Five years after its completion, Munster is very proud to present the third and final full length by Danny & The Nightmares, described by Daniel Johnston as his "best album ever!"

It had been close to a year since they had gotten together to play music. The Nightmares set up in Danny's garage and pressed record. Danny had a couple of ideas for songs. After those were played through, a few more songs came forth. When the music was over and they listened to play-back, they realized they had recorded a core of songs to constitute a new album. Never knowing which end of the compass they might bend in any particular night of playing, Danny and the Nightmares recorded everything. Over the years they recorded on micro-cassettes, reel to reel, boom boxes, and a four track recorder. This time they had recorded on a digital machine. Over those years they had kept it close. They played and recorded at the Haunted House, or in Danny's garage. With snickers and grins, they knew they had a strong enough set of songs to elaborate on what they had recorded. They toted the machine to a string quartet. As they stood outside, they smiled while listening to the strings layering the songs.

Danny and the Nightmares then returned to a couple of unfinished songs that weren't sitting still in the balance when they had submitted what was to become "Freak Brain". With the capacities of the new machine, they also decided to rework a couple of songs that had already been released, and struck in the excitement, recorded a couple more new numbers. In more spells of revelry came another album, the "Death of Satan".

It has been five years since the album was completed. Daniel has mentioned it in interviews while promoting his solo career, stoking the curiosity of some his fans. The distracters claim that Danny and the Nightmares are not good for Daniel's image. Conversely, some fans have claimed that what he does with Danny and the Nightmares is like an 'alter ego' to his other work. It is tough to argue with his lyrics, "My friends really are the best in me." That is pretty much what it is, three friends that Rock 'N' Rolled when they could. If the album is good enough for them, well, they are obliged to share it. Danny and the Nightmares is "dead". The Death of Satan is their third and final full length album

Cruise Music marks its tenth EP by serving up what it says are "secret funky house weapons" and there isn't much wrong with their description. Danny Cruz kicks off with 'Shoulda Been You' which rides on smooth grooves and has gentle synth waves breaking over the beats as heartfelt vocal sounds rise out of the mix. Mark Funk's 'True Lies' brings a classic 90s vocal sample to a non-stop soul beat and the B-side has got Dirty Disco Stars going big and funky and glorious on 'Look Up' then Mirko & Meex Re-touch 'Young Hearts' .

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Secret funky house weapons you say? Well I know at least one DJ who'd enjoy these and that's our favourite customer from Little Rock all the way across the pond...

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Danny Cruz - "Shoulda Been You"
2. Mark Funk - "True Lies"

Side 2
1. Dirty Disco Stars - "Look Up"
2. Candy - "Young Hearts" (Mirko & Meex Re-touch)

Dans Dans are a group consisting of Bert Dockx (Flying Horseman) Fred Lyenn (bass player for Mark Lanegan, Duke Garwood, Shelley Hirsch and Petra J) and Steven Cassiers (Dez Mona) and are “bound by a mutual love for improvisation and an intuitive musical kinship”. They are a three-piece from Belgium, split between Antwerp and Brussels who have deep-planted roots in improvised free-jazz and for whom “No pre-determined arrangement is strictly respected at any time.” It’s a dichotomously regimented approach in which by setting such an unbreakable rule it actually allows the group to experiment extensively and to not be bound by genre, despite regularly moving through plenty of them in their music - be it at break-neck speed via careering psychedelic post-rock or through nocturnal ambient echoes. The very nature and fundamental essence of Dans Dans, and 3, lies in unpredictability, or as Lyenn himself says, “Arrangements are rather indications than rigid rules and boundaries. Anything is susceptible to change.”

Mystery and ambiguity were driving factors behind Dans Dans approach to 3, as Dockx points out, “Dans Dans is an organic fusion of three individuals each with their own specific musical cultures. It’s not a compromise though, rather some kind of mysterious but natural cosmic bond - without boundaries.” The resulting record is one that switches paces, moods and tempos as frequently as it does genres. Attempting to pinpoint an overall mood captured on the record is tough but Dockx tries, “The music is often dark and moody, but - for me - there's great beauty to be found in the shadows, and all art is about mood.” In their own words the end product of 3 is “Jazz without stuffiness, rock without blinkers and avant-garde without pretentiousness.”

3 is the group’s third album in two years, capturing a band in the midst of a creative flurry, some of which is down to the jazz-tinged roots of the group, as Dockx says, “Even though Dans Dans doesn't sound like a jazz band, the modus operandi of the group is still quite jazz-like and jazz musicians often release several albums per year, which is possible because of the improvisational and spontaneous nature of the music.” With Lyenn adding, “It’s that momentum of creation that we like to present, whether it’s live or on record.”

The name of the new album 3 says a lot: more than ever before, Dans Dans is about three people interweaving and connecting, creating music together, shaping their ideas into single, cohesive arrangements. Harmony is not necessarily the key though; Lyenn, Cassiers and Dockx approach each other like circling wild dogs: testing, challenging and confronting one another.

Dans Dans, aside from offering vast and varied insights into musical experimentation via the end result of 3, also offer something of a snapshot of life in Belgium and perhaps a slightly split and varied artistic culture within it, one that adds to the group’s own unique output, as Bert tells us, ”Belgium is a small country, nobody really cares what's happening here. There’s little chauvinism, especially compared to larger countries. Inside this tiny and very young country, there are two official languages, and at least two main cultures that barely understand each other. Our national identity is weird and fucked up, and full of blind spots and misunderstandings. This probably leaves its mark on the music created here.”

TRACK LISTING

A1 Zephyr
A2 Take A Close Look
A3 Fleurette Africaine
A4 Bloed En Dromen
B1 Memento Mori
B2 Coffee Grounds
B3 Miraggio
B4 Htes To Vradi Sto Teke Mas

Super cool one-off collector’s pressing in a fold out paper sleeve and specially silk-screened ‘Punk 45’ outer sleeve.

Exact reproduction of this excellent two-sider (double B-side) ‘The Only Sound’ / ‘New Musical Express’, the debut punk single by Dansette Damage from Birmingham, originally released on the tiny Shoestring Records in early 1978.

The tracks were produced incognito by Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin. “Robert put all needles in the red which is why it sounds so raw! Also, we couldn’t sing and you can hear Robert’s high falsetto at the top end, trying to keep us lot in tune!” said the band.

Original copies of this record sell for over £100, so here is a chance to see and hear what all the fuss is about.

Dansette Damage’s ‘NME’ features on Soul Jazz Records’ ‘Punk 45: I’m A Mess’.

TRACK LISTING

The Only Sound
New Musical Express

Voted the folk band of the year in the BBC folk awards, Danu are one of the best Irish traditional bands to emerge internationally in the last few years. A seven piece outfit, their stunning instrumental work is complimented by the high, clear voice of Ciaran O Gealbhain.

Daphni (aka Caribou, aka Dan Snaith) follows up his special Fabriclive mix (made entirely of his own productions and edits) with a full length album released on his own Jiaolong imprint. What a prolific little bugger! Fully solidifying his vision and style across twelve tracks, it sees Snaith in comfortable but pioneering form; effortlessly delving into the highly compressed, chucky tribalism-meets-upfront-house music that's quickly becoming his signature. He might switch up the groove and mood, but usually within a few bars you recognize a Daphni production through its expertly mixed and constructed hooks. Not a frequency is out of place, allowing the tracks as much space and power as necessary, whether it be across digital radio bandwidth or rattling the Void rig down your nearest WHP. Daphni's tunes bite hard, yet the melodies and hooks are universally accessible. A tour de force from one of the decade's rising stars.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It seems to be 'A thing' that Four Tet and Dan Snaith (Daphni / Caribou) release stuff very near each-other, and this is no exception. This time we get a fascinating and satisfying jaunt through funk, borderline ambient and downright tribal club tackle, peppered with the ever-present vocal snippets. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

1. Poly 02:18
2. Face To Face 05:43
3. Carry On 03:46
4. Vulture 04:35
5. Xing Tian 04:57
6. Vikram 05:40
7. Tin 04:33
8. The Truth 06:30
9. Hey Drum 06:51
10. Medellin 06:15
11. Joli Mai 04:49
12. Life's What You Make It. 03:52

The incredibly named Alasdair Tropical (heads will know from LYL Radio and Ransom Note) launches his Plant Life imprint with a sumptuous and surreal dance-not-dance EP from Darcey Electronics AKA Darling & Tracey. Acting independently the Amsterdam producers have previously dropped Piccadilly approved releases on Off Minor, Safe Trip and Voyage Direct, and now make their tag team debut for the inaugural Plant Life.
If you've kept your head in the game, you'll understand the aesthetic already - quantum rhythm programming, fractal electronics and hypnotic arrangements designed to send the listener into a state of hallucinogenic rapture. Opener 'Morgen' circumvents the dancefloor traffic, gentle changing lanes between house and electro as staggering percussion makes room for a rubberized bassline. Groove established, the duo substitute your SSRIs for echo drenched chords and lyrical keys, encouraging a higher state of club consciousness right from the off. Driven by a hypnotic sequence, swelling bassline and mechanical rhythm, "Handbird" softly nudges us down a psychedelic wormhole, the whispered female vocals promising the paradisiac at the other end.
With my salad days behind me, I appreciate an opportunity for half-time dancing, and the B-side delivers with deranged majesty. If you're old, you can sway to the phasing slank which woozes away throughout "The Berries", while young uns can take full advantage of the nuanced hand drums which more than make up for a lack of kick. Chirruping voices, digital idents and celestial keys convey a Balearic warmth or tropical haze, though in reality we're probably holed up in the Holodeck. Darling and Tracey close the curtain in utterly cosmic circumstances, locking into the sci-fi stylings of "Auto Zap" a trippy mélange of bleeps, whirrs, chimes and blurs which shifts gears from an opiated 70bpm to the racy 140 of the second half without sending your heart rate out of whack. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: New label alert! Firing on all cylinders, Alasdair Tropical enlists Darling and Tracey to drop the inaugural Plant Life release under their new Darcey Electronics alias. Four cuts of forward thinking, future proofed psychedelia for innovative DJs and dancers alike. Find your nearest chemist, load up and get weird.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Morgen
A2. Handbird
B1. The Berries
B2. Auto Zap

‘Saturday Night’, the first proper solo album from Tim Darcy (Ought), comes from one of those crossroads-type moments in life where one has to walk to the edge before knowing which way to proceed. Each track is woven to the next in a winding, complex journey through a charged, continuous present. There are love / love lost songs like the standout, almost-New Wave ‘Still Waking Up’ in which a Smiths-esque melody builds upon an underbrush that recalls 60s AM pop and country.

Darcy’s unmistakable, commanding voice and lyrical phrasing are, as they are in Ought, an instrument here - vital to the entire affair. There’s a line in ‘Tall Glass Of Water’, the album’s Velvet Underground-nodding opening track, where Darcy asks himself a rhetorical question: “if at the end of the river, there is more river, would you dare to swim again?” He barely pauses before the answer: “Yes, surely I will stay, and I am not afraid. I went under once, I’ll go under once again.” That river shows up again and again in the lyrics of ‘Saturday Night’. It’s about how wonderful it can be to feel in touch with that inner current. It’s about how good it feels to make art and how terrifying; how you don’t always get to choose whether you’re swimming or drowning as we grow and move through life, just that you’re going to keep diving in.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Previously known for the ferocious 'Ought', Darcy provides another side of his talented musicianship. Delicate glassine guitars, camp-fire vocals and dreamlike melodic leanings move from the chilling into the sublime. The more energetic offerings here are presented much more sympathetically than his other outfit, and to it's benefit. Yet more proof (as if any were needed) that Darcy is as talented and versatile as they come.

English songsmith Douglas Dare returns with his third and most stripped back studio album to date, "Milkteeth". Produced by Mike Lindsay - founding member of Tunng and one half of LUMP with Laura Marling - in his studio in Margate in just twelve days, "Milkteeth" sees Douglas become confident and comfortable enough with his own identity to reflect on both the joys and pains of youth. In doing so, he has established himself as a serious 21st century singer-songwriter with an enduring lyrical poise and elegant minimalist sound.

Douglas Dare grew up on a farm as the youngest member of a large extended family, where he was often found in his own private world, dancing in his mother’s pink ballet dress. 'Only now do I feel free to express my inner child again, and am giving myself permission to play dress up,' says Dare of Milkteeth’s cover shot, in which he wears soft makeup and is draped with layers of white linen, acting the part of a Greek muse. 'I never felt like I fit in. I was different, odd. I wanted to dance and sing and dress up and on a small farm in rural Dorset that really stuck out.'

Where previously he has been known as a piano player, for "Milkteeth" Dare picked up a new instrument, the autoharp, and as soon as he sat down with it, songs poured out – he wrote the album’s first single "Silly Games", in under an hour. 'Instinctual feelings about childhood and innocence were the catalyst,' he explains. 'Then with the autoharp, it all just clicked – I could see the album laid out ahead of me.'

Dare’s music speaks of his own experiences of universal themes like love, loss, and childhood. Perhaps most importantly, his music gives a voice and a sanctuary to anyone who’s ever felt unusual or out of place. Whether he’s singing of the pain of those in the Magdalene Laundries as on Whelm, describing coming out to his parents on Aforger, or processing his own childhood isolation on Milkteeth, Dare has a graceful honesty and an abiding clarity of vision in his simple and distinctive sound.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Tender ballads of loss and hope, brittle instrumentation and Dare's rich syrupy vocals combine into an atmospherically rich but instrumentally minimalistic suite of heartfelt ballads and hypnotic, swimming bliss.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Am Free
2. Red Arrows
3. Heavenly Bodies
4. The Piano Room
5. Silly Games
6. The Joy In Sarah’s Eyes
7. The Stairwell
8. Whereever You Are
9. The Window
10. The Playground
11. Run

Following his acclaimed debut "Whelm", London-based singer-songwriter and pianist Douglas Dare returns to Erased Tapes with his sophomore album "Aforger". In a digital age where memories are mimicked by pixels and identity is as malleable as static, Douglas Dare’s new album "Aforger" questions the boundaries between reality and fiction. Inspired by recent events and revelations encountered in his life these songs depict Dare at his most vulnerable, whilst simultaneously reflecting our own obsession with reality and technology back at us. Aforger was produced by long-time collaborator Fabian Prynn, mixed by Paul Gregory of Lanterns On The Lake and mastered at the iconic Abbey Road Studios. In the following conversation Douglas strips back the personal journeys and realisations which preceded its recording.

In a conversation with Douglas Dare on July 11th 2016:
The album title plays with the idea of a forger – someone creating imitations or copies, and reimagines them as the creator of something that’s no longer real. Prior to writing the record, I came out to my father and came out of a long relationship, both were hugely challenging for me and questioned my idea of identity and reality. These thoughts leaked out into the record and formed the core of Aforger. I was determined not to write a break-up album or repeat what I’d done before..

I grew up on quite an isolated farm in Dorset, surrounded by fields and not much besides. My mother taught piano from home and we didn’t have a computer, or the internet or mobile phones. In fact, my family still chooses not to use these things. It’s worlds apart from my life now in London where technology seems to dominate everything I do.

After finding out my boyfriend had been leading this double-life, I became obsessed with the question of what is real and George Orwell’s 1984 felt appropriate for me to re-read. Orwell explains this idea of reality control and Doublethink, and it struck a chord with me. The idea that truth can be steered or changed, and we might be able to believe two contradictory things at once. In my case, ignorance was my protection from the truth and ignorance really is bliss, until you’re no longer ignorant.

Binary talks about the idea that technology is allowing us to live on after we’re gone. A relative of mine whose parent passed away kept a picture of them on their phone as a background image. A friend saw this and asked ‘how can you have that there to constantly remind you of your loss?’ They replied, ‘no I have to, it shows me that they’re still here’. This resonated with me and I thought ‘okay, this is just an image to me but to them it’s more than a reminder or a reassurance, it’s a reality’. At the same time, I was finding myself haunted by the digital reminder of my ex-partner and wishing they would disappear. I had to realise that it’s all just pixels on a screen.

I think New York can be thought of as this fabricated, magical place. I was there with my boyfriend after touring the U.S., but when I came back to London I discovered all these lies and began questioning everything. I even questioned whether New York actually happened or not. New York is a song that’s literally describing that very real feeling of not knowing who or what to believe any more – scary and magical at the same time.

Lyrically I wanted to be as honest as possible. The album deals with so much dishonesty, so I felt the lyrics had to be the counterbalance. I was inspired by Björk’s album Vulnicura and how everything is almost awkward in its honesty. Like my first album, Aforger started as poetry, but I consciously tried to be less poetic. For instance, Oh Father is an example of complete unambiguity. It’s certainly the most personal song I’ve put out there, and the realisation that people may hear it makes me feel very vulnerable. That’s the most real feeling of all for me right now.

TRACK LISTING

1. Doublethink
2. Greenhouse
3. Oh Father
4. New York
5. The Edge
6. Binary
7. Stranger
8. Venus
9. Thinking Of Him
10. Rex

British artist Douglas Dare announces the release of his fourth album Omni. Seen by Douglas himself as a bold rebirth and embrace of the electronic, Omni is all at once a throbbing, avant-garde, queer, dark and cinematic record imbued with a love of rave culture and sense of fearless storytelling that’s deeply evocative. Omni will be released on May 10 via Erased Tapes. To mark the announcement, Douglas today shares the first taster of the record with ‘Mouth To Mouth’, a pulsing, synth-laden track that begs to be played loud. ‘Mouth To Mouth’ sees a collaboration with label mate Daniel Brandt who appears on production duties, with beats supplied by Rival Consoles. Speaking on the track, Douglas says, “life, death, fate and orgies; this is the heartfelt club track I always wanted to write.” Since 2013, Douglas has blurred classical, chamber-pop, folk and avant-garde to dazzling effect, with a startling voice that can stop you in your tracks. It’s why he’s played with luminaries like Nils Frahm, Perfume Genius and Ólafur Arnalds, and was selected by David Lynch and The Cure’s Robert Smith for their respective cultural festivals in Manchester (MIF) and London (Meltdown). But Douglas’s fourth album, Omni, is a fresh awakening. Encouraged by Erased Tapes founder Robert Raths, he decided to step away from acoustic instruments, especially the piano he grew up playing, and swapped them for synths and drum machines. His new music has much in common with Arca and the late SOPHIE, two artists for whom self-expression meant liberation. “I got to hang out in the studio with her,” says Douglas of the latter musician, “the way she made music made a big impression on me.” And yet Omni is steeped in the kind of deft storytelling, sweeping strings, elegant contrasts and fairytale atmosphere that marks Douglas out as a crucial and singular voice. It’s not often you hear a strutting electro banger that could have been straight out of 90s Soho, with vocal loops inspired by US experimentalist Meredith Monk. For Douglas, Omni is about reconciling all those different sides of himself – the songwriter, the raver, the lover, the observer. It’s a hugely queer record: seductive, sexy, lusty, untethered from the genre binary. “It’s even got sailors on it!” laughs Douglas. “You don’t get more queer than that.

"If I knew I were alive, I could do so much better. If I knew what I had, then I could use it more wisely. If only I’d known before then I’d be in a better place already. If only."

London-based singer-songwriter Douglas Dare releases new EP, following on from his debut album Whelm. Named after album track Caroline and new track If I Knew I Were Alive, it also features remixes by fellow label mate Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles and Houndstooth’s own electronic producer Ross Tones aka Throwing Snow.

Caroline has always been a precious track for Douglas, one of the first tracks he recorded and a story in which he imagines his grandfather is writing to a loved one during the war. As the only song on his debut album that is stripped down to just his voice and piano playing, and it being a favourite amongst fans at his concerts, it was a natural choice as a first single.

The new track If I Knew I Were Alive Douglas wrote by creating beats, looping them and recording parts live. Dancing around to the beats in his room, he started singing melodies and coming up with ideas that he wouldn’t usually have, sitting at the piano. The idea that we can do a lot more if only we appreciated our own ability and opportunity encouraged Douglas to not take the track to anyone else to re-record it, but to work with what he had created himself.

“The recording has this demo quality, which I really enjoy. I love how revealing a demo can be. It seems to expose the fundamental ideas the songwriter had and the basic quality of the recording is very revealing. One of my favourite records is PJ Harvey’s ‘4 Track Demos’, where the songs are so stripped back that you can appreciate the finest details.” – Douglas Dare

Ryan Lee West, who crafted the Rival Consoles remix of album track Swim explains, “the track existed in a minimal state for a while, and I kept thinking something was missing. There's always something missing! And then out of casual chance, I was sorting through my portable recorder files, and I came across a recording of an installation that I did, which included four motors hitting glockenspiel or xylophone notes at random. I chopped it up in a few seconds and it worked perfectly. It adds texture and movement to the remix. But what's important about these sounds is that they are not in time. I think this remix creates sense of space, subtlety and physicality.”

"The original is so well put together, and the vocal so unique that it was a hard one to approach. I set out to reflect the beauty of the vocal in the intro, so that I could build it into something darker later on. This also mirrors the meaning of the vocal. The last sections are meant to evoke feelings of being washed away by a torrent” – Ross Tones about his Throwing Snow remix of Nile.

London-based singer-songwriter Douglas Dare releases debut EP Seven Hours as the newest artist on Erased Tapes.

The EP was recorded in various spaces, including drummer/producer Fabian Prynn’s home-studio in South London. The four tracks are the first recordings the musicians have made together and with all songs written by Dare and all tracks engineered, mixed and produced by Prynn, it is a true collaboration.

With the songs beginning as poems and short prose, Dare later improvises melodies and piano parts. This process was continued by Prynn with all the percussive rhythms coming from improvising to the original pieces. The performances were captured using a cassette recorder, keeping recording fresh as full takes had to be committed to at the recording stage. This process led to unexpected parts and ideas that now are integral to the sound and feel of the EP.

IN HIS OWN WORDS:
‘‘I'm incredibly proud of this EP. I feel the songs have been captured in just the right way and I hope that, if only for 15 minutes, listeners will be able to escape; if they do, then I have done my job. It's a real thrill to be working with Erased Tapes, a label whose artists have inspired me from the beginning and whose ethos I share wholeheartedly. This is an exciting time to join the family and I'm truly privileged to be a part of it.’ – Douglas Dare

ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Douglas Dare is a London-based singer-songwriter, originally from the coastal town of Bridport, South West England. The son of a piano teacher, Douglas began composing instrumental music from a young age but it was not until studying popular music at University in Liverpool in 2008 that he began songwriting. Douglas’ rich and haunting vocals are combined with lyrics crafted from his own poems and short prose, a writing style that gives his intimate songs wisdom far beyond his 23 years. After supporting Ólafur Arnalds on his recent 16-date European tour, Douglas is performing at a few selected festivals and will embark on a UK tour in support of his debut release on Erased Tapes.

London-based singer-songwriter Douglas Dare releases his debut album Whelm on Erased Tapes. With the piano at the core, Dare vocalises his short prose and poems to a backdrop of drums, electronics and brass…

It was in November last year that the duo Douglas Dare and producer/percussionist Fabian Prynn decided to record an album, and by January they were listening to it. Finding themselves out of the home-studio for the first time, the pair recorded much of the album in Flood’s studio Assault & Battery in West London. Other touches were recorded back in Fabian’s home. With the comfort of familiar songs from his live set, such as Clockwork, Caroline and London’s Rose, the session was equally driven by the excitement of creating brand new tracks like Nile, Swim and Unrest in a new environment.

The recordings began with finding the perfect piano – a grand piano, battered and bruised, but with a beautiful sound. Flood’s studio provided a treasure trove of gear, including Dare’s favourite new instrument, the Mini Moog, which inspired bass parts on tracks like Unrest. Prynn engineered, produced and mixed the record, and with just the two of them involved from start to finish, their vision for the album remained clear and unclouded.

Lyrically, Whelm is often written from other people’s perspectives, with a few of the songs stemming from historical events. London’s Rose for example came from a poem Douglas wrote about the use of underground stations as bomb shelters during WWII; whilst Whitewash addresses the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, and Clockwork was inspired by the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient analogue computer found in the ocean. Despite the weight to some of these subjects, Dare has always enjoyed the use of plain language that is simple and very human. Most of his songs begin with words, as it’s the stories that inspire the music.

"Jealous Enemies" b/w "Mid-Session Interval" is the debut recordings from the Captains, their unique (but strangely familiar) textured sound and breathy vocal harmonies is without a doubt an indication of greater things to come. There's an avant folk feel to this record, and hints of everything from Midlake to The Beta Band to Badly Drawn Boy.

Detroit High Energy Rock in its purest essence!!!! Niagara (DESTROY ALL MONSTERS) & Ron Asheton (THE STOOGES) among other great Detroit musicians recorded this killer album back in 1996.

Now it is finally reissued on vinyl with two added tracks to the original vinyl release, remastered in order to get its purest sound, and new artwork courtesy of Mrs. Niagara Detroit and Mr. Colonel Galaxy. And guess what?

This is an extension of Destroy All Monsters with absolutely killer guitars in line with The Stooges "Funhouse" with the unique stamp and signature of Mr. Ron Asheton.

10 classic shots which need to be in your record collection right by The Stooges, Destroy All Monsters, MC5, Sonic’s Rendezvous Band, Radio Birdman, The New Christs, Bored!, etc. 

Fans of contemporaries Weyes Blood (of which DDD multi-instrumentalist Walt McClements is now a full-time member) and Angel Olsen (in whose live and studio band Invie is now a staple) will find much to love in these songs, as well as the b-side, Invie’s solo piece, “For Now” which, not unlike Invie’s 2017 solo release under the moniker IN / VIA, makes use of seamlessly interwoven piano and swelling, liquid synthesizer.

Invie sounds a bit like an alternate dimension Sharon Van Etten here and elsewhere. The three song set has the understated intensity of Nick Cave’s The Boatman’s Call and the promise of emotional liftoff that characterizes Kate Bush’s The Sensual World.

Dark Dark Dark’s rich history is punctuated by house shows and train hopping; touring as support for The National in Portugal;
playing both the National and TV on the Radio’s ATP Festivals, and years of indefatigable coast-to-coast U.S. touring. It’s a
history rich with recordings, including a pair of celebrated full-lengths produced by Tom Herbers (Low, The Cactus Blossoms),
three EPs, and a feature film score. Now, ten years later, –– surprise –– a new 10” single.

In 2013, when Dark Dark Dark released the What I Needed EP, anyone might have guessed it was a bridge between the previous year’s lauded LP Who Needs Who and the next big venture. The band had closed out 2012 as part of Australia's touring Harvest Festival, during which they stepped up to fill an unexpectedly vacant slot much later in the day, enchanting thousands of unsuspecting festival goers. Alas, after that, the band went silent.

The release of these new songs is certainly delightful and perhaps startling, as is the promise of more solo work from singer Nona Marie Invie. On the gorgeous and stately “Didn’t I Try,” Invie’s voice is elegant as ever, couched in the familiar sounds of Marshall LaCount’s distorted banjo and Mark Trecka’s rolling drums. The loping and haunted “Something Was There” follows –– a staple of Dark Dark Dark’s live sets in the last year of their touring.

Considering this band's history, their distinctive and dramatic sense of identity, this music is really and truly for fans of Dark Dark Dark.

TRACK LISTING

A1: Didn't I Try
A2: Something Was There
B1: For Now

Like their labelmates Arson (also released this week) Dark Day Dawning are uncompromisingly heavy. Their music embodies melody, metal and mayhem. This young five piece outfit hails from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they have made a significant name for themselves by wreaking havoc with their reputedly intense and kinetic live performances.

D.A.R.K. is an unlikely collaboration between Dolores O’Riordan, Andy Rourke and Olé Koretsky. Dolores, known famously as the singer of The Cranberries, has sold over 40 million albums and also worked with the likes of Angelo Badalamenti and Jah Wobble. Andy Rourke is best known as the inimitable bass player in one of the most important British bands ever, The Smiths - he has also worked with Pretenders, Ian Brown, Sinead O’Connor and Badly Drawn Boy. The third and final member is Olé Koretsky, a little known songwriter, producer and DJ based in New York.

The band’s roots lie in a New York DJ-mixing collaboration formed between Andy and Olé, after they met gigging in Washington DC. After a couple of years’ experimentation and laying down tracks in their home studios, a chance meeting between Andy and Dolores resulted in the singer asking him what he was working on. They began sharing tracks and ideas via email and dropbox, building on Andy and Olé’s original demos and, in a couple of instances, Dolores completely re-imagining some of the songs.

Science Agrees is a lyrically subtle album that touches on themes of isolation and disconnection, trauma and rebirth (‘Curvy’), drug addiction and love (‘High Fashion’, ‘Underwater’), control (‘Loosen The Noose’), death (‘Steal You Away’), loss of faith and dissatisfaction (‘Gunfight’).

TRACK LISTING

1. Curvy
2. Chynamite
3. Gunfight
4. Steal You Away
5. High Fashion
6. Watch Out
7. Miles Away
8. The Moon
9. Underwater
10. Loosen The Noose

The ethos of psychedelia is alive and well in the new millennium, as exemplified by I Hate Rock N Roll's 12" split release between LA's Darker My Love and Denver's Moccasin. From Los Angeles and San Francisco, Darker My Love builds upon various pop influences with layers of shoegaze and psychedelia, welcoming of distortion, reverb, and noise. Their years of writing music and playing shows around Los Angeles eventually culminated in national tours and a deal with Dangerbird Records and the recent release of "2" their sophomore album. The band headed to Hyde Street Studio in San Francisco, shortly before the studio announced it's closing, where they recorded their most experimental jam exclusively for I Hate Rock N Roll, titled "Hair Decisions". On the strength of their critically acclaimed, debut EP, "Last Leaf" Moccasin found themselves opening for the likes of Black Mountain, the Raveonettes, Dead Meadow, and the Black Angels, to name a few. The more contemplative of the two bands, Moccasin build expansive soundscapes, harvested by eerie, echoed vocals and dual, fuzzed guitars. The band has recently announced their signing to Buddyhead Records, also based out of Los Angeles. While in Denver, the band recorded two songs for I Hate Rock N Roll, titled "Secret Mountain" and "The Rule of Queen Tsago" after a recording hiatus.

Hailing from Washington, DC, Darkest Hour are ready to grab the metal world by the throat with their debut for Victory Records, "Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation". A brutal mix of aggressive hardcore and conventional power metal, reminiscent of bands such as At the Gates, In Flames, Dismember and Iron Maiden. Extreme hard rock and set to become one of the biggest US metal ablbums of 2003.

Darkest Hour's third and most destructive album, continuing in their spirit of misery and frustration. The ferocious blend of brutal riffs and exorcising screams has an underlying hint of melodic brutality. A typical Victory label band: extreme yet memorable.

Ferocious cocktail of hardcore nihilism and the brutal intricacy of thrash metal. A tightly wound maelstrom of raging sound formed from raw throat vocals, tight machine gun rhythms and complex burning guitars.

As well the vinyl reissue of Endemic, we've also received CD copies of this new No Cure release. Wu Tang Clan affiliate Emcee Darkim Be Allah teams up with producer Endemic Emerald to bring the “Antediluvian King” long player. Darkim Be Allah - renowned since the late 90's for his work with the Wu Tang family - educates with the 5% teachings of the Nation of Gods & Earths, which flow seamlessly over the melodic backdrops provided by Endemic Emerald. Features come from Planet Asia, Tragedy Khadafi & Kasim Allah - “Antediluvian King” is gritty, raw, NYC hip hop at its finest - check! 

TRACK LISTING

The Lockdown
BX-QB Ft. Tragedy Khadafi
God’s Wrath Ft. Kasim Allah
Doing It
Real Black
Original Light
The Black Gene
Knowledge & Wisdom
You Know The Gravity Ft. Tragedy Khadafi
God Of The Universe Ft. Planet Asia

The Darkness announce Permission To Land… Again; a special 20th Anniversary reissue collection, to be released on October 6th 2023 via Warner Music. 

Permission To Land was originally released in 2003 via Atlantic Records and stormed to the top of the UK Albums chart, where it remained for four weeks, and spent 53 weeks in the Top 100. It achieved the band three BRIT Awards, including British Album Of The Year, British Group and British Rock Act, where they fended off competition from the likes of Blur, Radiohead, Sugababes, Muse, Primal Scream and more. The record has sold over 1.4 million copies to date. 

TRACK LISTING

1 LP:
PERMISSION TO LAND (2003)
SIDE A
Black Shuck [3:21]
Get Your Hands Off My Woman [2:46]
Growing On Me [3:30]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love [3:36]
Love Is Only A Feeling [4:19]
SIDE B
Givin' Up [3:34]
Stuck In A Rut [3:18]
Friday Night [2:56]
Love On The Rocks With No Ice [5:57]
Holding My Own [4:57]

2CD Edition:
CD1: PERMISSION TO LAND
Black Shuck
Get Your Hands Off My Woman
Growing On Me
I Believe In A Thing Called Love
Love Is Only A Feeling
Givin’ Up
Stuck In A Rut
Friday Night
Love On The Rocks With No Ice
Holding My Own
BONUS TRACKS:
DEMOS
Black Shuck (Demo)
I Believe In A Thing Called Love (Demo)
Out Of My Hands (Demo)
Live ’Til I Die (Demo)
Love On The Rocks With No Ice (Demo)
Nothin’s Gonna Stop Us (Demo)
CD2: Singles, B-sides & Non-album Tracks
I Believe In A Thing Called Love (2002 Version)
Love On The Rocks With No Ice (2002 Version)
Love Is Only A Feeling (2002 Version)
Get Your Hands Off My Woman (2003 Clean Version)
The Best Of Me
I Believe In A Thing Called Love (Single Version)
Out Of My Hands
Makin’ Out
Physical Sex
How Dare You Call This Love?
Bareback
Planning Permission
Curse Of The Tollund Man
Get Your Hands Off My Woman...Again (2004 Explicit)
I Love You 5 Times
Get Your Hands Off My Woman...Again (2004 Clean)
Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)

5LP Box Set:
LP1: PERMISSION TO LAND (2003)
SIDE A
Black Shuck [3:21]
Get Your Hands Off My Woman [2:46]
Growing On Me [3:30]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love [3:36]
Love Is Only A Feeling [4:19]
SIDE B
Givin' Up [3:34]
Stuck In A Rut [3:18]
Friday Night [2:56]
Love On The Rocks With No Ice [5:57]
Holding My Own [4:57]
LP2: STUDIO BONUS TRACKS
SIDE C
Black Shuck (Demo) [3:56]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love (Demo) [3:54]
Out Of My Hands (Demo) [3:33]
Live ’Til I Die (Demo) [3:44]
Love On The Rocks With No Ice (Demo) [5:48]
SIDE D
Nothin's Gonna Stop Us (Demo) [2:55]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love (2002 Version) [3:38]
Love On The Rocks With No Ice (2002 Version) [6:07]
Love Is Only A Feeling (2002 Version) [4:21]
Get Your Hands Off My Woman (2003 Clean Version) [2:47]
LP3: STUDIO BONUS TRACKS
SIDE E
The Best Of Me [3:27]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love (Single Version) [3:39]
Out Of My Hands [3:29]
Makin Out [3:41]
Physical Sex [3:33]
How Dare You Call This Love [3:52]
SIDE F
Bareback [3:06]
Planning Permission [2:28]
Curse Of The Tollund Man [3:09]
Get Your Hands Off My Woman...Again (2004 Explicit) [2:41]
I Love You 5 Times [3:42]
Get Your Hands Off My Woman...Again (2004 Clean) [2:42]
Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) [3:31]
LP4: LIVE AT KNEBWORTH 2003
SIDE G
Growing On Me [3:30]
The Best Of Me [3:09]
Makin’ Out [6:02]
Get Your Hands Off My Woman [3:38]
SIDE H
Stuck In A Rut [5:57]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love [5:12]
Love On The Rocks With No Ice [10:17]
LP5: LIVE AT THE ASTORIA 2003
SIDE I
Black Shuck [3:45]
Love Is Only A Feeling [4:14]
Get Your Hands Off My Woman [4:31]
Friday Night [4:22]
SIDE J
I Believe In A Thing Called Love [4:47]
Buffet [2:00]
Giving Up [4:04]
Love On The Rocks With No Ice [10:04]

4CD+DVD:
CD1: PERMISSION TO LAND (2003)
Black Shuck [3:21]
Get Your Hands Off My Woman [2:46]
Growing On Me [3:30]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love [3:36]
Love Is Only A Feeling [4:19]
Givin' Up [3:34]
Stuck In A Rut [3:18]
Friday Night [2:56]
Love On The Rocks With No Ice [5:57]
Holding My Own [4:57]
BONUS TRACKS: DEMOS
Black Shuck (Demo) [3:56]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love (Demo) [3:54]
CD2: SINGLES, B-SIDES & NON-ALBUM TRACKS
I Believe In A Thing Called Love (2002 Version) [3:38]
Love On The Rocks With No Ice (2002 Version) [6:07]
Love Is Only A Feeling (2002 Version) [4:21]
Get Your Hands Off My Woman (2003 Clean Version) [2:47]
The Best Of Me [3:27]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love (Single Version) [3:39]
Out Of My Hands [3:29]
Makin Out [3:41]
Physical Sex [3:33]
How Dare You Call This Love [3:52]
Bareback [3:06]
CD3: LIVE 2003
LIVE AT KNEBWORTH 2003 (AUDIO)
Growing On Me [3:30]
The Best Of Me [3:09]
Makin’ Out [6:02]
Get Your Hands Off My Woman [3:38]
Stuck In A Rut [5:57]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love [5:12]
Love On The Rocks With No Ice [10:17]
LIVE AT THE ASTORIA 2003 (AUDIO)
Black Shuck [3:45]
Love Is Only A Feeling [4:14]
Get Your Hands Off My Woman [4:31]
Friday Night [4:22]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love [4:47]
Buffet [2:00]
CD4: LIVE AT WEMBLEY 2004
Grief Hammer [3:41]
Givin’ Up [3:38]
Stuck In A Rut [4:20]
Dinner Lady Arms [4:08]
Growing On Me [4:37]
Makin' Out [3:49]
Physical Sex [4:19]
Love Is Only A Feeling [5:21]
Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time [6:06]
Buffet [3:10]
Black Shuck [4:12]
Friday Night [3:04]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love [4:03]
Get Your Hands Off My Woman [5:10]
Love On The Rocks With No Ice [14:22]
Do They Know It's Christmas? [1:42]
Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End) [4:22]
DISC5: DVD
PROMO VIDEOS
I Believe In A Thing Called Love (2002 Version) [3:35]
Get Your Hands Off My Woman [2:59]
Growing On Me [4:26]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love [3:51]
Love Is Only A Feeling [4:30]
Friday Night [3:27]
Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End) [3:41]
DVD EXTRAS
History Of The Darkness - Warner Music UK EPK [19:53]
(DVD EXTRAS TBC)
Growing On Me - Outtakes [1:57]
Love Is Only A Feeling - Behind The Scenes [1:59]
Out Of My Hands (Audio Only) [3:30]
I Believe In A Thing Called Love - Behind The Scenes (music: Holding My Own) [2:00]
LIVE AT KNEBWORTH 2003 (VIDEO)
Growing On Me
The Best Of Me
Makin’ Out
Get Your Hands Off My Woman
Stuck In A Rut
I Believe In A Thing Called Love
Love On The Rocks With No Ice
LIVE AT THE ASTORIA 2003 (VIDEO)
Black Shuck
Growing On Me
Love Is Only A Feeling
Get Your Hands Off My Woman
Friday Night
I Believe In A Thing Called Love
Buffet
Giving Up
Love On The Rocks With No Ice

LIGHT IN THE ATTIC SPOIL US YET AGAIN WITH ONE OF THEE GREATEST HEAVY PSYCH RECORDS EVER.

Officially licensed by Dark, who will receive royalties from sales of this album.
Remastered and restored by Warren Defever for maximum brilliance.
Sleeve notes by the group’s songwriter and guitarist Steve Giles,including a complete group history.

“Round the Edges”was originally issued in an edition of around 50 copies, mostly for friends, family, and the odd record company. Its reputation has since blossomed into something resembling a redwood, or perhaps an original Van Gogh. This album is the holy grail for lovers of fuzz-driven hard rock, and has been the most sought-after privately pressed LP on the planet.

TRACK LISTING

1. Darkside
2. Maypole
3. Live For Today
4. R.C.8
5. The Cat
6. Zero Time

Darkside is the collaborative duo of guitarist Dave Harrington and electronic producer Nicolas Jaar. The two musicians have vastly different backgrounds, but over the course of several years of touring together they found common ground: Darkside. Dave and Nico use each other as mediums, working on primal instinct and summoning a hybrid of electronic music and psychedelic rock with the kind of artistic depth and breadth for which the term ‘progressive’ was coined.

Darkside unveil their debut full length, ‘Psychic’, to the world via Jaar’s own Other People label under license to Matador.

Nicolas Jaar came of age in New York City’s underground minimal techno scene, releasing a string of unearthly dance singles that brought the then-18-year-old producer quick renown. Lushly textured and almost subversively slow, 2010’s landmark ‘Time for Us’ EP (Wolf + Lamb) and 2011’s full length ‘Space Is Only Noise’ (Circus Company) dismantled and restructured dance music into heady new forms and garnered impressive reviews from both the electronic and rock press. He soon began weaving rock music into his own output, remixing acts like Grizzly Bear and Brian Eno, and performing with a live band.

Dave Harrington started out in New York City as a young bass player studying experimental jazz and sneaking into late night jam sessions as a teenager. He eventually moved into composition and performance art, creating commissioned works for theatre and film, directing a rendition of John Zorn’s ‘Cobra’, and integrating lap steel, guitar, keyboard, and effects into his arsenal. After joining the Nicolas Jaar live band in 2011 on guitar and electronics, Harrington began experimenting with dance music, remixing and DJing. Eventually, Harrington and Jaar started experimenting in their studio, and Darkside emerged.

Darkside’s ‘Psychic’ is a watershed moment for the duo, a quantum leap forward from their three song debut, 2011’s ‘Darkside’ EP (Clown & Sunset). ‘Psychic’ is a ritualistic song cycle, exploring rock’s cosmic outer edges through the immersive, body moving framework of 21st-century house and techno. Album opener ‘Golden Arrow’ is a microcosm of the album entire, charting an 11-minute journey from the desert to the stars: The song begins as a barren landscape where organs and static crackle on the horizon. But as ‘Golden Arrow’ builds toward its climax, guitars poke pointillistic patterns in the sky and the blackness rips open, revealing a lumbering sub-bass groove that rises out of the fissure. It’s mesmerizing and immediate, desperate and triumphant - and it sounds like nothing either has made before.

Darkside aren’t dancefloor producers taking a stab at rock music; nor are they a rock band paying homage to their new favourite techno 12”s. They’re deep listeners and creators of both who see little need for distinction between their favourite sounds. The result is ‘Psychic’, an album of uncompromising creative vision from two artists working at the peak of their powers.

DARKSIDE is an American rock band formed in Providence, Rhode Island in 2011. The group consists of Chilean electronic musician & vocalist Nicolás Jaar and American multi-instrumentalist Dave Harrington. Jaar and Harrington first met while studying in Providence through their com- mon friend and saxophonist Will Epstein. In the summer of 2011, they toured Europe and Australia in support of Jaar’s breakthrough debut album Space Is Only Noise.

Upon returning to Providence, they continued to write together, releasing their self-titled EP in 2012 and their critically acclaimed debut album Psychic on Matador Records in October 2013. The album was met with glowing reviews, including a 9.0 from Pitchfork and The New York Times calling it “the soundtrack to a lost David Lynch sci-fi movie.”

In the summer of 2018, Harrington and Jaar rented a small house on Lenni-Lenape territory, which is present-day Flemington, New Jersey. The group spent a week there, making a song a day. While it would take another year and a half to complete their second album, six songs from the band’s new record Spiral were written and recorded during this initial session.

“From the beginning, DARKSIDE has been our jam band. Something we did on days off. When we reconvened, it was because we really couldn’t wait to jam together again,” says Jaar. Harrington echoes this, “It felt like it was time again,” he said. “We do things in this band that we would never do on our own. DARKSIDE is the third being in the room that just kind of occurs when we make music together.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Jaar & Harrington's Darkside project has never quite gone with convention, and their latest outing 'Spiral' brilliantly toes the line between drone music and gothic, eastern-influenced folk with ease, via all manner of geographical pit stops. Otherworldly vocals seamlessly ride atop grooving percussion in some places and in others, eschewed entirely for a focus on shifting drone and tectonic modulation. As baffling and brilliant as ever.

TRACK LISTING

Narrow Road
The Limit
The Question Is To See It All
Lawmaker
I’m The Echo
Spiral
Liberty Bell
Inside Is Out There
Only Young

Darkstar announce their fourth album ‘Civic Jams’ for release on Warp.

On their most personal record to date, Darkstar counterbalance observations of their home with those of the community surrounding it. ‘Civic Jams’ is a photonegative of a dance record shaped by a dialogue between shoegaze atmospherics and UK bass music’s ‘hardcore continuum’. Darkstar find themselves at once looking homeward and venturing further into their own psychic hinterland with each record.

They’ve covered a lot of ground from the introspective expanse of their debut ‘North’ [2010], to utopian visions of society in ‘News From Nowhere’ [2013] and the unique dynamics of a pre-Brexit northern England on ‘Foam Island’ [2015]. On their latest offering, home is within reach.

Inspired by the intervening years, Darkstar (aka Aiden Whalley and James Young) show how the personal can be political and reveal more of themselves than they’ve ever done before. Imagine emotional realism built from spectral rave echoes, anchored in timeless songs of love and loss in the digital now and you’ve got it. Patterns of isolation are increasingly easy to fall into, especially when public spaces where people play, socialise, dance and protest are closed. ‘Civic Jams’ is about reminiscing over loss, whilst moving forward with those we love. It offers an abstract look at life’s nuances and the search to find something to hold on to and enjoy.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Forest
A2. Jam
A3. 1001
A4. 30 Feat. Laura Groves
A5. Wolf
B1. Loon
B2. Tuesday
B3. Text
B4. Blurred

‘Foam Island’, the third studio album from Darkstar, is a beautiful contemporary electronic pop album that deals with powerful themes of ambition and hope against the odds in the 21st Century.

Since their early dancefloor 12”s on Hyperdub from 2008 and through two vocal-led albums in 2010 and 2013, Darkstar have been an influential force in the UK’s electronic scene.

During trips to visit family in Northern England, founder members Aiden Whalley and James Young noticed a change in the area’s social atmosphere. This climate began to increasingly influence the duo’s writing sessions and they began a three month project of documenting this by talking to local young people in nearby Huddersfield. The lyrics and the sound palette for ‘Foam Island’ were shaped by the people and emotions they encountered and their recordings of interviewees’ speech have been compellingly woven into the tracks.

For fans of Jon Hopkins, Zomby, Four Tet, Mount Kimbie, Roisín Murphy, Actress, Floating Points.

Darkstar first coalesced in the underground, electronic thrum of London’s nascent grime and dubstep sphere in the mid 2000s, growing from attending the now-fabled early FWD club nights to releasing a pair of game-changing 12” singles on Kode 9’s fledgling Hyperdub label. What followed was a fitful and productive period culminating in a discarded album’s worth of tracks, the crucial introduction of vocalist James Buttery to the fold and, finally, the release of their debut full-length ‘North’, to wide acclaim. By this time Darkstar had aptly been framed as a very intriguing proposition, one of the first proper ‘bands’ to rise from the UK’s current electronic underground.

The band decamped to a house in the West Yorkshire countryside, secluding themselves from the distractions of London and writing as a trio for the first time. Ultimately, ‘News From Nowhere’ is a reflection of the time they spent together there. Says Young, “Every place warrants a story. There are moments in people’s everyday lives, no matter how subtle, that can be documented and talked about in great detail. The instances spiral and ascend and take on their own course, altering the perception of how even the slightest change in a day can be felt deeply.”

Eventually proceedings moved from the band’s makeshift digital studio in their house to producer Richard Formby’s (Sonic Boom / Hood / Wild Beasts) dusty studio enclave, full of tape machines and analogue synthesizers. The songs that had been inspired by English prog rock and obscure techno and created as loops based on the band’s affinity for hip hop production (“literally everything from Lex Luger to Geoff Barrow”) grew into sublimely arranged works. In the end, the album arrived at an altogether singular existence, delving into the moments between moments and elevating them to epic, kaleidoscopic heights.

TRACK LISTING

01. Light Body Clock Starter
02. Timeaway
03. Armonica
04. -
05. A Day's Pay For A Day's Work
06. Young Heart's
07. Amplified Ease
08. You Don't Need A Weatherman
09. Bed Music - North View
10. Hold Me Down

Darlene Shrugg is unabashedly a rock ’n roll band. Formed in Toronto in 2013, it’s something of a local enigma; Darlene more or less abstains from an internet presence, and its public performances are sporadic at best. Now, over two, reticent years, Darlene has completed an LP, coaxing out an imaginatively produced debut album of brash theatricality and uninhibited Rock and Roll.

Darlene represents collaborative convergence. The band was conceived initially by Maximilian Turnbull (formerly Slim Twig) and Simone TB, who played together for ten years as art-punk duo, Tropics. Seemingly having exhausted the limits of their angular, hermetic approach, they felt it time to broaden horizons. They invited Meg Remy, creative force behind the critically lauded U.S. Girls project, to compose lyrics and vocal melodies for a new band’s repertoire. It was quickly apparent that Remy should also perform in the band, at which point both Carlyn Bezic and Amanda Crist, known for their electro-pop duo, Ice Cream, also joined. An interesting dynamic developed. Turnbull & TB generated instrumentals for Remy to write to. Furnished with lyrics and melodies, the songs were then arranged by the entire group. This work and a schedule of infrequent live shows continued for a couple of years until Young Guv, of Fucked Up fame, cajoled the band into a studio with engineer-producer Steve Chahley to finally record some of the exciting new tunes.

A certain alchemy has helped to establish the unique force found on the debut album: four women, one man; four Canadians and an American; musical collaborations stretching back to nascent high school years; punk exuberance meeting studio finesse. Darlene exudes an easy confidence in combining the raw, blunt power of the band’s writing and arrangements with Turnbull & Chahley’s layered and, at times, elaborate production. The concise blast of their self-titled debut seeks to compress, absorb and invert the energy of classic rock. They profane, as much as pay tribute to a lineage of foundational bands, arguably stemming from Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper through Thin Lizzy, and on through the boy’s club fantasy of early 2000’s, ‘raw’ rock revival bands, like The Strokes or The Hives. Gauche rock moves are ransacked and transformed with the glee of an amateur cast production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. All of this unfolds in less than half an hour, leaving time for a detour into the sublime with album centrepiece, Strawberry Milk, an interstellar power ballad turned meditation on Eve, and the confrontation between sex and eternity.

With their glammed-up, high intensity live show featuring all members contributing vocals (save drummer TB), Darlene Shrugg seems not to rebut so much as disregard the notion of Rock’s diminished cultural capital. Their diverse brand of hard rock resists genre pigeon-holing. They fan out an array of stylistic threads, which they might later choose to follow up, or perhaps just as likely, skip past. They’ve laid waste to the Toronto underground. Now, they’re hungry for more.

TRACK LISTING

01. Inherit The Wind
02. First World Blues
03. Wah Wah
04. Strawberry Milk
05. Technicolour Surround
06. National Security
07. Pete Rose Boogie
08. Where’s Your Brother?
09. Freedom Comes In A Plastic Card

Hot on the heels of his '#DontFreakOut' mixtape, South London producer Darq E Freaker further blazes his trademark trail through classic dance music, contemporary hip-hop and peripheral grime in a new instrumental EP for Big Dada, entitled 'ADHD'. Having first burst into international underground consciousness with Danny Brown’s ubiquitous “Blueberry (Pills & Cocaine),” the borderless, hybridized music he’s known for sounds no less fresh; other production credits (Tempa T, London Grammar, D Double E) and single releases (for Numbers. among others) are testament to a genre collagist at his technical prime.

Speaking on the release, Darq says: ”The timeliness of this music isn't so important, the main thing is that it’s RAVE music. I’m trying to fuse RAVE… with grime/hip-hop groovers, drops, drum patterns & basslines. I’ve always been listening to music, but this is actually stuff that I watched on ‘Top Of The Pops.’ What I grew up to. It was just a thing of me thinking how I’d ever make it into this sound, as I was quite young and didn't fathom making tunes. So this project is in reference to that but is also an extension of fusing different types of music together. Fusing genres into something technicolorful is something I’ve always been passionate about and pursued, both in this project and beyond. This project isn’t solely me, its me pushing some of the musical influence of my adolescence into my adulthood. It’s nostalgic in the most progressive way.”

Lead track “2C-I” exemplifies the mish-mash, serene synths falling away to a hyperactive barrage of percussion, squelches, ’80s video game motifs, and yes, bells and whistles. Each track is as white-knuckled and hedonistic as the next - this is not bedtime music - but markedly varied, even given the wide sonic palette with which he works.

The karaoke connoisseur, Luigi impersonator and all round good guy, Manuel Darquart has stepped up before and he’s stepping up again, this time with The Del Sol EP. Three down to business tracks with the perfect blend of Italo, Boogie and Deep House that will have you dreaming of a sunny coastline, Guayabera flapping in the breeze and an ice cold beer in your hand.

Rounding off the package is Oakland CA native, Space Ghost who stamps his distinct style on the EP with a beautiful slice of Dream House.

A welcome return to the label as WOLF hit their 71st release and enter fifteen years in the game.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Jerry’s Song
A2. Del Sol
B1. Del Sol (Space Ghost Remix)
B2. The Vibe

Ass kicking hardcore rock from an outfit with a really aggresive edge.

Creating your own genre of music is not for the faint hearted and this is exactly what this album uncompromisingly sets out to do. Despite strong influences from the Mediterranean and the Middle East, it admirably keeps its feet firmly on the ground of Manchester and British Indie. Following in the footsteps of British bands Asian Dub Foundation and Transglobal Underground, the album layers exotic sounds like darbuka, saz and bouzouki over a strong, driving back beat. From electric guitar to the haunting Turkish çümbüş, each song holds small surprises from the unusual array of instruments arranged with loving attention to detail.

A mixture of Darwish's songs in English and modern rearrangements of Turkish and Kurdish songs, this album successfully fuses lyrics in English, Turkish and two Kurdish languages. Anatolian folk songs, some thought to be over 300 years old, sit comfortably next to some of the most biting English lyrics to have been written in recent times. The whole album has a meaningful weight to it but never becomes trite or pompous like so many of its world music counterparts.

The country and eastern sound is both uplifting and adventurous, never more exemplified than in the stomping cover of Dolly Parton's classic song "Jolene". Every listen reveals a new detail from the many intricate layers that go together to set this album in a world of is own. With anthemic and poetical comments on immigration and the Iraq war it is firmly set in the 21st century but the breathtakingly original mixture of languages and sounds from east and west takes you to a world where the only borders really are in your mind.

The top tier imprint that is Is It Balearic is back with more blissed-out and beach brilliance, this time with a trio of masterpieces from Das Komplex. A whole world of influences are called up on here and then distilled into primo Komplex sounds - opener 'Quest' brings a slick 80s new wave vibe with a ragged guitar riff and splashy hits over heavy drums and under well-treated vocals. It is awash with waves of dance floor warmth, then 'Never Stop' is all shimmering vocals and Japanese house chords over 80s house beats. Emotive and uplifting for sure then ' Dzis' closes out with chugging percussion and strummed acoustic guitars. It's a heart of the dance floor gem full of love and good-time vibes.

TRACK LISTING

Quest
Never Stop
Dzis

DK.01 is the debut album from Das Koolies.

Made with the help of contributors and influences as diverse as MC Killa Kela, 17th Century composer, Henry Purcell and their four decades together as Super Furry Animals, the album promises a genre-bending expansion of their most electronic-leaning and experimental ideas.

DK.01 re-opens the book on the quartet’s long-term friendship and musical union at the next chapter, with their meandering tale together having begun in the vortex of North Wales’ illicit rave scene in the early-1990s. Last seen on stage together as the Furries’ final tour concluded in 2016, Bunford, Ciarán, Ieuan and Pryce reconvened Das Koolies around poker nights and half-remembered riffs shortly after, scratching a persistent, 30-year itch to perform a factory reset and deep dive into the synth-driven sound they’d heard in their heads all along.

Looking forward to the album’s release Das Koolies say: “The return has been welcomed. Unanimously. Dissent, however, will be tolerated. An abundance of ideas, new inventions and old friendships percolate, produce and persist. Come this way as a dead end is circumvented to show an open road.”

Alongside Rhys Ifans, guests set to appear on the album include influential British MC Killa Kela and the physical infrastructure of Cardiff, Wales’ capital city itself, as field recordings of percussive strikes on metallic structures make their way onto the record, symbolising the freedom with which ideas entered the studio from all possible sources.

Referring to classical composer, Henry Purcell with a bassline inspired by 300-year-old examples of the same, plus completing one demo that has existed in one form or another since 1998, DK.01 will reveal and celebrate the elasticity of time and the musical ideas within it, as it will inevitably expose the band’s own liberty to do just as they please. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The debut Koolies' album lands, and it's a doozie! Though they're no stranger to the spotlight, having toured and recorded together minus Gruff as Super Furry Animals. This Cardiff foursome (big love to Cardiff) haven't previously shown anywhere near this level of unmitigated momentum and dancefloor grit to date. A dynamic, driven and unsurprisingly brilliant debut.

TRACK LISTING

1. Best Mindfuck Yet
2. Out Of This World
3. Nuthin Sandwich
4. Shakedown
5. Best Mindfuck Yet Reprise
6. A Ride
7. Collide
8. Katal
9. Pain Down The Drain
10. Montezuma
11. Holy Shit
12. Masters Of Mankind
13. Collide Reprise
14. Alligator
15. Sky
16. Sorry
17. Wired For Sound 

Fourth album from emocore pioneers Dashboard Confessional. As expected, the album features Chris Carraba's distinctive emotive songwriting, but the overall sound is fuller and more dynamic than their previous releases.

Dashboard Confessional's ninth studio album, All The Truth That I Can Tell, is both a remarkable renewal and fortunate step forward for the band's songwriter, front man, and founder, Chris Carrabba.

All The Truth That I Can Tell stands among Carrabba's finest – a strikingly potent musical look at himself through a rediscovered keyhole, both an achievement of vision and a vital burst of artistic clarity; less like reading someone's diary and more like reading their eyes.

TRACK LISTING

Burning Heart
Everyone Else Is Just Noise
Here's To Moving On
The Better Of Me
Southbound And Sinking
Sleep In / Me And Mine
Sunshine State
Pain Free In Three Chords
Young
All The Truth That I Can Tell

The long-awaited first-ever vinyl pressing of Dashboard Confessional’s The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most finally arrives in 2020. The monumental emo album, produced in 2001 by original collaborator James Paul Wisner, marked the first time Chris Carrabba’s hyper-personal acoustic singalongs were amplified by additional instrumentation. Vinyl collectors and fans alike will finally be able to add the iconic emo anthem “Screaming Infidelities”, as well as cult favorites like “Again I Go Unnoticed” and the title track to their collections.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Brilliant Dance 
2. Screaming Infidelities 
3. The Best Deceptions 
4. This Ruined Puzzle 
5. Saints And Sailors 
6. The Good Fight 
7. Standard Lines 
8. Again I Go Unnoticed 
9. The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most 
10. This Bitter Pill

After a string of well-received 7” releases on labels like Suicide Squeeze and Die Slaughterhaus, Dasher songs new and old have finally been smelted down into their debut album, ‘Sodium’.

Dasher knifes out the chop-crunch guitar of latterday post-punk with a seething screech echoing the hardest horizons of the early 90s underground.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Thrashing bouts of distortion, chugging basslines and frantic riffage open things and pretty much continue along the same uncompromising route. Brilliantly energetic post-everything punked-out rock and/or roll. Killer.

TRACK LISTING

We Know So
Soviet
Resume
Teeth
Sodium
Go Rambo
Eye See
Trespass
Slugg
No Guilt
Get So Low

Moving away from the more impressionistic drill 'n' splatter of his first two albums, this is something far more sharper and far more dangerous.

Following up 2016's "System", LA-based electronic musician Joseph Fraioli, aka Datach’i returns with his eighth album "Bones". Released on Venetian Snares' Timesig imprint, "Bones" features 12 tracks of mind expanding electronica, once again recorded on his custom-built Eurorack modular system. Much like its predecessor, "Bones" manages to make the most of the possibilities modular systems offer, whilst avoiding their many pitfalls that can often turn such music into little more than a dry academic exercise.

In parts playful & possessing a childlike optimisim, in others more serene, like a distant lullaby being beamed across the cosmos; there's also more tense and foreboding atmospheres that creep through. Fans of AFX, RX-101, 2K4S and our own Apta have plenty to enjoy here....

TRACK LISTING

1/Akemies
2/Rhys
3/Motion In The Living Room
4/Rockledge 3A
5/Saiph
6/Antumalal
7/Undimension
8/Drone Maze
9/Wand
10/4X1
11/Saugerties Road
12/Arrivals

"Give It Up" is the opening salvo from the forthcoming new Datarock album, "Red". It's typical Datarock - a brilliant slice of 80s-inspired disco-not-disco / punk-funk pop (complete with typically witty and surreal lyrics) that hooks you in on first listen. It's a short sharp shock that is reminiscent of the post-punk musicality of acts such as The Associates and achieves the fine balancing act of sounding both current and retro. Remixes on this 12" come from Kissy Sell Out (funky discoid electro), Fan Death (speedy indie-electrodisco collision) and Chateau Marmont (electrohouse). I copy found!

The word datasal paints inner pictures for most people growing up in Sweden during the 1990’s. The datasal (a classroom for computers) was an ordinary classroom with few changes to fit the school’s 10 newly leased computers. The room represented the change of times in Sweden during this period: the fixed institutions and the awaiting digital flood wave.

The music of Datasal sounds captures the feeling of printing a downloaded picture of your favorite hockey player or music artist or the expectations building up as you wait for the modem to log in to interact with the thousands of users of the internet in 1995. The two tracks on this release manifests the excitement but also the bit of fright you felt connecting to the world in the mid 90’s - a time when the internet was still fun.

The sound is built around repetitive sequencer loops and programmed beats where electric bass, electric guitar and flute improvise around a theme, creating a sound that is best described as cosmic flute house. Datasal is an harmonic reminder of a time where digital progress seemed less harmful than today.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: The third Hoga Nord 7" of the week and it's a cosmic leaning, arpeggio-driven, star-guided delight. The label goes from strength to strength

TRACK LISTING

A. Observatoriet
B. Besök

The word Datasal paints inner pictures for most people growing up in Sweden during the 1990’s. The datasal (a classroom for computers) was an ordinary classroom with few changes to fit the school’s 10 newly leased computers. The room represented the change of times in Sweden during this period: the fixed institutions and the awaiting digital flood wave.

The music of Datasal sounds captures the feeling of printing a downloaded picture of your favorite hockey player or music artist or the expectations building up as you wait for the modem to log in to interact with the thousands of users of the internet in 1995. The tracks this release manifests the excitement but also the bit of fright you felt connecting to the world in the mid 90’s - a time when the internet still was fun.

The sound is built around repetitive sequencer loops and programmed beats where electric bass, electric guitar and flute improvise around a theme, creating a sound that is best described as cosmic flute house. Datasal is an harmonic reminder of a time where digital progress seemed less harmful than today.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Talisman 
A2. Taxi 
A3. Max Ernst 
A4. Skjuts 
B1. Genom Det 
B2. Tyst Sol 
B3. Huggtand 
B4. Centralperspektiv 
B5. DC-8 

EP from the new blood of EU electro - Datawave. Miiiiles ahead of most other artists paying, ahem, 'tribute' to the old school electro genre - within bars of hearing Datawave's vibration you know you're dealing with an OG.

"Hidden Outpost" harnesses a gruff low end growl and abstract, sci-fi beats to create a slice of barren, space station electro that's as cold as Neptune's moons.

"Stellar Wind"'s drum programming is what really sets it apart as glowing pads radiate thru the highly kinetic riddims for some ratcheting, powerful electro laced with pure class.

Not much else to say, slap it ont deck at your next robo-boogie and maximum pleasure is guaranteed! 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Hidden Outpost
B1. Stellar Wind 

Datblygu are generally accepted to be the most influential Welsh language group of the last forty years. A clear inspiration on the Cool Cymru generation (Super Furries, Gorky's, Catatonia), John Peel Radio Show favourites, and the poetic and musical soul of late 20th century Welsh underground rock culture

Terfysgiaith 1982-2022 is a compilation of the music made by David R.Edwards and Pat Morgan as Datblygu that spans those forty eventful years. Starting with David's first bed- room recordings in Aberteifi in 1982 right up to the final tracks recorded by Pat and David together for the last time in a bare living room in council run sheltered accommodation in Carmarthen in 2021. Compiled from lists of favourite Datblygu tracks chosen by David and Pat in anticipation of their upcoming 40th anniversary activities as a band in 2022. Part of a process that would have been an opportunity for the band to be publicly recognised for the important influence their work and artistry has had over the decades.

Sadly this didn’t happen as originally planned. In June of 2021 David R.Edwards, Datblygu’s lead singer and songwriter, a hugely loved and respected figure in Wales, suddenly passed away.

Terfysgiaith 1982-2022 contains 60 tracks spread over three disks. Two of these are complimentary chronological ‘best-of’ disks. David always joked that Welsh culture was one that made you learn how to say the same thing twice! Datblygu, on the other hand only ever said it once, it was enough and only ever in the Welsh language. The third disk is ‘Santes Dwynwen o’r Elsey’ an album of rarities, live, demo and session tracks made available exclusively with this release.

Six years hath passed since the last release action from NewZild's most noted crafters of classic rock. A lengthy period of quiet has been broken, with a stash of fresh riffing & renewed wailing. What change might have come to bear in a half dozen years? Is the DATSUN tribe more world weary, more savvy, more learned...? Is all this on evidence in the capturing of the newly birthed sonic heft and hooks? Have these geezers still got what it takes? The exhibit - Album No.7 - "Eye to Eye". The stylistic grasp of these 11 tunes wrap the locomotive chug of classic Ian Gillan/Ritchie Blackmore helmed Deep Purple, seasoned nicely with generous servings of Jon Lord keyboard surge, to some updated glam boogie power chord-age, in a manner not dissimilar to the production shenanigans Josh Homme (that QOTSA fella) applies to his various projects.

Has Datsun vocal main man Dolf de Borst always come across like some bastard offspring of Marc Bolan and Alice Cooper? There's some otherworldly fantastical floating folk glam vocal melodies wafting in & out of this selection of tracks. And the Cooper sneer & snarl rears its head, in those tunes of a more heart pounding nature... The guitar effects and greater keyboard dosage have peppered this clutch of new tunes with more flavours on the menu. Lest us not ferget the master of the cabin fever mongrel pedal electronic mechanics, and frequently featured lead Datsun instrumentalist, Christian Livingstone. It can be imagined the man has been labouring intently, in a wintry lock downed Northern hemisphere, fine tuning freaked fuzz frequencies, sci-fi squeal & spazz, and a host of other soaring dogfighting & dive-bombing tones, fer the instrumental breaks and beds for this album. The inherent rok dramatics and attack are the responsibilities Mr Livingstone bears.

The dynamics and tempo rest in the mitts of them other Datsun three. "Windmill" Phil Somervell gets to bring his rhythmic geetar chops & noted arm flailin', to underscore the light & shade of the riffage, knowing whens to slash or slug, pinch or punch. Ben "Poundin' Soul" Cole machine guns the rolls, and hits the timing twists & turns when required. Master de Borst locks in his bass walkin', & talkin', stuttering & strutting w/his fellow rhythm men.. An album entrenched in the past, remodelled for the future, one unknown & uncertain more than ever.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dehumanise
2. Warped Signals
3. White Noise Machine
4. Sweet Talk
5. Brain To Brain
6. Moongazer
7. Bite My Tongue
8. Raygun; Suspicion
9. Other People’s Eyes
10. In Record Time 

In 2017, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig began recording a set of songs about a breakup that had yet to happen. Her partnership had drifted into a comfortable state of indecision, stalling when it came time to make big life moves or chase new horizons. She had the sense that she needed to slip the relationship in order to pursue everything else life might have in store—more music, more adventures, a general sense of the unknown. Those feelings drifted steadily into a set of songs that lamented the inevitable loss but, more important, outlined the promise of the future. Recording the ten tracks that became her stunning solo debut, Dawnbreaker, under the new name Daughter of Swords gave Sauser-Monnig permission to go.

Dawnbreaker began as the first phase of Sauser-Monnig’s return to music after stepping to the sidelines for the better part of a decade. Her college trio, Mountain Man, rose to quick acclaim for their peerless harmonies around 2010, but the friends slowly drifted apart, following their own interests to different coasts and concerns. While working on a flower farm as a farmhand, though, Sauser-Monnig realized that she missed the emotional articulation she found in writing songs and singing them and resolved to start again. She pieced together an album just as Mountain Man—now newly gathered in the fertile Piedmont of North Carolina—began to regroup for its second LP, 2018’s aptly named Magic Ship. Working with Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn, Sauser-Monnig shaped what began as quiet reflections into confident compositions, crackling with country swagger and a sparkling pop warmth. They were, after all, preemptive odes to the next phase of life.

Calling the ten tunes of Dawnbreaker breakup songs is to hamstring them with elegiac expectations, to paint them as sad-eyed surrenders to loss and grief. Sure, there is the gentle opener “Fellows,” a hushed number that explores the turmoil of being unable to reciprocate the feelings of a wild and shy, tall and fine man. And there’s the blossoming country shuffle of “Easy Is Hard,” where Sauser-Monnig stands in the yard and sees her lover leave, his taillights fading into the night sky; she can’t sleep, so she gets up to turn the lights and stereo on, to “feel my soul coming down.”  Even there, amid the throes of a life convulsion, there is a wisp of hope and possibility, framed by the way “the dim light change[s] into dawn, rosy blue, pink  fawn.” The very heart of Dawnbreaker is not the impending breakup that inspired many of its songs but the sense of liberation and breaking out that the breakup inspired.

Buoyed by the insistent patter of a drum machine and rich acoustic guitars,
Sauser-Monnig finds herself in search of new thrills during “Gem,” whether pondering the fleeting nature of existence at a waterfall’s edge or watching the shapes of mountains seemingly dance beneath her headlights. The muted, harmonica-lined boogie of “Sun” begins with a vulnerable confession, a revelation of loneliness; it is, however, a low-key anthem for the open road, about giving oneself over to the infinity of solitude and an endless strip of asphalt. Sauser-Monnig captures these scenes with a painter’s eye and delivers them with a novelist’s heart.

There’s no better testament than “Shining Woman,” where Sauser-Monnig portrays a ropy woman navigating her “steel steed” up and down the bends and passes of California’s fabled Highway 1. She openly marvels at that spirit and strength, wishing that for her own life. With Dawnbreaker, she has found it in some measure—the joy of something new, the excitement of risk. Though Sauser-Monnig nearly recorded these songs as barebones folk ballads, she reimagined them with Sanborn and a top-tier crew of North Carolina friends, like fellow Mountain Man singers Amelia Meath and Molly Sarlé, bandleader Phil Cook, and guitarist Ryan Gustafson. These vivid settings highlight the emotional contours of these songs, revealing the complexity that comes with knowing that, in order to live, you sometimes have to let something as strong as love go.

At the start of “Human,” the undeniable climax of Dawnbreaker, Sauser-Monnig wakes up early and finds her lover in bed. She slips out of the room, watches the sun rise alone, and has herself a long think amid nature’s frozen splendor. What does it mean to leave? What does it mean to stay? Is she wrong, and is he right? As the piano rises and her voice multiplies, coming in now from all sides, she admits something crucial to herself: “You can’t will a love to life/But you can do the loving thing: Make like a bird and fly.” It is a moment of reckoning with one’s own liberation, of realizing that sometimes a profound loss is the only way to gain something else. That is the lesson of Dawnbreaker, an intimate document of what it means to set oneself free.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Gorgeous, softly-sung vocals, tenderly plucked guitar and understated percussive drive (is that a CR-78 I hear?), all working together to make Sauser-Monnig's gorgeous artistic vision a reality. Perfect hazy summer songs.

TRACK LISTING

1 Fellows
2 Gem
3 Fields
4 Shining Woman
5 Grasses
6 Easy
7 Rising Sun
8 Long Leaf Pine
9 Human
10 Dawnbreaker

Daughter are a London-based trio consisting of Elena Tonra (vocals, guitar), Igor Haefeli (guitar) and Remi Aguilella (percussion).

Daughter started life in 2010 as an outlet for Elena’s musings. After recording a ‘Demos’ EP, Elena joined forces with Igor, then fellow classmates studying music at college. A four-track EP, ‘His Young Heart’, was self released in April 2011, and with Remi completing the line up soon after, The ‘Wild Youth’ EP was released in late 2011. On the strength of these releases alone they have gained a loyal fanbase which continues to grow as public and media alike discover their charms.

‘If You Leave’ is Daughter’s debut album. Recorded over a period of months at home and in various spaces around London, it was produced by Igor with additional production from Rodhaidh McDonald (The xx, Adele) and Jolyon Vaughan Thomas, and mixed by Ken Thomas (Sigur Ros, M83) at High Bank Studios.

Less of a statement of intent, these songs are more a snapshot of a year in Daughter’s short life. Lyrically, Elena plumbs the depths of her psyche to reveal her innermost thoughts, finding catharsis in expounding those internal demons. There may be little light relief here, but the personal themes have universal appeal; tales of doubt, insecurity, fear, anger and loneliness all take centre stage.

Musically, Daughter balance an intricate interplay between vocal, guitar and rhythm section. Elena’s vocals are fractured, often delivering savage words with a smoke-tinged whisper. Igor wrestles his guitar to build up a stark and brutal landscape, colliding with Elena’s more structured rhythm guitar. All are punctuated by the jolts of Remi’s minimalist drums.

‘If You Leave’ is a bold first move for an act still in its infancy, and yet the songwriting displays a maturity that belies their youth. Darkness may prevail on ‘If You Leave’, but the future looks extremely bright for Elena, Igor and Remi.

TRACK LISTING

Winter
Smother
Youth
Still
Lifeforms
Tomorrow
Human
Touch
Amsterdam
Shallows

Nearly three years after the release of their debut 'If You Leave', Daughter – the London-based trio of Elena Tonra, Igor Haefeli and Remi Aguilella – will return in 2016 with a new album, entitled 'Not To Disappear'.

'Not To Disappear' is Daughter’s second album and finds the band making confident strides forward both sonically and lyrically. Elena, Igor and Remi spent a summer in New York recording 'Not To Disappear' with Nicolas Vernhes (Deerhunter, War On Drugs, Animal Collective) at his Rare Book Room studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: An amazing album by the very talented Daughter, it’s expressive and emotional throughout. More progressive and experimental from their previous album, ‘Not to Disappear’ is filled with devotion. Absorbing and beautiful, I would recommend it to anyone.

TRACK LISTING

1. New Ways
2. Numbers
3. Doing The Right Thing
4. How
5. Mothers
6. Alone / With You
7. No Care
8. To Belong
9. Fossa
10. Made Of Stone

Elena Tonra isn’t a keen swimmer, but oceans pervade Stereo Mind Game. It’s a matter of distance. Daughter’s third record, the band’s first studio album for seven years, grapples with what it means to be separated, from loved ones and too from yourself.

“Oh it will likely kill me / That I must live / Without you / Because I can’t swim,” Tonra sings, whisper-like, on “Isolation”. It’s a classic Daughter song that basks elegantly in deepest despair. Yet here there’s a sense of something beyond despair too. “I’ll compose myself / I’ll get over it,” Tonra continues. On Stereo Mind Game, Daughter tend to sorrow by fixing it in time. Doing so makes it more real, like the flower – dried, pressed and remembered – on the album’s cover.

Daughter – the trio comprising Tonra, Igor Haefeli and Remi Aguilella – formed in 2010. After releasing two studio albums, If You Leave (2013) and Not to Disappear (2016), and the video game soundtrack Music From Before the Storm (2017), they chose to take some time off. But not before jamming together in Los Angeles, in between a support tour with The National and their first headline shows in South America. It was here that a new album started to germinate.

Over the next couple of years – during which they worked on their own projects, including Tonra’s solo record as Ex:Re – Daughter met occasionally to write together in studios in London, Portland and in San Diego, where Haefeli lived for six months in 2019. The record’s central romantic figure is someone Tonra met out there when she visited from London. They shared a significant connection, but she knew the Atlantic lay between them.

It’s this that she sings about on “Be On Your Way”, a longing but resilient song about an enduring connection that is also undefinable. Where previous Daughter songs mourned old relationships, here Tonra is accepting of whatever the future brings. “A friend said to me recently: just because something ends, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t real,” she says. Haefeli likens the revelation to the pressed flower image: “It’s still there. It still exists. It grew that spring.”

Daughter began recording the album’s twelve songs in earnest in 2021. Haefeli, who lives in Bristol, met with Tonra at Middle Farm Studios in Devon. Aguilella, who is based in Portland, Oregon, recorded his drum parts in Bocce Studio in Vancouver, Washington. Haefeli produced a number of the songs, while Tonra produced “Junkmail”. They co-produced the rest.

The longing to close physical distances – a feeling that only grew during the pandemic – has seeped into many of these tracks. On “Wish I Could Cross the Sea” we hear voice notes from Tonra’s young niece and nephew, who live in Italy. “(Missed Calls)” features another voice note, in which a friend describes a dream. Fed through some modular effects, it becomes glitchy, and haunting. These messages, attempts at connection from loved ones you’re unable to see, “can pull you out of the well”, Tonra says – but only if you pick up the phone.

When you let others in, beauty can arise. Deep feeling comes from the bows of the 12 Ensemble, the London-based string orchestra, who play on many of the album’s tracks. Arranged by Haefeli and Tonra, and orchestrated by Josephine Stephenson, their parts were – fittingly – recorded at The Pool, a space in Bermondsey, south London, which is a former swimming spot. A brass quartet also brings a new sonic warmth to “Neptune” and “To Rage”.

And for the first time, Tonra’s is not a lone voice. On “Dandelion”, which glistens with Haefeli’s chime-like guitars and Aguilella’s rousing drums, Tonra plays call and response with herself. Haefeli leads some vocal lines on the exhilarating “Future Lover”, and on “Neptune”, a choir appears. These vocalists are the string players of the 12 Ensemble. “It’s one of my favourite moments of the record,” Tonra says, “when suddenly, the crowd joins. It’s a very lonely song. But even when I’ve felt the most alone, arms have reached out to me.”

In order to maintain relationships with others, we must first make peace with ourselves. “Party” recounts a significant moment: the night that made Tonra realise she wanted to give up alcohol. It’s a topic she has written about before, but she needed distance to see it clearly. Haefeli borrows her image: “This time you had climbed out of the well,” he says, “and were looking back down.” It’s the song she’s most proud of, and the one that lends its lyrics to the album title (“Some stereo mind game I play with myself”), which refers to the conflicting voices we all have in our heads.

While Daughter’s previous work found power in emotional honesty, Stereo Mind Game welcomes opposing feelings. “It’s about not working in absolutes,” Haefeli says. After more than a decade spent depicting the darkest emotions, Daughter have made their most optimistic record yet.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though the shoegaze influence has always been clear in Daughter's work, the previous two LP's (And Ex:Re, Tonra's solo project) have leant more towards post-rock than the decidedly more upbeat and sonically rich 'stereo Mind Game'. It's an assured and confident step in a new direction for Daughter.

TRACK LISTING

Intro
Be On Your Way
Party
Dandelion
Neptune
Swim Back
Junkmail
Future Lover
(Missed Calls)
Isolation
To Rage
Wish I Could Cross The Sea

A new longform commissioned work released on the artist’s own Late Music label. String quartet version available as a 2LP and CD, or four different instrumental variations presented as the Long Gradus: Arrangements 4CD boxset.

TRACK LISTING

1. Long Gradus (strings): Part I
2. Long Gradus (strings): Part 2
3. Long Gradus (strings): Part 3
4. Long Gradus (strings): Part 4

It was once said that listening to Antiphonals was, “like listening to a progressive rock album except it’s just the keyboard parts.” As the second full-length LP on Late Music, Davachi offers here a slow and sedate solo affair composed with the various horns and woodwinds of the mellotron alongside organs, pianos, harpsichord, and more quiet delights. All tracks composed, performed, recorded, mixed, and produced by Sarah Davachi (SOCAN), February - December 2020 Mastered by Sean McCann

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Antiphonals is a wonderful juxtaposition of gothic gloom and slowly morphing drones, somewhere along the lines of a classical, short-form Sunn0))). It's beautifully dense and immediate, experimental but deeply listenable. Impeccable.

TRACK LISTING

A1 - Chorus Scene - 2:47
A2 - Magdalena - 10:19
A3 - First Cadence - 5:57
A4 - Gradual Of Image - 3:09

B1 - Border Of Mind - 5:53
B2 - Abeyant - 7:12
B3 - Rushes Recede - 6:35
B4 - Doubled Flutes - 2:19

A supplement to ‘Two Sisters’, Sarah Davachi offers a series of live chamber ensemble recordings and instrumentals collected while in residence at the National Music Centre.

Featuring commissioned works ‘In The Grand Luxe Hall’ (2016) and ‘Stile Vuoto’ (2018), variations and unreleased live recordings of the ‘Harmonies’ series for organ, and solo performances with electronic instruments such as the Hammond B3 and Hammond Novachord.

TRACK LISTING

CD1
In The Grand Luxe Hall
Stile Vuoto
Harmonies In Grey

CD2
Lower Visions I
Lower Visions II
Lower Visions III
Lower Visions IV
Harmonies In Green

A new longform commissioned work released on the artist’s own Late Music label. String quartet version available as a 2LP and CD, or four different instrumental variations presented as the Long Gradus: Arrangements 4CD boxset.

TRACK LISTING

DISC ONE Tracklist:
Long Gradus Strings
Quatuor Bozzini
1. Long Gradus (strings): Part 1
2. Long Gradus (strings): Part 2
3. Long Gradus (strings): Part 3
4. Long Gradus (strings): Part 4

DISC TWO Tracklist:
Long Gradus Woodwinds
Rebecca Lane & Samara Dunscombe
1. Long Gradus (woodwinds): Part 1
2. Long Gradus (woodwinds): Part 2
3. Long Gradus (woodwinds): Part 3
4. Long Gradus (woodwinds): Part 4

DISC THREE Tracklist:
Long Gradus Brass & Organ
Sarah Davachi & Rage Thormbones
1. Long Gradus (brass & Organ): Part 1
2. Long Gradus (brass & Organ): Part 2
3. Long Gradus (brass & Organ): Part 3
4. Long Gradus (brass & Organ): Part 4

DISC FOUR Tracklist:
Long Gradus Choir & Electronics
Sarah Davachi & Judith Berkson
1. Long Gradus (choir & Electronics): Part 1
2. Long Gradus (choir & Electronics): Part 2
3. Long Gradus (choir & Electronics): Part 3
4. Long Gradus (choir & Electronics): Part 4

Pale Bloom finds Sarah Davachi coming full circle. After abandoning the piano studies of her youth for a series of albums utilizing everything from pipe and reed organs to analog synthesizers, this prolific Los Angeles-based composer returns to her first instrument for a radiant work of quiet minimalism and poetic rumination. Recorded at Berkeley, California’s famed Fantasy Studios, Pale Bloom is comprised of two delicatelyarranged sides. The first—a three-part suite where Davachi’s piano acts as conjurer, beckoning Hammond organ and stirring countertenor into a patiently unfolding congress—recalls Eduard Artemiev’s majestic soundtrack for Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris.

“Perfumes I-III” employs the harmonically rich music of Bach as a springboard for abstract, solemn pieces that sound as haunted as they are dreamlike. While the first half of Pale Bloom showcases Davachi’s latent Romanticism, the sidelong “If It Pleased Me To Appear To You Wrapped In This Drapery” reveals the Mills College graduate’s affinity for the work of avantgarde composers La Monte Young and Eliane Radigue. Softly vibrating strings rise and fall like complementary exhalations of breath. As the fluctuating pitches create overtones that pitter and pulse, the piece slowly and subtly evolves—suggesting a well-tempered stillness, yet without stasis.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's properly beautiful stuff this, shining with modern classical delicacy but bolstered by a dark undercurrent of neo-gothic organs and infrequent echoic piano stabs. Tentative and minimalistic, but sonically moving, Davachi makes it clear she is here to stay. Thoroughly gorgeous stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Perfumes I
2. Perfumes II
3. Perfumes III
4. If It Pleased Me To Appear To You Wrapped In This Drapery

Late Music and Disciples are pleased to present the first volume in an archival series of selected electronic and acoustic works by Sarah Davachi, all previously unreleased on the vinyl format.

Featuring (way) back catalogue material from various CDs, cassettes and EPs, singles and original film scores, as well as miscellaneous live and studio recordings.

TRACK LISTING

Alms Vert
In The Grand Luxe Hall (Excerpt)
In The Littlefield Choir Loft (Excerpt)
Gathers IV

Late Music and Disciples are pleased to present the first and second volumes in an archival series of selected electronic and acoustic works by Sarah Davachi, all previously unreleased on the vinyl format.

Featuring (way) back catalogue material from various CDs, cassettes and EPs, singles and original film scores, as well as miscellaneous live and studio recordings.

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1
Alms Vert
In The Grand Luxe Hall (Excerpt)
In The Littlefield Choir Loft (Excerpt)
Gathers IV

Disc 2
First Triad
A Woman Escapes Cue 4
Neustadt
Composition Of Flowers (Excerpt)
Olsun
Gathers VI

Late Music and Disciples are pleased to present the second volume in an archival series of selected electronic and acoustic works by Sarah Davachi, all previously unreleased on the vinyl format.

Featuring (way) back catalogue material from various CDs, cassettes and EPs, singles and original film scores, as well as miscellaneous live and studio recordings.

TRACK LISTING

First Triad
A Woman Escapes Cue 4
Neustadt
Composition Of Flowers (Excerpt)
Olsun
Gathers VI

The new album from Sarah Davachi on her own Late Music imprint is a collection of nine extended compositions for chamber ensemble and solo pipe organ. The expanded instrumentation on this album includes carillon (a keyboard instrument comprised of very large cast-iron bells), choir, string quartet, low woodwinds, and trombone quartet, alongside sine tones and electronic drones. Among the pipe organs featured on the album is an extremely rare Italian tracker organ from 1742, housed now in the Southwest desert region of the United States. Davachi is accompanied in these recordings by a formidable group of musicians and interpreters, including the Apartment House ensemble.

The carillon that sounds on the piece ‘Hall of Mirrors’ is the third largest in the world, with its heaviest bell weighing approximately twelve Imperial tons. Conceptually, there is a loose thread that runs through the compositional methods of Two Sisters, influenced by the allegory of ‘temperance’ in a minimalist aesthetic sense: “one foot on land, one foot in the water”, as it were, caught in the perpetual balance of restraint as delight and necessity. There are mirrored sonic and structural images throughout the album, also reflected in the iconography of the cover: the satyr and the subject, the shared gaze between head and body, the dialogue between cerebral and physical response, as above so below. It’s like there’s two sisters of faith and chance.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Hall Of Mirrors
A2. Alas, Departing
A3. Vanity Of Ages
B1. Icon Studies I
B2. Harmonies In Bronze
C1. Harmonies In Green
C2. Icon Studies II
D1. En Bas Tu Vois
D2. O World And The Clear Song

Vinyl pressing of Dave Chappelle's wildly popular and powerful 846 performance from June 2020.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE 1

1. 8:46

SIDE 2

1. My Insides Out - Amir Sulaiman
2. We Must Win - A

More choice cuts from Dave Maze on the wonderful Disco Essentials. Four tracks of authentic disco / boogie flavour, surgically enhanced for your listening and dancing pleasure. Dave Maze is proving to be quite the knife wielder, up there with Edit & Dub, Theo Parrish, MCDE etc when it comes to the cut-n-splice aesthetic. Not only that, he digs the deepest and lesser known recesses of the audio pool, resulting in source material that only the frankly obsessive are gonna recognize. Vol. 2 in the series and it's nowt but essential. Limited copies!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: More obsessive chops from the amazing Dave Maze who is fast becoming the number one knife wielder on the scene. Four tracks that'll get any disco lover jivin'. TIP!

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Track 1
2. Track 2
Side 2
1. Track 3
2. Track 4

Bart Davenport might be a multitude of things, depending on whom you ask. He's been a mod, a blues singer, and a softrock troubadour. He's an eclectic singer songwriter with the timeless voice of a real crooner. He lives and creates music in Los Angeles. Smooth and yet curiously pointed, his work transports us to an imagined past or present filled with romantic odes and enigmatic characters. Davenport's stories are often a reflection of now, taking place in a fantasy world but conveying personal and universal truths. Returning to acoustic guitars and 60s baroque pop tones, Davenport recently tracked twelve new songs in his home studio in Los Angeles. He takes us on an exclusive tour of colorful stories, both comic and tragic. The resulting 'Episodes' marks his eighth proper album and is scheduled for release in March 2022 on Tapete Records.

Davenport's evocative, new material provides both an escape from and an unusual commentary on turbulent times. From digital antagonists in 'Holograms' to waltzing oligarchs in 'Billionaires' to an enigmatic nudist in 'Naked Man', many offbeat characters populate the funny little world within Davenport's verses. His vocals are distinctively smooth at times, while at others, a slightly cheeky, more dramatic baritone takes over. His patented happy/sad sensibility remains along with the occasional jazz chord.

While 'Episodes' features Davenport on multiple instruments, he did not go it alone. Several guest musicians were crucial to the production. Drummer Graeme Gibson's casual feel graces several tracks, notably the Kinksy 'It's You'. The samba-tinged 'Easy Listeners' has that tropical flavor Davenport's been known to dabble in, this time aided by impeccable percussionist Andres Renteria (Jose Gonzales, Rodrigo Amarante). Meanwhile, the Turkish Psych-inspired 'Strange Animal' showcases futuristic organ riffing by Aaron M. Olson (L.A. Takedown), who produced Davenport's previous album ('Blue Motel' by Bart & The Bedazzled). Other longtime bandmates, Jessica Espeleta (bass) and Wayne Faler (lead guitar), both make appearances.

Perhaps the standout track of the album is its quietest; the Brit-folk-styled 'Alice Arrives'. Davenport's autumnal vocal and guitar are adeptly accompanied by Dina Maccabee's original string arrangement, which morphs from earnest baroque to playful modern and back again. This along with the heavier, orchestral sound of 'Billionaires' adds a touch of hi-fi to an otherwise homemade album.

TRACK LISTING

1. It's You
2. Holograms
3. Alice Arrives
4. Easy Listeners
5. Billionaires
6. All Dressed In Rain
7. Naked Man
8. Strange Animal
9. Wireless Moon
10. 99 Forever
11. Creatures In Love
12. Still Life

Now totally established in the musical mainstream, grime has enjoyed a sensational year in 2019. UK artists have topped the global charts with polished club tracks and gritty roadman anthems, Slowthai's dropped a debut LP inspired by punk energy, and the manlike Dave has delivered a new genre highpoint with the phenomenal "Psychodrama" LP. Swerving away from the flossy end of the spectrum, Dave serves up confessional and conscious lyricisim, opening up about mental health problems, domestic abuse and racism across eleven tracks. 
Blessed with the same versatility as Kendrick, Dave can move from the deep and powerful "Black" (think a British Tupac wrapping over Jay Z's "Renegade" beat) to the romantic and sensual "Purple Heart" (a bit like Kendrick's "Pride") to the reflective "Location" in three tracks. This is not the archetypal rapper with big chains, gun chat and a love of hating women, instead his masterful album is presented as a series of discussions with his therapist, recorded over a year of treatment. It will suck you into his world with genius lyrical depth and intricacy and moving explanations of life as a young black person living in the UK. It's utterly prescient and insightful.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Psycho 
A2. Streatham 
A3. Black
A4. Purple Heart
B1. Location (feat Burna Boy)
B2. Disaster (feat J Hus)
B3. Screwface Capital
C1. Environment
C2. Lesley (feat Ruelle)
D1. Voices
D2. Drama

The songs on Some Waking Woman come up like ragged wildflowers in the unnameable heel of wasteland between the end house of the terrace and the already-dated concrete and plastic of the new business park. The songs come up from the hot gap between the weird dissociative dreamscape and the phone-alarm of a slate Tuesday morningtime. They look out from the record with a gaze that's lost between doe-eyed affection and a murky voyeurism. They're made of a music caught between the battered nylon-string and a layered orchestration turning between lush and gritty.

It's between the pottery and the calcified dogshit, between the filthy rebels and the eerie loyalists, between the probable cause of an action not quite either the Frenchman's crime of passion or the English barfight. It's a record of between-ness - like, this is just between us, right It's the same gap between the ballad and the mumbled apology, the love song and the exasperated sigh. My trousers have been pulled down in the playground again. Tsk. I love you and all of love turns out to be a colossal shitshow. Tsk.

Some Waking Woman isn't an anthem nor an elegy, although it has moments of both. It isn't quite in the gutter, but it's sure as hell not looking at the stars - the album has its gaze locked on the school playground, or the overgrown tarmac country-road corner, or another identical dawn colouring in the PVC windowframes. In the hands of O. D. Davey, the ordinary surfaces of a life like the one everyone actually has are made to glimmer weirdly with the inevitable love, misery and resignation underneath them.

These are touching, intricate ballads with melodies of nursery-rhyme sweetness, as reimagined by a failed gameshow host humming his old theme-tunes as he staggers back home pissed after closing time. But they're songs of love, for all that, his daughters haven't called in months. The sense is that these narrators have more love than they know what to do with, move love than they can trust themselves to handle, more love than they can believe in. Davey handles the flaws and imperfections and fractures of day-to-day living, finds the gap and digs in. This is an attention paid to the agonising and lovely awkward corners of life that don't get talked about. This is a record as in an LP, but a record too in the sense of a setting down of something true.

TRACK LISTING

1: Some Waking Woman
2: Every Rebel Campaign
3: Two Fingers Flicked
4: The Way Home
5: Holy Land
6: Crash
7: The Blue Note
8: The Mustard Cloud
9: This Time
10: A Right Honorable Friend

Angèle David-Guillou is best known for a brace of critically acclaimed electro-acoustic dream-pop albums under the alias Klima.

Also known for her signature contributions to cult Anglo-French ensemble Piano Magic and for cameos on albums by the likes of The Go! Team and Peter Astor.

Angèle’s debut album under her given name is a largely instrumental work, predominantly consisting of melodically opulent, emotionally compelling compositions for the grand piano.

Inspired by the direct, elemental melodies of French folk and the flamboyant arrangements of European and Latin American Baroque music, ‘Kourouma’ is hallmarked by a purity of expression.

There are other influences at play on ‘Kourouma’ - the clear, mellifluous lines of Carl Orff and Gunild Keetman’s ‘Music For Children’ (‘Schulwerk’ ) and the intertwining counterpoints and percussive patter of Moondog are consistent touchstones.

For fans of Gonzalez, Hauschka, Nils Frahm.

London-based French composer Angèle David-Guillou makes audacious music that explores the interaction between rhythm and melody, structure and emotion, permanence and change. Her work is one of incessant dialogue between these elements, creating hypnotic compositions whose mutable internal architecture and shifting melodic accentuations immediately draw the listener in, while constantly, almost imperceptibly, disorienting auditory perception. It’s a compositional process that is central to the eight compelling essays on the aptly titled ‘En Mouvement’, David-Guillou’s new album, the second under her given name.

Informed by a rich and eclectic tapestry of cultural stimuli, including Philip Glass’s ‘Glassworks’, the music for movement of Thomas De Hartmann and George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, Alvin Curran's compositions for the piano, French and Spanish Baroque music, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Jean Cocteau, Sufi writings, Sumerian art and contemporary dance, the pieces on ‘En Mouvement’ are the work of a reflective, intellectually engaged yet delightfully instinctive modern composer who has made the limitless mutability implied by the concept of ‘movement’ a thing of personal transformation and mesmeric musicality.

“Very early on in the process of working on the compositions for this album, the idea of ‘movement’ became my central point of focus,” David-Guillou confirms. “The word seemed to encapsulate all my obsessions. En mouvement literally means ‘in motion’, but the word in French, as in English, is extremely rich and suggests an array of ideas such as motion, gesture, dance, musical parts, clockwork, repetition, displacement, emotional confusion or excitement. In fact, I realise now that this concept has been present ever since I started listening to and making music; I just hadn’t quite understood how important it was to me.”

With her second album of modern composition, Angèle David-Guillou’s career is palpably en movement and, excitingly, it feels like the beginning of a long and thrillingly creative musical journey.

On "Tambor De Cura", producer Daniel David (The Pendletons) and Bay Area staples Jazz Mafia team up with Rio De Janeiro artist Guinu to cook up a genre defying dancefloor hitter that blends dirty analog Brazilian funk, sci-fi synth sounds and raw horn lines with an unstoppable bass hook. Midway, the song transitions into a Samba break with a beautiful trumpet solo, while seamlessly returning to its infectious house tempo. Guinu's passionate vocals highlight the healing power of the music.

On "Devotion", producer/singer and multi-instrumentalist Daniel David (The Pendletons) teams up with Jazz Mafia to bring a rich up-tempo offering. Building off of a hypnotic jazzy house piano and tapestry of congas and live percussion, Daniel soulfully paints a picture of connecting to spirit through one's inner world. Jazz Mafia's driving horns build throughout, propelling the track, with relief by an energetic drum breakdown and conga solo.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tambor De Cura (feat. Jazz Mafia & Guinu)
2. Devotion (feat. Jazz Mafia)

Marie Davidson is back with a new album “Renegade Breakdown” on Ninja Tune. A new band, and a bold new sound under the banner of Marie Davidson & L'Œil Nu, it is a trio formed of old-time friends with shared roots in Montreal’s DIY scene: Marie, Pierre Guerineau (also in Essaie pas on DFA) and Asaël R. Robitaille. The record follows previous album “Working Class Woman” (2018) and is drawn to the idea of the eternal return, they deliver a forward-facing, innovative pop record that builds on the classic tenets of Marie’s music to create something that strikes out towards a broader audience. With dark humour and interpolated musical influences from Fleetwood Mac to Kraftwerk, Billie Holiday and Chet Baker. 

If there’s a mood that encapsulates “Renegade Breakdown”, it’s the one found at 3AM after a long night, when it’s time to start putting on the classics.

TRACK LISTING

Renegade Breakdown
Back To Rock
Worst Comes To Worst
Center Of The World (Kotti Blues)
La Ronde
C’est Parce Que J’m’en Fous
Just In My Head
Lead Sister
My Love
Sentiment

Marie Davidson’s new album turns the mirror on herself. "Working Class Woman” is the Montreal-based producer’s fourth and most self-reflective record: it’s a document of her state of mind, of operating within the spheres of dance music and club culture. Drawing on those experiences, as well as an array of writers, thinkers and filmmakers who’ve influenced her, Davidson’s response to such difficult moments is to explore her own reaction to them and poke fun. 

The sound of "Working Class Woman” is more direct than any of her previous outings. She still mines the same influences, from Italo disco, to proto-techno and industrial, but leadens them with a gut-punching weight, making for a record that’s more visceral than any she’s released before. Industrial heaviness is balanced by Davidson’s spoken text - rather than spoken word, which she sees as a distinct tradition - dark, textured soundscapes are counterweighted by statements that carry a more darkly humourous edge than before, making observations on both aspects of club culture as well as more oblique critiques of the modern world. It’s something that’s encapsulated in the driving momentum of lead single "So Right", which matches pared back lyrics with a melodic bassline and bright synths, her words sketching out a euphoric feeling that chimes with the music.

Building on the dancefloor-minded trajectory charted by her previous record "Adieux Au Dancefloor” (Cititrax / Minimal Wave), which drew praise from the likes of Pitchfork, The Fader and Resident Advisor, and opened up her sound to a new, wider audience, earning support from peers such as Nina Kraviz and Jessy Lanza. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Your Biggest Fan
2. Work It
3. The Psychologist
4. Lara
5. Day Dreaming
6. The Tunnel
7. Workaholic Paranoid Bitch
8. So Right
9. Burn Me
10. La Chambre Intérieure

Eighteen months after releasing his first ever solo album, Ray Davies is back with what promises to be one of the best albums of his incredible career. While last year's "Other People's Lives" was a lifetime in the making, this new album happened relatively quickly. Recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, "Working Mans Café" features 12 stellar songs written by Ray Davies and co-produced with Ray Kennedy. They assembled a crackerjack band of top musicians who breathe life into a wonderful collection of songs. The 12 new songs are vintage Ray Davies and bear all the hallmark classic musical and lyrical insights we have come to expect from him. The album is infused with a transatlantic sound befitting Ray's close ties to the American south coupled with his well respected Englishness. From the first upbeat notes of the lead track "Vietnam Cowboys", it is clear Ray has never sung better. "Working Mans Café" is a wistful, humorous and poignant look at today, just what we have come to expect from one of Britain's greatest songwriters. Highlights are many and include the Preservation Jazz Hall sway of "Morphine Song", the painful longing of "Imaginary Man" and the haunting emotion of "One More Time".

Pre-order the album for a chance to win one of 10 test pressings and signed lyric sheets!

Needle Mythology, the label founded by music writer, author and broadcaster Pete Paphides, is proud to announce the very first release of brand new music on the label. ‘In Memory Of My Feelings’ is the result of a one-off collaboration between Catherine Anne Davies and Bernard Butler. The album was recorded over writing and recording sessions covering a four year period, but amounting to just fifteen days in total. Prior to the creation of the record, the two had never met. There are ten songs featured in total on ‘In Memory Of My Feelings’.

Key tracks include the unearthly end-of-days address The Breakdown, the triumphant four-to-the-floor excoriations of Sabotage (Looks So Easy) and the luxuriant glam ache of No More Tears To Cry. Work on In Memory Of My Feelings was completed in 2014, but extraneous commitments forced Catherine and Bernard to postpone its release indefinitely. Of the record Butler says: “I’d got used to the idea that the record might never emerge. Occasionally, I’d listen to it on my headphones if I was on the bus, I always had the same thought, “I wish I could go to a record shop and buy this.” Davies adds: “For me, the best thing is that we still don’t know each other that well. The songs were the conversation.” Catherine is best known for her work as The Anchoress. Her debut album Confessions Of A Romance Novelist was released to widespread critical acclaim in 2016 and was named amongst the Guardian critics’ Albums of the Year, earned her the Best Newcomer prize at the PROG Awards and was also named HMV’s Welsh Album of the Year.

Since then she has played in the touring line-ups of Manic Street Preachers and Simple Minds. The second Anchoress album is scheduled for release early next year. Bernard Butler is a founding member of Suede, with whom he co-wrote and performed two era-defining albums. He then went on to enjoy top ten success with McAlmont & Butler and as a solo artist before focusing on writing and production work with artists such as Bert Jansch, The Libertines, Duffy, Teleman and Texas.

All vinyl copies of In Memory Of My Feelings come with a specially-recorded seven-inch single featuring a rearranged version of album track The Patron Saint Of The Lost Cause (retitled The Patron Saint Of Harmonia) and a stunning, pared-back version of Madonna’s Live To Tell. Of the latter, Butler says, “When I was 16, Live To Tell allowed me to join the dots in songwriting between True Blue and The Queen Is Dead.” Davies adds: “I don’t know what Madonna wrote it about, but the resonances in a post-#metoo world are impossible to miss.”

The songs are also featured on the CD and download versions. The artwork for In Memory Of My Feelings was the result of a collaborative process between Catherine Anne Davies, Bernard Butler and the acclaimed Belgian photographer Eva Vermandel, whose work is featured in the collections of the V&A and National Portrait Gallery. Vermandel’s work echoes aspects of the record itself: the relatively formal manner of the duo’s collaboration and the uncertainty that surrounded the outcome of the recording sessions.

TRACK LISTING

DISC 1

SIDE 1

1. The Breakdown
2. Ten Good Reasons
3. Sabotage (Looks So Easy)
4. In Memory Of My Feelings
5. I Know

SIDE 2
1. Judas
2. No More Tears To Dry
3. The Waiting Game
4. The Patron Saint Of The Lost Cause
5. F.O.H.

DISC 2

SIDE A

1. Live To Tell

SIDE B

1. The Patron Saint Of The Lost Cause (Harmonium Version)

In the last decade, Daniel Davies has become a lauded composer of atmospheric, synth-heavy instrumental music—for film and TV scores, alongside John Carpenter on the director’s Lost Themes albums, and on solo releases like Signals and Spies. But in his previous musical life, Davies was a rocker, touring all over the world with heavy bands like Year Long Disaster and Karma to Burn. After setting rock music aside to focus on his soundtrack and instrumental work, the multi-instrumentalist has found himself falling back in love with loud guitars over the past couple of years.

Ghost of the Heart, the first full-length alt-rock album Davies has ever released under his own name, captures the excitement of that rediscovered love. After a decade of making music that either had to match a filmed image or create a mental one, he sounds liberated by the concrete, reliable logic of verse/chorus/ verse. The songs on Ghost of the Heart don’t fit neatly into any one subgenre: they’re moody, heavy, and a little proggy, but with a strong pop sensibility and lots of melody. The album divulges Davies’ affinity for hooky, forward-thinking bands like Radiohead and Blur, but more than anything, Ghost of the Heart feels natural, like he’s tapping back into something fundamental about himself as a musician. “My first love is writing rock songs,” Davies says. “It just felt like the right time to get back to it.”

Ghost of the Heart is a special album for Davies. It sees him returning to his origins in rock music, but it also couldn’t have been made without the lessons of his time in the film world. In the truest sense, it’s a career-defining work, one that showcases everything he’s learned in his decades as a musician. It reveals a door that, now opened, can take Davies anywhere he wants to go.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Know Why
2. Presence On The Hill
3. In To You
4. It Takes A Lot
5. Ghost Of The Heart
6. Still The Servant
7. Big Crush
8. Wait
9. Those Eyes 

In a follow up to last year's Events Score and Halloween OST comes the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to Belgian Documentary Soeurs De Glisse.

Two sisters from Court-Saint-Etienne (Belgium) are getting ready for the Winter Paralympic Games in South Korea. The two skiers create a unique duo: Eleonor, visually-impaired, only has the voice of her older sister to guide her down the slopes. After four years of intense training and sacrifices, they bring home the first Belgian female medal during the Winter Games - An achievement with consequences on the duo and their respective lives.

As you can imagine, the landcapes lend themselves to epic sounds, juxtaposed with the focus and emotional pressures of competing on the world stage. Perhaps best known for his role as a collaborator and co-writer on horror auteur John Carpenter’s recent Lost Themes and Anthology albums (as well as a pillar of his live band’s subsequent tours), Daniel Davies has crafted the Paralympians journey from training to deep reflection after the event in a truly beautiful score using the musician’s distinct talent for wringing modernistic soundscapes from vintage synths

TRACK LISTING

1. Soeurs De Glisse
2. Chloe
3. In Training
4. Austria
5. Travelling
6. On A Plane
7. The Main Descent
8. Medal Ceremony
9. Meeting The King
10. Reflection
11. Sisters
12. A New Dream

The all new, must-read memoir by legendary Kinks guitarist Dave Davies'BOOK OF THE DAY' - Guardian'This powerful tell-all from the Kinks guitarist puts the spotlight on his own bad behaviour, dalliances with the occult and his recovery from a stroke.' - Observer'Heartfelt, hilarious, revealing, insightful and astonishingly candid. Boy, you really got me Dave. I can't wait to read it again.' - Mark Hamill Dave Davies is the co-founder and lead guitarist of epoch-defining band the Kinks, a group with fifty million record sales to their name.

In his autobiography, Davies revisits the glory days of the band that spawned so much extraordinary music, and which had such a profound influence on bands from The Clash and Van Halen to Oasis and Blur. Full of tales of the tumultuous times and the ups-and-downs of his relationship with his brother Ray, along with encounters with the likes of John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix, this will be a glorious read for Kinks fans and anyone who wants to read about the heyday of rock 'n' roll.

More than sixty years old, Walkin' still remains a crucial staging post in the history of jazz. Originally recorded in 1954 and initially issued on a couple of 10 albums, it features a mix of quintet and sextet material, recorded during his spell with Prestige Records and produced by Bob Weinstock. The various tracks were gathered together, along with a previously unreleased track, and issued as a 12 album in 1957. The end result is an important album in the development of bop music, a genre Miles Davis practically owned. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Walkin'
2. Blue N' Boogie
Side B
1. Solar
2. You Don't Know What Love Is
3. Love Me Or Leave Me 

"Mutually Arising" is Greg Davis' second album for Kranky following 2004's Somnia. Follows numerous releases by Sun Circle (Greg's duo with Zach Wallace). Features two tracks over 51 minutes, "Cosmic Mundra" is a subtle and slowly changing circle, a sun, the sun, the moon. Not the Arpeggio Minimalists, rather: the quiet time stretchers of long tones and long tones sustained and hyper-sustained until buzz value outweighs pitch, sounds seeming to fly around the screen, hyper-spiritual with hardly a word. "Hall Of Pure Bliss" is a chord and all sorts of wonderful sounds which live to its left and right. Low is left and high is right and then the travelling hisses swim on either side of this imagined keyboard in glitter-space.

"Somnia" is Greg Davis' third full length release and the first to be released on Kranky. Greg made his name as an innovator of a movement which latterly became known as laptop folk. His previous two releases broke new ground and helped establish a generic template for other inspired artists to follow. "Somnia" is a fusion of drone based work recorded over the last three years. Like labelmate keith Fullerton Whitman, Davis' trade is in digital manipulation of organic sound sources; teasing hidden harmonics, melodies, frequencies and rhythms from an electric sonic pallet.

Miles marries Betty, gets the funk and this is the end result: Along with "Kind Of Blue", but coming from a completely different angle, "Bitches Brew" is probably Davis' most celebrated work. Recorded in three days in August of 1969 and often heralded as the first shot fired in the fusion movement, "Bitches Brew" melds jazz with rock, and as an essential part of any psyche-prog head's record collection as jazz fans. Davis had already spearheaded two major jazz movements (cool and modal jazz) and was about to initiate another major change (the album's cover also sports the phrase "Directions In Music By Miles Davis" above the title). Most of the musicians (Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea ) who played on the album went on to become giants of the 1970s fusion movement, with "Bitches Brew" being the jump-of point. Artists as disparate as Carlos Santana, Joni Mitchell and Radiohead cite this epic long player as an influence.

The first in a continuing series of double-LP extravaganzas released only in Japan in the early '70s, 'Live Evil' mixes four studio tracks from 1970 with four live ones taken from a Washington, DC performance in December of that year. Amidst heavy competition, the live tracks - including "What I Say," "Sivad" and "Gemini Double Image" - are the highlights, featuring some of Miles' best playing of the decade, plus aggressive work on extended solo spots by John McLaughlin on guitar, Keith Jarrett on keyboards, and Jack DeJohnette on drums.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Sivad
2. Little Church
3. Medley
Gemini
Double Image

Side B
1. What I Say
2. Nem Um Talvez

Side C
1. Selim
2. Funky Tonk

Side D
1. Inamorata And Narration By Conrad Roberts

30 years ago, in May and June 1985, Miles Davis signed with Warner Bros Records, shocking the music world by leaving Columbia. He immediately started working on an album to be called 'Perfect Way', named after a tune by Scritti Politti, but later renamed 'Tutu' by producer Tommy LiPuma. When 'Tutu' (a tribute to Desmond Tutu) was released in 1986, it re-ignited Miles Davis’ career, winning him two Grammy Awards. The record reflected the 80s, just as Herbie’s 'Rockit' did. That meant keyboards, sequencing, dub effects, drum machines and tonalities that often had the brightness and sharpness of the Fairlight era. This album was a key factor in raising Davis’ status to an international superstar.

This deluxe double LP edition includes:
• The remastered original album
• An extra LP of live performances by the Miles Davis Octet of the Nice Jazz Festival of 1986 only available on the CD version of 'Tutu Deluxe'.
• The packaging is a replica of the original vinyl album, including stickers, LP labels, Irving Penn’s beautiful and iconic photographs
• All this on 180g double vinyl!

Undeniably one of the best smaIl bands in the history of jazz, the Miles Davis Quintet of the mid-1950s featured an all-star line-up of Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor sax), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums).

This new edition of “Workin’” is release as part of the Original Jazz Classics Series and is pressed on 180-gram vinyl at RTI with all-analog mastering from the original tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and presented in a Tip-On Jacket.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. It Never Entered My Mind
2. Four
3. In Your Own Sweet Way
4. The Theme (Take 1)
Side B
1. Trane’s Blues (a.k.a. Vierd Blues)
2. Ahmad’s Blues
3. Half Nelson
4. The Theme (Take 2)

One can hardly imagine the genre-busting, culture-crossing musical magic of Outkast, Prince, Erykah Badu, Rick James, The Roots, or even the early Red Hot Chili Peppers without the influence of R&B pioneer Betty Davis. Her style of raw and revelatory punk-funk defies any notions that women can’t be visionaries in the worlds of rock and pop. In recent years, rappers from Ice Cube to Talib Kweli to Ludacris have rhymed over her intensely strong but sensual music.

There is one testimonial about Betty Davis that is universal: she was a woman ahead of her time. In our contemporary moment, this may not be as self-evident as it was thirty years ago – we live in an age that’s been profoundly changed by flamboyant flaunting of female sexuality: from Parlet to Madonna, Lil Kim to Kelis. Yet, back in 1973 when Betty Davis first showed up in her silver go-go boots, dazzling smile and towering Afro, who could you possibly have compared her to? Marva Whitney had the voice but not the independence. Labelle wouldn’t get sexy with their “Lady Marmalade” for another year while Millie Jackson wasn’t “Feelin’ Bitchy” until 1977. Even Tina Turner, the most obvious predecessor to Betty’s fierce style wasn’t completely out of Ike’s shadow until later in the decade.

Ms. Davis’s unique story, still sadly mostly unknown, is unlike any other in popular music. Betty wrote the song “Uptown” for the Chambers Brothers before marrying Miles Davis in the late ‘60s, influencing him with psychedelic rock, and introducing him to Jimi Hendrix — personally inspiring the classic album ’Bitches Brew.’

But her songwriting ability was way ahead of its time as well. Betty not only wrote every song she ever recorded and produced every album after her first, but the young woman penned the tunes that got The Commodores signed to Motown. The Detroit label soon came calling, pitching a Motown songwriting deal, which Betty turned down. Motown wanted to own everything. Heading to the UK, Marc Bolan of T. Rex urged the creative dynamo to start writing for herself. A common thread throughout Betty’s career would be her unbending Do-It-Yourself ethic, which made her quickly turn down anyone who didn’t fit with the vision. She would eventually say no to Eric Clapton as her album producer, seeing him as too banal.

In 1973, Davis would finally kick off her cosmic career with an amazingly progressive hard funk and sweet soul self-titled debut. Davis showcased her fiercely unique talent and features such gems as “If I’m In Luck I Might Get Picked Up” and “Game Is My Middle Name.” The album Betty Davis was recorded with Sly & The Family Stone’s rhythm section, sharply produced by Sly Stone drummer Greg Errico, and featured backing vocals from Sylvester and the Pointer Sisters.

TRACK LISTING

If I'm In Luck I Might Get Picked Up 
Walkin Up The Road 
Anti Love Song 
Your Man My Man
Ooh Yea 
Steppin In Her I. Miller Shoes 
Game Is My Middle Name 
In The Meantime

In the 1970s, Betty Davis defied genre and gender by pushing her voice to extremes and embracing the erotic. She articulated a kind of pre-punk, funk-blues fusion that had yet to be normalized in mainstream music – a style that few musicians have come close to replicating. As one of the first Black women to write, arrange, and produce her own albums, Betty was a visionary who disregarded industry boundaries and constraints. Raw, unapologetic and in full control, Betty paved the way for generations of future artists who said “funk you” to the music industry and social norms.

In 1979, when Davis entered an L.A. studio to record her fifth and final album, she was reeling from a series of setbacks. Three years earlier, after recording her fourth album, Is It Love Or Desire, Davis was dropped from her label and the LP was subsequently shelved. In 1978, her beloved band Funk House went their separate ways. Looking for a fresh start, Davis relocated to Hollywood to focus on songwriting. Before long, British manager Simon Lait (Toni Basil), offered to fund her next project.

With renewed vigor, Davis reunited with former Funk House guitarist Carlos Morales and brought together industry veterans like fusion drummer Alphonse Mouzon and session bassist Chuck Rainey. Old friends Anita and Bonnie Pointer (The Pointer Sisters) and Patryce “Choc’let” Banks joined Davis on vocals, as did Motown legend Martha Reeves. The resulting album, Crashin’ From Passion, was her most musically diverse, blending elements of reggae and calypso (“I’ve Danced Before”), jazz (“Hangin’ Out in Hollywood,” “Tell Me a Few Things”), dark synth-pop (“She’s a Woman”), and even disco (“All I Do Is Think of You”). Equally exploratory are Davis’ vocals, as she trades in her signature sass and snarls for more nuanced stylings.
Among the album’s few funk tracks is “Quintessence of Hip,” in which Davis hails musicians like Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, Stevie Wonder, and John Coltrane, while deftly integrating elements of their work. The song also offers a moment of stark vulnerability, as she sings, “Isn’t rich? Isn’t it queer? Losing my timing so late in my career.” It would prove to be a prophetic line in the months to follow.

The mixing process was mired by artistic differences and then cut short, amid the death of Davis’ beloved father. Bereft and exasperated, Davis returned home for the funeral, setting into motion her retirement from the music industry. Crashin’ From Passion, meanwhile, would be shelved for 15 years and licensed for a CD-only release, without Davis’ consent, in the ‘90s. This 2023 edition of the album, made with Davis’ full approval and cooperation, marks its first official release and first time ever on vinyl. The package was designed by GRAMMY®-winning artist, Masaki Koike, while the album cover features an incredible shot of Betty captured in London in the mid-1970s by renowned photographer Kate Simon.

Crashin’ From Passion was remastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters and pressed on vinyl at Record Technology, Inc. (RTI). The accompanying booklet includes a treasure trove of rare photos from the era, plus lyrics, and new liner notes by writer, ethnomusicologist, and Betty’s close friend, Danielle Maggio, who integrates interviews that she conducted with Davis, marking her last ever interviews.

TRACK LISTING

Quintessence Of Hip
She's A Woman
No Good At Falling In Love
Tell Me A Few Things
I've Danced Before
You Make Me Feel So Good
I Need A Whole Lot Of Love
Hangin' Out In Hollywood
All I Do Is Think Of You
Crashin' From Passion
You Take Me For Granted

Betty Davis was a musical maverick with vision. Image, substance, sex, and grit combined with a badass band that could deliver the funk bed backbone to the sultry music between the sheets. After cutting two notorious discs for the Just Sunshine label (Betty Davis and They Say I’m Different), and Nasty Gal for Island Records, Davis went to work on her most personal and expressive record yet. After capturing 10 hard-hitting tracks in 1976 at the remote Studio In The Country (Louisiana), a creative difference with her then label caused the platter to be unexpectedly shelved. Davis would cut one final album and soon retreat from the music business, completely disappearing from the public eye.

Is It Love Or Desire is a little-known gem in the Davis catalog. Mastered from the original tapes, and untouched for over 30 years, this release features detailed liner notes, the originally intended artwork housed in a lavishly packaged digipak, rare photos, archival material, and recent interviews with Davis and her skin-tight band Funk House.

Never bootlegged, never released, never heard until now, the secret story of this lost album will finally enter the history books and cement this bold soul sisters contributions to music and popular culture. Its time to get down…

TRACK LISTING

Is It Love Or Desire
Whorey Angel
It's So Good
Crashin' From Passion
When Romance Says Goodbye
Bottom Of The Barrel
Stars Starve
You Know
Let's Get Personal
Bar Hoppin'
For My Man

In the 1970s, Betty Davis defied genre and gender by pushing her voice to extremes and embracing the erotic. She articulated a kind of pre–punk, funk–blues fusion that had yet to be normalized in mainstream music — a style that few musicians have come close to replicating. As one of the first Black women to write, arrange, and produce her own albums, Betty was a visionary who disregarded industry boundaries and constraints. Raw, unapologetic, and in full control, Betty paved the way for generations of future artists who said ‘funk you’ to the music industry and social norms.

In 1975, Betty Davis’s star was on the rise. With the backing of Island Records and a new band, Funk House, Betty’s third album, Nasty Gal, leans into the hyper-sexualized persona with which her critics were so obsessed. She raps, purrs, shrieks, and moans on top of Funk House’s manic funk-rock and lays claim to the “bad girl” anthems that now saturate the music industry. Mastered from the original tapes, Nasty Gal showcases Betty’s groundbreaking work as a performer, writer, and producer.

TRACK LISTING

Nasty Gal
Talkin Trash
Dedicated To The Press
You And I
Feelins
F.u.n.k.
Gettin Kicked Off, Havin Fun
Shut Off The Light
This Is It!
The Lone Ranger

One can hardly imagine the genre-busting, culture-crossing musical magic of Outkast, Prince, Erykah Badu, Rick James, The Roots, or even the early Red Hot Chili Peppers without the influence of R&B pioneer Betty Davis. Her style of raw and revelatory punk-funk defies any notions that women can’t be visionaries in the worlds of rock and pop. In recent years, rappers from Ice Cube to Talib Kweli to Ludacris have rhymed over her intensely strong but sensual music.

There is one testimonial about Betty Davis that is universal: she was a woman ahead of her time. In our contemporary moment, this may not be as self-evident as it was thirty years ago – we live in an age that’s been profoundly changed by flamboyant flaunting of female sexuality: from Parlet to Madonna, Lil Kim to Kelis. Yet, back in 1973 when Betty Davis first showed up in her silver go-go boots, dazzling smile and towering Afro, who could you possibly have compared her to? Marva Whitney had the voice but not the independence. Labelle wouldn’t get sexy with their “Lady Marmalade” for another year while Millie Jackson wasn’t Feelin’ Bitchy until 1977. Even Tina Turner, the most obvious predecessor to Betty’s fierce style wasn’t completely out of Ike’s shadow until later in the decade.

Ms. Davis’s unique story, still sadly mostly unknown, is unlike any other in popular music. Betty wrote the song “Uptown” for the Chambers Brothers before marrying Miles Davis in the late ’60s, influencing him with psychedelic rock, and introducing him to Jimi Hendrix - personally inspiring the classic album 'Bitches Brew'.

But her songwriting ability was way ahead of its time as well. Betty not only wrote every song she ever recorded and produced every album after her first, but the young woman penned the tunes that got The Commodores signed to Motown. The Detroit label soon came calling, pitching a Motown songwriting deal, which Betty turned down. Motown wanted to own everything. Heading to the UK, Marc Bolan of T. Rex urged the creative dynamo to start writing for herself. A common thread throughout Betty’s career would be her unbending Do-It-Yourself ethic, which made her quickly turn down anyone who didn’t fit with the vision. She would eventually say no to Eric Clapton as her album producer, seeing him as too banal.

Her 1974 sophomore album 'They Say I’m Different' features a worthy-of-framing futuristic cover challenging David Bowie’s science fiction funk with real rocking soul-fire, kicked off with the savagely sexual “Shoo-B-Doop and Cop Him” (later sampled by Ice Cube). Her follow up is full of classic cuts like “Don’t Call Her No Tramp” and the hilarious, hard, deep funk of “He Was A Big Freak.”

TRACK LISTING

Shoo-B-Doop And Cop Him 
He Was A Big Freak 
Your Mama Wants Ya Back
Don't Call Her No Tramp 
Git In There 
They Say I'm Different 
70's Blues 
Special People

Toronto-based retro-soul artist Claire Davis shares her journey of self-worth and love on her debut album "Get it Right". This lively 10-track analog soul LP was recorded to an 8-track tape machine by engineer Braden Sauder in a converted garage- studio in Toronto, owned by the renowned instrumental jazz/hip-hop group, BADBADNOTGOOD. Featuring some of the city's top-flight musicians in the R&B/Soul scene, the album was laid down live-off-the-floor in one week during the winter of 2022.

Davis shares, "My heart really lies in live performance so I wanted to recreate that experience as much as possible for this record by having the musicians all record together to tape. I feel like I personally thrive under the limitations that tape gives you; it offers the opportunity to capture a vibe of a performance more so than chasing perfection. Knowing that my favourite soul records were recorded this way gives me an even deeper appreciation for the skill and talent involved in this process."

"Get it Right" is a record born out of the faith that there's better things on the other side of fear. Whether that's breaking toxic cycles or being truly honest about what is and isn't working in life. The first song written for the record was the title-track of the album which began as a jam between Davis on guitar, producer Scott McCannell on bass, and drummer Chino deVilla. "The lyrics were inspired by my relationship with my partner and the intention that we both have to work on healing ourselves in order to make our partnership work. I'd like to think that it's a love song with a strong sense of maturity and understanding to it. And the whole record was really shaped around that idea of my relationships and experiences stemming from my own sense of self-love and my desire to live and create from an authentic place."

The songs on the album feature co-writes from Scott McCannell, Kyla Charter, and Toronto production house Safe Spaceship Music, in addition to horn and background vocal arrangements by composer La-Nai Gabriel. Musicians include Heather Crawford on guitar, Scott McCannell on bass, Adrian Hogan on keys, Chino de Villa on drums, Juan Carlos Medrano on percussion, Aphrose, Tegan Michelle Gordon and Chynna Lewis on background vocals, and horn section The Northern Soul Horns.

TRACK LISTING

1. Get It Right
2. What's Mine
3. Long Gone
4. Intuition
5. Love Stories
6. Good For You
7. Set Myself Free
8. Times Have Changed
9. Here Comes The Fall
10. Colours

Contradictory accounts of Miles Davis’ creation of the soundtrack to Louis Malle’s film noir Ascenseur pour l'Échafaud have all become part of its legend. Rarely has a soundtrack been so decisive. Nearly seventy years on, beyond the myth, this taut, feverish recording, imbued with extreme dramatic tension, remains one of the Miles’ finest records.

The basic outline remains: Jean-Paul Rappeneau suggested to Malle asking Miles Davis to create the film's soundtrack who agreed to record the music after attending a private screening. Davis was performing at the Club Saint-Germain in Paris in November 1957 and on December 4, he brought his four sidemen to the recording studio without having had them prepare anything. Davis only gave the musicians a few rudimentary harmonic sequences he had assembled in his hotel room, and, once the plot was explained, the band improvised without any precomposed theme, while edited loops of the musically relevant film sequences were projected in the background.

Bassist Pierre Michelot recalled in 1988 that “Miles just asked us to play two chords, D minor and C7, 4 bars of each, ad lib.” Typically, Miles planned very little but know exactly what he wanted. François Leterrier, the film’s Second Assistant Director picks up the story: “The session started at around ten o’clock and went on until dawn. The screen in the auditorium was showing the scenes for which Miles had devised some harmonies, and they were edited into a loop. And that’s what makes this music unique: it was entirely improvised in conditions that went back to the days of silent films, while watching frames shot in black and white by cinematographer Henri Decaë: tracking shots of Jeanne Moreau wandering down the Champs-Elysées at night, passing in front of lit window displays or going into bars, while looking for her lover/murderer alias Maurice Ronet …

This beautiful re-issue of the original recording is pressed on 180g vinyl at GZ, and packaged in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket with Boris Vian’s original liner notes and Jean-Pierre Leloir’s iconic studio photo of Miles and Jeanne Moreau, and an essay on the circumstances that led to this out-of-the ordinary music by Franck Bergerot.

TRACK LISTING

Generique
L'assassinat De Carala
Sur L'autoroute
Julien Dans L'ascenseur
Florence Sur Les Champs- Elysees
Diner Au Motel
Evasion De Julien
Visite Du Vigile
Au Bar Du Petit Bac
Chez Le Photographe Du Motel

'Birth of the Cool' by Miles Davis was released 1957 on Capital Records and complies eleven tracks recorded by Davis's nonet for the label over the course of three sessions during 1949 and 1950. Featuring unusual instrumentation and several notable musicians, the music consisted of innovative arrangements influenced by classical music techniques such as polyphony and marked a major development in post- bebop jazz. As the title suggests, these recordings are considered seminal in the history of the Cool Jazz genre.

TRACK LISTING

Jeru
Move
Godchild
Budo
Venus De Milo
Rouge
Boplicity 
Israel
Deception
Rocker
Moondreams
Darn That Dream

In the summer of 1948 Miles Davis, in collaboration with the arranger Gil Evans, whom he had met several years earlier, decided to carry out his project by detaching himself from the principles of bebop to participate in a new form of jazz. Installed in New York, he founded a new group, intermediate between the big band and small bebop groups. Cool jazz was born, but it was not an immediate revolution: the nonet was quickly dissolved, and this new music took several years to establish itself among jazz musicians and the public.

On September 18, 1948, the nonet performed for the first time in public, opening for Count Basie's show at the Royal Roost in New York under the title "Nonet by Miles Davis, arrangement by Gerry Mulligan, Gil Evans and John Lewis ". An unusual name which betrays the desire to create music based largely on arrangements.

This release is part of the New Ermitage collection available from January 2024: 18 jazz and soul titles reissued on yellow vinyl with new codes and renewed graphics.

TRACK LISTING

1. Move
2. Jeru
3. Moon Dreams
4. Venus De Milo
5. Budo
6. Deception
7. Godchild
8. Boplicity
9. Rocker
10. Israel
11. Rouge

180 gram audiophile vinyl
Contains 3 previously unreleased live tracks
Includes 12-page booklet
Etched D-Side

It has been said that jazz stopped evolving when Davis wasn't there to push it forward. Even if that isn't true, Miles Davis certainly was one of the greatest music innovators of the 20th century, pioneering cool jazz (with the 1949 recording of 'Birth Of The Cool'), modal jazz (with 1959's 'Kind Of Blue') and Fusion with 1970's 'Bitches Brew'.

'Bitches Brew Live' contains recordings from two performances: the first three songs were recorded at his Newport Jazz performance in July 1969 - a couple of weeks before the Bitches Brew sessions in August of that year - and have remained unissued till this day.

Miles performs with Chick Corea on electric piano, Dave Holland on acoustic bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums; musicians who all went on to become leaders of the Fusion movement. (Wayne Shorter unfortunately missed this date because he was stuck in traffic.)

The A1 track "Miles Runs The Voodoo Down" is the first professionally live recorded version of this song. The other six songs were recorded at the Isle Of Wight festival in 1970,and contain "Directions" and "It's About That Time" from the In A Silent Way sessions.

Included in this exclusive release is a 12 page booklet with a liner note essay by renowned music journalist Michael Azerrad, and a special etch on the D side. Music On Vinyl is proud to bring you this -never before- released double vinyl edition.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Miles Runs The Voodoo Down *
2. Sanctuary *
3. It's About That Time/The Theme *

Side B
1. Directions
2. Bitches Brew

Side C
1. It's About That Time
2. Sanctuary
3. Spanish Key
4. The Theme

Side D
Etch

*Previously Unissued

"Black Beauty, Miles Davis At Fillmore West", was recorded on April 10, 1970 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, when Davis performed as the opening act for the Grateful Dead. The recording took place shortly after the release of Miles’ classic album Bitches Brew. The album was released in 1973, originally in Japan only. "Black Beauty", a true jazz-rock album, captured one of Davis’ first performances at a rock venue during the early stages of his electric period. At the concert, he led his band (saxophonist Steve Grossman, bassist Dave Holland, keyboardist Chick Corea, drummer Jack DeJohnette, and percussionist Airto Moreira) through one continuously performed set list.
The songs in the band’s set list were as followed: “Directions”, “Miles Runs the Voodoo Down”, “Willie Nelson”, “I Fall In Love Too Easily”, “Sanctuary”, “It’s About That Time”, “Bitches Brew”, “Masqualero”, “Spanish Key”, and “The Theme”. They were performed as one continuous and uninterrupted piece of music, a practice Davis had begun in 1967. He later explained in his autobiography that performing these kinds of long musical suites without breaks allowed more space for improvisations in concert.

The original Japanese booklet is included in this vinyl package.

TRACK LISTING

Directions
Miles Runs The Voodoo Down
Willie Nelson
I Fall In Love Too Easily
Sanctuary
It's About That Time
Bitches Brew
Masqualero
Spanish Key/The Theme

Cookin’ is the first of four albums derived from the Miles Davis Quintet’s fabled extended recording session on Octobre 26, 1956; the concept being that the band would document its vast live-performance catalogue in a studio environment, rather than preparing all new tracks for its upcoming long-player. The bounty of material in the band’s live sets – as well as the overwhelming conviction in the quintet’s studio sides – would produce the lion’s share of the Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’ and Steamin’ albums.

As these recordings demonstrate, there is an undeniable telepathic cohesion that allows this band – consisting of Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums) – to work so efficiently both on the stage and the studio. This same unifying force is also undoubtedly responsible for the extrasensory dimensions scattered throughout these recordings. The immediate yet somewhat understated ability of each musician to react with ingenuity and precision is expressed in the consistency and singularity of each solo as it is maintained from one musician to the next without the slightest deviation. « Blues by Five » reveals the exceptional symmetry between Davis and Coltrane that allows them to complete each others’ thoughts musically.

Cookin’ features the pairing of « Tune Up / When the Lights Are Low » which is, without a doubt, a highlight no only of this mammoth session, but also the entire tenure of Miles Davis mid-‘50’s quintet. All the éléments converge upon this fundamentally swinging medley. Davis’s pure-toned soloes and the conversational banter that occurs with Coltrane, and later Garland during « When the Lights Are Low », resound as some of these musicians’ finest moments.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1.My Funny Valentine
2.Blues By Five

Side B
1.Airegin
2.Tune Up
3.When Lights Are Low

In a Silent Way is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis, released on July 30, 1969, on Columbia Records. Produced by Teo Macero, the album was recorded in one session date on February 18, 1969, at CBS 30th Street Studio in New York City. Incorporating elements of classical sonata form, Macero edited and arranged Davis's recordings from the session to produce the album. Marking the beginning of his "electric" period, In a Silent Way has been regarded by music writers as Davis's first fusion recording, following a stylistic shift toward the genre in his previous records and live performances. 

Kind of Blue is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. It was recorded on March 2 and April 22, 1959, at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City, and released on August 17 of that year by Columbia Records. The album features Davis's ensemble sextet consisting of saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, pianist Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb, with new band pianist Wynton Kelly appearing on one track in place of Evans. Kind of Blue has been regarded by many critics as the greatest jazz record, Davis's masterpiece, and one of the best albums of all time. Its influence on music, including jazz, rock, and classical genres, has led writers to also deem it one of the most influential albums ever recorded. 

TRACK LISTING

So What 
Freddie Freeloader 
Blue In Green 
Flamenco Sketches 
All Blues

Kind of Blue is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. It was recorded on March 2 and April 22, 1959, at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City, and released on August 17 of that year by Columbia Records. The album features Davis's ensemble sextet consisting of saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, pianist Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb, with new band pianist Wynton Kelly appearing on one track in place of Evans. Kind of Blue has been regarded by many critics as the greatest jazz record, Davis's masterpiece, and one of the best albums of all time. Its influence on music, including jazz, rock, and classical genres, has led writers to also deem it one of the most influential albums ever recorded. 

TRACK LISTING

So What 
Freddie Freeloader 
Blue In Green 
Flamenco Sketches 
All Blues