Wally Badarou is a synth pioneer and musical polymath. But rarely does he sing over his sumptuous tracks. The 6 songs that comprise new record 'Simple Things' finally realise Wally's vision for select backing tracks from his beloved 'Colors Of Silence'.

The tracks were originally developed back in 2001 for the release of the original CD; here, Wally has “simply" added overdubs and vocals to their mastered mixes with some discerning edits.

Simply put, 'Simple Things' is another slice of simply stunning Wally Badarou genius.

TRACK LISTING

1. It Couldn't Be You
2. You Can't Hide Always
3. We'll Make It Again
4. Walk Straight Ahead
5. Painting My Life Blue
6. Just Two Lovers 

Canadian Jazz group BADBADNOTGOOD unite with Swedish electronic band Little Dragon for their beautiful and melancholic single, Tried.The single follows a myriad of successful collaborations from BADBADNOTGOOD with Kendrick Lamar, Kali Uchis, Snoop Dogg, Thundercat, Kaytranada, Charlotte Day Wilson and Sam Herring (Future Islands) and Little Dragon’s 2018 “Lover Chanting” EP.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: BADBADNOTGOOD's new collaboration with Little Dragon demonstrates their mellow side of beautifully slowed-down jazz rhythm, matched with the sweet vocals of Little Dragon is a heavenly retreat for the ears.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Tried
B1. Tried (Instrumental)

At the start of 2024 BADBADNOTGOOD were brimming with new creative energy. Having just come off a run of one-off international tour dates and a series of sessions for projects with artists Daniel Cesar, Charlotte Day Wilson, reggie, Baby Rose, and Turnstile, the Canadian-trio of Al Sow, Chester Hansen and Leland Whitty were eager to get back into the studio to simply create. The trio called on some of their closest friends and collaborators, BADBADNOTGOOD touring member Felix Fox-Pappas (keys) and a few key-players in the Toronto jazz scene including Kaelin Murphy (trumpet), Juan Carlos Medrano (percussion) and LA musician Tyler Lott (guitar), for an intensive and productive one-week of recording at Valentine Studios in Los Angeles in February 2024. The result of those sessions is the Mid Spiral series, originally released as 3 parts – Chaos, Order and Growth – digitally earlier this year and now collected altogether on a double LP and CD.

The 'Mid Spiral' suites see BADBADNOTGOOD return to their roots of instrumental jazz while once again pushing the boundaries of how they cross pollinate genres, incorporating their love of hip-hop, neo-soul, psychedelic, funk and more. For the sessions, the trio incorporated additional musicians to add more voices of instrumentation, resulting in a deeply collaborative and expansive new sound. As the trio sifted through the weeks’ worth of material, it was clear that three distinct moods emerged, a deeper reflection of where the musicians are within their own personal lives, along with the state of the wider world: Chaos, Order and Growth.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'Mid Spiral' sees the famously chill trio perfectly performing their usual brand of jazzy lounge and swooning instrumental funk, but this time sees a broader range of musical influences enter the fray. Airy 60's tropicalia, woozy surf rock and crisp percussive improvisations accent their usual, pretty fare.

TRACK LISTING

1. Eyes On Me
2. Take Me With You
3. Weird & Wonderful
4. Mid Spiral
5. Last Laugh
6. Your Soul & Mine
7. Playgroup
8. Juan's World
9. Taco Taco
10. Sétima Regra
11. Sunday Afternoon's Dream
12. Rewind Your Mind
13. First Love
14. Audacia
15. Celestial Hands
16. Ways Of Seeing
17. White Light

BADBADNOTGOOD return with their highly anticipated album, "Talk Memory", the sixth full length excursion from this Canadian trio if you count their collaboration with Ghostface Killah amongst their discography. Collaborators include legendary composer Arthur Verocai and contemporary icons such as Terrace Martin, Karriem Riggins and Laraaji.

It's high octane, ambitious and noisy, modern jazz set firmly in present times and holding no punches with its delivery. The boys can play, make no mistake, effortlessly drifting from languid passages to all-out throttle. Considering there's only three of them, it's a full and realized sound; slightly gritty but sophisticated in its execution; with each musician challenging the next to out-better themselves. As the songs swirl into a mighty cresendo you can almost picture them trying to compete with each for dexterity and flair... I'm sure they'd be an amazing prospect live.

Favourite moment for me is the opener of disc two, "Love Proceeding", featuring Arthur Verocia, which glides in on optimistic and cinematic sax before erupting into an explosion of augmented 7s and frenzied drums; the ultimate example of jazz's fusion of tension and release; a formular that's executed with aplomb throughout the album.

Advanced and highly accomplished, "Talk Memory" finds these bastions of modern jazz in exquisite form. Recommended. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: BadBadNotGood return for their first LP for XL Recordings, with their trademark enthusiastic jazz fusion sound in full force, bolstered with a number of huge music industry names. It's yet another groundbreaking juxtaposition of loungey downbeat jazz and rhythmic hip-hop, both innovative and warmingly familiar.

TRACK LISTING

1. Signal From The Noise
2. Unfolding (Momentum 73) Featuring Laraajii
3. City Of Mirrors Featuring Arthur Verocai
4. Beside April Featuring Karriem Riggins, Arthur Verocai
5. Love Proceeding Featuring Arthur Verocai
6. Open Channels (physical Only)
7. Timid, Intimidating
8. Beside April (Reprise) Featuring Arthur Verocai
9. Talk Meaning Featuring Arthur Verocai, Terrace Martin And Brandee Younger

Festive re-working of this classic football anthem, in time for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, which features England & Wales amongst others. 

Devils Ghosts and Firearms is Mike Badger’s first studio album in almost a decade. The album reflects Mike’s love of homespun & RnR roots music; Americana, Rockabilly, Pop and Country Blues, created with his raw DIY Punk ethos. Feat. guest performances from members of Lightning Seeds, The Christians, Furious, The La’s, The Shakers, Nashville’s Barflies, Mojave Collective, Jazzophonists, and Seprona.

RIYL: Alt-Country, Michael Head, Jay Farrar, John Martyn, Steve Earle, Chuck Prophet.

TRACK LISTING

(A1) Ghost In This Machine
(A2) Growing Older So Gracefully
(A3) Wolfman
(A4) Shoot Me In The Head (If I Ever Become One Of Them)
(A5) Beach Buggies On The Moon!
(A6) How The Hell It Come To This?
(A7) Sunset On Levant
(B8) Keep ‘Em Busy (So They Don’t Look Up)
(B9) Dark Side Of The Mountain
(B10) Sci Fi Hot Rod Messiah
(B11) Cudda Wudda Shudda
(B12) Half Bottle O’ Whisky
(B13) Who Am I Now?
(B14) Devils Ghosts And Firearms

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of his seminal, magical, Mercury-prize winning debut, Badly Drawn Boy (aka Damon Gough) releases a new deluxe version of the album, including bonus unheard tracks (on the double CD version) and new artwork.

Released in May 2000 to widespread acclaim, ‘The Hour Of Bewilderbeast’ beat other shortlisted nominees including Coldplay, Doves, Leftfield and Richard Ashcroft to that year’s Mercury Music Prize. Like all great debuts, it captured the zeitgeist of the moment, managing that rare feat of sounding both completely of its time, and utterly timeless. The album went platinum and Damon was then asked to write the soundtrack the film of Nick Hornby’s book ‘About A Boy’, which became a huge hit. He went on to release eight studio albums over 12 years, before taking a break over the last couple of years and now he’s back with a fresh focus.

It’s an album that shouldn’t really work on paper, a bewildering assortment of leftfield folk ditties, poetic shanties, experimental passages and nocturnal piano ballads, some recorded in bedrooms, some in studios, with a myriad of different oddball production techniques, and numerous personnel playing most instruments known to man, and several not. However, underpinned by the genius songwriting of Damon Gough and his intuitive ear for melody, it worked beautifully, and charmed a generation of music critics and music lovers. Damon arrived fully formed yet badly drawn, an overnight success which had taken years, simultaneously a little shambolic and in possession of grand vision, somehow both cocksure and yet self-doubting, all of which only endured him to a public growing tired of the over-polished sheen of late 90s.

Andy Votel has updated his classic artwork, loosely based on Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Vitruvian Man’, for the re-release. “I’m very fond of the cover,” says Damon. “It sums up the time as much as the music does. The gatefold vinyl will have the original artwork and when you open it up there’s a new version which reflects everything that’s happened in the last 15 years.”

CAROLINE TRUE RECORDS is thrilled to announce the long-awaited reissue of Henry Badowski’s 1981 debut album ‘Life Is a Grand’.

Regarded as one of the great ‘lost’ albums of that era, and out of print for over 40 years, ‘Life Is a Grand’ has become a word-of-mouth cult classic – a new-wave pop gem adored by those who’ve fallen for its charms and which has so far eluded the algorithm.

Once described as “Syd Barrett produced by Brian Eno”, the album casts Henry Badowski as a singular songwriter with a very English sensibility, whose effervescent songs are full of dreamy wonder and droll humour. That this album has remained untouched since 1981, almost forgotten, has somehow preserved its innocence, and it sparkles with freshness and vitality today.

Always one step removed from the London punk scene where he cut his teeth as a teenage bassist for Chelsea in 1977 before brief stints in The Damned and The Good Missionaries, Henry drew on his love of Roxy Music, Ian Dury and Jethro Tull for his own music. He emerged as a solo artist in 1979 with the double A-side ‘Making Love With My Wife’ and ‘Baby, Sign Here With Me’ for Miles Copeland’s Deptford Fun City label.

Radio 1 got behind ‘Baby, Sign Here With Me’ and so Copeland, enjoying huge success managing The Police, arranged a transfer for Henry to A&M where, try as they might, his run of brilliant singles – ‘Henry’s In Love’, ‘My Face’, ‘This Was Meant to Be’ – fell flat.

Recorded with Wally Brill at Matrix Studios in Bloomsbury, ‘Life Is a Grand’ includes four of the five singles as well as the gentle Lewis Carroll psychedelia of ‘Swimming With the Fish in the Sea’ and ‘Silver Trees’, both laced with swirls of synthesiser. The instrumentals ‘Life Is a Grand’ and ‘Rampant’ close each side with a swagger. Henry wrote all the songs and played most of the instruments, including drum machine and saxophone. His friend and former Chelsea bandmate James Stevenson played guitar, Dave Berk joined on drums and Aleksander Kolkowski added violin.

Released in June 1981 on A&M in the UK and Europe and IRS in the US, the album sank without trace – as did Henry, who gradually moved away from music into a series of other jobs. Some 30 years later, a zip file of the album began to circulate on blogs and forums where fans sang Henry’s praises and wondered how such a gifted musician could just disappear.

And the meaning behind the title? Well, a grand will always make your life easier, says Henry. At the time, in 1980, a thousand quid would go a long way – you could buy a second-hand E-Type Jaguar or a trip to New York on Concorde. Even today, if you’ve got a grand in your pocket, you’re feeling good – life’s alright.

TRACK LISTING

1 My Face
2 Henry’s In Love
3 Swimming With The Fish In The Sea
4 The Inside Out
5 Life Is A Grand
6 Silver Trees
7 This Was Meant To Be
8 Anywhere Else
9 Baby, Sign Here With Me
10 Rampant
11 Making Love With My Wife (CD Bonus Track)

'Mama's Gun' is the second studio album by neo soul singer Erykah Badu, released in 2000. Recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, the album incorporates funk, soul and jazz styles. Covering themes of insecurity, social issues and personal relationships, Badu delivered a highly intimate and personal album that reached Platinum two months after its release. 'Mama's Gun' features substantial contributions from several members of the Soulquarians outfit, of which Badu was a member. It also features guests such as soul singer Betty Wright and trumpeter Roy Hargrove.

The album contains the single "Bag Lady" which, with its colorful, artsy music video, shot to #1 on the R&B charts, and also into the Top 10 on the billboard charts. "Bag Lady" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and for Best R&B Song. Also the song "Didn't Cha Know?" was nominated for Best R&B Song.

Rolling Stone magazine applauded her for taking "chances the way Stevie Wonder or Nina Simone did in their prime" and went on to say "she has taken her art to the next level." Entertainment Weekly called the album a "'70s soul homage featuring live musicians and a smooth-funk sound that wouldn't be out of place on a CTI record."

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Penitentiary Philosophy
2. Didn't Cha Know
3. My Life
4. ... & On

SIDE B
1. Cleva
2. Hey Sugah
3. Booty
4. Kiss Me On My Neck (Hesi)
5. A.D. 2000

SIDE C
1. Orange Moon
2. In Love With You
3. Bag Lady

SIDE D
1. Time's A Wastin
2. Green Eyes

New Amerykah Part One is the fourth studio album by American R&B singer-songwriter Erykah Badu. It was released on February 26, 2008, by Universal Motown. Here we have both formats pressed on coloured vinyl!

A collaboration between Faris Badwan (The Horrors / Cat’s Eyes) & renowned guitarist John Coxon (Spring Heel Jack / Spiritualized / Treader), it is the first release of an ongoing collaborative series between Faris and other artists, details of which will be subsequently announced. Badwan & Coxon met some years ago when Faris was looking for producers to work with on his solo material and their working relationship evolved beyond the existing songs into something more improvisational and instinctive.

As Faris explains: The new songs we ended up working on were largely spontaneous and cut together from early takes with minimal overdubbing. The lyrics were improvised and the focus was placed more on creating atmosphere and keeping things fairly raw and expressive. I guess I found it rewarding particularly with the guitar playing because it was so intuitive and completely free from any expectations of how a song should be constructed. There are hooks and repetitive sections but fewer traditional structures. We tried to avoid doing any planning beforehand and focussed more on responding to what was happening in the moment. I guess the sessions were kind of a constant dialogue where we would each respond to the other's improvisation.

With Promise Land I began by improvising lyrics over a drone track John and I created. Some time later I came across “To Our Land” by Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian poet, and was struck by the similarities - there are a few lines that match really closely. Despite being half-palestinian myself this was a total accident and I know for sure I hadn’t seen Darwish’s piece before. With Boiling Point the lyrics are almost the ghost of a narrative rather than an explicit story. I’m interested in the subconscious and how the hidden parts of your brain express themselves when given the opportunity. Looking back it was almost more about creating the right conditions for the subconscious to come out.

The discovery of a cassette of Carola Baer’s early ’90s private home recordings was like finding a needle in a haystack. Made as a one-off mixtape of newly-recorded songs, and given to a long-since forgotten recipient, this cassette was found in 2017 at a Goodwill “bins” location in Portland, Oregon.

These chaotic, by-the-pound thrift stores contain thousands of unsorted items in constant flux, which are only available for the public to buy for a limited time before they are discarded. The prospect that this obscure relic would be rescued from its untimely fate is nothing short of a miracle. As this tape was the only one in existence, with no back up versions of many of the songs, it’s more than likely that this music would have been lost forever.

The Story Of Valerie is made up of songs culled from that cassette, with a few additional tracks from the time, and is the first time Carola Baer’s solo material has been heard by the public. The intense emotion of the music is brought upon by the primary themes of the album: the cruelty of humanity, isolated life as a British immigrant in the US, and the pain of doomed relationships.

Despite being inspired by classic 4AD acts like Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins, Baer’s home recordings have a sound and style that is uniquely her own. Many of the tracks feel like musical exorcisms, with Baer’s spine tingling voice soaring above minimal arrangements for Yamaha DX-7 and Casio CZ-101 synthesizers. Like finding a stranger’s diary, the listener is granted access to music that is emotionally raw and deeply personal.

TRACK LISTING

1. Maker Of Me
2. Golden Boy
3. Save Me
4. We Already Feel
5. Springtime
6. Doors Talk
7. Solemn Cattle
8. Nothing Left To Say
9. See The Lights Again
10. Dreams
11. On Top Of The Mountain

Originally issued on A&M Records in 1975, 'Diamonds & Rust' marked a change in direction for Baez; it gave her songs of the heart and politics an unashamedly commercial veneer, returning her to the US Top 20 for the first time in four years.

This reissue, released to mark the album's 50th anniversary, faithfully replicates the original A&M UK release and is pressed on 180g vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

1. Diamonds And Rust
2. Fountain Of Sorrow 
3. Never Dreamed You’d Leave In Summer 
4. Children And All That Jazz
5. Simple Twist Of Fate
6. Blue Sky 
7. Hello In There
8. Jesse
9. Winds Of The Old Days 
10. Dida (Ft. Joni Mitchell)
11. I Dream Of Jeannie/Danny Boy

Bag People were Chicagoans who outgrew their home in the maelstrom of the early 80s NYC post-punk/ no-wave scene. They weren’t around long, but their compulsive noise-rock sound, unearthed from tapes lost for 40 years, looms large and stands tall next to the efforts of better-known contemporaries like Sonic Youth and Swans. A righteous puke of art-punk from a time of incredible brokenness in the world – in other words, savage sounds for today!

TRACK LISTING

1. Fire God
2. Dead Meat
3. Parade
4. UPS
5. Blessed Ignorance
6. I Got A Leotard
7. Lark's Vomit
8. Instrumental
9. Sweet Roughness Blues
10. Long Way Back
11. What's What
12. Don't Make Me (Live At CBGB 1983)

Kenneth Bager was invited to the cinema by his dear friend, the movie enthusiast & director Peder Pedersen. They watched the classic ‘The Thief’ by Michael Mann starring James Caan in the lead role. The soundtrack was made by the legendary German electronica band Tangerine Dream. The music, a mix of Electronic Avant-Garde, floating, ambient prog-rock made an immense impression on Kenneth. A few days later Kenneth had a visitor, Tolga Böyük from the Turkish band islandman, who was over in Copenhagen from Istanbul. The pair of them watched William Friedkin’s film ‘Sorcerer’ once again Tangerine Dream scoring the soundtrack. After watching the movie, Kenneth and Tolga felt the inspiration to do a soundtrack for a non-existing movie.

They started out by composing five tracks before nightfall. The next day, still excited about yesterday’s movie, the two came up with the album title ‘East of North’ (Tolga being from the east and Kenneth from the north). Together they kept going in the musical direction from the previous day, and managed to produce 10 tracks within 24 hours! They imagined a film through music which told a story about two people stuck on the arctic ice cap. One of them treasonously tries to fool the other. The album cover picture was captured during that session on a cold, windy day near the beach in Hellerup, Denmark. The music on 'East of North' is a tribute to some of history’s most significant electronic film composers: Vangelis, John Carpenter, and Tangerine Dream.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The endlessly talented K-Bag teams up with Tolga Böyük of Islandman fame for an impeccably conceived and gorgeously minimalistic suite of arps and icy melodies. Reminiscent of classic soundtracks / Seven Waves-era Ciani and obviously Tangerine Dream. I'm more than sure that noisy synth sound is an Arp Odyssey / 2600 too and that's me sold straight away. Really beautiful stuff.

TRACK LISTING

A1. The Meeting
A2. Blood Is Thicker Than Ice
A3. Betrayal (New)
A4. The Hunt Begins
A5. Wounds Of Sorrow
B1. Here To Eternity
B2. Re-arrange Your Face
B3. Love Of My Life
B4. Choices Of Consequences (New)
B5. The End 

New Struktur artists The Baggy Kidz deliver five tracks of meaty electronics. Also includes the "Fiesta Slagz" video.

Keep Marching is the opening number from Baggy Leggins and Duke Hobo, it is a captivating oddity that head nods out of winter to the very essence of spring, with a marching beat and the joy of breathy vocals intrinsically entwined with acoustic guitar and a splash of Rhodes.

The expansive universe of Shuffleupaguss is a progressive latin party fed through the clanger’s mystery of vibes machine, Bass carries the rhythm of housed pinata funk into A 1950'S rave held by Liberace and what not on the cuica.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Keep Marching
B1. Shuffleupagus

Sami Baha is a Turkish producer based in South East London. His music was introduced to the world via his 2016 EP 'Mavericks'. Sami got into producing through being a rapper himself, working with local rappers in Turkey and producing beats for them, before setting his sights outside the country. 'Free For All' features MCs from all corners of the globe: UK drill squad 67's Dimzy, Stockholm's Yung Lean and Chicago rapper and singer DJ Nate (aka Flexxbabii). The record also features Egyptian MCs Dawsha and Abanob. Sami's production is refined and elegant, familiar tropes are reassembled in original ways, the instrumentation reflecting his background and influences simultaneously. Everything Sami brings to the album sounds relaxed and minimal, but tough, built from thoughtful arrangements and instruments, shot through with emotion and a dreamy night-time feel. 

TRACK LISTING

LP A:

1/Cash Rain
2/Discreet (ft. Dimzy)
3/Aliens
4/Gambit
5/Thugs (ft. DJ Nate)
6/Free For All
7/NAH

B:

1/When The Sun's Gone (ft. Yung Lean)
2/Path Riot
3/Glory (ft. Kufura)
4/Ahl El M8na (ft. Dawsha & Abanob)
5/Limbo
6/Cold Pursuit

After previous releases with Chicago heavyweights like Rahaan and Darryn Jones, Dublin based disco messers Fatty Fatty return to Chi-Town once again.

This time they have Sadar Bahar on board, who expertly applies the scalpel to two heavyweight tracks along with Marc Davis.

The A-side is a thumping slice of mid 70's Philly gospel disco, with the famous Baker/Harris/Young rhythm section present and very correct. Splicing sections of the album cut and the 45 to create a driving extended mix for the floor, this is one for the peak-time dancers.

On the flip is a wild barrio jam for the more adventurous DJ, hitting hard with Latino rhythms and a mesmeric piano line that builds and builds in the background before taking over completely towards the end and knocking you for six. It's been getting rapturous receptions from Sadar's dancers during his summertime festival sets, and no doubt it'll still be doing the do all the way through the 2023 season...

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Phwoooarr that "Disco" track's a bit tasty ain't it?! Rough, raw & riotous. Meanwhile on side B, the ultimate psilocybin-induced perc and piano swirl for the secret mushroom parties of the city's underground...

TRACK LISTING

A. Disco
B. Beat Down 

Think of Tired Hearts, the new album from rising, indie-pop trio BAILEN, as a highly charged electrical field. Opposite charges attract, similar charges repel, and the current is set in motion. On this, their second full-length album for Fantasy, the New York City based siblings, Daniel, David, and Julia Bailen heighten the musical tension, and deliver a dazzling set of songs that incisively navigates the space between the heart’s expectation and the head’s sober reality. A masterful follow-up to BAILEN’s accomplished debut, 2019’s Thrilled To Be Here, Tired Heartsbeats with empathy, vulnerability, and resolve.

Produced by Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee) and recorded at his home studio in Durham, North Carolina, Tired Hearts’ taut, synth-driven tracks are centered around BAILEN’s radiant harmonies and futuristic arrangements furthering the group’s exhilarating avant-pop evolution.

By way of example, the dopamine saturated “Nothing Left To Give,” and the high-wattage New Wave dance track “Call It Like It Is,” seem destined for playlisting greatness. The evocative “These Bones,” a touching parable of reconciliation and the alluring “Love You Blind,” connect with assured simplicity. Meanwhile, the title track’s dramatic sonics skillfully underscore an aching portrait of betrayal, the dreamy folk-ballad “Relic” recalls the best of early-period Bee Gees, and the stunning “BRCA” gracefully unties a complex knot of familial anxiety, guilt, and acceptance.

On Tired Hearts, their exquisite new album, BAILEN learns how to dream in the face of life’s uncertainty and in the process, moves forward aware, resilient, and hopeful.

TRACK LISTING

01. Tired Hearts
02. Nothing Left To Give
03. These Bones
04. Leave Me Wanting More
05. Here We Are Again
06. Call It Like It Is
07. Change Your Mind
08. Love You Blind
09. Relic
10. BRCA (Nothing Takes Me Down)
11. Shadows
12. Hiding 

Black Rainbows is a musical project inspired by the objects and artworks collected by Theaster Gates at the Stoney Island Arts Bank in Chicago. Situated at the Great Grand Crossing neighborhoods of Chicago's South Side, Stoney Island Arts Bank is a cathedral to Black Art, a curated collection of Black archives comprising books, sculpture, records, furniture and problematic objects from America's past. As well as being a site for archive, the Arts bank is also a place for convening. Bailey Rae attended The Black Artists Retreat there in 2017 and performed in the space.

Wide ranging in it's themes, Black Rainbows' subjects are drawn from encounters with objects in the Arts Bank. Taking us from the rock hewn churces of Ethiopia, to the journeys of Black Pioneers Westward, from Miss New York Transit Queen 1957, to how the sunset appears from Harriet Jacobs' loophole.

Black Rainbows explores Black femininity, Spell Work, Inner Space/Outer Space, time collapse and ancestors, the erasure Black childhood and music as a vessel for transcendence.

The project will be released in various iterations - live performances, books, visuals, lectures, exhibitions, and more.

Sonically, the album is a multi-genre mix of the progressive R&B, neo soul sound that will be familiar to fans but it also contains rock, jazz and electronic elements.

The album was produced by S.J. Brown and Corinne Bailey Rae.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Spell, A Prayer
2. Black Rainbows
3. Erasure
4. Earthlings
5. Red Horse
6. New York Transit Queen
7. He Will Follow You With His Eyes
8. Put It Down
9. Peach Velvet Sky
10. Before The Throne Of The Invisible God

Big Crown Records present "Ekundayo", Liam Bailey’s debut record on the label. This album is a long time in the making, and after listening, clearly worth the wait. It didn’t take a long time to record, but it did take years for all the stars to line up. Bailey, born and raised in Nottingham, England, the son of an English mother and Jamaican father got his early influences from his mom’s record collection. Bob Marley and Dillinger, Stevie Wonder and The Supremes, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix would eventually shape the singer/songwriter we know today. Fast-forward to 2005, Liam is in London and doing the whatever-gig-you-can-get musician hustle with hopes of landing a record deal. And it was through this time that Liam first teamed up with Leon Michels, musician / producer luminary, and the co-founder of Brooklyn's own Big Crown Records. Liam flew out to New York and those first sessions together produced the now classic tunes “When Will They Learn” and “I’m Gonna Miss You” which still get spins at reggae spots around the globe. That trip helped kick off what was to follow next for Liam: a slew of record releases, label deals, and working with some wildly-notable mainstream producers.


Even a just-famous Amy Winehouse heard one of Liam's apartment-made, lo-fi recordings through a friend and liked what she heard. Regardless of the audio quality, Liam's particular sound shone through—all guitar, warm-rough and genuine soul. She signed him to her label shortly after. But, as the story can go with major labels, they already had an idea of the Liam they wanted to make, promote, and push. With the typical pay-day enticement, Liam did his best to fit into whatever shape they put him to. "'Maybe I can make it work,' that's what you're thinking," Liam remembers, "but, you quickly find out that you can't." While Liam’s career went through a bunch of record industry twists and turns he and Michels stayed in touch and would regularly connect and collaborate. Finally, in 2019, the time was right to do a full-length album together. And this time, it would be free of any restricting major label presumptions and opinions.


"This is the record we always wanted to make," says Michels. Set to release in November 2020, the album is called Ekundayo. And the word's meaning may be all you need to know to get to the essence of this project. It means "sorrow becomes joy" in Yoruba, a language spoken mostly in Western Africa. On the surface, Ekundayo is a weighty Reggae record, full of new and old textured riddims. But listen more in-depth, and you'll find subject matter that's more recognizable from a modern-day R&B record. An example of the former is the first single off the album. Sung to the most beautiful woman at the nightspot, "Champion" is a joyous anthem powered by a silly-thick Juno-bass throb and 808-proof drums. In short, "Champion" is dancehall-ready. But then there's a song like "Don't Blame NY." Moody and sparse with a somber drive, you might have to resist the urge to compare it to a Frank Ocean-ish type vibe. Liam's voice is in a different but fitting element here, showing stripped-back emotion and soulful restraint. Anyone who has lived and tried to thrive in New York won't have a hard time relating to the lyrics but they may join the masses who blame the city, while Liam points the finger at himself and sings praises to The Big Apple.


Credit to Leon's hand, elements of Jamaican production are everywhere, peppered throughout the record. Like the pitch-perfect organ stabs that push through the authentically positive "White Light," or the muted, percussive guitar strums that chug along in the back of "Fight." In the same vein of any fantastic singer/songwriter album, Ekundayo is a reflection of who Liam Bailey is, taking on topics and approaches he never would think of just a few years ago. Some evidence: "Ugly Truth" is about reconnecting with his biological father, a subject he once thought would be too personal to address. The journey from conforming to major labels to this latest record has been a long one for Liam, and a bit of a struggle. But struggle may be the only way we truly grow and evolve. With a new clarity of purpose, sound, and life, Liam has found joy out of those struggles. And it's called Ekundayo.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Ooof! What's this? A new, homegrown and highly inventive hybrid of JA & UK influences; celebrating the cross-pollination of music between the two countries whilst imparting the truly unique identity of the artist onto the listener. Pretty amazing this, no wonder Amy was into it...

TRACK LISTING

A1. Awkward
A2. Champion
A3. White Light
A4. Don’t Blame NY
A5. Cold & Clear
A6. Angel Dust
B1. Fight
B2. Vixit
B3. Ugly Truth
B4. Young In Love
B5. She Hates This Life
B6. Where Do I Start?
B7. Paper Tiger

I Tried Words began with words, mostly words. Moriah Bailey laid the lyrics out on several pages. The words were crafted over many months with feedback from Bailey’s sister and input from the growing melodies and body of music that began to take shape around those words. The contributing musicians, Sarah Reid (violin), Ryan Robinson (percussion), and Ricky Tutaan (guitar), recorded their own parts and sent them to Bailey. The result is lush, intricate arrangements that complement a solid base of harp and vocals.

The album explores dualities: yes/no, future/past, darkness/light, giving/taking, masculinity/femininity, wants/needs. It is in part about Moriah Bailey’s struggle to learn healthy boundaries but also about the harmfulness, complexity, and entanglement of many social boundaries.

With I Tried Words, Bailey relies less on experimental sounds, and instead, lyrically focuses on her struggles to understand and make sense of definitions and expectations of femininity. It explores these themes through an intimate narrative of losing oneself in a relationship and struggling to find a way out of the relationship.

The album ends with a triumphant goodbye and joyous new beginning in “Not Staying”. She sings: “I contorted my body and stretched myself thin to form a bridge between now and when. So, as I'm gathering my strength to say goodbye, please quit saying I should've tried.”

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1. Wishful Thoughts
2. A Late Spring
3. The Downpour
4. So You Say…
SIDE B:
5. The Ocean LIfe
6. My Father’s Words
7. My Mother’s Words
8. Not Staying

Originally released in 1978 on Americom Records. Officially reissued for the first time with love by Celestial Echo Records.

Some records just have that magic. A vibe that pulls you in from the first note and doesn’t let go. Phylliss Bailey’s 1978 cult classic Phylliss is one of those records—a hidden gem of modern soul and disco that’s been doing the rounds for decades in underground scenes, on dancefloors, and among collectors who know. It’s been whispered about in the right circles, bootlegged and then bootlegged again—but never given a proper reissue… Until now.

Celestial Echo Records proudly presents the first official reissue of Phylliss, a record that’s as essential today as it was back then. Originally released on the independent Americom label, the LP flew under the radar in its day but has since become a secret weapon for DJs with a taste for the modern soul & disco sound.

Phylliss Bailey’s voice is pure class—gliding over lush arrangements, tight rhythm sections, and dreamy strings with ease. Whether she’s riding the groove on dancefloor bombs like 'Focus' and 'Release Me' or slowing it down on the smouldering 'Feeling Of Love,' Bailey brings emotional weight and undeniable swagger to every track.

Fully remastered and officially licensed, it brings Phylliss into the light where it belongs. With a reimagined sleeve and labels (to distinguish from some shady copies going around!). This record is looking and sounding better than ever.

Celestial Echo Records is a label devoted to the soulful and the timeless. Based in London and run by miche & Stu Clark, the imprint has been steadily carving out a reputation among collectors and DJs for high-quality, lovingly curated reissues of rare modern soul, boogie, and disco. With each release, they shine a light on overlooked gems that still resonate deeply in today’s clubs and dancefloors. Phylliss is the next jewel in their growing catalogue of essential rediscoveries.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Dance, Dance
A2. Feeling Of Love
A3. Focus
A4. It’s Easy
B1. Gotta Keep On Trying
B2. Stranger On My Mind
B3. Life

Isolated at the rural fringe of Northern California, Bailey’s Nervous Kats took Shasta County by storm in the early ’60s. Combining surf, rock n’ roll, exotica, and R&B, the Kats were a teenage dream draped in Magnatone amplifiers and crisp white polo tees. Their self-titled—and only—LP came at the dead end of the band’s run, issued on Orville Simmons’ one-shot Emma imprint in 1965. The mid-century modern LP of your dreams.

TRACK LISTING

1. Surf Express
2. Cobra
3. First Love
4. Five Fingers Of Scotch
5. Chong
6. Pandora
7. Simba
8. Traveling Sam
9. I Don’t Know
10. Prophecy Of Love
11. Devil’s Run
12. Northwind

"Feels Like Home" is Jessica's fourth full length album, and is the most refined example of her musical vision to date. Jessica combines folk acoustic guitar, droning guitar, gossamer vocals and piano filgrees to create a lush, mysterious world. Beautiful stuff!

Kranky was a bit surprised earlier this year when Jessica Bailiff contacted them and asked they wanted to preview her new album for possible release. They had no idea she had even been working on an album, let alone had completed one, and they were rewarded with a listen to her most compelling album to date.

After being in Europe for 5 weeks as a touring member of Boduf Songs, Jessica Bailiff spent much of 2011, writing and recording At the Down-Turned Jagged Rim of the Sky in her spartan home studio. Sequestering herself through the hot summer months until finished, she then passed the tracks on to her friend Odd Nosdam for final mixing.
*Down-tuned, distorted bass guitar adds a new color to her palette, but familiar ones also come into play: fuzzed and delayed electric guitar, organ, piano, cello, and drums. Noisy pop-tinged love songs nestle slyly in a bed of off-kilter lullabies and dark, metallic waltzes.

No need to recycle descriptives like “lo-fi” or “hushed vocals” - these are spurious words. This is another intimate collection of songs recorded entirely by Jessica at home, in a room next to where she sleeps. If you listen carefully, you might hear her dreaming.

TRACK LISTING

01 Your Ghost Is Not Enough 
02 Take Me To The Sun 
03 Sanguine 
04 If You Say It 
05 Violets & Roses 
06 This Is Real
07 Goodnight 
08 Slowly 
09 Firefly

After her first two highly acclaimed albums recorded with Low, Jessica Bailiff's third album is a massive leap forward. The album has a much more acoustic focus than her previous two, with beautiful ambient interludes, violin, piano, tin whistle, smeary guitars and even sitar.

Bailter Space’s ‘Wammo’ is back in print for the first time since the album’s release 25 years ago.

Formed in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1987 as Nelsh Bailter Space, the band’s musical family tree touches on some of the nation’s most revered weirdo luminaries - including Flying Nun mainstays like The Skeptics, The Clean and The Gordons.

Bailter Space embraced chaos but celebrated precision, finding melody amid networks of brooding noise and feedback. After relocating to New York City, the band - who by then included Alister Parker, John Halvorsen and Brent McLachlan - arrived on Matador in in time for the US release of ‘Robot World’ (1993).

‘Wammo’ was the trio’s third and final full-length with the label (their fifth album overall). At the time, music scribes were a bit puzzled by the record’s “accessibility.” In retrospect though we can recognize ‘Wammo’ for the perfectly melancholy and drone-laced brain-zap that it is.

TRACK LISTING

Untied
Splat
At Five We Drive
Zapped
Colours
Retro
Glimmer
Voltage
D Thing
Wammo

"Laughing Boy", the second solo album from Matteah Baim, was recorded in Chicago, where it was produced, arranged, and mixed by Baim with engineer Jamie Carter. Expanding on the sounds hinted at with her previous band, Metallic Falcons, and her first solo record, "Death of The Sun", Baim has created her most lush and beautiful recordings yet with "Laughing Boy". Matteah Baim was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1996, at the age of 17, she moved to California to study painting and drawing at the San Francisco Art Institute. After graduating, Baim moved to New York where she met Sierra Casady. In 2005, the duo began to write music together and formed the 'soft metal' Metallic Falcons. Voodoo Eros released their first record, "Desert Doughnuts", in 2006, recorded in Brooklyn, New Mexico, and Chicago, with performances by Antony, Devendra Banhart, Jana Hunter, and Greg Rogove. After the Metallic Falcons disbanded, Baim moved to Los Angeles and began writing and recording material (both at her Venice Beach home and at Chicago's CarterCo studio) for "Death Of The Sun". She spent the next two years touring and writing material for "Laughing Boy", working on music for several films, and exhibiting drawings.

All too often, rare records suck ass. Yeah they're rare, and only wotzizname from wherever the fuck has a copy, but they tend to be average variations of well known jams, with their scarcity merely a novelty.

But then there are records like this, popping up out of nowhere only to blow your musically obsessed mind! From a quick scan of the centre label, you'd be forgiven for thinking this is your standard Chicago acid track, desireable only for the posibility of a few motivational spoken word cuts. When you whack the platter on the player however, you experience something very different indeed. A spiritual journey through cosmic keys and subtle percussion, which vibrates at your very core, enriching your soul with every passing moment.

Frustrated at her students' lack of cultural awareness, Miami-Dade public school teacher Dr Mary Sullivan Bain recorded ‘Do You Know Black History’ in 1985, self releasing it as a single for educational purposes. Original copies didn't make it much much further than Florida’s public school libraries and the record has been shrouded in mystery up until now. Produced with no label constraints, this cross-genre grail sits comfortably in many boxes... 808’s, bass synths, deep chords, live percussion and effects dubbed into the mix. The production leans towards the electronic diy framework that informed the local sound on the Miami south side. The vocal side offers an inspirational account of Black history, full of passion and pain, while the instrumental side strolls through outer space and Ibizan sunset, sounding exactly like the kind of sublime ambient cut you'd find on a battered old Café del Mar. Reissued officially for the first time ever by Backatcha, this is a total one of a kind.

TRACK LISTING

A. Do You Know Black History
B. Do You Know Black History (Instrumental)

Beginning his career as a club DJ and disco producer in the early-70s in his native Boston, Arthur Baker moved to New York City in 1981 and in the summer of 1982 produced one of the genre-defining early hip-hop tracks "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force. This began an illustrious career that has seen him work with artists including Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Al Green, Pet Shop Boys, Quincy Jones, New Order, New Edition, Hall & Oates, Neneh Cherry and Damon Albarn. Looking for the Perfect Beat will tell Arthur's unique and inspiring story in his own words and features unheard stories about many of the world's best and most successful musicial figures, which together form a portrait of a man who has been quietly influencing the sound of popular music for over fifty years.

The most significant aspect of this album, which first appeared as 'Chet - The Lyrical Trumpet of Chet Baker', is the interaction between Chet Baker and Bill Evans, two perennial jazz stars who only rarely recorded together. By the time this album was made, Chet was known as much for his singing as for his trumpet playing. This LP, however, is entirely instrumental and consists of nine ballads performed in the styles of hard bop to cool jazz.

The last track, 'I Could Have Danced All Night' (included as a bonus) is from Chet Baker's 'Best of Lerner & Loewe' album, which featured Bill Evans on four of its tracks. They were the recordings that Baker and Evens made together.

TRACK LISTING

Alone Together
How High The Moon
It Never Entered My Mind
Tis Autumn
If You Could See Me Now
September Song
You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To
Time On My Hands
You And The Night And The Music
I Could Have Danced All Night

Although Chet Baker and Bill Evans were both highly lyrical and introspective players who could have made a fabulous partnership, they only ever recorded together on a couple or so occasions. By the time the recordings here were made, Chet Baker had been a star for less than a decade and this wholly instrumental album presents him accompanied by other great jazz stars with whom he would also rarely play and record with again.

"Chet Baker's penultimate session for Riverside produced an all-star lineup to support him, including jazz heavyweights Pepper Adams, Bill Evans, and Kenny Burrell. Each of them makes important contributions to the session. A good place to hear Baker's special way with the horn is made even more attractive with the presence and contributions of top jazz artists." - ***** Dave Nathan, AllMusic

TRACK LISTING

Alone Together
How High The Moon
It Never Entered My Mind
'tis Autumn
I Talk To The Trees
If You Could See Me Now
September Song
You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To
Time On My Hands
You And The Night And The Music 
Thank Heaven For Little Girls

The recordings for the album took place between October 25, 1955, and February 10, 1956, at Studio Pathe-Magellan in Paris and features a mix of cool jazz and bop styles with tracks like "How About You," "Once in a While," and "Alone Together." The ensemble of musicians on this album includes notable names such as Jean- Louis Viale on drums, and Benoit Quersin on bass; the album highlighting Baker's distinctive trumpet tone and his collaboration with talented European musicians: "I Get Chet" is a significant work in his discography and reflect his mastery in the cool jazz and bop genres. The tracks are characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, and bop, known for its complex rhythms and harmonies, it is praised for its lyrical and cool jazz elements. For this and other reasons and considered a gem from Chet Baker's Paris sessions, showcasing his talent during a pivotal time in his career.

TRACK LISTING

How About You
Once In A While
Chekeetah
Alone Together
Chet
Dinah
Tasty Pudding
Anticipated Blues
V Line
Exitus

Craft Recordings reissue not one but four classic, remastered titles from legendary jazz artist Chet Baker. The albums comprise Baker’s entire output as a leader for the renowned jazz label Riverside - all recorded and released between 1958 and 1959: (Chet Baker Sings) It Could Happen to You, Chet Baker in New York, Chet and Chet Baker Plays the Best of Lerner and Loewe.

The recordings, which feature such icons as Bill Evans, Johnny Griffin and Kenny Burrell, have all been cut from their original analog master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at RTI.

21st Century troubadour Hak Baker - following his critically acclaimed debut album 'World's End FM' - releases new EP 'Nostalgia Death Act I'. 'Nostalgia Death' is about looking to the future and "succeeding ourselves" rather than "tunneling into hubs shrouded in nostalgia... it’s dangerous, moreish and comfortable." Do old habits really die young?

TRACK LISTING

1. No Control!
2. Nameless
3. Boys X Girls
4. Blender
5. Nostalgia Death
6. Everybody's Dyin’
7. Prometheus (Live)
8. LUVLY
9. Poems

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

TRACK LISTING

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

After dropping hints for months and following the release of their first single 'Sugar in the Tank', Julien Baker & TORRES are releasing their debut album 'Send a Prayer My Way'. The album has been in the works since the two played their first show together in 2016 and at the end one singer turned to the other and said, “You know, we should make a country album.” This is the origin story, the stuff of legend in the world of country music, and the beginning of a collaboration between two artists already admired for their spare, elegant lyrics as well as the courage to share their struggles with those who love their music. It’s also the beginning of creating a work that, like the most enduring country albums, sustains and inspires, reminding both singer and listener that not one of us is ever totally alone in this world, that music is a steady companion.

Julien Baker & TORRES’ 'Send A Prayer My Way' was written and sung in the best of the outlaw tradition - defiant, subversive, working class, and determined to wrestle not only with addiction, regret and bad decisions, but also with oppressive systems of power. Mercifully, this is only the beginning of the stories TORRES and Baker are determined to tell. Because these are also songs about radical empathy and second chances, and third chances, and while there’s plenty of struggle and regret in here, there’s also humour and defiance.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A hugely evocative country album from two of the biggest stars in the very much in-vogue pseudo-country indie revival that hasn't let up in the past decade. 'Send A Prayer My Way' includes all of the clever melodic turns and well-written pieces we'd expect from Baker or Torres, but pointed at a contemplative, updated version of classic Americana.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dirt
2. The Only Marble I’ve Got Left
3. Sugar In The Tank
4. Bottom Of A Bottle
5. Downhill Both Ways
6. No Desert Flower
7. Tape Runs Out
8. Off The Wagon
9. Tuesday
10. Showdown
11. Sylvia
12. Goodbye Baby

Little Oblivions is the third studio album by Julien Baker. Recorded in Memphis, TN, the record weaves together unflinching autobiography with assimilated experience and hard-won observations from the past few years, taking Baker’s capacity for storytelling to new heights. It also marks a sonic shift, with the songwriter’s intimate piano and guitar arrangements newly enriched by bass, drums, keyboards, banjo, and mandolin with nearly all of the instruments performed by Baker.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Julien Baker returns for another beautifully rich set of crescentic rock, coloured with an unmistakeable country hue. It's a delicate balance and is accomplished here with a beautiful warmth and comforting melodicism. Another wonderful journey, full of emotional duality and songwriting genius from Baker.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hardline
2. Heatwave
3. Faith Healer
4. Relative Fiction
5. Crying Wolf
6. Bloodshot
7. Ringside
8. Favor
9. Song In E
10. Repeat
11. Highlight Reel
12. Ziptie

Memphis, TN-based songwriter Julien Baker is the latest addition to the Matador Records roster. The 21-year-old’s devastating and vulnerable debut album, ‘Sprained Ankle’, which was originally released in 2015, is now being made available again. A 7” single by Julien Baker is also being released at the same time.

For years, Baker and a group of close friends performed as the band Forrister (formerly The Star Killers) but when college took her four hours away, her need to continue creating found an outlet through solo work. The intent was never to make these songs her main focus, yet the process proved to be startlingly cathartic. As each song came into shape, it became more apparent that Baker had genuinely deep, surprisingly dark stories to tell from her thus far short life. Tales of her experiences are staggering and when set to her haunting guitar playing the results are gut wrenching and heartfelt, relatable yet very personal. There’s something wonderfully hypnotizing about Baker gently confessing her soul with such tremendous honesty.

“Richly poetic songs of trauma and redemption, moving from almost unbearable fragility to confessional strength.” - The New York Times

TRACK LISTING

Blacktop
Sprained Ankle
Brittle Boned
Everybody Does
Good News
Something
Rejoice
Vessels
Go Home

Julien Baker releases her highly anticipated second album, ‘Turn Out The Lights’, via Matador Records.

‘Turn Out The Lights’ arrives nearly two years to the day after Baker’s debut album, ‘Sprained Ankle’, which was widely acclaimed by outlets including The New York Times, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Noisey, and MOJO, among others.

Recorded at the legendary Ardent Studios in Baker’s hometown of Memphis, TN, ‘Turn Out The Lights’ expands upon the sound and vision of ‘Sprained Ankle’ while retaining the haunting, confessional songwriting style for which she has become known. Throughout the album, Baker reflects on experiences of her own and those closest to her, exploring the internal conflicts that wrestle inside us all: how we deal and cope with our struggles and how it all impacts both ourselves and our relationships of all kinds. The result is a deeply empathetic album that embraces the greys and complex truths of humanity and mental health.

‘Turn Out The Lights’ was written and produced by Baker and mixed by Craig Silvey (The National, Arcade Fire, Florence & The Machine).

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'Sprained Ankle' went down a storm in here (was it really that long ago?) and I have no doubt this will surpass that. More heartfelt lyrics, cleverly constructed melodies and introspective moments, all wrapped in that warm veneer of Baker's spellbinding voice.

TRACK LISTING

Over
Appointments
Turn Out The Lights
Shadowboxing
Sour Breath
Televangelist
Everything That Helps
You Sleep
Happy To Be Here
Hurt Less
Even
Claws In Your Back

A band who are at the forefront of Rio de Janeiro's artistic renaissance, they channel influences of Brazilian 60s Tropicália, 70s psychedelia and MPB to create a nostalgic, yet joyfully, avant-garde sound. The band is comprised of four distinct characters, each one an incredible talent in their own right and each with impressive credentials in the Brazilian Independent music scene. Central to the resurgent Rio de Janeiro musical community, the quartet of Dora Morelenbaum, Julia Mestre, Lucas Nunes and Zé Ibarra thrive in a group dynamic. They formed Bala Desejo to play collaboratively for a festival date in 2021, but when that show became a victim of pandemic shutdowns the idea for an album project materialised.

'Sim Sim Sim', which translates into English as 'Yes Yes Yes', weaves through a fusion of genres, taking twists and turns as it progresses. There is Tropicália, MPB, rock, samba-canção soul-funk and reggae in the mix. It possesses many of the qualities of a classic album from Brazilian music's golden era of the 60s and 70s, but also manages to sound very now, which is not an easy task to pull off. As solo musicians, they have worked and collaborated with Brazilian icons Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso and Milton Nascimento to name but a few. Bala Desejo feels like a natural extension of what came before, taking the baton from these luminaries, adding their unique spin and moving the sound forward. When we first heard Bala Desejo, we were blown away. Their epic theatrical live shows leave audiences stunned and they are the band we had always been hoping to find. A modern- day Novos Baianos or Mutantes, but definitely not an imitation. They celebrate their influences, but are an innovative group, and consequently, they have created one of the finest records to come out of Brazil in recent years. A truly sensational debut!

TRACK LISTING

1. Embala Pra Viagem
2. Baile De Mascaras (Recarnaval)
3. Lua Comanche
4. Clama Floresta
5. Dourado Dourado
6. Nana Del Caballo Grande
7. Nesse Sofa
8. Lambe Lambe
9. Passarinha
10. Sim Sim Sim
11. Muito So
12. Cronografia (O Peixe)

Danny Ward’s 30-year career has been far from predictable. While best known for the musical eclecticism of his Dubble D project, the dance floor-focused nous of his work as Moodymanc and as a member of the groundbreaking 20:20 Soundsystem, Ward’s bulging CV also includes stints drumming for artists as diverse as Fila Brazillia, Rae & Christian, and The Pharcyde, to Jazz luminaries Mat Halsall and Nat Birchall, alongside countless collaborations (Flora Purim and Nightmares on Wax to name but a couple) and numerous evenings spent adding live percussion to DJ sets at iconic Leeds club night Back To Basics.

Now the long-serving Manchester musician and producer has a new project to share via NuNorthern Soul: Balaphonic. Inspired by a mixture of lockdown-era studio experiments, online collaborations, his long-held love for Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian rhythms and a desire to do things differently, Resolution Revolutions is a gorgeously sonically detailed and immersive album that takes Ward’s musical output to a whole new level.

Like many musicians, Ward used the forced lockdowns of the global COVID-19 pandemic to retreat to his basement studio and make music. Focusing on utilising all of the acoustic and electronic tools at his disposal – not least his beloved percussion instruments – Ward took the opportunity not only to draw on a wide range of musical influences and ideas, but also rhythms, grooves and time signatures. As well as composing new tracks from scratch, he also revisited older compositions with fresh eyes and ears.

The results are simply stunning. Ward sets his stall out via the exotic, slow-burn Balearic warmth of ‘Sunflowers in Dub (Deep Summer Mix)’, where echoing whistles, harmonica motifs, sitar sounds, and cascading piano motifs rise above dub-wise bass and seductive, soft-focus beats. The heady, eyes closed vibe continues on the sunrise-ready awakening of ‘Disorganics (All Strings Mix)’, a samba-soaked summer shuffle rich in sparkling acoustic guitars and infectious Latin percussion, and the fretless bass-sporting Afro-Cuban yearning of ‘Six Fingers’.

As Resolution Revolutions progresses, Ward’s deep love of club-adjacent and dancefloor-focused rhythms subtly comes to the fore. There’s ‘Udders’, a hybrid – and hypnotising – fusion of chopped-up South American percussion, marimba-style melodic motifs, looped bass and spacey electronics, and Ocean Waves Brasil collaboration ‘Oxum’, a mid-tempo Afro-Brazilian deep house number wrapped in deliciously dreamy chords and gentle acid lines.

Similarly impressive and inspired is closing cut ‘Bloco Manco’, where Ward peppers a delay-laden Latin beat and a deep, weighty, dancehall style bassline in waves of echoing hand percussion and restless timbales patterns. Stripped-back, raw and seriously sub-heavy, it provides a jaw-dropping conclusion to one of Ward’s most perfectly formed albums yet.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Sunflowers In Dub [Deep Summer Mix]
A2. Disorganics [All Strings Mix]
A3. Six Fingers
B1. Udders
B2. Oxum Feat. Ocean Waves Brasil
B3. Bloco Manco

Germany's premier proponents of handsome soft pop Balcony DC make a long overdue appearance in the good ship Piccadilly with gorgeous sophomore LP "Puma Pride". Taking a playful approach to their art, Chistoph Mü and Denny Thiele practise a particularly post-modern version of pop music, equally indebted to the sensual funk of Prince, slacker antics of Mac Demarco, lo-fi soul of Blood Orange and arch-vaporwave of Macintosh Plus.

Sounding like a glimpse of a future I want to live in, the eight cuts slink and shimmy through futuristic pop with a charming surprise around every corner. Syrupy beats and erogenous bass keep their own jaunty time in the rhythm section, lo-fi guitar licks burst out from beneath the dry-ice mist of synthesis and those falsetto vocals coo right into your ear - pillow talk for the valium generation. Currently getting maximum approval ratings from Ryan Horsebeach, Mine, Millie and yours truly (Patch), this is deeply dope folks.

TRACK LISTING

A1. How To Deal With Love
A2. Appetite
A3. Eglantine
A4. OK
B1. How Could I Not?
B2. Mirror
B3. Bonfire 2009
B4. Humming Bird

Daniele Baldelli: A Cosmic Life is a documentary about the life and career of cosmic pioneer Daniele Baldelli. Cosmic, or afro-funky as it was sometimes called, is a musical genre that revolutionized club culture in Italy and worldwide. The doc traces his career through archival footage and testimonies from artists and producers, showcasing how his vision influenced entire musical scenes.

The film, along with its soundtrack, highlights Baldelli’s ability to blend electronic, funk, Afro, rock, ethnic, and experimental music, creating a unique sound that has made four generations of young people dance in iconic venues around the world.

This record primarily includes new tracks specifically created for the film and the dancefloor, alongside his classics such as “Isotropo Funk,” “Funk Me Again,” and “Diffrazione” which are now very difficult to find on vinyl. It also features an unreleased track produced for the film by his trusted collaborator Marco Dionigi.

It's an absolutely essential item for anyone with a penchant for this particularly magical, long lasting and influential sub genre of dance music.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: A sublime and brilliantly realized encapsulation of the visionary's sound which neatly seems to summarize nearly 40 years of cosmic disco into one tidy full length album. He truly is the godfather of the genre.

TRACK LISTING

Not Expected
Quelli Sani
Cosmic Source
Funk Me Again
Unky
Diffrazione
Incanto
Isotropo Funk

One of the more unexpected - if worthwhile - by products of the 21st-century underground American folk revival is a renewed interest in solo acoustic guitar music. Spare, haunting, pastoral sounds have struck a new chord, and the names John Fahey and Takoma are hip again. Matt Baldwin, raised in California's rustic Pacific Grove, educated in the alternative mecca of Berkeley, sits in the center of this quiet, swirling scene. He is the visionary wildcard of today's solo guitar music, the ambitious fever dreamer, the serpent in the grass. Unlike many of his peers, he looks beyond the traditions of Fahey (whom he calls 'a teacher', not a god), bringing portentous and progressive elements into his music, alongside a dreamy country lilt. He covers krautrock legends Neu! ("Weissensee") and metal Vikings Judas Priest ("Winter"), and culls inspiration from prog heroes yes on the closing epic "Rainbow". His music comes on like a creeping moss, verdant but threatening, comforting yet unsettling.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is a stop-motion animated film released in 2024. It was directed by Nick Park, creator of Wallace & Gromit, and met with critical acclaim. The movie received two BAFTA awards and was also nominated for an Academy Award. The film music was composed by Emmy nominated composer Lorne Balfe (known for his work on The Dark Knight, Iron Man, The Lego Batman Movie and Sherlock Holmes) and by BAFTA-nominated composer Julian Nott (known for his previous work on Wallace & Gromit).

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
2. Good Morning Gromit
3. Guilty As Charged
4. Neat And Tidy
5. Gnome Improvements
6. Norbot Recharge Time
7. Reprogrammed For Revenge
8. March Of The Norbots
9. The Gnome Song
10. Up To Gnome Good

SIDE B
1. The Wallaby Street Mob
2. The Zoo
3. Rush To The Museum
4. The Blue Diamond
5. Leaf It To Me
6. The Fast And The Furnished
7. A Crazed Inventor
8. Nun In A Tunnel
9. Plant Pot Pummeling
10. Wallace & Gromit Theme
11. 8 Bit Cheese

A bold new collaboration creates a powerful encounter between UK Mandé jazz and Afro-Colombian marimba - 15 musicians exploring shared African roots through rhythm and improvisation.

Balimaya Project and Colombia's Discos Pacifico All Stars together present a cross-continental performance of West African jazz and Afro-Colombian tradition in a boundary-pushing exchange of rhythm, heritage, and sound.

The two bands bring together a connection between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, exploring experimental Afro-diasporic soundscapes, blending Mandé jazz with Afro-Colombian folkloric music in a collaboration which fuses the deep rhythmic and cultural ties between African and Latin American traditions.

Balimaya Project, known for their powerful fusion of Mandé rhythms and contemporary jazz, brings a strong foundation in West African musical heritage, incorporating instruments like the djembe and balafon to craft complex, emotive compositions rooted in community and storytelling.

Joining them from Colombia's Pacific coast, the Discos Pacifico All Stars - featuring members of Bejuco, Semblanzas del Rio Guapi, and former members of Agrupación Changó - focus on marimba music and Afro-Colombian rhythms, channelling the energy of their ancestral sound into something fresh and globally resonant.

The album 'Calima' centres on an international exchange, shaping a new musical narrative in real time.

Calima is a natural phenomenon where Sahara Desert dust travels across the Atlantic, bringing nutrients that fertilise the Amazon and tropical rainforests in Latin America and the Caribbean. Like this dust, the African diaspora crossed oceans by force, but through cultural resistance kept their heritage alive - recognising each other, sharing traditions, rooting themselves, and creating new forms of expression that transform dispersal into fertile encounters of memory, beauty, and renewal.

TRACK LISTING

1. YO AVIDE AL NIÑO
2. A LIFE WORTH LIVING
3. NUESTRO LATIDO
4. YO TE VI
5. I WISH I KNEW
6. A BE TAN DE!

Ian F Ball presents a beautiful selection of drifting folky guitar, athletic accordion and mandolin, recalling traditional English folksong and echoing the Morris / brass band tradition of the area (which I *think* is depicted on the front cover of the album - Mossley train station). 

There are quieter pieces on show like the slow, thoughtful balladry of 'pour Mon Ami' or the flicking campfire drift of 'Resting Place', but the album generally flows beautifully from uplifting bucolic woodwind to snappy acoustic guitar all topped with Ball's evocative, perfectly pitched gravelly vocal.  

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautiful collection of richly traditional folk ballads and more experimental, off-kilter psychedelic instrumentals, beautifully written and (when they are in situ) beautifully sung vocals.

A classic Vee-Jay side from 1965 that originally sneaked out on the Bay Area Wee label. The original goes for around £100, the second Wee press for £75, while the Vee-Jay version is 50 quid a throw. That said, copies are few and far between these days.

Featuring an upbeat, brass-powered Temptationslike harmony with a call and response, a deep sax wail and a piano motif pushing it forward towards a glorious middle eight that breaks into a Gospel roll out.

Powered by Ric-Tic-like drum rolls; a euphoric soulful classic split into two essential parts.

The Ballads were a four-piece from Oakland, across the bridge from San Francisco, featuring Freddie Hughes, who would later sign to Wand. The band themselves almost made it, charting in 1968 with the Willie Hutch-produced ‘God Bless Our Love’ but this earlier recording is the business.

Both sides remastered from the original sound source.

TRACK LISTING

I Can’t See Your Love (For The Tears In My Eyes) Pt.1
I Can’t See Your Love (For The Tears In My Eyes) Pt.2

A$AB Mob affiliate Marty Baller, started his career out as A$AP Ferg’s hype man, before becoming a serious solo artistic his own right. The last year and a half has seen Baller steadily building up to the release of ‘Baller Nation’ with co signs from A$AP Mob and support tours with the likes of Future. ‘Baller Nation’ is Marty’s second mixtape, following 2016’s ‘Marty G Raw.’ The concise 10 track tape sees Marty upping the stakes, with confident lyrics, big trap beats and an all start features list including A$AP FERG, Rich The Kid, Rob $tone and Smooky Margeilaa. Omerta Inc will be bringing Marty Baller’s ‘Baller Nation’ to vinyl for the very first time, to celebrate the 1st anniversary of the albums original release. Limited to 150 copies pressed onto 180gm cocaine white vinyl. Each copy will be individually hand numbered in gold pen and come housed in a high quality matte finish sleeve with original artwork

TRACK LISTING

1. First Quarter
2. Gladys Knight (ft 5Am & Reese LAFLARE)
3. Do My Thing (ft Madein-TYO)
4. I'm On The Moon
5. Slick Talk (ft Rob $tone)
6. Like Mike (ft A$AP Ferg, SMOOKY Margielaa & Aexyz)
7. Send Em My Way (ft A$AP Ferg)
8. Rambo (ft Rich The Kid)
9. Nothing Wasted
10. Throw The Money Away

'Patterns' is the 15-song follow-up to Kelsea Ballerini’s GRAMMY-nominated 'Rolling Up The Welcome Mat'. Again teaming with producer/songwriter Alysa Vanderheym, the 30-year-old multiple Country Music Association award winner has delivered a song cycle that embodies the next chapter in a life completely embraced. Beyond her 'Cowboys Cry Too' duet with Alternative sensation Noah Kahan, she explores what it means to move on, fall in love, stay in love, hate love, exhale love - and face her own patterns, good and bad.

Written with Vanderheym, Songwriter Hall of Fame inductee Hillary Lindsey, Songwriter of the Year GRAMMY nominee Jessie Jo Dillon and Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild, Welcome Mat’s vulnerable intimacy is met with some of the most intoxicating melodies that reach across genres. Atmospheric, sunny, rhythmic and whispered, 'Patterns' balances self-discovery with an album one can blissfully surrender to.

TRACK LISTING

Tracklist TBC:
1. Track 1
2. Sorry Mom
3. Track 3
4. Track 4
5. Track 5
6. Track 6
7. Track 7
8. Track 8
9. Track 9
10. Track 10
11. Track 11
12. Cowboys Cry Too (with Noah Kahan)
13. Track 13
14. Track 14
15. Track 15

Leisure Rodeo is the new album from Scott Ballew, following up 2021’s surprise debut Talking to Mountains. Born in Austin in the early 80’s Ballew eventually drifted out west to California, where he made a name for himself as a film director. At the age of 30 he ended up back in Austin, got sober, picked up the guitar and started writing songs. Most of those songs ended up on Ballew’s debut, but he kept writing and refining his craft, eventually ending up with ten tracks for a follow up album. Picking up where he left off, Leisure Rodeo features world-weary vignettes in the vein of Townes Van Zandt and Jerry Jeff Walker set to rustic country-folk arrangements. Frequent collaborators Jesse Woods, Shane Renfro (RF Shannon), Jesse Siebenberg, and Todd Hannigan are back, joined by special guest appearances from Ryan Bingham on “Border Kid” and Erika Wennerstrom (The Heartless Bastards) on “Convenience Store World”. Highly anticipated new album from Scott Ballew, featuring contributions from Ryan Bingham, Erika Wennerstrom (The Heartless Bastards), Jesse Woods, and Shane Renfro (RF Shannon). 

Tyler Ballgame’s stunning debut, 'For the First Time, Again', is a bracing reminder of how great songs delivered by a gifted vocalist can move, captivate, and inspire. Produced by Jonathan Rado (Foxygen, The Lemon Twigs, Weyes Blood) and Ryan Pollie (Los Angeles Police Department) and delivered in Ballgame’s astonishing, versatile tenor, these 12 finely crafted tunes, rooted in classic rock, indie, and Americana, will make anyone with a heart feel seen. Even before the insightful, often provocative lyrics register, Ballgame’s infectious melodies draw you into a story both relatable, and unlike any you’ve heard. After one listen, Ballgame’s message of belief in one’s true self resonates deep and wide.

On 'For the First Time, Again', Tyler Ballgame and his talented circle of fellow music-makers enthusiastically offer listeners songs to fill them with hope, acceptance, delirious happiness, and support for rough roads ahead. For healing to occur, Ballgame offers, “We need to dissolve into experience.” With its gorgeous melodies, wise invocations, irrepressible – and sometimes mischievous – generosity of spirit, and THAT VOICE, 'For the First Time Again' is in itself an amazing experience.

TRACK LISTING

1. For The First Time, Again
2. I Believe In Love
3. You’re Not My Baby Tonight
4. Matter Of Taste
5. Sing How I Feel
6. Goodbye My Love
7. Got A New Car
8. Ooh
9. Down So Bad
10. I Know
11. Deepest Blue
12. Waiting So Long

Rough Trade Records is thrilled to announce their newest signing, LA via Rhode Island crooner Tyler Ballgame. Renowned for his live shows, Tyler’s music is built on strong melodic hooks and draws subtle inspiration from the 60s and 70s, blending nostalgia and undeniable songcraft.

Fresh off a tour with Shakey Graves, Tyler has been announced to play Newport Folk Festival this summer in July, End of the Road Festival in August, and will tour the West Coast with The Head and The Heart this fall.

To celebrate the signing, Rough Trade is highlighting Tyler’s previously released song ‘Help Me Out” with an extremely limited, numbered 7” release. An undeniable hit, it feels both effortless and timeless, anchored by his singular voice.

“‘Help Me Out’ is emblematic of my arrival to LA in a state of personal and creative desperation,” Tyler explains of the song. “I see this release as a full-circle moment of dream actualization and the tongue-in-cheek birth of the Ballgame.”

TRACK LISTING

Help Me Out
Shine

One of the cult acts of the heyday of London clubland in the early 1990s, The Ballistic Brothers consisted of future X-Press 2 members Ashley, Rocky and Diesel, alongside David Hill and Uschi Clansen.

Both of their ‘Vs. Eccentric Afros’ releases have legendary status, with ‘Volume 1’ featuring their classic ‘Blacker’. After the reissue of the first instalment last year, Acid Jazz are set to release the second set.

‘Blacker’ reprises here in the form of ‘Divine Fact (Blacker 2)’ and the ‘Marden Hill Sween Green Jam Mix’, showing the cross-pollination of the 1990s London club scene, where hedonists could find many routes and possibilities.

A vital snapshot of a very unique place in time, specially remastered for this Acid Jazz release and set in a spined sleeve for the first time, with a beautiful expansion of the original artwork.

TRACK LISTING

Delancey Street... The Theme
Unhooked And Lost
Save The Children]
Blacker (Marden Hill Sweet Green Jam Mix)
Jam Jah
Divine Fact (Blacker 2)
Goodvibes… Good Night
Anti Gun Movement

One of the cult acts of the heyday of London clubland in the early 1990s, the Ballistic Brothers consisted of later-X-Press 2 members Ashley, Rocky and Diesel, alongside David Hill and Uschi Clansen.

Both of their ‘vs. Eccentric Afros’ releases have legendary status, with Vol. 1 featuring their classic ‘Blacker’. After the reissue of the first instalment last year, Acid Jazz are set to release the second set.

‘Blacker’ reprises here in the form of ‘Divine Fact (Blacker 2)’ and the ‘Marden Hill Sween Green Jam Mix’, showing the crosspollination of the ‘90s London club scene, where hedonists could find many routes and possibilities.

A vital snapshot of a very unique place in time, specially remastered for this Acid Jazz release, set in a spined sleeve for the first time, with a beautiful expansion of the original artwork.

TRACK LISTING

1. Delancey Street.. The Theme
2. Unhooked And Lost
3. Save The Children
4. Blacker (Marden Hill Sweet Green Jam Mix)
5. Jam Jah
6. Divine Fact (Blacker 2)
7. Goodvibes… Goodnight
8. Anti Gun Movement

At the start of 2024, Acid Jazz announced a long-term collaboration with cult club troupe The Ballistic Brothers.

After a sell-out 7” of the classic ‘Blacker’, and a series of digital releases, came the reissued ‘London Hooligan Soul’ in April.

Originally consisting of Ashley Beedle, Rocky and Diesel of X-Press 2, with contributions from keyboard player Uschi Classen - David Hill of Nuphonic would join for Volume 2 - each member has had storied roles in UK club music.

The Ballistic Brothers are a unique product of time and place. A place where a generation of clubbers sought the many routes and possibilities of the burgeoning London dance scene.

’ The Ballistic Brothers vs. The Eccentric Afros (Vol. 1)’, originally released on the ‘On Delancy Street’ label in 1994 was a club smash. It sat somewhere between a mini album and a 12” EP. The reality is - a lot like 'London Hooligan Soul' - it was its own thing.

For the first time, it will be presented in a full-spine outer sleeve, with a beautiful recreation of the original graphics by The Unknown, and the music restored and remastered from the original master DATs.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nyx 2
2. Gangstalene
3. Ushi’s Groove
4. And It Goes Like
This
5. MCF 2870
6. Blacker
7. Valley Of The Afro
Temple
8. Grover’s Return

Comprising of Darren Rock, Darren House and Ashley Beadle (of XPress 2), alongside David Hill and Uschi Classen, they combined their talents on a series of mysterious vinyl releases in the heady days of the London club scene. If you were part of a clubbing tribe in the early/mid ‘90s - any clubbing tribe - you will have danced to the Ballistic Brothers.

TRACK LISTING

1. Portobello Café
2. Come On
3. Soho Cab Ride
4. I’ll Fly Away
5. Jah Jah Call You
6. Mark’s Lude
7. I Don’t Know
8. Sister Song
9. A Beautiful Space
10. Steppin’ Into Eden
11. Peckings
12. Uschi’s Lament

The definitive biography of Shane MacGowan, fully updated to include Shane's final months and the response to his passing. Punk protagonist, legendary drinker, Irish musical icon. The complete and extraordinary journey of the Pogues' notorious frontman from outcast to national treasure.

A Furious Devotion vividly recounts the experiences that shaped the greatest songwriter of his generation, including the formative trips to his mother's homestead in Tipperary and the explosion of punk which changed his life. As well as exclusive interviews with Shane himself, author Richard Balls has secured contributions from his wife and family, and people who have never spoken publicly about Shane before: close associates, former girlfriends and the English teacher who first spotted his literary gift. Nick Cave, Aidan Gillen, Cillian Murphy, Christy Moore, Sinead O'Connor and Dermot O'Leary are on the rollcall of those paying tribute to the gifted songwriter and poet.

This frank and extensive biography includes many previously unseen personal photographs.

Fourth album from the acclaimed Belgian quintet.

‘Fever’ follows the band’s self-imposed hiatus, a break that saw frontmen and writing partners Jinte Deprez and Maarten Devoldere pursuing different individual interests from both a personal and creative perspective that has ultimately led the band to fashion their most cohesive album to date.

On reconvening the band had no plans, just a simple desire to better their previous works and to further the band’s story. Both primary songwriters agreed on a less serious vision leaning towards a looser, refreshed sound - less melancholic but retaining their unerring ability to create a hookladen armoury.

TRACK LISTING

Fever
Changes
Wrong Faces
Whatchu Doin’
Phone Number
Entertainment
I’m Never Gonna Let You
Down Again
Grapefruit
Wrong Vibration
Roller Coaster
You’re So Real

Belgium’s sophisticated yet sometimes worldweary indie superstars return with their fifth album and follow up to 2019’s ‘Fever’.

Further pushing on from ‘Fever’’s shift into more soulful waters, ‘Sand’ presents a more cohesive body of work that flirts with a soulful indie vibe and an at times almost slow disco undercurrent, the two singles ‘Losers’ and ‘On A Roll’ perfectly capturing the mood.

Back when you could go to gigs the band were at the point where they were selling out the Scala in London and commanding decent size crowds regionally (especially Brighton, Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow).

TRACK LISTING

Moment
Losers
On A Roll
I Want You
You Won’t Come Around
Linger On
Hourglass
Passing Through
Leaving Antwerp
Halfway
Powerless

After spending a few nights in a beautiful old castle near Brussels at the start of 2021 (following lockdown), Belgian art-poppers Balthazar returned from their stay with Sand Castle Tapes, a documentary and live concert filmed by Heleen Declercq and co-produced with HolyShit sessions. They released Sand Castle Tapes as a digital EP on 24th September 2021, featuring 10 songs from the film; 8 songs reworked from the album and two jams. On 29th April 2022, Balthazar are releasing Sand Castle Tapes for the first time in physical format as a single LP.

The band say of the stay: “You only get to fully understand an album when you start playing it together, the relaxed circumstances lead to a whole other way of interpreting the songs than we would have for a live show. It’s refreshing, it’s very human.” 

TRACK LISTING

1. On A Roll (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
2. Powerless (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
3. Jam 1 (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
4. Moment (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
5. You Won’t Come Around (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
6. Linger On (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
7. Jam 2 (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
8. Losers (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
9. Halfway (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
10. I Want You (Sand Castle Tapes Version)

Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force “Planet Rock” 12-inch re-issue on glow-in-the-dark vinyl (Limited edition of 1982 copies) B-Boy anthem from 1982 lights up any dancefloor…literally! First time ever on glow-in-the-dark vinyl! Fresh off Bambaataa’s historic donation of his vinyl collection to the Cornell University Hip-Hop Collection and the Fall 2014 “Renegades of Rhythm” tour by DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist celebrating his unparalleled contribution to hip-hop, Get On Down celebrates the song for which the Godfather of Hip-Hop is best known: 1982’s “Planet Rock,” a Kraftwerk-meets-Bronx-B-Boy anthem. Renowned the world over as a never-fail floor-filler, this new 12-inch pressing of the single is pressed on glow-in-the-dark vinyl for the first time ever. Although Bambaataa may have gotten top-billing on the release, it was a team effort, with crucial contributions by a team including DJ Jazzy Jay, Afrika Islam, Arthur Baker, John Robie, a Roland TR-808 drum machine (aka Planet Patrol) and of course MCs Mr. Biggs, G.L.O.B.E. and Pow Wow. This edition is housed in a clear, custom-embossed Get On Down poly-bag to let the glow show through.

Produced by Graham Sutton (These New Puritans, Bark Psychosis), 'Birthmarks' is New York band Bambara's ffth, and best, studio album.

A wild, musically adventurous suite of songs that follows a host of lost characters caught in a multi-generational cycle of love, violence and rebirth.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hiss
2. Letters From Sing Sing
3. Face Of Love
4. Pray To Me
5. Holy Bones
6. Elena's Dream
7. Because You Asked
8. Dive Shrine
9. Smoke
10. Loretta

DREAMVIOLENCE is BAMBARA’s full-length follow-up to their acclaimed debut EP Dog Ear Days (2010). After playing countless deafening shows in their hometown of Athens, touring the US in sweaty house shows and sharing bills with Iceage, Grimes, Liturgy, A Place to Bury Strangers, and Parts and Labor, BAMBARA decided to leave their beloved Athens and move to a basement apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn for a change. Here they practiced, slept and recorded for the majority of 2012. Following the release of a Kate Bush cover and a 10 minute improv noise EP RINGS early in the year, BAMBARA began to work on DREAMVIOLENCE.

With a minimal recording set-up and little sunlight, the band was able to completely capture the dark, grimy, noisy sound they are known for while maintaining the lush beauty that glues it all together. Reid’s voice croons and snarls the fragmented images of the city. Blaze and William’s driving rhythm section plows and swings through the dirge of vocal noise with furious power. BAMBARA doesn’t want you to get comfortable inDREAMVIOLENCE. They prefer to send you through vortexes of haunting noise before you reach the dreamy euphoria waiting in the wreckage.

TRACK LISTING

1. All The Same
2. White Dresses
3. Bird Calls
4. Hawk Bones
5. Young Mother
6. Nail Polish
7. Train Daze
8. Bar
9. Divine Teeth
10. Z
11. Breaker
12. Blonde
13. Disappear

With ‘Love on My Mind’ - the six-song mini-album, mixed by Claudius Mittendorfer (Tennis, Parquet Courts, Johnny Marr) - Bambara condense all the energy and darkness that have made them so compelling and rearrange it into something defiantly new.

Opening track, ‘Slither in the Rain’, all hissing high-hat and spectral synthlines, is a true statement of intent. It’s minimal and atmospheric, foregrounding Bateh’s raw vocals as he introduces one of ‘Love on My Mind’s main characters years after the events of the album are over, a lonely man who throws bottles at airplanes and dances a two-step in the pattern of a figure-8. While Bateh has always been adept at character sketches, tracks like ‘Slither’ introduce a newfound vulnerability that runs true through the entire album and cause the songs to hit on a more human level.

Similarly, ‘Point And Shoot’ - in which each stanza describes the louche, lawless scenes of “rooftop girls / standing shoulder-to-shoulder, naked figures with their hips / cocked,” busted up jaws, and couches full of burnholes captured by the snapshots of ‘Love on My Mind’s female lead - displays an autobiographical intimacy that is not as apparent in Bambara’s previous releases. This tenderness is echoed on ‘Birds’, a rare love song (from which the EP’s title is derived), and album closer ‘Little Wars’, a gripping finale of loneliness and isolation.

But while these songs may display a softer side of Bambara, it’s important to note that they haven’t lost the thrill of what attracted so many people to them in the first place. ‘Mythic Love’ (featuring vocals from Bria Salmena), with its driving bassline and ricocheting guitar lines, brings to mind past rave-ups like ‘Serafina’ and ‘Sunbleached Skulls’ but obliterates them in the process, while ‘Feelin’ Like A Funeral’ - a dangerously oscillating tale of a city knifing - is probably the most thrillingly anthemic song the band have ever recorded.

Taken together, ‘Love on My Mind’ amounts to another massive step forward for Bambara - the boldest thing they’ve ever done - and the sound of yet another breakthrough.

“Engrossing, dark and irresistible… an adventurous group, who just keep getting better all the time.” - CLASH

“Never anything less than captivating.” - Upset

“What Athens, Georgia bunch Bambara do, they do very well… the trio’s commitment to the dark side is never in question.” - DIY

“Bambara are ice cold and sharp as a knife’s edge.” - Loud & Quiet

“Brooklyn based doom-mongers delight… the trio go further than most in their quest to rattle.” - Q (4/5)

For fans of Daughters, Protomartyr, IDLES, King Krule, Ice Age.

TRACK LISTING

Slither In The Rain
Mythic Love
Birds
Point And Shoot
Feelin’ Like A Funeral
Little Wars

Released in 2018 to widespread critical acclaim, Bambara’s Shadow On Everything represented a decisive step forward for twin brothers Reid and Blaze Bateh – frontman and drummer, respectively – and their childhood friend, bassist William Brookshire. While prior to its release they had always been adept students of noise rock and post-punk, mining the work of bands like Swans and The Birthday Party to construct what NPR called “beautifully dynamic nightmares,” on Shadow they boldly redefined their sound to create an album that clearly transcended their early influences and dramatically quickened the pace of their ascent from the underground. Consistent with their frenetic live set, the musical center of Shadow On Everything is Bambara’s impossibly tight rhythm section, with Blaze’s manic drumming and William’s rock-steady basslines serving as the perfect canvas for Reid’s wild guitar squalls and howled vocals.

But the album’s recording marked the first time that Reid’s voice was pushed to the front of the mix, highlighting the damaged characters and seedy locales that interact and overlap throughout its 12 songs. A stridently experimental record, Shadow features everything from violin to saxophone arrangements, and is meticulously interspersed with outré ambient noise loops distilled down from hours of manipulated vocal collages. Just two years after its release Shadow On Everything may seem like it was the logical next step for a band with experimental and punk origins that would go on to construct the intricate compositions displayed by its follow up Stray. In fact, Shadow memorializes Bambara putting everything on the line because they knew they could be more than what anyone may have seen in them up to that point in time.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dark Circles
2. Doe-Eyed Girl 
3. José Tries To Leave
4. Night’s Changing 
5. Monument 
6. The Door Between Her Teeth
7. Human Hair
8. Steel Dust Ocean
9. Sunbleached Skulls
10. Wild Fires
11. Backyard
12. Back Home

Bambara are a Brooklyn based dark, noise / punk band with a Western slant. The trio consisting of twin brothers Reid (vocals / guitar) and Blaze Bateh (drums) and childhood friend William Brookshire (bass) formed in Athens, GA, deriving their name from a character in the cartoon ‘Aeon Flux’. They moved to a basement apartment in Brooklyn where they recorded their ambitious debut album ‘Dreamviolence’ (2013), their sprawling noise-collage EP ‘Night Chimes’ (2014) and their snarly, apocalyptic sophomore album ‘Swarm’ (2016) to much acclaim.

Although Reid plays all the guitar on their records, Bambara recently added two guitarists to their live shows, allowing Reid to sneer and stagger around the stage as he sings unhindered by instruments.

TRACK LISTING

Dark Circles
Doe-Eyed Girl
José Tries To Leave
Night's Changing
Monument
The Door Between Her
Teeth
Human Hair
Steel Dust Ocean
Sunbleached Skulls
Wild Fires
Backyard
Back Home

One thing you won’t be able to avoid on Bambara’s 'Stray' is death. It’s everywhere and inescapable, the key to the whole record. That though won’t be the first thing that strikes you about their fourth – and greatest – album to date. That will be its pulverising soundscape; by turns, vast, atmospheric, cool, broiling and at times – on stand out tracks like “Sing Me To The Street” and “Serafina” – simply overwhelming. This NYC-via-Georgia trio (the Bateh brothers, Reid and Blaze, singer and drummer respectively, and bassist William Brookshire) have been evolving their midnight-black noise rock into something more subtle and expansive ever since the release of their 2013 debut 'Dreamviolence.' That process greatly accelerated on 2018’s 'Shadow On Everything,' their first on New York’s Wharf Cat label and a huge stride forward for the band both lyrically and sonically.

A rapturously-received concept album (NPR called it a “mesmerising…western, gothic opus”), it elevated the band’s status on both sides of the Atlantic (capturing the attention of, among other people, the UK band IDLES – who invited them to tour with them – and influential British 6Music DJ Steve Lamacq, who dubbed them the best band of 2019’s SXSW). The question was, though: how to follow it? The band knew that they wanted to push further: experiment with instrumentation and not limit their songwriting in terms of what they could or could not reproduce live. They also wanted to showcase a wider range of influences. Their Georgia upbringings means that Southern Gothic is in their DNA (the likes of Flannery O’Connor and Harry Crews) but there’s more to them than that and this time they wanted to show that, offering up touchstones as diverse as Laurie Anderson and Sade as well as classic French noirs like L’Ascenseur Pour L’Echafraud as key influencers on their thinking.

The record was written in an airless Brooklyn basement in the first half of 2019, the songs being continually reworked over many months. Once they felt cohesive, they travelled back to their hometown of Athens, GA to record the building blocks with their friend Drew Vandenberg. After that, a period of experimentation and enriching began: additional instrumentation was added, (violins courtesy of Adam Markiewicz, trumpets via Sean Smith), as well as a crucial and leavening layer of female vocals (thanks to Public Practice’s Drew Citron and Palberta’s Anina Ivry-Block). Finally, in a remote cabin in the woods in rural Georgia, Reid laid down his vocals.

Now, while the music itself is evocative and propulsive, a fever dream all of its own, the lyrical content pushes the record even further into its own darkly thrilling realm. If the songs on 'Shadow On Everything' were like chapters in a novel, then this time they’re short stories. Stories that are connected by death, both abstract and personified, and that deal with how that affects the characters in contact with it. “Death is what you make it” runs a lyric in “Sweat” and in a way that’s the key line on the whole record. It would be wrong to characterize 'Stray' as simply the sound of the graveyard though. Light frequently streams through and love and longing are present too (particularly on “Made For Me”). It’s a record that avoids simple characterization but one thing that is certain about it is that it represents another monumental leap forward for the band. Sometimes groups need time to grow. Here Bambara finally sound like they’ve locked into what they were always destined to achieve. It’s electrifying!

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Brooging, gothy rock a-la Nick Cave, meets the cavernous insistent guitars of mid-80's Manchester, and hazy surf percussion underpinning the whole adventure. Brilliantly diverse but cohesive collection from Bambara.

TRACK LISTING

Miracle
Heat Lightning
Sing Me To The Street
Serafina
Death Croons
Stay Cruel
Ben & Lily
Made For Me
Sweat
Machete

Upon ‘Swarm’’s 2016 release, Brooklyn-based Bambara had been honing their noise-rock brutalism since forming in Athens, Georgia in 2009. On ‘Swarm’, their second full-length, the band began to pull their approach into sharp focus, and the result was a foundational triumph.

After the pure noise experimentation of their 2013 debut, ‘Dreamviolence’, here the band began to develop many of their later trademarks. Marrying the maniacal ravings of The Birthday Party and the brutality of early Swans with the tangled roots-punk of The Gun Club, the spotlight started to fall on vocalist / guitarist Reid Bateh’s lyrics as well as the ‘Spaghetti western’ atmospherics that would come to the fore to such effect on later releases such as ‘Shadow On Everything’ and ‘Stray’.

For fans of Bambara’s visceral and pummelling performances, which led to extensive touring opportunities along rising star contemporaries such as Gilla Band, Algiers, and IDLES, before earning the band their own headlining slot on multiple international tours, ‘Swarm’ will serve as a sort of missing link. Now, for the first time ever, live-set favourites such as the brooding ‘An Ill Son’, the flawlessly dynamic ‘Black’, and the pop-snarled ‘All the Ugly Things’ can be listened to at a level of audio fidelity on par with the band’s later recordings.

Tiny Mix Tapes praised ‘Dreamviolence’, the band’s first LP, by saying that “complete, utter anguish has never sounded this good.” ‘Swarm’ made it sound even better. With these 12 songs, Bambara proved that sometimes the only way to confront a fucked-up world is to sink to its level. As Henry Rollins succinctly summed it up at the time, this is a “REALLY cool record.”

“‘Swarm’... is a beautifully dynamic nightmare.” – NPR

“Since 2008, Bambara have reined nigh-unintelligible noise into something more artfully restrained, but the wildness remains intact.” - Pitchfork

“Bambara hail from Athens, Georgia, famously home to REM and The B-52’s, but what they do is far noisier, angrier, scarier. They sound like a band always on the lookout for something bigger.” - The Quietus

“Bambara write chaotic songs held together with formless washes of noise and anxious vocal drones, crafting pallid but vibrant pieces that thrashed with... mutant energy.” - VICE

TRACK LISTING

Clearing Out The Weeds
Her Sister Touya
An Ill Son
Black
Like Waves
I Don’t Mind
Filled Up With Night
It’s Nothing
All The Ugly Things
I Can’t Recall
In Bars
As Her

BAMBOO (Nick Carlisle - keyboards, production, also of Peepholes / Katy & Nick) & Rachel Horwood (vocals, electric banjo, also of Trash Kit / Bas Jan) announce their third studio album "Daughters Of The Sky", on Upset The Rhythm.

The album was written and recorded over a two year period where ideas and arrangements were allowed to slow-cook and develop over time, in contrast with the last album "The Dragon Flies Away" which came together relatively quickly for the duo. The music comprises the usual (for Bamboo) mix of Horwood's flawlessly resonant folk cadence and Carlisle's pristine synth production, whilst TR808 drum machines and samples lock together with acoustic drums, themselves often given the "Tony Visconti" Eventide Harmoniser treatment of Berlin-era Bowie albums. Ancient ARP synthesisers and Mellotron flutes and horns sit next to contemporary digital sounds and samples in a hauntological tapestry over which Horwood can intone her sometimes mournful, often uplifting vocals.

The first single taken from the album, "Weeping Idols", reflects upon a recurring theme of religious dogma and spiritual entrapment, and is accompanied by a stunning video shot by Jack Barraclough around the North Coast of Northern Ireland, taking in the Giant's Causeway and the Kinbane Castle ruin. Carlisle's infectiously colourful synth riffs and pop production, featuring sun-burst harp playing from Brighton-based singer/multi-instrumentalist Emma Gatrill, contrasts sharply with the darker tone of Horwood's lyric, jarring in a way reminiscent of "You Have Placed A Chill On My Heart" by The Eurythmics.

Although "Daughters Of The Sky" breaks away from the storybook concept format of The Dragon Flies Away, in that sense being more similar to Bamboo's debut album "Prince Pansori Priestess" (2015, ★★★★★ - Record Collector Magazine), there are still recurrent themes that run through the album such as motherhood, the cyclical nature of life, emancipation and liberation. "Branches dancing, bud stems growing, fibres swaying, arms unfurling" Horwood sings in The Deku Tree, a song which roots motherhood in nature's eternal cycle of birth and death. In the title track we see two perspectives of women spanning time and geography, Horwood drawing inspiration from the personal and also political. In 1917 a Russian match stick worker looks out of her window dreaming for a better life; in 2019 a Filipino maid in Hong Kong yearns to return to the children she has left behind. Both share a revolutionary spirit, protesting and fighting for a new world.

What might be the centrepiece of the album, "East Of The Sun / West Of The Moon", an 11 minute epic, begins with a serene, desolate ambient intro which eventually transports us over the waves to some unknown land. Here we track the journey of a displaced people who are rejected from pillar to post, prevented from crossing over political lines, judged by fellow humans by their few differences over their myriad similarities. "And we all walk a different pace, though we end up in the same place" sings Horwood, as the song's new-found rhythm seems to break apart again and slowly splinter away in different directions, the fragments hanging in the air as a new section emerges featuring a rare lead vocal from Carlisle.

Bar the brief instrumental coda "Tenebrae", the album ends on an optimistic note with "A World Is Born", an upbeat song of renewal. Horwood sings of the creation of a new world for a new generation, out of the ashes of a society stagnating under the collapsing weight of late capitalism. Saxophones provided by Emma Gatrill (her second guest appearance on the album) answer each vocal line in call and response style over more harmonised drums reminiscent of Bowie's "Low". Carlisle originally wrote the music following the death of Bowie, and Horwood added some Prince-like backing vocals (Prince having been name-checked in the title of the first Bamboo album). Although her lyric makes no reference to the loss of these giants, their influence hang over the song in a way which can only add to the sense of hope and rebirth, a sense which is indeed felt throughout the album.

TRACK LISTING

01. Diamond Springs
02. Weeping Idols
03. Daughters Of The Sky
04. Memories All At Once
05. Off-World Colony
06. East Of The Sun / West Of The Moon
07. The Deku Tree
08. Under Larches
09. A World Is Born
10. Tenebrae

Banabila returns with a second LP release on Knekelhuis. The renowned Dutch producer is up there among the stars when it comes to ambient music and the so-called ‘fourth world’ legacy. On this eleven-track album, we witness soul-wrenching, kraut-tinted, and early-yet-modernist electronics.

Coming from his heart, these imaginative recordings center around otherworldly voices – fictional characters chanting in a made-up language, imbued with a captivating spirit, transcending linguistic barriers. Through remarkable complexity and technique, 'Unspeakable Visions' is full of sonic textures, together evoking a layered, emotional arc.

While the track 'Rattles' still references the artist's first album on Knekelhuis, 'Echo Transformations', the style of most other tracks departs towards an intriguing new mix of both pop-infused songs and gloomy abstraction, balancing between a sense of anticipation and desolation.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Real trippy weirdness with moments of cerebrum-popping brilliance. Granular sound design, fractal glitches, manipulated organica... A truly immersive long player for your next mushroom ritual.

TRACK LISTING

Viva Voce
Vowels Of Love
Darker And Darker
Hometapers Tricky Universe
So Far Yet So Near
Your Words Against Mine
Rattles
Little Star
AI Brainfire
Sounds From An Unforgettable Place 1 (Uv Remix)
Unspeakable Visions

Ever since he released his music in the early '80s Michel Banabila has been hard to pinpoint to a specific genre or style. His musical output includes jazz, experimental cut-up electronics, world music (especially influenced by the Fourth World music as developed by Jon Hassell), New Age, eclectic pop tunes, music for dance or other stage projects, and soundtracks for TV. Some listeners may have found it difficult throughout the years to find their way in this versatile output.

For this particular release, Bureau B chose a different approach. Instead of archiving early works from the 1980s, Wah-Wah Whispers focuses on Banabila's more recent output. It is a collection of works showcasing many facets of his music: a journey visiting the minimal and cinematic sample scape, contemplative ambient / fourth world scenes and more. The album ends with a kaleidoscope of atmospheres gradually building up to a noise climax.

There are some records that you come across that sound like you’ve discovered an unearthed gem from a previous decade; a lost moment in musical history that has cruelly been sat gathering dust in a record shop for years. From the opening seconds of Bananagun’s “Do Yeah” - which stirs to life in an intoxicating blend of 1970s afrobeat, fuzzed out psychedelia and immersive pop - this very much feels like the case of discovering something special. However, rather than being a decades old find, this track comes from a brand new Melbourne band. With the aim of merging the proto-garage rhythmic fury of The Monks with the tropicália grooves of Os Mutantes, the band soon forged a sound that was as loose and unravelling as it was focused and taut, with an aim of creating a real sense of place and environment.

“We didn't want to do what everyone else was doing,” the band say. “We wanted it to be vibrant, colourful and have depth like the jungle. Like an ode to nature.” There’s a deeply percussive element to the band’s psychedelic ode to mother nature, touching upon Fela Kuti-esque repetitions, exotica, jazz and 1960s pop-rock. Much like a lot of the influences it filters into its own unique spin on it all, it’s intended as “music for the people” - a unifying groove that spans genres. Even the seemingly innocuous band name has an underlying message of connectivity that matches the universality of the music. “It’s like non-violent combat! Or the guy who does a stick up but it’s just a banana, not a gun, and he tells the authorities not to take themselves too seriously.” This extends to the underlying message of their debut single too: “try to love and not hate because you’re the one who has to carry it around.” Do Yeah 7”

TRACK LISTING

1. Do Yeah
2. Top Cat
3. Crane In The Tiger's Mouth

To say that the intervening 4 years since the arrival of their debut album had been tumultuous for Melbourne/Naarm’s Bananagun would be an understatement. Released during the height of lockdown in the summer of 2020, the group were forcibly “scattered” following the release of The True Story of Bananagun. Australia’s ultra-strict lockdown rules - declaring it illegal to travel beyond a 5km radius - made it nigh on impossible for the band to get together at all, with the only rehearsals requiring them to sneak past military checkpoints undetected.

Coinciding with this too was a great period of personal change for the band’s guitarist/vocalist/flautist, and songwriter Nick van Bakel.“ "I had a myriad of mountains to be crossed which was pretty challenging” he explains. “so I just cocooned into lots of spiritual side quests and soul seeking. Band members were travelling etc so it was ages before we got through the stop-start stop-start phase and regained some band momentum…”

This climate of upheaval does not go unheard on the band’s long-awaited follow-up, ‘Why is the colour of the Sky?’. While it’s by no means a pessimistic work - far from it - it’s an album that departs from the ultra-slick bursts of sunshine-pop and afrobeat that defined ‘True Story… ‘, and muddies the waters with a heavy blend of incendiary jazz and freak-beat experimentation. It’s Bananagun alright, but braver, bolder and more mysterious than ever…

With the only conscious musical dictum being that percussion and groove was brought “to the fore” - and, boy, is this album groovy - the band decamped to a Button Pusher studio Preston, Melbourne with equipment “on par with any 60's studio”, tracking with minimal takes - ‘warts’ n’ all’ - battling through the temperaments of analogue mixing equipment late into the night under the assertion that these more traditional methods provided “the most, organic pure way to record”. Also imperative was to manipulate the social conditions in which the takes were performed and nail the ‘vibe’ during recording: “It was all “attitude towards life and esoteric stuff, natural law, how energy transfers, sounds, chemistry between people”, explains van Bakel, “trying to foster an environment together where we can make some magic, capture the phenomena of energy and soundwaves interacting with each other in the room. And that was definitely what we wanted it to sound like - pro human”.

In many ways, “pro-human” captures the radical quintessence that Why Is the Colour of the Sky? is fulsomely jazz-shuffling towards. For a record that recognises, in it’s every breath and sinew the humbling, restorative and life-affirming power of collective creative endeavour - it’s also a work that resists an ever more technologically-driven and isolating world that can feel ever more dehumanising in its quests for ‘perfection’. A theme directly addressed in ‘Children of the Man’ with it’s “Robo-sapien” lyric, it’s a thread that runs across the entire record:
“I feel like a lot of human nature and tradition is worth preserving because we've probably evolved to be this way.”, van Bakel notes, “[Why is the Colour…] is all just about not losing your head and being over stimulated by the ‘goggle box’; the need for spirituality and nature; the need to be able to communicate and share ideas and adapt in a rapidly changing world without being judged and profiled. The preservation of human needs, so we don't all get homogenised and isolated and poisoned to stupidity and obedience. “
And what better way is there to feel human than by laying down a dynamite groove, or nine?

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Woozy, dreamy psychedelic business here from Melbourne's Bananagun. Channelling the spirit of early Floyd / Syd Barrett into a modern distillation of folk, rock and folk. there are moments here that feel disorganised and loose, only to come together perfectly into a perfectly formed patchwork of emotion. Wonderfully loose, low-slung psychedelic rock.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Brave Child Of A New World
Children Of The Man
Those Who Came Before
Feeding The Moon
Gift Of The Open Hand

Side B
With The Night
Hippopotamusic
Free Energy
Wonder Part I
Wonder Part II

Bananarama celebrate over 40 years at the top with the release of ‘Glorious - The Ultimate Collection’. With 40 tracks selected by Sara and Keren themselves, the album revisits every decade of the band’s career, with hits including ‘Cruel Summer’, ‘Venus’, ‘Love in the First Degree’, ‘Only Your Love’, ‘Preacher Man’, ‘Move in My Direction’ and more, along with two new singles, ‘Feel The Love’ and ‘Supernova’.

TRACK LISTING

LP (Transparent Red)
Cruel Summer (3am Mix)
Robert De Niro’s Waiting
Venus (Boys Noize Rework Edit)
Love In The First Degree
Preacher Man
Movin’ On (Disco Chic)
Move In My Direction
Look On The Floor
Love Don’t Live Here
Stuff Like That
Looking For Someone
Favourite
Masquerade
Forever Young
Feel The Love
Supernova

2CD / 3LP (Transparent Gold)
Really Saying Something
Cruel Summer
Robert De Niro's Waiting
Venus
More Than Physical
A Trick Of The Night
I Heard A Rumour
Love In The First Degree
Only Your Love
Preacher Man
I Could Be Persuaded
Movin' On [Disco Chic]
Last Thing On My Mind [Electrified]
Every Shade Of Blue
Take Me To Your Heart
Prove Your Love
If
Crazy
Move In My Direction
Look On The Floor (Hypnotic Tango)
Feel For You
Lovebite
Love Comes
Love Don't Live Here
Seventeen
Extraordinary
Baby It's Christmas
Now Or Never
La La Love
Stuff Like That
Looking For Someone
I'm On Fire
It's Gonna Be Alright
Favourite
Masquerade
Forever Young
Running With The Night
Cruel Summer (3am Mix)
Feel The Love
Supernova

'Do They Know It’s Christmas?' is a single by Band Aid, a charity supergroup founded in 1984 by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure. To commemorate 40 years since the original recording, a newly compiled CD and vinyl reissue will raise vital funds for the Band Aid Trust.

The reissue features the original 1984 version, and subsequent Band Aid 20 and Band Aid 30 versions, plus the 2024 Ultimate Mix – an extraordinary new edit by Trevor Horn which mixes together vocals of the many artists who have recorded the song over the decades into one seamless whole.

Here on one record are the finest voices and the greatest musicians of British rock n roll history.

TRACK LISTING

1. Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas? – 1984 Version
2. Band Aid 20 – Do They Know It’s Christmas? – 2004 Version
3. Band Aid 30 – Do They Know It’s Christmas? – 2014 Version
4. Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas? – 2024 Ultimate Mix
5. Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas? – Live At Wembley Stadium, 1985

The apotheosis of Band Of Holy Joy's bile toward today's pathetic state of affairs will be released shortly – a blistering remix of "The Devil Has A Hold On The Land" from their last album, Neon Primitives. Remixed by Youth (Killing Joke bassist, Paul McCartney collaborator, producer of Melanie C and U2!), who was so taken by the song as to remix it gratis, the remix will be part of a series of 23 discrete 7" 45s by Jon Langford of The Mekons and an assortment fellow travellers from around the globe. Dreams Take Flight transitions from political discourse into a post-virus rebirth of human relationship and the inevitable fumblings of the society's psychological reconstruction over the forthcoming year. Have you ever wondered what purpose your joy or my pain? All those moments shared together to be washed away by the rain . . . Have you ever doubted our super hipster being love-in at all? Just a pair of urbane fools passing through waiting for our call . . . Take a leap into the great unknown. Almost perversely heart-on-sleeve, Johny Brown and compatriots have never fitted well within a particular scene - nor have they ever seem to try.

Although recorded under the existence of quarantine and a healthy amount of paranoia, in search of the joy of greatly hindered collaboration, the band has opted to turn over each song to a different visionary video artist for an exhibition which will take place for a week at London's Gallery 46 beginning at the end of February and open to the public. The video exhibition will subsequently be available online, before the album's release. While still featuring some of the band's strongest songs, Dreams Take Flight has a strange film-like ambience in parts, almost as if planned as a soundtrack, a thought mirrored in Inga Tillere's sublime, dream-like sleeve, best seen in real life. "A Leap Into The Great Unknown" and "Notes From A Gallery" will likely be heard as too disarmingly direct for radio, and the videos will likely never see the entry door to MTV, but Dreams Take Flight will ultimately be considered a masterwork of clarity in a confused, contentious time.

TRACK LISTING

1. This Is The Festival Scene 
2. A Leap Into The Great Unknown 
3. That Magic Thing 
4. When Love Is Not Enough 
5. On Set Romance 
6. Notes From A Gallery 
7. The Rhythm Of Life 
8. A New Clear Vision 

Early Band Of Holy Joy existed somewhere on the cut-up side of proto-industrial music, resting between Marc Stewart & Maffia, Sonic Youth, and Current 93, and proponents of a more romantic musical language - Virginia Astley, Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins among them - all artists whose work BPHJ's music sat comfortably alongside across on a stream of low-budget vinyl and cassette compilations after the start of the eighties. A great leap in polish led to a deal with Rough Trade and several early '90s albums which flirted with the mainstream, with BOHJ almost an odder, less obvious cousin to Dexys Midnight Runners. When these releases failed to take off as hoped, lost years followed on smaller labels and self-released projects, until the renewed urgency of the 2016 Brutalism Begins At Home EP and increasingly majestic albums on which saw leader Johny Brown's lyricism enter a new phase. The common thread through BOHJ's four decades of recordings is the foundational warmth and humanity of Brown's words. The band's earliest recordings seemed garnered from street-level observations of neighbourhood people and sights. By the time of near-hit "Tactless", their songs - whatever the underlying impulses may have been - had become immediate enough to overcome the mystery of a line like "Do you remember the swan that was shot in the park?"

Over each of their last three albums - Funambulist We Love You, Neon Primitives and Dreams Take Flight - BOHJ has bettered itself, and may now have reached their apex, Fated Beautiful Mistakes. We live in a time of generally justifiable gloom and awkward uncertainty. So it may appear cavalier to claim this album sounds revelatory in that context, but Band Of Holy Joy's strengths rest largely in Johny Brown and the band's ability to capture a wider societal feeling. One listen to the escapist fantasy of "Our Flighty Season Under The Flighty Sun" and its slightly-haunted ending speaks volumes beyond most of what passes for music in 2023, and it's just one of many perfect moments on this album.

TRACK LISTING

Lighthouse Keeper
New York Romantic
A Citadel Of Crooked Soul
Mersey Ferry On The River Thames
Our Flighty Season Inn The Dirty Sun
Circus Folk
City People
Instagram Moon
The Curve Of The Bay
The Full Bloom Of Roses
Babylon Farewell

Band Of Horses 2006 debut, "Everything All The Time" was a big favourite here at Piccadilly and so naturally we're very excited about this follow up. For a lot of reasons, "Cease to Begin" is the perfect title for this record. Not only do the songs themselves weave this theme through the record, but stopping and starting anew is also a reflection of the past year and a half for Band Of Horses. Though they worked with producer Phil Ek again, as they did on "Everything All The Time", much has changed between the fairly recent then and now. There have been band members who have come and gone, including Mat Brooke, who left the band to pursue other interests and his own band. For core members Ben Bridwell, Rob Hampton and Creighton Barrett, there has been a move from Seattle, WA to Mt. Pleasant, SC, a relocation that had been planned for some time so that they could all be closer to their families. And, close friends and family have come and gone-some far too early. Necessarily shot through with these experiences, the songs on "Cease To Begin" are strikingly beautiful, if less elliptical and more straightforward, with more sophisticated arrangements than the last record. It certainly doesn't disappoint.

TRACK LISTING

Is There A Ghost
Ode To LRC
No One’s Gonna Love You
Detlef Schrempf
The General Specific
Lamb On The Lam (In The City)
Islands On The Coast
Marry Song
Cigarettes, Wedding Bands
Window Blues

Folks, you don't need to buy any records by My Morning Jacket, Flaming Lips or Mercury Rev anymore, Seattle's Band Of Horses have combined all three and only gone and made one of the albums of the year! These are huge, emotive, yearning songs. The sound is reverb-drenched and lonesome: enormo guitars chime whilst Ben Bridewell whacks out his vocals like Perry Farrel's little, lost brother. OK, they sound very similar to M.M. Jacket, but there's a directness here that's exhilarating. The whole record flows, but there's some absolute anthems lurking amidst the drift and echo. It's a towering, beautiful thing.

TRACK LISTING

The First Song
Wicked Gil
Our Swords
The Funeral
Part One
The Great Salt Lake
Weed Party
I Go To The Barn Because I Like The Monsters
St. Augustine

Band Of Nowhere is a new constellation project by Juanjo Sánchez, together with other collaborators with whom he had previously worked. It is worth mentioning Bob Drake on drums, former member of the legendary formation Thinking Plague (also on Hail, 5UU's, The Science Group) who has also mastered the project from their studio in the Midi-Pyrénées and also to mention the guitarist Jordi Cabayol (Camino al Desván) both Juanjo and Jordi began their career in a significant band of Barcelona of the early eighties, such as Entr'acte.

The becoming of Juanjo Sánchez would take him to other latitudes as a member of Alondra Satori and without losing the lighthouse of his city, he would collaborate with other outstanding musicians such as Quicu Samsó (Koniec, Macromassa).

The fluidity and chromaticism of his previous album Gonza Magilla is still perceived in here, but in a much more electrified way with guitars that are sometimes expansive, other times exuberant wrapped up with contagious synthesizer modulations and very marked rhythms. The production and especially the arrangements are fantastic with those special presences of synthesizers that are not common around here.

Its original improvisation and experimentation is skilfully adjusted by Juanjo Sánchez, giving a much more playful result with unexpected combinations, very much in continuity with a certain European Art Rock such as Aksak Maboul, Etron Fou, Zamla,The Work or the mischievous resonances of The League of Gentlemen; all this mapping the sound transit, to an unpredictable and vibrant non-place.

Housed in it's original hand made artwork with the little upgrade twist of silk-screen printing textured grey cardboard and including a insert colour with photos and text provided by Juanjo Sánchez.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
Calling All Beginners
Fleeing To The Poles
Ashes
Rouler Ma Bosse
Sunday Machinery

SIDE B
Lucid Dreams
Twisted Maze
Rolla Bolla
Chinese Forecast

Produced by Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters, Patti Smith) and recorded in Rockfield Studios, By Default is the sound of a group on the sharpest form of their career, more engaged and focused than they’ve ever been. The follow up to 2014’s Himalayan, from the English trio - made up of Russell Marsden (guitar, vocals), Emma Richardson (bass, vocals) and Matt Hayward (drums) – the new record came about via a conscious decision from the band to take a step back from their relentless world-wide touring schedule (having never spent more than a month off the road in the last 2 years) to decamp to and write songs in a Southampton Baptist Church-cum-makeshift HQ. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Black Magic
2. Back Of Beyond
3. Killer
4. Bodies
5. Tropical Disease
6. So Good
7. This Is My Fix
8. Little Momma
9. Embers
10. In Love By Default
11. Singing
12. Something 

Banda Black Rio's 'Maria Fumaca' is one of the strongest Brazilian samba-disco-funk-soul-fusion albums of all time. It was voted No. 38 in the Top 100 Brazilian Albums Ever in Rolling Stone Magazine, Brazil. This official Mr Bongo re-issue comes complete with replica original artwork.

Banda Black Rio were formed in 1976 by the late Oberdan Magalhães in Rio de Janeiro. They revolutionised black instrumental music at the time with their Brazilian re-interpretation of soul, jazz, funk and disco grooves, inspired by the likes of Tim Maia and reminiscent of Kool & The Gang and Earth, Wind & Fire during their most on-point period of the 1970's. 'Maria Fumaca' is the groups first album, originally released by Atlantic in 1977 and a record that bought the group worldwide fame.

The title track is a real stand-out for us and a long term firm favourite. 'Miss Cheryll', more of a disco / AOR jam, was released by RCA UK in 1980 as the track become popular within several London scenes.

Once again, Peru manages to surprise us. From the heights of the Andes come two incredible recordings that show how local folklore has embraced international hits—resulting in fun, unexpected fusions with a distinct Andean twist. ‘Do You Think I’m Sexy?’, Rod Stewart’s 1978 classic, is transformed into a powerful huayno anthem—complete with driving percussion and bold brass that almost echo the sound of a New Orleans street parade. Raw, energetic, and unmistakably Andean. On the flip side, we find a playful nod to ‘Saturday Night Fever’—retitled ‘El Travoltoso’—infused with infectious rhythms of huayno and cumbia. Once again, wind instruments take center stage in this track, just like in the flip-side cut. Both songs come from some of the rarest and most sought-after records among collectors of Peruvian music. Reissued for the first time ever. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Crees Que Soy Sexy?
2. El Travoltoso 

Bandante feature George Vjestica of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds, and triumphs in it's direct no-nonsense approach, be that with the heavy rocking vibes of the A side or the anthemic acoustic balladry of the flip. 'Bang Bang' shoots off the starting line with classic single-note riffage and pummeling drum kit, backed with heavy AF distorted guitar chords and gruffly shouted vocal refrains. 'My Friend' is a much more pensive number, with acoustic guitar jangling behind booming bass, and Vjestica's vocals. A wistful ode to companionship, and a suitably beautiful tribute. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brilliantly classic 7 of two sides this one. The heavier rock and roll clatter of the A-Side versus the wistful acoustic number on the flipside. Both are beautiful but in completely different ways, and really display the songmanship of such a talented bunch. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

A. Bang Bang

B. My Friend

Bandjo is Jacob Haage and Fredrik Johansson from Stockholm, responsible for more of that shimmering psychedlic / Balearic sound the Swedes seem to do oh-so well. What’s unique about Bandjo though is that while their songs are full of sand and seagulls (and seagulls full of sand), there is a strong sense of the foreboding also at play. “You & The Sun” is a late afternoon at the shore turning to storms. The sky has gone ominous as the wind whips your hair and the waves crash fiercely, echoing the lightning in the distance. The calmness of the lazy afternoon is a distant memory as nature moves around you at double speed. Quick, hammer in that windbreak!

2021 marks the 50th anniversary of The Band’s fourth studio album, ‘Cahoots’. On December 3, Capitol/UMe will release the newly remixed and remastered album in variety of formats to celebrate this iconic and influential album.

‘Cahoots’ was the fourth studio album, and last album of original material for four years.

The front cover painted by New York artist/illustrator Gilbert Stone Back cover features a photograph portrait of the group by Richard Avedon.
Features guest vocals from Van Morrison (on “4% Pantomime”)

TRACK LISTING

Life Is A Carnival
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Last Of The Blacksmiths
Where Do We Go From Here?
4% Pantomime
Shoot Out In Chinatown
The Moon Struck One
Thinkin’ Out Loud
Smoke Signal
Volcano
The River Hymn

"The Band's first album, Music from Big Pink, seemed to come out of nowhere, with its ramshackle musical blend and songs of rural tragedy. The Band, the group's second album, was a more deliberate and even more accomplished effort, partially because the players had become a more cohesive unit, and partially because guitarist Robbie Robertson had taken over the songwriting, writing or co-writing all 12 songs. Though a Canadian, Robertson focused on a series of American archetypes from the union worker in "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" and the retired sailor in "Rockin' Chair" to, most famously, the Confederate Civil War observer Virgil Cane in "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." The album effectively mixed the kind of mournful songs that had dominated Music from Big Pink, here including "Whispering Pines" and "When You Awake" (both co-written by Richard Manuel), with rollicking uptempo numbers like "Rag Mama Rag" and "Up on Cripple Creek" (both sung by Levon Helm and released as singles, with "Up on Cripple Creek" making the Top 40). As had been true of the first album, it was The Band's sound that stood out the most, from Helm's (and occasionally Manuel's) propulsive drumming to Robertson's distinctive guitar fills and the endlessly inventive keyboard textures of Garth Hudson, all topped by the rough, expressive singing of Manuel, Helm, and Rick Danko that mixed leads with harmonies. The arrangements were simultaneously loose and assured, giving the songs a timeless appeal, while the lyrics continued to paint portraits of 19th century rural life (especially Southern life, as references to Tennessee and Virginia made clear), its sometimes less savory aspects treated with warmth and humor." - All Music.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Just as good as the first, maybe without the same impact. Includes the world-classic "The Night They Drove Old Whiskey Down".

TRACK LISTING

1. Across The Great Divide
2. Rag Mama Rag
3. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
4. When You Awake
5. Up On Cripple Creek
6. Whispering Pines
7. Jemima Surrender
8. Rockin' Chair
9. Look Out Cleveland
10. Jawbone
11. The Unfaithful Servant
12. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)

The four-parts Canadian, one-part Arkansan quintet's sophomore effort boasts more soon-to-be-staples than any other Band studio recording, what with the likes of the Joan Baez hit "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", "Across the Great Divide", and "Up on Cripple Creek" standing out among the dozen uniformly memorable tracks.

Lesser-known group originals such as the achingly lovely "Whispering Pines" and the cryptic "Unfaithful Servant", however, play crucial roles in giving this 1969 classic its unique flavour.

Now in limited edition Bone White vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

01. Across The Great Divide
02. Rag Mama Rag
03. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
04. When You Awake
05. Up On Cripple Creek
06. Whispering Pines

01. Jemima Surrender
02. Rockin' Chair
03. Look Out Cleveland
04. Jawbone
05. The Unfaithful Servant
06. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)

Newly remastered. First time on vinyl in decades. Includes “The Weight,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up On Cripple Creek,” “Ophelia” and many more!

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracklist:
A1. Up On Cripple Creek
A2. The Shape I'm In
A3. The Weight
A4. It Makes No Difference
A5. Life Is A Carnival
B1. Twilight
B2. Don’t Do It
B3. Tears Of Rage
B4. Stage Fright
B5. Ophelia
B6 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

CD Tracklist:
1. Up On Cripple Creek
2. The Shape I'm In
3. The Weight
4. It Makes No Difference
5. Life Is A Carnival
6. Twilight
7. Don’t Do It
8. Tears Of Rage
9. Stage Fright
10. Ophelia
11. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Badasonic Records proudly presents a new chapter in its Soundclash Series: a transatlantic 45rpm featuring Belgian ska-reggae-soul collective The Utopians and Austin, Texas’ finest rocksteady outfit The Bandulus. Each band reimagines one of the other’s songs, creating a true musical exchange that bridges continents while celebrating shared roots.

On the A-side, The Utopians take on The Bandulus’ rocksteady gem 'Be Your Man' and transform it into a driving early reggae cut, infused with raw energy and vocal stylings influenced by Toots & The Maytals. Flipping to the B-side, The Bandulus reinterpret The Utopians' 'Don’t Work'. Originally an early reggae track, the song is reborn as a late-70s reggae version, adding a fresh electronic edge while keeping the soulful core intact.

This special release is the direct outcome of the two joint European tours that brought the bands together, solidifying not only their artistic respect but also a genuine friendship. Produced and mixed by Nico Leonard for Badasonic Records, the single captures the warmth of analog recording and the creativity of two groups committed to carrying Jamaican-inspired music into the present day.

Available as a collector’s edition 45rpm vinyl and digitally worldwide, this split single is more than just a record — it’s a cultural dialogue, a celebration of collaboration, and a testament to the strong bond between The Utopians and The Bandulus.

TRACK LISTING

1. Be Your Man
2. Don’t Work

During the five years since the release of their first EP, Bane have grown into the leaders of the new hardcore movement. "Give Blood" is undoubtedly Bane's most commanding and highly anticipated release to date. The album was produced and engineered by Brian McTernan (Cave In, Hot Water Music, Snapcase) and this really is a truly intense experience for the listener.

“Chiroptera” is the soundtrack of 'Acte 2 : Retour à la Caverne', a creation by JR with Thomas Bangalter and choregrapehed by Damien Jalet. It was performed in Paris in front of the Opéra de Paris (Opéra Garnier) on November 12th, 2023 by more than 150 dancers. 

Side A is a wild tour de force of sound design and synthesis which I'm sure would have soundtracked the accompanying theatrics wonderfully. On the flip, the 'solo intro' is a somewhat more subdued affair. I'm assuming given the title, introducing the piece slowly into its environment. 

TRACK LISTING

Face A :
1 - Chipotera
Face B :
1 - Chipotera (Solo Intro)

Bangkok formed in late 2004 and with a set of songs echoing a diverse range of influences, Bangkok have created a sound that acknowledges their northern heritage while retaining the band's unique style and beliefs. Imagine a hybrid of the Doves and Embrace, with Axl Rose on vocals.

Acid Jazz present a new collaboration between Chris Bangs and Mick Talbot, ‘Back To Business’, celebrating the mod club jazz sounds that are at the backbone of their DNA.

DJ and Producer Chris Bangs first coined the term ‘acid jazz’, and has produced records for Galliano and Paul Weller, alongside his own project, Quiet Boys.

Mick Talbot was a founding member and keyboardist of The Style Council with Paul Weller. He has since played with Galliano, Dexys Midnight Runners and Candy Staton.

Having previously recorded together in Yada Yada and Soundscape, ‘Back To Business’ marks the first Bangs & Talbot collaboration for years. Vital for mod collectors and beyond.

TRACK LISTING

Sumthin’ Else
Surf’N’Turf
How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)
Stingray (Live At PJ’s)
Kookie T
It’s Alright (Instrumental)
Leela’s Dance
Blue Jeans
Goody Goody
Pick’N’Mick’s
Jerk Chicken
Blues Walk

Acid jazz legend Chris Bangs returns with 'Dream World a brand new album for 2024 – a characteristic font of latin jazz from the maestro producer.

Bangs is known for originally coining the term ‘acid jazz’ – a movement which subsequently morphed into the label – as he and likeminded DJs (including Gilles Peterson and Eddie Piller) began to combine jazz, soul and rock-fusion with the prominent sounds of acid house in the late ‘80s
.
The album draws influence from the Mizell Brothers, Wayne Henderson and George Duke – the latter providing direct inspiration, with a cover of ‘My Soul’ opening the record and serving as the first single.

The tracks see some new collaborators in the Bangs ranks – including Argentine keyboardist Luciano De La Rosa, Italian Massimo Morganti on trombone, Chile’s Juan Pi Salvo on trumpet, and Fabio Tiralongo on sax – making it a truly global production.

Self-described as ‘pure labour of love’ by Bangs himself, the album is a further expansion of his remarkable sound and vision, and his own ever-expanding dream world of (acid) jazz that moves far beyond genre-casting.

TRACK LISTING

1. My Soul
2. Dream World
3. En Cielo
4. Better Days
5. Riding On The Storm
6. Starship
7. Alegria
8. Mozambique
9. Sugar Slam