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

1000 only. “A wandering troubadour in search of treasured happenstance, Howe Gelb is an enigma.” The Quietus // Long out of print, Howe Gelb’s debut solo album ‘Dreaded Brown Recluse’ is re-imagined on for Record Store Day on brown vinyl. Back then, circa 1991 Howe’s main squeeze Giant Sand were nothing short of prolific, songs were oozing from every pore, their creative id was effervescing, overflowing. With Giant Sand’s colossal new album of ’91 ‘Ramp’ imminent what to do with those further outpourings? An idea: Disguise the band as Howe Gelb solo and produce a song cycle that, on repeat, melds into an eclectic stew that’s easy to dip in and out of but still remains potent several hours in the oven. It’s music as soundtrack to your day, a playful, anarchic piece of situationism that unfolds like all the best dramatic prose. ‘Dreaded Brown Recluse’ includes a rethunk ‘Warm Storm’ with strings (it also appeared on ‘Ramp’). It also features songs about faxing (how quaint), blankets and the insect world, as it straddles territory lost somewhere between psychotic ramshackle punk and slimmed down acoustic reverie. Track List A1 Spirit Lie A2 Picture Shows A3 Loretta and the Insect World A4 Actually Faxing Sophia A5 Cello of the City A6 Still too Far B1 Warm Stone B2 Always Horses Coming B3 Vigdis B4 Vienna Two-Step Throw Away B5 Bible Black Book II B6 Brown Recluse B7 Blanket for Tina

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

1000 only. Special art edition with extra LP of unheard material on Blue Vinyl. 30 years on Half Japanese’s ‘Charmed Life’ is reissued for Record Store Day. Less love and more monster, Half Japanese sound more realised and fully formed on their sixth studio album. Jad Fair had “become increasingly adept at funnelling his obsessions into songs charming, frank, comical and weird.” Marc Masters, Pitchfork. “As accessible as Half Japanese get” The Quietus // Track List 1 Said And Done 2 Penny In The Fountain 3 Evidence 4 Vietnam 5 Roman Candles 6 Love At First Sight 7 Snake Line 8 Bright Lights, Big City 9 Face Rake 10 Later In A Magazine 11 Red Dress 12 Trouble In The Water 13 Charmed Life 14 Day And Night 15 One Million Kisses 16 Miracles Happen Every Day 17 Terminator 18 I'll Change My Style 19 Fortunate 20 Real Cool Time 21 Poetic License

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

Limited edition on black vinyl.North Carolina folk rockers Hiss Golden Messenger re-record two of their original songs, "Cat's Eye Blue" (from their critically acclaimed 2019 album Terms of Surrender) & B-side "Standing in the Doorway" at Spacebomb Studios with contributions from their in-house orchestra.It's the latest in the Alive at Spacebomb Studios series.

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

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

1500 pressed on Creamy White vinyl & DL card. First time on vinyl since 1998 for this magnificent patchwork collage of the Giant Sand main manís eclectic muses; a cut and paste gem, meandering, melancholy and beautiful. Classic solo album from Giant Sand's main man Howe Gelb circa 1998, re-issued with new liner notes and remastered on cream vinyl. A catch-all collection from the much-travelled troubadour that brings together a wealth of personal recordings edited into an intriguing ponder wander through the manís thinking.

A truly intoxicating set of songs buoyed by Howe Gelb's prosaic prose and effortless use of the mind-bending one-liner. ìíHisserí is the vision of a truly unique and engaging talent, and in its pure heart and soul lies a masterpiece.
College Music Journal // Pure genius and usually chaotic, Howe Gelb is a cottage industry often labelled the Godfather of alternative country. BOMB magazine // There are wonderful glimpses of what Gelb is capable of when heís not rushing off to dabble with the next nugget in a seemingly inexhaustible flow of ideas. The Line Of Best Fit // One of those albums that could have a semi-permanent spot next to the hi-fi for late-night playing. The Independent 

TRACK LISTING

Side A. 1 Temptation Of Egg 2 4 Door Maverick 3 This Purple Child 4 Shy Of Bumfuck 5 Propulsion 6 Catapult 7 Creeper.
Side B. 8 Tanks Rolling Into Town 9 Halifax In A Hurricane 10 Living On A Waterfall 11 Like A Store Front Display 12 Explore You 13 Nico's Lil Opera 14 Thereminender 15 Hisser 16 Intro Speck 17 Soldier Of Fortune 18 Lull 19 Short Way To End The Day

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

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

1000 copies pressed on Yellow vinyl & DL card. Fist time on vinyl. All-enveloping superbly alternative third take on 1988's Charmed Life album featuring previously unissued versions and a half dozen previously unreleased songs. Includes brand new liner notes and an interview with Jad and David Fair.

TRACK LISTING

Side A. 1 Said And Done (Alternate Version) 2 Evidence (Alternate Version) 3 Vietnam (Alternate Version) 4 Love At First Sight (Alternate Version) 5 Snake Line (Alternate Version) 6 Fun For All 7 Face Rake (Alternate Version) 8 Later In A Magazine (Alternate Version) 9 Red Dress (Alternate Version) 10 Charmed Life (Alternate Version 1).
Side B. 1 Day And Night With Angie 2 Madonna Nude (Alternate Version) 3 Ashes On The Ground 4 T For Texas 5 I'll Change My Style (Alternate Version) 6 Fortunate (Alternate Version) 7 Please Crawl Out Your Window 8 30 Seconds In Heaven 9 Charmed Life (Alternate Version 2)

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

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

Purple coloured 7" Vinyl single. Never before released in UK

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.
 
Classic 2nd Creation 1989 LP from Heidi Berry unavailable on vinyl since it's release. More pastoral than it's predecessor, half filmscape, half dreamscape, when you lie in bed at three in the morning, unable to sleep in the sticky summer heat, the melodies and shimmering string arrangements of ëBelow The Wavesí will be there with you. The blueprint for Heidis three subsequent 4AD Albums. 'Berry' Red Vinyl.

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



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



Unavailable on vinyl since it's release in 1987 on the famous Creation label. This folk-rock styled mini-album was produced by Pete Astor of The Weather Prophets, and the rest of the band back Heidi up, with Martin Duffy (Felt/Primal Scream) on piano and organ. Sleeve Notes by Heidi Berry, Ivo Watts-Russell (4AD) and David Barker (Glass Modern). Random Colour Vinyl.

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

The seminal album from Half Japanese back on Limited edition Orange vinyl and featuring updated artwork and liner notes from Jad Fair and producer Kramer. This is the Zen of Half Japanese, of prolific songwriter Jad Fair; wide-eyed crooner, humorous raconteur and spontaneous storyteller. A genre-bending romp through the mind of the man, originally released in 1989 in a purple patch for the group, preceded by "Music To Strip By" and "Charmed Life". "Half Japanese were a song machine," attested Pitchfork, while AllMusic saw this album as a collection of "humorous lo-fi rock'n'roll hit singles."

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

Matthew Herbert presents remixes by Floating Points, Seven Davis Jr and Herbert himself as part of a special 12" vinyl RSD 2023 release. The remixes are of tracks from 2021's full length album Musca, an instinctive return to the ëdomestic houseí series that started back in 1998 with Around The House and the 2001's Bodily Functions.

TRACK LISTING

A1: Fantasy (Floating Points Remix)
B1: Might As Well Be Magical (Seven Davis Jr. Multiverse Edit)
B2: Fantasy (Herbert’s Greenery Dub)

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

This is Honey Bane's first vinyl release in 40 years. Music's biggest rebel turned her back on the scene in 1983, after a string of successful punk/new wave singles. Violence Grows is Bane's 1978 debut, which she wrote at just 14 years old. She recorded it under her band, Fatal Microbes. The single has been reissued, with digitally remastered audio and pressed on limited edition, "bruised" black and blue 12 inch vinyl. This is the first ever coloured vinyl in Bane's catalogue of work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A clear vinyl Record Store Day edition of this classic live album newly remastered from the first-generation master tapes. Originally released in 1980, the album saw Hawkwind storm the UK charts and spawned the hit single ìShot Down in the Nightî, along with the first appearance of the classic ìMotorway Cityî on vinyl.

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

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

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

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

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

Third Man Records is chuffed to present to you the New Mexico-based artist Heather Trost’s second or third solo full-length. Petrichor is fresh, unique, and really fucking good.

Sonically, this modern psychedelic pop music is as experimental as it is accessible. Petrichor was recorded between 2018 and 2019 by Heather Trost and her husband Jeremy Barnes (Neutral Milk Hotel) at their home studio. The two are community activists in New Mexico, urban gardeners, and full-time musicians.

"As the rain renews the thirsty soil, let Heather Trost's 'Petrichor' soothe your soul and wake up your ears. Swirling vintage keys, propulsive drum beats, and the sweetest of voices bloom and grow here." - Naomi Yang, Galaxie 500

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An enchanting mix of upbeat psychedelia, hypnotic folk and swooning 60's lysergic percussion. Trost has the perfect home in Third Man.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE 1
1. Let It In
2. Love It Grows
3. Tracks To Nowhere

SIDE 2
1. I'll Think Of You
2. Jump Into The Fire
3. VK09
4. Sunrise

Third Man Records is chuffed to present to you the New Mexico-based artist Heather Trost’s second or third solo full-length. Petrichor is fresh, unique, and really fucking good.

Sonically, this modern psychedelic pop music is as experimental as it is accessible. Petrichor was recorded between 2018 and 2019 by Heather Trost and her husband Jeremy Barnes (Neutral Milk Hotel) at their home studio. The two are community activists in New Mexico, urban gardeners, and full-time musicians.

"As the rain renews the thirsty soil, let Heather Trost's 'Petrichor' soothe your soul and wake up your ears. Swirling vintage keys, propulsive drum beats, and the sweetest of voices bloom and grow here." - Naomi Yang, Galaxie 500

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An enchanting mix of upbeat psychedelia, hypnotic folk and swooning 60's lysergic percussion. Trost has the perfect home in Third Man.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE 1
1. Let It In
2. Love It Grows
3. Tracks To Nowhere

SIDE 2
1. I'll Think Of You
2. Jump Into The Fire
3. VK09
4. Sunrise

Incorporating a diverse range of influences, from samba to no wave, Handle, a three-piece from Manchester (now based between Manchester / London / Brussels) made up of Giulio Erasmus and Nirvana Heire former members of D.U.D.S (the first British band to sign to Castle Face) and Leo Hermitt, a genderqueer multidisciplinary artist, renowned for their challenging, thought-provoking work on the city’s arts and literary scenes. The group mesh politics with a trans experience of time and a vibrant, avant-garde freedom of approach.

Handle make a uniquely minimal sound, buoyed by poetic, urgent vocals. Each instrument (bass, drums, keyboard and voice) is permitted its own space, yet somehow the result is a brilliantly unified yet understated sonic experience that demands then commands your attention.

Powered by looping, hypnotic synth lines, quaking flexes of bass, clattering tribal percussion and expeditious, often agitated vocals that cordially sprint, Handle's songs – all of which clock in around the two minute mark – owe as much to performance poetry as they do to the vibrancy of post-punk and new wave. In these times of anxiety and confusion, Handle provide a much-needed dose of musical catharsis, albeit disorientating at times, pre-empting sense from the shards of sound they gather about themselves. 'Life’s Work' begins with isolated swells of pitch before driving full throttle into an exuberant rhythmic workout. 'Sunday Morning' shares this elasticated feel for melody and communication, twisting about itself in rubbery fashion. 'Coagulate' is more disembodied from the pulse, but similarly retains a boldness of vision.

'Step By Step' showcases what Handle excel at, it's a clangorous leviathan of beat-forward dance punk, peppered with Leo's fluid vocal inertia. It's dizzying yet divinely exuberant. 'Punctured Time' evokes the same cascading flow "Punctured time, bicycle wheel, what if I told you that your lips were like venus, lips were like what? Lips were like venus and that my tongue was a trampoline?" sings Leo amid undulating bass, toppling drums and jabs of keyboard ambience.

Handle make music occupied by dark shapes that move beneath a roiling surface. Jolting, shattering, cracking, smoothed, bounded, punctuated. Handle's debut album ‘In Threes’ is a collection of frenetic sounds for frenzied forms. 'In Threes' was recorded and mixed by Robin Williams and follows on from the band's previous EP 'Demonstrations', released through their own imprint Absolute Fiction. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'In Threes' is a brilliantly diverse, oddball suite of clashing grooves and jagged melodies. Sonically interesting, thematically consistent and ram-packed with influences from all over the musical spectrum. What a trip.

TRACK LISTING

01. Vocal Exercise
02. Punctured Time
03. What It Does
04. Lifes Work
05. Coagulate
06. Sunday Morning
07. Mhmm
08. Rubber Necks
09. In Tension
10. Step By Step
11. Describe

New, jukebox 7” pressing of Horace Andy’s classic Skylarking, backed with Clement “Coxsone” Dodd’s killer Sky - Rhythm as Dub Specialist on the other side.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: One of two Studio One 7" classics represses this week. They don't really get much bigger than this do they? Plus new manufacturing improvements mean these singles sound better than they ever did. Housed in those tasty Studio One disco bag these are an absolute delight!

TRACK LISTING

Skylarking
Sky Rhythm

Horace Andy [a.k.a.Sleepy] must process one of the sweetest and most distinctive voices in reggae music. 1951 in Kingston Jamaica. He cut his first track in 1966 for producer George ‘Phil’ Pratt, a tune called ‘Black Man’s Country’. But it was four years later his star really began to shine when he joined the stable of Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd’s Studio One. It was Coxsone Dodd who renamed him Andy after another of his leading artists Bob Andy, such was his belief in Horace’s writing talent and singing abilities. Still only twenty years of age Horace used his falsetto talent to the fore and cut some impressive tracks at 13 Brentford Road, Studio One’s headquarters. Such reggae standards as ’Skylarking’, ‘Just Say Who’, ‘Love of a Women’ and ‘Something on my Mind’ to name but a few. The early 1970’s saw Horace due to political reasons move on to work with producer Bunny Lee, a move that suited his talents and beliefs, Horace being an early advocate to the Rastafarian faith.The tracks which he cut with Bunny, which we concentrate on here gave his songs a rootsy feel. The rhythms often cut at Channel ONE and Randy’s Studio17 and finalised at King Tubby’s, provided a fine backbone for Horace to recut some of his earlier classics, along side his newer songs also to become reggae standards. Like ‘Money Money’, ‘Zion Gate’ the great ‘You are my Angel’ and a version of The Heptones ‘My Guiding Star’. The power of these recordings were such that the earlier tracks like ‘Skylarking’ became hits a second time around.Proving that the ‘you can’t keep a good tune down’ mantra was alive and kicking… …A golden time for Horace and Reggae music in general… Horace would go on to work with other producers like Everton Da Silva in 1977 creating the ‘In the Light’ album and the New York based Lloyd ‘Wackies’ Barnes in the 1980’s for his ‘Dancehall Style’ recordings. Most recently his work with Massive Attack has brought his majestic voice full circle and back into the arena once more. Those ‘Massive’ recordings and this dub collection here seem to fit side by side. Horace’s distinctive vocal riding over the rhythms adding a magic as only he can .....

RESPECT JAH FLOYD.

TRACK LISTING

1 Why Oh Why Dub
2 Dub Larking
3 Zion Dub
4 Dub Money 
5 A True Dub
6 Dub Guidance
7 Dub Say Who
8 Dub On My Mind
9 Love Of A Dub Band
10 Use This Dub
11 Dub Letter
12 Dub Angel
13 Bless This Dub*
14 Dub Ah Fulfil*
*CD Bonus Track

Ten tough disco mixes - vocal and dub - with Horace at the peak of his late 70’s form. Originally complied for Blood and Fire, “Good Vibes’ is remastered with new artwork and updated sleeve notes from original complier Steve Barrow. Definitive versions of "Skylarking", "Reggae Rhythm" and brilliantly infectious discomix takes of"Mr. Bassie" and "Pure Ranking". 'longside nuff dubs! Nicely remastered through the Abbey Road suite, these cuts are sounding as loud, dynamic and intoxicating as ever. A great set.

TRACK LISTING

Reggae Rhythm / It's Gone International
Serious Thing / A Serious Version
Skylarking / A Better Version
Youths Of Today / Jah Youths
Don't Let Problems Get You Down / No Problem

Mr. Bassie (Discomix)
Pure Ranking (Discomix)
Good Vibes / Dub Vibes
Control Yourself / Version Under Control
Ital Vital / Ital Ites Dubwise

‘Rockers & Scorchers’ is a 2CD deluxe double album compiling two critically acclaimed albums released by Horace Andy in 2022, as well as previously unreleased bonus tracks.

‘Midnight Rocker’ has been approached in a similar fashion to the late-career quality that producer Adrian Sherwood coaxed out of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry with the ‘Rainford’ and ‘Heavy Rain’ albums, assembling a crack team of players and spending many months perfecting performance, arrangements and mixing.

The result is a remarkable suite of tracks that sparkle with superb musicianship, carefully crafted production and Horace’s beautiful vocals. ‘Midnight Scorchers’ is Adrian Sherwood’s ‘sound system’ take on the original ‘Midnight Rocker’ sessions.

Featuring new tracks; radical dancehall re-works with MC interjections from Daddy Freddy and Lone Ranger; and stripped back instrumental version excursions in classic dub reggae style.

TRACK LISTING

CD1
1. This Must Be Hell
2. Easy Money
3. Safe From Harm
4. Watch Over Them
5. Materialist
6. Today Is Right Here
7. Try Love
8. Rock To Sleep
9. Careful
10. Mr Bassie
11. My Guiding Star (Bonus Track)

CD2
1. Come After Midnight
2. Midnight Scorcher
3. Away With The Gun And Knife
4. Dirty Money Business
5. Sleepy’s Night Cap
6. Feverish
7. Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City
8. Dub Guidance
9. More Bassy
10. Hell And Back
11. Careful (Instrumental) (Bonus
Track)

Horace Andy has always commanded a place high on the list of Reggae singers from Jamaica. His distinctive haunting vocal style stands strong on any rhythm, song or style he chooses to cover.Of the singers on that long list he has managed more so than any other to crossover to a new generation of listeners due to his individual style helped also by his collaborations with the likes of Massive Attack, Horace began his musical career at Coxonne Dodds Studio One,After numerous singles and with two albums worth of material Horace moved on to work with many of the top flight Jamaican producers, among them Keith Hudson, Augustus Pablo and Niney the Observer. But it was his work with producer Bunny Striker Lee in the 70’s that he cut most of his hits for and its from this stable of work we have compiled this set.
So sit back and enjoy the one and only Horace Andy….

TRACK LISTING

A1. You Are My Angel
A2. My Guiding Star’money
A3. Just Say Who
A4. Money Money
A5. Skylarking
A6. Something On My Mind
A7. Riding For A Fall
B1. Zion Gate
B2. Natural Mystic
B3. Love Of A Woman
B4. Don’t Try To Use Me
B5. Man Next Door
B6. Better Collie
B7. No Man Is An Island

The debut album from London's finest, Hak Baker - 'Worlds End FM' represents the war in Hak's mind, the culture war on the streets of London and the individual battles of his community - from his mother to his brother to his best friends. In a year that will see Hak perform alongside Pete Doherty at The Royal Albert Hall, Jamie T at Finsbury Park & his own headline UK & Germany tours, the campaign has already garnered support from Rolling Stone, NME, Clara Amfo, Steve Lamacq, Jamz Supernova & partnerships with Dr Martens, Fred Perry, Fender, FIFA & Hugo Boss to name a few. Previous highlights include performing on Later with Jools, Glastonbury 2022 (Other Stage), the first artist ever to play at the BBC's new Eastbank site, selling out two Village Underground shows & been championed by the likes of Clara Amfo, Jack Saunders, Sian Eleri, Tom Ravenscroft, Jo Whiley, Huw Stephens & Charlie Sloth.

TRACK LISTING

1. World’s End FM
2. DOOLALLY
3. Windrush Baby
4. Collateral Cause
5. Bricks In The Wall
6. Full On
7. Babylon Must Fall (MC Grindah Skit)
8. I Don't Know
9. Run
10. Telephones 4 Eyes
11. Watford’s Burning (Connie Constance Skit)
12. Brotherhood
13. Luv U Bro (Big Zees Skit)
14. Dying To Live
15. Almost Lost London
16. The End Of The World 

Howard "Youngblood" Bomar's long overdue debut album finally makes landfall! Howard Bomar was a man who slipped through everybody's fingers but his artistry escapes that fate thanks to I, Who Have Nothing, the first full length Bomar release! This collection features his early '60s 45 soul sides and largely unissued R&B recordings, including a cover of Prince's "Purple Rain." Mixing explosive renditions of familiar favorites with outtasite originals, Bomar's music makes you wonder why his music never surfaced in the first place. Includes 5 CD-only bonus tracks!

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracklisting
Set Down Fo I Fall Down
I Who Have Nothing
I'm Gonna Love You
Best Of Luck To You
I'll Be There
Let It Be Me
Shotgun
What Love Has Joined Together
I Who Have Nothing
She's A 911
Purple Rain

CD Tracklisting
Set Down Fo I Fall Down
I Who Have Nothing
I'm Gonna Love You
Best Of Luck To You
I'll Be There
Let It Be Me
Shotgun
What Love Has Joined Together
I Who Have Nothing
She's A 911
Purple Rain
Down Home Georgia Girl* (CD-only)
Crazy Bout You Baby* (CD-only)
Something Beautiful* (CD-only)
I'd Like To Be* (CD-only)
Just Let Me Love You* (CD-only)

Haley Bonar releases her debut UK album, a nine track collection as relentlessly catchy on the surface as it is alluringly complex underneath.

Haley Bonar was first discovered by Low’s Alan Sparhawk who spotted her at a local open mic club in Duluth, Minnesota and was so impressed he immediately invited her to join them on tour. Which is how, a week later, nineteen year old Haley Bonar, was transformed from college student to ambitious dropout, crammed into a Honda Civic with a guitar and a drummer for company, touring the US opening for Low.

But there is more to this story. In the decade since Haley has released a succession of recordings, each of which have garnered more praise the last, and has seen her collaborate with the likes of Andrew Bird (with whom Haley occasionally plays live) and Justin Vernon (who features on the new album). That’s not to mention the company she keeps in a rotating cast of premium band members including Jeremy Hanson (Tapes ‘n Tapes), Luke Anderson (Rogue Valley), Jeremy Ylvisaker (Andrew Bird, Alpha Consumer) and Mike Lewis (Bon Iver, Alpha Consumer). Now, with her new album ‘Last War’ Haley looks set to find a wider audience.

Much of the joy of Bonar’s songwriting is in the tension between her sparkling melodic sensibility and her deeply ambivalent lyrics. Album opener ‘Kill the Fun’ positively crackles with traces of the Bangles and the Cure at their most pop, as Bonar chronicles her travels with a lover, taking some moments to reveal the nature of the relationship: "You'll be here till morning / You will get back on the plane / Go back to work / where you never knew my name." On ‘No Sensitive Man’ (which features the most Clem Burke drums outside of a Blondie record), she claims "I don't want no sensitive man / I don't want to talk." While on the captivating ‘Heaven’s Made For Two’ Bonar’s daydreaming vocal drifts ethereally as the instrumentation builds from stripped-back beginnings into a country-meets-shoegaze wall of sound crescendo.

On ‘Last War’, the complexities hit as hard as the hooks, a smart, careful balance achieved through equal doses of mystery and charm.

TRACK LISTING

1. Kill The Fun
2. No Sensitive Man
3. Last War
4. Heaven’s Made For Two
5. Bad Reputation
6. From A Cage
7. Woke Up In My Future
8. Can’t Believe Our Luck
9. Eat For Free

“Haley Bonar’s songs marry fizzy arrangements to cuttingly quotable observations about love, disappointment, identity and the curdling of youth.” - NPR

Recorded on analogue tape at Pachyderm Studios, Minnesota and produced by Haley Bonar and Jacob Hansen, ‘Impossible Dream’ is the follow-up to 2014’s ‘Last War’, which enjoyed widespread critical acclaim and featured in NPR and Village Voice’s Albums Of The Year lists.

‘Impossible Dream’ is Bonar’s most ambitious record to date. Blending scuzzy 1980s indie, new wave angularity and Spectorish reverb, her songs are, as NPR once described, “as relentlessly catchy on the surface, as they are alluringly complex underneath.”

Hypnotic opener ‘Hometown’ shimmers like a Twin Peaks outtake, the shuddering, swirling ‘Kismet Kill’ recalls Mazzy Star, while the soaring synth and pounding drums of ‘Stupid Face’ summons the spirit and melody of ‘Porcupine’ era Echo And The Bunnymen.

Intrepid and diverse, ‘Impossible Dream’ is consistently bold, infectious and inventive.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Huge pop melodies and 80's classic indie vibes pervade on this instantly likeable new album from Haley Bonar. Could be the feel good hit of the summer.

TRACK LISTING

Hometown
Your Mom Is Right
Kismet Kill
I Can Change
Stupid Face
Called You Queen
Jealous Girls
Skynz
Better Than Me
Blue Diamonds Fall

Invitation was conceived on the Oregon coast, an outlier among American landscapes, where vast stretches of empty beach are decorated with silver driftwood and towering pines. It is here among the dunes, tide pools and colossal rock formations that Heather spent her childhood summer day-trips. And it is here that she returned as an adult to construct her newest LP, an album of dreamy baroque-pop that swells and whispers with grand string arrangements, intimately descriptive lyrics, and impassioned songcraft built around earnest piano melodies, painting a lifelike picture of the locale in which it was written.

In the years between her early youth and the creation of Invitation, Heather has played in Efterklang, Horse Feathers, the live bands of Laura Gibson, Lisa Hannigan, and Damien Jurado, and has also been a longtime collaborator and bandmate to Sharon Van Etten. But while this list may seem enviable for an aspiring young musician, any experienced player will know that the life of a touring musician comes with its own sacrifices. Lasting relationships and financial certainty can be tenuous, as can mental stability itself. Feeling this first hand, Heather traded her usual launchpad of Brooklyn for the sleepy town of Pacific City where she would quietly take a job cleaning houses for a cast of local eccentrics, sitting down at the piano in the off-hours to unpack the personal tragedies and triumphs of the intervening decades since her first trips there. Throughout Invitation, floral tendrils of sound design and dynamic strings decorate the edges of each track, propelling the album beyond mere singer-songwriter fare into something altogether more grand and immersive in scope. 

RIYL: Sharon Van Etten, Weyes Blood, Marissa Nadler, Julianna Barwick, Julia Holter. 

TRACK LISTING

01 A Stilling Wind 5:08
02 I Try 4:26
03 Nightcrawler 4:54
04 Where I Lay 3:59
05 Slow Dazzle 4:13
06 A Daydream 1:30
07 White Tail 3:24
08 Quicksand 5:32
09 My Sunny One 3:28
10 These Green Valleys 4:30
11 Invitation 2:30

Heather was Sharon Van Etten’s longtime collaborator and former band member.On Labyrinth, Heather Woods Broderick serves as our reflective host, subverting expectations of conventional songcraft with impressionistic language and quietly relentless explorations of the human experience that’s at once light and dark, more circular and less linear. “Many of us yearn for stillness and peace, as an escape from the movement all around us,” she explains when asked about the themes of the album. “Yet movement is perpetual, happening all the time on some level. It’s as wild as the wind, yet eternally predictable in its inevitability. It is linear in part, but infinite in its circuitry. Our lives just punctuate it.”

Broderick began crafting Labyrinth in March 2020, when most forms of movement were brought to a creeching halt. The Maine-born, Los Angeles-based songwriter who, in addition to her work as a solo musician, built a life playing and touring with acts such as Sharon Van Etten, Beth Orton, Damien Jurado, and Efterklang was suddenly forced off the road for the first time in her career. She used this disruption as an opportunity to pare down her creation process and construct the scaffolding for Labyrinth in her apartment. Employing only the most crucial tools at her disposal, Broderick found herself opening different artistic doors as she focused on sharpening her recording skills, capturing the majority of the album on her own before finishing the remainder with co-producer D. James Goodwin.

For all of Broderick’s sage lyricism and vocal authority, Labyrinth never provides the listener with any easy answers. If the image of the labyrinth represents the enormity of modern life and the difficulty of navigating it, Heather Woods Broder[1]ick provides a guide to its endless kinetic wonders of being present, aware, and

connected despite its disconnects. She describes the texture of its walls, its indifferent rhythms, and the inherent poeticism of feeling lost amid the dead-ends and unexpected turns. At this point in our history, perhaps that’s all we need to keep moving.

RIYL: Sharon Van Etten, Julien Baker, Julia Jacklin, Weyes Blood.

TRACK LISTING

01 As I Left
02 I Want To Go
03 Admiration
04 Crashing Against The Sun
05 Wandering
06 Wherever I Go
07 Tiny Receptors
08 Blood Run Through Me
09 Seemed A River
10 What Does Love Care

Sultry R&B solo artist Harriet Brown is back with a new batch of fully-realized future funk, a slow-burning dispatch from a dayglo dance floor. The Los Angeles by-way-of-the Bay artist honed his musical chops in church, the birthplace of so many soulful sirens. His first project, "New Era EP" came out in 2014, setting off a firestorm of critical and fan adulation. Who was this bowl cut rocking, falsetto dropping, shiny suit man? He followed up with a bombastic debut album, "Contact", an expertly crafted, extraterrestrial soul rumination on the ways we fail to connect, restart, and try again. It was also a transitional album. Made between the Bay and LA, it’s about the electricity of new connections, the distance of old friends. "Mall Of Fortune" is his second full-length album, an airtight meditation on anxiety, paranoia and indecisiveness – decision paralysis and the free-flowing guilt that follows. The bowl cut is gone, but the shine is intact.

TRACK LISTING

1. Window Shopping
2. Retail Therapy
3. Shower Up, Saddle Up
4. Outerworld (feat. Felicia Douglass)
5. Method
6. Cinnamon Sky
7. Holy Place (Shinin')
8. When You Call My Name (feat. Ana Roxanne)
9. Driver's Seat
10. Hardwalkin'
11. Bag Away
12. Paper
13. Man
14. Take Your Time With Me

First time vinyl repress of a classic Harold Budd album originally released in 1988. Partly recorded at the Cocteau Twins studio with production help from Robin Guthrie and Brian Eno, the album’s effortless blend of glistening synths, limpid piano notes, foggy textures and space result in a beautiful contemplative whole. “Although its aura is ethereal and unworldly, Budd's music is actually an exemplary form of humanly useful music.

When the mundane urgencies of life, or the nonsense of our political culture, get you frazzled, which is pretty much every day these days, you can put on this music and imbibe its stillness and grace. His records are exactly the kind of music you'd play for calm and solace during a bereavement — or at a service sending someone to their final resting place. Harold Budd sounds like heaven on earth.” Simon Reynolds

TRACK LISTING

A1 The White Arcades
A2 Balthus Bemused By Color
A3 The Child With A Lion
A4 The Real Dream Of Sails
B1 Algebra Of Darkness
B2 Totems Of The Red-Sleeved Warrior
B3 The Room
B4 Coyote
B5 The Kiss

Dedicated 21st Century polymath Kay Logan continues to expand her soundworld in every direction at once with her Helena Celle alias. A maximalist internal landscape of broken Jungle patterns, distorted synths and heavily warped instrumentation bent out of cognisance, If You Can’t Handle You At Your Worst, Then I Don’t Deserve Me At My Best is Logan’s most danceable, most fun and most gloriously congealed record to date.

Conceived in part as a response to her 2016 debut release If I Can’t Handle Me At My Best, You Don’t Deserve You At Your Worst, 2023’s update employs similar principles (degrading technology, the joy of chance, an outsider’s gaze onto the dance floor, an embracing of the occult) to delirious effect. If “I Can’t Handle” was lo fi and fragile in its technoid recasting of dance music, here Logan’s confidence allows a frantic playfulness that retains the spontaneity of all her output. It’s the work of a creative spirit revelling in the possibilities of sound, rhythm, texture and pattern. Helena Celle’s music opens up psychic space in front of the listener and invites them in. In this world, sounds and tropes once recognisable are rendered fractal, spectral and continually melting in and out of recognition. Simply put, Helena Celle might be detouring Drum & Bass, Techno and Breakbeat with a prankster’s grin but the result is pure ecstasy crushed into a part of the listener’s consciousness hitherto untroubled.

Opener I Did It My Way pokes fun at Sinatra but the message is clear, Helena Celle has no regrets. Sounding like a Jungle track shorn of a MC and deep fried in greasy acid, it uses cassette compression effects to push the sound far beyond the red. A breakbeat suffers multiple lashings of noise solos, heavily filtered synths and white noise blowing a crazy gale across the stereo pan. Ennobled Reception Of The Excellector (My Face When Mix) approximates French House perhaps or 90s dance chart music as performed by a rotting homunculus gurgling down the phone. It’s really that fun and carefree. Real Time... takes a stab at a kind of Techno EBM Cold Wave with no desire to sound like any of it, with waves of tape hiss rising up from some dark shore to wash over proceedings. Fellow sound artist and musician Jennifer Walton guests on the last track on Side A, an epic, fuzzed out Noise and rhythm excursion into cyber breakdown. Snow-Filled Chalice Of My Magonian Exile (titles of the year so far, right?) builds into a wall of beats, pads, manic, haywire synth patterns and a world-ending, distorted riff that points to an appreciation of Metal. The track posits all of reality as one massive computer game played by gods and this is the track played at the Game Over screen. A pixelated, fantastical club track that would simply eviscerate any club it was played in.

The whole of Side B is given over to a 20 minute epic, Original Besttrack (Abe’s Oddysee Extended Mix). A cohesive summation of the previous 4 tracks but stretched out, it recalls Aphex Twin’s furthest out tracks albeit boiled underwater, every element blown out so that even the ambient passages scramble brains and re-wire expectations. The restless, overwhelming music is glazed with a patina of hiss that renders the whole almost meditative: over the 20 minutes there is so much information to digest your brain starts plugging in directly to the music, settling in and accepting the mania as it comes. At the other end you’re wondering how you coped without it.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though Helena Celle's musical output is undeniably made for a certain subset of electronic music appreciators, this new project sees Kay Logan's pieces get hefty reworks, morphing the intimidating scattered electronic shards into lo-fi techno, rolling industrial and fractured experimental house.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Did It My Way
2. Ennobled Reception Of The Excellector (My Face When Mix)
3. Real Time (Five Track Pentangle Edgelord Mix)
4. Snow-Filled Chalice Of My Magonian Exile (ft Jennifer Walton)
5. Original Besttrack (Abe's Oddysee Extended Mix)

Quatre Femmes Records present ‘It’s Your Love’ from Hannah Lou Clark.

This is Hannah’s second EP and the follow up to her critically acclaimed debut EP ‘Silent Type’.

Extensive touring around the release of ‘Silent Type’ offered a fresh perspective on certain things in Hannah’s life. ‘It’s Your Love’ was written over this touring period and sees Hannah further experimenting sonically.

Produced by Hannah and mixed by Tarek Musa of Spring King, this EP offers an artist in full command of her voice.

TRACK LISTING

It’s Your Love
Cowboy Joe
Euphoria

“Within 30 seconds of Clark’s set starting, the room was silent. Her voice poured over the gentle dissonance suggested by each chord” - The Quietus

“An artist who matches an affecting flourish with a dissonant sonic touch, her work is both challenging and completely immediate.” - Clash Magazine

“Hannah Lou Clark and her band, equal parts anxsty and dreamy” - Brooklyn Vegan

‘The Heart And All Its Sin’ was mixed and co-produced by Tarek Musa from Spring King and is a collection of songs exploring the complexities of love and loss. Hannah Lou Clark has laid her soul bare in these songs in a way that others would never do.

Lead track ‘Don’t Sweat It’ bravely addresses the yearnings of the heart in times of turmoil; with lines like “champagne takes the edge off me” she can see that whilst giving into our vices can’t help the heart heal, it can be a welcome distraction. Full of crunching guitars and wickedly smart melodies, it sees Clark push her limits further once again. “I think people worry too much about small things, and we know it too,” Clark says, speaking about her new track. “The simple message is that life is too short, and there’s nothing wrong with letting your hair down.”

Music often comes from a deep place, and in the case of Hannah Cohen’s stunning and heartrending second album, it’s very deep indeed. Mainly inspired by a painful break-up and the anxieties that loss can trigger, Pleasure Boy cushions its sadness in an exquisitely nuanced soundscape of aching melancholy and lush melody where Hannah’s vocal conveys all the different shades of heartbreak. Following the album’s completion, she’s survived the calamity and found a new level of happiness, but to paraphrase the classic Sixties hit, there will always be something there to remind her with Pleasure Boy.

‘Pleasure Boy’, like her debut ‘Child Bride’, was produced by Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman, whose work with artists such as The National, Antony Hegarty and David Byrne singles him out as one of America’s current finest producers and collaborators, though he’s also a talented pianist. The dynamics of ‘Pleasure Boy’ was the result of Hannah and Bartlett, “bunkering down with my songs, experimenting with different tones and sounds, and layering them. My first record was so airy and roomy, I didn’t have patience for that again, I wanted more movement, something more mysterious and witchier, so we created this sound wall together.”

“I wanted the music to hurt, to have a visceral effect,” Hannah says. Her voice sometimes sounds delirious or icy; other times she recalls the vulnerable, piercing beauty of Harriet Wheeler (The Sundays) and Karen Peris (The Innocence Mission). But Pleasure Boy‘s sound wouldn’t exist without the vision that launched it. The album title arrived as the record took shape. “Pleasure Boy is a character of who it’s about, someone who represents gluttony and decadence and richness,” Hannah explains. She admits it was a tough record to make, given she was aiming to heal emotionally while feeling “devastated and hurt. But it wouldn’t be the record it is if I hadn’t done that.”

TRACK LISTING

1 Keepsake
2 Lilacs
3 Watching You Fall
4 Fake It
5 Claremont
6 Queen Of Ice
7 Just Take The Rest
8 Baby

Hannah Cohen has arrived home. From the title of Hannah Cohen’s new album to the depth and beauty of the music, the Woodstock, NY-based singer-songwriter’s third album ‘Welcome Home’ displays a new level of confidence and comfort with the many creative tools at her disposal. Cohen’s remarkably evocative voice is surrounded by dreamy, swooning incantations, from the rippling ‘This Is Your Life’ and the slowburning, forthright statement of ‘All I Want,’ to the soul swagger of ‘Get In Line’ and dramatic vocal leaps of ‘Wasting My Time’.

TRACK LISTING

This Is Your Life
All I Wanted
Dissolving
Holding On
What's This All About
Old Bruiser
Get In Line
Wasting My Time
Return Room
Build Me Up

Hollie Cook was born and bred in West London in a household dominated by music. She gravitated to the sounds of Marc Bolan, David Bowie and The Cure. With Sex Pistol Paul Cook as her dad, music was always around. Entering professional acting, singing and modelling at a young age, Hollie soon rejected her performance arts schooling for a musical path truer to her influences. Family friend and Slits singer Ari Up persuaded Hollie to sing backing vocals for a new EP "Revenge Of The Killer Slits", which she followed by ditching school to join the band on a six week US tour. Hollie was now an official Slit - Ari referred to Hollie as the 'second singer' - so when it came to record a new Slits album in LA, Hollie's vocals, keyboards and even her song "Cry" all featured. More collaborations followed: a duet with Jamie T on his "Chaka Demus" EP, with Ian Brown on "The World Is Yours", and most significantly as featured vocalist on Prince Fatty's underground reggae hit "Milk & Honey". Hollie jumped at the chance to get in the studio with Mike as she was smitten by the tracks she had heard. Hollie's passion for reggae singers Janet Kay and Phyllis Dillon combined with classic 60s girl groups formed the basis for her new solo work of self coined 'tropical pop'. Sweet.

The album is the follow-up to her fantastic eponymous debut album which was released to huge acclaim in 2011, with Q calling it "gorgeous late '70's style reggae pop" whilst the BBC named it as "one of the most enjoyable reggae albums of 2011". In 2012 a dub version of the debut album was released – "Prince Fatty Presents Hollie Cook In Dub". That same year Ian Brown asked Hollie to support The Stone Roses on one of their hugely anticipated reunion shows at Manchester's Heaton Park.

The new album "Twice" sees Hollie's obvious love of reggae joined by other influences including Bond-like strings, Brazilian percussion, dark disco and shades of Giorgio Moroder. She is joined on the album by Dennis Bovell, Omar, George Dekker and Winston Francis. The strings on the album are the Macedonian Radio Symphonic Orchestra and Choir. The album was produced by Prince Fatty.

The album is the follow-up to her fantastic eponymous debut album which was released to huge acclaim in 2011, with Q calling it "gorgeous late '70's style reggae pop" whilst the BBC named it as "one of the most enjoyable reggae albums of 2011". In 2012 a dub version of the debut album was released – "Prince Fatty Presents Hollie Cook In Dub". That same year Ian Brown asked Hollie to support The Stone Roses on one of their hugely anticipated reunion shows at Manchester's Heaton Park.

The new album "Twice" sees Hollie's obvious love of reggae joined by other influences including Bond-like strings, Brazilian percussion, dark disco and shades of Giorgio Moroder. She is joined on the album by Dennis Bovell, Omar, George Dekker and Winston Francis. The strings on the album are the Macedonian Radio Symphonic Orchestra and Choir. The album was produced by Prince Fatty.

With Happy Hour, her ravishing new LP, Hollie Cook matures into the queen of modern day “lovers rock”—the lush girly harmony reggae style beloved in Britain since the 1970s. Evolution rings from the bittersweet opening title track; tender yet assertive, Hollie’s voice caresses evocative lyrics through the arrangement’s tumbling changes.

Hollie dares to invite listeners into her true personality through these alluring songs, which she co-produced with her General Roots band members Ben Mckone and Luke Allwood, and executive producer Youth.

“Particularly with the songwriting, I was trying to really push myself and be open, to not be restricted in any way. I have always been a fan of theatrical pop music and wanted to experiment more with the song form.” Indeed, the dizzying arrangement of “Gold Girl” shows Hollie as boldly orchestrated, cinematic. “Now I don’t shy away from it when I want to be dramatic,” she declares.

The record itself is a product of great drama: the pandemic. After eight years of touring together, General Roots—keyboards man Luke Allwood, drummer Ben Mckone, guitarist Joe Price, and bassist James Mckone—have truly become Hollie’s band. They all spent quarantine together, honing songs they had started writing pre-COVID. “I used to definitely lean on my producers (Prince Fatty and Youth), but my vision was always to write and produce with my band,” she explains. “We are a circle of trust.”

Full of emotion, leaning into healing and understanding, Hollie’s lyrics on Happy Hour speak directly to our pain and confusion and steer us towards resolution on tracks like “Moving On,” “Unkind Love,” and “Love in the Dark.” The album’s closer, “Praying,” is inspired by a trauma in her close friendship circle. “I was feeling raw and had to figure out how to find strength and express myself in a time of crisis, where to turn if you are not of a particular faith,” she says. Though spiritual, Hollie is no saint, inviting us to rave on “Move My Way,” which she describes as “a party song inspired by the Notting Hill Carnival.” Hollie is also a wise woman—literally the “Full Moon Baby” she summons so seductively. And like any good witch, Hollie understands the power of medicinal herbs on “Kush Kween,” her collaboration with Jamaican singer Jah9. These are love incantations that would be wrong to resist. “It’s about finding a space where you can reach for moments of light, love, and self-care,” she explains.

Touring as a teenager with punk legends The Slits encouraged the fierceness within her sweetness. Hollie’s mentor was Ari Up, the band’s lead singer and a lifelong friend of Cook’s parents (Sex Pistols drummer Paul and her singer mother Jeni). “My father always said I would be a singer. But I discovered lovers rock on my own. I heard it on pirate radio and at friends’, and I was bewildered, enchanted,” she recalls. “The Slits are the reason I have pursued this career. I was surrounded by powerful women at a young age, and when my time came, I was never fazed by male dominance. They were my wall of courage.”

From those feisty roots, Hollie has only grown. Her soulful directness on Happy Hour is relatable and authentic. “I can’t get away from it,” she says. “Making this music that I love, I do turn deep inside myself. It makes me explore a lot of human truths and feelings that we should not shy away from, and it feels like a release to turn them into songs.” — Vivien Goldman.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Hollie Cook's new LP has all the swooning beauty of her previous outing, Vessel Of Love but this time leans even more heavily into traditional pop structures, leaving the sound both wilfully pristine and undeniably catchy. The perfect summer album.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Happy Hour
2. Moving On
3. Full Moon Baby
4. Kush Kween (featuring Jah9)
5. Unkind Love
SIDE B
6. Gold Girl
7. Love In The Dark
8. Move My Way
9. Praying

Merge Records release Happy Hour in Dub, a heavenly set of dub versions to pair with Hollie Cook’s critically acclaimed 2022 album Happy Hour. Her first full dub record since 2012, Happy Hour in Dub was coaxed into being by close listening of the original album’s modern lover’s rock.

Cook and Mckone explain:“The reason and inspiration for wanting to make the dub record is because Happy Hour, in its original form, has so many intricate musical details running throughout the songs from the backing vocal and string arrangements to some far more subtle details. And during the mixing process, hearing some of these parts on their own over the drum and bass foundation, we felt there was so much left to explore and expose in the songs and take them to outer space.”

At the controls rejoining Hollie in exploring the space is Happy Hour producer Ben Mckone, who takes her soulful creations and stretches them to their sonic limits, with new vocal features by Josh Skints and Kiko Bun.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Blissful dubbed-out version of Hollie Cook's original LP, Happy Hour. Where the original was rich in light, airy groove and sunshine, these versions show how the rich instrumentation is as flexible as it is effective. A great listen, and an even better companion to the original LP.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Praying Dub
2. Dub My Way
3. Dub In The Dark
4. Golden Dub Feat. Rosie Turton
SIDE B
5. Unkind Dub
6. Kush Dub Feat. Josh Skints & Jah9
7. Full Moon Dub
8. Dubbing On Feat. Kiko Bun
9. Happy Dub

“It's about the in-between moments.” - Hattie Cooke “Bliss Land” is the new LP from Brighton born artist Hattie Cooke. Her third album and debut release for Castles In Space opens up her sound by managing to find a balance between the introspective and the communal. It is an album that looks forward whilst acknowledging the creators past creating a work full of a nostalgia that also feels vitally current. Initially conceived as a soundtrack album, during its creation, “Bliss Land” morphed into a beautiful set of personal songs born out of anticipation, excitement and anxiety.

Speaking about the themes of the albums, Hattie says: "It wasn’t until the album was finished that I realised what it was about. I had recently graduated from university and people were beginning to take more notice of my music. I was excited about the possibilities of the future, but at the same time the immediate future had been put on hold due to the pandemic, so I was frustrated and anxious. And then whenever I think about the future, I can’t help but think about the past and where I’ve come from and what I’ve been through to get to that point. So in some ways it’s a reflective record and in other ways it’s a record full of anticipation. “One Foot Out The Door” is a track that really resonates with me - it’s about that liminal space between the past and the future when you’re on the threshold of something. I think that’s what the album is about, it’s about the in-between moments. "I grew up on a small council estate on the outskirts of Brighton in a house that was full of music. Both my parents played guitar and my dad also bought and sold records for a living. I taught myself the guitar when I was twelve and made plenty of music throughout my teens. At 17, I won a scholarship to study at the British Institute Of Modern Music and continued writing and playing local shows. I also started to learn how to record and produce my own music on GarageBand as a necessary alternative to going into an expensive recording studio. GarageBand has some fantastic synth and electronic drum sounds and that’s when I became more interested in electronic music and music production. In 2015, Third Kind Records approached me after hearing my songs on a homemade demo CD that a friend had passed on. We released my debut album in 2016 and I’ve been making and releasing music ever since.”

Hattie writes, records and produces all her own albums, however she is keen to express how others have helped shaped parts of Bliss Land: “The record isn’t a completely solo effort, I had people along the way to help shape this album into what it became, although I had complete artistic freedom to let the album grow into what it wanted to be. I had invaluable help from Dom Keen who helped me mix the album. We spent a good number of nights in his studio drinking gin and trying to get everything just right. He did things to the music that I would never have even considered doing. I had no idea what compression really was until the making of this record, which probably sounds mad considering I’ve produced three records but when you’re self-taught you can miss out learning about so much! Antony Ryan’s mastering added a whole new dimension to the record as well.”

“Bliss Land” is an album soaked in the outer edges of pop music making it a cohesive and beautiful album full of dense textures held together by Hattie's unique voice. It’s an album that will undoubtedly chime with a cross section of audiences. So where does Hattie see her music in the landscape of the current UK electronic scene? "There’s a lot of instrumental/soundtrack music coming out of the scene, a lot of synthwave music which seems to be a real throwback to the 70s and early 80s. I think that’s because so much of the music coming out of the scene is made by those who grew up during those decades. So I think I’m a bit of an outlier when it comes to the UK electronic scene for two reasons. Firstly, I’m at the lower end of the age range and secondly, I’m a woman in an extremely male dominated scene. “Bliss Land” is intentionally quite poppy, which seems to be less in fashion at the moment whereas my other instrumental stuff is more inspired by classical music than by IDM or ambient music, so I think I’m coming at writing and producing from a slightly different angle. However, I still definitely feel part of the scene. There’s a particularly strong sense of community within the UK electronic scene on Twitter and I’ve been nothing but welcomed and supported by the artists, fans and labels. It’s like being part of a strange and wonderful family.”

You’ve made a video for the track “Youth” with Chris Standley from Rogue Robot which is both funny and shot through with real melancholy. “Youth" is about reflecting on the past. I turned thirty this year and sometimes (more than I'd like to admit) I worry that I've gotten more boring as I've gotten older. I was pretty wild and unhinged when I was younger and sometimes I miss those mad nights out where it felt like absolutely anything could happen - although saying that I just don't have the energy to stay up for three days or the stomach to cope with the hangovers anymore. Still, there are days when I miss the way that everything feels new and exciting when you're in your late teens/early twenties - everything is more intense when you're younger and the world around you seems bright and buzzing with life. I've been thinking about it a lot this past year. I've not had much to do for the last twelve months besides walk around on my own and reflect on the past, since the future has basically been put on indefinite hold, so that has almost certainly fed into some of the lyrics and maybe even the feel of the music.”

The album is already garnering a lot of attention and praise. What’s next for Hattie after the album is released? "Who knows what’s next! I have plans to tour the album when the world opens up again. I’d also love to have the chance to score a film or to work with some other artists doing guest vocals or some remixes. And I’d like to get back to doing some music-related charity work again as my family were supported by a number of charities when I was growing up and think it’s important to give back when you can."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Having formed one of the most enduringly superb 'pseud-ost' releases of the past few years in 'The Sleepers' for the excellent Spun Out Sounds, Cooke hits electronic stalwarts Castles In Space for her excellent new LP 'Bliss Land'. Brilliantly toeing the line between electronic and acoustic, there are moments of pure Broadcast-y bliss and echoes of the soundtrack moments from the previous LP too. Do not sleep on this one.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. I Get By
2. Mistaken
3. Cars
4. One Foot Out The Door
5. Youth

Side B
6. Don’t Wanna Talk
7. Invisible Lines
8. Fantasies
9. Lovers Game
10. Summer Time

Dinked Edition Bonus 7”
1. One Foot Out The Door (Acoustic Version)
2. Above My Bed

Widely regarded as the poet laureate of the punk era (from his early career fronting the Stranglers to his transition as a solo artist), Hugh Cornwell has built a substantial and singular body of impressive solo albums. His tenth solo opus, Moments of Madness, continues his illustrious output by experimenting with musical genres as his enviable reputation as a wordsmith resounds across this album's songs.

Self-produced, and playing all of the instruments himself, Moments of Madness' ten incredible tracks finds Hugh flexing his musical muscles with a stripped down, offbeat, reverberating sixties vibe ringing from the seductive melodies and lyrically distinctive perceptions that are indelibly stamped with Hugh’s trademark imagination. Vocally and lyrically a career-best, Hugh has never sounded so good on his tenth solo album.

A high watermark and a modern-day masterpiece, Moments of Madness is being tipped as the most significant album of Hugh’s career.

TRACK LISTING

Coming Out Of The Wilderness
Red Rose
I Wannahideinsideaya
Looking For You
When I Was A Young Man
Moments Of Madness
Beware Of The Doll
Too Much Trash
Lasagna
Heartbreak At Seven

The first ever Anthology of his post-Stranglers career.

Since leaving The Stranglers in 1990, Hugh Cornwell has made a series of well-received solo albums 25 years on from leaving the band, this album brings together 12 (super-high-quality remastered at Abbey Road) choice Cornwell classics taken from the fi rst 6 solo albums, plus one brand new studio recording, “Live It And Breathe It” (CD only) A solo acoustic tour of the UK in November 2015, will support the release of ‘The Fall And Rise Of Hugh Cornwell” and will feature many of the songs contained on the album, as well as some other fan favourites, and classics from his time with The Stranglers.

“New song “Live it and Breathe it has both bark and bite” - MOJO.
“Cornwell’s pop sensibility remains utterly intact” - Classic Rock.

TRACK LISTING

1. Leave Me Alone
2. Beat Of My Heart
3. Hot Cat On Tin Roof
4. Break Of Dawn
5. Under Her Spell
6. First Bus To Babylon
7. Please Dont Put Me On A Slow Boat To Trowbridge
8. Lay Back On Me Pal
9. One Burning Desire
10. Cadiz
11. Long Dead Train
12. Get Involved
13. Live It And Breath It*

*Bonus Track For CD

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

New and unreleased versions of the legendary album (1981) by Can member Holger Czukay!

Recorded with Conny Plank, Jaki Liebezeit and the German post-punk band S.Y.P.H.

Pink vinyl including poster

Limited edition of 500 units worldwide

TRACK LISTING

Side One
A1. Peak On The Way To Normal (Remix) - 14:44 Minutes
A2. Hiss'n Listen (Remix) - 03:44 Minutes

Side Two
B1. Ode To Perfume (Remix) 18:42 Minutes
B2. Fragrance - 04:02 Minutes

21-year old Howie Day is a new singer-songwriter from the US who supported Tori Amos on her 2003 tour. Those who saw him in Manchester saw a talented musician armed only with an acoustic guitar, who uses an array of delay pedals to create and control an invisible band. He slaps his guitar for a backbeat, picks the melody out on a couple of strings and sings his own backing vocals. The sounds bounce around until Day pulls them all together with his guitar and soaring voice like a latter day John Martyn. Inspired by the emotionally raw songs of Jeff Buckley or Richard Ashcroft, they are full of broken hearts, regrets and loss and this debut does have a dark tone, but Day is one of those artists that will just get better and this is a good beginning.

Heinrich Dressel's “Polarlys” is the first album of unreleased tracks published by Musica Per Immagini, or a soundtrack for a imaginary noir film set in the icy waters of northern Europe, inspired by the book The Mystery of the Polarlys by Georges Simenon. Drones and ethereal atmospheres are paired with a cinematic background in order to describe the frost of the northern seas and the restlessness of the journey: beyond the classic analog sounds, a specific use of additive and vector synthesis particularly in vogue during the Nineties and typical of vintage synthesizers.

TRACK LISTING

A1. The Evil Eye
A2. The Crazy Passenger
A3. The Death Of Rue Delambre
A4. The Two Tickets
A5. Cornélius Vriens
A6. Katia's Birthday
B1. Wallets Day
B2. Katia's Fortune
B3. Sternberg's Nephew
B4. Tromsø
B5. Hamburg Night
B6. Else Silberman

Hanni El Khatib is back with his second album ‘Head In The Dirt’ produced by Dan Auerbach of the Grammy Award-winning band The Black Keys. Hanni El Khatib’s breakout debut ‘Will The Guns Come Out’ led to all kinds of success – not least having his music licensed to HBO and Showtime television series, and adverts for Nike and Captain Morgan. In 2012, however, he showed up to record his second album with just the clothes on his back — no guitar, no fancy almost-finished demos, and only about three weeks time to get from start to finish. While on tour, he'd met Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys in a Paris bar. After some whisky, they decided to partner up in Auerbach’s Nashville studio. The idea was to erase everything Hanni had become comfortable with and to make an album out of only raw instinct and inspiration. The result is ‘Head In The Dirt’, in which Hanni El Khatib makes the entire history of rebel music his own over eleven tracks. There are cut-to-the-bone rhythm ‘n’ blues songs (‘Save Me’) and overcranked Stooges-style stompers (‘Family’). There are bottomless Black Sabbath riff-outs (the back half of ‘Pay No Mind’) and dubbed-out garage rock tunes (‘Nobody Move’) that call up the spirits of the Clash and the Equals. His ‘Low’ is just one Andre 3000 remix away from a club anthem, ‘Penny’ is a stick-in-your-head pop hit, and ‘Sinking In The Sand’ is a freak-out headbanger.

On his 2011 debut Will The Guns Come Out, Hanni El Khatib tried something he’d never tried before—making a bedroom-style recording of his stripped brand of rock‘n’roll mostly for the sheer joy of making it. For his ferocious 2013 follow-up Head In The Dirt, he tried something new again, enlisting Dan Auerbach as a producer.

But after Head In The Dirt’s release and almost a year of relentless touring, Hanni knew he needed to go past ‘unpredictable’ all the way to ‘unprecedented.’ He needed isolation, time and the chance to experiment. So after 30 days locked in hand-picked L.A. studio The Lair, the result is the album Moonlight—the rarest and most welcome kind of album, made at that perfect point in life where confidence, experience, and technique unite to help an artist do anything they want.

That’s why it starts with a song that sounds like a Mobb Deep beat under a Suicide-style synth drone and ends with an ESG-meets-LCD Soundsystem gone italo-disco song about life and death. That’s why it collides crushing crate-digger drumbeats that’d be right at home on a Can LP or an Eddie Bo 45 with bleeding distorto guitar, bent and broken barroom piano and hallucinatory analog flourishes.

"Engine-revving dose of filthy, leather-clad blues." - NME

"A shit-kicking garage greaser with badass hooks." - SPIN

"Stripped- down garage rock with crunching guitars and kiss-off cockiness." - GQ

"This is desert-burned blues rock boosted by punk, soul and hip-hop" - ROLLING STONE

Hanni El Khatib, the definitive purveyor of visceral, blues-wracked, punk-spiked, soulwarped, knife-fight rock n’ roll who artfully blends serrated guitars with his love for hiphop, releases his fifth album FLIGHT, produced by and recorded with long-time friend Leon Michels (El Michels Affair, Lana Del Rey, Rick Ross, Travis Scott, A$AP Rocky, and Eminem).

From 2010 until 2017, when he released his previous albums, there was the usual cycle that consumes most working musicians: make an album, tour it, return home, rinse and repeat. And with it came the predictable pitfalls that ensnare too many artists - It is a dream until that one night when it isn’t any longer, and despite his gratitude for his fans, El Khatib found himself wracked by depression and anxiety. It became readily apparent that if he didn’t make drastic changes to his lifestyle, there might not be a life to speak of. So he quit drinking, stopped touring, and took an indefinite hiatus from the studio. But eventually, the desire to create songs slowly returned.

What would eventually become El Khatib’s fifth studio album, the virtuosic but characteristically raw FLIGHT, began as spontaneous experimentation. The finished result is a rollicking sampledelic opus that recalls the beautiful chaos that the Dust Brothers created on Paul’s Boutique and Odelay. It’s the type of thing that Dilla and Madlib would’ve created if they had come up on The Cramps.

TRACK LISTING

1. CARRY
2. GLASSY
3. ALIVE
4. COLORS
5. STRESSY
6. ROOM
7. LEADER
8. GEM
9. HARLOW
10. DUMB
11. HOW
12. DETROIT
13. PEACE

Hanni El Khatib’s first idea for his Savage Times project was to do something he’d never done before. Instead, he ended up doing …well, everything he’d never done before. He’d be playing new instruments, writing in unfamiliar new ways, opening himself up to an unrelenting stream of ideas and dedicating himself totally to pure musical instinct. And the result? 19 best-of-the-sessions songs, as well as the kind of creative revelations that only happen when you quit looking around and start looking ahead.

Originally, he’d hoped to explode the lingering idea that he was simply a blues-rock guitar player, but that’s why Savage Times touches on everything from garage rock to punk to disco, hip-hop and even some unexpected solo-guitar self-portraiture. But on the way, he also exploded his own idea of what he could do—even maybe who he was, or would be. Savage Times was an experiment as well as an experience, that touched on some of the most personal, social & political elements to date.

TRACK LISTING

1. Baby's OK
2. Gonna Die Alone
3. Born Brown
4. Paralyzed
5. Miracle
6. Mangos & Rice
7. Come Down
8. No Way
9. Mondo And His Makeup
10. Gun Clap Hero
11. Black Constellation
12. So Dusty
13. Till Your Rose Comes Home
14. Hold Me Back
15. Savage Times
16. 1AM
17. Peep Show
18. This I Know
19. Freak Freely

This is the second LP from the Atari Teenage Riot singer / founder. It's on Digital Hardcore's Fatal Industries offshoot, and includes collaborations with J Mascis, Alec Empire, Khan, Merzbow, Einsturzende Neubauten's Alexander Hacke etc.

Hazel English is a 25-year-old Oakland-based artist who makes beautifully blurry indie-pop music powered by transcendent melodies and caked in layers of Californian sunshine and redolent reverb.

She finds herself something of a scene queen amidst the burgeoning jangling happenings of the Bay Area, which count the likes of her producer Jackson Philips aka Day Wave amongst it ranks, as well as kindred spirits like Craft Spells and Hot Flash Heat Wave, to name but a few. Despite the fun being had locally, Hazel describes her music as, “Transportive. It makes you feel like you’re in a different place”.

A very literal example is the title track, which charters the bittersweet abandon of her runaway journey from her native Australia to her new adopted home in an near-cinematic narrative. She’s drawn comparisons to everyone from Alvvays and Pains Of Being Pure At Heart to touring partners Ride, while her soaring, hypnotic, vocal arrangements have been likened to everyone from Grimes to Diiv.

Wake UP! is the debut album from Californian-based singer songwriter Hazel English. It features the 60s psych-influenced single Shaking, written by Hazel and frequent collaborator Blake Stranathan (Lana Del Rey) as well as timeless dream-pop tunes Off My Mind and Five And Dime. The album was recorded over a two year period and made in LA with super-producer Justin Raisen (Sky Ferreira, Charli XCX, Angel Olsen) and in Atlanta with Ben H. Allen (Deerhunter, M.I.A, Animal Collective).

TRACK LISTING

Born Like
Shaking
Wake UP!
Off My Mind
Combat
Five And Dime
Like A Drug
Waiting
Milk And Honey
Work It Out

London based Brazilian specialists Far Out Recordings venture further out to Uruguay to record a new album with fusion legend Hugo Fattoruso. After a twenty-year search for the man behind the cult 70s jazz-funk group Opa, Far Out are honoured to present Barrio Opa: a new work from Fattoruso and his team of world-class musicians, including the sensational Candombe drumming of the renowned Silva brothers.

Recorded at Sondor Studios, Montevideo, the album is the natural development of the original Opa sound, fusing Afro-Uruguayan rhythms, jazz harmony and heavy funk attitude, under Hugo’s unique musical vision.

Fusing Candombe (traditional rhythm of Uruguay) with rock, jazz, funk and other Latin American rhythms, Opa created a distinctive Afro-Uruguayan voice within the global jazz vernacular, influencing a generation of musicians throughout the seventies and beyond. Fattoruso also famously collaborated extensively with Airto Moreia, arranging and playing on a plethora of hit records including Fingers and I’m Fine, How Are You. More recently Fattoruso’s music has been sampled by the likes Flying Lotus and Madlib.

Recorded at the state of the art Sondor Studios in Montevideo’s iconic Barrio Sur district, the album features some of the world class musicians at the forefront of today’s Uruguayan jazz scene, including Hugo’s son Francisco Fattoruso on bass, Tato Bolognini on drums, Albana Barrocas on percussion and Nicolas Ibarburu on electric guitar. The album also features the Candombe drumming of the legendary Silva brothers, Mathias, Guillermo Diaz and Wellington, who give the album its Afro-Uruguayan identity, transporting the listener to Barrio Sur, the spiritual home of Montevideo’s Candombe heritage.

In Hugo’s own words “this is the sound of Opa today.” This is most prevalent on ‘Goldenwings’ the fresh take on the funk-fusion masterpiece which became an underground hit in London jazz clubs in the 80s ‘. The stripped back yet equally rip-roaring trio piece ‘Botijas’ is led by Hugo’s virtuosic piano playing and hypnotic wordless vocals, and backed by an inventive, heavy grooving fusion of Latin rhythms from Tato Bolognini on drums. The shining moments for the Silva brothers’ Tambor playing are ‘Candombelek’ - a beautifully moody Afro-Uruguyan groove with characterful rhodes and vocal harmonies - and ‘Candombe Alto’, a carnival-esque track, awash with soaring synth lead, wahwah guitar and pulsating keys.

TRACK LISTING

La Del Cheche
Botijas
Candombe Beat Funk
El Romance Del Sordo
Trenes De Tokyo
Candombelek**
Candombe Alto
Llamada Ins Lita
Antes
Goldenwings
For You To Be Proud**

**CD Only

A native of Los Angeles, Henry Franklin came of age while the city was producing a crop of exciting jazz talent. Frankin’s lasting impact on jazz can be evidenced by the long list of legends who sought him out for tours and recording sessions, Stevie Wonder, Bobby Humphrey, Freddy Hubbard, & Pharaoh Sanders to name a few. Franklin’s solo output is best remembered for his two solo outings with the Black Jazz label- “The Skipper” & “The Skipper At Home”. Together, they form one of the most compelling diptychs in the entire post-bop canon. Recognised by his peers and contemporaries, Franklin’s entry for Jazz Is Dead gives the living legend his flowers and recognises the contributions The Skipper has made as one of jazz’s most influential heartbeats.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: The imperative jazz-revival series continues in earnest. Henry Franklin updates crucial material from "The Skipper" and "The Skipper At Home", aided and abetted by Ali Shaheed Muhammad & Adrian Younge. A tour de force of modern jazz expression!

TRACK LISTING

1. Karibu
2. The Griot
3. People's Revolution
4. Memories Lost
5. Feedback
6. Café Nero
7. African Sun
8. A Song For Sigrid

For Helen Ganya, entering her thirties made her question and pull away from the heteronormative social constructs that surround us. On her new album polish the machine, the Brighton-based songwriter stretches away from the suburban nightmare, seeking a cathartic reprieve that looks beyond the ordinary. “I was looking to the truth of removing any expectations that we’ve acquired along the way,” she says.

Previously performing under the moniker Dog in the Snow, Ganya’s 2017 album Consume Me (Battle Worldwide) introduced a meticulous and elegant voice, while 2019 album Vanishing Lands (Bella Union) - inspired by the striking imagery in a period of vivid dreams - utilised swirling dream-pop and haunting post-punk to present an eerie, unflinching look at the often nightmarish reality of the present world. polish the machine leans further into Ganya’s interiority, but refuses to succumb to despondency, instead pursuing a platform for community and tentative optimism. Here, the constraints of societal roles are loosened to encourage a different route: a wandering, ever-evolving path.

TRACK LISTING

1 I Will Hold That Hand For You
2 Young Girls Never Die
3 Wedding In The Night Time
4 Delicate Graffiti
5 Afterparty
6 The Crowd
7 Deep Sea
8 Devotion
9 Polish The Machine
10 Blue Fruit
11 Birdsong

A wandering troubadour in search of treasured happenstance.” Quietus / The 24th solo studio album from Giant Sand mainman Howe Gelb. Following two much-praised jazz-tinged ‘Future Standards’ collections, a wider bet captures Gelb’s discordant phrasings and clever romantic lyricism. Joined by a host of collaborators from all over the world, including M. War, Gabriel Naim Amor, Fernando Vacas, Juan Panki, The Lost Brothers, Anna Karina, JB Meijers, Kira Skov and Gelb’s own daughter Talula.

Focussing on Gelb’s celebrated song-writing style, filled with emotive tunes and heart-warming arrangements invariably offset by gorgeous discordant moments. A chance meeting of the indie/alt country Sinatra annotated by clever wordplay, teased by tongue twisters and an earthy ramble. “Gelb’s long-held fascination with words, particularly the way certain ones rub up against one another or encourage an allusive phrase, usually stretched over an odd meter, is a joy.” Uncut… Previous press coverage from Pitchfork, Mojo, Q, Clash, Uncut, NPR and more. 

TRACK LISTING

1 On The Fence
2 A Thousand Kisses Deep Feat. M. Ward
3 Not The End Of The World Feat Anna Karina
4 Anna
5 Give It Up
6 The Open Road
7 Moon River Feat. Talula Gelb
8 Flyin’ Off The Rails
9 Gathered Feat. Pieta Brown
10 All You Need To Know
11 The Park At Dark
12 My Little World
13 Presumptuous Feat. Kira Skov
14 Storyteller
15 Steadfast (CD And Download Card Only) 

A wandering troubadour in search of treasured happenstance.” Quietus / The 24th solo studio album from Giant Sand mainman Howe Gelb. Following two much-praised jazz-tinged ‘Future Standards’ collections, a wider bet captures Gelb’s discordant phrasings and clever romantic lyricism. Joined by a host of collaborators from all over the world, including M. War, Gabriel Naim Amor, Fernando Vacas, Juan Panki, The Lost Brothers, Anna Karina, JB Meijers, Kira Skov and Gelb’s own daughter Talula.

Focussing on Gelb’s celebrated song-writing style, filled with emotive tunes and heart-warming arrangements invariably offset by gorgeous discordant moments. A chance meeting of the indie/alt country Sinatra annotated by clever wordplay, teased by tongue twisters and an earthy ramble. “Gelb’s long-held fascination with words, particularly the way certain ones rub up against one another or encourage an allusive phrase, usually stretched over an odd meter, is a joy.” Uncut… Previous press coverage from Pitchfork, Mojo, Q, Clash, Uncut, NPR and more. 

TRACK LISTING

1 On The Fence
2 A Thousand Kisses Deep Feat. M. Ward
3 Not The End Of The World Feat Anna Karina
4 Anna
5 Give It Up
6 The Open Road
7 Moon River Feat. Talula Gelb
8 Flyin’ Off The Rails
9 Gathered Feat. Pieta Brown
10 All You Need To Know
11 The Park At Dark
12 My Little World
13 Presumptuous Feat. Kira Skov
14 Storyteller
15 Steadfast (CD And Download Card Only) 

Released on gold vinyl, ‘The Coincidentalist’ and ‘Dust Bowl’ are two discs of Howe Gelb filled with randomness and happenstance, a typical treasure trove spanning all genres from alt country to Cohen-esque grandeur. They traverse, unflinchingly, his chameleon-like repertoire. This deluxe re-issue includes ‘Dust Bowl’ on vinyl for the very first time, with the records housed in a gatefold sleeve featuring updated artwork and liner notes.

‘The Coincidentalist’, originally released in 2013, features a raft of friends and collaborators including Bonnie Prince Billy, Andrew Bird, M. Ward, Steve Shelley, and Jason Lytle of Grandaddy with John Parrish on mixing duties. Ever the focal point of Giant Sand and Gelb releases, the Arizona Desert serves as a key inspiration for the record, animating the baron landscape with stories of those that have navigated them. Praise for the release was not short, with AllMusic proclaiming that it’s “one of Gelb's most realized efforts; despite its relaxed, airy presentation, it's musically and lyrically provocative, as poetic, strange, and mysterious as the desert itself."

The accompanying collection ‘Dust Bowl’ is a personal sketchbook of songs, a more stripped back set than it’s counterpart. Featuring everything from the country blues of ‘Porch Banjo’ and ‘John Deere’, to off-kilter piano ballads like ‘The Old Overrated’ and ‘Reality Or Not’ and the deconstructed desert pop on ‘Forever And A Day’ and the fragile ‘Man On A String’. ‘Dust Bowl’ is an insider’s view of Howe’s songwriting craft, a unique insight into the man himself.

“‘Dust Bowl’ was primarily for fans that have followed me for a while. ‘The Coincidentalist’ is for the friends of the fans.” Howe told Under The Radar. While Nightlife magazine reported that; “Without warning, the Giant Sand frontman and polymorphous countryman dropped this compilation of house recordings via Bandcamp… At a time when so much harmless, soulless folk resonates, Howe Gelb is a mandatory point of reference for any fan of the genre.”

TRACK LISTING

A1 Vortexas (feat Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy)
A2 Left Of Center
A3 Running Behind
A4 The 3 Deaths Of Lucky (feat. KT Tunstall)
A5 Unforgivable
A6 Instigated Chimes
B1 The Coincidentalist (feat. Andrew Bird)
B2 Triangulate
B3 Picacho Peak
B4 An Extended Plane Of Existence
B5 Looking That Way
C1 Dust Bowl
C2 Porch Banjo
C3 Lost Love
C4 Man On A String
C5 Reality Or Not
C6 John Deere
C7 Windblown Waltz
D1 Redelivery Blues
D2 Forever And A Day
D3 Plane Of Existence
D4 A Coffee Song
D5 The Old Overrated
D6 Mystery Spot
D7 Blink Of An Eye

"No Help Coming" is the fourth full-length release by Holly Golightly & the Brokeoffs, and the latest of nearly 30 albums on which the veteran indie icon is featured. But she's quick to dismiss any suggestion that she's refined her approach during her 20 years as a recording artist.

Indeed, as much as her work has evolved over the years, the London-born, Georgia-based singer/guitarist has maintained a fierce fidelity to the same raw DIY musical principles that first established her as a seminal influence upon multiple generations of garage combos and lo-fi artists. Her current outfit, Holly Golightly & the Brokeoffs, is a stripped-down duo that teams her with Texas-bred multi-instrumentalist and longtime collaborator Lawyer Dave, who contributes guitar, drums and backing vocals.

On "No Help Coming", Holly Golightly & the Brokeoffs continue to make music that's spare and earthy yet unfailingly tuneful, drawing upon gritty blues, country and rockabilly influences while maintaining an unmistakable personal resonance.

The new 12-song set, recorded in the twosome's adopted home state of Georgia, features such notable originals as "The Rest of Your Life", "You're Under Arrest", "Get Out of My House" and the swaggering title track, which pack as much of a musical and emotional punch as anything they've recorded. No Help Coming also continues Golightly's longstanding tradition of putting her stamp on unexpected cover material, with personalized readings of country legend Bill Anderson's "The Lord Knows We're Drinking", the mysterious Mr. Undertaker's 1955 rhythm-and-blues cult classic "Here Lies My Love", and Wendell Austin's vintage psycho-country epic "L.S.D. Made a Wreck of Me". The last tune features an appropriately impassioned lead vocal by Lawyer Dave.

On Clippety Clop, UK punk turned Athens-area musician Holly Golightly explores songs that reflect her experiences and surroundings. Golightly and her significant other, Lawyer Dave, rescue horses in Madison County, so it makes sense that they'd relate to the folk and popular histories of equine-themed lyrics. Twelve such selections make up what might be the first and only covers album of blues, country and indie-rock songs about horses.

From swearing like sailors while honoring Jimmie Rodgers' "Mule Skinner" to making alt-rockers Red Red Meat's "Carpet of Horses" sound like alt-country, the couple adds its own twist to each song covered. This juxtaposition between songs' traditional arrangements and Golightly's new musical interpretations keeps conjuring up surprises. Examples include the rockabilly swing on Big Maybelle's "Jinny Mule" and the Vaselines-style indie-pop vibe added to cowboy anthem "I Ride an Old Paint."

Golightly explores a wide range of musical approaches, making this a broad-reaching introduction for listeners who only know her White Stripes collaboration. For those who share her and Jack White's interest in unearthing musical history, prepare for a primer on everything from the Singing Brakeman to the legendary British race horse Stewball. - Flagpole

TRACK LISTING

Mule Skinner
Two White Horses
Horses In The Mines
Pinto Pony
Black Horse Blues
Kill Grey Mule
Carpet Of Horses
I Ride An Old Paint
Jinny Mule
Stewball
Strawberry Roan
Mule Train

Holly Golightly (real name) started her musical career as a founder member of all girl garage band Thee Headcoatees, a Billy Childish /
Thee Headcoats splinter group in 1991. She spent four years as a Headcoatee before breaking away to release her debut record, The Good Things, in 1995. Where the Headcoatees sound was a blend of girl group sounds and three-chord garage-rock with all the original songs coming from the pen of Billy Childish, Holly's solo sound is more a blend of pre-rock electric blues, folk rock, and less frantic rock 'n' roll. Apart from the wide range of covers of such artists as Willie Dixon, Ike Turner, Lee Hazelwood, Wreckless Eric, and Bill Withers, Golightly also writes most of her own material.

Holly Golightly is definitely the most interesting and diverse artist to come out of the Billy Childish school and is certainly one of the better singer/songwriters of the post-grunge era who gets better with every album. Since her debut in 1995, Golightly has been very prolific, releasing a string of classic long play records and loads of singles for a wide variety of labels as well as touring extensively in America, Australia & Europe. This double vinyl LP, (or single CD newly packaged in a digipack) compiles Holly's first twelve 7” singles, A & B-sides. It includes the bluesy 'No Big Thing' with its bar-room piano and harmonica backing, the dirty guitar-driven 'Til I Get, the shuffling brushed drums and double bass of 'Come The Day, the haunting vocal and bottleneck guitar of 'Stain' and finishes with a brilliant up-tempo cover of Pavement's 'Box Elder'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Virtually Happy
2. The Ride #1
3. No Big Thing
4. My Own Sake
5. 'Til I Get
6. Waiting Room
7. I Can't Be Trusted
8. Card Table
9. No Hope Bar
10. Believe Me #1
11. Come The Day
12. In You
13. Believe Me #2
14. Stain
15. Won't Go Out
16. Too Late Now
17. Sand
18. Lonesome Town
19. Your Love Is Mine
20. Laughing To Keep From Crying
21. Listen
22. Rain Down Rain
23. You Shine
24. Box Elder

Sunday Run Me Over is Holly's fifth album with the Brokeoffs, actually a duo consisting of the London-born, Georgia-based singer/guitarist and Texas-bred multi-instrumentalist and longtime collaborator Lawyer Dave, who contributes guitar, drums and backing vocals. But it's one of nearly 30 albums on which the pioneering D.I.Y. iconoclast is featured, either as a solo artist or band member, and that figure that doesn't include her various singles, guest appearances and collaborations with the likes of the White Stripes, Mudhoney, the Greenhornes and Rocket from the Crypt. Throughout a career that's spanned more than 20 years, she's maintained a fierce fidelity to the unpretentious attitude and stripped-down sonic sensibility that's made her a seminal influence upon multiple generations of garage, punk and lo-fi artists.

Although she prides herself on sticking to the basics, Sunday Run Me Over nonetheless finds Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs mining an assortment of rootsy musical sources to create such deeply expressive, unmistakably personal tunes as the chugging opener "Goddamn Holy Roll," the ghostly, loping duet "They Say," the off-kilter waltz "One For the Road" and TK, a line from which gives the album its title. The set also features a trio of retooled cover tunes: a lilting take on the Davis Sisters' 1953 country hit "I Forgot More, a spirited reading of Wayne Raney's 1960 gospel chestnut "A Whole Lot More..."—aka "We Need a Whole Lot More of Jesus (and a Lot Less Rock and Roll)"—and a hearty run through Mac Davis' 1980 "Hard to Be Humble," which boasts an appropriately swaggering lead vocal by Lawyer Dave.

Harald Grosskopf is best known as drummer in the band Ashra and for Klaus Schulze and as an electronic musician. Following “Synthesist” (1980), “Oceanheart” was his second solo album. It may sound like a child of the 1980s, but in a compositional sense it is related to the Berliner Schule / Berlin School of the 70's
.
Tired of the rock format and excited by the freedoms promised by electronic music, Harald Grosskopf quit Wallenstein, a conventional rock band, in the mid-seventies to turn his attention to electronica. Grosskopf thus became the first drummer to specialize in the electronic music field. He played drums on Klaus Schulze’s albums “Moondawn” and “Body Love” and on YOU’s “Electric Day”. When Manuel Göttsching from Ash Ra Tempel asked him if he would consider enrolling as the regular drummer in the group now rechristened Ashra, he did not need to think about it for long. Grosskopf changed course again in the eighties, this time in pursuit of commercial success: he played in the NDW (Neue Deutsche Welle) group Lilli Berlin and backed Joachim Witt on his best-selling “Silberblick” LP, which featured the hit “Goldener Reiter”.

Sky, the record company, were more than a little disappointed with the performance of Grosskopf’s first solo effort “Synthesist”, so there was no great sense of urgency as far as its successor was concerned. “They even halved my advance!” Grosskopf recalls. “Oceanheart” was released some six years after “Synthesist”. “The album title reflects my love of transcendental meditation, of course it might be taken for watery esoterics.” (A similar vibe was evident in the cover art, hence fresh artwork has been created for the reissue.) Musical equipment for the production was limited by the label’s ongoing thrift programme. The first “Oceanheart” recordings took place “under the roof” in the Lilli Berlin Studio, Kreuzberg. They were completed at the Spandauer Studio by former Tangerine Dream member Christoph Franke. “We mixed everything down and recorded the drums there.” Harald Grosskopf again played everything himself, except for the tablas. In keeping with its predecessor, “Oceanheart” was no bestseller, but, like “Synthesist”, it attained cult status, rediscovered in recent years through the internet by a younger generation. Harald Grosskopf himself needed time to appreciate the work: “I only really discovered the musical quality of ‘Oceanheart’ years later. I finally realized that I had created something quite special.” - Christoph Dallach

TRACK LISTING

1. Eve On The Hill (10:30)
2. While I'm Walking (4:44)
3. Oceanheart (4:59)
4. Coming Out (3:25)
5. Pondicherry Dream (3:42)
6. Minimal Boogie (10:54)

Harald Grosskopf and Eberhard Kranemann transmit cosmic sonic visions of today, tomorrow and beyond in one of the most exciting collaborations in recent years. Harald Grosskopf played on the early Klaus Schulze albums and recorded with Ashra..  Eberhard Kranemann co-founded the electronic bands Kraftwerk, NEU!

Battlefield 2042 soundtrack pressed on 2 x 'Hazard Zone' (Green w/ Blue Markings) vinyl, exclusive variant outside The Americas.

Includes gatefold sleeve plus printed inner sleeves.

"Guðnadóttir has established her signature sound: a moving fusion of ambient drone and contemporary classical that places an emphasis on her exceptionally controlled tone; she’s capable of conjuring entire worlds out of just a few carefully chosen notes.” pitchfork.com

"We are thrilled to be writing our first video game score for Battlefield 2042, and teaming with Electronic Arts,” … "It was such a deeply creative experience to dive into this world and create a truly unique and disruptive musical environment for the game.” Gudnadóttir and Slater

TRACK LISTING

Orbital
The Observation Of Beautiful Forms
Irreversible
Between The Bows
Wall Jazz
Load Bearing
When Does A Country Stop Being A Country?
5 Degrees Of Warming
Olivine
Hauled Over The Coals
The Long Haul
Hourglass (Inverted)
Wet Bulb
Shipping Forecast
Deploy
Tipping Points
Battlefield 2042

Easy Eye Sound present this double sided 7" by Hermanos Gutirrez - a two-piece band formed of the brothers Alejandro and Estevan Gutirrez - of "Low Sun" and "Los Chicos Tristes (El Michels Affair Remix)", featuring Jensine Benitez

With its bold percussion - much more prominent than on previous Hermanos Gutierrez records - "Low Sun" captures a darker, more eerie tension between the brother's two guitars.

"Los Chicos Tristes" has been remixed by Leon Michels, better known as El Michels Affair, and introducing vocals from Jensine Benitez, the new take on the beloved ambient instrumental adds more prominent drum beats and a spoken word introduction by Benitez, giving the song an intense, cinematic twist. Subtle organ notes, vocalizing, and Hermanos' intertwining guitars lead the remix into a darker, more mysterious place while staying true to the duo's intimate sound that has won them millions of fans across the globe.

TRACK LISTING

1. Low Sun
2. Los Chicos Tristes (El Michels Affair Remix)

Following the 2017 album I Romanticize and 2015's In The Pink of Condition, the album was produced and features musical contributions from long-time collaborator and celebrated solo artist Cate Le Bon. Artwork is designed by H.Hawkline.

Recorded at Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire, the album features a host of musical collaborators – Davey Newington [Boy Azooga] on drums, Paul Jones [Group Listening] on piano, Tim Presley [White Fence, DRINKS, The Fall] on guitar, Stephen Black [Sweet Baboo] and Euan Hinshelwood [Younghusband, Cate Le Bon] on sax, Harry Bohay [Aldous Harding] on pedal steel and John Parish [PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding] on infrequent bongo. The record was then engineered by Joe Jones [Aldous Harding, Parquet Courts] and mixed, after an unlikely and fortuitous crossing of paths, by the Grammy-nominated Patrik Berger [Charli XCX, Robyn, Lana Del Rey], and mastered by Heba Kadry [Deerhunter, Cass McCombs, Cate Le Bon].

Milk for Flowers is at once visceral and enlightened, its soundscapes verdant yet delicately rendered, and with this latest, most intimate work, H. Hawkline beautifully bares his blood, bones and soul. And quietly, along with the entrails and rubble held in Milk For Flowers’ reliquary, there hides a small, green kernel of life; hope, perhaps, that today’s decay might nourish tomorrow’s blooms.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I lived in Cardiff for some time, and there's something intangible there that makes people *really* good at writing this sort of 60's psych influenced athletic indie-pop, and Huw really makes some of the best out there. It shines with influence from classic rock to lounge and garage and psychedelia influences oozing out of every pore. Loads of melody and groove, but with an indescribable wooze and syncopation to the songwriting, without ever feeling strained. A triumph once again from H. Hawkline.

TRACK LISTING

Milk For Flowers
Plastic Man
Suppression Street
I Need Him
Denver
Athens At Night
Like You Do
It's A Living
Mostly
Empty Room

Mixing lonesome four-part harmonies and high energy rock, Ha Ha Tonka carves out a sound that conveys a sharp sense of place. Ha Ha Tonka's lyrics replicate the paradox that exists in the Midwestern Bible Belt that they know so well, where the realities of meth use, strip clubs, socio-economic hardship, and backwoods prejudices meet the literal interpretations of biblical story-tellers. This Ozark milieu creates some contradictory notions, but also some of the most poignant folk and gospel musical traditions in the nation's history.

This book is a tribute to vinyl, a format that is making a spectacular comeback recently, although for many music lovers it never really disappeared.

Brazilian superstar Ed Motta came to Holland to buy an apartment, but spent all his money on vinyl instead. When a young Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth discovered a scratch on his recently bought Bathory LP he demolished his bedroom. It’s Atlantic’s CEO Craig Kallman mission to own all relevant albums on vinyl. He has 750.000 already. That’s what vinyl does with music lovers.

In Passion For Vinyl a wide selection of DJ’s, musicians, label owners, designers, record dealers, collectors and engineers like Henry Rollins, Bernie Grundman, Hans Pokora, Chris Ellis, Steffi, Mala, Vaughan Oliver, Lee Dorrian, Jacco Gardner, John Dyer Baizley and many others share their unconditional love for vinyl. They muse about the first record that changed their lives, talk about their prized collectibles and explain why they were determined to keep vinyl alive. Passion for Vinyl also tells the history of Record Industry, the Dutch factory that has been pressing vinyl since the 1950’s.

The 7” single contains two exclusive tracks from Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and Rinus’ Garage Feat. Triggerfinger.

Record stores are popping up again everywhere. New vinyl pressing plants are opening in America, Europe and Asia. Young vinyl enthusiasts – both male and female! – are swarming to record fairs looking for old and new records to build their collection. When Passion for Vinyl Part 1 came out, there was still some doubt about the comeback of vinyl. Wasn’t it all just a hype? Now, five years later, even the biggest sceptic can’t deny it: vinyl is back and it’s here to stay!

In light of all these new and exciting developments, a follow-up to the successful and well-received first volume of the Passion for Vinyl book is more than viable. DJs, musicians, engineers, designers, shop managers, record label CEOs and collectors like Dischord’s Ian MacKaye, Norton’s Miriam Linna, singer-songwriter Ryley Walker, musician and producer T Bone Burnett, Abbey Road’s half-speed maestro Miles Showell, DJs Sven Väth and Ellen Allien, designer John Kosh and many others tell about the records that changed their lives, their love for vinyl and the impact its resurgence has had on them. Passion for Vinyl Part 2 also shows how analogue recording techniques are making a comeback in the recording and mastering studios.

In the last few years, countless music lovers have (re)discovered that nothing beats listening to a vinyl record on a proper stereo set. It makes the listener connect with the music like nothing else. This book is a tribute to that unique experience.

The 7” single contains three exclusive tracks from Norton Records’ Hasil Adkins & Bloodshot Bill and DJ/producer Ellen Allien.

It’s quite amazing that in a world that has become increasingly digital and where ‘stuff’ has become invisible, vinyl has made such a spectacular comeback. Yet it is very likely also one of the main reasons for its resurgence. People like to collect. The physical aspect of playing a record adds to the listening experience and creates memories. An album can take you back to an important time or place. And buying a new record is a great way of supporting a favorite artist and their label. That’s also the reason why new generations of music lovers have embraced vinyl.

This new edition of Passion for Vinyl tells these stories. It’s about the records that inspire people. The way they shaped their lives. How they sparked them to pick up an instrument, become a DJ, or start a label, pressing plant or YouTube channel. Passion for Vinyl features exclusive interviews with Blue Note recording artist Gregory Porter, CEO of Linn Gilad Tiefenbrun, Bettina Richards of Thrill Jockey Records, YouTube personality Melinda Murphy, Beggars Group US president Nabil Ayers, Ben Blackwell of Third Man Records, Classic Album Sundays’ Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy, Liz Dunster of Erika Records, Robert Trujillo of Metallica, DJ, collector and label owner Gilles Peterson, Jenn D’Eugenio of Gold Rush Vinyl and Women in Vinyl, Bad Seed member Warren Ellis, Paulo Jr. of Sepultura, Chad Kassem of Acoustic Sounds, and many others.

This book offers close to 30 interviews with a very diverse cast of characters. They have in common a deep love of music. Passion for Vinyl shares the unique experience of making, buying, collecting, and enjoying vinyl. Its purpose is to inspire.

The 7" single contains two exclusive tracks from Lovemonk’s Gecko Turner and Munster Records’ Los Saicos.

HAAi's debut full-length album is her most collaborative, energetic and vibrant collection to date. Baby, We're Ascending, a 13-track sonic adventure that takes you along for the ride – from hardcore, echoey beats to sweeping, colourful synth lines and bright, warped vocal samples. The voices on the album are vast and eclectic – from Jon Hopkins and Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor to singer Obi Franky and spoken word poet and activist Kai-Isaiah Jamal.

The album follows the release of ‘Lights Out’, her collaboration with Grammy-nominated producer Fred Again.. and Romy of The xx, and is supported by a series of worldwide shows.

TRACK LISTING

1 Channels
2 Pigeon Barron
3 Bodies Of Water
4 Human Sound Feat. Kai-Isaiah Jamal And Obi Franky
5 Louder Always Better
6 Biggest Mood Ever Feat. Alexis Taylor
7 AM
8 FM
9 I’ve Been Thinking A Lot Lately
10 Purple Jelly Disc Feat. Obi Franky
11 Baby, We’re Ascending
12 Orca
13 Tardigrade

‘Put Your Head Above The Parakeets’ is a brand new EP from HAAi, her second for Mute.  The EP features four brand new tracks including the pseudo title track ‘Head Above The Parakeets’, which exudes a woozy summery heat while ‘Rotating in Unison’ embraces positivity, written in response to this year’s enforced slowdown. The final two tracks take us back to the club, where HAAi is known for spinning genre-bending and spellbinding DJ sets.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Twisting breakbeat, braindance, brutalist techno and IDM into an utterly postmodern sonic collage, HAAi brings the past into the future wonderfully on this fierce four tracker for Mute.

TRACK LISTING

1. Head Above The Parakeets
2. Rotating In Unison
3. Bon Viveur
4. Bass Is The Place

"Meet Norway's new pastoral folk voice - guitar lines ripple like Nick Drake strumming for Karen Dalton - think Sibylle Baier or Julie Byrne" Uncut.

Crackled radio-like transmissions from Norway's rural hinterland. Juni Habel's fragile finger-picked lullabies warm themselves by the open fire with her rich intimate voice atop twinkling arrangements and strange percussive instrumentation. Like glowing embers in the dark, these songs are odes to life and death, the beauty of belonging and human kinship with nature.

Push open the door of the old school house in the remote flatlands of Southern Norway that Juni Habel shares with her close-knit family and climb the stairs; you’ll find yourself in a former classroom – the home of her new album Carvings. A songbook of life’s lessons offering an expansive perspective as it navigates personal shadows between darkness and light.

“I knew I wanted to write from a larger perspective. I wanted to write about the course of nature, and the people in it - life and death, beauty and tragedy.” Juni says, “loss - the search for the dead - grasping to find the words, and liberation of giving that up. I also wanted to explore my own kinship with nature - a sense of belonging, and notice what is around with gratitude and zest for life.”

This unyielding spirit of family and nature is etched into Carvings’ unschooled approach. With beauty in mock-simplicity and radiating humanity like the music of Tia Blake, Julie Byrne or Myriam Gendron, Juni’s songwriting unfolds on her own terms, and is the sound of facing whatever mother nature decides will find its way to the top of the list.

Recorded between the classroom (‘big hall’), the hallway on the 2nd floor, and her bedroom with simple gear and vocals laid down in a single take. Co-producer, musician and singer Stian Skaaden, became her melodic confidant and experimental co-conspirator halving the burden by building the album’s layers through blowing a pipe, playing bow on the banjo, bottles or glockenspiel. “With this album I wanted to lean deeper into the process. The title Carvings illustrates thoroughness. It was a vulnerable project, to strive for creating something truly beautiful, to pour my soul into it,” she says.

Uninhibited by the possibility of ‘mistakes’ and jamming until she struck gold, Juni confidently discovered the truest expression of herself. “It takes courage to do things ‘wrong’ with uncertainty, record lyrics which are strange but feel right, on crappy mics, it can be good to fumble a bit,” Juni says before tellingly, “the joy of playing is quite fragile. I have to protect it. You can't use your head, you have to be inside the song.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Yet another killer release from Basin Rock, with Juni Habel's 'Carvings' providing the perfect fireside listening. Brittle folk guitars crescendo with Habel's echoing vocals hovering over the top. Organically growing melodies come out of the smallest seed and bloom into heady orchestrated bliss.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Rhythm Of The Tides
2. I Went Out And Sought For Your Name
3. Little Twirl
4. Valiant
Side B
5. When We Awake
6. Chicory
7. Drifting Pounds Of The Train
8. I Carry You, My Love

“When a close friend took an in-advance listen to Hachiku’s debut album, I’ll Probably Be Asleep, she had one question for bandleader Anika Ostendorf: “’why are you so angry?’”

It’s not the first reaction that most people would have to the Melbourne-based outfit, whose dream-pop jams all dewy guitars, rickety drum-machines, and layered ambience, topped off with Ostendorf’s oft-breathy voice would seem to contain no sharp edges. But, following Hachiku’s self-titled 2017 debut EP, Ostendorf found herself dealing with darker themes; which reflected the 25-year-old growing up, changing, and feeling mounting frustrations.”

TRACK LISTING

I’ll Probably Be Asleep
Busy Being Boring
You’ll Probably Think This Song Is About You
Bridging Visa B
Dreams Of Galapagos
A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Woman
Shark Attack
Murray’s Lullaby

One Little Independent are proud to release the high-concept debut album from the brand-new collaboration between three of UK folk’s most unique and prestigious voices; Marry Waterson, Lisa Knapp and Nathaniel Mann.

‘Blackletter Garland’, by Hack-Poets Guild, boasts twelve fascinating interpretations and original compositions that tell intricate tales of birth, love, conflict and death, with all the imagination of the folklore from which they’re based.

Inspired by historic broadside ballads, the trio rejuvenate and reinvent these stories, bringing them vividly to life for a new generation. Following an invite to the Bodleian Library by Sound UK Arts, the disposable song sheets (that would’ve once sold for pence, and were the forerunners of modern news media) gave a rare insight into the past whilst striking a chord with themes still relevant today. Celebrated film composer and multi-instrumentalist Gerry Diver helped in their exploration as a producer, and in adding fresh ideas to these past texts.

Across the album, anecdotal, descriptive yarns are spun to a backdrop of atmospheric strings, rustic instrumentation and elegant vocal harmonies, used precisely to communicate the victims as easily as they do the villains. The result is a compelling and thoroughly enjoyable balance between the traditional and contemporary.

TRACK LISTING

Ten Tongues
Daring Highwayman
The Devil’s Cruelty
Laying The Ghost
Birds Of Harmony
Hemp & Flax
Something To Love Me
Meat For Worms
The Troubles Of This
World
Rare Receipts
Be Kind To Each Other
Cruel Mother

Berlin-based avant-garde duo hackedepicciotto have returned with Keepsakes, their fifth full length studio album.

Keepsakes is the duo’s second album released on Mute, and was recorded at one of Europe’s oldest recording spaces, the Neapolitan studio Auditorium Novecento. Inspired by the space, which was home to Caruso and Morricone, the new compositions feature tubular bells and a grand piano within their signature sound of symphonic drone. Where past albums speak of universal themes, this mesmerising new creation has a very personal touch, the duo calls it “an ode to friendship, presenting songs of gratitude”.

hackedepicciotto are Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto. Both legends of their own making: Danielle the lead singer of the band Space Cowboys and the co-initiator of the Love Parade, and Alexander a founding member of the seminal German group Einstürzende Neubauten, known for working with the likes of Crime & the City Solution (1987 – 1991) and Phew.

TRACK LISTING

1 Troubadour
2 Aichach
3 Anthem
4 La Femme Sauvage
5 Mastodon
6 Schwarze Milch
7 Lovestuff
8 Song Of Gratitude
9 The Blackest Crow

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

TRACK LISTING

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

Rock provocateur Marika Hackman will release her highly anticipated new album ‘Any Human Friend’ via AMF Records and on Sub Pop in North and South America'.

Any Human Friend’ has been co-produced by David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx, Let’s Eat Grandma) and Marika herself, and shows off a sharper and more liberated sound than ever before.

Marika is a ‘Rid of Me’-era PJ Harvey for the inclusive generation: unbounded by musical genre, a preternatural lyricist and tunesmith who isn’t afraid to go there. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brilliant outing here from Marika Hackman, beautifully marrying the synths and rhythmic drive of 80's pop music with her notoriously superb songwriting prowess, immediately rewarding but develops with every listen. A wonderful change of pace.

Big Sigh brings together the best of Marika’s previous works as an indie musician and adds a new layer of epic sounds and full-bodied production.

Big Sigh is the “hardest record” Marika has ever made. As the title suggest, it is a relief of sorts – of sadness, of stress and lust, but mostly relief.

Co-produced with Sam Petts Davies (Frank Ocean, Radiohead, Red Hot Chilli Peppers) & Charlie Andrew (Alt J, Wolf Alice, London Grammar). Lyrically there’s always romance alongside grief, with elements of vulnerability and feeling trapped.

“This album took a long time to make. It was not easy, and by the time I got to the end of it I was quiet. I wanted to be away from it and let it sit in its own space. Now the dust has settled and I’ve got re-enter the world of Big Sigh, and I’m excited. Stepping into a new world, moving forward, chipping away. Breathe in, breathe out. Big sigh.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'Big Sigh' is the perfect illustration of Hackman's inimitable style developing over time, taking her already considerable storytelling skills to the next level while retaining all of the grace and charm that the more stripped-back pieces are swimming in. A bracing, beautiful adventure from start to finish.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Ground
2. No Caffeine
3. Big Sigh
4. Blood
5. Hanging
6. The Lonely House
7. Vitamins
8. Slime
9. Please Don’t Be So Kind
10. The Yellow Mile

Marika Hackman returns with ‘Covers’, a darkly beautiful, self-produced new album which showcases a more vulnerable side. During the extended lockdown period of the last few months, Marika felt that creating a covers record was a way of exploring new sound ideas and expressing herself without having the pressure of the blank page. She recorded and produced Covers between home and her parents’ house, then got David Wrench to mix it.

TRACK LISTING

You Never Wash Up After Yourself
Phantom Limb
Playground Love
Realiti
Jupiter 4
Pink Light
Between The Bars
Temporary Loan
In Undertow
All Night

Every generation has their own version of the blues, music that captures a sense of melancholia and provides a sonic reflecting pool for young lovers, old souls, and the eternally heartbroken. For their darkly shaded and radiant debut album Full Circle, HAELOS have found their blues where others go to find pure, uncut joy: the dancefloor.

The London trio's version of a night out is a million miles away from mirror balls and sweaty bodies, their rippling electronic pop conjuring the exhilarating privacy of a cavernous club's dark pockets and the introspective comedowns that accompany rainy 5 a.m. cab rides. "It's the music you put on after the club," Lotti Benardout, who shares vocal duties with her other bandmates, states. "You can still feel that energy and euphoria, but it might bring you back to reflect on certain moments or memories."

The three bandmates decided to collaborate having been working on separate projects. Arthur Delaney and Dom Goldsmith had been working on material under the working title of HÆLOS; Lotti had been writing with Dom who was producing an EP for her at the time. The nocturnal, throbbing "Dust" was the first finished work to come from the trio's newly formed union; over the course of the following year, the rest of Full Circle's shadowy sounds came together. "When you don't know people that well, you can look back at things and retell your story," Benardout speaks on HAELOS' ability to mature from relative strangers into a cohesive musical unit. "It's new again. There's something quite cathartic about it."

Catharsis is, indeed, the name of Full Circle's game, an embodiment of a sound that has been referred to as "dark euphoria". Throughout the album, HÆLOS reconstruct the firmament of dance sounds past and present to construct an exquisitely elegiac mood that retains a sense of presence as it conveys the pain of emotional distance. Every moment of uneasy reflection is matched by quiet explosions—Delaney's forceful shouts over yo-yo synths on Full Circle's title track, Benardout's layered pleas over Goldsmith's cascading drum breaks on "Pray," and the soaring "Separate Lives," which hollows out drum'n'bass' propulsive patter to form an atmosphere that's as gently disruptive as it is emotionally nourishing. Throughout the album's loudest and most peaceful moments alike, Full Circle retains a pristine intimacy thanks to Goldsmith's keen ear for behind-the-boards magic; his touch gives the album a hermetic feel that stays with you long after it ends.

We're living in a time where the struggle to make human connections is hampered by our inability to unplug, and so Full Circle is a glorious, gorgeous contradiction of sorts: emotional pop that perfectly captures ageless emotional conundrums, featuring music that could only be made in the present day. "We all have a shared human experience," opines Delaney, HAELOS' main lyrical contributor. "As much as we try to run away from feelings with all the distractions around us, they always follow us around. They're a constant thing that unites us all." And so Full Circle is the sound of three individuals finding common ground, for themselves and for anyone who's ever believed that it's impossible to move your body without listening to your own heart.

When the whole world is asleep and it feels like it’s just you, on your own, it can be wonderfully calm or horribly isolating. Although the band have been in different locations this year, HÆLOS have often found themselves in the same sleepless state. Lotti navigating the early days of motherhood, Dom struggling with tinnitus and Daniel working nocturnal hours.

In this twilight search HÆLOS began exploring white noise and sharing ambient albums, gathering a palette of sounds that would form the basis of Somnum. Creating a standalone piece of music to coincide with World Sleep Day, Somnum is a mostly instrumental offering from HÆLOS. The band maintain their trademark cinematic soundscape whilst employing a more improvisational tone where the individual sounds are laid bare.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Noctis
A2 Somnum
B1 Luna
B2 Aurora

"An Utterance Of The Supreme Ventriloquist" was originally issued by Soleilmoon in 1996 in a hand-numbered edition of 451 clear vinyl LPs. Now, nine years later, it's being released for the first time on compact disc. "Utterance" consists of two 21-minute pieces, "Placing The Seed" and "Seeding the Place". It's a psychedelic head-trip that reaches a similar plane of consciousness occupied by Nurse With Wound. The material has been completely remastered for maximum digital appreciation, and is presented in a deluxe embossed folder with lavishly printed inserts, all wrapped in semi-transparent paper.

There are many Ninas – so many iterations and incarnations; so many images, moments, voices and songs; so many faces with mouth ripped open, an array of faces that now spans five decades. The same is true in the video for her new single “16 Tons.” Nina Hagen is a legend – “the Godmother of punk rock, ” activist, fictional character, phenomenal performer, Jesus disciple, extraterrestrial emissary and Brecht connoisseur. Nina is the beginning and the end. She breaks down walls and begins again , keeps on and never stand sstill. Nina is many, and yet there can only be one of her. The woman who fell to Earth cannot be replicated.

Nina Hagen, the most beautiful, and most strident hell-raiser to toe the line between punk and pop, East and West and outta space that Germany has ever produced is finally back. On 09.12.2002 her new album Unity will be released on Grönland Records. It is her first album since Volksbeat in 2011. The time was more than ripe.

The 12 songs on Unity take us on a wild journey through a densely woven musical jungle full of chirruping, buzzing and chittering. Country twang sung over spacey synth grooves and rock pop playing over dub and sexy slow funk. Some songs tell of biblical miracles, others are feisty political tirades, and then there are covers: a country classic, a Sheryl Crow hit and even a Bob Dylan song with German lyrics (“Die Antwort heißt ganz allein der Wind”) – really something that only a larger - than - life songstress can dare to do. Unity plays with a multifaceted mélange of textures, samples and everyday sounds. Amidst this rich foliage of sounds and themes there is, of course, that voice; in the wink of an eye it transitions from operatic to demonic, hitting insane high notes then plummeting to awe - inspiring deep bellows, as if she is trying to inter fuse the sexes. Nina Hagen screams and hisses, belts out lyrics and performs recitatives, rasps and reverberates in electronic distortions. She launches into musical dialogues and soliloquys. It is as if her voice is echoing in to our time from another world.

In short, Unity is a piercing, warm - hearted and varied Nina Hagen spectacle. She is as prolific at 67 as she has ever been. And because she has never wasted time playing it safe or easing people into things, the album takes of f at full speed. “Shadrack” is shimmering half - sung, half - rapped power pop rock with a driving beat. It tells a Bible story that ends with the line: “That was a goodnight story for the soul about God’s kindness.” Nina Hagen, who has been a member of the Protestant Reformed Church since 2009, quotes a pop spiritual from American composer Robert MacGimsey that tells the story of three Hebrew men who God saves from a fiery death. From men walking in flames the album launches into Women of World, a feminist punk reggae anthem of solidarity, which was conceived with Jamaican singer Liz Mitchel and new wave icon Lene Lovich; a song with a message we may have heard often, but one that cannot be repeated often enough: “It’s all for one and one for all.”

With her first single release “16 Tons ,” Nina Hagen has taken on a heavy burden: “You load 16 tons, what do you get? / Another day older and deeper in debt.” It is her version of the old American country-folk classic about Kentucky miners who se lives consisted of work ing themselves to the bone and overcoming constant hardships. Nina Hagen sings of the inescapable desperation of daily life – “muscle and blood and skin and bones” – in her deep, commanding and ominously vibrating voice. It features country twang updated for the year 2022 and recorded with plenty of erratic reverb, unwaveringly forward - moving groove and bone - dry electric guitars. “16 Tons” transports the filth and soot - laden socially critical mining song out of the year 1947 and into the year 2022. This song has been waiting for Nina Hagen. She lends the in some way s spookily topical lyrics the gravitas of an echo chamber for the centuries. “Unity” is a collaboration with funk visionary George Clinton. It is a wonderfully light ly flowing and cosmically glistening dub number that pays homage to the Black Lives Matter movement. The two of them wrote the song as an immediate response to the death of George Floyd. The synthesizer melodies swing like gentle waves to stuttering hi-hats while Nina and George sing against hate: “Positive vibrations surround the world’s nations!” The song “Atomwaffensperrvertrag” is explicitly political. In it, Nina Hagen remix es two sampled excerpts from speeches (one she gave in 2009 at the United Nation Freedom Festival at Brandenburg Gate and a UN speech from US politician Dennis Kucinich), creating a pulsing tour de force with country guitars, jumbled voices and frantic percussions.

One thing has not changed since the beginning of her career. Nina Hagen is radical. She tries new things. She speaks her mind. She knows no limits, whether a rtistic or ideological. Entertainment and very earnestly meant messages still go hand in hand for her. Yes, there are indeed many, yet there is only one Nina Hagen.

TRACK LISTING

Shadrack
United Women Of The World
Unity
16 Tons
Atomwaffensperrvertrag
Gib Mir Deine Liebe
Venusfliegenfalle
Redemtion Day
Geld, Geld, Geld
Die Antwort Weiss Ganz Allein Der Wind
Opne My Heart (Dinner Time)
It Doesn`t Matter Now

Great mix of down country and twisted rock 'n' roll from this ex-Royal Trux man.

Kieran Hebden’s Text Records is proud to announce Bolts, the debut album from British-Armenian producer Hagop Tchaparian, set for release in autumn 2022.

“Can I say, my friends call me Hagop? I don’t want people to struggle with my long name. I always liked that Eminem introduced himself and said “hi, my name is….” I think I want to be called Hagop so people find it easy to connect.”

Hagop’s debut album Bolts features ten tracks of hyper-personal rhythm music that mixes techno with field recordings of his travels through Armenian and Mediterranean culture. Early DJ support has come from Four Tet, Gilles Peterson and Nikki Nair. The artwork for Bolts was curated by skateboard, music and sports photography legend Atiba Jefferson.

The 10 tracks on Bolts, combine the audio evidence of a life’s experience, with the notion that lo-fi techno can be the right canvas for conveying that experience. Hagop’s been gathering these sounds and vignettes for almost 15 years, having begun accumulating them before the smart-phone in his pocket included a “record” function. He would isolate sounds from videos that his friends sent, like the Armenian wedding clip that showed members of the party jumping over a fire while a drummer played in the background. He would stop street musicians to ask if he could record their playing, like the women playing the qanun, a harp-like Arabic string instrument; or he would record with professional musicians playing specialist instruments like the zurna. He visited places important to his family, like the Lebanese village of Anjar, where his father’s family took refuge after being driven out of the Armenian- Turkish town of Musa Dagh in 1939, documenting his own steps on the gravel roads his father once walked.

The result is the sound of a man chasing his heritage around the world, while sprinkling clues of his everyday life amidst the manipulated folk instruments of his ancestry. There are aspects of tactile remembrances in between these rhythms, at times the result feels explosive. From its title down to the incessant bleating of the zurna, “Right to Riot” is like a punk techno that cries for the disaffected. Whereas “Timelapse,” which features a loop of the music that accompanies the fire-jumping wedding ritual sews together what seem like connected images in a photo album that may be physically decomposing, but whose power remains.

Hagop’s past is the precursor to him creating something meaningful with these recordings. In his teens Tchaparian, played guitar in Symposium, a 90’s post-grunge punk band. Symposium had a few years of success, big enough to visit the States on Warped Tour, play on the main stage of Reading and open for Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Metallica; just long enough to become disenchanted with the music business, and split up debt-ridden.

After Symposium, Hagop contributed to a 2000 comp called Hokis, which collected music by Armenian artists — but mostly got drawn into London’s club scene, where he became friends with Hot Chip and later a tour manager to both Hot Chip and Four Tet.

TRACK LISTING

1. Timelapse 3:46
2. GL 2:56
3. Escape 2:44
4. Flame 8:52
5. Raining 3:40
6. Right To Riot 5:00
7. Round 4:00
8. Jordan 4:05
9. Ldz 2:06
10. Iceberg 3:09 

Paul Haig's last album, 2009's Relive, was described as a bone-rattling thrill that could energise the darkened corners of any dancefloor. After releasing three albums in quick succession Haig decided to devote a longer period to consider his next musical move, It was time to re-invent and investigate the latest sounds and technologies available with a view to incorporate some of them into a new project. Four years on and we have 'Kube', carrying pagan ,synthetic, human and organic themes which somehow co-habitate in an imaginary secluded forrest where top secret work is carried out. The sounds are fresh and modern with a mixture of electronic glitch and organic textures sourced over a two year period as Paul was re-thinking and re-learning his craft.

Standout tracks are 'UW2B', a bold mixture of trap brass/strings with slightly menacing vocals over punchy hiphop/urban beats/samples while retaining tradmark soundtrack elements heard in previous works. 'Red Rocks' has an indie jazz pop edge and rising anthemic chorus' which point to club and radio alike, while 'Four Dark Traps' is a brooding slow burner featuring hard yet hypnotic percussion with eastern sounding guitar floating above the mix.

Les Disques du Crepuscule presents The Wood, a brand new studio album by Scottish singer and songwriter Paul Haig, previously frontman with cult Postcard post punk legends Josef K.

Paul’s fourth solo album for Crepuscule since 1983 was written and recorded over a three year period between 2015 and 2018, and explores glitchy, twisty sonic territories in the vein of Four Tet, Floating Points and Love Over Entropy.

‘We can think of the wood or forest as a metaphor for the mystery of the human psyche,’ says Paul. ‘Like the human soul, it can be a place of hidden meanings and unrevealed secrets. I wanted to try and evoke this through the music and worked hard on finding the right balance of electronic and organic sound samples across a broad range of musical genres.’

TRACK LISTING

1. Chasing The Tail
2. I Heard Music
3. Sun Flicker
4. Lights
5. Acoustic Mangles
6. The Walk
7. The Wood
8. Floaty Appy 

“The General” features Haiku Salut’s new original soundtrack for Buster Keaton’s 1926 comedy classic of the same name. Commissioned by Nottingham Contemporary as part of the BFI’s Comedy Genius season, the 23 track score was written within a two-month period over winter in the band’s studio at the edge of the Peak District, and sees the trio of Gemma Barkerwood, Louise Croft and Sophie Barkerwood give the revered silent film a startling electronica overhaul. Combining glitchy electronica, soaring post rock, and beautiful piano pieces, “The General” is an emotional, transformative record. The band find moments of drama and heartbreak in a much-loved comedy, and enrich the bygone world of Buster Keaton with a gloriously contemporary score.

The album was preceded by a double A side single, which showcased the scope of “The General” soundtrack. “Loves” is a simple, beautiful piece for guitar, piano and electronics, which charts Buster Keaton’s character Johnnie Gray woo-ing his true love Annabelle, while “Going Back” follows an extremely unusual chase scene with tangled electronica, ghostly treated voices, and a moment where the music and the action suddenly goes into reverse. Elsewhere, the album takes in shimmering electro (“Firewood”), a song which bleeds electronica into dub (“Train Steal”), gorgeous piano pieces haunted by electronics (“Reunited”, “Enlist”), and songs which melt all of the above (“The Flood”, “The Escape”). Haiku’s albums are often described as “a soundtrack to an imaginary movie”, but this album artfully turns that notion on its head. Here’s a soundtrack to an actual movie which exists brilliantly in its own right. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Haiku Salut are one of the most enchanting and hypnotic acts to have come out since Múm or Sigur Rós, changing between tender, acoustic instrumentation to rhythmic, driving electronica and syncopated percussive drive in the blink of an eye. Spellbinding and absolutely essential.

TRACK LISTING

(1) Start
(2) Intro
(3) Loves
(4) Enlist
(5) Engine
(6) Chattanooga
(7) Train Steal
(8) Velocipede
(9) Deserters
(10) Cannon
(11) Traction
(12) Chopping Wood/Arrive
(13) Hide (14) Reunited
(15) The Escape
(16) Firewood
(17) Obstructions
(18) Going Back
(19) Rock River
(20) The Crash
(21) The Flood
(22) Engine Again
(23) Finish 

Haiku Salut, the acclaimed electronica trio from the Derbyshire Dales release their fifth album, ‘The Hill, The Light, The Ghost’ on Secret Name records.

A beautiful study of ghosts and memory, the gestation of the record began when Haiku Salut’s Sophie Barkerwood was given a Tascam field recorder. “I carried it around with me in case anything interesting happened. I guess I wanted to capture little pieces of the world in the same way we all take photographs,” explains Sophie. “It wasn’t immediately apparent that we would begin to use these sounds as the architecture for an album but as our writing process evolved the textures of these memories became a bank of inspiration.”

“We then began actively searching for ghosts in the world and framing the songs around their qualities,” Sophie continues. “Gathering recordings, removing them from their context and building worlds around them. Capturing and preserving personal experiences, and evoking vivid spaces. You could say the record is a miniature exploration of sound in relation to memory. Each piece is intimately connected to a place in time.”

Musically, the album marries the expansive vision of their third album, ‘There Is No Elsewhere’, which celebrated identity and community, with the darker, more contemplative feel of their fourth album, the trio’s original soundtrack for Buster Keaton’s ‘The General’. Building on the lessons learned working on ‘The General’, ‘The Hill, The Light, The Ghost’ is a cohesive suite, nine songs that combine to tell a larger story – that of experience and memory, of precious moments and echoes of past lives.

TRACK LISTING

(1) Wide Awake
(2) Entering
(3) We Need These Beams
(4) I Dreamed I Was Awake For A Very Long Time
(5) How The Day Starts
(6) All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace
(7) Try Again And Again And Again
(8) Trespass
(9) All Clear

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

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

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

Deluxe reissue treatment of HAIM’s chart-topping debut album, in celebration of the 10th anniversary. Featuring the six singles, ‘Forever’, ‘Don’t Save Me’, ‘Falling’, ‘The Wire’, ‘If I Could Change Your Mind’ & ‘My Song 5’, the record hasn’t been reissued since its release in 2013. Housed in an entirely new package, the album features a track list compiled by the band of their favourite demos and remixes.

TRACK LISTING

2LP Coloured:
LP1 - SIDE A
Falling
Forever
The Wire
If I Could Change Your Mind
Honey & I
LP1 - SIDE B
Don't Save Me
Days Are Gone
My Song 5
Go Slow
Let Me Go
Running If You Call My Name
LP2 - SIDE C
Better Off
Send Me Down
Edge
Go Slow (Demo)
LP2 - SIDE D
Falling (Duke Dumont Remix)
Don't Save Me (Cyril Hahm Remix)
Forever (Giorgio Moroder Remix)
If I Could Change Your Mind (Cerrone Funk Remix)

2CD
CD1
Falling
Forever
The Wire
If I Could Change Your Mind
Honey & I
Don't Save Me
Days Are Gone
My Song 5
Go Slow
Let Me Go
Running If You Call My Name
CD2
Better Off
Send Me Down
Edge
Go Slow (Demo)
Falling (Duke Dumont Remix)
Don't Save Me (Cyril Hahn Remix)
Forever (Giorgio Moroder Remix)
If I Could Change Your Mind (Cerrone Funk Remix)

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

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

What happens when a Mark E. Smith impersonator has his holiday ruined by Skrewdriver? Let Luke Haines and Scott King reveal all…

Auteurs and Baader Meinhof icon Luke Haines has announced a typically singular new project entitled Adventures In Dementia, a “micro opera” which features a Mark E. Smith impersonator’s caravan holiday getting ruined by “Ian Stuart”.

Originally performed as a live stage show in Berlin during the summer of 2014, Adventures In Dementia includes six brand new tracks from Luke Haines