Bella Union are thrilled to release the long-awaited debut solo album Albion by Harp, the adopted name of Tim Smith, formerly the singer and principal songwriter of Texan legends Midlake, who is joined by his wife, Kathi Zung.

The road to Albion might have been long and winding, and bumpy to boot, but the music Harp has created is steeped in sublime melody, mood, drama and detail, its ten songs and two mood-matching instrumentals framed by a mesh of acoustic/electric guitars, soft shades of keyboards and Smith’s gorgeous voice; in other words, the quintessence of what drew people in the first place to his work with Midlake.

But Albion has starker, darker hues than Smith is typically renowned for, which lifts Albion to new heights in his canon; likewise, the level of personal revelation. These are songs about the human condition, from love - both lost and found – to faith, anxiety to joy, fear to acceptance, all couched in a highly distinct poetic language.

Since leaving Midlake, Smith has performed just once, with Lost Horizons (at London’s Festival Hall in 2018), the collective co-founded by Bella Union boss (and former Cocteau Twin) Simon Raymonde, after Smith had contributed vocals and lyrics to “She Led Me Away” for the collective’s 2017 debut Ojalá. Smith subsequently went on to contribute vocals and lyrics for the track “Grey Tower” on Lost Horizons’ second album, In Quiet Moments. Those were all-too-rare sightings of Smith, but Albion’s day has come, and in a manner of speaking, in many aspects of his life, Smith has finally come home.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Tim Smith, genius song writer, from Midlake's golden, 'Van Occupanther' period FINALLY returns. It's been 12 long years but he's delivered an absolute classic. Apparently he became smitten with The Cure's 'Faith' and all things UK alt 80s, and so has combined those epic, lush production sensibilities with his own sometimes folk, sometimes Medieval and sometimes Celtic melodies. Add a touch of Roy Harper and echoes of early 70's folk/prog,(only in feel though, these are still proper "pop" songs) and the result is a deep, doomy but beautiful, melancholy, magical, masterpiece.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Pleasant Grey
2. I Am The Seed
3. A Fountain
4. Daughters Of Albion
5. Chrystals
6. Country Cathedral Drive
7. Shining Spires
8. Silver Wings
9. Seven Long Suns
10. Moon
11. Throne Of Amber
12. Herstmonceux

THIS IS A BLACK FRIDAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 24TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8AM ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 25TH).

Court and Spark is Joni Mitchell's most commercially successful album of her career. This LP features the never-before-heard demos from the iconic album, including "Help Me" and "Raised On Robbery".

TRACK LISTING

1. Joni Mitchell - Piano Suite: Down To You / Court And Spark / Car On A Hill / Down To You (Court And Spark Demo) (Sound Recording)
2. Joni Mitchell - People's Parties (Court And Spark Demo) (Sound Recording)
3. Joni Mitchell - Help Me (Court And Spark Demo) (Sound Recording)
4. Joni Mitchell - Just Like This Train (Court And Spark Demo) (Sound Recording)
5. Joni Mitchell – Raised On Robbery (Court And Spark Demo) (Sound Recording)
6. Joni Mitchell – Trouble Child (Sound Recording)

THIS IS A BLACK FRIDAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 24TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8AM ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 25TH).


Double LP pressed on special limited edition ‘Smash Color’ wax. Non-Returnable. Featuring new cover art by renowned British artist Sophy Hollington. Booklet with track–by–track notes by Lydia Hyslop.

For more than 20 years, acclaimed reissue label Light in the Attic Records has shined a spotlight on some of music’s most unique — and often forgotten — voices. But reviving these long-out-of-print recordings is only half of the process. “We believe that an essential component of archival work, aside from simply honoring the music, is to seek ways in which to bring fresh perspectives, context, and reverence to the original artists and their work,” says LITAfounder, Matt Sullivan. Thus, LITA’s acclaimed cover series was born, in which contemporary acts pay homage to their favorite LITA artists and songs. Spanning more than a decade, 20 of these inspired cover songs will be available together for the very first time, exclusively for Black Friday (November 24) on the 2xLP Light in the Attic & Friends.

From Charles Bradley & The Menahan Street Band covering Detroit singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez and Mac DeMarco performing a song by Japanese icon Haruomi Hosono, to Iggy Pop & Zig Zags honoring funk queen Betty Davis, and Ethan & Maya Hawke covering country great Willie Nelson, these performances bridge the gap between generations, languages, and musical traditions.

TRACK LISTING

1. Charles Bradley & The Menahan Street Band - I'll Slip Away,
2. Sweet Tea - After Laughter (Comes Tears),
3. Vashti Bunyan & Devendra Banhart - How Could You Let Me Go
4. Barbara Lynn - We'll Understand
5. BADBADNOTGOOD Feat. Jonah Yano - Key To Love Is Understanding
6. Iggy Pop & Zig Zags - If I'm In Luck I Might Get Picked Up
7. Mozart Estate - Low Life
8. Leslie Winer & Maxwell Sterling - Once I Was
9. Ethan & Maya Hawke - We Don't Run
10. Gold Leaves - Won't You Tell Your Dreams
11. Swamp Dogg, John C. Reilly, Jenny Lewis & Tim Heidecker - The Kneeling Drunkard's Plea
12. Silas Short - You've Become A Habit
13. Mac DeMarco - Honey Moon
14. Cameron Bethany - Send It On
15. Roedelius - Le Chant Des Fauves
16. Roedelius - Same Old Man
17. Angel Olsen - Something On Your Mind
18. Mary Lattimore - Blink
19. Acetone - Plain As Your Eyes Can See
20. Steve Gunn & Bridget St. John - Rabbit Hills

Emm Gryner is an award winning singer, songwriter, actor and best-selling author. Emm sang and played keyboards in David Bowie's band, and appears on numerous recordings, including his landmark 1999 SNL appearance, Bowie at The Beeb and Toy. Bowie's acclaimed Glastonbury 2000 documents her performance in front of more than 100,000 fans at Worthy Farm. With Trapper she shared arena stages with Def Leppard, and she also helped bring the first music video recorded in outer space to the world.

Detroit radio formed the soundtrack of Emm's life and career and her brand new record is a celebration of that music. From Motown,jazz and pop, to Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac and the Doobies, Business & Pleasure is infused with the sunshine soul and stellar playing of the late 70s and early 80s. These songs, produced by Fred Mollin, written with poet Michael Holmes, and recorded with drummer Shannon Forrest (Toto), keyboardist Pat Coil (Michael McDonald), bassist Larry Paxton (Alison Krauss), and guitarists Tom Bukovac (Taylor Swift) and Pat Buchanan (Hall & Oates, Dolly Parton), embody a take on yacht rock that sails deep into the 2020s and introduce the world to a bold new character: a powerful woman whose passion, presence, conviction, humor and grace serves to unite the world in

music, joy and love, once again.

TRACK LISTING

1. Loose Wig
2. Jack
3. Valencia
4. Summertime
5. The Chance
6. Queen
7. The Second Coming
8. Strangers And Saints
9. Burn The Boats
10. Don't Give In
11. Real Love

Album #5 from Ledfoot. It is a true pleasure to present ‘Black Valley’, the follow up to ‘White Crow’ which was awarded the Spellemann (Norwegian Grammy) for best blues album in 2019. On his 5th album, Ledfoot invites us to a slightly different musical landscape. The signature sound of Ledfoot is still here of course, but ‘Black Valley’ takes a step aside from the typical gothic blues sound of Ledfoot, with a stronger singer/songwriter attitude and with lyrics and a sound closer to the murder ballad tradition. The lyrics are happy, positive and life embracing… no, just kidding… in solid Ledfoot tradition these brilliant lyrics explore the darker side of the mind. From ‘Broken eyes’: “Let's not talk about the future I don’t need it fucking with my mind I´m not chasing after rainbows I’m colorblind” As always with his 12 string guitar fitted with extremely heavy strings, played with a brass slide and steel finger picks, kicking his stomp box! Due to the ongoing pandemic there are no scheduled concerts, but Ledfoot plans to tour Europe as soon as restrictions are lifted.

TRACK LISTING

1. Black Valley
2. Take Away The Hurt
3. Without Love
4. Broken Eyes
5. Poor Mans Lullaby
6. Angel Town
7. Crossed My Heart
8. This I Know
9. Falling Down 10. Slip Away

This book marks the first time Johnny Cash's 60 years of songwriting have been collected anywhere. Cash is one of the most beloved and influential country-music stars of all time, having composed more than 600 songs and perhaps best known for blending country, rock, blues, and gospel in his music, ushering in the countrypolitan and Outlaw country movements.

An essential collectible that sheds new light on Cash's life and work, this oversize and sumptuously designed book includes rare and never-before-seen visual material alongside stories and commentary from Cash's son, John Carter Cash, Mark Stielper, Cash and Carter family historian, and others. Released the year of the twentieth anniversary of the legendary musician's passing, it will be a landmark moment in music publishing.

This publication marks the first time the Cash Estate will open its archive to help lovers of his music understand his timeless songs in a new light, and to share the stories behind their creation. Public Historian Dr. Brian Dempsey will oversee the visual contributions.

DELUXE LIMITED COLLECTOR'S EDITION: Enclosed in a protective slipcase debossed with foil, including several frameable reproductions of rare memorabilia:
- A never-before-published photograph of Johnny Cash performing at a private event in Knoxville, TN, in April, 1975
- A reproduction of the Cash coat of arms, hand-drawn and lettered by Cash, with reflections on its meaning
- A double-sided reproduction of Cash's handwritten lyrics for "Flesh and Blood" with ornamental drawings and a special note to June Carter
- An access code to listen to never-before-released audio comments by Cash.

This book marks the first time Johnny Cash's 60 years of songwriting have been collected anywhere. Cash is one of the most beloved and influential country-music stars of all time, having composed more than 600 songs and perhaps best known for blending country, rock, blues, and gospel in his music, ushering in the countrypolitan and Outlaw country movements.

An essential collectible that sheds new light on Cash's life and work, this oversize and sumptuously designed book includes rare and never-before-seen visual material alongside stories and commentary from Cash's son, John Carter Cash, Mark Stielper, Cash and Carter family historian, and others. Released the year of the twentieth anniversary of the legendary musician's passing, it will be a landmark moment in music publishing.

This publication marks the first time the Cash Estate will open its archive to help lovers of his music understand his timeless songs in a new light, and to share the stories behind their creation. Public Historian Dr. Brian Dempsey will oversee the visual contributions.

Javier Jiménez Rolo surprises with Saint Malo, a project that explores the intersections of neoclassicism, folk, ambient and electronic textures.

That Saint-Malo is a town in Brittany is the least of it. Even the fact that it exists is unimportant. Javier has never been there. Similarly, his album takes us to remote or not so remote places without moving from where we are. Javier composed these twelve songs between 2019 and 2021 from his room: "One of the problems with recording at home rather than in a studio is that when you move, your recording space changes too. In the case of this album, I was involved in three moves during its whole process. Trying to see the positive side of this situation, I realised that, as well as a collection of songs, it was a testimonial to the different places where I had lived during those years and their respective views: 'Promenade' is an imagined walk from an interior flat; 'Picture In A Frame' is a sunny afternoon in a park in Ciudad Lineal, Madrid, and 'Bells Of Nowhere' is a stroll through the neighbourhood that was once my grandparents' and is now mine."

It's an eminently evocative album but also powerfully narrative, which moves through different emotional states. Along the way, references as heterogeneous as Javier's own tastes come up. From the inevitable Arvo Pärt, Max Richter and Steve Reich to the more unsuspected Thom Yorke, Burial, Caribou, Vulfpeck or even Dua Lipa. Stéphane Grappelli, Andrew Bird, Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds or Rene Aubry are other names Javier mentions when he talks about something similar to influences.

The journey, during which the songs miraculously fit with magical precision to the landscapes we are travelling through, begins with the promising 'Beware Of The Dogs' and 'Maltravieso'. It is followed by the obsessive arpeggios of 'Le Havre' that give way to the luminous 'Fields Of Gold', the emotion of 'Cais do Sodré' and the passionate 'Le pont roulant', reminiscent of a restrained Alexandre Desplat. Along the way, dogs will bark, rain will fall on the 'Promenade' and the sun will come out with the perfectly playful 'Dolce Far Niente' ("a mix between elevator music and a song announcing the arrival of summer" according to Javier) in which echoes of Isao Tomita and Raymond Scott resound.

The result of this captivating, unexpected and suggestive mixture is Saint Malo, Javier Jiménez's first album and the empirical demonstration that he does not have, despite his classical training, any red lines. "I've always flirted with jazz, with swing... Then I moved on to messing around with loops, to doing more ambient and experimental things. I also had my folkie phase with the klezmer group Barrunto Bellota Band..."

In Saint Malo the melodies grow, become small, return and intertwine with loops and improbable aromas, to form an album that describes a journey through emotions. From melancholy to joy and the surprise of first discoveries.

TRACK LISTING

1. Beware Of The Dogs
2. Maltravieso
3. Le Havre
4. Fields Of Gold
5. Cais Do Sodré
6. Long Chemin
7. Picture In A Frame
8. Sorrento
9. Dolce Far Niente
10. Le Pont Roulant
11. Promenade
12. Bells Of Nowhere

The Fall 2023 issue is jam-packed! Cover boy HARRY SMITH shines thanks to a cheeky, never-before published photo by Allen Ginsberg. We celebrate the life and work of the self-described “ethnopharmacologist” just in time for the release of John Szwed’s illuminating biography and Smith’s first one-person art exhibition, at the Whitney, with three killer, well-illustrated features (on his Anthology of American Folk Music, an interview by Marc Masters with Szwed, and a terrific dive into Smith’s relationship with fellow visual artist and filmmaker Jordan Belson by Raymond Foye). Also in this issue: Andy Beta on the reissue of a forgotten LOU REED record. Excerpts from two revelatory works—ANDY ZAX’s Extinctophonics, and CHRISTINA WARD’s Holy Food. Kathy Lindenmayer witnesses a show by BOYGENIUS. An archival interview with fabric arts pioneer and Bauhaus OG, ANNI ALBERS. An illustrated ADVANCE BASE tour diary by Owen Ashworth. Tamara Palmer considers the oddball career arc of ORBITAL. v Andy Beta goes deep on TETSU INOUE. Nate Lippens goes off on RENE RICARD and other obsessions. And Michelle Dove on CAT POWER’s sense of humor! Plus illustrations throughout by MARLY BEYER; and columns by LUCY SANTE, MIMI LIPSON, DWIGHT PAVLOVIC, and editor MIKE McGONIGAL; tributes to SIXTO RODRIGUEZ, ESP SUMMER, and PEE-WEE HERMAN; and the triumphant return of the UNSTAPLED column, with reproductions of a contemporary basketball fanzine.

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams’ classic 1998 album 'Car Wheels On A Gravel Road' is now on vinyl for the first time. The album won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album and features the songs 'Can’t Let Go' and 'Car Wheels on a Gravel Road'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Right In Time
2. Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
3. 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
4. Drunken Angel
5. Concrete And Barbed Wire
6. Lake Charles
7. Can't Let Go
8. I Lost It
9. Metal Firecracker
10. Greenville
11. Still I Long For Your Kiss
12. Joy
13. Jackson

LITTLE RICHARD: I AM EVERYTHING tells the story of the Black queer origins of rock n’ roll, exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. The soundtrack of the award-winning documentary includes timeless hits from Little Richard like “Tutti Frutti”, “Rip It Up”, and “Long Tall Sally”, plus two covers from Valerie June and Cory Henry, and a piece from the film’s original score, composed by Tamar-Kali Brown.

TRACK LISTING

Good Golly, Miss Molly – Little Richard
Strange Things Happening Every Day – Valerie June
Baby (demo) – Little Richard
I’m Just A Lonely Guy (all Alone) – Little Richard
Tutti Frutti – Little Richard And His Band
Long Tall Sally – Little Richard And His Band
Lucille – Little Richard And His Band
Bama Lama Bama Loo – Little Richard
Rip It Up – Little Richard And His Band
Ready Teddy – Little Richard And His Band
The Girl Can’t Help It – Little Richard And His Band
Send Me Some Lovin’ – Little Richard And His Band
Tutti Frutti – Cory Henry
Legacy – Tamar-kali Brown