“I think of this record as kind of a ‘Tim Presley reads his book on tape,’ the story of life in Los Angeles flowing like the low moisture river that it is. The start is uphill, long and slow, and you ponder when you will be spat out onto the straight away. By the time ‘Clean It Glen’ kicks in, your hands are sweating, and then you are there and it is glassy and wonderfully repetitive, repetitive, repetitive. Lights are flashing, cars are passing. There is synthesized wild life here - blips that are winged, crackles that are slithering through the digital grass. Echo ripples across a chrome topped body of water. You catch a glimpse of yourself in a store-that-sells-something window. “Beats are the staccato lines on the road being eaten by the undercarriage of the vehicle that whips through this world. Guitars are trash and debris; acid. A headphone record at its primal best, far out and geographically odd. Every time I play this someone asks, ‘what the hell is this?’ I say, ‘W-X, dig in. Best to listen to it in its entirety.’ A vast 20-course experience served on twin platters; a carnival; a far cry from White Fence and yet still the scent lingers on the fingers. He told me I would hate this repeatedly and I replied that it is my favorite masterpiece of his (of which there are many). This record looks through to the matrix of Tim’s songsmith genius, don’t forget to blink. “For fans of early Soft Machine, The Fall, The Tronics, general clutter, disarray and Faust.” - John Dwyer.

After the excellent Sky Girl, Midnite Spares and Oz Waves comps, Efficient Space now bring us the little-heard recordings of three Yolngu songmen from Northeast Arnhem Land - Bobby Bunnungurr, Jimmy Djamunba and Peter Milaynga (d. 2007) - working in collaboration with Victorian musician Peter Mumme. Yolngu are the indigenous peoples of Arnhem Land in Northern Territory, Australia; their clans are the Marangu and Malabirr, the languages Djinang and Gannalbingu. Their songs are of instruction, story and ceremony.

A connection first initiated by Yolngu actor David Gulpilil, Waak Waak Djungi’s mid-90s recordings were preceded by years of respectful sharing of culture. Mumme explains that “the aim was to produce something that is new, not in the sense of a breakthrough, but what emerges from the combining of existing ideas”. What developed was sonically unique - sprawling vocal/electronic soundscapes and field recordings that reimagine the traditional songs of black crows and white cockatoos, sharing, creation spirits and of leaving and returning home to country. Spacious and patiently durational, the songs resound in a big land with a big story to tell.
On the 1997 Waak Waak Djungi album Crow Fire Music, these interpretations were assembled with traditional recordings and additional material from Sebastian Jörgensen and Sally Grice. Falling short of generating public interest, it became well known in the Yolngu homeland. Nearly two decades later, a CD copy filed away in the 3RRR FM library would prompt a three year investigation to meet the people behind the music.

"Waak Waak ga Min Min (Black Crow, White Cockatoo)" combines the previously unreleased "Gandi Bawong" with five contemporary versions from the original album, with a new cover painting by Bobby Bunnungurr. Tracing 1997 back to many millennia ago, this is a captivating window into the richness of Aboriginal culture and collaboration. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Efficient Space (AKA the mega label behind the fantastic Sky Girl comp) introduce us to the obscure brilliance of indigenous Australian troop Waak Waak Djungi with this retrospective set of their nineties output. Amid the beautiful new age twinkle of "Rainbow Serpent", "White Cockatoo" and "Black Crow" we find the motorik pulse of "Djambaku", Balearic house of "Gandi Bawong" and the spine tingling acid chug of "Mother, I'm Going".

TRACK LISTING

A1. Rainbow Serpent
A2. Djambaku
A3. White Cockatoo
B1. Mother, I'm Going
B2. Gandi Bawong
B2. Black Crow

Cosmic American Music from the far flung reaches of rural Oregon. Issued in 1979 on Allan Wachs’ own True Vine imprint, Mountain Roads and City Streets gathers a decade of songs written while hitchhiking up and down the west coast. Screeching pedal steel, lilting flute, and tingly dulcimer are peppered throughout Wachs’ tales of brief affairs, invisible dogs, and getting lost in a changing America.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A

1. Adventures Of The Invisible Dog
2. Least Of My Strangers
3. Anna Lena
4. Pretty Face
5. Dancer

SIDE B

6. Mountain Man Breakdown
7. The Lord Will Provide
8. Travelin’ Light
9. Mountain Roads
10. Northwest Passage

The Waco Brothers was formed by Jon Langford of the Mekons. The group grew out of Langford's wish to play more country-influenced music as the Mekons concentrated more on a punk sound.

Shaking off the plague days like a snake sheds its skin the Waco Brothers stumble out of the empty, burning desert with a fierce thirst and an epic new album: The Men That God Forgot. It's the first collection of original Waco tunes since 2016's Going Down In History and comes to you via their own label Plenty Tuff Records.

Every night is still Friday night for the Waco Brothers but these new songs lace that reckless exuberance with a more sober awareness of the tsunami of cynical corruption & materialism that infects our everyday existence. "Best That Money Can Buy" rips its verses from what's left of honest journalism while "In The Dark" provides a requiem for functioning democracy AND boasts the best twin-lead guitar solo since Thin Lizzy. The album ends with "Nowhere To Run" a deceptively gentle dance number (inspired by a night on the Outlaw Country Cruise where the Wacos backed up their hero Lee "Scratch" Perry) that presents the struggle for social and economic justice as neverending. "George Walks With Jesus" is a song about George Jones walking with Jesus.

The Men That God Forgot is the 10th Waco Brothers full length album & was recorded with Mike Hagler at Kingsize Soundlabs in Chicago in 2022. The cinematic brass parts were arranged and performed by longtime collaborator Max Crawford with Dave Smith. Other Waco Cousins appearing are Barkley Mckay on piano and organ, Patty Vega on jingling tambourine and Andre Michot of the Lost Bayou Ramblers on accordion.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Men That God Forgot
2. This Town
3. In The Dark
4. Best That Money Can Buy
5. Blowin' My Top
6. Mud River Slide
7. Go Away
8. I Smile Through My Tears
9. If Your Heart Isn't In It
10. Teenage Kicks
11. End Of The Night
12. George Walked With Jesus
13. Backstage At The Boneyard
14. So Long General Mouton
15. Nowhere To Run

Tashi Wada is a San Francisco-based composer and performer whose recent work focuses on sound perception as a basis for direct modes of listening. His work has been performed throughout the United States and Europe, and for several years now he has performed alongside his father, Yoshi Wada. Gradient is two sustained tones, a fourth apart, positioned along a wall, one at each end. The string player produces a very slow glissando from one pitch to the other while physically moving from one pitch to the other - in other words, the string player moves so that pitch distance coincides with spatial distance. The two possible directions form a sculpture-like presence shifting through all of the blue notes. Harry Partch often worked with this type of harmony, so Tashi and Marc Sabat used one of his adapted violas for the recording.

Using cello, vocals, orchestral arrangements, choral ensembles, location samples, synths and piano Abi Wade explores human nature through real and abstracted personas on her debut album ‘Beautifully Astray’

Abi wrote most of the tracks on the album on cello initially in various locations of her old hometown of Brighton, from the living room of her seafront apartment to the dark belly of Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar. “The cello is so versatile, and I love to explore those many characteristics using various techniques both traditional and unique, it’s such an emotive instrument and has a very human tone.”

From this starting point, Abi set out on a sonic exploration, getting field recordings in locations as diverse as a printworks, a tap dancing club and following a chance meeting there, a fishing boat: “After the tap dancing class I was explaining to the gentlemen who ran it how I was trying to get onto a boat to record some sounds and by pure coincidence it turned out he was a fisherman, I did not expect a tap dancing fisherman! It was truly an amazing experience to go out first thing on to the water and share a moment of time with such an interesting character.”

Following a move to Camden, London, the tracks were fleshed out with orchestral arrangements and were recorded in Jay Malhotra and Sam Duckworth’s Amazing Grace studio in Hoxton. These sessions included brass, wind and choral ensembles.

Abi then worked with ‘the patron saints of print’ Eley Kishimoto to create the visuals for the album matching the story of each print and pattern to the story of each song. Their patterns are featured on both the album and single artwork and has been a source of inspiration throughout the making of the album.

‘Beautifully Astray’ was recorded with support from Help Musician’s Emerging Excellence award, and the release with support from PRS for Music Foundation’s Women Make Music

TRACK LISTING

1. A Bit Like Love
2. Reasonable Doubt
3. Laws And Mankind
4. Hawk In Your Side
5. Lucia
6. Wanted
7. Gold Abyss
8. Obsession
9. Vandalising
10. We Are In Sight

In 1984, pop came out of the closet - even if not all of the artists felt that they could - and, in the process, charted the course of the rest of the decade. In 1984: The Year Pop Went Queer, writer and musician Ian Wade charts where these artists, including Queen, George Michael, David Bowie, Pet Shop Boys, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Madonna - who all enjoyed chart success in 1984 - were during that epoch-making year. It studies the impact these groundbreaking musicians had before, during and after on the gay community and popular culture, and it demonstrates how they were able to break down barriers, raise consciousness and set in motion the first nascent ripples in a pond that are still being felt today. As a backdrop, it explores the strides made in the name of the cause and how the wider surrounding culture reacted with equal parts glee, bafflement and disgust.

Graham Coxon (blur) + Rose Elinor Dougall return with the follow-up to last year's acclaimed eponymous debut (Top 30 UK OCC). Produced by James Ford (Fontaines DC, Arctic Monkeys), the record features both artists on vocal duties in addition to playing a host of instruments including saxophone, keyboards and drums. The WAEVE have established themselves as a songwriting partnership to watch and with City Lights they further push the boundaries of their collaborative creativity, using this album to chronicle the evolution of their relationship and forays into parenthood.

TRACK LISTING

City Lights
You Saw
Moth To The Flame
I Belong To...
Simple Days
Broken Boys
Song For Eliza May
Druantia
Girl Of The Endless Night
Sunrise

The Waeve - composed of Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall – release their eponymous debut album on Transgressive Records. Produced by The Waeve and James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Florence & The Machine, Foals, Haim) and recorded in London earlier this year, ‘The Waeve’ is a collection of 10 new tracks from songwriters Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall. Joining creative forces in The WAEVE gave the duo the opportunity to push past their instrumental comfort zones. Many tracks feature Graham on saxophone, one of the first instruments he played as a young musician back in the 80s. First single ‘Can I Call You’ starts as a ballad then morphs into a krautrock-style motorik number with a sprawling Coxon guitar solo. ‘All Along’ features Graham on cittern, a medieval folk lute. Rose plays piano and an ARP 2000 modular synth. The heavy weather all over ‘The Waeve’ recalls the blustery folk rock of Sandy Denny or John & Beverly Martyn, while tracks such as ‘Kill Me Again‘ and ‘Over and Over’ recall the 70s rock of Kevin Ayers or Van der Graaf Generator, almost industrial in places.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Featuring the both brilliant Rose Elinor Dougall and Graham Coxon, The Waeve was always going to be an interesting project. As it turns out, they manage to pull together influence from all over the psychedelic and rock spectrum, even folk in parts without it sounding fractured or jarring. A beautifully vibrant and enjoyably surprising listen.

TRACK LISTING

1. Can I Call You
2. Kill Me Again
3. Over And Over
4. Sleepwalking
5. Drowning
6. Someone Up There
7. All Along
8. Undine
9. Alone And Free
10. You’re All I Want To Know

There is a defiant air of unflinching bravery in Mirel Wagner’s carefully chosen words and the skeletal chords of her acoustic guitar. Her songs are like smooth, polished pebbles, thrown into a cold bottomless pond, drops of life that set the darkness rippling.

Squeezing the last drop of life from a worn out genre, her acoustic balladry is as far as you'll get from clichéd coffee house folk. It has more to do with the primeval darkness of Swans than the folksy bonhomie of Bob Dylan.

Her background couldn't be more normal: a relatively sheltered childhood in one of the better-off suburbs of Helsinki, teenage years spent rummaging around the blues section of her local library, fumbling around with her brother’s acoustic guitar. She is wary of speaking of her Ethiopian origins (Wagner was adopted at 1½ years of age) and sees herself as Finnish. Her art is all the more astonishing considering this cultural context, all the more shocking in its strangeness because it stems from something so normal.

‘When The Cellar Children See The Light Of Day’ was recorded at Shark Reef Studios in Hailuoto by electronic music producer Vladislav Delay (Luomo, Uusitalo). Delay fleshes out Wagner’s sound, adding subtle production touches that give her songs a newfound vastness and gravity, while keeping the winning formula that garnered critical acclaim for her self-titled debut.

The new album also features Academy and Grammy award winning Scottish composer Craig Armstrong.

Adrian Wagner's new album of symphonic sythesised progressive music combines the mysteries of the quest for the Holy Grail with the Tolkein ring cycle myth. It is Wagner's most complete and satisfying work to date and uses spoken passages by J.R.R. Tolkein and Sir Laurence Gardner to highlight aspects of the music.

Produced by Henry ‘Junjo’ Lawes & backed by the Roots Radics, Inchpinchers is a brilliant amalgamation of roots sensibilities & sound system rhythms.

TRACK LISTING

1. Inchpinchers
2. Mass Charley Ground
3. Tom Sprang
4. Don't Get Lost
5. Baby Come Rock
6. Things And Time
7. Modern Slavery
8. Ghetto Of Kingston Town
9. Oh What A Lie
10. Infidels

Classic late 80s digi-roots set from the legendary Wailing Souls produced by King Jammy "Stormy Night" takes its place in a long line of classic wailing souls albums for Greensleeves stretching from '81's "Fire House Rock" to the recent Alborosie produced "Back A Yard"

Includes the hit single "Dog Bite" re-mastered and re-sequenced with new cover art.

TRACK LISTING

Spread Propaganda
Dog Bite
What Is What
Mr Fire Coal Man
You're My Days
Stormy Night
Move On
What Ya Gonna Do
She Pleases Me
Where Do I Stand

Rufus Wainwright, son of Loudon and Kate MacGarrigle with his second album on Dreamworks and a real step forward from his debut. More confidence and assurity (not least in his declared homosexuality) it's a eclectic set and has already recived tremendous reviews in the U.S.

Available on vinyl for the first time comes one of Rufus Wainwright’s most popular albums. 'Poses' is Wainwright’s second studio album release. The album was produced, recorded, and mixed by Pierre Marchand, with select tracks produced by Propellerheads' Alex Gifford ("Shadows"), Ethan Johns ("California"), Damian LeGassick ("The Tower of Learning"), and Greg Wells ("Across the Universe").

TRACK LISTING

1. Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk
2. Greek Song
3. Poses
4. Shadows
5. California
6. The Tower Of Learning
7. Grey Gardens
8. Rebel Prince
9. The Consort
10. One Man Guy
11. Evil Angel
12. In A Graveyard

"Release The Stars" is a 12-track masterclass in songwriting and production - this is his first new material since 2005's remarkable "Want Two". The album is written and produced by Rufus himself, with Neil Tennant as executive producer. Long time collaborator, Marius de Vries, has also sprinkled magic dust over the tracks in the mix.

Martha Wainwright releases a wonderful new studio album, ‘Goodnight City’, on [PIAS]. It’s the follow up to her acclaimed 2012 release ‘Come Home To Mama’.

‘Goodnight City’ features 12 brand new songs produced by Thomas Bartlett (Surfjan Stevens, Glen Hansard) and longtime producer Brad Albetta. It recalls the emotional rawness of her debut album, much of it encapsulated by the captivating lead track ‘Around The Bend’ and her extraordinary voice.

“Making ‘Goodnight City’ was the most fun I’ve had in a long time,” Martha admits. “Thomas (keys), Brad (electric / bass), Phil Melanson (drums) and I would sit in a circle and work out arrangements for these vividly different songs. Recording them live with very few overdubs the focus remains on the integrity of the song and our ability to play together as a band.”

Martha wrote half the songs on the album while the other half were written by friends and relatives: Beth Orton, Glen Hansard, Rufus, Wainwright, Michael Ondaatje and Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs.

“Because these writers know me and because I was able to personalise these songs by changing things here and there, I made them feel as if I wrote them myself,” Martha explains. “Somehow they wonderfully reflect my life and I am so thankful to the other artists for writing them.”

‘Goodnight City’ was recorded in Montreal. Last year Martha and Lucy Wainwright Roche released ‘Songs In The Dark’ as the Wainwright Sisters.

TRACK LISTING

Around The Bend
Franci
Traveller
Look Into My Eyes
Before The Children Came Along
Window
Piano Music
Alexandria
So Down
One Of Us
Take The Reins
Francis

Wainwright is an enigma. He's well known, his fans adore him but his album sales have been less than they should have been. 'Album III' is a case in point; after his first two acoustic albums he released his first electric album on Columbia, got a huge hit single(Dead Skunk) and promptly dropped off the wagon big stylee, all the pain and pathos is in evidence here.

If one artist has maintained a rich quality and autobiographical commitment in his songwriting throughout his career then it has to be Loudon Wainwright. As angst ridden and relevant as ever he sings of despair, loss and depression but with a wit and humanity that has never paled over the years. While some singer songwriters have lost their eloquence or ability to touch their listeners on a personal level, Loudon Wainwright merely adds more broken relationships, more personal losses (his Mum died recently which naturally sent him into a tailspin) into his lyrical brew. "Last Man On Earth" stands as one of the finest works from this brilliant songwriter.

Blood Money came out over 20 years ago, right after the massive success of 1999's Grammy-winning Mule Variations LP and tour.

The resulting LPs were acclaimed upon their release but also overshadowed by their high- profile predecessor. Over the last two decades, more fans and critics have come to embrace these works as some of Waits' finest.

TRACK LISTING

Misery Is The River Of The World
Everything Goes To Hell
Coney Island Baby
All The World Is Green
God's Away On Business
Another Man's Vine
Knife Chase
Lullaby
Starving In The Belly Of A Whale
The Part You Throw Away
Woe
Calliope
A Good Man Is Hard To Find

Celebrate 5 of Tom Waits’ albums from the Island years, all of which have had an incredible impact on music history.

All remastered to HD audio.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Earth Died Screaming
2. Dirt In The Ground
3. Such A Scream
4. All Stripped Down
5. Who Are You
6. The Ocean Doesn't Want Me
7. Jesus Gonna Be Here
8. A Little Rain
9. In The Colosseum
10. Goin' Out West
11. Murder In The Red Barn
12. Black Wings
13. Whistle Down The Wind
14. I Don't Wanna Grow Up
15. Let Me Get Up On It
16. That Feel

For the first time, Tom Waits will make available as individual records his 2006 classic 56 song release Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards. 

The collection of 56 songs went far beyond a simple career retrospective. It dipped back as far as 1984 with the bulk of it’s songs hailing from the mid-nineties onward. Over 2/3 of the material had never been heard when originally released in 2006 and had 30 newly recorded songs. Orphans also featured a number of songs finding a home on a Waits’ album for the first time. They included Waits’ unique interpretations of songs by such diverse talents as The Ramones, Daniel Johnston, Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht and Leadbelly. These outtakes, rarities and the previously unreleased material were separately grouped into themes and named, Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards. And now these titles will be released individually. 

Brawlers is a collection of raucous blues and full-throated juke joint stomps.

Originally released in 1987 on Island Records, Franks Wild Years is Tom Waits’ 10th studio album. Titled for a play of the same name and authored by Waits and his wife, Kathleen Brennan, Franks Wild Years was performed by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 1986. Franks Wild Years is an iteration of the track “Frank’s Wild Years” from Waits’ 1983 album Swordfishtrombones.The album divides the story neatly into two acts and although titled “un operachi romantic”, there is no opera in Franks. There is a hilarious touch of operatic styling by Waits himself in the song “Temptation.” His vocal character varies wildly throughout the work’s 17 songs, and is no more impressive than when the gruff, growly singer turns to impeccable Sinatra-esque phrasing on the Vegas number, “Straight To The Top.” While Franks featured a 14-member cast on stage, the album is all-Waits—yet suggests a multitude of characters by virtue of his chameleon vocals. The album is a startling group of lost dreams, bad dreams, dreams that might not even be dreams. The music is nightmarish, ethereal, beautiful. Think broken calliopes played by genius children, horns played at dawn in a graveyard, banjos leaking through practice room walls. Titles evoke Frank’s dime-store Odyssey: “Straight To The Top,” “Blow Wind Blow,” “Temptation,” “I’ll Be Gone.” NME ranked the work the number five album of 1987.

Newly remastered for the first time ever from the original ½” flat master tape and personally overseen by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan. Mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering under the guidance of Waits’ longtime audio engineer, Karl Derfler. The album packaging has also been restored. Franks Wild Years includes tracks such as “Cold Cold Ground,” “Way Down In The Hole” – versions of which were used as the theme music of HBO’s series The Wire – and “Temptation.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Hang On St. Christopher
Straight To The Top (Rhumba)
Blow Wind Blow
Temptation
Innocent When You Dream (Barroom)
I'll Be Gone
Yesterday Is Here
Please Wake Me Up
Franks Theme
Side B
More Than Rain
Way Down In The Hole
Straight To The Top (Vegas)
I'll Take New York
Telephone Call From Istanbul
Cold Cold Ground
Train Song
Innocent When You Dream (78)

Released in 1980, Heartattack and Vine was Waits' final album on Elektra Asylum and it built on the raw blues approach of blue valentine with the incendiary title track, the funky, organ driven "Downtown" and the stomping Nola blues of "Mr Siegal"

This album also contains some of Waits' most popular ballads, including "Jersey Girl" which was famously a hit for Bruce Springsteen. "On the Nickle" is a moving song about the homeless people who lived on 5th street in Downtown.

TRACK LISTING

Heartattack And Vine
In Shades
Saving All My Love For You
Downtown
Jersey Girl
'Til The Money Runs Out
On The Nickel
Mr. Siegal
Ruby's Arms

Mule Variations offers the most complete picture of Tom Waits of any of his albums.

Edgy stomps, humour and experimentation are interspersed with some of the most beautiful and personal songs he's ever written.

TRACK LISTING

Big In Japan
Lowside Of The Road
Hold On
Get Behind The Mule
House Where Nobody Lives
Cold Water
Pony
What's He Building?
Black Market Baby
Eyeball Kid
Picture In A Frame
Chocolate Jesus
Georgia Lee
Filipino Box Spring Hog
Take It With Me
Come On Up To The House

2023 Marks forty years since Tom Waits released Swordfishtrombones, ushering in a new and critically acclaimed musical era for Waits and his longtime songwriting and production partner, Brennan. Waits went from ‘70’s-era “bluesy, boozy” wordsmith and melodist with seven albums behind him to sound sculptor, miner of the subconscious, abstract orchestrator, sonic cubist—while retaining his innate lyricism, melodic invention, humanity. As he put it in a 1983 interview: “I tried to listen to the noise in my head and invent some junkyard orchestral deviation—a mutant apparatus to drive this noise into a wreck collection.” It’s a Waits-arranged pastiche, a variety of atmospheres from different sound planets. There is the warped, marching-army-ants music of “Underground,” an impressionist chant about people living below cities, but there was also the poignancy of the spare piano ballad, “Soldier’s Things,” the good bar yarn, “Frank’s Wild Years”, the tender, minimalist paean to Waits’ wife and muse, Kathleen, “Johnsburg, Illinois,” and the raggedy anthem to neighborhood chaos, “In the Neighborhood.”“On Swordfishtrombones, Waits has made a breakthrough – he’s found music as evocative as his words. Waits’s grumble of a voice now bounces off a peculiar assortment of horns and percussion and organ and keyboards, as if he’d led a Salvation Army band into a broken-down Hong Kong disco. It’s as if he’s shifted from monologues to screenplays…” – Jon Parales January 1984 – GQ Magazine.

The album is newly remastered for the first time ever from the original EQ’ed ½” production master tape and personally overseen by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan. Mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering under the guidance of Waits’ longtime audio engineer, Karl Derfler.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Underground
Shore Leave
Dave The Butcher
Johnsburg, Illinois
16 Shells From A 30.6
Town With No Cheer
In The Neighbourhood
Side B
Just Another Sucker On The Vine
Frank's Wild Years
Swordfishtrombone
Down, Down, Down
Soldier's Things
Gin Soaked Boy
Trouble's Braids
Rainbirds

Wajatta (pronounced wa-HA-ta) - aka Reggie Watts and John Tejada - return on Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder imprint. Coming from different worlds but sharing a passion for the rich history of electronic music, beat-boxer / comedian / musician Watts and electronic music artist / DJ / producer Tejada bring out the best in each other’s formidable skill sets. Exploring the intersection between influences and innovation, the two describe Wajatta’s music as ‘electronic dance music with its roots in Detroit techno, Chicago house, ‘70s funk and New York hip hop.’ It’s a sound that is both familiar and wholly original and, like all great dance music, ultimately life-affirming. As a result, the 11 tracks on “Don’t Let Get You Down” crackle with the energy of fresh ideas captured at the moment of inspiration. It’s electronic music made organically, from two masters at the top of their respective games.

For fans of HNNY, Caribou, Ross From Friends, Jacques Greene, Channel Tres.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It would be hard for anything to get you down after listening to the title track of this killer collaboration, and the rest of the album only continues in the same vein. Owing as much to early instrumental hip-hop as it does modern soul and electronica, this is a rich and varied outing and one you have to hear to believe. Grooves for DAYS.

TRACK LISTING

Renegades
Little Man
Don’t Let Get You Down
Realize
Tonight
138
January
Marmite
Depth Has A Focus
Another Sun
All I Need Is You

Wakefield have honed their skills on tours with Homegrown, Reel Big Fish, Alkaline Trio, Early November, Autopilot Off, All American Rejects and Avril Lavigne. From St. Mary's County Maryland, the four members of Wakefield recorded "American Made" in Los Angeles in 2002. They're a mix of brash and sometimes poignant songs strung together by guitar riffs, staccato drum beats, and three-part vocal harmonies underscored by hook-heavy melodies that bounce around like ping-pong balls. Tracks range from the fierce guitar strains of "Sold Out" and the straightforward punk-pop morsel "Un-sweet Sixteen," to the ska-tinged, celebrity-jabbing "Infamous."

One of the most influential keyboard players of the whole progressive rock era; Wakeman was the flamboyant ex-Yes synth-wizard whose conceptual solo work found huge success in the '70's. This CD covers the period 1973-1979 during which most of his best work was released.

Factory Benelux presents a new 3 disc black vinyl edition of Harmony, the debut album by influential Scottish group The Wake. Originally released by Factory Records in December 1982, this new expanded edition marks the 40th anniversary of this landmark post-punk album.

The Wake formed in Glasgow in 1981 after singer/guitarist Caesar left Altered Images, and joined Factory the following year. Harmony was recorded at Strawberry Studios in Stockport with producer Chris Nagle (formerly Martin Hannett’s preferred engineer), by which time the group comprised Caesar (vocals, guitar), Carolyn Allen (keyboards), Steven Allen (drums) and Bobby Gillespie (bass). On release as Fact 60 the original 7 track mini album earned a 5 star review in Sounds magazine, hailed as the missing indiepop link between Factory and Postcard Records.

CD Edition:
Bonus tracks on CD1 include The Wake’s dub-informed second single, Something Outside, rare debut single On Our Honeymoon, and also their John Peel session from July 1983 – the last recordings to feature Gillespie before his departure for The Jesus and Mary Chain and Primal Scream.

CD2 is a fascinating collection of 21 lost recordings compiled from live and demo cassettes located in the Rob Gretton tape archive, all taped between 1981 and 1983.

The enhanced artwork for this new edition includes images of the band by noted photographer Paul Slattery, taken at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, as well as new liner notes by Caesar.

Vinyl Edition:
Bonus tracks on Disc 2 include The Wake’s dub-informed second single, Something Outside b/w Host, and also their John Peel session from July 1983 – the last recordings to feature Gillespie before his departure for The Jesus and Mary Chain and Primal Scream.

Disc 3 offers a desk recorded live set from Ayr Pavilion on 15 April 1983 during a tour with New Order. The concert includes several songs never recorded in the studio, including Recovery and Country of the Blind.

The enhanced trifold artwork for this new edition includes images of the band by noted photographer Paul Slattery, taken at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, as well as new liner notes by Caesar.

TRACK LISTING

CD1 Tracklist (Harmony + Singles):
1. Favour
2. Heartburn
3. An Immaculate Conception
4. Judas
5. Testament
6. Patrol
7. The Old Men
8. Chance
9. Something Outside
10. Host
11. The Drill
12. Uniform
13. Here Comes Everybody
14. On Our Honeymoon
15. Give Up
CD2 Tracklist (Lost Recordings 1981-83):
1. Move With The Times 2.36
2. Communion 2.39
3. No More Green Space 2.48
4. Move With The Times (reprise) 0.46
5. Move With The Times 2.35
6. Cold Home 3.03
7. Communion 2.19
8. No More Green Space 2.07
9. Patrol 1.55
10. Give Up 2.04
11. Careering 2.34
12. Favour 2.21
13. Cold Home 2.22
14. Forced To Think 1.40
15. Patrol 2.38
16. Give Up 2.01
17. Move With The Times 2.04
18. An Immaculate Conception 3.47
19. Chance 3.49
20. Judas 3.49
21. Company 4.07

Vinyl Tracklist:
A1. Favour
A2. Heartburn
A3. An Immaculate Conception
A4. Judas
B1. Testament
B2. Patrol
B3. The Old Men
B4. Chance
C1. Something Outside
C2. Host
D1. The Drill (Peel)
D2. Uniform (Peel)
D3. Here Comes Everybody (Peel)
E1. Heartburn (live)
E2. Host (live)
E3. Recovery (live)
E4. Uniform (live)
F1. The Old Men (live)
F2. Something Outside (live)
F3. Country Of The Blind (live)
F4. The Drill (live)

The Wake formed in Glasgow (Scotland) in April 1981, after singer/ guitarist Caesar teamed up with drummer Steven Allen and a bassist, Joe Donnelly. Previously Caesar had played guitar in Altered Images, writing first single Dead Pop Stars and appearing on the first two John Peel sessions, but left the group shortly before they crashed into the mainstream pop charts with Happy Birthday.

With few opportunities to play large live shows the new group financed a single on their own Scan 45 label, coupling upbeat indiepop number On Our Honeymoon with Give Up, a darker song featuring a keyboard line picked out by band friend Robert ‘Bobby’ Gillespie.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
On Our Honeymoon
Side B
Give Up

Part of The Optic Sevens Reissue Series. 
Limited to 500 copies on splatter vinyl Includes Poster & Postcard.

Originally released on Factory Records in 1987 on a 4 track 12” EP entitled “Something That No One Else Could Bring” These 2 tracks make their first appearance as a 7” single. 

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
PALE SPECTRE

Side 2
PLASTIC FLOWERS

Malcolm's Law is a sizzling, maximalist, impossibly complex guitar record. While Waldo’s Gift have been associated with the UK jazz explosion, mainly owing to their focus on improvisation, there are shades here of prog-metal, math-rock, and the more intense ends of Squarepusher or Aphex Twin. “We Trojan-horse metal into jazz venues,” Vine laughs. Unbelievably, every track is a single live performance, recorded with no overdubs or extras. “We’ve tried to multi-track stuff, but it doesn’t sound like us,” he says. “To sound like us is to be a sweaty, chaotic mess, on the precipice of falling apart. We’re all on the limit of what we can physically play, and that’s where the fun comes from.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Candifloss
2. Malcolm’s Law
3. Classic Waldi Anthem
4. Cosy Hour
5. The Galli
6. Cafe Jim
7. Jellyfish
8. This One Is Improvised
9. Last On The Plane

In April of 2010, Robert, Bobby, Alberta, Delouse, and Patricia gathered at the home of their parents, Raymond and Joella Walker to make a recording with Michael Reilly. It would be Reilly’s third venture to record the a capella gospel tradition of Como, Mississippi for Daptone Records.

It was during his first recording (The Voices of Panola County: Como Now) that he encountered the Walker family and learned of their great musical tradition. Raymond Walker was courted by both Fred McDowell and Sam Cooke - each asked him to sing behind them on tour. espectfully, Raymond declined, on account that the singers wanted him to sing blues rather than gospel.

However, it was the Walkers’ voices and not their rich history that captured the attention of Daptone and inspired Reilly’s return to Como to make a full-length record of the Walker family songs. Recorded in their living room, these performances are as deep and stirring as they are unembelished. Take a moment to take in Panola County Spirit, with The Walker Family Singers.

In November 2015, at the end of a ten month period which saw him play over 200 shows, Ryley Walker decided that he should probably head home. The preceding months had been extraordinary. In March, his second album ‘Primrose Green’, emerged to critical hosannas from the likes of NPR, Village Voice, Uncut and Mojo and in the process earning admiration of musicians who had chalked up no shortage of turntable miles in Walker’s life. Robert Plant declared himself a fan, as did double-bass legend Danny Thompson, with whom Ryley would later embark on a British tour. A sprawling tour of the USA around ‘Primrose Green’ presented a perfect chance to workshop ideas for what would eventually become this, his third studio album, ‘Golden Sings That Have Been Sung’.

‘The Roundabout’ represents a symbolic return to Chicago, while other songs are directly wedded to Ryley’s actual return there. Perhaps more than any other song on the record, the somnambulant sun-dappled intimacies of opening track ‘The Halfwit In Me’ most audibly bear the imprint of Ryley’s improvisational sessions with Wilco multi-instrumentalist, Chicagoan and producer Leroy Bach, while ‘Funny Thing She Said’ is an unflinching study of separation set to a shimmeringly supple ensemble performance.

Soft, slo-mo explosions of melody intermittently burst through the distant thunder of the verses on ‘A Choir Apart’. Intriguing, surreal images are meted out by ‘I Will Ask You Twice’, like a malfunctioning slide projector and, perhaps best of all, the stunning finale, ‘Age Old Tale’, which spiders out from an Alice Coltrane-inspired reverie into a sustained rapture that very few artists have managed to achieve.

TRACK LISTING

The Halfwit In Me
A Choir Apart
Funny Thing She Said
Sullen Mind
I Will Ask You Twice
The Roundabout
The Great And Undecided
Age Old Tale

The title sounds pastoral and quaint, but the titular green has dark hallucinogenic qualities, as does much of the LP. Ryley didn’t have much time to write this LP, so some of it he didn’t. Bits of lyrics were improvised into full-blown songs in the studio, more often than not on the fly. However, the ratty bits of handwritten words that make up the balance of the record grew from scattered misadventures across an ill-fated 2013 tour.

The band on Primrose Green is a mixture of new and old Chicago talent, blending both jaded veterans of the post-rock and jazz mini-circuits together with a few eager, open-eared youths. (It’s worth stating at this point that this is not a jazz record, despite the sheer volume of jazz and experimental heavyweights that make up the rest of Primrose Green’s all-star cast. Chicago has blurred these lines since forever.)

Ryley Walker is the reincarnation of the True American Guitar Player. That’s as much a testament to his roving, rambling ways as to the fact that his Guild D-35 guitar has endured a few stints in the pawnshop. Swap out rural juke joints for rotted DIY spaces and the archetype is solidly intact. His personal life might be tumultuous and his residential status in question, but his bedrock is disciplined daily rehearsal and an inexhaustible wellspring of song craft.

Raised on the banks of the ol’ Rock River in northern Illinois, Ryley’s early life doesn’t give us much more than Midwestern mundanity to speak of. Things start to pick up in 2007, when he moves to Chicago and briefly attempts a collegiate lifestyle. Here, he storms the local noise scene with his Jasmine-brand electric guitar, and a few years of wasted finger-bleeding basement shows firmly established his name locally, if not always positively. By 2011, at age 21, Ryley’s music offered impressive displays of fingerpicking prowess, though not fully elaborated documents.

It was a 2012 bike accident that set Ryley on his current path. Practice became more diligent. He began lacquering his fingertips at cheap salons. Ryley was finding a new path refracting the British traditional spectrum, from Bert Jansch to Nick Drake, and defying all the limitations of the genre. His 2013 recordings — The West Wind EP and All Kinds of You LP – fully express these Anglophilic tendencies to the point of nearly exhausting their possibilities.

“Primrose Green” is a colloquial term for a cocktail of whiskey and morning glory seeds that has a murky, dreamy, absinthian quality when imbibed, and a spirit-crushing aftereffect the morning after. It is the moment before departure from the mindstate of Ryley’s previous release, All Kinds Of You.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Love Tim Buckley, John Martyn and Nick Drake? So does Ryley Walker! Classic songs, grooves and vibes, but unlike the folk-lite froth choking up the "Charts", this goes straight to the source and brings it on home! Good stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Primrose Green
2. Summer Dress
3. Same Minds
4. Griffiths Bucks Blues
5. Love Can Be Cruel
6. On The Banks Of The Old Kishwaukee
7. Sweet Satisfaction
8. The High Road
9. All Kinds Of You
10. Hide In The Roses

When Sunn O))) first approached Scott Walker about appearing on their 2009 album Monoliths & Dimensions, little did they know what it would actually lead to. Four years on, Scott was back with something even more enticing, collaborating on Soused, a body of work he was writing with them in mind.

With a career spanning more than five decades, Scott Walker’s cult status remains as significant as ever before. Experiencing mega-stardom as part of The Walker Brothers before carving out a career as a solo crooner who released a quartet of peerless self-titled LPs that painted rich vignettes of life in the late 60s, Scott went through what felt like a massive U-turn by recording a collection of masterfully challenging albums: Climate Of Hunter (1984), Tilt (1996), The Drift (2006) and Bish Bosch (2013). While there’s some truth to this artistic arc, the actual picture is a lot more complex, with his knack for introducing the disturbingly counter-intuitive and the uncanny into his songwriting dating back to the likes of 'The Plague' (1967) and ‘It’s Raining Today’ (1969).

Centred around the core duo of Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson, Sunn O))) have been at the heart of underground and experimental metal since they began in Los Angeles back in 1998, broadening in range to increasingly encompass avant-garde and jazz dynamics to their dark music. Anderson runs Southern Lord (Sunn O)))’s usual label home), whilst O’Malley is involved in a remarkable web of projects as a musician, designer, and label head of Ideologic Organ. They appear alongside extended Sunn O))) member Tos Nieuwenhuizen on this recording.

Recorded in London in early 2014 and produced by Scott Walker and long-time ally Peter Walsh with the assistance of musical director Mark Warman, Soused is a 5-track, 50-minute collaborative record that cements the status of both act’s wide-reaching and otherworldly renown.

Scott Walker follows his remarkable collaboration with Sunn O))) with this remarkable soundtrack to Brady Corbet’s directorial debut, Walker’s first score work since the Pola X soundtrack in 1999.

Partly inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre’s short story of the same name, The Childhood of a Leader is a tense psychological drama tracing the formative years of a young boy and set against the backdrop of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference that led to the establishment of the Treaty of Versailles.

Walker continues to work with long-term collaborators Peter Walsh (co-producer) and Mark Warman (musical director), with the latter conducting an orchestra comprised of 46 string players and 16 brass for the studio recording.

TRACK LISTING

CD Tracklisting:
1. Orchestral Tuning Up
2. Opening
3. Dream Sequence
4. Village Walk
5. RUN
6. Down The Stairs
7. Up The Stairs
8. The Letter
9. Versailles
10. Cutting Flowers
11. Boy,Mirror,Cars Arriving
12. Third Tantrum
13. Printing Press
14. On The Way To The Meeting
15. The Meeting
16. Post Meeting
17. Finale
18. New Dawn (synth Layout For Cut Scene)

LP Tracklisting:
A1. Orchestral Tuning Up
A2. Opening
A3. Dream Sequence
A4. Village Walk
A5. RUN
A6. Down The Stairs
A7. Up The Stairs
A8. The Letter
A9. Versailles
B1. Cutting Flowers
B2. Boy,Mirror,Cars Arriving
B3. Third Tantrum
B4. Printing Press
B5. On The Way To The Meeting
B6. The Meeting
B7. Post Meeting
B8. Finale
B9. New Dawn (synth Layout For Cut Scene)

Despite - or perhaps because of - his glacial work rate, Scott Walker remains one of the most influential figures in rock music. He is an icon, a man who turned his back on superficial pop stardom to create some the most resonant and compelling music ever made. Although Scott started writing "The Drift" in the late 1990s, he didn't start recording until late 2004. Working with longtime studio collaborator Peter Walsh (who also co-produced "Climate Of Hunter" and "Tilt") he brought an astonishing array of sounds and textures into the studio - tubax, shawm, flugelhorn, a 36 piece string orchestra, a huge wooden box, and much more besides. The result is a record of immense power and range and almost unfathomable emotional depth. Tracks like "Cossacks" and "Hand Me Ups" rock with a dark, insistent force that's quite unlike anything else in the Walker catalogue - while the vast open spaces of "Clara", "Jesse" and "Cue" open up to admit beauty and horror in equal measure.

TRACK LISTING

Cossacks Are
Clara
Jesse
Jolson And Jones
Cue
Hand Me Ups
Buzzers
Psoriatic
The Escape
A Lover Loves

A heavyweight astral shower of rhythm and vibes, Ash Walker’s third album ‘Aquamarine’ is released on 19th July 2019 via Night Time Stories. Ash’s production output is similarly exploratory: his journeys have taken him far and wide, from tunnels under the river Thames to recording local percussionists in the Atlas mountains of Morocco. Inspired by a deep dive of sounds from artists including Duke Ellington, Quincy Jones, King Tubby, Bo Diddley, 4Hero, J Dilla, Pete Rock, Curtis Mayfield, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich; his first two albums, ‘Augmented 7th’ (2015) and ‘Echo Chamber’ (2016) gained attention from the likes of BBC 6 Music DJs Gilles Peterson, Don Letts, Gideon Coe and Clash Maga- zine, XLR8R and MIMS.

‘Aquamarine’ is a projection and culmination of all he’s absorbed. A cosmic explosion of sound and colour, rhythm, shape and patterns. The arrival of an unassuming dreamer now projecting his unique flavour of expression. ‘Aqua- marine’ is the take-off of this audial spaceship, a sound discovered in the grooves of thousands of records, united in one. A meditation designed to inspire good energy, Ash hopes to bring a sense of calm and tranquility to the listener amongst the chaos of life. Recorded at home with the freedom of time and space, it combines analogue with digital, and a fondness for normally unwanted shapes and textures such as fuzz, hiss and crackle.

“My previous albums have felt to me more like ventures on land. This one feels more like a deep sea voyage into the subconscious. Living to dream with visions of grandeur. Manifesting a beautiful path to walk on. It was inspired by everything around me, from friends and family to art and design, engineering and architecture, movement and how we use our five senses. I love to try and push my own boundaries of what I perceive to be right and wrong, seeing mistakes as innovations, and obstacles as inspiration.”

Highlights on the album include ‘Under The Sun’, ‘Time’ and ‘Finishing Touch’, all of which feature the smooth and silky voice of Laville. Themes of metaphysical exploration and transportation re-occur in the cosmic jazz of ‘Brave New World’ and the smoked beats on ‘Come With Us’. Also featured across the album are trumpet and flugel-horn genius Yazz Ahmed, bassist Marc Cyril (Keziah Jones, Jr Walker & The All Stars) and renowned musician and producer Jonathan Shorten.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Mixing elements of downbeat, hip-hop and a healthy dose of soul, 'Aquamarine' is another superb outing for the ever-talented Ash Walker. Shadowy beats clash with reverbed guitar and echoing vocals before breaking into loungy slow-jazz and heady opium-den instrumentals. It actually confounds all genre expectations and is all the better for it. Proper lovely.

TRACK LISTING

CD
1. Under The Sun (ft Laville)
2. Time (ft Laville)
3. Come With Us
4. Brave New World
5. Finishing Touch (ft Laville)
6. Aquamarine 07. Sanity (ft Laville)
8. I Need Money
9. Fat King Smoke
10. Aint Got You (ft Laville)

Vinyl
A1. Under The Sun (ft Laville)
A2. Time (ft Laville)
A3. Come With Us
A4. Brave New World
A5. Finishing Touch (ft Laville)
A6. Aquamarine B1. Sanity (ft Laville)
B3. I Need Money B4. Fat King Smoke
B5. Aint Got You (ft Laville)
B6. The Dagon's Cashmere Jumper

Four years on from his explorative third full-length ‘Aquamarine,’ Londoner Ash Walker returns with an equally ambitious follow-up, via Night Time Stories. Alongside a plethora of award-winning collaborators and combining a dizzy- ing array of sounds, ‘Astronaut’ hears Walker push his astral shower of rhythm and vibes to new heights. If 'Aquamarine’ was the take-off of his audial spaceship, ‘Astronaut’ is the cosmic voyage reaching terminal velocity; a rocket-powered masterclass spanning jazz, blues, soul, funk, and reggae.

An avid record collector, Walker has DJed far and wide... from the infamous Royal Mail squat party to the canals of Venice, spinning vinyl in Brixton with The Specials to scattering dub across San Francisco and LA. His own production output is similarly explor- atory: his journeys have taken him far and wide, from tunnels under the river Thames to recording local percussionists in the Atlas mountains of Morocco

TRACK LISTING

01 Only Love Feat. Lou Rhodes
02 Letting Go Feat. Andrew Ashong
03 Afronaut Feat. Amp Fiddler & Laville
04 Babylonian Triangle Of Captivity Feat. Ebi Soda
05 Time Gets Wasted Feat. Sly5thAve & Denitia
06 Automation Feat. Oscar Jerome & Joe Armon-Jones
07 Running Away Feat. Jazz Ahmed & Laville
08 Petrol Head Feat. Laville
09 Detroit Velvet Smooth Feat. Yazz Ahmed
10 Jupiter Feat. Kennebe

Ryley Walker currently resides in New York City. But his latest LP is a Chicago record in spirit. The masterful Course In Fable, the songwriter’s fifth solo effort, draws from the deep well of that city’s fertile 1990s scene, when bands like Tortoise, The Sea and Cake and Gastr del Sol were reshaping the underground, mixing and matching indie rock, jazz, prog and beyond.

Walker spent his formative years in Chicago, absorbing those heady sounds and finding ways to make them his own. Even though he emerged at first in folk-rock troubadour mode, it makes sense that he’s arrived at this point; each LP has grown more intricate and assured, his influences distilling into something original and unusual. To put it simply: Course In Fable is Walker’s best record yet, full of active imagination and endless possibilities.

Last October, Ryley went straight to one of the primary architects of the Chicago sound to make the LP. John McEntire, Course In Fable’s producer/engineer/ mixer, can rightly be called a legend for his work with Tortoise, Stereolab, The Red Krayola, Jim O’Rourke and countless others over a prolific career that now spans more than three decades. Seeing his name in an album’s liners is pretty much a trademark of quality.

Another Windy City exile, McEntire is based on the west coast these days, working out of the Portland, OR studio he’s dubbed Soma West. On the seven songs here, he delivers the signature shimmering and pristine sonics he’s become known for over the years. But McEntire was also intimately involved with Course In Fable’s overall creative process. “I told him to take the mixes and have at it,” Walker says.

The result is a rich, immersive affair — a headphones record if ever there was one. Course In Fable’s songs are twisty, labyrinthine things, stuffed full of ideas (Walker half-jokingly calls it his “prog record”). But no matter how complex it gets, the album is never overwhelmingly busy. Wiry guitars melt into gorgeous string sections (arranged by Douglas Jenkins of the Portland Cello Project). Tricky time signatures abound but feel as natural as can be. Melodies o@en dri@ in unexpected directions but remain downright hummable. Like Walker’s beloved Genesis, the pop element is never too far from the surface even when shit gets weird. (And speaking of weird, Ryley says that in addition to Genesis, much of the album’s inspiration comes from “Australian extreme scooter riders on YouTube and balding gear heads on Craigslist.” Go figure.)

To help put together these various puzzle pieces, Ryley assembled a band made up of several longtime collaborators. Bill MacKay (another Chicago mainstay) and Walker have made two excellent instrumental duo records of interlocking guitars and warm give-and-take — a rapport very much in evidence throughout Course In Fable. The freakishly talented drummer Ryan Jewell has performed with Walker for years now in a variety of settings, from straightforward song-centric sets to blown-out improv extravaganzas. Bassist Andrew Scott Young (Tiger Hatchery, Health & Beauty) has logged many miles on tour with Walker; he and Jewell are frequently astonishing, a buoyant-but-always-locked-in rhythm section, able to navigate sometimes dizzying turnarounds with apparent ease. Listening to the interplay between Walker and these musicians and you might be fooled into thinking they’d spent a year road-testing Course In Fable’s songs. But it all came together relatively fast, thanks to demos, rehearsals and the kind of musical empathy that comes from years of playing together.

Beneath the wondrous interplay, you’ll find some of Walker’s most personal – if still typically cryptic — lyrics, hinting at some of the trials the songwriter has been dealing with in recent years. Balanced with necessary doses of dark humour and oddball poetry, Course In Fable feels most of all like a life-affirming record, fresh air in the lungs, sun on your skin. “Fuck me, I’m alive,” Ryley sings at one point, a moment of both disbelief and pure joy.

Walker has released his albums on a who’s-who of independent labels over the past decade — Tompkins Square, Dead Oceans, Thrill Jockey and Drag City among them. This time around, he’s doing it DIY-style, putting Course In Fable out on his own Husky Pants imprint. You’re in good hands. This is an album that sounds great (mastered by Greg Calbi), looks great (artwork by Jenny Nelson and design by Michael Vallera). It probably even smells great. Whether you’ve been onboard since the beginning or are new to the Ryley Walker universe, you’re in for a treat.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though we've seen a number of iterations of that Ryley Walker sound, it's great to hear him go back to the sound that drew me in in the first place. 'Course In Fable' touches upon the more avant-jazz leanings of his more recent output but lies firmly within the progressive full-bodied folk-rock ethos that made 'Primrose Green' and 'Golden Sings...' such essential listening experiences. Really marvellous stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Striking Your Big Premier (5:10)
2. Rang Dizzy (4:50)
3. A Lenticular Slap (7:54)
4. Axis Bent (4:36)
5. Clad With Bunk (6:15)
6. Pond Scum Ocean (8:05)
7. Shiva With Dustpan (5:43)

“I was under a lot of stress because I was trying to make an anti-folk record and I was having trouble doing it. I wanted to make something deep-fried and more me-sounding. I didn’t want to be jammy acoustic guy anymore. I just wanted to make something weird and far-out that came from the heart finally. I was always trying to make something like this I guess, trying to catch up with my imagination. And I think I succeeded in that way — it’s got some weird instrumentation on there, and some surreal far-out words.

I’m lucky enough to have some people who are playing on it who had a big part in shaping the songs and writing with me. Cooper Crain, the guy who engineered it, and played all the synthesizers. And when the flute guy, Nate Lepine came in, that was really something that made it special. The producer was this guy LeRoy Bach. I love LeRoy, he’s a really talented guy. He did the last record too.

And it’s more Chicago-y sounding. Chicago sounds like a train constantly coming towards you but never arriving. That’s the sound I hear, all the time, ringing in my ears.” – Ryley Walker.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Narcotics enthusiast and all-round ledge Ryley takes us on his newest journey into the wilderness with 'Deafman Glance', with the same tender plucking acousticry we've come to know and love, but with the psychedelic element all the more pronounced. Brilliantly progressive and nuanced songwriting with Walker's imitable style.

TRACK LISTING

1. In Castle Dome
2. 22 Days
3. Accommodations
4. Can't Ask Why
5. Opposite Middle
6. Telluride Speed
7. Expired
8. Rocks On Rainbow
9. Spoil With The Rest

On ‘The Lillywhite Sessions’, Ryley Walker and the similarly indebted trio of drummer Ryan Jewell and bassist Andrew Scott Young cover Dave Matthews’ infamously abandoned 2001 art-rock masterpiece of the same name, a record where he and his band indulged a new adult pathos and a budding musical wanderlust.

With a delicate rhythmic latticework and vocals that ask you to lean in, ‘Busted Stuff’ recalls Jim O’ Rourke’s golden Drag City days. Emerging from a wall of distortion, ‘Diggin’ a Ditch’ becomes a power trio wallop à la Dinosaur Jr, shaking off existential malaise like twenty-something pals writing rock songs in the garage. Walker’s ‘Grace is Gone’, the most faithful take here, is a testament to his unflagging love for the music that helped make him a musician.

This end-to-end interpretation of youthful fascination is a collective reminder that we are all just kids from somewhere, reckoning with our upbringing the best we can. Walker has stepped through the door long ago opened by the Dave Matthews Band to find a world teeming with musical possibilities. On ‘The Lillywhite Sessions’, he has, in turn, created his own.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As well as being a VERY good follow on the ol' Twitter, Ryley Walker is also a superb chap and undeniably brilliant songwriter and musician. Although the songwriting doesn't really get a look in on this release (it being entirely covers), it is clear that his laid-back style and impeccable vocal performance is only improving. Even if you've never heard this Dave Matthews Band release before, I implore you to hear Walker's take on things. Stunning.

TRACK LISTING

Busted Stuff
Grey Street
Diggin’ A Ditch
Sweet Up And Down
JTR
Big Eyed Fish
Grace Is Gone
Captain
Bartender
Monkey Man
Kit Kat Jam
Raven

One of the most enigmatic figures in pop music history Scott Walker (nee Scott Engel) first saw massive success in England with his band The Walker Brothers in 1965. Not really brothers, nor were they British, the trio left Hollywood seeking fame in England, and they found it here for a time with their particular brand of orchestrated pop.

Following the groups demise in 1967 Walker set our to pursue solo stardom in perhaps the most peculiar way possible, with over-the-top baroque pop songs owing more to his idol Jacques Brel, Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra than they did to the Beatles or the Stones.

This is his first solo LP from 1967 and features three of his own compositions along with covers of songs by Brel, Tim Hardin, and the Brill Building team of Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann. A true original.

One of the finest tracks from Anthony Brightly's work with a young Wendy Walker. This track has always been a personal favourite, so whilst working with Anthony on another project we thought why not do a nice little 45 of this classic. Flipped with Legal Assault's, 'Nice & Slow' also from the Sir George label, this is another long time spin, it's a no-brainer all Killer 45. Strictly AA

TRACK LISTING

1. We've Got One
2. Nice & Slow (feat. Dan-Elle)

Remastered from the original stereo 1/4" tapes LP and CD feature expanded gatefold tip-on jackets and liner notes.

Light In The Attic and the legendary folk/blues/roots label Vanguard Records are proud to begin a series of collaborations under the umbrella Vanguard Vault.

The series will explore the vaults of Vanguard and see the reissuing of obscure nuggets, psychedelic weirdness and just some good old-fashioned seminal music.

Originally released in 1968 on Vanguard Records, Peter Walker’s album “Second Poem To Karmela” Or Gypsies Are Important was a ground breaking blend of folk, raga, psychedelia, Eastern and Modal sounds that has remained unsung for decades. While his debut album for Vanguard,Rainy Day Raga, has been reissued several times on LP and CD, this album (his sophomore effort), remains an obscure and hard to find vinyl relic. Until now..

Carefully re-mastered from the original tapes, guitar scholar Glenn Jones recently interviewed Peter Walker for hours and has written a book-deep essay for the CD and LP liner notes that detail Walker’s association with an incredible cross-section of 1960’s counter-culture icons including LSD guru Timothy Leary (Walker personally provided ‘the soundtrack’ to many a trip), he studied raga music with Ali Akbar Khan, and like his close friend Sandy Bull, Walker worked on a fusion of Western and Eastern sounds. Jim Pepper plays flute on Second Poem (he also recorded with The Fugs and Don Cherry), other accompaniment to Walker’s guitar, Sarod and Sitar playing includes violin, organ, tablas, and tamboura.

This is true “acid folk” as interesting, progressive, and memorable as fellow 1960’s world travelers Robbie Basho, Davy Graham, and the Incredible String Band.

TRACK LISTING

1. Second Song
2. I & Thou
3. Southwind
4. Tear
5. Barefoot
6. Gypsy Song
7. Circus Day
8. Blake Street
9. Socco Chico
10. Mixture

Scott Walker will finally release Bish Bosch this December, his long-awaited and first studio album since 2006’s The Drift.

Since the 1960s, Scott Walker has scaled the heights of pop superstardom, produced some of the most revered solo albums of the late sixties, coasted on his laurels during the seventies, then metamorphosed into something very different. The music he has been making at his own pace since the early eighties might be utterly estranged from the songs that made him a household name, but they stem from the privacy he requires to write this complex and hugely inventive music.

Bish Bosch is the latest in Scott’s discography to pursue the line of enquiry he began back in 1978, with his four devastatingly original songs on the Walker Brothers’ swansong, Nite Flights, and continuing through Climate of Hunter (1984), Tilt (1995), The Drift (2006). He has continued to mature and develop in a late style utterly at odds with the music that made him a superstar, a lifetime ago, but which is totally honest, uncompromising and transcendent.

Scott began writing new material around 2009 - whilst also scoring the ROH 2’s Duet For One Voice ballet - recording it sporadically over the following three years. Aided again by co-producer Peter Walsh and joined by the regular core of musicians, Ian Thomas (drums), Hugh Burns (guitar), James Stevenson (guitar), Alasdair Malloy (percussion) and John Giblin (bass).

Musical director Mark Warman also played a prominent role, both as conductor and keyboardist, while guests include trumpeter Guy Barker and pedal steel guitarist BJ Cole, who worked on three of Scott’s midseventies LPs. For three tracks (‘SDSS1416+13B’, ‘Dimple’ and ‘Corps de Blah’), Scott drafted in an orchestra, recording them in The Hall at Air Studios last November.

If The Drift was a dark place, full of scorching orchestral textures and ominous rumblings, Bish Bosch is a tauter but more colourful experience, with greater emphasis on processed, abrasive guitars, digital keyboards and thick silences.

Bish Bosch is released on December 3rd and a comprehensive booklet accompanies the album. For the cover art, Scott worked closely with painter Ben Farquharson and designer Philip Laslett.

TRACK LISTING

‘See You Don’t Bump His Head’
Corps De Blah
Phrasing
SDSS1416+13B (Zercon,
A Flagpole Sitter)
Epizootics!
Dimple
Tar
Pilgrim
The Day The “Conducator” Died

Split EP, featuring two tracks from each band, "Look Out The Window" and "Here Comes Another Day" from The Walkmen, and "Don't Hold Your Breath" and "Mother Sky" (By Can) from Calla.

'Heaven' is The Walkmen's sixth album and second since signing to Bella Union. The album was produced by Phil Ek (Fleet Foxes, The Shins, Band of Horses) whilst Robin Pecknold sings harmonies on two songs on the record.

“We felt like it was time to make a bigger, more generous statement…" When describing The Walkmen's new album, lead singer Hamilton Leithauser portrays a band hitting maturity, comfortable in its mastery after a decade together.

It's been ten years since the Walkmen made their debut album, 'Everybody Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone'. Ten years since critics attached them to a New York scene they never wanted to be part of. This spring the band played a series of 10th anniversary shows in the US that demonstrated how far they have outstripped their peers: two sets over two hours, no filler, rapturously received.

The Walkmen are the great New York band of their generation, making the best music of their career and filling their largest venues yet. Their spot at the top of the bill at May’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry festival, curated by The National, demonstrates the respect in which they are held by the current wave of bands making music in the city.

When renowned producer Phil Ek approached the guys last year asking if they’d like to make a record with him, they travelled to the studio he uses in the woods outside Seattle for the most intense recording sessions they had ever experienced. “There can be something brittle about our sound,” Maroon says. “He made it just a little bit warmer, a little bit stronger. When I play it in my car, it sounds strong, which I love.”

All five members of the band have kids now and if the impact of parenthood is hard to pin down in a single lyric, there is definitely a new openness and emotional honesty to the songs. Most importantly, the old gang mentality has deepened, becoming something worthwhile and lasting. “I’m very proud of what we’ve done. We’ve stayed friends and those friendships have grown,” says Bauer. “We have survival experience and real love that children generate in your life.”

'Heaven' is a definitive statement of purpose and commitment, from a band at the peak of its powers that is finally winning the recognition it deserves.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: 'Heaven', their sixth album, showcases a band completely at one with itself. Confident and striding elegantly at their own pace the songs offer us a warm and enveloping sound very much in keeping with band's new maturity.

'Don't get heavy, let's be light', Hamilton Leithauser sings on "Woe Is Me", and that seems to be the Walkmen's creed on "Lisbon". The Walkmen were more than heavy on their previous album, the gorgeously moody "You & Me", and it's hard not to read the more upbeat attitude they have here as a response. This time, they dance on their troubles instead of drowning their sorrows - although the organ on album opener "Juveniles" warms like the first sip of wine. But while the mood is lighter, things are never completely sunny in the Walkmen's world.

"Victory" sounds like a winner's brash cheer, but bears the sting of being second place. "Woe Is Me" turns a pity party into an actual party, making reminiscences about a girl who was 'my not so long ago' into one of the band's most immediately appealing songs in some time, while "Angela Surf City" shoots the curl of a difficult relationship's tides, ebbing and cresting like "Bows + Arrows"' "The Rat". These songs anchor "Lisbon"'s hazier, sadder moments, of which there are plenty: the title track closes the album with a dreamy remembrance that echoes "You & Me"'s brooding travelogue, minus that album's desolation; "Blue as Your Blood" and "Stranded" provide "Lisbon"'s broken but ever-romantic heart, filled with transporting stories of black-eyed girls and waltzes among broken glass. Best of all is "While I Shovel the Snow", which once again proves what a rich muse winter is for the band. When Leithauser sighs 'There's no life like the slow life', it's another potent Walkmen motto: "Lisbon", like the rest of their music, is meant to be savoured, the fullness of its songs allowed to develop over many listens.

This is the very first reissue of the super rare 1968 Reggay anthem Belly Lick by Dennis Walks. Originally released on the Blue Cat label, this very much sought-after single features two exceptional tracks from the golden era of Jamaican music. "Belly Lick" by Dennis Walks and "The Game Song" by Drumbago & The Blenders exemplify the rich musical landscape of late 1960s Jamaica. Both tracks were written by Dennis Walks and produced by Joe Gibbs. The original pressing has become highly collectible, with copies fetching big sums in the collectors' market…

TRACK LISTING

Dennis Walks - Belly Lick
Drumbago & Blenders - The Game Song

Foundation reggae artist Dennis Walks' much in demand Waste Time in Babylon becomes the latest 1980s digital masterpiece to be reissued on 45 from Death Is Not The End's 333 series. Produced by Prince Jazzbo for his Ujama label in 1987, the singer who first came through voicing tracks for producers Harry Mudie and Joe Gibbs in the early 1970s lends his vocals to the "Racecourse Rock" rhythm played here by the legendary keyboardist Winston Wright.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: The fruitful 80s period of reggae continues to yield trouser-shaking results with both vocal and dub versions of this digital number guaranteed to rock the dance.

TRACK LISTING

1. Waste Time In Babylon
2. Version In Babylon

John Wall and Mark Durgan return after a lengthy absence [ there first release together was in 2011] Theirs is a fractured sound world woven together from improvisations that took place in the Utterpsalm Studio in London between 2012-15. The resultant seven tracks are an attempt at imposing order,structure and "expression" without meaning or intentionality onto a huge amount of heavily edited sonic material

TRACK LISTING

1/Contrapt
2/Ontrapt
3/Ntrapt
4/Trapt
5/Rapt
6/Apt
7/Pt

Larry Wallis ex of the classic period Pink Fairies returns with a guitar driven album with tracks dwelling on sci-fi, The Fairies, hippies and tribal gatherings, with Mick Farren supplying some of the lyrics. Larry Wallis was once described as 'like Hank Marvin on acid' and this album amply supports this theory. Also included is a rerecording of his classic "I'm A Police Car" where he really lets loose for nearly eight minutes.

“A tarnished, shouty clangor that recalls Mission of Burma, Wire circa ‘Pink Flag’, Pylon…” - Pitchfork

“The Five Boroughs’ most vicious singer with any real songs behind her this decade” - NME

“Louche post-punk, all starkly angled guitar lines and minimalist beats” - Noisey

“The energy and swagger of a cocky young ruffian” - DIY Mag

“Ripping apart at the seams and bursting through with unnerving vitality” - Stereogum

‘Untitled’ is the debut album from “New York City’s buzziest new band” (NME).

This follow up to their cult classic, eponymous EP documents WALL’s rapid ascent from a relatively unknown entity to a hard-playing, highly sought after act on the NYC underground circuit and beyond.

From the pensive minimalism of ‘River Mansion’ to the fervent satire of ‘High Ratings’, the barely nascent four-piece captures the nervous energy of a city defined by constant change.

TRACK LISTING

High Ratings
Wounded At War
Sonic
Save Me
Turn Around
River Mansion
Charmed Life
Weekend
Circus
Everything In Between

“A tarnished, shouty clangor that recalls Mission of Burma, Wire circa ‘Pink Flag’, Pylon…” - Pitchfork

“The Five Boroughs’ most vicious singer with any real songs behind her this decade” - NME

“Louche post-punk, all starkly angled guitar lines and minimalist beats” - Noisey

“The energy and swagger of a cocky young ruffian” - DIY Mag

“Ripping apart at the seams and bursting through with unnerving vitality” - Stereogum

‘Untitled’ is the debut album from “New York City’s buzziest new band” (NME).

This follow up to their cult classic, eponymous EP documents WALL’s rapid ascent from a relatively unknown entity to a hard-playing, highly sought after act on the NYC underground circuit and beyond.

From the pensive minimalism of ‘River Mansion’ to the fervent satire of ‘High Ratings’, the barely nascent four-piece captures the nervous energy of a city defined by constant change.

TRACK LISTING

High Ratings
Wounded At War
Sonic
Save Me
Turn Around
River Mansion
Charmed Life
Weekend
Circus
Everything In Between

Jamwax reissue the iconic single "The Man Who Sold The World" by the Wally Brothers, originally released in 1974 on the Explosion label, a subsidiary of Trojan Records. This deep roots reggae track stands out with its unique orchestral strings, delivering a soulful and distinctive interpretation of David Bowie’s legendary song. Some even argue that this version surpasses Bowie’s original in coolness and creativity.

Produced by Desmond Bryan and Webster Shrowder, the Wally Brothers, better known as the renowned reggae band The Cimarons, brought their signature style to this remarkable track. Featuring Bobby Davis on vocal as confirmed by Locksley Gichie of The Cimarons, this version bridges Jamaican roots music with international influences.

At the time of its release in 1974, "The Man Who Sold The World" was relatively unknown to the general public, making this reggae adaptation a daring and unconventional choice. Decades later, Kurt Cobain’s unforgettable performance of the song during Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York introduced it to a new audience, transforming Bowie’s original and its various covers, including this reggae rendition, into a cornerstone of music history.

Originally released in 1974.
Licensed courtesy of BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Rare that a cover surpasses the original but in this case (Bowie fans may berate me for this), I'd say it's true! A rousing roots take on David's global smash, complete with killer dub version.

TRACK LISTING

The Man Who Sold The World
The Man Who Sold The World (Version)

Walt Disco are taking new shape. Lead vocalist and songwriter Jocelyn Si, drummer and co-songwriter Jack Martin, synth player Finlay McCarthy, bass player Charlie Lock and guitarist Lewis Carmichael dismantled accepted narratives and restrictive norms on debut album Unlearning. On their new record the band hold a mirror up to many shifting faces, once again welcoming the listener into a theatrical world, at once euphoric and unsettling. The Warping makes permeable the barriers of time and self, passing back and forth between memory and the future, calling out to younger selves and imagined identities. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

Written on both sides of the Atlantic, from Los Angeles and Austin to Glasgow and London, The Warping is a significant step forward from a band who have already seen strong success. After its release in 2022, Unlearning picked up nominations for the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award and AIM Independent Album of the Year, while shows at SXSW, festivals across Europe and support stints with Primal Scream and Duran Duran saw the band reach new fanbases and cross genre divides.

Taking the cinematic glam of their debut and pushing it further, the band brought in classically trained orchestral musicians. Sonically, the horns, woodwind and swelling string sections lend an entirely new level to the Walt Disco sound - one that feels both fantastically organic and technically accomplished. While the foundations were laid during pre-album recording sessions at Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music’s studio the songs themselves largely come together in collaboration. In comparison to the ‘Frankensteined’ recording process for Unlearning, stitched together across a digital divide of necessity during lockdown, The Warping was co-produced by the band and Chris McCrory, with engineering from The Vale studios’ Chris D’Adda, and the instrumentation is almost entirely analogue.

Deft lyricism takes in deeply personal issues and writes them large, transposing feelings of envy, fear, joy and hope out of individual experiences. Yearning for another self is a recurring dream on The Warping, as they explore gender dysphoria and envy with radical honesty, accepting them as two tangled threads in the same experience. The world, the band note, can feel like a hostile environment at the moment - especially for queer people, trans people, or anyone who is different. But they aren’t going to let that stop them. Jocelyn agrees. ‘If I’m beaten down by it, I’m not going to be able to pay it forward and act accordingly,’ they say. On The Warping, every moment changes with just a trick of the light.

TRACK LISTING

1. Seed
2. Gnomes
3. Come Undone
4. The Warping
5. You Make Me Feel So Dumb
6. Pearl
7. Black Chocolate
8. Jocelyn
9. The Captain
10. Weeping Willow
11. I Will Travel
12. Before The Walls

Unlearning, the breathtaking debut from Glasgow’s Walt Disco, is steeped in metamorphoses, a stage show in two acts. It covers flings and romances, identities and bodies and change, profound familial love, and - of course - Hollywood glamour. The album plays out like a musical, with an emotional arc and even an instrumental interlude, winkingly titled ‘The Costume Change’.

While the themes of the album are universally relatable, Walt Disco’s gift is in the unique experience of discovery and heartbreak between queer people - something that frontperson James explores in depth on songs such as ‘Weightless’, ‘Be An Actor’ and ‘Hold Yourself As High As Her’. In Walt Disco’s eyes, it’s never too late to become what you might have been and there are plenty of possibilities to explore on Unlearning.

TRACK LISTING

1. Weightless
2. Selfish Lover
3. How Cool Are You?
4. Cut Your Hair
5. Timeline
6. Be An Actor
7. The Costume Change
8. Those Kept Close
9. Hold Yourself As High As Her
10. My Dear
11. Macilent
12. If I Had A Perfect Life

Having moved all around Canada and settling nowhere, Walter TV are contemporary nomads. They formed their band in the basements and cottage-like houses of a beach town outside Vancouver. After Joe McMurray and Pierce McGarry moved to Montreal, they shared an apartment with a constant revolving cast of characters. In a space often overpopulated and reeking of cigarettes, they began recording Blessed. Simon Ankenman would come by periodically, and with him they would finish most of the recordings between there and LA. The band's two members, Joe and Pierce, were also busy touring with Mac DeMarco, acting as his backing band. Mixing and recording turned into a thing to do on the road. Although the group prefers tape recordings to digital, they have never been militant. Always trying to uphold their DIY sensibilities, Walter TV believes the music should speak for itself. It should come from wherever and whatever is available.

“Surf Metal drops that punchy kind of rock you know and love from DeMarco’s band, but they also throw in elements that suggest it’s different While the song bounces and punches along to its punky riffs, some good ol’ fashioned black metal like shrieks sneak their way into the background of the song. It’s everything you could ever want from a song that can probably be described as Varg’s Day at The Beach.” – Noisey.

TRACK LISTING

01. Candles
02. Neighbour
03. Paranormal Witness
04. Walter’s Kaya
05. Punk Song
06. Surf Metal
07. Fan
08. Thanksgiving (Looper)
09. C’mon Now
10. Tall Mountains

I Am Alicia, the debut LP from the former leader of Chicago-based art-rock outfit Oshwa, is a bold retelling of Walter’s self-discovery that encourages the listener’s own story to take root in its universal truths; a soundtrack to get you up and over life’s hurdles when feeling like you are your only cheerleader. Embracing influences spanning from jazz and the classic composition of American standards to hip-hop and new wave to build her own brand of eclecti-pop, Walter paves a path toward actualization, acceptance and love that is fearless in its sound and lyrics.

The accompanying arrangements utilize a kitchen sink approach to production, spanning the poles from electronic to orchestral and everything in between (like talk box and tap dancing!). Known for her “near-cosmic voice” (WIRED) and “stratosphere of songwriting all her own” (Consequence of Sound), Walter invites you on I Am Alicia into the most dynamic iteration of her world as she knows it. Inspired by a life on the move and born from a restless passion for creation, I Am Alicia is part practice in personal mythology, part call to “set yourself free” and join Walter on her odyssey.

What developed in a time of intense change as she relocated from Chicago to New York City in 2016, where the only constant was the time spent with herself, the artist sees this 10-track collection as “a hero’s journey through the unconscious, driven by my desire to experience who it is I am, inside, and what it is I do in this life, outside.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Prelude
2. House Of Yes
3. Who Am I
4. Suit Yourself
5. Just A Little

Side B:
6. Standing At Your Doorstep
7. I Feel You
8. Talking To Myself
9. A Toast
10. I Am

“I could go on and on about the insane virtuosity, about the rare analog wind synth that almost no one in the world plays anymore, about the most unique intervallic melodies and harmonies, but it’s all secondary to the simple beauty that Justin Walter is able to conjure up with his solo music.” Colin Stetson

Michigan trumpeter Justin Walter’s solo work centers on evocative, intuitive explorations of the EVI (Electronic Valve Instrument), a rare wind-controlled analog synthesizer from the 1970’s.

Its unique, smeared tonality allows for an expressive range of glassy, jazz-like textures, which Walter loops and layers with hushed electronics and twilit trumpet, painting opaque landscapes of resonant beauty.

Walter’s 2013 debut, Lullabies & Nightmares, included a handful of collaborations with percussionist Quin Kirchner but Unseen Forces finds him fully solo, refining the project to its essence: shape-shifting watercolors of pastel haze, lit by the soft synthetic glow of electric breath. It’s a sound both modern and timeless, fusing emotion and technology, gauze and melody, force and fragility.

From Justin Walter: Unseen Forces is a collection of recordings that document the use of improvisation as a means to create sounds that can either function on their own or serve as the foundation of, or source material for, additional improvisation. There was a definite process used to create this music but at no point was any music ever written or composed.

When putting this music together I was often aware of feelings related to density, spacing, silence, and the sense of time pulling back on itself, like trying to stretch a scene and pull on it in ways that distort it ever so slightly. This is a record of melodies, alone and in complex relation. This music is a reflection of both feeling, and thought, as much construction as composition. The recordings of the EVI, as well as the sequencing done using samples of those recordings, are mostly the result of exploring melody through intuition. Harmonically simple, but with a complex pallet of texture.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Introspective wandering avant-jazz sections clash with soaring airy ambience and cut-up string sections. Sparse pianos on 'End Of Six' for example are alone but for their own shimmering reverb tails, left to ruminate through the sound field uninterrupted. From the minimalism and fog comes beauty and warmth, presenting as snippets of found sound and crackling pads.

TRACK LISTING

1. 1001
2. Unseen Forces
3. Sixty
4. End Of Six
5. It’s Not What You Think
6. Isotope
7. Following
8. Soft Illness
9. Red Cabin

22a023 sees trumpeter, friend and long-time label affiliate Nick Walters bring his Paradox Ensemble back to life with the mini-album ‘Awakening’. The thirteen piece ensemble combine spiritual and eastern jazz moods with West African rhythms across four extended tracks. Limited one-off pressing, manufactured at Optimal, Germany.

Channelling the spirit of Woody Shaw, Charles Mingus and absent friends the band features some familiar faces such as Ed Cawthorne (aka Tenderlonious) on tenor sax and flute, Aidan Shepherd (Ruby Rushton) on accordion and synth, and of course the incomparable Nick Walters (Ruby Rushton & Riot Jazz) on trumpet and synths.

Tracks include “34268”, inspired by an Agbadja rhythm from Togo, features two ways of emphasising the same rhythmic motif - the first half a slower pulse of three beats to the bar before quickening to a four to the floor groove for the second half, accompanied by a classic trumpet solo from Walters.
”Dear Old Thing” is a tribute to beloved cricket commentator Henry Blofeld. The musical inspiration is channelled from Eric Dolphy via an exquisite flute solo from Ed Cawthorne (Tenderlonious) and another transcendent solo from Walters.

Nick Walters is arguably one of the most underrated musicians in the UK jazz scene. This project on 22a, which is entirely composed and arranged by him and featuring a roster of unbelievably talented musicians, will hopefully change

TRACK LISTING

34268
Dear Old Thing
Brahman
Zeno

Kenyan born, but now residing in Adelaide, Elsy Wameyo might just be the hottest kid on the block right now. With a fast-flowing, sharp lyrical flow which navigates both classic boom-bap rap and more modern hybrids of trap and grime; immediate comparisons can be drawn with Lil Simz and Nadia Rose; especially with the youthful, conscious, empowered confidence these artists all exude. I guess Wameo's gospel background and firm belief in God's path for her give her lyrics a slightly more spiritual edge but that doesn't stop them being both party-smashing anthems as much as they are a statement of deep intent and social philosophy by an obviously intelligent and informed voice.

A ridiculously strong debut EP, side A begins with the fiery, dominating and controlled aggression of "River Nile" which blends upfront bass and drill patterns to deadly effect. "Promise" is a huge R&B / hip-hop banger, destined for repeated reloads at the best house parties in town before "Sulwe" concludes side A with a jazz-n-bass informed piece of deep introspection that both Giles Peterson and Theo Parrish would both snap up given half a chance.

Before introducing side B with a thick sweltered piece of ambience, "Nilotic" erupts off the record with a vicious intent and highly infectious groove - highlighting injustices and discrimination with a quick-fired, witty delivery that's surely indebted to Nadia Rose, over a kind-of dancehall-pop beat that's impossible to ignore.

"Hunger" finishes off this faultless debut with an anthemic R&B / afrobeats hybrid which has almost Rihanna-esque grandiosity and shows an elegance and ambition in her songwriting that few can match at such an early stage in their career.

Put simply, this is one of the best debut EPs I've heard for a while - a star in the making surely. Get on it! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Have you heard me talk about Elsy Wameo yet? No? - then you haven't seen me!! I'm currently waxing lyrical about this new addition to the musical landscape. Like a cross between Nadia Rose and Lil Simz, with plenty of soul in her belly - big things afoot for this lady!

TRACK LISTING

A1. River Nile
A2. Promise
A3. Sulwe
B1. The Call
B2. Nilotic
B3. Hunger

Wand launch their third album, ‘1000 Days’, in what can only be called the relative blink of an eye.

August of 2014 was ‘Ganglion Reef’, Wand’s debut album release, on the GOD? label, revelling in their dark circuits and three-ring modulations. Following that, they ranged from their south-Cali base, towing their sound around this maze of interstates and state routes. Shows of all kinds were playing, plenty of people to meet up with on the way. Europe got booked and suddenly it was March of 2015 with a second album entitled ‘Golem’ (this time on In The Red) trailing Wand’s sound farther down the road, past the sky, into storm and casino food.

Recorded in Los Angeles and San Francisco in between tour days, ‘1000 Days’ finds Wand searching in corners. Where have all the people gone? Where have they put them? Panoramas of the body history are viewed through Wand’s spy-glass as it sweeps the horizon. · Never shy of a new machine, Wand found extra texture during ‘1000 Days’ via synthetic animation. Songs compelled them to reach across lifestyle, relying on broadcast to find out who might need the sound. The atmosphere is quicksilver and the space acoustic; as a beacon sparks electric, a cascade of hifi noises for everyone’s ear moles - raucous, impassive, inevitable musical expressions.

The Wandering Hearts are a British Americana-Folk band known for their enchanting harmonies and heartfelt songwriting, influenced by the likes of Simon & Garfunkel, Fleetwood Mac, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and have a similar sound to The Lumineers and First Aid Kit. Their new album, 'Déjà Vu (We’ve All Been Here Before)', is a beautiful re-work of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s 1970 hit album of the same name.

Recorded in one week in Joshua Tree, Taurus Rising Studios, this isn’t an album out to besmirch the original, but to become a loving companion without being an overly reverential copy. With a band as distinctive and exciting as The Wandering Hearts, a note-for-note facsimile was never an option. One listen to how The Wandering Hearts have taken 'Déjà Vu’s ten songs to new places and reimagined them over 50 years later, and it’s clear this is a very bold, very new work by one of Britain’s most accomplished Americana artists.

TRACK LISTING

1. Carry On
2. Teach Your Children
3. Almost Cut My Hair
4. Helpless
5. Woodstock
6. Déjà Vu
7. Our House
8. 4+20
9. Country Girl
10. Everybody I Love You

Motherhood changes everything. Little moments assume a much greater significance, and every memory holds the potential to last forever. Responsibilities expand, yet joy does as well.

The Wandering Hearts intimately explore this maternal transformation on their aptly titled third full-length offering and Chrysalis Records debut, MOTHER. The UK trio — Tara Wilcox [vocals], A.J. Dean [vocals, acoustic guitar], and Francesca “Chess”Whiffin [vocals, mandolin] — chronicle this season of growth and change across eleven tracks.

“During the process, we really found ourselves as a band. Motherhood has helped us grow and find meaning. It brought our writing and performing to a different level.” Notes Chess, "From the get-go, it felt like the most authentic and true representation of who we are now."

Mother started as a folk EP but incorporates elements of folk, Americana, rock, blues, pop and more with the band's vocals tying them all together, A.J. explains "We were really just making an album for us. We think the result is the best music we've ever made.”

TRACK LISTING

1. About America
2. Still Waters
3. Tired
4. Letter To Myself
5. Hold Your Tongue
6. Waiting
7. Dance Again
8. Not Misunderstood
9. River To Cry
10. Will You Love Me
11. What Fools Believe

If the emblem of Wand’s ‘Plum’ was the stark blue cloud - a condensation, a linking between longing molecules, data hungering for more data, a flotilla of vapor between eye and sky - then Wand’s new release reeks of something more forceful, more seductive, more intoxicating, more insidious: this is ‘Perfume’.

Here are seven electric hues, shocks of light that flagrantly provoke the dark, a posy’s clutch of purple, fuchsia, green and snowy white that curl against a stench of plague.

Recorded between tours and fire seasons in Grass Valley, California, by Tim Green, ‘Perfume’’s potent, expansive tunes were mixed in Woodstock, New York by Daniel James Goodwin. The band features Sofia Arreguin, Evan Burrows, Robbie Cody, Cory Hanson and Lee Landey.

There’s a kind of return here, a haunting, the déjà vu you only take in through a curious nose. Your nose invites the world inside your skull. A familiar fragrance finds you when you thought you’d let a lover go but it won’t linger like a lover, flickering away with the breeze toward a yawning future.

Plum is Wand’s fourth LP since the band formed in late 2013 but their " rst new album in two years. After a whirlwind initial phase of writing, recording, and touring at a frenetic clip, their newest document marks a period of relative patience; a refocusing and a push toward a new democratization of both process and musical surface.

In late winter of 2016, the band expanded their core membership of Evan Burrows, Cory Hanson, and Lee Landey to include two new members — Robbie Cody on guitar and Sofi a Arreguin on keys and vocals. From the outset, the new ensemble moved naturally toward a changed working method, as they learned how to listen to each other and trust in this songwriting process was consciously relocated to the practice space, where for several months, the band spent hours a day freely improvising, while recording as much of the activity as they could manage. Previously, Wand songs had generally been brought to the group setting substantially formed by singer and guitarist Cory Hanson; now seedling songs were harvested from a growing cloudbank of archived material, then ! eshed out and negotiated collectively as the band shifted rhythmically between the permissive space of jamming and the obsessive space of critique.

This new process demanded more honest communication, more vulnerability, better boundaries, more mercy and persistence during a year that meanwhile delivered a heaping serving of romantic, familial and political heartbreak for everyone involved. They learned more about their instruments and their perceived limitations. Much else fell apart in their personal lives, in their bodies, and the bodies of those near to them. In this way, Plum lengthened like a shadow underneath a dusking Orange; or rather “Weird Orange,” an affectionate name given to the color of a roulette-chosen, tour-rushed batch of Golem vinyl... an idiom, an inside joke, a talisman, a bookmark, a mood ring. And meanwhile all the shifting weather, the wireless signals, the helicopters overhead. Weird orange softened, darkened delicately, and rouged itself to a Plum.

The music of Plum focuses teeming, dense, at times wildly multichromatic sounds into Wand’s most deliberate statement to date, with a long evening’s shadow of loss and longing hovering above the proceedings. Plum delicately locates the band’s tangent of escape from the warm and comfortable shallows of genre anachronism, an eyes-closed, mouth-open leap toward a more free-associative and contemporary pastiche of logic that more honestly re! ects the ravenous musical omnivorousness of the " ve people who wrote and played it.

It usually goes without saying — we are so lucky to have had each other in this time, and we are more than lucky to have you all listen to this record.

TRACK LISTING

1 Setting
2 Plum
3 Bee Karma
4 CDG
5 High Rise
6 White Cat
7 The Trap
8 Ginger
9 Blue Cloud
10 Driving

Since 2014, Wand have made five albums (and an EP) in the studio and a living playing on the road. Business / pleasure: the two sides of their (multiverticed, decagon) coin, flipping in the strobe light of ongoing self-actualization. And yet, by doing both at the same time - making a record of them playing live - they’ve now made their best one yet.

How do you get ‘Spiders in the Rain’? Start by going all the way back to January 2020. Do you remember? Wand do. They’d been touring ‘Laughing Matter’ for ten months. They’d done the coast, spanned the country, crossed the water twice, came back home and kept on going... driving, flying, occasionally floating, always on to the next town. They did all kinds of shows - clubs, ballrooms, festival gigs with no roof overhead - the songs expanding and contracting according to the dimensions of each day.

The essential truth of the live vibe - that it’s always better when everybody’s here - was clear, so they booked a few shows more in Cali, from LA up to Marin. They brought along light and projections from The Mad Alchemist Liquid Light Show and Mike Kreibel and Zac Hernandez too, to tape everything - to get the big-deck energy out of performances in SF and LA, but also to draw it out of the margins in Sacramento, Novato and Big Sur. It all happened, too. Everyone brought their experience - the kids in the audience and the folks behind the boards, all along with Wand, where it meant something different for everybody in the van:

Sofia: “At the end of 2019, the live show had become our (my) home. It was the most familiar and comfortable place to be after consistent touring for years. An access point into the language we created together, and something that was constantly evolving and refining.”

Lee: “Breakfast in Big Sur, lots of liquid lights, redwoods, a short mossy hike, a dark tunnel and seaspray, friends, my fav Echo shows, Bernie polls, Delany books from City Lights, mounds of elephant seals honking at dusk. God bless Zac and Mike.”

Evan: “Maybe this quiltwork of live recordings reflects a certain screwy, fugitive energy we bring that I think will feel familiar to people who have seen us at shows all these years, and that more or less refuses to be domesticated for posterity in recording studios. These shows were so much fun and so much else—loud and living. I hope this record can be a vivid little token of all those buzzing and broken and ecstatic times we shared that lately feel more fleeting, precious and poignant than ever.”

Robbie: “John Cage said that ‘art and our involvement in it... somehow introduc[ing] us to the very life that we are living...’ is for an artist the highest goal imaginable. If that’s the case then this record is Wand’s high water mark. Both because it accurately represents the way I have most often heard Wand’s music over the past six years (in rooms filled with other people) and because it is a document of the choice I made to seek out a life for myself through music. I’m happy it exists.”

Cory: “The live show has always been a means of cracking open the hi-fi-neuroticism of our studio records; to reach back into the essence of what made the composed music possible to begin with, and tap that essence as the basis for expressive unison improvisation, ‘Spiders in the Rain’ is a document of our live efforts, and I do believe it is our strongest record until we can produce a studio LP that adequately captures and expands on what is essentially displayed here.”

TRACK LISTING

1.  HARE
2.  WONDER
3.  PLUM
4.  WHITE CAT
5.  EVENING STAR
6.  BLUE CLOUD
7.  THE GIFT
8.  SELF HYPNOSIS
9.  MELTED ROPE

Playful, creative and intelligent, Niklas Wandt weaves a masterfully programmed tapestry of percussive dancefloor delights for Viscera Transmissions 003 with Mehr Phett.Joyous and bright, Mehr Phett evokes a coconut flavoured sunrise on a distant desert island.Skilfully intertwining modern drum programming with retroistic instrumentation, Feuerwerk der Rhythmen is a guided tour through the eras of house music and beyond.Subcutaneous Dance is a whirlpool of interwoven synthesiser melodies. Submarine LFOs guaranteed to get underneath the dermal layer.Music reorganisation adept Eden Burns flips Mehr Phett on its head, wonky space-toms complete the package.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Mehr Phett
A2. Feuerwerk Der Rhythmen
B1. Subcutaneous Dance
B2. Mehr Phett (Eden Burns Remix)

The most massive of ups goes to Daniel and Gunther at Bureau B for some sterling A&R here, locking the world's daftest drum savant, Niklas Wandt into his first solo LP. This percussive polymath keeps his diary fairly full with production, radio shows, DJing and a shitload of collaborative pursuits, whether with Joshua Gottmanns in N-NDW funksters Neuzeitliche Bodenbeläge, Dusseldorf gee Wolf Müller, Sascha Funke or ambient heart-throb Cass.

For 'Solar Müsli' though, Niklas takes centre stage with a debut solo LP informed by kosmische, jazz, Afrobeat and ambient, but placed in a universe of its own. This is not formalism at work, but an exhilarating, freely flowing album which started out as an exercise in improvised percussion and developed into a multidimensional journey, at times both introverted and ebullient. Stitched through with snippets of spoken word by some of his nearest and dearest, this wildly psychedelic listen is a journey through the nebulous realm of electronic jazz, both emotive and escapist.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Der Glaeserne Tag
A2. Durch Den Spalt
A3. Lo Spettro
A4. Wo Es War
B1. Kusnacht
B2. Solar Musli
B3. Am Rande

...tick tock, rappa tap tap, glitch bloop ’n roll — here come ol’Wand back, they’re coming down slowly. The denser they get, it appears, the simpler they fly. And now . . . five years after a Laughing Matter, baby — who are “Wand” this time? With Vertigo, what hath Wand spawned?

It’s multichromatic, that’s for sure, but its too soon to tell, we’re too close to see. The way cells are replaced and all new again? That’s it. Now they are ten and all new again (see Ganglion Reef, 2014), but in the sample set of the time between — this time/the time of the quintet Wand of late, of Plum and Laughing Matter — they’ve undergone the complex -2+1 dimensional restructure, coming out a quartet (Evan Backer, Evan Burrows, Robbie Cody, Cory Hanson). Two original members, if you’re keeping a chart. We’re not judging you!

So, new-ish, in new ways anyway. But don’t . . . the new Wand’s built upon the exalted altars of old. There’s flashes of sentiment and tension, nudity and evasion, theatrical elevation, giant pieces chunked throughout alongside little bits of things. Allowing for slippage, it’s all one: the far horizon drawn in, nearer than ever before, allowing the chance for greater integration, if you stay open. And so they did. Vertigo is the sound of feet lost, regained, lost again, equilibrium in soft focus, a swaying feeling, more automatic and associative: in time, direct.

Determining to work backwards (or at least insideout) this time, Wand recorded everything in their own studio; pieces cut from improvisations and reshaped, writing from within the performance, without the woodshed. Unconsciously, in the shadow of themselves, and turning round and round (and round), they kept finding that empty space and playing what it implied. Everybody took on a new position in addition to the old one. It was intuitive, strangely ego-less . . . going somewhere they’d never been and not knowing what they were doing, but committing and recommitting, unafraid to eject in a constant positive forward momentum.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hangman
2. Curtain Call
3. Mistletoe
4. JJ
5. Smile
6. Lifeboat
7. High Time
8. Seaweed Head

Mere months after inflicting a massive case of Vertigo on the world, Wand ride on, plating the pre-release digi-single 'Help Desk' alongside 'Goldfish', a bonus dose of oceanic luminescence from Vertigo’s Big Bang. Plus, in the name of the ever-expanding universe (and the much-needed dream-extension app!), three remixes – from Beat Detectives, Dead Rider and Dean Spunt – for good measure. Not sure where you’re at? Check in with the 'Help Desk'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Help Desk
2. Goldfish
3. Help Desk (Beat Detectives Remix)
4. Help Desk (Dead Rider Remix)
5. Help Desk (Dean Spunt Remix)

Demos and unreleased songs from Wand’s salad days, the time of the immortal Ganglion Reef. Available for download since 2017, this album’s at last firmly sunk into vinyl grooves that realize its fullest potential in a listener’s ears. These light, fizzy versions have distinctive gleaming magic energies all of their own and they fly thrillingly through the air. Catch a wave through beautifully-abandoned space on your turntable eternal!

TRACK LISTING

1. Send/Receive (Alpha NM)
2. Clearer Mix 2
3. Broken Candle
4. Fire On The Mountain Parts I-II-III
5. Flying Golem
6. Fugue State 23-23-23
7. Strange Inertia Ctrl Alt Death
8. Growing Up Boys
9. Generator Larping
10. The Screaming Eye 2
11. The Leap
12. Gong Report 4_11

Time Is Slipping Away is an album by American R&B/jazz fusion producer, composer, keyboardist and vocalist Dexter Wansel. It is the last of four studio albums released at Philadelphia International Records. The album contains songs with different styles from P-funk to sophisticated quiet storm music to instrumental jazz-funk. It features the two popular songs “The Sweetest Pain” and “I’ll Never Forget (My Favorite Disco)”. The former song features vocals by soul singer Terri Wells.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. I'll Never Forget (My Favorite Disco)
2. The Sweetest Pain
3. Funk Attack
4. Time Is Slipping Away

Side 2
1. It's Been Cool
2. Let Me Rock You
3. New Beginning
4. One For The Road

Coloured vinyl 10". Strictly limited.

WAO (Waltaa Abnd Onra) is an ephemeral project, a musical experiment between two friends that happened during a rainy afternoon in the Parisian suburban area in 2014.

After years of knowing each other, Waltaa and Onra finally decided to make music together in the same room for once, and this double-sided 10” single is the product of this collaboration between the two underground French producers.

With “Sexy Robot”, a (then) retro-futuristic ballad for a talkbox duet, and “All Night Long”, a new jack swing instrumental cut, the release encompasses many different influences that the two producers share, but the use of the talkbox on both tracks suggest a direct inspiration from legendary 90’s R&B producers, Devante Swing and Teddy Riley respectively.

Matt Says: Landing somewhere between the cough syrup swillin' slo-mo futurism of chopped n screwed, and the vocodered electro funk of Ed DMX, Wao showcase their own gnarly version of RnB and it's great!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Landing somewhere between the cough syrup swillin' slo-mo futurism of chopped n screwed, and the vocodered electro funk of Ed DMX, Wao showcase their own gnarly version of RnB and it's great!

TRACK LISTING

Sexy Robot
Sexapella
All Night Long
Sexy Robot (Instrumental)

A Deeper Understanding is the band’s first album since 2014’s universally acclaimed Lost In The Dream, and their debut album with Atlantic. Following the Record Store Day release of the 11-minute “Thinking of a Place,” The War On Drugs present the album’s lead single, “Holding On.”

For much of the three and a half year period since the release of Lost In The Dream, The War On Drugs’ frontman, Adam Granduciel, led the charge for his Philadelphia-based sextet as he holed up in studios in New York and Los Angeles to write, record, edit, and tinker—but, above all, to busy himself in work. Teaming up with engineer Shawn Everett (Alabama Shakes, Weezer), Granduciel challenged the notion of what it means to create a fully realized piece of music in today’s modern landscape. Calling on his bandmates – bassist Dave Hartley, keyboarding Robbie Bennett, drummer Charlie Hall and multi-instrumentalists Anthony LaMarca and Jon Natchez -- continuously throughout the process, the result is a “band record” in the noblest sense, featuring collaboration, coordination, and confidence at every turn. Through those years of relocation, the revisiting and re-examining of endless hours of recordings, unbridled exploration and exuberance, Granduciel’s gritty love of his craft succeeded in pushing the band to great heights. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Adam Granduciel and co. exploded into our hearts with the peerless ‘Lost In The Dream’, three years ago. Taking classic 70s rock (particularly of a Dylan vintage) and somehow making it modern, here was a band for right across the ages, a band to truly believe in. They returned, this year (on Record Store Day!) with their magnum opus, and it was immediately apparent that with "Thinking Of A Place", they had, incredibly upped the ante. Here was 11 massive minutes of bliss and wonder. High summer and the album dropped: ‘LITD’ part two, or squared, if you like. The songs were huge (in every way) but the production was out of this world. This was sun-roof down, beers in the back, cruise control, heart-rending, shimmering classic rock. But, crucially, with a drum machine! Everything we could have hoped for in a follow-up to a modern classic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Up All Night
2. Pain
3. Holding On
4. Strangest Thing
5. Knocked Down
6. Nothing To Find
7. Thinking Of A Place
8. In Chains
9. Clean Living
10. You Don’t Have To Go

The War On Drugs first studio album in four years, ‘I Don’t Live Here Anymore’. Over the last 15 years, The War on Drugs have steadily emerged as one of this century’s great rock and roll synthesists, removing the gaps between the underground and the mainstream, between the obtuse and the anthemic, making records that wrestle a fractured past into a unified and engrossing present. The War On Drugs have never done that as well as they do with their fifth studio album, ‘I Don’t Live Here Anymore’, an uncommon rock album about one of our most common but daunting processes—resilience in the face of despair.

Just a month after The War On Drugs’ ‘A Deeper Understanding’ received the 2018 Grammy for Best Rock Album, the core of Granduciel, bassist Dave Hartley, and multi-instrumentalist Anthony LaMarca retreated to upstate New York to jam and cut new demos, working outside of the predetermined roles each member plays in the live setting. These sessions proved highly productive, turning out early versions of some of the most immediate songs on ‘I Don’t Live Here Anymore’. It was the start of a dozen-plus session odyssey that spanned three years and seven studios, including some of rock’s greatest sonic workshops like Electric Lady in New York and Los Angeles’ Sound City. Band leader Adam Granduciel and trusted co-producer/engineer Shawn Everett spent untold hours peeling back every piece of these songs and rebuilding them.

One of the most memorable sessions occurred in May 2019 at Electro-Vox, in which the band’s entire line-up — rounded out by keyboardist Robbie Bennett, drummer Charlie Hall, and saxophonist Jon Natchez — convened to record the affecting album opener “Living Proof.” Typically, Granduciel assembles The War On Drugs records from reams of overdubs, like a kind of rock ‘n’ roll jigsaw puzzle. But for “Living Proof,” the track came together in real time, as the musicians drew on their chemistry as a live unit to summon some extemporaneous magic. The immediacy of the performance was appropriate for one of the most personal songs Granduciel has ever written.

The War On Drugs’ particular combination of intricacy and imagination animates the 10 songs of ‘I Don’t Live Here Anymore’, buttressing the feelings of Granduciel’s personal odyssey. It’s an expression of rock ’n’ roll’s power to translate our own experience into songs we can share and words that direct our gaze toward the possibility of what is to come.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Already being hailed as their best record yet, main man Adam Granduciel freshens things up by welcoming more band collaboration than on previous records. Those trademark, lush, chunky drums are, of course, still present, but opening proceedings with a stark, naked ballad, indicates that change is afoot. A nice twist on a winning formula.

TRACK LISTING

Living Proof
Harmonia’s Dream
Change
I Don’t Wanna Wait
Victim
I Don’t Live Here Anymore
Old Skin
Wasted
Rings Around My Father’s Eyes
Occasional Rain

The War On Drugs, "one of the premier live bands of their generation" (Pitchfork), announce Live Drugs Again, via Super High Quality Records and Transgressive / Canvasback.

Live Drugs Again follows 2020's Live Drugs and represents The War On Drugs at their ragged, righteous best. Bandleader Adam Granduciel comments, "Live Drugs Again chronicles the evolution of these songs from the studio to stages all over the world; documenting our continued growth as a live band. This series ensures that these versions, and some of our favorite moments on stage, will live on." As Consequence so accurately hailed, "it's hard to imagine a musical experience that's more enveloping and uplifting." This is hearing a band at its peak.

TRACK LISTING

Harmonia's Dream
Burning
Old Skin
Come To The City
I Don't Wanna Wait
Pain
Slow Ghost
In Chains
Living Proof
Under The Pressure
I Don't Live Here Anymore

The second installment of the beloved Live Drugs series, featuring performances from The War on Drugs over the past three years of touring across the globe.

Meticulously assembled and mixed by the band. 2xLP set packaged in a Tip-on style gatefold jacket with 2 pockets 4-panel poster 24x24 flat. 140g vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

1. Harmonia’s Dream
2. Burning
3. Old Skin
4. Come To The City
5. I Don’t Wanna Wait
6. Pain
7. Slow Ghost
8. In Chains
9. Living Proof
10. Under The Pressure
11. I Don’t Live Here Anymore

Lost In The Dream is the third album by Philadelphia band The War On Drugs, but in many ways, it feels like the first. Around the release of the 2011 breakthrough Slave Ambient, Adam Granduciel spent the bulk of two years on the road, touring through progressively larger rock clubs, festival stages and late-night television slots. As these dozen songs shifted and grew beyond what they'd been in the studio, The War on Drugs became a bona fide rock 'n' roll band.

That essence drives Lost In The Dream, a 10-song set produced by Granduciel and longtime engineer Jeff Zeigler. In the past, Granduciel built the core of songs largely by himself. But these tunes were played and recorded by the group that had solidified so much on the road: Dave Hartley, (his favorite bassist in the world), who had played a bit on The War on Drugs' 2008 debut Wagonwheel Blues, and pianist Robbie Bennett, a multi-instrumentalist who contributed to Slave Ambient. This unit spent eight months bouncing between a half-dozen different studios that stretched from the mountains of North Carolina to the boroughs of New York City. Only then did Granduciel--the proudly self-professed gearhead, and unrepentant perfectionist--add and subtract, invite guests and retrofit pieces. He sculpted these songs into a musical rescue mission, through and then beyond personal despair and anxiety. Lost In The Dream represents the trials of the trip and the triumphs of its destination.

"I wanted there to be a singular voice, but I wanted it to be a project of great friends. Everyone in the band cares about it so much," he says. "That is the crux of it--growing up, dealing with life, having close friends, helping each other get by. That is what the record's all about."

As such, these tunes reveal a careful and thrilling reinvention of the sound that's become The War on Drugs' trademark. The signature meld of long tones and scattershot layers still stands, with phantom drum machines and organ lines dotting the musical middle distance all across Lost In The Dream. Note the way the keys whisper against the guitar's growl as the tempestuous "An Ocean in Between the Waves" approaches pentecostal heat. Hear how, when a sharp and hard riff cuts into the inescapable chorus of "Red Eyes," synthetic strings and baritone saxophone shape a soft, infinite bed beneath it.

But there's a newfound directness to these tunes, too. Granduciel's voice steps out from behind its typical web of effects--louder now, with more experiences to share and more steel from having survived them. He sounds less like a prismatic reflection of a rock bandleader, more like the emboldened actualization of that idea. With its crisp, unencumbered delivery, "Eyes to the Wind" becomes the album's centerpiece and the group's new anthem. This is Granduciel's to-date triumph and the exact moment where Lost In The Dream moves from a tale of confusion to one of resolve. Throughout most of the record, grips loosen and senses fail, memories are mourned and expectations are abandoned. But after the Rolling Thunder lift of "Eyes to the Wind," Granduciel finds new contentment and direction. Anguish sublimates into deliverance. Backed by his bros, Granduciel becomes a preacher in a new pulpit.

TRACK LISTING

1. Under The Pressure
2. Red Eyes
3. Suffering
4. An Ocean In Between The Waves
5. Disappearing
6. Eyes To The Wind
7. The Haunting Idle
8. Burning
9. Lost In The Dream
10. In Reverse

Philadelphia’s The War On Drugs are the vehicle of Adam Granduciel, frontman, rambler, shaman, pied piper guitarist and apparent arranger.

‘Slave Ambient’, their second album proper, is a brilliant 47-minute sprawl of rock ‘n’ roll, conceptualized with a sense of adventure and captured with seasons of bravado.

Recorded over the last four years, the album puts the weirdest influences in just the right places. Tom Petty and Spacemen 3, ‘Neu! '75’ and ‘Blood On The Tracks’, Flying Saucer Attack and Bruce Springsteen, New Order and No Wave, The Byrds, Bread and Burt Bacharach. How is a music fan supposed to reconcile all of this?

Synthesizers fall where you might expect electric guitars (and vice versa); country rock sidles up to the warped extravagance of '80s pop. Instant classic ‘Baby Missiles’ is part Springsteen fever dream, part motorik anthem. ‘Original Slave’ might sound like a hillbilly power drone, but ‘City Reprise #12’ suggests Phil Collins un-retiring in order to back Harmonia.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: This is a beautiful, hazy, rock'n'roll record, which, sure enough shimmers and thrums and is actually semi-ambient. Check all the tasty influences listed below, but if I told you that Kurt Vile is a sometime member of this band and that this was like a mysterious cousin to Vile's "Smoke Rings..", then you'd get the feel of this album right away. Cool.

TRACK LISTING

1. Best Night
2. Brothers
3. I Was There
4. Your Love Is Calling My Name
5. The Animator
6. Come To The City
7. Come For It
8. It's Your Destiny
9. City Reprise #12
10. Baby Missiles
11. Original Slave
12. Black Water Falls

‘Future Weather’ (Bonus Disc With Ltd CD Version Only)
Come To The City
Baby Missiles
Comin' Through
A Pile Of Tires
Comin' Around
Brothers
Missiles Reprise
The History Of Plastic

The War On Drugs push the boundaries of a quintessentially American music. Guitars soar and colorful clouds roll past whatever sun or moon you are cruising under, through whatever old bar you are reveling within. The War On Drugs point toward a tireless horizon in the distance that you will never reach but are compelled to chase. It's a tail you've chased your whole life and will continue chasing because your life is more poetic when you are moving toward it - your cinematography is more rich. Wagonwheel Blues is one of those albums that each of us holds onto tightly. They get moved from apartment to apartment through the years; they are songs on the radio that follow us from town to town. They evoke waves of nostalgia and grow more poignant with each new bump along the road.

In The War On Drugs we have a fresh face that already sounds like an old friend. Bringing a dose of the West Coast to the hard streets of Philadelphia, their songs recall the '80s guitar army of Sonic Youth with the captivating lyrics and vocal stylings of Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen. Songwriter Adam Granduciel (vocals/guitar) leads the attack with his lyrical paintings of his own American landscape. Walls of guitar - acoustic, electric, and twelve-string - douse each track of this debut album, threatening to cast the band into space rock territory, but the melodies and immediately identifiable lyrics soldier on to keep these songs from blasting into the esoteric beyond. With Wagonwheel Blues, Granduciel joins a distinct set of songwriters in a new golden era of polished-yet-subcultural underground music. The War On Drugs have that unmistakable singularity that comes along only so often, with the spirit of invention and playfulness lying earnestly at the forefront of their creative process.

M. Ward returns with a stunning new album, ‘More Rain’, released on Bella Union. Ward has released a string of acclaimed solo albums over the past several years, along with five albums with Zooey Deschanel as She & Him and a 2009 collaborative album with My Morning Jacket’s Jim James and Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis under the moniker Monsters Of Folk.

In addition to his celebrated work as a musician, Ward is an accomplished producer, handling those duties for such luminaries as Mavis Staples, Jenny Lewis and Carlos Forster as well as his own projects.

M. Ward knows how to live with rain. Having spent the last decadeand- a-half based in the perennially damp Portland, Oregon, the singer-songwriter and producer has learned how to shine through the soggy gloom by simply embracing its inevitability. For Ward, there is inspiration in a dark sky and harmony in foreboding winds. With his new album ‘More Rain’ he has made a true gotta-stay-indoors, rainyseason record that looks upwards through the weather while reflecting on his past.

“I think one of the biggest mysteries of America right now is this: How are we able to process unending bad news on Page One and then go about our lives the way the style section portrays us?” says Ward. “There must be a place in our brains that allows us to take a bird’s-eye view of humanity, and I think music is good at helping people - myself included - go to that place.”

This album, Ward’s eighth solo affair, finds the artist picking up the tempo and volume a bit from his previous release, 2012’s ‘A Wasteland Companion’. Where that record introspectively looked in from the outside, ‘More Rain’ finds Ward on the inside, gazing out. Begun four years ago and imagined initially as a DIY doo-wop album that would feature Ward experimenting with layering his own voice, it soon branched out in different directions, a move that he credits largely to his collaborators here who include REM.’s Peter Buck, Neko Case, kd lang, The Secret Sisters and Joey Spampinato of NRBQ.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: More warm 50's/60's vibes from the golden voiced maestro. Another enveloping record where everything feels just right. Great songs, obviously.

TRACK LISTING

(More Rain)
Pirate Dial
Time Won’t Wait Up
Confession
I’m Listening (Child’s Theme)
Girl From Conejo Valley
Slow Driving Man
You’re So Good To Me
Temptation
Phenomenon
Little Nany
I’m Going Higher

Two classic floor fillers from the DNSC record label.

Featuring Herb Ward’s 1968 RCA release that goes for around £200 if you can find a copy.

A Catacombs Club favourite that emphasizes Ward’s deep soulful vocal with a gorgeous call-andresponse bridge that leads into a truly uplifting chorus.

Backed with Bob Brady And The Con Chords’ blueeyed soul classic from the same year.

Often compared in style to Smokey Robinson, ‘Love In’ is a brass-led scorcher with a pulsating back beat that could have been a Motown 45.

Both tracks remastered from the original sound sources for maximum dancefloor effect.

TRACK LISTING

Herb Ward - Honest To Goodness
Bob Brady & The Con Chords - Everybody's Goin' To The Love - In

A prolific writer, producer and performer, M. Ward has established himself as one of modern American music’s most unique and versatile voices. For his tenth album he journeyed to Quebec, Canada to work with Arcade Fire’s Tim Kingsbury, Richard Reed Parry, producer/mixer Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, Florence and the Machine) and Teddy Impakt. Together at Arcade Fire’s Montreal studios they recorded a collection of 11 songs inspired by stories of human migration.

M. Ward’s music has always felt intricate, intimate and other worldly. With Migration Stories he breathes beautiful life into vignettes of human flight, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy as it reckons with a world that feels more divided than ever before, even as its inhabitants grow more inextricably linked by the day.

TRACK LISTING

Migration Of Souls
Heaven’s Nail And Hammer
Coyote Mary’s Traveling Show
Independent Man
Stevens’ Snow Man
Unreal City
Real Silence
Along The Santa Fe Trail
Chamber Music
Torch
Rio Drone

“I first heard Lady In Satin in a mega-shopping mall somewhere in San Francisco. I was about 20 years old and didn’t know much about Billie’s records or her life or how her voice changed over the years. Anyway, the sound was coming from the other side of the mall and I remember mistaking her voice for a beautiful perfectly distorted electric guitar - some other-world thing floating there on this strange mournful ocean of strings and I was hooked for life. Ten years later in 2006 I recorded an electric guitar instrumental version of “I’m A Fool To Want You” for my album Post-War. In 2018 I performed a concert in LA. of all the songs from Lady In Satin as a quintet and began preparing guitar arrangements for the recordings compiled on this record - Think of Spring. The title comes from a poem written in 1924 by Jane Brown-Thompson that eventually became “I Get Along Without You Very Well” in 1938 - the first song here. The conceit of Think of Spring is to filter the songs and strings from Lady In Satin through a single acoustic guitar using various alternate tunings and a minimal amount of textures and studio manipulation. most of the songs were recorded on an analog Tascam four track. Think of Spring is inspired by Billie Holiday, Ray Ellis, J.J. Johnson, John Fahey and Robert Johnson. Proceeds from this record will benefit Inner-City Arts & Donors Choose via PLUS1 for Black Lives Fund.” - M. Ward

TRACK LISTING

I Get Along Without You Very Well
For Heavens Sake
It’s Easy To Remember
You’ve Changed
Violets For Your Furs
For All We Know
But Beautiful
All The Way
I’m A Fool To Want You
I’ll Be Around
You Don’t Know What Love Is

Last June M.Ward surprised fans with the digital release of his ninth solo album, What A Wonderful Industry. The record finally receives a proper physical release via M.Ward Records. Over the last decade Ward has released a string of acclaimed solo albums, as well as six LPs with Zooey Deschanel in the duo She and Him. Ward is also a member of the group Monsters of Folk alongside My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, and Mike Mogis, as well as a producer on albums for Mavis Staples, Jenny Lewis, and Carlos Forster.

Via Ward: “This is a record inspired by people in the industry I have known - heroes and villains in equal measure. There’s some beautiful moments when you travel for a living, and I’m grateful for being part of an industry that’s taken me around the world so many times - but you quickly learn there’s a perfectly imperfect balance of cold-blooded and warm-blooded animals in the zoo. This record visits the most memorable characters. There’s a lot of very inspirational people I’ve had the pleasure to work with but there are also a few I wish I’d never met. It all tragically ends with an imaginary Griffin Mill-inspired murder ballad. This album is a reminder to keep your friends close, your enemies closer and don’t let the ones that just need an extra couple hours of therapy bring you down. Anyway I hope you like it. All names have been changed to protect the innocent".

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Arrivals Chorus
2. Miracle Man
3. Shark
4. Motorcycle Ride
5. El Rancho
6. Sit Around The House

Side B:
1. Kind Of Human
2. A Mind Is The Worst Thing To Waste
3. Return To Neptune's Net
4. Poor Tom
5. War & Peace
6. Bobby

Duet for Guitars #2 introduced us to M. Ward’s characteristic rasp and fingerpicking prowess. More minimal in scope than future records, the songs run the gamut from lullabies to rocking declarations of love. Released on Co-Dependent Records in 1999, one of the initial 1,000 copies found its way to Howe Gelb, who re-released it in 2000 on Ow Om. It went out of print and remained a hard-to-find piece of the M. Ward catalog until 2007, when it was reissued on Merge with three new tracks. More than an origin story, Duet for Guitars #2 is a beautiful, assured album that is sure to make lo-fi and Americana aficionados swoon, to say nothing of M. Ward fans new and old.

In 2003, everything broke open for Ward with the release of Transfiguration of Vincent. Critically lauded and long beloved, Pitchfork hailed it as an album that “broadcasts timelessness and defies genre constraints,” and Slant placed it on their list of the best albums of the 2000s. On Transfiguration of Vincent, Ward’s elegant fingerpicking, evocative croon, and heartrending lyricism came into full bloom, casting a spell so powerful that even a song as universal as David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” felt not only new but irrevocably his. One of the most cherished albums in the Merge catalog, Transfiguration of Vin- cent is both a great place to begin your love affair with M. Ward and a deep, stunningly realized work that listeners have returned to over and over again for 20 years.

TRACK LISTING

Duet For Guitars #2
Beautiful Car
Fishing Boat Song
Scene From #12
Good News
The Crooked Spine
Look Me Over
Who May Be Lazy
It Won’t Happen Twice
He Asked Me To Be A Snake & Live Underground
Song From Debby’s Stairs
It Was A Beautiful Car
Were You There?
Not A Gang
Duet For Guitars #1

For Beginners: The Best of M. Ward is a collection for M. Ward fans of any vintage. Gathering together 14 tracks from across his Merge Records discography, including the newly recorded song “Cry,” For Beginners is both a primer and a mixtape of favorites sequenced in a way that gives them new life.

Beginning with “Chinese Translation” and “Poison Cup” from 2006’s Post War, For Beginners drops in on Ward as he expands his prowess in the studio.

His singular cover of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” from 2003’s Transfiguration of Vincent, breaks out into the exuberant “Never Had Nobody Like You” from 2009’s Hold Time. Rather than the neat evolutionary line suggested by a chronological arrangement, what holds For Beginners together is Ward’s impeccable skill as a songwriter, which remains in focus as his sound expands from low-fi home recordings to electric, radio-ready stompers.

Serendipitously timed for release during Merge Records’ 35-year anniversary, this celebration of one of the label’s most beloved artists includes “Cry” his first new recording on Merge since 2018 a stripped-down cover of the Godley & Creme pop classic featuring Melbourne, Australia’s Folk Bitch Trio. M. Ward on “Cry”:

“Cry” was recorded in a Tasmanian modern art museum called MONA. I sat at the end of a long hallway a few feet away from Anselm Kiefer’s sculpture of a 20-foot-high stack of lead books, and standing to my left and right around a single microphone were Melbourne’s Folk Bitch Trio; we rehearsed and recorded “Cry” in about 30 minutes. A pleasure to add this song to a collection of some of my favorite memories of music-making during the first decade of record-creating with my friends at Merge. The song is the perfect capstone for a collection of this nature, summing up much of Ward’s power as a musician: the richness he’s capable of achieving in sparse recordings, his knack for collaboration, and his ability to see through to the soul of a meticulously crafted pop song as much a means of looking forward to what’s to come of his own work as it is a callback to his past.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Chinese Translation
2. Poison Cup
3. Let’s Dance
4. Never Had Nobody Like You
5. Lullaby + Exile
6. Duet For Guitars #3
7. Vincent O’ Brien

SIDE B
8. For Beginners
9. Magic Trick
10. Outta My Head
11. Undertaker
12. Roller Coaster
13. Hold Time
14. Cry

"Several times, as I listened to M Ward's Supernatural Thing, I asked myself what year it was, was it 1952, and was I listening to a track from the Harry Smith Anthology? Was it 1972, and was I eavesdropping on the recording session for After the Gold Rush? No, it's 2023, and M Ward is one of the special contemporary artists who invite such questions. Ward has clearly mastered the whole vocabulary of American popular music and made serious decisions about how to employ it for his own ends. What Ward shares with Harry Smith's artists and Neil Young is a context of musical and human values: authenticity and intimacy. Supernatural Thing's original songs sound freshly pulled from the ground, with a little earth sticking to them. Ward's lyric delivery has that slight rawness the ear loves, and his voice has quiet dignity and great tenderness. Supernatural Thing is an open-hearted, inviting album.

The album's guest stars -- First Aid Kit, Shovels & Rope, Scott McMicken, Neko Case, Jim James, others -- enliven the album with surprises. On "Too Young to Die," the women's voices in First Aid Kit spread a light frosting over the melody, and their Beach Boyslike chorus on "Engine 5" makes the song sound like an instant hit. Eight of the album's ten songs are Ward originals. There's an unusual Bowie choice, "I Can't Give Everything Away" from Blackstar, and a live rendition of Daniel Johnston's 'Story of an Artist.'" -By James Cushing.

Both as a solo artist and as one-half of She & Him, M. Ward became one of the defining voices of the American indie landscape in the 2000s, earning fans and critical acclaim for his distinctive brand of breezy West Coast Americana which pulled from folk, country, blues, pop, and experimental indie rock elements. Ward established himself with warm, analog- minded releases like 2003's Transfiguration of Vincent and 2006's Post-War before joining forces with singer/ actress Zooey Deschanel to form the highly successful indie pop duo She & Him in 2008. Over the following decade, Ward split his time between projects, releasing a 2009 album with indie supergroup Monsters of Folk, several highprofile albums with Deschanel including She & Him's Columbia- issued 2014 set Classics, and critically acclaimed solo releases like 2009's Hold Time, 2012's A Wasteland Companion, and 2018's What a Wonderful Industry. Ward kicked off the next decade with a deeply atmospheric set called Migration Stories and a Billie Holiday covers album Think of Spring most recently.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another suite of brittle balladry and swimming harmonies from the brilliant M. Ward, riding effortlessly through folky melodies, country atmospherics and Ward's distinctive melodic sensibilities, joined by some stellar guest stars to boot! Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

Lifeline
Too Young To Die Feat. First Aid Kit
Supernatural Thing
New Kerrang Feat. Scott Mcmicken
Dedication Hour Feat.
Neko Case And Gabriel Kahane
I Can't Give Everything Away (Feat. Jim James And Kelly Pratt)
Engine 5 (Feat. First Aid Kit)
Mr. Dixon (Feat. Shovels & Rope)
For Good
Story Of An Artist

In 2003, everything broke open for Ward with the release of Transfiguration of Vincent. Critically lauded and long beloved, Pitchfork hailed it as an album that “broadcasts timelessness and defies genre constraints,” and Slant placed it on their list of the best albums of the 2000s. On Transfiguration of Vincent, Ward’s elegant fingerpicking, evocative croon, and heartrending lyricism came into full bloom, casting a spell so powerful that even a song as universal as David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” felt not only new but irrevocably his. One of the most cherished albums in the Merge catalog, Transfiguration of Vin- cent is both a great place to begin your love affair with M. Ward and a deep, stunningly realized work that listeners have returned to over and over again for 20 years.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A

1. Transfiguration No. 1
2. Vincent O’Brien
3. Sad, Sad Song
4. Undertaker
5. Duet For Guitars No. 3
6. Outta My Head
7. Involuntary

SIDE B

8. Helicopter
9. Poor Boy, Minor Key
10. Fool Says
11. Get To The Table On Time
12. A Voice At The End Of The Line
13. Dead Man
14. Let’s Dance
15. Transfiguration No. 2

Originally released on CD in 1999, M. Ward’s debut is a sparse, mostly live affair recorded with pal and engineer Adam Selzer of Norfolk & Western at Type Foundry Studio in Portland, OR.

Listeners who are already accustomed to Ward’s breathy, conversational vocal delivery and soft-picked, West Coast Americana melodies will find much to love here. Duet for Guitars #2 is peppered with instrumentals in the John Fahey and Bad Timing-era Jim O’Rourke vein, and Ward’s lackadaisical picking sounds just as lazily precise here as it does on future recordings.

There’s a real warmth to the sessions that transcends the often bare-bones production. For the most part, it sound like most takes were done live with two microphones, with the occasional overdub, and that style suits Ward’s dreamy tales of molasses-slow teenage summers (\Beautiful Car\”) and oddball parables like “”Fishing Boat Song.”” It’s also interesting to hear him shedding the inflections of some of his more obvious heroes like Neil Young (“”Who May Be Lazy””) and Bob Dylan (“”It Won’t Happen Twice””). This limited edition is an indie record store exclusive and pressed on clear vinyl!”

TRACK LISTING

Duet For Guitars #2
Beautiful Car
Fishing Boat Song
Scene From #12
Good News
The Crooked Spine
Look Me Over
Who May Be Lazy
It Won’t Happen Twice
He Asked Me To Be A Snake And Live Underground
Song From Debby’s Strairs 
It Was A Beautiful Car
Were You There?
Not A Gang
Duet For Guitars #1

Recorded in 1972 for John Peel's "Dandelion" label, this was Ward's recording debut prior to his major hit "Gaye" on Charisma a year or two later. It's an easy going and melodious affair and deserves a listen. The tragic circumstances of his life today are in sharp contrast to the wistful hope and gentle nature of these tracks.

Eleven tracks of leftfield post rock, that brings to mind a more quiet and controlled Godspeed with a nod towards Brian Eno. Rumbling lo-fi beats / pulses with Satie-esque piano movements and ambient shifts.

Acoustic based singer songwriter, think Nick Drake and Elliott Smith and you'll be on the right tip.