French vocalist, beatboxer, songwriter and producer Sly Johnson unveils 55.4, his much- anticipated fourth studio album, released on BBE Music. Hailing from Paris, Sylvère Johnson (Sly Johnson) is a major force on the French Hip-Hop, Soul and Jazz scenes, both as a solo artist and as a member of super-group SAIAN SUPA CREW for over a decade, where he was known by the moniker Sly The Mic Buddah. When the crew broke up in 2007, Johnson began to carve out an impressive career, releasing on Blue Note and Universal Jazz, as well as collaborating with Larry Gold, Roddy Rod, T3 & Elzhi from Slum Village, Georgia Ann Muldrow, Dudley Perkins, FINALE, Erik Truffaz, and legendary French rapper Oxmo Puccino among many others. Written and recorded during the first COVID lockdowns between March and May 2020, Sly Johnson’s fourth album blends Soul and Hip-Hop, twinning vocal arrangements reminiscent of Prince and D’Angelo with loose, supple, beats and jazzy chords. Most of the musical heavy lifting is done by Johnson himself, but the album features bass by Laurent Salzard, guitar by Ralph Lavital and Anthony Jambon, keys by Nicholas Vella & Laurent Coulondre and a spellbinding guest vocal by Jona Oak. Why 55.4? “It took 55 days of creation to make the songs of this 4th solo album” says Sly.

TRACK LISTING

1. Alive
2. Be My Lady (It’s Been Too Long)
3. Bullshit (I Can’t Stand It No More)
4. Trust Me
5. Okay
6. E.N.E. (Equality - Naturally - Eternally)
7. Today
8. Feel
9. E.V.R.B.D.D. 2
10. What's Going On
11. The H.B.D. Song (Souffle Tes Bougies)
12. Got To Be Funky (The Mic Buddah’s Re-Vision Remix)

This second of three underrated releases for Hi finds Syl Johnson slowly but surely transforming from a credulous loser into a standup guy no one messes around with. Diamond in the Rough could be viewed as a creative bridge between the slightly formulaic Hi approach of 1973's Back for a Taste of Your Love and the more bluesy and rewarding Total Explosion from 1975. Different from the southern soul belter which distinguished fellow Hi second leaguers Otis Clay and O.V. Wright, Johnson's unique feat lies in his earnest yet sometimes ironic take on love and relationships.

TRACK LISTING

1. Let Yourself Go
2. Don't Do It
3. I Want To Take You Home (to See Mama)
4. Could I Be Falling In Love
5. Stuck In Chicago
6. Diamond In The Rough
7. Keeping Down Confusion
8. Please, Don't Give Up On Me
9. Music To My Ears
10. I Hear The Love Chimes

Sarah Johns Music Party is from the North of England and now lives in London. Her stripped back, organic, drum, guitar and vocals, give her work an immediate and honest feel that is at once comforting and yet unnerving. Her music recalls the purity of Lykki Li, the rawness of Scout Niblett and the musicality of Tune-Yards.

Sarah Johns is influenced by nature, with much of her work echoing the repetition of 19th Century American black and white Christian Spiritual Song. Sarah Johns Music Party’s live performance continues this likeness by exploring the therapeutic and meditative effect of music upon the audience, mindful of the ritual of people coming together to listen to and play music.

Inspirations: Stop Making Sense (The Talking Heads live video), 808 drum machines, Hermann Hesse, Samba, cheerleaders, ceremonies, games with rules, the bit where it all comes together in jazz and the bit before and after, Oh Lord Won’t You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz, Salt-N-Pepa, Laurie Anderson.

Sarah Johns has previously recorded an art folk record with Max Jung under the name Cool Fun. The video to their track, House, won seven awards including Best Pop Video (Budget) at the UK Music Video Awards, Best Music Video at The European Independent Film Festival and Best Music Short at the London Short Film Festival. Sarah Johns was also one half of Mr Beasley, an electronic duo who toured with Robyn and whose album How Do You Say? spawned three singles: Right As Rain, Neon and Wrong which collectively achieved a ‘Single of the Week’ on BBC 6Music (Nemone’s lunchtime show), Best Unsigned on Huw Stephens’ BBC Radio 1 show and plays on XFM and NME radio. Sarah Johns Music Party EP will be Sarah Johns’ debut release as Sarah Johns Music Party, released on 8th July on brand new label Psychic Healing Network, founded by members of London band MYSTYRYS.

Incredible jazz / prog / folk score to groundbreaking tattoo film by maverick filmmaker. Unreleased until now, so don’t go saying it’s a reissue because it isn’t, but I’m sure some people will because they always do.

John Samson (1946 - 2004) was a truly great documentary maker. He must be as I’ve been obsessed with his work for many years. Educated first at Glasgow School Of Art (circa 1963) and then finally in the art of film making at The National Film And Television School in Beaconsfield - he headed there in its opening year of 1971 having made a short film that got him a scholarship. It was at the NFTS that Samson met Mike Wallington, who was to become his right hand man and eventual producer; together as a quite brilliant team they made a handful of inspiring, entertaining and hugely prescient films about important, overlooked, unseen and marginal fringes in society.

Tattoo (1975) Exploring the rather clandestine world of tattooing in the UK.

Dressing For Pleasure (1977) Exploring the rather clandestine world of festish in the UK.

Brittania (1979) A film about railway enthusiasts and a steam train restoration. Arrows (1979) The life of dart player Eric Bristow.

Drag Ball (1981) An unreleased film about the annual Porchester Hall Drag Ball.

The Skin Horse (1983) BAFTA winning film about The Outsiders Club, a dating agency for disabled people.

The subject matter in all films was always unusual for the time, and Samson managed to navigate his way with compassion, interest and subtlety, immersing himself in the chosen scene and producing moving, fascinating and sometimes darkly amusing situations. His documentaries also do not rely on traditional voiceovers, with stories, facts and narrative threads being dictated by the subjects.

I’ve tried for a long time to find the music for a couple of his early films (there was actually an original 7” for Arrows) - so far this is the only unreleased soundtrack I have found. This one was written by Steve Jolliffe, who met Samson at the NFTS. Joliffe was the resident composer and had a room at the college complex where he could work on scores for the fledgling film makers. Jolliffe was and still is a multi-instrumentalist and prolific composer who had met Edgar Froese at the Berlin Konservatorium in the late 1960s and played in an early incarnation of Tangerine Dream. He toured with blues rock outfit Steamhammer, before hanging out at the NFTS, making this recording (and many others) and eventually rejoining Tangerine Dream in the late 1970s. Jolliffe still writes, records and releases today and once i had made contact with him we traced the original Tattoo master tape to a box at his brother’s house. Musically it’s charming, slightly folky, a touch baroque, there’s a whiff of prog too, and it perfectly suited this early documentary about the art and desire of tattoos. I only wish it was longer. But the film is only 16 minutes long. Seek it out if you can. Try and find all the Samson films, they really are a joy.

As well as featuring intimate footage of tattooed people, the film also includes a rare and very early interview with Alan Oversby (better known as Mr Sebastian), a seminal character in the development of tattoos and body modifications worldwide - it was he who eventually was to tattoo and pierce Genesis P-Orridge.

The images for this vinyl release were all found in Mike Wallington’s Tattoo documentary research folder from 1974, and were photos sent in to Mike and John by people who wanted to feature in the film. Most answered an advert in Time Out, and others included people from my home town of Aldershot where tattooist Bill Skuse and his wife, Rusty (the most tattooed woman in Britain at the time, and featured in the film) were based. His parlour was situated at the back of the arcade where we all used to lose all our pocket money in the slot machines.

The Musicians:
Steve Jolliffe - keyboards, flute, sax Geoff Jolliffe - bass guitar Julian Furniss - guitar Mick Kirby – drums.

Sharon Jones is unstoppable. With four albums and a run of singles that have sold over half a million copies, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings continue to headline festivals and sell out shows across the globe

The band have created their strongest record yet. From the relentless stomping entrance of 'Retreat!', the bounce of the anthemic 'We Get Along', and the irresistible syncopations of 'Stranger to My Happiness', straight through to the intoxicating groove of 'Slow Down, Love'. It is also arguably the most impressive studio work to date from Grammy-winning engineer and Daptone co-owner Gabriel Roth (aka Bosco Mann) all written and recorded at Daptone’s analogue House Of Soul studio / headquarters in the heart of Bushwick, Brooklyn where Sharon herself wired the electrical outlets.

TRACK LISTING

1. Retreat!
2. Stranger To My Happiness
3. We Get Along
4. You’ll Be Lonely
5. Now I See
6. Making Up And Breaking Up (And Making Up And Breaking Up Again)
7. Get Up And Get Out
8. Long Time, Wrong Time
9. People Don’t Get What They Deserve
10. Slow Down, Love

"Soul Time!" is an exploration of  the full range of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings' dynamic sound through twelve songs handpicked by the Daptone Records gang, each one a precious exclusive.

The needle drops on "Genuine Pts. 1 & 2", a supercharged funk arrangement that evokes the late Godfather not only with the spirited syncopation of the Dap-Kings rhythms, but also with the raw power of Jones’ voice. "Longer And Stronger", written for Jones' 50th birthday, is a deep mid-tempo soul celebration of the strength and determination with which Sharon Jones has earned her long overdue success. The theme of empowerment pushes on through “He Said I Can”, an energetic stomper belted over an arrangement reminiscent of the Isley Brothers early-70s heyday, and “I’m Not Gonna Cry” brings us back to the raw funk intensity of "Genuine" with a squealing tenor solo and a fiery vocal. .

“What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes?” kicks the second side off with a bang. This mid-tempo groove is accentuated by the conga work of the legendary Johnny Griggs of JB’s fame. And who says Christmas can’t be soulful? Jones et al. make it so over their sought after holiday exclusive, “Ain’t No Chimneys in the Projects”. Next is an energetic romp into Motown intensity with “New Shoes”, a walking-out-the door belter that picks up where "These Boots Were Made For Walking" left off. The record winds up with a deep laid back cover of Shuggie Otis’ psychedelic soul jam “Inspiration Information”.

From the first note to the last, "Soul Time!" confirms this band’s place at the head of the table as the world’s greatest funk and soul showband. Whether you’re a lifetime fan, or just getting turned on, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings’ have yet again made a record that will blow your mind. Get ready world, because It’s Soul Time!

Released on the anniversary of her passing, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings' final studio album, Soul of a Woman is a lush, orchestral masterpiece. A true testament to the life and career of Daptone's fearless leader and one of the world's greatest performers.

In the year prior to her death from pancreatic cancer in 2016, Sharon Jones toured and performed tirelessly, and was also the subject of Miss Sharon Jones!, an acclaimed documentary by Oscar-Winning director Barbara Kopple. Yet somehow, the beloved and heroic soul singer found time to complete a studio album. Soul of a Woman features eleven songs which reveal that the emotion, dynamics, and drama of Jones' voice remained at full power until her final days. The songs on Soul Of A Woman exemplify two distinct sides of the band’s sound. Side One showcases grittier, bluesier material like "Matter Of Time" and "Sail On!," giving Sharon the room to flex her vocal prowess and creating a "liveness" that few studio albums posses. Side Two takes on a more sophisticated orchestral mood. Tracks like "When I Saw Your Face" and "These Tears (No Longer For You),” capture a soft vulnerability in Sharon's vocals that draws you deep inside, and yet they remain nuanced with the signature toughness that never allow you to forget she's steering the ship. The finished product is an album that captures a band and a singer at their peak.

TRACK LISTING

1. Master Of Time
2. Sail On!
3. Just Give Me Your Time
4. Come And Be A Winner
5. Rumors
6. Pass Me By
7. Searching For A New Day
8. These Tears (No Longer For You)
9. When I Saw Your Face
10. Call On God

THIS IS A BLACK FRIDAY RELEASE AVAILABLE ONLINE ONLY ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 27TH FROM 6PM.
LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Throughout their career, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings remained in high demand both publicly and privately to recreate and often re-imagine songs by other artists. More often than not, these covers were recorded by request – commissioned for placement in movies, television programs, tribute albums, or for samples. This album compiles some of their most popular as well as never-before-heard renditions.

Though the band has mostly built their career on a prolific catalog of originals, these forays into other artists’ compositions lay bare their gift for arrangement and the unmatched studio prowess that earned them their reputation as The Baddest Band in the Land.

TRACK LISTING

1. Signed Sealed Delivered
2. Little By Little
3. Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Rendition Was In)
4. Here I Am Baby
5. What Have You Done For Me Lately
6. Take Me With You
7. Inspiration Information
8. Giving Up
9. Rescue Me
10. In The Bush
11. It Hurts To Be Alone
12. Trespsaser

1We are proud to present two unreleased sides from the late Queen of modern soul, and her Dap-Kings.

Recorded during the sessions for Soul Of A Woman and penned by sax stalwart and Daptone co-founder Neal Sugarman, "Don't Wanna Lose You" is a heavy slice of soul sophistication teeming with groove and vibe.

"Don't Give a Friend a Number" is a haunting, R&B tinged mover whose eerie background vocals provide the perfect backdrop for Sharon to take an unqualified lover to task.

TRACK LISTING

Side A – Don’t Wanna Lose You
Side B – Don’t Give A Friend A Number

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings are here to help music fans get into the holiday spirit. The band provide a soulful soundtrack to the holidays this year with new album 'It’s A Holiday Soul Party', released on Daptone Records.

And we're not just talking Christmas here either, as other faith-based seasonal celebrations are catered for as well. Kicking off with “8 Days (Of Hanukkah)” - the band’s ode to The Festival of Lights - the 11-song set of original and classic holiday songs is the group’s first holiday record and follows their Grammy-nominated 2014 album 'Give The People What They Want'.

Get your menorah lit, your Xmas tree decorated and then stick this record on - happy holidays ya'll!

TRACK LISTING

8 Days (Of Hannukah) 
Ain't No Chimneys In The Projects 
White Christmas 
Just Another Christmas Song 
Silent Night 
Big Bulbs 
Please Come Home For Christmas 
Funky Little Drummer Boy
Silver Bells 
World Of Love 
God Rest Ye Merry Gents

With overwhelmingly poignant timing, the celebratory and life affirming "Miss Sharon Jones! OST" arrives not a week after the unique artist's untimely passing. The film, directed by two-time Academy Award winner, Barbara Kopple, follows the dynamic front-woman through her 2013 battle with cancer and her triumphant return to the stage around the release of "Give The People What They Want". The soundtrack, featuring the exclusive "I'm Still Here" and a live recording of "His Eye On The Sparrow" in Sharon's local church in Georgia, boasts a nice selection of tracks ranging from her early singles on Daptone alongside tracks from the band's 2014 release - Give the People What They Want. Much like the film, the soundtrack gives you an intimate, candid look into the life of a woman who refused to be defined by the challenges she faced. Packed to the rafters with the full range of emotions, this set presents an artist at her peak and a fitting farewell to fans everywhere. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Tell Me
2. Retreat
3. Genuine Pt. 1
4. Longer And Stronger
5. If You Call
6. 100 Days, 100 Nights
7. People Don't Get What They Deserve
8. Humble Me
9. I'll Still Be True
10. Let Them Knock
11. Stranger To My Happiness
12. Keep On Looking
13. Mama Don't Like My Man
14. I Learned The Hard Way
15. Slow Down Love
16. I'm Still Here (exclusive)

With overwhelmingly poignant timing, the celebratory and life affirming "Miss Sharon Jones! OST" arrives not a week after the unique artist's untimely passing. The film, directed by two-time Academy Award winner, Barbara Kopple, follows the dynamic front-woman through her 2013 battle with cancer and her triumphant return to the stage around the release of "Give The People What They Want". The soundtrack, featuring the exclusive "I'm Still Here" and a live recording of "His Eye On The Sparrow" in Sharon's local church in Georgia, boasts a nice selection of tracks ranging from her early singles on Daptone alongside tracks from the band's 2014 release - Give the People What They Want. Much like the film, the soundtrack gives you an intimate, candid look into the life of a woman who refused to be defined by the challenges she faced. Packed to the rafters with the full range of emotions, this set presents an artist at her peak and a fitting farewell to fans everywhere. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Tell Me
2. Retreat
3. Genuine Pt. 1
4. Longer And Stronger
5. If You Call
6. 100 Days, 100 Nights
7. People Don't Get What They Deserve
8. Humble Me
9. I'll Still Be True
10. Let Them Knock
11. Stranger To My Happiness
12. Keep On Looking
13. Mama Don't Like My Man
14. I Learned The Hard Way
15. Slow Down Love
16. I'm Still Here (exclusive)

Originally released under the title 'Samba Esporte Fino', its release and
subsequent international acclaim dovetailed with Seu Jorge's ascent into movie stardom. He is probably best known outside of Brazil for his work on Wes Anderson's 2004 flm 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou', in which he played a starring role and his Portuguese covers of David Bowie records were a highlight of the soundtrack. Having initially found fame thanks to his standout performance as Knockout Ned in the revered movie 'City of God'. 'Carolina' would cement his global fame and launch an illustrious musical career that has earnt him a Grammy nomination. Co-produced by Mario Caldatto of Beastie Boys and Planet Hemp fame, the album presented a vibrant, contemporary combination of samba and funk, backed by guitar, bass, drums, percussion, and horns. It kicks off with one of Seu's most loved tracks 'Carolina', an anthemic feel-good classic with timeless energy, ending in a sing-along crescendo. Other highlights included the Brazilian- Funk of 'Mangueira' reminiscent in places of Tim Maia with its 80s inspired vibe, and the catchy jazzy-samba of 'Tu Queria' which always ignites the dance foor.

“A young vocalist with a low alto as rich as custard…and a devotion, at least for now, to a classic cool-jazz sound” – The New York Times.

Samara Joy makes her Verve debut, with a voice, tone and phrasing that harkens back to the most iconic jazz vocalists of all time. At just 22 years old, Samara already belongs in the company of iconic label mates from Ella Fitzgerald to Sarah Vaughan to Billie Holiday, and is poised to become synonymous with timeless jazz music. Her stunningly timeless voice belies her youth and her approach to jazz feels reverent but also truly fresh and exciting.

TRACK LISTING

1. Can’t Get Out Of This Mood
2. Guess Who I Saw Today
3. Nostalgia
4. Sweet Pumpkin
5. Misty
6. Social Call
7. I’m Confessin’
8. Linger Awhile
9. ‘Round Midnight
10. Someone To Watch Over Me

"Singer-songwriter" is a frustratingly confining term; to truly understand exactly just how confining, look no further than the recorded works of Simon Joyner, an artist whose work consistently transcends the narrow parameters of genre classifications and record shop bin cards. Though his music has always honoured, reckoned with-wrestled with-the tradition set forth by his songwriting forebears (Cohen, Van Zandt, Ochs, Dylan, Reed to name a few), Joyner can always be counted on to defy expectations; as a lyricist, melodicist, and arranger, Joyner likes to keep us on our toes.

Omaha singer-songwriter Simon Joyner, who's been making records since 1990, has been on a roll since his mid-career magnum opus, 2012's Ghosts, one of the great double albums of the past 25 years. On Songs From A Stolen Guitar, he is abetted by collaborators new and old, but the social distancing required by the pandemic of 2020 imbues the album with a distinct and poignant tenor.

Singer-songwriter seems too common a term to apply to Sarah June, however accurate it may be. Singer-songwriter she is, but the songs she writes and sings are both more beautiful and more haunting than the average fare. There is an uncommon ghostly aire to her album. Like the smell of flowers in a empty and abandoned house where sunlight comes shining through dusty window panes. Perfectly sparse and lonesome, these songs come from the edges of dreamland. 10 original compositions accompanied by two well-chosen covers (Prince's "When Doves Cry" and a stunning version of Elvis "I Cant Help Falling In Love With You"). For fans of: PJ Harvey, Kristin Hersh, Mazzy Star.

‘This Moment’ is the first album by Danish artist Søren Juul to be released under his own name, having previously recorded using the moniker Indians.

A deeply personal account of Juul’s life over a tumultuous three-year period, ‘This Moment’ was recorded mainly in Copenhagen and finished in Los Angeles with producer and fellow Dane Peter Stengaard. An uplifting and redemptive work, the immersive soundscapes of the songs reach heights Juul’s work under Indians had hinted at.

As Indians, Juul released the acclaimed album ‘Somewhere Else’, scored the stunning song ‘Oblivion’ for the major motion picture ‘The Fault In Our Stars’, composed works for the Copenhagen Philharmonic and was nominated in four categories for the prestigious Danish music awards Gaffa Prisen. He also toured the world with the likes of Beirut, Daughter, Julia Holter and Perfume Genius.

TRACK LISTING

Ambitions
Dear Child
Greenpoint
Don’t Want To Fool You
Epic Moon
Manly Beach
Soulseeker
Pushing Me Away
Seventeen
This Moment

‘This Moment’ is the first album by Danish artist Søren Juul to be released under his own name, having previously recorded using the moniker Indians.

A deeply personal account of Juul’s life over a tumultuous three-year period, ‘This Moment’ was recorded mainly in Copenhagen and finished in Los Angeles with producer and fellow Dane Peter Stengaard. An uplifting and redemptive work, the immersive soundscapes of the songs reach heights Juul’s work under Indians had hinted at.

As Indians, Juul released the acclaimed album ‘Somewhere Else’, scored the stunning song ‘Oblivion’ for the major motion picture ‘The Fault In Our Stars’, composed works for the Copenhagen Philharmonic and was nominated in four categories for the prestigious Danish music awards Gaffa Prisen. He also toured the world with the likes of Beirut, Daughter, Julia Holter and Perfume Genius.

TRACK LISTING

Ambitions
Dear Child
Greenpoint
Don’t Want To Fool You
Epic Moon
Manly Beach
Soulseeker
Pushing Me Away
Seventeen
This Moment

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

"A World Of Peace Must Come is his masterpiece. That was fantastic." - Brian Wilson
"'Be Still' is the only song I've ever heard that made me want to be a better person." - Brian Barr, The Seattle Weekly

"The only other artist as pure as him is Captain Beefheart." - Bill Bentley

Stephen John Kalinich was born in Endicott, New York and grew up in Binghamton. In his early teens, he stared writing poems and articles about World Peace. He first came to California around 1964, fell in love with it, and promptly transferred from Harper College in upstate New York to UCLA.

Kalinich found himself immersed in the vibrant anti-War culture of late 60’s California, often writing songs and poems against the War. He found a musical partner and kindred spirit in Mark Lindsey Buckingham. They cut a demo for a track called "Leaves of Grass," inspired by the famous Walt Whitman poem "Leaves Of Grass", and Kalinich started taking demos around.

In the mid 60s, it was either at Brother Records or while pumping gas that Kalinich first met the Beach Boys. He hit it off with Brian, Carl and Dennis right away. As the first artist signed to the Beach Boys new label Brother Records, Carl Wilson produced a record for him. His first songs that saw release were "Little Bird" and "Be Still," which he wrote with Dennis and were released on the Friends album. His relationship with Dennis would lead to a number of further collaborations and Kalinich / Dennis Wilson co-writes, including: 20/20 - "All I Want To Do," Hawthorne, CA - "A Time to Live in Dreams", Pacific Ocean Blue - "Rainbows," and Bambu - "Love Remember Me.”
A World of Peace Must Come was recorded at various LA studios and Brian's house in Bel-Air in 1969. The tapes were promptly lost, not to be heard again until our discovery of them in 2008. Following the CD-only reissue in that year, this is the first time this timeless snapshot of an era and an ethos will be available on vinyl for Record Store Day 2014.

Sean Keane is a famous name in Ireland as his distinctive voice mixes that folk / country and western style that is such a success in the emerald isle, this is an excellent 2xCD overview of his career.

Sophia Kennedy’s music sometimes sounds like a soundtrack to a world disintegrating, hanging on by a thread of memories, it combines the glamour and the morbid charm of tin pan alley show tunes from the 1960s or 70s and yet it fully embraces the deconstructed modernism of club music. Her new album Monsters, is full of plot twists, moments of prettiness dashed with paranoia. The title itself, is a self-ironic, comic-like commentary of being an artist trying to tame own creations like “monsters” gone wild but also a nod to a generally threatening tension in the world. Monsters is pop music teetering on the verge of ruin.

Kennedy’s creative approach has always been unusual. Growing up in Germany after her family emigrated from Baltimore, she developed an ear for off-centred songcraft picking through her mum’s record collection: Whitney Houston and Simon & Garfunkel at first, Karen Dalton and the Velvet Underground later. With no equipment to hand, she started recording audio on a camcorder, blurring the lines between music and her other passion, film. Obsessed with the work of John Cassavetes and 70s horror films like Carrie, Kennedy moved to Hamburg to study film and ended up making music for theatre productions. Her involvement in the local creative community led her through the doors of the “Golden Pudel”, a techno nightclub. Immersed in Hamburg’s dance music scene she met Mense Reents, a musician best known for his work with the celebrated house act, Die Vögel. The pair formed a writing and production partnership, and would make Sophia’s eponymously-titled debut record together in 2017 which was released through DJ Koze’s label Pampa.

One step further is where Kennedy has taken her sound on Monsters. It’s full of hints of a former life, abstract melodic turns, instrumentation that shouldn't work, but does, wrongness that’s right. “Seventeen” is acid-washed Americana with creeping sub-bass, closer “Dragged Myself Into The Sun” is a full-on left hook, drones stacked like lasagna and pumped with steroids. There is pop centre pieces like “I Can See You” and the velvet-lined anthem “I’m Looking Up”, dealing with grief and death, recalling the rawest edges of Krautrock and, for Kennedy, nods to Baltimore artists Panda Bear and the strange currencies of Animal Collective.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Animals Will Come
A2. Orange Tic Tac
A3. I Can See You
A4. Francis
A5. Seventeen
A6. Loop
B1. I’m Looking Up
B2. Chestnut Avenue
B3. Do They Know
B4. Cat On My Tongue
B5. Brunswick
B6. Up
B7. Dragged Myself Into The Sun

Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss

Old fat furry cat-puss

Wake up and look at this thing that I bring

Wake up, be bright

Be golden and light

Bagpuss, Oh hear what I sing

12th of February, 1974, and for an audience of small children at 1:45pm, a life irrevocably coloured by the wayward wonderings of one saggy cloth cat. Some 44 years later and Earth Recordings opens the door to Bagpuss & Co. once again, revealing for the first time the original music in all its newly-mastered splendour.

The 32 tracks that make up the main body of the compositions are – like all good folk music – a patchwork of traditional pieces, half-remembered tunes and pure improvisation. It's testament to Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner's musicianship that the recordings work so well, not only within the context of the television episodes, but as an album in its own right. Of the recording, Oliver Postgate (in his exquisite autobiography 'Seeing Things') says: "Between them Sandra and John could play every sort of instrument from a mountain dulcimer to an Irish fiddle. They knew and could sing every tune in the world and didn't bother with written music, except as a last resort. They were exactly suited to Gabriel the Toad and Madeleine the Rag Doll and in those roles were happy to play whatever music and sing whatever songs would be needed."

Those songs manifested themselves as reworkings of familiar tunes ('I Saw A Ship'; 'Row Your Boat'; 'Bucket's Burning'), takes on traditional ballads ('Brian O'Lynn'; 'The Frog Princess'; 'Weaving Song'; 'The Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket') and delicious flights of fancy ('The Bony King of Nowhere'; 'Turtle Calypso'; 'Uncle Feedle'). The counterpart to Madeleine and Gabriel's more polished ditties are the interludes from the mice; a raggle-taggle chorus that accompanies the creatures' efforts of help (with the mice once famously going on strike when they were not permitted sang as they worked). Again, Postgate muses: "Once I had worked out a few episodes I would make a very rough list of the bits where I though music would be appropriate. I would send it to [Sandra and John] to think about. Then we would borrow a fairly silent room in a remote house and, taking the various articles that we intended to celebrate with us, would spend a happy day with a tape recorder, thinking up and recording whatever songs and tunes came to mind."

The outtakes provide an intimate – and often very humourous – insight into the trio's work ethic, if it can be called such a thing. (By all accounts they sound as though they're having a very jolly time indeed.) Highlights include alternative opening words and end music, as well as Postgate sound-checking in character as Bagpuss. This never-before heard audio provides a real treat for fans (and indeed those new to the Smallfilms stable) – affirmation again to the enduring quality of these special recordings, and the beloved programme that inspired them.

"An accidental classic of the folk-roots underground that we never dared hope we’d hear with such clarity." -Stewart Lee.

And so their work was done.

TRACK LISTING

1 Opening
2 We Will Wash It
3 I Saw A Ship
4 We Will Rub It
5 The Bony King Of Nowhere
6 Cat And Bird Tone Phone
7 Princess Suite
8 The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe
9 Row The Boat
10 We Will Lace It
11 Ballerina Music Box
12 Porcupine Song
13 Here's A Pin
14 We Will Fix It
15 Turtle Calypso
16 The Elephant's Fable
17 The Miller's Song
18 We Will Find It
19 The Town Band
20 Song Of The Flea
21 We Will Do It (Undo It)
22 The Weaving Song
23 Charliemouse Weaving
24 Bucket's Burning
25 Brian O'Lynn
26 Lullaby For Cabbages
27 We Will Do It (Go Through It)
28 The Old Woman Tossed Up In A Basket
29 Mouse Ragtime
30 We Will Fold It
31Uncle Feedle
32 Closing
33 Opening Words (Outtake)
34 Introducing The Characters (Outtake)
35 Characters Waking Up (Outtake)
36 Bagpuss Soundcheck
37 I Saw A Ship A-Sailing (Alternate Version)
38 Mermaid Song
39 Captain Bagpuss Poem
40 Owls Of Athens Story
41 Birdsong
42 Princess Suite (Outtake)
43 The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe (Outtake)
44 Porcupine Song (Outtake)
45 Bagpipes
46 Brian O'Lynn (Outtake )
47 Agricultural Jig
48 Percy Pratt Poem
49 End Music (Outtake) 

Saxophone master Sean Khan presents a brand new album project on Acid Jazz – The Modern Folk & Jazz Ensemble. The album explores the sounds of the late-’60s/early-’70s folk revival, recast and reimagined in a jazz setting with featured guest singers, including compositions by Pentangle, Sandy Denny, John Martyn and Nick Drake.

Featured vocalists are the legendary Pentangle lead singer Jacqui McShee, acclaimed singer-guitarist Rosie Taylor-Frater, and emerging artist Kindelan. Sean Khan meanwhile is known as one of the UK’s premier saxophonists, and particularly his ‘Supreme Love: A Journey Through Coltrane’ LP. His distinctive Soprano playing can be heard throughout.

Presented in a beautiful, evocative sleeve and inner-sleeve layout on LP and gatefold-style CD.

TRACK LISTING

1. She Moves Through The Fair
2. Solid Air
3. Light Flight
4. Parasite
5. Things Behind The Sun
6. Who Knows Where The Time Goes
7. I’ve Got A Feeling
8. Ode To Nick Drake

Trailblazing UK jazz renegade, saxophonist Sean Khan delivers his scintillating new album ‘Supreme Love: a Journey Through Coltrane’ on BBE Music.

“Who is John Coltrane for me?” asks Khan. “He is man, legend, myth, storyteller, sage and atmosphere. My road and journey has been a rocky one, and like most on this journey, I have carved a path full of mistakes and triumphs. However, throughout my life Coltrane’s music has been a constant.”

Weaving together disparate strands of the UK music scene (jazz, dance, broken beat and electronic) together onto one record, Supreme Love is presented in three parts: autobiography, homage and encyclopaedia. A pioneer of the Broken Beat movement early in the new millennium, working with Omar, Bugz in the Attic and 4hero among others, Khan enlisted the input of two old friends, Kaidi Tatham and Daz I Kue, who each contribute a future-minded yet reverential sense of originality to the album. Also featured on Supreme Love are two legends of UK jazz, Peter King and Jim Mullen, both of whom bring a rich and palpable sense of history to the project. Guitarist Jim Mullen has played with Brian Auger, toured with the Average White Band and recorded with Terry Callier over his long career. Mullen was also a regular fixture at Ronnie Scott’s, as was saxophonist Peter King, who actually performed at the club’s opening night, as well as working with two of Coltrane’s favourite drummers, Philly Joe Jones and Elvin Jones. Sadly Peter King’s contribution to ‘Supreme Love’ would be his last recording session, and he passed away in August 2020. Also featured among a talented and diverse group of performers on the album is Cinematic Orchestra front-woman Heidi Vogel, who adds her distinctive, soulful voice to Khan’s, and Coltrane’s, heartfelt lyrics.

“I have always been a strange prisoner to my ambition” says Sean “and most of my recordings bear testimony to this, with this record being the next part of that evolution. I made a conscious effort to represent all of Coltrane's main artistic periods from hard bop (with Miles Davis), to sheets of sound (Giant Steps, Moments Notice), spiritual jazz (Love Supreme) and finally his last, most experimental and cosmic period (Interstellar Space). I have never heard a record that attempts to reflect all of the great man’s epochs in this way and use the recording artist’s autobiography (my own) as a conduit to these ends, and so here I am, for better or for worse.”

TRACK LISTING

1. A Love Supreme
2. Starchild
3. Afro Blue
4. Azawala
5. Emilia's Pick
6. Naima
7. As We Came Out Of
8. Giant Steps
9. Moment's Notice
10. The Savage Detectives
11. Starchild (Kaidi Tatham Remix)
12. Azawala (Kaidi Tatham Remix)
13. Equinox
14. Impressions
15. Cousin Mary
16. Equinox (Alt Take)
17. Giant Steps Outro

South Street are back with another essential reissue, This time with two heavyweights of the Chicago house scene.
In 2015, Soulful house royalty Stacy Kidd joined forces with Peven Everett to release a limited run of this dance floor anthem “Body Jerkin”, and now that these now hard to find records are fetching over £100 it’s time that a remastered, reissue were made available in stores again, and South Street keep growing their label with more essential hits like this.

This reissue features 3 essential versions of the hit "Body Jerkin'". The original mix sits on the A side, with a bass and drum groove being joined with strings, a nod to a classic disco hit and Peven’s vocals completing this soulful house groove, the classic spin that has been heard worldwide on dancefloors since it's original issue. The B side features one first time on vinyl mix, the Chicago Mix and then a never before released Disco Mix. The Chicago mix, a smooth and bubbly deep and funky groove and the Disco mix a raw and energetic rework to round off this trio of wicked house cuts. Cut Loud and Proud with a South Street company sleeve. Don't Miss!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Original Mix
B1. Chicago Mix
B2. Disco Mix

Transmission two from Hypno Disco Records. In this edition Sam Kin takes us downtown with four cuts of retroactive house music. Deep bleep acid house, dystopian machine groove, street-lit dance tracks and live techno jams! Highly recommended if you've ever buzzed off records on Warp, B12, Tribal, Peacefrog, Trax, Champion etc.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Totally feelin' this tribal and proggy leaning 12" from Sam Kin. Moody, electronic dance tracks for the laser lovers.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Balearia (Behold!)
A2. Something Lurks
B1. Downtown
B2. Give Me More (Blue Analogue Live Mix)

It’s been thirty years since we originally released this retrospective from the Okinawan icon Shoukichi Kina. There’s a lot we could say about the legendary Kina and his influence on popular Japanese music but we’ll let Ry Cooder, who’s featured on most of the songs here, take it away:

“I first met Shoukichi Kina in 1979. David Lindley and I were on tour in Japan, and were getting well worn out. Kina and a translator met up with us in Osaka and we all sat down in the lobby of this giant tourist hotel, which Kina hated. He just sat there, staring straight ahead, saying nothing for an hour.

One year later, a round-trip plane ticket to Hawaii came in the mail, with a note that read: “ALA MOANA HOTEL, COMMERCIAL RECORDING STUDIO, PLEASE. KINA.”

Kina had a habit of throwing himself down onto the floor and kicking his feet when he liked a playback. I remember thinking, this beats “one more for us, guys!” When Kina’s wife, Tomoko, put down the vocal on “Flowers For You Heart,” he lay down and stayed down, making the engineer play it back over and over until he had wrung himself out—a real playback party, Okinawan style. Right about then you know you’re ready to start recording for real, but it never works out that way. You squeeze off one or two, say adios, and go to the house. Then later, maybe four people discover your little contribution, and then someone wants to reissue the album and there you go.” - Ry Cooder, 1993

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1 Jing Jing
2 Hana No Kajimaya
3 Celebration
4 Mimichiri Bozu/Danju Kariyushi
5 Don-Don Bushi
6 Zorba De Buddha
SIDE B
1 Basha-Gua Suncha
2 Crazy Kacharsee
3 Subete No Hito No Kokoro Ni
4 Haisai Ojisan
5 Eternally Ecstasy
6 Iyunu-Pri
7 I-Yah-Hoy!

“Leaving you spellbound in its androgynous vocal delivery, Spider King’s Animals is a haunting children’s march that paralyses me with each listen”
Cedric Bixler Zavala (Mars Volta/Antemasque)

An unknown pleasure torn out of Manchester’s lost DIY manual, this overqualified / underexposed post-punk pop pillar cast an almost invisible undetected web across the history of Manchester’s inner-city music scene which has trapped body parts of The Mothmen, Martin Hannett, Gerry And The Holograms, John Cooper Clarke, The Blue Orchids, Naffi Sandwich (The Naffis) and The Fates in its glue.

As a central mast to 1970s / 80s Manchester’s “deserted” DIY era, spanning angular jazz funk, punk and sarcastic synth pop, Spider King has also played huge parts in Manchester’s honorary adoption of The Velvet Underground’s Nico (as her lead guitarist), fronted Martin Hannett’s first ever band and inhabits a key roll in the careers of Sad Cafe, Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias, Paul Young and AC/DC’s Mancunian debut. With dozens of self-penned songs, unreleased demos and two of the best collectable Manc punk funk 45s to grace collectors want lists it’s almost unbelievable (almost tragic) that Mike King never released a full length album… until now.

Shot To Pieces is one of the most elusive jagged pieces of the North West’s punk funk puzzle. Recorded sporadically between 1979 and 1983 with a cast of characters from the Rabid/Absurd label family, such as behind the scenes synth wielder John Scott from Gerry And The Holograms, and producers like Laurie Latham (The Blockheads) it’s plain to see why 2016′s current music climate is the perfect time for the Spider King’s lost music to resurface. Commonly recognised by stalwarts of the era’s mutating punk/alt/indie genre as “the one that got away”, Spider King is the archetypal artist’s artist as well as the outsider’s outsider and the hardest working man in no-business who is now attracting a whole new audience of champions from bloggers, vinyl nerds and well respected contemporary musicians with his appearances on mix-tapes and various artist compilations. On hearing this essential release you could argue that these lost “spider-grams” are more relevant now than they were when those arachnophobic A&R men shooed him away over 3 decades ago. For those who ain’t afraid to get bitten say hello to the Spider King.

TRACK LISTING

Shot To Pieces (Part One)
CIA
Animals
Mad Dog
City Girls
Chinese Takeawy
Would You Wanna Die
For England
Back On The Pills
Time Looks Away
Shot To Pieces (Part Two)

Upon listening to Sophia Knapp’s ‘Into The Waves’ you are transported, much like Alice In Wonderland, to a new sonic realm - dazzling and uniquely pop with its own set of rules. Some elements of the landscape are warmly familiar: Sophia’s voice appears first and foremost sensual, emotive, relaxed, and loaded with personality. Baroquely fingerpicked guitar, smooth piano, crystalline synths, and a down and dirty rhythm section complete the picture, bringing to mind melodic psych pop of the 60s, Tropicalia ballads, chilly New York dance records of the 80s and the seduction of Stevie Nicks or Françoise Hardy.

‘Into The Waves’ is Sophia’s first record outside of Cliffie Swan / Lights, the Brooklyn based rock band that she has performed in over the past five years alongside Linnea Vedder. A blend of acoustic and synthetic instruments frame Sophia’s cinematic song structures this time around, in contrast to the electric / analogue paradigm of Cliffie Swan.

The mystical elements of Cliffie Swan continue to flow through this record, as do Sophia’s signature harmonies and layered vocal arrangements. Gentle ballads here are underlined with hip shaking grooves and sparkle sounds, and the lyrical content is more detailed and intimate. Tales of love, magic, and transformation rub shoulders with themes of alienation and loss. The mysterious words, studded with metaphors, demand repeated listens to decode.

Sophia brought in several heavy hitters to collaborate with and to help create the poised sound of ‘Into The Waves’. Film composer and pianist Jay Israelson and Eric Gorman (the engineer / mixer for Cliffie Swan’s ‘Memories Come True’, with a fabulous background in pop vocal production), co-produced and co-arranged the album. ‘Bassy’ Bob Brockman, whose credits include playing, engineering, mixing and producing TLC, Fugees, Mary J Blige, Cee-Lo and a host of other R&B stars, contributed bass guitar, and Robert ‘Chicken’ Burke (The Duke And The King) played drums on several tracks. Bill Callahan’s rich baritone vocals are also featured on two slinky duets a la Nancy & Lee, or Serge & Jane.

Sarathy Korwar returns with new album KALAK. The follow up to the politically charged, award-winning More Arriving is an Indo-futurist manifesto - in rhythmic step with the past and the present, it sets out to describe a route forward. It celebrates a rich South Asian culture of music and literature, which resonates with spirituality and community, while envisaging a better future from those building blocks.

Recorded at Real World studios with meticulous production by New York electronic musician, DJ and producer Photay, who translates these communal rhythms and practices into a timeless and groundbreaking electronic record. There’s a spirituality and warmth at play in the polyrhythms, group vocals and melodic flourishes.

The KALAK rhythm is the fulcrum upon which the 11-track project balances. After an intense lockdown induced period of reflection and meticulous note-making, Korwar boiled this down to the circular KALAK symbol which he then presented to his band before recording began. With the symbol projected on the walls in order to de-code and improvise around, Korwar had utter faith in the musicians he’d assembled and conviction in the concept.

The final part of the KALAK project is realised in the cover artwork by New Delhi-based designer Sijya Gupta. Korwar and photographer friend Fabrice Bourgelle took a light sculpture of the KALAK symbol on a road trip around Southern India, through Chennai, Pondicherry and Auroville. The evocative shots appear on the cover of the various formats, with each one offering a different angle on the country, continent and culture that inspired the album.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stunning selection of rhythmic counterpoints and vocal melodies, falling somewhere between deep house, traditional South Asian communal chant and jazzy funk. It's an intoxicating listen throughout. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

1. A1. A Recipe To Cure Historical Amnesia
2. A2. To Remember (feat. Kushal Gaya)
3. A3. Utopia Is A Colonial Project
4. A4. Back In The Day, Things Were Not Always Simpler (feat. Noni-Mouse)
5. A5. The Past Is Not Only Behind Us, But Ahead Of Us
6. B1. Kal Means Yesterday And Tomorrow
7. B2. Remember Begum Rokheya
8. B3. That Clocks Don’t Tell But Make Time (feat. Kodo)
9. B4. Remember Circles Are Better Than Lines
10. B5. Remember To Look Out For The Signs
11. B6. KALAK - A Means To An Unend

Born in the US, raised in India and resident in the UK, Korwar has established himself as one of the most original and compelling voices in the UK jazz scene, collaborating with the likes of Shabaka Hutchings (The Comet Is Coming), clarinettist Arun Ghosh and producer Hieroglyphic Being

Korwar’s debut Day To Day (Ninja Tune, 2016), combined the folk rhythms of India’s Sidi community with contemporary electronics and jazz textures, earning praise from the likes of Four Tet, Gilles Peterson and Floating Points.

We live in divisive times. Multiculturalism rises hand-in-hand with racial tensions, and politicians seem powerless to even bring people within earshot of their convoluted message. It’s time for a different perspective.

On his second studio album, More Arriving, Sarathy Korwar blasts out his own vibrant, pluralistic missive for the world to hear. This is not necessarily a record of unity; it’s an honest reflection of Korwar’s experience of being an Indian in a divided Britain. Recorded over two and a half years in India and the UK, More Arriving draws on the nascent rap scenes of Mumbai and New Delhi, incorporating spoken word and Korwar’s own Indian classical and jazz instrumentation. This is a record born of confrontation; one for our confrontational times.

With this album, Korwar expands his politicised narrative to envelop the entire diaspora. “This is a modern brown record. The kind of record that a contemporary Indian living in the UK for the past 10 years would make,” Korwar says. “This is what Indian music sounds like to me right now.”

It all begins with the title: “More Arriving comes from the scaremongering around Brexit,” Korwar says. “It’s a tongue-in-cheek play on the fact that there are more people coming and you’ll have to deal with it!” Through this defiance, Korwar takes clear pride in the knotty mix of his identity – harking back to the new India of the Mumbai hip-hop kids, as well as identifying with London’s cultural diversity. “I want the idea of brown pride to come through,” he says. “My voice is one amongst a thousand, but this record is a snapshot of something much greater than myself. It’s the chance to send a message.” 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A highly political record, fitting in perfectly between the colourful sounds of modern India and the UK's flourishing appreciation for nu-jazz and hip-hop. Korwar has managed to craft a brilliantly immersive LP, seamlessly segueing between genres while retaining the parts of each that make them great. A true melting pot, and a necessary political statement.

TRACK LISTING

1. A1. Mumbay (featuring MC Mawali)
2. A2. Jallaad
3. A3. Coolie (featuring Delhi Sultanate & Prabh Deep)
4. A4. Bol (featuring Zia Ahmed & Aditya Prakash)
5. B1. Mango (featuring Zia Ahmed)
6. B2. City Of Words (featuring TRAP POJU & Mirande)
7. B3. Good Ol’ Vilayati (featuring Mirande)
8. B4. Pravasis (featuring Deepak Unnikrishnan)

Madres is, unsurprisingly, dedicated to Kourtesis' mother. More surprising though it is also dedicated to world-renowned neurosurgeon Peter Vajkoczy. The story of how a world-renowned neurosurgeon came to appear in the liner notes of this record is one of tenacity, miracles, all-consuming love and ultimately, of hope.

When she began work on her debut, Kourtesis was seemingly unstoppable. A string of rapturously received EPs and singles made her one of the fastest rising stars in the electronic world and beyond.

She has already graced the cover of Mixmag, released a brilliantly energetic and moving Resident Advisor ‘RA Session’, appeared on ‘End of Year’ lists from the likes of The New York Times, Pitchfork, DJ Mag and Spotify (#6 Best Electronic Song) and played instant sell-out early shows at London’s Lafayette and Manchester’s YES as well as standout performances at Glastonbury, Green Man, Wide Awake and Primavera and tours supporting Caribou and Bicep.

Recommended if you like… Daphni, Logic1000, TSHA, Joy Orbison, HAAi, Jacques Greene

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A thoroughly captivating move through hazy lo-fi rave, rich rhythmic electronica and skittering IDM from Sofia Kourtesis and the ever-reliable electronic bastion Ninja Tune. It's beautifully produced, warmly dedicated and full of some of the most memorable electronic pieces i've heard in years. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

1. Madres
2. Si Te Portas Bonito
3. Vajkoczy
4. How Music Makes You Feel Better
5. Habla Con Ella
6. Funkhaus
7. Moving Houses
8. Estación Esperanza
9. Cecilia
10. El Carmen

Over the years Sharron Kraus’ musical career has pulled her in many directions and seen her collaborate with artists, poets, writers and researchers, creating soundtracks, podcasts, musical accompaniments and responses. She is an intuitive improviser, a compelling performer and a weaver of musical spells. The spine supporting this body of work is songwriting, though, and it is to this most natural combination of words and music that she always returns. If prose writing is a tool for analysis and working out what we think, because of the emotional dimension music introduces, songwriting is a tool for working out how we feel. KIN, her newest album, is a collection of songs written during and partly in response to the pandemic and the relative isolation it plunged us into. Kraus dives into deep explorations of themes of kinship with other humans as well as the natural world, and of what happens when those kinship bonds are severed or abused. Sonically the album is on a continuum with her previous solo album, Joy’s Reflection is Sorrow, with its layered synths and recorders, and sits somewhere in the space between Jane Weaver’s electronica and the psych/folk of bands like The Left Outsides, Modern Studies.

Former Curved Air vocalist, the gorgeous Sonja Kristina, with a new direction, an acoustic, rootsy outfit and another beguiling set of songs. Originally released in 1991 now with extra tracks.

Analogue Attic presents the second solo release from label co-founder and one half of Albrecht La'Brooy.

6 stunning compositions to soundtrack your half-time break, or to celebrate the big win, 'There's Always Next Year' is a tribute to the misguided hopes and dreams of a sports fan.

Field recordings and commentary from a range of codes weave between silky saxophone lines and piano chords in what is a textbook showcase of the classic Analogue Attic downtempo and early evening sound we've come to know.

Credits:

Leo Yucht on Drums
Greg Carelton on Saxophone
Mastered by Corey Kikos

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: An alluring and enchanted set with coastal leanings, expansive horizons and balmy scents throughout. The ultimate late summer shimmer for those milking out the final rays of the season.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Boxed In
A2. Curse
A3. 3rd And 28
B1. 140 To The Pin
B2. Let
B3. There's Always Next Year

Apollo XXI is the debut album from Steve Lacy - best known as the guitarist of space-soul band The Internet. At the ripe age of 20, the Grammy-nominated Compton native already has a veteran’s resume; he was Wired Magazine’s Tech Visionary, Time Magazine’s Most Influential Teen, produced-written-featured with Solange, J Cole, Vampire Weekend, Blood Orange and produced some of Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN on his iPhone. He’s also toured the world with his band mates The Internet, given a TED Talk, worked extensively with Louis Vuitton on behalf of Virgil Abloh (including walking at the LV Paris Fashion Week show) and now releases his debut album on his own terms. The most purely glorious song is Playground, whose one-chord rhythm guitar jangles as if announcing the arrival of swallows, ice cream and Love Island all at once, and is met by a limber falsetto top line worthy of Sly and the Family Stone.

TRACK LISTING

Only If
Like Me Feat. Daisy 
Playground
Basement Jack
Guide 
Lay Me Down
Hate CD 
In Lust We Trust
Love 2 Fast
Amandla’s Interlude
N Side
Outro Freestyle/4ever

Following the worldwide success of Steve Lacy’s critically acclaimed album Gemini Rights, this collection is now available on vinyl. The album features Steve’s chart topping global hit, Bad Habit.

Steve Lacy is a Grammy nominated singer-songwriter, producer, and musician who was born and raised in Compton, California. Steve was introduced to the music industry initially in 2015 as a member (guitarist) of R&B group, The Internet.

His previous solo work includes his debut EP, Steve Lacy’s Demo (Feb 2017), his debut album, Apollo XXI (May 2019), and The Lo-Fis (December 2020). Steve has production, writing and feature credits with artists like Kendrick Lamar, J Cole, Tyler, Mac Miller, The Internet, Thundercat, GoldLink, Solange, YG, Vampire Weekend, and Kali Uchis to name a few.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE 1
Static
Helmet
Mercury
Buttons
Bad Habit
SIDE 2
2gether (Enterlude) Steve Lacy & Matt Martians
Cody Freestyle
Amber
Sunshine
Give You The World

There is an entire sub-genre of poetry devoted to rivers and their persistent, meditative flow. Emily Dickinson’s ‘My River Runs to Thee’ compares them to the cycle of life, while Alfred Tennyson’s ‘The Brook’ deems them eternal and Kathleen Raine’s ‘The River’ muses on the dream-state they evoke. For transcendent folk pop artist Shannon Lay, the river is all of the above: It’s the metaphor driving her latest album, the exquisitely uplifting ‘August’, which doubles as an aural baptism renewing her purpose for making music. “I always picture music as this river. Everyone’s throwing things into this river, it’s a place you can go to and feed off of that energy,” she says, “and feel nourished by the fact that so many people are feeling what you’re feeling. It’s this beautiful exchange.”

The album’s name, ‘August’, refers to the month in 2017 when Lay quit her day job and fully gave herself over to music. This was her liberation as an artist and the album is devoted to paying that forward to her listeners. Lay may be the most chilled-out artist you’ll ever meet. Despite fronting her tranquil solo act and being a guitarist/singer in the indie rock band Feels, she never pressures herself to overachieve. Nonetheless, she regularly does: in a glowing review, Pitchfork anointed her last album, ‘Living Water’, “captivating.”

‘August’ was mostly written in three months, during Lay’s first solo tour for ‘Living Water’. “For the most part, all of the songs were just guitar and voice,” she says. In keeping with the humbled, contemplative nature of ‘August’, most tracks clock-in at three minutes or less. She saved indulgence for the production. “Some songs as they were had this room to grow,” says Lay, who recorded the album with her longtime friend, musician Ty Segall at his home studio on the East Side. “I believe whoever you record with tends to affect the mood of music and Ty really brought this jovial sense that I hadn’t really explored yet,” she says. Also in the mix is Mikal Cronin, who played saxophone on the album’s opener, ‘Death Up Close’. “A lot of my friends who are really tough have admitted that they shed a tear when they hear my songs, and I think that really speaks to the visceral aspect of folk music,” Lay says. “It’s this ancient form of expressing yourself.”

Think of ‘August’ as a warm hug for your psyche. “I want to create as much music as I can,” she says, “and leave this spot by the river where people can go sit and enjoy.”

TRACK LISTING

Death Up Close
Nowhere
November
Shuffling Stoned
Past Time
Wild
August
Sea Came To Shore
Sunday Sundown
Something On Your Mind
Unconditional
The Dream

Geist feels like a window - or a mirror - into possibilities of the self and beyond. Shannon Lay’s new album is tender intensity, placeless and ethereal.  It exists in the chasms of the present -- a world populated by shadow selves, spiritual awakenings, déjà vu, and past lives. “Something sleeps inside us,” Lay insists on the opening track, and that’s the guiding philosophy throughout. A winding, golden, delicate thread of intuition that explores the unknown, the possibility. Its title, Geist, the German word for spirit, is rife with an otherworldly presence, the suggestion of another. The promise that you are never alone. Lay tracked vocals and guitar at Jarvis Tavinere of Woods’s studio, then sent the songs out to multi-instrumentalists Ben Boye (Bonnie Prince Billy, Ty Segall) in Los Angeles and Devin Hoff (Sharon Van Etten, Cibo Matto) in New York; trusting their musical instincts and intuition. She then sent those recordings to Sofia Arreguin (Wand) and Aaron Otheim (Heatwarmer, Mega Bog) for additional keys, while Ty Segall contributed a guitar solo on “Shores.” As a whole, Geist is both esoteric and accessible. Songs range from a concise, pared-back cover of Syd Barrett’s tilt-a-whirl-esque “Late Night,” to the meditative Dune-inspired "Rare to Wake,” to the mostly a-cappella  “Awaken and Allow,” which channels Lay’s deep Irish roots, a moment of reflection, before a drop happens -- its intensity mirroring the anticipation and anxiety that come with taking the first step to accepting change for yourself. And the title track “Geist,” a song about the power living in all of us, is a love song to the possibility of healing, an ode to falling into the arms of what you’re becoming. It’s a glimpse into the parts of yourself you have yet to meet. But you can, if you want to.

TRACK LISTING

Rare To Wake
A Thread To Find
Sure
Shores
Awaken And Allow
Geist
Untitled
Late Night
Time's Arrow
July

Shawn Lee, the hardest working man in the music business, was recently approached to provide some music for a zombie computer video game. So in typical Shawn Lee fashion he wrote a whole lp! Shawn then approached Wonderfulsound asking if we wanted to release "Zombie Playground" on limited audio cassette tape in time for halloween. Why not!

Includes immediate download of 16-track album in the high-quality format of your choice (MP3, FLAC, and more), plus unlimited mobile access using the free Bandcamp listening app.

TRACK LISTING

Main Theme
Zombie 380
On The Prowl
Zombie Shuffle
Zombie Rider
Hammer Horror
Playground Love
Faster Faster
Zpg Ballad
Brain Brunch
Corridor Horror
Apocalypso
Janitor’s Jam
Janitor Strikes Back
Dead Man Walking

Sean Lennon's AVA’S POSSESSIONS film score is the musical backdrop for a quirky and eerie alternatereality that flips the possessions genre on its head, starring Louisa Krause, Carol Kane, Jemima Kirke and Dan Fogler.

A mysterious, dreamy wash of echoey drum machines and keyboards with dark and foreboding synth arrangements, twangy guitar riffs with a sci-fi western flair, 50s pop, 70s punk, creepy demonic themes interlaced with a touch raunchy, swaggering horns that recalls old school film noir — these diverse elements blend seamlessly to build a world of ominous moods and devilish confrontations, with a surprisingly fresh indie rock edge.

Lennon acts as both composer and performer on 10 of the songs, the remaining 2 being bonus tracks contributed by A.A. Khan (aka King Khan) and Mary Ochers. Vocalists Karla Moheno, Bishi and Foley Steward lend their voices to “Different Drum,” “Devil Daughter” and “Blame Beelzabub” respectively.

Lennon has released two previous film scores, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Undead and Alter Egos, to great critical acclaim. The diversity of these projects is a testament to his range as a musician, with nearly every review commenting on the film's music, calling it one of the single best things about the film.

Second release on the Chimera Music label, and the right album to follow up the widely lauded Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band album: Sean Lennon's instrumental (except for the song "Desire") score to an idiosyncratic low-budget vampire flick, composed on Lennon's bedroom computer, "Undead" is dramatic and wild, sounding like the son of Ennio Morricone or Bruno Nicolai circa early 70s. Featuring Kool Keith and Miho Hatori (Cibo Matto) on the song "Desire". The film Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Undead will have an Autumn indie theatre (UK/EU dates to be released) engagement, followed by DVD release.

At first glance, Sarah Louise might seem an unlikely candidate to credit technology as inspiration for her new album, Earth Bow. After all, she has lived in rural Appalachia for the last decade, foraging numerous species of wild mushroom, concocting medicine from plants she gathers, and performing what she terms “Earth Practices” to deepen her relationship with the natural world. But it is precisely her ability to find connections between false binaries that makes this album so novel and richly immersive. Louise conceived Earth Bow as an interconnected ecosystem, meant to evolve, interact and grow. Known for her inventive guitar playing, vocal harmonies and electronic experiments, it was her use of the SP-404SX sampler that became a primary inspiration for the album’s woven nature.

“Improvising with the 404 during live shows allows me to collaborate with the music as a living system, almost the way generative music works,” she says. “I kept finding more and more samples that worked together and realized I wanted to connect the entire record—and that there were many ways it could be connected.” Through this process, what began as eight core songs blossomed into two sweeping suites. Samples—denizens of her electronic forest—move around the record with changing context like words in a sestina or phrases in the I Ching, revealing new connections with each listen. Mesmeric sounds abound on Earth Bow, from analog synth tones, to digitally manipulated sonics that she stretches and layers with a painterly touch. These electronic sounds inhabit the same environment as field recordings, ceremonial percussion, guitars and empathic vocals, weaving together her vast and borderless influences into an enveloping world. “I want this record to take people on a journey through the wonders of our incredible planet, to help people feel held by the mysteries of nature,” she enthuses. “I believe music can heal.” After a string of celebrated releases on Thrill Jockey, Sarah Louise is self-releasing Earth Bow on her new imprint of the same name.

TRACK LISTING

1. Where The Owl Hums
2. Jewel Of The Blueridge
3. Mossy Slope
4. Summertime Moves Slow
5. Earth Wakes Up
6. Your Dreams
7. Surrender To The Night
8. If You Build A Pond The Frogs Will Come
9. Where Heron Fish At Dawn
10. Healers Circle Up

Following on from his 2018 album "Sincerely, S. Love x", Tapete Records are proud to present Simon Love's new record "LOVE, SEX and DEATH etc"

Swinging from love songs to hate songs through all points in-between, the centrepiece of the album is the nigh on 7-minute long pop epic "L-O-T-H-A-R-I-O" "

If you're thinking of buying just one magnificent pop disc in 2018, you need look no further: I give you, ladies and gentlemen, SIMON FUCKING LOVE! ("The Ballad Of Simon Love"). "Sincerely, S. Love x" (the kiss is meant to be pronounced) is Simon's sophomore solo album (his 2015 debut It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time was released on the brilliant, now sadly defunct Fortuna Pop label) and it features at least ten hits. Proper pop hits, with ELO harmonies, Spectoresque production, strings and trumpets, the whole shebang. All recorded over the last two years in London, England. Big city pop!

Classic 1969 blue-eyed soul monster that was the flipside of Sue Lynne’s ‘You’ single on RCA.

Huge at Wigan Casino back in the day.

Original copies now go for a huge £700 apiece.

A brass-powered stomper with a funky rhythm and backbeat that leads to a euphoric chorus and instrumental break.

Expertly remastered from the original sound source.

Two stellar versions; both mono and stereo for maximum dancefloor impact.

Written by Chris Andrews, who also penned Chris Farlowe’s mod anthem ‘Out Of Time’.

Sue Lynne (AKA Sue Vanner) quit the music business after the single’s failure to chart and ended up in the Bond movie ‘The Spy Who Love Me’, as well as a host of TV shows.

TRACK LISTING

Sue Lynne - Don’t Pity Me
Sue Lynne - Don’t Pity Me (Mono Version)

Shelby Lynne - gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. But can she sing? Well yes actually! She turned the conservative Nashville prudes on their heads with her multi million seller "I Am Shelby Lynne", overcoming the bathos of her tragic early life with a new look at alt.country, and this is more of the same. The added redolence of performing John Lennon's "Mother" makes it one of the album's many highlights.

As the empowerment of the ’60s gave way to the societal bankruptcy of the ’70s, a turned-on Black music emerged to soundtrack the agony of America at a crossroads. Tracked at DB Sound in Silver Spring, Maryland by producer R. Jose Williams, Your Funny Moods is built around the rhythms and keys of drumming wiz James Purdie. Remastered here from the original analog tapes, this 50th anniversary edition is peak group harmony soul from the Chocolate City.

TRACK LISTING

A1. I Need Your Love
A2. Town Called Nowhere
A3. Struggling Man
B1. Your Funny Moods
B. I’m Looking Away From My Past
B3. Seems Like The Love We Had Is Dead And Gone
B4. We Share Love

Modesty and plain good manners might prevent them from saying so themselves, but the fact that Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks have thrived, rather than simply endured over 17 years and delivered six albums of buzzy, sub-cultural significance, constitutes an impressive legacy. The challenge with album number seven is one that any successful band with integrity faces: how to safeguard that legacy and hold on to their identity without rehashing old ground (unthinkable), and also say something meaningful while (crucially) having fun doing it?

Meeting that issue head on in the run up to The Jicks’ seventh record involved some “navel gazing”, according to singer, songwriter, and guitarist Malkmus and not only in terms of what it means to be releasing music in 2018. If, like him, you’re a voracious consumer of all kinds of culture and feel the need to interact with it, rather than just react, then inevitably “there’s a world that prompts you to put your best foot forward”. With Sparkle Hard Malkmus, Mike Clark (keyboards), Joanna Bolme (bass) and Jake Morris (drums) do exactly that. And they hit the ground running – on air treads.

It’s light ’n’ breezy, head-down heavy, audacious, melancholic and reflective, goodtime and bodacious, and it pulls off the smartest trick: it’s both unmistakeably The Jicks and – due to the streamlining of their trademark tics and turns, plus the introduction of some unexpected flourishes (Auto-Tune, a fiddle, guest vocalist Kim Gordon, one seven-minute song with an acoustic folk intro) – The Jicks refashioned. If 2014’s Wig Out At Jag Bags balanced the lengthy prog workouts of Pig Lib with Mirror Traffic’s sparky pop moments, then Sparkle Hard bears less obvious direct relation to what’s come before. It also has turbocharged energy and enthusiasm by the truckload.

Malkmus started writing Sparkle Hard in 2015. He’d upgraded his home-recording equipment and bought some electronic drums and had been working on the Netflix series Flaked (he penned the incidental music and the end theme song). Demos were done in one day in April of 2017 and then in May, The Jicks started recording at a new studio in Portland called Halfling, which is managed by multi-instrumentalist Chris Funk of The Decemberists, who produced the album.

Self-indulgent escapism has never been The Jicks’ bag, but on Sparkle Hard, the reality of modern life sits closer to the surface, communication cutting to the chase whether it’s a proto-punk grind or a back-porch country duet doing the talking. A cleaner burn for dark and complex times.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Classic slacker vibes, double tracked vocal flourishes and more acoustic balladry make up the backbone of Malkmus' output, but this one takes the elements previously laid and fleshes them out into tender but beautiful statements of melody and rhythm. More full-on heavy moments are tempered with their ability to reduce things when needed ; the bass/guitar scree in 'Shiggy' serving as a perfect example of a wholly accomplished concept, executed with style.

TRACK LISTING

Cast Off
Future Suite
Solid Silk
Bike Lane
Middle America
Rattler
Shiggy
Kite
Brethren
Refute
Difficulties / Let Them Eat Vowels

New album from ex-Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus and his band The Jicks.

The album was produced by the band (Stephen Malkmus, Joanna Bolme, Jake Morris and Mike Clark) and Remko Schouten (the Dutch soundman of Pavement fame) in a studio in rural Ardennes with ‘a farmhouse vibe’.

In the words of Stephen Malkmus, "‘Wig Out At Jagbags’ is inspired by Cologne, Germany, Mark Von Schlegel, Rosemarie Trockel, Von Sparr and Jan Lankisch, Can and Gas; Stephen Malkums imagined Weezer/Chili Peppers, SIc Alps, UVA in the late 80's, NYRB, Aroma Charlottenburg, inactivity, Jamming, Indie guys trying to sound Memphis, Flipper, Pete Townsend, Pavement, The Joggers, The NBA and home life in the 2010's..."

STAFF COMMENTS

Ryan says: Malkmus displays his songwriting prowess again, following a similar formula to 'Mirror Traffic', Hazy guitar-rock and clever twists and turns make for an excellent listen.

'Mirror Traffic' is the new Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks album, recorded at LA’s Sunset Sound Studios and at the home of the album’s producer, Beck.

With the question of a Pavement reunion having been triumphantly answered last year with an Ono-esque “YES”, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks return with their most energized set to date. These 15 songs range from hard-rocking political commentary (“Senator”), to touching, winsome folk (“No One Is”), to virtuosic but melancholy and contrite kiwi pop (“Stick Figures In Love”). The lyrics are as curious as ever but more meaningful than they have been since 'Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain'. “This record,” concedes Malkmus dryly, “is relatively approachable.”

As the first producer to work with Malkmus since Pavement, Beck has drawn out a set of performances that ring with clarity and inventiveness. Gone are the long guitar workouts and jams that marked the last couple Jicks albums, replaced with a sharply defined focus and more colorful depth of field. With nearly half the tracks clocking in under three minutes, 'Mirror Traffic' flashes by with a lightness of touch; a decision that band and producer found easy to take: “Beck & I were both burned out on the heavy rocking style,” says Malkmus, “and playing to the strengths of a melody felt like the way to go.”

First two responses from bigshot journalists who got early copies were, word for word:
1) “I’m so psyched, this is the most Malk thing in years”
2) “I respect his right to make any record he wants, but this is the album that me and a lot of other people have waited 10 years for.”

For someone who has occasionally enjoyed a reputation for throwing ideas into the air and seeing where they land, 'Mirror Traffic' is a confident, heartfelt, direct record. Ease into the seat and enjoy the ride.

After three albums, critical recognition of the post-Pavement career of Stephen Malkmus has suffered; such was that bands legacy on alternative rock music. Of late, a vocal appearance on the "I'm Not There" soundtrack album has helped underline his unique lyrical style and bring his ever boyish vocal to a fresh audience. Refining the scattergun approach to acid rock, folk, prog and bubblegum that characterized the Pavement sound and subsequent three as Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, "Real Emotional Trash" ranks alongside "Wowee Zowee" and "Terror Twilight" as a wonky, woozy 'heads' record. "Hopscotch Willy" and "Baltimore" touch musically and lyrically on the 60s folk-rock tradition. Over ten minutes, the title track jumps from Fairport Convention, Television and Grateful Dead. No doubt taking a cue from Tony McPhee of the Groundhogs, Malkmus indulges his penchant for guitars of all description; electric, acoustic, delayed, distorted, doubled, detuned and often wailing simultaneously in all directions. As much as the songs are undoubtedly from the pen of Malkmus, this is definitely a proper band effort. The bottom end crunch supplied by Janet Weiss (formerly Sleater Kinney) and bassist Joanna Bolme provide ballast and direction, ensuring the album will rock you to the soles of your battered Converse.

Traditional Techniques, Malkmus’ third solo LP without the Jicks (or Pavement), is new phase folk music for new phase folks, with Malkmus as attuned as ever to the rhythms of the ever-evolving lingual slipstream. It’s packed with handmade arrangements, modern folklore, and 10 songs written and performed in his singular voice. An adventurous new album in an instantly familiar mode, Traditional Techniques creates a serendipitous trilogy with the loose fuzz of the Jicks’ Sparkle Hard (2018) and the solo bedroom experiments of Groove Denied (2019). Taken together, these three very different full-lengths in three years highlight an ever-curious songwriter committed to finding untouched territory.

Malkmus took on Traditional Techniques as a kind of self-dare. Conceived while recording Sparkle Hard at Portland’s Halfling Studio, Malkmus had observed the variety of acoustic instruments available for use. The idea escalated within a matter of weeks into a full set of songs, and shortly thereafter into a realized and fully committed album. When he returned to Halfling, Malkmus drew from a whole new musical palette--including a variety of Afghani instruments - to support an ache both quizzical and contemporary. The resulting Traditional Techniques is expansive and thrilling. Alongside gorgeous folk music, there are also occasional bursts of flute-laced swagger, straight-up commune rock (“Xian Man”), and mind-bending fuzz.

Centred around the songwriter’s 12-string acoustic guitar, and informed by a half-century of folk-rock reference points, Traditional Techniques is the product of Malkmus and Halfling engineer/arranger-in-residence Chris Funk (The Decemberists). Additionally, Matt Sweeney (Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Chavez) plays guitar throughout.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Malkmus returns, bringing with him a healthy line-up of shimmering folky ballads and swooning angular acoustic guitar work. Ranging from hypnotic drones and soul-affirming melodicism to jaunty, swaggering grooves and all topped with Malkmus' unmistakeable vocals. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

1. ACC Kirtan
2. Xian Man
3. The Greatest Own In Legal History
4. Cash Up
5. Shadowbanned
6. What Kind Of Person
7. Flowin’ Robes
8. Brainwashed
9. Signal Western
10. Amberjack

The rumours are true: the secret electronic album that Stephen Malkmus has been telling everyone about sees the light of day through Domino. But Groove Denied is not a full-blown plunge into EDM or hiptronica. In fact, there aren’t any purely instrumental tracks on the album. Every song is precisely that: a song, featuring Malkmus staples like an artfully askew melody and an oblique lyric. Groove Denied is Stephen playing hooky from his customary way of going about things, jolting himself out of a routine. As Malkmus commented, “It’s fun to mess with things that you’re not supposed to.”

The first taste of Stephen’s new groove can be sampled today, with the release of single ‘Viktor Borgia’, and its accompanying video starring Stephen alone in a dance club. The title playfully merges the name of the comedian-pianist and the ruthless dynasty of Italo-Spanish nobles. With its stately melody and the almost-English-accented vocal, the coordinates here are early Human League or even Men Without Hats. “I was thinking things like Pete Shelley’s ‘Homosapien’, the Human League, and DIY synth music circa 1982,” says Stephen, adding “and also about how in the New Wave Eighties, these suburban 18-and-over dance clubs were where all the freaks would meet – a sanctuary.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's bloody brilliant this, with hints of post-punk garage and most of all 80's synth, Malkmus clearly shows his wealth of influence on 'Groove Denied', swinging from snappy grunge to 70's psychedelia without batting an eyelid. Though the diversity in sound shines through, it's not without the Malkmus charm, with his vocal prowess shining through the stylistic patchwork.

TRACK LISTING

Eins
01. Belziger Faceplant
02. A Bit Wilder
03. Viktor Borgia
04. Come Get Me
05. Forget Your Place

Zwei
06. Rushing The Acid Frat
07. Love The Door
08. Bossviscerate
09. Ocean Of Revenge

For his second album after splitting indie-gods Pavement, Stephen Malkmus sets his controls for the heart of the seventies! Eschewing conventional flabby white boy blues rock cliches for a tighter sound more reminiscent of the Groundhogs (long time Piccadilly faves) and Captain Beefheart, Malkmus adds a dash of folk-rock and some ace krautrock synth sounds to his inimitable skewed pop aesthetic. Initially less accessible than his debut, repeated listens reveal "Pig Lib" to be just as rewarding as those more 'musical' later Pavement offerings.

Spatial & Co is a synth-drizzled, spaced-out bass-heavy discoid-funk masterpiece from French disco lord and Arpadys maestro Sauveur Mallia. Recorded for French library label Tele Music, in 1979, it's by turns cosmic funk and creeping crime funk, bursting with low slung, k-i-l-l-e-r basslines, loping drum breaks and sparkling percussion. It's so funky it hurts.

Confidently swaggering out the gate is "Future Vision", with its loping yet dextrous bassline across strutting beats setting the scene. "Cosmic News", with its live crowd noises over killer bass work is reminiscent of Bernard & Nile's "Chic Cheer". The bass vs synth workout "Baby Bass" increases the propulsion whilst the dark and mysterious vibes of "Star Odyssey" serve as cosmic respite from being overpowered by funk. The temperature and tempo are raised with the bouncing sophisticated funk of "Meteor One", a slinky interstellar instrumental of the highest order before the sultry, melodic "Bass For Love" offers some attractive slow-mo sleaze to close out the first side.

Opening up Side B, the menacing, beatless "Space Alert" sounds like all those sci-fi theme tunes from your childhood, synthesised into one glorious (black) whole. "Galaxy Wars" is next, another majestic cosmic gem, sans drums. The ultra-percussive flex of "All The Bass" sees the return of the frenetic funky bass and neck-snapping drums. The stretched out funk of "O.V.N.I. Telex" is irresistible and cavernous in scope whilst the swirling, dramatic "Galactics" is an ominous yet melodic wonder. The throwaway funk-lite "Animals Bass" is a bit of a daft way to close out this otherwise flawless set but, hey, flirting with perfection is probably always more fun than actually achieving it.

Sauveur Mallia is a crucial figure in the history of electronic and dance music and a hugely underrated French library bass player and composer from the Arpadys / Voyage crew. This is just the beginning of Be With's Mallia - Tele Music reissue campaign!

The audio for Spatial & Co Vol. 1 has been remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring the punch of Sauveur's bass and those sick drums come through to the fullest. Pete Norman’s expert skills has made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the original and iconic sleeve has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Future Vision (3:47)
A2 Cosmic News (2:25)
A3 Baby Bass (2:43)
A4 Star Odyssey (3:33)
A5 Meteor One (2:11)
A6 Bass For Love (2:46)
B1 Space Alert (3:24)
B2 Galaxy Wars (2:45)
B3 All The Bass (2:53)
B4 O.V.N.I. Telex (3:36)
B5 Galactics (2:50)
B6 Animals Bass (2:14)

Spatial & Co Vol. 2 may well be the best album in the Spatial & Co series. It's absolutely flawless. Again created by French disco lord and Arpadys maestro Sauveur Mallia for French library label Tele Music in 1979, it leans far more into the space disco sound than the clean cosmic funk of its predecessor. And it's all the more thrilling for it.

Spatial & Co Vol. 2 may well be the best album in the Spatial & Co series. It's absolutely flawless. Again created by French disco lord and Arpadys maestro Sauveur Mallia for French library label Tele Music in 1979, it leans far more into the space disco sound than the clean cosmic funk of its predecessor. And it's all the more thrilling for it.

Wide-eyed opener "Discomax" is starts as pure piano-disco brilliance with a bassline to die for before heading off into wigged out territory, all acidic squelches and jaw-dropping percussive breakdowns. Perfection. "Space People" follows, an eerie, half-beatless sci-fi synth workout played out against a hauntingly metronomic pulse for the first half - proper slow-mo space disco business - before the beat kicks in, the electric guitar solo wails beautifully and the bassline that emerges at its conclusion rides in on some other shit.

Closing out the A-Side, the six minute long "Bass Power" is, unsurprisingly, a deep, low-end roller with head-nod drums, whizzing synths, blissed out ambient vibes and Mallia's otherworldly bass playing super high in the mix. It's white hot funk, make no mistake, and it sounds like a re-geared library version of Roxy Music. Yes, *that* good.

Side B is laced firstly by "Holidays Morning", an emotional disco-pop groover, all electric guitars, skipping drums and synthy bleeps with more than a few moments of pure driving funk.
One for the deep heads, longtime favourite "Electric Maneges" follows, a bleepy, haunted dancehall gem, uncut tropical balearic-funk from another dimension. The sophisticated digi-soul of "Loving Discovery" comes on like a weird, interplanetary Sade instrumental, all swelling synths, warm keys and syrupy guitar rhythms. Hearing is believing.

Arguably saving the best til last, the fierce, proto-techno of "Exotic Guide" closes out this extraordinary set. The intro genuinely sounds like Detroit would a good few years later - just wild - before it glides into a driving percussive funk break complete with both stabbing, insistent synths and those of a more winding, laconic variety. The one complaint? It's over far too soon. Remarkable.

Sauveur Mallia is a crucial figure in the history of electronic and dance music and a hugely underrated French library bass player and composer from the Arpadys / Voyage crew. This is just the beginning of Be With's Mallia - Tele Music reissue campaign!

The audio for Spatial & Co Vol. 2 has been remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring the punch of Sauveur's bass and those sick drums come through to the fullest. Pete Norman’s expert skills has made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the original and iconic sleeve has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue. 

TRACK LISTING

A1 Discomax (4:40)
A2 Space People (4:40)
A3 Bass Power (6:00)
B1 Holidays Morning (5:20)
B2 Electric Maneges (4:10)
B3 Loving Discovery (3:40)
B4 Exotic Guide (3:30)

Cabaret Voltaire co-founder Stephen Mallinder’s second solo outing for Dais further distills his signature fusion of minimal synth, oblique wordplay, and “wonky disco” into a riveting rhythm suite ripe for our age of escalation: tick tick tick. Channeling the temporal malaise of lockdown through a lusher palette of modular electronics and stereo strings, the songs embrace ambiguity and plasticity, loose systems of percolating circuitry and airless funk. Recorded across a handful of sessions at MemeTune Studios in Cornwall with frequent collaborator Benge (aka Ben Edwards), Mallinder cites no guiding aesthetic premise for the collection beyond “cowbell on every track, and entirely no reverb.”

From the first coiled cybernetic groove of opener “Contact,” the album’s spatial dynamics are disorienting and asymmetrical, alternately cold and sensual, opiated and claustrophobic. But, throughout, “rhythm is the default, the bedrock, the building block – even the melodies are rhythmic.” Across 40-plus years of electronic musicianship, Mallinder’s sense of timing and tempo has honed into a rare tier of mastery, limber and fluid but knotted with strange frictions. Shades of Detroit technoid industrial (“ringdropp,” “Shock to the Body”) crossfade into no wavy punkfunk (“Guernica Gallery,” “Galaxy,” “The Trial”), bad trip IDM (“Wasteland”), and jittery vapor house (“Hush”), at the threshold of modes both familiar and foreign.

Lyrically the record is equally evasive, rich with allusions and associative linguistics, surveying liquid notions of societal noise, ecological ruin, art world pretension, and the trials of daily life. But the lack of fixed meaning remains Mallinder’s main muse: “Music should draw you in; lyrics should make you think. Most interpretation is misinterpretation.” This is music of countdowns and comedowns, fleeting pleasures and opaque futures, observing the great decline while dancing on its ashes. Flux is deathless and forever; the rest, illusion: “I will be a constant figure / Flickering a moving picture / Turning in your head forever / Split apart but held together.”

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
A1. Contact
A2. Ringdropp
A3. Galaxy
A4. Wasteland

SIDE B:
B1. Hush
B2. Shock To The Body
B3. Guernica Gallery *
B4. The Trial
B5. Tick Tick Tick

* CD Bonus Track

Stephen Mallinder, co founder and frontman of the iconic Cabaret Voltaire, has returned with his first solo album in over 35 years: Um Dada. Laced with leftfield house and cut up sound collages, Um Dada is a melding of energies that are an exercise in simplicity and motion. Sincere, playful realism that beckons your body to move, always reminding you to never take yourself too seriously without forfeiting your agency.

While steering Cabaret Voltaire through the 1980’s, Mallinder was already busy piecing together his first solo album entitled “Pow Wow”, which would help define Mallinder’s interest in the more leftfield electro sounds shaping England at the time. It was this diverse and abstract hybrid that helped inspire generations of artists and musicians through steeping raw machine funk within the whimsical and absurdist ideology.

Since the release of “Pow Wow” in 1982, Mallinder continued his pioneering work with Cabaret Voltaire, as well as recording and touring with his electro projects Wrangler, Creep Show, Hey Rube, Kula, and Cobby & Mallinder. In addition to his non stop schedule in electronic music, his professional life as a journalist, broadcaster, producer and now a professor of Digital Music & Sound Art at the University of Brighton, has lead Mallinder to a unique point in his career. Most in his position would be caught up in rosy retrospection, but Mallinder himself says, “There’s too much digital finger licking right now; every thought and desire at the turn of a dial... well a click of the mouse. And there’s a giddy, false nostalgia about the analogue past. Sorry to burst your bubble but the truth of history is more mundane: practical, pragmatic...Um Dada is about ‘play’ cut and paste, lost words, twisted presets, voice collage, simple sounds things that have been lost to technology’s current determinism. Let the machines talk to each other, let them dance .. they lead, we follow.”

Um Dada opens up with the exact machine led surrealism that Mallinder recommends in “Working (You Are)”. A thick, stripped back dance floor groove provides the ideal foundation for Mallinder’s eccentric vocal cuts. The frisky chops present an almost twisted irony, subtly bringing to mind the role we’re all forced to play as just another cog in the ever grinding capitalist machine of life. Yet, somehow, the listener is left feeling optimistic. A prime example of simplicity at work. Tracks such as “Satellite” give a skillful illustration of Mallinder’s adeptness with his musical expertise while preserving his core historical context as only simple reference. The underlying bassline and percussion, coupled with the floating melodies and airy vocal refrain disclose the vulnerabilities of love and loss without a hint of irony or nostalgia.

Um Dada is mischievously idealist, however never loses touch with reality. Offering structure while simultaneously dismantling any and all preconceptions. The spirit of sincerity that sustained Cabaret Voltaire’s lengthy career is abundantly present within founder Stephen Mallinder’s journey through his own whimsical utopian consciousness and staking claim to an identity that is solely his own.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: One of the most singular voices in English electronica returns for his first solo album in over 30 years. 'Um Dada' encompasses everything we love about Mallinder and while his most recent collabs (Creep Show with shop favourite John Grant was a particular highlight) clearly showed his influence, it's great to hear his own sound, undiluted and unadorned, and switching effortlessly between a huge range of influences and sounds.

TRACK LISTING

CD
1. Working (You Are)
2. Prefix Repeat Rewind
3. It’s Not Me
4. Um Dada
5. Satellite
6. Colour
7. Flashback
8. Robber*
9. Hollow*

*Bonus Tracks

LP
A1. Working (You Are)
A2. Prefix Repeat Rewind
A3. It’s Not Me
A4. Um Dada
B1. Satellite
B2. Colour
B3. Flashback

Cut in 1968, at the birth of electric fusion and afro funk, West Coast drummer Shelly Manne's brilliant score for the popular 60s TV series "Daktari" still stands as a global fusion landmark. And, yes, I am old enough to remember Clarence the cross eyed lion, but only because the series was repeated thru' the 70s.

The mythical, mysterious and misfiled transcription disc of a lost Italian demonic religious rock opera recorded at Pierre Umiliani’s Sound Workshop by Stefano Marcucci - beat group veteran, Fernando Arrabal collaborator and Libra affiliate.

Featuring members of the wider Casa / Ducros family and future Federico Fellini collaborators, this previously commercially unavailable mini album features embryonic Minimoog, ecclesiastical organs and chorus alongside a tight psych funk rhythm section from Italian library music’s golden era.

Imagine Jean Pierre Massiera’s Visitors rescoring a scene from ‘Juliette Of The Spirits’, backed by a skeleton staff from Jean-Claude Vannier’s ‘Chorale des Jeunesses Musicales de France’ on a foreign exchange program, on Halloween, in the Vatican.

Continuing their mission to shine light on the genuine anomalies of 70s Italian production music, Finders Keepers Records resurrect another unlikely transcription disc from the vaults of one of Rome’s most esoteric library music archives. This bizarre one-off theatrical project, composed and recorded at Umiliani’s studio, was commissioned for a short-run demonic religious performance entitled ‘Tempo Di Demoni, Papi, Angioli, Incensi E Cilici’ under the musical direction of former Italian psychedelic beat-group member Stefano Marcucci.

Instantly recognised by Flower Records founder Romano Di Bari as having commercial potential beyond its handful of church and small theatre performances in the early months of 1975, Marcucci agreed that they should commit these bizarre recordings to vinyl as a form of preservation with hope of attracting a wider commercial audience through Di Bari’s Television and Films synchronisation contacts. Sitting slightly ajar to the custom-made projects of its label bedfellows (swapping schedules with experimental theme-music by Alessandro Alessandroni, Gerardo Iacoucci and Anthonio Ricardo Luciani), this album has slipped under the radar of many Library label completists over the years attracting confusion, scepticism, polarised opinion but nothing short of astonishment at the bizarre hidden synth-ridden psychedelic concept pop found behind some of the most striking duo-tone artwork to come out of Italy’s most experimental era.

Original copies of this highly sought after library disc fetch in excess of £300 on certain internet auction sites.

TRACK LISTING

Pange Lingua (strum.)
Alleluja
Inferno
Coro Dei Penitenti
Gli Occhi Di Tutti
Roma Nobilis
Rendete Grazie
Pange Lingua (vocale)

Recommended If You Like: Bill Callahan, Cass McCombs, Damien Jurado, Hovvdy, Phoebe Bridgers, Sam Evian, Sun Kil Moon. Over the last decade Steve Marino has recorded multiple solo albums (as Moor Hound), been in countless bands, and toured the country consistently, but his newest full-length, Fluff, is the first collection of songs he’s released in his own name. In that sense it’s his “debut” album. One might expect such a transition, from the artifice of a band name to the intimacy of one’s given name, to be born of some newfound, inward focus. It makes sense; it’s a story of an artist going back to basics, getting real. It’s also not what happened.

Fluff is an album about home, and one’s place in it, love, and intimacy, and it’s the result of Steve marrying his direct, honest songwriting with a deeply collaborative process. He developed the record with fellow Bloomington, Indiana resident, and standout producer/engineer Ben Lumsdaine (Kevin Krauter, Major Murphy, Spissy) and together they open up the songs, giving them tangible depth. The title track, “Fluff”, with its precise drums, layered guitars, and visceral, emotive vocals, captures the power of this collaboration. It’s a song that is delicate, yet driving, lyrically opaque, yet emotionally direct. It is, like the rest of the album, in perfect balance. Press Quotes: “Steve Marino’s folksy, Midwestern vibes are genuine. Based out of Bloomington, IN, Marino makes music that’s easy on the ear and the soul” Indie Shuffle // “Marino’s heartfelt tunes are ballads for the every person, stripped to simplicity for repeated enjoyment.” Austin Town Hall… Tracks: Fluff, Six Two Four, On the Line, Green and Blue, Open Door, Under the Table, Dehilya, Va. 

Written at home by Mason, the tracks were then rehearsed in Brighton with touring band mates Steve Duffield and Greg Nielson, before being recorded with Elbow keyboardist and producer Craig Potter at Blueprint Studios in Salford. Recorded in the studios ‘big room’, an ex-factory space with floor to ceiling windows, the album took shape during a smooth and enjoyable six weeks in the early summer of 2015.

Following from his ‘double political concept album’ ‘Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time’ this album is a move towards a more simple ethic; ‘an album where each song is a separate entity, where there is no great narrative running through it.’

‘Meet The Humans’ is shot through with a sense of renewal following Steve’s recent move to Brighton, swinging musically across dance, pop, folk, dub, and deep house influences. It’s a record which repeatedly returns to core themes, the possibility of others to redeem the self, the opportunity of change for the better in the individual, the joy of life and the world we inhabit, it’s arguably the most complete and direct of Steve’s long discography - eleven personal stories combined into one positive and proper whole, the sweep of the human condition written large and full of love and hope and joy.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: The funky ex Beta Band maestro returns with a buoyant encapsulation of all that is good in his groovesome world. The lush production and airy vibes make this pretty close to a pop record, but as ever, there's always the melancholy in the melody for Mr. Mason. However, certain tracks on here take us right back to those glorious baggy days of 1989, which I always thought was Steve's musical template. Combining these with the more introspective moments make this possibly the best album of his career so far. Inspirational.

TRACK LISTING

1. Water Bored
2. Alive
3. Alright
4. Another Day
5. Ran Away
6. To A Door
7. Hardly Go Through
8. Through My Window
9. Planet Sizes
10. Like Water
11. Words In My Head

After the critically lauded ‘Boys Outside’, ex-Beta Band mainman Steve Mason delivers his magnum opus ‘Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time’.

‘Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time’ is an album saturated with politics. With a title referring to the Buddhist term for an easily distracted brain, the album features 20 songs - 9 recorded in London with producer Dan Carey and 11 short linking pieces self-produced in Mason’s Fife studio.

All songs on the album were written by Mason, while Dan Carey appears on bass throughout the record, and acclaimed London MC Mystro provides vocals on ‘More Money, More Fire’.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Old Problem
2. Lie Awake
3. Flyover ‘98
4. A Lot Of Love
5. The Last Of Heroes
6. Lonely
7. Safe Population
8. Friends For Ever More
9. Seen It All Before
10. From Hate We Hope
11. Oh My Lord
12. Goodbye Youth
13. Never Be Alone
14. Behind The Curtains
14. More Money, More Fire
16. Fire!
17. Operation Mason
18. Fight Them Back
19. Towers Of Power
20. Come To Me

BONUS CD DISC:
1. Seen It All Before (Greg Wilson Remix)
2. Come To Me (Greg Wilson Remix)

Having written most of his previous albums alone, About The Light marks a change in approach for Steve.

“I decided with this album that I wanted to get my live band involved at every stage because I wanted to capture the energy that we produce when we play live shows, so this time the band and myself worked on a collection of songs over the course of last year,” he explains.

Picking Stephen Street to produce the album, and with a very clear plan in mind, from the off the goal was to capture the songs live and draw out their soulful elements.

Talking about the process, Stephen Street says, “Steve explained that he wanted to make this album with his band playing more ‘live’ than on some of his previous offerings and also to augment the songs with brass and female backing vocalists. I felt this approach of first stripping back the songs to a more ‘live’ feel to create more space for the more ‘soulful’ elements to breathe in was an interesting one and we got down to work!”

Recorded at studios in London and Brighton, About The Light, sees a subtle yet noticeable evolution in Steve’s sound.

“When I listen to this album it feels and sounds like the first ‘legitimate’ record that I have ever made. It’s hard to explain but it sounds like a ‘real’ album. I think that is partly the production, the playing and the work that I did with the band for all those months in our rehearsal room on the South Coast,” says Steve.

“It’s a beautiful, confident, positive, angry, loving and gentle album which once again moves what I do forward,” he adds. “David Bowie said that you should always be slightly out of your comfort zone if you want to achieve greatness, and for the first time perhaps ever, I deliberately pushed myself into that place. Who doesn’t want greatness?”

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Wearing his heart on his sleeve both emotionally and politically, the former Beta Band front man brings us his best and most direct album to date. As ever he dabbles with different genres, be it folky ballads, melodica tinged dub, Stones-ey southern Soul or big hook filled pop songs, but this time around, more than ever, he’s managed to meld everything into a cohesive, uplifting whole.

TRACK LISTING

1. America Is Your Boyfriend
2. Rocket
3. No Clue
4. About The Light
5. Fox On The Rooftop
6. Stars Around My Heart
7. Spanish Brigade
8. Don’t Know Where
9. Walking Away From Love
10. The End

His most open, honest and vibrant solo record to date, Brothers & Sisters marries the personal and the political but does so in an emotive and uplifting manner. Written against a backdrop of fear and uncertainty, and at a time when those in charge lurched from one disaster to the next mismanagement with increasing regularity, Brothers & Sisters is in fact an incredibly joyous, even spiritual, listen.

With musical contributions from feted Pakistani singer Javed Bashir, British gospel singers Jayando Cole, Keshia Smith, Connie McCall & Adrian Blake and Kaviraj Singh on the santoor it’s a record about bringing people together through art, music and culture.

“To me, this record is a massive ‘Fuck you’ to Brexit,” explains Mason. “And a giant ‘Fuck you’ to anyone that is terrified of immigration because there is nothing that immigration has brought to this country that isn’t to be applauded. Can you imagine what this place would be like without that [immigration]? I mean what would it be like? Cornish pasties and morris dancing?.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: A record which Steve himself calls "a massive Fuck You to Brexit" is actually an incredibly uplifting pop record with some of the best tunes and grooves of his whole career. Inspirational!

TRACK LISTING

1. Mars Man
2. I’m On My Way
3. No More
4. All Over Again
5. The People Say
6. Let It Go
7. Pieces Of Me
8. Travelling Hard
9. Brixton Fish Fry
10. Upon My Soul
11. Brothers & Sisters

Another stunning single taken from the album of the same name. Delicate guitars and a gorgeous voice that's part Jeff Buckley, part John Martyn and part Elliott Smith.

Most well known as the Grammy nominated keyboardist/co-producer and co- writer of the celebrated Australian band Haitus Kaiyote, Simon Mavin's had a hand in multiple projects across the spectrum, but has yet to release under his own moniker until now.

The EP, which features two original tracks and two remixes from fellow Aussies Harvey Sutherland and Close Counters starts out was recorded in-between projects at the Grove, a small recording sanctuary in Melbourne. In Simon's studio, he had installed a library of keyboards. 30-40 synthesizers, all of which were painstakingly patched in to be simultaneously accessible and ready to record in an instant. A drum kit in the corner was constantly mic'd up, and everything routed through a multitude of analog mixing desks providing different flavours of tone and texture. The Grove had such appeal that it was chosen as the studio to record the Gilles Peterson compilation 'Sunny Side Up' on Brownswood Recordings.

Things kick off with "Good Hair Day", a track originally blossoming from an infectious piano loop in which fellow collaborators Nick Lam and Henry Hicks added guitar parts and bass parts. What's resulted is a danceable, infectious feel-good dancefloor jam with an ultra funky synth bassline that harkens back to Herbie Hancock's 1970's repertoire. Harvey Sutherland takes the tempo up and takes the track deeper into outer space with deep synth work, four on the floor drums, and a punchy bassline for late night sessions.

On the flip, "Only You & Me" is a lower tempo, slow burning joint with a live drum loop played by Nick Martyn, with an alien bassline, squelching keys, otherworldly oscillating vocodor parts and jazzy keyboard solos. Up and coming trio Close Counters take the song into new territory, stripping things down with a classic Broken Beat vibe, a driving bassline and synth stabs from the original, moving things squarely on the dancefloor – definitely atrack for the breakers in the building.

TRACK LISTING

1. Good Hair Day
2. Good Hair Day (Harvey Sutherland Remix)
3. Only You & Me
4. Only You & Me (Close Counters Remix)

Soundway Records present a special summer tribute double A-side 12" with two tracks from African musicians that both passed away within a couple of months of each other at the end of 2013 / start of 2014. Both tracks are perfect summer tropical DJ box essentials for the dancefloor.

On the first side South African singer Shaluza Max's massive Mashkandi / house anthem from 2002 gets a first release on vinyl. This track was a huge hit in South Africa and around the world on its release. With a soaring Zulu vocal and big sound it's a fitting reminder of a very talented musician who worked as a very well respected producer, composer and arranger. He died tragically young at the age of 47 in January of 2014.

On the flip we drop a fairly unknown track from the mid 1980s from one of the biggest names in African music, Tabu Ley Rochereau. A kind of almost Balearic proto-house congolese pop cut with drum machines and trademark sweet Congo horn section, 'Hafi Deo' is a beautiful track that fell into obscurity outside the Congo by perhaps being too smooth for the 'world music' crowd in the mid 80s. Tabu Ley passed away in November 2013 in his late 70s with over 250 albums and 3000 songs to his name. A true pioneer of the Congolese soukous sound, he was also one of the most influential African musicians of his generation.

TRACK LISTING

Shaluza Max - Mangese
Tabu Ley Rochereau - Hafi Deo

Two of the finest examples of belting barrelhouse jumpin’ blues at their very best and finally available on a 45 format. "Drank Up All The Wine Last Night" is another classic to add to the 'drunk R&B' sub-section.

Cold Brew is a posthumous collection of instrumental rock music from Sam Mehran recorded in Los Angeles between April and May 2018. Compiled under the guidance of Sam’s father, Abbas Mehran, and curated by Sam’s friends Nicholas Weiss and Katie Wagner, it’s the first time that Sam’s solo music will be released under his own name.

Sam recorded over one hundred songs for Cold Brew, a selection of which are presented here in their original form, without any additional production or remixing. Cold Brew was always intended to be an instrumental album, driven by effortlessly hooky guitars, warm, golden sound, and puckish attitude. Using dry, driving sonics without much reverb or washy ambience, it’s informed by rock’s history but not reverent towards it.

From the Floydian Mellotron ballad of "In My First Mind" to the seagulls and wavesounds on "The Beauty of Time Is That It's Snowing" the first Steve Miller Band album from 1968 is full of suprises, each track segues into the next and can be termed a concept album, there is a blues feel about it but there are also moments of psychedelia and progressive rock that make you really sit up. A minor classic.

"Number 5" the Steve Miller Band's 1970 release remains a real favourite amongst his fans. It seems to epitomise his early work (prior to his car crash and later more pop-orientated career). It's full of melodic, spacey guitar-led songs with much use of the Echoplex. It includes classic Miller songs like "Good Morning", "Going To The Country" and "Jackson-Kent Blues".

Opening with the haunting "Song For Our Ancestors" Steve Miller's 1968 album "Sailor" is probably the finest of his career. The band were on song with half the album more bluesy and the other half more rockin'. It includes classic Miller songs like "Living In The USA" and "Gangster Of Love". With Stones producer Glyn Johns at the controls, this is a great album if you love that epic 60s San Francisco sound.

The debut album from 19-year-old artist Sofia Mills, Baby Magic intimately details the most pivotal moments in her coming-of-age experience: breakups with toxic boyfriends, coming out as queer at age 16, a longtime struggle with mental illness.

As shown on her breakthrough single "Coffee Breath" (a self-produced track that's amassed over 100 million streams on Spotify to date), the Massachusetts-born singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist imbues her storytelling with both startling clarity and profound sensitivity, an element echoed in her warmly textured brand of indie-pop.

Written entirely by Mills and co-produced with John Mark Nelson (Taylor Swift, Allison Ponthier), Baby Magic arrives as a complex and captivating body of work, built on a potent tension between her dreamy romanticism and intense self-awareness.

TRACK LISTING

1. DREAMGIRL
2. Won’t You
3. Drunk / Tired
4. Life Of The Party
5. Baby Magic
6. Wish I Would
7. Bite
8. Sleepover
9. White Lilies

Long out of print 1979 roots reggae classic - limited 7" repress / in-demand roots anthem - backed with Prince Jammy's black belt dub cut.

Recorded at Channel One and mixed at King Tubby's

Produced by Prince Jammy

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Classic Jammy's from just before he went digital! Mixed at Tubby's it's full of that authentic original dub flavour and shows he was just as skilled and mixing these styles as he would later, dancehall.

TRACK LISTING

Sugar Minott - Give The People What They Want
Prince Jammy - Brothers Of The Blade

Stanley Mitchell was born in Detroit in 1935 and performed with a number of local bands in the mid to late fifties cutting wax for Chess and Gone records. But it is thanks to Richard “Popcorn” Wylie that his presence was ever felt on these shores when, in 1973, his atmospheric “Get It Baby” was championed in the early days of Wigan Casino by DJ Richard Searling. The song was originally relegated to the B-side of the altogether more catchy “Quit Twistin’ My Arm’, arguably the more popular side today. In the late seventies another track emerged from Detroit, “Down In The Dumps” by Tony Hester, which shared the same backing track as “Get It Baby” which further cemented the record in the annals of Northern Soul history.

TRACK LISTING

1. Quit Twistin' My Arm
2. Get It Baby

The ever-reliable Soundway come more than correct this week with a vinyl only DJ 12" featuring two mega re-edits of GIANT Afro dancers from Steve Monite and Tabu Ley Rochereau. Now a firm favourite in many a DJ's record bag, Nigerian disco-boogie king Steve Monite's hit "Only You" (featured on Soundway's recent "Doing It In Lagos" compilation), is given a rework by Sofrito's own Frankie Francis. Frankie switches up the arrangement, boosts that pinging bassline and adds a little extra club thwomp to deliver a definitive dance floor mix of this Afro-disco bomb. Sublime synthlines, impassioned vocals and insane space echo fly at you from all sides as this masterpiece unites the club in bass-led ecstasy. On the B-side, Nick The Record teams up with Idjut Boys' Dan Tyler to take on "Hafi Deo" - a beautiful taste of breezy tropical Congolese pop from Tabu Ley Rochereau. Dubbing out most of the vocals, tweaking the arrangements and adding the requisite amount of tape delay, Nick and Dan reshape this proto-house scorcher in time honoured fashion. Imagine hearing Boyd Jarvis and Shep Pettibone back to back in a Congolese jungle - ace!

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Soundway's biggest dance floor heaters get the edit treatment here, with Frankie Francis turning up the heat on Steve Monite's synth disco smasher, and Nick (The Record) and Dan (The Idjut) offering a classic dub mix of loved up afro winner "Hafi Deo".

TRACK LISTING

A. Steve Monite - Only You (Frankie Francis Disco Jam Mix)
B. Tabu Ley Rochereau - Hafi Deo (Nick The Record & Dan Tyler Re-Edit Dub)

Shooting, space-synth sounds ripple and vibrate, incessant grooves keep the tracks in motion and Nkono Teles production, a producer often overlooked for his hand in the Nigerian boogie sound, sets the LP into orbit. An album that was largely overlooked on release in 1984, the track list includes the latter day hit Only You and Things Fall Apart, the melody of which was lifted for Young Franco’s 2020 single Fallin’ Apart.

TRACK LISTING

1. Only You
2. I Had A Dream
3. Things Fall Apart (Disco Jam)
4. Welcome My Love
5. Only You (Disco Jam)
6. Things Fall Apart (Vocal)

Beloved Exile is the new studio full-length by Steve Moore, his first non-soundtrack album in over five years, and his first for Temporary Residence Ltd. A prevalent figure of the modern synth era, Moore cofounded the influential synth-prog duo, Zombi, and has scored more than a dozen feature films and TV shows, including The Guest, Crunch Time, and Mayhem. Composed and produced by Steve Moore in his home studio in upstate New York, Beloved Exile is a collaboration with internationally-renowned Tunisian singer-songwriter Emel Mathlouthi, visionary harpist Mary Lattimore, and veteran percussionist Jeff Gretz. Drawing influences from vintage ambient synth libraries, New Age/spiritual music, and menacing horror film canon, Beloved Exile proves to be simultaneously exquisite and deceptively unsettling. It is appropriate, then, that a literary treasure like John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats), would provide the song and album titles – his masterful mind most fitting to put moniker to this mercurial triumph. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Your Sentries Will Be Met With Force (5:27)
2. In The Shelter Of The Dunes (5:15)
3. Beloved Exile (5:26)
4. Throne Lane (5:09)
5. My Time Among The Snake Lords (15:36)

STEVE MOORE (of Zombi fame) returns with a mesmerizing new score for the action/horror film 'The Mind's Eye'. More vivid and dynamic than ever, 'The Mind's Eye' demonstrates STEVE MOORE's mastery of the vignette alongside his ability to weave together cohesive, consistent themes. Over the course of eighty-five minutes, STEVE MOORE crafts a riveting portrait of tension and terror through a variety of textures ranging from probing dark ambient and slick arpeggiations to anxious sound collage and epic, gothic bombast. The latest testament to STEVE MOORE's legacy of synth supremacy

RIYL: Zombi, Goblin, S U R V I V E , Trans Am, John Carpenter, Mogwai, Tangerine Dream, Explosions In The Sky. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. Police Station
3. Interrogation
4. Titles
5. Zack Attack
6. The Shot
7. Good Girl
8. Zack's Out The Bag
9. The Escape Pt 1 03:02
10. The Escape Pt 2
11. Stitches
12. Father And Son
13. I Trust Her So Much
14. It's Complicated
15. What Are You Waiting For
16. Injections
17. Kurt And Travis Arrive
18. You're Making A Big Mistake
19. Mike Vs Kurt
20. Confrontation
21. Rayne In Blood
22. Goodbye
23. Armstrong Splits
24. On The Phone
25. Zack's Back
26. Zack Vs Travis: The Rematch
27. Get Ready
28. Psychic War
29. Slovak Escapes
30. My Brain Does Not Tire
31. This Ends Now
32. The End
33. End Credits

Multi-instrumentalist Sally Anne Morgan, known for her work as part of The Black Twig Pickers, and half of House and Land (with Sarah Louise), cultivates seeds sown by folk musics and psychedelia.

‘Carrying’ tills the rich soil of Appalachian traditions and her rural North Carolina surroundings into warm, reflective songs about the weight people carry with them, as well as Morgan’s own pregnancy and the birth of her first child.

Bridging the more freeform, expansive leanings of 2021’s ‘Cups’ and the lucid beauty of her acclaimed 2020 debut, ‘Thread’, ‘Carrying’ finds Morgan imbuing her masterfully crafted songs with more subtle and intricate arrangements.

The album’s exploratory nature is anchored by a full band, comprised of some of the most thoughtful players in the psychedelic folk and ‘cosmic country’ spheres, including a guest appearance by Ripley Johnson (Rose City Band, Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo), and the foundational rhythm section of fellow The Black Twig Pickers collaborators: drummer Nathan Bowles (Steve Gunn Band, Pelt), guitarist Andrew Zinn, and bassist / engineer Joe Dejarnette.

Morgan finds unity in the burdens and joys, tensions, and releases of modern living as a common thread that people bear in their day-today lives. “So much of what we accumulate and carry around with us burdens us, but we also can’t or don’t know how to let go,” says Morgan. The profoundness and mundanity of that weight ran parallel for Morgan as she literally carried her child to term: the utter commonality of enduring what billions of parents before her had, and the awesome power of the human body and spirit, the complicated and unpredictable wash of emotions that come with nurturing and nourishing another life.

“Breathtaking, string-laden psychedelic folk” - Brooklyn Vegan

“Meditations on folk music, rather than the thing itself, stern and cerebral at times, but intermittently lush and beautiful...” - Dusted Magazine

TRACK LISTING

Beekeeper
The Center
Dawn Circle
Summerwater
Awake
Streets Of Derry
Diamond Joe
Song For Arthur

Multi-instrumentalist Sally Anne Morgan tills the soil of old timey music, folk practices old and new, and psychedelia to sow music that reaches out beyond its roots.

‘Cups’ dives headfirst into the waters of the Morgan’s unconscious mind and plumbs those depths for swells of fertile brilliance and awe.

In stark contrast to the traditional and pop-informed structures of her previous album, ‘Thread’, ‘Cups’ adopts a free-flowing approach intuitive and receptive, brimming and shifting and changing across a fragile equilibrium of pieces both improvised and composed.

The fluid pieces twirl from pensive, looped fiddle to tiptoed banjo to patient, sunny parlour guitar arpeggios to droning dulcimer and a litany of percussive ripples with gentle ease.

By distilling her most immediate inspirations into layers of sparkling timbre and buoyant rambles, Sally Anne Morgan’s ‘Cups’ builds a sense of community from within, like a back porch jam with her own subconscious.

“Meditations on folk music, rather than the thing itself, stern and cerebral at times, but intermittently lush and beautiful... [‘Cups’] captures essential bits of folk music, frames them in stark, repeating ways, and makes us look at them differently.” - Dusted Magazine

“[‘Cups’ is] a totally charming album that bares the unspoiled essence of its creator, a thoroughly engaging artist forging her own singular path upon the resilient precepts of the past.” - No Depression

“Morgan has created a record that’s a meditative idyll... If you need a bit of spiritual realignment, then ‘Cups’ is a necessity, a moment of peace in a punishing world.” - Raven Sings The Blues

“breathtaking, string-laden psychedelic folk” - Brooklyn Vegan

TRACK LISTING

Night Window
Prune
Hori Hori
Pythagoras
Sandbox
Through The Threshold
Home Soup
Angeline
In Come A Bee
Word For World

Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist Sen Morimoto’s third album Diagnosis sees him flip the script. After releasing two albums – 2018 debut Cannonball! and a 2021 self- titled follow-up – via his own Sooper Records, the artist signed to City Slang to co- release his third album alongside Sooper, and it came at a time of fundamental change.

The 12 tracks here, recorded at Chicago’s Friends Of Friends studio with a few close collaborators, skip between funky, bright jazz-pop (‘Bad State’), intricate guitar-based tracks with a Radiohead feel (“What You Say”) and orchestral wonderlands “Forsythia (レンギョウの旋律)". Highlight “Pressure On The Pulse,” meanwhile, is a devastatingly intimate, quiet song that then explodes into an exuberant, animated whirlwind of sax and drums. A chameleonic figure at the album’s core, he can rip out a sax solo, dive deep into intimate singer-songwriter territory and lead massive, roaring alt-pop songs with equal aplomb.

Morimoto describes his musical reference points for the album as “equal parts Funkadelic and Dinosaur Jr.,” and while these touchpoints can be heard all over the record, it doesn’t feel beholden to them, instead using their inspiration before moving beyond it.

TRACK LISTING

1. If The Answer Isn't Love
2. Bad State
3. St. Peter Blind
4. Diagnosis
5. Pressure On The Pulse
6. Naive
7. Feel Change
8. What You Say
9. Surrender
10. Deeper
11. Pain
12. Forsythia (レンギョウの旋律)
13. Reality

SAM MORTON – the musical duo comprising singer, songwriter and acclaimed actor and director Samantha Morton, and music producer and artist Richard Russell – release a new single, “Cry Without End”, via XL Recordings. Featuring musician and composer Alabaster DePlume, “Cry Without End” is simultaneously fragile and powerful, a gorgeous, heart-jangling song that sees Morton’s ethereal vocal – acapella for the first verse – ultimately enveloped by delicate, lush orchestration. The single is complimented by a deeply personal music video directed by, and featuring, Morton herself.

Despite a lifelong love of, and involvement in, music, SAM MORTON is Samantha Morton’s first ever artist project. The collaboration came out after Russell reached out following her much talked-about appearance on Desert Island Discs and shared love of one of her song selections in particular: “I Remember” by Molly Drake. A period of spontaneous and intense collaboration followed, one that yielded more than an album’s worth of music and acted as a cathartic vehicle for their part-autobiographical lyricism and song-writing.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cry Without End (feat Alabaster DePlume)

SAM MORTON, the musical duo comprised of singer, songwriter and acclaimed actor and director Samantha Morton and music producer and co-songwriter Richard Russell, today announce details of their highly-anticipated debut album. Titled Daffodils & Dirt, the album will be released on 14th June via XL Recordings. Over twelve startling tracks, the pair build a deeply personal musical world that feels simultaneously intimate and delicate yet powerful and tough. The part-autobiographical suite of songs see Russell’s spartan soundscapes providing a rich foundation for Morton’s gorgeous, ethereal vocal, aided by a cast of musical collaborators that include Alabaster DePlume, Laura Groves, Jack Peñate and additional vocalist Ali Campbell (on “Broxtowe Girl”).

Despite a lifelong love of, and involvement in, music, SAM MORTON is Samantha Morton’s first ever artist project. The collaboration came about after she appeared on Desert Island Discs in October 2020 and Russell happened to be listening. He was struck not only by her song choices (including a shared love of one song in particular: “I Remember” by Molly Drake) but by the way the music weaved through her lived experiences. The pair connected and corresponded, swapping ideas, sketches and stream-of-consciousnesses. Finally, months later, they met in the studio and engaged in a period of spontaneous, intense and open-ended collaboration, one which proved to be a cathartic musical process for both parties. Daffodils & Dirt, completed during 2023, is the captivating result.

The album cover artwork features an archive photograph from acclaimed British-American photographer and visual artist Nick Waplington, who documented life on Nottingham’s Broxtowe Estate at the same time Morton was growing up there in the mid-1980s.

TRACK LISTING

1. Highwood House
2. Hungerhill Road
3. Purple Yellow
4. The Little White Cloud That Cried
5. Kaleidoscope
6. Cry Without End
7. Broxtowe Girl
8. Let's Walk In The Night
9. Greenstone
10. Double Dip Neon
11. The Shadow
12. Loved By God

Recorded almost entirely on borrowed equipment in a south Manchester bedsit, Sally Murray's debut four track release captures her highly personal and ambitious approach to songwriting and is a thing of raw, strange beauty. The Nottingham–born singer's effortless performances are brought to life by her rich, low voice which is shot through with East Midlands grit, that on this recording, is multi-tracked and up front, commanding the listener's attention. Alongside her vocals are bowed and detuned guitars, analogue synthesizers, lap steel, e-bow, drums and old 70s home organs. While her music isn't in thrall to any particular artist or genre, some would maybe cite the sounds of Feist, PJ Harvey and Bert Jansch as possible musical heros of Sally's though stylistically this mini-album blends a wide scope of influences including acapella township gospel, lo-fi indie grunge, Sixties psychedelia and bare acoustic balladry. Sally has been writing songs from a very early age - her first ever song was about a supernova ready to explode and destroy the earth written when she was five years old - and in recent years she has built up a loyal following in her hometown.

More cool jazz coming from Scandanavia. Silje Nergaard takes the styles of singers like Astrid Gilberto, Hoagy Carmichael and Stina Nordenstam and blends it with a jazz trio. Then gives it a modern edge with added brass for colour and a very contemporary production feel.

Sarah Neufeld is a violinist and composer based in Montréal, Canada. Best known as a member of Arcade Fire, she is also a founding member of the acclaimed contemporary instrumental ensemble Bell Orchestre, and most recently as half of an exciting new duo with renowned saxophonist Colin Stetson. Neufeld counts Bela Bartok, Steve Reich, Iva Bittova and Arthur Russell among the formative influences for her solo work, in tandem with an ear for the textures and sensibilities of contemporary electro-acoustic, avant-folk and indie rock music. 

In 2013 Sarah Neufeld released her debut album "Hero Brother" on Montreal's Constellation Records (home of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Colin Stetson), which was produced by Nils Frahm. "The Ridge", Neufeld's second solo album, features performances and production from the likes of Colin Stetson, Tim Hecker and Arcade Fire's Jeremy Gara on drums and synth. This new body of work sees Neufeld moving away from Hero Brother's classical minimalism and sepulchral ambience, and into the world of rhythmic pop minimalism. "The Ridge" employs more emphasis on vocalizations than Neufeld's previous works; the interplay between Neufeld’s voice and violin has become strongly integrated and narrative. Jeremy Gara adds greater layers to the compositions, creating an intense, dynamic atmosphere, and a captivating listen from start to finish.

Composer and violinist Sarah Neufeld is a career-long touring and recording member of Arcade Fire. Her third solo LP ‘Detritus’, confronts anguish with beauty, turmoil with grace, gliding through the present like a dancer mid-motion, reaching through space 'til she's caught.

The album is wistful and emotive, and carries the listener on a journey of euphoric and complex looped violin dusted with mesmeric melody recall. Openers ‘Stories’ and ‘Unreflected’ lead with atmospheric ease, sombre soundscapes and distant, otherworldly vocals. ‘With Love And Blindness’ ups the tempo with remote, dreamlike rhythms that hypnotise and enthrall. ‘The Top’ is elated, but it highlights the isolated strings and poetic loneliness Neufeld is able to convey with them. ‘Tumble Down The Undecided’ and ‘Shed Your Heart’ are climatic in their delivery, full of cascading notes and delays before closer ‘Detritus’ exits with a state of calm, easing back into the shadows and taking with it the vivid textures and images crafted with infinite grace over the course of the album.

NOTES ABOUT DETRITUS
I composed this album within a larger body of work that was commissioned as a live soundtrack for Peggy Baker Dance Project’s Who We Are In The Dark.

Who We Are In The Dark is a collaboration originating in 2015 when Peggy Baker (legendary Canadian dancer and choreographer) and I were asked to perform a duet together at Fall For Dance North. Peggy chose to choreograph to my piece From Our Animal from my (then) upcoming second album, The Ridge.
Wanting to create something personal for her for this performance, I composed a prelude which began with the words “who we are in the dark”.

There was something utterly compelling about working and performing together.
Coming from different generations (Baker is now 68), we share a sense of intensity, curiosity, and ferocity.
Shortly after our debut performance together, Peggy commissioned me to collaborate with her on a full scale piece for her company. I began composing for this project in 2017, with the solo violin piece, The Top.
Peggy and I were exploring themes of darkness- her take often lived in the macro, universal elements, space, death, while my own exploration at the time was more close up- intimacy and the ego self. I think there was an invisible thread between us from our own experiences of loss and grief.
To say the least, this collaboration and the work we produced has held tremendous meaning for both of us.

Drummer and composer Jeremy Gara (Arcade Fire) joined the collaboration in 2018, adding percussive and harmonic depth to my solo compositions, as well as inputting his own signature style of ambient noise composition and heavy, gripping drumming into the live score.
The work premiered in February 2019 and toured internationally throughout the year, with our most recent performance in Den Hague at Holland Dance Festival in February 2020.

I began distilling the solo compositions into a smaller, album length body of work in the Summer of 2019, experimenting live with solo versions, adding more vocals, and incorporating foot pedal bass synth to my solo live capabilities. This body of work stood out for me, as a further push and refinement of the composition style I’ve been developing for the past 8 years, and as a marker of an intense and difficult passage in my own life.

TRACK LISTING

1. Stories
2. Unreflected
3. With Love And Blindness
4. The Top
5. Tumble Down The Undecided
6. Shed Your Dear Heart
7. Detritus

Just in time to satisfy her clamouring international following, former Black Box Recorder singer Sarah Nixey releases her very next solo single in business like collaboration with the computer generated boutique record label ServiceAV "Strangelove" is a heaven and hell of a twisted pop single about the hell and heaven of love, pumped through with bass and venom, dripping with cool and fury, seething with melody.

Communing at the triangulation of words, music and image, O’Brien has always conjured powerful worlds: but none more powerful, or as immersive, than on her debut record. In the space that exists between her delivery – at once wry, silky, vicious, and self-assured – and the music – a dynamic, dancing call-and-response from her collaborators, guitarist Julian Hanson and drummer Oscar Robertson – lies a productive tension. Using a method of creating on-instinct, in constant communication with multisensory cues, O’Brien is carving out a space as a musical oracle for an ever-shifting era. The 11-track album was produced by indie super-producer Dan Carey (Fontaines DC, Squid, Black Midi, Kae Temptest, Bat For Lashes, Hot Chip, Franz Ferdinand) and recorded in his south London studio Mr Dan’s in late 2021.

“The story of the album is built up in layers; one song giving context to the next” explains Sinead; “I thought about becoming undressed; testing my ideas, my voice. Working myself out across themes of identity, curiosity, creative process. Experimenting with the form and shape of language, using tone and delivery to get to the immediate centre of what I am saying. The record opens and closes with poems, these tracks have a really clear direction - a form which is set apart from the ‘songs’. I hold stops in different places, moving emphatically through the lyrics, changing the meaning. No punctuation - only the voice mapping out the way.”

“The album title “Time Bend and Break The Bower”, from the song ‘Multitudes’, came into my head and made its demands, an idea that pressed on me throughout the record. It has a very active role. The clock symbol is enlarged, it looms like a moon over my activity watching, counting me down to zero. Dripping with self-sabotage and the feeling of being chased; it pulls and pushes against the verses which talk of ’Multitudes’; the things that faithfully come back - the images, the words, creativity. It is creativity itself.”

Since 2020, O’Brien has garnered international critical acclaim from titles like Rolling Stone, DIY, Dazed, Dork, Loud & Quiet, NME, Paste, Stereogum, The FADER, The Guardian, The Quietus, and AnOther Magazine, among others. O’Brien has also been consistently supported on national radio: she counts Jack Saunders at BBC Radio 1, and Steve Lamacq and Amy Lamé at BBC Radio 6 Music as champions of her music, with the latter station giving two tracks a spot on their B List. And O’Brien is building on her US support from the likes of Seattle’s KEXP alongside appearances at SXSW – in virtual form in 2021, and live with her band in Texas later this spring.

With a background on the design teams for John Galliano and, later, Vivienne Westwood, it’s no surprise that raven-haired O’Brien’s cultural touchstones also span a rich history of art, photography, film, dance and movement: from Helmut Newton femme fatales and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s bleak landscapes to modern performance by Michael Clark and Michael Laub companies, to the writings of Virginia Woolf and Samuel Beckett. Recently tapped by Alessandro Micele’s Gucci to perform, it’s clear that O’Brien’s esoteric instincts will continue to inspire those beyond the industry as well as within it.

TRACK LISTING

1. Pain Is The Fashion Of The Spirit
2. Salt
3. Girlkind
4. End Of Days
5. Like Culture
6. The Rarest Kind
7. Holy Country
8. Spare For My Size, Me
9. There Are Good Times Coming
10. Multitudes
11. Go Again

Sinead was born in Dublin in 1966, and was discovered by Paul Byrne, drummer of U2 proteges In Tua Nua, while singing wedding covers in the city. After cowriting the first In Tua Nua single, she left school to focus on music, studying voice and piano at the Dublin College of Music before relocating to London in 1985.

The follow-up album to the hugely successful I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got album, Am I Not Your Girl? was released in September 1992 and features Sinead performing a collection of songs that she had grown up listening to and which had inspired her to become a singer. It was during the promotional campaign for the album when Sinead made a controversial appearance on Saturday Night Live.

Am I Not Your Girl? features Sinead's unmistakable voice accompanied by an orchestra, performing big- band arrangements of tracks such as the single 'Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home' (a Top 20 hit), 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina', and 'Why Don't You Do Right?'.

TRACK LISTING

Why Don't You Do Right?
Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered
Secret Love 
Black Coffee
Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home
Don't Cry For Me Argentina
I Want To Be Loved By You
Gloomy Sunday
Love Letters 
How Insensitive
Scarlet Ribbons
Don't Cry For Me Argentina (Instrumental)

Sinead was born in Dublin in 1966, and was discovered by Paul Byrne, drummer of U2 proteges In Tua Nua, while singing wedding covers in the city. After cowriting the first In Tua Nua single, she left school to focus on music, studying voice and piano at the Dublin College of Music before relocating to London in 1985.

Released in November 1987, Sinead's striking debut album The Lion and the Cobra was met with critical and commercial success. The album synthesises several of Sinead's influences into a diverse array of sounds and styles, from the hushed, atmospheric 'Troy' and 'Jackie' to the pop-rock hit single 'Mandinka', and the hip-hop inspired 'I Want Your (Hands on Me)'. The album also includes 'Drink Before The War', a song written by Sinead about her experiences at the Catholic reform school she attended, and was recently featured in the HBO series Euphoria.

The album remains a high point.

TRACK LISTING

Jackie
Mandinka
Jerusalem
Just Like U Said It Would B
Never Get Old
Troy
I Want Your (Hands On Me)
Drink Before The War
Just Call Me Joe

Sinead was born in Dublin in 1966, and was discovered by Paul Byrne, drummer of U2 proteges In Tua Nua, while singing wedding covers in the city. After cowriting the first In Tua Nua single, she left school to focus on music, studying voice and piano at the Dublin College of Music before relocating to London in 1985.

Released in September 1994, Universal Mother was described by Sinead as "the first attempt to try to expose what was really underneath a lot of the anger of the other records". The album features sparse, striking but delicate arrangements on intense and honest songs. Standout moments include the singles 'Thank You For Hearing Me' and 'Fire On Babylon', along with contributions from Germaine Greer (opening track 'Germaine'), and Sinead's son Jake Reynolds ('Am I A Human?'), plus a cover of Nirvana's 'All Apologies'.

TRACK LISTING

Germaine
Fire On Babylon
John I Love You
My Darling Child
Am I A Human?
Red Football
All Apologies
A Perfect Indian
Scorn Not His Simplicity
All Babies
In This Heart
Tiny Grief Song
"Famine"
Thank You For Hearing Me

‘Radum Calls, Radum Calls’ is Sean O’Hagan’s second solo album. His first came out in 1990, titled ‘High Llamas’. Nearly 30 years down that once-was road, 10-12 albums of the extreme pleasures that High Llamas song craft and sonic obsessions have provided (counting a comp and a remix record), here’s Sean again, with his second solo opus. Sean continues to modify, adjust, turn and amend aspects of his unswaying beliefs to produce sound fresh and new.

In the past decade there have been two High Llamas albums. During that time, Sean’s day job has largely been in the studio, arranging and producing with other outfits - most recently, Mount Kimbie, Fryars, James Righton from Klaxons and Hockney. The ways of the new generation are reflected in the mix of ‘Radum Calls, Radum Calls’, with bold latest obsessions side by side with the grand old traditions. As the parts old and new rotate inevitably back and forth in cyclical perfection, we are reminded of the beauty and craftmanship of the old cuckoo clocks; an ingenuity of cogs and gears to express perfect time as entertainingly as possible. Threaded in with exquisite melodies are hard- punching drum sounds, low rumbling synths, an extra-sharp dubby sound-design for percussion. In moments of this concision of old and new, Sean’s goal is honestly to conjure a new musical language.

Sean’s approach to lyrics reaches for the deft, tongue-in-cheek understatement of a LeCarre or a Philip K. Dick - and as fantasia melts into social portraiture into out-there sci-fi, we discover some of Sean’s most toothsome topics - ‘The Paykan (Laili’s Song)’ tells the story of one of the Shah’s servants masking a dash for freedom at the dawn of the Islamic revolution in 1979 Iran. ‘Spoken Gem’ and ‘Candy Clock’ use the lyric interventions of Sean’s former Microdisney vocal-partner Cathal Coughlan to free-associate the listener into fantastic, elastic, unknowable worlds.

Sean working with Cathal, or with his backup singers May Robson, Livvy O’Hagan and Kelsey Michael, brings their participatory energy - that of joy - to the mix and to our ears. And all this energy - derived from history, ambition, humour - is presented simply but effectively, sinking deep into our ears. ‘Radum Calls, Radum Calls’ reaches across time, curating details from wherever its fascination lands, then working them into the harmonic flexibilities of Sean O’Hagan. The album is a light delight and marks this place in time as a very pleasant stop on the way forward.

TRACK LISTING

Candy Clock
Better Lull Bear
I Am Here
The Paykan (Laili’s Song)
McCardle Brown
Clearing House
On A Lonely Day (Ding, Dong)
Spoken Gem
Sancto Electrical
Take My Steps (Nora
Bramms)
Radum Calls
Calling, Sending

Devon Hoff, Yuka C Honda, Michael Leonhart, Joao Nogueira, Mauro Refosco, Ches Smith, Johnny Mathar, Sean Ono Lennon - Tzadik is proud to present Asterisms, a beautiful and exploratory instrumental project by Sean Ono Lennon, one of the most creative and versatile musician/ composer/producer/songwriters working today.

Sean has written countless songs, composed film scores, produced, and performed on dozens of albums--and here he steps out as the leader of an all-star band of Downtown luminaries. Years in the making, the music is powerful, trippy, and intensely imaginative, blending rock, electronics, jazz, and more into an exciting new musical soundscape. With driving rhythms, a stunning lyricism, and a brilliant sense of orchestration, this album is sure to surprise and delight music fans the world 'round. Beautifully recorded, this is modern instrumental music at its very best--essential!

TRACK LISTING

1. Starwater
2. Thinking Of M
3. Acidalia
4. Asterisms
5. Heliopause

Shuggie Otis' three solo releases from the 1970s are now regarded as some of the most essential and sought-after soul/funk albums, but that wasn't always the case. In the 70s, Shuggie Otis' most commercially successful moment was probably the top 10 hit The Brothers Johnson had with "Strawberry Letter 23". It took until the mid-90s for a wider audience to get to know Shuggie. This compilation brings together ten seminal track from Shuggie Otis's core catalog: Here Comes Shuggie Otis (1969), Freedom Flight (1971), and Inspiration Information (1974).

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Hurricane
2. Baby, I Needed You
3. Ice Cold Daydream (Album Version)
4. Strawberry Letter 23
5. Sweet Thang
6. Me And My Woman

Side B
1. Inspiration Information
2. Island Letter
3. Sparkle City
4. Aht Uh Mi Hed

Geographic Music are proud to announce the expanded soundtrack to Graham Eatough’s Fringe First award-winning stage adaptation of David Keenan’s 2017 cult novel, This is Memorial Device. Written by Stephen Pastel and Gavin Thomson (formerly of Glasgow band Findo Gask and The Pastels’ resident soundman), the soundtrack comes across as a third iteration of the book, establishing a whole new angle on the myth of Memorial Device through reworked home recordings from the era and expanded versions of music originally scored for the theatre production.

TRACK LISTING

1. Introduction To Why I Did It
2. We Have Sex
3. Occluded By Chemistry
4. The Most Beautiful House In Airdrie
5. Square Peg In A Black Hole
6. I Started Painting Landscapes
7. What Is A Memorial Device?
8. Chinese Moon
9. Footsteps In The Snow
10. Lights Out For Forever
11. The Morning Of The Executioners