‘Fenella’ is the latest project from Jane Weaver - musical polymath and one of the most respected electronic composers of recent times - and her long-term bandmates Peter Philipson and Raz Ullah.

Having already released three critically-acclaimed LP’s within the last five years Weaver’s creativity continues to expand ever further into the (modern) kosmos with this reimagined soundtrack to Marcell Jankovics’ cult animation Fehérlófia.

Released in 1981, Fehérlófia is a remarkable animation based in ancient folklore with a narrative culled from mythical tales of the Scythans, Huns and Avars.

Weaver’s richly emotional and psychedelic music offers a perfect contemporary dialogue with Jankovics’ astonishing visual aesthetic.

A mixture of ambient textures, menacing drones and spine-tingling vocals combine to create a lavish soundscape saturated with hypnotic moods and cinematic atmosphere.

Fenella’s self-titled LP is a continuation of Fire Records re-imagined score series.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: F'in-ell-a, this is good. As you'd expect, a project from Raz, Jane and Peter being anything but wonderful would be a rare day indeed, but this woozy slab of arpy psychedelia is pushing the boundaries. Intricate but easily digested, this rich tapestry of fizzing oscillators and analogue saturation is a gift straight from the white mare's mouth. AT LEAST 250ug of pure joy.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Slow Swoop
Three Heads Rising
Bright Curse
Occurring In Waves
Triangular Journey
The Seed
Pendulum
Shard Of Glass
Truly Seduced

Side B
The Spectacle
Battle
Echo Chamber Of Your Heart
Strength In Air
Rotation Wells
Gilded Griffin
Transfiguration Into One

Jane Weavers experimental ensemble in collaboration with Peter Philipson and Raz Ullah, Fenella returns with a hallucinogenic excursion into ambient textures and hypnagogic drones on new album ‘The Metallic Index’. Taking further steps into their combined compositional universe with this follow-up to 2019’s acclaimed Fehérlófia album.

Loosely based on a genuine story accounting the short-lived abilities of a young psychic nurse in 1920’s London, Fenella’s niche muse justifies this celebratory return to vinyl but not once does it fall into the supposed tropes of staid hauntological-plunderphonics which repeatedly come to muddy our thirsty streams. Fenella make spirited melodic progressive pop music that pulsates with the same magnetism that fans of Jane Weaver's own The Silver Globe and Modern Kosmology have come to expect and hold closely.

Handcrafted using a generous archive of some of the best vintage equipment in the country (partly recorded at Soundgas studios in Darkest Derbyshire) the sound structures you hear at the heart of this album form the basis for Fenella's best work yet, while the individual spectral vocalisations and ethereal electronics that circle the room capture this trio's return, as peripheral visions, in full-phantasmic bloom.

"A sonic exaltation and refinement of craft, going further into the realms of atmospheric abstract cosmology blissfully morphed with the mythopoetic" The Quietus.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Pulsion (Nurse On Train)
A2 Instituts Métapsychique
A3 "A Young Girl Of Medium Height"
A4 Hexagonal Table
A5 Telekinetoscopes
Side B
B1 Shadow Apparatus
B2 The Metallic Index
B3 Lilacs Illuminate In Indigo
B4 After The Visions
B5 Stellar In Spectra
B6 Are They With You? (The Final Chord)

Marcel Fengler can look back upon a very productive year as an artist. There was the “Frantic EP“ on Ostgut Ton, followed by DIN (a joint project with Efdemin) whose compositions formed one third of the “MASSE“ CD and ballet and then arguably his most creative and intense project to date: the release of his debut solo album “Fokus“. For the remix EP accompanying this release Dave Clarke, Aubrey, The Exaltics and The Traveller were invited to place their focus on some chosen tracks.

Dave Clarke opens the 12“ with his remix of “Sky Pushing“, the forceful but tender character of the original track is overturned into deep distortion and systematically lead towards gentle chaos, the steady drive of this rework leaves no room for pause as it propels the energies set free.

The break techno of The Exaltics, whipped up with nervous bass and smoky drums, serves as one of the groovier additions to this EP. The massive beats that follow the break lift the track to another level and when the mellow vocals of “Mayria“ set in, things fall into place in perfect combination.

On the other side Aubrey redefines “Trespass“. The absorbing arrangement combines unpredictable use of hi-hats and synths from the original with a dark and classic pumping beat and inspired flanger effects to diffuse the tension and create a balanced mix.

The final remix by The Traveller is also the greatest surprise, the track lures you in with a soft intro but soon develops into an old school techno stomper, the heavy kick and percussion is complemented by the reoccurring melody from “Jaz“ inviting you to immerse yourself in the sound.

All the energy, piss and vinegar of the Ataris, New Found Glory and Blink 182 a corking little band that's heading your way.

3rd album by Berlin's indie weirdos Fenster. Presenting a varied palette of post-psychedelia on this original soundtrack for the movie "Emocean"

Fenster's Emocean is the soundtrack to an adventure sci-fi film created by and starring the band. The music is a swirling cosmos of richly varied post-psychedelia, transcending the boundaries of reality and traditional pop-records to join the ranks of other genre bending Music Films like Daft Punk's "Interstella 5555" or Prince Rama's "Never Forever". With Emocean, the band utilizes their classic approach to non-traditional percussion and instrumentation, but this time ventures deeper into new territory with funky bass lines (Off The Cahin) complimented by additional instruments like bass clarinet (Memories), flute (Phantasia) and modular synthesizers (Samson's Theme). Emocean is a nuanced and surprising departure from their first two albums. The approach to this record was a more holistic exercise in "collective songwriting" and was resulted from a series of feverish jam sessions. The sounds evoke a broad spectrum of parallel universes - from soothing surfy tidal cliffs to analog synth dungeons, interstellar purple-funk disco-techs, wobbly organ's in houses of worship, acid blues parades and delicate maiden's picking daisies on the moon (Les Fleurs). The most danceable track is definitely Off the Cahin, and Memories is a sun soaked summer jam.

Feral Ohms is a power trio from Oakland, California, led by Comets On Fire / Howlin Rain / Heron Oblivion guitar and voice fireball Ethan Miller along with animal drummer Chris Johnson (Drunk Horse / Andy Human) and the loudest bassist in fifteen counties, Josh Haynes (Nudity).

The band turns the spatial pyrotechnics and expansive spirit of classic psychedelia inside out, dragging it through the punk rock era kicking and screaming and boils it down into a series of explosions that start at needle drop and end when the record does. They blast pure action and outlaw rock’n’roll joy through relentless, violent musical force, blowing the doors off psychedelic rock and letting loose the raw, wild, high speed feedback wail of something massive careening off the rails and into your ears.

This is FO’s debut studio album. Recorded by Eric “King Riff” Bauer (Ty Segall, White Fence, Heron Oblivion), Phil Manley (Earthless, Wooden Shjips) and mixed with scorched Earth policy by Chris Woodhouse (Thee Oh Sees, Fuzz).

The white-hot set of Live In San Francisco not only features Feral Ohms’ shaggy guitar heroics captured directly to ferromagnetic medium for your grokking, but also happens to be their debut record. From zero to vertical from the get of the set, the ’Ohms muscle this one out fast and hot, featuring Ethan Miller of Howlin Rain, Comets On Fire and recent psych-folk breakouts Heron Oblivion.

Miller gives free rein to his most pyro-psycho-technic guitar fancies, not to mention a full-throated demon-worthy wail, with Chris Johnson on drums (previously of Drunk Horse and currently of Andy Human and the Reptoids) full MC5 style with freight train pummel, with rides so heavy in the mix it sounds like early Damned. Josh Haynes (of the unGoogle-able Nudity) is a total forehead smacker on bass as he bi-amps a filthy sound while wearing some weirdo humility leather strap face harness - it’s just dirty.
“Teenage God Born To Die” indeed. Expect great things from them and this concise set is just long enough to get a dander up for a proper full length, set for release on Ethan’s Silver Current label in 2017. In the meantime, keep an eye out for their live shows and don’t forget the ear plugs, they’ll singe your minge...

TRACK LISTING

1. Love Damage
2. Early Man
3. Teenage God Born To Die
4. Value On The Street
5. Super Ape
6. The Glow

Ferdi is an emerging saxophonist artist from the Brusselian-Parisian musical scene. Fifteen years after evolving at the conservatory, he decided to develop his artistic career. He surrounded himself with prominent artists of the modern music scene: the rapper Peet, the pianist Sofiane Pamart, his trumpeter mate Bessau, and the king of funk - Dabeull!

Ferdi’s new album "Romance" has been conceived from this artistic exchange. "Romance" offers a romantic, funky moment for two lovers of 80s music. There;s louche sax lines, squelchy boogie bass and gliding vocodered vox a plenty; an absolute sleaze-fest of 80s boogie / funk!  You'll be reaching for your silk pyjamas and fur lined dressing gown in no time! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Knicker-dropping / shirt-lifting modern sex boogie from a big blower from Brussels / Paris. Bit of Dam Funk thrown in there for sure; but he's replaced the keyboards with the saxaphone. Top drawer stuff.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Beach Wear
A2. Something In You
A3. Romance
A4. Love Amour

B1. Cruisin'
B2. Sweet Connection
B3. Seduction
B4. Time

Duality is a dual state or quality, and within mathematical systems a symmetry whereby a theorem remains valid if certain objects, relations or operations are interchanged. It also runs as both a feeling and realisation throughout the fourteen tracks included on the new album by Ferge X Fisherman. Duality is equal parts rap and jazz, contains electronically produced beats and live instrumentation, and is lyrically reflective yet totally unreserved. In regard to its lyrical content, Duality is ostensibly a self-portrait of a musician taking his first small steps onto the giant stages of the music industry. The record also features high-profile international guest stars such as Detroit rapper Black Milk and Japanese jazz trumpeter and Blue Note artist Takuya Kuroda (both on Reality), New Zealand soul singer Noah Slee (Business) and South African singer Hunter Rose (Home). With its unconventional sound, Duality is a unique statement of intent for the German hip hop scene and sets a standard for others to follow.

TRACK LISTING

Privilege
Business (feat Noah Slee)
Trust
Time
Pace (feat Victoryaz)
Pressure
Air
Growth
Reality (feat Takuya Kuroda & Black Milk)
Home (feat Hunter Rose)
Duality
Ego
Kudos
Mind

Denton white-man-soul/pop duo featuring Jason Kelly (Wax Museums) and Andrew Savage (Teenage Cool Kids). In Fergus and Geronimo, the WM lo-fi recording aesthetic is alive and well to be sure, but don't expect any songs about 'jack off rats' here. Just Blind Muslim Girls! A casual project, but the band cites a serious well of inspiration including southern soul, 60s pop, psychedelic and Motown influences as the kick behind Fergus & Geronimo's sound. Good stuff. Uh, yeah. Get it!

Fergus & Geronimo return with ‘Funky Was The State Of Affairs’, a sixteen track weirdo-opus about aliens, mind control, conspiracy theories and intergalactic courtship, amongst other things.

Recorded in analogue at Seaside Lounge, New York.

TRACK LISTING

Planet Earth Is Pregnant For The 5th Time
No Parties
The Strange One Speaketh
Roman Tick
"My Phone's Been Tapped, Baby“
Roman Nvmerals / Wiretapping Muzak I
Spies
Earthling Men
The Uncanny Valley
Earthling Women
Drones
Wiretapping Muzak II
Off The Map
"The Roman Stuff Is Where It's At“
Marky Move
Funky Was The State Of Affairs

For our second album Torschlusspanik! (German for fear of being left outside the gates) we wanted to address some of the conflict and turmoil both around the world and also internally and emotionally. The band is the same, but we aimed for a leaner, more direct approach to song writing. Rather than painting impressions or abstractions we wanted to quickly get to the heart of our message and songs in bold, primary colours.

Many of the songs tell stories or follow characters who represent or personify some of the themes we are trying to address. There is humour and there is sadness within these stories. It is an album that expresses frustration and confusion with the state of things but that very much affirms its belief in the rich and complicated experience of humanity.

TRACK LISTING

A1. The Wounds Of Love
A2. Happy As Larry
A3. Pas Devant Les Enfants
A4. End Of The Summertime
A5. Every Cross To Bear
A6. I Want To See Your Name In Lights
B1. Sad Face
B2. The Pike
B3. Now You Know
B4. Everybody Says They Love You
B5. What's Jesus For?
B6. Let's Go Out

MESTIZX is Bolivian-born singer and multi-medium performer Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and renowned Chicago expat jazz drummer Frank Rosaly's debut album as co-composers, arrangers and musicians.

Partners in both marriage and art, the Amsterdam-based Ferragutti and Rosaly dove into the sounds of their respective ancestral roots in Bolivia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico to create a deeply personal meditation on decolonization and the defiant power of ritual and protest. They chose the title MESTIZX – a non-gendered version of the sometimes slurred Spanish colonial word for a “mixed person” - as a means of both challenging and embracing the liminality of their identities and artistic practices.

Rosaly says: “I grew up quite Puerto Rican in my home, but was taught to mask it outside my home. I wasn’t allowed to speak Spanish, so the drums eventually became my language, secretly tying together my own feeling of connection to mi tierra. This record is the first time I actively give voice to the nuance within myself, allowing me to take ownership of this in-between, which is what this album communicates for me… There is this unusual place that exists between these two cultures, of which I am both. There is a complex story in that sliver of in-betweenness, worthy of giving voice to all of us that live in-between.”

Ferragutti adds: “My personal understanding is one that stems from being placed in between lineages that carry the colonizer and colonized, the oppressor and oppressed, the demon and the angel… thus by definition is tied to post-colonial social constructs which we as Bolivians have to step in, like a 500 year novel that goes on and on… We have access to many memories and traditions, but not really, because we don’t fully belong to any of those… This makes us feel we're in a constant state of being the “visitors” and “outsiders.” On one hand, we are never truly part of one lineage. On the other hand, it makes us a travelers of worlds, storytellers in between multiple languages, cultures, and worldviews. We chose MESTIZX for this work as an act of recognizing the mixed state of being as a difficult and yet powerful one.”

The album was produced and recorded primarily at International Anthem Studios in Chicago, where Ferragutti and Rosaly were joined by a community of musicians and beloved friends including Matt Lux, Avreeayl Ra, Ben LaMar Gay, Daniel Villarreal, Bill MacKay, Rob Frye, and Mikel Patrick Avery, with addditional contributions from Chris Doyle, Guilherme Granado, Viktor Le Givens and Fredy Velásquez.

The music creatively infuses Latin rhythmic patterns and oblong swing from pre-and post-colonial Latin America into a collision of avant jazz, art punk, Chicago post-rock, bomba, plena, cumbia, Andean, minimal, electronica, and folk. A wholly original but undeniably universal sound – both of-the-moment and alluringly futuristic - MESTIZX contains points of reference and resonance for fans of Juana Molina, Café Tacvba, Max Roach & Abbey Lincoln, Liquid Liquid, Arto Lindsay, As Mercenarias, The Ex, Tortoise, Tom Zé, Elza Soares, La Mecanica Popular...

It’s a vast, vibrant and encompassing spectrum of sounds, but at its core MESTIZX is a lucidly conscious collection of auto-biographical statements from Ferragutti & Rosaly on the deeply personalized effects of colonialism on geography, history, and identity. Despite its heavy subject matter, however, MESTIZX finds a lifeline in communal, celebratory, soul-bearing and movement-inducing music.

TRACK LISTING

1. Invocação
2. Destejer
3. Balada Para La Corporatocracia
4. Turbulência
5. Mestizx
6. Barro
7. Saber Do Mar
8. Bless Thee Mundane
9. Descend
10. Writing With Knots
11. Sirinus

American troubadour Benjy Ferree kickstarts the new year with an album full of wit and wonder, recorded by Fugazi's Brendan Canty. The album is a combination of acoustic Americana mixed with hints of retro pop (a cross between Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Ray Davies), topped up by an intense rock hit in "Dogkillers".

Ferris & Sylvester release their debut album ‘Superhuman’, a body of work highlighting the very best of the duo’s timeless songwriting. The twelve track album holds ten never before heard songs and takes the listener on a journey through the duo’s world where genres intertwine and emotions are stripped down to the core.

The album was recorded at Bear Creek Studios, Seattle USA with Grammy nominated producer Ryan Hadlock (The Lumineers, Brandi Carlile, The Strokes) and at Sawmills Studio, Cornwall UK with producer Michael Rendall (Pink Floyd, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Youth). Combining influences from Folk, Blues and Americana music from both sides of the Atlantic, the duo’s debut sits in a new and distinct territory.

A note from the duo: ‘This record is a story that unravels all that we have come to know and understand about being human. The messy parts which we all share and experience, though often we keep them safe behind our armour. Heartache, rage, hunger, jealousy, disillusion, confusion, loneliness. Also, the wonderful parts, the things that shape us. Self-knowledge, friendship, love, understanding, sacrifice. These are what make us human and this is what has shaped our record. We kept these songs close to us in the hope that when we released our first album, we could share the experience with the people who have honoured and supported our music from the beginning. In the flesh. It is as much yours as it is ours. Our hope is this: you will feel connected, inspired maybe even empowered by our writing and will go forward with a new sense of courage and self-belief.’

Since meeting as solo musicians a few years ago at the London Blues joint Spiritual Bar, F&S have released a collection of singles and EPs, a lot of which they recorded in their South London flat. Their raw and honest songwriting about their life together brought praise across BBC Radio 1, 2, 4 and 6, earned them a place in Rolling Stone’s ‘Top 10 Americana Acts You Need To Know’ and saw them climb to number 14 on Spotify’s UK Viral chart. Their EPs ‘Made In Streatham’ and ‘I Should Be On A Train’ have racked up over 10 million streams on Spotify and their singles have been synced across British TV, most notably for BBC’s coverage of Wimbledon.

During their relatively short pre-Covid existence, their music took them around the world, playing over a hundred shows every year including Isle of Wight, Sziget, Americanafest and BST in Hyde Park. They have shared the stage with the likes of Robert Plant, George Ezra, Jade Bird and James Morrison, winning over audiences and building a loyal and mighty fanbase. The pair sold out two nights at London Omeara on their last tour and are in the middle of a run of UK dates ending at London’s Lafayette on 21st November, promoted by Live Nation and Kilimanjaro. They’ve been championed by BBC Introducing and have played their stage at SXSW, Wilderness and Glastonbury as well as their very own live session at Maida Vale Studios. Last year, they won the Emerging Artist Award at The UK Americana Awards, earned a spot on BBC Introducing’s ‘Best of 2020 list’ and signed their first publishing deal with Sentric Music.

TRACK LISTING

1. Superhuman
2. Golden
3. Flying Visit
4. Sickness
5. Party’s Over
6. This Is How My Voice Sounds
7. Thunder Love
8. Breadwinner
9. Vices
10. Demons
11. Darkness I Feel
12. Special

Plunge, the first release in 8 years since the celebrated self titled debut in 2009.
 
Plunge was largely recorded in Karin Dreijer’s Stockholm studio in collaboration with the producers Paula Temple, Deena Abdelwahed, NÍDIA, Tami T, Peder Mannerfelt and Johannes Berglund.
 
Karin Dreijer is one half of the electronic duo the Knife along with her brother, Olof Dreijer. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Fever ray's newest outing sees the Dreijer's in fine form once again, mixing throbbing synths and soaring vocal harmonies with distinctly modern production touches. It's a fascinating and enthralling journey, and totally essential.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wanna Sip
2. Mustn't Hurry
3. A Part Of Us
4. Falling
5. IDK About You
6. This Country
7. Plunge
8. To The Moon And Back
9. Red Trails
10. An Itch
11. Mama's Hand

Plunge Remix is a new compilation of remixed Fever Ray songs. Fever Ray is the solo project of the Knife’s Karin Dreijer and ‘Plunge’ was the first release in eight years since her celebrated self-titled debut in 2009. Remixers were chosen with the goal of creating music for Fever Ray to dance to. Released over a period of almost two years, the tracks will now sit together for the first time. The A-side opens with the full throttle electro-house of Tami T's remix of "Mustn't Hurry", before Bunny Michael incorporates future proofed R&B and footwork into a fresh mix of "IDK About You", a perfect companion to the psychedelic freakout Faka cooks up on the A3. On the B-side, Karin's bro and Knife companion Olof Dreijer gets slinky with a wonderful organic techno mix of "Wanna Sip", fellow art-synther Glasser conjures an epic space-synth translation of "Falling" while Sissel Wincent merges trance and techno in a huge floor melter to close the side. The intensity continues on the C1 as r&S affiliate Paula Temple slams a Berghain sized wrecking ball through "This Country", before a stepping UK bass styled mix from Aasthma offers a bit of rhythmic variation. Lisbon's usually breakneck DJ Marfox sticks to a relatively stately 130 with a bleeping twist on "Plunge" which manages to sound like a lost UR set from a Portuguese slum, while personal favourite Tzusing closes the package out with a chugging industrial incarnation of "Mustn't Hurry" tailor made for our current dystopia.

TRACK LISTING

LP
1. Mustn’t Hurry (Tami T Remix)
2. IDK About You (Bunny Michael Remix)
3. Plunge (Faka Remix)
4. Wanna Sip (Olof Dreijer Remix)
5. Falling (Glasser Remix)
6. Wanna Sip (Sissel Wincent Remix)
7. This Country (Paula Temple’s DESTROY Remix)
8. Mustn’t Hurry (Aasthma’s Remix)
9. Plunge (DJ Marfox Remix)
10. Mustn’t Hurry (Tzusing Remix)

CD
1. Mustn’t Hurry (Tami T Remix)
2. To The Moon And Back (Los XL Remix)
3. Wanna Sip (Olof Dreijer Remix)
4. Falling (Glasser Remix)
5. Mustn’t Hurry (Dinamarca Remix)
6. To The Moon And Back (Jowaa Remix)
7. Wanna Sip (Sissel Wincent Remix)
8. IDK About You (Bunny Michael Remix)
9. To The Moon And Back (NAR Remix)
10. Mustn’t Hurry (Lao Remix)
11. This Country Makes It Hard TO Fuck (Björk Remix)
12. IDK About You (rip ME ReWORK)
13. Mustn’t Hurry (Tzusing Remix)
14. Plunge (Faka Remix)
15. I’m Not Done (Still Not Done Mix)
16. This Country (Paula Temple’s DESTROY Remix)
17. Plunge (DJ Marfox Remix)
18. I’m Not Done (Still Not Done Dancing Mix)

After their initial eight-minute sonic rollercoaster ILL on Dan Carey’s Speedy Wunderground imprint and their subsequent debut album Means, Fews return with a brand new ten-track studio album, Into Red.

Following extensive touring throughout 2016-17, including two tour runs as special guests of Pixies, the Anglo-American-Swedish quartet retired to Malmö with the Swedish city’s underbelly providing the perfect environment for unfettered artistic endeavours and the subsequent album recording.

Co-produced by Joakim Lindberg (Hater) and mixed by James Dring ‘Into Red’ sees Fews extricating their influences to reveal a band assuredly moving on from the template of their debut album Means with a confident post-punk swagger and no little addition of muscular heft on the song-writing front.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Throbbing distorted basses and screeching, echoing reverbs work their way below the vocals, at times delivered monotonally a-la post-punk gloom, and in other moments with the acrobatic intensity shadowed by the beautiful soaring instrumentals and richly constructed backline. It's safe to say, Fews are here to stay.

TRACK LISTING

1. Quiet
2. Paradiso
3. More Than Ever
4. Suppose
5. Limits
6. Business Man
7. 97
8. Anything Else
9. Over
10. Fiction

Swedish / American four-piece FEWS have been making some serious waves ahead of their debut album. Specialising in propulsive, motoric noise-pop, producer Dan Carey (Bat For Lashes, Sexwitch, TOY, Kate Tempest et all) discovered the band via a mysterious Soundcloud link and promptly invited the band to his South London studio where debut single ‘Ill’ quickly followed on Carey’s Speedy Wunderground label.

Having joined the ranks of the Play It Again Sam label their own brand of malevolent post-punk continues to evolve and thrill with follow up singles ‘The Zoo’ and ‘100 Goosebumps’ that has seen the band bear resemblance to DIIV and Faust.

“Sonically charged post-punk that’s equal parts Interpol, DIIV, The Walkmen and A Place To Bury Strangers. Anthems for the disaffected in waiting” - Drowned in Sound

Fews mark their return with details of a new track and a new label. The band, last spotted wowing London’s Brixton Windmill as part of the Speedy Wundergound annual Summer shindig are pleased to announce that they have signed to Play It Again Sam. The first fruits of this new partnership arrives in the form of new single ‘The Zoo’.

Summer 2015; the Swedish / American four-piece unleashed their eight minute motorik-induced debut single ‘ILL’ courtesy of Dan Carey’s Speedy Wunderground, bringing them to the attention of more than a handful of parties, securing numerous Track Of The Week accolades along the way. The band’s DIY stance led them to Carey via an anonymous Soundcloud link which, in turn, had him hailing Fews as one of his favourite artists of the year and will see him overseeing the band’s debut album.

No less ambitious than its predecessor, ‘The Zoo’ rolls in at more conservative three and half minutes, unmasking a postpunk lineage conversing head on with more recent like-minded musical contemporaries.

‘The Zoo’, a fervent salvo of dark, brooding greatness that sees Fews continue their foray forwards heralding the arrival of their debut album in the first half of 2016. Carey assumes the role of the mad professor; subtle bleeps and codes punctuate the production, initiating their call to action.

Until now, Art Feynman the eccentric alter ego of accomplished producer Luke Temple has strictly been a solo act, a way for the artist to explore surprising sonic landscapes without the burdens of identity. Slightly twisted takes on Kosmische musik, worldbeat, and art pop can all be found scattered across the Art Feynman discography, but with his new album Be Good The Crazy Boys, Feynman fully immerses himself into pools of collective madness.

Unlike his first two albums, Crazy Boys was recorded live in the studio with a full band, a first for Feynman, capturing a spirit of restless anxiety that recalls the most frenetic work by Talking Heads, or Oingo Boingo at their darkest. Despite these callbacks, the collection remains firmly rooted in modern concerns, with songs about fearing the end of the world and struggling with FOMO narratives that would be relatable if they didn’t sound so completely unhinged.

With Be Good The Crazy Boys, Art Feynman proves to be more than just a character. He represents the part of the modern collective consciousness that’s struggling to maintain balance in a toxic, chaotic world. In less skilled hands, that concept could result in a very somber listen. Fortunately, when Art Feynman gets his hands on the chaos of the modern age, it simply makes you want to dance.

TRACK LISTING

01. Early Signs Of Rhythm
02. In CD
03. Therapy At 3pm
04. All I Can Do
05. He Dances Light
06. Passed Over
07. Chasing My Life
08. Desperately Free
09. I Do

Fez The Kid joins the esteemed ranks of the modern jungle massive, giving forerunners like Coco Bryce and Tim Reaper a run for their money as he rolls out two highly frenetic slices of music.

"Nuff Bad Boy" as the title might suggest, contains plenty of sound boy vox and raggamuffin idents. Add a well chopped Think break, torpedo subs and futuristic, digital atmospheres and you've got a contemporary killer that'll have both students and old skool DnB veterans united around the subwoofers.

"Crunchy Paradise" on the flip contains similar elements - keeping the ragga vibe but adding LTJ Bukem esque pads and seriously wild drum manipulation to the mix. It's one of those late session tracks that'll squeeze the last drops of energy outta the floor and give the soundsystem a proper workout.

Real tasty stuff - recommended. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: There's a huge jungle renaissance accompanying the continuing hardcore buzz. Meditator herald the charge of new producer's channelling that old school sound system spirit. Demonstrated here perfectly by Fez The Kid.

TRACK LISTING

A. Nuff Bad Boy
B. Crunchy Paradise

Originally released in 1992, Hei Vidal! is the third album by revolutionary DIY Cymraeg pop band Ffa Coffi Pawb. Formed in Bethesda in 1986 by sixteen year old friends Gruff Rhys and Rhodri Puw (later joined by Gruff’s Super Furry Animals’ bandmate Dafydd Ieuan and Dewi Emlyn).

Made by a bunch of 21 and 22 year olds, Hei Vidal! is an album that distills the band’s obsessions with early ’70s power-pop (all the B’s from Bowie, Bolan and Big Star) as well as Neu! and My Bloody Valentine into a sound that predates the fuzzed out return to glam heralded by Oasis a few years later. It merges motorik grooves over saturated shoe gazing fuzz with impressionistic studio manipulation, orchestral synthesiser arrangements and brutal yet surreal imagery and word play in the Welsh language.

Having signed their songs over to a local publisher who eventually disappeared off the face of the Earth, Ffa Coffi Pawb’s music has been out of print for decades (with the exception of the 2004 compilation album Am Byth, released on the SFA associated Placid Casual label). After untangling a complicated web of time, Hei Vidal! is available on vinyl for the first time having only been on cassette and very few CD copies on its original release on Ankst in 1992. The reissue marks the 30th anniversary of the band’s final show at Builth Wells Memorial Hall in August 1993 (supported by a young Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci).

Gruff Rhys on Hei Vidal! “We made the record in our early 20s and it was a dream-pop distillation of our early 1970’s Glam, power-pop & Motorik obsessions - combined no doubt by our devotion to shoe gazing contemporaries from the Creation label, American college rock and our heroes of the Welsh language underground like Datblygu, John Cale and Y Cyrff. The nonsensical album title is a quote from the song Colli’r Goriad and the Vidal in question perhaps a hallucinated amalgamation of Gore Vidal and Vidal Sassoon; both of which were omnipresent personalities on early 90’s TV, one as a pundit the other a seemingly rolling TV shampoo advert.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Clymhalio
2. Ffarout
3. Profion Moddion
4. Wyneb I Waered
5. Dilyn Fy Nhrwyn
6. Colli'r Goriad
7. Arwynebol Melyn
8. Sega Segur
9. Helo Traeth
10. Pelydr Secs
11. Ofn:Cwn
12. Lluchia Dy Fflachlwch Drosda I

“Hear what happen now! Me and me friends had a kinda thing like the jukebox was our sound system and we’d use our lunch money to play the baddest tunes on the jukebox. We were aided and abetted by a kinda dodgy little shop keeper cause we were kids and we were in the rum bar punching the juke box when we weren’t supposed to be allowed!! So we were breaking all the rules” - Ossie Thomas

Breaking rules from the outset Ossie Thomas had furthered his childhood fascination with music while still attending Oberlin High School and many more rules would be broken when together with Phillip Morgan he set up the Black Solidarity label in 1979 on Delamare Avenue deep in the heart of Kingston.

For this latest reissue from the label, Black Solidarity turn their attention to singer Robert Ffrench. Later to have the massive hit 'Bun And Cheese' with Clement Irie, this collection brings together Ffrench's solo work in the mid 80s.

TRACK LISTING

1. Joker Family
2. Radication
3. Mr Babylon
4. Single Life
5. Problem Is A Cry
6. Bad Boy Posse
7. Rebel Girl
8. The Favourite
9. Cut Eye Cut Eye
10. Me Raggamuffin
11. A Dance Without A Deejay
12. Mother In Law
13. No Modelling*
14. Shock We A Shock*
15. True True Loving*
*CD Bonus Tracks

The product of a unique collaboration between Franz Ferdinand and Sparks, ‘FFS’ was produced by Grammy Award winner John Congleton (St Vincent, David Byrne, Anna Calvi) and recorded at London’s RAK Studios.

The seed of FFS was sown around the time of Franz’s debut album when word got back to the Maels that the band were big Sparks fans. “We thought ‘Take Me Out’ was very cool, and wouldn’t it be nice to say hello when they came to Los Angeles?” recalls Russell Mael. “We met and decided then it would be great to do something together. We put forward a couple demos, one was ‘Piss Off’. But they got swept up by everything, and it didn’t happen at that time.”

Fast-forward to 2013 when both Sparks and Franz Ferdinand appeared at Coachella. On the day of Sparks’ warm-up show in San Francisco, Kapranos was in the city trying to locate a dentist when he heard a voice behind him: “‘Alex, is that you?’ It was Ron and Russell. They invited us down to see them play that night. We said hello after, and everyone agreed that the 10-year gestation period for this idea was long enough - we should try and make it happen now.”

‘FFS’ was recorded during an intense 15-day period in late 2014. “We approached it the way bands do with their first record,” says Kapranos. “We had the songs first, rehearsed them and then recorded it all together, in a room. So no hanging around or fannying about.”

Very much a ‘new’ project, ‘FFS’ doesn’t truly sound like either band but a striking and fascinating mutation. “The real motivation was to make something new, not ‘Franz featuring Russell Mael’, or ‘Sparks with Franz Ferdinand backing them,” says Alex Kapranos. “You can’t chart what is Sparks and what is Franz Ferdinand,” suggests Ron Mael. “I think each band unconsciously relinquished a little of who they were in order to enter new territory.”

Debut album by FFT, the result of three years of focused writing and programming by the London-based producer, ‘Clear’ is deeply psychedelic, defined by a mature sense of melody and structures crafted at a monumental scale.

Though FFT has previously released a handful of tracks under various names, it wasn’t until 2017’s ‘FFT1’ EP on the Uncertainty Principle label that his production talents began to fuse into a distinct and personal style, especially evident in FFT’s ‘Regional/Loss’ EP on The Trilogy Tapes in 2019, multiple releases on Bruk Records and 2021’s ‘Disturb Roqe’ also released on Numbers. Through it all, FFT has mastered a complex sense of mood catalyzed by sound itself: He builds patches and presets from scratch, and feels these synths and software have their own objectives and reactions, creating a kind of compositional feedback loop.The result is an album that brings to mind a collision of electronic pioneers like Delia Derbyshire and Bernard Parmegiani, 2000’s braindance, the Maximized wares of an OPN or Objekt and the rough rhythmatics of SND or Mika Vainio

The layering of sonic elements and intentions is starkly audible across these nine tracks. They can be seismically concussive and grandiose, but granular and fluid - echoing the Icelandic volcanic eruption that features in the artwork photography by George Cowan. ‘Clear (Eight-Circuit Mix)’sets a euphoric tone immediately accelerated by the jagged sounds and vocal textures of ‘Redeemer’. ‘3 Sided’ channels hyper-urbanity from its almost entirely analogue palette, and by contrast ‘Disturb Roqe 2’ is bracingly digital, gyrating in random cycles between clustered percussion, metallic splinters of audio and artificial vocal tics.

Opening side two, ‘You’ve Changed’ adheres to a more abrasive core, while ‘Heal’ and ‘Heal (Alt Mix)’evolved out of linked pieces in FFT’s live sets that grew into complete tracks in the months before Covid-19. The significant intensity of ‘Heal’ in particular was refined during strobe-heavy live performances and is the album at its most turbulent, the claustrophobia interrupted by dazzling arpeggios. The overall impact of 'Clear' is cinematic and precise, marking the arrival of an impressive electronic musician who is not new but has come into his own as a fully developed artist

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Crystalline, multidimensional soundscapes here from modern electronica artist FFT whose DSP-painted sonic canvasses take us into visionary, 5th world realms.

TRACK LISTING

1. Clear (Eight-Circuit Mix)
2. Redeemer
3. 3 Sided
4. Disturb Roqe 2
5. Clear
6. You’ve Changed
7. Heal
8. Heal (Alt Mix)
9. Ashley Hill

F.I.D.E.L (Further Individual Delusions) is the avatar project of Paris-based composer/producer/A&R, R.DIlouya (Omar, Sly Johnson, N'Dea Davenport, Gystère, Oxmo Puccino etc - Blue Note Records, Universal Jazz, Heavenly Sweetness).

UK Funk & Soul and Northern Soul Legend, John Turrell (Smoove & Turrell - BBC Fantasy Funk Band - Jalapeño Records) and French Hip-Hop, Soul and Jazz major force, Sly Johnson (aka Sly the Mic Buddha - Multi-Platinum selling supergroup Saïan Supa Crew - BBE Records).

Hailing from North Paris and Northern England, F.I.D.E.L pays tribute with Out Of Sight to the great Post-Disco, Boogie and New Wave pop songs that shaped the world's collective unconscious at the twilight of the Thatcher / Cold War Era.

F.I.D.E.L takes this as a jumping off point and channels its sound through the care and the musical craft of the past to a yet more modern soundscape using Prophet Synthesizers, Clavinets and Drum Machines to create a fast, nervous, funky, ironic and intoxicating satire of modern-days in our now post-COVID western societies.

While most of the musical heavy lifting is done by Dilouya himself, Turrell lays down socially anchored lyrics, rooted firmly in the gritty, no-nonsense world of a working-class man, tracks such as All About Love , Straight Down to Heaven or (I Don't Give a Sh*t About) Summertime show the depths of this man's repertoire.

Sly Johnson lets his soul rip with a gut reaction to 21st century tech-infused populism on Out of Sight and Star 51.

This musical connection fused the fun-loving, loud-speaking, trouble-making friends and made them explore with irony and sarcasm the paradoxes of their time to produce what will remain as a unique body of work, testifying to the ambivalence of a generation oscillating between social concern and the desire to party!

Recorded over two week-long studio sessions in Paris, Out Of Sight showcases Dilouya's timeless songwriting and bold production style, setting the perfect ground for John Turrell's instant classic vocal performances and Sly Johnson's revered musicianship and versatility. Electrifying performances from German songstress Noraa (Out of Sight , Heartbeat) and SciFi- obsessed DKO Records' front man Larry Houl (Odd Things) complement F.I.D.E.L's take on how and why music shapes our critical sense and appetite for escapism.

"Between delusions of grandeur and social disappointment, fantasized nostalgia and neon statues bearing its effigy, F.I.D.E.L imposes with Out Of Sight its ideal for Civilization to a world that ultimately never changes."

TRACK LISTING

1. OUT OF SIGHT — F.I.D.E.L, Sly Johnson, Noraa, John Turrell & Dilouya
2. HEARTBEAT — F.I.D.E.L, John Turrell & Dilouya
3. STAR 51 — F.I.D.E.L, Sly Johnson & Dilouya
4. ALL ABOUT LOVE — F.I.D.E.L, John Turrell & Dilouya
5. STRAIGHT DOWN TO HEAVEN — F.I.D.E.L, John Turrell & Dilouya
6. L'AVENTURE MODERNE — F.I.D.E.L & Dilouya
7. ALL OF THIS IS FAKE — F.I.D.E.L, John Turrell & Dilouya
8. (I DON'T GIVE A SH*T ABOUT) SUMMERTIME — F.I.D.E.L, John Turrell & Dilouya
9. BEHIND THE WALL — F.I.D.E.L, John Turrell & Dilouya
10. ODD THINGS (Part 1&2) — F.I.D.E.L, Larry Houl, Sly Johnson & Dilouya

Darkly melancholic, driving and highly original, the tracks from "Daughter Of Darkness EP" have been tested, tweaked and perfected at Sisyphos’ cavernous main room Hammahalle, where Fidelity Kastrow spins monthly as one of the Berlin club’s leading residents. Tracks "Daughter Of Darkness" and "The Huntress" are intuitively inspired by the Sunday daytime vibe from the Berlin club scene, whereas ‘Wolf Clan’ builds and raises energy, written from the perspective of being behind the decks as the DJ. For fans of ANNA, Charlotte de Witte, Marcel Dettmann, Ben Klock, Adam Beyer, Chris Liebing, Nina Kraviz etc.

TRACK LISTING

Daughter Of Darkness
The Huntress
Wolf Clan

Gorgeous pop and Spector-esque production, with electronic pulses and breathy vocals, like Sigur Ros meet Drugstore.

Field Music’s new release is “Making A New World”, a 19 track song cycle about the after-effects of the First World War. But this is not an album about war and it is not, in any traditional sense, an album about remembrance. There are songs here about air traffic control and gender reassignment surgery. There are songs about Tiananmen Square and about ultrasound. There are even songs about Becontree Housing Estate and about sanitary towels. 

The songs grew from a project for the Imperial War Museum and were first performed at their sites in Salford and London in January 2019. The starting point was an image from a 1919 publication on munitions by the US War Department, made using “sound ranging”, a technique that utilised an array of transducers to capture the vibrations of gunfire at the front. These vibrations were displayed on a graph, similar to a seismograph, where the distances between peaks on different lines could be used to pinpoint the location of enemy armaments. This particular image showed the minute leading up to 11am on 11th November 1918, and the minute immediately after. One minute of oppressive, juddering noise and one minute of near-silence. “We imagined the lines from that image continuing across the next hundred years,” says the band’s David Brewis, “and we looked for stories which tied back to specific events from the war or the immediate aftermath.” If the original intention might have been to create a mostly instrumental piece, this research forced and inspired a different approach. These were stories itching to be told.

The songs are in a kind of chronological order, starting with the end of the war itself; the uncertainty of heading home in a profoundly altered world (“Coffee or Wine”). Later we hear a song about the work of Dr Harold Gillies (the shimmering ballad, “A Change of Heir”), whose pioneering work on skin grafts for injured servicemen led him, in the 1940s, to perform some of the very first gender reassignment surgeries. We see how the horrors of the war led to the Dada movement and how that artistic reaction was echoed in the extreme performance art of the 60s and 70s (the mathematical head-spin of “A Shot To The Arm”). And then in the funk stomp of Money Is A Memory, we picture an office worker in the German Treasury preparing documents for the final instalment on reparation debts - a payment made in 2010, 91 years after the Treaty of Versailles was signed. A defining, blood-spattered element of 20th century history becomes a humdrum administrative task in a 21st century bureaucracy.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sound Ranging
2. Silence
3. Coffee Or Wine
4. Best Kept Garden
5. I Thought You Were Something Else
6. Between Nations
7. A Change Of Heir
8. Do You Read Me?
9. From A Dream, Into My Arms
10. Beyond That Of Courtesy
11. A Shot To The Arm
12. A Common Language Pt 1
13. A Common Language Pt 2
14. Nikon Pt 1
15. Nikon Pt 2
16. If The Wind Blows Towards The Hospital
17. Only In A Man’s World
18. Money Is A Memory
19. An Independent State

'Commontime' is the first album of new songs from North East siblings Peter and David Brewis since 'Plumb' in 2012 and their fifth album 'proper' since their debut in 2005. After four years threading a way through one extra-curricular project after another, the space that Field Music vacated still appears to be empty and Field Music-shaped. No one else really does what Field Music do; the interweaving vocals, the rhythmic gear changes, the slightly off-chords, but with the sensibility that keeps them within touching distance of pop music.

All this is present again but things are different this time. Where 'Plumb' was an album of vignettes and segues, 'Commontime' edges towards what people might call “proper songs”. Field Music have never shown off their unashamed love of choruses quite like they do on this record. Lyrically, Peter and David continue to mine that inexhaustible seam wondering how on earth we ended up here, in this situation, as these people. Over fourteen songs, conversations are replayed and friendships are left to drift. And all the while, that thing you were trying to remember has changed while your head was turned.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: The Brewis brothers return with more perfectly realised funky, melodic, math-pop (and not forgetting 70's rock!?) nuggets. It's an incredible blend that's just built for repeated listens. Possibly their best yet.

TRACK LISTING

The Noisy Days Are Over
Disappointed
But Not For You
I'm Glad
Don’t You Want To Know
What's Wrong?
How Should I Know If You've Changed?
Trouble At The Lights
They Want You To Remember
It's A Good Thing
The Morning Is Waiting
Same Name
Stay Awake

The band are Peter Brewis, David Brewis and Andy Moore – together they are godfathers of the Sunderland scene having produced The Futureheads first single, and set up the mysterious 8 Studio where the Golden Virgins, Maximo Park and The Futureheads recorded their first material. Theirs is a very different musical path though, weaving a distinctly English route, their psyche tinged pop songs with falsetto vocals, piano, viola and violin in the mix create an intriguing sound - a bit Syd Barrett, a bit Sgt. Pepper, a bit XTC with a bit of Robert Wyatt thrown in for good measure.

Following a self-imposed three year hiatus Sunderland's Field Music return with a new 20 track double album. Powered, as ever, by brothers and co-front men Peter and David Brewis, "Field Music (Measure)" is a gloriously rich LP that entwines the brother's renewed love of the rock music cannon with a rediscovery of some of pop's overlooked adventurers.
From the dissonant funk of "Let's Write A Book" (a call to arms for the perpetually apologetic), the mutated blues of "Each Time Is A New Time" (a riposte to misplaced faith in repetition), the chopping and splashing pop of "Them That Do Nothing" (perhaps about a valiant willingness to make mistakes), the multilayered riffery of "The Rest Is Noise" or the epic found-sound song cycle that starts with "See You Later" "Field Music (Measure)" is the sound of one of the UK's finest bands in supreme and confident control.

TRACK LISTING

1. In The Mirror
2. Them That Do Nothing
3. Each Time Is A New Time
4. Measure
5. Effortlessly
6. Clear Water
7. Lights Up
8. All You'd Ever Need To Say
9. Let's Write A Book
10. You And I
11. The Rest Is Noise
12. Curves Of The Needle
13. Choosing Numbers
14. The Wheels Are In Place
15. First Come The Wish
16. Precious Plans
17. See You Later
18. Something Familiar
19. Share The Words
20. It's About Time

"We want to make people feel good about things that we feel terrible about." says David Brewis, who has co-led the band Field Music with his brother Peter since 2004. It's a statement which seems particularly fitting to their latest album, Flat White Moon released via Memphis Industries.

Sporadic sessions for the album began in late 2019 at the pair's studio in Sunderland, slotted between rehearsals and touring. The initial recordings pushed a looser performance aspect to the fore, inspired by some of their very first musical loves; Free, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin and The Beatles; old tapes and LPs pilfered from their parents' shelves. But a balance between performance and construction has always been an essential part of Field Music.

By March 2020, recording had already begun for most of the album's tracks and, with touring for Making A New World winding down, Peter and David were ready to plough on and finish the record.

The playfulness that’s evident in much of Flat White Moon's music became a way to offset the darkness and the sadness of many of the lyrics. Much of the album is plainly about loss and grief, and also about the guilt and isolation which comes with that.

Those personal upheavals are apparent on songs like Out of the Frame, where the loss of a loved one is felt more deeply because they can't be found in photographs and compounded by the suspicion that you caused their absence, or on When You Last Heard From a Linda, which details the confusion of being unable to penetrate a best friend's loneliness in the darkest of circumstances.

Some songs are more impressionistic. Orion From The Streets combines Studio Ghibli, a documentary about Cary Grant and an excess of wine to become a hallucinogenic treatise on memory and guilt.. Others, such as Not When You're In Love, are more descriptive. Here, the narrator guides us through slide- projected scenes, questioning the ideas and semantics of 'love' as well the reliability of his own memory. For the most part, the album has fewer explicitly political themes than previous records, though there is No Pressure, about a political class who feel no obligation to take responsibility if they can finagle a narrative instead. And there's I'm The One Who Wants To Be With You which skirts its way around toxic masculinity through teenage renditions of soft-rock balladry.

On Flat White Moon Field Music take on the challenge of representing negative emotions in a way that doesn't dilute or obscure them but which can still uplift. The result is a generous record of bounteous musical ideas, in many ways Field Music's most immediately gratifying to date.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: I'm a bit late to the Field Music party, I have to admit. Always quite liked them when I heard them, but never really got into them properly, despite people telling me I should (yes Marc Riley, you were right!)
But I thought the last album 'Making A New World' was amazing and this one is equally as good.
Flat White Moon is full of intricate, multi-layered songs. They're arty and clever (but not in an annoying smart-arse way) and they know how to write a pop song too!

TRACK LISTING

1. Orion From The Street
2. Do Me A Favour
3. Not When You're In Love
4. Out Of The Frame
5. When You Last Heard From Linda
6. No Pressure
7. In This City
8. I'm The One Who Wants To Be With You
9. Meant To Be
10. Invisible Days
11. The Curtained Room
12. You Get Better

‘Music for Drifters’ is a recording of a newly composed, cinematic score for John Grierson's landmark 1929 film ‘Drifters’ on the UK's herring fishing industry, widely regarded as the first British narrative documentary.

The composition was originally commissioned for a live performance and screening of ‘Drifters’ at 2013's Berwick Film Festival and Field Music (featuring Peter and David Brewis plus original keyboardist Andy Moore) will be performing the score again at screenings of the film across April and May.

Silver colour vinyl, silver board gatefold sleeve.

Limited to 750 copies.

The two years since Commontime have been strange and turbulent. If you thought the world made some kind of sense, you may have questioned yourself a few times in the past two years. And that questioning, that erosion of faith - in people, in institutions, in shared experience - runs through every song on the new Field Music album.

But there's no gloom here. For Peter and David Brewis, playing together in their small riverside studio has been a joyful exorcism. Open Here is the last in a run of five albums made at the studio, an unprepossessing unit on a light industrial estate in Sunderland. Whilst the brothers weren't quite tracking while the wrecking balls came, the eviction notice received in early 2017 gave them a sense of urgency in the recording of Open Here.

There probably won't be many other rock records this year, or any year, which feature quite so much flute and flugelhorn (alongside the saxophones, string quartet and junk box percussion). But somehow or other, it comes together. Over thirteen years and six albums, Field Music have managed to carve a niche where all of these sounds can find a place; a place where pop music can be as voracious as it wants to be.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Oh Field music, will your jagged chords and thumping, percussive oddness never grow weary? Apparently not, because here we have another outing that hasn't been off the shop stereo since we got the promo a few weeks back. We're all still enamoured here, and you will be too.

TRACK LISTING

Time In Joy
Count It Up
Front Of House
Share A Pillow
Open Here
Goodbye To The Country
Checking On A Message
No King No Princess
Cameraman
Daylight Saving
Find A Way To Keep Me

Field Music (a.k.a. Sunderland siblings Peter and David Brewis) release their hugely anticipated fourth album, 'Plumb', through Memphis Industries.

With 15 tracks crammed into 35 minutes, 'Plumb' remodels the modular, fragmented style of the first two Field Music albums; only now shot through with the surreal abstractions of 20th century film music from Bernstein to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory and with the off-beam funk and pristine synth-rock developed on the brothers' School of Language and The Week That Was albums.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Amazing album! A bit mathy and proggy but the difference with Field Music is it's always poppy! This record sounds like one enormous song with a thousand different parts, all perfectly slotted together like a crazy musical jigsaw. Unbelievable!

TRACK LISTING

1. Start The Day Right
2. It’s Okay To Change
3. Sorry Again, Mate
4. A New Town
5. Choosing Sides
6. A Prelude To Pilgrim Street
7. Guillotine
8. Who’ll Pay The Bills?
9. So Long Then
10. Is This The Picture?
11. From Hide And Seek To Heartache
12. How Many More Times?
13. Ce Soir
14. Just Like Everyone Else
15. (I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing

The second album from Sunderland's Field Music, and it's an absolute beaut! It's a prog/pop meltdown with lush Beach Boys' harmonies being constantly scuppered by the maddest arrangements and crazy/cool detours. Some of the playing is of the highest order but there's nothing pompous here, it's a completely playful record. The only band who come close are XTC. Now that's a recommendation for you!

“The body remembers what the mind forgets,” Chris Porterfield reminisces on his acclaimed Field Report sophomore record, ‘Marigolden’. A record strewn with references to the inevitable tolls taken by the passage of time and prolonged periods at a distance from home and loved ones.

Spending two years roaming around the country playing tiny venues and sold-out amphitheaters alike, Porterfield was uncertain whether he was leading the charge toward an artistic epiphany or headed down a misguided path of self-destruction. ‘Marigolden’ reflects this, as he ruminates across homesick tension and an un-grounded anxiety - but rather than wallow in melancholy, Porterfield finds solace and inspiration through his songs, which reveal themselves as uplifting and celebratory. The album is brighter than their 2012 debut but somehow remains just as elegantly ominous.

“Meticulous… gorgeous” - Esquire

“Sometimes more is more” - Uncut

“‘Marigolden’ is yet another triumph” - The 405

“Drop dead elegant” - NPR

Featuring members of Piccadilly favourites, Horsebeach, Field Routes enter the music world via Kev Beard's much lauded Box Bedroom Rebels series (also responsible for putting out the first ever Horsebeach record!). Brothers Dan and Matt Booth take time out from the Ryan Kennedy-fronted project for intimate and reflective explorations into the heart of indie-pop; sunshine glimmering off rain soaked concrete pavements as we stroll through the city with wet feet and a sullen heart. Hinting towards darker and more melancholic times ahead, the six tracks feature heartfelt and intricate guitar and vocal interplay, bathed in that heavy plate reverb synonymous with the the rainy sound of Manchester. RIYL: The Smiths, Felt, Horse Beach, 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Kev's knack for A&R knows no boundaries! Is he Tony Wilson re-incarnated? He certainly knows how to pick out some of the best new music from around our fair city. Killer debut that should thrust this ace new project into limelight.

TRACK LISTING

Intro
Come Back
Sometimes
Dreaming
Scarlett

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

- THE FIELD's legendary debut album FROM HERE WE GO SUBLIME finally finds its way onto vinyl

- Special edition for RECORD STORE DAY 2014, only available in participating stores

- Pressed on 180g audiophile grade vinyl, including a CD version of the album

-Originally rolled out in 2007, this much-acclaimed full-length debut of what was to
become one of the most celebrated projects in Kompakt's artist fold saw a regular CD edition and an accompanying 12" sampler - but never a full vinyl release.

-Enter RECORD STORE DAY 2014 and the perfect opportunity to finally present this stunning masterpiece the way it deserves.

Axel Willner aka THE FIELD joined the Kompakt family in 2005, bringing forward a new fusion of ambient and techno that fed on his adoration for Wolfgang Voigt's classic 90's projects Gas and M:I:5 as well as the shoegazer rock of Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine.

Called a "techno pop landmark" by Pitchfork, FROM HERE WE GO SUBLIME almost immediately became a cult favourite, starting a trend that continues to this day - as can be seen with THE FIELD's most recent full-length offering CUPID'S HEAD that has been lauded by critics and crowds alike.

The most striking feat of FROM HERE WE GO SUBLIME must be its sonic cohesiveness, debuting a fully-formed artistic vision that - seven years and three albums later - hasn't lost any of its luster. As a fixture in THE FIELD's discography, it remains as important as ever, with Axel Willner installing a blueprint that inspired many but sounds like no one else... except himself. Giving you a feeling of warmth and familiarity on first listen that you can't quite grasp, it's like this sound has always existed, when in fact it was the unique creation from one highly gifted producer. And it
all starts here.

Maples, Ash, and Oaks: Cedars Instrumentals is a mesmerizing soundtrack for a long walk in the woods, made up of pedal steel, oud, guitar, hurdy-gurdy, and piano. Based on the original Field Works album Cedars, this new suite of instrumental music brings the listener even deeper into the forest. For this special limited-edition release, Stuart Hyatt deconstructed each track from Cedars and rebuilt them one layer at a time. He removed the narrators’ voices and invited Julien Marchal to introduce piano as the new protagonist.

The 15 new tracks are named from each line of the new poem, Deciduous, by Cecily Parks. The musical frameworks are based on the Field Works album Cedars, created by Marisa Anderson, Fadi Tabbal, and Stuart Hyatt – and performed by Julien Marchal, Youmna Saba, Dena El Saffar, Danny Paul Grody, Bob Hoffnar, Stuart Hyatt, Tomás Lozano, Nathan Bowles, Alex Roldan, Fadi Tabbal, and Marisa Anderson. The forest soundscape was recorded by Harrison Ridley in the Welsh countryside. PRESS - “For those interested in the intersection between field recordings and music, this is a must-have.” A Closer Listen.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Morning Bends Down (2:36)
2. To Meet The Canopy (2:54)
3. That We Walk Under. (2:19)
4. We Know The Moss, Forget-Me-Nots (2:08)
5. And Blue-Green Spruce (2:41)
6. But We Want To Be Known (2:32)
7. By The Woods. We Say (1:29)
8. Without Saying, Forget Me Not. (2:18)
9. We Listen To Maples, Ash, And Oaks, (1:58)
10. Without Hearing, But Not Hearing (2:12)
11. Doesn't Mean That We Aren't (2:01)
12. Being Spoken To. (2:16)
13. What Was That? Leaves Rustle (2:14)
14. As If To Say, You Forget. (1:48)
15. We Forgot. (2:07)

What does the Earth sound like? In Stations, the 10th volume in the Field Works series, producer Stuart Hyatt approaches that question with a team of scientists working on the EarthScope experiment. Using sophisticated ground recording devices, Field Works has created a new type of music in which human voices sing along with the actual voice of the Earth. Stations features an all-star ensemble of vocalists and instrumentalists, including Hanna Benn, Janie Cowan, Masayoshi Fujita, Stuart Hyatt, Laraaji, Qasim Naqvi, and Brad Weber. The deluxe vinyl edition includes a bonus digital album of peer reviews by Deantoni Parks, Green-House, Olga Wojciechowska, Afrodeutsche, Nathan Fake, Ben Chatwin, Sophia Loizou, Amulets, Penelope Trappes, and Alva Noto. Stations was commissioned by The Anchorage Museum and The National Geographic Society.

“For those interested in the intersection between field recordings and music, this is a must-have.” A Closer Listen

“A beguiling and quietly astonishing piece of work.” Folk Radio

TRACK LISTING

1. Station 1 (2:28)
2. Station 2 (2:57)
3. Station 3 (3:02)
4. Station 4 (3:04)
5. Station 5 (3:02)
6. Station 6 (2:42)
7. Station 7 (3:04)
8. Station 8 (2:13)
9. Station 9 (2:58)
10. Station 10 (3:29)

Soul legend Lee Fields has re-teamed with The Expressions for new album 'Emma Jean', out on Brooklyn’s Truth & Soul Records. The successful formula seems to be two-fold: sticking to the raucous-yet-tender voiced soul music Lee Fields has always made, yet updating it - pushing the boundaries of what it can be. The result is an unmistakeable sound, something that, as 'Faithful Man' was reviewed in Pitchfork, “isn’t indebted specifically to Atlantic or Stax or Philadelphia International or Chess or Fame or Motown so much as it’s indebted to all of them at once.”

This is why no one can call a Lee Fields record on Truth & Soul a “throwback.” It has hints, sounds, feelings that may be familiar but then there are textures, themes, and approaches that challenge the genre and stretch the sound into something else, something decidedly Lee Fields.

To be sure, a good part of this Lee Fields sound can be chalked up to Truth & Soul producers and co-owners Jeff Silverman and Leon Michels, as well as the team of top-notch musicians involved. The artists you hear behind Lee Fields are some of the same that have backed the likes of Aloe Blacc, Sharon Jones, El Michels Affair, Adele, Liam Bailey, Ghostface Killah, and Jay-Z to name a few.

This distinctive sound and style, a long time in the making, is again on point with 'Emma Jean'. Here, once more, the rules of the soul genre are tested, changed, and updated, showing that Fields and company have a very real command of this sound. To be sure, there are those that may be content with identifying and following the formulas of soul music’s past. But this new record–and the ones before it–show that Lee Fields, The Expressions, and Truth & Soul are more interested in where it can go next.

Formed in 1984, Fields of the Nephilim is the creation of vocalist and front man Carl McCoy. Highly influential, especially in the world of goth, but also within the metal and electronic genres, their legacy endures to this day. You can hear their influence on bands like Swans, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Explosions In The Sky, Wolves in The Throne Room, Behemoth and more. The band’s unique sound, an apocalyptic fusion of Victorian underworld meets Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western, had an appearance to match (wide-brimmed hats, long duster coats and cowboy boots, usually black and smothered in white flour as a substitute for dust), and set them apart from their contemporaries. Elizium is one of their most beautiful albums and considered by many to be their best. As The Quietus wrote, “it was both their most accessible and their most experimental work, concluding and consolidating the Nephilim’s five-year shamanic journey. Lead-off single and opening track ‘For Her Light’ featured a lengthy mid- section that anticipated the apocalyptic post-rock of Godspeed! You Black Emperor (unsurprisingly, it failed to chart), and the album featured some of the band’s hardest rock in the wah-overload of ‘Submission,’ as well as further incorporating dance elements – more successfully and organically than many of their peers, it must be said - on second single ‘Sumerland’.” Louder Sound also called “Sumerland” their “greatest ever track”.

Beggars Arkive is happy to announce a double vinyl expanded deluxe reissue of Fields Of Nephilim's third highly acclaimed album Elizium, released by Beggars Banquet in 1990. The album has been expanded onto a double LP for audio clarity and contains 4 bonus tracks. Recorded and produced by Pink Floyd engineer Andy Jackson, the audio is via analogue transfer to 96khz/24 bit by John Dent at Loud, with vinyl mastering by Geoff Pesche at Abbey Road.

TRACK LISTING

A1. (Dead But Dreaming)
A2. For Her Light
A3. At The Gates Of Silent Memory
A4. (Paradise Regained)
B1. Submission
B2. Sumerland (What Dreams May Come)
C1. Wail Of Sumer
C2. And There Will Your Heart Be Also
C3. Sumerland -Single Version *
D1. For Her Light -Two *
D2. Submission Two -The Dub Posture *
D3. Sumerland -Dreamed Version *

* Bonus Tracks

Beggars Arkive are happy to announce a vinyl reissue of the second Fields Of The Nephilim album The Nephilim, released 35 years ago by Situation Two/Beggars Banquet in 1988, and not pressed on vinyl since then. The album is pressed on golden brown vinyl and is expanded to a double LP. The album contains their epic, legendary track “Moonchild” plus three bonus tracks.

Formed in 1984, Fields of the Nephilim is the creation of vocalist and front man Carl McCoy. Highly influential, especially in the world of goth, but also within the metal and electronic genres, their legacy endures to this day. You can hear their influence on bands like Swans, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Explosions In The Sky, Wolves in The Throne Room, Behemoth and more.

The Nephilim was recorded in a former courthouse in the Somerset countryside where defendants who were sentenced to death were hung. “Moonchild” is the band’s best known song due to it reaching #28 in the UK single charts, and LouderSound called it a classic and said that it “perfectly encapsulates this era of the band and it has some nifty guitar work, great bass lines from Tony Pettitt, Nod’s stellar drumming and McCoy’s distinctive vocals.”

In a 2013 remembrance of the album, PopMatters said “The band’s sophomore effort, regarded not only as its best work but also as one of the UK goth scene’s masterpieces, is a seamless, hour-long trek into a surreal land populated by chiming guitars, hypnotic bass, found samples, and McCoy’s storytelling.”

TRACK LISTING

1 - Endemoniada
2 - The Watchman
3 - Phobia
4 - Moonchild
5 - Chord Of Souls
6 - Shiva
7 - Celebrate
8 - Love Under Will
9 - Last Exit For The Lost
10 - Celebrate (Second Seal)
11 - Psychonaut Lib III

Jordan Fields ropes in some help from his close-knit Chicagoan community for a thoroughly delightful excursion into pure house music for the lastest release on long standing imprint, Yore.

SIX tracks (count 'em!) meaning there's plenty wriggle for your wonga on this 12"! All of it leaning on the deep, tribal and slightly jazzy - it's wraught with the spirit of house music through and through with dreamy organ licks, frenetic percussion, warm bass and insurmountable energy.

Pressed nice and crisp and loud as per the Yore standard, six fresh joints to rock out in the club or the house party. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Inflation busting value from JF and friends with a LONG playing house EP that offers pure wriggle for your wonga! Five tracks - over half an hour run time - that's half a headline set at THP covered in one record!

TRACK LISTING

A1. DUBrazil – Untitled 1 07:10
A2. DUBrazil – Untitled 2 07:34

B1. Jordan Fields – Wanna Feel The Music (Piano Mix) 05:39
B2. Tracky Disco – Keep It Going 05:15
B3. Afrolectro – Needs Love 06:20

Unreleased recordings from the Special Night & It Rains Love sessions. Produced by Leon Michels. We are always sitting on a handful of unreleased songs that didn’t make their way to albums. Listening back to these gems we decided to launch a new series entitled Big Crown Vaults and the first volume features the music of Lee Fields & the Expressions. These tunes were cut during the Special Night & It Rains Love sessions. Listening to these tracks you can imagine how difficult some of these decisions were in the first place to leave them off the albums. An absolute standout is “Regenerate,” a song that finds Lee in the country soul realm, a style that Mr Fields, a North Carolina native, flourishes in. A drum break starts the song and then drops into a chorus where El Michels, Paul & Big Bill Schalda belt out the earworm chorus. Lee sings an encouraging tune about finding your way out of a low point in a relationship while The Expressions lay down an airtight groove. “Thinking About You” takes it back to the dance floors with what will surely be a hit at Soul parties around the globe. An uptempo drum break opens the song and Lee launches into a tale about the unbreakable bond with his significant other and how they keep each strong through moments of hardship and pain.

People who have seen Lee perform live in the last decade might have been lucky enough to hear his rendition of Little Carl Carlton’s “Two Timer”. For those of you who haven’t heard it, Big Crown Vaults has got you covered. A faithful version of the song showcases Lee’s gorgeous voice and the Expression's unwavering groove. Another treat on here is the fuzzed out funk banger “Do You Know” where Fields uses his platform to address some of our societal woes in a “Make The World” style. A deeper from the vaults number is “Out To Get You”, an instrumental that Lee never laid down vocals to. Even as just a rhythm track it stands as a testament to The Expressions musical prowess, the band that created 5 studio albums with Lee Fields which will go down in history as stone classics. Oil Painting of Lee Fields on the cover... 

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:

1. Two Timer
2. Regenerate
3. Do You Know ?
4. Time
5. Thinking About You
6. Don’t Give Up

SIDE B:

1. Out To Get You
2. Two Timer (Instrumental)
3. Regenerate (Instrumental)
4. Do You Know ? (Instrumental)
5. Thinking About You (Instrumental)
6. Don’t Give Up (Instrumental)

At the corner of Living Legend St. and OG Ave. you will find Lee Fields’ house. A home that was built with blood, sweat, and tears, and stands on the unshakable foundation of his god given talent. Lee has been singing for 50 plus years and is undeniably, yet amazingly, at the top of his game. Those who have paid attention know that Lee is part of the class that is directly responsible for the revival of old school funk and soul. He has inspired many of today’s younger artists who are doing their best to carry the torch. As long as the road has been, and heavy as the crown may be, Fields is proving yet again that he’s “still got it”. His latest offering is sure to be a warmly received instant classic.

It Rains Love is the 2nd album by Lee Fields & The Expressions on Brooklyn’s Big Crown Records and gives us yet another masterclass in soul. Teaming up again with frequent collaborator and producer Leon Michels and his devoted band, The Expressions, they have managed again to take a classic approach and update it. Traditional soul sensibilities are mixed with a hip-hop tinged, sample ready sound that is as much an homage to the old as to the new. Some of the songs sound like they could belong to any of the last 4 decades without it feeling like a throwback, while others are 60’s soul through and through. Lyrically, Lee runs the gamut from gushing admonishments of love to politically charged calls to action, from proclamations of God’s existence to love letters written to his wife. This record marks the fifth studio album from Lee Fields & the Expressions and we are very proud to add it to the already impeccable catalog they have created together. Another strong offering by a man many people consider to be a national treasure, the professor of love himself, Mr Lee Fields. It’s all love baby! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Lee Field’s is on top form and dominating the soul genre with his distinctive and bold vocals. It Rains Love is a monumental album which sets him apart as a pure talent, taking all things soul and putting his own stamp on it.

TRACK LISTING

1. It Rains Love
2. Blessed With The Best
3. Two Faces
4. You’re What’s Needed In My Life
5. Wake Up
6. Will I Get Off Easy
7. Prisoner Of Love
8. A Promise Is A Promise
9. God Is Real
10. Love Is The Answer
11. Don’t Give Up (Cd Bonus Track)

The instrumental version of the instant classic "Special Night" by Lee Fields & The Expressions. There are a few terms that get thrown around loosely, two of which are legend and retro-soul. One of these fits Lee Fields hand and glove, one of these doesn’t fit at all. Very few people in music have both earned the status of legendary and continue to solidify it. 50 years in the game and only getting better, gaining more fans, and evolving his sound on each album, Lee is in fact a Living Legend. This brings us to the misuse of the term "retro-soul" when talking about Mr. Fields. You don’t have to look far to find a younger generation emulating the essence and styles of an era the’ve only experienced through music and movies. It seems unfair to tag Lee with a term that implies imitation when he is part of the generation that actually defined the genre. Plain and simple, this is not that. "Special Night" is a masterclass in soul music past and present. “I feel that every human being’s purpose is to do what their inner voice says to do,” says Lee Fields. “And my inner voice, my driving force, wants me to put out music and keeping making better records.” Special Night is also the first record in the Expressions catalogue in which every song was written jointly by Lee Fields and The Expressions.

“When I record, I make every song like I actually mean it. I mean every word I say. On Special Night I’m talking to my lady — literally, expressing the way I feel.” says Lee Fields. “You can tell if a song is real or not, and every moment I’m recording, those moments are real, this is a record about what people do in real life”. For one example, he cites the song “Work to Do,” which tells the story of “a guy going to counseling, drinking too much, apologizing to the old lady and trying to keep family together, doing the manly thing.” On “Make This World”, Lee makes a nod back to his early funk roots with a cautionary tale about the health of the planet. The world was designed to last indefinitely,” says Fields. “We’re the only living species on Earth who can alter that process. I’m hoping that song has a chain reaction, helps somebody put into action whatever contribution they can to change what the world is going through.” As always, sticking to the formula but pushing the boundaries “Never Be Another You” from the first note doesn’t sound like something you would hear on a Lee record, that is until he starts singing anyhow. A low tempo ballad with a head nodding drum track, sparse piano lines, and all the space Lee needs to lay down what is sure to be one of the flyest love songs of 2017.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Special Night
A2. I’m Coming Home
A3. Work To Do
A4. Never Be Another You
A5. Lover Man
B1. Make The World
B2. Let Him In
B3. How I Like It
B4. Where Is The Love?
B5. Precious Love 

Soul great Lee Fields signs to Daptone and announces a new album.
Lee Fields is arguably the greatest soul singer alive today. In an age when the shelf life of an artist largely depends on posturing and trends, he has proven to be an unassailable force of nature. His prolific, decade-spanning career continues to reign supreme on the modern soul scene.

In early 2022, Lee reunited with Daptone Records and producer Gabriel Roth to record Sentimental Fool, a deep, blues-tinged, wholly-conceived soul album. From his first line to his final plaintive lyric, the beauty, power, and raw humanity of Leeʼs voice is on full display here; the culmination of an astounding career that has seemed to defy gravity, rising to only greater and greater heights.

Soul music pours out of Lee Fields, as free and unstinting as God's love.
It was ever since the 1960's, when he was a teenager in North Carolina sweating it out on juke joint stages, crumpled dollars hailing at his feet. It continues now that the living legend is in his late sixties, ushering in the most successful and fruitful period of his career.

Like any living legend worth their salt, Fields has suffered despair, obscurity, defeat. Although he now tours stages around the world, and although he helped fellow soul legends like Sharon Jones (who was once Fields' backup singer) and Charles Bradley (whom Fields took on his first tour) get their first break, he did not always have this position. There were years—they were known as "the 1980's"—when Fields nearly gave up. His success these days, then has a bittersweet tinge: His dear friends Bradley and Jones have both passed, leaving Fields to outlive them and carry their legacy forth.

With all these years, and all this life, comes a sort of divine wisdom, and Fields has it in spades. "I am a sinner, just like everybody else," he says gravely. He is no "holier—than—thou guy," he adds. He just believes in people's ability to love and be loved, and he understands that music is the divine bridge to these places.

TRACK LISTING

1. Forever
2. I Should Have Let You Be
3. Sentimental Fool
4. Two Jobs
5. Just Give Me Your Time
6. Save Your Tears For Someone New
7. The Door
8. What Did I Do?
9. Without A Heart
10. Ordinary Lives
11. Your Face Before My Eyes
12. Extraordinary Man

Arguably the very best soul singer alive, Lee comes correct with two massive tunes from his critically acclaimed Sentimental Fool LP.

With the deep piano intro, frantic shuffle and pleading vocal Two Jobs has the conviction of James Brown with the swing of Bobby Bland. A sound very few folks could pull off, yet Lee triumphs with command and swagger in equal measure.

Save Your Tears for Someone New is a deep, dark ballad tailored-made for Lee’s ferociously soulful voice. A veritable masterclass in rhythm and soul.

TRACK LISTING

Side A – Two Jobs
Side B – Save Your Tears For Someone New

"Everything Last Winter" is the debut album from Fields, and it features re-recorded versions of their singles "If You Fail We All Fail" and "Song For The Fields". It also contains some of the most visually arresting artwork to grace a musical release in recent times. In keeping with the tone of the rest of their work the band have eschewed hiding behind computer trickery and all other mod cons and chosen to work with a real human being, a pen and a pad of paper.

Two years on since his last outing on the label, 'The Follower', Axel Willner puts on his Field suit again to present his sixth full-length effort for Kompakt, 'Infinite Moment' - which sees him striding further across the deeper, richer rims of the hue cycle.

Substituting the uptempo vim of his previous pieces for a sense of mind-expanding horizontality, 'Infinite Moment' is an album filled with hope and draped in a diffuse, appeasing light; easing the pain and troubles of the human soul through a lushly forested recital of shoegazing modular, complex textural interplays and solar, atmospheric fractals. The matrix cut 'Made of steel, made of stone' gets the ball rolling on a thumping downtempo note, wrapping the listener up in hazy drones, fractured vocoder and rumbling bass tones. "Divide Now" is a proper sonic mitosis, engaging the metamorphosis to come; like a larvae pupating and reemerging weeks later from under rough bark in the form of a vividly coloured butterfly - fluttering breaks eventually shedding their skin then making way for a crucially more intimate and hypnotic second chapter. "Hear Your Voice" propels the lavish, pad-upholstered glamour of its melodic lines in the mixer for a bolder syncopated revisitation of '80s indebted pop harmonics, while 'Something left, something right, something wrong' returns to a flaring post-euphoric daze. Legs numb, mind confused and eyes lost into the greater whole, where nascent stars dance their way across the milky way to the rhythm of samba, and universal loving is no utopia.

A more arrhythmic affair, 'Who Goes There' spins out into orbit wildly, fusing stealth acid bass moves with a haunting off-kilter motorik that bears The Field's seal of exclusivity, playing with the listener's mind intensely before the ten-minute-long epic 'Infinite Moment' ushers its listener in a highly immersive final ballet of buzzing chords, trampling drums and all-consuming drones. Syncing the self with its environment in ways never explored before, this album is a direct soul-to-soul transmission, aiming no further than at finding the right balance between contained emotion and an expressive eloquence. No fluff, no bluff - with 'Infinite Moment', The Field goes straight for the heart, stripping bare of all vain and futile attributes to focus on the very essential - He is hopeful, and so are we.

STAFF COMMENTS

Sil says: It is The Field again! You know the drill; the formula has not changed: thumping beat, ethereal melodies, trance-like loops and a sense of possibility always present. This one is as good as all the others. In my books, that is a very good thing.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Made Of Steel. Made Of Stone
A2. Divide Now
B1. Hear Your Voice
C1. Something Left, Something Right, Something Wrong
D1. Who Goes There
D2. Infinite Moment

The Field, aka Kompakt label boss Axel Willner, follows up his 2007 offering "Here We Go Sublime" with another killer long player of shoegazer-meets-techno. On "Yesterday & Today" Willner expands his palette, continuing the oblique sampling strategy of "From Here We Go Sublime" while building up the rhythmic architecture. He's joined by a band's worth of live musicians, including ex-Helmet and current Battles man John Stanier on drums, Dan Enqvist (guitar), Johan Grimlund (bass) and Ola Keijer (electric piano), who all work together to create the immense sound offered here. The result is a sublime mix of techno, building sonic layers and the kind of ambience previously used by Krautrock outfits like Tangerine Dream - lush blissed out and electrophoric.

"This is the first new music from The Fiery Furnaces in ten years," the band says. "The songs were recorded in New York City and a few hours north of New York City on February 3 and February 10 - 12, 2020. 'Down by the So and So on Somewhere' is a regretful song about having regrets. Now it seems even more sad than we thought it was back then: 'Will you meet me,' etc. Matthew was happy to use a Soviet drum machine. Eleanor was happy to play real drums. 'The Fortune Teller's Revenge' is another sad song. We cut out the lines from the first and third verse: 'with me; just kidding' and 'leave everything to me.' Matthew likes hearing Eleanor sing 'I'm sorry to say I've never made a mistake.' Eleanor likes that you can't quite tell who's singing what, when."

Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger formed The Fiery Furnaces in New York City in 2000. Their debut album Gallowsbird’s Bark (Rough Trade Records) was released to critical acclaim in 2003. In the following seven years, they released eight more albums and toured extensively throughout North America, Europe, Australia and Japan. The band’s last performance was nearly a decade ago at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona.In the meantime, Eleanor and Matthew have released eight solo albums, collectively. They are very pleased to return to the stage in their hometown Chicago, at Pitchfork Music Festival.

Eleanor: Someone comes up to me at every show and asks: “How’s Matt? What’s happening with The Fiery Furnaces?” And I say, “He’s fine” and “Nothing at the moment.” I’m so happy to finally have some news: “He’s fine” and “We’re playing in July at the Pitchfork Festival.” We didn’t break up; this isn’t a reunion. We’re just playing the next show.

Matthew: For the last three and a quarter years I’ve been listening to Fiery Furnaces records every day. I think I finally get it.

For the best part of a decade T15DM have been cultivating a post-electro, nu-tech-industrial sound aesthetic, that, until now has only been heard by the lucky attendees of their live excursions that took place in some of the more sordid sound dungeons worldwide.

Their debut EP on Trensmat is venomous with intent from the outset. “The Runaway” is some serious hydraulic electro-techno, a driving 808 rinse-out into a storm beyond the aquatic triangle. “Children of the 303” is a raw , haunted, obscure and sinister sounding…lock up yer kin! Flip for “Fibril” where the 303 gets mangled and twisted, melancholic melodies drowning in running tape delays, wobbling analog pulses-frustrated funk in full effect. “Internal dialogue” closes the B, all dark driving basslines and glitchy sounds going all over the place, straight to the point mixed up machine madness. A perfect soundtrack for a dark basement full of smoke and strobe light. Proper underground electro for those that do because they couldn't care less.

The 12” comes with digital copies of the tracks on the record plus two additional distorted & nasty future-electro groovers not on the vinyl – “MacReadys Tape” & “Mass”. The digital version of this EP is only available to the buyers of the vinyl.

This band play some of the most intriguing prog rock. It's metal, progressive and technical, heavy and doomy and at the same time melodic. Great metal riffs but with much more to offer even the most ardent prog fan.

‘Black Pearl’ is the brand new album from 50 Foot Wave: Kristin Hersh’s ‘other’ band - active since 2003, with fellow Throwing Muses’ member Bernard Georges on bass and drummer Rob Ahlers. A sonic trip from the heavy, echoey riff of ‘Staring Into The Sun’ with all of its grunge melancholy and dronecore menace to the perfectly baroque ‘Hog Child’ with its spidery guitar that dissolves into motorik bass and drums.

Hailed in various quarters as “an outlet for the material deemed too weird or wild for Throwing Muses”, their “menacing, stalking, spirals of lean, hungry riffs, set alight” as “feedback rips into the fragile melody.”

50 Foot Wave continue to traverse the rigid tension of their own sound. They remain detuned and discordant at will.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's been quite the week for heavy new music, with Kristin Hersch's band putting out this absolutely stunning mix of grooving post-rock and angular hardcore on the ever reliable Fire records. Roaringly heavy but imbued with myriad moments of paddling, Isis-like downtuned post-metal business. Really, very good indeed.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Staring Into The Sun
A2 Hog Child
A3 Fly Down South
A4 Black Pearl
Side B
B1 Broken Sugar
B2 Blush
B3 Double Barrel

Fight Fire With Water – intense math-rock inspired off-kilter riffery with the gentle textural guitars of post-rock. The four piece perform insanely energetic and intelligent instrumental songs that hurt their heads to write. Score One For Safety - their experimental sound almost works as they build to a dense soundscapes punctuated by acappella singing before dissolving into screams. They unleash a barrage of screams, pounding drums and more sonic guitars but if you close your eyes and let the sound envelope you it's almost like being underwater.

There is life in the West Midlands! The Fight hail from Dudley and are one of the few British bands to have signed for Fat Wreck Chords. Lead singer Kate (K8) is 18, 16 year old brother Jack is on drums and 17 year olds, Link and Matty V play guitar and bass. This is vintage new old skool with more than a little of the X-Ray Spex and the Ramones about them.

"2099" is the debut EP of the talented Figi who joins the unified ranks of the new boogie brigade next to Star Creature, PPU, Ken Oath, Red Laser etc.

The EP is a clash of sounds from the 70's / 80's on a trip through space, hyping up the blueprint with cosmic synths and an astral mindset. Recorded using session musicians under direction from the producer, it takes the dub reggae aesthetic of construction and applies it to a boogie disco framework, enlisting San Proper on vocals for an added bonus! Fun and playful throughout, some of the tracks are great early doors tackle whilst the others should have you sauntering around red-lit, disco floors with the illuminated lights without a care in the world and your head in the stars. Personal, intimate and with a noticeable degree of yearning this is mega stuff and most recommended by us here at HQ.
 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Intergalactic boogie with housey flourishes and a decidedly modern palette. Maximum crossover potential here with "Out Of Touch" possibly set take off. Don't miss the quirky but slick, almost Hot Chip-esque "Gotta Make A Call". So good!

TRACK LISTING

1 Out Of Touch
2 Gotta Make A Call Ft San Proper Dromeda
3 Figi San Whos Your Lover
4 Move All Night
5 2099 Ft San Proper

Every track from Figurine's debut album remixed, then digitally mixed together by David Figurine into a seamless reconfigured flow. Featuring remixes by Pacifica, Steward, Printed Circuit, Double Agent, Mall, CKID, Phasmid, DJ Blank, Accelera Deck, Technicolor, Flowchart and Figurine.

New edition of this CD includes two songs originally only found on their "Motorway" (Japan) 7". Intelligent, demure electro-pop. Opens a new window and lets in fresh air and light on electronic music while subtly giving clues of influence from Factory, Kraftwerk and early 80s synth pop roots.

João Pais Filipe delivers three acoustic solo percussion works for Ondes HXCX. The tracks were originally recorded for an exhibition called "Membrana" which took place in a church in Northern Portugal, using only drums. Different odd time signatures were extensively explored on each of the tracks. 18/16, 19/16, 23/16 and for the first time, a technique called "omission" was also introduced. It consists of omitting notes of the Rhythm without changing it, creating a sense of illusion and changing the perspective of the Rhythm. Burnt Friedman, an accomplice of João's studies on odd rhythms focused on blending counter-rhythmic electronic elements into the 23/16 track.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Membrana 23/16
A2. Membrana 19/16
B1. Membrana 18/16
B2. Burnt Friedman Remix

Indie shoegaze stalwarts Film School return with their sixth full-length release and first for Sonic Ritual, We Weren’t Here, the follow-up to 2018’s Bright to Death. Whereas the band recorded the previous album while holed up together in the isolated Southern California desert enclave of Joshua Tree, the Covid pandemic forced a different kind of isolation this time around. Already divided between the SF Bay Area and Los Angeles, bassist Justin LaBo, guitarist Nyles Lannon, frontman Greg Bertens, and keyboardist Jason Ruck—each from his own quarantine home studio—had to collaborate on the songs remotely. Except for when newest member Adam Wade met up with Greg to record drums at LA’s Headwest Studio with mixer Dan Long (all wearing masks, of course), the bandmates never saw each other in person during the entire making of the album.

But the title We Weren’t Here isn’t merely a reference to its socially distanced recording method. During life in quarantine, Greg says, he became acutely aware of all the ways human beings try to avoid being truly present. Though lockdowns gave us the opportunity to spend “quality time” with whomever we live with—whether that’s a romantic partner, a roommate, a parent, or our kids—the pandemic also forced us to become more conscious of our own, uninterrupted, day-to-day reality—a disquieting sensation many

countered with drinking more, streaming television nonstop, obsessively scrolling social media, or otherwise checking out. For the members of Film School, the making of We Weren’t Here reflects how music—whether you’re creating it or immersing yourself in hearing it can be a transformative way to feel spiritually and psychically anchored again.


What emerges from beneath the waves of the album’s psychedelic dream pop are bittersweet themes of a year lived in suspended animation: anticipation, separation, regret, revelation. From the moody sonic crush of “Superperfection” driven by an icy yet ethereal harmony featuring guest vocalist Noël Brydebell of Wild Signals (who appears throughout the album), to the standout track “Isla” with its intertwining guitars and swooning synths, and culminating in the buoyant, nostalgic closer “Take What You Need,” We Weren’t Here bathes the listener in a soundscape of atmosphere and emotion. With their sixth full-length release since the band’s formation over 20 years ago, Film School crystallize their position in the shoegaze pantheon.

TRACK LISTING

1. Superperfection
2. Said Your Name
3. Stratopsheric Tendencies
4. The More I Know
5. Soft Reflections
6. Isla
7. Drone 2
8. Why
9. CPPT
10. Take What You Need 

Paraic and Michael Morrissey (20), Harry Weskin (19) and Benjamin Deschamps (19) began playing music together whilst studying for their GCSE’s. There were no grand aspirations; it was simply “something to do after school.”

However, towards the end of their final year they started to realise that they “might be onto something” and agreed to perform in front of their peers at the end of their school prom. They played ‘Biggest Fan’ and as Michael recalls, “No one was interested or listening but we got to sing ‘fuck me up the arse’ on our school stage which was a good moment.”

They’ve come rather a long way since then. After winning the Vice Magazine/Kopperberg Klash battle of the bands last year they have supported the likes of The Vaccines, Jamie N Commons and Zulu Winter and were recently invited to play at The Great Escape Festival.

Blending strange storytelling with big chunks of macabre yet catchy guitar music, their lyrical content is rather risqué, however, it’s delivered with such sharp British irony and a naughty twinkle in their eye that we challenge you to find these boys anything but abundantly charming.

This album finds Corin Tucker, Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, Kurt Bloch, and new drummer Linda Pitmon flexing their muscles both sonically and thematically: the music contains more surprises and sophistication, while the lyrics take on the current state of our planet and our people.

The album title and title track come from another name for Eugene, OR, Tuckers home city, and evolved, in her words,into “a sort of manifesto about the kind of place we are at as a country but also as a region. Just taking stock of where were at and feeling like I cant believe we let things get this bad.

TRACK LISTING

Emerald Valley
Pipeline
November Man
Only Lovers Are Broken
Angels
The Elliott
One Flew East
Break Me
Last Chance County
Hey Lacey

Invitation is the debut album by Filthy Friends, the new supergroup from Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney), Peter Buck (R.E.M.), Kurt Bloch (The Fastbacks), Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows, The Minus 5) and Bill Rieflin (King Crimson).

The 12-song collection works through a flurry of different moods and styles, genre exercises and joyous experiments. The intricate guitar knots and blasts of bubblegum pop of Buck's beloved Television are all over the herky-jerky "Windmill." A mashup of '60s downer vibes and rootsy rumblings makes up the marvelous "Second Life" whereas "Come Back Shelley" is all swagger and glitz in the style of a lost glam rock 45. There aint nothing this band cant do with the wet clay of rock music and what they sculpt out of it is pure art.

Peter Buck knew he wanted to be in a band with Corin Tucker from the first time he saw Sleater-Kinney play to an empty room in 1997. "It was the day that Princess Diana died," the former R.E.M. guitarist says. "I remember thinking, 'Where did these people come from?' It was a totally unique take on what punk rock was." He told Rolling Stone.

TRACK LISTING

Despierta
Windmill
Faded Afternoon
Any Kind Of Crowd
Second Life
The Arrival
Come Back Shelley
No Forgotten Son
Brother
You And Your King
Makers
Invitation

Invitation is the debut album by Filthy Friends, the new supergroup from Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney), Peter Buck (R.E.M.), Kurt Bloch (The Fastbacks), Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows, The Minus 5) and Bill Rieflin (King Crimson).

The 12-song collection works through a flurry of different moods and styles, genre exercises and joyous experiments. The intricate guitar knots and blasts of bubblegum pop of Buck's beloved Television are all over the herky-jerky "Windmill." A mashup of '60s downer vibes and rootsy rumblings makes up the marvelous "Second Life" whereas "Come Back Shelley" is all swagger and glitz in the style of a lost glam rock 45. There aint nothing this band cant do with the wet clay of rock music and what they sculpt out of it is pure art.

Peter Buck knew he wanted to be in a band with Corin Tucker from the first time he saw Sleater-Kinney play to an empty room in 1997. "It was the day that Princess Diana died," the former R.E.M. guitarist says. "I remember thinking, 'Where did these people come from?' It was a totally unique take on what punk rock was." He told Rolling Stone.

TRACK LISTING

Despierta
Windmill
Faded Afternoon
Any Kind Of Crowd
Second Life
The Arrival
Come Back Shelley
No Forgotten Son
Brother
You And Your King
Makers
Invitation

Obviously named after my collegues' habit of pinching my pens (and scissors and labels etc.) You know who you are. The Filthy Thieving Bastards is the brainchild of Johnny Bonnel and Darius Koski from The Swingin' Utters. It's a refreshing break from the amplified punk rock that these two songwriters are known for. 15 songs also includes Spike Slawson (singer from Me First And The Gimme Gimmes).

Debut solo album by Filthydirty of Evil Blizzard. ‘Sinister, eerie and loud as f***. Full of dubbed up tunes and harsh metal sounds but still instantly memorable. One of the albums of the year.” LOUDER THAN WAR. Produced during the downtime of lockdown #1, this is the debut solo release by Filthydirty, one of Evil Blizzard’s many bassists. Following the band’s sell out show at the prestigious Preston Guild Hall following their critically acclaimed album ‘The Worst Show On Earth’, the band had a year off ‘to recover’, only to re-emerge with perfect timing into the realms of Covid. During this time Filthydirty turned his head to some unused tracks written for Blizzard and these ‘decomposed and rotted into something even more horrible’ and emerged as a fully formed solo album. Keeping the morbid humour and proto-metal sound of Blizzard, this album sees the boundaries pushed further into even darker places, but always with Filthydirty’s love of ABBA keeping a hand on the reins of melody

TRACK LISTING

1: Disease (4.57)
2: All My Friends (4.20)
3: All Of This For Nothing (4.56)
4: Don’t Trust Me, I Don’t Trust You (4.22)
5: Straight To Hell (5.56)
6: It Wasn’t Me, It Was A Ghost (4.02)
7: One Last Chance In The Last Chance Saloon (4.16)
8: Monolith (4.16)

Lunar Tredd – Fimber Bravo’s first album on Moshi Moshi since the much acclaimed Con-Fusion – tells the tale. The highlife fusion of You Can’t Control Me resonates in the wake of the global Black Lives Matters protests. There is fire in these impactful clarion calls to resist oppression, recognise strength in resilience and fight against the corruption of power.

Bravo’s been a constant collaborative force - as his time as leader of 20th Century Steel Band, as musical director of Steel ‘n’ Skin, and appearances with everyone from Sun Ra Arkestra to Hot Chip, shows. Lunar Tredd reflects the influence of the music handed down to him by “ancestors” . Helped by an enviable cast of friends and collaborators, Fimber has shifted those touchstones to create something that sounds resolutely like the here and now.

Those friends that appear on Lunar Tredd, include Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip and The Horrors’ Tom Furse; The Invisible drummer Leo Taylor and Senegalese percussionist, Mamadou Sarr dropping in on rhythm duties, while there are also appearances from Susumu Mukai aka Zongamin, the brilliant Kora player Kadialy Kouyate, vocalist Cottie Williams, Vanishing Twin’s Catherine Lucas, and production from Lapo Frost and Ghostpoet producer Shuta Shinoda. Some, like Zongamin and Williams go way back with Fimber, other connections are newer, but all have quickly become part of the London-based musician’s musical family.

Indeed, Fimber never loses sight of where he’s come from on LUNAR TREDD - even as he looks to where he might go next. As a musician, he’s still finding new creative peaks nearly 50 years after he began.

TRACK LISTING

1. Can’t Control We
2. Can’t Control Me
3. Hiyah Man
4. Call My Name
5. Santana’s Daughter
6. Singo
7. Caribbean Bluez (In The Shadow Of Windrush)
8. F. Pan Landing
9. Coming Home
10. Lunar Tredd
11. Tabli Tabli
12. Woonya Waa

Justin K Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu, JK Flesh) breathes new life into his FINAL project for an album on Helm’s ALTER label. Formed in 1984 out of an obsession with the industrial, noise & power electronics acts of the early eighties, FINAL made its public debut at the legendary Mermaid pub in Birmingham when Broadrick was just 14 years old. A string of cassette releases via his Post MortemRekordings label established the name within the underground noise scene of the time until increased activity with his various groups (Napalm Death, Head of David and later Godflesh) meant that FINAL naturally fell by the wayside before the end of the decade.

Broadrick reactivated the project in 1993 during the British ambient “isolationism” period and FINAL's sound became focussed more on texture, producing beatless ambient work with a number of albums for labels like Sentrax, Utech, No Quarter and Neurot. ‘It Comes To Us All’ is the first FINAL album to appear on vinyl since 2015’s ‘Black Dollars’ on Downwards and continues to explore the textural nature of Broadrick’s ambient work - this time through a filter of blown-out harmonic noise that reconnects the project with its harsher roots. Rather than channelling the angst of early power-electronics, the noise here rumbles along blissfully through 8 untitled tracks, sombre in tone and at times beautiful. Melodies sampled from pop music are put through a process of decay, stripped of their form and worn down with a rusty, melancholic afterglow. Reducing all its parts to slow-motion shadows of their former selves, ‘It Comes To Us All’ is an exploration of the decay of all living things that we face collectively, day after day

Fine Place is a new duo comprising Frankie Rose (Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls) and Matthew Hord (Running, Pop. 1280, Brandy). Based in Brooklyn, NYC together they’ve crafted a crystalline full length of nocturnal, electronic pop music that charts a way out the post-global, cyberpunk dystopian environment it was crafted in. Their debut album This New Heaven drenches minimalist song structures in post-industrial washes of sixstring delay and gothic post-punk synths. Presiding over it is the most evocative, emotive vocal performance Frankie Rose has committed to tape to date.

Following Hord’s relocation from Chicago, the pair wanted to explore new avenues apart from their respective bands or solo projects. “The sound we were going for was an attempt to capture the dystopian feel of New York during a period of desertion by the wealthy. It was produced in a time-frame saturated in both uncertainty and serenity, and the soundscapes we created felt fitting and almost organic as a response to our surroundings. The title also reflects this in an arguably literal, maybe even satirical way.” Sonically, Fine Place references the pioneering mid-to-late 80s pioneers of icy melodrama The Cure and Cocteau Twins, while reflecting both the individuals’; music trajectories thus far. Modular synthesis triggers rhythm boxes and fluttery arps chirp around clanging 808-patterning as Rose’s reverb-laden vocal layering envelops the remaining headroom. The result is massive; a towering, shadowy music that embraces darkness while offering Rose’s bright vocal as chinks of light in the cracks; the production filling the head space of the beholder with preternatural imagery and emotional resonances that are real but not quite defined.

The title song propels forth out of the fog, scintillating with delayed guitar before the reverb-immersed vocal injects the human drama. The chorus constantly teases a big release but holds back creating a taut, dynamic tension. Cover Blind’s slow march makes full use of Rose’s layered vocal sinking and emerging from Hord’s bank of synths. Stand out It’s Your House is pure honey pouring from the speaker on a bank of of arps and near-hymnal vocal layering, a syrupy light offering in the mist. It’s an emotive highlight that only increases as the album progresses; Impressions Of Me is the Lynchian ballad that glides onward into the sunset. The album finishes on a choice re-interpretation of the 1989 track The Party Is Over by Belgian group Adult Fantasies, one of the great over-looked ballads of the era given an almost ecclesiastical makeover by Matthew Hord and Frankie Rose in 2021.

Says Hord: “This record was an incredibly challenging endeavor to make, as I had just come home from a European tour with another music project and wanted to invest into and focus on this collaboration with Frankie. I essentially reimagined how to approach writing basic sequences with the synthesizers I had been rehearsing and performing with for months prior to make something more accessible and pop- like for Frankie to build upon. Frankie is an unsung hero when it comes to mixing, and she was constantly mixing down and processing elements of the tracks to create different atmospheres as we forged forward with every song.”

This New Heaven is an ecstasy of sorts, a half-dream in the border between sleep and daylight.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Can’t Shake It
2. This New Heaven
3. Cover Blind
4. Tending To Twenty
5. It’s Your House
6. Impressions Of Me
7. Tell Me A Second Time
8. The Party Is Over

Fine Young Cannibals' debut self-titled is celebrating its 35th anniversary. Originally released in 1985 the album that spawned the hits ‘Johnny Come Home’ & ‘Suspicious Minds’ launched the band high into the charts the world over and lay foundations for an impressive career that was still to follow. Led by Roland Gift's unique voice, the LP blazes a danceable trail between new wave and soul.

TRACK LISTING

LP

01 Johnny Come Home
02 Couldn't Care More
03 Don't Ask Me To Choose
04 Funny How Love Is
05 Suspicious Minds
06 Blue
07 Move To Work
08 On A Promise
09 Time Isn't Kind
10 Like A Stranger

CD

CD1
01 Johnny Come Home
02 Couldn't Care More
03 Don't Ask Me To Choose
04 Funny How Love Is
05 Suspicious Minds
06 Blue
07 Move To Work
08 On A Promise
09 Time Isn't Kind
10 Like A Stranger
11 Johnny Come Home (Extended Mix)
12 Suspicious Minds (Extended Mix)
13 Blue (Dance Version)
14 Wade In The Water ("Blue" B-Side)
15 Love For Sale ("Johnny Come Home" B-Side)
16 Motherless Child ("Funny How Love Is" B-Side)
17 Prick Up Your Ears
18 Couldn't Care More (Annes Mix)
19 Blue (Slow Version)
20 Suspicious Minds (Caught In A Dub)
21 Johnny Come Home (Mousse T Cocktail Mix)

CD2
01 Johnny Come Home (Derrick Carter Remix)
02 Suspicious Minds (US Remix)
03 Funny How Love Is (Radio Mix)
04 Johnny Come Home (Mark Moore 12" Remix)
05 Blue (Live At Town & Country Club BBC Session)
06 Johnny Come Home (Live)
07 Suspicious Minds (Suspicious Mix)
08 Johnny Come Home (John Peel BBC Session)
09 Blue (John Peel BBC Session)
10 Time Isn't Kind (John Peel BBC Session)
11 Good Times And Bad (Extended Mix)
12 Suspicious Minds (Shakedown Mix)
13 Couldn't Care More (Janice Long BBC Session)
14 Move To Work (Janice Long BBC Session)
15 Don´t Ask Me To Choose (Janice Long BBC Session)
16 Funny How Love (Janice Long BBC Session)
17 Blue (Demo Long Version)
18 Johnny Come Home Mousse T (Extended Mix)

Fingier Records was established in 2020 as a group label of Acid Jazz Records to showcase the Latin American productions of Argentine producer Kevin Fingier It has produced a series of sell-out and collectable 7” singles, with some going for hundreds of pounds on collector sites.

This compilation brings these singles together onto one LP, with graphics and photography on a sleeve to match the sound and style of Fingier Records. Features the vocals of Diane Ward, Jo-Ann Hamilton and Gerri Granger, Brazilian singer Jose Dias and Senegalese vocalist/percussionist Abdoulaye Badiane, backed by the all-star Kevin Fingier Collective.

TRACK LISTING

Why Don’t You Go Home
September
Don’t Wanna Cry No More
Cocktail De Medianoche
El Basement
Rua Nova Barao
I Love Without A Love
Latin Dynamite
Um Brilho Novo
Kairo Bancou Moulu
Sunglasses After Dark
Addis Abada

FINK, Long-established alt-folk trio, return with Fin Greenall’s eighth studio album under the genre-hopping moniker. Coalescing around the emergent urgency in each of the album’s ten tracks and intimate, closed-door sessions in picturesque Cornwall, the soul-reaching ‘Beauty In Your Wake’ is released on the band’s R’COUP’D label.

Now resident in Berlin, native Cornishman Greenall, one time collaborator with John Legend, Amy Winehouse, Colin Stetson and more, sought the solitude and back-to-earth atmosphere of the small village of Zennor, on the county’s picturesque Atlantic coast for the agenda-free, organic recording sessions. The band were invited to record at producer Sam Okell’s newly built studio and were the first band to create there. Okell is the Grammy Award-winning engineer and mixer of The Beatles’ Get Back and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 50th Anniversary Release.

Imagining that those conditions could percolate a lo-fi, classic English folk album, the joint creative restlessness of the band and Okell instead pushed ‘Beauty In Your Wake’ into the expansive realms of FINK’s commercially and critically successful albums of the noughties and 2010’s, and is a triumphant return to self. FINK’s music has always been woven into a broader global tapestry, not least because the band’s music has featured on countless film and TV soundtracks such as Better Call Saul, The Walking Dead, and most recently on the latest series of True Detective.

Going ‘overground’ in the music world for the first time in 1997 as a dance-orientated signee to Ninja Tunes’ sister label N-Tone, Greenall’s life in music has travelled diverse roads and lit numerous corners of the international music business. The reformed, classic FINK line-up is the same as that which first recorded the band’s breakthrough album, Biscuits For Breakfast (2006), a release that proved to be a springboard for widespread international touring.

TRACK LISTING

A1. What Would You Call Yourself
A2. The Only Thing That Matters
A3. Be Forever Like A Curse
A4. It's Like You Ain't Mine No More
A5. Follow You Down
B1. I Don't See You As The Others Do
B2. One Last Gift
B3. Don't Forget To Leave
B4. So We Find Ourselves
B5. When I Turn This Corner

Fink’s "Bloom Innocent" is the gravity-defying, sky-scraping, stars-reaching sound of a man on a mission: to excite himself, to escape expectations, to thrust clear of all his previous achievements. It’s a spacious, capacious, eight track wonder glowing with delicate piano, ear-tingling guitar and Fink’s soulful, woody vocal. His seventh studio album was largely recorded in Fink’s home studio in Berlin, aided and abetted by his regular touring musicians, with an ally available to him back in London: Flood - one of the world’s all-time greatest record producers (Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey, U2, Foals, Warpaint, The Killers).

TRACK LISTING

Bloom Innocent
We Watch The Stars
Once You Get A Taste
Out Loud
That’s How I See You
Now
I Just Want A Yes
Rocking Chair
My Love’s Already There

'Hard Believer' is the eagerly-awaited new studio album from Fink: Fin Greenall (vocals / guitar), together with Tim Thornton (drums / guitar) and Guy Whittaker (bass). It will be their first release on the R’COUP’D imprint, a label newly created by Greenall with the backing of the Ninja Tune team.

Recorded in 17 days at Hollywood’s legendary Sound Factory studios with producer Billy Bush (Garbage, Beck, Foster the People), Hard Believer is shot through with rawness and controlled aggression; an album replete with calm beginnings seguing into powerfully hypnotic loops and climactic finales. It is a masterful collection of songs from an artist at the peak of his creative powers.

“We wanted to go deeper this time, and be more ambitious with the music,” Fin explains, “to move the sound forward without losing touch of where we’re from.”

Urban, bluesy, and alive, the album presents ten brand new songs, including the mighty “Shakespeare”, a tale of young love gone tragically sour as the mood darkens from acoustic to guttural rock; the spiky yet delicate “Looking Too Closely”, riding an irresistible piano-and-guitar groove; “Green and the Blue”, on which a vulnerable Greenall meditates on the constants in life that see you through tough times; “Two Days Later”, a deeply personal lament and one of only two songs on the record that start and remain down-tempo; and the breathtaking “Pilgrim”, the latest collaboration with songwriter Blair Mackichan, co-writer of “This Is The Thing” from Fink’s 2007 album Distance and Time, and “Honesty” from 2011’s Perfect Darkness.

Since making the transition from world-class club DJ and electronic producer, to the first ever singer-songwriter signed to legendary British label Ninja Tune, Greenall has released four critically acclaimed albums, worked in the studio with the likes of John Legend, Ximena Sariñana, Amy Winehouse and Professor Green and enjoyed incredible live success with the hugely popular 18-month Perfect Darkness world tour, which accumulated two live records: 2012’s Wheels Turn Beneath My Feet, and 2013’s Fink Meets the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. All this and Fink is still a name which – while evoking an impassioned response from many a fellow artist and from the avid fanbase – remains a mystery to a wider majority. This looks set to change...

The term "Hard Believer" comes from deep-south Americana; it means somebody who is difficult to persuade, who requires proof. In truth, all anyone has to do here is listen to the powerful collection of songs on Hard Believer. The belief will surely follow.

TRACK LISTING

Hard Believer
Green And The Blue
White Flag
Pilgrim
Two Days Later
Shakespeare
Truth Begins
Looking Too Closely
Too Late
Keep Falling

Bonus CD (RCPDCD001 Only)
Hard Believer (Denmark Street Session)
Green And The Blue (Denmark Street Session)
Pilgrim (Denmark Street Session)
Truth Begins (Denmark Street Session)

Following the success of last year’s 'Hard Believer' album - which saw the trio known as Fink melding Fin Greenall’s ruggedly lush vocals with a slow-burning and steady-thumping array of string plucking (Guy Whittaker) and cymbal smashing (Tim Thornton) - they ring in 2015 with 'Horizontalism'.

Presented as a collection of dubs from 'Hard Believer', the re-worked material takes on a decidedly more mysterious turn: vocals dangle and loop precariously over raw edges of murky sound, lasers oscillate and waves crash, percussion click-clacks somewhere far away, and the listener somehow draws nearer to the core from which Fink draws the sonic intimacy for which they’re so well-known.

Inspired by Greenall’s new home in Berlin and his resurgent interest in electronic production, his series of mixes may stand in stark contrast to the bands musical output of the past years but the listener finds themselves at the same intersection of impassioned storytelling, manifest emotion and darkly beautiful ambience that Fink fans have come to expect.

TRACK LISTING

Fall Into The Light
Looking Too Closely (So36dub)
Shakespeare (Nachbarn39)
Pilgrim (Moda232)
A30 Breakdown
Suffering Is The Art Of Love
White Flag (Nachteule143)
Hard Believer (kstr10179)
Green And The Blue (RLP12-321)
Music Won’t Save You (Horizontalism Mix)

‘IIUII’ is essentially a re-imagining, a reminiscence and a unique take on the Best Of format, with the band re-recording key Fink tracks from 2006-2016 - “that whole arc, from my bedroom to having a proper hit, playing the big festival stages with big production, and all the rest,” according to Fin Greenall aka Fink.

In 2019, after heavy band touring for three years, Fin did a solo acoustic tour which took him full circle back to the simplicity of those early days. Making an album that reflected this seemed like a beautiful way to tie the whole story together.

Fink has previously collaborated with artists such as Bonobo, Amy Winehouse, John Legend, Professor Green and more.

For fans of Bon Iver, The National, Nick Mulvey, Jose Gonzalez, Iron & Wine.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: And so to IIUII. Both the acoustic album and the book are a document of the first ten years of Fink Mark Two, 2006-16 - "that whole arc, from my bedroom to having a proper hit, playing the big festival stages with big production, and all the rest." In 2019, after heavy band touring for three years, Fin did a solo acoustic tour which took him full circle back to the simplicity of those early days - and making an album that reflected this seemed a beautiful way to tie the whole story together.

TRACK LISTING

Sort Of Revolution (IIUII)
Warm Shadow (IIUII)
Looking Too Closely (IIUII)
Shakespeare (IIUII)
Pills In My Pocket (IIUII)
This Is The Thing (IIUII)
Walking In The Sun (IIUII)
Blueberry Pancakes (IIUII)
Berlin Sunrise (IIUII)
Maker (IIUII)
Biscuits (IIUII)
Yesterday Was Hard On All Of Us (IIUII)

Mention Fink and you surprisingly get one of two reactions: head-scratching non-familiarity; or the impassioned response that prompts artists such as John Legend and Professor Green to wax lyrical about him live on air. It is a remarkable void, one which looks set to finally close upon the release of Fink’s latest studio album 'Perfect Darkness'.

As Fink explains, "Singer-songwriters always get criticised – fairly – for sometimes sounding like a scratched record… Moaning about this, moaning about that, girlfriend’s left you, blah blah, blah. With Fink we do sing about relationships and love and emotions - but we also sing about other stuff: embracing fear, Berlin dawns, looking forward."

A smouldering, pulsating, and purposeful book of songs, 'Perfect Darkness' bristles with tense passion and hypnotic charm. It is, in two words, bewitching and addictive. Judging by this new record he is set to emerge into the bright lights of long-deserved mass recognition.

"Resurgam" - meaning 'I shall rise again' - is the hotly-anticipated sixth studio album from Fink: UK-born, Berlin-based founding singer-songwriter musician Fin Greenall, alongside long-time bandmates Tim Thornton (drums, guitar) and Guy Whittaker (bass). It continues an acclaimed and distinctly adventurous catalogue, from the sample-splicing debut "Fresh Produce" (2000), through to the beautifully heady expressions of their last album, "Hard Believer" (2014). Fink have never been afraid to experiment; on "Resurgam", they arguably sound more fearless than ever. 'I was fresh off the Blues tour, voice thrashed, nails broken, the sweat from the last encore still on the guitar as I unpacked on the first day,' recalls Greenall. 'The first week was supposed to be set up and settling in – by the end of day 4 we had already recorded the track "Resurgam", the first track we nailed, on the first take, whilst essentially warming up...' "Resurgam" derives its title from a Latin inscription in a 900-year-old church in Greenall’s native Cornwall. Its vital, insistent spirit pulses through the entire album, which was recorded with ground-breaking producer Flood (PJ Harvey, U2, Foals, Warpaint, The Killers) at his Assault & Battery studios in North London. Its ten new tracks were created over two months, a relatively luxurious stretch of time compared to previous Fink albums, resulting in a collection that is both assertive and richly immersive. "Flood, present and engaged from the first demo, guided me through the process of doing things differently, from writing, to singing, to even thinking about the music I make," says Greenall. "His combination of 'deadlines are a good thing' versus 'fuck the deadline', and his mantra of 'making records to be bought, not sold' gave us all, in our own individual corner of the studio, the fire and the focus to pull together our firmest, strongest, and most coherent record to date." On the opening title number, "Resurgam"'s lyrics are deliberately stripped-back, but they also pack a powerful punch, along with a deliciously persuasive deep funk flow. There is revelation and redemption; Fink’s positive conviction pervades even the darkest sentiments here. "Day 22" deals with sobriety and temptation, spiked with Greenall’s characteristic observant wit ('the blood, sweat, tears taste so good'). The lead single, "Cracks Appear" delivers a headrush of melody, with warmth and candour. On the exquisitely bittersweet "Word To The Wise", Greenall lingers over the final notes of a love affair, tenderly accompanied on the piano by Douglas Dare. "Not Everything Was Better In The Past" feels like a personal awakening, merging sharp reflections and poignant moods.   A heavy, resonant bass underpins the production throughout, and a range of new elements are also added to the Fink mix, from Flood’s own vintage analogue synths, to sax (played by guest musician Martin Slattery) layered into the vivid atmospheres and skittering beats of "This Isn’t A Mistake". The rhythm guitar hook of "Godhead" brings out a West African influence, and lends a mesmerising backdrop to Greenall’s rousing vocals.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Brilliantly loose Americana-tinged singer-songwriting, groovy shimmering guitars and heartfelt odes, all topped with that swooning vocal lilt. A stunning outing.

TRACK LISTING

1. Resurgam
2. Day 22
3. Cracks Appear
4. Word To The Wise
5. Not Everything Was Better In The Past
6. The Determined Cut
7. Godhead
8. This Isn't A Mistake
9. Covering Your Tracks
10. There's Just Something About You

Taken from their forthcoming album "I Dreams And Visions", "Home" is a three-minute pop song that merges classic American alt.rock: Pixies, Sonic Youth and Pavement with a distinctive British flavour.

Needle Mythology reissue a special expanded album edition of Finn, the album released by New Zealand’s most celebrated musical siblings Tim and Neil Finn to acclaim both from critics and long-time fans who had followed the pair’s work since their time in together in Split Enz. This is the first time Finn has received a vinyl release.

Released in close collaboration with Tim and Neil, the newly-expanded Finn comes with an entire album The Finn Demos, which gathers together ten songs from 1989’s legendary Murchison St sessions, remastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios. Convening at Neil’s new Melbourne apartment with a view to making an album together, Tim and Neil embarked on an intensely productive period, writing several songs that would briefly result in Tim joining Crowded House for the resulting Woodface album.

Assisted by the late Paul Hester on drums, the demos capture a host of songs that would go on to be played in arenas around the world in their newborn state: ‘It’s Only Natural’, ‘Catherine Wheels’, ‘Weather With You’, featuring a whole extra verse and the previously unreleased ‘Four Stepping in 3/4 Time’.

For this release, long-time fan and collaborator on Neil’s 7 Worlds Collide project, Ed O’Brien (Radiohead) contributed liner notes, hymning the album’s “heavy” beauty and its “elemental energy.” Featuring brand new artwork designed by Needle Mythology’s James Gosling, the expanded Finn features newly-unearthed images of Tim and Neil taken by Darryl Ward during the sessions for the album. For this release, Tim and Neil have also shared the “listening notes” submitted by the brothers’ parents – something they would do for every song their sons wrote.

For Finn, Tim and Neil enlisted the services of Tchad Blake, whose “feel”-based approach brought out the best in the brothers, who played every instrument on the record. Writing about the record for Mojo at the time, David Hepworth characterised Finn as a “warm and loose record” that hardcore fans would undoubtedly “adore”.

Originally released on Parlophone Records, Finn spawned an unlikely top 30 hit, the mesmerising semi-improvised psych-rock fan favourite ‘Suffer Never’.

The expanded double album edition of Finn has been cut at Abbey Road by Miles Showell and pressed on 180g vinyl at The Vinyl Factory.

Of this release, Needle Mythology co-founder Pete Paphides says, “As a life-long fan of the Finn brothers’ music in all its incarnations, I’m grateful that Tim and Neil have given us the opportunity to re-present their work to the world in a manner that befits the magic of these sessions. The experience of hearing these songs emerge from the speakers at Abbey Road is one I’ll never forget.”

TRACK LISTING

DISC 1
SIDE 1
1. Only Talking Sense
2. Eyes Of The World
3. Mood Swinging Man
4. Last Day Of June
5. Suffer Never
6. Angel’s Heap
SIDE 2
1. Niwhai
2. Where Is My Soul
3. Bullets In My Hairdo
4. Paradise (Wherever You Are)
5. Kiss The Road Of Rarotonga
DISC 2
SIDE 1
1. Catherine Wheels (Demo)
2. Prodigal Son (Demo)
3. Four-Stepping In 3/4 Time (Demo)
4. There Goes God (Demo)
5. It’s Only Natural (Demo)
SIDE 2
1. Weather With You (Demo)
2. Strangeness And Charm (Demo)
3. Four Seasons In One Day (Demo)
4. In Love With It All (Demo)
5. How Will You Go (Demo)

Craig Finn (of The Hold Steady) will release his new solo album 'Faith in the Future' through Partisan Records on 11th September. Josh Kaufman produced the record in the cosy, rustic confines of Woodstock's The Isokon recording studio and helped Finn stretch the boundaries of his songwriting with confidence, invention and ambition to realise what will be a defining moment in his career.

At times stark and spare, at other times vibrant and dynamic, 'Faith in the Future' is Finn's most compelling collection thus far, each song a powerfully alluring and subtly nuanced composition wedded to his distinctive short story narratives.

TRACK LISTING

Maggie I’ve Been Searching For Our Son
Roman Guitars
Newmyer’s Roof
Sarah, Calling From A Hotel
Going To A Show
Sandra From Scranton
Saint Peter Upside Down
Trapper Avenue
Christine
I Was Doing Fine (Then A Few People Died)

Best known as the singer of the Hold Steady, Craig Finn is a Minnesota-bred singer, songwriter, and guitarist based out of New York City. Combining literary influences like Jack Kerouac and John Berryman with the musical influences of Bruce Springsteen and fellow Minnesotan Paul Westerberg, Finn's highly descriptive lyrical style has a strong focus on narrative, crafting whole worlds for the people in his songs to exist within.

'A Legacy of Rental's', the 6th solo record from Finn, was produced by Josh Kaufman and recorded by D. James Goodwin at The Clubhouse recording studio. Compared to past solo releases, this new collection was recorded with the help of a 14-piece string section including violins, violas and cellos, instead of the usually horn-heavy sounds that Craig and The Hold Steady are known for. The themes of the record explore memory -- how we remember our loved ones, the places in our lives that have changed, and recent events that are part of our pasts.

TRACK LISTING

1. Messing With The Settings
2. The Amarillo Kid
3. Birthdays
4. The Year We Fell Behind
5. Due To Depart
6. Curtis & Shepard
7. Never Any Horses
8. Jessamine
9. A Break From The Barrage
10. This Is What It Looks Like

Craig Finn is best known as the frontman of The Hold Steady but he is also a skilled songwriter in his own right. ‘I Need A New War’ is the third album in a trilogy (following 2015’s ‘Faith In The Future’ and 2017’s ‘We All Want The Same Things’). The album focuses on regular people trying to respond to extraordinary times, attempting to find connection while wondering how to keep pace with a world moving faster than they are. It solidifies Craig as one of today’s most important storytellers, among the ranks of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits.

TRACK LISTING

Blankets
Magic Marker
A Bathtub In The Kitchen
Indications
Grant At Galena
Something To Hope For
Carmen Isn’t Coming In
Today
Holyoke
Her With The Blues
Anne Marie & Shane

Pekka Tegelman, Jussi Tegelman and Jukka Rissanen as Finnforest took what bands like Camel and Gilgamesh were doing and gave it their own distinctive twist. Great musicianship and quality Lasers Edge reproduction.

Kelly Finnigan's debut solo album for Colemine Records represents the culmination of his 15 years of experience - in the studio as a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, engineer, producer - and touring the US and Europe as a singer, musician, and band-leader. The content within reflects his dedication to expression through the rich American music traditions of soul, gospel, doo-wop, and R&B. The subject is love. Its ecstasies and heartaches. Love sought, found, betrayed, lost, and rediscovered. The result is a marvelous collection of songs and performances that run the gamut from whispering tenderness to roaring appeals; from lean and mean to lush and lovely. And always, always, manifestly honest, and undeniably soulful. With Finnigan guiding these songs from their conception all the way to the record pressing plant, the new release provides the singular voice missing from soul music: a visionary that writes, records, performs and produces his own material. 

TRACK LISTING

1. I Don’t Wanna Wait
2. I’ll Never Love Again
3. Smoking & Drinking
4. Every Time It Rains
5. Catch Me I’m Falling
6. Since I Don’t Have You Anymore
7. Impressions Of You
8. I Called You Back Baby
9. Freedom
10. Can’t Let Him Down

Produced by Dave Fridmann (Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips), ‘Dizzy Heights’ is the third solo album by Neil Finn following 1998's Try Whistling This and 2001's One Nil.

Finn did not set out on his third solo album with a theme in mind. But by the time he came to call it after another track on the record, “Dizzy Heights”, it had become inescapable. “It crept up on me. I started noticing it in lots of places. You start off with a number of different threads and angles and demos, and they dictate the terms of the record. It’s only in the course of the process that you maybe get a feeling there’s a type of song emerging, or an atmosphere.”

Neil Finn was 18 when he was invited by his older brother Tim to join the trailblazing art rock band Split Enz. His career since might be measured as a series of bounds, the best-known being Crowded House, which he founded with Paul Hester and Nick Seymour after the breakup of Split Enz in 1984. Four albums, among them Crowded House and Together Alone, brought the group popular and critical acclaim around the world.

Along the way, there have been a host of collaborations, including with brother Tim and wife Sharon, and an array of names from Johnny Marr, Ed O’Brien, Eddie Vedder and most of Wilco. And yet Dizzy Heights unmistakably marks a fresh leap.

“I didn’t want to make it a solo record in a stripped back singer-songwriter sort of way,” says Finn. “I had a feeling Dave would be good at adding some odd shapes to the music. Which I always welcome – making things a little more expansive ... He is good at subverting things, and making things sound a bit messed up and not as obvious, rather than being too tasteful, which is always a temptation.”

TRACK LISTING

Impressions
Dizzy Heights
Flying In The Face Of Love
Divebomber
Better Than TV
Pony Ride
White Lies And Alibis
Recluse
Strangest Friends
In My Blood
Lights Of New York

Finn is German singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and fashion designer, Patrick Zimmer who splits his time between Hamburg and London, where he recently found a new home with cinematic music label Erased Tapes – a conceptualist with the voice of Leonard Cohen on helium. Born in 1977, yet combining influences that span decades, Finn had to wander through a playground of electronica and low-fi recordings to get here. His third album "The Best Low-Priced Heartbreakers You Can Own" shows a surprisingly mature and cohesive collection of haunting and mesmerizing songs as a result from his consequential musical progression. Finn lived, recorded and produced the album over the course of seven months in the catacombs of an old 14th century church underneath the streets of St. Pauli. With this release, Patrick Zimmer prescribed himself a concept album.

Finom's (aka Ohmme) third LP. Not God produced by Jeff Tweedy. Recommended If You Like: The Beths, Soccer Mommy, Palehound, New Pornographers, Melkbelly, Lala Lala, NNAMDÏ, The Breeders, Jeff Tweedy/Wilco, The Roches. Not God is the new album from Chicago’s beloved two-headed monster, Finom (fka Ohmme). You can ask them to go into more detail about the boring reasons why they changed their name, but for now, the answer is going to be polite refusal. No. Co-fronted by Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, Finom’s influences run vast and varied, and they put a premium on change. Produced by Jeff Tweedy in the Wilco Loft, Not God is a marvel of growth, a progression from the roots of this collaborative band whose history can be traced back to its improvised conception. This is owed in no small part to their hometown of Chicago, the life raft to so many persisters in musical adventurosity. That energy combined with Finom's dramatic vocal and musical gifts puts them in the peripheries of the legacies cemented by The Roches, Roxy Music, the B52s, Kate Bush, Cate Le Bon, and Wilco. Cunningham and Stewart are brilliant harmonizers, but harmony doesn't equate to a utopia. In Finom's maws harmony can also be a fight, holding the line until the volcano erupts. This realistic depiction of a creative relationship jolts throughout the songs of Not God, and brings the whole damn thing to life. Finom are more than one person with more than one dream. But still, they grow together, harnessed by their shared love of pop songwriting, control, chaos, and being generally freaky-deaky. Freaky in that way that is only really fun when you're doing it with a friend. As the globe spins and advancements advance, it can feel essential to return to relationships that make us feel whole, that generate energy of strength and relief. Which puts double the weight on the reality that Sima and Macie continue to pledge allegiance to each other, at the base of the volcano, in the front seat of the car as it pulls off the highway. 

TRACK LISTING

Haircut
Dirt
Naked
Hungry
Not God
A Petunia
Cyclops
Cardinal
As You Are

"Codex Teenage Premonition" features fifteen exclusive tracks that capture perfectly the raw teenage energy of one the most influential and unique British bands of the last twenty five years. The album features tracks recorded at their very first show at Leith Town Hall in 1980 together with unreleased studio versions of tracks that would later appear on their debut single "Get Up And Use Me" and album "Lubricate Your Living Room". Although very different in style, Fire Engines were still very much part of a thriving Scottish post punk scene that featured Orange Juice, Josef K, Aztec Camera and The Associates.

Mats Gustafsson - Flute, baritone sax, live electronics, Johan Berthling - Electric bass, Andreas Werliin – Drums with Goran Kajfes – Quartertone trumpet, Mats Aleklint – Trombone, sousaphone, horn arrangements. Not the most optimistic title for pressing times, but the music sees Fire! tracking new paths and reaching new levels of excellence, still honoring their 12 year old vow of presenting a fresh approach to improvised music. Their debut album, You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago, was released in 2009 to wide international acclaim. “The basic strategy of pairing the expressive energy of free jazz with a sturdy sense of groove has yielded something potent and self-contained” (New York Times). Between this and Defeat there´s been five albums, including collaborations with Jim O´Rourke (Unreleased?, 2011) and Oren Ambarchi (In The Mouth A Hand, 2012).

No two Fire! records sound the same, but with Defeat they have taken their biggest leap so far, with Gustafsson giving the flute a prominent place in the sound image, a surprising and most successful move, his both expressive and ornamental approach given ample room to breathe, especially on the two long tracks bookending the album. In places more subdued than on previous efforts, but with the distinctive bass figures and hypnotic mood fully intact. There are some lively stretches with guests Goran Kajfes and Mats Aleklint, bringing to mind their big band offshoot Fire! Orchestra, albeit on a smaller scale. For over 20 years we have made a habit of releasing music that is beyond easy classification, in later years typified by Hedvig Mollestad, Elephant9 and Krokofant, but cemented by Fire! and their exploratory curiosity and deep love of music in general. We, and many others, have tried to compare the trio to other groups, but listening to Defeat we realize how futile this is. Given the above there´s no doubt there are many influences at play, but the resulting brew is in a class by itself.

TRACK LISTING

1/A Random Belt. Rats You Out.
2/Each Millimeter Of The Toad, Part 1
3/Each Millimeter Of The Toad, Part 2
4/Defeat (Only Further Apart)
5/Alien (To My Feet)

Combine Philip Cunningham's Game Boy, NES, SNES, Atari STe, Commodore64 and Atari 7800-fuelled visionary dance-pop with Gordon Turner's beautifully honed vocals, lyrics and guitar, and you have the addictive Firebrand Boy sound. Simultaneously fresh and classic, these Glasgow-based 19-year-olds have been turning heads on the Scottish gig circuit and are now set to take their unique brand of fired-up electronica-with-a-heart across the UK and beyond.

Gothenburg, Sweden trio Firebreather’s 2019 RidingEasy Records debut album Under a Blood Moon was a powerhouse that most certainly established the band’s incendiary potential. But none of us would be prepared for the suffocating onslaught that is Dwell in the Fog. While that album was in-your-face and raw, Dwell in the Fog rumbles and rages with a fury the band had only hinted at previously.

Firebreather has a streamlined focus on driving, symphonic riffs in the vein of High on Fire, Inter Arma and their tour- and label-mates Monolord. The guitar and bass tones are, quite simply, entrancing. Paired with vocalist/guitarist Mattias Nööjd’s guttural yet melodic howls and drummer Axel Wittbeck’s groove based rhythms, their entire sound flows like thick, viscous lava.

“The album is a cathartic journey inwards and a musical continuation from Under A Blood Moon, but with more emphasis on groove and feel,” Nööjd says. From the first notes of album opener “Kiss Of Your Blade” you’ll know exactly what he means.

Like their preceding two albums, Dwell in the Fog was also recorded and mixed by engineer Oskar Karlsson at Elementstudion in Gothenburg. The band is joined by new bassist Nicklas Hellqvist on this album, who seems to have increased the thunder rumble tenfold.

From the aforementioned album opener “Kiss Of Your Blade”, with its droning opening chords over a rollicking tom pattern, the band quickly shifts gears into a head bobbing, serpentine riff with a transcendent melodic hook. Elsewhere, as on the title track and “Weather The Storm” rapid-fire hummable riffs come and go in an ever-shifting mass of devastating swirling churn. It’s like the band has such an endless supply of great hooks that to, ahem, dwell for too long on any one would undo their constantly building momentum. That they somehow give each song, and the album as a whole, a streamlined and cohesive, monolithic groove is testament to their skill. And, proof that the album must be absorbed in its entirety to experience the overwhelming swaying and lunging low end growl that drives the band’s most captivating work to date.

Cardinal Fuzz and Little Cloud Records bring to you the new LP from a band we hold dear, Firefriend – ‘Decreation Facts’ – From São Paulo in Brazil and now close to two decades of creating and honing what has become their trademark, a heavy reverb, minimalistic slow-burn menace which sends chills down your bones. If you don't know Firefriend from somewhere along the last decade, you must cut a safe course through music. ‘Decreation’ is the undoing of creation, something destructive and primal and that Firefriend carry through on all the twelve songs written for this LP. Yury explained that the album "is a commentary on our 21st century, so violent and radical. We live in times of accelerated transformation. We wrote and recorded this album between the pandemic and WW3 – times of ground-breaking changes – and somehow that uneasy feeling got into our songs. Reality is the most crazy trip, isn it? And we are always trying to explore new territories: we want a new album to take you to new places, so we were chasing the sounds, structures and moods to make this a truly new album to match this wild new world’ ‘Decreation Facts’ is all this as they simply inject you with a liquid paranoia for their dark conjuring’s that is hugely dark and foreboding – Julia and Yury’s uber cool stoned and detached delivery creates a seriously dark menace with Julia’s delivery having echoes of Nico – all the while THAT claustrophobic reverb and tremolo encloses and swirls around the inside of your head and vibrates your inner core. This is HEAVY shit. Decreation Facts’ is an unsettling sonic fuck you to those that seek to destroy this planet for their love of money and power and we think it is a stunning achievement. As Terence McKenna might once have said – ‘Firefriend should be consumed alone, in the dark, in silence, with your eyes closed’. Firefriend advises, “Express yourself through any method you want. That is how you become a transmitter, generating waves that will open connections with others vibrating on the same frequencies. That energy field will change the game.” Now that is a truly psychedelic perspective if there ever was one. RCKNRLL, FUZZ, FEED YOUR HEAD