of some high energy vibes for your next church rave? Eddie C has got you covered... Hallelujah!

TRACK LISTING

Jesus Calling
Show Me The Way
Superior Disco
Loud Minority

Eddie shows up to this rodeo alone, wielding, as ever, a deft and unbeatable trigger finger on the sampler. An answer maybe to his debut LP 'Parts Unknown' from 2011, we get a collection of cuts recorded in Harvie Heights, Canada and Berlin between 2005-2020.

Also reprising those beloved 7 Inches Of Love and early Red Motorbike vibes on some deadly Madlib style downtempo cuts, and quick cut 'n paste workouts

LJ Simon, who collaborated on those killer recent Sandy B releases lends a hand too, it's a joyous disco-house affair that reminds us of those old Tony Senghore jams from the 90's

Fruitful and fully juiced up joints for the Disko Universal!

Album art by Tudo Mal aka Hugo Capablanca: it's a lovely sketch of his Uncle's cabin.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Tasty full length from Canadian samplesmith Eddie C. Spanning beatdown, disco and tropical moods; it's a brilliant snapshot of the long serving producer in 2025.

TRACK LISTING

A.No Speak Evil
A.Catfish Haus Feat. LJ Simon
A.Need Sum

B.I Hear DAT
B.Take Chances
B.I've Tried

A mainstay of the UK's reggae, soul, funk & rock circuits since the early 1970s, Eddie Capone has played with a diverse and revered collection of acts; Chairmen of the Board, The Foundations, Black Velvet, The Elgins, Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come, Arthur Lee's Love, Billy Preston and Edwin Starr to name but a few. Eddie was also part of short-lived group Casablanca, with David Costa & Barry Clarke of early 70's folk-rockers Trees, signed to Elton John's Rocket Record Company.

Eddie founded the Treatment band in the early 1980s bringing in a revolving cast of singers and players, and created the Treatment Records imprint out of his own Black Rock studio in South East London in 1982. Releasing a string of singles - with efforts from Eddie Capone's Treatment, a side-project with singer Beryl Marsden as Salt & Pepper, and a single from Norwegian group Wave - Treatment Records then followed this up in 1985 with the 12" release of "I Won't Give You Up" with Diane Jones brought in on vocal duties. This received solid support amongst DJs and radio at the time, and was quickly followed with this solid slice of white label-only UK boogie-funk that has since become a favoured deep cut on the selectors circuit.

Treatment Records continued through the 1980s through to early 1990s releasing Eddie's music, both as a solo artist and as part of collaborative side-projects, and Eddie has continued to write, perform and produce music from his home studio right through to the present day. As a committed community figure & activist in South East London, Eddie has since 2014 re-started Treatment Records under the name of 3G Treatment - bringing together three generations of people from the local area to ensure young artists & musicians have access to the expertise and experience of their elders for support and encourage successful careers in the industry.

TRACK LISTING

1. Only You Know What I Like
2. Only You Know What I Like (Instrumental)

It is impossible to deny no one sounds like Eddy Current. I was hooked from riff one and I was lucky enough to do a full tour of Australia with them years ago—good fucking boys, simple as beer and chips, and that satisfying live. But that’s not to say there aren’t odd complexities to their definitive sound. “You can smell Mikey Young’s guitar approach like Sasquatch rustling the bushes, every time you think you see the bend ahead, you go into a tunnel or backtrack for a moment, then back to a nice place you can call home. Rob [Solid]’s bass is pub-fuzz groove. It’s shellson- the-floor and leaning-against-the wall-with-one-hand-while-youhave- a-piss thinking: maybe you can take that guy? Only one way to find out— oh wait, he’s smiling…nice bloke! Danny [Young]’s drums are a clinic in reservedness: 4-on-the-floor. This guy’s Charlie Watts in the looking glass, every hit a necessity—solid, not flashy, like the lead street tough in a ‘70s flick. He don’t say much, but it counts. And then there is Brendan [Huntley], be-gloved lead mensch in this quartet. Singing with earnest street poet confidence, his message coming in on the weird-wire, hard to describe, best to just listen and see: a pubpunk- priest. “We are very pleased to have these boys back on the streets. It had been far too long.” - John Dwyer.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Castle Face definitely have a sound, and this newest one from Eddy Current Suppression Ring fits right in, seamlessly. Grooving guitars, frantic freak-outs and snarling vocal madness all embellish a satisfying and groove-led odyssey. Ace stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. All In Good Time
2. Medieval Wall
3. Shoulders
4. Our Quiet Whisper
5. Voices
6. Reoccuring Dream
7. Vicariously Living
8. Future Self
9. Human Race
10. Like A Comet
11. Modern Man

New album from the best new Australian band in a good long time, When Eddy Current Suppression Ring formed in Melbourne, Australia, in 2003, bandmates Eddy Current, Rob Solid, Danny Current, and Brendan Suppression thought they would play a few shows and perhaps record a 7-inch or two. One of their first gigs, in fact, was an employee Christmas party at the record pressing plant where they worked. Six years later, the band has racked up accolades from the likes of SPIN Magazine, London’s Guardian newspaper, and the Australian Independent Record Labels Association. In March of 2009, they were awarded the $30,000 Australian Music Prize for their second album, "Primary Colours".

Eddy Current’s third full-length, "Rush To Relax", is already one of the most anticipated releases of 2010. Cut last August in a six-hour session at Melbourne’s Revolver Rehearsal Studios, the album combines stripped-down post-punk sensibilities with the sheer exhilaration of a four-man musical unit that has created its own language, and will never run out of new things to say. While "Primary Colours" drew on what Guardian music critic Tom Hughes described as 'fast ’n’ fuzzy garage rock', "Rush To Relax" employs a pop ethos more common to the mid-80s Dunedin Sound of New Zealand’s Flying Nun label, with cascading guitar riffs and precise rhythms shadowing the introspective lyrics from black-gloved frontman Brendan Suppression. The geographical tug is most prevalent on "Anxiety", the new album’s lead single, which is a guitar-driven homage to The Clean’s whimsical, scene-launching debut "Tally-Ho", twisted via Eddy Current’s inimitable style. The frantic pace of "Anxiety" is somewhat of an anomaly for "Rush To Relax", a shape-shifter of an album that has already garnered comparisons to Television’s 1977 landmark debut "Marquee Moon". Like that classic group, Eddy Current Suppression Ring harnesses tension and propulsion to blast past the barriers of everyday tedium.

TRACK LISTING

1. Anxiety
2. I’ve Got A Feeling
3. Tuning Out
4. Gentleman
5. Walked Into A Corner
6. Second Guessing
7. I Can Be A Jerk
8. Burn
9. Isn’t It Nice
10. Rush To Relax

They've drawn comparisons to Wire, Can, The Fall, Fugazi and The Stooges. They have a singer who wears black gloves to overcome stage fright. They won the $30,000 Australian Music Prize for their 2008 album Primary Colours - then recorded the next one themselves in a few hours in their practice space and spent the dough on a photo shoot for the album cover. They do not care about you and your expectations. You could call them "fiercely independent" but they don't seem fierce at all.

Quietly, and definitely on their own terms, Eddy Current Suppression Ring has become a force in underground music. Now, after three albums, it's time for a compilation of singles tracks, demos and other stuff they had lying round. Turns out there was lots to choose from-and even after trimming, they ended up with a double album. Goner Records is happy to provide 'So Many Things'.

Alicia Edelweiss is an Austrian-British singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and performer. She lives and works in Vienna. In addition to electronic elements, soundscapes and field recordings also characterise the sound. Nevertheless, the pieces of music have the catchiness typical of pop; depth and openness go hand in hand on the album. This dynamic is achieved primarily through sound, melody, and texture, which serve as deeply layered emotional carriers. FURIE features piano, accordion, drums, and a strong focus on strings, Synthesizers, layered vocals, and field recordings—including samples of animals and nature— add further depth to the album’s sonic landscape. At the heart of FURIE stands Alicia Edelweiss' voice, her most essential instrument and distinctive vehicle of expression.

Stripping away excess layers, Dispossessed lives up to its title. The band went into Causa Sui's Jonas Munk's studio on the last day of February 2025. In an a priori session, the first note played together since 2023's Dens - the conclusion of a trilogy and a live album all in less than a year. Has something shifted during the silence? Added aggression? Faster tempo? Darker ambiance? The feeling of losing time? Or is it simply the listener who’s world has tilted? In a fast paced world, Edena Gardens shows us how to resist and tune to our own inner chord.

Edena Gardens deals in subtle shifts that can only be summoned from something played for the first time. From the sludgy blasts of opener Hiraeth to the droning ambience of 10-minute ender Aftenstjerne. As always, the band travels far yet stays in the same internal realm. The band's own Jakob Skøtt has made minor edits to cut a record from hours of free improvisation, and every dubbed ambience has been culled directly from the material recorded that day, bringing into play the band's gestalt in a way that shows their both outer and inner workings: Dispossessed.

Edena Gardens is: Jakob Skøtt: Drums (Causa Sui) Nicklas Sørensen: Guitar (Papir) Martin Rude: Baritone guitar & Bass (London Odense Ensemble)

TRACK LISTING

1. Hiraeth
2. Fills The Well
3. Cantor Dew
4. Vanishing Point
5. Light In August
6. Heim
7. Dispossessed
8. Aftenstjerne

Members of Papir & Causa Sui travel through new musical realms. 3 musicians with their own compass: Martin Rude & Jakob Skøtt have shared a wide range of musical quests: from Causa Sui’s “Bitches Brew of Stoner Rock” crossing the folk meditations of Sun River and arriving most recently as members of the pre-fusion electric dealings of the London Odense Ensemble. Papir guitarist Nicklas Sørensen is not merely adding a new layer to an established duo, but his presence to the party have brought it into more meditative dwellings.

These pieces move slowly, evolving like the slow growth underneath the ground. Whereas Causa Sui & Papir have always excelled at blistering panoramic and often sundrenched sounds, Edena Gardens take a dive inwards and downwards rather than outwards. But there’s also an electrically charged ecstatic rawness to the dealings. Like Æther, the 10 minute opener’s 2 guitars-and-a-drum kit improv, finding it’s way from tumbling drones into monolithic slow riffage. Elsewhere, we find trails of electronic vapors, misfiring bursts of noise and slow drones stretched out. Edena Gardens is a thing to be experienced first hand - it’s not for everyone, but those who decide to stay are greatly rewarded. It’s a debut unlike any other record on El Paraiso, perhaps unlike any you’ve ever heard. Welcome to Edena Gardens. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Aether
2. Sliding Under
3. The Canopy
4. Hidebound
5. Now Here Nowhere
6. Iod
7. An T-eilean Dubh

Edgar Summertyme- aka Edgar ‘Jones’ Jones, former front man of The Stairs and Mercury music prize nominee, returns with a spectacular, colourful and honest album, that yet again redefines this enigmatic Liverpool legend.

After a period of darkness, he has re-emerged with a new Sense of Harmony. The music he has produced on this new album defies category yet obviously comes from the depth of his soul and shines brightly. Soak it all up and wonder how the hell he does it! Truly mind blowing

TRACK LISTING

1) Sense Of Harmony Part 1
2) On And On
3) What’s A Boy To Do?
4) Bye & By
5) Sunday Afternoon
6) It Can Only Be You
7) I Would Do Anything
8) What Are We Gonna Do?
9) Beep Beep
10) Wishing Well
11) Look No Words
12) Standing On The Verge Of Getting By
13) Empty Promises
14) Sense Of Harmony Part 2

New Tradition is the debut Solo Album by Ben Edge, who's past musical projects include Thee Spivs and Ben Edge and the Electric Pencils. Releasing on Vinyl to coincide with the exhibition of Ben Edge's paintings in June at the Crypt Gallery at the St Pancras New Church in London, in collaboration with the Museum of British Folklore.Ben who is a painter and visual artist, has undertaken a project over the past four years in which he has obsessively been visiting, filming and painting the folk customs, rituals and ceremonies of the British Isles and this group of songs was inspired by the sights, sounds and folkloric world in which Edge has immersed himself.

The cover art is one of Edge’s paintings and depicts the Garland king of Castleton, Derbyshire. The album was produced by Matthew Shaw (Shirley Collins, Tex La Homa, Spectral and the Pop Group) The coming year will be a busy one for Ben Edge with the Launch of his documentary film and series of Paintings 'Frontline Folklore' that will be exhibited in collaboration with the Museum of British Folklore and of course when the world permits playing live and performing the songs of 'New Tradition'.

TRACK LISTING

1. New Tradition
2. Centre Point
3. Who Knows Where I Will Be
3. Cowboys And Indians
4. Tell Me Anyway
5. Righteous Blues
6. Bedlam
7. Mutilated Land
8. Blue Moon
9. Reason For Living
10. Burryman's Place
11. Burn Your Boats And Bridges

Holy Orders/Edible 5ft Smiths frontman goes not-quite-solo with a little help from some celestial friends. ‘Stairgazing’ is the debut solo album from former Edible 5ft Smiths leader Matt Edible. Hull cult favourites Edible 5ft Smiths made one and a half of the greatest undiscovered albums of the noughties before burning up in a small blaze of glory, leaving broken hearts scattered in their wake. Since then Matt has fronted awesomely heavy & twisted rock combo The Holy Orders, all the while building up a collection of distinctly different songs of his own, more akin to a continuation of the Edibles catalogue.

Those songs seemed set to languish in the vault until, prompted by the mundanity of life and an encounter with mortality, Matt decided they needed to be fully realised and so sought out an old friend, producer and Edibles super-fan Joe Bennett (Dreaming Spires, Co-pilgrim, Goldrush, Saint Etienne). Before long a plan was hatched to cut the record at Farm Music Studios in Oxfordshire, with drummer Mike Monaghan (Willie J Healey, Ralfe Band, Gaz Coombes) and Co-pilgrim main man Mike Gale on board.

The record itself is a swooning psychedelic pop beauty: Matt’s distinctive vocal acrobatics are introduced on soaring opener “Jumping Houses” and alternative christmas hit “Advent Beard”. “Nightclubbing” is the greatest tongue-in-cheek stadium anthem Noel Gallagher never wrote, and album climax “The Healing” ebbs and flows from Bowie-esque prog piano balladry into full-on cinematic post-rock explosion.

TRACK LISTING

1. Jumping Houses
2. Advent Beard
3. Stairgazing
4. Don’t Stay
5. Nightclubbing
6. Astronauts
7. The Healing
8. (Lullaby) 

‘An End Has A Start' is the second album from Editors. It hit No 1 on release in 2007, selling nearly 60,000 copies in the process and includes the Top 10 single ‘Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors’ plus the singles ‘The Racing Rats’, ‘Bones’, ‘Push Your Head Towards The Air’ and the album’s title track.

TRACK LISTING

CD:
Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors
An End Has A Start
The Weight Of The World
Bones
When Anger Shows
The Racing Rats
Push Your Head Towards The Air
Escape The Nest
Spiders
Well Worn Hand
No Sound But The Wind (Live At Rock Werchter 2010)

LP:
Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors
An End Has A Start
The Weight Of The World
Bones
When Anger Shows
The Racing Rats
Push Your Head Towards The Air
Escape The Nest
Spiders
Well Worn Hand

Across their six official albums, Editors have achieved major success internationally, selling 2.6M albums worldwide, racking up Mercury nominations, multiple platinum and gold records, No 1s in the UK, Belgium and Netherlands and Top 10s right across the rest of Europe. The album includes 13 of the band’s biggest songs alongside three brand new tracks, including the title track ‘Black Gold’. The album cover was shot by award winning photograper Nadav Kander and designed by Tom Hingston (Massive Attack, Young Fathers, Nick Cave).

TRACK LISTING

‘Black Gold’
(LP/CD)
Frankenstein
Papillon
Munich
Sugar
Hallelujah (So Low)
An End Has A Start
Upside Down
Bullets
Ocean Of The Night
No Harm
Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors
A Ton Of Love
Magazine
The Racing Rats
Black Gold
No Sound But The Wind

‘Distance: The Acoustic Recordings’
(Deluxe 2CD Edition Only)
Violence
Walk The Fleet Road
Blood
Let Your Good Heart Lead You Home
Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors
Fall
Two Hearted Spider
Distance

Editors have never been a band who do what’s expected. When they emerged in the early 2000s, university friends from Birmingham, they were swept into a wave of indie groups with whom they had little in common beyond playing guitars. Then, after their 2005 Mercury Prize-shortlisted debut The Back Room and 2007 #1 follow-up An End Has A Start, they switched up their sound for synths. That was their first act of bravery, says frontman Tom Smith, and they’ve been taking risks ever since. “We’re quite used to that feeling of scaring our audience with new material,” he says with a smile.

“It seems to happen with every album,” agrees guitarist Justin Lockey. “We’ll do something that everyone really likes, and then we’ll go and do something else.”

That ‘something else’ is a breathlessly heavy step up, with their seventh album, EBM. It’s Editors’ most leftfield material yet – a thrilling, unrelenting thrust of full-bodied electro-industrial rock. Another new dawn: Benjamin John Power – aka Blanck Mass – has co-produced the album and come aboard as an official member. To outside ears, it might seem like an unusual pairing: an anthemic rock band who’ve headlined Wembley Arena and an Ivor Novello-winning composer who is best known for his abrasive noise projects. Even Benjamin himself admits it was a “leap of faith”. But Editors’ evolution makes perfect sense. They’ve toured with The Cure, of whom they are all huge fans, and are used to playing European festivals where they’re billed alongside harder acts. In Germany, for example, “we're not seen as some melodic indie band,” says Justin, “we’re seen as super goth.” He adds: “We talked about Rammstein quite a lot when we're making this record.”

Benjamin’s journey to joining Editors was a surprisingly organic one. He had worked on the band’s last album, 2018’s Violence, giving some songs a more brutal, industrial edge, the full realisations of which came out as 2019’s The Blanck Mass Sessions. That same year, Editors were asked to both headline a festival in Belgium and create a bespoke set for later on in the night. They approached Benjamin to see whether he’d be up for helping to retool their songs in a dancier direction. But with the pandemic underway, the festival never happened and Editors were left with a bunch of new ideas during the ensuing lockdowns that were designed for – as Benjamin puts it – a “dirty rave tent”.

They continued swapping ideas anyway, and the band began buzzing about where this music was headed: shadowier, beefier, exploring their shared love of synth-pop, industrial and alt-rock, it started to feel like a new chapter – the band’s third act. For the first time, the song structures weren’t coming from Tom and he says it was a novel but exciting exercise to receive the files and tinker with them, with Justin, Elliott Williams (keyboards/guitars), drummer Ed Lay and bassist Russell Leetch fleshing out their parts in the studio when they eventually regrouped. “Ben has certainly been a shot of adrenaline in our creative process,” says Tom. “The songs are so immediate, and in your face.”

Making EBM was “a lifeline” during the pandemic, says Elliott, “something to totally get lost in.” Indeed, they’ve created a world brimming with drama and intensity, which is exhilarating after the past few years of collective listlessness. “The songs feel like an escape,” nods Tom. The album title is an acronym of Editors and Blanck Mass but also a knowing reference to Electronic Body Music, the potent sound that originated in the 1980s and which has hugely influenced Editors’ new material, where the synths of bands like Nitzer Ebb, Front 242 , DAF and Skinny Puppy hammer darkly. Think smoke machines, strobe lights and the smell of leather. The band has taken those influences in a distinctly Editors direction: see the soaring falsetto of standout ‘Kiss’, their disco-infused “crying on the dancefloor” banger, says Tom, which Benjamin adds “could almost be a Donna Summer song” if it wasn’t so heavy. Or the punchy chorus of ‘Karma Climb’, a stomping single that pairs ghostly atmospherics with stadium-level anthemia. On ‘Vibe’, which is the closest thing to what you could call a ‘feelgood’ Editors track, Tom wanted to put a “summertime sheen” on “a song for disconnected youth”. It’s Editors at their most super goth, sure – but also their most pop.

For Benjamin, it was an opportunity to flex his melodic muscles. In fact, says Tom, it was the avant-garde producer who brought the poppiest ideas to the table. “I was quite blown away by how accessible they were,” he says. “It was like ABBA or something.” Benjamin, a Nine Inch Nails die-hard, has always been struck by the seriousness and sentimentality of Editors’ music and was also keen to heighten the intensity after a bleak few years. “There’s a strong physicality to this record,” he says of its muscular soundscapes, which certainly echo, in places, the claustrophobia of The Downward Spiral. “I was looking ahead to a kind of a space where it’s sweaty, and bodies are close together.”

For the most part, EBM revels in maximalism. The battle cry of lead single ‘Heart Attack’ sets out their stall, a twinkling rock ballad with a serrated, noirish undercurrent that lets rip into gloriously metallic riffage. From there, it’s a torrid release of beats, blips and broodiness: all killer, no filler; full-on but never overloaded. ‘Educate’ is almost symphonic in scope, as Tom angrily intones about the uncertainty of modern times. ‘Strawberry Lemonade’, meanwhile, is an all-blooping, all-thwacking bodice-ripper, with drums that sound like they might punch out of the speakers. Album closer ‘Strange Intimacy’ is “the most outrageous” of the album, says Tom – “not a particularly happy place to end, as it’s quite a bleak look at a relationship, but the arrangement of it gives it this theatricality.” It’s certainly the most ambitious Editors have ever sounded, where Justin’s “preposterous” guitar riff gives way, he says, to a “mad eight-minute techno odyssey” at the end.

Another about-turn is the jittering crescendo of ‘Silence’ – the album’s post-rock ‘breather’, if you can call it that. Tom’s baritone has never sounded better, recalling a young Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Hurt’. He’s never much been one for direct lyrics. On EBM, there are undeniable references to the pandemic and a divided Britain (“can you feel the broken nation?” he intones on ‘Strawberry Lemonade’) but these are slivers of reality among the abstract, in songs that are largely about losing yourself in the unknown. “I think it’s always better when the listener can draw their own conclusions from what I write,” he says. Justin agrees. “We sit in quite an emotional space, so everyone always wants to know what the words are about, but the music is half the emotion and what sets the mood and the tempo. Sometimes it’s better just to give yourself over to that rather than to try and work out what something means all the time.”

It comes back to this idea of letting the mood take over, of giving in, and getting lost. And it’s going to sound absolutely eviscerating live. It’s a new world, and a new chapter for Editors – as it is for everyone. Time to move your body.

TRACK LISTING

1. Heart Attack
2. Picturesque
3. Karma Climb
4. Kiss
5. Silence
6. Strawberry Lemonade
7. Vibe
8. Educate
9. Strange Intimacy

Following the surprise release of their first new music in two years via a secretive placing of ‘No Harm’ on a Play It Again Sam label sampler and a further taster in the form of the seven plus minutes ‘Marching Orders’ which saw 300 test pressings donated to Oxfam for sale in their stores around the globe, Editors release their fifth studio album, ‘In Dream’.

Recorded in Crear in the Western Highlands by the band, and mixed in London by Alan Moulder, ‘In Dream’ is the second album to feature the ‘new’ line-up of the band with Justin Lockey and Elliott Williams firmly in place alongside founding members Tom Smith, Russell Leetch and Ed Lay. After two years of global touring this five piece incarnation used the new album to stretch the Editors sound, swerving away from the rock dynamic of ‘The Weight Of Your Love’ and marking a return to a writing process influenced by electronic music that draws a line from their debut album through to prominence on the band’s third album, the UK Number One ‘In This Light And On This Evening’.

‘In Dream’ is an album created without preconception. The initial visit to Crear, an isolated artist’s retreat 8 miles from the nearest town down dirt track roads was envisaged as a writing and demoing exercise but sessions bloomed within the stunning live room (with floor to ceiling windows framing the Atlantic) and it soon became apparent that the recordings were staking a claim as finished works.

At the centre of ‘In Dream’ is a belief in collaboration. Thus the album was produced by all band members in an open studio environment, nowhere within Crear was cut off from the music being performed and recorded in the creative space. Downtime was soundtracked by a varied playlist that stretched from Todd Terje to 80’s Robert Palmer, John Grant to the Despacio three hour club mix.

‘In Dream’ is the first Editors album to feature duets, Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell sharing vocal duties on ‘Ocean Of Night’, ‘The Law’ and ‘At All Cost’ and is an album focused on allowing artistic interpretations outside of the band to flourish; Alan Moulder was left to mix the tracks without any band involvement whilst visual collaborator Rahi Rezvani has been given carte blanche with the photography and videography that will accompany the album and its attendant singles. It is a bold and expansive statement and is driven by, according to Tom Smith, a belief that music can be ‘both pop and experimental’.

Released in 2009, ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ was the band’s third album and second No. 1 in the UK. A musical departure being more electronic though no less anthemic than the two previous and the last to feature guitarist Chris Urbanowicz, who left the band in 2012. Includes the singles ‘Papillon’, ‘You Don’t Know Love’ and ‘Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool’.

TRACK LISTING

In This Light And On This Evening
Bricks And Mortar
Papillon
You Don’t Know Love
The Big Exit
The Boxer
Like Treasure
Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool
Walk The Fleet Road

The debut, fast approaching double platinum, Mercury-nominated album ‘The Back Room’ reached No. 2 in the UK album charts in 2005 and amassed over 1 million sales worldwide. Includes the Top 10 single ‘Munich’ and the singles ‘Bullets’, ‘Blood’ and ‘All Sparks’

TRACK LISTING

Lights
Munich
Blood
Fall
All Sparks
Camera
Fingers In The Factory
Bullets
Someone Says
Open Your Arms
Distance

An electronica-infused alternative version of Editors’ acclaimed Top 10 album ‘Violence’, ‘The Blank Mass Sessions’ casts the songs in a bold new light, offering a fascinating insight into the album’s creative process.

The eight track album, made up of producer Blanck Mass’ original productions of ‘Violence’, also includes the brand new single ‘Barricades’.

For ‘Barricades’, Smith’s hopeful lyrics combine with yearning synths over robotic drum machines and sweeping basslines, while ‘Cold’ is given a frostier edge through Blanck Mass’ harsh percussion and robotic directness.

‘Violence’’s stripped back beat builds and erupts into a synth-fuelled chorus brim-full of busy drum patterns and ‘Magazine’s jaunty, sweeping synths and rolling snares lend it even more electronic swagger than the original.

‘Hallelujah (So Low)’ gifts the greatest insight into the triangular relationship ‘Violence’ was born from. The warmth of the album version’s acoustic guitar and industrial fuelled chorus are replaced with sparse, ethereal synths, giving the track and ‘The Blanck Mass Sessions’ in general, a mechanical, other-worldly edge.

TRACK LISTING

Barricades - The Blanck Mass Recording
Cold - The Blanck Mass recording
Hallelujah (So Low) - The Blanck Mass Recording
Violence - The Blanck Mass Recording
Darkness At The Door - the Blanck Mass recording
Nothingness - The Blanck Mass Recording
Magazine - The Blanck Mass Recording
Counting Spooks - The Blanck Mass Recording

‘The Weight Of Your Love’ is the follow up to Editors’ two consecutive Number One UK albums, 2007’s ‘An End Has A Start’ and 2009’s ‘In This Light And On This Evening’. Their debut album, 2005’s ‘The Back Room’ has sold over half a million copies in the UK.

This is the first album to feature new members Justin Lockey and Elliott Williams, following the departure of founding member Chris Urbanowicz in 2012. It was recorded at Blackbird Studio in Nashville with producer Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Norah Jones, Of Monsters And Men, Kings Of Leon) and mixed by Craig Silvey (Arctic Monkeys, The Horrors, Arcade Fire, Bon Iver).

Tom Smith has described ‘The Weight Of Your Love’ as “having a foot in that alt rock / Americana world” and of “feeling untouchable at times”. Recorded mostly live, it contains their most direct songs to date and also features extra production from Clint Mansell on ‘Nothing’, rescored from the original to become what Tom and Ed Lay both describe as the ‘centrepiece’ of the album. Lyrically focused on “love songs... that don’t adhere to the traditional love song type”, the album sees Tom Smith sing in falsetto for the first time on ‘What Is This Thing Called Love’.