At the corner of Living Legend St. and OG Ave. you will find Lee Fields’ house. A home that was built with blood, sweat, and tears, and stands on the unshakable foundation of his god given talent. Lee has been singing for 50 plus years and is undeniably, yet amazingly, at the top of his game. Those who have paid attention know that Lee is part of the class that is directly responsible for the revival of old school funk and soul. He has inspired many of today’s younger artists who are doing their best to carry the torch. As long as the road has been, and heavy as the crown may be, Fields is proving yet again that he’s “still got it”. His latest offering is sure to be a warmly received instant classic.

It Rains Love is the 2nd album by Lee Fields & The Expressions on Brooklyn’s Big Crown Records and gives us yet another masterclass in soul. Teaming up again with frequent collaborator and producer Leon Michels and his devoted band, The Expressions, they have managed again to take a classic approach and update it. Traditional soul sensibilities are mixed with a hip-hop tinged, sample ready sound that is as much an homage to the old as to the new. Some of the songs sound like they could belong to any of the last 4 decades without it feeling like a throwback, while others are 60’s soul through and through. Lyrically, Lee runs the gamut from gushing admonishments of love to politically charged calls to action, from proclamations of God’s existence to love letters written to his wife. This record marks the fifth studio album from Lee Fields & the Expressions and we are very proud to add it to the already impeccable catalog they have created together. Another strong offering by a man many people consider to be a national treasure, the professor of love himself, Mr Lee Fields. It’s all love baby! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Lee Field’s is on top form and dominating the soul genre with his distinctive and bold vocals. It Rains Love is a monumental album which sets him apart as a pure talent, taking all things soul and putting his own stamp on it.

TRACK LISTING

1. It Rains Love
2. Blessed With The Best
3. Two Faces
4. You’re What’s Needed In My Life
5. Wake Up
6. Will I Get Off Easy
7. Prisoner Of Love
8. A Promise Is A Promise
9. God Is Real
10. Love Is The Answer
11. Don’t Give Up (Cd Bonus Track)

The instrumental version of the instant classic "Special Night" by Lee Fields & The Expressions. There are a few terms that get thrown around loosely, two of which are legend and retro-soul. One of these fits Lee Fields hand and glove, one of these doesn’t fit at all. Very few people in music have both earned the status of legendary and continue to solidify it. 50 years in the game and only getting better, gaining more fans, and evolving his sound on each album, Lee is in fact a Living Legend. This brings us to the misuse of the term "retro-soul" when talking about Mr. Fields. You don’t have to look far to find a younger generation emulating the essence and styles of an era the’ve only experienced through music and movies. It seems unfair to tag Lee with a term that implies imitation when he is part of the generation that actually defined the genre. Plain and simple, this is not that. "Special Night" is a masterclass in soul music past and present. “I feel that every human being’s purpose is to do what their inner voice says to do,” says Lee Fields. “And my inner voice, my driving force, wants me to put out music and keeping making better records.” Special Night is also the first record in the Expressions catalogue in which every song was written jointly by Lee Fields and The Expressions.

“When I record, I make every song like I actually mean it. I mean every word I say. On Special Night I’m talking to my lady — literally, expressing the way I feel.” says Lee Fields. “You can tell if a song is real or not, and every moment I’m recording, those moments are real, this is a record about what people do in real life”. For one example, he cites the song “Work to Do,” which tells the story of “a guy going to counseling, drinking too much, apologizing to the old lady and trying to keep family together, doing the manly thing.” On “Make This World”, Lee makes a nod back to his early funk roots with a cautionary tale about the health of the planet. The world was designed to last indefinitely,” says Fields. “We’re the only living species on Earth who can alter that process. I’m hoping that song has a chain reaction, helps somebody put into action whatever contribution they can to change what the world is going through.” As always, sticking to the formula but pushing the boundaries “Never Be Another You” from the first note doesn’t sound like something you would hear on a Lee record, that is until he starts singing anyhow. A low tempo ballad with a head nodding drum track, sparse piano lines, and all the space Lee needs to lay down what is sure to be one of the flyest love songs of 2017.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Special Night
A2. I’m Coming Home
A3. Work To Do
A4. Never Be Another You
A5. Lover Man
B1. Make The World
B2. Let Him In
B3. How I Like It
B4. Where Is The Love?
B5. Precious Love 

Soul great Lee Fields signs to Daptone and announces a new album.
Lee Fields is arguably the greatest soul singer alive today. In an age when the shelf life of an artist largely depends on posturing and trends, he has proven to be an unassailable force of nature. His prolific, decade-spanning career continues to reign supreme on the modern soul scene.

In early 2022, Lee reunited with Daptone Records and producer Gabriel Roth to record Sentimental Fool, a deep, blues-tinged, wholly-conceived soul album. From his first line to his final plaintive lyric, the beauty, power, and raw humanity of Leeʼs voice is on full display here; the culmination of an astounding career that has seemed to defy gravity, rising to only greater and greater heights.

Soul music pours out of Lee Fields, as free and unstinting as God's love.
It was ever since the 1960's, when he was a teenager in North Carolina sweating it out on juke joint stages, crumpled dollars hailing at his feet. It continues now that the living legend is in his late sixties, ushering in the most successful and fruitful period of his career.

Like any living legend worth their salt, Fields has suffered despair, obscurity, defeat. Although he now tours stages around the world, and although he helped fellow soul legends like Sharon Jones (who was once Fields' backup singer) and Charles Bradley (whom Fields took on his first tour) get their first break, he did not always have this position. There were years—they were known as "the 1980's"—when Fields nearly gave up. His success these days, then has a bittersweet tinge: His dear friends Bradley and Jones have both passed, leaving Fields to outlive them and carry their legacy forth.

With all these years, and all this life, comes a sort of divine wisdom, and Fields has it in spades. "I am a sinner, just like everybody else," he says gravely. He is no "holier—than—thou guy," he adds. He just believes in people's ability to love and be loved, and he understands that music is the divine bridge to these places.

TRACK LISTING

1. Forever
2. I Should Have Let You Be
3. Sentimental Fool
4. Two Jobs
5. Just Give Me Your Time
6. Save Your Tears For Someone New
7. The Door
8. What Did I Do?
9. Without A Heart
10. Ordinary Lives
11. Your Face Before My Eyes
12. Extraordinary Man

Arguably the very best soul singer alive, Lee comes correct with two massive tunes from his critically acclaimed Sentimental Fool LP.

With the deep piano intro, frantic shuffle and pleading vocal Two Jobs has the conviction of James Brown with the swing of Bobby Bland. A sound very few folks could pull off, yet Lee triumphs with command and swagger in equal measure.

Save Your Tears for Someone New is a deep, dark ballad tailored-made for Lee’s ferociously soulful voice. A veritable masterclass in rhythm and soul.

TRACK LISTING

Side A – Two Jobs
Side B – Save Your Tears For Someone New

It has been exactly ten years since Finders Keepers Records first liberated Luboš Fišer’s immaculate soundtrack music for 'Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders' ("Valerie A Týden Divu") from the vaults of the Barrandov Studio in Prague. As the inaugural release of an ongoing discography of previously unreleased scores from the hugely creative ‘Film Miracle’ that occurred during and after the Czech New Wave (CNW), this score will always retain a special place in the heart of the label as well as listeners who consistently request an updated repress of this significant vinyl milestone.

Having grown in status from an obscure and misunderstood socialist-era art house oddity, via the hands of risqué foreign fluff merchants, to finally find its rightful audience as a bona fide surrealist cinematic masterpiece of world class standards, this 1970 film adaptation of Vítezslav Nezval’s 1935 avant-garde novella (a film that literally cross-pollinated Max Ernst’s ‘A Week Of Kindness’ and Lewis Caroll’s ‘Alice In Wonderland’) has garnered widespread critical acclaim. Inspiring ongoing generations of visual artists, musicians, writers and filmmakers - all of whom regard this truly individualistic and inimitable surrealist film poem to be an indelible influence - Valerie continues to impregnate their daily artistic referential fabric.

Commonly considered to be the swansong of the CNW, following a huge paranoia fuelled government film cull in 1969, owing to the fact it is the last government approved feature film of the post-Prague Spring era to combine the efforts of controversial filmmakers from the FAMU (Filmová A Televizní Fakulta Akademie Múzických Umení) film school, ‘Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders’ would also be the first of an exciting and essential new fertile strain of Czech made cinema fantastique. Successfully condensing the final drops of CNW lifeblood through a series of presumed apolitical scary/fairy tales, directors like Jaromil Jireš and Juraj Herz used surrealism, traditionalism and fantasy to rejuvenate the creative energy of apathetic filmmakers evading government scrutiny via creatively coded artistic allegories.

By strategically choosing to adapt a pre-war surrealist melodrama written by a communist convert author called Vítezslav Nezval and based in a non-specific traditional era, the previously censored filmmaker Jaromil Jireš was able to craft what many consider his finest filmic hour and what would later become his most universally received achievement. Enlisting the individual talent of some of the CNW’s most formidable stalwarts, in what might have been their most creatively challenging roles, Jireš managed to unintentionally establish a new genre format that was both stylistically and sonically tuned to the trends of the impending decade thus future-proofing his career and providing a woozy gateway drug to an otherwise time-locked lost movement.

Beautifully remastered from the original studio tapes with updated liner notes. Housed in two sleeve designs (Sleeve A / Sleeve B) based on the original theatrical posters.

TRACK LISTING

The Magic Yard
Talk With Grandmother
The Letter
The Sermon
Losing The Way
The Visit
The Work Of Death
Dinner
Dense Smoke
The Contract / The Wedding
The Punishment
Disquiet
Awakening
Brother And Sister
Sacrifice
The Letter 2 / Friends
In Flames
Puppets
Homeless
Questions And Answers
Confession
Forgiveness
And The Last

Liana Flores is a London-based English-Brazilian singer-songwriter influenced by Bossa Nova, 60s British folk, and the Romantic poets, calling to mind artists from Nick Drake and Astrud Gilberto to contemporaries like Laufey and Faye Webster.

With her music, Liana aims to open a window to the sublime in the everyday, simplicity, emotional candor, and the rhythms of the seasons - inviting each listener into what she describes as a “fantastical realm.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Hello Again
2. Orange-coloured Day
3. Nightvisions
4. Crystalline
5. Now And Then
6. Halfway Heart
7. I Wish For The Rain Intro
8. I Wish For The Rain
9. Cuckoo
10. Butterflies (ft. Tim Bernardes)
11. Slowly

An album inspired by childhood culinary experiences, where memories and fiction mix in an explosive cocktail of cinema, rock & roll and psychedelia.
The album sounds rough, as if it were played live by a band, even though it is instead a one man session. The skeleton of each track is characterized by the most classic of drums, bass and guitar combos.

TRACK LISTING

A1.Crème Caramel
A2.Cocktail Di Camberi
A3.Salsa Rossa
A4.Cotoletta Alla Milanese
A5.Vitello Tonnato
A6.Noce Moscata

B1.Barbabietola
B2.Anatra All'Arancia
B3.Insalata Russa
B4.Cocktail Di Gamberi (BIS)
B5.Vitello Tonnato (BIS)
B6.Mousse Au Chocolat

Sometimes the best course of action is to find your path and stay focused, which is the approach that shaped Lyla Foy’s debut album, ‘Mirrors The Sky’. Everything changed for the 25-year-old London songwriter one day in early 2012, when she cancelled her evening plans to work on music at home. After years of collaborations, she decided to go it alone, and that night produced the gorgeously stripped-down ‘No Secrets’, which she eventually shared with the world under the moniker WALL. “When I first started writing for the project, I wanted everything to be really focused on the melodies, but also really simple and minimal,” says Foy. “Just using a lot of bass, and simple drum patterns. I wanted to try something new, and that one song felt like the beginning of something.”

The reaction to ‘No Secrets’ confirmed Foy’s suspicion that she’d stumbled onto something pretty special. The track led to an appearance on British web-series Black Cab Sessions, and the Black Cab folks formed a label to release WALL’s debut single, ‘Magazine’. The English accolades poured in via glowing reviews and radio spins - BBC Radio’s Steve Lamacq went so far as to call ‘Magazine’ his favourite song of the year - and by the end of 2012 Pitchfork was giving her props for her haunting cover of Karen Dalton’s ‘Something on Your Mind’, and spotlighting the title track from 2013’s ‘Shoestring’ EP.

Foy has now decided to come out from behind her WALL and adorn ‘Mirrors The Sky’ with her given name. She’s still in the same musical mindset that produced ‘No Secrets’ and she still plays with the guys - Oli Deakin (bass, keyboards), Andy Goodall (drums), and Dan Bell (guitar, keyboards) - who helped bring WALL’s songs to the stage.

For a project that began as a single song in a London bedroom, Lyla Foy’s hypnotically hushed songs have come quite a long way over the past two years, figuratively and literally, as her worldwide deal with Sub Pop will find her spending quality time supporting ‘Mirrors The Sky’ around the globe.

TRACK LISTING

Honeymoon
I Only
Impossible
Rumour
Easy
No Secrets
Only Human
Feather Tongue
Someday
Warning

Laurine Frost continues the musical journey of his fictional character Lena, incarnating the life of his imaginary daughter in a series of albums. 'Nimfa' - as the sequel - leaves the eccentric drama of its predecessor behind, and paints naturalistic, slowly blooming landscapes instead. The result is a carefully crafted multi-dimensional fusion of jazz, dub, ethereal abstraction of drums and electronica with a bold poetic approach.

TRACK LISTING

A1. False Spring
A2. Carefully Glowing Fox
A3. Seeing True Shadows
A4. Noble Rust
B1. Layering Nimfa
B2. Imperium
B3. Heloise
B4. The Blizzard

Liam Frost’s triumphant third album The Latchkey Kid presents us with some of Liam’s most compelling work. A poignant and alluring album that lives up to the sky high standards of his first two successful albums.

Originally released in 2019 after a successful crowdfund campaign, this entire album was recorded in three days, melding his distinctive north western delivery with that of Americana folk legends Josh Rouse, Whiskeytown and Josh Ritter .

Lauded as the future Guy Garvey , the album standouts includes the epic Mercy Me ’, ‘Going Steady’ & ‘Pomona ’, all proving that the art of great song writing is still alive and kicking.

Remastered and now available for the very first time on black vinyl, with signed print and printed inner sleeve .

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Going Steady
2. Hall Of Mirrors, Rope Of Sand
3. Mercy Me!
4. Didn’t It Rain

SIDE B
1. Pomona
2. Who’s Gonna Love You?
3. When I’m Around
4. Follow You Around
5. Lover, Trouble Knows My Name

Collaborations don’t get much more biblical than this. Solo star, Oasis legend and force-of-nature Liam Gallagher has teamed up with John Squire, one of the most influential guitarists and songwriters of his generation via his time with The Stone Roses. The duo will set a high watermark for 2024 when they release their first single together, ‘Just Another Rainbow’, on January 5th, on limited 7” vinyl.

There will be much more new music to come - and there could well be shows, too - but for now ‘Just Another Rainbow’ lives up to the highfalutin expectations that come with such a collaboration.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: With it's loping groove, backwards guitars and classic chord changes , this could only be a John Squire song. With his trademark Lennon-inspired delivery and customary vocal swagger this could only be the (sorry!) one and only Liam Gallagher. Imagine The Beatles' Rain mixed with perhaps the Roses' Waterfall and you wouldn't be a million miles away. It's great!

Long-term friends with a mutual admiration for each other’s work, the idea of a collaboration started when John joined Liam on-stage at his biblical knebworth shows.

Song ideas were soon flowing, and the album took shape with an intuitive intensity while in Los Angeles with the revered producer Greg Kurstin. He played bass throughout the record, while drums were performed by Joey Waronker (Beck, R.E.M., Atoms For Peace).

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I think about when I used to listen to Oasis and The Stone Roses back in 'The Day' and imagine how i'd feel if you told me that this would be a collaboration that could happen in the future. It's Squire's unmistakeable songwriting and playing, with Gallagher's vocals over the top. I bet he's even got his arms behind his back. Danceable, baggy psychedelic rock with vox one of the most legendary vocalists of his generation.

TRACK LISTING

1. Raise Your Hands
2. Mars To Liverpool
3. One Day At A Time
4. I’m A Wheel
5. Just Another Rainbow
6. Love You Forever
7. Make It Up As You Go Along
8. You're Not The Only One
9. I’m So Bored
10. Mother Nature's Song

Charity Partner for Single will be Action For Children.

TRACK LISTING

1. ‘All You’re Dreaming Of’

After the phenomenal reaction to his solo track ‘Wall of Glass’ and the emotional scenes that accompanied his first solo shows, Liam Gallagher brings us his eagerly anticipated debut album ‘As You Were’.

“I didn’t want to be reinventing anything or going off on a space jazz odyssey,” says Liam. “It’s the Lennon ‘Cold Turkey’ vibe, The Stones, the classics. But done my way, now.”

The album’s cover features an iconic new portrait of Liam which was taken by the influential photographer, fashion designer and creative director Hedi Slimane.

‘C'mon You Know’ follows the huge success of Liam’s previous studio albums ‘As You Were’ (2017) and ‘Why Me? Why Not.’ (2019), which established his iconic status for a whole new generation. His ‘MTV Unplugged’ also went straight to #1 on the Official Album Chart. Between his triumphs as a solo artist and his phenomenal success with Oasis, Liam has spent a combined total of almost six months at #1 across eleven chart-topping albums. 

Liam Gallagher is not the kind of artist who was going to be stopped by the sizeable problem of not being able to play to an audience during lockdown. So when the idea of playing a playing and filming a live stream show came up, he looked at the precedent set by the Sex Pistols and The Clash and decided to hit the River Thames, armed with a boatload of attitude, a phenomenal live band (including Bonehead) and an arsenal of classic songs.

The show has been captured in full on the new live album ‘Down By The River Thames’, which will be released ia Warner Records.

Originally streamed on December 5th 2020, the show became one of the most memorable performances of the lockdown era. From iconic Oasis favourites (‘Supersonic’, ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’) to big hitters from his two all-conquering #1 solo albums (‘Wall of Glass’, ‘Once’), Liam’s inimitable snarl boomed across the Thames and dominated London’s gloomy winter skyline. There were plenty of welcome surprises too: debut solo performances of the Oasis songs ‘Hello’, ‘Fade Away’ and ‘Headshrinker’, and the first live version of ‘All You’re Dreaming Of’. Liam’s voice is absolutely on point throughout, with a full-throttle snarl of anger and attitude that doesn’t compromise any of the finesse of the studio recordings.

Liam commented, “So here it is, the gig they said we could never pull off! As we were in lockdown, bored and depressed, rock ‘n’ roll came to save the day once again. It was a top night and a top gig and it’s captured here on record for you to all enjoy.”

TRACK LISTING

1. ‘Hello’
2. ‘Wall Of Glass’
3. ‘Halo’
4. ‘Shockwave’
5. ‘Columbia’
6. ‘Fade Away’
7. ‘Why Me? Why Not.’
8. ‘Greedy Soul’
9. ‘The River’
10. ‘Once’
11. ‘Morning Glory’
12. ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’
13. ‘Headshrinker’
14. ‘Supersonic’
15. ‘Champagne Supernova’
16. ‘All You’re Dreaming Of’

Liam Gallagher will document his triumphant two-night Knebworth Park shows with the release of the live album ‘Knebworth 22’ on August 11th. Returning to the scene of the era-defining Oasis gigs of the ‘90s, the huge audience stretched from fans who had been present some 26 years earlier right through to teenagers relishing the excitement of their first big gig. ‘Knebworth 22’ is a must-have live album for any fan who wants to relive the experience.

‘Knebworth 22’ is released alongside a live video of the weekend’s surprises. ‘Roll It Over’ originally featured on the Oasis album ‘Standing On The Shoulder of Giants’.

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: This is a lovely set from R Kid documenting his return to Knebworth last summer. Mixture of solo material and Oasis classics, this will tide us over until Liam and Noel bury the hatchet - yes, me and Andy are convinced it will happen!

TRACK LISTING

‘Hello’
‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’
‘Wall Of Glass’
‘Shockwave’
‘Everything’s Electric’
‘Roll It Over’
‘Slide Away’
‘More Power’
‘C’mon You Know’
‘The River’
‘Once’
‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’
‘Some Might Say’
‘Supersonic’
‘Wonderwall’
‘Champagne Supernova’

Last summer Liam Gallagher joined the list of all-time greats (Paul McCartney, Page and Plant, Nirvana and many more) who have filmed a prestigious MTV Unplugged session. Having missed Oasis’s 1996 session through illness, the show at Hull’s City Hall found Liam fulfilling some unfinished business entirely on his own terms.

Now Liam is set to release the ‘MTV Unplugged’ live album of the show on April 24th.

The show’s electrifying atmosphere is palpable from the very beginning with a phenomenal reaction as Liam takes to the stage with ‘Wall of Glass’. Material from Liam’s solo career such as his personal favourite ‘Once’ and the joyous ‘Now That I’ve Found You’ resonates in this stripped-back format, with his vocal shining alongside a trio of backing singers and string arrangements performed by the 24-piece Urban Soul Orchestra.

Oasis guitarist Bonehead features on performances of ‘Some Might Say’, ‘Stand By Me’, ‘Cast No Shadow’ and Liam’s first ever live vocal performance of the ‘Definitely Maybe’ bonus track ‘Sad Song’. The show concludes on a crowd-pleasing high with an emotive take on the classic ‘Champagne Supernova’.

Liam launches the ‘MTV Unplugged’ album by sharing the new version of ‘Gone’, which was one of the strongest performances of the night. Stripped of the force of the studio recording, ‘Gone’ instead reveals new-found bombastic dynamics and an evocative cinematic atmosphere.

TRACK LISTING

1. ‘Wall Of Glass’
2. ‘Some Might Say’
3. ‘Now That I Found You’
4. ‘One Of Us’
5. ‘Stand By Me’
6. ‘Sad Song’
7. ‘Cast No Shadow’
8. ‘Once’
9. ‘Gone’
10. ‘Champagne Supernova’

An etched 7” vinyl housed in a white card sleeve.

TRACK LISTING

1. Liam Gallagher - One Of Us [Sound Recording]

Liam is back, following his debut solo album "As You Were", which stormed to the top of the charts, selling over 100,000 copies week one, to become one of the best selling albums of that year.

"Shockwave" is the brand new single from Liam's forthcoming album.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Everything you'd want from a Liam Gallagher single. Swash-buckling, glam-stomping, life-affirming fun!

This month has seen Liam Gallagher make a typically full-throttle return. Super intimate sold-out show at Hackney Round Chapel? Biblical. Premiere and release of the long-awaited ‘As It Was’ documentary? Completed. Featured on the cover of Q, who described him as “rock’s finest frontman”? Naturally.

Liam wrote lead single ‘Shockwave’ with two of the key collaborators behind the all-conquering ‘As You Were’ album: Andrew Wyatt, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Song as co-writer of ‘Shallow’ from the film ‘A Star Is Born’, and the multiple Grammy-winner Greg Kurstin who also produced the track. It was recorded in Los Angeles.

Liam Gallagher’s debut solo album ‘As You Were’ was a critical and commercial smash. It debuted at #1, out-selling the rest of the Top 10 in the process, and was soon certified Platinum. Liam was back where he belonged, selling out huge outdoor shows and earning major awards from Q, NME and GQ.

More details regarding ‘Why Me? Why Not.’ will be revealed imminently. “It’s a better record than As You Were,” promises Liam. “Which is saying something, as that was epic, wasn’t it?”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: He's back! Liam's newest album sees him co-writing with a duo of talented musician pals, and retains all the charm and momentum of his previous outing, but with more OOMPH. Why not indeed.

Lee Gamble completes his ‘Flush Real Pharynx 2019-2021’ album cycle with ‘A Million Pieces Of You’, the third EP of a triptych written in a time when the subjective experience of overload came to a halt, giving way to an overbearing sense of loss, burnout and a desperate need for hope. These seven tracks feel more reflective, more human than the two preceeding EPs; the serpentine dopplers and seductive supercar engines of ‘In A Paraventral Scale’, and imploding motion sculptures of ‘Exhaust’. A deepfake of Lee’s voice appears from the chaotic slow-mo crash of ‘Balloon Lossy’, timidly telling of “[garbled]… good news”. The uncanny spectre of deep fakes, AI and deep learning models give way to the melancholic loneliness of the solo piano in ‘Empty Middle Seat’. Then glimmering, golden pads on ‘Hyperpassive’ slowly crawl into the hopeful, bright arpeggiations of ‘Balloon Copy’. ‘A Million Pieces Of You’ is a ride through a part-synthetic, part-modelled, part-imitation, part-taught, part-human, part[1]hopeful, part-reflective and paradoxically affirmative space – an involuntarily fitting finale to an album originally conceived in a world different to the one we now inhabit.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Lee Gamble continues to lead the way in terms of experimental electronics and post-everything nightclub deconstructions. A bit mellower in parts than some of his recent outings, it's nonetheless an arresting and encompassing listen throughout.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Balloon Lossy
A2. Newtown Got Folded
A3. Obsession Model
A4. Empty Middle Seat
B1. You Left A Space
B2. Hyperpassive
B3. Balloon Cop

‘Flush Real Pharynx 2019-2021’ is a three-part album from composer, producer and DJ Lee Gamble. Written over three years, and comprised of three seperate EPs, their individual releases unintentionally frame and timestamp a turbulent period. Across 77 minutes the full collection imparts a seamless tour through its three phases. File under #GullyAutomatedHyperConcrète.

“If the most widely available music is also the most easily digestible, then it is no wonder that artists like Gamble are so keen to grapple with music’s purpose beyond entertainment—to be an art form in fierce dialogue with the present.” (Pitchfork)

“This music gives form to the smart cities and networked realities of the 21st century … a thrilling meditation on the weirdness of now.” (Resident Advisor)

TRACK LISTING

01. Fata Morgana
02. Folding
03. Moscow
04. BMW Shuanghuan X5
05. Chant
06. In The Wreck Room
07. Many Gods, Many Angels
08. CREAM
09. Envenom
10. Glue
11. Naja
12. Tyre
13. Switches
14. Shards
15. Saccades
16. Balloon Lossy
17. Newtown Got Folded
18. Obsession Model
19. Empty Middle Seat
20. You Left A Space
21. Hyperpassive
22. Balloon Copy

On 'Models', Lee Gamble liberates sonic spectres to inform a suite of illusory anthems, subliming vulnerable, half-remembered fragments of dream pop, Soundcloud rap and trance in the process. Sung by cybernetic voices in an almost wordless language, his widescreen memories reverberate across the last few decades of pop history, smudging Elizabeth Frazer's surreal poetry into disembodied diva cries and Lil Uzi Vert's abstract, AutoTuned mumbles. Extracting haunted fragments of synthetic corrupted chatter and indecipherable non-words to sculpt dreamy pop simulacrums, Gamble takes the concept of the pop producer to its logical extreme; examining how intonation and language is engineered to monopolise our attention, his magical inversion of pop playing like a bewitching symphony of earworms.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Purple, Orange
A2. Juice
A3. XIth C. Spray
A4. She’s Not
B1. Phantom Limb
B2. Blurring
B3. Your Weight On My Arms

A gifted lyricist and powerful singer, Germano is also a talented multi-instrumentalist, playing the violin, piano, and guitar with equal aplomb. This new album features some of her best work to date. For fans of PJ Harvey, Marianne Faithful, Cat Power and Bjork, she's had previous albums on 4AD. Other projects over the years included OP8, a collaboration with Giant Sand and Calexico.

As a member of the seminal Dead Can Dance, Lisa Gerrard made nine strikingly original and influential albums over a ten year period. Lisa then released two acclaimed solo albums "The Mirror Pool" and "Duality". In recent years Lisa has become a much sought-after soundtrack composer. Scoring and contributing to scores for Gladiator, Heat, Whalerider, Ali, The Insider, Mission Impossible 2, Black Hawk Down and El Nino De La Luna, amongst many others. Patrick Cassidy is widely recognised as Ireland's most important classical composer. Patrick has released three highly-regarded albums: "Cruit", "The Children Of Lir" and "Deirdre Of The Sorrows", the latter two recorded with The London Symphony Orchestra. In "Immortal Memory", they have crafted a timeless album of transcendental beauty.

Dead Can Dance members Lisa Gerrard and Jules Maxwell have teamed up under a new guise with James Chapman (MAPS) to create a studio album, titled ‘Burn’. The record began its journey more than seven years ago, when Lisa met Irish theatre composer Jules Maxwell before working together for the first time. ‘Burn’ is set for release on 7th May 2021 via Atlantic Curve. Speaking about the origins of the album, Lisa Gerrard explains, “It is with great pleasure that I share this collaboration with Jules Maxwell. Jules and I began our creative journey with Dead Can Dance. We realised that we could connect through improvisation and that musical exploration continues to evolve with this present work.”

Although this record is a new release, its beginnings go all the way back to 2012 during that year’s Dead Can Dance world tour. Originally brought in as a live keyboard player, Jules Maxwell helped create a new song with Lisa Gerrard called ‘Rising Of The Moon’, which was performed as the final encore of each show. By the time the tour finished in Chile in 2013, a strong affinity had begun to develop between the two of them and further opportunities to collaborate with each other resulted over subsequent years. In 2015, when Maxwell was asked to submit songs for the Bulgarian choir The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices (Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares), he approached Gerrard to co-write material and travelled to Australia to work with her in her home studio. The pair came away with four new songs for that release, as well as the building blocks for this new venture together. Jules describes the introduction to James Chapman. "About a year later, over dinner in Sofia after a concert by the Bulgarian women, my publisher suggested to me that I work with James Chapman on completing the BURN songs. James had established a sound with his band MAPS, which also had big horizons at its core, and it seemed like an intriguing proposition to me."

With Chapman joining the duo as producer, ideas began to be generated freely and over time a distinct sound for their work began to emerge. Their focus was to create a sound that was both euphoric and compelling, more inventive than what they had worked on separately in the past. From gentle beginnings, each track builds and intensifies, creating a hypnotic experience to listen to from start to finish.

With Lisa remaining in Australia, Jules adding his keys and percussion from France, and James bringing new light to the sound from England, the three were literally worlds apart, but those worlds fused in the music. Recently, Jules Maxwell also released his debut solo album ‘Songs From The Cultural Backwater’, Lisa Gerrard received a Grammy nomination and returned to Dead Can Dance to release the group’s critically praised ninth studio full-length ‘Dionysus’, and James Chapman released MAPS 4th full-length album ‘Colours. Reflect. Time. Loss’. Stylistically, the new album ‘Burn’ is a diverse mix of electronica, alternative, cinematic soundscape and world music with hints of early Vangelis. Accumulatively, this is a stunning departure for all three of them.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Heleali (The Sea Will Rise)
2. Noyalain (Burn)
3. Deshta (Forever)
4. Aldavyeem (A Time To Dance)

SIDE B
1. Orion (The Weary Huntsman)
2. Keson (Until My Strength Returns)
3. Do So Yol (Gather The Wind)

Following on from the release of her collaborative album ‘Burn’ last year, alongside Dead Can Dance’s Jules Maxwell and James Chapman from MAPS, Lisa Gerrard has now joined forces with producer and composer Marcello De Francisci for the stunning new LP ‘Exaudia’. Working alongside a team of other musicians including Bahar Shah, Astrid Williamson, Daniela Arbizzi, and Farhad Behroozi, ‘Exaudia’ looks to combine the broad and euphoric textures of De Francisci’s production with the warm and haunting vocals of Gerrard. Described as “a feminine embodiment of poetic expression”, the record plays majestically with this narrative, inviting a rich and vivid texture within each offering. Short Info: The new collaboration between Lisa Gerrard and Marcello De Francisci - "Exaudia" “Exaudia” – Definition: A king concedes audience and fulfills a wish that is petitioned.

“Exaudia” is an album inspired by the history of Spain in the 1500’s and its expulsion of Sephardic tribes throughout all of Europe and North Africa. The musical tracks for “Exaudia” were composed, performed, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered in Los Angeles and all of Lisa Gerrard’s vocals were recorded out of her personal studio in Melbourne. Longer Info: The new collaboration between Lisa Gerrard and Marcello De Francisci - "Exaudia" “Exaudia” – Definition: A king concedes audience and fulfills a wish that is petitioned. “Exaudia” is an album inspired by the history of Spain in the 1500’s and its expulsion of Sephardic tribes throughout all of Europe and North Africa. The musical tracks for “Exaudia” were composed, performed, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered in Los Angeles and all of Lisa Gerrard’s vocals were recorded out of her personal studio in Melbourne. Marcello De Francisci is a composer based in Los Angeles, California. His studies furthermore career began as a visual artist while attending fine arts at an institution founded by the famed Baroque painter Bartolome Esteban Murillo in Seville, Spain. He later furthered his education at the “Universidad Complutense” in Madrid in addition taught himself music to discover his true passion was to score soundtracks for the motion picture industry.

TRACK LISTING

1. When The Light Of Morning Comes
2. Until We Meet Again
3. Fallen
4. Exaudia
5. Stories Of Love, Triumph & Misfortunes
6. Stay With Me
7. Exaudia Reprise

With the inspiration of the healing power of water at its core, the album has been personally curated by Lisa and features ten of her most exceptional works newly mastered alongside a brand-new song 'Whispers'. The hand-picked playlist forms a cohesive album showcasing each track in a new light alongside striking artwork by Nigel Grierson.

In keeping with her collaborative nature, the album includes iconic pieces Lisa has created over the years with Daniel Johns, Astrid Williamson and Patrick Cassidy. At the forefront of every track is Lisa's ethereal and iconic vocals which, combined with her expressive and profound compositions, come together to form a truly emotional listening experience.

With a vision and vocal style that is as unique as it is precise and all-embracing, Lisa Gerrard has established herself as one of the world's most highly acclaimed flm composers and vocalists, including winning a Golden Globe for her work on the score for 'Gladiator' with Hans Zimmer. Her musical journey began in the early 1980s when she and fellow Australian Brendan Perry formed duo Dead Can Dance. With nine albums released between 1984 and 1995.

Lisa's vocal performances continue to be heard across the world. She performed as part of 'Gladiator Live' at The Royal Albert Hall in London in 2018 and as part of 'The World of Hans Zimmer - A Symphonic Celebration' tour. In 2021 and 2024 she was a featured Vocalist on the score for 'Dune' and 'Dune: Part Two', directed by Denis Villeneuve.

TRACK LISTING

1. Come Tenderness
2. Estelita
3. In Exile
4. The Sea Whisperer
5. Become
6. Seven Seas
7. Abwoon
8. Serenity
9. Wandering Star
10. Whispers
11. Of Love Undone

An exploration of repression, longing and ‘otherness’ amidst illusory landscapes, ‘Rain’s Break’ EP is inspired by the early technicolour films of Powell and Pressburger. Lucy Gooch uses synthesisers and vocal layering to concentrate elements of each film’s score and narrative into songs which move through different moods of yearning and renewal:
“I first experienced their strange cinematic worlds in childhood, and they stayed with me, like waking dreams – their vibrancy seemed to capture the hidden emotional lives of everyday people. The films’ fantastical sets were often met with the complexities of the inner female experience, as portrayed by each heroine. People wrestling with post-war isolation, changing attitudes to women and sexual repression alongside their struggle to establish equality and autonomy of their own lives.”

So, it is amidst 1940’s austerity that these films were an escape, an over-rich backdrop of possibilities. A snatched piece of dialogue, the film’s score, the crackle of uncertainty all succumbs to the layered ambience of Lucy’s music as she traces moods of yearning and renewal on ‘Rain’s Break’ EP.

Originally from Norfolk, Lucy studied Fine Art and later moved to Bristol to join the emerging ambient scene there - gradually developing her writing and finally releasing her debut ‘Rushing’ EP in early 2020. Over the past year, she’s dipped into a wealth of long gone celluloid as the basis for a filmic journey, a five song EP that relives formative movies in her unique take on ecclesiastical pop.

‘Ash and Orange’ emerged after listening to old recordings of women’s choirs from the 1930’s, their stoic sopranos circling churches and halls. In two parts, it touches on an everyday person’s hidden life that leads to an emotional breaking-down. A change from Lucy’s trademarked looping style it takes its inspiration from choral composition.

‘Chained To A Woman’ by contrast, is more playful, nodding to ‘80s synth pop, a homage to some degree to Blue Nile, pop music tinged with melancholy.

“I sought to stick to that tradition of talk-singing the verses, and it seemed to fit in with the feeling of the song, which is more ambiguous. I wanted the words to be about being devoted to something, like family, a person or religion and all the things that come with that kind of devotion.”

Inspired by the monsoon scene at the end of Black Narcissus (1947), the title track ‘Rain’s Break’ takes its lead from the weather to reflect an emotional journey.

“That amazing tradition in early film of using weather to reflect the character’s emotional journey - it seems cliched now but at the time it was revolutionary. This is my attempt at trying to recreate the feeling of total surrender to drama, of something totally sensual.”

This is music that takes you places, shifts focus, paints large canvases.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There are all sorts of musical touchstones flying out of the player for this one. It's essentially widescreen ambient music but with a focus on the walls of echo and reverb-effected synths more akin to shoegaze. Slowly building into crescentic waves of layered tones, brilliantly warm but undeniably massive.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Rain's Break
2 It Brings Me Back To You
3 Chained To A Woman

Side B
4 6AM
5 Ash And Orange

Following Lucy Gooch’s acclaimed ‘Rain’s Break’, her first release on Fire Records earlier this year, the artist’s acclaimed debut EP ‘Rushing’ is revisited with new artwork and a brand new track, ‘Orthione’.

“Lucy’s sound marries the etheral qualities of ambient music with buoyant, effortless pop” Crack

‘Rushing’ in its original shorter five-track incarnation was heralded as a touchstone beneath the cascading torrent of modern times and an oasis for turbulent times. An intimate collection of songs built around Lucy’s emotive vocals and unique ambient dream pop, the newly added stand-out track ‘Orthione’ trips into the esoteric world of Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass; here her voice is the grounding force that travels to a space that heals and grows.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. My Lights Kiss Your Thoughts Every Moment
2. Rushing
3. Stalagmites & Helicitites

Side B
4. Sun
5. There Is A Space In Between
6. Orthione

Following the release of her debut album, Stay Alive (2020) and the At War With The Silverfish EP (2021), Emmy-nominated artist, author, musician, activist and Against Me! founder/songwriter, Laura Jane Grace, returns with Hole In My Head - her beautiful new album featuring eleven tracks that showcase her undeniable power as a songwriter & storyteller. The album features her most personal and emotionally gripping songs of her career - stripped down masterpieces like Dysphoria Hoodie paired with blistering distorted anthems like Hole In My Head and Birds Talk Too, tracks that demand the listener’s attention with an immediacy and urgency unlike anything Grace has written before.

Recorded at Native Sound in St. Louis, Missouri by David Beeman and mastered by Matt Allison (Lawrence Arms, Rise Against), the album is a sonic curio cabinet containing multitudes. Featuring warm 50s-rock-influenced guitar riffs and rock style melody a la Jonathan Richman and Eddie Cochran, saved-for-later lyrics, love letters to St. Louis, dysphoria apparel, and thoughtful reflections on a punk life lived, Grace's forward vocals are backed predominately by her performances on guitar and drums but are bolstered by Drive By Trucker's bassist Matt Patton.

The record's title track Hole in My Head takes off with a driving guitar-heavy approach that will be welcome to long-time fans of Against Me! electric machinations, while first single Dysphoria Hoodie has been a staple in Grace’s setlist, and one which is as personal as it is pertinent in today’s climate.

Choice cuts I’m Not A Cop and Punk Rock In Basements are written through a post-pandemic rose-colored lens, the latter looking back on the formative underground spaces of Grace’s youth. Basement shows for decades were hallmark experiences for anyone involved in their local punk scenes, shaping movements, connections, and culture through the forced, sweaty proximity necessary to pour over raucous punk music.

Hole in My Head is a record which captures the nuances of humanity and experience in a strangely optimistic manner. The lightness of its influence and the journalistic recollection of experience set against a battered and warm folk-punk delivery from beginning to end makes Hole in My Head a fun comfort. It is a welcome embrace of life and just the start of a new chapter in Laura Jane Grace’s raucous journey.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Laura Jane Grace's journey has been a storied one, starting her career in one of the most beloved new wave punk rock bands in the late 90's, and ending up as a prolific and gifted composer, multimedia artist and writer. 'Hole In My Head' is once again a brilliantly balanced, fiery and dynamic solo outing from Grace.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Hole In My Head
2. I'm Not A Cop
3. Dysphoria Hoodie
4. Birds Talk Too
5. Punk Rock In Basements
Side B
1. Cuffing Season
2. Tacos & Toast
3. Mercenary
4. Keep Your Wheels Straight
5. Hard Feelings
6. Give Up The Ghost

Leonard Grandsons 'The Sands of Zanziibar' is a classy, extremely rare floater which has remained extremely elusive despite having a sound which could make it an extremely popular spin for soulies, disco and rare groove heads.

Steve Trebbin believes it was recorded in 1977, the studio was in Hollywood not far from the Capitol Records building, Tal Armstrong's office was next to it. Steve recalls a story, "I went into the Capital records offices one time to pitch Leonard to them. I mentioned how much he sounded like Stevie Wonder. After listening, they agreed he sounded very much like Stevie - with a smile they told me they already had one.". Big thanks to Daniel Mathis and DJ Mr Big Happy for helping track down Steve.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Sands Of Zanzibar, Pt. 1
2. The Sands Of Zanzibar, Pt. 2

The follow up to Manchester songbird Liz Green’s rapturously received debut ‘O, Devotion!’ (2011).

Recorded at London’s legendary Toe Rag Studio with producer Liam Watson, Liz’s sophomore album displays a wonderful array of sounds and styles, from the ‘drone-blues’ of ‘Battle’ to the sea shantyinfluenced title track.

In a departure from its predecessor, ‘Haul Away!’ sees Liz bringing the piano to the forefront, influenced by such artists as Thelonius Monk and Nina Simone.

Artwork designed and conceived by Liz herself, including the iconic cover image.

Includes self-styled single and ‘wonky circus tune’ ‘Where The River Don’t Flow’, a jaunty dance of life and death.

TRACK LISTING

Battle
Haul Away!
Rybka
River Runs Deep
Where The River Don’t Flow
Empty Handed Blues
Into My Arms
Island Song
Little I
Penelope
Bikya

Double A-side single pressed on white 7” vinyl and limited to 385 copies for the UK.

First single to be taken from ‘Haul Away!’, the follow up to Liz Green’s rapturously received debut ‘O, Devotion!’ (2011).

Recorded at London’s legendary Toe Rag Studio with producer Liam Watson.

Artwork designed by Liz herself.

‘Rybka’ translates as ‘little fish’ in Polish, and that’s precisely what the song is about, says Liz: “the little fish getting lost in the big pond. A boy who tries to do right but always seems to end up on the wrong side of the glass.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Two wonderful tracks from Liz Green, ahead of her new album. Title track Rybka's swaying, clarinet led rhythm provides the perfect accompaniment to her distinctive, dramatic voice. Lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Rybka
Where The River Don’t Flow

Outer Highway Realms is the debut solo instrumental album from Lauren Helene Green, a multi-instrumentalist musician, artist, and woodworker from Texas, now based in Northern New Mexico. Currently half of dream-pop duo Tan Cologne, Green is a shaper of music, wood, and various creative projects inspired by both Earthly and otherworldly landscapes. In the frosted Winter to early Spring cross-fade of 2022, Green recorded 8 songs over the course of a week in Ranchos de Taos, NM.

The album “Outer Highway Realms" is a collection of observations on New Mexico's slow desert, echoes of time and space, morning reflections, sunset drives, guitar meanderings through hot springs, canyon loop walks, and visions floating between woodworking and gardening. Nature sounds and ambient snippets were woven into songs, creating a blend of all seasons and overlapping time. Highly anticipated debut solo album from Lauren Helene Green.

 “…a kind of 21st century, synthesized version of Bruce Langhorne’s The Hired Hand soundtrack, fragments, vignettes, contemplative moments of desert solitude captured in all their shimmering beauty…” Caught By the River.

“The record continues her exploration of desert living through a rich blend of folk, ambient and drone. A sound capable of evoking the nuanced and often contradictory moods of the environment, managing to be expansive and detailed all at once.” - Various Small Flames.

TRACK LISTING

1. Canyon Loop
2. Cactus Bloom
3. Peak Morning Reflections
4. Horses At Fire Water Lodge
5. Slow Spring
6. Wind Full Of Spring
7. Walk At Dusk
8. Dim Sunset Drive

Of the 6-track EP Groves says: “This record, made mostly on my own, became both a channel for the expression of an inner world and an imagined soundtrack to my physical journeys through the city. It is rooted in the stories, atmospheres, mistakes and wrong turns, desires and layers of meaning that run through and play out in the landscapes we inhabit. The songs are snapshots of late night journeys across the river, the sparks of love that transform us and keep us going, the dead ends that the mind can lead us down, the erotic; the visible and invisible places we pass through as they merge and are erased and overwritten. The ability and opportunity to create and connect through music is a gift and I’m so happy to be able to share these new explorations with you.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Infinite Wisdom
2. Foolish Game
3. Faking It
4. Red
5. Sunset
6. Searching For The Stars

Much of Radio Red, the first full length album Laura Groves has released under her own name, was written, produced and recorded by Groves in her studio, watched over by two radio transmitting towers. “I became very drawn to them and they became like symbols to me; they were always awake, sending their messages, the red lights always came on at night and watched over whatever was going on in my life.” The album deals with themes of communication - missed and intercepted signals, chance meetings, synchronicities, the channels through which we try to express our true feelings, the outside interference that can get in the way and the joy of letting go and allowing the messages to flow freely.

Self-recording and production is a core part of Laura’s songwriting process. “I remember years ago getting hold of some basic recording software and being instantly drawn in. The idea of being able to layer up my voice was a dream, like building an orchestra out of what I had at home.” The passion for home-recording, using the resources available at the time, working through limitations and capturing textures through layering, forms the foundation of Groves’ experimental and off-centre pop music and electrified folk music. The sound world of Radio Red is made up of echoes and snapshots of half-remembered pop songs, piano ballads, chopped up TV theme tunes, ambient synthesised sounds and electronic music; tuning in between channels without fully belonging to any one of them, with the comfort, familiarity and strangeness that can come with hearing voices on the radio.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sky At Night
2. Good Intention
3. Synchronicity
4. D 4 N
5. I'm Not Crying
6. Any Day Now
7. Time
8. Sarah
9. Make A Start
10. Silver Lining

This is a compilation of sweet soul and R&B from Plut Records. 11 tracks (7 unreleased) mostly by Lenus Guess. A couple of moody instrumentals are featured, but vocal harmony groups are heard for the most part. And for the most part this music has been silent since it was recorded and put back on the shelf. Each cut is transferred from master tapes. And for those who want to know about the people, the time and the place; it’s Norfolk, Virginia - early to mid seventies. Extensive liner notes with 8 page insert and full color sleeve. For fans of Tramp, Numero, AOTN, and the first Plut record by Raw Soul. Recommended!

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Lenis Guess/The Royal Robins - No Steps Away
2. Little Wink/Eddie's 25th Century Band - Sentimental Love (instrumental) 
3. Jack & The Mods - Don’t Wake Me Up
4. The Symbolics - Find Yourself Another Baby
5. Deltones Ltd - Keep My Company With You
6. Deltones Ltd - You Don’t Believe I Love You

Side 2
1. The 35th Street Gang - Your Love Gave Me Peace Of Mind
2. Jato Vondel - You Don’t Miss Your Water (Til Your Well Runs Dry)
3. Jato Vondel - How Long Have I Been A Fool
4. Deltoned Ltd - You Don’t Believe I Love You (instrumental) 
5. The Symbolics - Home Ain’t Home

Panagiotis Melidis started writing music as Larry Gus (λάρυγγας [larigas], Greek for larynx) in 2006, after his previous band, the bass and drums duo Ginger, parted ways. Initially his music combined sample-based constructions and psychedelic pop melodies, merged into an infinitely dense amount of layers and polyrhythms. He soon became known for his energetic and chaotic improvised live performances that involve intricate layering of vocals, drums, and electronics… along with lively stage banter.

On his new DFA album, "I Need New Eyes" (a title inspired by a Marcel Proust misquotation), moving slowly out of his sample-based roots and using clearer songwriting structures as his starting point, he stares intensively into his obsessions, anxieties and inadequacies, namely failure, humiliation, subservience, submission, and comparisons with other musicians’ careers, always through the prism of a provincial outsider.

TRACK LISTING

1. Black Veil Of Fail
2. NP Complete
3. A Set Of Replies
4. Taking The Personal Away
5. Belong To Love
6. All Graphs Explored
7. The Sun Describes
8. Nazgonya (Paper Spike)

Larry Gus releases a single alongside his ‘Subservient’ album. The single features ‘Kerkis (Judas-Tree)’ and ‘Foreign Steps’ from the same recording sessions as Subservient. The 7” precedes an upcoming audio play, written by Efthimis and scored by Larry, to be produced with the Onassis Stegi (AKA Cultural Center). The audio play will be released on DFA in 2020.

The record graciously explores the nuance that can be found within delineated lines: pop and folk music, rooted in Greek tradition; internal anxieties and empathy expressed outward; the tightrope struggle of living in the present and wallowing in the past.

TRACK LISTING

Kerkis (Judas-Tree)
Foreign Steps

Beat Poetry For Survivalists is the new collaboration between Peter Buck & Luke Haines.

Peter Buck was the guitarist for the biggest band in the world – REM.

Luke Haines was the guitarist for the Auteurs. The Auteurs were not the biggest band in the world. They were pretty good though.

Luke Haines also does paintings of Lou Reed.

One day, Peter Buck bought one of Luke Haines' Lou Reed paintings. They had never met before but decided that the fates had brought them together and they should write some songs together and make an album.

'Beat Poetry For The Survivalist' is that album. With songs about legendary rocket scientist and occultist Jack Parsons, The Enfield Hauntings (of 1978), a post-apocalyptic radio station that only plays Donovan records, Bigfoot, and Pol Pot.

TRACK LISTING

1. Jack Parsons
2. Apocalypse Beach
3. Last Of The Legendary Bigfoot Hunters
4. Beat Poetry For The Survivalist
5. Witch Tariff
6. Andy Warhol Was Not Kind
7. French Man Glam Gang
8. Ugly Dude Blues
9. Bobby’s Wild Years
10.rock ‘n’ Roll Ambulance

The followers - this book is not for you. The salt of the earth - this book is not for you. The worthy - this book is not for you.

The ideologists - this book is not for you. Hedonists and bohemians - this book is not for you. The middlebrow - this book is not for you.

The highbrow - this book is not for you. Dilettantes - this book is not for you. 1970s middle school RE teachers - this book is not for you.

The England football team (women's and men's) - this book is not for you. The litanists - this book is not for you. Gatekeepers - this book is not for you.

Gamekeepers - this book is not for you. (Not even for the poachers...)The curators - this book is not for you. The left, the right - this book is not for you.

The list-makers - lists are for shoppers not rockers, and this book is not for you. This is not a list - this is a manifesto, and this book is for ... the Freaks.

Musician and author Luke Haines embarks on an odyssey through the ages, exploring how the 'freaks' infiltrated modern culture - and almost won the rock 'n' roll wars - only to lose to the rise of Cool Britannia and TV 'talent' shows that turned the strange and the outsiders into fodder for laughter. In this ultimate celebration of freakdom, Haines tells the story of pivotal freaks - including Johnnie Ray, Gene Vincent, Hank Marvin, Syd Barrett, the Incredible String Band and Big Youth - through the prism of rock 'n' roll and explains how freaks infiltrated wider culture through history in the form of the Cathars, the Ranters, Hells Angels and the Yippies. Part memoir, part manifesto, Freaks Out! is a righteous alternate history of rock 'n' roll.

Having played with The Servants in the late 1980s, Luke Haines carved a unique niche for himself in the 1990s with witty lyrics, wry humour and some stellar tunes with The Auteurs and other acts (Black Box Recorder, Baader Meinhof).

By 1999, feeling aghast at the state of the Brit Rock scene in the UK, Luke decided to “start a righteous solo trip”, having been commissioned to write the soundtrack for the film Christie Malry's Own Double Entry (2001). Sticking with Virgin Records, Luke then unveiled his first solo album proper, The Oliver Twist Manifesto, before fronting a new-look Auteurs for Das Capital.

In due course, Luke switched labels to indie Fantastic Plastic for Off My Rocker At The Art School Bop (2006), followed in 2009 by 21st Century Man. Since then, he’s curated a string of imaginative, amusing and always worthwhile albums for Cherry Red Records.

Alive And Well… is the first-ever anthology of Luke’s solo work, cherry-picking musical highlights from each of his long players as well as a smattering of B-sides, radio sessions, rarities and – on Disc 4 – a raft of previously unissued material.

With sleeve-notes by Luke himself, Alive And Well… is a very personal statement spanning the last two decades of the musical life of Luke Haines.

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

'Come In Out of the Rain' is the long-awaited debut album from UK-based DJ, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Lawrence Hart. An "emotional garage record, euphoric and therapeutic", as Hart puts it, 'Come In Out Of The Rain' journeys through cinematic melancholia, soaring synths and moments of fragility peppered with forgotten vocal samples. Hart’s style expresses his science-savvy tech skills with emotion-evoking vibes and dancefloor fuel, creating a sound both club-ready and perfect for immersing yourself in: "A big thing for me on this record is balancing the more mechanical and technical side of my music with the heart and euphoria."

'Unfamiliar Skin' offers a subtle evolution of Hayter’s trademark sound inspired by some of the more favoured corners of her record collection. She has stepped into new territory as sole producer, performer and writer of this album, a personal statement and challenge that she set herself. The result is slick, modern electro soul, colourful electronics and knowing nods to New York disco, proto-house, ‘80s R&B, boogie, and simmering, synth-laden slow jams. Personal, authentic and mesmerising, with Hayter’s thoughtful lyrics and distinctive vocals front and centre, it’s her most impressive and authentic sonic statement to date.

“I’m really excited to be releasing my second album ‘Unfamiliar Skin’. It’s a very personal album to me because I produced, performed and wrote it myself. It felt important for me to do this as only a small percentage of producers are women so I set myself the challenge. The title reflects the new feeling of this role but also has a dual meaning about why the enticing pull of the unfamiliar in relationships can lead to affairs, that’s what the title track is about. I stepped away from my first album a little bit sonically and took inspiration from space-age r&b in the early 2000’s, the sound of Compass Point studios and electronic soul were also a huge influence for me. I have a magpie approach to music in that I’m always looking for something I haven’t heard before that is shiny and exciting to my ears: if it doesn't have magic in it I won’t use it. I made my own world in this record, I’m proud of it and I think it sounds quite unique”.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Lou Hayter returns with a shimmering suite of dusky disco and soulful, silken R&B. Slapping basslines, snappy percussion and Hayter's beautifully powerful vocals and perfectly pitched harmonies. Reminiscent of the swathes of poppy 90's R&B, but produced with one eye on the future. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

1. Scorpio
2. Frequency
3. Unfamiliar Skin
4. In My Heart
5. Stop The Rain
6. Ok Ok
7. 3AM
8. 808 Beat
9. Life

Phoenix, Arizona 1955…a twenty-five year old disc jockey and fledgling songwriter, Lee Hazlewood, is trying to break into the music industry. He takes Greyhound bus trips to Los Angeles to pitch songs, only to be rejected each time. Undeterred, Lee starts a record label called Viv Records. Running the label out of his house, Lee finds the artists, writes the songs, produces the sessions, arranges the pressings of the records and handles distribution. Recently discovered tapes in the Viv Records archive yielded an unbelievable find, the earliest known recordings of Hazlewood singing his songs…Lee’s first demo! The mysterious and bountiful tapes featured Lee singing early unheard compositions and a complete first draft of his Trouble Is A Lonesome Town song cycle that would become his first official solo album in 1963.

Light in the Attic Records is proud to continue it’s Lee Hazlewood archival series with 400 Miles From L.A. 1955-56, a collection of previously unknown intimate recordings, never intended for release. Lee sings, plays guitar and even presses the record button on the tape machine. These are rural sketches and small town dreams, captured in an innocent time before the path ahead was clear.

These songs rewrite Lee’s recorded history, adding a new first chapter to his saga. For Hazlewood addicts, hearing these early tracks and the embryonic version of Trouble Is A Lonesome Town is akin to finding an early draft of the Old Testament.

“That’s beauty of Lee’s songwriting. It lives on. People will hear it for the first time, even though it’s fifty years old or whatever, if it’s good enough and strong enough, they’ll accept and like it as much as if it was just created. That’s the wonderful legacy that Lee has. It’s wonderful to look back and make all this early work available. To put “Boots” and all those other LHI songs into perspective. That it all started somewhere and this is where.” – Arizona Music Historian and record producer, John Dixon.

TRACK LISTING

Cross Country Bus
The Woman I Love
Five Thousand And One
Lonesome Day
A Lady Called Blues
Five More Miles To Folsom
Fort Worth
The Old Man And His Guitar
Peculiar Guy
Long Black Train
I Guess It’s Love
It’s An Actuality
Buying On Time
The Country Bus Tune
Long Black Train
Run Boy Run
Big Joe Slade
Son Of A Gun
Georgia Chain Gang
Look At That Woman
Peculiar Guy
The Railroad Song
Six Feet Of Chain
Trouble Is A Lonesome Town

With his handlebar mustache and booming baritone, Lee Hazlewood was one of the defining stars of the late ‘60s. Though he’s perhaps best known for his work with Nancy Sinatra (including writing mega-hit “These Boots Are Made For Walking”), Hazlewood did stunning work away from that particular glamour queen and found latter-day champions in Beck, Sonic Youth, and Jarvis Cocker. Now, for Record Store Day 2012, we are kicking off our excavation of the Lee Hazlewood archives with this anthology, Singles, Nudes & Backsides, collecting the best of Lee’s solo songs and duets from his LHI (Lee Hazlewood Industries) imprint.

As a true legend of the great American songbook and a rebellious pioneer who left behind a lengthy trail of echo-laden pop masterpieces, Lee’s influence continues to reverberate today. Between 1968-71, Hazlewood not only released his finest solo work but produced numerous artists on LHI. From acid-folk and country-rock to pop-psych and soul, LHI issued dozens of long-forgotten 45s and LPs. This series will include material from LHI (re-mastered for the first time from the original analog tapes), along with Lee’s output for other labels, rarities, and unreleased gems.

See the sleeve: surrounded by nude girls, each wearing a fake mustache, Hazlewood wears a suit, ever-so-slightly awkwardly playing the role of the ‘60s playboy. Just like the picture, the songs present a man conflicted; he’s the tender-hearted romantic, the broken-hearted loser and the rugged cowboy, all in one. It’s there in the western swing of “Califia (Stone Rider)”, the loneliness of ”The Bed” and the bleak beauty of ”If It’s Monday Morning.” Hazlewood’s tremulous voice was made for duets (indeed, he wrote ”Some Velvet Morning”, one of the greatest of all time); here, Suzi Jane Hokom, Ann-Margret and Nina Lizell play counterpart to his manly tones.

In the wonderful liner notes, written by British journalist Wyndham Wallace, the writer describes his friend Hazlewood as “a curmudgeonly, unpredictable sort at the best of times, as impatient with his own talent as he is with other people.” The Hazlewood Wallace knew was puzzled by the growing interest in him in the last two decades of his life, which was ended by cancer at age 78. That late flurry of interest saw him perform at the Royal Festival Hall in 1999, his first-ever solo performance in the UK.

A natural wanderer, Lee lived a big life, fighting in the Korean War, working as a radio DJ in Phoenix, Arizona, setting up Viv Records in the ‘50s, working as a big-shot LA producer in the ‘60s, signing Phil Spector to his Trey Records label and prematurely announcing retirement in the wake of the mid-‘60s British invasion. He didn’t: Nancy Sinatra came along, the hits started flowing and he continued producing characterful solo albums into the ‘70s, which saw his move to Sweden. By 2007, Hazlewood was living in Vegas, and begrudgingly enjoying that flurry of latter-day interest in his work. This landmark compilation promises to create many more converts.

TRACK LISTING

1. Califia (Stone Rider) - Featuring Suzi Jane Hokom
2. The Bed
3. Sleep In The Grass - Featuring Ann-Margret
4. Leather And Lace - Featuring Nina Lizell
5. If It's Monday Morning
6. The Night Before
7. Bye Babe
8. Victims Of The Night - Featuring Ann-Margret
9. Chico - Featuring Ann-Margret
10. Hey Cowboy - Featuring Nina Lizell
11. No Train To Stockholm
12. Won't You Tell Your Dreams
13. Nobody Like You - Featuring Suzi Jane Hokom
14. Trouble Maker
15. What's More I Don't Need Her
16. Come On Home To Me
17. I Just Learned To Run

In 1980, with their highest charting album to date, Kaleidoscope and two successful singles, ‘Happy House’ and ‘Christine’, and a packed tour schedule, Siouxsie and The Banshees are at the top of their game. Swimming in their own stream, the Banshees defy musical categorisation and are head and shoulders above their peers, with one objective: to be the best band in the world. The band’s 1981 90-gig tour included 25 dates in the US, showcasing the exhilarating ‘Spellbound’, grotesque ‘Night Shift’ and the clandestine frisson of ‘Into The Light’, forming the sonic backbone of what is considered to be the Banshees’ magnum opus, Juju, their fourth studio album, released in June 1981.

Ushering in a new chapter in Siouxsie and The Banshees’ evolution the opulent fifth studio album A Kiss In The Dreamhouse, marks another change in direction, and sees producer Mike Hedges superseding Kaleidoscope and Juju producer Nigel Gray. Released 5th November 1982, several days after guitarist John McGeoch is ousted from the band after two near calamitous performances at the Rock-Ola Club in Madrid, it was the album that marked a potential dip in the band’s fortunes. However the Banshees regroup, calling again on the services of The Cure’s Robert Smith, whose fractured relationship with his own band made the offer of becoming a touring Banshee too attractive to refuse.

As for what happens next, this in-depth and authoritative account of one of the most original, creative, imaginative and mercurial bands in the history of rock music surveys the twists, turns and episodes of brilliance that define Siouxsie and The Banshees’ evolution from 1980 to 1987, including ancillary ventures ‘The Creatures’ and ‘The Glove’, and the making of the albums Juju and A Kiss In The Dreamhouse, as well as Nocturne, Hyaena, Tinderbox and Through The Looking Glass.

Recorded in the past 25 years in different parts of the world, "Encyclopedia Sónica Vol. 1" compiles the music and sounds of Leo Heiblum. Comes with insert.

Since Leo Heiblum was a little boy, he always found music everywhere. Listening to the engine of his mother's car and hearing incredible rhythms. He always thought every sound we hear can be made into music, every sound that we hear can be heard as music and it can be felt and understood as music. Every sound has an attack, a decay; some have a pitch. What is more beautiful, the sound of a flute, a bird, a trumpet, a car horn, a violin or a mosquito buzzing? They can all be used to make music.

Leo Heiblum believes that If we learn to hear all sounds as musical or at least to have the potential to be used to make music, we might look at the world and listen to the world more lovingly. That car passing by had a beautiful crescendo. That dog barking in the distance created a fantastic melody with an impossible-to- transcribe rhythm. Is there no creative intention behind those sounds? Can the listener give them an intention, can the listener transform them into art? Leo Heiblum is trying to organise them and use them in a way that will be musical for us. He hopes that the next time we hear an ocean wave breaking a bond, fire crackling, or a fly flying, we can enjoy the notes and the rhythms they are making. They are being created by something; who knows what the intention is, but some of the most unique beats he's heard come from rocks falling in cenotes or ice breaking down in a glacier. And the melodies he's heard from bats, dogs fighting, or a newborn dog are both haunting and beautiful. The timber from sounds such as the thorn of a cactus, the voice of a homeless person in the street or a mosquito buzzing can be used to create instruments as beautiful as any instrument. And they have a new sound or a familiar old sound used differently. A way that invites us to hear the music created by this planet.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Childlike, naïve, beguiling, but above all BATSHIT CRAZY. Completely singular found-sound madness from Heiblum which despite it's eccentricity, maintains a degree of mellifluousness and intrigue that should keep any modest sonic explorer hooked till the end.

TRACK LISTING

The Monk And The Elephant
Chis Chis
Las Pelotas De Riesman
Kasol
Tanganazo
Shamani En El Metro De Mazunte
1
Velorio
Bebe Y Monos
Oakland C
Church And Branch
Chacarera

Underrated digi conscious killer with vocal by Bullwackies / Lee Perry collaborator Lloyd Hemmings. Wayne Armond (Chalice band) wrote and produced this song for the 1985 Jamaican festival song competition.

Bass: Keith Francis
Drum: Desmond Jones
Guitar: Wayne Armond
Keyboard: Mikey Wallace & Ervin 'Allah' Lloyd
Backing vocals: Wayne Armond & Michael Wallace
Recorded at Dynamic Sounds Studios, 15 Bell Road, Kingston 11, Jamaica in 1983.
Produced by Wayne Armond.
Licensed from Wayne Armond.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Jamwax shine a light on this criminally rare and underheard early 80s gem which combines precision drum machine programming with a supreme vocal performance from Hemmings.

TRACK LISTING

Work To Do
Work To Do (Version)

Isle Of Wight’s resident slacker pop queen. Lauran Hibberd’s rise towards the forefront of the emerging indie elite shows no signs of slowing, with her charismatic, tongue-in-cheek songwriting already attracting widespread press attention (The Guardian, NME, The Line Of Best Fit, Dork, DIY, Billboard, NYLON, Clash, Gigwise, Upset), and significant praise across BBC Radio 1 airwaves (Clara Amfo, Jack Saunders, Jordan North). With her eagerly anticipated debut album on the way later this year, and tour dates galore lined up, the indie sensation is primed for a thrilling twelve months.

TRACK LISTING

1. Rollercoaster
2. Still Running (5K)
3. Step Mum
4. Average Joe
5. Hot Boys
6. That Was A Joke
7. Get Some
8. Garageband Superstar
9. Hole In The Head
10. I'm Insecure
11. Slimming Down
12. Last Song Ever

Celestial Echo is back with their fourth release and the first properly licenced reissue of Lisa Hill's dance floor anthem, 'I Am On The Real Side.' Originally released in 1982, this disco classic has remained a favorite among many discerning DJs and has kept dance floors moving for years.Recorded in New York in 1982 with producers Dennis Williams and Joe Webb, this track became Lisa Hill's only release.Now officially licensed and presented on 12-inch vinyl, the reissue features a reimagined company sleeve, updated labels, and pressed and remastered on heavyweight vinyl for an authentic analog experience.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Vocal
B1. Instrumental
B2. Edit

Lili Holland-Fricke and Sean Rogan’s debut album 'Dear Alien' is a constellation of radiant improvised impulses, imagined in lucent fragments of cello, guitar and voice. Spacious, tender and glistening with rich electronic distortion, the record melds a spectrum of processed and natural sound as the artists invite listeners into their dreamlike world of synergetic introspections.

Cultivated through a shared spirit of resourcefulness and play, 'Dear Alien' emerges as an organic meeting place in the compositional output of British-German experimental cellist Lili Holland-Fricke and Manchester-born guitarist and producer Sean Rogan. Having studied their respective instruments at the Royal Northern College of Music, both artists have flourished in eclectic solo and collaborative projects, creating intricate and intimate spheres of sound with a deep appreciation for songwriting and improvisation.

Holland-Fricke’s transition from the classical world to writing her own material, and later vastly expanding her palette with electronics, first converged with Rogan’s distinctive flair for production in 2022 on her EP 'Birdsong For Breakfast' and single ‘Draw On The Walls’. Now, the duo present an album envisioned through true ‘50/50’ collaboration during the summer of 2023, written across two intensive weeks of improvising and experimenting at Rogan’s Greenwich home studio. A convergence of the artists’ sounds and influences, the music was fostered by the idea of making an album with ‘no plan’ and their shared recent discovery of Arthur Russell, to whom the final track is dedicated.

'Dear Alien' assembles eight compositions that emerged naturally as the duo created sketches with cello and pedals, guitar, tape loops and poetic vocal musings, forming songs that explore themes of waiting, circling back around, and glitchy communication. Moments of drifting through pillowy layers of sound contrast with saturated visions of electronic modification, where the record’s glowing instrumental contours are pushed to the extremes.

The plaintive shades of ‘half blue’ and meandering deliberations of ‘slow thing’ are teased by the friction of static signals and a sense of ever-mutating sonic mass – a sensibility most acutely realised in ‘dawning’, where cello-vocoder eruptions grow in magnitude, the absence of sound between them burdened with something sinister and unspoken. As the artists expand on this piece, ‘It’s the sound equivalent of squeezing your eyes shut to shield against the brightness of something you don’t want to see, only to find that each time you open them again the world is not softening but getting more relentlessly overwhelming, to the point of being totally blinding.’

Three tracks with lyrics – ‘At First’, ‘Dear Alien’ and ‘Seem Asleep’ – refract the album’s wistful and melancholic colours into poetic imagery and metaphors, ushering in reflections on relationship tensions and someone close feeling unknown, with hints towards wider unsettled feelings about climate change. In the spirit of lyrical improv, ‘Seem Asleep’ compiles lone lines from Holland-Fricke’s journals into a cut-and-paste collage around hopeful patience or futile lingering – either way conjuring a softness that welcomes the hazy ambience of ‘For A. R.’, the final composition which soundscapes the summer days spent making the album. As the artists describe of this track, ‘The music kind of leads somewhere, but then kind of leads nowhere, and just meanders around where it is, content to just be walking in a circle back to where it started.’

TRACK LISTING

1. At First
2. Half Blue
3. Dear Alien
4. Dawning
5. Slow Thing
6. Worse Than Before
7. Seem Asleep
8. For A.R.

The expansive American experience Lonnie Holley quilts together across his astounding new album, "MITH", is both multitudinous and finely detailed. Holley’s self-taught piano improvisations and stream-of-consciousness lyrical approach have only gained purpose and power since he introduced the musical side of his art in 2012 with "Just Before Music", followed by 2013’s "Keeping a Record of It". But whereas his previous material seemed to dwell in the Eternal-Internal, "MITH" lives very much in our world - the one of concrete and tears; of dirt and blood; of injustice and hope.

Across these songs, in an impressionistic poetry all his own, Holley touches on Black Lives Matter (“I’m a Suspect”), Standing Rock (“Copying the Rock”) and contemporary American politics (“I Woke Up in a Fucked-Up America”). A storyteller of the highest order, he commands a personal and universal mythology in his songs of which few songwriters are capable — names like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joanna Newsom and Gil Scott-Heron come to mind.

Mith was recorded over five years in locations such as Porto, Portugal; Cottage Grove, Oregon; New York City and Holley’s adopted hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. These 10 songs feature contributions from fellow cosmic musician Laraaji, jazz duo Nelson Patton, visionary producer Richard Swift, saxophonist Sam Gendel and producer/musician Shahzad Ismaily.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Sonic outlier and soul outsider Lonnie Holley returns with a third LP, this time turning his attention from internal struggles to the chaos and discord of American politics and society. As his expressive vocals touch on 'The Wall', Standing Rock, Black Lives Matter and that wotsit-looking chap in the hair piece, the twisted electronic soul instrumentation twists and turns through distortion, fx abuse and feedback, emphasising the sense of disorientation most of us feel right now.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1. I’m A Suspect
2. Back For Me
3. How Far Is Spaced-Out?

SIDE B:
4. I Snuck Off The Slave Ship

SIDE C:
5. I Woke Up In A Fucked-Up America
6. Copying The Rock
7. Coming Back (From The Distance

SIDE D:
8. There Was Always Water
9. Down In The Ghostness Of Darkness
10. Sometimes I Wanna Dance

The expansive American experience Lonnie Holley quilts together across his astounding new album, "MITH", is both multitudinous and finely detailed. Holley’s self-taught piano improvisations and stream-of-consciousness lyrical approach have only gained purpose and power since he introduced the musical side of his art in 2012 with "Just Before Music", followed by 2013’s "Keeping a Record of It". But whereas his previous material seemed to dwell in the Eternal-Internal, "MITH" lives very much in our world - the one of concrete and tears; of dirt and blood; of injustice and hope.

Across these songs, in an impressionistic poetry all his own, Holley touches on Black Lives Matter (“I’m a Suspect”), Standing Rock (“Copying the Rock”) and contemporary American politics (“I Woke Up in a Fucked-Up America”). A storyteller of the highest order, he commands a personal and universal mythology in his songs of which few songwriters are capable — names like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joanna Newsom and Gil Scott-Heron come to mind.

Mith was recorded over five years in locations such as Porto, Portugal; Cottage Grove, Oregon; New York City and Holley’s adopted hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. These 10 songs feature contributions from fellow cosmic musician Laraaji, jazz duo Nelson Patton, visionary producer Richard Swift, saxophonist Sam Gendel and producer/musician Shahzad Ismaily.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Sonic outlier and soul outsider Lonnie Holley returns with a third LP, this time turning his attention from internal struggles to the chaos and discord of American politics and society. As his expressive vocals touch on 'The Wall', Standing Rock, Black Lives Matter and that wotsit-looking chap in the hair piece, the twisted electronic soul instrumentation twists and turns through distortion, fx abuse and feedback, emphasising the sense of disorientation most of us feel right now.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1. I’m A Suspect
2. Back For Me
3. How Far Is Spaced-Out?

SIDE B:
4. I Snuck Off The Slave Ship

SIDE C:
5. I Woke Up In A Fucked-Up America
6. Copying The Rock
7. Coming Back (From The Distance

SIDE D:
8. There Was Always Water
9. Down In The Ghostness Of Darkness
10. Sometimes I Wanna Dance

This 5-song collaboration between artist Lonnie Holley and the late visionary producer Richard Swift is a tribute to urgent, raw, American art - from Howlin’ Wolf to Captain Beefheart, from Cecil Taylor to Bo Diddley. The songs pulse with anger, hope, energy and a bit of swagger. You can hear sweat and tears through the speaker. Swift left us two years ago today but his spirit buzzes through these songs. During a West Coast tour with Deerhunter in late summer 2013, Holley was put in touch with Swift by a friend who suggested using a day off on tour to record at Swift’s National Freedom Studio in Cottage Grove, Oregon. Now rather legendary, Swift was in a breakout moment as a producer having recently worked with artists like The Shins, Foxygen and Damien Jurado. Holley’s essential debut album, Just Before Music, had come out the year prior.

The cosmic connection between Holley and Swift was immediate. They put down five songs in their day together: all conjured in the studio and one-of-a-kind. At the end of that day in 2013, Swift - always up until the wee hours - made a late-night call to the friend who had set up the session. He was effusive about the experience - thrilled to have found a kindred spirit in Lonnie Holley and thankful to spend a day crafting unclassifiable, extemporaneous and soulful music.

TRACK LISTING

Crystal Doorknob
In It Too Deep
Like Hell Broke Away
Do T Rocker
So Many Rivers (The First Time)

‘Oh Me Oh My’ is both elegant and ferocious. It is stirring in one moment and a balm the next. It details histories both global and personal. Lonnie Holley’s harrowing youth and young manhood in the Jim Crow South are well-told at this point — his sale into a different home as a child for just a bottle of whiskey; his abuse at the infamous Mount Meigs correctional facility for boys; the destruction of his art environment by the Birmingham airport expansion. But Holley’s music is less a performance of pain endured and more a display of perseverance, of relentless hope. Intricately and lovingly produced by LA’s Jacknife Lee (The Cure, REM, Modest Mouse), there is both kinetic, shortwave funk that call to mind Brian Eno’s ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ and the deep space satellite sounds of Eno’s ambient works. But it’s a tremendous achievement in sonics all its own.

It’s also an achievement in the refinement of Holley’s impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness lyrics. On the title track which deals with mutual human understanding”, Holley is able to make a profound point as ever in far fewer phrases: “The deeper we go, the more chances there are, for us to understand the oh-me’s and understand the oh-my’s.” Illustrious collaborators like Michael Stipe, Sharon Van Etten, Moor Mother and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver serve as not only as choirs of angels and co-pilots to give Lonnie’s message flight but as proof of Lonnie Holley as a galvanizing, iconoclastic force across the music community

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1. Testing
2. I Am A Part Of The Wonder
3. Oh Me Oh My
4. Earth Will Be There
5. Mount Meigs
SIDE B:
6. Better Get That Crop In Soon
7. Kindness Will Follow Your Tears
8. None Of Us Have But A Little While
9. If We Get Lost They Will Find Us
10. I Can’t Hush
11. Future Children

Luke Hirst is a 17 year old songwriter hailing from his hometown of Bradford. Influenced by the likes of Elliot Smith , Alfie & Muse, Lukes aim is simple, write great songs and take them onto the live circuit. "Rock'n'Roll Begins At Home" is Luke's first release after his debut single "Changing Lanes" was released on Heliotone Records in December 2004. US Indie Magazine 'Losing Today' reviewed the single and had this to say 'I couldn't honestly recommend a better way to spend quarter of an hour of my life other than in the company of this EP... A star in the making, don't rule against it.' And this EP is equally as good. Three beautifully crafted, dramatic pop songs.

Acid Jazz pull a blinder here, delivering the definitive Leroy Hutson compilation – ‘Anthology 1972-1984’. A legend to soul fans, his catalogue has been increasingly sought after by collectors and producers since the last time it was widely available nearly 20 years ago. College friends and early collaborator with Donny Hathaway then hand-picked as Curtis Mayfield’s replacement in The Impressions, his solo career resulted in 7 albums for Mayfield’s Curtom label. They are considered some of the greatest of the era and the very best music from them is collected here. Licensed from Mr Hutson himself, this represents his first approved Anthology, and comes in a beautiful package with an essay by soul expert and Mojo award-winning writer Tony Rounce and memorabilia and photos from Mr. Hutson’s own personal archive. The first single lifted to preview the album – the previously unreleased ‘Positive Forces’ has been championed at 6Music by Gilles Peterson who described it as one of the most important discoveries of the past ten years.

TRACK LISTING

Cool Out
All Because Of You
Don’t It Make You Feel Good
Love The Feeling
Positive Forces
Lucky Fellow
Never Know What You Can Do (Give It A Try)
Love Oh Love
Ella Weez
Could This Be Love
So In Love With You
I Think I’m Falling In Love
Closer To The Source
Give This Love A Try
Right Or Wrong
Now That I Found You
Get To This (You’ll Get To Me)
Lover’s Holiday
Time Brings On A Change

Hutson, long revered on the soul scene for his production, songwriting and performace skills, was Curtis Mayfield’s heir apparent. First chosen by the great man to replace him in the Impressions, and then groomed for an extensive solo career on Curtis' own label, Curtom, Hutson was the real deal. The Hutson catalogue has not been available on any format for nearly two decades, so it's excellent news that Acid Jazz have begun a full scale reissue series in partnership with Leroy himself.
Here we have a deluxe reissue of ‘Hutson II’. Often seen as a partner to the early ‘Hutson’, this is a highly sort after album and a high point of 1970s Chicago soul. Recorded at Curtom Studios, it features the all time classics ‘I Think I’m Falling In Love’, ‘Love The Feeling’ and ‘Don’t It Make You Feel Good’.

TRACK LISTING

Love The Feeling
Situations (Instrumentals)
I Do I Do (Want To Make Love To You
I Think I’m Falling In Love
Love To Hold You Close
Flying High
Blackberry Jam
Sofunkstication
Don’t It Make You Feel Good
Positive Forces
Blackberry Jam (Single Edit)

"Ices" is a celebration of flight, levity, and the conviction that you can leave earth. You take wing in an airplane, you go to real places when you dream, you have out-of-body experiences, you get high, you lose yourself in someone else.

When we started work on these songs, I was beginning a gradual move to California, constantly traveling back and forth from New York. I was experimenting. I was falling in love. Our studio in the Hudson Valley was full of electronics and computers and the sounds of future ships sailing through the vastness of space, and I sometimes forgot where I was. The first songs we wrote were called "flying 1", then "flying 2", and so on, which eventually evolved into songs on the album. Flight became a metaphor for the ignition of the imagination. The process created a lightness in me, a freedom and positive energy that I¹d never before felt or explored.

This recording session became a two year music and spiritual retreat with my psychic twin brother, Eliot. A private journey during which we abandoned old habits and familiar sounds. We got really geeky and experimented in our studio. We obsessed over sympathetic magic, "Ancient Aliens", and the NBA. We allowed everything we loved to find its way in: Persian percussion, hip-hop beats, lo-fi, hi-fi, Pakistani pop, Link Wray, Jason Pierce, gospel, dub. We developed new systems; we worked with synthesis, software, and samples; we became producers. The Hudson Valley was home base, but I wanted to keep flying. I wrote songs in California, recorded vocals in Atlanta, and worked with Clams Casino in Brooklyn.

For the first time, Lia Ices felt like an inclusive project with its own identity, not just a name.

"Ices" as a whole is devoted to these certainties. While we have evolved, we are still animals. We respond to planets, patterns, and cycles. We require the sounds of our origins. We live in the future but stay bound to the primitive and primordial. We will always want tribe, we will always want rhythm, we will always need music to guide us into our deepest sense of what it means to be human. So we hear sounds from all over the planet in this album. We devour so much music, and with this album we allowed ourselves to claim bits from all of it.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tell Me
2. Thousand Eyes
3. Higher
4. Love Ices Over
5. Magick
6. Electric Arc
7. Sweet As Ice
8. Creature
9. How We Are
10. Waves

It's 2013. You're a teenager squinting at your laptop in the dead of night, flicking between iTunes and YouTube and PirateBay.Endless reams of artists unspool at the click of a button. New forms of musical discovery open up before your very eyes.

This evolving digital landscape exists beyond the radio, HMV and even the most extensive record collection. You've entered a whole new world and, suddenly, just about everything feels possible. In Songs in the Key of MP3: The New Icons of the Internet Age, Liam Inscoe-Jones explores five contemporary artists who broke the old rules of sound, style and the music industry at large: Devonté Hynes (of Blood Orange), FKA Twigs, Oneohtrix Point Never, Earl Sweatshirt and SOPHIE.

Each began their careers as obscure outsiders but, over time, they helped to re-shape pop culture in their image. Through these five extraordinary figures and an eclectic supporting cast of dozens more, Inscoe-Jones paints a picture of the sonic landscape of the last ten years, exploring the influence of their dazzling music on pop culture, the internet and ourselves. An unorthodox mix of criticism, biography and music history - and featuring interviews with the likes of Caroline Polachek, Daniel Lopatin and Nicolás Jaar - Songs in the Key of MP3 is a book of endless curiosity and wonder; a salutary attempt to define pop culture in a fast and ephemeral age.

J & M Music Co US welcomes LeBaron James for another standout four-tracker that brings raw house and smooth disco together on one EP. Up first is 'Always Be True', a deceptively simple sound that brings straight-up dancefloor beats with hooky pads. 'House Party' then has more heavy kicks and wild percussive patterns to liven up any party and 'One' then brings a more cool and laid-back disco groove that has a slick modern twist. Last but not least is 'Sugar And Spice' which brings a touch of sophisticated and chic instrumental vibes. It's a fourth different sound on a versatile EP.

TRACK LISTING

Always Be True
One
House Party
Sugar & Spice

"A Louder Silence" is the London-based producer and multi-instrumentalist’s first proper release; his two earlier singles feature on the record, after gaining support from Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide FM with a live airing and interview in 2017, plus continued backing from XLR8R, Stamp the Wax, and BBC Radio 6 Music DJ’s.

The album is both spacious and thought-provoking, energetic yet restrained, brimming with nuanced electronic instrumentals, dubby synths, and jazz breaks - creating an array of rich textures, complemented occasionally by James’ own soulful vocals.

While James’ early unreleased work was singularly electronic, "A Louder Silence" focuses on analog synths and warm acoustic instruments, all played by his own hand. It’s the product of a two-year spell in James’ home studio, with additional live drums recorded with Jim Macrae at London’s Old Paradise Audio.

James’ rich musical influences are laced through the release. Encouraged by his mother, a classically trained pianist, he learned to play the cello and developed a deep understanding of rhythm and melody that informs his approach to writing electronic music. James plays the piano he grew up listening to in “Mumma Don’t Tell” and samples an indefinable percussive element to drive forward “Suns Of Gold.” “Night and Day” sees cello plucks and long melodic strokes interlink with a grooving synth line. He also field records the atmospheric Moroccan sea in “Red Sea.” Inspiration stems from the experimentation of modern day electronic producers, fused with the Jazz, Classical, Blues, and Soul music that soundtracked his youth.

Central to the album is the idea of space. James recalls the early advice of his uncle, a jazz guitarist, who features on “Uncle Blue”:'I remember him saying to me: 'What goes in comes out' James says. 'Every detail should be a worthy detail; sometimes nothing is better than something.' Moments of blissful, structured intensity are juxtaposed with stillness and near silence -dark and light; loud and quiet. This also forms the foundation for the album title: "A Louder Silence" reflects the dichotomy of finding pockets of stillness in a noisy world.

TRACK LISTING

1. Alpine
2. Time
3. Suns Of Gold
4. Argonaut
5. Mumma Don’t Tell
6. Uncle Blue
7. Night And Day
8. Salaninam
9. Red Sea
10. Osho

Leifur James, an innovative electronic music producer, returns with his third album, 'Magic Seeds'. The record represents his most personal and collaborative work and blends live recordings and analogue synths to create an organic, rhythmic sound reminiscent of trip-hop and hip-hop.

'Magic Seeds' explores themes of growth and reconnection, featuring unexpected musical moments and influences from 90s electronic music to neoclassical. Tracks like 'Smoke in the Air' and 'Inner Child' high-
light his ability to balance emotional peaks with deep, moody atmospheres. The album’s dynamic range and authenticity reflect James's commitment to musical freedom and societal reflection, making it a compelling sonic collage of his recent experiences.

Over the past few years, Leifur James has steadily built a reputation as a vital new voice in electronic music on both sides of the Atlantic. He’s played prestigious London venues like the Barbican and Village Underground in London and toured Europe, as well as being named Pitchfork and KCRW’s ‘best new music’ in the US, and his music has been championed by the likes of tastemakers Gilles Peterson, Mary Anne Hobbs, Bradley Zero and actor Cillian Murphy, and from BBC 6Music to NTS via KCRW and RMC Italia. James has also enjoyed further flagship press support from Consequence of Sound, Clash, CRACK, Passion of the Weiss, XLR8R, Complex, MixMag, DJ Mag, The Vinyl Factory, and more.

TRACK LISTING

1. Smoke In The Air
2. Magic Seeds
3. Measure Of Mind
4. Euphoria
5. Forest Of Love
6. Inner Child
7. Lay
8. Wake Up Spring
9. Room 68
10. Alive 

Raised in the multicultural and mind-broadening London borough of Enfield, Loraine James grew up hearing everything from steel pan music to Metallica, from jazz and electronica to drill and grime, and the results of this exposure can be heard on ‘For You And I’. In part the album explores the complexities of being in a queer relationship in London - “I’m in love and wanted to share that in some way … to make songs that reflect layers of my relationship.” – and as a whole ‘For You and I’ is rhythmically free flowing and sprawling, with melodies that evolve into rippling keys, feeling like a live jam session with a jazz mentality, contrasting the delicate and abrasive. Opener ‘Glitch Bitch’ is a warm ear-worm, brandishing swirling textures with undulating keys and compressed percussion, with an introspective theme revisited soon after on third track ‘So Scared’, whose glitched percussion and syncopated dub bassline build to a frantic meltdown melody.

On ‘London Ting // Dark As Fuck’, inspired by Dizzee Rascals's ‘Boy In Da Corner', James explores the darker side of her production with her frequent collaborator Le3 BLACK laying verses over the skeletal track. ‘Hand Drops’ is an instrumental, about public displays of affection in a queer relationship. ‘Sensual’ reflects on intimacy with vocals by UK singer Theo, whose lyrics capture love and gentleness over a soft, minimal production of ethereal keys and scattered glitches. The albums’ title track is also the most colourful, it’s ecstatic and effusive chaos driven by fervent synths expressing elation and the joyful side of her relationship, while ‘My Future’ is a more reflective moment, where warping synths wash in and out with compressed kicks, as the artist considers the dangers that may come with her relationship : “I wanna tie the knot / But the rope is dangerous”. ‘For You And I’ is a deeply intimate and personal offering, expressing happiness, anxiety, joy, sensuality and fear through a vivid sound palette and an experimental sense of rhythm.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Glitch Bitch
A2. London Ting // Dark As Fuck
A3. So Scared
A4. Hand Drops
A5. Sensual
B1. For You And I
B2. My Future
B3. Scraping My Feet
B4. Sick 9
B5. Vowel // Consonant 

‘Gentle Confrontation’, Loraine James's third Hyperdub album, opens a new chapter of her real and sonic life in which she examines her past and present. It's a positively languid, enjoyably disjointed set made while listening to her teenage favourites; math rock and emo-electronic such as DNTEL, Lusine and Telefon Tel Aviv. The album also features an ever more diverse set of peers, placing them in her unusual musical settings and drawing out sensitive and reflexive performances. At other times the album stretches out into a drifting ambience as if seeking a sense of bliss in the everyday. ‘Gentle Confrontation’ is about relationships (especially familial), understanding, and giving back a little grace and care, while the tone of the record criss-crosses watery ambience with denatured rhythm and asmr beats. These 16 tracks are Loraine's best work yet, and a personal and musical leap forward, delivering a totally unique vision of electronic pop music.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The inimitable Loraine James effortlessly mixes languid lounge jazz, scattered electronics and woozy downbeat on her third album for veteran electronic superlabel, Hyperdub. It's full of melodic hooks, submerged under a wash of beautifully produced electronic soup, and it's my favourite thing she's done by far. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Gentle Confrontation
A2. 2003
A3. Let U Go Ft. KeiyaA
A4. Déjà Vu Ft. RiTchie
B1. Prelude Of Tired Of Me
B2. Glitch The System (Glitch Bitch 2)
B3. I DM U
B4. One Way Ticket To The Midwest (Emo) Ft. Corey Mastrangelo
C1. Cards With The Grandparents
C2. While They Were Singing Ft. Marina Herlop
C3. Try For Me Ft. Eden Samara
C4. Tired Of Me
D1. Speechless Ft. George Riley
D2. Disjointed (Feeling Like A Kid Again)
D3. I’m Trying To Love Myself
D4. Saying Goodbye Ft. Contour

(CD BONUS TRACK : Scepticism With Joy Ft. Mouse On The Keys)

Made during summer 2020, Loraine James’ second Hyperdub album, ‘Reflection’, is a turbulent expression of inner-space, laid out in unflinching honesty, offering gentle empathy and bitter-sweet hope. ‘Reflection’ further develops a unique pop sensibility realised on last year’s ‘Nothing EP’, while tones of Drill and R&B seep through into this collection too. In contrast to the brash splashes of 2019’s ‘For You And I’ LP and the grimey anger of ‘Nothing’, ‘Reflection’ is pared-down and confident, taking the listener through how last year felt as a young black queer woman in a world that has suddenly stopped moving, the arc of the album peppered with Loraine's diaristic confessions.

Starting positively with the gentle pop-trap of ‘Built To Last’ ft Xzavier Stone, into the bumpy instrumental of ‘Let's Go’, the album switches tone with ‘Simple Stuff’, followed by regular collaborator Le3 bLACK amplifying Loraine's vulnerability on the downcast drill of ‘Black Ting’, then ‘Insecure Behaviour And Fuckery’ is a techno glide which pairs Nova's confrontational plea for respect, delivered in monotone autotune, against deep Drexciyan chords. With Baths on vocals, the weightlessness of ‘On The Lake Outside’ soothes numb feelings, and Eden Samara explores the shadow world of anxious dreams on the airy R&B of ‘Running Like That’. Closing track ‘We're Building Something New’ with Manchester rapper Iceboy Violet brings the album together, confidently suggesting a new world is in reach. ‘Reflection’ is a brave step forward for a unique and creative 21st century musician

TRACK LISTING

A1. Built To Last (ft Xzavier Stone)
A2. Let's Go
A3. Simple Stuff
A4. Black Ting (ft Le3 BLack)
A5. Insecure Behaviour And Fuckery (ft Nova)
A6. Self Doubt (Leaving The Club Early)

B1. On The Lake Outside (ft Baths)
B2. Reflection B3. Change
B4. Running Like That (ft Eden Samara)
B5. We're Building Something New (ft Iceboy Violet)

It's hard to speak about unspeakable things - violence, abuse, addiction and abandonment; especially when these things rupture the innocence of childhood.

But one of the merits of Luke Jenner's new solo project is that he not only speaks of these things but he does so in a way that wrests them from the dark, small cubicle of shame, placing them firmly in the light so that we, as listeners and fellow survivors, can start to maybe walk with our head high. In this moment of empty pop music séance, the scope and ends of this project - to try and help people - feels almost revelatory.

Revelatory is the right word here in that it carries with it, of course, the sense of religious or spiritual insight. As front man for the legendary post-punk NYC band, The Rapture (a band name that already attests to Jenner's abiding faith and interest in the force of spiritual reckoning), Jenner has never shied away from his belief in God, community, family - all as a means of recovering the fractured x of y. "How Deep is Your Love", "Grace"… But while those The Rapture records flirted with these themes, Jenner's album “1” fully embraces them. “1” is commanding yet generous in its vision. It follows Jenner's personal history - from the trauma of child abuse in his family to the happiness he seeks in his own family now and in the community of survivors that sustain him - within the context of rock history and the music that sustained him there as well.

"All Things Must Pass" by George Harrison (also invested in spiritual belonging) comes to mind, as does Daniel Johnston, who literally heard voices which he put to music. Jenner's project too insists on polyvocality, from his own voice that splits between utter pain and despair to almost spiraling, nectarean harmonies, to the community of family, friends and sponsors that Jenner samples and adds to the record like a church choir.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Wonderful Experience
2. All My Love
3. If There Is A God
4. Asshole
5. I’m Still Alive
6. What Do I Dream About
7. You’re Not Alone
8. You Know You’re In Love When You’re In Love
9. Die One Day
10. About To Explode

the remarkable account of Paul McCartney's time in Wings and ascent into solo stardom, by renowned music biographer Lesley-Ann JonesNo comprehensive biography of the time Paul McCartney spent with Wings has ever been published, until now. A period often dismissed as McCartney's 'missing' years, in fact the band lasted for a decade: two years longer than the Beatles, and wielded such impact and influence that they at one point achieved the status as the biggest live band in the world. Band on the Run sold over 6 million copies worldwide and became EMI's biggest selling album of the 1970s in the UK.

Music biographer Lesley-Ann Jones has met McCartney many times and knew his late wife Linda. Here she shows how crucial Linda was to the evolution of Wings - at great cost to herself given the ridicule she was to encounter. But Linda saw that McCartney needed the band in the wake of the break up of the Beatles.

Drawing on extensive interviews and her trademark meticulous research, the author shows how this period in Paul McCartney's career was to become crucial not only to his development as an artist, but to his very survival.

Christine McVie - born Christine Perfect - was the quintessentially English rock star, as both the backbone and the beating heart of Fleetwood Mac. Straddling the band's incarnations to achieve global fame alongside Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham and John McVie, the classic line-up, she wrote and performed many of their greatest hits. As famous for their occasionally life-threateningly decadent lifestyles as for their musical brilliance, they were held together by this strong, constant figure whom they dubbed 'the mother' of the band.

It was Christine who contained the flock, regrouped them when they went AWOL, focused and blended their talents and always got them back on track. And yet, as the 'engine' of the band during their Rumours era - an album which charted the complete romantic disintegration within the band - Christine's personal life was every bit as tempestuous as those of her bandmates, weathering affairs, divorce, addiction and fiery passion, all of which bled into her now iconic song-writing. Told by an author who herself was friends with Christine, and with new contributions from those who knew her best, Songbird offers a true insider's view, and deep psychological insight into Christine as a both a woman and a musician - the first, the only, the ultimate picture of a rock legend and a national treasure.

Lucy Kaplansky has developed into a songwriter of great humanity and vision and this is, without doubt, her best album yet. Revealing and intimate and a real joy to return to again and again.

Lola Kirke stands out like a flash of neon magenta in this nostalgic landscape of Americana tin-types. While many of her singing, songwriting peers look further back for inspiration, Kirke’s sweet spot is decidedly in the excess of the 80’s. Anyone only familiar with Kirke through her on-screen performances (Mistress America, Gone Girl, or Mozart in the Jungle) may be surprised by just how dazzling Lola-playing-Lola can be. Just a few lines into “Better than Any Drug,“ it’s clear no written role could reveal more of Kirke’s wit, lust for life, and sense of humor than this record captures with the help of producer Austin Jenkins (White Denim, Leon Bridges).

Scheduled for release in April 2022, the 10-song sophomore full-length album showcases Kirke’s unselfconscious, country-twinged vocals alongside a brightly colored candy shop of glam-twang guitar riffs, department store tv commercial synth stylings, and swooping, lilting, unabashedly feminine background vocals. Lady For Sale channels a high-spirited insouciance that feels invigorating and familiar, decidedly more easy-going and fun-loving than what we’ve come to expect from its genre (and the world in general) in recent years. This is a party you’ll want to attend.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE 1
1. Broken Families
2. If I Win
3. Better Than Any Drug
4. Lady For Sale
5. Pink Sky

SIDE 2
1. Stay Drunk
2. The Crime
3. Fall In Love Again
4. No Secrets
5. By Your Side

Lily We Need To Talk Now is a record Konigsberg has been slowly chipping away at since 2016, revising and re-recording the songs over the years. The eleven-track collection is her first proper full length, following her anthology of EPs and unreleased tracks, The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now, released in 2021 by Wharf Cat Records. The new record is catchy the whole way through, like much of her poppy and plainspoken indie rock output that’s made her a fixture of the NYC underground in recent years. Her voice twists and turns and dashes around her clever wordplay in new ways; there are hints of power-pop, pop-punk, and downtempo introspection, all dotted with easter eggs of winking humor.

True to its title, this collection of songs is like a check in with herself. “On “That’s The Way I Like It,” with backing vocals from longtime collaborator Paco Cathcart, she reflects on the feeling of “struggling with someone you love, and how you can get all evil about it, like a brat, like a baby.” On “Proud Home”, she sings one of the records boldest earworm hooks (“You’ve got a lot of fucking things to be proud of!”) and tries to comfort a friend who has a crush on her mom. “I really cracked myself up with the lyrics,” she says. “It’s kind of a Stacey’s Mom riff. I decided it’s a dedication to Adam Schlesinger [of Fountains of Wayne].” “Roses, Again” is a new take on a familiar Lily tune (originally on Good Time Now) re-recorded at the request of her current live band, who have evolved the song on the road.

TRACK LISTING

1 - Beauty
2 - Sweat Forever
3 - That’s The Way I Like It
4 - Alone
5 - Don’t Be Lazy With Me
6 - Proud Home
7 - Hark
8 - Bad Boy
9 - Roses, Again
10 - Goodbye
11 - True

A musical omnibus, ‘The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now’ is the first widely distributed Lily Konigsberg physical release, as well as the first vinyl treatment for EPs ‘Good Time Now’ and ‘4 Picture Tear’.

The collection loosely parallels the melancholic narrative behind the latter, where a mental break triggered Konigsberg’s depersonalized sense of her past self. Of the ‘4 Picture Tear’ EP Konigsberg says, “I would look at this photo booth picture I took with Matt [Norman] and cry because I thought I was looking at the person I used to be in that picture and that that person was gone.” In retrospect, these EPs feel like distinctive vignettes of Konigsberg’s progression as a songwriter, each version of her past self-tethered by an invisible thread to the present through musical alliances and fervent introspection.

‘Owe Me’, a song Konigsberg never felt fit on any of her previous releases, now serves as an opening curtain call. “Thank you all for coming to my show,” Konigsberg says to an invisible audience’s applause, “If you didn’t know, now you certainly know.” It’s a transportive moment that combines Konigsberg’s patient steps into the underground pop limelight with her exceptional ability to connect with a diverse and talented cohort of creatives.

One third of egalitarian art-punk outfit Palberta, the Brooklyn-born and-based Lily Konigsberg has occupied her time with music since her early childhood. “Basically I was born and immediately started wanting to be a rock star,” she says.

“Even before she became a fixture of the New York underground, Lily Konigsberg was staking out her place in local music.” - Pitchfork (Rising Artist, 2020)

“A crisp, catchy, and concise bit of 90s-indebted indie rock” - Stereogum

“The freewheeling, flitting melodies underline the precision of Konigsberg’s songwriting: She knows what she wants to say and she is methodical about how much to reveal.” - Pitchfork

“Warm and direct but tough to grasp, untraceable” - Tiny Mix Tapes

TRACK LISTING

Owe Me
To Hold It
Rock And Sin
7 Smile
At Best A #3
It’s Just Like All The Clouds
I Said
Summer In The City
Good Time (demo)
Lily’s National Anthem
Waterfall Snake Juice
Talk To Me W. Birds
Roses
North Porsche
I Don’t Like The Name
Big Tall Grass (demo)
Opening The Day

If the Chateau Marmont could sing. This would be it. Loren Kramar’s voice vibrates with the shameless hum of a room after a celebrity exits. Ecstatic aspiration. Doubt. Proximity. Desire. The album Glovemaker is about the skins we craft to be seen by the world, and Loren reminds us that we are all in drag. All exposed. No matter what gloves we slip on.

I’m a slut for all my dreams, Loren Kramar sings with Patti Smith brashness, I’m a whore for them, I’ve got more of them. Loren’s lyrics move like tinsel, shimmering bravely, then just as quickly, curling, fragile under the spotlight. Loren has always been obsessed with fame. Not with famous people, but with the electricity that perverts attention – the crushing desire to be truly seen. And all of Loren, and this obsession, is in this album. He grew up in the Valley, forced to hide his Barbies from his father, so the closet was a gorgeous Spanish ranch house on a gilded cul-de-sac crawling with celebrities. Naturally this gay boy wanted to be a child star so his mother secretly shuttled him to tap and jazz and figure skating lessons. I’ve got hands and feet to put in the concrete, Loren croons, in “Hollywood Blvd,” a song which clangs with brawny bravado. But “Gay Angels” reminds us that Loren’s infatuation with stardom is inextricably linked with his queerness and his own desire to live outside of fear. To be famous is to be out. To be known.To be himself.

“Glovemaker has become a kind of code for art making itself. A glove as a covering or mask that follows the contours of the life beneath it. As a song and a symbol, this is an album about studying and tracing a life - and then sharing what’s there,” Loren says. And his desire to share truth feels urgent. To listen to Loren is to understand there is no choice; the songs must tear through the air right now. This very second. I see myself tearing and splitting and becoming a trampoline, he belts in “NoMan,” breaking our hearts right alongside his. Part poet, part theatrical diva, Loren loops together the tragedy of breathing on this planet, because like Eartha Kitt or Cat Stevens, Loren is at his core – an incredible story teller. This whole album is a shrine, a mantle atop a blazing fire of life, spread with the memorabilia of Loren; all of the pain and lust dazzling on unabashed view.

This is a songwriter’s album. Loren’s lyrics are all his, and you feel itwith every bright, Maraschino-cherry-like word that falls from his lips.Like a lover, You scream and I shatter, I hit like a hammer, Loren sings.And we get to feel what Loren feels. We live in his brain, riding hisgenre bending emotions, on a wave of modern pop. And the songs lift,they are anthems of belief, “Hollywood Blvd,” “I’m a Slut,” “Euphemism,”“Gay Angels,” are all odes to triumphing over the corroding powers offear and doubt. And on this ride, Loren’s voice is the guard rail, evereager to stretch and transform, belting, talk-singing, multiplying, keepingus safe.

Glovemaker slaps and soars. The album is an ecstatic overture to loveand loneliness, to dreams and promises, to everything Los Angelesdangles. Buckle up. Loren knows how to craft space, how to move usthrough darkened bars, strobing arenas, beige carpeted bungalows andyellow lit highways. How do you like LA? Loren asks. I hope you love it.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hollywood Blvd
2. Euphemism
3. I'm A Slut
4. Like A Lover
5. Gay Angels
6. Glovemaker
7. Birthday Thursday
8. Whatever Happens
9. 15 Years
10. Oh To Be
11. No Man

On their new album ‘II’, L.A. Takedown align the moody grandeur of a film score with the pure melodicism of pop. Led by Los Angeles-based composer / multi-instrumentalist Aaron M. Olson, the seven-piece band deliver a guitar-driven take on synth-pop that’s inspired its own genre.

‘II’ ultimately leaves it to the listener to dream up their own imaginary movie for each beautifully sprawling track to live in. At turns ethereal and frenzied, groove-heavy and narcotic, ‘II’ is lush with harmonized guitar leads and inspiration from the likes of King Crimson’s Robert Fripp, Japanese composer Tori Kudo and Nigerian musician King Sunny Adé, giving way to an intricately textured sound laced with jagged beats and serene washes of synth.

Where L.A. Witch's self-titled album oozed with vibe and atmosphere, with the whole mix draped in reverb, sonically placing the band in some distant realm, broadcast across some unknown chasm of time, Play With Fire comes crashing out of the gate with a bold, brash, in-your-face rocker “Fire Starter.” The authoritative opener is a deliberate mission statement.

“Play With Fire is a suggestion to make things happen,” says Sanchez. “Don’t fear mistakes or the future. Take a chance. Say and do what you really feel, even if nobody agrees with your ideas. These are feelings that have stopped me in the past. I want to inspire others to be freethinkers even if it causes a little burn.” And by that line of reasoning, “Fire Starter” becomes a call to action, an anthem against apathy. From there, the album segues into the similarly bodacious rocker “Motorcycle Boy” a feisty love song inspired by classic cinema outlaws like Mickey Rourke, Marlon Brando, and Steve McQueen. At track three, we hear L.A. Witch expand into new territories as “Dark Horse” unfurls a mixture of dustbowl folk, psychedelic breakdowns, and fire-and-brimstone organ lines. And from there, the band only gets more adventurous.

Play With Fire is a bold new journey that retains L.A. Witch’s siren-song mystique, nostalgic spirit, and contemporary cool. Despite the stylistic breadth of the record, there is a unifying timbre across the album’s nine tracks, as if the trio of young musicians is bound together as a collective of old souls tapping into the sounds of their previous youth.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fire Starter
2. Motorcycle Boy
3. Dark Horse
4. I Wanna Lose
5. Gen-Z
6. Sexorexia
7. Maybe The Weather
8. True Believers
9. Starred

The Mysticisms crew is back with a fifth instalment in their Deplete series and this time it takes the form of music from one of the inspirations for the series itself, namely the not-so-well-known but nevertheless influential Digi Dub label. It was headed up by Lee Berwick and echoed the sound of South London squat parties in the 80s and early 90s. Berwick himself got into music production later on and built a studio around the AKAI sampler before hooking up with other like-minded people to create the LZ Diesel alias. Opener 'For The Love Of' is a timeless digi-stepper with dancehall stylings, super sweet vocals and bongos tumbling freely. 'Suicidial Dub' is more busy and percussive with screwy synth energy and 'Skunk Funk' is a slow-motion melon-melter.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Super strong set of speaker busting dub-step / dancehall hybrids that'll have yer teeth rattling out their sockets in no time.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. For The Love Of
2. Bad Boys

Side 2
1. Suicidal Dub
2. Skunk Funk

Luminaries from rock's thriving post-punk, and hardcore scenes, guitarist Frank Iero (My Chemical Romance), guitarist Travis Stever (Coheed and Cambria), vocalist Anthony Green (Circa Survive), bassist Tim Payne (Thursday), and drummer Tucker Rule (Thursday/Yellowcard) have joined forces to create L.S. DUNES.

Unshackled from the expectations and aesthetics of their already successful careers, L.S. DUNES super-charge their heavy anthems with punk energy into a sound unlike anything that has come before it. From the gripping, theatrical opener "2022," and the crunchy, frenetic earworm "Like Forever," to the pummeling, expansive "Permanent Rebellion,” and the disarming album closer, "Sleep Cult," Past Lives is an electrifying and emotional ride.

Past Lives was produced by Will Yip (Turnstile, Circa Survive, Quicksand) and recorded at his Studio 4 Recording in Philadelphia, PA. Going deep on issues of fearlessness, dependency, nonconformity, and impermanence, writing for the album was a collaborative effort

TRACK LISTING

1. 2022 (4:30)
2. Antibodies (3:29)
3. Grey Veins (4:26)
4. Like Forever (3:20)
5. Blender (4:29)
6. Past Lives (4:10)
7. It Takes Time (3:26)
8. Bombsquad (3:51)
9. Permanant Rebellion (3:13)
10. Grifter (4:42)
11. Sleep Cult (3:45)

Lush pop, with strong orchestration and entrancing vocals. Includes contributions form members of Joan Of Arc and Pinetop 7.

A stellar combination of the talents of The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe, cinematic femme fatale Emmanuelle Seigner and ice-cool pop provocateurs The Limiñanas (Lionel and Marie Liminana), L’Epee transcend artistic and traditional borders.

“We are living in very culturally insular times, so it feels really good to be swimming against the tide,” says Anton of the band’s bi-lingual, cross-continental approach.“There’s something really positive about branching out, collaborating and taking risks.”

Far from being defeated by a world seemingly regressing into turmoil, L’ Epee’s strength comes from a long history of challenging the status quo. From Anton’s legendary battles with ‘The Man’ with The Brian Jonestown Massacre to Emmanuelle’s eclectic screen career to The Liminana’s community-minded ethos- setting up their own record shop, L.G.D.C, and promoting gigs by the cream of the world’s garage rock scene ( New Bomb Turks, Oblivians, Fleshtones, Revelators) - they share a fierce intelligence and an outsider aesthetic which, over the decades, has been sharpened to a razor’s edge. Fitting, then, that their name translates as The Sword.
“It came to me in a dream,” explains Anton. “I woke up and there it was, ‘The Sword’. Someone told me there had already been a band with that name so I flipped it into French. It suits the band because we’re united in a common cause.”

This pent-up creative energy has been channelled into their extraordinary debut album, Diabolique. Named in tribute to Mario Bava’s 1968 cult classic ‘Danger: Diabolik’, it’s a musical masterclass where elements of garage, ye-ye, sleaze rock, cult soundtracks, sci-fi, spaghetti westerns and girl-group pop noir are combined with the cut-and-thrust zeal of a band bursting with ideas and energy. All delivered by Emmanuelle in a sultry Gallic drawl which will send a frisson of recognition through anyone familiar with her iconic roles in, among many others, Frantic, Venus In Fur and Bitter Moon (all directed by her husband, Roman Polanski). “I’ve loved rock music since I was a kid,” she says, namechecking Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground and The Stooges as key influences. “I always wanted to be a musician, but it wasn’t so easy in France as I couldn’t meet the right people. Then I became a model and then very quickly after that I did Frantic and became an actress. It worked for me, but in my heart I always wanted to do music.”

Having asked close friend Bertrand Belin to provide lyrics for three further tracks (‘Grande', ‘On Dansait Avec Elle’ and ‘Lou’), the trio set to work at The Limiñanas’ studio in Cabestany, Southern France, in November 2017 -with Emmanuelle, ever the perfectionist, fine-tuning them the following February. Satisfied with the results, the trio flew to Berlin to hook up with Anton and (Liverpudlian engineer) Andrea Wright at his Cobra Studio in Berlin Utilising a treasure trove of vintage equipment (“I’ve got way more ‘60’s gear than The Beatles and The Stones had, I’m mad for that stuff”, explains the BJM man), Anton set to work, re-recording the drums with Marie and adding -and deleting- tracks so that the shifting layers of sound suited the mood of each individual track. “I’ve got plenty of other ways to express myself, so I really enjoyed taking a backseat, creatively,” he explains. “Lionel is such a great composer. There’s a very visual sense to his songs and I was very conscious of not stepping on his intentions too much. There were some really interesting sonic things I would add, like a track of the craziest feedback, to give a song a weird ambient quality. It’s the role that Brian Jones had in the Stones, or Warren (Ellis) has in Nick Cave’s band. Musically, they’re all over the map, but they make things happen.” “It was so inspiring to see Anton work,” says Emmanuelle of seeing him in action. “When we sent the songs to him they were good, but they were nothing like how it ended up. He’s so talented, like a genius. He made the whole thing darker, more interesting and more psychedelic.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: With some of the greatest and most unique voices in modern psychedelia coming together to record, the results were never going to be anything short of brilliant, and this heady lsyergic collection has exceeded that already. Hazy, all-encompassing and beautifully balanced, with drones and jams being brilliantly balanced with undeniable grooves and feel. A brilliant outing.

TRACK LISTING

1) Une Lune étrange
2) Lou
3) Dreams
4) La Brigade Des Maléfices
5) On Dansait Avec Elle
6) Ghost Rider
7) Grande
8) Springfield 61
9) Un Rituel Inhabituel
10) Last Picture Show

This is the debut single release from L’Epee, the band are Emmaunelle Seigner (Ultra Orange & Emmanuelle), Anton Newcombe (The Brian Jonestown Massacre) & Lionel & Marie Liminana (The Liminanas). Recorded in Cabestany (France) and Berlin at Anton’s Cobra Studio, this three track 12” single comes in deluxe packaging & precedes the full length album released in June this year. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: If you're a fan of BJM's psych swagger and The Limiñanas' French charm this summery, fuzzy stomper will be right up your street. Love it!

TRACK LISTING

A1) Dreams  
B1) Last Picture Show  
B2) Dreams (extended A-go-go)

Formed in Montreal in 1967, L'Infonie lasted until 1974 - seven years of pure mayem that gave birth to four long players as well as various multi-media shows built as way-out happenings. Lead by composer Walter Boudreau and poet / singer, Raoul Duguay, this very loose collective contained up to 33 artists from various backgrounds coming together as one big avant-garde adventure still unsurpassed in Québec. Eclectic music mixing free-jazz, rock, classical and experimental electronic music. If you like some of the wackiness of Tropicalia then you'll need to investigate this!

The Left Side is the latest body of work from the Iggy Pop-endorsed teens since the release of their acclaimed second EP We Aren’t Getting Out But Tonight We Might in summer 2022. With Saul at the creative helm, The Left Side is a mature and cerebral body of work with Saul once again writing and producing the entire EP (with co-production by Ali Chant (Yard Act, Katy J Pearson, Dry Cleaning) on ‘Conman’ and ‘ITSA’). Written in Saul’s bedroom, the EP is a retrospective insight into the young band’s journey so far as they tie up their teenage years.

A coming of age saga, the EP acts as a vehicle for Saul to dive into the psyche behind emotional evolution, and to unpack the complexities of maturity and the ability to say goodbye to the past. These themes present themselves not only in the songs, but right down to the title of the EP itself - which refers to the fact that the left side of the brain is responsible for comprehension.

Summarising the EP, Saul says: “It’s the closest we have been to knowing what picture we want to paint. It’s another window into the musical space we wish to explore, yet I think we’re closer to having our sound. I think the project signifies the end of a section in our lives, moving out from the haze of the moment and reflecting on our teenage years and all its chaos with more understanding.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Entitled
2. Conman
3. The Dance You Sell
4. Puppy
5. ITSA
6. What A Time To Be Alive
7. Lily Of The Valley

Welcome to the second instalment of the collaboration between The Reflex's Discodays label and Because Music in Paris, remixing gems from the Zagora catalogue.

Created in 1975 by producer Daniel Vangarde (father of Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter), the Zagora label created some of the most exciting disco music in France, ranging from cult underground artists Who’s Who and Starbow, to massive international hits by the Gibson Brothers, la Compagnie Créole and Black Blood.

On this 12’’, we’ve got two first time ever remixes from La Compagnie Creole, one of the most successful acts in France during the 80’s who expertly mixed tropical sounds from the West Indies with pop and disco to staggering record sales.

With tapes thought to be long lost, a chance find of stems from two of their songs not only makes this release possible, but also perfectly showcases two sides of the band with ‘Le Bal Masqué’ which was a huge hit commercially in 1984 and ‘La Nuit Des Requins’ which is probably their least known and most underground track, both masterminded by songwriters Daniel Vangarde and Jean Kluger.

‘Le Bal Masqué’, now devoid of its cheesiest sections, puts the focus on that infectious groove adorned with percussions and electronics but with its singalong chorus intact and stronger than ever. A guaranteed tropical disco floor filler at 122bpm, regardless of your knowledge of the French language!

‘La Nuit Des Requins’, an ode to session musicians found regularly in Paris studios back in the day, gets a complete overhaul by putting the exhilarating drums and killer bass line of the original to the fore into a brand new 124bpm version that is destined to rock the most discerning dance floors the world over.

Released on 180g vinyl with custom artwork on card sleeve designed by Al Kent / Million Doller Disco. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Totally tropical disco tastes from the new school master slicer-dicer - The Reflex. Amazing source material, top drawer snips = pure satisfaction for the dancefloor.

TRACK LISTING

A. Le Bal Masqué (The Reflex Revision) 
B. La Nuit Des Requins (The Reflex Revision) 

All of us carry a piece of where we’re from with us, but these parcels of fallow land often in a uniquely mysterious way become the prey that nourishes our aspirations. Agnès Gayraud a refined thinker by day that transforms into la Féline at night left Tarbes many years ago in search of greener pastures. After making a name for herself with Adieu l’Enfance (2014), Triomphe (2017), and Vie Future (2019), the author and musician has evolved once again.

Her latest release Tarbes reinvents the circle of life and challenges our preconceived notions. She welcomes us to her hometown with sweet and clear melodies over the backdrop of an electronic hum, reminiscent of Mark Twain classic Tom Sawyer. Tarbes is no more than a listen away. Physically prevented from returning to her hometown by the viral threat we all know all too well, Agnès found her way back with a small Electone home organ. The constraints of off-peak hours that called for some DIY savvy, slowly but surely, roused her spirit. With a drum machine, a bass and a guitar, she succeeded in making the young girl inside her smile again. With 13 songs and just as many adventures Tarbes is a concept album that tells the story of a young woman’s formative years, as spent in her hometown. The returning hymn doesn’t only imprint nostalgia, it paints the full emotional portrait of a town. Because for Agnès, Tarbes is not just her theater, but her whole world, showing how fiercely protective she is of her hometown in the song Solazur. Under a magnifying glass of emotion, and with the sentimental testimony that is La Panthère des Pyrénées, the artiste shows us the skeletons in our own closets. Tarbes, more than a brief stopover in a rail journey to the coast, broaches issues that touch on abandonment, desertification, aging and redevelopment that many French towns and cities face today. Alexandre Guirkinger’s photographs serve as album art that illustrates this strangely unique singularity. While fine-tuning this collection of stories, in an oh-so-intimate album where solitude rips away the mask of confidence, Agnès found solace in uniting with other spirits.

For 3 songs Tarbes, Jeanne d’Albret and Fum, inspired by an Occitan poem of Louisa Paulin (1888-1944), she invited the young voices of Conservatoire Henri Duparc a building she knows intimately, despite never feeling allowed to enter as a child to breathe the energy of their adolescence into this record. She also collaborated with Lyon’s own François Virot to imbue his delicate rhythms into her work, as well as Belgian guitarist Mocke Depret. Lastly, La Féline entrusted the last production stages to her eternal partner in music, Xavier Thiry, with Stéphane “Alf” Briat on the mixing board. The final piece has a complex tranquility, surrounded by non-verbality, with Jeanne d’Albret, Louisa Paulin and the Pyrénées safeguarding Agnes’ secrets. With the calm reassurance of her metamorphoses, La Féline delivers a slice of silence to her town, serving as both her cradle and theater. Tarbes’ Théâtre des Nouveautés is where Agnès Gayraud, La Féline, has decided to present Tarbes to its residents on October 14, 2022. While “nouveautés” evokes newness, this theater is reminiscent of a future which is already outdated, where modernity is only vague and fictional, carrying reminders of French haute-kitsch accordionist Yvette Horner, whose parents were the caretakers of what was then called the Cani Eldorado a bastion of virtue through the 30s, with its lineup of Catholic films. However, by the 60s, it would have become a temple of pornographic cinema. Tarbes, “Les Nouveautés”, end card. In the mid 90s, then 16 years old, Agnès discovered the volatile dust and the ghosts of the past that were hidden in this apostate theater. This phantom bequeathed song the teenager with the gift of her undeniable talent at her first appearance on stage a high school performance of a guitar-laden ballad sung in Spanish, a language her Andalusian mother has infused her with. On October 14, 2022, Agnès returns to the stage, bass in hand and joined by François Virot (drums), Mocke Depret (guitar), Léa Moreau (keyboard) and the Conservatoire de Tarbes singers to perform the album in its entirety.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tarbes (Retourner À)
2. Une Ville Moyenne
3. Place De Verdun
4. Va Pas Sur Les Quais De L’Adour
5. Solazur
6. Je Dansais Allongée
7. Tout Doit Disparaitre
8. Jeanne D’Albret
9. Le Garçon Sur Le Toit
10. Dancing
11. Fum
12. La Panthère Des Pyrénées
13. La Route De Pau 

Three years of musical silence resulted from three years of pandemic, as she moved home to Sweden from Berlin, putting her Masters in Pharmaceutical Science to use as managing lead of 15-20 staff in Stockholm’s hospitals. A big life change, after a decade of her Power Plant label, in a career including Mixmag breakthrough artist, a Watergate compilation, an Essential Mix, Essential New Tune collab with Sasha ‘Förbindelse’, and gigs like Creamfields, Awakenings, Watergate Berlin, Printworks London, Sub Club and many more. But the enforced hiatus allowed time to reflect: ‘It got me thinking. What music do I want people to associate with me? I had a debut album ready in 2020, but I’ve always drawn inspiration not only from music, but changing elements in my life. It’s only now I feel I have the tracks ready for the world to hear.’

TRACK LISTING

1. Sannanita
2. Slowdive
3. Your Move
4. Plastic Miami
5. Chian
6. Free My Mind
7. Väsen
8. Stay With Me 
9. All I Ever Wanted 

‘Blood’ is an album that was inspired by Lianne’s family heritage, which is part Jamaican and part Greek. Once touring for her debut album came to a close, she headed to Jamaica with her mother for a holiday which evolved into an experience of self-discovery. Lianne enjoyed emotional reunions with long-lost relatives; embraced Kingston’s clubs; and even jammed in front of her family for the first time during a session with legendary dancehall / reggae producer Stephen McGregor. Discovering her heritage inspired Lianne to reflect on the connections between now and then, which in turn sparked the songs which would become her future. Simply, “everything seemed to have a lot more clarity, and I really wanted to speak about it.” Lyrically, the songs that feature on the album are almost all related to “the feeling of who you are and where you come from.” Sonically, ‘Blood’ is a collection that shakes, shimmies and swings with Jamaican grooves with Lianne taking inspiration from the nation’s love of grooves, rhythms and syncopation. In addition to Stephen McGregor, ‘Blood’ features a rich collection of collaborators. Produced by Adele / FKA twigs collaborator Paul Epworth and founded upon an instrumental recording by Ninja Tune trio The Invisible, the first single ‘Unstoppable’ is a song that Lianne wrote to help to repair a relationship that she had ended.

The sixteenth release in the LAMC 7” Series.

TRACK LISTING

A Side: La Luz – Believe My Eyes
B Side: Scully – Don’t Want That

Los Angeles has often been described as a “dream factory”--both a mecca where dreamers converge to pursue long-held aspirations, and a topography of hallucinogenic contradictions: enchanting tangerine sunsets diffused by smog, crystal-clutching spiritualists mingling with deep-pocketed narcissists, rows of scenic palms competing with garish billboards for commuters’ attention. It was against this backdrop that the four members of La Luz--singer/guitarist Shana Cleveland, drummer Marian Li Pino, keyboardist Alice Sandahl, and bassist Lena Simon—conceived of Floating Features, the band’s third studio album. For this, their most ambitious release yet, La Luz consulted landscapes both physical and psychological. References to dreams abound on Floating Features. “Loose Teeth” catalyzes nightmare fuel into a propulsive, intentionally-disorienting collision of honeyed harmonies and Takeshi Terauchi-esque jet-streams of distorted surf guitar. “Mean Dream” unsurprisingly mines dreamstate imagery, and the lyrics and melody for “Walking Into the Sun” actually came to Cleveland During a particularly-vivid night of deep sleep. Looming over the album’s Coterie of surreal figures (gargantuan cicadas, a monstrous “Creature,” The Sun King, aliens, the titular “Lonely Dozer”) is the magnificent “Greed Machine,” a skulking, insatiable engine of consumption-Nathanael West’s “business of dreams” fearsomely manifested. Only La Luz could conjure up Floating Features’ Leone-on-LSD vibes, and the album finds the L.A. band at the height of their powers--golden rebels in a golden dream.

TRACK LISTING

01. Floating Features 2:15
02. Cicada 3:13
03. Loose Teeth 2:49
04. Mean Dream 3:36
05. California Finally 3:23
06. The Creature 3:30
07. Golden One 4:16
08. Lonely Dozer 3:17
09. Greed Machine 4:21
10. Walking Into The Sun 2:47
11. Don’t Leave Me On The Earth 2:37

Seattle’s La Luz recorded their debut EP, Damp Face, in a small trailer on a hot August day. But barring the inevitable “no-AC-in-the-van” summer tour calamity, La Luz runs cool. Their brand of coolness isn’t about distance or affect; it’s a mood, and—sue me, but I’m about to totally rip off Zelda Fitzgerald: Something about this music vibrates to the dusky, dreamy smell of dying moons and shadows.

In Spanish, La Luz means “light” and that’s the perfect thing to evoke when your songs give the illusion of veering in the opposite direction. But lift out most any lyric—which is a good excuse to give a closer listen to the delicate, four-part harmonies that are fast becoming the band’s signature—and you’ll find that the aches and pains of love and loss, of living in a world where no foothold is ever a promise—all this is delivered with a nuanced dose of perfectly timed exhilaration, like the whole thing might just be worth it in the end.

Last spring, La Luz returned to that steamy trailer park to record It’s Alive – the much-anticipated follow up to Damp Face – with their friend and engineer Johnny Goss. From the first get-psyched drum roll and eerie chords of “Sure As Spring”, the dinged-up pop gem that opens the album, the rest moves like a slow drive on a dangerous road, slinking and bending as the terrain shifts. On “What Good Am I?”, the lead vocals, and the swirl of harmonies that surround it, recall the Spartan haze of Mazzy Star’s misty-eyed super hit. Smack in the middle is the title track. “It’s Alive” is a jangly rocker with a spooky refrain, oodles of ooohs, and a marauding narrative that nails down the misty logic of the rest of the album. Two instrumentals, “Sunstroke” and “Phantom Feelings”, showcase the band’s beach jam surf chops, and fall perfectly between the chilled out heartache that surrounds them.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sure As Spring
2. All The Time
3. Morning High
4. What Good Am I?
5. Sunstroke
6. It?s Alive
7. Big Big Blood
8. Call Me In The Day
9. Pink Slime
10. Phantom Feelings
11. You Can Never Know

On their self-titled fourth album, La Luz launch themselves into a new realm of emotional intimacy for a collection of songs steeped in the mysteries of the natural world and the magic of human chemistry that has found manifestation in the musical ESP between guitarist and songwriter Shana Cleveland, bassist Lena Simon, and keyboardist Alice Sandahl. To help shape La Luz, the band found a kindred spirit in producer Adrian Younge. Though primarily known for his work with hip-hop, soul, and jazz acts, Younge saw in La Luz a shared vision that transcended genre.

“We both create music with the same attitude, and that’s what I love about them,” he says. “They are never afraid to be risky and their style is captivating. It was an honor to work with them.” The result is an album that is both the most naturalistic and psychedelic of the band’s career. All the elements of classic La Luz are still present—the lush harmonies, the impeccable musicianship, the gorgeous melodies—but it’s a richer, earthier iteration, replete with inorganic sounds that mimic the surreality of nature—the humming of invisible bugs, the atmospheric sizzle of a hot day. After spending the last few years living in rural northern California, Cleveland’s lyrics have become more grounded, less interested in traveling to other dimensions than in peeking behind the curtain of this one. With sounds ranging from ghostly electric guitar shimmers, charging fuzz-guitar rock, soulful organ-driven dream-funk, galactic synths, and breezy ‘70s folk-pop, La Luz is an album that celebrates love- of music, of friendship, of life in all its forms. - Mariana Timony. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's a beautiful new LP from Shana Cleveland's La Luz, swimming in nostalgic 70's psychedelia, with wandering percussion and soaring vocal melodies, bringing to mind the Beatles circa Sgt. Pep or acid folk of the late 60's but with a keenly realised modern production sensibility. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

1. In The Country
2. The Pines
3. Watching Cartoons
4. Oh, Blue
5. Goodbye Ghost
6. Yuba Rot
7. Metal Man
8. Lazy Eyes And Dune
9. Down The Street
10. I Won't Hesitate
11. Here On Earth
12. Spider House

“I was in a dream, but now I can see that change is the only law.”

With a credo adapted from science fiction author Octavia E. Butler, an album title from a collection of metaphysical poetry, and an expansion in consciousness brought on by personal crisis, guitarist and songwriter Shana Cleveland learns to embrace a changing world with unconditional love on 'News of the Universe', the new full-length from California rock band La Luz.

'News of the Universe' is a record born of calamity, a work of dark, beautiful psychedelia reflecting Cleveland’s experience of having her world blown apart by a breast cancer diagnosis just two years after the birth of her son. It’s also a portrait of a band in flux, marking the first appearance for drummer Audrey Johnson and the final ones from longtime members bassist Lena Simon and keyboardist Alice Sandahl, whose contributions add a bittersweet edge to a record that is both elegy for an old world and cosmic road map to a strange new one.

But is there any band in the world more suited to capturing the chaos of change in all its messy beauty than La Luz? Formed by Cleveland in 2012, La Luz is beloved for their ability to balance bedlam and bliss, each new record another fine-tuning of the band’s mix of swaggering riffs with angelic vocals borrowed from doo-wop and folk; a band so reliably great that it makes the huge step forward in confidence and sheer musicality that is 'News of the Universe' all the more formidable. Cleveland, also a writer and painter, has developed into a truly original songwriter with her own canon of haunted psychedelia. Yet if Cleveland has spent years writing songs about ghosts, what lurks in the shadows of 'News of the Universe' is nothing less than death itself. “There are moments on this album that sound to me like the last frantic confession before an asteroid destroys the earth,” says Cleveland.

The powerful sense of openness that permeates 'News of the Universe' is at least partially due to the fact that it is a record made entirely by women—from the performing, writing, and producing all the way through to the recording, engineering, and mastering. Working with producer Maryam Qudos (Spacemoth), the all-female environment allowed Cleveland to feel safe tapping into difficult places and expressing hard emotions women are socialized to suppress.

Unashamedly vulnerable, unabashedly feminine, and undeniably triumphant, 'News of the Universe' is another knockout record from a band so reliably great that it has perhaps led people to overlook how pioneering La Luz really are: women of color in indie music forging their own path by following their own artistic star into galaxies beyond current musical trends, always led by an earnest belief in the cosmic power of love and a great riff. Never is that more true than on 'News of the Universe', which might be La Luz’s most brutal record to date but also their most blissful.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: La Luz have always crafted a beautifully heady noise, somewhere between the rich psychedelic freakouts of the 60's and 70's and airy modern indie music, but it's on 'News Of The Universe' that their tendency towards more frenetic wall-of-sound synths and slowly blooming atmospheres becomes more clear, with moments of divine peace interrupted with bold swathes of activity.

TRACK LISTING

1. Reaching Up To The Sun
2. Strange World
3. Dandelions
4. Poppies
5. Good Luck With Your Secret
6. Always In Love
7. Close Your Eyes
8. I'll Go With You
9. Blue Moth Cloud Shadow
10. News Of The Universe
11. Moon In Reverse
12. Blue Jay

Seattle "surf noir" band La Luz returns with the anticipated follow-up to their breakout 2013 debut album It's Alive. Recorded in a makeshift surf shop studio with producer Ty Segall, Weirdo Shrine is a noisier, more energized effort.

For most, a brush with death would be cause for retreat, reflection, and reluctance, but Seattle band La Luz found something different in it: resilience. Having survived a high-speed highway collision shortly after releasing their 2013 debut LP It’s Alive, La Luz, despite lasting trauma, returned to touring with a frequency and tirelessness that put their peers to shame. When it came time to record Weirdo Shrine, the goal was to capture the band’s restless live energy and commit it to tape.

In early 2015, Cleveland and Co. adjourned to a surf shop in San Dimas, California where, with the help of producer/engineer Ty Segall, they realized this vision. Tracking most of the album live in shared quarters, La Luz chose to leave in any happy accidents and spur-of-the-moment flourishes that occurred while recording. The resulting album is a natural evolution of the band’s self-styled “surf noir” sound—a rawer, turbo-charged sequel that charts themes of loneliness, infatuation, obsession and death across eleven tracks, from the opening credits siren song of “Sleep Till They Die” to the widescreen, receding-skyline send-off of “Oranges” and its bittersweet epilogue, “True Love Knows.”

TRACK LISTING

01. Sleep Till They Die
02. You Disappear
03. With Davey
04. Don't Wanna Be Anywhere
05. I Can't Speak
06. Hey Papi
07. I Wanna Be Alone (With You)
08. I'll Be True
09. Black Hole, Weirdo Shrine
10. Oranges
11. True Love Knows

"The year was 1996 (a guess really), when I had LA MACHINE play in our Olneyville warehouse space. It was the first time I danced in front of other people. (I was later told I was really good). I think maybe it was the first time I can recall where I stood in front of something I would consider modern psychedelic music. Not a rehash of some ghost from the past but something new to me.

We had a plethora of hardcore, improv, and noise bands in New England... but this... this was something different. It was churning and it had a haunting floor-scraping ass on it. It had hints of nausea and a cyclic simplicity that to this day I still love and listen to often. Loudly, stoned, driving through the desert, laughing. They played and my friends skated the quarter pipe my flate mate had built...it was my first successful party and I thank La Machine for it.

RICK PELLTIER and JOHN LOPER have compiled these tunes for us to release post-mortem, but who knows...maybe they will come back to haunt a warehouse near you...OoOoOoOH. Every song reminds me of when I was younger, stronger, and faster. But now I know enough to realize how lucky I actually was to have this stuff around me. And now you can too. Enjoy." -John Dwyer (4.30.13).

Lovingly remastered from the original cassette with new original art by WILLIAM KEIHN.

"The year was 1996 (a guess really), when I had LA MACHINE play in our Olneyville warehouse space. It was the first time I danced in front of other people. (I was later told I was really good). I think maybe it was the first time I can recall where I stood in front of something I would consider modern psychedelic music. Not a rehash of some ghost from the past but something new to me.

We had a plethora of hardcore, improv, and noise bands in New England... but this... this was something different. It was churning and it had a haunting floor-scraping ass on it. It had hints of nausea and a cyclic simplicity that to this day I still love and listen to often. Loudly, stoned, driving through the desert, laughing. They played and my friends skated the quarter pipe my flate mate had built...it was my first successful party and I thank La Machine for it.

RICK PELLTIER and JOHN LOPER have compiled these tunes for us to release post-mortem, but who knows...maybe they will come back to haunt a warehouse near you...OoOoOoOH. Every song reminds me of when I was younger, stronger, and faster. But now I know enough to realize how lucky I actually was to have this stuff around me. And now you can too. Enjoy." -John Dwyer (4.30.13).

Lovingly remastered from the original cassette with new original art by WILLIAM KEIHN.

La Mambanegra (The Black Mamba) is a powerful latin music orchestra. Its venom is made of 70s NYC Salsa and elements of Jamaican and Colombian music, Funk and Hip Hop. Made up of some of Colombia's finest players, La Mambanegra are the advance guard for the rebirth of Salsa, twisting the genre into the 21st Century. Inspired by the story of an anonymous and mythical hero of the Barrio Obrero, a popular neighborhood of Cali, who had a series of fantastic adventures in California, La Habana and New York, this band brings a new concept of Salsa and Latin Music to the world. But, La Mambanegra are more than just salsa. Indeed, their leader Jacobo Vélez prefers to believe that they inhabit a genre all of their own. He calls it 'break-salsa', on account of the band's easy assimilation of hip-hop, ragga and knife-sharp funk. Hailing from the Colombian salsa capital of Cali, this nine-piece have been grooving hard for four years now, their polyrhythmic, horn-heavy and thoroughly modern sound quickly earning them a devoted following across South America and beyond. Their full-throttle live shows overflowing with the absolute commitment of each band member. In Vélez, they have an exuberant, passionate leader for whom the music is an essential life force. "Salsa is sweat, sex, liquour and Pielroja cigarettes," he announces. "It's the gasoline that turns my heart on."