Thee Alcoholics are the brainchild of Rhys Llewellyn, a longtime Rocket Recordings alumnus whose background leans as heavily into the bassbin-shaking realms of electronic music as it does the tinnitus-inducing world of howling, cranked-up ampstacks. Not content with hammering drumskins for numerous floor-shaking records on the Rocket discography from the likes of Hey Colossus and The Notorious Hi-Fi Killers, he’s also been responsible for brain-rearranging electronic works under the Drmcnt and Acidliner monikers. Thee Alcoholics, however - which initially gestated as a result of Rhys himself wanting to pursue the somewhat hostile sound in his own head during lockdown - maps out a collision course between all of the above.

Cranky and cantankerous yet lysergically aligned, Feedback is mesmeric rock with swagger, warped into sci-fi shapes by the spirit and sonics of bass and soundsystem culture. The psychedelic shapes here are redolent of the ur-klang of The Fall and the monolithic lurch of The Heads, the motorik malevolence less an uplifting trip to the heavens than a drill down to the earth’s core. Discernible in these jackhammer beats, grimly murmured vocals and delirious dirges to certain heads may be the trash futurism of Chrome, the decomposed stomp of unsung legends Earl Brutus and the electro-punk attack of Six Finger Satellite, yet all of the above co-ordinates are waylaid effortlessly by a balls-out intensity and a fearsome intent on aural oblivion at all costs. Feedback may be elemental and primal, yet this is no psych comfort-blanket nor retro-fetishism, rather a repetition-driven journey headlong into intimidating territory unknown. Get on board, and strap yourselves in for a bumpy ride. 

TRACK LISTING

01. What’s The Crack? (What’s The Story?)
02. Baby I’m Your Man
03. Sweetheart
04. It’s So Easy
05. Pity Me
06. Feedback
07. You’re The Zero
08. Se23
09. Dumb & Happy

'Pickled Eggs & Sherbet' is the sole album by English electronic group The All Seeing I - the production trio of Dean Honer, Jason Buckle and Richard Barrett (aka DJ Parrot).

Part of the late nineties big beat / trip hop scene, it brought together many disparate threads of the Sheffield's music scene past (and then) present including contributions from the likes of cabaret crooner Tony Christie, Human League frontman Phil Oakey and Pulp's Jarvis Cocker.

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracklist:
1. Walk Like A Panther
2. No Return
3. Beat Goes On
4. Sweet Music
5. Mary
6. 1st Man In Space
7. Drive Safely Darling
8. Stars On Sunday
9. Big Pecker
10. I Peggio
11. I Walk
12. Happy Birthday Nicola
13. Plastic Diamond

CD Tracklist:
1. Walk Like A Panther
2. No Return
3. Beat Goes On
4. Sweet Music
5. Mary
6. 1st Man In Space
7. Drive Safely Darlin'
8. Stars On Sunday
9. Big Pecker
10. I Walk
11. I Peggio
12. Happy Birthday Nicola
13. Plastic Diamond
14. Dirty Girl
15. Airy Armpits
16. Beat Goes Wrong
17. Sweaty Walls
18. Pickled Eggs & Sherbet
19. Beat Goes On (La De Da De De Mix)
20. First Crooked Man
21. First Crooked Dub
22. I Walk Crooked
23. Return Of The Crooked Cat

On his manifold fourth album, acclaimed songwriter and visual artist Terry Allen contemplates kinship the ways sex and violence stitch and sever the ties of family, faith, and society with skewering satire and affection alike. Bloodlines compiles thematically related but disparate recordings from miscellaneous sources both theatrical and historical: two songs written for plays; two full-band reprises of selections from Juarez; the irreverent hellfire-hitchhiker-on-highway ballad “Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boy” (featuring Joe Ely); and the poignant eponymous ode to the arteries of ancestry and landscape (the debut recording of eight year-old Natalie Maines, later covered by Lucinda Williams).

Since 1970, when they met in Allen’s studio in his hometown of Lubbock, Texas, one of songwriter and visual artist Terry Allen’s great foils and friends was the sometimes cantankerous but always brilliant art critic and writer Dave Hickey, with whom he sparred on topics musical, visual, and beyond (and to whom this reissue is dedicated in memoriam, in the wake of his passing in 2021.) Hickey, a fellow Texan paddling against the currents of the hermetic New York centric art world, was an accomplished songwriter in his own right, and

he and Terry pushed each other to refine their respective practices. In 1983, the two were thick as thieves brothers in blood and Hickey’s wry but big-hearted presence haunts the history and periphery of Bloodlines, the album Terry released in June of that year.

Hickey’s commercial doubts notwithstanding, critical recognition was not in short demand. In a 1984 review of Bloodlines, the L.A. Herald Examiner called Allen “one of the most compelling American songwriters working today … making the most unique art-pop of our time,” elsewhere comparing him not only to Moon Mullican and Jerry Lee Lewis, but also to the Velvet Underground and Philip Glass (probably the first time that unlikely quartet ever appeared together in one sentence). In 1983, against all odds, such sentiments were growing in underground prominence, as Allen’s records gained a fanatical word-of-mouth following they weren’t easy to find in those days.

Recorded piecemeal at Caldwell Studios in Lubbock, in sessions spanning August 1982 through January 1983, Terry self-released it, like all his previous records, on his own Fate Records imprint. Despite his frustration with the protracted timeline and some anxiety about the correspondingly higher budget, the production on Bloodlines courtesy, once again, of master guitarist Lloyd Maines is slicker, cleaner, and more dynamic than prior efforts, and it reached a broader audience than ever before. UK label Making Waves reissued it in 1985, facilitating semi-reliable European distribution for the first time as well as a 1986 UK tour, on which the great BJ Cole filled in for Lloyd on pedal steel.

No veteran country songwriter sounds more attuned to the national mood. His songs still feel like little guidebooks for staring down a harsh universe.
– The Washington Post

It has always been a fool’s errand to frame Allen in terms of other artists there was nobody like him before he showed up, and the subsequent 40 years have been equally light on plausible peers. – Uncut

TRACK LISTING

A1. Bloodlines (I)
A2. Gimme A Ride To Heaven Boy
A3. Cantina Carlotta
A4. Ourland A5. Oh Hally Lou
B1. Oh What A Dangerous Life
B2. Manhattan Bluebird
B3. There Oughta Be A Law Against Sunny Southern California
B4. Bloodlines (II)

Recorded exactly two years after acclaimed visual artist and songwriter Terry Allen’s masterpiece Lubbock (on everything), the feral follow-up Smokin the Dummy is less conceptually focused but more sonically and stylistically unified than its predecessor it’s also rougher and rowdier, wilder and more wired, and altogether more menacingly rock and roll.

Following the 1973 Whitney Biennial, in which songwriter and visual artist Terry Allen and fellow iconic artist Horace Clifford “Cliff” Westermann both exhibited, Allen maintained a lively long-distance correspondence and exchange of artworks and music with Westermann, whose singular and highly influential art he admired enormously. In a February 1981 letter to his friend and mentor, written shortly after the late 1980 release of his third album Smokin the Dummy, while he and his family were living in Fresno, California, Terry explains the genesis of the album title: Westermann died shortly after receiving this letter, enclosed with a Smokin the Dummy LP, the minimalist black jacket of which Allen suggested that Cliff fold into a jaunty cardboard hat if he didn’t like the music. That response was unlikely, since Westermann loved Terry’s music, calling his debut record Juarez (1975) “the finest, most honest and heartfelt piece of music I ever heard.”

The Panhandle Mystery Band had only recently coalesced during those 1978 Lubbock sessions, Lloyd Maines’s first foray into production. Through 1979, they honed their sound and tightened their arrangements with a series of periodic performances beyond Allen’s regular art-world circuit, including memorable record release concerts in Lubbock, Chicago, L.A., and Kansas City. Terry sought to harness the high-octane power of this now well-oiled collective engine to overdrive his songs into rawer and rockier off-road territory.

His first album to share top billing with the Panhandle Mystery Band, Dummy documents a ferocious new band in fully telepathic, tornado-fueled flight, refining its caliber, increasing its range, and never looking down. Alongside the stalwart Maines brothers co-producer, guitarist, and all-rounder Lloyd, bassist Kenny, and drummer Donnie and mainstay Richard Bowden (who here contributes not only fiddle but also mandolin, cello, and “truck noise theory,” the big-rig doppler effect of Lloyd’s steel on “Roll Truck Roll”), new addition Jesse Taylor supplies blistering lead guitar, on loan from Joe Ely (who plays harmonica here). Jesse’s kinetic blues lines and penchant for extreme volume were instrumental in pushing these recordings into brisker tempos and tougher attitudes. Terry was feverish for several studio days, suffering from a bad flu and sweating through his

clothes, which partially explains the literally febrile edge to his performances, rendered largely in a perma-growl. (By this point, he was regularly breaking piano pedals with his heavy-booted stomp.) Like the album title itself, the songs on Smokin the Dummy ring various demented bells. The tracks rifle through Terry’s assorted

Obsessions especially the potential energy and escape of the open road, elevated here to an ecstatic, prayerful pitch and are populated by a cast of crooked characters: truckers, truck-stop waitresses, convicts, cokeheads, speed freaks, greasers, holy rollers, rodeo riders, dancehall cheaters, and sacrificial prairie dogs, sinners seeking some small reprieve, any fugitive moment of grace.

A reigning deity of a certain kind of country music since the mid-70s.
– The New York Times.

The kind of singular American artist who expresses the fundamental weirdness of his country. – The Wire.

TRACK LISTING

A1. The Heart Of California (for Lowell George)
A2. Cocaine Cowboy
A3. Whatever Happened To Jesus (and Maybeline)?
A4. Helena Montana
A5. Texas Tears
B1. Cajun Roll
B2. Feelin Easy
B3. The Night Café
B4. Roll Truck Roll
B5. Red Bird
B6. The Lubbock Tornado (I Don't Know)

Iconic and iconoclastic Texan songwriter and visual artist Terry Allen’s heartbreaking, hilarious new album, his first set of new songs since 2013’s Bottom of the World, features the full Panhandle Mystery Band, including co-producer Charlie Sexton (Dylan, Bowie, Blaze), Shannon McNally, and Jo Harvey Allen; mainstays Bukka Allen, Richard Bowden, and Lloyd Maines; and co-writes with Joe Ely and Dave Alvin. The connections to Melville’s masterpiece are metaphorical and allusive, as elusive as the White Whale. The masterly spiritual successor to Lubbock (on everything), Just Like Moby Dick casts its net wide for wild stories, depicting, among other monstrous things, Houdini in existential crisis, the death of the last stripper in town, bloodthirsty pirates (in a pseudo-sequel to Brecht and Weill’s “Pirate Jenny”), the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (in the “American Childhood” suite), a vampire-infested circus, mudslides and burning mobile homes, and all manner of tragicomic disasters, abandonments, betrayals, bad memories, failures, and fare-thee-wells.

Just Like Moby Dick, his first set of new songs since 2013’s Bottom of the World, takes its title from the archetypal monster of American literature and the American imaginary. (Coincidentally—or not—his label Paradise of Bachelors also takes its name from a Herman Melville story.) “Memory shot her crystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights,” Melville writes, and for most of the novel, Moby Dick himself remains hidden, haunting Ahab as a crystalline monster of fathomless memory, a terrible fever dream from the depths. The whale remains a specter on Allen’s record too, appearing explicitly only in the briny final line of the last song “Sailin’ On Through,” and on the artist’s Side D vinyl etching and CD insert drawings, where he lurks menacingly beneath the roiling seas of Thomas Chambers, the 19th-century maritime painter whose floridly freaky nautical scenes adorn the album jacket.

RIYL: David Byrne, Guy Clark, Bob Dylan, John Prine, Silver Jews, Sturgill Simpson, Townes Van Zandt.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Houdini Didn't Like The Spiritualists
A2. Abandonitis
A3. Death Of The Last Stripper
A4. All That's Left Is Fare-Thee-Well
B1. Pirate Jenny
B2. American Childhood I: Civil Defense
B3. American Childhood II: Bad Kiss
B4. American Childhood III: Little Puppet Thing
C1. All These Blues Go Walkin' By
C2. City Of The Vampires
C3. Harmony Two
C4. Sailin' On Through

World Circuit Records has made its reputation by producing some of the finest albums of the past three decades. The label is best known for the Grammy-winning Buena Vista Social Club album (and associated solo artists Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo and Rubén González), which is the biggest selling world music album of all time and has contributed to the phenomenal rise in popularity of Cuban, as well as Latin American, music.

World Circuit is also home to a number of revered African artists including the late Tony Allen (whose Afrobeat-jazz collaboration with Hugh Masekela ‘Rejoice’ was released to great critical acclaim in March 2020), iconic blues pioneer Ali Farka Touré (whose classic Grammy-winning ‘Talking Timbuktu’ album, recorded with Ry Cooder, brought the label early international acclaim), Malian divas and social activists Oumou Sangaré and Fatoumata Diawara, master kora player Toumani Diabaté, the illustrious Orchestra Baobab and musical iconoclast Cheikh Lô. 

TRACK LISTING

A1 Secret Agent
A2 Ijo
A3 Switch
B1 Celebrate
B2 Ayenlo
B3 Busybody
C1 Pariwo
C2 Nina Lowo
C3 Atuwaba
D1 Alutere
D2 Elewon Po

In 'Osni the Flare', the second chapter of Tristan Allen’s mythic trilogy, finds the composer, producer, and puppeteer following a mortal’s transformation into deity through the discovery of fire. Recorded over four years using wordless vocals, organs, ocarinas, an arsenal of toy instruments, and intricate sound design, 'Osni the Flare' unfolds the origins of flame and temporality across four sonically and visually compelling acts. Weaving a creation myth that shifts between beauty, shadow, and wistful embers, Allen provides a portal to meticulously crafted, emotionally potent sound and story that echo through a fantastical realm.

Born in Saratoga Springs, New York, with early childhood memories from his family’s tenure in Japan, Allen’s path wound through formative encounters including teacher Andy Iorio, who encouraged improvisational techniques in the young musician’s burgeoning interest and prowess at the piano, and Amanda Palmer, who discovered them at 16 during a Berklee summer program and crowdfunded their first release. After studying piano at Berklee, co-founding the live-electronics collective Nue, touring China with metal band Dent, and releasing two solo-piano EPs, Allen fled Boston for Brooklyn in 2018.

A Craigslist ad led to puppetry training under Mike Leach, who spent six months teaching them to properly walk a marionette, leading to a position as a performer at the vaunted Puppetworks Theater. This rigorous work, combined with exposure to their father’s Bread and Puppet Theater artifacts and Balinese shadow puppetry, led Allen to their creative practice: composing for acoustic instruments, arranging electronically, and performing through puppetry.

'Osni the Flare' traces a creation myth following the titular character who awakens in a garden and picks apples from a tree. Beckoned by a Loon, Osni sets forth to safeguard the tree from winter’s chill. When the Loon is devoured by a Dragon, Osni ventures into its belly and discovers embers. In offering these embers to the tree, it catches flame—the origin of fire itself. Iso, god of the sea, intervenes with a flood that drowns Osni’s garden. In death, Osni’s soul enters the shadow realm to join Tin and Iso, becoming the deity of fire—'Osni the Flare'.

The album sounds more human and childlike than its predecessor, 'Tin Iso and The Dawn', shifting from the overseer perspective of deities to follow the first mortal character in Allen’s world. Underpinned by new love, the project channels feelings into music that becomes an enchantment all its own. Like Tin Iso, the album opens and closes with piano as a portal representing home, as Osni embarks across three realms: the land of the living, the in-between, and the beyond.

Recorded almost entirely with an Aston condenser mic in Allen’s Brooklyn apartment overlooking the Cypress Hills Cemetery, 'Osni the Flare' was built from toy piano and flutes, ocarinas, harmonium, pump organ, electric and upright bass, gadgets, and extensive collections of music boxes and bells. The vocal melody— inspired by partner Virginia Garcia Ruiz’s humming evoking Pan’s Labyrinth—was Allen’s first foray into voice, using wordless melody to allow listeners to remain protagonists. Flutes were meticulously recorded note by note from Balinese sulings, Chinese souvenir shop finds, and bird-shaped ocarinas. Music boxes were wound slowly, sampled individually, then rearranged and tuned to double Virginia’s humming. A dying Casio SK-1 with a blown-out speaker is paired with a harmonium to form chordal textures.

TRACK LISTING

1. Osni Opening
2. Act I: Garden
3. Act I: Loon
4. Act II: Dragon
5. Act II: Pyre
6. Act III: Umbra
7. Act III: Rite
8. Act IV: Flood
9. Act IV: Everglow
10. Osni Closing

Acid Jazz presents the long-awaited reissue of The Aloof’s cult classic final LP ‘This Constant Chase For Thrills’.

Formed in 1990, The Aloof were a pioneering electronic act, playing and touring with the likes of Massive Attack and Leftfield. After three albums with the Warner EastWest, they forged their own path, releasing ‘This Constant Chase For Thrills’ on their own Screaming Target label.

Despite highlights ‘Doing It For Money’ and ‘Painted Face’, as well as ‘So Good’, which featured in the US version of ‘Queer As Folk’, the album didn’t get the coverage it deserved upon release.

Within a dark and moody atmosphere, there is definite Ibiza and Balearic feel to the record, showing a band with a positive DIY spirit.

TRACK LISTING

So Good
Doing It For Money
Good Morning World
Sold
Tearing Up Inside
Infatuated
D.I.R.M. Version
The Beach
Painted Face

After several wildly popular singles out on Penrose Records, alongside labelmates Thee Sacred Souls, The Altons gear up to release their debut album on Daptone Records.

With lead vocals shared between Adriana Flores and Brian Ponce the interplay between their unique timbres brings a romantic quality to the music that is absent in many of today's soul offerings.

Steeped with moody ballads, soulful, tejano-kissed duets and Bond theme psychedelia–Heartache In Room 14 is poised to be a "must have" album of 2025.

TRACK LISTING

1 Waiting
2 Tangled Up In You
3 I Try I Try
4 Perdóname
5 Float
6 Where Did She Go
7 Del Cielo Te Cuido
8 Your Light
9 Over And Over
10 Show You Love

The Amazing stay just out of focus. On their fifth album, In Transit, they once again perform the unlikely trick of making music that is both dreamlike, drifting across the consciousness, as well as perfectly constructed. While In Transit shares the sense of mood of many of singer and founder Christoffer Gunrup’s favourite bands – the Cure, My Bloody Valentine, Flaming Lips – it never drifts away into self-indulgence. At the heart of it all, beneath the washes of guitar, the woozy reveries, are sturdy, intensely melodic songs. You hear that from the very start of the album, when Pull slides into view, slide guitar casting shapes and shadows across the arpeggios beneath, while lightly jazzy drums propel the song forward and Gunrup mournfully whispers his barely audible lyrics, before the song ascends into a refrain that sounds like every emotion combined.

That combination of melody and mood comes from the way the songs are made, and the interaction between Gunrup and his fellow members, Reine Fiske (also of Dungen, guitar), Moussa Fadera (drums), Alexis Benson (bass), and Frederik Swahn (keyboards and guitars). Gunrup writes alone, in what he calls “a very disgusting process. It’s just me in my underwear on my couch.” He emerges with a complete song – “the intros, the outros, the melodies, all the chords” – which he takes to the band, imagining they will play it just as he imagined. Except they never do. “They can feel rather than hear what needs to be done,” Gunrup says. “They do pretty much what they please.”

Yet In Transit does not sound self-indulgent. Gunrup’s songs are the very heart of In Transit, and the musicians’ playing always serves them, rather than overwhelming them. On For No One, you can hear the subtlety of their interaction, which is not what one might expect to say of a song in which whistling feedback provides the core of its climax – it’s only at the end you realise how cleverly it has transformed from what begins as fingerpicked near-folk into something very different.

As one might expect, Fiske’s guitars are at the heart of The Amazing: gorgeous tones and textures, sometimes fed through layers of distortion, sometimes kept clear and clean, to convey melody in the most direct way. “He has a sound and a way of playing that not many guitarists do – he’s all about emotion, which is great,” Gunrup says. Benson se Convirtio Completamente Furiosa, just short of 10 minutes long, Fiske displays the full range of his talents. It’s an extraordinary song, beginning with Gunrup’s voice, a lazy sigh, telling of “being caught up in a deadly boring place”, over a gorgeous, circular guitar pattern for two-and-a-half minutes, before hypnotic, swirling instrumental section built on a melancholy arpeggio takes up another two-and-a-half minutes. Gunrup’s voice returns, a little more urgent. Then the song apparently stops – only to return with Fiske playing a furious, squalling solo, a shriek of rage and despair. For the other side, listen to Rewind, a song so simple and gorgeous it sounds as though it has existed forever, in which the playing is resolutely unshowy, yet devastatingly emotive, with one simple hook – a single high note repeated in each phrase – that proves the power of well-deployed restraint.

It doesn’t come as any surprise to learn that Fiske is obsessional about his equipment. A few years back, The Amazing’s practice space was robbed, and their equipment stolen, all bar Fiske’s Stratocaster. “Afterwards we went for a beer,” Gunrup says. “We sat there in silence and felt blue. But the person who was most upset was Reine. He was so much more upset than us, he said, because what would have happened if they had taken my guitar? He couldn’t even comprehend what would have happened to him.”

But there’s so much more to The Amazing than guitar histrionics. “The drummer comes from a jazz background, so he doesn’t do what is expected, which I love.” A mention of Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward having the same background, and adding the same swing sets Gunrup off excitedly talking about a film of an early Sabbath live show. He identifies the common thread between Ward and Fadera: “Someone else would do something you had heard a thousand times before, but he won’t.”

Maybe that freewheeling element is what causes Gunrup to name “playful” as the adjective he most associates with the music of The Amazing, rather than the more obvious “melancholy”. “That’s something I feel, but maybe it doesn’t come across in the records at all. But playful – and, I don’t know, I guess it could sound a bit blue occasionally, when the vocals are there. That to me is what makes it fun to play.”

On In Transit, Gunrup’s voice is mixed a little higher than before. Snatches of lyrics gain clarity, drifting across the music like clouds. Yet you wouldn’t say he had been placed front and centre, and that suits him. “Lyrics are important to me,” he says. “But I am extremely uninterested in coming across lyrically. That is nobody’s business. If people enjoy the way the vocals interact with the music, that’s good. If not, I don’t care.” Much of his favourite music shares the quality of the vocal being a texture rather than conveying a message, he says. “If you listen to Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, I can make out maybe 11 words in one song, but I love that album more than any album ever made.

“If there are words I don’t hear, I can decide for myself what they’re saying and I like that. With 99.9% of all music made in this world the lyrics are, oh, so fucking dumb and boring and stupid. There’s no point in me adding to that stupidity. They are important to me, but you can decide for yourself.”

Work on In Transit began as soon as The Amazing’s last album, Ambulance, was finished. That’s when Gunrup began writing the 11 songs – stretching over 71 minutes – that make up the new record. He wrote quickly, then took them to the band, who recorded them piecemeal in (Fredrik) Swahn’s studio in Stockholm. “We started pretty soon after the last album was released, and did bits and pieces here and there,” Gunrup says. “It’s been forever.”

While The Amazing aren’t the kind of band who insist every album has to sound radically different from the one before. They change incrementally, adjusting and refining their sound rather than revolutionising it. Changes Gunrup had thought were dramatic – like the greater use of chorus pedals and organ on their third album, Picture You – turned out to be minor. This time, the development from Ambulance is a slightly fuller sound. “The last album was just basic tracks and vocals and that was pretty much it.” He ponders for a moment. “I was convinced the last album was better because the songs were better. But now it’s the other way round. This has got more stuff on it: more vocals, more overdubs.”

For all Gunrup’s self-deprecation, for all his unwillingness to reveal secrets and his desire to talk down his desire to deflect attention from himself, The Amazing is something he needs to do: it’s his purpose. He laughs and says that without music, “I maybe would not have killed myself, but I would have been even more boring than I am” – but he is compelled to make music, incredible music, which is why he never stops writing songs. And then he connects with the other four members to create something extraordinary. It’s about that combination, those people, playing those instruments.

“That is the essence of it, so when we all connect in a song it’s pretty nice to be in that room. That’s therapy. I pretty much see everything we do – being on my couch, the recording process – as this therapeutic thing. I don’t necessarily think we go into the studio to do this, this and this, I just want to be with those four guys and play.”

‘Ambulance’ sees The Amazing continue their journey to a place where music is free of restrictions. Despite reflecting Chris Gunrup’s often bleak worldview, the music is expansive and beautiful, marked by playing that’s as much free jazz as rock - pure music without any showiness.

The songs unfold slowly, without a traditional verse / chorus structure, spinning gauzy webs of shimmering mystery with their own inimitable dynamic of sinuous, swirling guitars; rich, ambient basslines; crisp percussion and restrained, church-like, keyboard textures. The stately tempos suggest a room full of shadows desperately reaching out for intimacy but never quite making the connection. The songs brim over with tension and more implied release than actual relief.

Gunrup is known for his reluctance to talk about his process and prefers to let the music speak for itself and if 2015’s ‘Picture You’ was brighter, exploding outward to explore the limits of experience, ‘Ambulance’ is much more intimate. The mix denser and darker, the instruments pressing closer, crowding each other, imploding inward to reconnoitre the uncharted distances that exist between us, even in life’s most intimate moments.

Sharing members with Sweden’s psych forefathers Dungen, the album delves into the hidden recesses of the heart, finding inner space to be just as expansive as the midnight sky. It was recorded in just a few days in one tiny room at Stockhom’s Buller & Bäng studio.

The Amazing’s drummer, Moussa, is one of Sweden’s top jazz drummers and has also played with Rodriguez and Jose Gonzalez.

The video for lead track ‘Ambulance’ features Ross Marquand (AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’).

Previously the band have performed on The Late Show with David Letterman and toured with Tame Impala.

“The Amazing specialize in a beauty that isn’t airbrushed or slick or antiseptic, it’s elemental rock - earthy, molten, aquatic, but using each of their qualities to soothe rather than destroy or intimidate.” - Pitchfork

TRACK LISTING

Ambulance
Divide
Blair Drager
Tracks
Floating
Through City Lights
Moments Like These
Perfect Day For Shrimp

"Future Dust" is an album that retools rock’s dark past for the present day while having an absolute blast. Loose blues grooves, religious references and falsetto backing vocals abound on songs that explore issues including social media witch hunts, eating disorders and depression, but never lose sight of a singalong. The Amazons were the most hotly tipped band of 2017 and followed through with their debut album reaching #8 in the official chart.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Big melodies, big vocals, The Amazons are bound for big things... 'Future Dust' is stadium rock in the making.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Mother
2. Fuzzy Tree
3. 25
4. The Mire
5. Doubt It
6. All Over Town

Side 2
1. End Of Wonder
2. Dark Visions
3. 25 (reprise)
4. Warning Sign
5. Georgia

Hello

Matt here. Just wanted to reach out and let you know a few things about the record you’re about to, or are already listening to!

How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me is a record largely inspired by the long distance relationship I’ve been in over the last couple years, and more specifically, the 7 months spent apart in 2020. The album was largely written in the converted attic I live in, in the centre of Brighton.

The songs that went on to make up this record were originally only to be shared between me and my girlfriend. You can imagine, after a few months, that phone calls and Whatsapp and FaceTime begin to wear a little thin, especially in the face of not knowing when we’d be reunited. Writing and sharing music became a way for me to feel like I retained some kind of power, to bridge the distance between us.

As a band we were already halfway through writing a very different record, but it became apparent, the more and more I shared these songs with the boys, that this was the story we wanted to tell.
Sonically, we wanted to make a record that kicked back against the confines of our houses and bedrooms. We wanted to make music powerful enough blow the roof off and transport us somewhere else. Lots of artists made records to match the slower pace of life over the last couple years which was cool, but we never stopped dreaming about festivals and life and energy and community. I hope that’s reflected in the music.

We’ve been incredibly lucky to work with some of our heroes on this album. I expressed to Jim Abbiss (who produced the record) and Craig Silvey (who mixed it) that The Amazons wouldn’t exist without their work, so many times, I’m sure it became slightly irritating. But it’s true and it feels kind of full circle for us.

We’ve been in the Fiction and Universal family now for nearly 7 years. We’ve worked with a lot of incredible minds and huge hearts and we are so grateful to have had the opportunity to grow as artists. Each of the last 2 records we’ve released up to this point have been unique adventures and we’ve learnt so much. For us, this record represents the accumulation of all that work and experience, but also the start of a new adventure, that we hope will be the best yet. We’re so excited to have you on the journey and we hope you like the record!

See you soon.
Matt, Joe, Chris and Elliot. 

The complete studio recordings from The American Analog Set’s second chapter. 'Destroy Destroy Destroy' gathers the Texas slow-krauters 'Know By Heart', 'Promise Of Love', and 'Set Free' LPs, 'Everything Ends In Spring' EP, and an additional two discs of singles, B-sides, alternates and outtakes. Accompanying 36-page booklet is flooded with photos and handwritten scraps from the band’s dreamy post-Y2K era. Punk as fuck, for real.

TRACK LISTING

LP1 - Know By Heart
LP2 - Promise Of Love
LP3 - Set Free
LP4 - Everything Ends In Spring
LP5 - Static Between The Stations Pt 1
LP6 - Static Between The Stations Pt 2

Lo-fi, low budget, and low key, The American Analog Set’s suite of hypnotic, neo-psychedelic, Texas sloth-kraut LPs appeared briefly on Austin’s Emperor Jones label and slunk quietly into the sprawling indie underground as the old millennium crested. Gathered here are 'The Fun Of Watching Fireworks', 'From Our Living Room To Yours', and 'The Golden Band albums', garnished with period b-sides, outtakes, and demos. Remastered from the original analog tapes, this early-career spanning 5xLP box includes lyrics, photos, and ephemera from the before times.

TRACK LISTING

LP1 - The Fun Of Watching Fireworks
1. Diana Slowburner II
2. On My Way
3. Gone To Earth
4. On The Run’s Where I’m From
5. Dim Stars (The Boy In My Arms)
6. Trespassers In The Stereo Field
7. Too Tired To Shine II
8. It’s Alright

LP2 – From Our Living Room To Yours
1. Magnificent Seventies
2. Using The Hope Diamond As A Doorstop
3. Blue Chaise
4. Where Have All The Good Boys Gone
5. White House
6. Two Way Diamond I
7. Two Way Diamond II
8. Don’t Wake Me

LP 3 – The Golden Band
1. Weather Report
2. A Good Friend Is Always Around
3. It’s All About Us
4. A Schoolboy’s Charm
5. The Wait
6. New Drifters I
7. New Drifters II
8. New Drifters III
9. New Drifters IV
10. The Golden Band
11. I Must Soon Quit The Scene
12. Will The Real Danny Radnor Please Stand?

LP 4 – Nine Legend Road
1. Diana Slowburner II
2. High Fidelity Vs. Guy Fidelity
3. Magnificent Seventies
4. Waking Up Is Hard To Do
5. Dr. Pepper
6. The Only Living Boy Around
7. It’s All About Us
8. On My Way
9. Thin Fingers
10. Living Room Incidental #2 / The Corduroy Kid

LP 5 – Nine Legend Road
1. Where Did You Come From?
2. Too Tired To Shine I
3. Queen Of Her Own Parade
4. Mellow Fellow
5. You Don’t Want Me To Arrive, Do You?
6. What Are We Going To Tell Guy?
7. Where Did You Come From (Reprise)

The dreamy debut album from Texas’s new wave of American krautrock. Recorded at home in 1996, 'The Fun Of Watching Fireworks' straddles the aerodynamic drag between lo-fi and Living Stereo, huffing hypnotic chem trails, Ampex 456 polyfibre dust, and subtropical ozone while the Farfisa warms up. Remastered from the original analog tapes as a reminder of what life was like in the before times. Trespassers encouraged.

TRACK LISTING

1. Diana Slowburner II
2. On My Way
3. Gone To Earth
4. On The Run’s Where I’m From
5. Dim Stars (The Boy In My Arms)
6. Trespassers In The Stereo Field
7. Too Tired To Shine II
8. It’s Alright

The ethereal third album from Texas’s slowcore first wavers. A lethargic, sparse, and autumnal album, 'The Golden Band' is where The American Analog Set developed the courage to drive 40 KPH on the autobahn. Issued on Emperor Jones in 1999, this 25th anniversary Numero edition has been remastered from the original tapes and flawlessly reproduced in a gorgeous tip on sleeve. When are you quitting the scene?

TRACK LISTING

1. Weather Report
2. Good Friend Is Always Around
3. It's All About Us
4. A Schoolboy's Charm
5. The Wait
6. New Drifters I
7. New Drifters II
8. New Drifters III
9. New Drifters IV
10. Golden Band
11. I Must Soon Quit The Scene
12. Will The Real Danny Radnor Please Stand?

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2014 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Collectors Limited Edition Double Vinyl for Record Store Day 2014 * Hand Numbered 750 Units

A special collector's double vinyl of 'The Cartel' by the Amorphous Androgynous exploring psychsploitation (where psychedelia meets blaxploitation) on their 'MONSTROUS BUBBLE' soundtrack series.

Features original tracks from The Cartel Vols 1&2 written by the Amorphous Androgynous plus remixes by Youth, DJ Food, Black Light Cinema, Cranium Pie, Lost In Edit and by the Amorphous Androgynous themselves. Also includes 'WHERE DOES THE EVIL GO ?' featuring Alisha Sufit (Magic Carpet) on vocals and BANKSTERS which features Noel Gallagher on bass and guitar.

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1
1. The Chaser (Black Light Cinema Remix)
2. City Of Regrets (Broadcast Of Variants Remix)
3. Where Does The Evil Go
4. Tunnel Vision (DJ Food Remix)
5. Billionaire
6. Bugged (Virgil Howe Remix)
7. The Watch Man
8. The Killin' Spree
9. The Costa Rican Cartel
10. Visiting The Visitor (Seafar Remix)
11. Out About (Mikey Rowe Remix)
12. Wasp (Blood Solution) (Youth Remix)

Disc 2
1. Banksters
2. The Bug
3. Regrets (Re-edit)
4. Radio Break (NMESH Re-mix)
5. Wasped (Cranium Pie's Baking Research Centre Remix)
6. 1 000000 (Cranium Pie's Baking Research Centre Remix)
7. The Wasp
8. Bankster Island
9. The First Billion Is The Hardest
10. Regrets And The Damage Done (Lost In Edit Re-mix)
11. The Rat
12. Opium Smiles

The Amorphous Androgynous unite their award-winning psychedelic compilation series ‘A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble (Exploding In Your Mind)’ with their symphonic new single ‘We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal’ (taken from the forthcoming album ‘Listening Beyond The Head Chakra‘) to create this latest instalment of the Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble series. It features a host of luminaries such as Peter Hammill -vocals (Van Der Graaf Generator), Paul Weller - piano and guitar, and erstwhile members of The Spencer Davies Group and Ian Gillan Band – as well as Soft Machine on lead guitar and sax. The Chesterfield Philharmonic choir and a full string section also make an appearance. Finally, the series features a number of collaborations and remixes (including bands Atomic Simao, Higher Peaks, Regal Worm, Cobalt Chapel) creating one helluva progtronic psychedelic trip through the Amorphous Androgynous samplerdelic multiverse.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Lutine Bell
2. Gunter & His Evil Soul Sacrifice Orchestra Play Back Mass A GoGo
3. Hymortality Part 1
4. Physically I'm Here, Mentally Far, Far Away
5. In Madness Reigns
6. Hymortality Part 2
7. Somos Inmortales Nos Persuadimosi
8. Everything Is Easy With A Little Persuasion
9. Gravity Bong
10. Our Dominion
11. The Persuader
12. Synthony On A Theme Of Mortality Excerpt Part 2
13. Counting Down The Time Part 2
14. Tomorrow, Time & Immortality

Emotionally and musically intense, 'Little Earthquakes' shows that the piano is as much a rock & roll instrument as the guitar. Tori Amos's debut (if one disregards 'Y Kant Tori Read', as one would be well advised to do) is at once listenable and challenging; she takes on every topic, from sex to gender to religion, in an uncompromising manner. Her music appears gentle at first, but this appearance is deceiving, as one quickly learns upon listening to the wrenching "Crucify" or the almost violent "Precious Things." By the time the album gets around to "Me and a Gun," sung hauntingly by Amos without accompaniment from her piano, the juxtaposition of Amos' sweet voice and the emotional complexity of her lyrics is both familiar and shocking.

'In Time of Dragons' is the 18th album in Amos’ illustrious 36-year career, which has celebrated over 12 million records sold, thousands of concerts, eight Grammy nominations, and numerous awards.

“'In Times of Dragons' is a metaphorical story about the fight for Democracy over Tyranny, reflecting the current abhorrent non accidental burning down of democracy in real time by the ‘Dictator believing Lizard Demons’ in their usurpation of America.” – TORI AMOS

TRACK LISTING

TBC

Celebrating 30 years of Tori Amos’ debut solo album ‘Little Earthquakes.’ Amos became the voice of a generation of young girls when she delivered her first solo record in 1992. Each of the tracks on Little Earthquakes painted an evocative picture, and the album delivered 5 singles: “Crucify,” “Silent All These Years,” “Winter,” “China,” “Me and A Gun.”

The album has already received the deluxe treatment in 2006, and this 2-LP is the first time the tracks have been remastered for this format, lovingly remastered by Jon Astley at Abbey Road Studios. In 2022, to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the record, Z2 announced a graphic novel of the album. 

TRACK LISTING

LP 1
Side A
Crucify (4:58)
Girl (4:06)
Silent All These Years (4:11)
Side B
Precious Things (4:26)
Winter (5:41)
Happy Phantom (3:13)
LP 2
Side A
China (4:59)
Leather (3:12)
Mother (6:59)
Side B
Tear In Your Hand (4:38)
Me And A Gun (3:44)
Little Earthquakes (6:52)

Here’s what we said about this album on it’s original release in 2003, and it still stands up today. One of the most original singer songwriters of her generation and one of the most gifted pianists too. "Scarlet's Walk" features her finest songs since "Under The Pink" and will please all the converted and maybe open up a few eyes and ears as well. There's a return to a simpler piano sound with the only other instruments on many tracks being bass and drums. Over 74 minutes long it's an epic voyage for the listener as well as 'Scarlet'.

Released in the immediate aftermath of the runaway success of The Breeders’ platinum-selling second album ‘Last Splash’ and the Pixies calling it a day the first time round, The Amps are an important part of the Kim Deal canon.

First intended as a solo project, The Amps instead grew into a fully-fledged band with Jim MacPherson from The Breeders joining on drums and Dayton, OH musicians Luis Lerma and Nate Farley on bass and guitar respectively. Releasing just one album, ‘Pacer’, in 1995 and after a whirlwind of touring with the likes of Foo Fighters, Guided By Voices and Sonic Youth, Kim returned them to the shelf, leaving behind one of her most intriguing chapters.

A glorious record whose charm has only grown since release, ‘Pacer’ captures Kim energised by a new band and no pressure, recording with purpose in seven studios with a different engineer each time. The resultant record is both raw and undeniable, with Kim’s songwriting arguably at its most cryptic and personal. Don’t be fooled by its casual lo-fi veneer too, underneath lies one serious record that never dips or lacks purpose. With this first vinyl repress on 4AD, ‘Pacer’ is finally getting the reappraisal it richly deserves

'The Art of Losing' is the second album from Welsh multi-instrumentalist The Anchoress (aka Catherine Anne Davies), following up on her critically acclaimed debut album, 'Confessions of A Romance Novelist', which was named amongst the Guardian critics' Albums of the Year, won HMV's Welsh Album of the Year, Best Newcomer at the PROG awards, and a nomination for the Welsh Music Prize. Written and produced by Davies, the new album features guest performances from James Dean Bradfield (Manic Street Preachers) and drums from Sterling Campbell (David Bowie, Duran Duran) along with the mixing talents of Dave Eringa (Manics, Wilko Johnson) and grammy-award winner Mario McNulty (David Bowie, Prince, Laurie Anderson).

'The Art Of Losing' ambitiously navigates the topic of loss in all its forms and was written and recorded during an unfeasibly busy few years as Davies found solace and purpose in a range of projects whilst navigating her griefs. Most recently this came via the release of her collaborative album 'In Memory of My Feelings' with Bernard Butler (on Pete Paphides' label Needle Mythology), duetting with the Manic Street Preachers on 'Resistance Is Futile', and being personally invited by The Cure's Robert Smith to perform at his Meltdown Festival. She also brought a new generation of ears to legendary Scottish rock band Simple Minds, where she spent much of the last five years appearing on the 'Big Music' (2015) and 'Walk Between Worlds' (2018) albums. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'The Art Of Losing' shows a superb grasp of melody and drive while still retaining the more nuanced songwriting and groove, reminiscent of recent shop hitters, The International Teachers of Pop or the superb new Róisín Murphy LP. Davies maintains the quality of her previous outing, pushing things a little further and that little bit more danceable. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

CD
1. Moon Rise ( Prelude ) ( 02:51 )
2. Let It Hurt ( 03:37 )
3. The Exchange Feat. James Dean Bradfield
4. Show Your Face ( 04:27 )
5. The Art Of Losing ( 04:07 )
6. All Farewells Should Be Sudden ( 05:02 )
7. All Shall Be Well ( 01:39 )
8. Unravel ( 04:05 )
9. Paris ( 02:01 )
10. 5AM ( 04:02 )
11. The Heart Is A Lonesome Hunter ( 04:06 )
12. My Confessor ( 03:56 )
13. With The Boys ( 05:57 )
14. Moon ( An End ) ( 02:52 )


LP X 2
1. Moon Rise ( Prelude ) ( 02:51 )
2. Let It Hurt ( 03:37 )
3. The Exchange Feat. James Dean Bradfield
1. Show Your Face ( 04:27 )
2. The Art Of Losing ( 04:07 )
3. All Farewells Should Be Sudden ( 05:02 )
4. All Shall Be Well ( 01:39 )
1. Unravel ( 04:05 )
2. Paris ( 02:01 )
3. 5AM ( 04:02 )
4. The Heart Is A Lonesome Hunter ( 04:06 )
1. My Confessor ( 03:56 )
2. With The Boys ( 05:57 )
3. Moon ( An End ) ( 02:52 )

LP X 2 + 7"
1. Moon Rise ( Prelude ) ( 02:51 )
2. Let It Hurt ( 03:37 )
3. The Exchange Feat. James Dean Bradfield
1. Show Your Face ( 04:27 )
2. The Art Of Losing ( 04:07 )
3. All Farewells Should Be Sudden ( 05:02 )
4. All Shall Be Well ( 01:39 )
1. Unravel ( 04:05 )
2. Paris ( 02:01 )
3. 5AM ( 04:02 )
4. The Heart Is A Lonesome Hunter ( 04:06 )
1. My Confessor ( 03:56 )
2. With The Boys ( 05:57 )
3. Moon ( An End ) ( 02:52 )
1. Unravel ( 7" Mix ) ( 03:34 )
1. Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky ( 03:09 )


3 CD Set
1. Moon Rise ( Prelude ) ( 02:51 )
2. Let It Hurt ( 03:37 )
3. The Exchange Feat. James Dean Bradfield
4. Show Your Face
5. The Art Of Losing ( 04:07 )
6. All Farewells Should Be Sudden ( 05:02 )
7. All Shall Be Well ( 01:39 )
8. Unravel ( 04:05 )
9. Paris ( 02:01 )
10. 5AM ( 04:02 )
11. The Heart Is A Lonesome Hunter ( 04:06 )
12. My Confessor ( 03:56 )
13. With The Boys ( 05:57 )
14. Moon ( An End )
1. Show Your Face ( Original Keys Demo ) ( 04:24 )
2. The Art Of Losing ( P Dub Alt Mix ) ( 04:06 )
3. Unravel ( P Dub Alt Mix ) ( 04:04 )
4. The Heart Is A Lonesome Hunter ( Original Demo Version ) ( 04:01 )
5. Show Your Face ( P Dub Alt Mix ) ( 04:24 )
6. With The Boys ( Original Demo Version ) ( 05:34 )
7. All Shall Be Well ( Instrumental Version ) ( 01:41 )
8. Paris ( Instrumental Version ) ( 01:56 )
9. Unravel ( Original String Demo ) ( 03:28 )
10. The Exchange (Dictaphone Writing Demo)
11. Let It Hurt ( Dictaphone Writing Demo ) ( 01:57 )
1. The Exchange Feat. James Dean Bradfield (Hinako Omori Remix)
2. Unravel ( Cross Bone T Remix ) ( 04:32 )
3. Show Your Face ( Worriedaboutsatan Remix ) ( 04:59 )
4. The Art Of Losing ( Jermaine Soul Remix ) ( 04:33 )
5. The Exchange Feat. James Dean Bradfield (Jermaine Soul Remix)

In March 2011, Catherine Anne Davies aka The Anchoress recorded her debut 'Communion' at London's legendary Church Studios with an all-female string section - Recorded live in a single afternoon, 'Communion' is a collection of songs stripped of drums and modern technology - The mini-album was named as one of NME's Best Cult Albums of the year but was only released on a limited edition CD - On 20 March 2025, 14 years to the date of recording, 'Communion' is finally released on limited edition Bio-vinyl and CD.

TRACK LISTING

1. Waiting To Breathe
2. The Heart Wants To Be A Hammer
3. Over & Over
4. Yeats Is On Mine
5. Going Wrong
6. Telephone
7. Grow Out (Bonus Demo)

This October marks the 60th Anniversary of The Animals' self-titled debut album. Having never been reissued on vinyl before, the 60th Anniversary Edition sees the album pressed on yellow vinyl and adds the hit 'House of the Rising Sun' to the track list.

TRACK LISTING

1. Story Of Bo Diddley
2. Bury My Body
3. Dimples
4. I've Been Around
5. I'm In Love Again
6. The Girl Can't Help It
7. I'm Mad Again
8. She Said Yeah
9. The Right Time
10. Memphis Tennessee
11. Boom Boom
12. Around And Around
13. House Of The Rising Sun

The coming together of these two emo-pop bands signifies the first release in a Split EP series from Vagrant Records. Three strong songs from each band makes this an easy-to-assimilate treat. Superdrag showcases a handful of songs and The Anniversary contribute three new creations too.

North Carolina’s The Annuals have had a whirlwind ride. They released their first album, "Be He Me", in 2006 while each of their six members were only around nineteen years old. Bloggers, critics, and fans alike fell in love with the album. Two years later, they released their second album "Such Fun". The Annuals are currently embarking on their most dynamic and creative project yet, a 2010 EP release "Sweet Sister", which has been written, recorded and produced entirely by its founder, Adam Baker, in the band’s own hometown recording studio. "Sweet Sister" encompasses the pure energy that Annuals are known for: the quirky experimentalism, the intrinsic pop sensibility, the impeccable production, and the boundless independent spirit. It is electrifyingly alive, and promises to be yet another highlight in this young band’s successful and blossoming career.

TRACK LISTING

1. Loxtep
2. Turncloaking
3. Sweet Sister
4. Holler And Hawl
5. Flesh And Blood

Recorded throughout the spring of 2010 by frontman and first time producer Martin Colclough, "Lifeline" is the album that everybody believed The Answering Machine could make. A departure and a knowing deviation from the sound that established the band on 2009’s angular debut "Another City, Another Sorry", "Lifeline" is a unique, intelligent and diverse LP. Stylistically extensive, the album clicks between moments of post rock magnificence to glitch-driven programming; at once inhaling a varied catalogue of influences and exhaling a body of work that will top End of Year polls.

After working with producers from London and New York, writing songs in Tokyo, demoing in sky scrapers and honing ideas in Brooklyn, it became obvious that ‘home’ was the perfect place to pull "Lifeline" together. The cliché goes that record producers are the so-called ‘fifth member’ of the band but Manchester’s The Answering Machine decided to keep things simple and opted for an actual member of the band to produce their second album. After several successful remix projects, frontman Martin Colclough decided to step up to the role. What followed was not an expensive studio, engineers or remote location; instead the band opted for their underground practice room in the city centre. From six feet under they emerged with their lifeline.

While journalists stalked the streets murmuring buzz words and hailing the new ‘Manchester scene’ The Answering Machine were hard to find. They were in fact below the city campaigning for change, creating a record that is far removed from people’s expectations of them, peeling all the layers of what journalists and fans had deemed them to be and avoiding being caught up in any industry onslaught on their city. They stand alone and by doing so have rediscovered themselves, their identity and uncovered a new sound. Central to this regeneration has been the acquisition of a number of vintage synths passed down from the Factory Records band Repetition. These, along with pump organs and acoustic guitars, opened up a new and more collaborative way of writing for the band.

There are no gimmicks, stories or press angles for The Answering Machine on their second album campaign. This is because what the band have created and achieved is truly remarkable and therefore the ONLY thing worth writing about. Musically eclectic, textural and complex, lyrically sophisticated, honest and striking "Lifeline" is a very special record; the first great record of 2011. It documents a band reborn, a band who have taken the model of Radiohead and The Beatles before them, determined to make a record that sounds nothing like their last. They have succeeded with a grace and elegance all of their own.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Sadly, The Answering Machine have decided to call it a day, but they bow out in style with the release of the Limited Edition vinyl version of this album.

TRACK LISTING

1. My Little Navy
2. Lifeline
3. Animals
4. 3 Miles
5. Romantic And Square
6. Anything Anything
7. Hospital Lung
8. Rules
9. Video 8
10. So Alive
11. The End

'Blight' asks many questions without offering easy answers. Over the course of nine new songs, The Antlers' founder and primary songwriter Silberman reckons with our passively destructive tendencies - absent- minded pollution, unwitting wastefulness, and the inadvertent devastation of the natural world. But despite its heavy themes, 'Blight' is far from a punishing listen. With its adventurous arrangements and persistent momentum, it plays more like an iridescent odyssey.

TRACK LISTING

1. Consider The Soruce
2. Pour
3. Carnage
4. Blight
5. Something In The Air
6. Deactivate
7. Calamity
8. A Great Flood
9. They Lost All Of Us
10. Need Nothing *
11. Tide *
12. Rains *
13. I Was Not There *
14. Ahimsa *

* Deluxe LP Only

The Antlers release ‘Familiars’, their fourth studio album and first since 2011’s ‘Burst Apart’. (In between, they released the ‘[together]’ and ‘Undersea’ EPs.) ·

‘Familiars’ was recorded, produced and engineered by the band at their Brooklyn studio and mixed by Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Future Islands, Beach House) and follows 2011’s critically lauded ‘Burst Apart’, which The Sunday Times described as “some of the most beautiful music in years” and The Independent heralded as “a spine tingling triumph.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Absolutely gorgeous, mellow record.

TRACK LISTING

1. Palace
2. Doppelgänger
3. Hotel
4. Intruders
5. Director
6. Revisited
7. Parade
8. Surrender
9. Refuge

Highly anticipated record from New York's beloved act The Antlers, their first new music in seven music Perhaps what distinguishes Green to Gold from the rest of The Antlers’ canon is its arrival at a kind of quiet normalcy after a number of rather anxious records. Conceived and written almost entirely in the morning hours, Green to Gold is the easily their most luminous record to date. Following 2014’s Familiars, it looked unsure as to whether there would even be another Antlers album, after the onset of singer and primary songwriter Peter Silberman’s auditory problems.

Affecting his left ear, it was a condition that left him struggling to cope with commonplace noises. He was subsequently diagnosed with lesions on one of his vocal cords, requiring surgery for their removal and vocal therapy to retrain his voice to sing. Following a relocation to upstate New York and the 10th anniversary tour of 2009's 'Hospice', Silberman was rejuvenated and rediscovered the impulse to create new Antlers music. Of Silberman’s unique vocals, The Guardian wrote “His multi-octave voice is as intense as Jeff Buckley’s or Anohni’s, but it’s vulnerable without being precious or cloying” The first LP pressing is on ltd edition gold vinyl (represses will revert to black vinyl) September 2021 tour TBA, including two shows at EartH, London plus shows in Manchester and Edinburgh

TRACK LISTING

1. Strawflower
2. Wheels Roll Home
3. Solstice
4. Stubborn Man
5. Just One Sec
6. It Is What It Is
7. Volunteer
8. Green To Gold
9. Porchlight
10. Equinox

Working closely with producer Tim Kevin, 'That's What the Music Is For' is The Apartments' eighth album. Peter Milton Walsh began recording it in 2023 like a master pointillist, one touch at a time, one song at a time. In between shows that took him from Mexico City, Sydney or San Francisco to Lisbon and Marseilles, Walsh had access to studio time without real constraints.

Talking about 'That's What the Music is For', he says: "Since I didn't go into the studio with an album ready set of songs, but instead took pieces in to record as soon as they were written and worked on the music in the studio whenever it was available, it wasn't clear that I'd get to that rainbow's end-a world of songs that feel like they belong together: an album. Yet, over the course of recording and as the songs gathered with one another, they began to reveal a story about time-of how past and present so often trade places and that in music and in memory, the people who have gone keep moving in and out of our lives-where can they live now, except in song? We will be saying goodbye to them in bits and pieces for the rest of our lives.”

A world of smoke, gin, and regrets; one of melancholy, brass, and strings. A world of refinement and integrity. Life as it comes to us, with its share of joy and sorrow. Peter Milton Walsh's compositions are true songs in that they tell stories, stories that stay with us, stories we can each finish in our own way. That may well be the essence of great art.

TRACK LISTING

1. It's A Casino Life
2. Afternoons
3. A Handful Of Tomorrow
4. Another Sun Gone Down
5.That's What The Music Is For (When The Fair's Over)
6. Death Would Be My Best Career Move
7. The American Resistance
8. You Know We're Not Supposed To Feel This Way

Aggressive in yer face Iggy-style guitar onslaught, impressive and unrelenting.

"Peregrine" is: Spacious, thick, brooding, joyful, explosive, and back and forth, yet somehow seamless at the same time. It carries tones and sounds (at times) as stormy and spooky as the album's theme / storyline lends.

Considered to be one of the titans in the original second wave of emo bands, TheAppleseed Cast rose to the spotlight in the late 90's and early to mid 2000's, with a string albums, including Low Level Owl I & II, and non-stop touring, earning them high critical praise and a loyal following. Their influence can be heard in countless contemporary bands such as Chvrches - whose lead singer is a self-proclaimed super fan, Basement, Mewithoutyou and so many more.

While fanship continues to grow with each new incarnation from the band, time between albums has also grown a bit over the last 10 years. Despite lineup changes or time between, Crisci is still focused, as much as ever, on touring and continuing to produce the innovative landscape of music the band is known for.

The break up concept album no one asked for, The Appleseed Cast arrived on Tiger Style in 2003 amidst a second wave emo backlash.

Decades later, 'Two Conversations' is widely considered the Lawrence, Kansas, quintet’s crowning achievement, an atmospheric soul baring that eschews the Midwest varietal’s tropes. Get lost in the dreamy keys and synths and steel string strums, just be home before curfew.

“The group sound like it’s trapped on Polyvinyl Records circa 1996.”—Pitchfork

TRACK LISTING

1. Hello Dearest Love
2. Hanging Marionette
3. Ice Heavy Branches
4. Losing Touching Searching
5. Fight Song
6. Sinking
7. ThThe Page
8. Innocent Vigilant Ordinary
9. How Life Can Turn
10. A Dream For Us

Features current and ex-members of Chain & The Gang, Pygmy Lush, and The Shirks. Moody lo-fi garage rock.

Coasting into town on fumes, late and not speaking to each other because nobody would stop to ask for directions,The Ar-Kaics take their cues from the first wave of ‘60s punk — American teenagers taking cues from the British Invasion, in turn taking cues from pilfers of the hinterland originators — with the added vantage of several subsequent decades worth of wayward balladeers, no names and psychedelic rock hangovers.

The Ar-Kaics have been delivering their off-brand, spot-on garage rock originals out of Richmond, VA, via a flood of small press singles and a s/t debut album - all of which have since become highly desirable in the collectors market - and several successful DIY tours across the lower 48, with shows in Canada and Europe to boot. Since, they've drifted around some, gotten and lost jobs, opened a record store and label, and started families.

In the summer of 2015 the group hooked up with Wayne Gordon and Mikey Post, of Wick Records to record a couple tracks at the Daptone Records' House of Soul - resulting in 2016's critically acclaimed - Just My Life b/w It's Her Eyes 45.

After the success of their debut single on Wick, plans were hashed to record their sophomore full-length, which took place over three days in the Spring of 2017, at Adrian Olsen's Montrose Studio in Richmond, VA.

Produced by Wayne Gordon (Black Lips, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion), and Mikey Post (Reigning Sound, The Jay Vons) the fruits of the heady three day retreat produced the forthcoming Long Player, "In This Time"...a low-brow journey through the Teen-Beat sounds of the 1960's...and beyond! From the opening, crude thud of "Don't Go With Him", the Velvet Underground tinged swagger of "She's Obsessed with Herself", the breezy, late-period psych of "Long Way Down", to the unpretentious, sap-free balladry of "It's Her Eyes" - The Ar-Kaics flex their deft understanding of the subtle intricacies that defines bonafide Garage Rock.

In spite, the band remains, taking its time with In This Time, void of professionalism or self-preservation, just an unquenchable thirst to lap it up and pass it around — the good stuff that is — before it’s all gone.

TRACK LISTING

1. Don't Go With Him
2. Some People
3. No Vacancy
4. She's Obsessed
5. Sick 'n' Tired
6. Cut Me Down
7. Distemper
8. It's Her Eyes
9. What You Do
10. You Turn Me Bad
11. In This Time
12. Long Way Down

In 2015, Dan Auerbach entered the studio with Leon Michels, Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and the late Richard Swift (who passed away in 2018) to record The Arcs' debut album Yours, Dreamily in a handful of freewheeling sessions over two weeks. Now, more than 7 years later, those same sessions became the bedrock on which the surviving members fleshed out the anticipated follow-up album, Electrophonic Chronic, a collection of psychedelic rock, gritty funk, and heady, soulful grooves.

The Arcs was formed when Dan Auerbach enlisted Leon Michels, a multi-instrumentalist who was part of the studio crew on Auerbach’s GRAMMY-nominated production projects for Dr. John and Lana Del Rey – "I just wanted to do my thing and get extra weird." Auerbach headed into the studio with Michels, Movshon, Steinweiss, and Swift, and made their debut Yours, Dreamily, which was recorded in a handful of freewheeling sessions lasting less than two weeks and released in September 2015.

Those same sessions produced a second unfinished album worth of tracks, the bedrock on which the surviving members fleshed out the highly anticipated follow-up album, Electrophonic Chronic.

"Like a cigarette flicked on a stream of gasoline. The snarling melodies, warbling horn lines and in-the-pocket beats transport listeners into the album's pulpy world of '70s exploitation films and gritty biker-gang movies." - NPR

Produced by Dan Auerbach and Leon Michels, and mixed by the legendary Tchad Blake. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Keep On Dreamin’
2. Eyez
3. Heaven Is A Place
4. Califone Interlude
5. River
6. Sunshine
7. A Man Will Do No Wrong
8. Behind The Eyes
9. Backstage Mess Interlude
10. Love Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
11. Only One For Me 

The Armed return with their first new album in over three years and Sargent House debut, ULTRAPOP. The album reaches the same extremities of sonic expression as the furthest depths of metal, noise, and otherwise "heavy" counterculture music subgenres but finds its foundation firmly in pop music and pop culture. As is always The Armed's mission, it seeks only to create the most intense experience possible, a magnification of all culture, beauty, and things. The band goes on to explain, "crafting vital art means presenting the audience with new and intriguing tensions sonically, visually, conceptually. Over time and through use, those tensions become less novel and effective and they become expectations. The concept of "subgenre" becomes almost the antithesis of vitality in art itself a fetishization of expectation. ULTRAPOP seeks, in earnest, to create a truly new listener experience. It is an open rebellion against the culture of expectation in "heavy" music. It is a joyous, genderless, post-nihilist, anti-punk, razor-focused take on creating the most intense listener experience possible. It's the harshest, most beautiful, most hideous thing we could make."

ULTRAPOP follows their recent contribution to the Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack “Night City Aliens” and 2018’s critically acclaimed album Only Love, which landed on ‘Album of the Year’ lists from The Atlantic, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Vice, Stereogum, and many more. The album was co-produced by the band's own Dan Greene in collaboration with Ben Chisholm (Chelsea Wolfe) and features contributions from Mark Lanegan, Troy Van Leeuwen (Queens of the Stone Age, A Perfect Circle), Ben Koller (Converge, Killer Be Killed, Mutoid Man) and many more. Kurt Ballou (Converge, High on Fire, Russian Circles) remains at the helm as executive producer.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ultrapop
2. All Futures
3. Masunaga Vapors
4. A Life So Wonderful
5. An Iteration
6. Big Shell
7. Average Death
8. Faith In Medication
9. Where Man Knows Want
10. Real Folk Blues
11. Bad Selection
12. The Music Becomes A Skull

The Armed return with their new album The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed, the follow up to 2023’s critically acclaimed album Perfect Saviors. After completing a trilogy of albums laser-focused on dissecting artistic authenticity in the Information Age, The Armed began work on new material with no premeditated rules or concepts favouring only raw expression and urgency to herald a new era for the project.

What emerged is a furious and confrontational new album—The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed. Still genre-defying, yet overtly pissed, it's an unfiltered expression of Weltschmerz, the German term describing the anguish of the world’s reality versus our idealized visions of what it should be. “This record rejects sanitized, G-rated rebellion curated for upper middle-class tastes,” vocalist Tony Wolski explains. “It’s music for a statistically wealthy population that somehow can’t afford food or medicine—endlessly scrolling past vacation photos, gym selfies, and images of child amputees in the same feed. It reflects the dissociation required just to exist in that reality.”

The album includes performances by Ken Szymanski, Patrick Shiroishi, Urian Hackney, Kurt Ballou, Troy Van Leeuwen, Meghan O’Neil, Cara Drolshagen, Tony Wolski, Brian Wolski, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Ben Chisholm, Prostitute, Zach Weeks, Mark Guiliana, Kayleigh Goldsworthy, and Derek Coburn.

TRACK LISTING

1. Well Made Play
2. Purity Drag
3. Kingbreaker
4. Grace Obscure
5. Broken Mirror (feat. Prostitute)
6. Sharp Teeth
7. I Steal What I Want
8. Local Millionaire
9. Gave Up
10. Heathen
11. A More Perfect Design

The album reaches the same extremities of sonic expression as the furthest depths of metal, noise, and otherwise "heavy" counterculture music subgenres but finds its foundation firmly in pop music and pop culture. As is always The Armed's mission, it seeks only to create the most intense experience possible, a magnification of all culture, beauty, and things. The band goes on to explain, "crafting vital art means presenting the audience with new and intriguing tensions sonically, visually, conceptually. Over time and through use, those tensions become less novel and effective and they become expectations. The concept of "subgenre" becomes almost the antithesis of vitality in art itself a fetishization of expectation. ULTRAPOP seeks, in earnest, to create a truly new listener experience. It is an open rebellion against the culture of expectation in "heavy" music. It is a joyous, genderless, post-nihilist, anti-punk, razor-focused take on creating the most intense listener experience possible. It's the harshest, most beautiful, most hideous thing we could make." ULTRAPOP follows their recent contribution to the Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack “Night City Aliens” and 2018’s critically acclaimed album Only Love, which landed on ‘Album of the Year’ lists from The Atlantic, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Vice, Stereogum, and many more. The album was co-produced by the band's own Dan Greene in collaboration with Ben Chisholm (Chelsea Wolfe) and features contributions from Mark Lanegan, Troy Van Leeuwen (Queens of the Stone Age, A Perfect Circle), Ben Koller (Converge, Killer Be Killed, Mutoid Man) and many more. Kurt Ballou (Converge, High on Fire, Russian Circles) remains at the helm as executive producer.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ultrapop
2. All Futures
3. Masunaga Vapors
4. A Life So Wonderful
5. An Iteration
6. Big Shell
7. Average Death
8. Faith In Medication
9. Where Man Knows Want
10. Real Folk Blues
11. Bad Selection
12. The Music Becomes A Skull

The Armed return with their new album Perfect Saviors, the first new music since 2021 breakout release ULTRAPOP. Providing a full accounting of album contributors for the first time, Perfect Saviors was produced by the band’s Tony Wolski along with Ben Chisholm and Troy Van Leeuwen, with contributions from Julien Baker, Sarah Tudzin, Mark Guiliana, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Eric Avery, Stephen Perkins, Josh Klinghoffer, and many more. The album was mixed by Alan Moulder. Vocalist Tony Wolski offered this statement on the album: “Too much information has made us dumb and confused. Too many ways to connect have inadvertently led to isolation. And too much expectation has forced everyone to become a celebrity. Predictable primal dangers have given way to newer social ones. And the result is a world that is confounding and terrifying but ultimately still beautiful. We hope this record is exactly all of that, too. Perfect Saviors is our completely unironic, sincere effort to create the biggest, greatest rock album of the 21st century.”

Perfect Saviors is the conclusion of a trilogy of albums examining and dissecting what constitutes “pop culture” in a world of limitless information and access. Using “pop music” loosely as a format in which to express these ideas, each album used composition and presentation as a way to challenge these questions further. Perfect Saviors is the ultimate product of this evolution. Using one of the world’s most well-known mixing engineers to create a beautiful album fully immersed in the language and world of pop through the inherently unique, extreme, and perverse lens, The Armed communicate their art.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sport Of Measure
2. FKA World
3. Clone
4. Modern Vanity
5. Everything's Glitter
6. Burned Mind
7. Sport Of Form
8. Patient Mind
9. Vatican Under Construction
10. Liar 2
11. In Heaven
12. Public Grieving 

The Armed are set to release Ultrapop: Live at the Masonic Temple, an incredible live soundtrack from the band’s narrative-driven concert film of the same name. The album and film were captured in the opulent chapels, imposing asylum rooms, full-size indoor handball courts, halls (and more) of the mysterious Masonic Temple of Detroit; a 550,000 square foot fortress in the heart of the city. Ultrapop: Live at the Masonic features breathtaking, hyperactive performances of tracks off The Armed’s break-out album Ultrapop, selections from their second LP, Only Love, the Cyberpunk 2077 single “Night City Aliens” and culminates in the ultimate catharsis with the entire collective converging for the devastating closer ”On Jupiter.”

The Armed’s latest album Ultrapop, released in April of 2021, received acclaim across the board, gaining the highly coveted Pitchfork Best New Music and praise from The New Yorker Magazine, Vulture, Stereogum, Revolver. AV Club, Fader, Bandcamp, Entertainment Weekly, Interview Magazine, and so much more. Reaching the same extremities of sonic expression as the furthest depths of metal, noise, and otherwise "heavy" counterculture music subgenres, it finds its foundation firmly in pop music and pop culture. A joyous, genderless, post-nihilist, anti-punk, razor-focused take on creating the most intense listening experience possible, and now with Ultrapop: Live At The Masonic, the most intense live experience possible.

TRACK LISTING

Off Jupiter (dan Greene's Theme)
Ultrapop
Twiin Ascension
All Futures
Masunaga Vapors
An Iteration
Average Death
Mother (gold Jade's Dream)
Night City Aliens
Fortune’s Daughter
Where Man Knows Want
At The Moment Of Being Heard
On Jupiter

Tompkins Square's recent double-LP, Imaginational Anthem vol 8 : The Private Press shed light on forgotten, impossibly rare guitar recordings spanning several decades. Tom Armstrong's The Sky Is An Empty Eye is the first of several reissues planned by Tompkins Square of full albums by artists featured on IA8. Armstrong's self-released LP from 1987 sports blissed out acoustic numbers like the one featured on IA8, along with some electric workouts and even a deep pysch vocal tune. Tom's main mode of distribution for the album was handing the LP to drunken patrons at a bar in Pinos Altos, NM. Now Tompkins Square makes it a bit easier to acquire.

In his own words, today : I was born in Elmhurst IL, lived there 29 years. Had a brief career playing open mikes and bars for tips, drinks and nominal cash payments, even gave some guitar lessons. In 1984 I was offered a half partnership in an engineering firm in Dallas, so I moved to Texas. Made a big pile of money. My wife bought me a Tascam 4 track recorder for my birthday, I went crazy with it. Recorded a bunch of melodies that had been rattling around my brain since I was 8 years old. Liked what I heard, decided to make an LP. It wasn't too hard to track down a studio to master my 4 tracks. By this time I was an old hand at graphic design for promotional material, so I designed the cover myself. Handed the albums out to business associates, as promotional material for other business interests, at a drunken open mike at a bar in Pinos Altos, NM. I continued to record for about another 10 years, blues rock, pop. Really refined my recording skills. Still play once in while, but I'm an old fart now, with all the baggage that entails.

TRACK LISTING

1 White Pines
2 The Thing
3 Dream Waltz
4 Burleske
5 Keller
6 The Sky Is An Empty Eye
7 Winter Lament
8 Mama's Baby
9 Bebop
10 Thunder Clouds

West Midlands math-rock trio The Arm return with this four track EP hot on the heels of their acclaimed debut on Speedowax. On "He Builds Bombs", The Arm have stepped up the intensity with a relentless assault of frenzied rhythms, razor-edged guitars and acid-damaged electronica.

An intensely quiet trip inspired by Tarkovsky movies, Feldman’s long works and essentialist jazz. It sees Arthurs expand his long-time duo with pianist Richard Fairhurst to a trio with the inclusion of Finnish percussionist Markku Ounaskari. Fragile and deep, mysterious and nocturnal, romantic and entrancing. There was a striking, yet entirely coincidental proximity between these new tunes and the folk pieces Ounaskari had earlier recorded with his Kuára-trio on ECM.

For ‘One Year’ Arthurs kept reshaping the scores, from changing comparatively minor details to turning entire arrangements upside down. Since the bulk of the original material comprised of fragments, he was able to shift sections from one piece to the next in search of their ideal position. The inspiration had come from film: “I was deeply impressed by how Tarkovsky edited his masterpiece ‘Mirror’. He had no story, no plan, no storyboard. He just shot a lot of material and then, for two years, he had these clothes lines in his house and was putting together the scene into different forms until he had the movie.” 

TRACK LISTING

Evergreens
Pyörähdellen
Verklöstert
Liepnitz In Ruhe
S. Unterwegs (CD Only)
One Year/Song
Rising (CD Only)

The new release from Top Sounds Records honours one of the mid 1960’s most revered cult bands with the label’s first single artist long playing record and CD – the ARTWOODS!

The ARTWOODS – Art Wood, Derek Griffiths, Malcolm Pool, Keef Hartley and future Deep Purple organist Jon Lord – recorded for Decca, Parlophone and Fontana from 1964 to 1967 and their Decca back catalogue in particular has been well documented by retrospective re-issues and compilations. The thirteen canvasses in ‘Art’s Gallery’ however are sourced completely from three live radio sessions that the ARTWOODS recorded for the BBC during 1965 and early 1966 and were not known to still exist. The British Broadcasting Corporation saved a number of tracks the group played for the Beeb and these have since appeared on the Cherry Red ‘Steady Getting It’ set, the rest of the ARTWOODS’ radiophonic output however was not kept by the BBC with the tapes being erased or junked. Thanks to diligent home taping by a particularly keen fan at the time, the ARTWOODS’ music for radio on ‘Art’s Gallery’ can again be heard in public for the first time in over fifty years. And besides welcome live takes of familiar favourites such as ‘Oh My Love’, ‘She Knows What To Do’ and ‘Don’t Cry No More’, there’s a spoil of cool numbers that the band never committed to disc. There’s the upbeat jazz of ‘That Healin’ Feelin’ and ‘Smack Dab In The Middle’, the slow burning blues of ‘How Long, How Long Blues’ and ‘Black Mountain Blues’, the soulful grooves of ‘Out Of Sight’ and ‘I Got A Woman’ and the pure mod suave of ‘Comin’ Home Baby’ (and more!).

The music has been restored to the highest possible standards from the only known surviving reel to reel recordings and Top Sounds feel sure there’s a splendid time for all to be had from a visit to ‘Art’s Gallery’!

A limited edition in both formats!!!!

Named after a line taken from the great Edinburgh poet Norman MacCaig’s Praise of a Man, Tommy Ashby’s stunning debut album ‘Lamplighter’ distills the idea that after someone significant enters your life, the light they pass on will spread and illuminate others. Once that light is lit, it never really goes out. The album is a sincere and touching meditation on relationships; familial and friendships, the romantic and the unspoken. Capturing snapshots of people, places and moments in time, the work beautifully illustrates the effect that a person can have on your life and reflects on how the important relationships in our lives shape us; “It depicts all the people who were lamplighters in my life”.

After swapping a one-bed flat in London for the big skies, reed beds and sunsets of rural Suffolk, Tommy found himself writing about relationships with family and friends, along with a sense of place and its significance. Recorded in a series of secluded retreats tucked away in the hidden corners of the UK, an affinity for location and nature permeates the record. You can hear the trickle of streams in the woods of the Scottish Borders, birds spinning off the sea-cliffs of Zennor in Cornwall and the misty autumn chill of days spent recording in Suffolk and Pembrokeshire. Throughout ‘Lamplighter’, Tommy reminisces over many fond childhood memories of wandering wild Scottish woodlands with his parents, his grandma’s enthusiasm for naturalist poetry and folk music or nights spent sneaking into pubs and bars to play the blues with his dad. As the album unfolds the songs muse over these memories. You get a sense that Tommy is trying to come to terms with how these personal connections have changed over the years and how they’ve come to shape him as an individual.

TRACK LISTING

1. Running
2. My Old Man
3. Moonflower (Best Friend)
4. Closer
5. When Love Goes Dark
6. Floorboards
7. Not That Far To Go
8. A Beautiful Day
9. Safe And Sound
10. Lifeline
11. Which Way The Wind Blows
12. Weigh Me Down
13. Comeback Kid

Andrew Weatherall never wakes up in the morning and decides to start a new album that day. Instead, recording music is a continuous process usually working with different collaborators and seeing where the muse takes him. Somewhere down the line the rewards of a collaboration will coalesce into a body of work between thirty minutes and an hour long and he will put a call into the Rotters’ team to say he has a new release ready to go.

We were visiting the studio catching up on new tracks in various states of readiness when he offered up some remixes of tracks from his recent “Ruled By Passion…” he’d been sent by fellow musicians. Tim Fairplay, Andrew’s partner in The Asphodells, Sean Johnston from A Love From Outer Space and Scott Fraser live and work in the area and all popped in at various points.

Andrew’s black book reads like the who’s who of contemporary music but rather than plunder it for remixers he’d let drop the idea of a remix with friends and neighbours. These plus a couple a swaps with musical friends who were new to the concept of remixing, gave Andrew an hour of music he thoroughly enjoyed listening to.

It goes without saying none of the tracks are duds but our ears always prick up when Justin Robertson’s take on “Beglammered” ups the heart rate or Daniel Avery’s own unscrewing of “… the Axis” ruffles the neck hairs. We’ve stopped arguing in the office about which is the best track. They all are.

On this album Andrew Weatherall has partnered with Timothy J. Fairplay as The Asphodells. Their friendship goes back to Tim’s time with Battant in the latter part of the 2000s with Andrew helping out on production. Tim has been responsible for a number of independent tracks variously on Astro Lab Recordings, World Unknown, Bird Scarer, Emotional Response and Magic Feet. He has played live across Europe including at Fabric in London and Robert Johnson in Germany and DJs at regular Glasgow night Crimes of the Future with Scott Fraser.

Musically the album’s yet another game changer. Andrew has left behind the rock and roll leanings of Wrong Meeting and A Pox on the Pioneers and looks back over his shoulder to the purer electronics of the Kraftwerk-inflected Two Lone Swordsmen but without the sparse introspection that characterised those times. Now the music is saturated in repetitive beats overlaid with sinuous melodies played out over whole tracks. Songs still feature but sound haunted, guitars still ground the tracks but are more resonant. John Betjeman’s ‘Late Flowering Lust’ sits surprisingly comfortably alongside AR Kane’s ‘A Love from Outer Space’ but ultimately it’s Weatherall and Fairplay that imbue the album with it’s own sense of a journey through a time and space that only dimly reflects our own.

TRACK LISTING

01. Beglammered
02. Never There
03. Skwatch
04. Another Lonely City
05. Late Flowering Lust
06. Late Flowering Dub
07. We Are The Axis
08. One Minute's Silence
09. Quiet Dignity Of Unwitnessed Lives
10. Love From Outer Space (Version 2)

'All you need to make an album is a girl and a gun.' Jean Luc Godard. Sex, death, rock-n-roll. The Assassinations is a band, an album and an idea. Is there any more appropriate name for a rock'n'roll band during a decade in which suicide bombs, ethnic cleansing, and kidnapping have become like muzak on the TV news. The Assassinations is rock-n-roll that revels in the signs of the times. The band also has two asses in its name. The Assassinations is latest incarnation in the career of Berlin music legend and agent provocateur Ghazi Barakat. A mainstay of the city's underground music scene since the early 90s, Barakat was the founder and singer of garage noise outfit the Golden Showers. He also performed as part of 'Give Up', a Digital Hardcore-affiliated band with Shizuo's David Hammer and Cobra Killer's Annika Trost. The nine tracks on "Future Blasts From The Past", which is the first release on Barakat's new label Hashishin Records, were recorded between 2006 and 2007 with engineer and producer Tico Zamora at his Polytrash studios in Berlin. Barakat roped in a selection of able friends and conspirators: Tim Gane of Stereolab, Fred Bigot (aka French art-techno one man band Electronicat), Taylor Savvy, Nicole Morier from Electrocute and, most extravagantly a brass ensemble from the Himalayas (Hindulam Ensemble).

Fourth Drawer Down is a compilation album by the Scottish post-punk and new wave band the Associates, released in October 1981. It compiles the A- and B-sides from the six singles the band released that year. The songs that appeared on Fourth Drawer Down had a notably darker and more experimental edge than their debut studio album The Affectionate Punch. The album was well received by music critics, with reviewers commenting on the band's increased experimentalism. Alastair McKay of Uncut called Fourth Drawer Down "an extraordinary document on which the sense of mystery deepens, and the commitment to sonic experiment becomes more pronounced."

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Worth it alone for the opening song... What a tune!!

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. White Car In Germany
2. A Girl Named Property
3. Kitchen Person
4. Q Quarters

Side B
1. Tell Me Easter's On Friday
2. The Associate
3. Message Oblique Speech
4. An Even Whiter Car

Affectionate Punch is the debut studio album by the Scottish post-punk and new wave band the Associates; it was released on 1 August 1980. From the album, “The Affectionate Punch” and “A” were released as singles. Upon its release, The Affectionate Punch was declared “a kind of masterpiece” by Paul Morley of the NME, who described it as “a passionate cabaret soul music, a fulfilment of the European white dance music Bowie was flirting with back then.” None other than Robert Smith (The Cure) can be heard doing backing vocals on “The Affectionate Punch” and “Even Dogs in the Wild” and Nigel Glockler (Saxon) is the drummer on the album.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. The Affectionate Punch
2. Amused As Always
3. Logan Time
4. Paper House
5. Transport To Central

Side B
1. A Matter Of Gender
2. Even Dogs In The Wild
3. Would I… Bounce Back
4. Deeply Concerned
5. A.

Formed in Dundee, Scotland in 1979, the Associates were comprised of vocalist Billy Mackenzie and multi-instrumentalist Alan Rankine.

Built on an eclectic mix of influences and interests ranging from art rock to glam and disco, the duo found early success with their debut record 'The Affectionate Punch' in 1981. Their second studio album 'Sulk', released in 1982, was the group's definitive statement, a fascinating blend of lush, new romantic popcraft and dark, surreal cabaret stylings. Upon its release, the album was voted the album of the year by Melody Maker. Billy Mackenzie recalled before his death in 1997, “Sulk was a real liberation. It had the essence of what I’m about. I realized I could create my own sunshine.”

A new project from Pete Astor (The Loft, Weather Prophets, Wisdom of Harry, Ellis Island Sound) and Ian Button (Death in Vegas, Papernut Cambridge, Go Kart Mozart), The Attendant started in the strange days of March 2020, using off-grid electronics to frame Astor’s poems.

The record comes in numbered, signed, hand-stamped and embossed sleeves, along with a full lyric and photo booklet.

The six tracks comprise the three, sold-out lathe cut singles that were released last year.

TRACK LISTING

A
1.Music On
2.Opening Lines
3.Goodbye 21st Century

B
1.Teenage
2.Magnificent Aunt Mary
3.Adventurer Star

After a ten-year break from the studio, The Autumn Defense pick up right where they left off on their long-anticipated sixth album, 'Here and Nowhere'. Infusing the band’s breezy, harmony-drenched take on Laurel Canyon with lush orchestration and psychedelic flourishes, the collection is dreamy and impressionistic, full of warm, inviting tunes as beautiful as they are bittersweet.

Like much of the group’s catalog, it’s an album full of mystery and wonder, a rich, open-hearted work that nods to everything from Nick Drake and John Martyn to Carole King and David Crosby as it contemplates the passage of time, reckoning with what we lose, what we gain, and who we become along the way. Founded by core duo John Stirratt and Pat Sansone—and now featuring longtime rhythm section James Haggerty and Greg Wieczorek—The Autumn Defense first took shape in New Orleans, where the band recorded their 2001 debut, 'The Green Hour'. While the group has at times been pigeonholed as a Wilco side project (Stirratt is a founding member, and Sansone joined around the release of 2004’s A Ghost Is Born), The Autumn Defense’s sound has always been decidedly more West Coast than alt-country, drawing comparisons to The Beach Boys, The Byrds, and Love over the course of five critically acclaimed studio albums. NPR hailed the group’s “timeless pop songs,” while Rolling Stone called their music “gorgeous” and “delightful,” and the New York Times praised their delivery as “warm and radiant.”

TRACK LISTING

1. The Ones
2. I'll Take You Out Of Your Mind
3. Old Hearts
4. Winter Shore
5. In The Beginning
6. Hearts Arrive
7. Underneath The Rollers
8. More Than I Can Say
9. Love Lives
10. Raven Of The Wood
11. Ever Flowing Light

By day John Stirratt and Patrick Sansone sell thousands of albums and tour the world as members of indie juggernaut Wilco, while lending their writing, playing and producing abilities to dozens of high-profile recordings. But by night these renowned pros are able to sit down, relax and create something special that comes straight from the heart of why they pursued music as a career - and that's the Autumn Defense.

After releasing 2007's The Autumn Defense on their own Broadmoor label, Stirratt and Sansone have teamed up with North Carolina's Yep Roc Records to release their latest full-length effort, "Once Around".

For the past nine years, this pair of Southerners-turned-Chicagoans has quietly been nurturing the reverent, classic pop of the Autumn Defense. Though the outset of the band saw Stirratt handling the bulk of the songwriting while Sansone lent his talents to production, the duo has steadily evolved into a partnership in both respects. From 2000's debut effort "The Green Hour" to the critically lauded, salt-of-theearth folk rock of 2003's "Circles", the Autumn Defense developed its late afternoon kickback sound like a fine wine develops and deepens - with time.

"Once Around" is a formidable tapestry of thoughtful, intricate sunshine wrapped around a core of timeless, experienced songwriting. It's the kind of record that needed to be made, for the audience but also for the artists. The result is a distinctly Autumn Defense record, full of lush melodic textures, invitingly delicate pop arrangements and frequents nods to the AM gold, soul and radio rock that dominated the group's formative years.

The Avalanches’ era defining debut album ‘Since I Left You’ has finally come of age. Now 20 years old, ‘Since I Left You’ gets a timely reissue along with an additional record of fifteen remixes from the likes of MF DOOM, Stereolab and Carl Craig. The Avalanches made ‘Since I Left You’ out of hundreds of vinyl samples, the grand finale and biggest climactic triumph of the Sampladelic Decade. Containing classic singles ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ and ’Since I Left You’, the reissue’s remixes give each track a new lease of life, while still maintaining the sunny disposition of the originals.

Do you remember what you were doing twenty years ago? I do. I was a fifteen year old kid from the burbs, spending my summer playing football and recreating WWF classics in the back yard while dressed like a nerdish Eminem (bleach blonde hair and everything). Then a wacky-ass radio track packed with film snippets and horse noises worked its way into my teenage brain and changed things for good. The Avalanches were insane, inspired and in full effect; following the 'horse song' ("Frontier Psychiatrist") with a soulful and swooning summer jam ("Since I Left You") which has played in my head ever since. Family Allowance firmly in hand I took my privileged ass off to the Market Hall, picked up a CD copy of this album and spent the whole bus journey home feasting my eyes on the liner notes and sleeve artwork. As I hit the play button on my naff home stereo, I was whisked away Dorothy-style and taken on a head spinning journey through 50 years of popular music. Leaving the monochrome mundanity of Bolton behind, I soared through technicolour stage sets of paradise islands, Brooklyn block parties and countryside BBQs, Sci-Fi spectaculars and rewired romances as 3,500 samples were sticky taped together before my very ears. The plunderphonic sound of six men who spent their adolescence rummaging through the bargain bins of Melbourne's record shops, "Since I Left You" applies hip hop's cut'n'paste mentality to the full gamut of weird and wonderful pop, from exotica to erotica, disco and funk to lounge and psych. Unlike anything I'd ever heard before, and better than any imitators I've heard since, The Avalanches are truly in a class of their own. 

TRACK LISTING

4LP
Disc 1
Since I Left You
Stay Another Season
Radio
Two Hearts In 3/4 Time
Avalanche Rock
Flight Tonight
Close To You
Diners Only
A Different Feeling

Disc 2
Electricity
Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life
Pablo's Cruise
Frontier Psychiatrist
Etoh
Summer Crane
Little Journey
Live At Dominoes
Extra Kings

Disc 3
Since I Left You (Cornelius Remix)
Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life (Edan Remix)
Frontier Psychiatrist (Mario Caldato Jr's 85% Remix)
Close To You (Sun Araw Remix)
Since I Left You (Stereolab Remix)
Flight Tonight (Canyons Travel Agent Dub)
Radio (Sinkane Remix)

Disc 4
Since I Left You (Prince Paul Remix)
Electricity (Harvey's Nightclub Re-edit)
Summer Crane (Black Dice Remix)
Extra Kings (Deakin Remix)
Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life (MF DOOM Remix)
Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life (Dragged By Leon Vynehall)
A Different Feeling (Carl Craig's Paperclip People Remix)
Thank You Caroline (Original Avalanches Demo Tape)

2CD
Disc 1
Since I Left You
Stay Another Season
Radio
Two Hearts In 3/4 Time
Avalanche Rock
Flight Tonight
Close To You
Diners Only
A Different Feeling
Electricity
Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life
Pablo's Cruise
Frontier Psychiatrist
Etoh
Summer Crane
Little Journey
Live At Dominoes
Extra Kings

Disc 2
Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life (MF DOOM Remix)
Summer Crane (Black Dice Remix)
Frontier Psychiatrist (Mario Caldato Jr's 85% Remix)
Electricity (Dr. Rockit's Dirty Kiss Remix)
Electricity (Original Avalanches Demo Tape)
Thank You Caroline (Original Avalanches Demo Tape)
Thank You Caroline (Andy Votel Remix)
So Why So Sad (The Avalanches Sean Penn Mix) – Manic Street Preachers
The Shining (The Avalanches Good Word For The Weekend Mix) – Badly Drawn Boy
Pablo's Cruise (Original Avalanches Demo Tape)
I'm A Cuckoo (The Avalanches Remix - DJ Edit) – Belle And Sebastian
Chico (The Avalanches Wernham Hogg Mix) – The Concretes
Fade Together (The Avalanches Remix) – Franz Ferdinand
Since I Left You (Stereolab Remix)
Flight Tonight (Canyons Travel Agent Dub)
Radio (Sinkane Remix)
A Different Feeling (Ernest Saint Laurent Remix)
A Different Feeling (Carl Craig's Paperclip People Remix)
Two Hearts In 3/4 Time (Jackson & His Computer Band Remix)
Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life (Dragged By Leon Vynehall)
Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life (Edan Remix)

In a collage of fuzz guitars, tuning radios, pitched up soul samples, pitched down exotica records, and a whole lot of background chatter, The Avalanches return after an unprecedented 16 year wait. Created by the band’s core duo - Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi – "Wildflower" is nothing less than The Beach Boys’ "Smile" reimagined in the Daisy Age - a mind-bending cartoon road movie that’s best viewed with closed eyes and an open mind. Unmistakeably the work of Australia's sample kings, "Wildflower" is a Technicolor kaleidoscope of everything great and groovy about music, blessed with the warm and dreamlike aesthetic we first fell in love with on the sublime "Since I Left You". A throwback to those halcyon days when artists made albums, as opposed to a couple of radio singles and eight tracks of filler, The Avalanches sophomore LP drifts from one track to the next, taking us on a tripped out tour of downtown Melbourne in the summer time.

Lead single "Frankie Sinatra" divided the critics on its initial release, making a marmite statement with its oddball calypso samples, oompah brass and unhinged lyrics from Danny Brown and MF DOOM. Here, nestled comfortably between the gorgeous summertime soul of "Because I'm Me" and the sampledelic disco of "Subways", the track makes perfect nonsense. The inner city synth pop of "If I Was A Folkstar" strolls through the sunshine like a laid back relative of Cut Copy's "Bright Like Neon Love", while the spectral "Colours", featuring some heavily treated vocals from Mercury Rev's Jonathan Donahue, is as dreamy and doped up as pop music gets. Elsewhere Ariel Pink, Father John Misty, Warren Ellis (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds)  and Toro Y Moi’s Chaz Bundick make cameos, as does Biz Markie on the light-hearted, full stomached old school hip hop of "Noisy Eater". The dusty sixties soul of "Harmony" leaps out the grooves in the middle of a succession of dreamy sketches (in a day-glo Dilla style) before the triple threat of "The Wozard Of Iz", "Over The Turnstyles" and "Sunshine" form the apex of an outstanding LP. "Kaleidoscopic Lovers" and "Stepkids" serve up a pair of pastoral love songs before the driving haze-gaze of "Saturday Night Inside Out" leads us off into the sunset with the widest smile of our lives. Against all odds and expectations, The Avalanches have done the impossible, following up an instant classic with a second album which is even better than the first. If we have to wait another sixteen years for the next one, at least we'll be waiting in the company of two flawless records. 

TRACK LISTING

01. The Leaves Were Falling
02. Because I’m Me
03. Frankie Sinatra
04. Subways
05. Going Home
06. If I Was A Folkstar
07. Colours
08. Zap!
09. The Noisy Eater
10. Wildflower
11. Harmony
12. Live A Lifetime Love
13. Park Music
14. Livin’ Underwater (Is Somethin’ Wild)
15. The Wozard Of Iz
16. Over The Turnstiles
17. Sunshine
18. Light Up
19. Kaleidoscopic Lovers
20. Stepkids
21. Saturday Night Inside Out
22. Frankie Sinatra (Extended Mix)

Inclusive outsider pop mavericks and Antifolk legends The Awkward Silences return with their eponymous 4th album and their first release in 5 years. Off-kilter Daniel Johnston-esque pop songs inspired by Ian Dury and Iggy Pop. Produced by Jon Clayton (The Monochrome Set, Subway Sect), The Awkward Silences is their catchiest, most unusual and most personal work to date. Led by songwriter, author and disability campaigner Paul Hawkins, The Awkward Silences combine cleverly off-kilter Daniel Johnston-esque pop songs with energetic and inspired live performances pitched somewhere between Ian Dury, Iggy Pop and the Flaming Lips. Having cut their teeth at the infamous Blang nights at the 12 Bar Club back in the late 00’s, The Awkward Silences built up a dedicated following amongst the UK Antifolk Scene before taking on the mainstream with regular BBC Radio1 & 6Music airplay, festival slots up and down the country, and a celebrity following including the likes of Mark Radcliffe, Huw Stephens and Graham Coxon*. Owing to a combination of mental health issues, bereavements, disability activism and other real life complications, the band retreated from the public eye following the release of 2015’s Outsider Pop.

2018 saw the bands first foray back into the spotlight with a triumphant set at Kendal Calling, spurring them back into the studio to record the new album. The Awkward Silences will also feature on ‘Scratchcard’, Blang Records forthcoming 15 year anniversary compilation (due October 2020). More recently, Hawkins has been in the music press for his work with disability charity Attitude Is Everything and their new initiative Beyond The Music, aimed at improving employment opportunities for disabled people in the music industry. As a disabled musician himself, Hawkins is passionate about improving access for deaf and disabled performers, gig-goers and professionals. All Awkward Silences self-promoted gigs have captioned lyrics for anyone who can't hear them. Paul is very happy to hear from disabled musicians who'd like some advice or a chat. * Graham Coxon was once mistaken for Chris from the band, and ended up getting punched as a result. We think he is a fan. Quotes - ‘Laden with pure charisma’ NME // ‘An ace antifolk superstar’ Time Out // ‘I haven’t been able to get Paul Hawkins out of my head for the last 4 days’ Huw Stephens 

TRACK LISTING

1 Quantum Physics
2 Getting Ready For My Life To Begin
3 There’s Nothing More Obnoxious Than A Self-Made Man
4 Everybody Loves Organised Fun
5 Other People Die
6 Count Each Mistake
7 The Medical Model
8 Everything Will Probably Be Fine
9 Pretending To Be Fine
10 The New World

Tim Ayre is a singer songwriter from Melbourne, Australia. Working with mostly analogue instruments and writing, recording everything himself, Tim Ayre’s music is a highly chromatic and wistful sound that draws on the authenticity of yesterday to offer a vintage aesthetic of our day. The results are a unique and infectious take on pop music. This 4 track EP provides colorful and sophisticated dream pop with a tint of psychedelia which makes you want to travel more than ever, especially nowadays. 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Mexican Holiday
A2. Miami Drive
B1. Modern Life
B2. So Long

If there’s a group in this age that faithfully carries the torch of real group soul harmony, it must be these three cats from the US west coast by the name of Thee Baby Cuffs. Currently composed of Joe Narvaez and Reality Jonez, the trio prances on the stage with their new song 'There Ain’t Enough Roses'. Produced together with the Timmion house band Cold Diamond & Mink, these gentlemen lay down pure soulful romantics enough to fill a jacuzzi.

Even though they seem to be walking out from the candy and flower shop empty handed to meet their lover, they are equipped with lyrics and falsetto flows that can melt any heart. Continuing with their tried and tested downtempo ballad style, Thee Baby Cuffs deliver a soul boulder just as potent as their previous Timmion releases 'My My Baby' and 'You’re My Reason', not to forget the brilliant work that they have put out on the Raza Del Soul label from California.

So hop on in the passenger’s seat and let Thee Baby Cuffs serenade you all the way to the sunset. In case you’re more for the instrumentals, flip the single over to reveal the flute-led version that’ll send you to that sweet Steve Parks lowrider territory in no time.

TRACK LISTING

1. There Ain’t Enough Roses
2. Instrumental

The Baby Seals debut album, "Chaos," is a sonic exploration that blends heavy guitars, a pop edge, and a punk rock garage spirit with a heavy attack. The band, comprised of Amy "Amos" Devine on drums and backing vocals, Kate Shore on bass and backing vocals, and Kerry Devine on guitar and lead vocals, delivers a raw and energetic collection that captures the essence of their live performances.

Recorded in March 2023 in Thaxted, just outside of Essex, "Chaos" embodies the DIY ethos that has defined The Baby Seals' approach to music. Working with engineer Joe in a secluded outhouse surrounded by fields, the band laid down the tracks live over a day, capturing the unfiltered essence of their sound. Joe's extensive collection of homemade pedals added a unique touch to the recording, while Benny T's mixing expertise brought the album to its final form.

The decision to minimise post-production sets "Chaos" apart from previous recordings, reflecting the band's commitment to authenticity and a desire to showcase their growth and maturity.

On Chaos Kerry says: “Chaos is the next phase in life for us lasses in the band - babies and mid-life responsibilities. The album definitely is about how we feel and experience the world around us in our 30s and 40s. Someone who heard the album recently said it's like the The Baby Seals have grown up and I liked that because that's what I feel likes happened to me in the last two years… The album definitely has Themes: inclusivity, gender inequality, the mental load, the motherload, power, body positivity, challenging taboos, liberation. The importance of what to take seriously and what not to take seriously.

Title track, Chaos is one of the songs on the album which I'd written after a series of events including watching an interview with the late writer Benjamin Zephaniah who said the only way to liberation for all was to tear big governments down and to believe in your community.

The cover photo by Jeff Pitcher sums us up and hopefully gives you a feeling of what the album sounds like. Album design was created by Igor Prato Luna, he just seemed to understand what we are about. He referenced loads of wonderful album cover, poster and flyer artwork from the 60s - 90s, and even some fabulous sci-fi artwork from the 1920s and those incredible 1950s sci-fi pulp book covers. Nothing was referenced too heavily, though, and Igor definitely made it his own. “

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Clashing, distorted guitars and pumpelling percussion, topped with the near-shouted vocal trilogy of Amy and Kerry Devine and Kate Shore. It's rich in the traditions of punk rock and garage but with a more modern, sardonic vim. Superbly loud, and made for crashing around to.

TRACK LISTING

1. Yawn Porn
2. ID'd At Aldi
3. Vibrator
4. Chaos
5. Invisible Woman
6. My Labia Is Lopsided But I Don't Mind
7. Mild Misogynist
8. Nipple Hair
9. It's Not About The Money Honey

Often described as a 'turntable band' (played a lot but few sales) The Babys really were on their last legs by the time they recorded this 1980 album. There is so much quality in both songwriting and performance on thaes reissues it's hard to say what went wrong--most of it has to be down to bad timing, if you like hard tight rock licks this is the stuff for you.

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

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

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

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

Both sides remastered from the original sound source.

TRACK LISTING

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

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

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

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A spellbinding debut that perfectly highlights the huge vocal range and emotional heft of Tyler's voice, spanning country rock and folk, with a good dose of syrup-sweet crooning thrown in for good measure. It's a wonderfully off-piste sound that only Mr. Ballgame could pull off.

TRACK LISTING

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

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

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

Help Me Out
Shine

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

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

"'Country Sides' is about our world and how we've used music to live in the spaces where we want to exist: To Get High On Our Own Supply - This record is both a nod to the past and a look to the future - We've been writing, recording and performing music that inspires us for TWENTY YEARS and we hope in turn it connects with and inspires others - Pretty simple, right?

"There are soul and folk, rock and roll and 'Country Sides' to all of the music we make. This time around, we spent a little more time exploring the 'Country Sides' of our musical personality. Take a ride on an ethereal wave of a pedal steel swell, but feel your feet rooted firmly to the ground and the muscle of the bass and drums. They give you an undeniable rhythm to move to. Follow the Wurlitzer piano dancing along with the acoustic guitars to find the vocals, always leading, but always blending and making a sweet sweet harmony.

"We are a band of brothers, who started by walking in the footsteps of the musical giants that were laid long before we set out on this journey. Now, twenty years in we are on our own path, enjoying the view as we ride along the country side. "

- The Band Of Heathens

TRACK LISTING

1. No Direction
2. High On Our Own Supply
3. She's The Night / Lead Don't Follow
4. Forever's Not A Long Time
5. Finish Something I Started
6. Pleasing People
7. Good As I Can Be
8. Take The Cake
9. Just As Much
10. Letting Go

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

STAFF COMMENTS

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

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

Now in limited edition Bone White vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

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

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

1. Be Your Man
2. Don’t Work

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

It’s been eight years since Montreal’s The Barr Brothers released a full-length album. In that time, life pulled them in new directions - personally and professionally - altering the way they make music together. Their fourth studio album, 'Let it Hiss', isn’t just a new collection of songs. It’s a document of transformation. The making of this record marked a pivotal shift: a pause for reflection, a reckoning with vulnerability, and a reconnection between the two brothers who’ve spent over three decades making music side by side. “In 2022, we found ourselves at a breaking point,” says Brad Barr, the band’s guitarist, vocalist, and primary songwriter. “It was clear something had to change. The real story of this record is the story of that change and everything that came after.”

“'Let it Hiss' is what happened when we stopped pretending everything was fine and finally listened to what was actually going on”, says Andrew.
The album opens in miniature: a tiny Mexican guitar, the soft pulse of piano, a bare rhythm, and a voice that offers both surrender and strength. "Take it from me,” Brad sings - not as command, but confession. From this first moment, the album invites you into a space where the flaws aren’t edited out - they’re amplified, celebrated. It’s a powerful introduction to a record rooted in honesty, rediscovery, and trust.

For the brothers, recording became a mirror. The process didn’t begin with sound - it began with truth. They confronted not just creative blocks, but personal ones. Old patterns. Unspoken tensions. Grief. Growth. Through it all, they found a rhythm again - not in precision, but in permission.

Brad and Andrew have been playing music together since they were kids, first in the shape-shifting rock outfit The Slip, and then as The Barr Brothers, blending American roots music, and experimental textures into something uniquely their own. Their reputation for intricate musicianship and emotional depth has earned them fans across the world—and praise from musical giants.

The title itself is an ethos. “It just felt right,” Andrew says. “To leave the hiss in. The discomfort, the imperfection, the struggle. We stopped trying to clean it all up. That’s when the music started to breathe again. To be fun”.

Certainly, 'Let it Hiss' foregrounds a sense of joyous abandon that wasn’t as perceptible on previous Barr Brothers records—you can hear it in the open-road anthem 'Run Right Into It' (featuring Land of Talk’s Elizabeth Powell) and the playful garage-band reggae of 'She Doesn’t Sleep With the Covers On'. But 'Let it Hiss' doesn’t completely abandon the intimate storytelling on which the Barrs’ brand was built: 'English Harbour' is a gorgeous folk hymn illuminated by harmonies from former tour mate Jim James of My Morning Jacket, and 'Moonbeam' is a lush, string-swept soul serenade given an extra touch of class by a Francophone guest vocal from Quebecois art-pop shapeshifter Klô Pelgag.

There’s a timeless quality to the songwriting on Let it Hiss - evident on songs like 'Naturally', a quiet nod to the era of classic craftsmen, where melody and message were inseparable. It’s music that trusts the listener, unfolding gradually, with arrangements that balance restraint and ambition in equal measure. Perhaps at the center of it all is 'Owning Up to Everyone', a track that captures the spirit of the album in miniature. “That one cracked something open,” says Andrew. “It felt like a way through.”

But all the freewheeling musical exploration and emotional upheaval that plays out over the course of 'Let it Hiss' still won’t prepare for the album’s closer 'Upsetter', a blast of sweat-soaked, punk-powered rock ‘n ’soul capped by an absolutely lobotomizing guitar solo. Quite simply, it’s the most berserker track the Barrs have ever committed to tape, pushing the 'Let it Hiss' philosophy so far into the red, it practically breaks the VU meter. “This was one where I thought, ‘well, there's no way this is going to make the record, ’because maybe it feels out of the blue for a lot of our listeners,” Brad reveals. “But I think our listeners will appreciate us just being who we are - and who we are includes stuff like this.”

Brad and Andrew produced 'Let it Hiss' themselves, working primarily as a duo out of their Montreal studio. To bring the album’s rawness and intricacy into focus, the band turned to mix engineer Jon Low (The National, Taylor Swift, Bon Iver). They called on trusted friends from their wider musical community to lend voices, instruments, and textures when the songs called for it—collaborations that felt less like features and more like natural extensions of the music. Many of these relationships were built over years of shared stages, late-night sessions, and a mutual commitment to the craft. In this way, Let it Hiss stands as both their most personal and most collaborative record to date.

'Let it Hiss' doesn’t resolve so much as reveal. It invites listeners to lean in - to the hiss, the weight, the wonder. As the Barr Brothers move forward, one thing is clear: they’ve found each other again and in doing so they found their way back to the music.

And the rest is hisstory.

TRACK LISTING

1. Take It From Me
2. Let It Hiss
3. English Harbour
4. Run Right Into It
5. Moonbeam
6. She Doesn't Sleep With The Covers On
7. Naturally
8. Owning Up To Everyone
9. Another Tangerine
10. Upsetter

Marina proudly present: The long-awaited reissues of all three classic Marina albums by The Bathers - “Lagoon Blues” (1993), “Sunpowder” (1995) and “Kelvingrove Baby” (1997). In new beautiful deluxe editions - all remastered plus enhanced artwork. And on vinyl for the first time ever!

The Bathers (aka Chris Thomson) from Glasgow are somewhat of a Scottish national treasure. Listen to these albums, and you’ll know why. Enter a musical universe of intricate arrangements, lush orchestrations, swoony vocals and songs of deep emotional beauty. With nods to Van Morrison, Tom Waits, David Bowie, Tim Hardin and Leonard Cohen. Moody wurlitzers and mesmerising pianos are joined by violins, accordians and acoustic guitars to create a hypnotic, totally unique sound. Chamber pop at its very best.

Liz Fraser of The Cocteau Twins contributes vocals on a couple of songs on “Sunpowder”. A match made in heaven with the music of Chris Thomson. James Grant of Love & Money - Thomson’s fellow musician in legendary 80s pop band Friends Again - supplies backing vocals and guitar on “Kelvingrove Baby”. Isobel Campbell from Belle & Sebastian plays cello on “Lagoon Blues” and “Kelvingrove Baby”.

Turn the lights down low - turn up the volume - and get on a trip with these very special, truly cinematic and, yes, quite spectacular albums.

The LP editions are limited to 690 copies each. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Lagoon Blues Pt. 1
2. Venice Shoes
3. Gracefruit
4. Never Too Late
5. Fermina Fair
6. Easter – For Edda Van Heemstra
7. Pissoir / The Ornella Mutiny
8. Through The Old Holmwood
9. Sweetheart Sessions
10. Lolita
11. Via D’Oro
12. Ave The Leopards
13. Carnival
14. Easter Sorbonne
15. Lagoon Blues Pt. 2

New Zealand indie rock royals, The Bats, have recently had their heads down recording new music and have just announced their 11th full-length album, ‘Corner Coming Up’.

The Bats are Robert Scott, Kaye Woodward, Paul Kean and Malcolm Grant, the much-loved indie rock band from Aotearoa. Since their inception in Christchurch in 1982, The Bats’ music has earned a devoted following around the world, and they remain one of New Zealand’s most cherished and enduring exports. Their music is a perfect blend of bittersweet beauty and deceptive simplicity, and the band has a phenomenal ability to create melodies that linger long after the record has stopped spinning.

The new album strikes a very distinctive and familiar chord that exists in the hearts of fuzzy-loving hearts of fans all round the world. Throughout their 40 plus years of existence, and now with album number 11 ready to share with the world, The Bats have stayed true to their roots, creating timeless music that continues to resonate with fans old and new.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Gown
2. Lucky Day
3. A Line To The Stars
4. Corner Coming Up
5. A Song For The End
6. A Crutch A Post
7. Nature’s Time
8. Smallest Fall
9. Tidal
10. Eyes Down
11. Loline

In honor of 50 years of The Beach Boys’ timeless and often underappreciated albums, Capitol/UMC will release an expansive 5CD box set titled Feel Flows – The Sunflower and Surf’s Up Sessions 1969-1971 on Aug 27 that chronicles and explores in depth this metamorphic and highly influential 1969-1971 period of the band’s legendary career. Assembled by Mark Linett and Alan Boyd, the team behind 2013’s GRAMMY® Award-winning SMiLE Sessions, the expansive collection features newly remastered versions of Sunflower and Surf’s Up and boasts 135 tracks, including 108 previously unreleased tracks, live recordings, radio promos, alternate versions, alternate mixes, isolated backing tracks and a capella versions, culled from the album sessions.

Housed in a book style package, the set is rounded out with a 48-page book loaded with unreleased and rare photos, lyric sheets, tape box images, recording artifacts, insightful new liner notes by noted radio veteran and Beach Boys afficionado Howie Edelson, and new and archival interviews from Al Jardine, Brian Wilson, Bruce Johnston, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Mike Love, and others. Feel Flows will also be released in abbreviated versions including 4LP on black vinyl, 2LP black vinyl and 2CD editions.

The best Beach Boys album, and one of the best of the 1960s. The group here reached a whole new level in terms of both composition and production, layering tracks upon tracks of vocals and instruments to create a richly symphonic sound. Conventional keyboards and guitars were combined with exotic touches of orchestrated strings, bicycle bells, buzzing organs, harpsichords, flutes, Theremin, Hawaiian-sounding string instruments, Coca-Cola cans, barking dogs, and more. It wouldn't have been a classic without great songs, and this has some of the group's most stunning melodies, as well as lyrical themes which evoke both the intensity of newly born love affairs and the disappointment of failed romance (add in some general statements about loss of innocence and modern-day confusion as well). The spiritual quality of the material is enhanced by some of the most gorgeous upper-register male vocals (especially by Brian and Carl Wilson) ever heard on a rock record. "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "God Only Knows," "Caroline No," and "Sloop John B" (the last of which wasn't originally intended to go on the album) are the well-known hits, but equally worthy are such cuts as "You Still Believe in Me," "Don't Talk," "I Know There's an Answer," and "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times."

TRACK LISTING

1. Wouldn't It Be Nice
2. You Still Believe In Me
3. That's Not Me
4. Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
5. I'm Waiting For The Day
6. Let's Go Away For Awhile
7. Sloop John B
8. God Only Knows
9. I Know There's An Answer
10. Here Today
11. I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
12. Pet Sounds
13. Caroline, No

The best Beach Boys album, and one of the best of the 1960s. The group here reached a whole new level in terms of both composition and production, layering tracks upon tracks of vocals and instruments to create a richly symphonic sound. Conventional keyboards and guitars were combined with exotic touches of orchestrated strings, bicycle bells, buzzing organs, harpsichords, flutes, Theremin, Hawaiian-sounding string instruments, Coca-Cola cans, barking dogs, and more. It wouldn't have been a classic without great songs, and this has some of the group's most stunning melodies, as well as lyrical themes which evoke both the intensity of newly born love affairs and the disappointment of failed romance (add in some general statements about loss of innocence and modern-day confusion as well). The spiritual quality of the material is enhanced by some of the most gorgeous upper-register male vocals (especially by Brian and Carl Wilson) ever heard on a rock record. "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "God Only Knows," "Caroline No," and "Sloop John B" (the last of which wasn't originally intended to go on the album) are the well-known hits, but equally worthy are such cuts as "You Still Believe in Me," "Don't Talk," "I Know There's an Answer," and "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times."

TRACK LISTING

1. Wouldn't It Be Nice
2. You Still Believe In Me
3. That's Not Me
4. Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
5. I'm Waiting For The Day
6. Let's Go Away For Awhile
7. Sloop John B
8. God Only Knows
9. I Know There's An Answer
10. Here Today
11. I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
12. Pet Sounds
13. Caroline, No

Building on the success of 2021’s Feel Flows and the Sounds Of Summer product suite, UMe will be releasing 4 new packages based on the 1972 recordings by The Beach Boys from the albums “Carl and The Passions” and “Holland” in November.

The project is expansive with 120 tracks, 80 of which are previously unreleased!

The band is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year and through 2023 and a number of tentpole events will build consumer excitement through next year.

Anti-counter culture loner folk from a teenage attic in the heart of rural Northern hippiedom.

Today the valley town of Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire is world-renowned as something of a bohemian backwater. It wasn’t like this back in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, when a disparate selection of radicals, drop-outs, heads, musicians, artists and writers started to be attracted to the Calder Valley. Local lad and future poet laureate Ted Hughes called the area “the fouled nest of industrialisation”.

Over time, those seeds of radicalism and collectivism ensured Hebden Bridge evolved into a place where people could be themselves and all shades of individual oddness not only tolerated but actively encouraged. But back at the turn of the dreary 1970s it remained a monochrome world defined by its unforgiving surrounding landscapes, where the old gritstone over-dwellings were stained with soot and rain lashed down for weeks.

It was here that Trevor Beales, who was born in 1953, grew up, and from where he drew musical and lyrical inspiration.

Perhaps it was this dual nationality heritage, unusual in the valley’s largely white working class population at the time, that gave the teenager Trevor Beale’s music an outsider’s perspective. The discovery of Bob Dylan, Django Reinhardt, The Byrds and James Taylor at a young age, lead to him picking up a guitar at the age of ten, and he was soon writing his own originals and performing them at local (though often remote) folk clubs and pubs.

Recorded in the attic of the family home at Ivy Bank in Charlestown on the verdant wooded slopes at the edge of Hebden Bridge between 1971 and 1974, these early recordings are collected here for the first time and mark Trevor Beales long-overdue solo debut.

In these songs is a suffer-no-fools sense of realism that is defiantly Northern, yet also expresses a worldliness that belies Beales’ young years, whilst also showcasing an inherent storyteller’s ear for narrative. Here is a postcard from the past at that crucial musical period of transition, when the idealistic exponents of the 1960s emerged into an austere new decade that was to be shaped by strikes, rising unemployment and economic upheaval.

Two aspects of this music make it remarkable: Beales’ natural ability showcases a sophisticated guitar-picking style that was leagues ahead of many of his (older, more recognised) contemporaries. This is music that can confidently hold its own with pioneers such as Davey Graham, Michael Chapman, Dave Evans, Bert Jansch and Jackson C Frank, as influenced by jazz, blues and steel guitar as any of the old songbook classics from ancient Albion.

Secondly, his lyrics are a far cry from either the naïve bedroom scribblings of a teenager who has barely left his upland home, nor do they fall foul of the type of lazy cliches and sub-Tolkien imagery that was still in abundance in the early 1970s. Most remarkably the earliest songs here were laid down less than a year after he left school (an unearthed report written by his headteacher on July 3rd 1970 noted he had “a considerable ability and interest in music”, though his education ended abruptly when he simply walked out of a science lesson one sunny day while at sixth form, never to return).

Trevor’s music is grounded in reality – his reality. ‘Then I’ll Take You Home’, for example, considers the Guru Marajai, who encouraged his acolytes to give over their worldly possessions, yet who drove a Rolls Royce and lived like a playboy. Unsurprisingly, this latest in a long line of spiritual charlatans found several followers in Hebden Bridge, and Beales casts a disdainful eye over the growing popularity for such false prophets.

With its ancient narratives and propensity for myth-making, folk has certainly produced it’s fair share of cult figures who have enjoyed rediscovery or career resurgence and with this debut compilation of home recordings, rescued from cassette tapes, Trevor Beales might just be the latest addition. Certainly he was the real deal.

Crucially, Beales' music is never jaded or cynical, but instead possesses a poet’s ear, a strong sense of self and some sound critical faculties. And much of it recorded at an age when he could neither vote nor order a pint of heavy.
Trevor Beales died suddenly and unexpectedly on March 29th 1987, aged 33. He left behind Christine and their young child Lydia. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another wonderful collection of folk from the ever-brilliant Basin Rock here. One of my favourite LP's from earlier this year was the stunning Andrew Tuttle LP, and though this shares similar instrumental leanings, it's from significantly closer to home, focusing on the early 70's in the Calder Valley.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Marion Belle
2. Tell Me Now
3. Dance Of The Mermaids
4. City Lights
5. The Old Soldier
6. Sunlight On The Table
Side B
7. Metropolis
8. The Prisoner
9. Braziliana
10. Then I'll Take You Home
11. Ocean Of Tears
12. Fireside Story 

THIS IS A BLACK FRIDAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 29TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8AM ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 30TH).

Special Beat Service is a dynamic fusion of ska, pop, and punk influences and includes the standout hits I Confess and Save If For Later. This 2-LP deluxe edition also features live and non-LP tracks.

Long before they were a band, Montreal duo The Beat Escape took a small first step towards a longer journey at a university video class. “We made a short oddball work; a video piece that followed two characters through a psychedelic waking dream,” say Beat Escapists Addy Weitzman and Patrick A Boivin of their founding collaboration. Many other projects and outside collaborations later, the duo have crafted a debut album their younger selves would be proud of: Released through Bella Union, the sublimely immersive ‘Life Is Short The Answer’s Long’ plays like a waking dream of near-psychedelic electronic pop, moving to its own beat in the push-pull of forward motion and submerged reflection.

That sense of propulsion ushers opener ‘Sign Of Age’ into rising view, its sparse drums, hypnotic sequence and melancholic chords resembling house music as reimagined by Angelo Badalamenti. The enveloping mood holds as ‘Moon In Aquarius’ unfurls like a nighttime road ahead, ghosted by narcotic harmonies. ‘Limestone Alps’ lingers meditatively, hymnal vocals reverberating. ‘Where Water Ends’ and ‘More Dreams’, meanwhile, navigate the porous boundary lines between Krautrock, Factory Records and obscure minimal wave records of the 80s.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Superb throbbing pseudo-synthery from The Beat Escape, Bella Union's answer to Pye corner Audio mix swooning pads and soaring vocal abstractions around a dynamic core of weighted percussion, flickering arpeggios and spine-tingling euphoric leads.

TRACK LISTING

Sign Of Age
Moon In Aquarius
Limestone Alps
Where Water Ends
More Dreams
Then I Drift Away
Seeing Is Forgetting
Thousand Pound Shoes
Nemo Propheta

THIS IS A BLACK FRIDAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 29TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8AM ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 30TH).

With a million preorders for “I Want To Hold Your Hand” in the UK, the single shot to number 1 in December 1963 knocking The Beatles’ own “She Loves You” from the top spot. This was to be the first official single for The Beatles on Capitol records and was backed by an extraordinary marketing campaign. With “I Saw Her Standing There” replacing “This Boy” for the other side, the single was rush-released in the USA in January 1964, climbing to number 1 on the Hot 100 by 1st February. Remaining on the chart for 15 weeks, it went on to sell more than 12 million copies worldwide – and with it, an unstoppable force was unleashed and Beatlemania had truly arrived.

Cut from the original US version of the master tapes by Kevin Reeves in Nashville, using all-analogue cutting process and using the original replica artwork.

This landmark compilation has introduced generations of fans to the incredible history of the most storied band in music. For its 50th anniversary, the collection has been expanded with 12 additional tracks, including for the first time some of George Harrison’s earliest songs and some classic Beatles versions of R&B and rock ‘n’ roll hits that were so influential on the band. 

The 3LP collection now contains 38 tracks, 30 of which have new mixes for 2023. The set’s 12 newly added tracks are collected on its 3rd LP. An insert contains new sleeve notes by journalist and author John Harris. For current fans and future generations alike, the new 1962 – 1966 collection is a joyous celebration of The Beatles’ timeless musical legacy.

The 2CD collection now contains 38 tracks, 30 of which have new mixes for 2023. The booklet contains new sleeve notes by journalist and author John Harris. For current fans and future generations alike, the new 1962 – 1966 collection is a joyous celebration of The Beatles’ timeless musical legacy.

These landmark compilations have introduced generations of fans to the incredible history of the most storied band in music. For its 50th anniversary, the collections have been expanded: ‘Red’ has 12 additional tracks, including for the first time some of George Harrison’s earliest songs and some classic Beatles versions of R&B and rock ‘n’ roll hits that were so influential on the band. ‘Blue’ has 9 additional tracks including “Blackbird” and “Glass Onion” including the last new Beatles song, “Now And Then” for a total of 21 new additions which are all compiled onto the 3rd disc, effectively creating a ‘new’ LP for each set.

Together the 6LP’s contain 75 tracks, 36 of which have new mixes for 2023. The inserts contains new sleeve notes by journalist and author John Harris. For current fans and future generations alike, the new 1962 – 1966 & 1967 - 1970 collections are a joyous celebration of The Beatles’ timeless musical legacy.

This landmark compilation has introduced generations of fans to the incredible history of the most storied band in music. For its 50th anniversary, the collection has been expanded with 9 additional tracks added chronologically, including “Blackbird”, “Glass Onion” and the new song, “Now And Then”. The last Beatles song, “Now And Then” completes John Lennon’s 1970s vocal and piano demo recording with parts played by Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, as well as a new arrangement for strings.

The 3LP collection now features 37 tracks, 6 of which have new mixes for 2023. The set’s 9 newly added tracks are collected on its 3rd LP. An insert contains new sleeve notes by journalist and author John Harris. For current fans and future generations alike, the new 1966 – 1970 collection is a joyous celebration of The Beatles’ timeless musical legacy.

The 2CD collection now features 37 tracks, 6 of which have new mixes for 2023. The booklet contains new sleeve notes by journalist and author John Harris. For current fans and future generations alike, the new 1966 – 1970 collection is a joyous celebration of The Beatles’ timeless musical legacy.

Using the original 1964 mono master, new lacquers have been cut all-analogue by Kevin Reeves at Nashville’s East Iris Studios. By constantly referring to the original first pressing, the album is are faithful to the original release while also enabling more musical information to be heard than was possible before. Featuring faithfully replicated artwork and a new four-panel insert with essay by American Beatles historian, Bruce Spizer. 180gram audiophile pressing.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Hard Day’s Night
2. Tell Me Why
3. I’ll Cry Instead
4. I Should Have Known Better (Instrumental)
5. I’m Happy Just To Dance With You
6. And I Love Her (Instrumental)
7. I Should Have Known Better
8. If I Fell
9. And I Love Her
10. Ringo’s Theme (This Boy) (Instrumental)
11. Can’t Buy Me Love
12. A Hard Day’s Night (Instrumental)

The biggest band in rock history sees their original catalogue digitally remastered for the first time with improved packaging, including extra rare photographs, expanded and new essays and all enhanced with a video mini-documentary on the making of each album in the Beatles own words.


1. A Hard Day's Night
2. I Should Have Known Better
3. If I Fell
4. I'm Happy Just To Dance With You
5. And I Love Her
6. Tell Me Why
7. Can't Buy Me Love
8. Any Time At All
9. I'll Cry Instead
10. Things We Said Today
11. When I Get Home
12. You Can't Do That
13. I'll Be Back
14. A Hard Day's Night Documentary

TRACK LISTING

1. A Hard Day's Night
2. I Should Have Known Better
3. If I Fell
4. I'm Happy Just To Dance With You
5. And I Love Her
6. Tell Me Why
7. Can't Buy Me Love
8. Any Time At All
9. I'll Cry Instead
10. Things We Said Today
11. When I Get Home
12. You Can't Do That
13. I'll Be Back
14. A Hard Day's Night Documentary

London – August 8, 2019 – It was 50 years ago today, on August 8, 1969, that the world’s most famous band stepped out from London’s EMI Recording Studios to stride, single-file, across the black and white stripes of Abbey Road’s nearby zebra crossing. With photographer Iain Macmillan balanced on a stepladder and one policeman stopping the street’s light traffic, The Beatles crossed back and forth three times, led by John Lennon, followed by Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison. Just six photos were taken, with the fifth selected as the cover shot for The Beatles’ penultimate studio album, Abbey Road, named after the tree-lined street in which the studios are located. Released September 26, 1969, Abbey Road was not The Beatles’ final album, as Let It Be followed in 1970, but it was the last one John, Paul, George, and Ringo recorded together as a band. The Beatles will celebrate Abbey Road’s anniversary with a suite of beautifully presented packages to be released worldwide on September 27 by Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe.

This is the first time Abbey Road has been remixed and presented with additional session recordings and demos. The album’s sweeping new edition follows the universally acclaimed remixed and expanded anniversary editions of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The BEATLES (‘White Album’) released in 2017 and 2018, respectively. To create Abbey Road’s new stereo, 5.1 surround, and Dolby Atmos mixes, Martin and Okell worked with an expert team of engineers and audio restoration specialists at Abbey Road Studios. All the new Abbey Road releases feature the new stereo album mix, sourced directly from the original eight-track session tapes. To produce the mix, Giles was guided by the album’s original stereo mix supervised by his father, George Martin.

“The magic comes from the hands playing the instruments, the blend of The Beatles’ voices, the beauty of the arrangements,” Giles Martin explains in his written introduction for the new edition. “Our quest is simply to ensure everything sounds as fresh and hits you as hard as it would have on the day it was recorded.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Their final album, and it's a beauty! This is a gorgeous, opulent, warm rock record that set the tone for FM seventies music. And for its 50th Anniversary, ‘Abbey Road’ gets remixed and presented with additional session recordings and demos across six different formats.

TRACK LISTING

DELUXE 2CD

CD ONE: 2019 Stereo Mix
1. Come Together
2. Something
3. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer
4. Oh! Darling
5. Octopus’s Garden
6. I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
7. Here Comes The Sun
8. Because
9. You Never Give Me Your Money
10. Sun King
11. Mean Mr Mustard
12. Polythene Pam
13. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window
14. Golden Slumbers
15. Carry That Weight
16. The End
17. Her Majesty

CD TWO: Sessions
1. Come Together (Take 5)
2. Something (Studio Demo)
3. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (Take 12)
4. Oh! Darling (Take 4)
5. Octopus’s Garden (Take 9)
6. I Want You (She’s So Heavy) (Trident Recording Session & Reduction Mix)
7. Here Comes The Sun (Take 9)
8. Because (Take 1 Instrumental)
9. You Never Give Me Your Money (Take 36)
10. Sun King (Take 20)
11. Mean Mr Mustard (Take 20)
12. Polythene Pam (Take 27)
13. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (Take 27)
14. Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight (Takes 1–3 / Medley)
15. The End (Take 3)
16. Her Majesty (Takes 1–3)

STANDARD [1CD; Digital; 1LP Vinyl
2019 Stereo Mix
1. Come Together
2. Something
3. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer
4. Oh! Darling
5. Octopus’s Garden
6. I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
7. Here Comes The Sun
8. Because
9. You Never Give Me Your Money
10. Sun King
11. Mean Mr Mustard
12. Polythene Pam
13. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window
14. Golden Slumbers
15. Carry That Weight
16. The End
17. Her Majesty

Anthology 4, is newly curated by Giles Martin, including 13 previously unreleased demos, plus fascinating session and other rare recordings dating from 1963 to 1969. It also includes the band’s final single, ‘Now And Then’, released in 2023, and new mixes of The Beatles’ Anthology-associated hit singles: the GRAMMY-winning ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’, given new life by their original producer, Jeff Lynne, using de-mixed John Lennon vocals. 

The track notes are written by Kevin Howlett with an introduction compiled from 1996 interviews recorded with The Beatles’ close friend and adviser Derek Taylor.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Saw Her Standing There (Take 2)
2. Money (That’s What I Want) (RM7 Undubbed)
3. This Boy (Takes 12 And 13)
4. Tell Me Why (Takes 4 And 5)
5. If I Fell (Take 11)
6. Matchbox (Take 1)
7. Every Little Thing (Takes 6 And 7)
8. I Need You (Take 1)
9. I’ve Just Seen A Face (Take 3)
10. In My Life (Take 1)
11. Nowhere Man (First Version – Take 2)
12. Got To Get You Into My Life (Second Version – Unnumbered Mix)
13. Love You To (Take 7)
14. Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 26)
15. She’s Leaving Home (Take 1 – Instrumental)
16. Baby, You’re A Rich Man (Takes 11 And 12)
17. All You Need Is Love (Rehearsal For BBC Broadcast)
18. The Fool On The Hill (Take 5 – Instrumental)
19. I Am The Walrus (Take 19 – Strings, Brass, Clarinet Overdub)
20. Hey Bulldog (Take 4 – Instrumental)
21. Good Night (Take 10 With A Guitar Part From Take 5)
22. While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Third Version – Take 27)
23. (You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care (Studio Jam)
24. Helter Skelter (Second Version – Take 17)
25. I Will (Take 29)
26. Can You Take Me Back? (Take 1)
27. Julia (Two Rehearsals)
28. Get Back (Take 8)
29. Octopus's Garden (Rehearsal)
30. Don't Let Me Down (First Rooftop Performance)
31. You Never Give Me Your Money (Take 36)
32. Here Comes The Sun (Take 9)
33. Something (Take 39 – Instrumental – Strings Only)
34. Free As A Bird (2025 Mix)
35. Real Love (2025 Mix)
36. Now And Then

12LP Box
4 x 3LP albums in triple gatefold sleeves and slipcase

The Anthology Collection 12LP set includes the three groundbreaking Anthology albums from the mid-1990s, remastered in 2025 by Giles Martin, plus a new compilation, Anthology 4. Containing 191 tracks, the collection’s studio outtakes, live performances, broadcasts and demos reveal the musical development of The Beatles from 1958 to the final single ‘Now And Then’ released in 2023.

Anthology 4 features 13 previously unreleased tracks and 17 songs selected from Super Deluxe versions of five classic albums. In addition to fascinating outtakes dating from 1963 to 1969, the album includes new 2025 mixes by Jeff Lynne of ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’.

Furthermore, Anthology 4 presents 26 tracks that have never previously been released on vinyl.

Pressed on 180g black vinyl, each 3LP album will be housed within a triple gatefold sleeve, featuring the original art, sleevenotes by Mark Lewisohn, and restored photos for Anthology 1-3; Anthology 4 has brand new sleevenotes written by Kevin Howlett alongside photos. The outer slipcase features the original Klaus Voorman triptych art, and a 3/4 O-Card image of the band with detailed track listing.

8CD Box
4 x 2CD albums in gatefold digisleeves with booklets in slipcase

The Anthology Collection 8CD set includes the three groundbreaking Anthology albums from the mid-1990s, remastered in 2025 by Giles Martin, plus a new compilation, Anthology 4. Containing 191 tracks, the collection’s studio outtakes, live performances, broadcasts and demos reveal the musical development of The Beatles from 1958 to the final single ‘Now And Then’ released in 2023.

Anthology 4 features 13 previously unreleased tracks and 17 songs selected from Super Deluxe versions of five classic albums. In addition to fascinating outtakes dating from 1963 to 1969, the album includes new 2025 mixes by Jeff Lynne of ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’. Furthermore, Anthology 4 presents 17 tracks that were previously unavailable on CD.

Each 2CD album in the set is housed in a gatefold digisleeve, with a 40+ page booklet featuring the original art, sleevenotes by Mark Lewisohn, and restored photos for Anthology 1-3; Anthology 4 has brand new sleevenotes written by Kevin Howlett alongside photos. The outer slipcase features the original Klaus Voorman triptych art, and a 3/4 O-Card image of the band with track listing.

TRACK LISTING

Anthology 1

LP1 – Side 1
1: Free As A Bird (1995 Mix)
2: John Lennon Speech 1
3: That’ll Be The Day
4: In Spite Of All The Danger
5: Paul McCartney Speech 1
6: Hallelujah, I Love Her So (Home Demo)
7: You’ll Be Mine (Home Demo)
8: Cayenne (Home Demo)
9: Paul McCartney Speech 2
10: My Bonnie
11: Ain’t She Sweet
12: Cry For A Shadow
LP1 – Side 2
1: John Lennon Speech 2
2: Brian Epstein Speech 1
3: Searchin’ (Decca Audition)
4: Three Cool Cats (Decca Audition)
5: The Sheik Of Araby (Decca Audition)
6: Like Dreamers Do (Decca Audition)
7: Hello Little Girl (Decca Audition)
8: Brian Epstein Speech 2
9: Besame Mucho (June 1962 Version)
10: Love Me Do (First Version)
11: How Do You Do It
12: Please Please Me (First Version)
LP2 – Side 3
1: One After 909 (Takes 3, 4 And 5)
2: One After 909 (Edit Of Takes 4 And 5)
3: Lend Me Your Comb (BBC Recording)
4: I’ll Get You (Sunday Night At The London Palladium)
5: John Lennon Speech 3
6: I Saw Her Standing There (Live In Stockholm)
7: From Me To You (Live In Stockholm)
8: Money (That’s What I Want) (Live In Stockholm)
9: You Really Got A Hold On Me (Live In Stockholm)
10: Roll Over Beethoven (Live In Stockholm)
LP2 – Side 4
1: She Loves You (Royal Variety Performance)
2: Till There Was You (Royal Variety Performance)
3: Twist And Shout (Royal Variety Performance)
4: This Boy (The Morecambe And Wise Show)
5: I Want To Hold Your Hand (The Morecambe And Wise Show)
6: Speech From The Morecambe And Wise Show
7: Moonlight Bay (The Morecambe And Wise Show)
8: Can’t Buy Me Love (Take 2 With Solo From Take 1)
LP3 – Side 5
1: All My Loving (The Ed Sullivan Show)
2: You Can’t Do That (Take 6)
3: And I Love Her (Take 2)
4: A Hard Day’s Night (Take 1)
5: I Wanna Be Your Man (Around The Beatles)
6: Long Tall Sally (Around The Beatles)
7: Boys (Around The Beatles Session)
8: Shout (Around The Beatles)
9: I’ll Be Back (Take 2)
10: I’ll Be Back (Take 3)
LP3 – Side 6
1: You Know What To Do (Demo)
2: No Reply (Demo)
3: Mr Moonlight (Takes 1 And 4)
4: Leave My Kitten Alone (Take 5)
5: No Reply (Take 2)
6: Eight Days A Week (Takes 1, 2 And 4)
7: Eight Days A Week (Take 5)
8: Kansas City / Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey! (Take 2)

Anthology 2
LP1 – Side 1
1: Real Love (1996 Mix)
2: Yes It Is (Takes 2 And 14)
3: I’m Down (Take 1)
4: You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away (Take 5)
5: If You’ve Got Trouble (Take 1)
6: That Means A Lot (Take 1)
7: Yesterday (Take 1)
8: It’s Only Love (Takes 3 And 2)
LP1 – Side 2
1: I Feel Fine (Blackpool Night Out)
2: Ticket To Ride (Blackpool Night Out)
3: Yesterday (Blackpool Night Out)
4: Help! (Blackpool Night Out)
5: Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby (Live At Shea Stadium, New York)
6: Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) (Take 1)
7: I’m Looking Through You (Take 1)
8: 12-Bar Original (Take 2 Edited)
LP2 – Side 3
1: Tomorrow Never Knows (Take 1)
2: Got To Get You Into My Life (Take 5)
3: And Your Bird Can Sing (Take 2)
4: Taxman (Take 11)
5: Eleanor Rigby (Take 14 – Strings Only)
6: I’m Only Sleeping (Rehearsal)
7: I’m Only Sleeping (Take 1)
8: Rock And Roll Music (Live In Tokyo)
9: She’s A Woman (Live In Tokyo)
LP2 – Side 4
1: Strawberry Fields Forever (Home Demo Sequence)
2: Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 1)
3: Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 7 And Edit Piece)
4: Penny Lane (Remix)
5: A Day In The Life (Takes 1, 2, 6 And Orchestra)
6: Good Morning Good Morning (Take 8)
7: Only A Northern Song (Takes 3 And 12)
LP3 – Side 5
1: Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! (Takes 1 And 2)
2: Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! (Take 7)
3: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Takes 6, 7 And 8)
4: Within You Without You (Instrumental)
5: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) (Take 5)
6: You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) (Stereo Remix)
LP3 – Side 6
1: I Am The Walrus (Take 16)
2: The Fool On The Hill (Demo)
3: Your Mother Should Know (Take 27)
4: The Fool On The Hill (Take 4)
5: Hello, Goodbye (Take 16)
6: Lady Madonna (Takes 3 And 4)
7: Across The Universe (Take 2)

Anthology 3
LP1 – Side 1
1: A Beginning
2: Happiness Is A Warm Gun (Esher Demo With False Start)
3: Helter Skelter (Take 2 Edited)
4: Mean Mr Mustard (Esher Demo)
5: Polythene Pam (Esher Demo)
6: Glass Onion (Esher Demo)
7: Junk (Esher Demo)
8: Piggies (Esher Demo)
9: Honey Pie (Esher Demo Edited)
10: Don’t Pass Me By (Take 3 With Take 5 Vocal)
11: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (First Version - Take 5)
12: Good Night (Rehearsal And Take 34)
LP1 – Side 2
1: Cry Baby Cry (Take 1)
2: Blackbird (Take 4)
3: Sexy Sadie (Take 6)
4: While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Acoustic Version - Take 1)
5: Hey Jude (Take 2)
6: Not Guilty (Take 102 Edited)
7: Mother Nature’s Son (Take 2)
LP2 – Side 3
1: Glass Onion (Original Mono Mix)
2: Rocky Raccoon (Take 8)
3: What’s The New Mary Jane (Take 4)
4: Step Inside Love / Los Paranoias (Studio Jam)
5: I’m So Tired (Edit Of Takes 3, 6 And 9)
6: I Will (Take 1)
7: Why Don’t We Do It In The Road (Take 4)
8: Julia (Take 2)
LP2 – Side 4
1: I’ve Got A Feeling (Apple Studio)
2: She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (Apple Studio)
3: Dig A Pony (Apple Studio)
4: Two Of Us (Apple Studio)
5: For You Blue (Apple Studio)
6: Teddy Boy (Apple Studio)
7: Medley: Rip It Up / Shake, Rattle And Roll / Blue Suede Shoes (Apple Studio Jam)
LP3 – Side 5
1: The Long And Winding Road (Apple Studio)
2: Oh! Darling (Apple Studio)
3: All Things Must Pass (Demo)
4: Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues (Apple Studio Jam)
5: Get Back (Third Rooftop Performance)
6: Old Brown Shoe (Demo)
7: Octopus’s Garden (Take 2)
8: Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (Take 5)
LP3 – Side 6
1: Something (Demo)
2: Come Together (Take 1)
3 Come And Get It (Demo – 1996 Remix)
4: Ain’t She Sweet (Studio Jam)
5: Because (Vocals Only)
6: Let It Be (Apple Studio)
7: I Me Mine (Take 16)
8: The End (Remix With The Final Chord Of A Day In The Life)

Anthology 4
LP1 – Side 1
1: I Saw Her Standing There (Take 2)
2: Money (That’s What I Want) (RM7 Undubbed)
3: This Boy (Takes 12 And 13)
4: Tell Me Why (Takes 4 And 5)
5: If I Fell (Take 11)
6: Matchbox (Take 1)
7: Every Little Thing (Takes 6 And 7)
8: I Need You (Take 1)
LP1 – Side 2
1: I’ve Just Seen A Face (Take 3)
2: In My Life (Take 1)
3: Nowhere Man (First Version – Take 2)
4: Got To Get You Into My Life (Second Version – Unnumbered Mix)
5: Love You To (Take 7)
6: Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 26)
7: She’s Leaving Home (Take 1 – Instrumental)
LP2 – Side 3
1: Baby, You’re A Rich Man (Takes 11 And 12)
2: All You Need Is Love (Rehearsal For BBC Broadcast)
3: The Fool On The Hill (Take 5 – Instrumental)
4: I Am The Walrus (Take 19 – Strings, Brass, Clarinet Overdub)
LP2 – Side 4
1: Hey Bulldog (Take 4 – Instrumental)
2: Good Night (Take 10 With A Guitar Part From Take 5)
3: While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Third Version – Take 27)
4: (You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care (Studio Jam)
5: Helter Skelter (Second Version – Take 17)
6: I Will (Take 29)
7: Can You Take Me Back? (Take 1)
8: Julia (Two Rehearsals)
LP3 – Side 5
1: Get Back (Take 8)
2: Octopus's Garden (Rehearsal)
3: Don't Let Me Down (First Rooftop Performance)
4: You Never Give Me Your Money (Take 36)
5: Here Comes The Sun (Take 9)
6: Something (Take 39 – Instrumental – Strings Only)
LP3 – Side 6
1: Free As A Bird (2025 Mix)
2: Real Love (2025 Mix)
3: Now And Then

Using the original 1964 mono master, new lacquers have been cut all-analogue by Kevin Reeves at Nashville’s East Iris Studios. By constantly referring to the original first pressing, the album is faithful to the original release while also enabling more musical information to be heard than was possible before. Featuring faithfully replicated artwork and a new four-panel insert with essay by American Beatles historian, Bruce Spizer. 180gram audiophile pressing.

TRACK LISTING

1. No Reply
2. I’m A Loser
3. Baby’s In Black
4. Rock And Roll Music
5. I’ll Follow The Sun
6. Mr. Moonlight
7. Honey Don’t
8. I’ll Be Back
9. She’s A Woman
10. I Feel Fine
11. Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby