Richard Barbieri remains one of contemporary music's most distinctive voices.

Emerging as a key architect of the late '70s/'80s synthesiser revolution with David Sylvian's art-rock ensemble Japan, his visionary synthesiser programming expanded the horizons of electronic music & left a lasting mark on artists from The Human League & Duran Duran to Gary Numan & Talk Talk. His subsequent & ongoing tenure with Steven Wilson's legendary progressive outfit Porcupine Tree across albums such as 'In Absentia' (2002), 'Fear Of A Blank Planet' (2007) & most recently, 'Closure/Continuation' (2022) further affirmed his status as one of the most intuitive & unique musicians of his generation.

'Hauntings' is Barbieri's first studio album since 2021's 'Under A Spell', deepening the pensive, dark instrumental aesthetic of its predecessor. A diverse collection of immersive sound worlds, both dark & uplifting in equal measure, 'Hauntings' is influenced by a nostalgia for the past & future & for things that didn't happen yet still manage to haunt the mind & soul. What is real & what is simulation?

The album finds Barbieri at the height of his powers, his deft keyboard & sonic architecture conjuring a shadowy, creeping Lovecraftian atmosphere. The music wanders through the streets of a gloomy lamp-lit Victorian London & drifts into grain-speckled snapshots of Belle Epoque Paris. These journeys into the past are contrasted with nihilistic but euphoric forays into the future, 'Traveler' & 'A New Simulation' bristling with the itchy modern anxiety that often runs through his best work. Contrasting the sound designs & electronics of Barbieri, the album features performances from renowned musicians Morgan Agren (drums & percussion), Percy Jones (bass guitar) & Luca Calabrese (trumpet).

TRACK LISTING

1. Snakes & Ladders
2. Anemoia
3. Victorian Wraith
4. 1890
5. Artificial Obsession
6. Paris Sketch
7. Perfect Toys
8. Traveler
9. Reveille
10. Last Post
11. A New Simulation 

The album (featuring all new material) draws on the fine musical heritage of Barclay James Harvest whilst bringing the BJH legacy up to date with expansive compositions and thoughtful lyrics. The band’s roots in rural north-west England are explored on the album’s title track, along with another extended piece, ‘On Leave’. The album also includes the recent digital single ‘Unreservedly Yours’ and ‘Ancient Waves’, a song performed live in more recent times.

TRACK LISTING

1. If You Were Here Now
2. Ancient Waves
3. In Wonderland
4. On Leave
5. The Real Deal
6. On Top Of The World
7. Unreservedly Yours
8. North
9. The End Of The Day

12 tracks from Oldham's finest prog rock exports Barclay James Harvest at £5.99 who can complain.

Peter Barclay recorded at home and produced two barely-released albums, 1990’s dreamlike Acceptance and 1992’s synth pop What Kind Of World, winning over the few who heard them. But fame outside his small circle was not to be, and Barclay was lost in the late-’90s crest of the AIDS epidemic. Rediscovered for a new generation, this is queer music at its finest.

Formed in 1991, the Philadelphia-based quintet have spent some thirty years mapping guitar music’s outer limits ­– dialing into extremes of noise, chaos, and harmony in free-form compositions that now unfurl across 12 full-length records and a near-limitless body of EPs, cassettes, and CD-Rs Recorded by the lineup of John Gibbons (guitar), Michael Gibbons (guitar), Isobel Sollenberger (voice, flute), Clint Takeda (bass), and Joe Culver (drums), Amanita is the place where the band’s spontaneous collective creativity blazed into maturity.

TRACK LISTING

Limerick
Sentence
Tantric Porno
Wank
The High Frequency
Sometimes Words
Yellow Turban
Rumination
Be A Fish
Tapir Song
RM
Clean Sweep
Brambles

The self titled album Bardo Pond is the first new release from Philadelphia's psychedelic rock unit to be released on Fire.

'The first time I saw Bardo Pond, I was, as probably most people are when they first encounter this batch of beatific weirdos, horribly unprepared. To describe the experience as "psychedelic" is an understatement on the order of saying that whacking oneself in the nuts with a ball-peen hammer is "mildly irritating." Needless to say, priorities were rearranged, etc.

Fast-forward 15 yrs, and Bardo Pond have put out many LPs, most of them named after hallucinogens that make you throw up all night and see things - which was kind of them, I always thought. Let ya know what you were in for. All of this recorded output is pretty staggering to me, because, without exception, they seemed able to toss a lasso around some sort of ineffable hoodoo that felt like it was a million yrs old. If Carl Sagan would have 1.) smoked a little more weed and 2.) not croaked, I'm hoping he would have cut a BP track onto that gold LP that they put on the Voyager units. Would've been a way better representation of the best parts of the human spirit than Chuck Berry, I say.

Anyhoo. One night not long ago in the Bardo Compound in Philly, Michael says in a kinda offhanded way, "Hey man, you wanna hear this? ..." And there I was, being bathed in the songs you've got in yr grubby little mitts right now.

I was, once again, unprepared.

This cauldron is a bit of a different brew. It made total sense to me (as it will to you) when he later told me the name of the LP is just "Bardo Pond." Why? It's a distillation. Two decades of playing together have sandblasted away everything unessential and left us with what we have here. It was like no one else before them had ever gotten near the plagal cadence, not Lou Reed or the Stooges or 2,000 yrs of church music. They invented it all over again, independent of any of that, after gawd knows how many yrs of flailing away and burning themselves up.

I fucking love these songs. And while I hate writing almost as much as I hate third-degree burns, I have to say it is a joy to be able to tell you about this record. I feel like Neil Fucking Armstrong.

It took years for them to get here, but this record is the most goddamned beautiful thing they've ever done. Sorry for the superlatives. But really, the only thing left for them to do at this point is explode'. - Fire Records.

John Gibbons: Guitars
Michael Gibbons: Guitars
Isobel Sollenberger: Voice, flute
Clint Takeda: Bass, next-level comedy
Aaron Igler: Electronics
Jason Kourkounis: Drums

with
Jeremiah Misfeldt: Farfisa
Dan Baltzer: Harp

Critical praise from Pitchfork, Clash, The Wire, Q Magazine and more upon release. New inverted LTD edition artwork. Fire re-issue Bardo Pond’s eponymous eighth studio album from 2010, their debut for Fire from way back when. A lysergic brain wrestler in which the Pennsylvanian drone outfit perfect their modal sound. Teasing the artistry of LaMonte Young and Terry Riley into a guitar shaped cauldron, the album’s compulsive reverbed guitar shapes slowly simmer behind Isobel Sollenberger’s esoteric vocals “Like hearing a tannoy at a station in the voice of Jesus.” The Quietus. A claustrophobic stuttering raga interlocks with their psychedelic leanings best exemplified on ‘Cracker Wrist’ which sounds like something that’s intentionally always just about to happen/and/or spin back in time. Featuring lengthy fully nurtured play offs between the quintet ‘Bardo Pond’ is a heady statement that’s like the most wholesome kind of vegan-friendly mushroom trips. Pitchfork reckons they’re “playing fuzzed out stoner dreams.” Vice’s musical brother Noisey likens them to “Fugazi On Acid.” Allmusic intervenes with: “These are epic, soaring psychedelic ambient power-drone rock noise melodies where partially buried, distant female vocals are laced throughout a roaring, murky/sludge guitar soundscape

TRACK LISTING

1 Just Once
2 Don’t Know About You
3 Sleeping
4 Undone
5 Cracker Wrist
6 The Stars Behind
7 Wayne’s Tune

New double LP compilation ‘Melt Away,’ cataloguing late-90s rarities and outtakes from a creative apex in the band’s career, released together on vinyl for the first time. Album highlight 'The Trail', originally recorded for the ‘What’s Up Matador’ compilation, dissolves six minutes into a moment. Blink once and you’ll miss it. Blink twice and the wallpaper might start to move.

TRACK LISTING

1. Olive Skin
2. Tapir Dub
3. Son Of Dispersion
4. Anadamide (Complete)
5. Shadow Puppet
6. The Division Of Nature
7. The Trail
8. Long Ride
9. Despite The Roar
10. Highlands

Following the long-since sold out repress of ‘Amanita’ in 2021, Bardo Pond will release a remastered edition of their classic 1999 LP ‘Set and Setting’ on purple vinyl, featuring the eleven-minute opener 'Walking Stick Man' and the single 'This Time (So Fucked)'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Walking Stick Man
2. This Time (So Fucked)
3. Datura
4. Again
5. Cross Current
6. Crawl Away
7. #3

A double LP package from Bardo Pond, combining two of their super rare jam volumes on vinyl for the first time. A further edition in this celebrated series, ‘Volume 4’ and ‘Volume 5’ feature more freeform improvisational pieces from the hypnotic Philadelphia outfit.

Capturing the raw essence of the band, whose fearless exploration blurs the lines between structure, chaos, melody and noise. Bardo Pond's music traverses space rock, acid rock, post-rock, shoegaze, noise, Krautrock and psychedelia.

‘Volume 4’ hails from self-released sessions recorded in January 2002, its five tracks include the supremely tripped out heaviness of ‘K2’ and the balance-shifting ‘New Drunks (Revisited)’ with Isobel Sollenberger’s exquisite and, frankly, quite disturbing vocal. They’re shorter interrogations of sound by Bardo terms, almost succinct in their mesmerising riffage and off-kilter arrangements.

By contrast, ‘Volume 5’ consists of two lengthy mantras recorded between 2000 and 2004 and released as the tape spool spiralled out. ‘FUFO’ sounds like Cluster unravelling with Merzbow mixing, a post-industrial slew of hypnotic proportions, while ‘Monarch’ begins as a Current 93-like neo-folk mood piece before evolving into a wailing slice of drone-drenched Americana by way of a Velvets’ jam.

“We were pushing improvisations as far as we could. It was glorious having the studio. The more that our heads were spinning after a session, the better we knew that session would sound when we listened back. We were getting together two nights a week, usually three or four hours working on material and songs and the other half the time letting loose. Volumes 4 and 5 gather together some of these improvisations, and one early song that we felt like doing.” Adds Michael Gibbons of Bardo Pond.

TRACK LISTING

1. Take What You Need
2. K2
3. New Drunks (Revisited)
4. Pangolin Dance
5. Narmada
6. Fufo
7. Monarch

10th anniversary clear, black and white splatter vinyl reissue of 'Peace on Venus' by Bardo Pond, Philadelphia's foremost purveyors of psychedelic rock. Includes ‘Kali Yuga Blues’, a true behemoth of a song and a shining example of the band’s ecstatic intensity.

Delving deep in to their subconscious to bring it to the conscious, the band’s 2013 effort dazzles, with their gift for heavy riffs laced with soaring vocals and swathes of sound. Bardo Pond has the outward specifications of a rock band but the rivers that converge into the band's oneiric flow have their headwaters in the outlands of ecstatic jazz, free noise and the avant-garde.

The recording process of ‘Peace On Venus’ used the principle of the Quintessence, which is a principle cited by the 16th Century physician Paracelsus, who noted: "Nothing of true value is located in the body of a substance, but in the virtue thereof, and this is the principle of the Quintessence, which reduces, say 20 lbs. of a given substance into a single Ounce, and that ounce far exceeds the 20 lbs. in potency. Hence the less there is of body, the more in proportion is the virtue thereof."

“Obviously, Bardo Pond are the greatest band in the world” Vice.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Kali Yuga Blues
A2 Taste
A3 Fir
B1 Chance
B2 Before The Moon

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

180 gram LP (part of a trilogy – complete on RSD 2015). Bardo Pond follow up last year’s RSD release ‘Rise Above It All’ with the second of a trilogy of RSD exclusive releases. Continuing their exploration and interpretation of existing tracks, this time they turn their attention to ‘Ride Into The Sun’ by the Velvet Underground and ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’ by Brian Eno. The results are astounding and in the case of ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’ wonderfully surprising, with Isobel’s voice embellishing a rendition of startling Bardo pop. Loosely formed in 1989 by guitar wielding art student siblings, Michael and John Gibbons, Bardo Pond became a reality in 1991 with the addition of vocalist and flautist, Isobel Sollenberger, bassist, Clint Takeda and drummer, Joe Culver (replaced in 1999 by trainee librarian, Ed Farnsworth). Bardo Pond are the flagship band of Philly's "Psychedelphia" space rock movement, which also included the likes of Aspera, Asteroid No. 4, the Azusa Plane, and tangentially the Lilys. They favour lengthy, deliberate sound explorations filled with all the hallmarks of modern-day space rock: droning guitars, thick distortion, feedback, reverb, and washes of white noise.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ride Into The Sun (The Velvet Underground)
2. Here Come The Warm Jets (Brian Eno)

“Obviously, Bardo Pond are the greatest band in the world” VICE

Super rare recordings from 2002 and pressed on vinyl for the very first time. The third in the band’s series of limited-edition releases showcasing jam sessions and other miscellany. Like Fugazi on acid, a rage for the Velvets, a mantra with real purity of tone.

Somewhere between the ‘Dilate’ album in 2001 (“a combination of Kyuss and Spacemen 3” NME) and ‘On the Ellipse’ in 2003 ("Nowhere is feedback more melancholic, more emotive, than that fashioned by Bardo Pond” Brainwashed), Bardo Pond transcended into a mantra-like, multi-layered, cross-dimensional, wah wah powered nirvana.

In some circles, they say, spaceships wafted them away and they only returned some-time later, mind-altered and bedraggled, ears ringing. But that is the stuff of supposition.

As we already know, there is no ‘off’ switch on Bardo Pond, they are never knowingly unplugged. Indeed, the modal evolution of their sound continues unabated.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Sifaka
A2 Ecstasy Dub
Side B
B1 Lomand
Side C
C1 Tanked
C2 Trimurti
Side D
D1 Blue Turban 

Bardo Pond’s extensive archive recordings series opens up once again with 'Volume 9', an incisive journey into their hypnotic sound. Recorded in the early 2000’s it’s a heady mix of acoustic ambience and menacing distortion.

Infamous purveyors of longform stoner rock, Bardo Pond embrace their sludgestorms with graceful nods to Hawkwind, Earth and my bloody valentine. For anyone uninitiated with the band’s tranquilizing sound, Volume 9 leans into their mesmeric practise with reckless abandon.

Featuring two tracks recorded with ace percussionist Michael Zanghi (Kurt Vile/The War On Drugs) and the seminal two parter ‘War Is Over’, a lilting Floydian strum that’s invaded – quite literally – by unreconstructed noise. The Zanghi collaboration is an Eastern-facing mantra with percussive flurries and distorted modal shifts – like listening on the other side of feedback.

“Effortlessly combining psychedelic inspirations from Pink Floyd's original explorations to the more modern reachings into the beyond” AllMusic.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 – Conjunctio
A2 – The Nine Doubts
A3 – War Is Over Part 1

Side B
B1 – War Is Over Part 2

Debut album from Manchester-via-Italy singer, songwriter and guitarist Julia Bardo.

Produced and mixed by Younghusband’s Euan Hinshelwood, the record firmly establishes Bardo’s musical adventurousness and prowess, and marks a cathartic and self-affirming moment for an artist who found her voice by realizing it's been there all along.

The album is best summed up by the woman who wrote it all: “Bauhaus, L’Appartamento is about loneliness, solitude, separation...but also unconditional love,” Bardo reveals of the record’s overarching themes. “Family, emotional dependency, mental health issues, feelings of emptiness and numbness, feelings of not being enough, inability to be in control of my own emotions, self-doubt, self-reflection, past traumas and dealing with them.”

Named after the apartment complex she lived in when demoing the album’s recordings, but with an Italian twist.

Follows the release of two EPs, Phase and The Raw EP, which saw her experiment further with her wistful and mysterious sound to become the alternative pop artist she is today.

Her musical journey began in Brescia in Northern Italy, where she sang and wrote lyrics for a local band between shifts at her father’s bar. A free spirit craving new inspiration, she relocated to Manchester and it was here she developed her striking style as a solo musician before also meeting and joining post-punk band Working Men’s Club. Never losing her strong desire to have full creative control over her music, she returned to become a solo artist again.

STAFF COMMENTS

Emily says: Julia Bardo: Local talent alert!! Gorgeous, off kilter pop songs which have more bite to them than you might expect. Sonorous vocals and deft melodic interplay met with moments of jangling dissonance. FFO Cate Le Bon and Aldous Harding!

Following the reissue of ‘Hex’ in late 2017, Fire Records reissue Bark Psychosis’ second studio album ‘///Codename:Dustsucker’ (2004) “which finds the band in remarkable form” (Pitchfork). Arriving ten years after the band disbanded, the long-awaited and criminally overlooked follow up brings with it an evolution of their sound. Their experimentations are layered with blissed out electronics, shoegaze, post-rock and jazz are still at its fore as are Sutton’s crystalline vocals. Languid and brooding, the soundscapes are dark and sustained while their “trademark cocoon of limpid, rippling guitar figures and jazzy adornment is buffeted by sharp leftward turns” (Uncut). Recorded in Graham Sutton’s East London DustSuckerSound studio between 1999 and 2004, it features contributions from Talk Talk sticksman Lee Harris and ‘found drumming’ from ex-band member Mark Simnett. 

TRACK LISTING

1 From What Is Said To When It's Read
2 The Black Meat
3 Miss Abuse
4 400 Winters
5 Dr. Innocuous / Ketamoid
6 Burning The City
7 INQB8TR
8 Shapeshifting
9 Rose

Techno comes in all shapes and sizes, and few recent outfits embody that truth more obviously than Berlinʼs Barker & Baumecker. One operates as Barker/Voltek and the other as nd_baumecker. Both solo projects exhibit unconventional takes on techno inflected by the influence of other genres, from glitch to dubstep to ambient and beyond.

Titled “Transsektoral”, the album name refers to the duoʼs ambition to travel across the entire spectrum of electronic music. Thatʼs what they do on the LP, bridging a seemingly impossible gap between the dubby blobs of ambient opener “Sektor” to the effervescent bubbling of the epic closer “Spur,” like happy hardcore unravelled and disassembled into a soothing afterword worthy of someone like Dntel.

These are machinistic creations that swell with organic respiration and lush life, despite their artificial origins. The album jumps from garage-leaning bouncy house with “No Body” to exuberant tonnes-heavy off- kilter house (“Buttcracker”) where bubbles of caustic acid send the track into overdrive - yet none of these shifts quite feel like the gigantic stylistic leaps they represent. Instead, theyʼre smoothed out into something altogether pleasant and listenable, the album itself sharing each trackʼs own gentle sense of development and build-up.

Thatʼs largely due to careful sequencing: for every stretch of twitchy funk like “Schlang Bang” - where hi-hats and snares swim against a sea of topsy-turvy basslines like in difficult backstrokes - or the pumping liquid grooves of “Trans_it,” there are brief but texturally rich interludes like the sleepy-eyed “Tranq,” which rumbles reassuringly below a palette of twinkling synths. The album has an ebb-and-flow that makes its eccentricities enjoyable rather than obnoxious. And eccentric it is, particularly on mid-album highlight “Crows” (reworked for the single “A Murder of Crows” earlier this year) where what sounds like a blaring horn fanfare lights the dark passage of rustling snares - a startlingly unexpected turn that quickly becomes natural.

By the time we get to the end of the album, the simmer becomes nearly unbearable and finally boils over with the aweinspiring “Silo,” the track that betrays the duoʼs Berghain heritage (Barker runs the clubʼs Leisure System night, Baumecker is a booker for the club and long serving resident DJ there), where hissing hats get lost in a wringer of ropy vicegrip basslines and violent whiplash kick drums. Itʼs almost the albumʼs one concession to conventionality. Itʼs a perfect distillation of the overall aesthetic that Barker & Baumecker reveal with “Transsektoral” - it makes perfect sense in execution, but put it on paper and itʼs nearly incomprehensible, not to mention sprawling. Itʼs enough to make you wonder what kind of magic they did to put it together in the first place.

TRACK LISTING

01. Sektor
02. Trafo
03. SchlangBang
04. Crows
05. Tranq
06. NoBody
07. Trans_it
08. Databass133⅓
09. Buttcracker
10. Silo
11. Spur

Recorded live to tape at Toerag Studios, London in January 2015.

The Toerag Sessions is a collection of solo versions of my songs, recorded live to 2-track tape at Toerag Studios in London with grammy-winning producer Liam Watson (The White Stripes - Elephant).

Over the last few years, in between touring with my bands The Red Clay Halo and Vena Portae, I've played lots of solo shows. Often people will come up to me at the end of those shows and ask if there is any way to get hold of recordings of the songs as they've just heard them - just me, my guitar and my harmonica.

Up until now, that hasn't been possible, but with The Red Clay Halo currently on hiatus after their final tour last year, I took the opportunity to go in to the studio to record this selection of songs from my back catalogue. Many of these songs are the ones I usually choose to play at solo shows, with a few additions. The songs go right back to my first UK band the-low-country, through all my albums with The Red Clay Halo, and including a brand new song, 'Anywhere Away', written last year as the theme to the forthcoming British movie Hec McAdam (starring Peter Mullan and Keith Allen).

TRACK LISTING

1. Little Deaths 03:21
2. Nostalgia 03:48
3. Sideline 03:27
4. Disappear 02:55
5. Letters 04:19
6. Home 03:58
7. All Love Knows 03:54
8. The Dark Road 03:56
9. Lord I Want An Exit 04:18
10. Blackbird 02:52
11. This Is How It's Meant To Be 03:54
12. Anywhere Away 04:03

"You & Me" is Kevin Barker's debut album, released by Gnomonsong. Though it's his first solo release under his own name, Barker's no newcomer to the scene - he's spent the last few years recording, touring, and collaborating with Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Vashti Bunyan, Vetiver, Antony and the Johnsons, and Espers, to name just a few. Essentially acting as everyone's favourite sideman, Barker has influenced and helped create a sound with which this generation is happily familiar. During his college days, Barker became interested in the finger-style guitar playing of John Fahey and Bert Jansch and began to record under the name Currituck County. This solo project (sometime a duo with Vetiver / Espers drummer Otto Hauser) recorded albums for Teenbeat Records, Troubleman Unlimited, and the UK's Track and Field Organisation. Now Barker has assembled an unbelievable group of musicians for "You & Me". The album features Pat Sansone (Wilco), Joanna Newsom, Jonathan Wilson (Elvis Costello, Jenny Lewis), Eric Johnson (Shins, Fruit Bats), and Otto Hauser (Vetiver, Espers). Full of sunny, rural country rock, "You & Me" recalls the rustic grooves of The Band and The Grateful Dead, the heady melancholy of Roy Harper, and the golden harmonies of CSNY.

TRACK LISTING

1. Little Picture Of You
2. You & Me
3. Mountain & Bear
4. Amber
5. Walking Along
6. My Lady
7. I Will Fly
8. Bless You On Your Way

Dark Murmuration of Words contends with a modern era built on racial and gender inequality, poverty and slavery, environmental exploitation and the climate crisis, finding them all connected by the dark shadow of patriarchy, pursuits of power, and the suppression of history. “Finding meaning becomes challenging with the deafening clamour of social media in this age of fake news,” she says, “but it’s important to try discerning the patterns, learning to pay attention to things closer to home as well as to overwhelming global issues.” Referencing Emily Dickinson’s assertion that “If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves,” Barker draws connections between the familial, the local, and the global: a mother sings to her unborn child, asking for its forgiveness on “Strange Weather”, “Where Have The Sparrows Gone?” looks outside an apartment window and imagines a post-apocalyptic birdless London, and a monument to a Confederate general comes alive for a “how-I-got-away-with-it” confession on “Machine.” Throughout A Dark Murmuration of Words, all of our choices, our unspoken prejudices, our carelessness, connect us to the whole, but becoming aware and honest on a local, personal scale, can begin to effect change, allow for healing, and tease out beauty from chaos. “Like the starlings in a murmuration, where the movement of each individual bird is related to just seven of its closest neighbours,” Emily Barker says, “none of us are aware of the fluctuating shapes being created by the flock.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Emily Barker is exactly what we need nowadays, a wash of politically charged lyricism, but enclosed within a calming, serene shell. Brittle guitars and Barker's strong but smooth vocals coalesce into a soaring and meditative whole.

TRACK LISTING

1. Return Me
2. Geography
3. The Woman Who Planted Trees
4. Where Have The Sparrows Gone?
5. Strange Weather
6. Machine
7. When Stars Cannot Be Found
8. Ordinary
9. Any More Goodbyes
10. Sonogram

Sweet Kind of Blue is her first full studio album since 2013's critically lauded Dear River and marks a new sound for Barker as she returns to the soul and blues influences that first inspired her to become a songwriter and musician.

Emily Barker's new album was recorded at Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis with Grammy winning producer Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price) and an allstar cast of Memphis session players.

Emily Barker is best known as the writer and performer of the award-winning theme to BBC crime drama Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh. She has released music as a solo artist as well as with various bands including The Red Clay Halo, Vena Portae and Applewood Road. In 2015 she composed her first full feature film soundtrack for Jake Gavin's Hector, which won a Scottish BAFTA for its lead actor, Peter Mullan.

TRACK LISTING

Sweet Kind Of Blue
Sister Goodbye
Sunrise
No. 5 Hurricane
If We Forget
To Dance
Crazy Life
Over My Shoulder
Change
More!
Underneath My Honey Moon

**The Deluxe Version Has A Bonus CD With Other Tracks

Hammer Films has long held a special place in the hearts of horror fans, defining the British genre during the 1950’s with classics such as Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein. Composer James Bernard scored both and went on to compose the music to a host of horror films for Hammer during the Sixties and Seventies. His distinctive clashing harmonies, often doubling the musical theme a tone higher, raise the on-screen action to a frenzied pitch, terrifying 20th Century cinema goers to the degree that his scores have become synonymous with the titular monsters.

TRACK LISTING

Side A: Dracula
1 Main Title From Dracula
2 Arrival At Castle Dracula
3 Plan Revealed/Plea For Help/Dracula's Rage
4 The Mausoleum/Harker Stakes The Bride/Empty Casket
5 The Diary/Van Helsing Finds Harker
6 Sleep Well/Dracula Seduces Lucy

Side B
1 Lucy's Second Encounter/Garlic Flowers
2 Aunt Lucy/Lucy Is Released
3 Mina Ensnared/It Was There
4 Allergic Reaction/Mina's Submission
5 Bloodstained Mina/The Cellar
6 The Final Battle
7 Rhapsody For Lucy (Lucie)

Side C: The Curse Of Frankenstein
1 Main Title From The Curse Of Frankenstein
2 A Brilliant Intellect/It's Alive
3 The Gibbet
4 An Offer Of Help/Goodnight Professor/The Professor's Brain
5 The Creature/He's Gone

Side D
1 The Creature And The Blind Man/You Shoot Well/I'll Give You Life Again
2 Justine's Fate
3 Get Up/Final Confrontation/The Guillotine

DISCOVER the BEST places on the planet to buy records – Marcus Barnes’s updated guide is a MUST-READ for all vinyl lovers, crate diggers and music fans. Looking for the best place in Europe to buy electronic music? Want to get lost in the racks of the world’s biggest independent record store? Are you constantly in search of the undiscovered, the original, the cult, the lost classics? Around the World in 80 Record Stores offers a unique look at where music lovers need to go to feed their addiction for new records. Boasting a truly global outlook – featuring stores everywhere from Iceland and India to the coolest cities in Europe, the US and the UK, plus the mecca for crate diggers that is Japan – each entry includes plenty of interesting details about the record store, including the music genres sold, the store's opening date and facts about its history and quirks. Showcasing the best places to buy house, indie, jazz, rock, hip-hop, afrobeat and everything in between, this is an essential companion for all record junkies.

The Umeå trio Barnet is back!

It’s been seven years since Barnet’s acclaimed debut album 'Tänk på döden' was released. It feels both like a long time ago and somehow quite recent…

Sing a Song Fighter is very happy to be releasing this fall the masterful upcoming album 'Galen och kär', which among other things includes a duet with Mattias Björkas (Vasas Flora och Fauna).

With three-part, heavenly lead vocals, direct and striking lyrics, and wonderful melodies, their music often becomes lofty and deeply enchanting. And since they have roots in the Swedish folk tradition, that naturally finds its way into the music—accompanied closely by their great love for pop music with glittering arpeggios, floating soundscapes, and analog keyboards and synths, all masterfully recorded here by Christian Gabel (1900, bob hund).

Welcome back, Barnet!

TRACK LISTING

1. Blå Planeter
2. Tomt Och Rent
3. Gröna Duvor
4. Halleluja
5. Bussen
6. Hjärtan I Skogen
7. Gå Hem
8. Grottan
9. Du Satt Bredvid Mig
10. Fåglarna Förstår

Retrieval is the debut collaborative album from Faith Coloccia and Alex Barnett. Artist and composer Coloccia was a founding member of Everlovely Lightningheart, and is perhaps best known as one half of Mamiffer. She has contributed to recordings by House Of Low Culture, Boris and William Fowler Collins among others, and collaborations with Circle and Daniel Menche are forthcoming. Alex Barnett played in Oakeater but since 2009 has been active primarily as a solo artist, with releases on Catholic Tapes, DRAFT, Nihilist and others. Following an initial exchange of ideas, the bulk of Retrieval was recorded over three intensive days at Otic Sound in Vancouver, with Coloccia contributing treated vocals, tape-manipulated acoustic recordings and AM radio sounds, and Barnett adding an array of synth instruments to create further loops, drum sounds and other rhythmic elements.They then reconvened at AVAST! studio in Seattle for a final session of mixing and editing with engineer/producer Randall Dunn. The resulting LP is about time and place, synthesis and environment. It's an invitation into the woods, to find that which reveals itself only to the lost. A grave, deeply introspective work, pastoral in essence but cosmic in scope. Opening with the stately, medievalist sequences of 'Harbor', Retrieval's narrative takes in subdued techno abstraction ('Hallway'), chrondritic psychedelia ('So, How Much Do You Know About Me?'), saw mill gear-grind ('Repeating Pit') and eldritch noise invocations ('Retrieval', 'Bird's Eye'). Throughout, it invigorates without consoling.

TRACK LISTING

1. Harbor
2. Switch
3. So, How Much Do You Know About Me?
4. Hallway
5. Repeating Pit
6. Retrieval
7. Birds Eye

The time is nigh for yet another exceptional installment of our Jack White produced Blue Series of singles. This time around we’re privileged to work with Melbourne, Australia’s very own Courtney Barnett. Barnett has quickly made her mark on garage pop fans worldwide with her witty, self-deprecating, and authentic observations turned into raw, stream-of-consciousness lyrics and blunt melodies. The wry and dry songstress stopped by Third Man Studios in Nashville over a long weekend this summer to record a couple tracks and damn did she deliver!

The A-side “Boxing Day Blues Revisited” is the slinky and bittersweet epilogue to “Boxing Day Blues”, the somber album closer from Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit. It’s a strangely catching, plaintive reflection on the loneliness that blossoms when a person you care about treats you like literal garbage. The track is jaunty yet aloof, with CB’s trademark conversational lyricism in perfect contrast to the B-side, a beautifully dark reboot of the Roland S. Howard penned “Shivers” back in the days of The Boys Next Door. Her unfastened delivery of an ironic tale of teenage love and mortality brings a new level of feeling that makes it a welcome addition to Sounds of Late Fall mix you’ve been working on. Keep your eye out and ears peeled for this one ‘cause you ain’t gonna wanna miss it.

Exclusively for Record Store Day Courtney Barnett releases a new track 'City Looks Pretty' + for a limited time only you'll be able to hear album track 'Sunday Roast' only via this 12"! After the release of the critically acclaimed 'Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit' and the 'Lotta Sea Lice' collaboration with Kurt Vile, a life on the road and all of its quirks appears on track 'City Looks Pretty' while 'Sunday Roast' sees Courtney her most reflective & emphatic self in a beautiful down tempo moment. A release that perfectly captures the many facets of Courtney's upcoming second album 'Tell Me How You Really Feel' released May 18th

On October 22nd 2019 Courtney Barnett performed a unique and special show at the invitation of MTV in her hometown of Melbourne.

The “Unplugged” performance features Barnett as you’ve never heard her before, warm, vulnerable and emotional, performing a stirring set of eight songs to an intimate audience including “Depreston”, “Avant Gardner” and “Sunday Roast”.

Joined by her usual band Dave Mudie and Bones Sloane, she also enlisted cellist Lucy Waldron.

Barnett made the night even more iconic by inviting some of her favourite musicians to collaborate including legendary songwriter Paul Kelly, angelically-voiced New Zealander Marlon Williams and Milk! Records label-mate Evelyn Ida Morris.

The performances include covers of Leonard Cohen, Archie Roach and Seeker Lover Keeper as well as a never-before-heard original track from Courtney herself titled "Play It On Repeat".

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: This MTV unplugged session shows another side to the charismatic rock and or roll of Barnett and team, opting instead for a more meditative and contemplative suite of 'acoustic' numbers (as good as it is, acoustic is a bit of a stretch) all topped with Barnett's unmistakeable vocal prowess. Great stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Depreston
Sunday Roast
Charcoal Lane (featuring Paul Kelly) - Written By Archie Roach
Avant Gardener
Nameless, Faceless (featuring Evelyn Morris)
Untitled (Play It On Repeat)
Not Only I (featuring Marlon Williams) - Written By Seeker Lover Keeper
So Long, Marianne - Written By Leonard Cohen

With “Creature of Habit”, Courtney Barnett leans further into the quietly transportive charm that has always defined her songwriting - the ability to turn the mundane into something intimate, profound, and strangely luminous in just a few lines. Recorded in the expansive openness of Joshua Tree, the album doesn’t push Barnett’s voice into the background so much as let it float within a noticeably wider sonic space, where atmosphere becomes as important as lyricism.

There’s a strong sense of place running through the record: faint silences between instruments, unhurried pacing, and arrangements that stretch outward rather than rush toward resolution. “Creature of Habit” often feels meditative, cohesive, and unforced, with tracks built less around traditional verse-chorus structures and more around steady, evolving grooves that reward patient listening.

Sonically, this is perhaps Barnett’s most textured work to date. While guitar remains central, it’s frequently softened, with warm, rounded basslines layering underneath and subtly guiding each track without ever dominating it. The rhythm of the album tends to breathe - building, receding, and circling back - creating a hypnotic quality that makes the record feel less like a collection of songs and more like a continuous emotional environment.

The opening track, "Stay in Your Lane", sets the tone with a hazy, dreamlike drift, establishing the album’s preference for atmosphere over immediacy. It’s followed by "Mostly Patient", which feels like a love song viewed from a distance: gentle guitar strums cradle Barnett’s restrained vocal delivery, which carries an ease and comfort that feels newly settled. Across the record, her voice is notably more restrained than in earlier work, favouring spaced-out phrasing and repetition over her once more rapid-fire delivery. At its most effective, it takes on a mantra-like quality - calming rather than confrontational.

This shift in vocal approach deepens the album’s emotional palette. When she sings lines like “The sky stretches wider than I thought it could,” they land less as literal observation and more as shifts in perspective - moments where external landscape and internal state quietly blur into one another.

Compared with earlier records like “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit”, “Tell Me How You Really Feel”, and “Things Take Time, Take Time”, this is a more expansive, patient iteration of Barnett’s voice - less focused on immediacy, more willing to linger in ambiguity. Even the sharper edges of earlier releases like “The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas” feel reinterpreted here through a slower, more reflective lens, while her collaboration with Kurt Vile on “Lotta Sea Lice” feels like a distant precursor to this looser, more spacious sensibility.

If there’s a challenge, it’s also the album’s defining trait: its patience. “Creature of Habit” doesn’t chase instant hooks or immediate gratification. Instead, it unfolds gradually, layer by layer, revealing emotional weight that only becomes fully visible with time.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stunning new album, replete with soaring melodies and clever, incisive lyrics delivered in a typically laid-back, jangling bed of woozy indie. There are hints of off-piste electronics and experimental leanings (Thanks Floating Points) but in all, a wholly melodic, reliably brilliant Barnett outing.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Stay In Your Lane
Wonder
Site Unseen (featuring Waxahatchee)
Mostly Patient
One Thing At A Time

Side B
Mantis
Sugar Plum
Same
Great Advice
Another Beautiful Day

First taster from the new Courtney Barnett LP, "Tell Me How You Really Feel", and needless to say we're all very excited here at Piccadilly!

Limited edition numbered copies.

The Grammy and Brit nominated Courtney Barnett returns with her second album - 'Tell Me How You Really Feel.' It follows her critically acclaimed 2015 debut album 'Sometimes I Sit And Think And Sometimes I Just Sit', and a recent top 10 collaborative record, 'Lotta Sea Lice', with Kurt Vile. One of the most distinctive voices in music, Courtney is known for mixing witty observations with unflinching self-assessment - fast forward to now and although all of the cleaver turns of phrase and an eye for story telling are still there; this new collection of songs see a more serious and outwardly tone capturing the current social landscape yet still retaining moments of intimacy and warmth. As the world becomes more familiar with Courtney Barnett these songs feel comforting and emphatic yet that raw energy and the ability to make the listener think still remain.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another absolute stormer from Courtney, though you might have already heard the superb 'Nameless, Faceless' from the 7" a little while ago, and 'City Looks Pretty' and 'Sunday Roast' from the RSD 12", there are a bunch of gems to uncover on this including the snarling skate-punk melodicism of my personal highlight, 'Charity'. Killer.

TRACK LISTING

Hopefullessness
City Looks Pretty
Charity
Need A Little Time
Nameless, Faceless
Im Not Your Mother, Im Not Your Bitch
Crippling Self Doubt And A General Lack Of Self Confidence
Help Your Self
Walkin On Eggshells
Sunday Roast

10th anniversary of this double EP collection. Here’s what we said about it on it’s original release:

Lead single ‘Avant Gardener’ is a vivid display of Courtney Barnett’s magic. A hookladen fug of country roots and discordant psychedelia with a dreamlike narrative.

The collection is a record of two halves, and collates her story so far. It fittingly begins with six brand new songs and is then backed with six older tracks which were originally released in the form of her 2012 debut EP. Together, ‘The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas’ spans genres and stories, and is a unique introduction to an incomparable and exciting new talent.

As well as ‘Avant Gardener’, selected highlights include the gorgeous and woozy piano-strewn opener ‘Out Of The Woodwork’, which shows the darker side of her writing. ‘Anonymous Club’ sees Courtney at her romantic, melancholic best, while the infectious, Dylan-esque cavalcade that is ‘History Eraser’ was recently nominated alongside Tame Impala for the APRA Song Of The Year back in Australia.

TRACK LISTING

Out Of The Woodwork
Don’t Apply Compression Gently
Avant Gardener
History Eraser
David
Anonymous Club
Lance Jr.
Are You Looking After Yourself
Scotty Says
Canned Tomatoes (Whole)
Porcelain
Ode To Odetta

Things Take Time, Take Time” is an assured leap forward for Barnett; a breakthrough really. This is Barnett at her most relaxed, creative and joyful. An exquisite look at the intimate, private world created by Barnett and her producer Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint, Sharon Van Etten, Kurt Vile). It’s consequently her most beautiful and intimate record to date.

TRACK LISTING

Rae Street
Sunfair Sundown
Here’s The Thing
Before You Gotta Go
Turning Green
Take It Day By Day
If I Don’t Hear From You Tonight
Write A List Of Things To Look Forward To
Splendour
Oh The Night

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the rest is hisstory.

TRACK LISTING

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

"'Tough Love' is a sonic dark romantic experience. Each song represents a different form of 'Tough Love'. A dark romance in Hollywood. Growing up in LA at the age of 17, now being 23 I’ve experienced a lot and learned so much about my self and love itself. All of these songs are written either about my own experiences, lessons and who I am today or inspired by a fantasy I’ve created in my mind and heart. These love songs tell the truth of what I desire and crave deeply, a love that is exciting and passionate and impossible to find in Hollywood, writing these songs are the closest I’ll ever get to living it. Words are spells. Songs are spells. I love writing about love because though it’s fleeting in those moments while I’m creating the record, its true. I live in it, feel it on my skin, close my eyes, taste it and make it real. Whether it’s something I want, something I had, something I’m missing, it is mine all the same. 'Tough Love' is about the darkest and toughest parts of love, songs for those themselves who are tough to love, and songs for love that’s tough to find.

"Sonically I was inspired by, Massive attack, Portishead, Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, Alice in chains, nostalgic music from the 70s through the 90s and add my own dark twists. ” - Nessa Barrett

TRACK LISTING

TBA

Our favourite Yorkshire-based 12-string maestro Serious Sam Barrett returns with another self-released future classic on his YaDig? record label. Having wooed us at his Manchester gig last year for Crowfoot we all got very excited here at Piccadilly for Sam's timeless songwriting skills and virtuoso guitar playing. After going through the previous albums and EPs, it's nice to see Sam evolve somewhat on this album - taking in upright bass, accordion and a small drum kit to fully expand the Sam Barrett sound; and loosing none of the authenticity or magic with it. Essential an album inspired and written whilst on tour, it's a collection of songs about being on the road, missing home and missing, of course, the woman of your desires; with the subject matter rarely veering off these classic subject themes. Sam keeps us hooked right till the end though - his heart-on-sleeve lyrics, clear vocal delivery and breathtaking guitar work a sonic Cupid's arrow directly to our hearts. Cupid rears his head quite a lot through Sam's work, and pleasantly returns with earnest on this album (much of the A-side taken up with love lust meanderings about wonderful woman - "Cupid's Song", "She's My Only One", "Better Give It Up"). When Sam talks about being far from home, you know he means it, and learning of his recent US tour the songs speak a thousand pictures of a naive Yorkshire lad in the big, vast country of the American West coast and all that goes with it. From start to finish a breathtaking record, probably my favourite to date. This cat's just starting his musical ascent it seems, improving exponentially and I feel privileged to almost be there from the start of the trip; get on the train and join the journey now - you won't be sorry!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Back with another treasure of an album, Sam is joined by upright bass, accordion and percussion on this timeless future classic from deepest Yorkshire. If you play guitar or enjoy stripped back, heartfelt music, I can't recommend this enough.

TRACK LISTING

1. Back On The Jack
2. Cupid's Song
3. She's My Only One
4. Better Give It Up
5. Any Road

6. Livin On Shoestring
7. Hillbomber's Blues
8. Song For Kid Little
9. Desert Theme
10. Footsteps
11. Say You Do

Towards the end of last year, I was lucky enough to see this guy play in a lovely event organized by the lads at Crowfoot Records. He blew me away with his honest, genuine, old time guitar style coupled with great lyrics touching on all things important to your average young adult (skateboarding, drinking, travelling on shit public transport to see girls etc...). A charismatic performer, with a strong Yorkshire dialect; his 12-string guitar chimed, resonated and strummed away all night, with the crowd reveling in the beautiful music and surroundings. I was further delighted to see that Sam had recorded four full length albums, and promptly snapped them up at the gig, insisting he bring some into the shop in the new year. Well here we are in 2014 and Sam's ferried two titles across the border for your listening pleasure. This, the self titled, comprises of ten original compositions and features his trademark 12-string guitar alongside mandolin and voice. Personal favourites are "Henessey Nights" and "Long Gone". The former is an ode to being young and free and loose on the streets with your best friends while the latter is a heart wrenching break up song with the overpowering smell of whiskey running through it. This private press record is a timeless, succinct slice of reality that every home needs! The new bluegrass explosion starts here! Recommended. Comes with CD.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Solo album by the one and only Sam Barrett. Yorkshire's finest guitarist... he does weddings you know?!

TRACK LISTING

Alf's Song
Hurry Back
Hennessy Nights
Spiderweb Frame
Streetlights
Kerosene
16 Again
Holding Out
Dreams
Long Gone

‘The Madcap Laughs’ is the debut solo album by the English singer-songwriter recorded after Barrett had left Pink Floyd. He only made one full album and a couple of amazing singles with The Floyd, then two solo LP's of which this is the first.  It is a LOT looser than his previous work but still with that unique child-like sense of wonder and a lovely way with a melody.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Pure expression. A unique vision, slowly unravelling.

TRACK LISTING

Side One:
1. "Terrapin"
2. "No Good Trying"
3. "Love You"
4. "No Man's Land"
5. "Dark Globe"
6. "Here I Go"

Side Two:
1. "Octopus"
2. "Golden Hair"
3. "Long Gone"
4. "She Took A Long Cool Look At Me"
5. "Feel"
6. "If It's In You"
7. "Late Night"

Jimi Hendrix's road manager and confidant, Eric Barrett, breaks fifty-five years of silence. Eric Barrett was there when Hendrix set Woodstock ablaze, when paranoia crackled through Toronto Airport, when his music electrified a sea of 600,000 at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, and in the quiet hours backstage when he revealed the insecurities behind his genius.

Hendrix confided in few people. Barrett was one of them. Experienced is Barrett's long-awaited, unflinching memoir: the definitive inside account of Hendrix as friend, bandleader, and phenomenon.

It strips away the mythology to reveal the man in all his brilliance and contradiction - volatile, generous, insecure, incandescently creative, and always in pursuit of the next sound. His final years were tested and defined on British soil. Taking readers into performances that veered between transcendence and chaos, Barrett captures a Hendrix rarely seen, nervous before British crowds and afraid that the country that had once embraced him might be moving on.

While his journey with Hendrix forms the backbone of Barrett's narrative, his later decades on tour with artists including David Bowie, George Michael and Lenny Kravitz add another dimension: a sweeping sense of how Hendrix's short life set the template for rock 'n' roll excess - and survival - through the decades. The result is not just another rock memoir, but a once-in-a-lifetime backstage history of music's most transformative years, told through the prism of Barrett's life inside Hendrix's turbulent orbit. This is the Jimi Hendrix story from the man who lived it - a revealing portrait of brilliance, pressure and tragic decline

‘It is tempting to think of Barrett’s sounds as living organisms, darting around in your peripheral vision.’ - The Sound Projector ‘Natasha Barrett is now one of the leading composers in the emerging field of 3D audio: using high-density loudspeaker arrays and cutting-edge recording and mixing procedures to create works full of ingenuity and drama.’ - The New York Times Persistence of Sound presents a new solo LP from one of the world’s leading voices in electroacoustic music.

Natasha Barrett is known internationally for her intense explorations of the movement of sounds through space. Whilst studying with Jonty Harrison at the University of Birmingham, Barrett worked with BEAST (Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre), which led to a doctoral composition degree supervised by composer Denis Smalley. Barrett has since established an international reputation as a composer of 3D audio and ambisonics.

She treats spatialisation as a musical parameter, and told the New York Times, “I’m really concerned with the idea of tangibility. Sound is invisible, but we can do things that make you want to reach out and touch it.” Barrett describes her inspiration as coming from the immediate sounding matter of the world around us, as well as the way it behaves. Barrett's works are performed and commissioned throughout the world, and have received a long list of prizes, including the Giga-Hertz Award and the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Awards. Persistence of Sound was founded by composer Iain Chambers, of the musique concrète ensemble Langham Research Centre. Its releases span electroacoustic music, field recordings, and the unclassifiable music between these genres.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Growth [5:59]
A2. Speaking Spaces No. 1: Heterotopia - Part 1 [13:32]
B1. Speaking Spaces No. 1: Heterotopia - Part 2 [10:12]
B2. Urban Melt In Park Palais Meran [9:40]

An Introduction To Syd Barrett, is a reissue of the 2010 collection that brought together for the first time the tracks of Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett on one compilation.

David Gilmour, who originally worked on Syd Barrett's two solo albums, as co-producer of The Madcap Laughs and as producer of Barrett, was the executive producer for the album. Damon Iddins and Andy Jackson at Astoria Studios remixed five tracks including ‘Octopus’, ‘She Took A Long Cool Look’, ‘Dominoes’ and ‘Here I Go’, with David Gilmour adding bass guitar to the last track. Pink Floyd's ‘Matilda Mother’ also received a fresh 2010 Mix.

The album features the original 24-page booklet and graphics plus all lyrics, and was designed including the cover art by long time Pink Floyd associate the late Storm Thorgerson and his estimable studio.

An Introduction To Syd Barrett provides a handy overview of this visionary talent, this madcap genius whose star shone brightly yet burnt out all too quickly.

On ‘Barrett’, Syd's second solo album, he was joined by Pink Floyd members Rick Wright and David Gilmour. Gilmour and Wright also acted as producers. Syd needed this help as things were getting a touch more fractured for him  and obviously you can hear this in the music.  It is still  a great  record though, from a trailblazing, unique talent.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Whimsy, melody and magic. Last outing from a legend.

TRACK LISTING

Side One:
1. "Baby Lemonade"
2. "Love Song"
3. "Dominoes"
4. "It Is Obvious"
5. "Rats"
6. "Maisie"

Side Two:
1. "Gigolo Aunt"
2. "Waving My Arms In The Air"
3. "I Never Lied To You"
4. "Wined And Dined"
5. "Wolfpack"
6. "Effervescing Elephant"

Follow up EP to 2022s ‘Barbara’, which was praised by The New York Times, NPR Music, KEXP, KCRW, Stereogum, The Line Of Best Fit, Billboard, Consequence, Under The Radar, Clash and more.

New EP expands on the sound of ‘Barbara’ while taking a fresh approach to songwriting and collaboration.

Brooklyn-based musician and producer Barrie Lindsay, known simply as Barrie, has a passion for creating left-of-center pop music. She spends her days writing songs and tinkering in Logic, stockpiling her creations in a vast archive of folders and hard drives. When it came time to select the songs for her sophomore LP, ‘Barbara,’ she narrowed it down to sixteen tracks. As the record came together, it became clear that there would be two separate projects - the first being ‘Barbara,’ an emotionally charged collection of songs dealing with the loss of a parent, the love of a new partner, and finding one's own identity. The remaining five tracks, which were more light-hearted and o­ the cu­, were compiled into a new project titled ‘5K.’

As an avid runner, Barrie named the EP after the common foot race. The aptly titled lead single, "Races," is a delightful synth-pop track in a unique 12/8 time, built around a bombastic drum kit and giddy key ri­s. "Nocturne Interlude" acts as a segue between ‘Barbara’ and ‘5K,’ showcasing a haunting melody amidst dark brass-like synths. Second half highlight "Ghost World" has a distorted guitar ri­ and classic drum pattern that evokes a forgotten 90's radio b-side. The song was recorded entirely by Barrie herself, serving as her own band on guitar, bass, keys, and drum kit. Even though most people would finish listening to the project front to back

before finishing a 5k run, the short, sweet, and melodically rich EP begs to be replayed over and over. With ‘5K,’ Barrie showcases her versatility as an artist, closing the loop between the sounds found on her debut LP ‘Happy To Be Here’ and her follow-up ‘Barbara’.

TRACK LISTING

A Side:
1. Nocturne Interlude
2. Races
3. Unholy Appetite
B Side:
4. Ghost World
5. Empty

RIYL: Japanese Breakfast, Clairo, Perfume Genius, Sufjan Stevens.

On Barbara, the sophomore album from Brooklyn-based songwriter and producer Barrie, she battles the loss of a parent, the start of a new relationship, and the impulse to separate herself from her music. This result is a beautifully peculiar, and quietly ambitious collection of synth-pop, art-pop, indie rock and folk songs that reflect a new willing- ness to let listeners into her world.

Two events redefined Barrie Lindsay’s life and shaped the direction of Barbara. In the summer of 2019, she met her now-wife, the musician Gabby Smith. Simultaneously, Lindsay’s father learned that his lung cancer had worsened. In January of 2020, she moved home to Ipswich to spend time with family and begin work on her album. Three months became nine, thanks to the pandemic. Lindsay wrote Barbara while quarantining with Smith in Maine, while her father was dying, and while she was falling in love.

Lindsay finds catharsis from the ambivalent desperation of losing a parent on the album’s centerpiece, “Dig.” You can hear her newfound boldness as she wails the song’s central refrain, giving herself over to emotion: “I can’t get enough of you / Where did you come from?” Despite the grief, personal and collective on Lindsay’s mind while making Barbara, she often pauses to embrace joy. “Jenny,” is a simple, acoustic guitar ode to meeting Smith. Similarly, her fantasy of a roman- tic but bloodied afternoon, “Quarry,” sounds eerie and aque- ous, before erupting into a euphoric geyser of synth and drums.

“Barbara isn’t an album specifically about grief or love. It’s just an album where I let myself actually feel my emotions,” Lind- say says. “That was something I’d never done before in music.”

TRACK LISTING

A Side
01. Jersey
02. Frankie
03. Jenny
04. Concrete
05. Dig
06. Bully
B Side
07. Harp 2 Interlude
08. Harp 2
09. Quarry
10. Basketball
11. Bloodline

Inclusivity is at the heart of Barrie, the Brooklyn five-piece made of Barrie Lindsay, Dominic Apa, Spurge Carter, Sabine Holler and Noah Prebish. And on their debut LP Happy To Be Here, their multidimensional take on classic pop sounds awake and present, like a group that’s daydreaming but firmly there with one another. Lindsay largely wrote these songs late into the night, alone in her apartment, and her voice feels appropriately full of possibility throughout. Barrie, the band, is primarily her project; on the record, which she co-produced with Jake Aron (Snail Mail, Solange, Grizzly Bear), Lindsay plays guitar, piano, synth and bass. But still, Barrie is distinctly not a solo project, and Happy To Be Here is very much a full band record. Dominic’s drums fill the entire album, while Noah added synths and Spurge sang on nearly every track; the three also contributed production. And Sabine, though stuck in Germany with visa issues, remotely recorded vocals. Engineered and mixed by Aron at his Brooklyn studio in August 2018, the album is a softly explosive document of Barrie’s collective vision: “a well-crafted pop song that’s a little bit fucked up,” they explain. The album’s singles speak to its scope: the analog synths that burst from piano pointillism on “Clovers”, the lush electric guitar grooves on opener “Darjeeling”, the minimal arrangement and modular programmed drums of “Saturated”. The album’s energetic but unhurried movement is a testament to the wide-ranging backgrounds of Barrie’s membership: Spurge and Noah met at the Lot Radio through a shared love of house and techno, Dom plays and tours with the electronic rock band Is Tropical, Sabine is a performance artist and solo musician. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Darjeeling
2 Dark Tropical
3 Clovers
4 Habits
5 Saturated
6 Chinatown
7 Teenager
8 Geology
9 Casino Run
10 Hutch 

Featuring the otherworldly vocals of the legendary jazz singer Norma Winstone whose vocals were recently sampled in Drake's 2023 chart topping single IDGAF (feat. Yeat) and Leo Taylor (Floating Points, Hot Chip, Joy Crookes) on drums, the EP is the amalgamation of Barrott's long term fascination with sunset music, and the ways the change of seasons impact the way we co-exist with the sun. As winter draws closer and we move on from the Autumn equinox to Winter solstice, Barrott's latest release captures the transformative yet paradoxical feeling of melancholy over the end of Summer and the start of winter while creating an eerie sensation of serenity.

The EP follows from the release of Barrott's critically acclaimed and deeply personal 2024 album Everything Changes, Nothing Ends.

The new EP sees Barrott return to his beloved sunset music, as he continues his eternal quest to find new ways to soundtrack this sacred Ibiza moment.

Crowned as the"master of sunset music"by Pitchfork, Barrott's new EP is filled with celestial grandeur that stops you in your tracks. A profound musical meditation and an homage to the sunsets of the Autumn months, the EP captures the sonic poetry of the changing skies and the seasons.

The haunting combination of Barrott's production & arrangement skills, Taylor's jazz drums and Winstone's endlessly ethereal vocals soar in a harmonious union across the title track of the EP while the openerI Am The Starssummons you in for a brief respite from the cacophony of the modern world. The wistful second trackMy Blue Heartlingers with you with its melancholic jazz horns swelling side by side with Winstone's vocals while the closing trackI Am The Airfloats through your ears with its sublime contemplativeness. I Am The Sun, You Are The Moonsees Barrott returning to his sonic ruminations on sunsets, however they are more profound and life affirming than ever.

"At the end of the summer, on a clear bright starry night I climbed to the top of a mountain in Ibiza with a pair of headphones and listened to these tracks and lost myself in the vastness of the night sky and the endlessness of Norma's voice. At that moment everything made sense in my world for the first time in a long while and it just felt right", Mark Barrott says.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Am The Stars (feat. Norma Winstone & Leo Taylor)
2. My Blue Heart (feat. Norma Winstone & Leo Taylor)

Invada Records and Lakeshore Records announce the release of the soundtrack to Amazon Prime’s ‘HANNA: Season 1’ on vinyl.

Pressed on white double vinyl housed in a deluxe gatefold sleeve.

For the first time, composers Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow were able to put together a team of musicians to work together to form a collaborative score for the whole series.

The soundtrack consists of tracks by Karen O and Beak>, plus an original score by Ben Salisbury, Geoff Barrow, The Insects, Simon Ashdown and Yann McCullough.

“Because of the size of the ‘HANNA’ series, we had the opportunity to bring our own team of artists and composers. The producers had already contacted the amazing Karen O whose song ‘Anti-Lullaby’ formed a theme that was continued throughout the series. It was also great to work with our friends The Insects (Massive Attack co writers Bob Locke & Tim Norfolk), Simon Ashdown and music editor turned composer Yann McCullough” - Geoff Barrow

Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ singer Karen-O’s wandering, ominous ‘Anti-Lullaby’ appears on the soundtrack along with her Goth rendition of Smashing Pumpkin’s ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’, with Beak>’s ‘Wulfstan II’ appropriately closing the album.

The score for ‘HANNA: Season 1’ features layers of manipulated organic elements which composer Ben Salisbury describes thusly: “The score for the series was mainly inspired by the character of Hanna herself, and her forest upbringing. Even though the music is sometimes processed, it is always based on something real and organic rather than pure electronics. We often used layers of woodwind instruments (including some fairly unusual ethnic flutes and pipes) as a way of linking Hanna to the natural world in which she was brought up, and also to try and capture her fierce animal spirit and her sense of wonder as she experiences the ‘new world’ beyond the forest.” - Ben Salisbury

TRACK LISTING

We Have Heller
Anti-Lullaby (Karen O)
Training
Connections
Escaping The Hotel
The Ghost Of Her Mother
Relentless / Forest
Memories
Bullet With Butterfly Wings (Karen O)
Berlin Night Drive
Always Hunted
Eric's Theme
Sensing Danger
Beyond
A Cornered Animal
Marisa Held Hostage
Eric Leaves Hanna
Nice Paris Life
Runway Ambush
Wulfstan II (Beak>)

Barry Can’t Swim’s rise has been nothing short of meteoric. Following the success of his debut album 'When Will We Land?', Barry has continued to solidify himself as one of the most exciting names in electronic music today and his new album 'Loner' further cements that. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Grand, crescentic electronic music that's filmic and evocative, packed full of moments of divine calm and shadowy drive. Though this is predominantly an electronic album, there are wisps of tropicalia and African percussion, bringing to mind the rhythmic acoustics of Bonobo or Caribou. A beautifully produced, uplifting journey.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Person You’d Like To Be
2. Different
3. Kimpton (with O’Flynn)
4. All My Friends
5. About To Begin
6. Still Riding
7. Cars Pass By Like Childhood Sweethearts
8. Machine Noise For A Quiet Daydream (feat. Séamus)
9. Like It’s Part Of The Dance
10. Chosen
11. Marriage
12. Wandering Mt. Moon

Barry Can’t Swim’s highly anticipated debut album is finally here. Those who have liked Barry’s output to date will love this full length. It showcases both sides of his artistry - his ability to write dancefloor-ready party bangers and also his more downtempo, piano-led pieces. These two sides will also come to life throughout 2023 and beyond on stage, with a stacked diary of both traditional DJ shows and his very first full band live shows. Every album track was written and crafted with it’s position within the full length piece of work in mind - it’s an album designed as such, rather than a collection of songs thrown together.

Silky, airy, uplifting production which is sure to give you tingles and rushes of rose tinted nostalgia. The upfront production is paired with pop-like sensibilities and bucket loads of sentiment; delving into the vast tropes of electronic music that have preceded it whilst offering the listener something that is undeniably brand new and looking forwards. Incredible! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: A gloriously fresh and fun new album that should appeal to fans of Real Lies, Avalanches, DJ Seinfeld, Ross From Friends and Anthony Szmierek. Album highlight for me, "Some Deadbeat Gospel" is an incredible piece - a epochal ode to night club culture from Somedeadbeat paired, skewed and twisted into BCS's bouncy synthetic house soundbed.

TRACK LISTING

1. When Will We Land?
2. Some Deadbeat Gospel (feat. Somedeadbeat)
3. Sonder
4. How It Feels
5. Sunsleeper
6. Woman
7. I Won’t Let You Down (feat Falle Nioke, Blackboxx)
8. Always Get Through To You
9. Tell Me What You Need (feat. Just Lil)
10. Dance Of The Crab
11. Define Dancing

BArTc is a London based experimental electronic one-man project (Jason Barton). Out in September is the project’s debut full length “Insubstantial As Ghosts” containing 14 dark atmospheric soundscapes. ICR owner Colin Potter, himself a well known figure in the electronic and experimental music genre as a member of Nurse With Wound and sound engineer, heard some of Barton’s work and offered to release it. He has handpicked several of the pieces included on “Insubstantial As Ghosts” and also mastered the album.

Initially inspired by instrumental electronic records in his father’s record collection by titans such as Tangerine Dream and Vangelis, Barton soon gravitated towards underground industrial icons such as Coil, Einstürzende Neubauten, Chris & Cosey and Skinny Puppy, as well as digging deeper into the work of early German electronicists such as Cluster, Musique concrète pioneers Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, plus the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Barton has cited sound recordist (and Cabaret Voltaire co-founder) Chris Watson as another influence, adding: “I have always loved environmental sounds and often carry a field recorder on my travels which I use to create texture in my pieces. I build layers to create something abstract yet strangely beautiful, mixing source material, organic and experimental sounds plus field recordings that are heavily distorted with various effects. For me, creating music is a form of meditation, and to lose oneself in an improvisation is a wonderful experience. I just need to remember to hit record!”

TRACK LISTING

Francium
Floods
Malleus Incuss Tapes
Boron
A Strange Glow Awaits Us All
Energy Field
The Seraph
The Isotopes Of Yttrium
Looking Into The Abyss
Some Observations On Technetium
Ultra Panavision 70
Skookum
Oiseaumouche
The Organism

Born in Ipswich, England to a military father and opera-singer mother Bartees had a peripatetic early childhood before eventually settling in Mustang, Oklahoma. Later, Bartees cut his teeth playing in hardcore bands in Washington D.C. and Brooklyn whilst working in the Barack Obama administration and (eventually) the environmental movement. Since charting a path as a solo artist, Bartees Strange has released two records in quick succession: an EP reimagining songs by The National (Say Goodbye To Pretty Boy, 2020) and his debut album proper Live Forever (2020).

Farm to Table, which also includes recent single ‘Heavy Heart’, is the second album from Washington D.C. resident Bartees Leon Cox Jr.. Where his 2020 debut record Live Forever introduced the experiences and places that shaped Bartees (Flagey Brussels, Mustang Oklahoma), Farm to Table zeros in on the people – specifically his family – and those closest to him on his journey so far. With his career firmly on the ascent, Farm to Table examines Bartees’ constantly shapeshifting relationship with life post-Live Forever. It also speaks to a deeper lore that says, don’t forget where you came from, and this album is why. Always remembering where he came from, across 10 songs Bartees is celebrating the past, moving towards the future, and fully appreciating the present.

An unapologetic and braggadocious indie-trap banger, new single ‘Cosigns’ celebrates Bartees’ peers, collaborators and friends; name-checking the likes of Bon Iver, Phoebe Bridgers, Courtney Barnett, Lucy Dacus, through a genre-defying outpouring somewhere between swaggering hip hop and euphoric alt rock. The song ends on a poem he wrote in his early 20s, “I don’t know how to be full, it’s the hardest to know, I keep consuming I can’t give it up, It’s never enough.” ‘Cosigns’ is also a moment for Bartees to acknowledge himself, giving himself credence and unashamedly basking in that glow. Its accompanying official video was directed by Pooneh Ghana.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Heavy Heart
A2. Mulholland Dr.
A3. Wretched
A4. Cosigns
A5. Tours
B1. Hold The Line
B2. We Were Only Close For Like Two Weeks
B3. Escape This Circus
B4. Daily News (Vinyl Only Track)
B5. Black Gold
B6. Hennessy

Bartees Strange was raised on fear. His family used scary stories to teach life lessons, and at an early age, Strange started using scary movies to practice being strong. The world can be a terrifying place, and for a young, queer, black person in rural America, that terror can be visceral. Horror is an album about facing those fears and growing to become someone to be feared. Throughout the record, Strange lays down one difficult truth after another, all over a sonic pastiche of music he loved as a kid. His dad hipped him to Parliament Funkadelic, Fleetwood Mac, Teddy Pendergrass, and Neil Young. Those influences merged with Strange’s interest in hip-hop, country, indie rock, and house, culminating in a record that feels completely original.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Huge, anthemic choruses and deeply funky breakdowns punctuate deep, wonderfully written lyrics and a bafflingly diverse range of audible influence. There's soulful sections smashed into with distorted guitars and pumelling percussion, much like a soaring breakdown can suddenly flip into groovy hip-hop territory without sounding disjointed. Lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
Too Much
Hit It Quit It
Sober
Baltimore
Lie 95
Wants Needs
Side B:
Lovers
Doomsday Buttercup
17
Loop Defenders
Norf Gun
Backseat Banton

Dinked Edition Bonus 7":
Side A:
Like This
Side B:
Pigs Fly

Bartees Strange has been one of the most significant indie artists to break out in the post-Pandemic era. He debuted with ‘Say Goodbye to Pretty Boy’, an album length collection of The National songs released in March 2020, on the cusp of the Pandemic. Later that year came his first LP, ‘Mustang’, which was named in endless year-end Best Of lists, including those from Pitchfork, Stereogum, Rolling Stone and NPR Music. He quickly signed to 4AD, and his debut for the label, ‘Farm To Table’, turned him into a club headliner and an arena-sized opening act with genre-defining artists such as The National, boygenius, Phoebe Bridgers and Courtney Barnett.

The vinyl-exclusive release, ‘Magic Boy’, represents the Bartees story before this story began -33 1/2 minutes of recordings created before he entered the public eye, with eight out of ten never previously released. It finds his ever-malleable sound touching on genres like coffee house folk (‘IDK’, ‘Best Of You’, ‘You’re Here’), emo troubadour (‘Count It Back’, ‘Little Brother’), and wigged-out experimentation (‘Eat Your Heart Out’). Appended with two tracks previously available only as digital Bsides from ‘Say Goodbye’ (‘HAGS’, ‘Going Going’), ‘Magic Boy’ reads as a kind of ‘lost’ album for someone shaping up to be a major voice in indie music.

Bartees’ story is a fairy tale of independent community and a triumph of efforts to diversify what the word ‘indie rock’ even means, reclaiming it for Black artists. The ‘Magic Boy’ LP is a fine way to celebrate Bartees Strange’s explosive trajectory, especially following his run of dates opening for The National at arenas across Europe in Autumn 2023.

TRACK LISTING

1. IDK
2. Going Going
3. HAGS
4. Best Of You
5. Eat Your Heart Out
6. You’re Here (Feat. Project Diem)
7. Count It Back
8. Get Over It (Feat. Lizzie No)
9. Little Brother
10. Going Going (Reprise)

“It seems like the sky’s the limit with him. He’s got big things ahead...” - Bryce Dessner, The National

Bartees Strange has been one of the most significant indie artists to break out in the post-Pandemic era. His 2020 album, ‘Mustang’, was named to countless year-end best lists. He quickly signed to 4AD and his debut for the label Farm To Table turned him into a club headliner and an arena-sized opening act with genre-defining artists such as The National, boygenius, Phoebe Bridgers and Courtney Barnett.

‘Say Goodbye To Pretty Boy’ is where Bartees’ story began - a full-length cover album of songs by indie rock kingmakers The National. Quietly released in March 2020 - the day before lockdowns shut the world down - it instantly sold out its 300-copy pressing. Now back in print to celebrate his explosive trajectory and a run of dates opening for The National at arenas across Europe in Autumn, 2023.

A kind of fairy tale story of independent community and the effort to diversify what the term ‘indie rock’ even means, reclaiming the phrase for Black artists. ‘Say Goodbye’ also happens to touch upon Bartees’ incredibly broad palette of musical influences, with a sound ranging from garage rock (‘Mr. November’) to emotional R&B chill (‘About Today’ and ‘The Geese of Beverly Road’) to house music (‘Looking for Astronauts’). Members of The National have called Bartees’ hard riffing, emo-pop-rock rendition of ‘Lemonworld’ the definitive version of the song.

For fans of L’Rain, The National, Kara Jackson, boygenius, The Beths, TV on the Radio, Alvvays.

TRACK LISTING

About Today
All The Wine
Mr. November
A Reasonable Man (I Don’t Mind)
Lemonworld
The Geese Of Beverly Road
Looking For Astronauts
Lemonworld (Live At Studio 4)

A collector and DJ from Dallas, Texas, Chad "High-C" Burnett of Rehash Media, first exposed Bartell's "Top Going Down, Bottom Going Up" in the "Excavations" section of the Rehash web site in December of 2001. For all intents and purposes, the 45 had been unknown to collectors but caused a quite a stir while everyone who heard it searched for more copies. The 45 remained out of reach until February of 2004 when noted British collector/DJ Ian Wright turned up a copy and began to play the 45, giving it further exposure by way of a radio show featured on the deepfunk.org web site.

Hailing from the small farming town of Ashburn, GA (population roughly 4400) noted as the "Peanut Capital of the World", young Nathan Bartell had grown up around music, playing trumpet in the school band and jazz band. After graduating from high school in 1962, Bartell moved to Atlanta where he found and enjoyed a thriving music and night club scene, catching then local acts such as Gladys Knight, The Tams, as well as the many touring acts that came through town and played clubs like The Palladium, The Pink Pussycat, The Casino and The Royal Peacock

The point at which the story truly begins to take shape was a fateful night in the summer of 1967 at a nightclub on Bankhead Highway near Northside Drive. The house band was doing its thing, but the crowd was thinking about Wilson Pickett's current hit "Funky Broadway" as they kept shouting for the band to perform the song. After some discussion amongst the band, a few of the musicians decided they knew the song well enough to give the people what they wanted, provided somebody knew the lyrics, as their singer did not. Bartell took the stage, and must have done the job right, as he continued performing with bands in clubs all over Atlanta such as The Oasis, and the most important of Atlanta nightclubs, The Royal Peacock.

By April of 1968, following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, Bartell was married to a woman who also came from Ashburn. She didn't care much for Atlanta, so the couple moved back home to Ashburn. Music was still boiling in Bartell's blood, however, and it wasn't long before he began singing with a group called Eddie and the Cascades from just up the road in the (even smaller) town of Cordele. Eddie and the Cascades performed in clubs around South Georgia until the band broke up in 1972. Despite the length of the band's existence, sadly, the opportunity to record never presented itself.

Toward the end of Bartell's time with Eddie & the Cascades, he met Jesse Boone, whose musical legacy was already well underway. Boone brought Bartell into his studio with members of his own band, The Astros, to record his first Soul-Po-Tion single "Ooh Baby, I Love You", which was backed with "If I Could Win Your Love". According to Bartell, the single sold quite well regionally, and Hi Records approached Jesse Boone about releasing the single nationally. Boone declined the offer, hoping to draw more attention to his label and boost the momentum of his Soul-Po-Tion label. While sales were apparently good enough to attract a nationally distributed label, this one is quite possibly his most obscure 45.

Capitalizing on the regional success of "Ooh Baby I Love You", Bartell toured around the southeast, often with Jesse Boone & the Astros, playing dates in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Carolinas. Touring, as it can certainly do with young musicians, began to take a toll on Bartell's marriage, which was splitting up by the time he was ready to record his second single. Soul-Po-Tion label mate Freddie Wilson, following his own debut single "What Would It Be Like", had written a new song, which Jesse Boone listened to with Bartell in mind. "Top Going Up, Bottom Going Down" was a song that fit very well with what Bartell was feeling at the time, so Boone put him in the studio with Soul-Po-Tion's house band to record Wilson's composition. Where Freddie Wilson's style was very much from the mould of James Brown, Bartell gave it a more personal touch. That said, Bartell admits that the single's flip side "Johnny and John" was basically a blatant attempt to cash in on the success and sound of Johnnie Taylor, particularly through the use of reverb and echo effects.

Playing on the "Top Going Down…" session were O.C. Glaydens (a.k.a. A.C. Raven, a.k.a. O.C. the Wildman) on guitar, Johnny Badden on bass, Bruce Jones on saxophone, and a fella with the last name of Caldwell on drums. Nathan doesn't remember Mr. Caldwell's first name, but if he was Boone's first call drummer for Soul-Po-Tion recording sessions, then this is a man who clearly needs more attention. Even some of the less significant Soul-Po-Tion singles some top shelf drumming.

As Bartell remembers, the Freddie Wilson song was written specifically for Bartell to record. This indeed may be the case, but it is also possible that Freddie Wilson presented the demo to Boone for himself. What exactly happened next is something of a mystery. Either Boone specifically wanted the song to be recorded by Bartell, or Bartell's 45 came out before Wilson tried to do a polished version beyond his original rough demo recording. No matter how exactly the series of events transpired, Boone clearly did not want the two versions competing for sales against each other, much less on his own record label. Either theory is plausible. Regardless, Nathan Bartell's classic 45 emerged from the small label in Albany showing exponentially more style and musicianship than his debut.

Back to 1975 now…. While Bartell continued the southeastern club circuit, Jesse Boone was setting up a new record label, Albradella. The label kicked off with a couple of singles from Florida artist Chuck Roberson, but Bartell came back in 1976 with his new band, The Shandells, to record the "Moving On" single, with the b-side, "Sitting Alone". "Moving On" is a driving up-tempo funky soul dancer, with a deep ballad on the flip featuring Melvin Roberts on lead vocals. One more single was released on the Albradella label in 1979, "That's My Girl" parts 1 and 2 and "Someone Like You" b/w "Running Through the Night".

For a good part of the early 1980s, The Shandells worked both on their own, and backing other musicians on tour, such as Z.Z. Hill while he toured for his 1982 album "Down Home". The work with Z.Z. Hill put Bartell in touch with Tommy Cough of Malaco, who Bartell cites as an important mentor and influence in aspects of his career ever since. This influence has had no greater impact than in helping Bartell start up his own label, Eureka Records, an endeavor which he undertook in 1985 and continues to operate today.

Eureka was started when Bartell had approached Jesse Boone with the idea of recording in a new studio rather than Boone's own studio. Boone was not not keen on releasing recordings on his labels which were not produced in house, which is understandable when you own the studio and the label. So, Bartell and his band went to Sunbelt Sound Studios and began to record songs for an album which was to be titled "Let Me Love You". It seems that nine songs were cut in 1987 for this project. Unable to take them back to Albradella, Bartell started his own Eureka Records and published his songs under his own Co-Rey Music. Of the nine songs recorded, only four would actually see their eventual release on vinyl, as two 7" singles. But even with the Eureka label off the ground, Bartell did not sever his friendship or business ties with Jesse Boone.

By 1987, the Soul-Po-Tion and Albradella labels were both out of business, for the most part. Boone set up a new but short-lived venture called Vanity Records, which seems to have been for the express purpose of putting together one last project with Nathan Bartell. This is how Bartell's only R&B album was released. There was, however, one slight problem. Bartell's name is nowhere on it. Instead, Boone named the artist Timothy Gaye. The exact reason for this is still unknown though Bartell casually dismissed this decision as "one of Jesse's marketing ploys". The album is comprised of songs written by Boone, Roshell Anderson, Homer Chambers, a version of Eddie Floyd's "Knock On Wood" and a track written by Bartell's brother Keith, who also handles lead vocals on the song "Million Dollar Baby". The Jesse Boone-penned "If I Ever Fall In Love Again" b/w "Knock On Wood" was released as the only single from the album, which is slightly ironic since "Giving Good Loving" is easily the strongest track on the album.. One last single on the Vanity label followed the album, with Bartell (under his own name again) providing the song "Someone Like You" but sharing space with Chuck Roberson's "I Feel It Coming" on the flip side.

Bartell continued performing in night clubs, but not traveling as much, when a fateful turn ended his secular music career. Bartell went through a series of seemingly random religious encounters, the death of his 19 year old son who was coming home from his first year of college, and a collapsed lung. In 1991 Bartell was hospitalized with a recurrence of his lung ailment. While in the hospital, Bartell became born again and cites his acceptance of Jesus as what finally healed him for good. During this time, he also endured the death of his youngest son, who died at the age of 17. Bartell prayed to God that if he could make it through all of these events, he would never sing R&B music again. Music was still what Bartell wanted to do with his life, however, and formed a Gospel group called Nathan Bartell & Reality. Crossing the bridge between the traditional Gospel quartet style and a more contemporary sound, Reality has recorded three albums since 1995, and all on his own Eureka label and is still performing at Gospel events in Southern Georgia today.

TRACK LISTING

1. Top Going Down
2. I Feel It Coming
3. Sitting Alone
4. Jody & John
5. Someone Like You
6. Moving On
7. I Want Your Love
8. Mystery Lady
9. See Me Cry
10. Ooh Baby, I Love You
11. If I Could Win Your Love
12. If I Ever Fall In Love Again

'Understory' is a collection of ten mesmerizing solo piano pieces, recorded in London in March 2026. A sequel to his album 'Shelter', it finds Thomas Bartlett more settled, turning inward to wander beneath conscious thought. The felt-damped piano lends a richer, woodier, more organic sound as the music follows hidden paths through familiar and uncharted territory alike.

Thomas Bartlett, also known as Doveman, is an American pianist, producer and singer. Alongside four solo records as Doveman, he has released four albums with The Gloaming and duo recordings with Nico Muhly and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh. His production credits include Yoko Ono, St. Vincent, Norah Jones and Florence + the Machine, while his collaboration with Sufjan Stevens on 'Mystery of Love' earned Academy Award and Grammy nominations.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nitida
2. Eglanteria
3. Sericea
4. Viridiflora
5. Pendulina
6. Villosa
7. Candida
8. Polyantha
9. Persica
10. Alba

Karl Bartos, renowned as an essential member and songwriter of Kraftwerk during their most innovative years, is reissuing his solo album 'Communication' on Hamburg’s Bureau B. First released in 2003, 13 years after leaving the legendary electronic group, the re-release arrives at a moment when its central theme, the transformation of culture through electronic media, feels more relevant than ever.

When Bartos departed Kraftwerk in 1990, he left behind a catalogue that had redefined electronic music: 'The Model', 'The Robots', 'Numbers', 'Pocket Calculator' and many more bear his imprint as co-writer and melody-maker. With the sharp witted electro-pop of 'Communication', the Kraftwerk legend extended that legacy, turning his focus toward a rapidly evolving media landscape at the turn of the millennium. At the time, the album’s exploration of celebrity culture, digital imagery, and the early internet felt like a glimpse into the future. Today, it reads as sharp cultural analysis of a reality that has since become ordinary.

Two decades later, this reissue allows 'Communication' to be reconsidered on its own terms. The questions Bartos posed, about image saturation, reality fragmentation, and identity commodification, resonate more strongly in the age of smartphones, social media, and streaming platforms than they did in the early 2000s. 

TRACK LISTING

1. The Camera
2. I'm The Message
3. 15 Minutes Of Fame
4. Reality
5. Electronic Apeman
6. Life 
7. Cyberspace 
8. Interview 
9. Ultraviolet 
10. Camera Obscura 
11. Another Reality

Musician and writer Karl Bartos has long been admirer of Weimar-era culture. During his time in Kraftwerk, he helped create the stunning track 'Metropolis', directly inspired by a band viewing of the classic 1927 Fritz Lang film of the same name.

The original orchestral music composed for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by Giuseppe Becce had long been lost and in 2005, after watching the film, Bartos imagined what it would be like to create an entirely new one in the 21st Century in his home studios in Hamburg. Now with crystal clear images, digitally restored by the Friedrich-Wilhelm -Murnau-Foundation, the film is visually the best quality it has ever been, and now, with Bartos' soundtrack, there is impressive sound to go with the haunting vision. Narrative film music and sound design for Robert Wiene's classic 1920 psychological thriller.

For the task, Bartos ransacked his own library of musical compositions, recreating pieces he had written as a young classical musician in his pre-Kraftwerk days whilst creating new sounds, melodies and textures. The intention was not simply to write a film score per se. This was to be an immersive listening experience with special sound effects to match the action as we enter the film as both spectator and participant. A creaking door, footsteps on gravel, the turning of pages in a ledger, a half-heard fragment of dialogue are seamlessly synchronised to the action on screen. By taking the characteristics of Expressionism in the arts, and transferring them into film making, a disturbing, distorted depiction of reality enwrapped and entrapped the viewer.

The subjective replaces the objective. We are sucked into a parallel world lit in menacing chiaroscuro, where dimension, proportion and perspective are all off skew. From the convex polygon-shaped windows of precipitously sharp-inclined buildings to the surreally odd tables and chairs with long spindly legs to be found in preposterously small and oddly shaped rooms, alienating camera angles and impossible vanishing points, the town of Holstenwall in which much of the action takes place, is the world of the imagination, not the empirical world of our own eyes and ears. 'The cinema image must become an engraving,' the film's set designer Hermann Warm said. We can hear melodies that lie within the tradition of the Baroque Age of Bach, the early Romanticism of Mozart, the dissonance of Schoenberg, the unsettling metric play of Stravinsky and the harshly dramatic repetitions of Philip Glass.

From outside of the classical tradition there is the folklorist bricolage of the fair- ground barrel organ tempered playfully by some psychedelic backwards musique concrete along with some melodies which would not have been out of place on a Kraftwerk album from the classic era. All the time the listener is on a journey, sounds move in and out, music weaves and entwines, the soundscape is immersive and intoxicatingly rich. It is music which is, by turns, beautiful, amusing, playful and profoundly dis- quieting and it is perfect fit for the aesthetic of era-jumping in the actual film. Dr. Caligari's action switches from the then present day to the past century and even further back before rebooting back to the imagined present. 'There's something about this film. No matter how often you watch it, it keeps its secrets. Who is mad and who is not always remains a question of interpretation,' says Bartos. The film remains an enigma, but now one with the soundtrack and soundscape it deserves.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's a classic format isn't it, wise synth maestro crafts found-sound collage (in this instance it's his own 'lost sounds' that got 'found'), over classic psychological thriller. It's on Bureau B, and Karl Bartos and it's an absorbing and beautifully crafted listen. What's not to love.

TRACK LISTING

1. Prologue
2. Scary Memories
3. Atonal Floating
4. Full Of Life
5. In The Town Hall
6. At The Funfair
7. A Mysterious Crime
8. At The Funfair 2
9. The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari
10. Jane's Theme
11. March Grotesque 2
12. Janeâs Theme 2
13. Shadows
14. Tragic Message
15. Suspicion
16. Tragic Message 2
17. The Plan
18. A Dark Figure
19. Caligari's Theme
20. Arrest Of The Suspect
21. Caligari's Theme 2
22. Worried Jane
23. Interrogation
24. Jane's Fear
25. Francis's Observation
26. Cesare's Attack And Escape
27. Safe And Sound
28. Francis At A Loss
29. Caligari's Deception
30. Lunatic Asylum
31. In Search Of The Truth
32. Out In The Field
33. The Director Rants And Rages
34. Scary Memories 2
35. Who's Mad Here?
36. Francis Rants And Rages
37. Epilogue

Some of the most beautiful, era-defining music has been co-composed by Karl Bartos. 'The Robots', 'Computer Love', 'Neon Lights', 'Tour De France' and Kraftwerk's 1982 number one single 'The Model' all contain his deft musical touch. For the first time, in The Sound of the Machine, Bartos speaks candidly and with wit and humour about his life in Kraftwerk, a band widely acknowledged as being one of the most important in modern music.

In The Sound of the Machine, Karl vividly recalls what it was like to be in the Kling Klang studios during recording, describing the process and perfectly capturing the joy and passion of three people composing and recording. Now, with a successful solo career of 30 years, Karl Bartos recalls his post-war childhood, the amazement he felt on first hearing The Beatles, his first bands, his parallel career as a musician and teacher, his years with Kraftwerk, and his hopes and fears for today's musical culture. 'Full and frank disclosure of life in the world's most influential electronic band...

Gary Bartz (alto & soprano sax, vocals) - Charles Mims (piano, syntheziser) - Curtis Robertson (electric bass, back vocals) - Howard King (drums). A fantastic live recorded in Bremen on 8th November 1975 set from reedman Gary Bartz – captured here with his ultra-hip NTU group – who you might know from their classic albums on Milestone in the 70s! 1 hour and 46 minutes of free and spiritual jazz.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nation Time (Live)
2. Ju Ju Man (Live)
3. Medley: Rise / Celestial Blues / The Sounding Song / Incident / Uhuru Saga (Live)
4. Peace And Love (Live)
5. Sifa Zote (Live)
6. I've Known Rivers (Live)
7. Sweet Tooth

The shadow that Gary Bartz casts over the last six decades of progressive Black music, and his continued dedication to same, makes him a logical and very welcome contributor to the Jazz Is Dead label. An alto saxophonist steeped in the history and tradition of his instrument who is also restlessly experimental and not prone to purism of any kind, he enjoys both the respect and admiration of his peers and the hero worship of several generations after him – including Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, which inevitably led to Gary Bartz JID 006.

A look at his body of work reveals dalliances with bebop, hard bop, free jazz, spiritual jazz, soul jazz, jazz-funk, fusion and acid jazz, all while resolutely remaining unmistakably Gary Bartz. There's early work with Eric Dolphy and McCoy Tyner in Charles Mingus' Jazz Workshop, work with Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, a stint in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and also one with Miles. There's his groundbreaking and highly influential Ntu Troop albums of the early ‘70s and his jazz-funk work including two classic albums with the Mizell Brothers, one of which supplied A Tribe Called Quest with a sample that was smooth like butter. And while on the subject of samples, the Bartz catalog has provided hip-hop and other genres with a rich source of them, and artists who have gone to his well when producing beats also include Black Sheep, Jurassic 5, Casual, RPM, Warren G, Photek, Statik Selektah, Chi-Ali, 3rd Bass, Showbiz, ZTrip, Young Disciples, and many others.

The socio-political content of much of Bartz’s work, particularly during the early ‘70s, is another factor that has captured the attention of and influenced many. He was wide awake to the pressing issues of his day, which sadly haven't changed much in a half-century—long before the term "woke" was ever coined—which adds continued relevance and resonance to albums like the two Harlem Bush Music LPs. Speaking his mind and expressing thoughts and feelings lyrically and vocally were a consistent aspect of his work during this era, but even with all this there's always still a space within Gary's oeuvre for the celebration of simple and beautiful basic truths. “Working with Gary Bartz epitomizes the ethos behind Jazz Is Dead,” says Younge. “He’s a luminary that has contributed so much to music culture, for decades. His musical ability is expanding with age and we’re honored to be a part of his world.”

"Day By Day" brings Bartz full circle by placing him in a more modern context which he contributed to creating in the first place. It takes certain sonic cues from Muhammad's old group, A Tribe Called Quest, while also calling to mind neo-soul a little bit. But the icing on the cake is the unexpected and gorgeous vocal chorus which is like the sun coming out and which once again harks back to an element familiar to Mizell fans. With its propulsive bassline steadily prodding the track along, "The Message" is strongly rooted in classic ‘70s modal jazz and serves as the spiritual and emotional centerpiece of the album. The instrumental interplay and textures would have been perfectly at home on the Black Jazz label even though there's also a certain almost intangible postmodern, 21st century approach to that style, perfectly in keeping with Bartz's well-known tendency to look forward, not backwards.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Spiritual Ideation
A2. Visions Of Love
A3. Black & Brown
A4. Blue Jungles
B1. Day By Day
B2. Distant Mode
B3. The Message
B4. Soulsea

Julianna Barwick’s revelatory third album, ‘Will’, is the Brooklyn experimental artist’s most surprising left turn to date. Conceived and self-produced over the past year in a variety of locations, the compelling ‘Will’ departs from the weighty lightness of 2013’s ‘Nepenthe’.

If ‘Nepenthe’ conjured images of gentle fog rolling over desolate mountains, then ‘Will’ is a late afternoon thunderstorm, a cathartic collision of sharp and soft textures that sounds ominous and restorative all at once.

‘Will’ comes after Barwick’s busiest period to date in her career following ‘Nepenthe’ - a spate of activity that included playing piano for Yoko Ono, performing at the 25th annual Tibet House Benefit Concert alongside such kindred spirits as The Flaming Lips and Philip Glass, releasing the ‘Rosabi’ EP and delivering a reimagining of Bach’s ‘Adagio’ from Concerto In D Minor.

Her life over the past several years has largely been lived in transit and as such the genesis of ‘Will’ was not beholden to location; Barwick reflects on this cycle of constant motion. “You’re constantly adjusting, assimilating, and finding yourself in life-changing situations.” That sense of forward propulsion is largely owed to ‘Will’s synth-heavy textures, an ingredient she was inspired to add to her vocal loop-heavy formula after demoing a new prototype analogue sequencer for Moog.

Another new wrinkle ‘Will’ introduces in Barwick’s sound: Mas Ysa’s Thomas Arsenault, who lends his richly complex vocals to ‘Same’ and ‘Someway’.

The beguiling, beautifully complicated ‘Will’ is the latest proof yet of Barwick’s irresistibly engaging talent as a composer and vocalist.

Julianna has recently collaborated with Moog and MoMa, lending her prestige as both a musician and artist as a whole.

TRACK LISTING

St. Apolonia
Nebula
Beached
Same
Wist
Big Hollow
Heading Home
Someway
See, Know

Four years on from the release of her last, critically acclaimed LP, Julianna Barwick returns with “Healing Is A Miracle”.

A distinctive meditation on sound, reverb and the voice, “Healing Is A Miracle” is a record built on improvisation and a close affinity to a couple of trusted items of gear, from which she spins engrossing, expansive universes. Additionally, Barwick draws on the input of three collaborators with whom she has nurtured deep friendships with over the years: Jónsi (Sigur Rós), Nosaj Thing and Mary Lattimore; who each gently nudge out at the edges of her organically-evolved sound.

Recorded in the wake of a seismic shift in her life following a move from New York—where she had lived for 16 years—to Los Angeles where she is now based, the title of the record came to her after thinking about how the human body heals itself, of the miraculous processes we pay little attention to: “You cut your hand, it looks pretty bad, and two weeks later it looks like it never happened… That’s kind of amazing, you know?” It’s a sentiment that feels particularly apt for the moment. From there, she conceived of the record’s simple statement title, ran it past a couple of friends, and it was settled. Like with the record itself, and all of her work, it’s about following her gut, and seeing where it takes her.

“Healing Is A Miracle” began life in spring of last year, when Barwick sat down with her vocal looping set-up and began sketching out some ideas for new solo material. “It had been so long since I had done that,” she recalls, “making something for myself, just for the love of it… it was emotional, because I was recording music that was just from the heart, that wasn't for an 'assignment' or project… it brought me to tears a little”.

Part of the joy also came from a small but significant switch up to her recording process: the addition of some studio monitors—a birthday gift from Jónsi and Alex (Somers)—having previously recorded all of her music on headphones. “The first song I remember making with those was the first song on the album, Inspirit.” she explains, “When I added the bass I really felt it in my body, you know, in a way you just wouldn’t with headphones… it was kind of euphoric and fun. I got really excited about making the record in that moment, and I think that really had an impact on the sounds I ended up making.”

Excitement too came from the chance to work with three dream collaborators. Her connection to Jónsi began via producer Alex Somers, when Barwick flew to Reykjavík to record some sessions with him for her 2013 record “Nepenthe”, a trip which would begin a long-standing affinity with Iceland and the people she connected with there. “I think he has the best voice in the world,” she says, “and hearing my voice with Jonsi's is one of the joys of my life.” Nosaj Thing—the highly respected electronic producer and stalwart of the LA scene who has worked with the likes of Kendric Lamar—had gotten in touch to express his affection for her 2011 album “The Magic Place”, and they’d since been trying to find a way to work together. Barwick and Lattimore had struck up a friendship over many years performing live together, and had moved to LA around the same time. Finding herself in the same city as all three for the first time, it felt natural to include them in her process, and added to the feeling of newness, support and friendship she had while producing the record.

Beyond her records, Barwick’s impressive live shows have gained incredible praise over the years from the likes of The Guardian—who described her performance as “exquisite in its eloquence, reflection and compassion” in their 5* review—The New York Times, NPR, and more. She has also supported and performed with an amazing array of artists including Bon Iver, Grouper, Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Rós, Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen, Perfume Genius, Mas Ysa, and Nat Baldwin.

Barwick has additionally been involved in some head-turning collaborations over the years. In 2015 she took part in The Flaming Lips’s Carnegie Hall show, performing music from their reimagining of “Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band”, alongside Phillip Glass, Debbie Harry, Laurie Anderson and Pattie Smith. That same year she was invited to play two shows with Yoko Ono, one at MoMA (“my favorite thing ever”) and one in Central Park. In 2012 she released a collaborative album with Helado Negro as OMBRE, and has also released a collaborative single with Rafael Anton Isarri, on the super-limited Thesis label, and most recently, the “Command Synthesis” EP, on RVNG Intl. sub-label Commend There, which employed AI to build five tracks that responded to the airborne environment outside a hotel room. In 2019 she teamed up with Doug Aitken on his nomadic art project, and created stunning performances in the Massachusett wilderness.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'Healing Is A Miracle' is an absolute triumph of majestic instrumentation, perfectly balanced atmospherics and tasteful collaboration. 'In Light' with Jónsi couldn't have been a more perfect fit, with both of their voices coalescing into one grand, sonic gesture. Stunner.

TRACK LISTING

Inspirit
Oh, Memory Ft. Mary Lattimore
Healing Is A Miracle
In Light Ft. Jónsi
Safe
Flowers
Wishing Well
Nod Ft. Nosaj Thing

Having toured together over the years, Lattimore and Barwick now join forces to co-write and record this full-length album. Their creative synergy brings together harp, voice, and analog synths in a deeply emotional, immersive sound journey. The album was recorded at the Philharmonie de Paris with co-producer Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Beach House). This album continues a unique series of collaborations between the label and the Musée de la Musique, featuring historical instruments in contemporary composition. Since 2017, InFiné and the Philharmonie de Paris have co-developed a series of albums designed to highlight the extraordinary instrument collection of the Musée de la Musique. Following the albums 'InBach' by Arandel (2020) and 'Saturn 63' by Seb Martel (2022), this third release is a meeting of two iconic contemporary ambient voices: Mary Lattimore and Julianna Barwick. The project offers the artists full access to the museum’s playable instruments for recording, sound conservation, and creative reinterpretation.

'Tragic Magic' brings together Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore, two of contemporary ambient, experimental and electronic music’s most celebrated composers, for a unique collaboration at the Philharmonie de Paris, with extraordinary access to the Musée de la Musique’s instrument collection, in partnership with the French label InFiné. The album features seven immersive, evocative compositions guided by the human spirit – intimate, grounded in friendship, both earthly and cosmic – and part of a greater continuum, reflecting the solace and transformative power of artistry across generations.

Co-produced by Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Beach House), 'Tragic Magic' was created in just nine days, a testament to the “musical telepathy” that has developed between Barwick and Lattimore over years of touring and friendship. Arriving in Paris from Los Angeles shortly after the 2025 wildfires, their sessions combined improvisation with the emotions and experiences they carried, in a setting both inspiring and deeply supportive. Lattimore selected harps tracing the instrument’s evolution from 1728 to 1873, while Barwick chose several iconic analog synthesizers, including the Roland JUPITER and Sequential Circuits PROPHET-5. In freeform dialogue between voice and instrument, they create a meditation on tragedy, wonder, and the restorative power of shared experience.

The duo, often joined by Spencer, also explored the city, sharing meals and visiting museums and landmarks, each encounter leaving an impression on their next session. The experience allowed them to work intimately with rare instruments, blending their personal sensibilities with centuries of history, resulting in music that honors the past while remaining a deeply authentic expression of the present.

Throughout 'Tragic Magic', Barwick and Lattimore find something beyond themselves: a sense that while everything may not be okay, beauty persists. Their approach – transforming life into music, observing, feeling, and creating – continues a lineage of creative expression and visionary invention, embodied in the very instruments they employed for this project.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stunning distillation of Lattimore's evocative, syncopated harp strums and deep basses and airy pads from Julianna Barwick's selection of classic analogue synths. Floating vocals soar atop the richly orchestral, but frequently minimalistic backdrop. A wonderfully transportive, endlessly revealing listen.

TRACK LISTING

1. Perpetual Adoration
2. The Four Sleeping Princesses
3. Temple Of The Winds
4. Haze With No Haze
5. Rachel's Song
6. Stardust
7. Melted Moon

Four years in making, Voyeurs In the Dark is Toronto artist Barzin’s fifth studio album. That the album is more cinematic in its scope and conceptual in feel than his previous studio albums can be attributed to the time he spent over the past several years composing the soundtrack for the independent film, Viewfinder. Voyeurs In the Dark retains that cinematic quality, and at the same time infuses the music with elements taken from Jazz, electronica, rock and pop. Having primarily explored the quiet side pop and folk in his previous four albums, Barzin has expanded his musical palate, broadening his sound towards a more an experimental direction, while still retaining his preoccupation with exploring the internal landscape. The uniformity of sound that characterized the previous albums has been abandoned for the expression of differing aspects of the self that at times hold opposing views and desires.

This is best represented in the image chosen for the cover of the album, which depicts three figures in one body. The album seems to be the expression of not one unified self, but the various aspects of the self. Voyeurs In the Dark sees the artist plot a seductive, contemplative route through city haze, shuttling between graceful glimmering interludes, with wonderfully atmospheric songs at every stop. From opener Voyeurs In the Dark’s first guitar strums and the fizz of its drum machine, the record envelopes itself in a glorious shadow, as shown in the slow waltz of I Don’t Want To Sober Up, dancing around its own swirling guitar chords. On Watching, Barzin plunges himself deeper into a wash of cyclic bass, guitar and synth riffs, as the gloom grooves into light. It’s Never Too Late To Lose Your Life has a much more affirming and urgent tone, shade turning into shapes and motion, while To Be Missed In the End builds its own smoke in a cloud of saxophone and sparse guitar notes, closing out a record full to the brim with scatterbrain beauty and eclectic dusk.

TRACK LISTING

1. Voyeurs In The Dark
2. Born Yesterday
3. Knife In The Water
4. Watching
5. Golden Stairs
6. I Don’t Want To Sober Up
7. Impossible Voice
8. It’s Never Too Late To Lose Your Life
9. Forever Arriving
10. To Be Missed In The End
11. Distant Memories

Limited edition red vinyl reissue with DL card of the agit pop four-piece’s second album, Baby U Know. A heady collision of Raincoats-esque indie and ESG-paced rhythms fed through a kaleidoscopic pagan folk filter. The follow up to their critically acclaimed 2018 debut Yes I Jan, this release is a wordy slice of state-of-the-art social commentary wrapped in a perfectly-balanced soundscape that veers from funky minimalism to baroque dream pop.

With a hint of Ari Up styled vocals backed by a harmonious chorus of concern touching on everything from incantations, essential causes and systematic shopping, all underpinned by a raking violin and bewitching electronic hum.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Progressive Causes
A2 Sex Cult
A3 All Forgotten
A4 My Incantations, Herbs & Art Have Abandoned Me
A5 Vision Of Change
Side B
B1 Shopping In A New City
B2 You Have Bewitched Me
B3 Baby You Know
B4 Too Good To Be True
B5 Profile Picture – OTO Version

Bas Jan return with a polished and poignant collection of perfectly-crafted pop songs that retains their authentic indie edginess. ‘Back To The Swamp’ is a heady tussle between their incorrigible DIY ethics and new responsibilities.

Serafina Steer, Charlotte Stock, Emma Smith and Rachel Horwood cast an examining eye over modern times, lost love, Tarot intuition and long days in an everyday swamp. Awash with lush chorale effects, orchestral hewn loops, pin sharp electronic beats and sublime harmonies. Back To The Swamp is filled with thought-provoking stories, it’s a reflective worldview. It’s a polished and poignant collection of perfectly-crafted pop songs that retains their authentic indie edginess.

These new studio recordings feature more accomplished pop production; filled with cerebral one-liners that pluck at the senses. And, there’s a nod to an eclectic mix of influences; The Pet Shop Boys, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Kate Bush, Heaven 17 and Jon Hassell by way of Brian Eno.

Witches, Tarot readings, road signs, Salt-N-Pepa namechecks and a river all cried out, welcome to the swamp…

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
A1 At The Counter
A2 No More Swamp
A3 Credit Card
A4 Ding Dong
A5 Margaret Calvert Drives Out
SIDE B
B1 Back To The Swamp
B2 Singing Bar
B3 Cried A River
B4 Tarot Card

Partly formed out of the Art Department of London's Island Records HQ in 1978, Basement 5 were an innovative and highly original black post punk group who created a kind of politically charged, futurist dub. Their lyrics were an attempt to reflect the situation of young people in Britain in the era of Thatcherism, high unemployment, strikes, racism and working class poverty. The seething resentment, dub noise and sheet metal riffage was welded into a mighty sound by Hannett that stands the test of time.

In an unparalleled age of crate digging and reissue programs, Basement 5 is one of the few remaining great untold stories of its time. Vinyl has been out of print for over 30 years. 

“You have to play it very loud to enjoy it fully. It was the most difficult production, I must say, the heaviest. It was eighteen degrees in the shade, the end of August. As I recall it has been the most physical album that I’ve ever done. Made me feel like I’d been carrying bricks around. Heavy work. Putting the bass lines in the right place. But it was good.” - Martin Hannett, 1981

Unfiltered and raw, Basement's 'Colourmeinkindness', cuts with the emotional honesty of a personal diary backed with a flawlessly representative soundtrack.

TRACK LISTING

1. Whole
2. Covet
3. Spoiled
4. Pine
5. Bad Apple
6. Breathe
7. Control
8. Black
9. Comfort
10. Wish

Nestled away in the UKs quiet, picturesque east coast town of Ipswich, the lads in Basement are conflicted between the comfort of the beautiful familiar and the allure of escape. This duality pervades the band's existence. As frontman Andrew Fisher's gravelly yowl skips and stretches over driving rhythms and poignant guitar melodies, its clear Basement expertly walk the line between the contrasts of heartrending pop and gruff post-hardcore. When working through a slow-burning mid-tempo or pounding out driving punk, Basement has a quiet layer of jagged desperation weaving songs together under the smooth melodic surface. Much like a coming of age, the songs are toiling, torn and bursting at the seams.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fading
2. Plan To Be Surprised
3. Canada Square
4. Crickets Throw Their Voice
5. Earl Grey
6. Ellipses
7. Every Single Word
8. Yoke
9. Grayscale
10. March

Nestled away in the UKs quiet, picturesque east coast town of Ipswich, the lads in Basement are conflicted between the comfort of the beautiful familiar and the allure of escape. This duality pervades the band's existence. As frontman Andrew Fisher's gravelly yowl skips and stretches over driving rhythms and poignant guitar melodies, its clear Basement expertly walk the line between the contrasts of heartrending pop and gruff post-hardcore. When working through a slow-burning mid-tempo or pounding out driving punk, Basement has a quiet layer of jagged desperation weaving songs together under the smooth melodic surface. Much like a coming of age, the songs are toiling, torn and bursting at the seams.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fading
2. Plan To Be Surprised
3. Canada Square
4. Crickets Throw Their Voice
5. Earl Grey
6. Ellipses
7. Every Single Word
8. Yoke
9. Grayscale
10. March

'WIRED' is a hard reset for Basement. It marks the British band’s first album in eight years, a reunion with their original label Run For Cover Records, and a return to making music with the unbridled passion and creative intuition that’s always animated their best material. Since forming in 2009, Basement have always been the same five friends -- vocalist Andrew Fisher, guitarists Alex Henery and Ronan Crix, bassist Duncan Stewart, and drummer James Fisher -- with the same alchemic bond. The only thing that’s changed in recent years is their renewed sense of purpose, and their new album makes that loudly apparent. Wired is the most dynamic, daring, and inspired Basement have ever sounded, while also retaining the timeless fundamentals of the band’s singular sound: growling guitars, rousing choruses, striking emotional verbiage.

Basement are back firing on all cylinders, but they’re not interested in rehashing old glories. The whole band was adamant that 'WIRED' had to be their most decisive artistic statement yet. Title-track 'WIRED' is the most urgent they’ve ever sounded, a surefire live staple propelled by needling guitars, a slugging drumbeat, and a skyscraping hook that finds Fisher’s voice in peak form. 'Broken By Design' has the opposite temperament: dusky, delicate, bass-led, but still quintessentially Basement in its immediate catchiness and moody character. Nothing on Wired sounds stagnant. Not one part feels undercooked. The band looked to a smorgasbord of adventurous heroes for inspiration (REM, Interpol, Smashing Pumpkins, to name a few) without ever sounding like they’re imitating any one band -- not even themselves.

The record’s title condenses all of this into a single word. The textural connotations of 'WIRED' -- metallic, sharp, jagged -- evoke the album’s steely sonics, and on a more conceptual level, the title speaks to Basement’s unshakeable tenacity. An analog band who’ve thrived in an increasingly digital world without resting on the comforts of nostalgia. Five friends who’ve persisted through several breakups and breakthroughs, but have only grown as people and evolved as a musical unit. At this point, Basement have to accept their fate: they’re wired for this shit.

TRACK LISTING

1. Time Waster
2. WIRED
3. Deadweight
4. Broken By Design
5. Pick Up The Pieces
6. Embrace
7. Sever
8. The Way I Feel
9. Satisfy
10. Head Alight
11. Longshot
12. Summer’s End

Basement Jaxx revisit their anthem ‘Where’s Your Head At’ with a 2026-ready remix from Swedish House Mafia’s Steve Angello. It recharges the original’s big beat energy for today’s rejuvenated UK bassline club culture - nostalgic but forward-facing. The release follows Angello’s set at Ultra in Miami and precedes a summer of touring for Jaxx, including a huge headline set at Boiler Room Festival in London.

TRACK LISTING

1. Basement Jaxx - Where's Your Head At (Steve Angello Remix)
2. Basement Jaxx - Where's Your Head At (Original 12” Mix)

"Crazy Itch Radio" certainly scratches the spot, with Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton swerving from all-out drama on the operatic intro straight into the jet-packed kaleidoscopic pop of the future hit single "Hush Boy" which features live collaborator Vula Malinga, last heard on "Oh My Gosh". Rammed up next, "Take Me Back To Your House" is a sexy, energetic moment of what they're calling 'banjo house'. There's also Balkan folk woven into vocals from Swedish pop sensation Robyn on "Hey U", a hyper grime tune cussing vain boys from East London's Lady Marga, titled "Run 4 Cover" (previewed on one of their Stop label 10"s), and "Lights Go Down", a Wil Malone-scored beauty with legendary British singer Linda Lewis.

The third BASEMENT JAXX album KISH KASH features an array of stellar guest vocalists including punk icon Siouxsie Sioux on the title track, London grime superstar Dizzee Rascal on “Lucky Star”, the mighty pipes of Rock n’ Soul diva Lisa Kekaula (of LA”s “The Bellrays” ) on “Good Luck” and rounds off with the mellow tones of Meshell Ndegeocello.

Released on XL Recordings in 2004, the album subsequently won the inaugural GRAMMY award for “Best Dance/Electronic Album” and was nominated for the UK’s prestigious Mercury Prize.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Good Luck (ft. Lisa Kekaula)
A2. Right Here’s The Spot (ft. Meshell Ndegeocello)
A3. Petrilude
A4. Supersonic Ft. Totlyn Jackson
B1. Benjilude
B2. Lucky Star (ft. Dizzee Rascal)
B3. Plug It In (ft. JC Chasez)
C1. Living Room
C2. Cish Cash (ft. Siouxsie Sioux)
C3. Tonight (ft. Phoebe)
D1. Hot ‘n’ Cold
D2. Cosmolude
D3. If I Ever Recover
D4. Feels Like Home (ft. Meshell Ndegeocello)

Remedy is Basement Jaxx’s joyous debut album from 1999. It was one of the most assured, propul-sive full-lengths the dance world had seen since Daft Punk’s Homework. A set of incredibly diverse tracks, Remedy is indebted to the raw American house of Todd Terry and Masters at Work, and even shares a penchant for Latin vibes (especially on the horn-driven “Bingo Bango” and the opener, “Rendez-Vu,” which trades a bit of salsa wiggle with infectious vocoderized disco).

TRACK LISTING

A1. Romeo
A2. Breakaway
A3. SFM
B1. Jus 1 Kiss
B2. Broken Dreams
B3. I Want U
C1. Get Me Off
C2. Where’s Your Head At
D1. Do Your Thing
D2. Freakalude
D3. Crazy Girl
D4. All I Know

Named after their infamous Brixton club night, Basement Jaxx’s second album Rooty saw Basement Jaxx continue to push the boundaries of pop and club music. The album mixes classic house with generous lashings of punk, funk, R&B, jazz, hip hop, 2-step and pop song-craft in a mad genre crash that works like a charm. It features the massive tracks “Where’s Your Head At”, “Romeo” and “Do Your Thing”.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Romeo
A2. Breakaway
A3. SFM
B1. Jus 1 Kiss
B2. Broken Dreams
B3. I Want U
C1. Get Me Off
C2. Where’s Your Head At
D1. Do Your Thing
D2. Freakalude
D3. Crazy Girl
D4. All I Know

Basement Jaxx are back with their fifth long player, "Scars". The set features a host of special guests including Yoko Ono, Sam Sparro, Santigold, Kelis and Chipmunk, and is as innovative in its sound as it is in its vision. Their sound still remains as urgent and as impactful as ever – there's no need for Basement Jaxx to try and embrace any kind of retro outlook to their music. From the Top 20 smash hit summer anthem of "Raindrops" featuring Felix's twisted vocals, to the string-drenched, grime-esque title track "Scars2 and the gorgeous "My Turn", which features Lightspeed Champion on vocals, Basement Jaxx deliver an album that outshines any dance act in the UK.

Heavy Eyes is the debut album from Canadian indie-rock trio Basement Revolver. There’s an air of weariness pervading the album, with the sleepy title Heavy Eyes summing up a general exhaustion right down to the bone, as well as hinting at a heavier direction as they deftly merge 90s infused indie rock with fuzzy dreamy pop and poignant, yearning lyrics. Unable to disguise the emotion in her voice, songwriter Chrisy Hurn shares intimate stories and personal wounds from her past, revealing a deeply affecting and rewarding set of songs.

Bringing together the talents of Chrisy Hurn (vocals, guitar), Nimal Agalawatte (bass, synth) and Brandon Munro (drums), the band hail from Hamilton, Ontario and were named Basement Revolver due to Chrisy’s basement apartment, rather than any trigger happy leanings. Their ascent to the spotlight has been a steady trajectory, capitalising on the success of their debut single “Johnny” in 2016. The track garnered endorsements from DIY Magazine and Exclaim! as well as respected tastemakers Gold Flake Paint, who hailed it a “‘favourite song of the year” contender. They had stumbled across a sound that is capable of stripping listeners of inhibition, yet heavy hitting enough to leave a lasting impression.

On the back of “Johnny”, they were signed by Memphis Industries’ UK sub-label fear of missing out records, who released their debut self-titled EP in 2016 with “Johnny” and their second single “Words” reaching the higher echelon of the Hype Machine chart and the EP flagged up in several end of year lists. They followed this up with the Agatha EP in 2017 where the single “Bread & Wine” reached the B-list on Radio BBC 6 Music and also garnered support from John Kennedy at Radio X. The band have racked up over one million plays on Spotify across the two EPs.

In a relatively short time, Basement Revolver have successfully encapsulated the yearning and hopefulness of their generation, whilst harnessing a unique, yet familiar soundscape.

TRACK LISTING

1. Baby
2. Johnny
3. Dancing
4. Friends
5. Knocking
6. Johnny Pt. 2
7. Words
8. Wait
9. Tree Trunks
10. You’re Okay
11. Heavy Eyes
12. Diamonds

Recommended If You Like: Regina Spektor, Dolly Parton, Fleet Foxes (or something like Fleet Foxes), Jeff Tweedy, Dougie Poole, The idea of Kishi Bashi going Americana.

Over the last several years, the critically acclaimed composer and adventurous multi-instrumentalist Kishi Bashi has travelled frequently to Montana and Wyoming to work on Omoiyari, a “song film” about Japanese internment during WWII. The experience was potent for Kishi Bashi, who conducted research for the film (and 2019 album of the same name) by speaking to internment camp incarcerees and descendents. These conversations led to him reflecting on his own identity as a Japanese-American while laying the foundation of his forthcoming Emigrant EP.

Along with the brutal history and harsh climate of the American West, Kishi Bashi also sensed a hope and potential, compassion, and resilience. In Emigrant EP, he celebrates these qualities. Arranged and recorded over the last year, the six tracks serve as a time capsule of the 2020 condition and a continuation of the concepts explored in Omoiyari. What’s more, they find Kishi Bashi rewriting musical tradition in the image of his own experience, further embracing his love for roots music and violin fiddling. Meditating on the anxieties of the COVID-19 pandemic, the comforts of nature, the pains of resource-fueled conflicts, and the resiliency that emerges from struggle, Emigrant EP is steeped in the past while it looks to the future. “I want to understand the history, but also dive in and really try to humanize it,” he says. “I’m trying to show how we’re all the same type of human being. We have the same desires and needs, to protect our loved ones and also to celebrate the everyday.”

TRACK LISTING

1 Cascades
2 Wait For Springtime
3 Laughing With
4 Early Morning Breeze
5 Those Days Are Gone
6 Town Of Pray

The latest full-length from Kishi Bashi, 'Kantos' is a work of exquisite duality: a party album about the possible end of humanity as we know it, at turns deeply unsettling and sublimely joyful. In a sonic departure from the symphonic folk of his critically lauded 2019 LP 'Omoiyari' a career-defining body of work born from his intensive meditation on the mass incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II the Seattle-born singer/songwriter/producer’s fifth studio album encompasses everything from Brazilian jazz and ’70s funk to orchestral rock and city pop (a Japanese genre that peaked in the mid-’80s). Informed by an equally kaleidoscopic mix of inspirations the cult-classic sci-fi novel series Hyperion Cantos, the writings of 18th century enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, a revelatory trip to ancient ruins on the island of Crete Kantos ultimately serves as an unbridled exaltation of the human spirit and all its wild complexities.

During the earliest stages of creating songs for the album, Ishibashi’s main intent was to return to his highly eclectic musical roots, in part by tapping into his jazz background and by delving into the dance-rock-leaning sensibilities he previously embraced as co-founder of Brooklyn-bred indie band Jupiter One. But not too long into the songwriting process, he stumbled upon an AI-equipped website capable of composing catchy song hooks based on a Prompt a turn of events that quickly catalyzed the existential inquiry at the heart of 'Kantos'.

Although his ruminations on AI, transhumanism, and humanity’s troubled fate indelibly guided the making of Kantos, Ishibashi nonetheless views the album as “less of a warning about this kind of hubris but more a celebration of the very characteristics that make us human: desire, passion, empathy, and love.” “If there’s anything I want people to come away with when they hear this record, it’s a feeling of excitement about the possibilities of human-created art,” he says. “Even as we’re learning more about all the amazing things AI can do, I think humans will always be one step ahead in terms of our creativity and innovation. There’s still no limit to what we have to offer.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Violin Akai
2. Chiba Funk
3. Late Night Comic
4. Colorful State
5. Escape From Knossos
6. Icarus IV
7. Hollywood Intermission
8. Lilliputian Chop
9. Analógico Brasil
10. Make Believe
11. Call It Off
12. Tokyo Love Story (Love Story Wa Totsuzen Ni)

RIYL: Ra Ra Riot, Thao, Regina Spektor, Andrew Bird, Typhoon.

"Omoiyari" means to have empathy and consideration for others, and act on it. This fall, the American indie-folk multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Kishi Bashi is set to release the companion album to his forthcoming documentary song film, titled Music from the Song Film: Omoiyari. Consisting of two LPs "The Songs" and "The Score" the release showcases what is essentially the soundtrack to Omoiyari, the feature-length motion picture co-directed by Kishi Bashi, aka Kaoru Ishibashi or "K," which is being released via MTV Documentary Films in November.

Focusing on K's own six-year journey of discovery surrounding his research of the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans that followed the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the film is part social justice documentary and part song-film experiment. The album includes K's live improvisations, which are featured in the documentary, many recorded on the sites where the concentration camps stood. Written during and about the artist's transformational dive into his personal identity and serving as a broad survey of the Japanese American experience as well as the incarceration Music from the Song Film: Omoiyari serves as an evocative musical accompaniment to the lessons of empathy and compassion portrayed in the film and highlights the process and power of one of modern indie's most talented musicians. 

TRACK LISTING

Intro At The Piano
Red, White, And Blue
Improvisation At Heart Mountain
Summer Of ‘42 (orchestral Edition)
Improvisation In The Root Cellar
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A decade ago, Kishi Bashi found himself creatively and emotionally depleted after years of touring behind his acclaimed albums '151a' and 'Lighght'. The orchestral exuberance that once defined his sound had begun to fade, leading him to question his artistic purpose. Out of that exhaustion came 'Sonderlust' (2016), a deeply personal reinvention marked by vulnerability, analog warmth, and spiritual honesty. Stepping away from ornate violin loops, Ishibashi embraced vintage synths and stripped-down textures, creating a record that shimmered with soulful, human energy. Songs like 'Say Yeah', 'Honeybody', and 'Ode to My Next Life' captured both the ache and joy of self-discovery, grounding his lush imagination in lived experience.

Now, with its 10th anniversary reissue, 'Sonderlust' stands as a pivotal work—where Kishi Bashi’s dazzling playfulness gave way to introspection and connection. The new edition features refreshed artwork by original cover artist Ssin Kim, symbolizing growth and renewed perspective. “When you’re younger, the world can feel overwhelming,” Ishibashi reflects. “As you age, you start to see your place in it.” What began as an album of heartbreak has become a timeless meditation on empathy, creativity, and the enduring beauty of being human.

TRACK LISTING

1. M'Lover
2. Hey Big Star
3. Say Yeah
4. Can't Let Go, Juno
5. Ode To My Next Life
6. Who'd You Kill
7. Statues In A Gallery
8. Why Don't You Answer Me
9. Flame On Flame (a Slow Dirge)
10. Honeybody
11. Comin' To You
12. Harpsi Chords
13. M'Lover (Demo-arigato Version)
14. Hey Big Star (Demo-arigato Version)
15. Say Yeah (Demo-arigato Version)
16. Can't Let Go, Juno (Demo-arigato Version)
17. Ode To My Next Life (Demo-arigato Version)
18. Who'd You Kill (Demo-arigato Version)
19. Statues In A Gallery (Demo-arigato Version)
20. Why Don't You Answer Me (Demo-arigato Version)
21. Flame On Flame (a Slow Dirge) (Demo-arigato Version)
22. Honeybody (Demo-arigato Version)

It has been said that Robbie Basho's art was strongest in concert. To what extent the experience can be reconstituted is uncertain. Whatever the case, 'Snow Beneath the Belly of a White Swan' is the mother lode of Basho live recordings. On these five discs we are treated to some remarkable pieces that have never been published, as well as surprising renditions of old favourites. Compiled from Basho’s sprawling personal collection of master tapes (discovered during the production of Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho), and potentially encompassing his entire career, this edition represents a live companion to the studio set Song of the Avatars: The Lost Master Tapes (Tompkins Square, 2020). While the tapes have (in the main) survived incredibly well over the decades (against the odds), please note that some previously unpublished tracks with subpar to poor fidelity have been included.

TRACK LISTING

CD1:
1.Chung Mei - The Chinese Orchid
2. Some Summer Day
3. Sligo River Blues
4. Autumn Nocturne
5. In The Meadows
6. Snow Beneath The Belly Of A White Swan

CD2:
1. The Falconer's Arm
2. Himalayan Highlands
3. The Golden Shamrock
4. Bear Medicine
5. Charles Ives Paints Modern America
6. Portrait Of Fahey As A Young Dragoon

CD3:
1. Song Of God
2. Kowaka D'Amour
3. Pasha
4. Cathedrals Et Fleur De Lis
5. Cantos California

CD4:
1. Green River Suite
2. California Raga
3. Silver Curls
4. The Lady She Is A Waiting
5. Chaconne Fandango
6. Song Of The Stallion
7. A North American Raga (The Plumstar)

CD5:
1. Eagle Sails The Blue Diamond Waters
2. Kateri Tekakwitha
3. Orphan's Lament
4. A Song Of Kings
5. Moon Milk
6. Wonder Song

'Poor Advice' is a bruising concept album that traces the tangled wires between power and those crushed under it. Through 10 tracks, it maps the old dance between church and state in Ireland, where pulpits and governments traded sermons for policy and shaped a generation with guilt, silence, and obedience. It then pulls that thread into the present, following how moral authority has been outsourced to boardrooms and barracks, with the military industrial complex running like a grim metronome: conflict brewed, weapons sold, grief managed, contracts renewed. 'Poor Advice' is the title because it’s all the counsel handed down from above: keep your head down, say your prayers, trust the deal

TRACK LISTING

TBA

Bulat teamed-up with friend and collaborator Jim James of My Morning Jacket on the album’s production, driving 600 miles from her home in Montreal to La La Land recording studio in James’ hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. Bulat originally met James backstage at the Austin City Limits music festival; the two reconnected when she toured with him in the summer of 2013 and became friends. Good Advice is a departure from Bulat’s previous work, with her voice backed up by drums, bass, electric guitar and keys. James plays electric guitar, synth, saxophone and bass on the album; further Louisville guests including members of Houndmouth, Twin Limb, Seth Kauffman of Floating Action and more also join Bulat.

“Pop songs can take all those big statements and those big feelings that you have,” Bulat says. “You don't need to necessarily have everything so detailed because everybody understands. Everybody understands those feelings.” “Basia has something truly unique,” says James. The duo recorded the album over several visits Bulat made to Kentucky. “I knew immediately that it was the exact right place to be,” says Bulat. “To go so far from home, then to find that it felt like home.”
Of the sessions, James recalls, “The entire process was so amazing. Hearing her voice just exploding out of her soul brought us all to tears in the control room. Watching Basia come out of her shell with great power was an extraordinary thing to witness.”

Good Advice follows Bulat’s critically acclaimed Juno and Polaris Music Prize-nominated 2013 release, Tall Tall Shadow, which The Line of Best Fit calls “a brilliant and engaging pop record” and the Austin Chronicle praises for its “lovely, spectral musing that balances indulgence with homespun tendencies.” In the two years since, Bulat has played shows across North America and Europe with Sufjan Stevens, Destroyer, Daniel Lanois, Bahamas and more.

Since the release of her debut album, Oh My Darling, Bulat has shared the stage with artists including Arcade Fire, The National, Nick Cave, St. Vincent, Beirut, Andrew Bird, Tune-Yards, Sondre Lerche, The Tallest Man on Earth, The Head and the Heart, Owen Pallett, Devotchka and many more. Known for her talents on little-known instruments including the autoharp and charango, Bulat has also been tapped for tributes to Leonard Cohen and The Band.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: ‘Good Advice’ is a breath-taking album which is filled with heartache. It begins with her deep soulful voice, it’s bold and resolute then the end of the album shows us an enchanting whimsical finish (the song Someday Soon especially) It’s very emotional; you need to listen to it!

TRACK LISTING

1. La La Lie
2. Long Goodbye
3. Let Me In
4. In The Name Of
5. Time
6. Good Advice
7. Infamous
8. Fool
9. The Garden
10. Someday Soon

Basic Rhythm follows up his album 'On The Threshold' with an EP that lays out the explicit connections between hardcore and footwork. A connection made even clearer by the inclusion of a rare remix by Chicago footwork originator RP Boo. "2 Da Core"'s punchy rolling drums are levelled up against rough samples and a vocal hook pitched up and down in classic hardcore style. "Get Up" runs a tubby bass under hazy vocal samples and weird sound effects. RP Boo's remix of "2 Da Core" disassembles the track into pieces, building a stalking helicopter-like rhythm which plays hide and seek with the samples, while the closing track "Nuh Ramp" rounds off the EP with tumbling micro-edited rhythms and a melody built from small colourful sounds that draw on the Caribbean roots of this music. 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Da Core
A2. Get Up
B1. Da Core (RP Boo Remix)
B2. Nuh Ramp

Basic Rhythm returns to his Jungle roots for his final release with Planet Mu. Harking back to the golden era of the mid 90s, but with a contemporary slant, Basic Rhythm hands in three dance floor killers, with a remix from the grim reaper himself, Loxy. The titular track, Cool Down The Dance, opens with a jittery fragmented drum pattern and wooshing stereo effects, lending a slightly disorienting feel to the intro before the well known vocal refrain leads into a monster amen drop. Deep subs, amen breaks and steely stabs roll out this dance floor banger.

This is followed up with an absolute behemoth of a track. Horse Mout’ utilises an infamous vocal sample in a fresh way, building upon the intro with waves of dubwise effects before launching into a devastating onslaught. With support from scene stalwarts DJ Storm and Flight this one has been smashing up dance floors! The third track is a remix of Cool Down The Dance by Loxy, bringing his inimitable cool production style to the fore, stripping away the amen layers to reveal something for the darker corners of the dance. One for the head noders and the eyes down crew. The final track, Satta, is a nod to the dub of Augustus Pablo, King Tubby, and On U Sound. A slow boiling minimal intro that drops into the extreme minimalism of just a kick drum and sub bass line belies the swagger of the eventual drop. Swinging drums in an almost military pattern tumble and stagger around the core line of kick drum and sub bass, lending this an almost drunken air.

TRACK LISTING

A:

1/Cool Down The Dance
2/Horse Mout'

B:

1/Cool Down The Dance (Loxy Remix)
2/Satta 

Anthoney Hart returns with his second Basic Rhythm album for Planet Mu. 'Electronic Labyrinth' is a maturing of his sound that draws a line under his work as Basic Rhythm thus far. The title itself conveys the overarching theme of the album, evoking the journey through a musical labyrinth that Hart has undertaken over the last 30 years or so, following a path through to the centre where these disparate strands have coalesced and solidified into a coherent whole.

The underlying themes are of a more personal nature, intimated by the cover photo of St Fabian Tower where Hart first joined the now infamous Rude FM in the late 90s, the sometimes misleading directness of the track titles, as well as explicit references to books such as Wilson Harris’ Palace of the Peacocks, the ontological promiscuity of Harris’ writing mirrored here in Hart's own musical endeavours. What you end up with is an album that not only draws upon a wide range of influences from both the musical and literary worlds, intertwining them within a deeply personal context that imbues the music with a depth of meaning, but that is also somehow more coherent despite such a wide range of references and hidden meanings. It is at once both an album of subtexts open to interpretation, and a cohesive whole that fits together perfectly.

TRACK LISTING

A:

1/Craft
2/Hayward Road
3/Acid Track
4/Larkin Around

B:

1/Electronic Labyrinth
2/Techno
3/Palace Of The Peacock
4/The Secret Ladder

BASIC is a mind-meld between Chris Forsyth, his frequent running partner (and formidable 6-string thinker) Nick Millevoi, and Mikel Patrick Avery (Natural Information Society).

"This Is BASIC", their debut album, is a complex and entrancing instrumental LP recasting forgotten scraps of guitar history into a moving mosaic of strings, skins and electronics.

Taking inspiration (and their name) from the 1984 Robert Quine/Fred Maher album ("Basic"), Forsyth and Millevoi got together for a run of low-key jam sessions using an Alesis drum machine for rhythm tracks and forging a collaborative language from angular polyrhythms, pulsing baritone-guitar lines, and shimmering chorus-pedal washes (another stylistic nod, this time to the glistening post-punk of the Durutti Column and numerous 4AD bands).

Avery was soon enlisted on drum kit a setup that quickly morphed into a single drum, bell, and a bespoke electronics rig of his own creation. The trio quickly flowered into an improvisational swirl of disorienting electronics, hypnotic throb, and dense flanged-guitar harmonics: three unique voices spinning a complex conversation of textures and rhythms.

TRACK LISTING

For Stars Of The Air
Nerve Time
Positive Halfway
Last Resort Of The Gambling Man
Versatile Switch
New Auspicious

43°C, the debut LP by French electronic producer Basile3, is the result of a decade of cultivating a musical identity that focuses on hybridization, sonic recycling, and playfulness. The enigmatic title "43°C" signifies a haze of bliss (4+3=7, the producer's lucky number) backdropped by the ecological state of a world that’s grown slightly but surely warmer.

In this anticipation fiction, Basile3 offers a soundtrack that is an exploration of club music, electronica infused with r&b and ambient synths. The French producer warmly invites listeners to his state of mind, blooming with genre-bending floating soundscapes.

Featuring TelmaCappelo, Daisy Ray, Loydfears, Lucy Sissi Miller and Minor Science.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wire Rise Feat. Lloydfears
2. Air Quality
3. Grateful, After All
4. U Stole The Summer
5. Secret Gathering
6. Love Machine Feat. Daisy Ray
7. 4Friends
8. My Window Feat. Lucy Sissy Miller
9. In The Clouds
10. Sirens Feat. Thelma Cappello
11. …And Tuning (Stereo Mix)

Different Strokes For Different Folks are proud to present the first ever vinyl reissue of Al Basim's legendary 'Revival' album, originally released via private press in 1979. Including elements of out-there guitar jams, spiritual jazz, kosmiche soaked rock and Middle Eastern ambience, this is truly a record to live with.

Head of Label, Oz Adams explains why this record is so special: "Every now and again you come across music that feels like you've opened a door to a room you've never been into before. 'Revival' is unique; a kaleidoscopic amalgamation of Arabic, U.S & European influences. Both reflective and deeply soulful, the songs sound like hymns beamed in from a better world."

'Revival' documents Baghdad-born musician Basim Al-Hashimi's once in a lifetime trip to the U.S in 1978 where his concoction of Arabic styles with the Western '60s and '70s rock so beloved of his youth came together to produce a record almost impossible to categorize. Led by his melodic guitar playing, the band move from psychedelic excursions through to meditative ambient sections, jazz inflected grooves and joyful, progressive motifs. Licensed directly from Basim Al Hashimi himself, this reissue package includes an interview with the man himself, outlining his journey towards the creation of both his U.S experience and the masterpiece it produced, as well as photos sourced from his personal archive.

Despite several attempts, 'Revival' has never been reissued before, so Different Strokes For Different Folks are delighted to release this milestone once again.

TRACK LISTING

1. History Of The World
2. Poitiers
3. Souvenir
4. One Camel In Alaska
5. Open Space

William Basinski’s reputation as the foremost producer of profound meditations on death and decay has long been established, but on his new album, Lamentations, he transforms operatic tragedy into abyssal beauty. More than any other work since The Disintegration Loops, there is an ominous grief throughout the album, and that sense of loss lingers like an emotional vapor.

Captured and constructed from tape loops and studies from Basinski’s archives – dating back to 1979 – Lamentations is over forty years of mournful sighs meticulously crafted into songs. They are shaped by the inevitable passage of time and the indisputable collapsing of space – and their collective resonance is infinite and eternal.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As one of the most legendary tape-loop sound designers out there, Basinski has a long and prolific career, excelling at exaclty this sort of hazy sorrowful electronic ambient. It's a beguiling outing, and possibly his greatest since the rightfully lauded Disintegration Loops.

TRACK LISTING

1. For Whom The Bell Tolls (4:10)
2. The Wheel Of Fortune (3:20)
3. Paradise Lost (1:23)
4. Tear Vial (4:46)
5. O, My Daughter, O, My Sorrow (6:43)
6. Passio (6:21)
7. Punch And Judy (3:07)
8. Silent Spring (6:20)
9. Transfiguration (3:37)
10. All These Too, I, I Love (11:07)
11. Please, This Shit Has Got To Stop (5:05)
12. Fin (1:37)

In the realm of past-life regression hypnotherapy, there is a concept known as “Life Between Lives,” wherein a sacred exchange of energy occurs between two souls in the spirt world, helping a spirit fully understand and forgive a being who hurt them in a past life. This exchange – called “passing the cup of sorrows” – became the unexpected inspiration for William Basinski’s first new album in six years.

While sinking deeper into the daily abyss of our collective negativity bias, William Basinski stumbled upon a video describing the spiritual hypnotherapy exercise known as “passing the cup of sorrows.” Fixed on the glow of a screen that projected mounting anxiety and cynicism at a seemingly interminable pace, Basinski found the testimonials of this fascinating therapeutic practice to be profoundly moving. He sat at his piano, translating the transformation of those traumatic memories of past lives into cathartic tears of the present day.

Channeling the quiet curiosity and asymmetrical patterns of pioneering 20th Century composer, Morton Feldman, Passing the Cup of Sorrows is a single 40-minute piece that employs a solitary piano and subtle electronics to truly haunting effect. It recalls fragments of traumatic memories and projects them as fractals in a slow-moving soft focus that’s as eerie as it is enlightened.

TRACK LISTING

1. Passing the Cup of Sorrows (37:46)

The first new release by iconic composer, William Basinski, since the hugely acclaimed Lamentations (2020). September 23rd is the first release in William Basinski's new Arcadia Archive series. Recorded in September 1982 in his first loft in the pre-gentrified DUMBO neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York, September 23rd is a recently unearthed early entry in what has become a hugely inspirational and influential catalogue. Built from a piano piece that Basinski composed in high school in the mid-1970s, September 23rd quickly evolved into a vastly different work.

As Basinski explains: "The original piano recordings were made on a piano belonging to my downstairs neighbour, John Epperson – later known more famously as world-renowned drag artist, Lypsinka – at 351 Jay Street aka Casa Degli Artisti, our first loft in New York. It was recoded with a little portable (probably Radio Shack) cassette deck sitting on the piano as I improvised a piece I had been working on since high school. It was pretty terrible, but when I did the John Giorno/William Burroughs cut-up technique, suddenly I had something to put through the Frippertronics loop and feedback loop tape delay system – and boy did I get results. A very prolific time for a young, wacked-out queen in NYC."

“At its best, William Basinski’s music inspires the sort of rapturous testimony usually reserved for peak experiences, cult leaders and the dead.” – Pitchfork. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A wonderfully immersive piece from Basinski that has some of the hallmarks of his legendary 'Disintegration Loops' series, but with a more melancholic edge. Flickering echoes and building ambient washes coalesce together into a river of piano-adjacent echoes and barely perceptible atmospheres.

TRACK LISTING

1. September 23rd (40:11

Since the turn of this century, perhaps no other modern composition has had a more resonant healing effect than The Disintegration Loops. Composer William Basinski’s deteriorating analog tape loops evolved from melodic symphonies to melancholic silence over a span of time that uncannily turned passing minutes into pensive lifetimes. In her foreword for the new box set reissue of The Disintegration Loops, the pioneering multimedia storyteller Laurie Anderson describes the impact of this transformation in poetic detail: “These dissolving sounds, this emptying space, has gained my complete confidence. They are taking me somewhere. I am willingly following these sounds, becoming more and more transparent.” The Disintegration Loops – Arcadia Archive Edition is an expansive new box set that includes the entire 5-hour suite of iconic work. Newly remastered from the original recordings by Josh Bonati, the hefty package includes eight vinyl records (or four CDs for the less analog-inclined) in sturdy full-color jackets featuring the restored original artwork, and a new 1000-word foreword by Laurie Anderson – all housed in a striking heavyweight, case-wrapped box. It is the ideal encapsulation of one of the 21st century’s most truly transcendent works. As Anderson concludes in her foreword, “this music has created another world, a world to be carried away in.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Dlp 1.1 (1:03:35)
2. Dlp 2.1 (10:50)
3. Dlp 2.2 (32:41)
4. Dlp 3 (41:53)
5. Dlp 4 (20:12)
6. Dlp 5 (52:19)
7. Dlp 6 (40:32)
8. Dlp 1.2 (20:41)
9. Dlp 1.3 (12:02)

Following his acclaimed LP on Punch Drunk ‘Reeling Sideways’, Ralph Cumbers' Bass Clef now joins other Bristol imprint Idle Hands and brings us two brand new tracks.

"Dawn Chorus Pedal" is a deep, acidic house track, but with one foot planted in the UK bass production soundscape; the combination of drum breaks lifted from the jazz sphere, a killer compressed electronic bassline and some lush synths will have you harking back to the early UK techno sound. "You Don't Know Don’t Know You" has more of a wonky-hop / fractured beats style. Stuttering, halfstep percussive breaks, sleazy bassline throbs and 8-bit synth lines are the order of the day here.

An acoustic show recorded in Poland and featuring the Camel bassist on fine form in front of a rapturous audience.

John Barrett returns with his second full length for LA label Innovative Leisure as Bass Drum of Death. Elevating Bass Drum of Death from the scrapheap of garage rock challengers fighting for attention, 'Rip This' is BDoD’s most impressive record yet, combining the best elements of the American rock underground with a raw approach that’s original and exciting.

Bass Drum of Death’s appeal has always transcended the band’s roots in the local Oxford, Mississippi touring circuit where John Barrett first cut his teeth. Since his debut 7-inch on Fat Possum back in 2008, he’s realised this potential again and again, most notably with his genre-bending collaboration with Odd Future’s Mellowhype and a slot on the infamous Vinewood Boulevard radio station on the GTA V videogame. But it’s with 'Rip This' that Barrett has really hit his stride.

The process has been markedly different throughout. For previous albums 'Bass Drum of Death' (Innovative Leisure, 2013) and 'GB City' (Inflated Records, 2011), Barrett wrote all the material himself at home and recorded it on a basic GarageBand setup. This time around, he enlisted drummer Len Clark as a fulltime member and collaborator and UMO bassist Jacob Portrait as producer. Over a two-week stint at Prairie Sun Studios in Sonoma County, California the trio created the first BDoD studio album.

TRACK LISTING

1: Electric
2: Left For Dead
3: For Blood
4: Everything's The Same
5: Sin Is In 10
6: Black Don't Glow
7: Burns My Eye
8: Lose My Mind
9: Better Days
10: Route 69 (Yeah)

One of the three outrageously talented Deenmamode brothers (Mo Kolours & Reginald Omas Mamode IV), Jeen Bassa has carved out a reputation as one of the leading beat-tape producers in the game today. His warm and woozy productions mix up slo-mo, mechanised funk with hues of neon soul and blue, jazz notes. An artist that clearly stands out in a world that’s saturated with bland Dilla and Madlib-esque pastiches.‘All My People’ takes listeners on an electronic journey through hip hop, soul, jazz, funk and pan african sounds, hugely influenced by Bassa’s Mauritian roots.

TRACK LISTING

Audio Visual
Herb & Rhythm
Dramatise
Poets House
My People
Body Talking
The Landscapes
Do The Do
Latin Fingers
Cocoa Lotion
Ode To The Funk
Outro