Love Record Stores Edition available from 9am on Saturday June 20th.
Limited to one per person.

Pakistani-American avant-composer and drummer of the cult experimental acoustic trio Dawn of Midi, Qasim Naqvi releases his new record titled Beta on a limited edition clear vinyl for the first Love Record Stores Day on June 20.

Meant as a sister release to last year’s acclaimed six-part modular synth suite Teenages, Beta is a series of experiments chronicling Naqvi’s understanding of writing for this type of instrument and the growth of the instrument itself.

“Beta is a prequel to the story of Teenages. At the time I had the most basic elements of a modular synthesizer- one oscillator and a random voltage generator which is a module that releases sporadic currents through the system. Ironically, this component provided a lot of warmth and humanness to the music, a kind of fallibility. I fed simple melodic ideas and rhythmic patterns into this bare bones setup and observed the responses, while occasionally guiding the music in other directions. It was like a diagnostic test. At the time I felt that this music was underdeveloped but listening back, I think the Beta tracks add an interesting dimension to the entire Teenages arc.They’re the zygotes.” — Qasim Naqvi

The B side of Beta is a live performance of the track 'Teenages', which was recorded at the first Erased Tapes x LCO: Purcell Session at the Southbank Centre, in London last February. “I had performed this work just a couple of times and this particular one was special. There were microphones up everywhere and you could hear the room bleeding into the sound of the synthesiser” says Qasim of the performance.

If Teenages captured the sound of electronics living, breathing and mutating of their own accord, Beta rather describes the moment they came to life.

Love Record Stores Day is an initiative from the #loverecordstores campaign, launched during lockdown to encourage music fans to shop online with their favourite record stores. Qasim Naqvi joins a wide range of artists and labels who have pledged to release exclusive, limited edition records including Caribou, Belle and Sebastian, Beach House, Robyn, New Order and many more.

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 2025 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 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 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 14th.

Upon its release, Big Band Bossa Nova by the renowned American music producer, conductor, arranger, and composer Quincy Jones, released in 1962 received favorable reviews from critics, who praised its innovative arrangements and the seamless integration of bossa nova into big band jazz

It was noted for its lively and fresh sound, appealing to both jazz enthusiasts and fans of Latin music. Over the years, the album has been recognized as a classic in the realms of both jazz and Latin music. It continues to influence musicians who seek to explore the fusion of different genres. The album played a crucial role in popularizing bossa nova in the United States, introducing many listeners to Brazilian music. It paved the way for future collaborations and crossover projects between jazz and Latin music. It is often cited by contemporary artists and arrangers who are inspired by its innovative blend of styles. Its influence can be seen in various genres, including jazz, pop, and world music and is a testament to Jones's ability to adapt and innovate throughout his career. It solidified his status as a pioneer in the music industry, influencing countless artists across genres and generations. Big Band Bossa Nova not only captures the essence of its time but also continues to resonate with audiences today, highlighting the enduring appeal of both big band features contributions from several talented musicians.

TRACK LISTING

Soul Bossa Nova
Boogie Bossa Nova
Desafinado
Black Orpheus (Manha De Carnaval)
Se E Tarde Me Pardoa (Forgive Me If I'm Late)
On The Street Where You Live
Samba De Uma Nota So (One Note Samba)
Lalo Bossa Nova / Serenata
Chega De Saudade (No More Blues)

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2021 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY JULY 17TH 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 JULY 17TH).

July 17 will see the much-treasured analog synthesizer suite Chronology by Pakistani-American composer and drummer of the cult trio Dawn of Midi, Qasim Naqvi, finally receiving a worldwide vinyl release on Record Store Day 2021. Originally conceived only digitally in 2016, Chronology was Qasimís first release of electronic music. Having been in the world of improvised and classical music up to this point, it seemed only fitting for Naqviís inaugural electronic music album to be made exclusively on a malfunctioning synthesizer ó an old Moog Model D. Leaving the abundant options of a computer behind. Transparent vinyl

Pakistani-American composer Qasim Naqvi returns with 'Endling', his newest album for Erased Tapes Records. Written as a modular synth prequel to his 2023 BBC Concert Orchestral work, 'God Docks at Death Harbor', 'Endling' takes the listener on a 43-minute odyssey through an intense and beautiful landscape, set hundreds of years into the future.

“One morning my wife woke up from a dream with a phrase in her mind — 'God Docks at Death Harbor'", explains Naqvi. "I was just starting to write a new work for the BBC Concert Orchestra, and when she told me about this dream of words, it very quickly seeped into the fabric of the music. Her words were a poem to me, evoking very specific imagery. I imagined our planet hundreds of years into the future, where the human race no longer exists. I imagined a world peacefully restoring itself in the absence of us, because we’re no longer around to destroy it and ourselves. This became the tenet of the work. It was like a scenic mural that I could look at for inspiration, as I was writing this tone poem. After 'God Docks at Death Harbor' premiered in the spring of 2023 in London, the feeling stayed with me, and when it came time to think about a new record I felt compelled to continue this narrative. I imagined a prequel, about the last human on the planet — an endling, traversing a world centuries into the future. A world decayed and mutated into a strange amalgam of the natural and artificial. I envisioned the music as chapters, following this human through the crumbling landscape of the future, that was now being overtaken and absorbed by the natural world. In keeping with the tone poem tradition of 'God Docks', I created the track titles first, and their meanings became more defined as the music began to take shape.

On the album’s centrepiece 'Power Down the Heart', featuring Moor Mother, our character stumbles upon an A.I. being that is in the final moments of its life. As a kind of last rites, this ancient artificial consciousness describes the beauty, sadness and horror it has observed for hundreds of years. I wanted the music to feel like the inside of this being’s mind. I shared the music and this narrative with Camae and asked if she would be the voice of this A.I., and she came back with the perfect contribution.

All of the music on 'Endling' was made with an ARP Odyssey, Minimoog and modular synthesizer. For me, one of the many challenging and satisfying aspects of modular synthesizers involves the development of complex timbrel ideas from the ground up, which can rarely ever be repeated perfectly. The device can be organically unstable and fallible. It can feel like an organism and as the performer, you’re in control of the flow of its energy, or voltage.
This machine approach to 'Endling' was the perfect compliment to its orchestral predecessor, it felt like a different kind of orchestra from this album’s future – with the organic consuming and transmuting the artificial."

Qasim Naqvi is a percussionist, composer and synthesist. Along with being the drummer of lauded cult minimalist trio, Dawn of Midi, Naqvi is an accomplished solo artist and his passion for multidisciplinary work has brought him into the world of film, dance, installation art, and the stage of orchestral and chamber music. His concert music has been commissioned and performed by The London Contemporary Orchestra, The BBC Concert Orchestra, Crash Ensemble, Bang on a Can All Stars, Jennifer Koh, Stargaze, The Cello Octet of Amsterdam, The Helsinki Chamber Choir and others.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fires
2. Beautification Technologies
3. The Glow
4. Power Down The Heart
5. Plastic Glacier
6. Endling
7. In The Distance
8. The Great Reward

Pakistani-American composer Qasim Naqvi will release his debut album for Erased Tapes on May 3rd. 'Teenages’ captures the sound of electronics living, breathing and mutating of their own accord – almost autonomously – with only subtle, sparing but perfectly-judged and masterful guidance.

This album is one singular synergy between Qasim and his machine within a broader milieu of sound, also explored by contemporaries Sarah Davachi, Alessandro Cortini, Caterina Barbieri and also the forefather, Morton Subotnick. At points tonal, textural and rhythmic, over six evolving and growing audio organisms, the album flourishes upwards in stages, from initial micro-sonics to something bigger, brighter and anthemic.

This is Naqvi’s first non-soundtrack release, having previously established himself as a renowned composer for dance, theatre, film and installation-based art, not to mention his role as drummer in lauded trio Dawn of Midi. According to Naqvi, “my past releases like ‘Chronology’, ‘Preamble’, ‘Fjoloy’ and ‘Film’ were made to accompany visual mediums. The music was always written to enhance another form. ‘Teenages’ is the first album with its own motivating force. It’s a live multi movement work that I recorded for myself.”

With ‘Teenages’, Naqvi summoned all the material on an analog modular synthesizer – a voltage-controlled sound generating system comprised of multiple modules. Naqvi built this synth over the course of two years and amassed a collection of works for this album.

“I’ve always been drawn to the power of un-amplified acoustic music. And for me modular synthesizers are a natural progression forward from the acoustic realm into the electric. It feels like an orchestra comprised of very unusual instruments, and their orchestration and vibrational properties lie in the patching and flow of voltages through a system.

They’re also unstable and they rarely play the same thing twice in any exact way. It’s almost organic and human. It was really important for this album to capture that kind of uninterrupted behavior.”

Capturing a live feeling without the aid of heavy studio production was an important component to this release: “Even though this is ‘electronic music,’ I didn’t want to rely heavily on a computer with an array of plugins, loops and samples, or exhaustive editing as part of the writing process. I wanted to treat this work like a live piece of music and have the natural behavior of the machine shine through and sound huge, like an orchestra of electrical signals.”

Gently stuttering like a time lapse-video of a seed sprouting up from the earth, ‘Intermission’ sets the scene, before musical motifs begin to emerge on the dancing, bubbling bassline of ‘Mrs 2E’, which possesses a playful, infantile quality, like a newborn animal learning to walk after birth.

More bouncy, skewed bottom-line squelch appears on the jittery, buzzing ‘Palace Workers’, which seems to evoke life in the form of amplified insect or bat noises, with a melody that eventually unfolds into something akin to a fractal rendition of ‘Oxygene’. By ‘No Tongue’ more traditionally identifiable musical signifiers begin to emerge, with a bright and melodic synth line evoking the new blooms of spring, whereas ‘Artilect’ takes a more ominous drone tone, insinuating the dark, potential threat of artificially augmented biological intelligence.

Like a coming-of-age, the album culminates on title track ‘Teenages’ – a dynamic, technicolour symphony that was recorded in one take, with no overdubs or edits. In the year leading up to ‘Teenages’, Naqvi created a series of shorter works. These stepping-stones eventually became the first 5 tracks of the album and were part of a larger process, leading to the realization of the title track. “I wanted to show the stages of development that lead to the main act. All of these tracks share the same D.N.A., even though they seem distantly related.” Explains Naqvi.

The pieces heard prior to ‘Teenages’ chronicle both Naqvi’s understanding of writing for this type of instrument and the growth of the instrument itself: “I started with just a few modules. And naturally things had to be layered and pieced together but as the synthesizer and its components grew over time, I was able to create broader and more complex strokes in the moment. And by the time I got to ‘Teenages’, it was possible to create a robust, large-scale piece spontaneously. This is very much an experiential album for me because it was borne out of my direct experience of learning the instrument. And as the synthesizer grew over time with more components, it matured. At times I felt like it was even rebelling against my instructions or surprising me with what felt like its own choices.

When everything was finished and I was thinking about track titles, this idea of artificial intelligence came into my head; a machine that reacts to your impulses and is capable of giving you something different from what you ask, and even defying you. It felt like different stages of growth and adolescence, and that lead to the album title, ‘Teenages’.”

Deeply rewarding on close listening, Naqvi has created an inspiring and synapsestimulating new masterwork, within the analogue/modular cannon.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intermission
2. Mrs 2E
3. Palace Workers
4. No Tongue
5. Artilect
6. Teenages

Sharp angular guitars, quiet / loud dynamics and a typically DC-style hardcore edge. Produced by Ian Mackaye. Excellent.

First release from these emo / art rockers, since their "No Kill No Beep Beep" album in 2000. Two new tracks, produced by Ian Mackaye.

At long last, Q Lazzarus says hello to Dark Entries. Q Lazzarus is the moniker of Diane Luckey, born in New Jersey in 1960. While living in the East Village in New York City in the 1980s, Diane met songwriter Bill Garvey at a party and they recorded “Goodbye Horses” in his home studio. As the story goes, Luckey met Hollywood director Jonathan Demme when she picked him up in her taxi during a snowstorm in 1986. Demme was wowed by her demo tape, which was playing in the cab, and they ended up hanging out at a restaurant for hours talking about life and music. “He liked it so much, I gave him the tape I was listening to, he said he would call me for one of his movies, but I didn’t really take it seriously.” said Luckey. Demme would have the song “Goodbye Horses” first appear in his offbeat comedy Married to the Mob, and then again more memorably in Silence of the Lambs when Buffalo Bill changes into women’s clothing while drowning out his intended victim’s pleas with loud music. Despite the exposure, both Luckey and Garvey languished in relative obscurity. “Goodbye Horses” is the definition of a cult classic, an ethereal tearjerker driven by Garvey’s lush synth work and Luckey’s unmistakably powerful voice. Garvey says, "the song is about transcendence over those who see the world as only earthly and finite."

Over 15 years of effort have gone into the making of this release. All five songs on this record were previously unreleased and are sourced from original master tapes. The extended version of “Goodbye Horses” was newly mixed from the original stems by Alberto Hernandez at Fantasy Studios. Instrumental and acapella versions of the song are included, which are also available for the first time. Side B opens with “Hellfire,” a brooding number about the New York BDSM nightclub of the same name, showcasing the range and force of Luckey’s voice. “Summertime” follows, with a sauntering synth-reggae spin on the 1937 George Gershwin number. Both B-side tracks are also new mixdowns and edits from the original stems. This record is released alongside Eva Aridjis Fuentes’s documentary on Q Lazzarus, Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus, a work chronicling the life of the enigmatic Luckey. It is an opportune moment to reflect on the underrecognized artists we have lost and the undeniable brilliance of both Diane Luckey and William Garvey.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Perfectly timed to accompany the soundtrack to the film of Q Lazzaus released last month, 12" repress of cult new wave anthem "Goodbye Horses". The one from that bit out of Silence of The Lambs..;0P

TRACK LISTING

Goodbye Horses (Extended Mix)
Goodbye Horses (Instrumental)
Hellfire
Summertime
Goodbye Horses (Acapella)

For almost everyone, the entry point for discovering the music of Q Lazzarus came via “Goodbye Horses.” The song first appeared in 1988, via Jonathan Demme’s Married to the Mob, but it would not become fully lodged into popular consciousness until it infamously materialized again in Demme’sThe Silence of the Lambs in 1991.“Goodbye Horses” felt like a self-contained universe – dreamlike and wholly unusual, an instant classic that left listeners captivated and curious about the mysterious voice behind it. That voice belonged to Diane Luckey, a uniquely talented artist whose music was ahead of its time and who would ultimately remain largely unrecognized in her lifetime. In conjunction with the release of Aridjis Fuentes’ documentary film Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus, Sacred Bonesis releasing a collection of songs that span the entirety of Q’s career, showcasing the different eras of her work and the full breadth of her personality.

The first collection of music to be given the blessing of Q’s remaining family, Goodbye Horses has the distinction of being her first and only full-length release. Recorded between 1985 and 1995, this trove of previously unreleased music reflects some of the most interesting facets of pop music from the past four decades in away that feels both savvy and wildly eclectic. The titular “Goodbye Horses” remains a singular piece of spooky new wave perfection and one might imagine an entire Q Lazzarus album coiled around this aesthetic, but much like singers such as Alison Moyet, Annie Lennox, or Lisa Gerrard, Q’s chameleonic voice could lend itself perfectly to a variety of styles and settings. Her cover of Talking Heads’ “Heaven” transforms the song into a full-throated power ballad complete with tinkly piano flourishes, while her take on Gershwin’s “Summertime” sounds like the kind of dubby club redux that could have been a perfect companion to anything from Nightclubbing-era Grace Jones.

Tracks like “My Mistake” and “Hellfire” flirt with house music and showcase just how brassy and belty Q’s voice could be when shere ally let loose, while “Don’t Let Go” sounds like the kind of bombastic radio single Cher might have released several decades ago. Elsewhere, songs like “Bang Bang” and “I See Your Eyes” espouse the kind of guitar-driven alt-rock sensibilities that, in a parallel universe, could have made them staples on 120 Minutes.

TRACK LISTING

LP TRACKLIST:
1. Goodbye Horses (single Edit)
2. Heaven
3. I See Your Eyes
4. A Fools Life
5. Summertime
6. My Mistake
7. Hellfire
8. Don’t Let Go
9. Bang Bang
10. Goodbye Horses (New Wave Version)

CD TRACKLIST:
1. Flesh For Sale
2. I Don’t Want To Love You Anymore
3. The Candle Goes Away
4. Fathers, Mothers, And Children
5. Dying In The Street
6. Love Lust
7. Home
8. Momma Never Said
9. The Time Is Right (Dare)
10. Only You Can Light The Candle
11. Love Dance
12. Take The Time
13. Be Mine
14. It Don’t Mean Nothing

Extra Soul Perception proudly unveils a new collaboration between two of the most captivating artists from the future soul and R&B scene. "Undercover Lover" is the culmination of three years of an organic creative partnership between Jamma-Dee and Qendresa - one that has manifested itself just in time to soundtrack summer in LA and London; their respective homes.

Following Jamma-Dee's celebrated debut album, "Perceptions," and Qendresa's recent midnight soul bomb, "2 Much", "Undercover Lover" is a highly anticipated release that emerges as an effortlessly smooth summer anthem.

The genesis of "Undercover Lover" was Jamma-Dee's irresistibly heavy beat, which underpins an intricate mirage of interlocking rhythms and textures, with the eclecticism that has cemented the producer as a mainstay of the West Coast soul-funk scene. Qendresa's songwriting prowess shines through in seamless hooks and vocal melodies that flow effortlessly over the production with bold and uncompromising energy. Gary Gritness's live bassline, introduced during an impromptu studio session, injects a deep groove into the track.

At the engineering helm, K15's expertise further elevates the record with a resonating richness and vitality. An instrumental version on the B-side allows listeners to experience the production and bassline on a deeper level.

The resulting sound is a collaborative effort that transcends borders and genres, delivering a record that is as heartfelt as it is infectious.

"Undercover Lover" stands as a testament to the power of collaboration and creativity, embodyingExtra Soul Perception's mission to facilitate transformative musical exchanges between artists worldwide.

TRACK LISTING

1. Undercover Lover
2. Undercover Lover (Instrumental)

"Elemente" - album number seven from the third incarnation of the legendary krautronic project Kluster/Cluster springs a surprise with a minor sensation: sequencer lines! Using an array of exclusively analogue instruments, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Onnen Bock and Armin Metz have recorded eight tracks which, at one and the same time, are intrinsically hypnotic and sublimely beautiful.

For their second album 'The Foel Tower', Quade holed up in an old stone barn in the cradle of a Welsh mountain valley. The valley was a stark and windswept backdrop with little daylight, as the band would huddle around crackling fires each evening. “There was very much a feeling of being on the complete fringes of society,” the band says. “The last vestiges of settlement before the unrelenting barren moors that loomed over us.” It was an environment that would shape the band – a Bristol four-piece made up of Barney Matthews, Leo Fini, Matt Griffiths and Tom Connolly – and the record they have made. It’s an album that is as dreamy as it is melancholic, and as quiet and tender as it is forceful and potent – gliding across genres like winds blowing over those wide-spanning Welsh hills – to arrive at something the band half-jokingly, yet somewhat accurately, describe as “doomer sad boy, ambientdub, folk, experimental post-rock.” Quade is a band but it’s also a very close-knit group of friends since childhood who use this musical vehicle for interpersonal explorations and connections. “We’ve individually experienced a lot of difficulty over the last several years and Quade has represented a space to shelter from these,” the band says. “This means we often communicate extensively with each other about the issues affecting us individually and collectively. These conversations and concerns are central to The Foel Tower.”

In many ways, the making of this record – or any Quade record – goes way deeper than the simple writing, construction and recording of music. It is a profoundly deep and meaningful experience. “A key theme of the album relates to why we connect with specific places in the way that we do,” the group says. “We often remove ourselves to isolated valleys, sheltered from some of the painful personal struggles that we have experienced as a band. These become spaces in which we collectively purge ourselves of some of these difficulties, hoping to make Quade a physical and emotional place of solace. This album celebrates these places that we’ve been able to retreat to and recuperate.” It is a deep, dense record that is stuffed with musical, cinematic and literary influences – from Ursula La Guin and Cormac MacCarthy through to RS Thomas and Yeats – but despite the heavy, introspective and anxious nature of some of the material, it is also a record that is remarkably deft, agile and considered. Made with producer Jack Ogborne and mixer Larry ‘Bruce’ McCarthy, there is a pleasing duality to the final sound of the record. One that feels fragile and intimate but also powerful and forceful, as introspective as it is expansive, and a record that is as detailed and textured as it is wide open and spacious.

The album title also pays homage to the place that shaped it so greatly. Within this remote Welsh valley stands the Foel Tower, a stone structure filled with valves and cylinders that can raise and lower the level of the reservoir to draw off water. Which it can then send as far as 70 miles to Birmingham. However, in the late 1800s this land was occupied by local farmers and families in the hundreds until the British Government acquired the land, cleared the valleys, and promptly displaced them in order to begin serving the vastly expanding industrial English city. The band dug into the history and politics of this and wove it into the themes they were already thinking about, using what the Foel Tower stands for as something of a contemporary metaphor. “This tension was something that we wanted to explore without the haughty judgement of our more metropolitan lifestyles,” they say. “And to explore how this specifically relates to ourselves: how can we envisage a genuinely ecological future for ourselves – one that is accessible, affordable and in harmony with endangered rural practices.”

What makes 'The Foel Tower' such an incredible record is that it feels born of a time, place and situation that only existed in that very moment. It’s a snapshot of those 10 days spent in rural Wales and all the feelings and anxieties the band were experiencing at that specific time, magically caught on tape. “The album very much feels tied to this valley for us and the conversations and experiences we shared there,” they say. “It brings up a great deal of poignancy for us, an emblem of some fleeting respite from the strains we all have to experience. But there’s also deep sadness knowing how transient these moments are – in fact, there’s just a great deal of sadness in this album. But it’s also a record that while personal, resigned, and emotionally burdened, is ultimately hopeful.”

TRACK LISTING

1. BECKETT
2. SEE UNIT
3. BYLAW 7.1
4. NANNERTH GANOL
5. CANADA GEESE
6. BLACK KITES

"II: The Next Wave" is the long-awaited second album from hip-hop production supergroup Quakers.

Featuring over 25 MCs on over 30 tracks across 2 LPs, it's a highly accomplished journey into the more concious and musical territories of rhyme and beat. It contains explosive, up-to-date commentaries on subjects such as American politics, Black identiy, gun laws, disproportionate wealth and global disengagement with minorities.

There's a tense & abrasive mood to the entire album, as if a demoltion ram is about to smash through a brick wall. It's fiercly aligns itself with Run The Jewels & Clipping and is terrifyingly arresting with its urgent aggression.

Featured MCs include Sampa the Great, Koreatown Oddity, Jonwayne, Guilty Simpson, Grandmilly, Jeremiah Jae, & more. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Electrify
2. Start It Like This Ft Phat Kat
3. One Of A Kind Ft Guilty Simpson
4. Sell Your Soul
5. Bare Essentials Ft The Niyat
6. A Myth Ft Sageinfinite
7. This Station Ft Jeremiah Jae
8. Alive
9. Heat On It Ft Grandmilly
10. Double Jointed Ft The Koreatown Oddity
11. Who Dat Ft Chester Watson
12. Radiola Ft Radioactivists
13. Gun Control Ft The Black Opera
14. We Tried
15. Duck & Cover Ft Guilty Simpson & Cysion
16. Morphine Ft Bob Banner
17. Approach With Caution Ft Sampa The Great
18. The Streets
19. Looking For Love Ft Denmark Vessey
20. Fa Real Ft Jeru The Damaja
21. A Quick Fix Ft Y2 & Super Vic
22. Test My Patience Ft Jonwayne
23. Too Many To Count
24. Greatness Ft Nolan The Ninja
25. Hit List Ft Cazeaux O.L.S.O
26. Another Kind Of War Ft Jeremiah Jae
27. Leaflet Drops
28. One O’clock
29. All Of It Ft Boog Brown
30. Machine Room Ft Fat Ray
31. Pain Ft SavKillz
32. The Line Ft Cavalier
33. Blocks Ft Dante Boom

Strut is celebrating the holiday season with an exclusive reissue of The Qualities’ 1961 single, 'It’s Christmas Time' b/w 'Happy New Year To You!' Originally released on Sun Ra’s Saturn label, this mysterious harmony group 45 captures a unique moment in music history.

Alongside his renowned jazz work in Chicago, Sun Ra experimented with harmony groups from the mid-‘50s to the early ‘60s, before his move to New York. “I had two main vocal groups at the time,” Ra recalled. “One was called the Cosmic Echoes. And the Cosmic Rays too. It was around the same time that John Gilmore joined the band. I saw the possibility that they could be really great so Ibegan to coach them; they were connected with a barber shop, but I taught them other things.” John Gilmore added, “We’d go down to the barber shops and rehearse some groups. Sun Ra had them singin’ some beautiful stuff. I think he probably was saving the from themselves. He heard them, heard their potential, snatched them off the street, and started making them do something constructive.”

This rare festive single from The Qualities, likely recorded around 1956, features Sun Ra as co-composer on both tracks alongside Saturn Records co-founder Alton Abraham. Sun Ra might also be the harmonium player on these recordings. Although two more songs by the group appeared on a Norton Records collection of Ra-related vocal numbers, these are the only known recordings by The Qualities.

Featuring two newly restored and remastered tracks thanks to Technology Works and housed in an exclusive new 7" picture sleeve designed by Liam Large

TRACK LISTING

1. It’s Christmas Time
2. Happy New Year To You

The new album by Quantic aka multi instrumentalist, DJ, composer and producer Will Holland is in many ways an evolution. Now 20 years into his career, ‘Dancing While Falling’ is the British born New York based artist’s most live sounding, euphoric and, in his own words, grown up release to date.

Predominantly recorded at his own Brooklyn studio, Selva, Quantic’s initial idea for his new album was to experiment sonically. However, after a while, he changed direction and realised that the record needed to also relate to the human condition not just his “singular pandemic wormhole”. The demos, then, started off as symphonic, loosely disco era dance music a departure from his previous Latin and Spanish instrumental releases. Influenced by legendary artists in the scene like Bohannon and Larry Levan, Quantic wanted to make a disco leaning album at first. “I’m really interested in Latin music and Afro Caribbean rhythms and I think there's a really amazing point in history where the emergence of those rhythms and its combination with American soul sparked what we now know as disco,” he says.

TRACK LISTING

1. Run (feat. Andreya Triana
2. Subway Lover
3. Stand Up
4. Unconditional (feat. Rationale)
5. Get In The Ride (feat. Connie Constance)
6. Brooklyn Heat (feat. Andreya Triana
7. Emeralds
8. Morning Light (feat. Andreya Triana)
9. Tikurin
10. Where The Flowers Grow (feat. Andreya Triana)

Following the release of his latest album ‘Dancing While Falling’ in November 2023, Quantic expands on his work and releases extended versions. A limited double 12” containing more club oriented edits. The extended vinyl versions will sit alongside a long tradition of extended or 12" version, dance, disco, house and soul releases - think salsoul etc.

Predominantly recorded at his own Brooklyn studio, Selva, Quantic’s initial idea for his new album was to experiment sonically. However, after a while, he changed direction and realised that the record needed to also relate to the human condition - not just his “singular pandemic wormhole”. The demos, then, started off as symphonic, loosely disco-era dance music – a departure from his previous Latin and Spanish instrumental releases.

Influenced by legendary artists in the scene like Bohannon and Larry Levan, Quantic wanted to make a disco-leaning album at first. “I’m really interested in Latin music and Afro Caribbean rhythms and I think there's a really amazing point in history where the emergence of those rhythms and its combination with American soul sparked what we now know as disco,” he says.

TRACK LISTING

1. Run Feat. Andreya Triana (Extended Version)
2. Brooklyn Heat Feat. Andreya Triana (Extended Version)
3. Subway Lover (Extended Version)
4. Unconditional Feat. Rationale (Extended Version)
5. Morning Light Feat. Andreya Triana (Extended Version)
6. Stand Up (Extended Version)

The genesis of Ryan Hemsworth’s new project, Quarter-Life Crisis, can be traced all the way back to his childhood bedroom in Nova Scotia, where the producer spent the bulk of his high school years listening to emerging indie acts and playing guitar. Not loving the sound of his own voice and without a band, he eventually started making music on his laptop, which earned him accolades as he stepped out into electronic and club music scenes. His prolic output, paired with a voracious appetite for a wide range of genres and creation of his own label Secret Songs, has made Hemsworth a xture since he released his debut solo album, Guilt Trips, in 2013.

But now, Hemsworth’s trying his hand at something unexpected that is nonetheless close to his heart and origin story as a musician. Quarter-Life Crisis is a collaboration with various artists who’ve come to prominence over the past couple of years , many of whom got their start playing scrappy DIY shows. “This project has me in the process of going back to when I was a kid when I’d sit down and play guitar for hours and come up with melodies and chords by just messing around,” Hemsworth says. “It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for ages.”

The self-titled debut EP features contributions from Frances Quinlan (Hop Along), Meg Duy (Hand Habits), Charlie Martin (Hovvdy), Yohuna, and Claud. It showcases Hemsworth in a new phase of his career, one that is perhaps a bit less indebted to the nightclub dance oor. “It’s always been a goal to mix, like, 25% electronic sounds and 75% live indie rock sounds,” he says. Collaboration is paramount to Hemsworth’s process, and though he produced all of the instrumentation on the album, he left the lyrics and intention of the song up to the contributors. The resulting collection shapeshifts from track-to-track, taking on new personalities as it moves between. “I think of my music-making process as ‘sneaking in as a fan,’” Hemsworth says. “Quarter-Life Crisis is just another way for me to work with artists whose music I really enjoy and listen to all the time .”

Though Hemsworth has been a working musician for a decade now, Quarter-Life Crisis has felt like a wholly new experience. He recorded the tracks using live instruments, which he doesn’t typically do, and for many of his collaborators the shift to performing without a band, or even an instrument in their hands, was unfamiliar. For Quinlan, who sings on the arresting “Postcard from Spain,” this was one of the only times she’s made music with someone outside of her circles. “Recording with Ryan ended up being a really freeing experience to focus solely on vocal melody, to play with where I could take what was already there, already strong on its own,” she said.

Quinlan’s experience overlapped with that of the other contributors. Going into the studio almost as a session artist gave Duy the opportunity to alter their voice in a way they might not have considered with a Hand Habits song. “Meg asked me to make them sound like Travis Scott,” Hemsworth remembers, laughing. The hypnotic track, “Comfortable,” made Duy think about “AI and cyborgs” and “souls disassociating from bodies.” “I kind of just freestyled until a theme started to swim up,” they said. For Hovvdy’s Martin, this was his rst time ever writing lyrics to accompany another artist’s work. “It was really exciting to hear [Ryan] meet me in the middle style-wise. There are many hidden gems in the production of ‘Waterfall,’” Martin muses. “Lyrically the song explores a parallel I’ve been feeling lately: the diculty of understanding and being understood and how sometimes that struggle almost mirrors the state of the planet. It’s like a downward spiraling feedback loop where any optimism feels like a triumph.”

Working with musicians who largely fall into the category of “indie” gave Hemsworth the opportunity to revisit some of the artists who inspired him to become a musician in the rst place. He cites bands like the Cardigans, Grandaddy, Bright Eyes, and Sparklehorse as being foundational to his writing process this time around. Quarter-Life Crisis a sharp turn away from his last project, 2019’s CIRCUS CIRCUS, which he made alongside the Japanese rap duo Yurufuwa Gang, but for Hemsworth, working in a wide array of genres and modes keeps him on his toes, and ultimately, keeps his career interesting. “Getting out of my comfort zone and bringing others into that process has always led to something really unique,” Hemsworth says. “As a producer, I really respond to other people’s ideas and whatever they can bring to a song. Being in a room with someone with a dierent outlook, or working remotely with them, I hopefully help facilitate something that feels new and exciting for both of us.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Waterfall (feat. Charlie Martin Of Hovvdy)
2. Comfortable (feat. Hand Habits)
3. Postcard From Spain (feat. Frances Quinlan)
4. You & Me (feat. Claud)
5. Fatigue
6. Stars (feat. Yohuna)

Breaking the Balls of History is Quasi’s tenth record, landing ten years after their last record.

Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss have become Pacific Northwest icons, and Quasi has always felt so steadfast— their enduring friendship so generative, their energy infinite, each album more raucous and catchy and ferocious and funny than the last. But we were wrong to ever take Quasi for granted. For a while, they thought 2013’s intricate Mole City might be their last record. They’d go out on a great one and move on. Then in August 2019 a car smashed into Janet’s and broke both legs and her collarbone. Then a deadly virus collided with all of us, and no one knew when or if live music as we knew it—the touring, the communal crowds, the sonic church of the dark club—would ever happen again. And with the obliterated normal came an unexpected gift: uninterrupted time, hours every day, to make art. Quasi couldn’t go on the road, so they got an idea: they would act as if they were on tour and play together every single day. Each afternoon, Sam and Janet bunkered down in their tiny practice space and channeled the bewilderment and absurdity of this alien new world into songs. Janet’s strength returned and rose to athlete-level stamina The incredible result of those sessions is Breaking the Balls of History, recorded in five days and produced by John Goodmanson at the legendary Robert Lang Studios in Shoreline, WA. Here are two artists at their prime, each a human library of musical knowledge and experience, entirely distinctive in their songcraft and sound. In Quasi-form, the band becomes alchemically even greater than the sum of its parts: Janet’s galloping drums and Sam’s punk-symphonic Rocksichord and their intertwining vocals make something gigantic, anthemic. In the thick of a cataclysmic social and political moment, they’ve crafted exquisitely melodic songs that glitter with rage and wild humor and intelligence, driven by a big bruised pounding heart.

While it reflects the darkness of our time, Breaking the Balls of History surges with energy and pleasure and joy. “It felt so life-affirming. I can hear in the music how happy I am to be there and to be playing at that level again,” Janet said. “I get to exist.” Sam and Janet have lived through enough to understand that nothing is permanent, and that when your faith in humanity sinks, you turn to the life force of what you can rely on: the people you trust, the community that claims you, and what you can create. You can’t control the time. But you can make a record of a time. And luckily for us, Quasi has again.

TRACK LISTING

Last Long Laugh
Back In Your Tree
Queen Of Ears
Gravity
Shitty Is Pretty
Riots & Jokes
Breaking The Balls Of History
Doomscrollers
Inbetweenness
Nowheresville
Rotten Wrock
The Losers Win

Initial quantities include a free CD bonus disc: 'Quasi covers EP'.

Now in their 20th year as a band, two-piece Quasi return with a veritable Quasi songbook featuring 24 shinning examples of shakin’ blues, percussion freak-outs, chiming minor seventh chords and rock & roll.

TRACK LISTING

You Can Stay But You Got To Go
See You On Mars
Blasted
Chrome Duck
Chumps Of Chance
Fat Fanny Land
Nostalgia Kills
R.I.P.
Headshrinker
Bedbug Town
The Goat
Geraldine
Loopy
Double Deuce
Gnot
Dust Of The Sun
Mole City
An Ice Cube In The Sun
One And Done
The Dying Man
Clap Trap
New Western Way
Beyond The Return Of The Sun Of Nowhere

Quasi Covers EP
Don't' Stop Me Now (Queen)
War Pigs (Black Sabbath)
Let's Get It On (Marvin Gaye)
What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love & Understanding (Elvis Costello And The Attractions)

Quasimoto first came to life on Madlib's personal beat tapes in the producer’s early years in Oxnard CA - private music, not meant for release, made for himself and a small circle of local smokers and their car stereos.

‘Yessir Whatever’ collects 12 Quasimoto tracks recorded over a roughly twelve-year period and is now released on a new silver vinyl edition, with a silver foil peel-off sticker revealing Quasimoto’s guts.

TRACK LISTING

1. Broad Factor
2. Seasons Change
3. The Front
4. Youngblood
5. Astronaut
6. Planned Attack
7. Brothers Can’t See Me
8. Catchin’ The Vibe
9. Am I Confused?
10. Sparkdala
11. Green Power
12. LAX To JFK

Two generations of rock icons join forces on Face To Face, the exciting creative collaboration between KT Tunstall and Suzi Quatro. An album of original duets written by KT and Suzi, the duo covers themes of love and loss, fear and triumph— all essential to their experiences as groundbreaking women in rock. Tracks like “Shine a Light” and “Truth Is My Weapon” showcase the dynamic flow Suzi and KT created recording together in England.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Shine A Light
2. Face To Face
3. Scars
4. Good Kinda Hot
5. If I Come Home
Side B
1. Damage
2. Overload
3. Illusion
4. Truth As My Weapon
5. The Ladies’ Room

Maverick a Strike is the debut studio album by Scottish musician Finley Quaye. Originally released on 6 August 1997. The album peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart and spawned five singles: "Sunday Shining", "Even After All", "It's Great When We're Together", "Your Love Gets Sweeter", and "Ultra Stimulation“.

The album has been certified double platinum by the British Phonographic Industry.

Numbered sleeves, limited run of 2000.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A 
1 Ultra Stimulation 
2 It's Great When We're Together 
3 Sunday Shining 
4 Even After All 
5 Ride On And Turn The People On 
6 The Way Of The Explosive 
7 Your Love Gets Sweeter
SIDE B
1 Supreme I Preme
2 Sweet And Loving Man
3 Red Rolled And Seen
4 Falling
5 I Need A Lover
6 Maverick A Strike

This 1978 LP is the only recorded output of Quazar, the follow up project of Parliament members Glenn Goins and Jerome 'Big Foot' Brailey. Very much in the P-funk style of crazed vocals, bubbling bass and supa-funky breaks, the album is a must for Parliament-Funkadelic collectors (originals go fo a tidy sum). Sadly Goins died before the album was completed, leaving his brother Kevin to finish the job using the vocals Glenn had laid down.

The third single off her seminal 1989 debut album, "Ladies' First" remains one of Queen Latifah's signature songs

Featuring Monie Love, "Ladies' First" became an anthem of women's empowerment. This 7" also includes a B-side of "Come Into My House," originally released in 1990 as the fourth single.

TRACK LISTING

Ladies First (feat. Monie Love) [Radio Edit]
Come Into My House

Hiding in Place, the new EP from Philadelphia’s Queen of Jeans, opens with the springy pluck of a single note on electric guitar, like a ping from a satellite waiting for a response in a long, quiet expanse. Then, Miri Devora’s voice atop guitar and drums: “Hiding in place, conjure your face/Don’t wanna lose my mind.”

This is the title track’s invitation to a four-song study of loneliness, alienation, and the unraveling that comes with those states, but it’s also bookended with moments of levity: joy and romance burst through on second track “Why Hide,” a response of sorts to the title track’s cloistered anxiety. Devora wrote the songs at the start of the pandemic in March 2020 when she had just been laid off from her job of almost 10 years. Her partner, guitarist Mattie Glass, worked 11 hour shifts at a grocery store, so Devora was alone in their apartment for months on end. When they were written, these weren’t intended to be pandemic-specific.

“While these aren’t ‘pandemic songs,’ they carry that weight,” says Devora. “There’s that sense of loneliness and even longing that I think for many have gone hand-in-hand with the pandemic. Hiding in Place is like hiding within these walls that we were confined to, but it’s also about hiding within yourself and not being able to necessarily express any kind of fears or desires you have.”

This is part of what makes Hiding in Place such an apt collection for this moment: with this EP, which follows the band’s 2019 LP If you’re not afraid, I’m not afraid, hiding can be a safe release or a painful suppression, depending on the context. That duality—and the complicated nuance of lived experience that it suggests—defines our lives now.

This 12” EP features Hiding in Place in Full as well as the entirety of Queen of Jeans’ 2021 Covers EP, including a bombastic cover of Wheatus’ now viral “Teenage Dirtbag.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Hiding In Place
2. Why Hide
3. Was I Ever
4. The Wait Is Over
Side B
1. Teenage Dirtbag
2. I’m The Only One
3. Actor Out Of Work

Hot off the back of their self-titled debut single – the energetic five piece made up of Joel Douglas (vox/guitar), Tom Butler (vox/bass), Robbie Cottom (keys), Mike Hendry (guitar) + George Thompson (drum/percussion) follow it up with the provocatively titled ‘Your God Owes You Money.’

For those unacquainted with the band’s brand of esoteric eclectic pop - The Queen's Head are a five piece from South London making alternative music about modern anxieties. Blending elements of post-punk, noise-rock, disco and modern dance music, wrapped in a familiar verse-chorus pop structure, the resulting sound is simultaneously enchanting and terrifying.

Ordering this giddy chaos are the dual vocals of childhood friends Joel Douglas and Tom Butler. Together they combine cutting, spoken word narratives and growling melodies which take form as vigorous, traumatised calls to arms, scriptures not as much sung but bellowed and preached to the audience. It’s a sermon.

‘It did feel like that’ recounts Speedy co-runner Pierre Hall who put them on at one of Speedy’s ‘Homecoming’ nights at The Social at the end of lockdown. ‘From the second they came on to the second they finished – everyone was completely entranced. You were sucked in. It was powerful. Scary, intense, confrontational. But powerful nonetheless. I was hooked.’

On the resulting track – a heady mix of post-punk influences crossed with everything from The Clash to The Specials via Daniel Avery and Charlie XCX, the band say: ’We are a band interested in world-building, with our process normally meticulous, pouring over tiny production and song-writing details. Taking 'Your God Owes You Money' into Dan Carey's space and method was a deliberate attempt to disrupt our complacencies. We played live, welcomed error and followed improvised ideas, under Dan's guiding hand. The version of this song we produced in just a day hopefully captures the rage and range of our live show - a direct glimpse into the band, what we believe and our frailties as self-confessed performers. An honour, a privilege and a wholly enjoyable day amidst Dan's Aladdin's cave.’ The genie is out of the lamp.

"In every sense, A Day at the Races is an unapologetic sequel to A Night at the Opera, the 1975 breakthrough that established Queen as rock & roll royalty. The band never attempts to hide that the record is a sequel -- the two albums boast the same variation on the same cover art, the titles are both taken from old Marx Brothers films and serve as counterpoints to each other. But even though the two albums look the same, they don't quite sound the same, A Day at the Races is a bit tighter than its predecessor, yet tighter doesn't necessarily mean better for a band as extravagant as Queen. One of the great things about A Night at the Opera is that the lingering elements of early Queen -- the pastoral folk of "39," the metallic menace of "Death on Two Legs" -- dovetailed with an indulgence of camp and a truly, well, operatic scale. Here, the eccentricities are trimmed back somewhat -- they still bubble up on "The Millionaire Waltz," an example of the music hall pop that dominated Night, the pro-Native American saga "White Man" is undercut somewhat by the cowboys 'n' indians rhythms -- in favor of a driving, purposeful hard rock that still could have some slyly hidden perversities (or in the case of the opening "Tie Your Mother Down," some not-so-hidden perversity) but this is exquisitely detailed hard rock, dense with minutiae but never lush or fussy. In a sense, it could even function as the bridge between Sheer Heart Attack and Night at the Opera -- it's every bit as hard as the former and nearly as florid as the latter -- but its sleek, streamlined finish is the biggest indication that Queen has entered a new phase, where they're globe-conquering titans instead of underdogs on the make." - Allmusic.

"Queen were straining at the boundaries of hard rock and heavy metal on Sheer Heart Attack, but they broke down all the barricades on A Night at the Opera, a self-consciously ridiculous and overblown hard rock masterpiece. Using the multi-layered guitars of its predecessor as a foundation, A Night at the Opera encompasses metal ("Death on Two Legs," "Sweet Lady"), pop (the lovely, shimmering "You're My Best Friend"), campy British music hall ("Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon," "Seaside Rendezvous"), and mystical prog rock ("'39," "The Prophet's Song"), eventually bringing it all together on the pseudo-operatic "Bohemian Rhapsody." In short, it's a lot like Queen's own version of Led Zeppelin IV, but where Zep find dark menace in bombast, Queen celebrate their own pomposity. No one in the band takes anything too seriously, otherwise the arrangements wouldn't be as ludicrously exaggerated as they are. But the appeal -- and the influence -- of A Night at the Opera is in its detailed, meticulous productions. It's prog rock with a sense of humor as well as dynamics, and Queen never bettered their approach anywhere else." Allmusic.

The first Greatest Hits album by the legendary Queen. Originally released in 1981, this compilation album contains all of Queens best selling singles since their first chart appearance in 1974.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bohemian Rhapsody
2. Another One Bites The Dust
3. Killer Queen
4. Fat Bottomed Girls
5. Bicycle Race
6. You're My Best Friend
7. Don't Stop Me Now
8. Save Me
9. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
10. Somebody To Love
11. Now I'm Here
12. Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy
13. Play The Game
14. Flash
15. Seven Seas Of Rhye
16. We Will Rock You
17. We Are The Champions

"Famously tagged as "fascist" in a Rolling Stone review printed at the time of its 1978 release, Jazz does indeed showcase a band that does thrive upon its power, thrilling upon the hold that it has on its audience. That confidence, that self-intoxication, was hinted at on News of the World but it takes full flower here, and that assurance acts as a cohesive device, turning this into one of Queen's sleekest albums. Like its patchwork predecessor, Jazz also dabbles in a bunch of different sounds -- that's a perennial problem with Queen, where the four songwriters were often pulling in different directions -- but it sounds bigger, heavier than News, thanks to the mountains of guitars Brian May has layered all over this record. If May has indulged himself, Freddie Mercury runs riot all over this album, infusing it with an absurdity that's hard to resist. This goofiness is apparent from the galloping overture "Mustapha," and things only get a lot sillier from that point out, as the group sings the praises of "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Bicycle Races." May and Mercury have an unspoken competition on who can overdub the most onto a particular track, while Roger Taylor steers them toward their first disco song in the gloriously dumb "Fun It." But since over-the-top campiness has always been an attribute in Queen, this kind of grand-scale exaggeration gives Jazz a sense of ridiculousness that makes it more fun than many of their other albums." - Allmusic.

Queen Rock Montreal presents Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon at their most excitingand exhilarating. As Brian May puts it, this is Queen “live and dangerous.” Queen were on all-conquering form when they returned to Montreal, Canada for the fourth time in November 1981 to play two hugeconcerts at the 18,000-seat Forum. This pair of Montreal concerts marked an historic moment for Queen. After their massive success in the 1970s, the band entered the 80s bigger than ever, with the hugely successful The Game album producing their two biggest ever US singles in Another One Bites The Dust and Crazy Little Thing Called Love (both Billboard No.1’s), followed by theUK No.1 single Under Pressure. Queen’s return to Montreal came afteralmost two years of touring, including their very firsttours of South and Central America, which saw the band playing two nights at Sao Paulo’s Morumbi Stadiumtomore than 150,000 devoted fans. As a result, when the band arrived in Canada in November 1981 they were in electrifying form. “Montreal is one of our favourite cities, it’s a great audience there, very full of energy,” says Brian May. “We’d played this particular venue, The Forum, several times before, and it was always full of really enthusiastic people giving us a lot of energy back.”

The original concerts,which took place on November 24 and 25, 1981, were truly ground-breaking. They were arranged specifically to be filmed for a full-length concert film to document their live show. Director Saul Swimmer planned to shoot them using state-of-the-art Double Anamorphic 35mm footage, which allowed it to be projected on a gigantic, five-storey high screen.Backstage tensions between the members of Queen and Swimmer could have caused problems, but instead they propelled the band to new heights.

“We were very, very hyped up, some of the tempos are really fast, there’s a lot of really incisive, angry playing,” says May.

Queen Rock Montreal features a rawer version of the band who had released Bohemian Rhapsodyhalf a decade earlier, showcasingtheirunparalleled musicianship, soaring vocal powerand unstoppable live energy.“There’s no one on the stage apart from us,” says May.

Says Taylor: “It's fascinating to now realize how free we were on stage in 1981. It's a four piece, just the four of us in Queen, and to see Freddie. It's like being on stage with the band because the cameras are very high quality for the time. I've never seen anything that makes you feel quite so involved with the performance.”

From Freddie Mercury’s opening cry of “Hello Montreal… long time no see. You wanna get crazy?” through to the thrilling climactic one-two of We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions, the energy rarely lets up – and even then only for signature ballad Love Of My Life. The powerful vocal acrobatics of Mercury, May’s dazzling six-string pyrotechnics, Deacon’s rock solid heartbeat bass, Taylor’s unstoppable rhythmic display, and not to mention the unique combination of all four voices – Queen Rock Montreal shows the total cohesion and individual strengths of four musicians who were, as Brian May says, “at the top of our game”.

TRACK LISTING

2CD

CD1
1. Intro
2. We Will Rock You (Fast)
3. Let Me Entertain You
4. Play The Game
5. Somebody To Love
6. Killer Queen
7. I'm In Love With My Car
8. Get Down, Make Love
9. Save Me
10. Now I'm Here
11. Dragon Attack
12. Now I'm Here (Reprise)
13. Love Of My Life


CD2
1. Under Pressure
2. Keep Yourself Alive
3. Drum And Tympani Solo
4. Guitar Solo
5. Flash
6. The Hero
7. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
8. Jailhouse Rock
9. Bohemian Rhapsody
10. Tie Your Mother Down
11. Another One Bites The Dust
12. Sheer Heart Attack
13. We Will Rock You

3LP

SIDE A
1. Intro
2. We Will Rock You (Fast)
3. Let Me Entertain You
4. Play The Game
5. Somebody To Love

SIDE B
1. Killer Queen
2. I'm In Love With My Car
3. Get Down, Make Love
4. Save Me

SIDE C
1. Now I'm Here
2. Dragon Attack
3. Now I'm Here (Reprise)
4. Love Of My Life
5. Under Pressure

SIDE D
1. Keep Yourself Alive
2. Drum And Tympani Solo
3. Guitar Solo
4. Flash
5. The Hero

SIDE E
1. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
2. Jailhouse Rock
3. Bohemian Rhapsody
4. Tie Your Mother Down

SIDE F
1. Another One Bites The Dust
2. Sheer Heart Attack
3. We Will Rock You
4. We Are The Champions
5. God Save The Queen

"If Day at the Races was a sleek, streamlined album, its 1977 successor, News of the World, was its polar opposite, an explosion of styles that didn't seem to hold to any particular center. It's front-loaded with two of Queen's biggest anthems -- the stomping, stadium-filling chant "We Will Rock You" and its triumphant companion, "We Are the Champions" -- which are quickly followed by the ferocious "Sheer Heart Attack," a frenzied rocker that hits harder than anything on the album that shares its name (a remarkable achievement in itself). Three songs, three quick shifts in mood, but that's hardly the end of it. As the News rolls on, you're treated to the arch, campy crooning of "My Melancholy Blues," a shticky blues shuffle in "Sleeping on the Sidewalk," and breezy Latin rhythms on "Who Needs You." Then there's the neo-disco of "Fight from the Inside," which is eclipsed by the mechanical funk of "Get Down, Make Love," a dirty grind that's stripped of sensuality. That cold streak on "Get Down, Make Love" runs through the album as a whole. Despite the explosion of sounds and rhythms, this album doesn't add up to party thanks to that slightly distancing chilly vibe that hangs over the album. Nevertheless, many of these songs work well on their own as entities, so there is plenty to savor here, especially from Brian May. Whether he's doing the strangely subdued eccentric English pop "All Dead, All Dead" or especially the majestic yet nimble rocker "It's Late," he turns in work that gives this album some lightness, which it needs. And that's the reason News of the World was a monster hit despite its coldness -- when it works, it's massive, earth-shaking rock & roll, the sound of a band beginning to revel in its superstardom." - Allmusic.

Queens Of The Stone Age announce their sixth studio album, ‘...Like Clockwork’, on Matador Records. The band have also unveiled the new album’s stunning artwork by UK artist Boneface.

Described by Queens principal Joshua Homme as “an audio documentary of a manic year,” ‘...Like Clockwork’ is the band’s first full length collection of all new material since 2007’s ‘Era Vulgaris’, as well as the band’s debut release on new label partner Matador.

‘...Like Clockwork’ was produced by Joshua Homme and QOTSA, and recorded by Mark Rankin with additional engineering by Justin Smith, at Josh’s Pink Duck studio in Burbank, California.

TRACK LISTING

1 Keep Your Eyes Peeled 
2 I Sat By The Ocean 
3 The Vampyre Of Time And Memory 
4 If I Had A Tail
5 My God Is The Sun 
6 Kalopsia 
7 Fairweather Friends 
8 Smooth Sailing 
9 I Appear Missing 
10 ...Like Clockwork

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

Queens of the Stone Age have announced their long-awaited 8th studio album, In Times New Roman… 

In Times New Roman... is raw, at times brutal and not recommended for the faint of heart. And yet, it’s perhaps the most beautiful and definitely the most rewarding album in their epic discography. Founder Joshua Homme's most acerbic lyrics to date are buoyed by the instantly identifiable QOTSA sonic signature, expanded and embellished with new and unprecedented twists in virtually every song. With In Times New Roman… we see that sometimes one needs to look beneath scars and scabs to see beauty, and sometimes the scabs and scars are the beauty.

Feeling a bit out of place, and having difficulty finding music they could relate to, the members of QOTSA did as they are wont to do: In Times New Roman… is the sound of a band creating the music its own members want to hear, while giving the rest of us a sonic forum in which to congregate. “The world’s gonna end in a month or two," sings Homme, begging the question: What do you want to do to with the time you’ve got left? Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen, Dean Fertita, Michael Shuman and Jon Theodore may not be able to save us, but they’re giving us a place to ride it out.

In Times New Roman… was recorded and mixed at Homme’s own Pink Duck (RIP), with additional recording at Shangri-La. The album was produced by Queens of the Stone Age and mixed by Mark Rankin.

Artwork and double LP gatefold packaging designed by long time collaborator Boneface.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: QOTSA return for their most cathartic outing yet, dealing with Homme's cancer treatment, the loss of friends and the 'new normal' we find ourselves in. It's a quintessentially QOTSA LP, but pushed to 11, with the quiet moments all the more menancing, and the loud interludes (of which there are many) all the more incendiary. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

Obscenery
Paper Machete
Negative Space
Time & Place
Made To Parade
Carnavoyeur
What The Peephole Say
Sicily
Emotion Sickness
Straight Jacket Fitting

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

The expanded 2011 edition of QOTSA’s self titled album is being made available once again on LP and CD. This ‘definitive version’ of the album comes with original Loose-Groove cover artwork and a number of bonus tracks.

TRACK LISTING

1. Regular John
2. Avon
3. If Only
4. Walkin On The Sidewalks
5. You Would Know
6. The Bronze
7. How To Handle A Rope (A Lesson In The Lariat)
8. Mexicola
9. Hispanic Impressions
10. You Can't Quit Me Baby
11. These Aren't The Droids You're Looking For
12. Give The Mule What He Wants
13. Spiders And Vinegaroons
14. I Was A Teenage Hand Model

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

2002's Songs For The Deaf became QOTSA's first Gold album in the U.S. and their first platinum seller in Britain and Canada, spawning the hits "No One Knows," "Go with the Flow" and "First It Giveth." The musical cast includes guest drummer Dave Grohl, who put his own band Foo Fighters on temporary hold to record and tour with Queens of the Stone Age.

Songs For The Deaf's new vinyl edition is a two-LP set with a gatefold jacket and a 12"x12" insert, with the album's original red background and black graphics/text art making its first-ever LP appearance. 

TRACK LISTING

You Think I Ain’t Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire
No One Knows
First It Giveth
Song For The Dead
The Sky Is Fallin’
Six Shooter
Hangin’ Tree
Go With The Flow
Gonna Leave You
Do It Again
God Is In The Radio
Another Love Song
Song For The Deaf
Mosquito Song

“The title Villains isn’t a political statement. It has nothing to do with Trump or any of that shit. It’s simply 1) a word that looks fantastic and 2) a comment on the three versions of every scenario: yours, mine and what actually happened… Everyone needs someone or something to rail against—their villain—same as it ever was. You can’t control that. The only thing you can really control is when you let go."—Joshua Homme

Hundreds of epic shows, memory lapses, unexplained injuries, one yearlong detour with Iggy Pop and multiple Grammy nominations later, Queens Of The Stone Age re-emerge from the desert newly scarred and somehow strangely prettier with lucky seventh album, Villains.

Produced by Mark Ronson and co-produced by Mark Rankin and mixed by Alan Moulder, Villains is the first full album offering from Queens Of The Stone Age since 2013’s …Like Clockwork gave the band its first #1 album in the U.S. Like the stunning artwork of returning illustrator Boneface, the sonic signatures of the line-up that took …Like Clockwork around the world and back are as unmistakable as ever, though coexisting with sufficient new twists to induce recurring double takes. As Homme himself puts it, “The most important aspect of making this record was redefining our sound, asking and answering the question 'what do we sound like now?' If you can’t make a great first record, you should just stop—but if you can make a great record but you keep making records and your sound doesn’t evolve, you become a parody of that original sound."

Of his role working within such a closed and confident ecosystem as Queens Of The Stone Age, Ronson says, "Queens are and have always been my favourite rock n roll band ever since I walked into Tower on Sunset and bought Rated R in the summer of 2000, so it was incredibly surreal to be welcomed into their secret, pirate clan—or the ‘jacuzzi’ as Josh likes to call it. There were moments during the making of the album in which I was aware I was watching my musical heroes craft something that was sure to become one of my moments on any Queens album. And to have some part in that felt like being in a dream--a very heavy, dark, wonderful dream.”

Long-time Queens cohort co-producer Mark Rankin added, "After the baptism of fire that was …Like Clockwork, I was excited to get into the studio again with the challenge of pushing the sound for this record, especially with the addition of Ronson into the creative mix… What we’ve made is forward looking yet unmistakably Queens."

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: ‘Villains’ finds the QOTSA boys in fine rockin’ form. Heavy sonic riffage with an added groove appeal too, no doubt courtesy of Mark Ronson in the producer’s chair.

TRACK LISTING

Feet Don’t Fail Me
The Way You Used To Do
Domesticated Animals
Fortress
Head Like A Haunted House
Un-Reborn Again
Hideaway
The Evil Has Landed
Villains Of Circumstance

More than a quarter century since its primal emergence from the Desert, Queens Of The Stone Age has elected to give three of its landmark albums the upscale re-release treatment, including limited edition color vinyl pressings, exclusive new and restored artwork, and more.

Villains is reissued in a special 5th Anniversary package featuring etching, obi-strip, and a brand new poster by Boneface, and as a limited edition opaque white vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

Feet Don't Fail Me
The Way You Used To Do
Domesticated Animals
Fortress
Head Like A Haunted House
Un-Reborn Again
Hideaway
The Evil Has Landed
Villains Of Circumstance

"Queen had long been one of the biggest bands in the world by 1980's The Game, but this album was the first time they made a glossy, unabashed pop album, one that was designed to sound exactly like its time. They might be posed in leather jackets on the cover, but they hardly sound tough or menacing -- they rarely rock, at least not in the gonzo fashion that's long been their trademark. Gone are the bombastic orchestras of guitars and with them the charging, relentless rhythms that kept Queen grounded even at their grandest moments. Now, when they rock, they'll haul out a clever rockabilly pastiche, as they do on the tremendous "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," a sly revival of old-time rock & roll that never sounds moldy, thanks in large part to Freddie Mercury's panache. But even that is an exception to the rule on The Game. Usually, when they want to rock here, they wind up sounding like Boston, as they do on John Deacon's "Need Your Loving Tonight," or they sound a bit like a new wave-conscious rocker like Billy Squier, as they do on the propulsive "Coming Soon." But even those are exceptions to the overall rule on The Game, since most of the album is devoted to disco-rock blends -- best heard on the globe-conquering "Another One Bites the Dust," but also present in the unintentionally kitschy positivity anthem "Don't Try Suicide" -- and the majestic power ballads that became their calling card in the '80s, as they reworked the surging "Save Me" and the elegant "Play the Game" numerous times, often with lesser results. So, The Game winds up as a mixed bag, as many Queen albums often do, but again the striking difference with this album is that it finds Queen turning decidedly, decisively pop, and it's a grand, state-of-the-art circa 1980 pop album that still stands as one of the band's most enjoyable records. But the very fact that it does showcase a band that's turned away from rock and toward pop means that for some Queen fans, it marks the end of the road, and despite the album's charms, it's easy to see why." - Allmusic.

"Following the disappointing commercial performance of the dance-oriented Hot Space in 1982, Queen took 1983 off to get refocused and work on a follow-up that would put the band back on track. While the songwriting had definitely improved on the resulting The Works in 1984, the album sonically lacked the punch of such earlier releases as News of the World and The Game (strangely, Hot Space even had a better overall sound). Although the album only peaked at number 23 on the U.S. album charts, it was a Top Ten hit in just about every other area of the world, producing the huge single "Radio Ga Ga." Three other tracks were hits in Queen's native England -- the uplifting "I Want to Break Free," the love song "It's a Hard Life," and the politically conscious rocker "Hammer to Fall," which dealt with the danger of nuclear weapons. Other highlights included the '50s-sounding "Man on the Prowl," the electronic experiment "Machines," the thunderous "Tear It Up," and a touching acoustic ballad, "Is This the World We Created...?"" - Allmusic.

The Queers return to Lookout! 'Today' is produced by Ben Weasel (Screeching Weasel) and features 5 blasts of patent Queers punk rock and pop.

The debut solo album from Ride bassist Steve Queralt is a beautifully brooding collection that combines the darkly textured soundscapes of early M83 or Sigur Rós with the post-punk of Joy Division and New Order, all with an electronic sheen reminiscent of Mark Pritchard or Boards Of Canada. It features guest vocals on several tracks from Sonic Cathedral labelmate Emma Anderson (formerly of Lush and Sing-Sing) and Verity Susman (Electrelane, MEMORIALS).

Swallow has been slowly but surely pieced together between Ride albums and tours over the past eight years and, perhaps as a result, has a slightly dystopian, almost Blade Runner feel that reflects the liminal spaces in which it was created.

There’s also an underlying anger and political slant. Despite the fact that the majority of the album is wordless, there is plenty of power and emotion, summed up by the few lines from Julie Sheldon’s poem ‘The Same Boat’ that appear on the closing track ‘Motor Boats’ (“We’re all in the same boat they say, but I would disagree”). According to Steve, they “capture the reality of our times perfectly”.

There are also other words on the album courtesy of the two guest vocalists. “There have been some amazing instrumental albums made over the last few years, especially in the nu-classical and post-rock worlds,” says Steve, who points out the influence of Mogwai, and even titled one of the album tracks ‘I Don’t Know How To Sing’, “but some of the tracks sounded like songs to me, just without any words.”

This led to the collaborations that, ultimately, tied the whole thing together and paved the way to the finished album. “One of the demos reminded me of Lush, who Ride had toured with in the ’90s, so I contacted Emma thinking her voice would be perfect. But she was confused and said she’d never sung lead vocals.”

“At the time I hadn’t even decided I was going to sing on my own records, so I told Steve I couldn’t do it,” explains Emma. “Then, a couple of years later, when I was singing on my own records and my debut album Pearlies was about to come out, I enquired about it, thinking he must have found someone else, but luckily he hadn’t.”

“After a few false starts, I started to doubt the project altogether. It was going nowhere,” says Steve. “Then, out of the darkness, Emma got back in touch to tell me that she’d found her voice and could I send her some tracks. A few files back and forth and an afternoon in the studio later and we had ‘Lonely Town’ and ‘Swiss Air’.”

In the meantime, Verity from Electrelane had added vocals to the song ‘Messengers’ and transformed the track. Matthew Simms, her then future bandmate in MEMORIALS, would go on to mix the finished album.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Mission Creep
Lonely Town Feat. Emma Anderson
High Teens
A Porsche Shaped Hole

Side B
Swiss Air Feat. Emma Anderson
I Don’t Know How To Sing
Messengers Feat. Verity Susman
1988
Motor Boats

The new 'Boleros Psicodelicos' album from Black Pumas' Adrian Quesada features major latin stars such as Cuco, Ed Maverick, Hermanos Gutiérrez and Monsieur Perine.

The project is inspired by the late 1960s and 1970s – when Latin American balladry was highly influenced by psychedelia and baroque pop.

With the second volume of this album series, Adrian pursued a more expansive and modern sound with co-producer Alex Goose, renowned for his work with Aaron Frazer and Childish Gambino.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ojos Secos (feat. Cuco)
2. Bravo (feat. ILe)
3. No Juego (feat. Angélica Garcia)
4. Cuatro Vidas (feat. Mireya Ramos)
5. Afuera (feat. Ed Maverick)
6. Primos (feat. Hermanos Gutiérrez)
7. Hoy Que Llueve (feat. Trish Toledo)
8. Agonía (feat. Monsieur Periné)
9. Te Vas Y Yo Te Dejo (feat. Gepe)
10. El Diamante
11. Tu Poder (feat. Natalia Clavier)
12. No Temeré (feat. Daymé Arocena)

Formed in the Bay City/Saginaw area of Michigan in 1962 by Mexican-American children of migrant farm workers, the band gained popularity with the addition of drummer Robert Martinez’s brother Rudy, aka Question Mark, as lead vocalist. The eccentric Question Mark (often stylized as ‘?’) has claimed to have been born on Mars and lived among dinosaurs in a past life.

The band’s debut single “96 Tears”, with its distinctive organ line played by Mysterians’ keyboardist “Little” Frank Rodriguez, was originally released on Pa-Go-Go Records in 1966, but quickly reissued by the more established Philadelphia-based label Cameo-Parkway Records. The raw-yet-infectious song swept the airwaves, hitting #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 29, 1966, beating out The Monkees, Four Tops, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Dionne Warwick, Sonny & Cher, The Beach Boys and many more established acts. ? and The Mysterians’ debut album, also titled 96 Tears, followed in October ’66 just as the single was crossing the one million sales mark. The LP, filled out with ten more originals — including the Top 40 hit “I Need Somebody” — plus a version of T-Bone Walker’s “Stormy Monday,” peaked at #66.

A mere eight months after 96 Tears was released, Cameo-Parkway put out the follow up full-length Action in June of ’67. Their sophomore album is more evenly split between originals and covers, among them “Can’t Get Enough of You, Baby,” written by Denny Randell and Sandy Linzer and first recorded by The Four Seasons one year previous. ? and The Mysterians’ version got to #56 on the Billboard Hot 100, faring better than Smash Mouth’s ubiquitous 1998 version, which appeared on four other Billboard charts but was absent from the coveted Hot 100. Action would be the band’s last studio album for more than three decades.

“‘96 Tears’ IS one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll songs in the history of the genre,” said Bill Holdship of Detroit Metro Times in 2009. “In fact it may be the greatest.” In a May 1971 issue of Creem magazine, Dave Marsh referred to a ? (Question Mark) and The Mysterians reunion as “a landmark exposition of punk-rock,” one of the very first times the genre was applied to a band. Not only did they influence others within punk, but they have also had a profound impact on music writ large. “96 Tears” alone has been covered by a diverse range of artists, including Iggy Pop, Suicide, The Modern Lovers, Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, Sir Douglas Quintet, Tom Tom Club, Primal Scream, Big Maybelle, Jimmy Ruffin and Aretha Franklin.

SiriusXM’s Little Steven’s Underground Garage channel air personality Lenny Kaye, who masterminded the famed Nuggets compilations that shined a light on the garage rock phenomenon of the mid-1960s commented, “‘96 Tears’ is the ur-text of garage rock, the truest ‘Nugget’ if you dug It… In these two albums, Question Mark and The Mysterians answer the eternal query with the yearning spirit and self-revelation that is becoming a band, yowl, reedy organ and guitars on stun, with a backbeat that accelerates the move-and-groove. I remember seeing ‘Qwesty’ and the band at Coney Island High in the mid-90s, me and Joey Ramone hollering, ‘Yeah baybee!,’ knowing we were at the heart of rock as it begins to roll.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A
I Need Somebody
Stormy Monday
You’re Telling Me Lies
Ten O’Clock
Set Aside
Up Side
Side B
“8” Teen
Don’t Tease Me
Don’t Break This Heart Of Mine
Why Me
Midnight Hour
96 Tears

Formed in the Bay City/Saginaw area of Michigan in 1962 by Mexican-American children of migrant farm workers, the band gained popularity with the addition of drummer Robert Martinez’s brother Rudy, aka Question Mark, as lead vocalist. The eccentric Question Mark (often stylized as ‘?’) has claimed to have been born on Mars and lived among dinosaurs in a past life.

The band’s debut single “96 Tears”, with its distinctive organ line played by Mysterians’ keyboardist “Little” Frank Rodriguez, was originally released on Pa-Go-Go Records in 1966, but quickly reissued by the more established Philadelphia-based label Cameo-Parkway Records. The raw-yet-infectious song swept the airwaves, hitting #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 29, 1966, beating out The Monkees, Four Tops, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Dionne Warwick, Sonny & Cher, The Beach Boys and many more established acts. ? and The Mysterians’ debut album, also titled 96 Tears, followed in October ’66 just as the single was crossing the one million sales mark. The LP, filled out with ten more originals — including the Top 40 hit “I Need Somebody” — plus a version of T-Bone Walker’s “Stormy Monday,” peaked at #66.

A mere eight months after 96 Tears was released, Cameo-Parkway put out the follow up full-length Action in June of ’67. Their sophomore album is more evenly split between originals and covers, among them “Can’t Get Enough of You, Baby,” written by Denny Randell and Sandy Linzer and first recorded by The Four Seasons one year previous. ? and The Mysterians’ version got to #56 on the Billboard Hot 100, faring better than Smash Mouth’s ubiquitous 1998 version, which appeared on four other Billboard charts but was absent from the coveted Hot 100. Action would be the band’s last studio album for more than three decades.

“‘96 Tears’ IS one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll songs in the history of the genre,” said Bill Holdship of Detroit Metro Times in 2009. “In fact it may be the greatest.” In a May 1971 issue of Creem magazine, Dave Marsh referred to a ? (Question Mark) and The Mysterians reunion as “a landmark exposition of punk-rock,” one of the very first times the genre was applied to a band. Not only did they influence others within punk, but they have also had a profound impact on music writ large. “96 Tears” alone has been covered by a diverse range of artists, including Iggy Pop, Suicide, The Modern Lovers, Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, Sir Douglas Quintet, Tom Tom Club, Primal Scream, Big Maybelle, Jimmy Ruffin and Aretha Franklin.

SiriusXM’s Little Steven’s Underground Garage channel air personality Lenny Kaye, who masterminded the famed Nuggets compilations that shined a light on the garage rock phenomenon of the mid-1960s commented, “‘96 Tears’ is the ur-text of garage rock, the truest ‘Nugget’ if you dug It… In these two albums, Question Mark and The Mysterians answer the eternal query with the yearning spirit and self-revelation that is becoming a band, yowl, reedy organ and guitars on stun, with a backbeat that accelerates the move-and-groove. I remember seeing ‘Qwesty’ and the band at Coney Island High in the mid-90s, me and Joey Ramone hollering, ‘Yeah baybee!,’ knowing we were at the heart of rock as it begins to roll.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Girl (You Captivate Me)
Can’t Get Enough Of You, Baby
Got To
I’ll Be Back
Shout (Parts 1 & 2)
Side B
Hangin’ On A String
Smokes
It’s Not Easy
Don’t Hold It Against Me
Just Like A Rose
Do You Feel It

Finally, a proper legit "Best Of" covering their prime period!! 27 nuggets of rockin', soul-driven garage ravers! Includes two previously unreleased tracks from 1996. And yes, it does include the awesome "96 Tears" before you ask!!!

Quickbeam are an atmospheric/cinematic band based in Glasgow, Scotland. Originally formed in 2010 by Monika Gromek and Andrew Thomson, the band has since grown in numbers to a four piece. After releasing their first single ‘Seven Hundred Birds’ to widespread critical acclaim in April 2012, the band now look forward to further collaboration with Scottish label Comets and Cartwheels on the release of their Creative Scotland funded debut album in June 2013.

The resulting collection of songs reveals more of what Quickbeam have to offer in the studio, and saw them find a well-suited collaborator in Scottish producer Stuart MacLeod. Part sparse minimalism and part luscious extravagance, the record is a confident showcase of the members’ growing maturity as songwriters. Consistently underpinned by orchestrally arranged strings, brass, and rich harmonium pitted against thunderously distorted guitar passages and pounding rhythms, the album’s overall feel is one that calls to mind grand themes such as the passage of time. Throughout the record, female led vocals are complemented by warm harmonies and subtle atmospherics which lend the music a rather captivating and often melancholic beauty.

TRACK LISTING

1. Remember
2. Seven Hundred Birds
3. Immersed
4. Mountains
5. Fall
6. Home
7. Matter
8. 1743
9. The Great Expanse
10. Far Out At Sea
11. Grace
12. One To Hold

Graham Jonson is drawn to the comforts of melody and noise. How the two conspire in tension, tonally and atonally, stirring up memory and mood. This quality animates the technicolor world of quickly, quickly, the psych-pop project that emanates from Kenton Sound, his basement studio in Portland, Oregon. “Everywhere your eye lands, there’s another curio to marvel over,” noted Pitchfork’s Philip Sherburne when he visited Jonson’s recording space for a Rising feature just after the release of his “strikingly original” 2021 debut LP, 'The Long and Short of It'. Since then, Jonson formed alive band, released his 'Easy Listening' EP in 2023,and navigated the up-and-downs of a young musician, the sustainability of tours and relationships.

While shaped by personal bouts and fallouts, his highly-anticipated full-length follow-up finds Jonson making music that’s universal, open-ended, and rewarding, like great songwriters can do. He set out to make a folk album but couldn’t help coloring it in with noise; a confluence of lush instrumentation and unexpected sounds. Ambitious yet intimate, hi-fi yet homespun, the idiosyncratic songs on 'I Heard That Noise' curve around the contours of everyday life with warmth, wit, and dissonance.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Heard That Noise
2. Enything
3. Take It From Me
4. This House
5. This Room
6. Beginning Band Day One
7. I Punched Through The Wall
8. Hero
9. Raven
10. Drawn Away
11. You Are

French multi-instrumentalist Quiet Dawn has been an integral part of the First Word family for a full decade now. His diverse catalogue has included organic ambient-jazz (2018's 'Human Being - The Short Story Of The Reed'), Dilla-esque instrumental beats (2023's 'Simple' beat tape), head nod Hip Hop (the 2015 debut album 'The First Day') and broken beat (2022's 'Movements' EP).

It's the latter project that this new project is the most obvious successor to, which he produced directly afterwards. This new album from Quiet Dawn (real name Will Galland) takes on an array of broken beat flavours and features a few luminaries from that scene along the way, including the legendary Bembe Segue (on the smooth soulful grooves of 'All Around'), LyricL (dropping bars on the lively title track 'Celebrate') and Oliver Night from the CoOp Presents crew (on 'Follow Your Instincts' and single 'Lost From Life').

Elsewhere there's uplifting jazz samba-tinged vibes (on 'It's All About Freedom' & 'He Is Lion'), a sprinkle of downtempo boom bap ('Flow' & 'See The Good'), and an assortment of instrumental bruk riddims with squelchy synths, sweet rhodes, skippy percussion & funked-up basslines. Quiet Dawn once again effortlessly combines the organic with the electronic. The whole piece exudes positivity and good times.

Quiet Dawn explains "I had already started making tracks for this album, before completing the 'Movements' EP - tracks like 'It's All About Freedom' & 'I Just Wanna Do This'. I composed the title track 'Celebrate' with my son on my lap; he was 2 and a half years old, and was the one who found the Rhodes bass notes on the drums that I composed first. I made the bassline, the arrangement, and then the track was completed with the talents of LyricL with her unique lyrics and style! I fulfilled a dream of working with Bembe and it felt so effortless. And of course it's always pleasant and powerful making tracks with Oliver - he has crazy talent, and we understand each other so much on the spirit of the pieces we make together.

Once again, the idea was to make a record that we can dance to, whether we are dancers or not, listen to at home, or on our travels. Celebrate life, love, and the people we love. Celebrate the different cultures of the world - our differences are a strength. Turn negativity into positivity. Celebrate our actions, whether in pain or not. Celebrate our different journeys.

TRACK LISTING

1. No Idea Is Final, Pt. 1
2. I Just Wanna Do This
3. See The Good
4. Celebrate (feat. LyricL)
5. Follow Your Instincts (feat. Oliver Night)
6. He Is Lion
7. Lost From Life (feat. Oliver Night)
8. All Around (feat. Bembe Segue)
9. Flow
10. It's All About Freedom
11. No Idea Is Final, Pt. 2

Since Beach Slang came into being, bandleader James Alex has taken to performing his group's heartfelt anthems as more intimate solo renditions. Appropriately dubbed "Quiet Slang," these alternate reality versions of Beach Slang's music have now simultaneously been stripped down and fleshed out in the studio to include piano and cello. Following on from the recent We Were Babies & We Were Dirtbags EP, Quiet Slang now bring you a full album of such songs - 'Everything Matters But No One Is Listening' .

TRACK LISTING

1. Bad Art & Weirdo Ideas 
2. Noisy Heaven [
3. Future Mixtape For The Art Kids
4. Filthy Luck 
5. Dirty Cigarettes 
6. Too Late To Die Young 
7. Spin The Dial 
8. Young Hearts
9. Throwaways 
10. Warpaint

An amorphous musical collective put together by Rich Machin and Duke Garwood, with a rolling cast of players assembled from the likes of Soulsavers, Spiritualized, Stereolab and Julian Cope. For Machin, Garwood and the other musicians (Ray Dickaty, Tim Lewis (aka Thighpaulsandra), Pete Marsh, Paul May Doggen), a sense of adventure and devil-may-care inventiveness took precedence over precise design when they started the recording process at Gabriel’s Real World studio in the autumn of 2017.

'One of the big things I wanted to achieve with this record was breaking away from things being super planned out,' Machin explains. 'To actually just go into a studio without having everything mapped out in advance. And being comfortable enough to see what happens. It was incredibly stressful at first, but once you realize it works it’s actually a really nice way to work.'

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Like a slo-mo distillation of Joe Henderson and Alice Coltrane, the quiet temple serve up a trundling jazzy bouquet brimming with languid psychedelic flourishes, slowly growing into a bloom otherworldly drone. Properly hypnotic and brilliantly emotive.

TRACK LISTING

The Last Opium Den (On Earth)
The Bible Black
Shades Of Gemini
Rated
Noah’s Theme
Utopia & Visions

Quill was a Boston-based rock band that had national exposure when they played the Woodstock festival in August of 1969. The quintet got together in 1967 and played New England and New York over the next few years, getting some positive regional press for their combination of high-wattage rock with elements of psychedelia and jazz, and what would later be identified as performance art. Most of the songwriting was handled by John and Dan Cole, who tended to deliver fairly complex pieces that lent themselves to elaborate performances, sometimes involving some heavy audience participation as well.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Thumbnail Screwdriver
2. The Tube Exuding
3. They Live The Life

Side B
1. BBY
2. Yellow Butterfly
3. Too Late
4. Shrieking Finally

The mesmerizing debut LP by Nova Scotia’s Quilting on October 7, 2022. The album is a quietly stunning collection of pastoral ambience dotted with moments of tension that reflects the maritime environment in which it was created, inadvertently paying homage to the light and darkness of rural life.

Co-founded by Holy Fuck’s Brian Borcherdt, the quartet is comprised of a diverse and accomplished collection of musicians who came together when he moved back to his home province in 2019 after a lengthy stay in Toronto.

The shock of settling into a town of 600 people was softened almost immediately by a care package left on Borcherdt’s front porch. It included the curious juxtaposition of homemade preserves and a circuit-bent keyboard. His interest was piqued. As luck would have it, his new neighbour happened to be renowned folk guitarist Kim Barlow.

“Kim was in the process of organizing an improvisation series featuring over a dozen Nova Scotia-based musicians. The series struggled under lockdown restrictions, and on the second attempt only the four of us showed up.” Borcherdt recalls. “We didn't really know each other that well, were a bit shy and played very quietly. However, we really enjoyed how spacious our jam was.”

One week after their initial jam, Borcherdt was invited to perform a solo set at a Halifax-based experimental festival called Open Waters. He instead volunteered the same lineup: himself, Barlow, distinguished Isle Of Skye harpist (and Berklee professor) Mairi Chaimbeul, and Sahara Nasr, a noted songwriter and player of the rare Indian Sarangi. It wasn’t long before they began recording and soon realized a name was necessary to make the project official.

“When we get together to play music, it's our 'poker night'. That led us to think of other community or 'grown-up' gatherings, similar or antiquated... like barnraising bees, quilting bees.” Explains Borcherdt. “We were sort of quilting: four corners of fabric, texture, sewing threads, telling a story, all making one complete piece while drinking a few beers. We could've also called it ‘Therapy’.”

While providing a necessary distraction from early-COVID life, Quilting also offered a chance to improvise within a uniquely ambient soundspace. This was a welcome change for some of the members, including Borcherdt, who was used to creating music with decidedly more volume.

“Space is welcome. Writing in Quilting is a spontaneous and thoughtful process, very synesthetic and, of course, collaborative. I've only really gotten to explore space and silence with solo music.” He reflects. “With my other bands, even when spontaneous and improvised, the result is dense and cathartic, expressive through pulse and rhythm and volume. With Quilting we get to drift, no beats, no safety net. Every note counts. Yet rather than being stressed or scrutinized under a microscope we all have fun and daydream a bit.”

Sonics aside, Quilting has also given all four members the chance to experiment with the boundaries created by headquartering in a remote area not commonly associated with the avant-garde music community.

“Nova Scotia, unlike other provinces, has basically one city, one place where musicians congregate, play shows and hang out. Anything happening outside of Halifax can be considered an experiment, a test to see anything can get off the ground.” Borcherdt explains. “ In Toronto there's already an infrastructure, whether you play the same venues or build your own new thing- there's an audience, there are friends and like-minded individuals. It's healthier. Here we have to take what we get. But the good news is that it's kind of a blank slate.”

The LP, which features hand-calligraphed cover art from Upstate New York-based artist and musician Sarah Le Puerta, features five songs all recorded live off-the-floor in a single live performance. Moods range from reflective to unsettled, and even at its loudest parts a sense of intimacy persists.

“This album feels like a complete picture, a snapshot of one fun night.” He states. “That seems to me to be a perfect introduction. The listener gets to “attend” the concert, which is an amazing way to discover new music.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: I’m obsessed with Nova Scotia. I think I’ll move there one day. And knowing there’s a growing community of isolated musicians making maritime ambience like this only entices me further. I guess it’s like the Highlands without the whiskey… oh wait. :P

TRACK LISTING

Streaming
Tambora
Maisie Macleod
Crescent Moon
April 10 First

Plaza is the third album by Quilt; a name implying a meeting place, a crossroads, a coming together. In the space of ten songs, Plaza clarifies Quilt’s musical stance of a congregation, mixing folk, pop-psych, and wanderlust into a common ground where each form takes on the characteristics of one another to create something wholly satisfying, styles and sentiments hand in hand, the purest and sharpest distillation of Quilt’s group aesthetic to date.

On Plaza, Quilt has pivoted their sound on a new foothold. The guitars shimmer, squawk, warble, swell, and tense up. The organs and synths flow in the background as mood-enhancers. The drums dig in a little deeper. We hear flutes and harps, a string quartet, grand pianos and Casios, feedback and distorted violas. Among all these sounds the group’s shared and solo vocals showcase some of the strongest lyrics and hooks the band has made to date.

Plaza showcases a tighter, more concise version of Quilt, particularly as the members have learned to encourage each other’s strengths and allow each other to confidently exist as distinct voices cooperating within a very intimate creative space; their songcraft has tightened up, their singing now crystal clear, vis á vis personal experiences of loss, frustration and isolation.

TRACK LISTING

1: Passersby
2: Roller
3: Searching For
4: O’Connor's Barn
5: Eliot St.
6: Hissing My Plea
7: Something There
8: Padova
9: Your Island
10: Own Ways

The record is largely sung in Scots language, one of Scotland’s three official languages along with Gaelic and English. “Scots gives me a way of expressing myself which is connected directly with the landscapes I love. It brings the songs alive and it is a fascinating language. The name of the record is in Scots - Forefowk means the people who came before, or ancestors. When we say ‘mind me,’ we can mean a few things- remind, remember, watch over or care for me. The record explores how tradition needs to be constantly reconnected with, built upon, looked after, and shared.”

Quinie sings with a style inspired by Scottish Traveller singers. “I began singing unaccompanied Scots Song in 2015 after hearing Scots Traveller singer Sheila Stewart on the radio. Initially I felt like I shouldn't sing these songs because I'm not a Traveller, and I saw people around me doing that in a way that made me uncomfortable. But on the other hand this music made sense to me and I felt driven to learn. Over the years I have met Traveller friends who taught me that settled people sharing these songs could contribute to raising awareness. Scottish Travellers are marginalised and discriminated against in modern Scotland, despite being custodians of so many of our important traditions. So I started to perform them and tell this story. From there I built on my repertoire and started writing my own songs”.

To develop this record, Quinie travelled across Argyll with her horse. They went on a pilgrimage of sorts through the ancient landscapes of the West of Scotland to explore the interconnected relationships between people, ancestors, animals, and place. The album’s vinyl release is accompanied by a book and film, documenting this unusual research process.

Forefowk, Mind Me was recorded in August 2024 at The Big Shed in Highland Perthshire with support from Creative Scotland. Quinie is accompanied by an ensemble of musicians: Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh (viola), Oliver Pitt (duduk, bouzouki, percussion), Harry Górski-Brown (small pipes, violin), and Stevie Jones (double bass, recording, and mixing). Each of these artists brings their own distinctive voice, bridging contemporary experimental practice with worlds of traditional and early music.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
01. Col My Love
02. Bonnie Udny
03. Macaphee Turn The Cattle
04. Sae Slight A Thing
05. Auld Horse
06. Generations Of Change

SIDE B
07. Health, Wealth A Yer Days
08. The Seasons
09. Cam A Ye Fair
10. Sallow Buckthorn
11. Craigie Hill

“We should try again to talk,” Frances Quinlan writes. It not just a lyric—it’s a suggestion, a warning, a plea, a wish. This request is woven throughout Likewise, her forthcoming solo album, amidst dramatically shifting motifs. Some are jubilant, some are dreamy and abstract, and a few are sinister, but within each dark void that Quinlan explores, there is a light peering back at her.

Frances Quinlan has built an identity for herself over the past decade as the lead songwriter and front-woman of the Philadelphia-based band Hop Along, and her distinct voice is among the most recognizable and inimitable in music. While the band began as Quinlan's solo project (originally titled Hop Along, Queen Ansleis), Likewise (out January 31st on Saddle Creek) is Quinlan's debut under her own name. To make the record, she enlisted the virtuosic skills of her bandmate Joe Reinhart, and together they produced the album at his studio, The Headroom, recording in stints over the course of a year.

With a renewed openness to explore different sounds, Quinlan supplements her typical guitar-based instrumentation with synthesizers, digital beats, harps, strings, and a wide variety of keyboards. The shifting and exploratory nature of these musical arrangements allow her lyrics and vocals—which have always been at the forefront of her music—to reach emotional depths like never before. Her vocal tones beckon a kaleidoscopic range of emotions across all nine songs on the album, from soft and ruminative to enraged and commanding; from conveying powerful messages to highlighting small, yet poignant, moments.

Quinlan is a voyaging songwriter. Throughout Likewise, she confronts what confounds her in the hopes that she will come out on the other side with a better sense of what it is to be human. She presents listeners with a complicated, albeit spirited vision of what it could mean to truly engage with another person, to give a small piece of oneself over to someone else without expectation. Although such is likely to be a lifelong effort, these songs prove evident that light can still permeate from unsettling depths.

TRACK LISTING

1. Piltdown Man
2. Your Reply
3. Rare Thing
4. Detroit Lake
5. A Secret
6. Went To LA
7. Lean
8. Now That I'm Back
9. Carry The Zero

'Honky Tonk Medusa' is Donovan Quinn’s first album that he’s both recorded and produced since the Skygreen Leopards’ adventurous 'Life & Love in Sparrow’s Meadow'. Along with Quinn’s work on vocals, guitar and synth, the album also employs San Francisco musician’s Jason Quever (Papercuts), Michael Tapscott (Odawas), along with his regular rhythm section of Nick Marcantonio and Michael Carreira. Working in reverse order to many current acts, the sound of 'Honky Tonk Medusa' is molded to each individual song; letting the lyrics and spirit of the song dictate the instrumentation and style with the lyrical narrative tying it all together.

The story of the album is one of decaying American cities, Internet age entropy, and equal parts romance and loneliness. In addition to the music the album features artwork by San Francisco artist Joe Roberts and liner notes by Elisa Ambrogio (Magik Markers, 200 Years) & Ben Chasney (Six Organs of Admittance).

'eor', the second album from Breton musician and songwriter QUINQUIS (aka Émilie Quinquis).

The album – which means “anchor” in Breton – takes inspiration from time Émilie spent at sea, leaving her island to go sailing from Brittany to the Faroe Islands, via Ireland and the Scottish Islands. More specifically, it was inspired by the foggy movements she witnessed, far out to sea, that resembled mermaids. While thinking about sailors over the centuries who had also seen what she had seen, she began to imagine how these powerful sirens might appear in contemporary life. Over eight tracks, she weaves stories about mermaids that would like to be sailors, mermaids have fallen in love with mermaids, and mermaids that were cursed for wanting to love like humans, all the time celebrating the enchantment, the power and the mystery of these fantastical creatures, and the role they play, especially in communities with direct links to the sea.

Written, produced and performed by Émilie Quinquis and the celebrated producer Gareth Jones. A card drawn from Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies instructed her to “find a safe area, use it as an anchor” and, after finding her space, she set to work. Ideas emerged acoustically, and were built upon with modular and analogue electronics, creating an immersive and singular world driven by Émilie’s sublime vocals. The album is sung mainly in Breton with two guests singing in their own languages: triple harpist and composer Cerys Hafana sings ‘Blaz an holen’ in Welsh, while labelmate Desire Marea sings ‘Inkanuko’ in Zulu. ‘Inkanuko’ (meaning “desire” in Zulu) opens the album with Émilie’s gossamer voice, before electronics give way to Desire Marea’s tender vocal as the pair deliver surely the first track sung in both Breton and Zulu. Émilie explains that, “…it’s a song about making sure that little flame inside of you is not going to die. Desire was an amazing person to help kick off the idea for the whole album.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Inkanuko (feat. Desire Marea)
2. The Tumbling Point
3. Blaz An Holen
4. Distro
5. Dec'h
6. Morwreg
7. Peñseidi
8. Aet On

“I went back to my roots,” says Émilie Tiersen (née Quinquis). “And I realised how much Breton culture was a part of me.”

Émilie Tiersen has, over the course of two albums and several years, made music as Tiny Feet and is now, with the release of Seim, her debut for Mute, known as QUINQUIS. The name change is symbolic; simultaneously paying homage to her personal and family history by referencing her maiden name, as well as representing a fresh start musically. “It’s been a new start for many things,” Émilie says. “Self-acceptance has been a really big thing for me.”

From forging a deeper connection to her own culture, history and identity, to exploring new musical terrain and becoming a mother, it’s been a period filled with significant change. It was during this time that she began to explore new ideas. “I was on tour with Yann [her husband, Yann Tiersen] and our baby,” she recalls. “During my baby's nap I created a rule for myself: to come up with one new idea in every new city. From the very beginning this was a journey.”

Soon people began to join Émilie on this journey. Characters - some from her own life, others rooted in the history of Breton culture - began to come alive in song ideas. She discovered Ankou, a servant of death in Breton mythology who comes to see you in the year that you die; she explored Seiz Breur, a 1923 Breton art movement founded by a young woman in the very same small village she is from; she tapped into the lives of friends, exploring a rich tapestry of people, places, emotions and stories all tied together by a shared commonplace: Brittany. “I put the stories of those people around mine so that I could have them share this journey with me.”

“It’s been a really rich and nourishing period,” Émilie says. “I've discovered what it is to be a mother. To have a son has answered many questions I had about life and roots, and so this was the first step to a very deep discovery. I am raising my child in the Breton language, so there was this kind of rebooting of the whole system.”

Once these ideas began to mutate into something more musical, she connected with Gareth Jones, celebrated producer who has worked with groups such as Liars, Depeche Mode and Apparat. He initially offered to play some synths but their partnership grew into something more. “The record revealed itself in the back-and-forth Gareth and I had,” she says. “It was really unexpected because Gareth and I are quite the opposite. We are really different on paper but through this album we've shared something unexpected. He’s got a bit of a mentor aura - he was the light to my darkness.”

The result of their work is one that merges sparse electronics, immersive atmospherics, and deft melodies, all of which are carried by Émilie’s tender yet quietly soaring vocals. The opening ‘Adkrog’ (aptly translated as ‘Start Again’) stirs the album to life with soothing yet unpredictable pulsations, as though a new world is awakening and working out its newfound surroundings. “It's about finding the energy in environment and nature,” she explains. “When I was feeling desperate, I sat outside and I prayed for nature to give me some answers. This song is about that - if you just let go then nature gives you an answer.” ‘Setu’, on the other hand, a story about the aforementioned Ankou is driven by scattered beats, floating vocals and considered sonic textures that bubble up from peaceful to potent.

The subtle arrangements across the album are reflective of a philosophy Émilie was exploring. “I'd been reading into wabi-sabi,” she explains. “It's a Japanese way of thinking about finding beauty in imperfections. The idea was to accept my imperfections and find the beauty in simple and small things. Minimalism has impacted the album - to try to find a way to stay humble.”

Collaborations also extend to Ólavur Jákupsson, who sings in Faroese on ‘Run’ (which translates to ‘Hill’), a song about being woken up by a blast of cold wind on top of a hill, which melds woozy tones, plucked strings, engulfing atmospheres and Émilie’s intimate and whispered vocals. On ‘Netra Ken’ the writer and endurance cyclist Emily Chappell features, reading an extract from her book (in Welsh) “Where There’s A Will”, capturing her determination and resilience. Talking about the use of language on the album, she explains, "I think languages are a living way of telling people’s mind and culture, their diversity brings us closer and helps us understand better. That’s why I was happy to have Welsh and Faroese along with Breton in the record… they are somehow cultures that seem close to mine.”

To make it even more unique, Émilie sings throughout in Breton. “Singing in the Breton language made me realise what I was made from,” she says. “Everything was suddenly easier and it gave me more freedom. It's a very special language and so to write interesting lyrics was a process of researching but it was so nourishing to discover new stuff about nature or people thanks to that language.”

Nature is key to the album and lends itself to the title, as well as key themes in individual songs. The album title Seim translates as “sap”. “It's really about when you have low energy,” Tiersen says, “and you need to recollect the sap so that the tree gets green again. The whole album was really about making me green again. The more I recorded music, the more I felt green.”

This sense of rejuvenation, rebirth and a musical awakening coincided with Émilie plunging into her own community, history and culture. “The more I was learning about myself, the more I was discovering the people around me,” she says. “Now I'm on the City Council here on Ushant [the remote Breton island she and her family live on]. The more I go into it, the more involved I am in the Ushant community. I really felt during these past few years that people have been so supportive.”

This feeling of being lifted by the community is reflected in ‘Ôg’ a story about a woman from Ushant whose husband went to work at sea (the oil tanker Betelgeuse) while she was 8 months pregnant. All 52 men died, 51 on board, with the exception of her husband who died trying to make it ashore.” The widows of the 51 men on board came together to help the woman with clothes and other things for the baby. “This story really resonated with me.”

This sense of interconnectedness leads to the album being a multifaceted one. It is deeply personal and introspective yet also collaborative and expansive. It is rooted in both historical and modern stories. It is an album that connects worlds while being entirely its own. “There is something cosmic about it,” says Émilie. “I don't know how to explain that but the way it happened with Gareth, and the way everything just suddenly all came together feels like cosmic harmony.”

It’s also an album that brings to life, in a singular and contemporary way, the lives, stories and people of the Breton culture and its language. “The album was a way for me to tell stories of the people here. I really felt that during the whole process that through stories I could tell the history of Brittany or Ushant. It's an album that is full of ghosts. I'm happy with that. I have a good relationship with ghosts.” 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Seim is a striking collection of swooning electronic anthems, rooted in club music, but tempered into a hazy post-party wooze, all topped with soft French vocals. It's a wonderfully written evocative set of electronic anthems, and perfectly at home on Mute.

TRACK LISTING

1. Adkrog
2. Eñvor
3. Setu
4. Run
5. Mintin
6. Estren
7. Netra Ken
8. Ôg
9. An Divare
10. Te

Following his 2014 'Acid Beth EP' on Young Turks, Josh Quirke drops a new 12" white label on his own Quirke label. The 12" comes with a bonus cassette. We've got THREE copies - fastest finger first, folks!

Italian magic man Walter Del Vecchio aka Quiroga is back on Hell Yeah. After the success of his Acid Dropout EP here last year, this time he offers up a varied package of tasteful and timeless house music with a deep and Balearic twist.

Naples artist Del Vecchio is a Hell Yeah mainstay who has also released a fantastic LP here, Passages, and always takes inspiration from the Mediterranean energy of his hometown whether making late-night jams or house anthems.

The heartfelt 'French Kiss' opens this one with super smooth and classic deep house drums topped with a sweet female vocal and jazzy chord work. It oozes romance while the Baia Club Ambient Version is a blissed-out post-club comedown with soft acid lines, ambient pads, flutes and chords straight from a '90s afterparty.

'Ask Coppede is another breezy and soulful house jam with live-sounding drums and percussion and golden chords that keep the good vibes flowing. Balearic bass gem 'Cala Ventosa' shuts down with gentle cosmic leads and glowing pads drifting through the night sky over supple electro rhythms.

TRACK LISTING

A1. French Kiss
A2. French Kiss (Baia Club Ambient Version)
B1. Ask Coppede
B2. Cala Ventosa

Oyster Cuts, the Merge Records debut of Quivers, finds the Melbourne, Australia–based outfit awash in the kind of emotions people tend to fear losing themselves in. Finding love after grief, the outsized guitar pop of Quivers gleams like the surface of an ocean, beneath which lies a reef that is at turns beautiful and painful, its features alien and sharp enough to wound. Propelled by melodies that at times recall Galaxie 500 and The Pretenders, Quivers make music that is tender and tough, compelling the listener to dive in again and again, each song a new angle on all of your feelings.

Oyster Cuts is sunshine pop with blood in the water. The losses and loves that have informed Quivers’ music since their inception the sudden loss of a brother in the cracked optimism of We’ll Go Riding on the Hearses (2018) and the life in and after grief of Golden Doubt (2021) ripple into Oyster Cuts, which is committed to moving forward while accepting that some feelings, like grief, are a cycle. Crucially, Quivers committed to moving forward with each other. Paring away the choir and strings of Golden Doubt, Oyster Cuts is a showcase for what’s still possible when four people Sam Nicholson (guitars), Bella Quinlan (bass), Michael Panton (guitars), and Holly Thomas (drums) make music together.

In utilizing tape loops which open and close Oyster Cuts, circling the album like sharks Quivers place emphasis on repetition, deploying patterned riffs and navigating circular thoughts until they swell to their breaking point. Their dreamy strain of sun-faded jangle pop is leaner and more muscular as a result, their keenly observed palette darkened with blushes of The Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen, and The Durutti Column.

Within this framework, Quivers break new ground as a band, adding dimension to their hallmark group vocals by having Quinlan take lead on four songs, homing in on the interwoven guitars of Nicholson and Panton, and driving it all home on the purposeful groove of Quinlan and Thomas. Quivers’ songs feel like long-running conversations between friends in the sense that a conversation is both an act of speech and a space people hold for each other. The first two tracks on Oyster Cuts, “Never Be Lonely” and “Pink Smoke,” take those private universes composed of shared language, memories, snatches of songs, and the light of a cell phone’s screen mid-doomscroll and turn them into a beacon, searching lyrics set ablaze by massive hooks.

“All I ever wanted was a true friend / All I wanted was a friend with benefits / All I ever wanted was transcendence,” sing Quinlan and Thomas at the outset of the album, and Oyster Cuts spools out into the horizon from there. The four members of Quivers are not only given to exploring this space but to filling as much of it with themselves as possible, locking in on each other no matter how hazy and chaotic matters of the heart can get. Every moment of catharsis Quivers conjure from the ether is an invitation to join them. Listening to them soar where others would ruminate, their invitation is impossible to resist.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Never Be Lonely
2. Pink Smoke
3. More Lost
4. Apparition
5. Grief Has Feathers
SIDE B
6. Oyster Cuts
7. Screensaver
8. If Only
9. Fake Flowers
10. Reckless

Cut from material recorded in April 2021 at Fish Factory studios in London, the album’s title Abbreviations nods to the editing and post-production processes that trimmed the original recordings into seven succinct and intricate tracks. Making space for collaborators Ernesto Marichales (percussion), Miryam Solomon (vocals) and Valeria Pozzo (Violin, viola), it builds on the critically-acclaimed success of Sound & Reason (supported by Gilles Peterson and Mary Anne Hobbs) to bring out different shades of the group’s shape-shifting sound.

‘Elevator Company’ condenses twenty-minutes of jamming around Tal Janes’ hypnotic guitar line into a low-lit lounge groove that subverts the tropes of elevator music associated with some forms of easy listening jazz. Featuring Solomon’s wordless vocals, the piece blurs the lines between ambient and improvised music, creating a warm and intimate atmosphere reminiscent of classic RnB recordings.

On a different tip, ‘The Spin’ is a trance-like freak-out drawing on the final reserves of energy at the tail end of two days of solid recording. Reflecting guitarist Janes’ idea that "music really starts happening after a while, once you feel like you have nothing left to offer," the hypnotic rhythm section sets the tone for an fraught and frazzled guitar solo that seems to dissolve the very edges of time and space in the process.

An album that speaks to Qwalia’s endless capacity for self-renewal and uninhibited expression, Abbreviations takes its cue from the group’s name to communicate something ineffable about the nature of music, rhythm and sound that must be experienced to be truly understood.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Boldly inventive, wading loosely in Jazz waters, but with pieces that are both distorted and arrhythmic as well as divine, solful stasis. The stunning 'Elevator Company' reminds me straight away of Khruangbin while pieces like 'Majolica' could be a 70's prog band at their most lysergically wild.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Omega
A2. Elevator Company
A3. Majolica
A4. For Future Reference
B1. Valeria
B2. The Spin
B3. Isiah Moon