Brand new studio album from the Merseyside legends Half Man Half Biscuit.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: One of our favourite Wirral exports (apart from McQueen, obvs) return for their FIFTEENTH full-length LP. Still having all the superb humour of their early years, bolstered by over 30 years of gigging and songwriting. A fine example of a band enduring AND thriving. A rare combo.

TRACK LISTING

1. I'm Getting Buried In The Morning
2. Rogation Sunday's Here Again!
3. Awkward Sean
4. Tess Of The Dormobiles
5. Grafting Haddock In The George
6. Big Man Up Front
7. When I Look At My Baby
8. Beneath This Broken Headstone
9. In A Suffolk Ditch
10. Persian Rug Sale At The URC
11. Midnight Mass Murder
12. Token Covid Song
13. Slipping The Escort
14. Oblong Of Dreams

Building on the dusty country and garage inflected indie-rock of their past releases, Half Stack’s “Sitting Pretty” thrums with an expansive energy, adding optimistic songwriting and power-pop melodies to the mix. The band tracked the album with Mac Demarco collaborator Joe Santarpia, pairing locomotive rhythms and jauntily affable lyrics with their trademark whiskey-soaked spin on DIY rock, recalling artists like Tiger Trap, The Silver Jews, and “American Beauty” era Grateful Dead. Whereas singer/guitarist Peter Kegler took the lead as songwriter on previous Half Stack records, this time around he passed the mic to singer/guitarist Marley Lix-Jones for a number of tracks; The impact of her songwriting shines through across the varied tracklist, and is especially gripping on the swaggering “New Light” and psychedelic rocker “TOTM3”. Meanwhile, album opener “I Might Try” starts off strong with its vocal harmonies and soaring lead guitar; “Burnt” pairs honky-tonk rhythms with power-pop melodies; and “Diamond Dancer'' riffs on psych-rock with duelling harmonized guitars. The scope and variety of sound represented on “Sitting Pretty” cements its place as Half Stack’s most wonderfully unpredictable and ambitious outing to date. Highly anticipated new album from Half Stack. 

TRACK LISTING

1. I Might Try
2. Burnt
3. Cruisin USA
4. (I Swear) I’ll Get It Right
5. New Light
6. Diamond Dancer
7. Flat Out
8. No Reason
9. TOTM3
10. Strangin
11. Listen To Your Dog
12. Lil Mixer

See You At The Maypole, the sixth full-length album in Half Waif's prolific catalog, is a recognition of personal sadness, and a call to ecstatic togetherness.

It's gathering the colors of our spirit, in all its shades, and making something intricate and remarkable. The ceremonial folk dance performed around a maypole is filled with fauna and flora, with ribbons woven into complex braids incapable of unraveling; these dances are survivals of ancient ritual, honoring the living trees, and the return of Spring and fertility. These patterns -- this dance -- cannot be completed alone, and so, Half Waif welcomes others to join her, a collective of bleeding color. "We are so much stronger for the colorful experiences we go through," she says. "That's where we find our humanity and find each other."

While the seclusion of grief feels infinite, Rose brought the songs to her trusted friend and longtime collaborator of the past decade, Zubin Hensler. The pair worked away from others for Mythopoetics, carefully crafting each note and flourish themselves but something else was needed for See You At The Maypole. To that end, Hensler and Rose welcomed a wealth of players and friends into the world of the record: Jason Burger and Zack Levine on drums and percussion; Josh Marre (Blue Ranger) on guitar; Hannah Epperson and Elena Moon Park on violin; Kristina Teuschler on clarinet; Willem de Koch on trombone; Rebecca El- Saleh on harp; and Spencer Zahn on upright bass. Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Bon Iver) lent his deft mixing skills to many of the tracks, including lead single 'Figurine.'

"This wasn't just my story, I wanted to say. It was every story of loss--the loss of a life, the loss of a dream, the loss of trust and hope and faith. A story of finding a way back again," Rose explains. "My own avenue back to the land of the living was through my relationships with people and with the natural world. It only seemed right that these songs would invite those people in to build the very heart of the sound."

TRACK LISTING

Fog Winter Balsam Jade
Collect Color
I-90
Figurine
Heartwood
Big Dipper
Shirtsleeves
Sunset Hunting
Dust
Slow Music
Ephemeral Being
Violetlight
Velvet Coil
The Museum
King Of Tides
Mother Tongue
March Grass

The (seventh) new Half-handed Cloud album, ‘Flutterama’, is a record of 18 jubilant indie-pop songs by John Ringhofer that investigate spiritual incompetence with lively arrangements and radiant melodies that skilfully dissolve into deterioration using herky-jerky tape manipulation, analogue wow-and-flutter, and an animated orchestra of homerecorded sound effects.

Ringhofer’s work on ‘Flutterama’ was inspired by Frances Mary Hunter Gordon’s adolescent liturgies (recorded at Abbey Road during The Beatles era), turbid sights and sounds in Guy Maddin films, audaciously bold forms in Sister Corita Kent’s devotional printmaking, the exquisite brittleness of Elizabeth Cotten’s voice, Alberto Burri’s stitched wound burlap assemblages, Alvar Aalto church design, Andrea Büttner’s poverty-informed artwork, Lou Barlow/Dinosaur Jr’s lo-fi ‘Poledo’ sound collage (which namechecks Jesus), Julie Canlis book ‘A Theology of the Ordinary’, Wallace Berman’s visual collage, and The Raincoats’ magnificently shaky DIY aesthetic.

The album’s tape-fiddled tunes - recorded on the very same 16-track recorder last serviced by a sound technician who also worked with The Beach Boys in their home studio - employ surprisingly little synthesizer (“it felt like cheating,” says Ringhofer) - he preferred to craft most of the album’s effects the long way, frequently going behind the back of rock instrumentation by hand-feeding ½” magnetic reel recordings of chord organs, deflating balloons, some guitars, piano (occasionally tracked with a baby on his lap), brass, tablecloth swipes, and a quickly-cranked half-speed music box. He was assisted by long-time Half-handed Cloud contributor Brandon Buckner on drums, and single song backing vocals from Anacortes, WA songsmith John Van Deusen.

TRACK LISTING

Bustin' Stronghodes
Trickmonks
Swallowing The Water You Walk On
Can Shadows Praise You?
The Netherworld Squints At The Sight Of
You
Trick Leash
Anamnesis
Asking For Fish
I'm The Weakest Link
Under Your Breath
Handles 01:52
What's Illumined Becomes Visible
Someone You Can Use
About Face
Periodically Yours
We Won't Survive This
Project Yourself Alive Onto My Corpse
We Belong To You, But How Now Is Soon?

Sahra Halgan, Somaliland's iconic singer, freedom fighter, and cultural activist, returns with third album Hiddo Dhawr, a culmination of enduring friendship and global exploration

Seamlessly blending age-old Somali traditions with abrasive guitar riffs, sun-drenched percussion, and vintage keys, the album offers a fresh take on the music of Somaliland, the independent but not internationally recognizedd state in the Horn of Africa

Inside a large, tent-like structure in downtown Hargeisa, Somaliland's tranquil capital city, the atmHiddo Dhawr, Somaliland's first music venue. Halganoured head scarfs, revealing elaborate hairdos and impeccable eyebrows, as they rise to their feet and start to dance. On the stage at the far end of the room a drummer and oud player up the tempo, while the singers pass the microphone to one another. The atmosphere is electric, and as the evening progresses, the joy in the room is palpable.

This is Hiddo Dhawr, Somaliland's first music venue. "I started it because I wanted to bring back our culture, so that people can be proud of it," says Sahra Halgan, cultural activist, musician, and founder of this lively Hargeisa cultural hub, which opened in 2013.

Hiddo Dhawr, which translates to "promote culture", is also the name of Halgan's new album, an electrifying blend of Somali melodies, distorted guitar riffs, thumping West African percussion, and Halgan's unique, warbling vocals. Halgan chose this name for the album to honour the women of Somaliland.

TRACK LISTING

1. SHARAF
2. LAGA
3. SOM HANYARI
4. SOMALILAND ANI ADI
5. HIDDO DHAWR
6. LIILALAW
7. DIIYOOHIDII
8. QARAM QALAFE
9. MAGOOL
10. LAMAHURAN
11. HOOYALAY
12. DAREEN

In the fall of 2021, Simeon ten Holt's "Canto Ostinato" was reborn in a 'solo version for seven keyboards'. During the weeks leading up to the birth of his son Lark, Erik Hall moved methodically among the instruments in his recording studio, conducting a multi-track conversation with himself and the piece's score. Ten Holt composed "Canto Ostinato" between 1976 and 1979. The rhythmic motif (ostinato) repeated over its entire length has a limited number of printed notes. It is up to the performers how to play them, for how long, where to place accents, etc. In the score, the composer calls on musicians to interact and evaluate, to fuse sounds and colors into one cohesive musical universe. Then a cosmos is created. You can get lost in that. You want to get lost in that, like in the original live recording with four pianos. "That performance is deeply compelling, almost otherworldly," says Hall. He has always been drawn to music that is based on repetition, harmonically rich, and tonal. He previously added a groundbreaking dimension to Steve Reich's 1976 minimal masterpiece "Music for 18 Musicians", and– as again now with 'Canto'– his motivation is the love of the music itself. "When I first heard the piece, I was captivated." Then the plan emerged to undergo the same focused practice as before. He stacked seven total layers of his 1962 Hammond M-101 organ, a 1910 Steinway grand piano, and a 1978 Rhodes electric piano, each performance informed by those that preceded it. Erik Hall's "Canto Ostinato" lasts for one hour, and from the sheer joy of playing this wondrous composition emerges an elegantly meandering journey. In it, music rises above itself, higher and higher, like a lark jubilating freedom in the sky. 

TRACK LISTING

01 Sections 1-16
02 Sections 17-30
03 Sections 31-40
04 Sections 41-55
05 Sections 56-73
06 Sections 74-87
07 Sections 88-90
08 Sections 91-94
09 Sections 95-106 

Let's talk about denial.Let's talk about self-awareness.Let's talk about romantic idealism.And let's talk about pop music.Let's talk about Terry Hall and his strange relationship with all of these things: about his ability to create life-affirming pop music and about the fact that his exceptional gift was recognised by a long line of his peers before, finally, Terry Hall could no longer ignore it either.Let's talk about the album where the penny finally dropped.A record which believes in the dream of perfect love despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.Let's talk about 'Home', the first solo album by Terry Hall. Twenty-six years have elapsed since the original release of 'Home', but this Record Store Day sees its long overdue debut on vinyl.It might have been the first album which saw Hall step forward from a group identity, but 'Home' was Hall's ninth in various guises since the emergence of The Specials' self-titled LP in 1979.It had taken Hall a while to find his feet as a songwriter.With Jerry Dammers so prolific in that regard, Hall found himself in a strange position at the end of that group's collective lifetime.The Specials had made him a pop star, but he didn't feel like one.By the release of Fun Boy Three's second album 'Missing' (1983), the competition was Wham!, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Culture Club.Nothing wrong with any of those, but Hall would see himself staring back from the pages of a magazine alongside all the aforementioned names and experience what he called "a total cognitive disconnection". 'Home', then, was the culmination of a long process which saw Terry Hall separate his lack of love for the job of pop star from his adoration for pop itself.In solving that conundrum, it sounds like a weight has been lifted from Hall.Like a code has finally been cracked.Somehow emblematic of that process is the album's lead single 'Forever J', a song that Hall had started writing about his wife Jeannette almost a decade previously, but only finally came together when Hall presented it to the album's producer Ian Broudie (The Lightning Seeds) as the sessions got under way.Alloyed to a disarmingly beautiful chorus, this ticker-tape flurry of unguarded intimacies might just be the most perfect pop song of an era that wasn't exactly lacking in competition ñ and although it didn't crack the top 40 at the time, it cemented the affection in which an emerging generation of proficient popsmiths held him: Jarvis Cocker did his own remix of the song and Damon Albarn sang Hall's praises at every opportunity.In commencing the record, 'Forever J' sets the tone for what follows on the remainder of 'Home'.Yes, it's a solo album, but the engine of these performances is a stellar "house" band comprised of Craig Gannon (The Smiths, Aztec Camera, The Bluebells), Les Pattinson (Echo & The Bunnymen) and Chris Sharrock (The Icicle Works, The La's). This illustrious roll call is one that extends to the songwriters with whom Hall collaborated on the record.Co-written by Nick Heyward, 'What's Wrong With Joy' is a synergy of seeming incompatible components: its life-affirming power pop livery freighting a cargo of self-doubt ("I've got a bag full of promises I can't keep/And a hundred reasons why I don't sleep") and good intentions ("All I wanna do is make your dreams come true") to the affections of anyone who hears it.Andy Partridge steps forward to share the credit on 'Moon On Your Dress" and 'I Drew A Lemon': the latter a rebuke to the man who will never love her the way our lyrical protagonist pledges to; the former a longtime favourite among fans of both Hall and XTC for the sanguine self-deprecations that manage to captures something of both artists' relationship to the world around them. And, of course, if you have Ian Broudie manning the console, it would be obtuse not to write a song or two together.With a friendship dating back to the early days of The Specials (the young Broudie saw Hall's pre-Specials outfit The Coventry Automatics open for The Clash in 1978) the measure of the pair's chemistry stretches beyond Broudie's production role to encompass two of the album's indisputable highlights.Featuring the unforgettable couplet, "If ifs and ands were pots and pans, you'd be a kitchen", 'You' sees its protagonist trying to persuade his subject to see in him what he sees in her.The other Broudie co-write on 'Home' will need no introduction to most pop fans.'Sense' is the song which gave its name to The Lightning Seeds' second album, giving the group their third top 40 hit in 1992.The version sung here by Hall though benefits from the Sharrock's pugnacious Keith Moon-isms and, of course, the buccaneering fretboard work of Craig Gannon. It's Gannon, too, whose fingerprints can be found on a clutch of other songs which give a little more back with each repeated play.'Home' may have emerged in the era that saw the term 'Britpop' enter the cultural lexicon, but there's a fragrant melodic classicism at the heart of Gannon and Hall's collaborations that can also be found in the work of Hall's "other" 80s songwriting vehicle The Colour Field, with its nods to French chanson.It's there on 'Forever J' and it's also abundant on Hall/Gannon originals like 'No No No' and 'I Don't Got You'. And yet, for all of that, there's something about Hall's voice that is, to quote the latter song, "as English as the weather".You can hear it all over 'Home', and it works both to the advantage of this album and the listener.Like the expression of the man staring at you on the sleeve, there's an outward sense of reserve in these performances which belies the lyrical tensions hinted at in many of its songs.Hall's marriage was coming to an end when 'Home' was recorded, but these songs are manifestly the work of someone who still believes in happy ever after.Just about.They're also the work of someone who has come to an accommodation with his relationship to pop.To coin a neologism, you might say that this was the record where our hero finally learned to "own it".And if your love of great pop mirrors that of Terry Hall, 'Home' is a record you might also consider owning.

Hallelujah The Hills is one of the most admirably devoted, unconventional bands to have come out of Boston in recent years. Boston has likewise been waiting for them as demonstrated by packed shows and regular accolades from the Boston Phoenix (where they are now up for an award for Best New Band) and the Boston Weekly Dig. The band's line-up of bass, drums, cello, Moog, trumpet, melodica, sampler and plenty of guitars grants them the space to expand and contract as their melodies and arrangements see fit. Think of them as the sonic equivalent to Willy Wonka's ferry ride, seemingly random yet utterly precise, first drifting along a chocolate river with a gentle lulling sound then hurtling you into the unknown with a thundering danger until you arrive somewhere entirely new, a fantastic destination full of wonder. Unlike some of their anthemic peers, Hallelujah The Hills find solace in the space between their crashing crescendos and choral peaks and that's a subtle strength of the band. It grants the songs a great diversity, from amped-up campfire sing-alongs to sombre ballads.

Uncut Jan 2023 - 8/10 review "gorgeous Japanese psych rarity"

Deluxe vinyl edition in heavy tip-on jacket with textured paper, mounted high quality print, foil stamped finishes and spot colours.

Black Editions is pleased to announce the release of the definitive vinyl editions of two milestone, career-spanning works from Shinji Shibayama - one of the key architects of Japan's Kansai rock/psych/pop underground.

Solo debut from guitarist/vocalist from Neurot Recordings' North Carolinian pastoral psych specialists U.S. Christmas.

A Great River has that Southern melancholy feel in common with Hall‘s band, and joins the ranks of highlight Neurot solo outings from Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till (both Neurosis) in its appreciation of classic folk, from Bob Dylan, whose influence shows up prevalently throughout, to a more stripped-down look at the brilliance of arrangement that has found a home in Wovenhand‘s David Eugene Edwards.

Foremost, the album is honest. Recorded in a single night last March, its “first album” feel is undercut by psychedelic flourish and the emotional depths Hall brings to the surface, and while there are still avenues of progression to be explored, a song like the Townes Van Zandt cover “Kathleen” remains the beautiful and lush work of a singer-songwriter beginning what will hopefully be a long journey.

It is a reflection of a lifetime spent with the echoes of Dylan, Young, Petty, Springsteen, and Van Zandt.

It draws from the rich musical history of America, the melancholy of Appalachia, and harnesses the "electric vacuum roar" of guitar slingers past and present.

Halsall who has been hailed as one of the leading figures of the UK jazz renaissance has never seen himself as part of any one sound or scene: he builds his own sonic universe instead. An Ever Changing View finds him at his most experimental yet, once again expanding his sound and production techniques to create his unique brand of deeply meditative music.

During the album's creation, he was staying in both a beautiful architect’s house with breath-taking sea views and a striking modernist house, where he composed what he saw “like a landscape painting”. In these new environments, Halsall wanted to capture “the feeling of openness and escapism” and to approach making music again from scratch. “I hit the reset button and wanted to have complete musical freedom,” he says. “It was a real exploration of sound.”

It was hearing jazz on the dancefloor as a teenager that first opened up new possibilities in Halsall’s mind and his music has long drawn on his love for the spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders and contemporary electronica from the likes of Warp Records and Ninja Tune. An Ever Changing View melds those forms in a way that feels heady and, at times, even otherworldly. One of the album’s starting points was Halsall’s ever-expanding box of percussion, from congas and kalimba to various clusters of seeds, bells and chimes, which he sampled and looped to use as a foundation for the songs – a first for him and his band. Elevating, charming, totally modern jazz tracks jostle with deft warm magic realism; and laid back grooves with hand percussion, deep bass and the gorgeous glisten of the Fender Rhodes meet hip-hop beats. Halsall himself sparkles, illuminating his beautiful tapestries of sound with lithe, glistening elegiac trumpet.

An Ever Changing View comes in a package as striking as the music, with handmade fonts designed by Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic and the specially commissioned tapestry by artist Sara Kelly is a stunning and harmonious complement to the record's sound.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tracing Nature
2. Water Street
3. An Ever Changing View
4. Calder Shapes
5. Mountains, Trees And Seas
6. Field Of Vision
7. Jewels
8. Sunlight Reflection
9. Natural Movement
10. Triangles In The Sky

Chaabi has its roots in the Andalusian music of Moorish Spain, spreading to North Africa with exiled Jewish and Moorish communities; but it really took off in the music schools, parties and bars of occupied, post-WWII Algiers, where its Andalusian, Middle Eastern and North African lineage infused with the Mediterranean soundtrack of that era — chanson, jazz, snatches of tango and a little boogie-woogie. "Abdel Hadi Halo And The El Gusto Orchestra Of Algiers" was recorded on the tilting fifth floor of the Conservatoire d'Algiers, in a room overlooking the sea on one side, and the Casbah on the other: the orchestra was recorded 'live' in full flight — all together, in continuous takes. For our recording, the Orchestra included four singers — joined in chorus by the voices of the entire orchestra — and five-man banjo, percussion and violin sections. The scale and organization are thrilling; the music is swirling and improvisatory, surging from the haunted to the bluesy, the devotional to the knees-up.

Andy Votel says: "Working with Halo Maud's song came extremely naturally to me, and I thank Jeff [Barrett, of Heavenly] for recognising this connection. The contrast of her strong melodic songwriting combined with the fragility of her vocals is a real secret weapon and much more than just a breathy pastiche. I think Maud effortlessly captures many unique subtleties in French language music which so many contemporary bands seem to forget, and it's ingredients like these which gave me the confidence to take a more minimal route with this mix, which I appreciate.

"In the past I could only dream of finding a singer that comes close to Léonie Lousseau or Ann Sorel so working with Maud's vocals was an enjoyable experience and I already regard this short track as one of my personal favourite production achievements.... which I can't wait to play on the radio... off 7" vinyl naturally."

Maud says of the track, "I wrote the basis of the song in a few minutes, the day before a show. It was just the guitar and the voice, very simple. The rest of the track is a mix between a band jam, improvisations, ambient sounds, happy studio accidents, and all this material has been re-cut and tinkered with, until I felt it made sense. "It’s an amazing feeling to discover another vision of your own song, and Andy Votel’s version really overwhelmed me, in a good way. This is another song, but it’s still me. Thank you for this huge present.”

The original song features on Halo Maud's debut album, Je Suis Une île (which translates as "I Am An Island"), released on Heavenly Recordings last May.

For multi-instrumentalist, singer and producer Halo Maud (previously known as Maud Nadal), the title of both song and album reflect from her natural reactions to the creation of the music itself.

"For me, music contains what words cannot. It is its power to shape these things, and it’s what I hope to find while taking random bits, here and there, from the pitch of each note, their texture, their timbres, massaging and mixing them together until the sound resembles what is inside me. When everything fits together well the words settle in with the music to spread their clues. That’s when the song is ready. I called the album ‘Celebrate' because I danced a lot while creating it. I now feel that I can release it into the air. I hope that it will alight in your hands and ears, keep you company and resonate within you through multiple waves.”

Those multiple waves are Celebrate’s twelve tracks. Collectively, they offer a seamless mix of French and English; analogue electronics, scratchy guitars and tumbling drums; dream pop, woozy Yé-Yé and 1960s and 2020s psychedelia.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I was a big fan of Halo Maud's brilliant Je Suis Une île all the way back in 2018, so it was with some joy that I saw her on the new release schedule, and Celebrate has all of the wispy pop charm of that brilliant outing but with more of a focus on grand, orchestral jubilance and airy major-key crescendos. It's a lovely experience, and further cements my love of Maud's work.

TRACK LISTING

1. Celebrate
2. Terres Infinies
3. My Desire Is Pure
4. Last Day Song
5. Slowly Surely
6. Catch The Wave
7. Le Ciel Est Grand
8. You Float
9. À Te Voir
10. Iceberg
11. Pesnopoïka
12. Entends-Tu Ma Voix

Halo Maud’s first release on Heavenly is a recap of the story so far ahead of an album release later this year – three tracks of this EP originally came out on a Canadian label last year, with the difference that ‘Du Pouvoir’ now features some English lyrics, and ‘À La Fin’ and ‘Dans La Nuit’ cropped up on a La Souterraine compilations in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

Maud Nadal has been a member of both Moodoïd and Melody’s Echo Chamber’s live bands, and of course at times there are comparisons to be drawn with MEC, with both teetering on a crystalline peak where extreme joy and despair meet. But if anything Nadal’s own melodies are even more indelible, and her voice turns them into vapour trails.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Hazy harmonies, rolling grooves and insistent percussive workouts form the backbone to Nadal's often haunting vocal flourishes, sometimes falling behind to give the vocals their own space. Perfectly measured and beautifully written immersive indie anthems.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wherever
2. Du Pouvoir/Power
3. Chanceuse
4. Surprise
5. Tu Sais Comme Je Suis
6. De Retour
7. Baptism
8. Fred
9. Je Suis Une Île
10. Proche Proche Proche
11. Dans La Nuit
12. Des Bras

Currently based in Los Angeles, Laurel Halo has spent over a decade stepping into different towns and cities for a moment or more, to the point where everywhere almost became nowhere. Atlas, the debut release on her new imprint Awe, is an attempt to put that feeling to music. Using both electronic and acoustic instrumentation, Halo has created a potent set of sensual ambient jazz collages, comprised of orchestral clouds, shades of modal harmony, hidden sonic details, and detuned, hallucinatory textures. The music functions as a series of maps, for places real and imaginary, and for expressing the unsaid.

The process of writing Atlas began back in 2020 when she reacquainted herself with the piano. She relished the piano's physical feedback, as well as its capacity to express emotion and lightness. And when the legendary Ina-CRM Studios in Paris invited her to take up a residency the following year in 2021, she spared no time to dub, stretch and manipulate some of the simple piano sketches she'd recorded over the prior months; these subtle piano recordings and electronic manipulations would go on to become the heart of Atlas. In the remainder of 2021 and 2022, with time spent between Berlin and London, Halo recorded additional guitar, violin and vibraphone, as well as acoustic instrumentation from friends and collaborators including saxophonist Bendik Giske, violinist James Underwood, cellist Lucy Railton and vocalist Coby Sey. All of these sounds were shaped, melted, and re-composed into the arrangements, their acoustic origins rendered uncanny.

In short, Atlas is road trip music for the subconscious. With repeated listens, it is a record that can leave a deep sensorial impression on the listener, akin to walking at dusk in a dark forest. Its humor and sharp focus would dispel any notions of sentimentality. Completely distinct from the rest of Halo's catalog, Atlas is an album that thrives in the quietest places, rejecting bombast and embracing awe. Fitting that it's the debut release on her new recording label, whose slogan parallels the mood and atmosphere of the album: Awe is something you feel when confronted with forces beyond your control: nature, the cosmos, chaos, human error, hallucinations.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Abandon
A2 Naked To The Light
A3 Late Night Drive
A4 Sick Eros
A5 Belleville

B1 Sweat, Tears Or The Sea
B2 Atlas
B3 Reading The Air
B4 You Burn Me
B5 Earthbound

Manchester based, DJ, bandleader and trumpeter Matthew Halsall is one of the UK's brightest jazz talents. A gifted trumpeter with a beautiful, expressive tone, his music draws on his love of the transcendental, spiritual and modal jazz of Alice and John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, as well as the glories of 60s British jazz.

His third album "On The Go" is a heartfelt love letter to the jazz of the late 50s and early 60s. Inspired by the evocative sounds of Miles Davis' soundtrack to the Louis Malle film "Lift To The Scaffold" and the legendary early 60s recordings of Art Blakey and Max Roach the album is nostalgic but always soulful. However, while Halsall's elegiac music is imbued with a sense of history, the young trumpeter and DJ nevertheless brings a contemporary bounce to his music ensuring that his music breathes with a personality all its own.

The album opens with "Music For A Dancing Mind", the most obvious nod to the work of Blakey and Roach. The beautiful "Song For Charlie" is named for Halsall's grandfather, a key inspiration in his life. Dukkha is a Buddhist term roughly translating to suffering so the title "The End Of Dukkha" is self-explanatory and "Samatha", another Buddhist term, means calm, a perfect title for this elegant tune. "The Journey Home" came to Halsall on the train back to Manchester from London and captures that happy feeling of return.

Over the course of five albums, Manchester based trumpeter, composer, arranger and band-leader Matthew Halsall has carved out a niche for himself on the UK music scene as one of it's brightest talents. His languid, soulful music has won friends from Jamie Cullum and Gilles Peterson to Jazz FM and Mojo as well as an ever-growing international following. His new album 'Into Forever', puts the spotlight on Halsall the composer, arranger and producer. Halsall draws on a diverse range of influences from Alice Coltrane, Dorothy Ashby, Phil Cohran and Leon Thomas to the more contemporary sounds of The Cinematic Orchestra, Max Richter and Nils Frahm to deliver his most complete recording to date. 'Into Forever' features renowned Manchester based soul poet Josephine Oniyama and rising star vocalist Bryony Jarman-Pinto (Werkha) as well as regular collaborators, flautist Lisa Mallett, harpist Rachael Gladwin, koto player Keiko Kitamura, pianist Taz Modi, bassist Gavin Barras and drummer Luke Flowers (The Cinematic Orchestra) and two percussionists Sam Bell and Chris Cruiks. The result is arguably Halsall's finest record, asublime melding of stripped back soulful funk and deep, minimalist, spiritual jazz, that will take you on a journey deep into forever!

Halsall who has been hailed as one of the leading figures of the UK jazz renaissance has never seen himself as part of any one sound or scene: he builds his own sonic universe instead. An Ever Changing View finds him at his most experimental yet, once again expanding his sound and production techniques to create his unique brand of deeply meditative music.

During the album's creation, he was staying in both a beautiful architect’s house with breath-taking sea views and a striking modernist house, where he composed what he saw “like a landscape painting”. In these new environments, Halsall wanted to capture “the feeling of openness and escapism” and to approach making music again from scratch. “I hit the reset button and wanted to have complete musical freedom,” he says. “It was a real exploration of sound.”

It was hearing jazz on the dancefloor as a teenager that first opened up new possibilities in Halsall’s mind and his music has long drawn on his love for the spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders and contemporary electronica from the likes of Warp Records and Ninja Tune. An Ever Changing View melds those forms in a way that feels heady and, at times, even otherworldly. One of the album’s starting points was Halsall’s ever-expanding box of percussion, from congas and kalimba to various clusters of seeds, bells and chimes, which he sampled and looped to use as a foundation for the songs – a first for him and his band. Elevating, charming, totally modern jazz tracks jostle with deft warm magic realism; and laid back grooves with hand percussion, deep bass and the gorgeous glisten of the Fender Rhodes meet hip-hop beats. Halsall himself sparkles, illuminating his beautiful tapestries of sound with lithe, glistening elegiac trumpet.

An Ever Changing View comes in a package as striking as the music, with handmade fonts designed by Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic and the specially commissioned tapestry by artist Sara Kelly is a stunning and harmonious complement to the record's sound.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: That Matthew Halsall’s music takes as its starting point the meditative end of Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane is no accident. His final two years of education were spent at the Maharishi school, where his experience of meditation led to a deeper immersion in Buddhism, a philosophy that permeates and shapes the nature of his work.

This is his ninth solo album, which in itself presents the perennial problem that dogs most artists; how to keep the originality and inspiration that accompany approaching a blank canvas and not disappear into a spiral of ever diminishing returns by clinging too tightly to the only formula they allow themselves to know. While it is true that the flow of his work has remained consistent, the individual components and musicians have not. Almost all of the original members of The Gondwana Orchestra have moved on to the burgeoning London jazz scene, the silver lining to this being their replacements have brought their own influence. Halsall has also an ever increasing collection of percussion instruments to draw on and use as a base for his music - in this case kalimba, glockenspiel and marimba amongst others, over which his serene trumpet soars softly overhead. It’s a testament to Halsall’s willingness to evolve that his music still sounds so fresh. He’s produced an exquisite, peaceful gem, as rich as any of his previous work, overflowing with warmth, intricacy and gentle charm.

On one level the album’s title could refer to the changes in landscape travelling between Northumberland and North Wales, where the album was recorded, But it also nods to the Buddhist concept of impermanence, the idea that it’s a property of the universe that nothing stays the same. An ever changing view.

TRACK LISTING

Tracing Nature
Water Street
An Ever Changing View
Calder Shapes
Mountains, Trees And Seas
Field Of Vision
Jewels
Sunlight Reflection
Natural Movement
Triangles In The Sky

Matthew Halsall announces a limited-edition Vinyl only pressing of Bright Sparkling Light, a luminous three track EP featuring some of his most gorgeous compositions.

Originally conceived as a tour only exclusive, Bright Sparkling Light was recorded alongside, last year’s expansive beguiling long-player An Ever Changing View and draws on the same trademark blend of jazz, electronica, global and spiritual jazz influences. The original pressing sold-out on Matthew’s EU and UK tour last October and November and so many people got in touch with us here at Gondwana asking how they could get a copy that we decided to make a further 2000 copies available for retail and online sales.

The title track is a hypnotic meditation built on one of the lushest loops Halsall has ever created and featuring stellar work from Halsall and flautist Matt Cliffe. Newborough Forest is a brisk, uplifting composition celebrating one of Halsall’s favourite landscapes and the wonderous Tide and the Moon paints a sonic picture of late-night waters and deep mindfulness and features some of Matt Cliffe’s most beautiful tenor playing.

Like An Ever Changing View, Bright Sparkling Light comes in a package as striking as the music, with handmade fonts designed by Ian Anderson and a beautifully realised embossed artwork that offers a perfect compliment to the LP.

Strictly limited and featuring a download code, Bright Sparkling Light will not be re-pressed.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Bright Sparkling Light
A2. Newborough Forest
B1. The Tide And The Moon

Matthew Halsall (born September 11, 1983, in Manchester, England) is a Worldwide Award winning and MOBO nominated trumpeter, composer, producer and DJ. Since 2008, Matthew has released seven critically acclaimed studio recordings and has been a key figure in the rise of a new jazz sound in the UK. In addition to his own releases Halsall has collaborated with many DJs and producers, most notably DJ Shadow and Mr. Scruff, and in 2013 Matthew's music was selected by Bonobo for his Late Night Tales compilation. Halsall is also the founder of Gondwana Records, a genre bending independent record label featuring a wealth defining albums by the likes of Portico Quartet, GoGo Penguin, Hania Rani and Mammal Hands. His own rich music draws on the spiritual-jazz of Alice Coltrane and Phaorah Sanders, contemporary electronica and dance music alongside his travels in Japan, the traditional art and music of which, has left a lasting impression on his compositions.


Sending My Love (2008) and Colour Yes (2009) were his first releases and document Halsall's first great bands featuring the likes of flautist Chip Wickham, saxophonist Nat Birchall, harpist Rachael Gladwin, bassist Gavin Barras and drummer Gaz Hughes. Joyful, life-enhancing albums, drawing on UK jazz and spiritual jazz influences but with a decidedly modern bounce, they introduced Halsall's music to the world gathering support from the likes of Gilles Peterson and Jamie Cullum, Mojo, Straight No Chaser and beyond. But Halsall was never completely happy with how the records were presented and as part of Gondwana Records 10th anniversary decided to revisit the recordings, meticulously remixing and remastering them for vinyl and commissioning new artwork from Ian Anderson, one of his favourite designers. These then are the definitive editions of the records. Sending My Love comes complete with the beautiful bonus track This Time, while Colour Yes features the equally striking It's What We Do and Ai.

"I am very proud of these early recordings. They represent the starting point of my musical journey in Manchester and showcase some of the cities finest musicians such as: Nat Birchall, Chip Wickham, Rachael Gladwin, Adam Fairhall, Gavin Barras and Gaz Hughes. They are also the very first recordings my brother and I decided to release on our record label (Gondwana Records). Listening back they sound full of energy and joy and really reflect how I was feeling at that precise moment. But as much as I loved the music, I was never 100 percent happy with the sound of the mixes and mastering. So I decided to go back to the original tapes to remix and remaster them and present them the way I'd always wanted, and along the way we unearthed a couple extra unreleased tracks, which we decided to include as bonus material. Myself and my brother also decided to bring in Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic to re-imagine the artwork and we are super blown away by the results!" Matthew Halsall, Oct 2019

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: A further look into Matthew Halsall’s previous releases, Colour Yes from 2009 is a mixture of soft piano keys and swaying brass. More uncovered gems please Gondwana Records, this is truly beautiful.

TRACK LISTING

1. Colour Yes
2. Together
3. I've Found Joy
4. Mudita
5. I've Been Here Before
6. Me And You
7. It's What We Do (Bonus Track)
8. Ai (Bonus Track) 

Manchester based trumpeter, composer, arranger and band-leader Matthew Halsall is one of the rising stars of the UK jazz scene. His unique sound was brilliantly described as "Rain-streaked spiritual jazz from Manchester" by the Independent On Sunday and previous albums have found Halsall exploring the modal jazz of John and Alice Coltrane or paying heartfelt tribute to the hard bop of the late 50s and early 60s, but on 'Fletcher Moss Park' he offers his most personal statement yet.

Written and recorded over the last couple of years, 'Fletcher Moss Park' is inspired by one of Manchester's most beautiful places. A rambling, multi-tiered park of walkways and dreamy gardens that offers the contemplative Halsall a place of peace and respite from the city, a meditative space to think and write in. The stillness and beauty of the surroundings have steeped into his beautiful compositions for this album. Elegant and sincere, Halsall's compositions draw on his love of spiritual jazz, modern dance music and even his work with the award-winning Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band earlier this year. Halsall who has recently been exploring his music in a stripped-back, electronica influenced, trio (featuring Taz Modi and Luke Flowers who also appear here) as well as the 12 piece Gondwana Orchestra has always favoured an earthy honestly and direct communication over tricksy arrangements and it is this deceptively simple openness that gives his music such a unique flavour as the young composer and producer seeks to express his feelings and thoughts with his music.

'Fletcher Moss Park' opens with three tracks featuring saxophonist Nat Birchall, harpist Rachael Gladwin and pianist Adam Fairhall alongside bassist Gavin Barras and drummer Gaz Hughes all long running members of Halsall's sextet. The beautiful 'Cherry Blossom' opens with a nod to Alice Coltrane before exploring it's own contemplative trajectory, the title track features a gorgeous opening from harpist Gladwin and one of Halsall's trademark slow but foot tappingly catchy grooves, Mary Emma Louise is an elegant tribute to someone special and features some beautifully wistful playing from the composer. 'Sailing Out To Sea' and 'Wee Lan' offer a change in mood, two short interludes for violin (Holly Simpson and Davinder Singh), cello (Adrianne Wininsky) and double bass (Barras), Halsall chose not to play here feeling that the brief musical sketches caught his intentions perfectly. Finally the album closes with the two most recent compositions, the reposeful 'Sun In September' which features fine work from flautist Lisa Mallett, alongside pianist Taz Modi and drummer Luke Flowers and the uplifting 'Finding My Way', which with its compelling groove and fine drumming from Flowers (best known for his work with Cinematic Orchestra) offers a nod towards Halsall's love of contemporary electronic music as well as a hint of future projects. But as with the writing here you can be sure that wherever Halsall's muse takes him his music will remain heartfelt and life affirming in its elegant directness as he explores his own unique musical terrain that stretches from the bucolic stillness of 'Fletcher Moss Park' to a world far beyond!

STAFF COMMENTS

Ryan says: A favourite of mine from our own local Jazz mastermind. Fletcher Moss Park explores a 50's, 60's sound channeling the likes of Coltrane. As you can imagine this album flows beautifully from beginning to end, almost as good as a stroll through the park itself.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cherry Blossom
2. Fletcher Moss Park
3. Mary Emma Louise
4. Sailing Out To Sea
5. Wee Lan (Little Orchid)
6. The Sun In September
7. Finding My Way

Composer, trumpeter, producer, DJ and founder of Gondwana Records, Matthew Halsall has always worn many hats. But at the heart of everything that he does Halsall is first and foremost an artist and a musician. A trumpeter whose unflashy, soulful playing radiates a thoughtful beauty and a composer and band-leader who has created his own rich sound world. A sound that draws on the heritage of British jazz, the spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, as well as world music and electronica influences, and even modern art and architecture, to create something uniquely his own. A music that is rooted in Northern England but draws on global inspirations.

Salute to the Sun is his first album as a leader since Into Forever (2015) and marks the debut of his new band. A hand-picked ensemble featuring some of Manchester’s finest young musicians: Matt Cliffe flute & saxophone, Maddie Herbert harp, Liviu Gheorghe piano, Alan Taylor drums and Jack McCarthy percussion as well as long-time Halsall collaborator, bassist, Gavin Barras who has been at the heart of Halsall’s bands for over a decade. For Matthew it was important to have a band based locally and able, pre-Covid, to meet and play each week, and who also performed a sold-out monthly basement session at Yes in Manchester. The album draws energy from these sessions and inspiration from themes and ideas that have inspired Halsall through the years (on albums such as Oneness, Fletcher Moss Park and When the World Was One) ideas of ecology, the environment and harmony with nature.

“I feel Salute to the Sun is a positive earthy album. I wanted to create something playful but also quite primitive, earthy and organic that connected to the sounds in nature. I was listening to lush ambient field recordings of tropical environments such as jungles and rainforests and found myself drawn to percussive atmospheric sounds which replicated what I was hearing (bells / shakers / chimes / rain sticks) and I started to experiment with more wooden percussive instruments such as kalimba and marimba”.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: After a year in which most of us had plenty of opportunity to reconnect with nature, Manchester’s pre-eminent jazz musician returned with this lush tribute to the living world. ’Salute To The Sun’ is Halsall’s first album as a leader in five years, and finds him fronting a new band cherry picked from the next generation of Mancunian musicians as well as long time collaborator Gavin Barras.

Halsall’s spent much of the last decade reinterpreting spiritual jazz for the 21st century, and there’s been a consistent focus on ecological influences. On ’Salute To The Sun’ however, Halsall looks far beyond Fletcher Moss, instead exploring the humid sounds of the tropics across seven immersive compositions. Placing a greater emphasis on percussion than on previous works, Halsall lets his expressive tone soar over the woody rhythms beneath, the marimba and kalimba adding pitched nuance to the primal drum patterns. This album is as rich, warm and rewarding as the life giving orb which inspired it.

TRACK LISTING

Harmony With Nature
Joyful Spirits Of The Universe
Canopy & Stars
Mindfulness Meditations
Tropical Landscapes
Salute To The Sun
The Energy Of Life

Salute to the Sun: Live at Hallé St Peter's documents a very special concert recorded at the iconic Manchester venue during lockdown.

Released in November 2020, Matthew's Halsall'sSalute to the Sunwas the trumpeter's first album since 2015'sInto Foreverand marked the debut of his new band. A hand-picked ensemble featuring some of Manchester's finest young musicians. The album drew it's energy from the band's weekly sessions and was inspired by Halsall's love of nature. Lush and spiritual it received universal praise, but Halsall and his band were frustrated that they were unable to share their beautiful new sound live with an audience.

On November 25th 2020, Halsall took his band into the iconic Manchester venue,Hallé St Peter's,for a concert recording in aid of the charityMindand was streamed to a global audience in the thousands the concert was also recorded for posterity.

"When we recorded Salute to the Sun, I wanted to create something playful but also quite earthy and organic that connected to the sounds in nature. It seemed to strike a chord with people and I was blown away by the response to the album. Our concert film, recorded at the height of last winter's lockdown was a special moment for us all and I feel that the concert recording captured something beautiful that we wanted to share".

Salute to the Sun: Live at Hallé St Peter's featuresMatthew Halsall– trumpet,Matt Cliffe- flute & saxophone,Maddie Herbert– harp,Gavin Barras– bass,Liviu Gheorghe– piano,Alan Taylor– drums andJack McCarthy- percussion

The recording has been mixed by Matthew Halsall andGeorge Atkinsat80 Hertzand is mastered byPeter BeckmannatTechnology Works. The vinyl was cut at Calyx in Berlin and the album is pressed at Optimal in Germany. It is presented in the form of a limited edition 2LP set with artwork by legendary designerIan AndersonofThe Designers Republic.

Spread over three sides of the vinyl LP for maximum fidelity the fourth side of the LP (side D) features an etching ofDaniel Halsall's now iconic artwork for the album Salute to the Sun and copies are strictly limited with just 3000 available in total. The album will also be available for download and on streaming platforms.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Recorded just over a year ago, Salute to the Sun recording feels momentous for the historic venue and beautiful orchestral works. The concert has been encapsulated in time, featuring a sublime sound from Mathew Halsall as always. Such a joy to listen to.

TRACK LISTING

1. Harmony With Nature (Live At Hallé St Peter's)
2. Joyful Spirits Of The Universe (Live At Hallé St Peter's)
3. Canopy & Stars (Live At Hallé St Peter's)
4. Mindfulness Meditations (Live At Hallé St Peter's)
5. Tropical Landscapes (Live At Hallé St Peter's)
6. Salute To The Sun (Live At Hallé St Peter's)

Matthew Halsall (born September 11, 1983, in Manchester, England) is a Worldwide Award winning and MOBO nominated trumpeter, composer, producer and DJ. Since 2008, Matthew has released seven critically acclaimed studio recordings and has been a key figure in the rise of a new jazz sound in the UK. In addition to his own releases Halsall has collaborated with many DJs and producers, most notably DJ Shadow and Mr. Scruff, and in 2013 Matthew's music was selected by Bonobo for his Late Night Tales compilation. Halsall is also the founder of Gondwana Records, a genre bending independent record label featuring a wealth defining albums by the likes of Portico Quartet, GoGo Penguin, Hania Rani and Mammal Hands. His own rich music draws on the spiritual-jazz of Alice Coltrane and Phaorah Sanders, contemporary electronica and dance music alongside his travels in Japan, the traditional art and music of which, has left a lasting impression on his compositions.


Sending My Love (2008) and Colour Yes (2009) were his first releases and document Halsall's first great bands featuring the likes of flautist Chip Wickham, saxophonist Nat Birchall, harpist Rachael Gladwin, bassist Gavin Barras and drummer Gaz Hughes. Joyful, life-enhancing albums, drawing on UK jazz and spiritual jazz influences but with a decidedly modern bounce, they introduced Halsall's music to the world gathering support from the likes of Gilles Peterson and Jamie Cullum, Mojo, Straight No Chaser and beyond. But Halsall was never completely happy with how the records were presented and as part of Gondwana Records 10th anniversary decided to revisit the recordings, meticulously remixing and remastering them for vinyl and commissioning new artwork from Ian Anderson, one of his favourite designers. These then are the definitive editions of the records. Sending My Love comes complete with the beautiful bonus track This Time, while Colour Yes features the equally striking It's What We Do and Ai.


"I am very proud of these early recordings. They represent the starting point of my musical journey in Manchester and showcase some of the cities finest musicians such as: Nat Birchall, Chip Wickham, Rachael Gladwin, Adam Fairhall, Gavin Barras and Gaz Hughes. They are also the very first recordings my brother and I decided to release on our record label (Gondwana Records). Listening back they sound full of energy and joy and really reflect how I was feeling at that precise moment. But as much as I loved the music, I was never 100 percent happy with the sound of the mixes and mastering. So I decided to go back to the original tapes to remix and remaster them and present them the way I'd always wanted, and along the way we unearthed a couple extra unreleased tracks, which we decided to include as bonus material. Myself and my brother also decided to bring in Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic to re-imagine the artwork and we are super blown away by the results!" Matthew Halsall, Oct 2019

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: The first of Mathew Halsall’s original releases ‘Sending My Love’ is a journey back in time to Halsall’s first beginnings with flourishing jazz notes. With the bonus track ‘This Time’ it’s a remastered treasure!

TRACK LISTING

1. On The Other Side Of The World
2. Reflections
3. Freedom Song
4. Sending My Love
5. Sachi
6. This Time (Bonus Track) 

Drag City invite you to celebrate Dismay Day with America’s hardest working funnyman in show business, Neil Hamburger.

A sombre work from a seasoned entertainer clearly carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, ‘First Of Dismay’ is being issued in answer to many who have applauded for “More! More!”

Specially-chosen stand-up comedy recordings from Neil’s recent appearances at coveted nightclubs in London, Savannah and Los Angeles are interspersed with musical cries for help as Neil emotes with the purely professional panache of the Too Good For Neil Hamburger Band in support.

Song highlights include ‘Endless Roll’, a disco complaint letter aimed at Kirkland Signature trash bags (featuring guest spots from members of The Germs and Jefferson Starship) and ‘Nickel Candy’ - societal decline set to music. Although Neil was strongly advised against the risk of merging side-splitting comedy segments with melancholy musical numbers, the exciting potpourri that resulted has enhanced his sparkle into a veritable milky way of entertainment.

‘First Of Dismay’ effectively captures the excitement of the popular comedian’s nightclub presentation, featuring ruminations on history and the bible that, besides provoking laughter, will also be educational for the whole family.

Neil’s 10th full-length album is his first since 2012’s muchloved ‘Live At Third Man Records’.

"The Girl I Love" is undoubtedly pop, but with an added layer of substance beneath the appealing and fashionable exterior. A sure fire winner with a hook you could hang you coat on. What materializes is a blistering chorus that is completely owned by the playful vocals and gaudy brass. Hamfatter are a clear pop talent. Crispy clean music, soft vocal and sugary lyrics that address sugar-free subjects.

Numero’s Hottest Sounds Around trio gathers castaway late ’70s grooves from across the Greater Antilles. Stan Chaman’s Trinidadian Semp concern delivered Wilfred Luckie’s wobbly 'My Thing' and the Hamilton Brothers’ calypso-disco smash 'Music Makes The World Go 'Round' in 1978. Across the sea, Frank Penn’s G.B.I studio tracked Stephen Colebrook’s Doobies-inspired 'Stay Away From Music' for the cruise ship curious. All three are housed in a custom Numero sleeve inspired by Edward Seaga’s Caribbean music manufacturing and distribution powerhouse WIRL (West Indies Records Ltd.)

TRACK LISTING

1. Music Makes The World Go 'Round
2. Music Makes The World Go 'Round (Instrumental)

Roy Hamilton, Cosmo Bowen and Dennis Palmer go back a long way to the early 80's when they were members of a 9 piece funk outfit called Breeze - playing regularly Upstairs at Ronnie Scott's along with bands like Hi Tension and Gonzalez. In 1984 they linked up for this one and only 12" on their own HBS imprint - a laid-back stomper that has become in-demand on the UK soul/funk collectors scene - now given a fresh new cut & press thanks to Freestyle Records' 12" reissue initiative!

TRACK LISTING

1. Turn Up The Music
2. Turn Up The Music (Instrumental)

Danish Artist Troels Hammer has released 5 albums to date, with his sixth House of Memories due out later this year. As yet there has only been a sampler 12” on vinyl. Therefore ‘An introduction’ LP is a compilation of tracks exclusive to Vinyl for fans and new listeners to enjoy.

Troels was discovered by the Danish producer Kenneth Bager in 2012 and has already gained great recognition for his music on both the Danish and the international scene

The style is instrumental and moving in the area between nu-classical, lounge, dance, ambience and electronica. When Troels Hammer sits down at the piano, the music flows through him and brings the audience in a mood that is both relaxed and intense. He himself says that he creates music you can go in and out of –and get carried away by.

Intermediation has been the centre of Troels Hammer’s entire professional life and also musically he is driven to set the tone for stories and touch elements recognizable to the audience. He can be experienced on stage alone, plays brilliantly with others and shares gladly stories about the music as a part of his performance.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Diário De Silêncio
A2 Cold Hawaii
A3 Fly Salmon Fly
A4 Bogotá
A5 Infinita Feat. Clara Valente
A6 View Of Wisdom
B1 Azur
B2 Unika 4 Feat. Rodrigo Sha
B3 Theme Frm Ngong Hills
B4 Run King - Piano Forte
B5 Father Sky
B6 Letters From Uhuru 

With The Strokes fresh off their first European show in four years, guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. is focused on breaking an even longer seven year lull between solo LPs. ‘Momentary Madness’ is his third album after ‘Yours To Keep’ and ‘¿Cómo Te Llama?’.

The ten track album includes the singles ‘Born Slippy’ and ‘Losing Touch’.

‘Momentary Masters’ features production from longtime Strokes engineer Gus Oberg. Unlike previous releases, Hammond called on the aid of a number of musicians for the recording sessions, including guitarists Mon Khmer’s Hammarsing Kharhmar and Bleachers’ Mikey Hart, bassist Jordan Brooks and drummer Jeremy Gustin.

TRACK LISTING

1 Born Slippy
2 Power Hungry
3 Caught By My Shadow
4 Coming To Getcha
5 Losing Touch
6 Don't Think Twice
7 Razors Edge
8 Touché
9 Drunched In Crumbs
10 Side Boob

Albert Hammond Jr’s fourth solo album Francis Trouble explores a deeply personal topic – the stillborn death of his twin brother, Francis, and the lingering effects that event has had in his life and music.

In November of 1979, Hammond Jr’s mother, Claudia, miscarried. Although they rushed to the hospital, Claudia and Albert Hammond Sr. were told that the baby was far too premature to live. Albert continued to grow inside of his mother undetected until she was nearly six months pregnant. Although he had always known of the existence of Francis, it was not until he was 36 years old that he learned from an aunt that part of Francis had remained behind in the womb and was born along side him – a fingernail. With his music moving in a different path than before, Hammond Jr wondered if this new direction came from another avenue of himself, perhaps emanating from whatever he and the departed Francis had shared for the few short months they had together.

Taking a page from Bowie, Hammond Jr says: “What the music says may be serious, but as a medium it should not be questioned, analyzed or taken too seriously. I think it should be tarted up, made into a character, a parody of itself. The music is the mask the message wears and I, the performer, am the message.” Working within this mentality, Hammond Jr created Francis Trouble, an homage to both the death of his twin and his own birth, as well as the complexities of identity that arise because of their intermingling.

The number 36 became especially relevant, as he had learned more of Francis’s story at that age, and because he was born on the 9th day of the 4th month of the year. Significantly, the album is exactly 36 minutes long.

TRACK LISTING

1. DVSL
2. Far Away Truths
3. Muted Beatings
4. Set To Attack
5. Tea For Two
6. Stop And Go
7. Screamer
8. Rocky’s Late Night
9. Strangers
10. Harder, Harder, Harder

Pop/rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. is the lead & rhythm guitarist and songwriting member of the GRAMMY® and BRIT Awards-winning band The Strokes. He has released 4 solo albums to date, most recently the acclaimed “Francis Trouble” in 2018 which spawned the radio single “Far Away Truths”. In the 4 years, since then, The Strokes released their US Top 10 charting GRAMMY® nominated rock record “The New Abnormal” and toured the world extensively. Albert also began the songwriting process for his 5th solo album “Melodies on Hiatus”, a 19-track album, crafted in a most experimental style. Albert teamed up with his writing partner, Canadian songwriter, and poet Simon Wilcox (whom he never met during the process) and had lengthy conversations via the telephone; Simon would jot down notes from Albert’s stream of consciousness, and draft the lyrics on her typewriter, and drop them into his letterbox! Albert then added the lyrics to the melodies he had already crafted. The songwriting process became a long distant “anonymous love affair of ideas & lyrics.” The album covers themes of childhood, surviving adolescence, adulthood, vulnerability, fame, relationship with self and others, and is Albert’s “deconstructed broken down ego reaction” to “Francis Trouble.” The album also features songs with GoldLink, Matt Helders (of the Arctic Monkeys), Steve Stevens and Rainsford, and was mixed by Tony Hoffer (known for his work with Beck, Air, M83, The Kooks, Fitz and the Tantrums, Metric, Chromeo, etc.) and mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters (Paramore, Spoon, Tame Impala, Jimmy Eat World, Peanut Butter Wolfe).

TRACK LISTING

Disc: 1
1. Libertude
2. 100-99 (ft. Goldlink)
3. Memo Of Hate
4. Downtown Fred
5. Old Man
6. Home Again
7. I Got You
8. Darlin'
9. 5. Thoughtful Distress (ft. Matt Helders & Steve Stevens)

Disc: 2
1. Fast Kitten
2. Caught By Night
3. I'd Never Leave
4. Dead Air
5. One Chance
6. Never Stop
7. False Alarm
8. 13. Remember (ft. Rainsford)
9. 818
10. 19. Alright Tomorrow (ft. Rainsford)

Multi talented UK Jazz Pianist Greg Foat has teamed up with Mercury Award nominated "The Bees" member and multi instrumentalist Warren Hampshire to collaborate on a new LP drawing on their diverse musical influences. Classic British library music, 60s Italian soundtracks & lost Americana combined with touches of modern classical, minimalism, Jazz and Folk. Featuring many members of Greg and Warren's previous bands and one of the U.Ks finest Jazz drummers, Clark Tracy, the LP also features an Edinburgh orchestra and soloists hand picked and scored by the boys. Recorded all analogue onto 2" multitrack in Edinburgh, mixed down by Mattias Glavå at his studio in Gothenburg, Sweden then mastered and cut in Helsinki, Finland, it's truly a European affair. 

TRACK LISTING

Galaxies Like Grains Of Sand 
Lullaby 
The Solar Winds (& Cadenza) 
A Long Way Home
End Song
All Washed Up 
How The Nights Can Fly 
End Song (Reprise)

This Hampshire & Foat project should not come as too much of a surprise to those familiar with Greg & Warren's music, influenced heavily by not just Jazz but the library sound of the 60s and 70s along with film soundtracks from the same golden era. Greg& Warren are avid collectors of this music, Greg sends me links night and day to LPs he has picked up digging on his travels. This constant search sends him down new musical pathways and often sparks a whole new concept for projects. Warren and Greg are both fiercely creative talented individuals which means we have to keep them working, a challenge for us all, but the music rewards the effort many times over. Side one is five tracks in very distinct styles, musical paintings for the big screen. The vast sound of the Japanese influenced Jasmine, The Spaghetti Western melancholy of Mariposa Lily, the call to action that is Antonio's Theme, The Breezy Vintage sports car in the sun that Coastal Drivepaints, and Lost in Nostalgia, a late night Poirotesk piece.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: If "The Honeybear" saw the band languidly exploring an enchanted woodland by day, then "Night Shade" encapsulates the magic of said woodland at night; full of beguiling spirits and esoteric wanderings...

Millie says: Hampshire & Foat have yet again created a captivating album, this one is clearly packed with things that have influenced that and the result is a beautiful mix of ambient and folk.

TRACK LISTING

1 Jasmine
2 Mariposa Lily
3 Antonio's Theme
4 Coastal Drive
5 Lost In Nostalgia
6 Introduction
7 Nightshade (Echo Flute & Bowed Bass)
8 Nightshade (Main Theme)
9 Nightshade (Solo Strings & Solo Fender Rhodes)
10 Nightshade (Pizzicato Strings & Walking Bass)
11 Nightshade (Multi-Tracked Piano)
12 Main Theme (Reprise) 

'Language Of The Birds' LP was recorded solo shortly after completing 'Galaxies Like Grains Of Sand' and 'The Honey Bear' with jazz pianist Greg Foat. 'Language Of The Birds' is noticeably influenced by Warrens love of walking the countryside and woodlands on the Isle of Wight. It's also influenced by his interest in Catastrophism/ Extinction events and the use of Symbolism employed in the Art, Architecture and Writings used to communicate knowledge of such events to subsequent civilizations.

Warrens personal folk musings hint at 60s Psychedelic Folk but with a deeper connection to nature and the part we all play within it, it's impossible not to be drawn into his music and artwork which provokes memories of old children's books, Fairy tales, and the transportive paintings associated with them.

TRACK LISTING

1. Eve Of The Deluge
2. The Falling Rain
3. Zep Tepi
4. Then It Was Gone
5. From Lonely Hours
6. I Just Didn't Think You'd Care
7. Autumn's Draw
8. They Glide The Hills
9. Only A Moment
10. Wu Wei

Fat Albert Rotunda is Herbie Hancock’s venture into jazz-funk. The record is centered around the music Hancock wrote for the TV special Hey, Hey, Hey, It’s Fat Albert. On Fat Albert Rotunda, Herbie Hancock brings you funky tracks like “Fat Mama” and more modern jazz-oriented tunes like “Tell Me A Bedtime Story”. The sextet that back’s Hancock are some of the most prominent musicians of that time, including Joe Henderson, Johnny Coles, and Buster Williams.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Wiggle-Waggle
2. Fat Mama
3. Tell Me A Bedtime Story
4. Oh! Oh! Here He Comes

Side B
1. Jessica
2. Fat Albert Rotunda
3. Lil’ Brother

Revisiting some classic jazz compositions, Coltrane's "Naima" and "Transition" as well as Hancock's own "The Sorcerer" amongst them, Brecker, Hargrove and Hancock turn in a evocation of the spirit of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, recorded live in concert at Toronto's Massey Hall. Supported by a rhythm section of Brian Blade and John Patitucci, they have produced a remarkable homage to the 'new direction' in jazz led by Coltrane and Davis in the 50s and 60s.

There is a moment halfway through Hand Habits’ Fun Houseat which musician Meg Duffy asks the question, “How many times must I rewind the tape?”It’s a fitting question planted squarely in the middle of a sonically adventurous record concerned largely with making sense and taking stock. How much time must we spend examining our own past in order to fully understand it? How can we safely acknowledge pain in order to release it and fully actualize who we are supposed to be? Buffeted by strings, synths, and a gently-shook tambourine, the aptly-titled track, “The Answer,” highlights the emotional engine at the heart of the record. “I know the answer,”Duffy sings, “Here’s what I hope to find - it’s always mine.”

Fun Houseis Duffy’s most ambitious Hand Habits album to date. Produced by Sasami Ashworth (SASAMI) and engineered by Kyle Thomas (King Tuff), the record was not intended as a reaction to the pandemic, but it was very much the result of taking a difficult, if much-needed, moment of pause. “When the pandemic happened, everything stopped,” recalls Duffy. “I had been touring consistently for five years, both on my own and playing in other people’s bands, so I wasn’t really writing a lot in between. It had been full pedal to the metal in terms of traveling and scheduling, which meant I really didn’t have a lot of time to think about how I felt or really check in with myself. Then, when the world basically stopped, it turned out to be the longest I’ve been alone in my entire life — without being in a relationship, without being on the road, without working myself to exhaustion — and the result was really like, holy shit. I slammed on the brakes and everything psychologically that I’d been pushing down and ignoring for the past few years suddenly flew to the foreground.”

What started out as a very personal reckoning eventually blossomed into a fruitful and convenient means of making new music. Grounded in LA and sharing a house with Ashworth and Thomas, who also runs a studio space in the building, Duffy began to flesh out the songs that would eventually become Fun House. Embold-ened by going into therapy and coaxed by Ashworth to push the songs into unexpected new shapes, the resulting music was more acutely personal and stylistically adventurous than anything they had attempted before. The new songs also became a prism through which Duffy could begin to self-actualize in a new way.

While Fun Houseshares some of the same hallmarks as previous Hand Habits releases —a kind of outré queer sensibility, a gentle sense of vulnerability — the record is a marked sonic departure from the often muted tones of 2019’s Placeholder and 2017’s Wildly Idle (Humble Before the Void). Instead, the tracks on Fun Housesparkle, moving in unexpected directions and eschewing any specific genre. Tracks like “Aquamarine” and “More than Love” package narratives about loss, romantic longing, and childhood trauma inside polished synth pop (“Suicide / Lost a life / Well then who am I? / Why can’t you talk about it?”) while “Gold Rust” and “Concrete and Feathers” have a ragged, Neil Young quality. Friend and collaborator Mike Hadreas (of Perfume Genius) contributes vocals on “No Difference” and “Just to Hear You,” making for one of the record’s most sanguine moments, his voice providing a perfect counterpoint to Duffy. The push/pull of styles, paired with songs that move deftly between the present and past, give the record a wildly diverse, hall of mirrors quality that befits its name. Where previous Hand Habits records could be fairly insular affairs, both in their creation and their execution, Fun Housefeels ebullient, lush, a fully-realized conversation.

TRACK LISTING

01. More Than Love 4:02
02. Aquamarine 4:15
03. Just To Hear You (feat. Perfume Genius) 2:53
04. No Difference 2:51
05. The Answer 2:04
06. Gold/Rust 3:58
07. Clean Air 3:08
08. Control 3:40
09. Concrete & Feathers 3:38
10. False Start 4:06
11. Graves 3:13

Hand Habits, the project of Los Angeles-based musician Meg Duffy (they/them),presents a new collection of songs titled Sugar The Bruise.

Inspired by month-long songwriting class Duffy taught in the summer of 2021, they re-discovered, with newfound clarity, the generative capacity of embracing the unknown, and how essential collaboration and improvisation are for accessing the indescribable.

Working with Luke Temple (Here We Go Magic, Art Feynman) and Philip Weinrobe (Adrienne Lenker, Cass McCombs), Duffy surrendered to the present moment, trusting that whatever sounds and words emerged were meant to emerge. With additional production, engineering and arranging from Jeremy Harris, Duffy created something which, in their words, “turned out nothing like I’d imagined it would.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Something Wrong
2. The Gift Of The Human Curse
3. Andy In Stereo
4. Private Life
5. The Book On How To Change Part 3
6. The Bust Of Nefertiti

This is the third full length by the viola and drums duo of Montreal's Hangedup, who've been mesmerising audiences, while pushing the boundaries of what a bow and a pair of drumsticks can conjure since 1999. "Clatter For Control" finds the band utterly on fire, swooping and slamming around with varying degrees of controlled chaos. Both noisier and more melodic than anything they've yet put to tape, they raise their compostional and improvisational bars on this album.

The new album from cosmic country rockers The Hanging Stars. 'On a Golden Shore' is the follow up to 2022's 'Hollow Heart' and is the band's second album on Loose. Produced by Sean Read at Clashnarrow Studio. On A Golden Shore arrives as The Hanging Stars reflect on a year of triumphs. With an Americana Music Association Bob Harris - sanctioned award and a Nashville sell-out in Third Man’s Blue Room with Jack White approvingly looking on, they’re a leading light in the UK Cosmic Americana cohort. Their standing has allowed them to pay less attention to any preconceptions of what they are ‘supposed to be’. On A Golden Shore - their fifth album and their second for the pioneering Loose Music, following 2022’s Hollow Heart - finds them definitively themselves and presents a set of disparate songs whose fundamental linkage is the band that made them. On A Golden Shore was recorded at Edwyn Collins’ Clashnarrow Studios with Sean Read producing. Singer/guitarist Richard Olson, drummer Paulie Cobra, multi-instrumentalist Patrick Ralla, plus freshman bassist Paul Milne – laid down the album’s backbone over eight days. Mostly recorded live, even the solos done as a piece. Much is first take because trying better, it never worked as well. Pedal-steel player Joe Harvey-Whyte created and added his parts at his London studio bringing ‘shimmery psychedelic goodness’. Smartly sequenced On A Golden Shore proceeds in clusters of songs; commencing with the free and easy choogle of ‘Let Me Dream Of You’, encompassing the sunny glam of ‘Sweet Light’, the baggy Balearic waft of ‘Happiness Is A Bird’, the pan pipes and bongos of the exotic ‘Golden Shore’, through to the rolling banjo of ‘No Way Spell’ and the celestial cascades of ‘Heart In A Box’. Fashioned instinctively On A Golden Shore is ultimately an album of sensation as much as thought, filled with fleeting moments of blissful excess, and stumbling, rushing flutters of sound; its evanescent psychedelia, divine choruses, and shards of strings combine into an infectious, compelling Cosmic Heartbreak Boogie.

TRACK LISTING

1. Let Me Dream Of You
2. Sweet Light
3. Happiness Is A Bird
4. Disbelieving
5. Washing Line
6. Golden Shore
7. Silver Rings
8. I Need A Good Day
9. No Way Spell
10. Raindrop In A Hurricane
11. Heart In A Box 

Also recorded at Famous Times for a never-released Bert Jansch tribute album, Fresh as a Sweet Sunday Morning sees the band cover the opening track from Bert’s 1974 album L.A Turnaround – an album hailed at the time for combining Americana with a playful English wistfulness. The Hanging Stars imbue Jansch’s song with a mean energy and their own signature cosmic psychedelia. The song ends with Joe Harvey-Whyte’s pedal steel sounding closer to a sitar whilst droning and distorted guitars seem to almost collapse in on themselves during a coda that sounds like it cannot bear to stop itself.

The Mountain sees the band enter entirely different territory. Bookended by Sam Ferman’s angular bass line and Paulie Cobra’s relentless drumming, what comes between recalls both the darkest sounds of The Doors and the ethereal psychedelia of early Verve, with Luke Barlow’s flute puncturing a haze of distorted guitars.

The Hanging Stars released their debut album Over the Silvery Lake in 2016, which received plaudits from broadsheets such as The Times, who described it as; "An album with enough of a hazy, sun-dappled charm to make the capital's dreariest weather bearable”, as well as The Guardian, who said; “Mersey-laced harmonies and just a whiff of the Gun Club.” They picked up a good amount of support at 6 Music and “The House on the Hill” scored a much-coveted 10/10 by John Robb on Steve Lamacq’s Roundtable.

TRACK LISTING

A. Fresh As A Sweet Sunday Morning
AA. The Mountain

I don’t care how many goddamn cute hobo bands there are out there right now. Not two runny shits. There’s something Hank IV knows that few other current “of interest” bands realize, and it’s a painfully simple thing: guitars were meant to sound like this, not that (pick something). That’s as plainly as it can be put. This is twin-guitar punk rock in a class of its own, driving more than dueling and hot-sauce-free. I’d say 'power with taste' but then I’d have to kill myself. I will say that III is Hank Baby’s third and finest album yet and they are, in short, a band whose every move is worthy of your utmost attention.

'For this record (their second for Siltbreeze), Thee Hanks opted to spend zero dollars and buried themselves deep inside their very own Shill Building studio for a good, long while. Sightings became scarce. Promises of “work” being “done” were made but who really knew what was going on? To be fair, The Shill has its fair share of distractions. Imagine Plato’s Retreat, except like a basement in the Tenderloin. I think they only went outside for sandwiches from the East Coast West Deli on Polk Street, like that one time in the street when Bob McDonald told me about that Venom single he owns for the seventeenth time. Pffft… Bob, playboy, inventor (of “The Full Compliment”) and as powerful and confounding a front-man as you’re likely to find ambulating in today’s scene. Hawnk Quatre (as they’re called in France) is both an exercise and exorcism for this hardcore guy from Bum Kon all grown-up. “Anyway, the result of their self-imposed exile is this album bearing the aroma of fuck you coupled with a faint flutter of fuck me. It’s eight songs in 25 minutes of loud, angry, intelligent, rock ’n’ roll punk and it’s from San Francisco. Beyond that, the rhythms actually have a rhythm—a loud, all-rock rhythm, in fact. It’s shocking and practically akin to reinventing the wheel ’round these un-rocking parts. Great—and now the world’ll probably explode. Do I gotta pick a cut to exalt? “Down in the Dumps” springs forth. Hopefully the punks follow suit. Portfolio played it for me when I visited and he just sat back, smiling. I was too. It was creepy.” —Mitch Cardwell “Hank IV plays desperate man-style punk in the vein of Minute to Prayera Flesheaters. Throw in some of the sociopathic scorch of The Pagans and touches of earlier Siltbreeze satellites like Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments and you got a great pro-rock primitive, one that combines accelerated jams with gut-busting vocals and the kinda furious delivery that makes it sound totally non-contemporary'. —Volcanic Tongue.

When British bands took the world by storm in the mid-sixties, the world turned and looked at London. Despite the fact that the most successful of these bands hailed from the North West corner of England, for the USA, London was the source of these thrilling new sounds. And in many ways it was - The Beatles, The Hollies and Herman's Hermits recorded all their hits with London-based producers, for London-based companies in London studios. And that's how it remained, until four Mancunian musicians became alive to the possibility of recording away from the capital.

Against the prevailing wisdom, they opted to plough their hard-earned cash back into the city they loved in the form of proper recording facilities. Eric Stewart of The Mindbenders and songwriter extraordinaire Graham Gouldman created Strawberry Studios; Keith Hopwood and Derek Leckenby of Herman's Hermits crafted Pluto. Between them they gave Manchester a voice, and facilitated a musical revolution that would be defined by its rejection of the capital.

This book tells the story of Manchester music through the prism of the two studio's key recordings. Of course that story inevitably takes in The Smiths, Joy Division, The Fall and The Stone Roses. But it's equally the story of 'Bus Stop' and 'East West' and 'I'm Not in Love'. It's the story of the Manchester attitude of L.S. Lowry, by way of Brian and Michael, and how that attitude rubbed off on The Clash and Neil Sedaka. Above all, it's the story of music that couldn't have been made anywhere else but Manchester.

An electric, searing memoir by the original riot grrrl and legendary frontwoman of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre Hey girlfriend I got a proposition, goes something like this: Dare ya to do what you want. Kathleen Hanna’s rallying cry to feminists echoed far and wide through the punk scene of the 1980s, ’90s, and beyond. Her band, Bikini Kill, embodies this iconic time, and today their gutsy, radical lyrics of anthems like ‘Rebel Girl’ and ‘Double Dare Ya’ are more powerful than ever.

But where did this transformative voice come from? In Rebel Girl, Hanna’s raw and insightful new memoir, she takes us from her tumultuous childhood home, to her formative college years in Olympia, Washington, and on to her first years on tour, fighting hard for gigs and for her band. As Hanna makes blindingly clear, being in a ‘girl band’, especially a punk girl band, in those years was not a simple or a safe prospect. Male violence and antagonism threatened at every turn, and surviving as a singer who was a lightening rod for controversy took limitless amounts of determination.

But the relationships she developed during those years buoyed her – including with her bandmates Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Billy Karren; her friendship with Kurt Cobain; and her introduction to Joan Jett – and they were a testament to how the true punk world nurtured and cared for its own. Hanna opens up about falling in love with Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys and her debilitating battle with Lyme disease, and she brings us behind the scenes of her later bands, Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin. She also writes candidly about the Riot Grrrl movement and its decline, documenting with love its grassroots origins but critiquing its later exclusivity.

In an uncut voice all her own, Hanna reveals the darkest, hardest times along with the most joyful – and how it all fuelled her revolutionary art, from the 1980s to today.

Dublin-based songwriter Paddy Hanna’s album The Hill features Girl Band’s Adam Faulkner and Daniel Fox on Drums & Double Bass, Daniel Fitzpatrick (Badhands, The Mighty Stef) on guitar & Keys and Jill Redmond on Vocals. The record was produced by Daniel Fox and the artwork was designed by Jill Redmond.

Paddy explains further about the album – “We lost ourselves on the Hill, Daniel, Daniel, Adam and I. a seemingly endless spell of isolation spent banging sheet metal, rusted hubcaps and blistering our fingers through non stop recording. The Hill is an internal musical about how the past and the present exist at the same time in our minds. It deals with the struggles of mental health, the sometimes difficult search for happiness and the moral conflict of growing up in Catholic Ireland.

As a listener I want you to take a seat inside my head, to smell the west cork air, to feel the gravel under your feet. In order to get this we set up ambient mics outside our makeshift studio to capture the natural landscape, we wandered boatyards and an abandoned train station recording old bits of metal we would clang, to give the album a sense of place. Sonically we also wanted to step away from the String sections used on Leafy Stiletto, opting instead to create melodies and tones using vocals and synthesisers. Most importantly however, I just wanted to put the past behind me on this record, I wanted to leave it on the hill. I hope you enjoy my therapy”. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Loss Of Their Kind
2. Cannibals
3. A Strange Request
4. Nameless
5. My Ladybird
6. Sinatra
7. Howling At The Duke Of York
8. My Wise Addiction
9. The Hill
10. Jog On Shall We?
11. Colosseum

Hannas Barber perpetuate their nine bar blues schtick with "Don't Buy The Sun", and EP of intricately structured melodic electronica. From the live jam intro of "Possibly...Self Inflicted" to the heavily re-worked final track "Fatal Exception" this record refuses to be pinned down, instead taking the listener through a space generating soundscape.

Mutant, in partnership with WaterTower Music, are proud to present...The original motion picture soundtrack to Paul King's 2023 film Wonka, with delectable original music performed by Timothée Chalamet in the title role, along with the movie's phenomenal ensemble cast, including Hugh Grant, Calah Lane and Keegan-Michael Key, and many others. The score features all-new music from acclaimed composer Joby Talbot and songwriter Neil Hannon.Composer Joby Talbot says: "Paul King is a director who puts music front and center. I'm grateful that he gave me so much room to really explore the musical possibilities of the beautiful and exciting world he created."

Songwriter Neil Hannon says: “To be allowed to stir some of my own imaginative ingredients into Paul's fantastical recipe is one of the honours of my life. To get to work with my old friend and collaborator Joby Talbot again was a joy, and reminded me of what a genius he is. And for my humble songs to share the stage with two Newley-Bricusse classics I grew up adoring is something I could only have dreamt about. But then every good thing in this world started with a dream!”

TRACK LISTING

1. Pure Imagination (Opening Titles Version)
2. A Hatful Of Dreams
3. Welcome To Scrubbit’s
4. You've Never Had Chocolate Like This (Hoverchocs)
5. Flying Chocolatiers
6. Scrub Scrub
7. Wonka's Case
8. Sweet Tooth
9. Willy And Noodle At The Zoo
10. For A Moment
11. The Letter 'A’
12. Clock Tower
13. You've Never Had Chocolate Like This
14. Oompa Loompa
15. A World Of Your Own
16. Sorry, Noodle
17. Mamma’s Secret
18. Pure Imagination (from "Wonka”)
19. Oompa Loompa (Reprise)
20. 500 Monks, 1 Giraffe
21. Death By Chocolate
22. The Oompa Loompa To The Rescue
23. Noodle Gives Affable The Ledger
24. Chocolate Fountain

Wellington, New Zealand four-piece Hans Pucket writes nervy but effortlessly danceable rock songs about feeling bad. Their second full-length album, No Drama, which is out November 4th via Carpark Records, gleefully captures the all-too-common twenty-something anxieties of talking too much and then being unable to find the right words to say. When frontman Oliver Devlin sings, “I’m surfing a constant wave of alarm” on the title track, it’s a compass for the other nine tracks. This is inviting and relatable music for people who, despite their best efforts, feel uncomfortable about themselves, the state of the world, and their place in it.

Both lyrically and sonically, No Drama is a departure for Hans Pucket from their 2018 debut Eczema. “I realized I didn’t want to write any more real heartbreak songs,” says Oliver Devlin. “We were and still are a live band. We're still trying to make music that’s catchy and people can dance to, but also really interesting to us: songs about growing up and finding how you exist in the world.” Songs like “My Brain Is a Vacant Space” with its blistering guitars and ebullient hooks hone in on the feeling that you have nothing to offer while “Bankrupt,” a fuzzed-out punk track, boasts lines like “I don’t know if I’ll always feel like / I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

Recorded with the band’s good friend and former tour mate Jonathan Pearce of The Beths at his Auckland studio, No Drama is full of big leaps, immaculate arrangements, and a ton of immediate grooves. “We were very ambitious when we first started recording this,” says bassist Callum Devlin. “Intentionally we left heaps of space in the track so we could add strings and horns. Because we were very measured and quite deliberate with the parts we had. It was a really fun process filling in the gaps.”

No Drama came together over several years and during its creation, the band added multi-instrumentalist Callum Passels, who provided all the horn arrangements on the LP. With Pearce producing, his other Beths bandmates like Benjamin Sinclair added string arrangements while singer Elizabeth Stokes provided backing vocals.

Overall it’s a remarkably eclectic record where the smooth pop of a track like “Kiss the Moon” can coexist perfectly with the Abbey Road freakout of “Some Good News.” “We didn’t want to be afraid of our 15-year-old self's influences,” says Oliver Devlin.” We really wanted to make an album that teenage us would just be amazed by.”

The result is Hans Pucket’s most sparkling and confident collection yet. While it’s danceable and fun, it’s also a thoughtful exploration of anxiety, a call for empathy in a turbulent time, and a relatable reminder that it’s hard to figure things out.

TRACK LISTING

1. My Brain Is A Vacant Space
2. You Must Chill
3. Misery Loves Company
4. No Drama
5. Honey
6. The Square
7. Some Good News
8. Bankrupt
9. Kiss The Moon
10. Drag Me Through Your Heart
11. I'm Not Opposed To

Having worked for years as side-woman for the likes of Sufjan Stevens, The National and My Brightest Diamond, Marla Hansen returns with her first solo album in twelve years. "Dust" has the weight and wisdom of hand-me-down folk songs, but also sparkles with the confidence and the excitement of an artist with new colours on her palette. The slow-burn of "Dust's" inception can be felt as the album plays. The tracks have weight and wisdom like hand-me-down folk songs, but also sparkle with the confidence and the excitement of an artist with new colours on her palette. Taylor Savvy (Peaches), Knox Chandler (R.E.M.) and Christian Biegai (Antony and the Johnsons) are all present at this banquet - a transatlantic tapestry sewn together by producer Robbie Moore at his Berlin studio complex Impression Recordings.

Lingering at the remains of a campfire before dawn, with the politics of the personal burnt into ash, running his stick through what’s left, Wand singer/guitarist Cory Hanson is reflecting on a series of moments in which he steps farther into himself, finding the ultimate big sky country on the inside of his skull. It’s a combination of songs and sounds that journey through bleak and broken territory and places of sweet, lush remove and it adds up to the best record he’s been involved in yet: his second solo album, ‘Pale Horse Rider’.

Cory’s first solo, ‘The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo’, was an intense affair, a grand experiment that produced inspiring, unconventional music - but this time around, he wanted to breathe a bit easier, to feel that breath in the music as well. So he and his band drove out to the desert to record in a lowstress environment: Brian Harris’ Cactopia, a house surrounded by 6ft tall sculptural psychotropic cacti. They built a studio inside and then they made music and lived off pots of coffee and chili and cases of Miller High Life as they played guitars, bass, keyboards and drums in what seemed increasingly like a living biomech, their tech made out of fungal networks and cacti needles.

It was loose and flowed onto tape well. Recorded by Robbie Cody and Zac Hernandez (who assisted on Wand’s ‘Laughing Matter’), the sounds were great from the get-go. First takes were mostly best takes. Fuelled with DNA lifted from country-rock cut with native psych and prog strands, Cory guided his craft toward the cosmic side of the highway, a benevolent alien in ambient fields hazy with heat and synths, early morning fog and space echo spreading the harmonies wide.

‘Pale Horse Rider’’s got a lot to get out of its mind, looking around and seeing that, on the surface, things don’t always look like much. A lifelong Californian, Cory’s naturally found himself standing to the left of most of the country. The west may be only what you make it; these days, the roadside view looks exceptionally sunbleached and left behind. ‘Pale Horse Rider’ eyes the city, the country and the fragile environment that holds them both in its hands - a record as much about Los Angeles as it can be with its back to the town and the sun in its eyes; as much about nostalgia as new music can be with the apocalypse over the next rise.

On ‘Pale Horse Rider’, Cory Hanson moves ceaselessly forward. The old myths weave and waft, the shadows of tombstones flickering in the mirages and the light that lies dead ahead.

TRACK LISTING

Paper Fog
Angeles
Pale Horse Rider
Necklace
Bird Of Paradise
Limited Hangout
Vegas Knights
Surface To Air
Another Story From The
Center Of The Earth
Pigs

Drag City announce the solo debut full length from Wand’s Cory Hanson. ‘The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo’ was recorded during May of 2016 in various locations across Los Angeles County and features string arrangements by Heather Lockie.

Hanson’s lyrics here are his best to date. By turns naked, leering, playful, evasive, they present a mute, parading statuary - doughy figures waltzing in doomed configurations through bleeding watercolour backdrops across terrains of tangled information. The music is gorgeous and liveable. Every surface threatens with the promise of an untold depth; every depth threatens to collapse into a surface. Every place you ply a solution turns out to be an intractable edge. You go looking for the soul, but there is no soul - just the things you had to lift to look behind.

Cory Hanson’s third solo LP follows 2020’s luminescent ‘Pale Horse Rider’, upping the heat to molten levels, six strings at a time. In search of further adventures, Cory draws with vampiric glee from the madness coursing through the world outside; a spiralling shitshow that’s reawakened a compulsion in him - an old ambition, even! - to crush brutality and elegance together into a fresh set of rocks to hail down upon us.

‘Western Cum’ is a high-stepping, hard-dancing, first love / heartbreak, tonight’s-the-night, future nostalgia kind of good time - the sound of guitars through the speakers of luxury cars.

Harmony leads are just the tip of the iceberg - the guitars like to melt everything in their path. The eight songs of ‘Western Cum’ are driven by the stalwart bass of brother Casey Hanson and the drums of Evan Backer, with a few passing acoustics from Cory and the intermittent spiritmoans of Tyler Nuffer’s steel guitar.

The quartet sound - two guitars, bass and drums - acts as beat-making principle / phrasing device, as well as template for Cory’s layers of six-string and vocal textures. From the rooftop of their musical safe house - the band in their makeshift hut and Cory ensconced in an outhouse - they let loose with a blast both face-melting and mindblowing.

With ‘Western Cum’, this debauched and shameless world is redeemed in the same breath as it is repudiated. A massing of voices and guitars form an almost post-gospel harmony, bright and burgeoning, engorging the thermostat, prising the pressure from your chest before the final wink-out. Maybe it’s a mirage, but those things are just another part of reality, aren’t they?

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Corey Hanson's voice perfectly rides atop the evocative country-adjacent musical backdrop. Swooning slide guitar and soft lyrics clash headfirst with distorted riffs and athletic noodling. It's both brilliantly inventive and a bold new take on the quiet / loud formula.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wings
2. Housefly
3. Persuasion Architecture
4. Horsebait Sabotage
5. Ghost Ship
6. Twins
7. Driving Through Heaven
8. Motion Sickness

Everything But The Here And Now marks a real period of growth for the fledgling outfit, who have concentrated on pushing the whole sound of the band forward from the solid DIY roots they sunk on 2016 debut album You Might Be Right.

Exploring new territory that includes washes of synths, keys and atmospheric production courtesy of Hookworms’ Matthew “MJ” Johnson (Drenge, Doe, Martha, Honeyblood), they’re also forging ahead into new lyrical pastures that reflect the often turbulent, yet upward trajectory of their experiences as a band and in their personal lives.

In their short lifespan, Happy Accidents have already garnered attention from publications including Noisey, DIY, Kerrang! Magazine and Upset. After catching the attention of BBC Introducing London, the band went on to be be played by Annie Mac and Huw Stephens at BBCR1, Steve Lamacq at BBC 6music and John Kennedy at Radio X.

Happy Meals is the Glasgow-based duo of Suzanne Rodden and Lewis Cook, life-partners since high school finding expression in cosmic form. Originally from the Scottish borders, Rodden and Cook (also of The Cosmic Dead) began Happy Meals in a flurry of experimentation at Glasgow’s creative hub The Green Door Studio. Initially the result of a free music production course, 'Apéro' sees the pair embark on a blissful voyage into a love-fuelled, outward-looking hedonism. Both artists operate machines and sing but it’s the dominating Franco-Scottish lingua-franca of Suzanne Rodden that imbues a sense of seductive fun to the album.

Their first recorded statement, 'Apéro' is an instant rush of Kosmiche-disco, utterly addictive and inviting. The epic 'Crystal Salutation' welcomes the listener in with analogue synths delayed into the horizon before 'Electronic Disco' ushers in distorted drum machines and Rodden’s disco-at-sunset vocal. Album stand-out 'Altered Images' is a pop-masterpiece, mixing French / Italo disco, acid basslines and a sense of Scottish optimism. 'Age Of Love' is unabashedly the feeling of being up until day-break, with layered synths climaxing all-around. Retro-futuristic visions abound on the beat-less 'Visions Of Utopia' before closer 'Le Voyage' reprises back the cosmopolitan disco, playing out the perfect club night in ecstatic fashion. It’s an enchanting, inclusive vision; everyone is invited, the future is bright. Just say yes.

Fruit Juice is the first new recorded material from Glasgow-based electronic avant pop duo Happy Meals since the intense aftermath of Apéro, their debut album which garnered a place in the Scottish Album Of The Year final 10. Shorter in scale but sharpened and expanded, Fruit Juice takes the tender experimental beginnings and unabashed pop moments of ther first LP into undiscovered countries glowing with possibility. Since Apéro’s release at the end of 2014, Suzanne Rodden and Lewis Cook have toured the globe, from Moscow to Bangalore via various European festivals, and have honed their dynamics live, in the moment, improvising and twisting the beat into new forms. As their live show has become more visceral and cinematic, Fruit Juice documents the duo’s new confidence. Run Around opens the E.P., with a sun-soaked tropicalia as conceived by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Rodden’s vocals warped into wordless peons to the rising sun. Lá Lá-bas reaquaints the listener to Rodden’s Franco-Gallic tendancies, but this time Happy Meals reveal a sparse melancholy, with spacious percussion and synth fragments giving way to one of the group’s most immediate moments to date. If You Want Me Now is pop music, pure and from the source. Alternating between French and English, Rodden recreates the live persona that has emerged since the group’s beginnings; an unrestrained performer bringing the innate sensuality beneath Happy Meals’ surface exploding into the light. Cook’s production work here sounds fresh and classic simultaneously, a glorious Jacno tribute enthralled to House music and Italo Disco. Fruit Float, opening Side 2, brings us back up into the cosmos, with arpeggiated synths from Cook’s synth arsenal duetting with a flute solo before Suivez-Moi delivers another pop song worthy of eternal repeat, a slice of electro not unlike the heady heights of Dare!-era Human League. Seductive and irresistible, it precedes the biggest step-up in Happy Meals’ history, the acid-fried Now That You Have Me: ostensibly a high-BPM remix of If You Want Me Now that hints at the insanity of the final moments of a Happy Meals live show. Released as a limited to 500 12” featuring marble-painted artwork hand-made by the band, Fruit Float precedes Happy Meals’ 2nd full length album, being prepared for October release. Each copy of Fruit Float will be different and feature a digital download.

Fruit Juice is the first new recorded material from Glasgow-based electronic avant pop duo Happy Meals since the intense aftermath of Apéro, their debut album which garnered a place in the Scottish Album Of The Year final 10. Shorter in scale but sharpened and expanded, Fruit Juice takes the tender experimental beginnings and unabashed pop moments of ther first LP into undiscovered countries glowing with possibility. Since Apéro’s release at the end of 2014, Suzanne Rodden and Lewis Cook have toured the globe, from Moscow to Bangalore via various European festivals, and have honed their dynamics live, in the moment, improvising and twisting the beat into new forms.

As their live show has become more visceral and cinematic, Fruit Juice documents the duo’s new confidence. Run Around opens the E.P., with a sun-soaked tropicalia as conceived by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Rodden’s vocals warped into wordless peons to the rising sun. Lá Lá-bas reaquaints the listener to Rodden’s Franco-Gallic tendancies, but this time Happy Meals reveal a sparse melancholy, with spacious percussion and synth fragments giving way to one of the group’s most immediate moments to date. If You Want Me Now is pop music, pure and from the source. Alternating between French and English, Rodden recreates the live persona that has emerged since the group’s beginnings; an unrestrained performer bringing the innate sensuality beneath Happy Meals’ surface exploding into the light. Cook’s production work here sounds fresh and classic simultaneously, a glorious Jacno tribute enthralled to House music and Italo Disco.

Fruit Float, opening Side 2, brings us back up into the cosmos, with arpeggiated synths from Cook’s synth arsenal duetting with a flute solo before Suivez-Moi delivers another pop song worthy of eternal repeat, a slice of electro not unlike the heady heights of Dare!-era Human League. Seductive and irresistible, it precedes the biggest step-up in Happy Meals’ history, the acid-fried Now That You Have Me: ostensibly a high-BPM remix of If You Want Me Now that hints at the insanity of the final moments of a Happy Meals live show. Released as a limited to 500 12” featuring marble-painted artwork hand-made by the band, Fruit Float precedes Happy Meals’ 2nd full length album, being prepared for October release. Each copy of Fruit Float will be different and feature a digital download.

Like many an influential album in rock history, the cultural significance of Happy Monday’ Bummed was apparent to precious few listeners upon its first release on 5 November 1988. Within a decade or two, Bummed would be hailed as one of the best records of the ’80s, often by the self-same publications that had slated it back in the day – a harbinger of the seismic shift about to take place in British popular music, away from the squeaky-clean, corporately ordained pop-radio fodder which had increasingly dominated the charts since punk, and back towards the more aggressive, unruly and experience-hungry urges which had always pulsed through rock ‘n’ roll.

With artwork lovingly replicated by original Manchester designers Central Station Design, this album is on vinyl for the first time since it’s original release.

Featured the singles “Wrote For Luck” and “Lazyitis - One Armed Boxer”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: The Martin Hannett produced "Bummed" was a huge step up (and on!) from their debut record. Cavernous and rambling, heavy and churning, the tunes here were much more direct whilst the grooves were (can we say it?) BAGGY as fuck! One of Factory Records' greatest ever releases.

TRACK LISTING

Country Song 
Moving In With 
Mad Cyril 
Fat Lady Wrestlers 
Performance
Brain Dead 
Wrote For Luck 
Bring A Friend 
Do It Better 
Lazy Itis

‘Loose Fit’ was the third single to be released from Happy Mondays cornerstone LP ‘Pills n’ Thrills and Bellyaches’, originally via the legendary Manchester-based record label - Factory Records.

Featured in the new London Records house-bag, this 12” features a newly commissioned remix by Greg and Ché Wilson, classic mixes by The Grid, Paul Oakenfold & Steve Osborne, and the Ears on Earth edit of ‘Loose Fix’. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Loose Fit (Greg Wilson And Ché Wilson Remix)
2. Loose Fix (The Grid Remix EOE Edit)
3. Loose Fix (The Grid Remix)
4. Loose Fit (Perfecto 12" Mix)

Happy Mondays release this special 7" in memory of their legendary bassist Paul Ryder, who tragically passed away earlier this year. The 'Tart Tart’ limited edition 7” contains the original of the track, which originally appeared on Happy Mondays 1987 debut album Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out) and was produced by John Cale. On the B-Side is a live version of the track from a BBC John Peel session.

Paul’s brother, Happy Monday’s vocalist Shaun Ryder comments: "This special release of Tart Tart showcases the unique musical talent of our brother Paul Ryder who passed from this world ... we will all miss you Horse...he brought the funk and the rock n roll to Happy Mondays … love you long time R kid”

All profits from the release will be donated to Music Cares, a charity chosen by Paul’s daughter Amelia, who comments: "Music Cares is a charity that helps people in the music industry who are struggling with addiction issues. 14 years ago, Paul was given help and support from the organization who helped fund extended outpatient care and therapy that enabled him to have 14 subsequent happy and productive years. Just two weeks ago he mentioned them in an interview and often expressed his gratitude and desire to pay their support forward so others could be helped too.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: In the late 80s The 'Monday's released a handful of 12" singles on Factory Records, combining indie guitars with a loose, funky swagger, topped with Shaun's mad, stream of consciousness lyrics delivered with his distinctly Salfordian bark. Paul Ryder's guitar grooves were the backbone of songs like "Delightful", "Freaky Dancing" and this track, "Tart, Tart" which went on to influence the whole Madchester thing, and well, you know the rest....

TRACK LISTING

A. Tart Tart
B. Tart Tart (2019 Remaster) 

This collection of EPs features very early, rare Happy Mondays tracks originally released on limited vinyl in the late 1980s by Factory Records. Included is the original version of ‘24 Hour Party People’ and feature track ‘The Egg’ - with atmospheric eerie slide guitar and driving bass this is a stand out gem from the band’s back catalogue and transports you in time to late 1980s Manchester.

All tracks remastered from original master tapes.

‘Forty Five’ pressed on translucent green vinyl in sleeve with 3mm spine.

‘Freaky Dancin’ / The Egg’ appears on translucent orange vinyl in sleeve with 3mm spine.

’Tart Tart’ is on translucent blue vinyl in 3mm spine sleeve.

‘24 Hour Party People’ on translucent yellow vinyl in sleeve with 3mm spine.

All 4 EPs are gathered in a 300gsm carton slipcase.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Happy Mondays lit up the late 80s with their barely contained, shambolic but groovey take on punk-funk and god knows what else! They were, in short, totally original. In frontman Shaun Ryder they had a complete one-off who label boss Tony Wilson famously compared to W.B.Yeats! These early twelves (85-88) are presented here as four different coloured vinyl, remastered from the original analogue tapes and housed in a 300 gram carton slipcase.

TRACK LISTING

Forty Five :
A. Delightful
B1. This Feeling
B2. Oasis
 
Freaky Dancin’ / The Egg :
A. Freaky Dancin’ (Live)
B1. The Egg (Mix)
B2. Freaky Dancin’
 
Tart Tart :
A. Tart Tart
B. Little Matchstick Owen’s Rap
 
24 Hour Party People :
A. 24 Hour Party People
B1. Yahoo
B2. Wah Wah (Think Tank)

From the simmering harmonised opener, 'Hanging On' with it's pitch-perfect vocal swirls and snappy percussive backdrop, it's clear that The Happy Soul mean business. Songs like 'The Rules Of Love' and 'I Heard It Said' ooze sleazy charm, with slide guitars and swaying surf-rock solos, while the more mellow latter-half of the LP brings you down from the almost euphoric upbeat nature of the earlier pieces, with the closing couplet of 'Don't Say Goodnight' and 'Like Newly Born Stars' rounding things off beautifully with a well-measured and balanced juxtaposition of optimistic drive and mournful poignance. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Hanging On 04:10
2. With Fingers Crossed & Forget Me Nots 04:03
3. The Rules Of Love 02:28
4. A Salfordian Werewolf In Urmston 03:45
5. Comeback 03:12
6. Wanting & Needing 03:10
7. I Heard It Said 03:20 
8. The Sad Refrain 03:53
9. Add Zero To Zero 02:53
10. Someone Is Calling Your Name 02:38
11. Don't Say Goodnight 02:14
12. Like Newly Born Stars 04:26

"We’ll admit, this finished album landed at our headquarters late last summer, but it just seemed unfair to release it in the Fall or Winter months, since this debut LP by the Happy Thoughts is such an incredibly classic-sounding ‘Summer album’ in all aspects of the term. How do guitar riffs like these clear the clouds away so well, while embracing a pure freshness in such a familiar sense? You’ll feel like you’ve been listening to these songs your whole life.

As clean and crisp as the early ‘60s-infused rock’n roll backbeat holding onto these songs for dear life, each track sticks right to your ribs, and with the addition of a full band, compared to the previous solo recordings, it’s a richness you didn’t even know you deserved. Purity, harmony, and true, unabridged happiness come bleeding through this collection of songs even more impressively than on the other bands Eric Lagrange has played a pivotal part in, namely, the excellence of the Cave Weddings and Romance Novels (the latter of which, chosen by Nobunny for support on his first US tour).”

For fans of Bobby Fuller Four, Nobunny, Fevers, Shoes.

TRACK LISTING

1. Half Day
2. One More Fish
3. Sweet Dirty Love
4. Indiana Girls
5. Back Of The Line
6. Bad Days
7. Anything But Love
8. Never Gonna Do It
9. Black & Blue
10. Hang Around
11. Ride Ride Ride
12. Think Happy Thoughts

Hapshash & The Coloured Coat released this debut in 1968 and it's something of an electric mayhem and freeform psychedelic freakout. Art designers Michael English and Nigel Weymouth, whose striking graphics were seen on many bright and trippy posters for psychedelic clubs like the UFO and Middle Earth in London, were the creative talent behind this band along with DJ and manager Guy Stevens. They incorporated flower power, love, peace and acid into a psychedelic rock lifestyle. Could only have been recorded and released in the late 60s.

Genius ten track debut from Har Mar Superstar, a one man cabaret pop star extravaganza who will have you grinning ear to ear from the get go! Imagine Prince with a far dafter sense of humour and even less reluctance to strip to his undies!

Nobuo "Hara", whose real name is Nobuo Tsukahara, is a Japanese saxophonist who became known in 1951 with his big band, the Sharp & Flats. Together they recorded more than a hundred album during their career. Hozan Yamamoto is, for his part, a Shakuhachi player, a traditional Japanese flute, enjoying such recognition in his country that he was awarded a Living National Treasure in 2002. The first record bringing together the two musicians is a live recorded in 1967 during the Newport Jazz Festival. It was a year later, in 1968, that New Jazz in Japan, their first studio recording, was released. Accompanied by the power of the Sharps & Flats, Nobuo Hara's tenor sax and Hozan Yamamoto's shakuhachi respond subtly to give this record, which had not been reissued since 1971, a completely unique style.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chakkiri-Bushi
2. Sakura Sakura
3. Kuroda-Bushi
4. Donpan-Bushi
5. Rokudan Kuzushi
6. Sangai-Bushi
7. Itsuki No Komori Uta
8. Kangun March
9. Tabaruzaka
10. Kiyari Kuzushi

A much acclaimed recording artist who released his Mercury Prize nominated debut, Here Be Monsters on Heavenly Records in 2001, in recent years his has gained acclaim for his songwriting for a variety of artists.

The album, which follows Furnaces, his 2016 album for Polydor, sees Ed Harcourt add another new string to his multi-faceted musical bow. Something of a left-turn after its busy, big-screen, somewhat under-appreciated predecessor, it sees the supremely versatile singer, writer and all-round instrumentalist bravely eschew vocals and lyrics and create a soft-spoken yet emotionally loquacious group of piano-led instrumentals, as if sound-tracking an as yet invisible film, or responding to today’s ferocious shouting match of a planet with a mesmerizing, meditative calm. “The world that we live in, we’re exhausted by the internet, social media, the sheer barrage of news and vomit being rained down us on a daily basis. You can’t avoid it, and it’s tiring. So this record came from taking a step back – it’s something that’s trying to be beautiful. My hope is that people might choose to swim amongst this music when it all gets too much.”

Talking about the gestation of the album, which was written and recorded at his ‘Wolf Cabin’ studio in Oxfordshire Harcourt said, “I knew I wanted to buy a new piano. Eventually I found this 1910 Hopkinson Baby Grand, which is exactly the same make and era as my grandmother’s piano which I started learning on and wrote my first three records on. I felt at home again. I needed a break from singing and lyrics so I began writing instrumental music. I grew up listening to and playing Debussy, Satie, Mozart, Grieg, as well as modern composers like Max Richter, Philip Glass, Arvo Part. I also loved Warren Ellis (with whom Harcourt worked on the new Marianne Faithfull album) and Nick Cave’s score for The Assassination Of Jesse James… 

TRACK LISTING

1. Diving Bell
2. Wolves Change Rivers
3. Duet For Ghosts
4. Empress Of The Lake
5. Keep Us Safe
6. Faded Photographs
7. For My Father
8. For My Mother
9. Beneath The Brine
10. There Is Still A Fire
11. Circling Red Kites
12. Whiskey Held My Sleep To Ransom

Making his debut with the Mercury Prize-nominated Here Be Monsters in 2001, Harcourt has released music under his own name that blends raw emotions, impeccable songwriting and visionary flights of imagination. A succession of ten rich, enthralling albums have followed that first spark of his, including the intoxicating addictive Strangers in 2004; 2013’s breathless Back Into The Woods which was recorded in just eight hours; and Furnaces which compellingly and entreatingly envisioned family ties confronted by the small matter of the apocalypse. After that LP in 2016, Harcourt then moved to explore the instrumental sphere with recent soundscape albums Beyond The End and Monochrome To Colour.

While recognisably bearing all the hallmarks that have made him such an admired and prolific songwriter, one of Britain’s most cherished yet inventive music creators, Ed’s new record, El Magnifico, also finds him striving for something new. It is an Ed Harcourt record, but one with a desire to seek fresh reward.

With his body of work to date, it would be foolhardy for Harcourt not to lean on his artistic foundations, not just as a solo artist, but as an acclaimed music-maker in a variety of guises. His creativity has stretched beyond his own impressive catalogue too. Consistently inspired by the power of collaboration, as a writer, producer and, often, one-man backing band, he has aided the musical visions of the likes of Afghan Whigs, Lissie, Jamie Cullum, The Libertines and Marianne Faithfull, plus has worked with an array of fast-rising new talents. He has also engaged closely with filmmakers, scoring movies and documentaries and is a member of the gloriously louche, sonically hard bitten rock trio Loup Garoux.

With that array of creativity fizzing behind him, Harcourt enjoys a spectrum-spanning number of outlets of expression, ensuring his bountiful creativity and cascading of ideas always find an appropriately unique home. And ‘El Magnifico’ is the beneficiary of this immense scope and musical insight. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Classic, swooning ballads written with Harcourt's unmistakeable melodic ear and wry lyrical style. there are as many moments of brittle restraint as there are jubilant celebration. It's a beautifully sequenced and wonderfully produced wonder.

TRACK LISTING

1. 1987
2. Into The Loving Arms Of Your Enemy
3. Broken Keys
4. Strange Beauty
5. The Violence Of The Rose
6. Ghost Ship
7. Deathless
8. Anvils & Hammers
9. My Heart Can’t Keep Up With My Mind
10. At The Dead Of The World
11. Seraphina
12. El Magnifico

Haunting and other-worldly new record from Ed Harcourt, his ninth studio album and second release on Point Of Departure following 2018’s ‘Beyond The End’.

Recorded at his own Wolf Cabin studio in rural Oxfordshire between January and October 2019, this beautiful 12-track album was written and produced entirely by Harcourt. It features Clive Deamer from Portishead on drums on three tracks, and Gita and Amy Langley on violin and cello respectively

The new album is full of rapturous outreach. It was made with an interesting blend of instrumentation, ancient and modern. There’s a 1910 Hopkinson baby grand piano and also a dulcitone, a 19th-Century oddity where hammers strike an array of tuning forks.

A much-acclaimed recording artist who released his Mercury Prize nominated debut ‘Here Be Monsters’ on Heavenly Records in 2001, in recent years Harcourt has gained acclaim for his songwriting for a variety of artists. He’s co-written songs with Marianne Faithfull, Lisa Marie Presley, Paloma Faith, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Orbital’s Paul Hartnoll. He’s featured on albums with Mark Lanegan and alongside an intercontinental array of musicians, from Egypt and Tanzania to Argentina and Russia (this global cast featuring on the 2019 album ‘Beyond Music: Same Sky’). Moving from bands to the big screen, Ed has written for several soundtracks, including the recent superhero comedy Supervised and the 2014 drama Like Sunday, Like Rain.

TRACK LISTING

First Light
Ascension
Drowning In Dreams
Her Blood Is Volcanic
Only The Darkness
Smiles For You
Death Of The Siren
After The Carnival
Last Rites
So Here’s To You, Hally
Childhood
King Raman
Monochrome Into Colour

For Ed Harcourt’s sixth studio album, the previously Mercury Prize nominated artist spent just six hours in Abbey Road with three pianos, a guitar, a string section (including Ed’s wife Gita), and a bottle of Wild Turkey.

Legendary photographer Steve Gullick was at the historic studios, and his shot from the control room has become the record’s cover art.

Think Tom Waits piano ballads, guitars haunted by Jeff Buckley, and a glimmer of ‘69 Love Songs’ sentimentality.

One of the reasons for the recording time constraints is that Ed was busy writing songs for the likes of Kristina Train (with Van Dyke Parks) and Paloma Faith, and also for Lisa-Marie Presley’s debut album (with Richard Hawley). He’s also been busy as Faber’s director of music for Beck’s Song Reader project, and recording tracks for the Rogue’s Gallery sea shanty album featuring Tom Waits, Keith Richards and more.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Some really beautiful, poetic and always melodic songs here. So talented.

HARD FEELINGS is the new collaborative project between Joe Goddard (Hot Chip) and Amy Douglas. For all intents and purposes, ‘HARD FEELINGS’, the self-titled debut album released on Domino Recordings, is “an opera of sad bangers.” Loosely conceptual without being a full concept album, the material is the ultimate immersive cinematic experience for your feet and ears, seated fluidly at the intersections of New Wave and Synthpop-inspired Pop Music and full on Dance majesty.

New York City’s Amy Douglas has made her reputation across the worlds of house and disco with her distinctive voice and stellar songwriting ability. She has worked with such artists as Luke Solomon, The Crooked Man and Horse Meat Disco, and she wrote ‘Something More’ for Roisin Murphy on her recent album ‘Roisin Machine’.

Joe Goddard is also synonymous with the electronic music world, widely-known in the front ranks of British producers, creating a sounds from across his panoramic musical life, from house, techno and disco to UK garage, R&B and electro-pop. Joe forms one fifth of the UK electronic-pop powerhouse Hot Chip whilst, alongside Raf Rundell, he is one half of The 2 Bears.

TRACK LISTING

Love Scenes
Dangerous
Running Out Of Time
You Always Know
Take You Down
About Us
Holding On Too Long
Sister Infinity

Hard-Fi are the product of their suburban West London environment; the sound of twenty-something gun-slingers on the minimum wage. It's the sound of a band weaned on the heady concrete glamour of The Clash, Dexys, Curtis Mayfield, and Happy Mondays. In love and in debt - the raw materials required to soundtrack a life of box-fresh Adidas, Berwick Street vinyl, and the black economy. This track was originally release as their debut single and has been unavailable and much sought after since.

The title says it all: "Living For The Weekend" is a hedonistic blast of guitar riffs and synth stabs, documenting the grinding out of nine-to-fives in pursuit of that Friday night clubbing buzz craved by a whole generation of British society. For Hard-Fi the setting is Staines, tipping a nod to the town's infamous night club Cheekees, but this is a song for anyone in any town. As front man Richard Archer sings: 'Oh yeah, I look around me and I can see. This room is full of people like me. All living for the weekend'.

Double Denim deliver another split release, and one that's got a lot of our customers in a bit of a lather.

On side A there's "Eye Contact" by Hard Mix, aka Noah Smith from Greenville, South Carolina considered to be the birthplace of the chillwave sound, which this track slots neatly into. Hard Mix produces blissed-out soundscapes from tiny slices of old Motown records. "Eye Contact" throws those snippets together in a downbeat style - very dreamy.

Flip it for "Remedy" by the Nottinghamshire-born and Manchester-based Darren Williams, aka Star Slinger who’s previously collaborated with Teams on a 12″ EP release on Mexican Summer. Slinger samples and splices micro-snippets from old R&B records and regenerates them into electroid pop gems. "Remedy" is a gloriously upbeat and summery jaunt that will chase the winter blues away. One for fans of Phoenix, Teengirl Fantasy, Delorean etc.

Cheersquad Records and Tapes are exhilarated to announce the forthcoming new album by Oz-punk tearaways the Hard-Ons, “I Like You A Lot Getting Older”

I Like You A Lot Getting Older will be the third album by the band's current line-up of Blackie, Murray, Ray and Tim, and follows 2021's Australian top 5 debuting I'm Sorry Sir, That Riff's Been Taken and last year's the Australian Top 30 debuting Ripper '23. 

It's been a long and punk-rocky road for our heroes, who formed the band while still in highschool in the multicultural South-West Sydney suburb Punchbowl. Reflecting that multiculturalism, the core band (despite members come and gone) comprised three kids of East Asian, South Asian and Eastern European parentage - not your typical punk rockers of that or any other era. Weened on high energy rock'n'roll (Kiss!) and then the early punk and post-punk eras (with a focus on local Australian sounds, in particular the '76/'77 punk of The Saints, Radio Birdman, Victims, Psycho-Surgeons and News, and the anarchic noise of The Birthday Party), the new group appeared on a Sydney scene that took itself fairly seriously. With one foot in the Ramones/Radio Birdman-influenced garage-punk scene and the other in the spikey-haired punk-inspired scene of the early ‘80s, the Hard-Ons found a common denominator of noise and energy and appealed to a young crowd who was open to anything. With their youthful and unforgiving band name, transgressive and hilarious graphics and diverse ethnicity, they also found plenty of resistance.

Following the release of their first EP in 1985, the Hard-Ons quickly began to build a large following. Not content to repeat themselves, new elements entered their sound, including thrash metal and psychedelia, which were previously unheard in Australian punk. Their unruly and un-stylised look, which soon came to involve shorts, thongs and bare torsos, became something of the look de rigueur in punk circles as the decade wore on. The Hard-Ons had become trendsetters and were welcomed with open arms in international punk circles.

In their original incarnation, the Hard-Ons shared bills with the likes of the Ramones and Nirvana and appeared on numerous Big Days Out. They scored a never-bettered 17 consecutive number 1's on the Australian independent charts and in 1989 were the only Australian band still based in Australia to hit the top 5 in the NME charts!!

Despite a break-up, the formation of another band (Ray & Blackie’s other ongoing band Nunchukka Superfly - that band's original line-up recently launched the long-lost album Nunchukka Superfly '95 in August!) and, in Blackie’s case, a solo career, the Hard-Ons regrouped in the new millenium and found a whole new audience - kids who knew of their influence on subsequent groups like the Meanies and Frenzal Rhomb. New recordings ensued, and in 2018, by which time fans of another new generation of bands, including Clowns and Private Function were onboard, they undertook their 19th European tour, when they played the massive metal festival Hellfest, alongside Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Joan Jett. In 2021, the core pair of Ray and Blackie and "new" drummer Murray found themselves a new front person in the form of longtime fanboy, Tim Rogers of You Am I.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Like You A Lot
2. Buzz Buzz Buzz
3. These Days Are Long
4. Happy Accidents
5. Because You're Mine
6. Finder's Fee
7. Getting Older
8. The News That Fits
9. Operation Lightning
10. Ride To The Station
11. Doesn't Look Like Me At All
12. Pushover

Following speculation, The Hard Quartet’s existence was made official on July 30th with the band’s first single and video, ‘Earth Hater’, and an accompanying video directed by EYEDRESS. Watch it HERE.

"Soon, the whole group is reflecting and laughing and offering a window into the free-wheeling process that informs their proudly leaderless new collaboration: an idea first proposed by Sweeney over the phone to Malkmus during the early days of the pandemic,” wrote GQ in a short profile piece introducing the group. “After collaborating in various permutations and running into each other frequently on the road, the idea of making music together—by nobody’s rules but their own, distinct from any industry trends or standards—felt like a no-brainer. Sweeney looks back in awe at the Hard Quartet's first week of working together, during which they quickly amassed nearly an album’s worth of songs and settled into an identity that felt distinct from any of their previous projects. (“This is not a project—it’s a band,” Malkmus says firmly. Sweeney responds with a triumphant, guttural, “Yeeeah!”)”

The Hard Quartet will play debut shows in New York, Los Angeles and London in October. The band will be touring extensively in 2025.

The Hard Quartet is comprised of:

Emmett Kelly, a songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist best known for his work in The Cairo Gang and The Double, as well as in the company of artists such as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Ty Segall, Rob Mazurek, and many more.

Stephen Malkmus, a songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist best known for his work with Pavement, the Jicks, Silver Jews, Straw Dogs, and eponymously.

Matt Sweeney, a songwriter, guitarist, producer and vocalist best known for his work with Chavez, Superwolf, his music for Red Dead Redemption 2 and his guitar work in the company of a panoply of artists from Guided by Voices and Cat Power to Johnny Cash and Adele.

Jim White, a drummer and songwriter best known for his work with Dirty Three, Xylouris White, eponymous-ly, and with such stalwarts as Guy Picciotto, Cat Power, Bill Callahan and Venom P Stinger.

“Leave yourself behind and go into something where you’re actually listening to others and trying to come up with a solution to whatever kind of esoteric thing you are attempting to do in your life. You know what I mean?” — E.K.

“We’re all jazzed.” — S.M.

“The way Jim plays really affected the way I hear things. He has this way of making everything sound good. All of a sudden, you really pay attention to everything else that’s going on because of what Jim is doing.”— M.S.

“There’s this thing where I’ll have a story in my head when I have an intention, and I can hear it in the drums. It doesn’t matter if I tell anyone—even the people I’m playing with. You don’t even have to be particularly conscious of it yourself. But if you have an intention, something happens to the sound. It’s really weird.” — J.W.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An unbelievable lineup here of talent, and all of the cogs are working together in perfect harmony. A superb, deep mix of art rock, garage and psychedelia made by some of the most seasoned musicians in the world.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chrome Mess
2. Earth Hater
3. Rio's Song
4. Our Hometown Boy
5. Renegade
6. Heel Highway
7. Killed By Death
8. Hey
9. It Suits You
10. Six Deaf Rats
11. Action For Military Boys
12. Jacked Existence
13. North Of The Border
14. Thug Dynasty
15. Gripping The Riptide

Their first new material in ten years - Hard-Fi make their welcome return with brand new EP ‘Don’t Go Making Plans’ through Ignition Records.

Rolling around a sun-scorched groove and boisterous beats, title track ‘Don’t Go Making Plans’ is an immediate, soul-infused summer anthem, recorded at the band’s own Staines studio, produced by frontman Richard Archer and long-term contributor Wolsey White. It’s the end result of the first session together since 2011 album 'Killer Sounds' and follows a series of sold-out tours and live shows over the last 18 months.

TRACK LISTING

1. Don't Go Making Plans
2. I Know What You Want
3. Don't Need You
4. Always And Forever
5. Don't Go Making Plans (The Reflex Revision)
6. Don't Go Making Plans (Wrongtom Remix)

Hard-Fi return with the anthemic new single "I Shall Overcome".

"Once Upon A Time In The West" is a 12-track tour-de-force of genre-hopping beats, stomping Motown undercurrents, indie purr and rapid-fire delivery, it boasts the lead single "Suburban Knights" plus 11 other blistering tracks. Having upped the ante from 2005's debut, they've remained raw and relevant with personal anthems set against a backdrop of sonic triumphs – proving their status amongst the UK's biggest and best.

"Process Of Elimination" explores sickness as a teacher for anti-capitalist modes of being; a rewilding of the self. The product of an attempt to be indestructible, this sickness has an unknown diagnosis. The only route to determine the indeterminable is via a process of elimination. Eliminate the noise so it may quieten and make space for listening to what whispers underneath, allowing a return to the present moment. Slowness and queerness as technologies, questions as answers and mysticism as a path to healing when science alone does not suffice.

London-based multidisciplinary artist El Hardwick’s sophomore album follows their experience of becoming chronically ill after years of treating their body like a machine. El explains: 'After failing to receive a diagnosis, which is only given via a lengthy process of elimination, I instead turned to autonomous modes of healing rooted in mysticism and herbalism; putting aside the need to be defined. My journey towards accepting my disability is told in parallel to my coming-out as trans. I also see my non-binary identity as a process of elimination: I am neither gender, both, in-between. It is through rewilding myself from capitalism and gender normativity that I learn how to connect to my body and the earth; no longer allowing either’s energy to be extracted from. The less I sought answers, language, metrics and analysis, the more peace I found.'

TRACK LISTING

The Queer Art Of Slowness
Dual
Quantology
How Do I Know What I Want When Everybody Is Telling Me I Should Want What I Dont Have
Laying On The Floor Staring Up At Dust In The Air
Breathing Room
Language Couldnt Say
Pataphysical
Wildest Imagination

It's 1973 and French music, fashion and style icon Francoise Hardy is going through some changes. Expecting a child and in a state of transition, she changes label and joins WEA in search of new blood and new songwriters for her latest LP. Setting her heart on Michel Berger, the two hit the studio together and their collaboration soon results in a cult album, an instant classic in French music and an enduring part of chanson history, "Message Personnel". One of Hardy's most celebrated LPs, this collaboration with Michel Berger sees the vocalist abandon the carefree Ye-Ye of her youth to concentrate on sweeping ballads packed with emotional impact. Sumptuous and sincere, "Message Personnel" has influenced generations of French songwriters, not least the likes of Air and Tellier.

Frances Castle is the illustrator/owner behind the Clay Pipe record label and The Hardy Tree is her on- going musical project. Common Grounds was started during the first 2020 lock down - when time moved very slowly and travel away from home became impossible.

The album was recorded at home by Frances, then mixed to tape with Ed Deegan at Gizzard Analogue Studios in East London. Ed plays drums on three of the tracks.

“Like many others with nowhere else to go, I walked the streets of my neighbourhood for exercise and well-being. I rambled like I might in the country side; stopping every now and then to take in the view, or notice something I’d missed before. I took to looking up local streets in historical newspapers, and read reports of mysteries and crimes that had happened here in the past. I researched the names of the people who had lived in my flat before me, viewed old census returns from the surrounding area, and noted the birth places and livelihoods of past residents. I began to see the ghosts of these people on my walks, and notice the things that they had left behind; shapes of ancient tram tracks creeping under the tarmac, an old gas street lamp in an alleyway, a tiny metal sign indicating a culverted river. I spent my evenings writing and recording the music on this LP, and then the following day would listen to the rough mixes as I walked, the music began to soundtrack the walks, and the walks began influencing the type of music I was creating.” - Frances Castle, 2022

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautiful mix of plaintive, swooning instrumental wooze and folky, off-kilter ambient business. I've been a big fan of Clay Pipe and The Hardy Tree specifically for some time now, and I think Common Grounds is without a doubt the most beautiful HT outing yet. A meditative and evocative journey.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Garden Square In The Snow
2. The Spire Of St Mary's
3. St Saviour's Through The Railings
4. Shop Fronts And Parked Cars
5. The New River Path, August
6. Railway Tracks
7. Mist On The Playing Fields
8. Face At The Window, Seaforth Crescent
9. Up On The Hill

Françoise Hardy's Vogue years have marked the history of French and international music. Even today, the 5 years between 1962-67 remain an exceptional moment in her career, the one when she exploded in the eyes of a generation that was born during or just after the 2nd World War, the generation that would be part of the May 1968 Paris protests...

Hardy exploded not only in France alongside her fellow “Yéyés”, but also internationally where she became the symbol of French elegance, talent and charm: the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain..... no one could resist Françoise, and she recorded most of her hits in English, Italian and German. Tous les garçons et les filles, Mon amie la rose, L’amitié, Le temps de l’amour, etc. are songs that have crossed generations and can be heard in recent movies (Wes Anderson loves Francoise Hardy and has included her songs several times in his films), international television series (The Walking Dead, Industry, Week-end family) and advertising spots (Dior 2022 campaign). All tracks have been fully remastered in 2024 and will be available on double LP and CD.

Presented here is Francoise Hardy's debut studio album released in France in December 1962 by Disques Vogue.

Originally issued with no title, except for her name on the cover, the album became colloquially known by the title of its most successful song, Tous les garcons et les filles.

This sensational album compiles the twelve original French versions from her first three EPs. Hardy would also record ten versions of the songs in Italian, English and German. Four of the Italian versions are included here as bonus tracks.

This iconic LP combines rockabilly, folk, jazz and blues, and has been noted for its simplicity, featuring a minimalist jazz percussion, bass, acoustic and electric guitar sound palette.

TRACK LISTING

Tous Les Garcons Et Les Filles
Ca A Rate
La Fille Avec Toi
Oh Oh Cheri
Il Est Tout Pour Moi
J'ai Jete Mon Coeur
Quelli Della Mia Eta
L'eta Dell'amore
Oh Oh Cheri
Le Temps De L'amour
On Se Plait
Ton Meilleur Ami
Il Est Parti Un Jour
J'suis D'accord
C'est A L'amour Auquel Je Pense
Ci Sto
E All'amore Che Penso 
Il Tuo Migliore Amico
Una Ragazza Come Le Altre

Behold! Yes, Blue Butterfly, one of the absolute stunners on the revered Selected Sound label is finally available for all the beat-heads. Heavyweight library funk with a psychedelic touch, the super in-demand Blue Butterfly from *deep breath* Hardy's Jet Band, Orchestra Klaus Wuesthoff, Jan Troysen Band and Orchestra Gary Pacific - was originally released in 1971. Incredibly ahead of its time, it's been rare and sought-after for decades.

For many aficionados, this is the best Selected Sound release. Loaded with fuzzy wah-wah guitar, deep flute-lines atop soulful psych-rock breakbeats and huge organ action, its uncompromising funk will blow you away. Sampled for many hip hop beats and dropped by well known rare groove DJs around the world, one jewel in particular from this glorious German vault needs little introduction. The intro to Orchestra Gary Pacific's mesmeric "Soft Wind" rides the illest, crispest drum break you've perhaps never heard - like, the drum break to end them all - alongside a smooth, deep bass line from the heavens. It featured notoriously on the beloved Dusty Fingers comps of the 90s and was brilliantly sampled by Pacewon for his eternal "Sunroof Top". Just listen and be dazzled.

Beyond this mini-masterpiece, the other killer tracks offer brilliance in abundance. Hardy's Jet Band take control of the full A side, and it's full of dynamic psych-funk bombs. Hard, "big city" industrial groovers. In particular, the initial one-two of "Sorry, Doc!" and "Wind It Up" provide thrilling funky-blues rock instrumentals showcasing relentless guitars, flutes, sax and organ, the latter containing gorgeous, hypnotic breakdowns; these tracks just slay. The title track, "Blue Butterfly" is a real deep strut of a track with fantastic soloing from guitar and flute over crisp drums whilst the highway banger "What You Call To Be Free" certainly sounds a lot like unbridled, rhythmical liberty.

On the flip, the ghost-riding "Lady In Space" is a string-drenched acid-western foxtrot. Yep. “Pop Happening” by Jan Troysen Band is a heavy, druggy psych-fuzz organ groover whilst their slow beat-organ-flute gem "A Blue Message" is a gorgeous psych floater conjuring deeply strange frontier lands. Preceding their monster "Soft Wind", the soulful, uptempo groover “Ghetto Gap” by Orchestra Gary Pacific contains solo piano and flute whilst closing out the set is the free-and-easy samba beat of "So Far".

Founded in the late 60s by German composer and musician Klaus Netzle (who recorded under the alias Claude Larson for Sonoton) Selected Sound began as a production music company specialising in jazz, orchestral and electronic recordings. You can’t miss those early LPs in their iconic glossy metallic copper sleeves with minimal German typography. Serious, classy stuff.

The audio for Blue Butterfly has been remastered for vinyl by Be With regular Simon Francis whilst Richard Robinson has handled reproducing the glossy metallic (iconic) original Selected Sound sleeve. Essential.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Hardy's Jet Band – Sorry, Doc! (3:12)
A2 Hardy's Jet Band – Wind It Up (2:52)
A3 Hardy's Jet Band – Safari Track (2:58)
A4 Hardy's Jet Band – Look At Me (2:27)
A5 Hardy's Jet Band – Blue Butterfly (2:44)
A6 Hardy's Jet Band – What You Call To Be Free (3:03)
B1 Orchestra Klaus Wuesthoff – Lady In Space (2:26)
B2 Orchestra Klaus Wuesthoff – Big Beat (2:45)
B3 Jan Troysen Band – A Blue Message (3:31)
B4 Jan Troysen Band – Pop Happening (2:29)
B5 Orchestra Gary Pacific – Ghetto Gap (2:43)
B6 Orchestra Gary Pacific – Soft Wind (2:07)
B7 Orchestra Gary Pacific – So Far (1:38)

What kind of band would choose a double vinyl, gatefold LP for their first release? The Hare and Hoofe. Their eponymous first release consists of two discs. Disc One rounds up their ‘hits’ so far – 2018’s smash hit White Blindness, the space gregorian chant that is Voyager, and the pastoral tale of Appledore Fayre. The second consists of their rock opera, The Terror of Melton. Time-travelling scientists. Giant laser-eyed robots. A rock opera to end all rock operas…

Pitched somewhere between The Who, The Stooges, ELO, Sparks, Pink Floyd, Voivod, Pete Townshend, Brainiac, Bowie and Judas Priest, The Terror of Melton is a headspinning, ambitious journey. In turns stomping, tear-jerking, full-on rocking and dreamlike, it will transport you. Prog Magazine’s Dom Lawson described it as “absurdly entertaining and deliciously weird… An unmissable trip for fans of the fuzzy and farout”. 2018 saw the band recording a BBC6Music Marc Riley session before even releasing a physical record. In addition, they’ve had plays on Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone. The band have also gained a monstrously good live reputation, playing an instantly legendary set at Hastings’ Beatwave festival, as well as headlining Tannerfest, Pitch Fest, playing with Focus and The Fierce and The Dead, and the John Snow Society’s annual celebration of the eminent epidemiologist.

Some describe them as ‘educational psych’, others prefer ‘polytechnic beat’, still more as ‘a seventies garage band’. There’s certainly primeval drums, fuzz bass, lashings of guitar and synth noises from another planet. Formed from a gang of friends from Folkestone, Hoofe members have played in groups including The Heliocentrics, The Priscillas, Ye Nuns, Jail Cell Recipes, The Frank Sidebottom Oh Blimey Big Band, Chalet and Hyperglo.

TRACK LISTING

DISC ONE The Statements
Side One
White Blindness
Appledore Fayre
Voyager
Side Two
Lady Lovibonde/Goodwin Pavane
Lionel Mettle

DISC TWO The Terror Of Melton
Side One
Fanhare
I Was A Scientist (1892)
Did I Dream? Pts. 1-4
Side Two
The Terror Of Melton
The Ballade Of Layser Manne
Chromium Dioxide And The Crazy Data
Hanfare
Cold Blows The Whistle, Lonely Night

Recorded in a one bedroom flat in the depths of UK lockdowns, the songs on ‘Honeymoon Suite’ are a blend of love, grief, anxiety, resilience, danger, heartbreak and hope. Part pop record, part electronic soundscape, part interior still life, ‘Honeymoon Suite’ will be released on Hand Mirror, the label Harkin founded in 2019 with her wife, the poet Kate Leah Hewett.

Speaking about the video, Harkin said "I was a big fan of Pastel Castle's work and felt like this song would be a perfect fit. I wrote and recorded it during lockdown in a flat with no outdoor space. My brother loaned me a Nintendo Switch and I found solace in games with large maps to explore. Songwriting and gameplay can both have the power to transport and the video Pastel Castle has created takes me on a beautiful and perilous quest."

Adding to this, Pastel Castle commented "The video for 'Body Clock' is a piece of frame-by-frame pixel art animation, which I had the best time making here at my little home studio in Leeds. Many days were focused entirely on tailoring the movement of Katie's Sprite / Avatar to align with the mood of the track. I'm very happy with our collaboration and feel inspired now to go on a bit of an adventure of my own."

The album marks a significant shift for an artist who had previously built a career around collaboration. In addition to her own bands, Harkin has been a touring member of Sleater-Kinney, Wild Beasts, Flock of Dimes, and Kurt Vileand Courtney Barnett’s Sea Lice. She performed backing vocals for Dua Lipa on Saturday Night Live. She dueted with comedian Sarah Silverman on 'Tiny Changes: A Celebration of Frightened Rabbit's The Midnight Organ Fight'. Her studio work includes contributions to Waxahatchee’s 'Out In The Storm'. Outside of the music world, Harkin has composed for Turner Prize-winning artist Helen Marten and British comedian Josie Long. She even has a Saturday Night Live sketch named after her (Fred Armisen’s 2016 ‘Harkin Brothers Band’).

Where her self-titled first record is infused with the expansiveness which birthed it - written and recorded while touring the globe - ‘Honeymoon Suite’ is an entirely different affair. The album was written in the same room in which Harkin and her wife ate all their meals, held their virtual wedding reception and attended a funeral over zoom. As Harkin describes it, ‘Honeymoon Suite’ is “a ship in a bottle of that time”.

The album takes its title from the couple’s affectionate nickname for the flat they found themselves living in after relocating from their then-home in Hudson, New York, where Harkin’s wife was working as a live music promoter until the pandemic was declared. When it became obvious that they would both be out of work indefinitely, they joined many others heeding the call of their home nations to repatriate. In addition to that frenzied move back to the UK, the couple’s planned wedding also took a hard left turn. They had intended to hold a wedding for 150 in September 2020. Instead, they got married in a small, outside ceremony in front of their bubbled parents and siblings. They were married in the Derbyshire village of Eyam, coincidentally famous for quarantining itself during The Bubonic Plague. The flowers in the image on the album’s back cover are their wedding bouquets. “I followed a YouTube tutorial and made our bouquets out of the wedding flowers our friends sent us. We didn’t take a honeymoon and still haven’t. Instead, the flat in Sheffield became our honeymoon suite.”

The album’s DIY ethos continued through its artwork. “Kate took the cover photo and designed the layout. She also designed our original wedding invitations so it felt apt.”

The album also marks Harkin’s first forays into self-producing, a journey she began immediately after her move back to the UK. At that time, her best friend, cinematographer Ashley Connor, asked her to create the soundtrack for an experimental short film she was making for Sam Abbas’ quarantine movie ‘Erēmīta (Anthologies)’. “I’ve worked in all manner of studios and assumed many different roles in music making. I had thousands of flight hours but I had still never been the pilot. Owning the role of producer was more of a mental block than anything else, but circumstance dissolved that intimidation. Working on Ashley’s soundtrack early in the pandemic gave me the confidence to continue producing my own solo work. I won a grant from the PPL Momentum Accelerator Fund which would cover the mixing and mastering if I could be self-sufficient in recording. It felt like the quest I needed to push me into discovering this new direction.”

In terms of instrumentation, ‘Honeymoon Suite’ is more electronic than Harkin’s previous work and this too was for largely practical reasons. “Kate took a remote call centre job when we first got back. This meant we were in the same room, her taking customer service calls and me working on the album. The flat was also above a pub, so I had to record strategically. I’d program drum machines and synths in the day, record guitars in the evenings over the din of the pub-goers, and I’d squeeze vocals into the quiet weekend mornings.”

Indeed, most of the tracks on ‘Honeymoon Suite’ emerged out of synth drones, a refuge for Harkin during the weeks at a time that she didn’t feel like bursting into song. “The album’s glitches and degrading samples reflect the limitations of the digital intimacy we were all relying on during that time as we literally phoned it in.”

Harkin freely admits that the enormity of the task was no walk in the park for the first time producer. “Being my own mirror was ego-crushing at times; I knew these songs deserved extra gusto that I had to outsource.” That’s where the brass by Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes) and Aaron Roche (Lower Dens, Sufjan Stevens, Anohni, Flock of Dimes), slide guitar by J.R. Bohannon (Torres) and backing vocals by Sophie Galpin (Soft Lad, Self Esteem) came in, sent down the wire from their respective homes. It was even mixed and mastered remotely (mixed by Jeff T Smith in Leeds and mastered by Guy Davie in London).

As Harkin puts it, “for me, this album was a rabbit hole and escape hatch. It’s a very vulnerable record. There are no performances - I made it alone. Releasing it into the world feels like an extension of the solitary process and remote collaboration which created it. I hope it travels far and wide.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Body Clock - 3.27
2. A New Day - 3.34
3. Here Again - 3.39
4. Matchless Lighting - 4.33
5. (Give Me) The Streets Of Leeds - 3.16
6. Mt. Merino - 3.07
7. Talk Of The Town - 2.55
8. To Make Her Smile - 3.13
9. Listening Out - 5.17
10. Driving Down A Flight Of Stairs - 11.20

Two legends from different worlds collide in what promises to be a seminal album of songs about London.

Composer/saxophonist John Harle and singer Marc Almond collaborate on ‘The Tyburn Tree - Dark London’ - an album of contemporary songs about the darkest sides of London’s history - from the Tyburn gallows to Jack the Ripper, and from settings of the words of William Blake to a unique take on the nursery rhyme ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’.

Following Marc’s much lauded guest appearance on Harle’s ‘Art Music’, this is an album full of driving rhythms, emotional impact and theatrical story telling of the highest order. Along for the ride are noted soprano Sarah Leonard and great London poet and author Iain Sinclair who reads from his own texts. But it is the voice of Marc Almond that is the spiritual medium from which appears the ghosts of ‘Dark London’.

“Marc is a true artist and true performer - showing total openness and vulnerability alongside an experimental, non-judgmental view of Art, and in ‘The Tyburn Tree’, London has found its Anti-Hero”. - John Harle

“We all know that Marc Almond can sing but it still comes as a shock to hear his thrillingly drawn-out climax to Harle’s “The Arrival of Spring”, emoting words adapted from William Blake with operatic oomph.” - The Independent.

‘The Tyburn Tree’ has been in gestation for two years - Almond is the primary lyricist, having researched the subject matter and gradually formed his own take on ‘Dark London’, creating lyrics that have both historical relevance and an ear-catching quirkiness. Alongside this John Harle has been writing music that proves him to be at the height of his powers - after a canon of work that includes his “O Mistress Mine” for Elvis Costello, and as composer of the theme to BBC1’s Silent Witness, he has matched Almond’s lyrics with some punchy, compact and bitter-sweet songs full of emotion, percussive shock and humour. ‘The Tyburn Tree’ promises to be a concept album of cult-status.

With their new album 'Rhapsody, the extraordinary vocalists fedayo Gatling, Dennis Bailey, and George Marage are able to fully explore the entire range of music that influenced them. The follow-up to their acclaimed 2021 release 'Look Up!', the record is a dive into a lesser-known but hugely important era in the evolution of gospel music.

Starting in the mid-1960s, local gospel groups and singers began incorporating elements of popular soul and funk styles and in 2006, Chicago-based reissue label Numero Group released Good God! A Gospel Funk Hymnal. HGT's longtime friend and mentor Eli.

"Paperboy Reed" approached the group with the idea of digging through the Numero catalog and recording some of the gospel funk material, reinterpreted in their own way from the high-energy, old-school soul of "God's Been Good to Me" to the hip-hop-inflected "Get Involved."

The Harlem Gospel Travelers story began when Gatling and Marage met while studying under Reed's tutelage. The group put out their debut LP, 'He's On Time', to rave reviews in 2019, earning them high profile fans like Elton John and landing them festival slots everywhere from Pilgrimage to Telluride Jazz. Originally a quartet, they brought in Bailey and reconfigured as a trio prior to recording Look Up!, their first album of all original material.

At a moment when the world is reconsidering the concepts of genre and category and who's allowed to participate in which traditions, HGT are squarely on the cultural pulse.

"We always found it difficult to stay in this one lane of what people think gospel is supposed to be," says Gatling. "This record allowed us to hear people that were innovators in their own time, pushing how gospel music sounded, and now we've created this project that is message-wise gospel, but the feeling and the sound can be whatever you want it to be."

TRACK LISTING

1. We Don't Love Enough
2. Ever Since
3. God's Love
4. God's Been Good To Me
5. Get Involved
6. Somebody's Watching You
7. How Can I Lose
8. Jesus Rhapsody, Pt. 1
9. Have You Tried Jesus
10. Searching For The Truth

Arriving as the hippy movement was discovering its peaceful easy ‘70s feelings,
Sandy Harless’ 'Songs' LP is Chillicothe, Ohio’s lone contribution to the Cosmic American Music movement. Financed from a 27-aquarium fish breeding business, the album shows its Appalachian roots with a tight weave of mountain folk, rural rock, and pastoral country. Real people music.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Knew Her Well
2. My Guitar
3. Day To Day
4. Friend
5. Sing A Song
6. Another Day
7. California Bound
8. Eagle R.I.P.
9. Gratitude
10. Love Song
11. Louisiana Woman
12. Who Said?
13. Farewell My Friend

Bev Lee Harling returns with her first solo recording in almost a decade. She won the hearts and musical minds of DJs across the board with her 2012 debut LP, Barefoot In Your Kitchen, which BBC 6Music's Gilles Peterson made his Album of the Week. Now the gifted singer, violinist and composer returns with twelve beautiful pieces of music that tell a very personal story of the years since.

Having swapped the busy streets of North London for the calmer shores of Hastings in Sussex to bring up her young family, it's fair to say that Bev's priorities might have changed somewhat over the past few years, but the music was never far away. Her new environment, and musical family (including multi-talented partner and album co-producer Frank Moon) added plenty of fresh inspiration to her recordings, and we're very excited to share her new album, entitled Little Anchor, with you this Autumn.

The album is in some senses a travelogue, a 9 year journey of a creative womannavigating the landscape of parenting. Each song is a snapshot taken at a differentlocation in time, in a world where finding balance between creative freedom and motherhood is still a struggle, from the uplifting and euphoric Beautiful Life, to the heavy and harassed Only Got A Minute.

Between the unexpected joys of parenting, grappleswith mental health and feelings of inadequacy, and fighting for every second ofcreative time while slowly accepting a life very different to the one that existedbefore, this unedited family album emerged bursting with quirky childhoodmemories, dark musings and celebrations of musical passion and legacy.

Each song carries breakthrough personal moments in rebuilding strength as an artist, as a person, as a parent. Even down to a very emotional moment with Ray Davies of The Kinks, during a songwriting retreat, where album closer This Violin String, a deeply personal ode to her recently departed mum, was written…

"Everyone turned up writing on guitars and piano and I just had my battered old violin. I felt totally out of touch with my former confident musical self and had zero confidence in what I was doing after an intense period of car crash parenting. I wrote it, performed it on the same day and then sobbed my guts out in front of a bunch of total strangers (sorry Ray!). Something shifted for me in the act of being quite so vulnerable though and I found my mojo again in writing solo with my violin."

The personal nature of this record is self-evident, it bursts through every note and word in each song. We're very excited to be able to share such a special album,afresh foray into the always unpredictable, experimental and playful world of Bev Lee Harling.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dirty Dragonfly
2. Beautiful Life
3. Is It OK?
4. If I Told You
5. Man Under My Bed
6. Lay Down In The Tall Grass
7. Only Got A Minute
8. Nights At The Circus
9. Going Back Home
10. Ghost Swimming
11. Tears On Your Heart
12. This Violin String

A milestone in the history of ambient/electronic music, this legendary 1976 album has been unavailable for nearly 10 years. Now remastered and including three previously unreleased tracks.

TRACK LISTING

1. Welcome
2. Atmosphere
3. Vamos Companeros
4. By The Riverside
5. Luneburg Heath
6. Sometimes In Autumn
7. Weird Dream
8. Almost
9. Les Demoiselles
10. When Shade Was Born
11. Trace
12. Aubade

Harmonia was a Krautrock supergroup, containing Roedelius and Moebius from Cluster and Michael Rother from Neu! Recorded and released in 1975, this was a perfect combination of the sounds of the two bands, ESSENTIAL!!!

Ned Raggett's review for Allmusic opens: "A touch more immediate and song-oriented than its predecessor, but no less enchanting and lovely to hear, Deluxe again features the trio experimenting with a variety of approaches, most particularly including vocals here and there for the first time."

TRACK LISTING

1 Deluxe (Immer Weiter)
2 Walky Talky
3 Monza (Rauf Und Runter)
4 Notre Dame
5 Golum
6 Kekse

Previously available as part of the Harmonia - Deluxe box set, this album features live material and studio recordings showing them at their best.

TRACK LISTING

Tiki-Taka At Harmonia Studio In Forst (1975)
Live At Onkel Pö In Hamburg (1975)
Proto-Deluxe At Harmonia Studio In Forst (1975)
Live At Farbrik In Hamburg (1975)

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Harmonia record 'Musik Von Harmonia', Gronland release this limited edition set, containing the original album and a second vinyl with reworks by Matthew Herbert, Stuart Braithwaite, James Holden and many more.

The debut Harmonia LP, 'Musik Von Harmonia', appeared in 1974 (with an accomplished live track, recorded in Amsterdam) and marks the first collaborative effort between Cluster's Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius and Neu!'s Michael Rother: a German supergroup and genuine rarity, a colossal artistic success. The three members were skilled keyboard players, guitarists, electronic percussionists and composers. This was a group musically and conceptually miles ahead of its time. Musik Von Harmonia is at once a product of their source bands and a fine new twist on them, resulting in music that captures what for many is the Krautrock ideal, or more accurately, the motorik ideal. It's not Kraftwerk's all-synth, clean, clinical pulse, nor Neu!'s seemingly effortless glide, nor Can's stomping art world funk. Instead it's at once playful and murky, steady and mechanical, a supergroup of sorts who easily achieves and maintains such a seemingly overstated status by embracing a variety of approaches that work wonders.

TRACK LISTING

LP/CD1 - Musik Von Harmonia:
1. Watussi
2. Sehr Komisch
3. Sonnenschein
4. Dino
5. Ohrwurm
6. Ahoi
7. Veterano
8. Hausmusik

LP/CD2 - Reworks:
1. David Pajo - Harmoniumm
2. Vittoria Maccabruni – Idle Place
3. Ahoi (Herbert`s Fall Dub)
4. Vittoria Maccabruni & Michael Rother – Wave By Wave
5. Ahoi (Kaleema Remix)
6. Ahoi (Tape Remix By Marta Salogni)
7. Ohrwurm (Post Neo Remix)
8. Veterano (Tape Remix By Marta Salogni)
9. Watussi (Stuart Braithwaite Remix)
10. Dino (Sqürl Remix)

The legendary Harmonia's first release in 31 years. While it's a live recording, there's no gig atmosphere - simply the sound of a band locked into a groove. "Live 1974" is a gig recording capturing Michael Rother (NEU!), Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius jamming with that typical impassive euphoria. It is more in the vein of their first album "Musik Von Harmonia": imagine the humming seascape pieces from "Neu! 75" augmented by the gently chattering rhythm patterns of Cluster's "Zuckerzeit". A recording that sounds as fresh as any work of their Krautrock influenced peers of today - Aphex Twin, Fujiya & Miyagi and Secret Machines come to mind. The five lengthy tracks here have an enveloping momentum that makes them feel like they could, or indeed should, go on forever.

Musik Von Harmonia is the debut album from the highly influential Krautrock/Kosmische Musik group Harmonia. Harmonia, was formed by the addition of Neu! guitarist Michael Rother to Cluster, the duo of Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius. They recorded the album from June to November 1973, in Forst Germany.

Ned Raggett's review for Allmusic opens: "The debut Harmonia album is at once a product of their source bands and a fine new twist on them, resulting in music that captures what for many is the Krautrock ideal..." He adds "...it's at once playful and murky, steady and mechanical, a supergroup of sorts who easily achieves and maintains such a seemingly overstated status by embracing a variety of approaches that work wonders."

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Sublime Krautrock album, and one of the best in my humble opinion, from the combined talents of Michael Rother from Neu! and Moebius and Roedelius of Cluster fame.

TRACK LISTING

1 Watussi
2 Sehr Komisch
3 Sonnenschein
4 Dino
5 Ohrwurm
6 Ahoi
7 Veterano
8 Hausmusik

After a taster EP in 2008, Mark Pritchard returns with the first long player under his Harmonic 313 guise. "When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence" that the ex-Global Communications man is keeping up with the current musical underground, because we get everything from wonky-hop to dubstep, bassline and grime here, combined with his love for Detroit influenced techno, acid house and a more 80s sounding electronic palette. He's just one of those producers who knows how to lay down the best beats, bass and keyboard combinations to get the crowd rocking. Includes tracks featuring Phat Kat, Elzhi and Steve Spacek.