Jack Francis’s second studio album, ‘Early Retirement’, navigates modern society and fallen dreams. Jack is an old soul in a new world. He seamlessly blurs the lines between folk, soul, rock and country, and is set apart by his distinctive vocal and memorable melodies.

Fans of Flyte, Nathaniel Rateliff and Courtney Marie Andrews will fall in love with him.

“A mix of raw soul, honest country heart and undeniable British resolve” - Holler Country

“This whole album should be declared an area of outstanding natural beauty” - Louder Than War

TRACK LISTING

Promised Land
Tired Of Trying
Mercy
A Bit Of Your Time
Lifeline
21st Century Man
Failure
Forever Alone
Under The Bright Lights
Merry-Go-Round
Curtain Call

JW Francis burst onto the scene with his critically acclaimed debut ‘We Share a Similar Joy’, with features from DIY and Line of Best Fit to being named Album of The Day on BBC 6 Music. His warm, affable melodies and comforting lyrics earned him fans on both sides of the Atlantic, and now he returns with his sophomore album Wanderkid, a concept album about a wandering anti-hero.

Wanderkid hones in on JW’s dreamy soundscapes and explores themes of escapism, whilst still maintaining that sense of comfort and intimacy so beautifully demonstrated in his debut. To celebrate the release, JW is going on a 2,000 mile walking journey across the Eastern United States along the Appalachian Trail.

With Wanderkid, JW Francis is further cementing his place as a future stalwart in the alternative New York scene.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. John, Take Me With You
2. I Love You
3. Maybe
4. Make Another Record
5. Only With You
6. Holy Mountain

SIDE B
1. WANDERKID
2. Don't Fall Apart
3. Fake It Till You Make It
4. I'm Probably A Ghost
5. Cars

New York’s very own JW Francis announces his brand new album ‘Dream House’ – his third with London based label Sunday Best Recordings. Coinciding with the announcement is the gloriously up-beat new single ‘Casino,’ which offers a glimpse into what to expect on his forthcoming feel-good LP. When JW isn’t writing songs about his own life or surreal imagery, he writes about other people – most notably around the month of February when he writes valentines songs on his fans’ behalf. ‘Dream House’ encapsulates all of this and forms a collection of glorious tracks written for other people: “Every year, about 6 weeks before Valentine’s Day, I make the following post on social media: “If you send me the name of your Valentine, and the reason you love them, I’ll write a song for them on your behalf.” That is how Dream House was born, 3 years ago. Over the past three years, I have received over 300 requests from fans to write songs for their loved ones. All of the songs on Dream House come from this project, some of them have been reworked to speak more to the artist’s life, others have remained exactly as they were first written.

Ultimately, this is an album about caring for others, and the way we express it.” Written and recorded at the start of 2021 in NYC, ‘Dream House’ is slightly reminiscent of The Strokes and even has hints of Lou Reed, however the project is still quintessential JW Francis with its blissful melodies and dreamy instrumentation; perfectly fitting given the album’s title.

TRACK LISTING

1. Going Home To A Party
2. Casino
3. Dream House
4. Our Story
5. Swooning
6. Keep It Cool, Steve
7. All Night Long
8. Dream Big
9. I Wanna Be Your Basketball
10. Take Me Away
11. You're Changing
12. Sweet As A Rose

Includes the single "Blues Run the Game" plus B side and the sessions "My Kind Of Folk" Nov 13, 1968, "The Shotwell Sessions," recorded June 5, 1972, at Shotwell Music Recording, Woodstock, NY. "The Rude Sessions," recorded May 9, 1974, at Rude Sound Studios, Woodstock, NY.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Blues Run The Game
2. Can't Get Away From My Love
3. Juliette
4. China Blue
5. Madonna Of Swans
6. Box Canyon
7. Cover Me With Roses

Side 2
1. Spanish Moss
2. Stitch In Time
3. Blues Run The Game
4. Dialogue (I Want To Be Alone)
5. Golden Mirror
6. Just Like Anything
7. My Name Is Carnival

Following the success of their first single ‘Helen Is A Reptile’, three-piece power trio Jemma Freeman and The Cosmic Something release their debut album ‘ Oh Really, What’s That Then? As debut album titles go, Jemma Freeman and The Cosmic Something ’s ‘Oh Really, What’s That Then?’ invites you to ask just that question. An introspective journey through psychedelic glam-rock nightmares, woozy flows of self-discovery and beguiling lyrics delivered with subtlety and intensity. Jemma is your guide in this strange country, illuminating a path for you. In reality, they’re as lost as the listener. In this hinterland, thoughts tumble on top of each other and the shadows cast by their images overwhelm. Hear a track in isolation and you might expose roots of its origins - from the exuberant T. Rex -Esque strings of ‘Black Rain’, to the snarling Hole like guitars of ‘Tasteless’ - but the archaeology of their sound is not so easily uncovered.

‘Oh Really, What’s That Then?’ paints a turbulent history and a doomed future. When an album opens with a distant primal scream, you know it's not going to be an easy ride. As the album’s last-gasp, ‘Tasteless’, slowly dissipates from cacophony to complete stillness - like the universe ending, all energy exhausted - you’ll feel the same. The journey is intense. Not that it’s all a trudging grind, there are moments of pure exhilarating pop joy along the way. Songs like ‘Keytar (I Was Busy)’ hiding the darkest lyrical themes in the brightest of melodies (just like all the best pop music does). Jemma says of the record: “I was trying to photograph the space between emotions and actions, feeling like an outsider, some of the songs are indirectly meant to demonstrate solidarity with others that identify with that.”

Recorded over a year at South London’s Marketstall Recording studio (owned and run by band bass player Mark Estall), the album is the sound of a band growing out of one person’s imagination into something more. Initially, every part was written and performed by Jemma, but over time the sessions became collaborative. Hamilton Lee was brought in to play the drums and having worked together in several other bands with Jemma, they had pre-existing musical telepathy. Jemma and Mark became finely attuned to each others’ production ideas and the relationship between the three became symbiotic, intrinsic to the sound of the record. The Cosmic Something as a band was born in these early studio sessions, and their debut album “Oh Really, What’s That Then?” is this sonic psychedelic baby’s first steps.

TRACK LISTING

1. Helen Is A Reptile
2. Keytar (I Was Busy)
3. Hard Times
4. Black Rain
5. What’s On Your Mind?
6. Vines
7. Kopenhagen
8. Heaven On A Plate
9. Count To Ten
10. Distant Places
11. Tasteless

Outsider, alt, psych, power trio Jemma Freeman and The Cosmic Something are the aural equivalent of a distorted photograph capturing the hinterland found between emotions and actions. Emerging like joyous sci-fi warriors, the songs either overtly or indirectly demonstrate solidarity with anyone that’s ever identified feeling off kilter with the rest of the universe and needed an equally wonky soundtrack to back it. An introspective journey through psychedelic glam-rock nightmares, woozy flows of self discovery and beguiling lyrics delivered with subtlety and intensity. Jem, Samuel Nicholson (bass) and Jason Ribeiro (drums) are your astral guides in this strange country, illuminating a path, in reality they’re as lost as the listener. In this limbo, thoughts tumble on top of each other through twisted rhythmic guitar, bass and drum lines that interchange and play with each other in a frenzied cosmic dance.

TRACK LISTING

Big Bread
Easy Peeler
Nobody Ever
Huge
Lump
Maersky
Bugles
I Thought Too Much
Sicilian Mousse
Take Me

John Frusciante releases the first instrumental electronic album under his own name on Aaron Funk's Timesig label. The record is dedicated to his cat Maya who recently passed away, a fellow traveller in his otherwise solitary music making sessions. 'Maya' is inspired by John's favourite music: '91 to'96 UK breakbeat hardcore and jungle. It’s a varied and personal take with sophisticated, authentic production balanced against John’s acute sense of melody, an inspired blending of machines and samples infused with a joyful energy. "I don't have that interest in singing or writing lyrics like I used to. The natural thing when I'm by myself now, is to just make music like the stuff being released this year. I really love the back and forth with machines and the computer." The fun he’s having on 'Maya' is infectious

TRACK LISTING

A: Brand E Usbrup Pensul
B: Flying Pleasure Explanation Blind Aim
C: Reach Out Amethblowl
D: Zillion Anja Motherless

10 year anniversary vinyl reissue of “The Empyrean” By John Frusciante cut for the original analog tapes at Bernie Grundman’s mastering. includes hi res audio download card. THE EMPYREAN is the eighth solo album by JOHN FRUSCIANTE. It was originally released in January of 2009, reaching number 151 on the US Billboard 200, 105 on UK Albums Chart and number 7 on the Top Heatseekers. It contains contributions from RHCP bandmate FLEA and former guitarist of The Smiths Johnny Marr. John Frusciante is an American guitarist, singer, composer, and producer. He is best known as the guitarist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers.

He recorded five studio albums with them and was recently inducted into the ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME. Frusciante has an active solo career, having released twelve solo albums and five EPs; his recordings include elements ranging from experimental rock and ambient music to new wave and electronica. He has also recorded with numerous other artists, including the Mars Volta, for whom he was a studio guitarist (and occasional live performer) from 2002 until 2008; Josh Klinghoffer and Joe Lally, with whom he released two albums as Ataxia; and various collaborations with both Klinghoffer and Omar Rodríguez-López. He has also produced and/or recorded with Duran Duran, Wu-Tang Clan, Swahili Blonde, Black Knights, The Bicycle Thief, Glenn Hughes, Ziggy Marley, Johnny Cash, George Clinton, Johnny Marr, Dewa Budjana and others

TRACK LISTING

1. “Before The Beginning”
2. “Song To The Siren”
3. “Unreachable”
4. “God”
5. “Dark/Light”
6. “Heaven”
7. “Enough Of Me”
8. “Central”
9. “One More Of Me”
10. “After The Ending” Bonus

Tracks On Dl Card
11. “Today”
12. “Ah Yom”

On his third and most finely wrought album yet, guitarist, singer, and master interpreter Fussell is joined for the first time by a full band featuring Nathan Bowles (drums), Casey Toll (bass), Nathan Golub (pedal steel), Libby Rodenbough (violin, vocals), and James Anthony Wallace (piano, organ). An utterly transporting selection of traditional narrative folksongs addressing the troubles and delights of love, work, and wine (i.e., the things that matter), collected from a myriad of obscure sources and deftly metamorphosed, Out of Sight contains, among other moving curiosities, a fishmonger’s cry that sounds like an astral lament (“The River St. Johns”); a cotton mill tune that humorously explores the unknown terrain of death and memory (“Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues”); and a fishermen’s shanty/gospel song equally concerned with terrestrial boozing and heavenly transcendence (“Drinking of the Wine”). Jake has written a fascinating essay, about the nine songs he chose and his journey to them (available on the PoB website).

Like all things having to do with traditional music, there are multiple sources for these songs, many layers of transmission and interpretation. “Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues” I heard from my friend Art Rosenbaum, who learned it from a Pete Seeger recording from the late ’40s. I first heard the Irish tragicomedy “Michael Was Hearty” via my pal Nathan Salsburg, guitar wizard and curator of the Alan Lomax Archive, who played me a YouTube video of an Irish Traveller and ballad singer named Thomas McCarthy, whose a cappella delivery of the song is striking and singular. “Oh Captain” is my bastardized reinterpretation of a beautiful deckhand’s song recorded by the singer, composer, and musicologist Willis Laurence James for Paramount Records in the early 1920s. In the mid-2000s when I was living in Oxford, Mississippi, I went to an estate sale at an antebellum house in town and found a first edition of Carl Sandburg’s famous 1927 book The American Songbag, which contains “Three Ravens.”

The great ballad singer and collector Bobby McMillon, of western North Carolina, has recorded a fine version of “The Rainbow Willow” under the title “Locks and Bolts,” the more common title. My friends Sally Anne Morgan and Sarah Louise (aka House and Land) have also recorded a beautiful rendering. I combined various versions from the Ozarks into the one that I sing, but the story is pretty much the same. “The River St. Johns” comes straight from one of Stetson Kennedy’s Florida WPA recordings of a gentleman named Harden Stuckey doing his interpretation of a fishmonger’s cry, which he recalls from a childhood memory. “Jubilee” is from the great Jean Ritchie’s family tradition. Her father probably sang it as more of a play-party type piece, or at least that’s what Art Rosenbaum tells me, but it’s taken on different forms since. “Drinking of the Wine” is a spiritual number, you might could say. The version to which I’m most faithful is one that was recorded by a group of Virginia menhaden fishermen singing it as a net-hauling shanty on a boat off the coast of New Jersey in the early 1950s. “16–20” is my very loose rearrangement of a tune that I’ve known for years. This was a popular dance piece among guitarists in the lower Chattahoochee River Valley of Georgia and Alabama, including my old friends George Daniel and Robert Thomas, from whom I learned it.

TRACK LISTING

A1. The River St. Johns
A2. Michael Was Hearty
A3. Oh Captain
A4. Three Ravens
A5. Jubilee

B1. Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues
B2. The Rainbow Willow
B3. 16–20
B4. Drinking Of The Wine 

Jake Xerxes Fussell’s fourth album finds the acclaimed folksong interpreter, guitarist, and singer navigating fresh sonic and compositional landscapes on the most conceptually focused, breathtakingly rendered, and enigmatically poignant record of his wondrous catalog. Produced by James Elkington and featuring formidable players both familiar (Casey Toll, Libby Rodenbough) and new (Joe Westerlund, Bonnie “Prince” Billy), it includes Jake’s first original compositions; atmospheric arrangements with pedal steel, horns, and strings.

One of the most striking and strangely moving moments on Jake Xerxes Fussell’s gorgeous Good and Green Again an album, his fourth and most recent, replete with such dazzling moments arrives at its very end, with the brief words to the final song “Washington.” “General Washington/Noblest of men/His house, his horse, his cherry tree, and him,” Fussell sings, after a hushed introductory passage in which his trademark percussively fingerpicked Telecaster converses lacily with James Elkington’s parlor piano. That’s the entire lyrical content of the song, which proceeds to float away on orchestral clouds of French horn, trumpet, and strings, until it simply stops, suddenly evaporating, vanishing with no fade or trace, no resolution to its sorrowful minor-key chord progression, just silence and stillness and stark presidential absence. It feels like the end of a film, or the cold departure of a ghost, and is unlike anything else Jake has recorded.

In all his work Jake humanizes his material with his own profound curatorial and interpretive gifts, unmooring stories and melodies from their specific eras and origins and setting them adrift in our own waterways. The robust burr of his voice, which periodically melts and catches at a particularly tender turn of phrase, and the swung rhythmic undertow of exquisite, seemingly effortless guitar-playing here he plays more acoustic than ever before pull new valences of meaning from ostensibly antique songs and subjects.

On Good and Green Again, Jake not only ventures beyond his established mastery of songcatching and songmaking into songwriting, but likewise navigates fresh sonic and compositional landscapes, going green with lusher, more atmospheric and ambitious arrangements. The result is the most conceptually focused, breathtakingly rendered, and enigmatically poignant record of his wondrous catalog. It’s also his most deliberately premeditated album, representing his fruitful return to a producer partnership after two self-produced projects, What in the Natural World (2017) and Out of Sight (2019) (William Tyler produced his friend’s self-titled 2015 debut.) This time James Elkington produced and played a panoply of instruments, bringing to Jake’s arcane song choices his own peerless sense of harmony and orchestration, balance and dramatic tension.

The pair enlisted a group of formidable players hailing from Durham, North Carolina (where Fussell lives) and elsewhere, including regular bandmembers Casey Toll (Mt. Moriah, Nathan Bowles) on upright bass, Libby Rodenbough (Mipso) on strings, and Nathan Golub on pedal steel. They were joined by welcome newcomers Joe Westerlund (Megafaun, Califone) on drums, Joseph Decosimo on fiddle, Anna Jacobson on brass, and veteran collaborator and avowed Fussell fan Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who contributes additional vocals.

Album opener “Love Farewell” (featuring some beautiful singing by Bonnie “Prince” Billy), an elliptical tale of the folly of war, set to the world’s most heartbreaking goodbye march for a lover left behind. “Carriebelle” and “Breast of Glass” each similarly concerns, in its own way, romantic love and leavings. All three songs highlight Jacobson’s diaphanous, understated brass parts, tying them together in a true lover’s knot. “Rolling Mills Are Burning Down,” with its distant keening strings and capacious sense of space, observes and mourns the loss of work and community in the wake of elemental disaster. Nine-minute tour de force “The Golden Willow Tree,” the sole explicitly narrative song herein, is a hypnotic, minimalist rendering of a tragic maritime ballad about scuttling an enemy ship in exchange for wealth and glory and a captain’s inevitable betrayal.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Love Farewell 3:58
A2. Carriebelle 3:49
A3. Breast Of Glass 4:01
A4. Frolic 3:10
A5. Rolling Mills Are Burning Down 5:18
B1. What Did The Hen Duck Say To The Drake? 3:02
B2. The Golden Willow Tree 9:10
B3. In Florida 3:08
B4. Washington 3:37

Jeremy Gara, drummer of Arcade Fire, releases his second solo album ‘Passerine Finale’ on Invada Records.

The album was mastered by Helge Sten (Deathprod, Supersilent) and composed, produced and recorded by Jeremy over the last three years. ‘Passerine Finale’ is a varied collection of songs and disparate sounds, from arranged static noise to extended melodic drones, improvised and chiselled at, ignoring form or structure, and completed the moment things ‘felt’ something.

The album comes pressed on silver vinyl and is housed in a heavyweight sleeve with digital download card included, with artwork throughout by Jeremy himself.

Jeremy explains: “‘L_06’ - the visual thing, like the song it accompanies, comes from trying to push really simple objects and figures to a place where they hopefully, somehow, become imprinted with a kind of emotional energy - attempting to entwine single note drones and simple straight lines together tightly enough that they dance a little.”

Originally from Ottawa, Canada, Jeremy has been a member of Arcade Fire since 2004. Outside of the band, he has recently collaborated with bandmate Sarah Neufeld and world-renowned dancer and choreographer Peggy Baker on composing music for a large-scale dance production called Who We Are In The Dark and performed it live at various dance festivals. He’s also been touring and performing his solo material across the world since his first album, ‘Limn’, was released in March of 2016.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: invada obviously have form for this sort of soundtracky full-spectrum mayhem, but i've not heard anything quite as brilliantly punishing and heavy since Ben Frost's 'Theory Of Machines'. Passerine Finale is a gorgeous, genre straddling behemoth, and one that deserves to be absorbed at full volume.

TRACK LISTING

In, Final Note
L_06
Kelpie
Ice Towers
Watching You
CDMX
Passerine Finale
Wraith

Its meaning may refer to a fear of sleep, but with Hypnophobia, the brand new album from the baroque pop prince and Dutch producer/multi-instrumentalist, Jacco Gardner’s all set to cast a majestic and vibrant psychedelic spell that will hypnotize listeners at the point dreams and reality meet. Since unveiling his Cabinet of Curiosities in 2013 (released on the Trouble In Mind label), tastemakers and fans alike have been drawn deeper into Jacco Gardner’s fantastical fairytale kingdom.

Hypnophobia captures a true sense of exploration, combining Gardner’s newfound love of travel with his continued passion for collecting and playing vintage instruments. The album features a Wurlitzer electric piano, waltzing alongside mellotrons, harpsichords, an Optigan, and an antique Steinway upright piano. It’s a stunning exhibit of lush instrumental tracks as well as songs that boast lyrics worthy of any great pop number. Fusing fantasy with sublime twisted reality, Hypnophobia was recorded in its entirety at Gardner’s Shadow Studio.

For most tradition enthusiasts, it’d be all too easy to rehash the past. But that’s where Jacco Gardner’s differences lie. Playing all instruments except for drums, Hypnophobia brilliantly captures a unique artist and future-vintage aficionado operating at a far higher state of consciousness.

TRACK LISTING

1. Another You
2. Grey Lanes
3. Brightly
4. Find Yourself
5. Face To Face
6. Outside Forever
7. Before The Dawn
8. Hypnophobia
9. Make Me See
10. All Over

Gardner has been known to create swirling psychedelic pop boosted by his rich, resonate and baroque voice but on his third album, his vocals are gone and in their place is an equally seamless melodic exploration but an instrumental one, with a synthesized occult edge. Somnium is a nod to the novel of the same name, written in 1608 by Johannes Kepler and is regarded as the first ever science fiction novel. “This book fascinates me because it was basically Kepler travelling in his mind to a non-existent world while describing it, and his journey, with amazing detail.”

This form of mind travel is what Jacco has set out to create in a sonic, almost alchemic, capacity. Hence the reason for his vocals being left out of this spiritual journey. “I deliberately removed my voice from the experience, as it made it more difficult for me to achieve the intended state of mind. I think it makes the journey more interesting, more deep, and more intimate. I didn’t feel the need to show my face while one drifts away into thought. Somnium is a visionary experience. The album is more than just a trip, it is about contact with a deeper – hidden – reality.” 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Jacco may well have got rid of the vocals, but it hasn't dampened any of the stone-cold groove he manages to eke out of his instruments. Vox or no, the swooning, psychedelic haze is strong here, and further goes to show his skills no matter the tools. A mind-bending and enthralling journey throughout.

TRACK LISTING

1. Rising
2. Volva
3. Langragian Point
4. Past Navigator
5. Levania
6. Eclipse
7. Utopos
8. Rain
9. Privolva
10. Pale Blue Dot
11. Descent
12. Somnium

Fourth release on new independent label Basin Rock following highly acclaimed albums by Julie Byrne and Nadia Reid.

Born in Sheffield before moving around various parts of Derbyshire, Shropshire and Scotland and then settling in Moss Valley - an abandoned and forgotten area on the edgelands of South Yorkshire and North East Derbyshire - it makes perfect sense that 26 year old Jim Ghedi’s music feels both fluidly transient yet also deeply rooted to a sense of place.

In 2015 he released his debut album, Home Is Where I Exist, Now To Live and Die (Cambrian Records), which was an extension of the folk-tinged six and twelve-string acoustic guitar instrumentals he had been forging for some time around Sheffield's pubs and then whilst traveling across Europe. On his second album, A Hymn For Ancient Land, his elemental style of playing has expanded into a fuller band set-up, complete with glorious orchestration and dazzling composition that makes it a truly innovative contemporary record whilst still being rooted in great tradition.

Through the inclusion of double bass, violin, cello, harp, trumpet, piano, accordion and numerous other instruments, Ghedi has elevated his unique blend of folk music to a level far beyond that of that of his earlier work. Perhaps most remarkable still is how seamless their inclusions feel, rather than wrestling for space, the wealth of instruments float in and out of one another, interlocking absorbing guitars, gently whirring strings and drums that beat like the faint sounds of thunder on the horizon.

On top of the community of Moss Valley, a driving force behind much of the creations on this record come from Ghedi’s travels, playing shows in numerous rural towns and villages across the British Isles. This traversing through remote parts of the UK, Wales, Scotland and Ireland soon brought a desire to capture the full breadth, scale and beauty of the landscapes he was witnessing. “I wanted to bring in wider instrumentation to somehow resemble the landscapes which musically I could hear in my head, It was at this point I became fixated on connecting the two worlds of classical and contemporary folk” Ghedi says of the album’s birthing period.

All songs on the album are named after places from said travels - ‘Home for Moss Valley’, ‘Bramley Moor’, ‘Cwm Elan’ etc - and Ghedi’s natural ear and eye for capturing the spaces he inhabits creates an immersive environment, in which the guitar lines seem to mirror rolling hills, the rich hum of the ambience hangs like a gentle morning fog and the intricacies and beauty of the arrangements create something almost tangible in their efforts, like capturing a light dew on the tip ends of grass or the sticky moisture of well trampled soil. Nature permeates through this record from start to finish, gliding through its core like a bubbling brook.

TRACK LISTING

1 Home For Moss Valley
2 Cwm Elan
3 Bramley Moor
4 Fortingall Yew
5 Phoenix Works
6 Banks Of Mulroy Bay
7 Sloade Lane

All-time classic dub album from legendary producers Joe Gibbs and Errol Thompson, aka The Mighty Two.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Read the above! ALL TIME CLASSIC. All three volumes are dub reggae corner stones. For a while the licenses were feverishly contested (and consequently bootlegged to buggary), but VP seem to have sorted all that out with an official set that sounds crisper and fatter than all those dodgy boots. Maximum jahs on this one folks!

TRACK LISTING

African Dub
Universal Dub
Midnight Movie
Getto Shank
Lime Key Rock
Lovers Serenade
Treasure Dub
Schooling The Beat
Campus Rock
Half Ounce
Worrier
East Africa

All-time classic dub album from legendary producers Joe Gibbs and Errol Thompson, aka The Mighty Two.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chapter Two
2. The Marriguana Affair
3. Angola Crisis
4. Peeping Tom
5. Outrage
6. Idlers Rest
7. My Best Dub
8. Third World
9. Heavy Duty Dub
10. Musical Arena
11. Mackarus Serenade
12. Jamaican Grass

If you love 70s Dub reggae then this is a crucial addition to your collection.

All-time classic dub album from legendary producers Joe Gibbs and Errol Thompson, aka The Mighty Two.

TRACK LISTING

Chapter Three - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Rema Dub - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Tribesman Rockers - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Freedom Call - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Jubilation Dub - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
The Entebbe Affair - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Angolian Chant - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Zion Gate - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Jungle Dub - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Dub Three - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals

If you love 70s Dub reggae then this is a crucial addition to your collection. All-time classic dub album from legendary producers Joe Gibbs and Errol Thompson, aka The Mighty Two.

TRACK LISTING

Crucial Attempt - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Behind Iron Bars - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Ghetto Slum - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Yard Music - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Iron Gate - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Power Pack - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Free The Children - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Fashion One - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Rhythm Tackle - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
Sniper - Joe Gibbs & The Professionals

‘Freakish’, the new album from brother-sister duo Joe Gideon & The Shark, was written and recorded during, as the band put it, “most turbulent times”, referring to births, and deaths. This upheaval accounts for the 3 year wait for a second album.

Debut album ‘Harum Scarum’ burst the band onto the scene, earning them a treasure trove of pull-quotes from all the right places (“an inspired band with fire at their fingertips” - NME, “a terrific debut” - Uncut), earning invites to support the likes of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Seasick Steve, with Time Out calling them “one of the best live acts we’ve seen all year”. Glamorous sister Viva (The Shark)’s showy gymnastic drumming was the perfect yin to Gideon’s bookish, charmingly awkward yang. The album showcased their compelling blend of driving alt-rock riff-o-rama, with runaway offbeat monologues and intermittent melodious poignancy.

What we have here is idiosyncratic individuality on an entertainingly eccentric, possibly borderline lunatic, scale. We have songs inspired by Werner Herzog getting shot in the gut whilst being interviewed by Mark Kermode (‘The Insignificant Bullet’), true stories about being invited three years in a row to Elvis the dog’s birthday at the Queen’s Park bandstand, references to impersonating a priest, a cat called Sylvester, ping-pong, badly negotiating the London Underground doobied up to the eyeballs and ending up at the end of the line (‘You, The Pole And The Rastafarian’).

Recorded, produced and mixed at Studio Plateaux on an island on the River Thames called Platts Eyot, by Kristian Craig Robinson - aka Capitol K - and Arp Cleveland - aka Mark - married to Viva, and chief conspirator of Archie Bronson Outfit. It was then mastered in Miami by Kramer (Bongwater, Shimmy Disc).

Debut album from stunning new brother and sister indie rock power duo, formerly of Bikini Atoll and currently one of Nick Cave's favourite bands. Joe Gideon provides guitar and unique, half-spoken lead vocals, telling darkly hilarious tales of his trips around the world (he once judged a Miss Bolivia contest!), while sister Viva provides backing on drums, keyboards and 8-track. She used to be a 'rhythmic gymnast', competing at the Barcelona Olympics and winning a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games.

‘Versa Vice’ is the debut solo record by Joe Gideon, one half of the acclaimed sibling duo Joe Gideon & The Shark. After Joe Gideon & The Shark called it a day in 2013, Gideon called on the assistance of friend, neighbour and drummer Jim Sclavunos (Grinderman / Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds) to try out an arsenal of songs and to see if Gideon could even play the guitar again, after a wrist injury put him out of action for the best part of a year. (Jim and Gideon became friends after Joe Gideon & The Shark toured with The Bad Seeds on their ‘Dig Lazarus Dig’ tour back in 2008.)

Together they laid down the foundations of ‘Versa Vice’, recorded by Rich Matthews and finished by Gideon at home, after further assistance by friends Ed Harcourt (piano / organ) and Duke Garwood (horns) on a handful of tracks. The album was mixed by Head (PJ Harvey, Smoke Fairies).

‘Versa Vice’ is a rollicking storytelling romp through themes of love (see ‘The Lady With The Metallic Voice’) and madness (see ‘Eugene Went Crazy’, inspired by photographer W Eugene Smith, or his cover of Porter Wagoner’s ‘Rubber Room’), executed sharply with a post-punk / new wave bent (‘Naked Eye’, ‘Heart Attack Girl’) or with meditative tenderness (‘The Past Is Never Over’).

Opener ‘Eve’s Rib’ is a heralding cry of intent, pierced through with Sclavunos’ fierce drums which drag you out of your chair.

Fans of Joe Gideon & The Shark will no doubt recognise and appreciate the same spirit of his previous output, with his genuinely eccentric and character-driven tales of falling apart at the seams but ‘Versa Vice’ is more than just Joe Gideon sans Shark. Let off the leash, instead of losing himself to feral abandon, Gideon’s music has become more succinct, the music more immediate, the voice louder and clearer.

Back in March 2020, singer songwriter Joe Gideon was mid-tour promoting his fresh album ‘Armagideon’ when the pandemic brought his tour, along with the entire world, to a screeching halt. In the interim, Joe Gideon has been recording his follow-up album, ‘Altered Self’, set to be released on Labelman.

‘Altered Self’ is, like its predecessor ‘Armagideon’, produced by Bad Seed Jim Sclavunos. Gideon’s unique songwriting style and surreal poetic musings are very much in the fore, and although he and Jim are the sole instrumentalists, the album offers a menagerie of sounds including loopy synths, skronky guitars, sonorous bass, and lashings of bongo madness.

Expect to hear Joe yowling and howling at the moon, screeching like a bird, as well as summoning listeners to join his ‘disco church’ congregation… and for all you entomologists, Joe promises at least two songs about insects.

Joe’s previous music project together with his sister Viva Seifert, Joe Gideon & the Shark, enjoyed some successful (international) tours in the past.

TRACK LISTING

1. ArchaeoPsychic
2. Bird Of Prey
3. The Deforming Mirrors, Part 1
4. The Deforming Mirrors, Part 2
5. Life Cycle Of The Atlas Moth
6. Arctic Moon
7. Grizzly
8. Spiders In Dreams
9. Wild & Free

Born in Bahia, Brazil, singer/ song writer Joao Gilberto (1931-2019) was a true legend of bossa nova. While Antonio Carlos Jobim set the standard for the creation of bossa nova in the mid-'50s, with songs like "The Girl From Ipanema" and "Desafinado", it was Gilberto who brilliantly reimagined and, arguably, defined the genre. This edition includes the complete contents of the album Brazil's Brilliant Joao Gilberto, which received a five- star rating from AllMusic, plus several of his greatest hits from his early years. "This vitally important record introduced Joao Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim and thus, bossa nova to the United States in 1961, a year before Stan Getz scored a hit with 'Desafinado'."- AllMusic (Richard S. Ginell)

TRACK LISTING

Desafinado
Corcovado
Samba De Uma Nota So
Se E Tarde Me Perdoa
Meditacao
Discussao
Amor Certinho
Um Abraco No Bonfa 
Doralice
O Pato
Outra Vez
Trevo De 4 Folhas (I'm Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover)
So Em Teus Bracos
Chega De Saudade
A Felicidade
O Nosso Amor
Samba De Minha Terra
Voce E Eu
O Amor Em Paz
Coisa Mais Linda 
O Barquinho
Insensatez
Manha De Carnaval

In the early seventies, Joey Gilmore embarked on his musical journey, captivating audiences with a series of unforgettable singles that showcased his raw talent and unique style. It wasn't until 1977 that the culmination of his musical endeavors arrived - the release of his highly anticipated debut record. This debut album marked a pivotal moment in Joey Gilmore's career, solidifying his reputation as a self-taught guitar virtuoso and soulful singer.

The record resonated with listeners, capturing the essence of his artistry and leaving an indelible impact. Now, after a 45-year wait, the time has finally come for a vinyl reissue of Joey Gilmore's debut album. This reissue is a celebration of his timeless music, meticulously crafted to preserve the authenticity and integrity of the original recording. Every note, every lyric and
the original design of the sleeve has been lovingly restored to transport you back to the magic of that era.

Get ready to immerse yourself in the unadulterated funk and soul of Joey Gilmore's music, as this remarkable reissue brings his debut album back to life. Allow the melodies and rhythms to envelop you, taking you on a captivating musical adventure that transcends time.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Funny Feeling
A2 Way Down Baby
A3 It’s Here
A4 Let’s Boogie On Down
Side B
B1 Get All You Want
B2 Give Me Your Love
B3 Rhythm In My Bone
B4 Rhythm In My Bone Pt. 2

After spending a long and strange career as the legendary ‘Tambourine Man’ for the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Joel Gion has emerged with an armload of his own music done his own way.

As might be expected, there are plenty of classic 1960s sounds, but the sonic palette spans every decade since, coloured with timeless touchstones of Joel’s record collection – shoe-gaze, post-punk, psychedelia, alt-country and mod/beat music, it’s all there.

Co-produced by current BJM members Collin Hegna and Rob Campanella, Apple Bonkers also features contributions by Jonestown members Daniel Allaire and Matt Hollywood, along with former BJM members Jeffrey Davies and Miranda Lee Richards. Also along for the ride: Pete Holmstrom of The Dandy Warhols, Ryan Van Kriedt of The Asteroid #4/Dead Skeletons and Jason ‘Plucky’ Anchondo of the Warlocks/Sprindrift.
Much more than getting by with a little help from his friends, Apple Bonkers sees Gion leading the trip to a psychedelic land of honest-to-goodness rock and roll. 

TRACK LISTING

1: Yes
2: Smile
3: Hairy Flowers
4: Dart
5: Change My Mind
6: Mirage
7: Radio Silence
8: Two Daisies
9: Sail On
10: Don’t Let The Fuckers Bring You Down

The memoir from Joel Gion, the tambourine playing frontman of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, one of the great contemporary cult American rock and roll bands.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre are one of the great contemporary cult American rock and roll bands. At the peak of their anarchic reign in the San Francisco underground of the mid '90s their psychedelic output was almost as prodigious and impressive as their narcotic intake. Immortalised in one of the most unforgettable rock and roll documentaries of all time, DIG! alongside their friends/rivals/nemeses, The Dandy Warhol's, in their early years when the US were obsessed with grunge, the BJM felt like a '60s anachronism. But with albums like Their Satanic Majesties Second Request and Thank God for Mental Illness, and incendiary, often chaotic, live shows, they burnished their legend as true believers and custodians of the original west coast flame; a privilege and responsibility which continues to this day when the band have a bigger and more dedicated audience than ever.

Joel Gion's memoir tells the story of the first ten years of the band from the Duke Seat. A righteous account of the hazards and pleasures of life on and off the road, In the Jingle Jangle Jungle takes use behind the scenes of the supposed behind the scenes film that cemented the band's legend. Funny as hell, shot through with the innocence and wonder of a 'percussionist' whose true role is that of the band's 'spirit animal', In the Jingle Jangle Jungle is destined to take its place alongside cult classics in the pantheon of rock and roll literature like Playing the Bass with Three Left Hands, Head On, and 45 by Bill Drummond. It will also feature a foreword by Anton Newcombe, fellow member and founder of The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

‘Electric Lines’, the new album from producer Joe Goddard, is all about connections. The title refers to the colourful cables that link the modules in his Eurorack synthesizer and to the invisible wires that run between all the different kinds of electronic music that he loves. An apt title for a record which brilliantly unites the strands of his prolific career: member of Hot Chip and The 2 Bears, songwriter, producer, DJ, Grammy award winning remixer and co-founder of the Greco-Roman label. Like Four Tet, Caribou and Jamie xx, Joe combines a thirst for experimentation, an instinctive understanding of the dancefloor and a love of left-of-centre pop music. ‘Electric Lines’ confirms his place in the front rank of British producers.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Goddard superbly mixes the off-key rotating chord electronica of his day-job at Hot Chip with post-dubstep atmospherics and the warm vintage hum and twisted modulations of analogue synths. An epic journey (even more so in the extended CD version), and one worth undertaking. Brilliantly varied but resolutely enthralling synth 'tronica.

TRACK LISTING

‘Electric Lines’
Ordinary Madness
Lose Your Love
Home
Lasers
Human Heart
Children
Truth Is Light
Nothing Moves
Electric Lines
Music Is The Answer

Bonus 12” (With Indies Exclusive LP Only)
Bumps
Funk You Up
Lose Your Love (Full
Length Version)

‘Electric Lines’, the new album from producer Joe Goddard, is all about connections. The title refers to the colourful cables that link the modules in his Eurorack synthesizer and to the invisible wires that run between all the different kinds of electronic music that he loves. An apt title for a record which brilliantly unites the strands of his prolific career: member of Hot Chip and The 2 Bears, songwriter, producer, DJ, Grammy award winning remixer and co-founder of the Greco-Roman label. Like Four Tet, Caribou and Jamie xx, Joe combines a thirst for experimentation, an instinctive understanding of the dancefloor and a love of left-of-centre pop music. ‘Electric Lines’ confirms his place in the front rank of British producers.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Goddard superbly mixes the off-key rotating chord electronica of his day-job at Hot Chip with post-dubstep atmospherics and the warm vintage hum and twisted modulations of analogue synths. An epic journey (even more so in the extended CD version), and one worth undertaking. Brilliantly varied but resolutely enthralling synth 'tronica.

TRACK LISTING

‘Electric Lines’
Ordinary Madness
Lose Your Love
Home
Lasers
Human Heart
Children
Truth Is Light
Nothing Moves
Electric Lines
Music Is The Answer

Bonus 12” (With Indies Exclusive LP Only)
Bumps
Funk You Up
Lose Your Love (Full
Length Version)

Joe Goddard has been thinking about thinking. For the past few years, the producer, songwriter, and all-round polymath of UK dance and indie music has been trying to get more in touch with his own intuition. “This idea of trying to divorce your conscious mind from the music-making process – not trying to force meaning on the music or your collaborators, allowing that process to be very empathetic.”

The wonderful result is his third solo album 'Harmonics', a record rooted in instinct and empathy. Across 14 tracks of left-of-centre dance music – touching on UK garage, house, hip-hop, pop, and disco – Goddard opens the floor for a number of collaborators. The voice of Ibibio Sound Machine’s Eno Williams rides the afro-house groove of 'Progress', while starry-eyed boom-bap track 'When Love’s Out of Fashion' features UK rapper Oranje. Former Wild Beasts frontman Hayden Thorpe lends his uniquely expressive vocal to the low-slung house of 'Summon', and Joe’s Hot Chip bandmates Alexis Taylor and Al Doyle both appear on the gleaming half-step ballad 'Heal Your Mind'. Other guests on 'Harmonics' include Tom McFarland of the London dance-pop group Jungle, Bronx-raised singer Fiorious, Guinean vocalist Falle Nioke, and UK jazz musician Alabaster DePlume.

For all the collaborators that Joe brings into his world, there are a handful of solo songs like 'Follow Me' that capture the more reflective and inward-looking side of his music. “With all the different people on this record, I’ve been working on how to respect the contribution they make and not trying to be the one who has to lead everything,” Joe says. “That follows through into the songs where I’m singing. I tried to write words without having too much of an idea of what I’m trying to express, where I’m just writing a stream of consciousness.”

This openness towards collaboration and the acceptance of people’s individual human nuances is where 'Harmonics' gets its name from. The history of dance music is replete with words like ‘ecstatic’, ‘euphoric’, and ‘uplifting’ – but here, those words do not describe hands-in-the-air clichés, but the spiritual and human side that Joe explores in his music. “Part of the reason why I wanted to call this Harmonics is that I was trying to create something very inclusive and empathetic, something harmonious,” Joe says. “There’s a lot of aggressive division in the world, and I wanted this to be loving, romantic – and fun.” This is the soulful thread that runs through all of Joe Goddard’s favourite music – genres from soul and funk, to house and garage, that were born in Black America and adopted by the UK. Harmonics is not just a title but a promise fulfilled – an unbridled celebration of compassion, collaboration, and creation.

TRACK LISTING

1. Moments Die Featuring Barrie
2. Progress Featuring Ibibio Sound Machine
3. Destiny Featuring Findia 4. New World (Flow) Featuring Fiorious
5. When Love’s Out Of Fashion Featuring Oranje
6. Follow You
7. On My Mind
8. Summon Featuring Hayden Thorpe
9. When You Call Featuring Findia
10. Out At Night
11. Mountains Featuring Alexis Taylor And Al Doyle
12. Ghosts Featuring Tom McFarland
13. Miles Away Featuring Falle Nioke
14. Revery Featuring Alabaster DePlume

In 2017 Joe Goddard released his second solo album Electric Lines, after spending the past 15 years as a member of Hot Chip, production and DJ duo The 2 Bears and founder of tastemaker dance record label Greco Roman.

This summer Goddard returns with two standalone singles, a double A-side 12”, in his own words: “I just want these next few 12"s to be simple club tools really... musically one is meant to be a deep house belter and the other is meant to be dark electro with a romantic touch- like the Boards of Canada mix of 'Midas Touch’”.

TRACK LISTING

So Much
Human Touch (Dub)

Math rock sounds like blueprints look: exact, precise, architectural. This trance-like progressive metal music with indie rock and jazz influences has been captivating and challenging listeners for decades. Bands associated with the genre include King Crimson, Black Flag, Don Caballero, Slint, American Football, Toe, Elephant Gym, Covet, and thousands more. In an online age of bedroom producers and sampled beats and loops, math rock is music that is absolutely and resolutely played: men and woman in rooms with instruments creating chaos, beauty, and beautiful chaos.

This is the first book-length look at the global phenomenon. Containing interviews with prominent musicians, producers, and critics spanning the globe, Math Rock will delight longtime fans while also serving as a primer for those who want to delve deeper. It shows why and how an intellectually complex, largely faceless, and almost entirely instrumental form of music has been capturing the attention of listeners for 50 years-and counting.

When José González became a household name across the world with the help of 250,000 coloured bouncing balls and a Sony Bravia television commercial featuring his spare and moving version of The Knife's song, "Heartbeats", it was the second time fame came calling and caused a truly remarkable phenomenon. While studying biochemistry at the university of Gothenburg, José's debut album "Veneer" was released in his Swedish homeland in 2003. It made him a national star. Featuring "Heartbeats" and ten other resonant, acoustic songs, "Veneer" turned José, a Gothenburg (via Argentina) native, into a Top Ten recording artist. This, his second album continues where "Veneer" left off. Another stunning collection of captivating songs.

TRACK LISTING

1: How Low
2: Down The Line
3: Killing For Love
4: In Our Nature
5: Teardrop
6: Abram
7: Time To Send Someone Away
8: The Nest
9: Fold
10: Cycling Trivialities 

It may be seven years since he released a solo record, but José has been anything but idle in that time. He’s delivered two albums with the band Junip, his more fulsome, electronic-edged, pop project and has toured with both the Berlin/Göteborg String Theory orchestra (in 2011), co-performing 11 reworking’s of his songs, Sidi Touré and played with Malian desert blues troupe Tinariwen (both in 2012). In 2013, Hollywood came calling when Ben Stiller commissioned José to work with Theodore Shapiro on the soundtrack to his remake of ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ and most recently, he’s contributed his version of ‘This is How We Walk On the Moon’ to the Red Hot charity compilation honouring Arthur Russell. Community and collaboration are obviously satisfying in their own ways, but now José is again stepping centre stage solo, with Vestiges & Claws.

Conceived as the natural third part in an acoustic trilogy, Vestiges & Claws is a(nother) hushed and delicate solo set that forefronts the artist and guitarist’s compellingly intimate vocal style and intricate playing technique, but it’s often strikingly rhythmic in nature and cohere’s perfectly, with hand claps and taps on the body of his instrument underlining the songs’ mantric rise-and-fall pattern, while elsewhere, over-dubbed guitar parts and multi-tracked vocal harmonies entwine to sweetly immersive effect.

The title refers to both cultural practices and biological features that survive despite having lost their original function, and to currently useful tools, ie the “claws” of modern life.

Vestiges & Claws was recorded almost entirely by José and self-produced, mostly in his Gothenburg home, using computer plug-ins to achieve a warm, analogue sound. He prefers working alone, mainly for artistic reasons. “There were a couple of things that enabled me to complete this record: one was curiosity, to be able to play percussion and do a lot of harmonies and also to produce and mix the album; the other was aesthetics. I love to listen to Arthur Russell and Shuggie Otis, to music that has been done mostly by one person in their solitary state.”

As José sees it, the record is his personal, “zoomed-out eye on humanity on a small, pale blue dot in a cold, sparse and unfriendly space. The amazing fact that we are all here, an attempt at encouraging us to understand ourselves and to make the best of the one life we know we have – after birth and before death.”

Few people have managed to become quite so celebrated worldwide, quite as quietly as José González has. Local Valley, his long awaited fourth album, serves as a relieving reminder that you don’t have to be loud to be heard.

Since his debut single ‘Crosses’ back in 2003, both he and his music have remained dependably quiet and unassuming. Local Valley calmly exhibits his singular ability to communicate with such modesty and power. Beginning with the sun-dappled ‘El Invento’, the first song he’s recorded in Spanish (the native tongue of his Argentinian heritage), and ending with the intimate yet rhapsodic ‘Honey Honey’. Along the way it engages in his signature melodic and metrical hypnotism, showcasing his remarkable fingerpicking skills, while there’s further evidence of his love for music from around the world (he references an inspiring jam session in Gothenburg with Niger artist Bombino) and for the first time, the introduction of a drum machine on a few songs, further widening José´s musical spectrum.

The record, full of his trademark bittersweet pastoralism, includes what González considers “my most accomplished songs to date”. While continuing his tradition of reinterpreting songs by other artists, with ‘Line Of Fire' he picks one written for Junip, the band he formed with friends in 1998. That the original version has now been streamed some 60 million times suggest it, like other songs he’s covered, is now part of the songwriting canon.

Local Valley, González cheerfully acknowledges, “is similar to my other solo albums in sound and spirit, a natural continuation of the styles I’ve been adding through the years both solo and with Junip. I set out to write songs in the same vein: short, melodic and rhythmical, a mixture of classic folk singer songwriting and songs with influences from Latin America and Africa. It’s more outward looking than my earlier works, but no less personal. On the contrary, I feel more comfortable than ever saying that this album reflects me and my thoughts right now.”

TRACK LISTING

A1. El Invento
A2. Visions
A3. The Void
A4. Horizons
A5. Head On
A6. Valle Local
B1. Lasso In
B2. Lilla G
B3. Swing
B4. Tjomme
B5. Line Of Fire
B6. En Stund På Jorden
B7. Honey Honey

"Veneer" encapsulates José's eclectic influences – Elliott Smith, flamenco, Joy Division, bossa nova, along with undeniable echoes of Nick Drake, Will Oldham, Tim Buckley (and even a hint of Paul Simon), yet, across an album's worth of intimate episodes José's achievement is to nod to these antecedents while fashioning a sublimely emotional signature that is undeniably all his own - a unique and compelling new addition to the singer-songwriter firmament. Using just his own dextrously finger-picked classical guitar and captivating voice - part João Gilberto, part Paul Simon – José's music is as economical as it is seductive; stark but effortlessly melodious songwriting whose confessional, gently provocative lyrics (all sung in perfect English) are, by turns, poignant, intriguing and life-affirming. Recorded with the minimum of fuss at home on basic equipment, the eleven songs that grace "Veneer", José's bewitching debut album, blend sophisticated Latin passion with almost Bergman-esque moments of luminous stillness.

Following Jimi Goodwin’s announcement that he’ll be supporting Elbow on their April 2014 UK arena tour, we’re very pleased to reveal details of his debut solo album, ‘Odludek’, which will be released on Heavenly Recordings on Monday 24th March 2014.

This is the first new music release from Jimi since Doves’s Kingdom Of Rust in 2009 so it’s set to be a very special release indeed.

Jimi on Odludek:
“I wanted to make this mad mixtape… the kind you’d pass back and forth with your mates; eclectic as fuck. That’s the way we’ve all discovered music over the years isn’t it? We join our own dots to make it all make sense. As I got into making the record, it felt like I was proving something to myself, making a point that I could do all this on my own. You know — I can play bass, I can play guitar, I can orchestrate. As the methods changed, the original concept stayed intact. It’s me, powering through ideas, kapow kapow, no pause for breath. It’s not trying to be wilfully eclectic; it’s just a reflection of how I schizophrenically devour music.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Everything you loved about the Doves - Jimi is, after all, the main songwriter- but with a more playful, homemade bent. Fantastic.

Recorded by renowned producer husband Daniel Ledwell in their studio built close to the home they share in Nova Scotia, Grant’s fifth full-length studio album features a cornucopia of instruments including flutes, harps, violins, congas, wurlitzer, piano and lap steel all that enhance the depth and subtleties of her effortless singing.

Compostela translates to “Field of Stars” Or ‘Star Field’ and there is a band of stars on Compostela including Sarah Harmer, Buck 65, Ron Sexmsith, Rose Cousins, Don Kerr, Justin Rutledge, and Rachel Sermanni. Grant has garnered critical acclaim from across the globe. Her music has featured in hit TV shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Heartland with Jenn’s song “Dreamer” providing the theme song for the show.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bombshell 03:17
2. Trailer Park 03:44
3. Spades 03:48
4. Stranger In The Night 03:37
5. Bring Me A Rose 03:53
6. Barcelona 03:53
7. No One's Gonna Love You (Quite Like I Do) 03:50
8. Canadian Maple Grove 03:07
9. Wild Animal 03:16
10. Spanish Moon 04:32
11. American Man 03:18
12. Hummingbird 03:27
13. Mauve 04:18

This EP features the best of Grant, debuting songs from Aqua Alta, (Grant’s undersea dream pop side project) a Leonard Cohen cover, reworked visions and new releases. Clairvoyant also sees Grant joining forces once again with Buck 65.

TRACK LISTING

1. Epic Sweep (AquaAlta) 03:56
2. Feat: Buck 65 - Spades 03:50
3. I've Got Your Fire (2014 Version) 04:30
4. Lover Lover Lover 03:57
5. Norwegian Jewel (AquaAlta) 02:47
6. No One's Gonna Love You (Quite Like I Do) 03:54

This one-off live recording saw John performing much of his celebrated catalogue with the 90-piece BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, with arrangements by his long-time collaborator Fiona Brice.

We've just managed to get our hands on a few copies of this album that was originally available on Record Store Day. 

Includes a download code.

Exclusive silver vinyl limited to 1000 copies in the UK / Eire.

After a breakthrough year that saw his exceptional solo debut "Queen Of Denmark" win MOJO’s album of 2010 and countless other accolades John Grant hasn’t rested on his laurels but created a follow-up that underlines his uncanny and charismatic talents. Recorded in Iceland and featuring Sinead O’Connor on guest vocals, the brilliant "Pale Green Ghosts" adds sublime notes of dark, gleaming electronica to the anticipated velveteen ballads, calling on all of Grant’s influences and tastes, presenting an artist at the peak of his powers.

It’s been an extraordinary journey for John Grant, from a point where he thought he would never make music again or escape a life of substance abuse to winning awards and accolades, collaborating with Sinead O’Connor, Rumer and Hercules & Love Affair and having his music featured in the award-winning film Weekend.

It’s a journey that’s taken him from his birthplace in Buchanan, Michigan to be raised in Parker, Colorado, studying languages in Germany and, after his band The Czars split up, basing himself in New York, London, Berlin and, most recently, Iceland, where the bulk of Pale Green Ghosts was recorded. It’s also been a journey from The Czars’ folk/country noir to the lush ‘70s FM alchemy of Queen Of Denmark to the astonishing fusion of sounds that lifts Pale Green Ghosts to even giddier heights.

As if to acknowledge his journey, Grant has named the album after the opening title track, which documents the drives that he’d regularly take through the ‘80s, from Parker to the nearby metropolis of Denver, to the new wave dance clubs that have inspired the electronic elements of Pale Green Ghosts, and later on to visit the boyfriend - the ‘TC’ of Queen Of Denmark’s ‘TC & Honeybear’ - that inspired many of that album’s heartbreaking scenarios.

“I’d take the I-25, between Denver and Boulder, which was lined with all these Russian olive trees, which are the pale green ghosts of the title: they have this tiny leaves with silver on the back, which glow in the moonlight,” Grant explains. “The song is about wanting to get out of a small town, to go out into the world and become someone and made my mark.”

That Grant has made his mark is blatantly clear from how Queen Of Denmark was rapturously received. “Like a couple of similarly intense classics before it – Antony & The Johnsons’ I Am A Bird Now and Bon Iver’s For Emma… Queen Of Denmark sounds like a record its creator has been waiting his whole life to make,” MOJO concluded. Another measure of achievement, and the journey, is that one classic that Grant first heard in those new wave clubs was Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Mandinka’. Two decades later, O’Connor has not only covered the title track of ‘Queen Of Denmark’ on her latest album How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?, but supplies goose-bumping backing vocals on Pale Green Ghosts.

Sinead’s presence is a surprise, but not compared to the album’s portion of synthesisers and beats – unless you already know Grant’s enduring love of vintage synth-pop and industrial dance, and more current electronic acts such as Trentemøller and Mock & Toof. “Electronica is a huge part of my personality and my influences, though I don’t think many people see that fitting in to the John Grant image, whatever that is,” he says. There were occasional electronic undertows to Czars songs and two tracks (‘That’s the Good News’ and ‘Supernatural Defibrillator"’) on the deluxe edition of Queen Of Denmark were dance tracks.

One of those prime influences has even produced Pale Green Ghosts with Grant: Birgir Þórarinsson, a.k.a. Biggi Veira, of Iceland’s electronic pioneers Gus Gus. Queen of Denmark had been recorded in Texas with fellow Bella Union mates Midlake as his backing band, and Grant intended to return there to record again with the band’s rhythm section of McKenzie Smith and Paul Alexander. But a trip beforehand to see more of Iceland, after he’d first played the Iceland Airwaves festival in 2011, led to meeting Biggi, who invited Grant to his studio in Reykjavik. The two tracks the pair recorded – ‘Pale Green Ghosts’ and ‘Black Belt’ – convinced Grant he had to make the entire record there.

If Queen Of Denmark is Grant’s ‘70s album, channeling the spirits of Karen Carpenter and Bread, then Pale Green Ghosts is his ’80s album. Of the electronic tracks, the title track is a panoramic, brooding classic, while ‘Sensitive New Age Guy’ and ‘Black Belt’ are the tracks that you might dance to in new wave clubs. ‘You Don’t Have To’ is a classic example of Grant’s influences blending together, in a reworked arrangement of a track unveiled during concert tours in 2011. It also features the distinct spacey Moog sounds that are familiar to lovers of Queen Of Denmark, while McKenzie and Alexander play on ‘Vietnam’ and ‘It Doesn’t Matter To Him’. Grant’s touring partner, keyboardist Chris Pemberton, plays the gorgeous piano coda on the album’s tumultuous finale ‘Glacier’.

TRACK LISTING

1. Pale Green Ghosts
2. Black Belt
3. GMF
4. Vietnam
5. It Doesn’t Matter To Him
6. Why Don’t You Love Me Anymore
7. You Don’t Have To
8. Sensitive New Age Guy
9. Ernest Borgnine
10. I Hate This Town
11. Glacier

John Grant, former singer/songwriter with Bella Union cult favorites The Czars, finally returns in April 2010 with an extraordinary debut solo album made with Midlake.

Everyone has a favorite band or singer they reckon is subject to criminal neglect. That John Grant’s effortlessly rich, expansive baritone, couched in typically heartbreaking, lush melody, hasn’t found a wider audience many would consider a crime. But no longer. Because Grant’s first solo album is so undeniably great that the world will surely listen.

It’s a record of gravitas and grace, of FM melody magic laced with raw emotional bleeding. It asks why relationships are roulette and love is hell in a last-ditch attempt at self-improvement and atonement after years of alcohol and cocaine dependency. And on top, to further the album’s brilliance, Grant’s backing band on the album are Bella Union label-mates Midlake, contributing their most empathic ‘70s-style soft-rock know-how. Put simply, “Queen Of Denmark” is the record Grant’s been waiting his whole life to make.
Not that the Czars didn’t hit their own heights. After emerging from Denver, Colorado, rave reviews were the norm… “Long distinguished by John Grant’s superlative baritone, ‘Goodbye’ reeks of wistful, melancholic class… as meticulous and complete-sounding as the best works by Mercury Rev or The Flaming Lips” said Uncut about The Czars’ final album.
“Queen Of Denmark” was recorded in Denton in late 2008 through 2009 in the studio downtime while Midlake were recording their own record. The album moves through simple piano settings via an infusion of period-perfect synths that epitomise the lonely mood. There’s flute from Midlake frontman Tim Smith on the dreamiest cut ‘Marz’ and velvet strings on ‘Dreams’, which imagines Scott Walker influenced by Patsy Cline. There is pure longing in the opening ‘TC And Honeybear’ and bitterly sarcastic anger in the magnificent title track finale… Pain, hope, fear, regret and self-discovery… “Queen of Denmark” has it all… framed within some of the finest songs you’ll hear in this or any other year…

TRACK LISTING

1. TC & Honeybear
2. Marz
3. Where Dreams Go To Die
4. Sigourney Weaver
5. Chicken Bones
6. Silver Platter Club
7. It’s Easier
8. Outer Space
9. Jesus Hates Faggots
10. Caramel
11. Leopard & Lamb
12. Queen Of Denmark

Produced by longtime friend Cate Le Bon, ‘Boy from Michigan’ is Grant’s most autobiographical and melodic work to date. Grant stopped being a boy in Michigan aged twelve, when his family moved to Denver, Colorado, shifting rust to bible belt, a further vantage point to watch collective dreams unravel. Across 12 tracks, Grant lays out his past for careful cross-examination. In a decade of making records by himself, he has playfully experimented with mood, texture and sound, all the better for actualizing the seriousness of his thoughts. At one end of his musical rainbow, he is the battle-scarred piano-man, at the other, a robust electronic auteur. ‘Boy from Michigan’ seamlessly marries both.

With Le Bon at the helm, Grant pared back his zingers, maximizing the emotional impact of the melodies. A clarinet forms the bedrock of a song. One pre-chorus feels lifted from vintage Human League. There is a saxophone solo. ‘Boy from Michigan’ ultimately swings between ambient and progressive, calm and livid. The album’s narrative journey opens with Grant at his artistic prettiest, three songs drawn from his pre-Denver life (the Michigan Trilogy, as Grant calls them): the title track, “The Rusty Bull,” and “County Fair.” Each draws the listener in to a specific sense of place, before untangling its significance with a rich cast-list of local characters, often symbolizing the uncultivated faith of childhood.

Elsewhere, tracks like “Mike and Julie” and “The Cruise Room” offer an affecting plunge deep into Grant’s late teenage years in Denver, while the midpoint of the album is highlighted by “Best in Me” and “Rhetorical Figure,” a pair of skittish, scholarly dance tunes that build on the lineage of Grant’s electropop heroes, Devo. Childhood as a horror narrative is the theme of “Dandy Star,” which observes a tiny Grant watching the Mia Farrow horror movie ‘See No Evil’ on an old family TV set, and finally on “The Only Baby” (released this January) Grant removes his razor blade from a pocket to cleanly slit the throat of Trump’s America, authoring a scathing epitaph to an era of acute national exposition.

Though he has lived in Iceland since 2011 – the same year he was also diagnosed HIV-positive – Grant spent his childhood and formative years in the US and maintains US citizenship. Growing up, Grant was subjected to a deeply ingrained hatred of anyone perceived as homosexual at school. Following the demise of his first band The Czars, Grant left music entirely for over five years, only to achieve greater success as a solo artist (his acclaimed 2015 solo LP ‘Grey Tickles, Black Pressure’ went Top Five in the UK). Grant has sold out Royal Albert Hall, performed at Glastonbury, Latitude + more, and his song “Snug Snacks” was featured on Pitchfork's 'Songs That Define LGBTQ Pride'. BBC Radio 6 host Mary Anne Hobbs described Grant’s music: "Most songwriting, even if it's based on a true story ... is embellished in some way. But John's lyrics — they're so true they might as well be written in blood."

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*** NPN - email mail@piccadillyrecords.com before 25 June 21 to be entered in the draw 

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STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Absolutely classic modern day John Grant this, filled with the wry self-deprecation and endlessly witty lyricism of Queen Of Denmark / Pale Green Ghosts era but swimming with the shimmering disco synths and snapping electronic groove of the more recent LP's. It's a PERFECT mix and is quite possibly his strongest outing to date. Another outstanding LP from this Piccadilly favourite.

TRACK LISTING

1. Boy From Michigan
2. County Fair
3. The Rusty Bull
4. The Cruise Room
5. Mike And Julie
6. Best In Me
7. Rhetorical Figure
8. Just So You Know
9. Dandy Star
10. Your Portfolio
11. The Only Baby
12. Billy

‘Fireflies’ is the penultimate song from the Deluxe Version of John Grant’s debut solo album; ‘Queen Of Denmark’ - which was released on the seminal UK label Bella Union in 2010.

Recorded in Texas in collaboration with members of Midlake, the album was heralded as an “Instant Classic” by Mojo Magazine and went on to be selected as their choice for Best Album of that year.

The Independent described it as "a near-perfect marriage of his warm baritone with their lush woodwind and keyboard textures” and the BBC cited it as "one of the most deeply satisfying debut albums of recent times.

This version of this plaintive ballad replays it’s beautiful piano & vocal melodies.

It's been a hell of a recent past for John Grant, who, aside from getting the unquestionable delight of getting to see our faces every time he comes to Manchester (and us, his), has produced a superb album with Stephen Mallinder of Cab Voltaire and Wrangler fame under their collaborative moniker, 'Creep Show', and a string of live dates in the diary. All of this while recording his oft-teased new LP, 'Love Is Magic'. 

'Metamorphosis' kicks things off, bringing together stabbing saw-waves and Grant's unmistakeable vocal acrobatics, tumbling atop off-piste melodic turns and new-beat percussives, setting a brilliantly warped precident before what may well be Grant's finest work to date in the stunning titular piece, 'Love Is Magic'. Treading familiar minor-key ground, we get a solemn but hopeful progression played out by stabbing synth lines and huge gated snare hits, covering all the sonic space necessary while keeping the mess down to a minimum and allowing John's voice to really shine before launching into the mindblowingly beautiful chorus (the vocal harmonies, attributed to Paul Denton of Midlake have an ethereal and dynamic momentum that is unmistakeable) and staggered but determined forward-thrust. 

I could keep running through the tracks, but some of our readership would doubtless give up or expire before i'd finished blathering on, so i'll keep it to a few key points. 'Smug Cunt' while clearly filled with the wry venom we've come to know and love from Grant is an unimaginably deep cascade of dytopian synth pulses and resonant bass,  launching into a spine-tinglingly effective culmination of gloom and euphoria. 'He's Got His Mothers Hips' brings the camp disco vibes spectacularly, with a truncated snappy analogue bassline swirling around beneath the syncopated vox before exploding into a major key serotonin release in the hand-waving chorus. 

Move on a little and the spoken-word commentary of 'Diet Gum' takes an admittedly hilarious step into the leftfield, perfectly illustrating JG's clever tongue-in-cheek sense of humour 'Did you really think you could seduce me in a leisure suit?... well.... fair enough' and captivating presence before bringing it back to the sublime with the tear-inducing majesty of 'Is He Strange'. Stunning piano and vocal harmonies meet together into the perfect storm of majesty and misery. The closing duo of 'The Common Snipe' and 'Touch And Go' are once again perfectly matched, with the minimalistic backline and flickering sample and hold synth lines peaking lightly behind the former, and the anthemic, rolling stagger of the latter closing off a stunning and career-defining collection. It's a testament to Grant's sphere of influence and ability as a songwriter and producer that so many influences can be absorbed into his sound without sounding forced or disjointed. A brilliantly melodic, heart-warmingly anomalous wonder.  

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Once again, John Grant pulls out a diverse range of influences (we've seen what records he buys!) into a cohesive and superb combination of off-piste vocal timbres, mind-melting synths and spine-tingling melodies. Punctuated with moments of introspective melancholy but quickly resolved into a warm bath of huge rock progressions and gritty synth swirls. Absolutely brilliant, and undoubtedly the best work of his career.

TRACK LISTING

1 Metamorphosis
2 Love Is Magic
3 Tempest
4 Preppy Boy
5 Smug Cunt
6 He's Got His Mother's Hips
7 Diet Gum
8 Is He Strange
9 The Common Snipe
10 Touch And Go

‘Marz’ is the second song from John Grant’s debut solo album ‘Queen Of Denmark’ which was heralded as an “Instant Classic” by Mojo Magazine and went on to be selected as their choice for Best Album of 2010.

Recorded in Texas in collaboration with members of Midlake and released on seminal UK label Bella Union, the BBC described it as "one of the most deeply satisfying debut albums of recent times" with The Guardian citing “songs of impossible love recalling Dennis Wilson's masterpiece, ‘Pacific Ocean Blue’."

This Official Music Box Co version of this bittersweet classic is an evocative echo of the gold-dust in the original track. So why not go to where the green rivers flow and…

Following the runaway success of his last LP, Boy From Michigan, which crashed the UK Top 10 back in July 2021, legendary singer-songwriter John Grant returns with his hugely-anticipated sixth album, The Art Of The Lie.

Released 14th June via longtime label Bella Union, The Art Of The Lie is Grant’s most opulent, cinematic, luxurious album yet and confirms Grant’s status as a modern electronic auteur. Grant likens the musical flavours of The Art of the Lie to the sumptuous Vangelis soundtrack for Bladerunner or the Carpenters if John Carpenter were also a member. While undeniably a John Grant record, nestling humour into tragedy, bleeding anger into compassion, there is a musical ambition and nerve to ‘The Art of the Lie’ which offsets its most political and personal moments.

The Art of The Lie was produced by Grant and Grammy-nominated producer Ivor Guest who is perhaps best known for his work with Grace Jones & Brigitte Fontaine. The album features an array of celebrated musicians including Dave Okumu, Seb Rochford and Robin Mullarkey.

TRACK LISTING

1. All That School For Nothing
2. Marbles
3. Father
4. Mother And Son
5. Twistin Scriptures
6. Meek AF
7. It's A Bitch
8. Daddy
9. The Child Catcher
10. Laura Lou
11. Zeitgeist

Early October saw John Grant turn in a truly fabulous performance as part of the BBC Philharmonic Presents Series which was broadcast across 6Music and other BBC networks. This one-off live recording saw John performing much of his celebrated catalogue with the 60-piece BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, with arrangements by his long-time collaborator Fiona Brice.

So good was the performance, and also in response to public demand, Bella Union are delighted to announce that the recording will be released in a few weeks time on 1st December. The recording should also serve as a memento (of sorts) for John's upcoming sold-out orchestral tour with the Royal Northern Sinfonia which will see him performing in some of the UK's most prestigious venues.

TRACK LISTING

It Doesn’t Matter To Him
Sigourney Weaver
Vietnam
Marz
Fireflies
Where Dreams Go To Die
Caramel
Glacier
T C & Honeybear
It’s Easier
GMF
Pale Green Ghosts
Outer Space
You Don’t Have To
Drug
Queen Of Denmark

Composed by Justin Greaves (Crippled Black Phoenix).
All new cover art from Jay Shaw.
Sleeve notes from director Sean Hogan, composer Justin Greaves & artist Jay Shaw.

A first for Death Waltz as this will be the labels first foray into new contemporary film music.

The Devil’s Business was released to theaters and DVD in 2012 with a USA release happening late 2013 , The film is a gritty low budget satanic gangster film that shares its DNA with Ben Wheatly’s Kill List.

The score by Justin Greaves the main protagonist of Crippled Black Phoenix is a beautiful eerie listen, minimal yet epic and soaked in a smokey atmosphere that fits perfectly alongside the other releases in the Death Waltz Cannon.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1:
My Enemies I Fear Not, But Protect Me From My Friends

The Hit

The Telling

Losing

The Whistler

Side 2:
Losing (spooky Version)

A Lesson In Dilemma

Business Is Good

The Hit (Alternate Version)
A Lesson In Dilemma (Full Edit)

James Green is a member of the Manchester / Leeds / Sheffield ensemble Big Eyes who've previously released stuff on Pickled Egg. "Tempers" is James' first solo outing and comprises of 14 delicate instrumental guitar pieces. All are first or second take and are either solo guitar or two tracks maximum. The CD is limited to 250 copies, and comes beautifully packaged in a lino-print sleeve. A must for fans of John Fahey, Bert Jansch, Jack Rose and The Dirty Three.

New album from Jacques Greene, “Dawn Chorus”. The record is a bold step forward and his most collaborative project to date, featuring additional production and instruments from film composer Brian Reitzell (Lost In Translation), cello by London’s Oliver Coates, additional production from Clams Casino and vocal contributions from ambient artist Julianna Barwick, rapper Cadence Weapon and singers Ebhoni and Rochelle Jordan.

If the Canadian artist’s 2017 debut album “Feel Infinite” was the soundtrack to a dream pregame – amping you up to lose yourself in the club – then “Dawn Chorus” resides in the post-rave reflective moment. A time of heightened sensuality and latent possibility.

Now 29, Greene has been making music ‘about the club’ for over a decade. His sound could be described as an emotional haze, in that its balance of sonic elements work to illuminate the overlapping feelings that lie between the familiar binaries. “Dawn Chorus” opens with “Serenity”, an all-back-to-mine breaks tune that Greene describes as ‘a weird, euphoric take on Chemical Brothers.’ Lead single “Night Service” is a neon-lit hip-house anthem helmed by Canadian rapper Cadence Weapon, who drapes a love letter to the club around Greene’s acid-dipped synths. Elsewhere, “Distance” blends ambient textures with sampled birdsong and the snaking lines of Oliver Coates’s cello. Mega. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Serenity
2. Drop Location
3. Do It Without You
4. Night Service
5. Sel
6. Let Go (feat. Machinedrum & Rochelle Jordan)
7. For Love
8. Sibling
9. Whenever
10. Understand
11. Distance
12. Stars

Jacques Greene returns with an essential new work alongside Joel Ford, Satomimagae (RVNG) and Leann a Macomber.

"Fantasy" pushes Greene further into breaks and ambient house influences than ever before. Since releasing his last studio album, "Dawn Chorus", in 2019, Jacques Greene has scored the short film Exhaust, starring Jimmie Fails (‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco’), Glenn Kaino’s installation piece ‘Tidepools’(alongside Nosaj Thing), and video game Home-school.

Jacques has released remixes for artists such as Para One, DC Salas, Amtrac, Kllo, Elohim, Kacy Hill and Montreal disco legends Lime. He's even released an NFT alongside single, "Promises" (!!).

Across six tracks, there's a delicate air of fluttery euphoria throughout, punctuated (and sidechained) with some deliciously dynamic breaks, electro and future-garage grooves.

'Finely-sculpted excursions into the hybrid house / garage / bass sound that he helped spark around the turn of the decade, an unwaveringly great set of tracks that are buoyant, melodic and pretty much mesmerising.'

TRACK LISTING

A1. Taurus
A2. Memory Screen + Fantas
A3. Restless
B1. Relay
B2. Sky River (feat Satomimagae)
B3. Leave Here

Can you believe this is Jacques Greene's debut album? I certainly can't. The LuckyMe founder has been prolific for the last 7 years at least (cue moments of bleary eyed reflection) through work on his pioneering label alongside collaborations with Night Slugs, μ-zig and many more. Practically carrying the baton of neon-lit, futuristic bass music forwards since its inception, the Toronto native crafted a musical blueprint that's inspired a generation who were raised up and looked to hip-hop, RnB, house, techno and of course the countless variations of soundsystem culture that have emerged from the UK. Finally presenting a full bodies long player, the Toronto native respectfully pays tribute to all aspects of club culture, both now and by-gone. Anyone who's lost their shit to repetitive music at some point in their life should be able to identify with the sounds and rhythms on offer here; although not all are not entirely tailored towards club play. Tracks like opener "Fall" shimmer and undulate with all the beauty of a new day, with bursts of futuristic sheen and new industry chaos contained within disc 1's closing track, "Dundas Collapse". There's obviously plenty for the modern dancefloors too, "You Can't Deny" and "Real Time" as likely to soundtrack an epic night at the Warehouse Project as it will garner Saturday night radio play. Greene joins the ranks of other new schoolers, Zomby, Bashmore, Hud Mo and Rustie - able to connect the instruments and sounds of right now to the minds and bodies to the demographic absorbing them. No easy feat when you consider how disparate our modern, post-everything world has become...

TRACK LISTING

Fall
Feel Infinite
To Say
True Ft How To Dress Well
I Won’t Judge
Dundas Collapse
Real Time
Cycles
You Can’t Deny
Afterglow
You See All My Light

The ‘Fantasy’ EP saw Jacques Greene push further into his downtempo and ambient influences than ever before. Now he returns with a special club-tested, extended edit of key EP track ‘Relay’, alongside an incredible Skee Mask remix.

Said mix is frenetic, cerebral and progressive - pairing heavenly synth ripples with both jagged breakbeats and skitty jungle-esque rhythms. Swamped in rich pads and deep bass plumes it recalls the hedonistic & expansive bliss associated with labels like R&S, B12 and XL whilst injecting an urgent and forward-glancing take on vintage dance tropes.

In it's extended form. "Relay" is allowed all the space it needs to dance around that evocative bass and synth interplay. Glowing radiant, moving seductively, with perfectly poised breakdowns and drops; it's the glistening burst of tension and release that every dancefloor needs as it veers into post-peak exuberance and revelry.

'Immaculately produced and mixed, and profoundly effective - both for the pleasure centers it fires, and also for the associations it triggers. It feels like a genetic memory passed down across generations of ravers, encoded in their very DNA.' - Pitchfork.

TRACK LISTING

1. Relay (Skee Mask Remix)
2. Relay (Extended Edit)

‘Bodysong’ is an album by Radiohead member Jonny Greenwood as well as a soundtrack to a film of the same name. On the album, Greenwood fuses elements of jazz, electronic, classical and experimental music.

The soundtrack was originally released in 2003. Now remastered by Christian Wright.

TRACK LISTING

Moon Trills
Moon Mall
Trench
Iron Swallow
Clockwork Tin Soldiers
Convergence
Nudnik Headache
Peartree
Splitter
Bode Radio / Glass Light / Broken Hearts
24 Hour Charleston
Milky Drops From Heaven
Tehellet

Spencer is an upcoming biographical drama film directed by Pablo Larraín (No, Jackie) and written by Steven Knight, based on the later years of the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, and starring Kristen Stewart in the titular role. The score is written by Jonny Greenwood, the lead guitarist and keyboardist of the alternative rock band Radiohead, who has written a number of acclaimed film scores such as Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood and Norwegian Wood.

TRACK LISTING

Arrival
Ancient And Modern
Calling The Whipper In
Spencer
The Pearls
Invention For Harpsicord And Compression
Frozen Three
The Boys
Delusion / Miracle
Partita In Five For Two Organs
Home / Lacrimosa
Crucifix
Press Call
New Currency

“The year's indisputable soundtrack pinnacle” - Peter Travers, ABC “The year’s best film score” - The New Yorker

“Greenwood’s latest score - and the one that might be likeliest to finally win him an Oscar” - Stereogum 

Jane Campion’s masterful ‘The Power of the Dog’ is the most honoured film of the year. The critically acclaimed original score by Academy Award and BAFTA-nominated composer Jonny Greenwood has won Best Score at 13 major critics organisations and is now SCL nominated for Outstanding Original Score for a Studio Film.

This incredible score recently received the Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score, BAFTA nomination for Best Original Music, Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Score along with loads of other nominations. As well as the score, the film has been incredibly popular this awards season, picking up many nominations.

TRACK LISTING

1. 25 Years
2. Requiem For Phil
3. So Soft
4. Detuned Mechanical Piano
5. Prelude
6. The Ravine
7. Mimicry
8. West Alone
9. Miss Nancy Arrives
10. Figured It Out
11. Viola Quartet
12. Best Friends
13. Paper Flowers
14. A Lovely Evening
15. They Were Mine
16. West
17. Psalm 22

The tenor sax legend’s 1957 Blue Note debut. Recorded at the (original) Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey, on 17th April 1956. Featuring a top-drawer backing band of Wynton Kelly (piano), Curley Russell (bass) and Max Roach (drums). Griffin’s composition ‘Mil Dew’ is one of the most intense album-openers in Blue Note history.
Elsewhere there are two other fine Griffin originals (‘Chicago Calling’, ‘Nice And Easy’) and classic takes on ‘These Foolish Things’, ‘Lover Man’ and ‘It’s All Right With Me’ . The album perfectly showcases Griffin’s fiery, hard-driving, technically masterful style. 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Mil Dew
A2. Chicago Calling
A3. These Foolish Things
A4. The Boy Next Door
B1. Nice & Easy
B2. It's Alright With Me
B3. Lover Man

An extremely rare album left by Detroit-based jazz keyboard player Johnny Griffith known for the album "Together, Togetherness" on RCA. An album covering "From The Music Connection" with Freddie Redd Quartet and Jackie McLean. The Music From "The Connection" was composed by jazz pianist Freddie Redd for Jack Gelber's 1959 play The Connection. This first recording of the music was released on the Blue Note label in 1960. It features performances by Redd and Jackie McLean Jack Gelber originally planned for the play to feature improvised music performed by jazz musicians who would also play small roles in the production. Freddie Redd, however, persuaded Gelber to include his original score. Redd re-recorded the score later in 1960 as Music from the Connection.

In 1974 The pianist Johnny Griffith, who was a member of the prestigious Motown rhythm section "Funk Brothers", covered the album "The Connection" by Freddie Red as a whole album, playing electric piano here, which really changes the vibe of the music - and the players are supposedly a host of Motown studio musicians - playing jazz here, but with a nice funky soul undercurrent. Originally released on Detroit Geneva Label.

Pianist Johnny Griffith can be heard on classic Motown sides, as well as on recordings from other Detroit-area labels. Like Motown's other pianists, Joe Hunter and Earl Van Dyke, Griffith's had an extensive musical background.

Signed to Motown's Jazz Workshop label, he recorded the albums "Detroit Jazz" and "The Right Side" of Lefty Edwards. When the march of the Motown hits began, Griffith started playing on sessions for their R&B/Pop acts. But rather than signing a work-for-hire contract with Motown like other musicians, Griffith remained a freelancer, doing other dates and sessions in New York and nearby Chicago.The Motown hits that Griffith played on include: Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", his celeste trills are heard on "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)", adding Wurlitzer electric piano on both Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and the Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", organ on the Supremes' "Stop in the Name of Love and organ and shotgun effects on Junior Walker and the All Stars' "Shotgun.

Griffith's non-Motown hits are with Edwin Starr, Jackie Wilson, The Chi-Lites, and Young-Holt Unlimited's "Soulful Strut" In the '90s, Griffith was still active on the Detroit club scene.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Sister Salvation (5:01)
A2. Music Forever (3:46)
A3. Who Killed Cock Robin? (5:04)
B1. Wiggling (4:26)
B2. OD (Over Dose) (3:23)
B3. Time To Smile (3:43)
B4. Jim Dunn's Delama (4:03)

Music For Dreams are proud to announce the release of Jacob Gurevitsch’ new album El Terreno. It is the fourth LP from the Danish guitarist with the Spanish guitar,whose world of misty, Mediterranean romance is charming listeners all over the world.

El Terreno is named after the neighborhood in Palma, Mallorca, in which Gurevitsch wrote it over the past couple of years. The tranquility and beauty of this setting is reflected in the music: eight songs of Gurevitsch’ Spanish guitar meandering through the cobblestone streets, idling on town squares frozen in the afternoon sun, drifting on the perfumed evening air.

Two special guests feature on the album. On ‘For Your Love’ the legendary Cuban jazz trumpetist Arturo Sandoval is invited to play along. And on ‘Santa Teresa’ the esteemed Danish rock singer Annisette lends her characteristic smoky phrases to the drama. Throughout the album, Gurevitsch’ Spanish guitar is accompanied by a band of drums, percussion, bass and keyboards.

The release of El Terreno comes after Jacob Gurevitsch’ national tour, which sees him play two sold out nights at DR Koncerthuset on November 1 and 2.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A selection of drifting airy melodies and ambience-rich wooze from the Danish Guitarist. Brilliantly paced and ram-packed with exactly the sort of ethereal breeze we'd expect from yer' man JG.

TRACK LISTING

1. November Night
2. Everything I Wanted
3. Santa Teresa
4. Morning View
5. For Your Love
6. El Terreno
7. Villa Longa
8. Luna Love

At the heart of Jacob Gurevitsch's latest album is a desire for collaboration, and with Spanish Grammy nominated singer Buika, and Danish chanteuse Alice Carreiri at the helm, the Danish guitarist delivers, with his third album Yellow Spaceship.

Rich in cross cultural flows, dipping into flamenco and bolero, jazz and with flourishes of Italian and French soundtrack motifs, Jacob has laced together 10 sublime tracks whilst unleashing his impressive Spanish guitar skills, a craft which begun in his late twenties, complimenting his soul, jazz and funk grounding, instilled as a young, gigging guitarist.

Phenomenally, Jacob has built a mammoth fanbase online with his streaming track counter reading at over 100 million in part due to the roaring success of his previous long player, Lovers in Paris, also released on Danish label, Music for Dreams. It was back in 2014 when his title track from said album was remixed without permission and gained large traction on the radio dials in Ibiza that kickstarted an association with the vibe of Ibiza and chill out music whilst picking up a legion of DJ fans like the legendary Ibizan DJ Alfredo. His second album In Search of Lost Time came out in September 2019, further stripped back and acoustic than his prior and that paved the way for Yellow Spaceship.

Residing in Copenhagen, Jacob has a litany of cultural paths that have led him back to Denmark, having travelled plenty and spent much time living and learning in both Buenos Aires and Rio De Janeiro. The bulk of the recordings on Yellow Spaceship took place in Denmark but Jacob's creative hideout in Palma, Mallorca has been integral to his songwriting process. And it is Majorca where Buika, the flamenco singer with attitude who takes the vocal reins in Melancolía, originally comes from. The song drips with emotion, an exploration of love and beauty and a recourse for painful times. Danes are known for their tendency towards melancholy, although here, the grey Nordic despondency makes way for a kind of poetic wallowing that compliments the Spanish guitar and singing. The song also represents a massive turning point in Jacob’s life after a great friend passed, a movement in which appreciation of people and things became the key to life. It was at the funeral of his friend he heard a perfectly poetic make-believe about how his beloved pal had taken off into the sky in a 'Yellow Spaceship' with an errand to spread his charisma.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Yellow Spaceship
A2. Melancolía
A3. Elevation In Minor
A4. Gamla Stan
A5. La Ville
B1. Song For Sol
B2. A Walk To Remember
B3. Breathe
B4. La Maison Verte
B5. Finu

The script for A Pure Place had a dizzying effect on John Gürtler & Jan Miserre; their minds reeling with the possibilities.

From Persian sheep bells, Chinese sheng, prepared trombone, quarter-tone piano, a beaten-up cembalo, hand percussion, and a room full of synthesizers, embryonic compositions and experiments came to life early on in the project.

An electro-acoustic extravaganza, the soundtrack for A Pure Place takes a deep bow towards the many magnificent composers and scores from the late 60s and 70s where orchestral arrangements met with tape loops, psychedelia, and instruments from across the globe. Listening to that era of film music, anything seems possible. The minimalist tones of ‘Ritual Bells’ set the dial to weird in the opening sequence of the movie, whilst ‘The Island’ makes use of ambient vocals recorded through an oil drum, gently introducing one of the score’s main themes with a distant quarter-tone cembalo.

Acclaimed British artist Shackleton’s eerie original version of ‘Fust’s Song’ (also included) was a tonal keystone for the entire soundtrack. Gürtler and Miserre translated his psychedelic electronic blueprint, layering acoustic instruments and bottom-heavy percussion in their ‘Paradox Paradise’ production style. The vocals, written by Chryssos, and sung by the cast on set, capture the sonics of the actual crypt-like space where cult leader Fust addresses with his following.

‘A Glimpse of the Other Side’ speaks of love and death in a 70s-indebted composition reflecting John and Jan’s shared love for melancholic and suspenseful chord progressions. Meanwhile, the sparkling synths of ‘Athens’ - the children discovering neon-lit civilisation after years confined on the island - transplant us to an entirely different era. Greek artist Maroulita del Kol features heavily throughout - her choir of vocals on ‘Erotica’ were recorded late at night in the studio foyer, capturing its unique tiled reflections and concrete reverb.

On ‘Purification’ Maroulita’s voice guides us alongside a Moog bass drone, building to an ecstatic climax, whilst she also features in the film’s disco-centric ending credits on ‘Gatoula Mou Mikri’.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Ritual Bells
A2 .The Island
A3. Fust’s Song
A4 Erotica
A5. Purification
A6. A Glimpse Of The Other Side
B1. Fust’s Song (Shackleton’s Orignal Version)
B2. Athens
B3. Small Doses
B4. Holy Soap
B5. Irinia Takes Over
B6. Gatoula Mou Mikri (feat. Maroulita Del Kol)

"Meet Norway's new pastoral folk voice - guitar lines ripple like Nick Drake strumming for Karen Dalton - think Sibylle Baier or Julie Byrne" Uncut.

Crackled radio-like transmissions from Norway's rural hinterland. Juni Habel's fragile finger-picked lullabies warm themselves by the open fire with her rich intimate voice atop twinkling arrangements and strange percussive instrumentation. Like glowing embers in the dark, these songs are odes to life and death, the beauty of belonging and human kinship with nature.

Push open the door of the old school house in the remote flatlands of Southern Norway that Juni Habel shares with her close-knit family and climb the stairs; you’ll find yourself in a former classroom – the home of her new album Carvings. A songbook of life’s lessons offering an expansive perspective as it navigates personal shadows between darkness and light.

“I knew I wanted to write from a larger perspective. I wanted to write about the course of nature, and the people in it - life and death, beauty and tragedy.” Juni says, “loss - the search for the dead - grasping to find the words, and liberation of giving that up. I also wanted to explore my own kinship with nature - a sense of belonging, and notice what is around with gratitude and zest for life.”

This unyielding spirit of family and nature is etched into Carvings’ unschooled approach. With beauty in mock-simplicity and radiating humanity like the music of Tia Blake, Julie Byrne or Myriam Gendron, Juni’s songwriting unfolds on her own terms, and is the sound of facing whatever mother nature decides will find its way to the top of the list.

Recorded between the classroom (‘big hall’), the hallway on the 2nd floor, and her bedroom with simple gear and vocals laid down in a single take. Co-producer, musician and singer Stian Skaaden, became her melodic confidant and experimental co-conspirator halving the burden by building the album’s layers through blowing a pipe, playing bow on the banjo, bottles or glockenspiel. “With this album I wanted to lean deeper into the process. The title Carvings illustrates thoroughness. It was a vulnerable project, to strive for creating something truly beautiful, to pour my soul into it,” she says.

Uninhibited by the possibility of ‘mistakes’ and jamming until she struck gold, Juni confidently discovered the truest expression of herself. “It takes courage to do things ‘wrong’ with uncertainty, record lyrics which are strange but feel right, on crappy mics, it can be good to fumble a bit,” Juni says before tellingly, “the joy of playing is quite fragile. I have to protect it. You can't use your head, you have to be inside the song.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Yet another killer release from Basin Rock, with Juni Habel's 'Carvings' providing the perfect fireside listening. Brittle folk guitars crescendo with Habel's echoing vocals hovering over the top. Organically growing melodies come out of the smallest seed and bloom into heady orchestrated bliss.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Rhythm Of The Tides
2. I Went Out And Sought For Your Name
3. Little Twirl
4. Valiant
Side B
5. When We Awake
6. Chicory
7. Drifting Pounds Of The Train
8. I Carry You, My Love

Two legends from different worlds collide in what promises to be a seminal album of songs about London.

Composer/saxophonist John Harle and singer Marc Almond collaborate on ‘The Tyburn Tree - Dark London’ - an album of contemporary songs about the darkest sides of London’s history - from the Tyburn gallows to Jack the Ripper, and from settings of the words of William Blake to a unique take on the nursery rhyme ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’.

Following Marc’s much lauded guest appearance on Harle’s ‘Art Music’, this is an album full of driving rhythms, emotional impact and theatrical story telling of the highest order. Along for the ride are noted soprano Sarah Leonard and great London poet and author Iain Sinclair who reads from his own texts. But it is the voice of Marc Almond that is the spiritual medium from which appears the ghosts of ‘Dark London’.

“Marc is a true artist and true performer - showing total openness and vulnerability alongside an experimental, non-judgmental view of Art, and in ‘The Tyburn Tree’, London has found its Anti-Hero”. - John Harle

“We all know that Marc Almond can sing but it still comes as a shock to hear his thrillingly drawn-out climax to Harle’s “The Arrival of Spring”, emoting words adapted from William Blake with operatic oomph.” - The Independent.

‘The Tyburn Tree’ has been in gestation for two years - Almond is the primary lyricist, having researched the subject matter and gradually formed his own take on ‘Dark London’, creating lyrics that have both historical relevance and an ear-catching quirkiness. Alongside this John Harle has been writing music that proves him to be at the height of his powers - after a canon of work that includes his “O Mistress Mine” for Elvis Costello, and as composer of the theme to BBC1’s Silent Witness, he has matched Almond’s lyrics with some punchy, compact and bitter-sweet songs full of emotion, percussive shock and humour. ‘The Tyburn Tree’ promises to be a concept album of cult-status.

With over thirty albums Hartford has an impressive discography and "Gum Tree Canoe" is a gem - a collection of some of Hartford's most endearing performances backed by an all-star crew of acclaimed instrumentalists including Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas.

The Living City captures the Jon Hassell Group in September 1989 performing as part of an audio-visual installation inside the World Financial Center Winter Garden in New York City, with Brian Eno mixing the band live.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Ituri
B1 Alchemistry
B2 Adedara Rising
C1 Mashujaa
C2 Paradise Now
D1 Nightsky

Further Fictions is a double CD anthology of the music on the vinyl editions (as well as over-arching title for the reissue campaign as a whole), with a disc devoted to each album in hardbound book style packaging, and an extensive booklet containing sleevenotes and archival images.

TRACK LISTING

DISC ONE
The Living City
1 Ituri
2 Alchemistry
3 Adedara Rising
4 Mashujaa
5 Paradise Now
6 Nightsky

DISC TWO
Psychogeography
1 Aerial View
2 Neon Night (Rain)
3 Cityism Superdub
4 Harambe
5 Freeway
6 Cuba Libre
7 Midnight
8 Waterfront District
9 Favela
10 Emerald City
11 Cloud-Shaped Time

pen·ti·men·to / noun
'Reappearance in a painting of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over.'

First new album in nine years by a musical visionary and hugely influential figure in new music. Forty years since its creation, Jon Hassell's "Fourth World" aesthetic remains a powerful influence on modern electronic music. Continuing his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of recombination and musical gene-splicing, fragments of performance are sampled, looped, overdubbed and re-arranged into beguiling unexpected shapes. Hassell applies the painterly technique of ‘pentimento’ to the arrangements, teasing out texture by the overlaying of sound upon sound, or a carefully timed reveal of the delicate bones pinning the frame of a track together.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dreaming
2. Picnic
3. Slipstream
4. Al Kongo Udu
5. Pastorale Vassant
6. Manga Scene
7. Her First Rain
8. Ndeya

Psychogeography is a situationist re-thinking of the 1990 City: Works Of Fiction album, a carefully edited sequence of alternate takes, demos and studio jams put together by Jon Hassell in 2014 using Debordian philosophy as his guide.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Aerial View
A2 Neon Night (Rain)
A3 Cityism Superdub
B1 Harambe
B2 Freeway
B3 Cuba Libre
C1 Midnight
C2 Waterfront District
C3 Favela
D1 Emerald City
D2 Cloud-Shaped Time

“Listen as if you were being told a secret” - Federico Fellini

A companion piece to 2018’s Listening To Pictures, this second volume in the pentimento series presents eight new tracks by the music visionary, continuing his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of recombination and musical gene-splicing. Pentimento is defined as the “reappearance in a painting of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over” and this is evident in the innovative production style that ‘paints with sound’ using overlapping nuances to create an undefinable and intoxicating new palette.

In classic Hassell fashion, the title can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, but perhaps the most pertinent at the moment is the human instinct to sing and play through a rain of difficulties. A future blues of indeterminate and ever-shifting shape. The album is buffered by two 8-minute plus epics at the beginning and the end - the hypnotic “Fearless” with it’s metronomic, almost Can-like rhythm, and blurry, noir-ish texture of sound emerging like car headlights from the fog; mirrored at the end of the record by the beautiful sci-fi lullaby of “Timeless”, a track with a gaseous, billowing quality as electronic clicks and bubbles float over a landscape of shimmering, glacially paced complexity. The bridge between those two worlds is no less compelling, from the frantic, spidery IDM sketch of “Reykjavik” to the collapsed-time ballad of “Unknown Wish”. Whilst containing seeds of classic ‘fourth world’ fusion, this record finds the artist still questing to create new forms and mutations of music, a thrilling window into what music could sound like in a world to come.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: In essence experimental electronic music, but with a rich and evocative seam of cohesive melody and rhythm woven through it's core. Programmed percussion and sequenced synths lend a sense of drive to the otherwise floating new-age-electronic swirls. It's amazing how many influences can be skilfully brought together in the right hands, and Hassell has those hands.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fearless
2. Moons Of Titan
3. Unknown Wish
4. Delicado
5. Reykjavik
6. Cool Down Coda
7. Lunar
8. Timeless

“With “Juliana Hatfield Sings The Police’ I am continuing the project that I started last year with my “Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John” album. I hope to continue to go deep into covering artists that were important to me in my formative years. The songs I’ve chosen seem to resonate in the present moment. “Rehumanize Yourself”, “Landlord”, and “Murder By Numbers” explore ugly kinds of nationalism, abuses of power, and the mendacity of large swaths of the ruling class. And then there are the timeless, relatable psychodramas: “Every Breath You Take”, “Can’t Stand Losing You”, “Canary In A Coalmine”. In the Police, each player’s style was so distinctive, accomplished and unique that I didn’t even attempt to match any of it; for anyone to try and play drums like Stewart Copeland would be a thankless, pointless task that is bound to fail. Instead, I simplified and deconstructed, playing a lot of the drums myself, in my rudimentary, caveman style. Chris Anzalone (Roomful Of Blues) played the rest of the drums. Ed Valauskas (the Gravel Pit) and I each played about half of the bass parts, while I did all the guitars and keyboards. I listened to a lot of the Police when I was preparing and making this album, and their recordings are as refreshing and exciting as ever. I hope that my interpretations of these songs can inspire people to keep loving the Police like I did, and still do.” -Juliana Hatfield

TRACK LISTING

1. Can't Stand Losing You
2. Canary In A Coalmine
3. Next To You
4. Hungry For You (J'aurais Toujours Faim De Toi)
5. Roxanne
6. Every Breath You Take
7. Hole In My Life
8. De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
9. Murder By Numbers
10. Landlord
11. Rehumanize Yourself
12. It's Alright For You

Jowe Head's first post-Swell Maps recordings from 1980 and a further session from 1982 after his first LP 'Pincer Movement' was released in 1981. 6 tracks from these recordings were released on Constrictor in Germany in 1986 alongside tracks from Pincer Movement as 'Strawberry Deutschmark' but the other 13 here are previously unreleased. Completely remixed by Jowe Head in 2020 for Glass Modern. "I recorded these tracks in my home at Londesborough Road, Stoke Newington, between 1980-1982, using a TEAC 4-track reel-to-reel tape recorder. All instruments played by me: electric guitar, fretless bass, electric fire, typewriter, sticks, a battered trumpet and an old harmonium. Overdubs recorded at GWBB in 1983. Remixed at Perch Street in 2020. Words and music composed by me”. (Jowe Head, November 2020

TRACK LISTING

1. Insect Valley
2. Back Door To Heaven
3. Easter Bunnies
4. Loose Tongue
5. Clear The Floor
6. Carrot And Cane
7. Son Of Tar Baby
8. Lime Tango
9. Phantom Of The Airwaves
10. Cooling Fins
11. Some Other Day
12. Tar Babies
13. Nearest Faraway Place
14. Chad Valley 15. February
16. Shiney Black Shirt
17. Insect Flavour Valentine
18. Snake Eggs

Contemporary pianist and composer James Heather announces his second album ‘Invisible Forces’ out via Ahead of Our Time, Ninja Tune founders Coldcut’s first record label. Influenced by the sensibility of electronic, ambient, orchestral and post-rock music but channelled through solo piano and his classical and jazz grounding, the album follows the release of the critically acclaimed ‘Modulations: EP2’, released in 2021.

Heather’s new album is about becoming aware of invisible forces around us to help deepen understanding of self and our connection to the world, from tuning into the natural world and getting lost in its patterns and energies to gaining more knowledge around ancestral lines such as the concept of epigenetics. It’s about looking that bit deeper into things, into areas that are not instantly visible but are all around us to achieve this. “Composing these songs gave me an anchor to feel more present in life after some troubling times and sent me on a journey to rediscover a kind of wonderment with the world. I hope the Invisible Forces universe will bring warmth to other people too.”

Recorded, mixed and produced by Heather in his new home studio on a refurbished Bosendorfer 200 grand piano utilising various microphone techniques, ‘Invisible Forces’ is a love story to the instrument that was his first love. A step forward compositionally from his 2017 debut album ‘Stories From Far Away On Piano’, the songs are grander, deeper and broader in emotional range and are developed through a series of improvisation techniques rarely seen in the often notated world of classical music. He describes his music as “pulse music” with each track performed in a single take and with their roots in this live improvisation, often honed on the road where Heather moves between tender to more propulsive, trance-inducing dynamics. He memorised each movement, then subtly adapted, adding more complexities and compositional dexterity over time before committing to the final take. His approach to the new compositions, finds him playing freely, with no metronome or official notation to recall or dictate the piece but instead using just his muscle memory, feel and instinct to decide where each track will go.

A deeply personal and autobiographical album, the first four tracks on ‘Invisible Forces’ come from inside, about life dreams that end up becoming devastatingly flawed (or not) as in ‘Meant to Be’, to complications around the sharing of grief and moving on in ‘No Time Limit to Grief’. Elsewhere, the loss of the “sixth” sense of balance in Heather’s father due to a brain tumour is addressed in ‘Balance,’ while Heather acknowledges trusting in his inner being to overcome life’s difficulties and look out once again with positivity in ‘In Your Spirit’.

Heather’s profound sense of awe at the big wide world outside of the self is considered in ‘Ultraviolet’ – the realisation that everything is connected in the universe, often in unseen ways, like a magic that surrounds us while ‘Forgotten Cities’, is a dreamlike interest in lost civilisations who built at one with nature and the stars above to cities today affected by war, nostalgic for peaceful times, hoping their city won’t be forgotten. ‘Invisible Forces’, the core of the album, absorbs all the albums messages, and connects different stages of Heather’s own compositional history from childhood to now. “I feel like one of the messages in my music is an activism for peace and equality for all, it is political but just done in a minimalist way. It’s about learning to love ourselves but also to love others even more.”

Throughout the closing stages of ‘Invisible Forces’, Heather questions the journey towards the end of a life, a feeling transcending perhaps even joy. A feeling of connecting back to ancestors long since gone and the realisation they might be effecting him now in subliminal ways as in ‘Ancestral Future Now’, to ‘Beginnings,’ which looks at the evolvement of the natural world around us.

Empathy and compassion are two key themes underpinning the album, in particular with the most personal song in ‘Hidden Angel’, a letter of forgiveness to a missing lorry driver who put Heather in a coma in 2008 whilst he was cycling and may not know that he miraculously survived the episode. A topic which Heather has never addressed before in song, he was given just a 5% chance of survival and he endured both the mental and physical challenge of adjusting back into life, changing him fundamentally as a person through many highs and lows as he battled back to full fitness, an experience that he now looks at as a positive. ‘I am lucky that at last my life is now filled with a joy I could never have dreamed of before, dealing with the aftermath of such trauma can take time. The driver couldn’t be located some years later and I always wanted to let him know I survived, in case he didn’t know, and to tell him I’m ok and that I hold no anger. The whole experience has given me an increased empathy to people that may be going through something heavy and to face mortality head on at such a young age, whilst a shock, has deepened my understanding of life.”

The album concludes with ‘Immortal Beloved’, a song about the treasuring of love, and a reference to the famous letter Beethoven, an early influence on Heather, wrote and never sent to someone unnamed.

The album artwork is by long-time collaborator Suki and is a representation of the many invisible layers of our inner and outer worlds. Inspired by the structure of earth, each layer or journey is connected to the next through implied space and time transcending to unknown depths. ‘Invisible Forces’ is as much about emotional growth as it is physical awareness. The album art interprets this tension through a series of contrary emotions where wonderment and solitude, awe and isolation, contemplation and silence can be found in equal measure. Informed by real world invisible forces, the art is designed using computational techniques. Procedural materials and the movement of light create hyperreal terrains that feel both familiar and unfamiliar.

TRACK LISTING

Meant To Be
No Time Limit To Grief
In Your Spirit
Balance
Ultraviolet
Forgotten Cities
Invisible Forces
Ancestral Future Now
Beginnings
Hidden Angel
Immortal Beloved

James Heather drops his debut album on vinyl for the first time via Ahead Of Our Time, Coldcut’s first label and playground for free expression and experimentation. A collection of nine conceptual solo piano pieces inspired by real world news events. The album art by Suki features layers of Indian ink bled into newspaper print. It also plots the nine latitude and longitude locations of each story’s origin. For fans of Jóhann Jóhannsson, Poppy Ackroyd, Max Richter, Nils Frahm.

TRACK LISTING

Ruqia
Empire Sounds
MHope
Biomes
Last Minute
Change Of Heart
Pathos
Teardrop Tattoo
Kraken
Blueprint

While Joe Henderson seemed to arrive fully formed on his auspicious 1963 debut Page One, the album was really a showcase for the transcendent collaboration between the tenor saxophonist and trumpeter Kenny Dorham who would form a potent frontline team on numerous mid-60s Blue Note classics. Page One opens with a pair of indelible Dorham compositions (“Blue Bossa” and “La Mesha”), with the balance of the six-song set penned by Henderson including his enduring theme “Recorda-Me.” Dazzling performances by pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Butch Warren, and drummer Pete La Roca further elevate this album making it one of the crown jewels of the Blue Note catalog. This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Blue Bossa
A2. La Mesha
A3. Homestretch
B1. Recorda-Me
B2. Jinrikisha
B3. Out Of The Night

Los Angeles Forum - April 26, 1969 presents an extraordinary live performance by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Before a raucous, sold-out house, Hendrix, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding tore through a unique set featuring highlights such as "I Don't Live Today," "Purple Haze," "Red House," and an astonishing medley of "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" and Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love". This pristine recording, newly mixed by Hendrix's long-time engineer Eddie Kramer, captures the original Jimi Hendrix Experience in their unrivalled, peak form.

A portion of this performance was previously included as part of a short-lived Westwood One radio documentary box set [Lifelines 1990-1992] but has been unavailable in any form for two decades. The CD release with a 24 page booklet--complete with liner notes from ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons who witnessed the show first hand--gives this seminal performance its proper platform, presenting the complete performance mixed directly from the original eight-track master tapes.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Introduction
Tax Free
Foxey Lady
Side B
Red House
Spanish Castle Magic
Side C
Star Spangled Banner
Purple Haze
I Don’t Live Today
Side D
MEDLEY Voodoo Child (Slight Return) / Sunshine Of Your Love / Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

A 'Legacy Vinyl' release, painstakingly restored to its original 1969 format,

"Smash Hits" features 12 classic tracks, including "Purple Haze", "Hey" Joe", "Stone Free" and "Manic Depression".

Features a recreation of the poster included in the original LP release with Jimi, Mitch, and Noel dressed as cowboys from the Warner Brothers’ film studios in early 1969.

TRACK LISTING

1 Purple Haze
2 Fire
3 The Wind Cries Mary
4 Can You See Me
5 51st Anniversary
6 Hey Joe
7 Stone Free
8 Manic Depression
9 Highway Chile
10 Burning Of The Midnight Lamp
11 Foxey Lady

Band of Gypsys was originally released in March 1970, at a time when Hendrix was at the peak of his powers. Featuring a new line up consisting of drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox, it was recorded across two performances at the Fillmore East on New Year’s Day 1970. The resulting live album captured an incendiary mix of blues, rock, and funk.

The 50th anniversary edition of Band of Gypsys features an 8 page book featuring rare archival photos and an essay by Hendrix archivist John McDermott, and has been remastered from the original analogue stereo tapes by Eddie Kramer, long time engineer to Jimi Hendrix. 

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
Who Knows
Machine Gun
Recorded January 1, 1970 Early Show

SIDE B
Changes
Power To Love
Message To Love
We Gotta Live Together
Recorded January 1, 1970 Late Show

Legacy Recordings present this dynamic new album of 13 previously unreleased studio recordings, made between Jan '68 & Feb '70. Notable collaborators include Stephen Stills & more...

This is the third & final volume in a trilogy of previously unissued material (following "Valleys of Neptune" & "People, Hell & Angels").

This is a 20 track, double (140gm), vinyl format which includes a download code insert.

All the biggest & best hits are on here, including:- "All Along The Watchtower", "Crosstown Traffic", "Purple Haze", "Foxey Lady", "Hey Joe", "Voodoo Child", "Stone Free" & many more...

Originally released in April 1997, First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, was the first album prepared under the direct supervision of the Hendrix Family. Drawing together seventeen songs whose creation spans from March 1968 through to Jimi’s final sessions at Electric Lady Studios in August 1970, the album marked the last graceful gesture by the innovative artist Jimi Hendrix. Features “Dolly Dagger,” “Angel,” “Ezy Rider” and “Freedom.” This release is a new, all analog edition mastered from the original 1/4" mixes by Bernie Grundman and pressed on 140-gram black vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Freedom
2. Izabella
3. Night Bird Flying
4. Angel
5. Room Full Of Mirrors

Side B
1. Dolly Dagger
2. Ezy Ryder
3. Drifting
4. Beginnings

Side C
1. Stepping Stone
2. My Friend
3. Straight Ahead
4. Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)

Side D
1. Earth Blues
2. Astro Man
3. In From The Storm
4. Belly Button Window

Jimi Hendrix's debut recording was an instant classic, and is as startling today as when it first hit the streets in 1967. "Are You Experienced?" is probably the most rock-oriented of Hendrix's official studio releases, but its influences are incredibly diverse. "Third Stone From The Sun" recalls the supple octaves of jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery; the churning Afro-Cuban polyrhythms of "Manic Depression" evoke John Coltrane and Elvin Jones; "I Don't Live Today" employs ritualistic Native American drum beats; and the title tune borrows the Eastern airs of sitarist Ravi Shankar.

Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding blast away with a barely controlled fury, and there's a distorted metallic edge to Hendrix's guitar timbre that has made "Are You Experienced?" a particular favourite among rock and heavy-metal guitarists. "Purple Haze" and "Foxy Lady" helped define the power-trio format, thanks to Hendrix's full-bodied rhythm guitar and his soaring solos. "Are You Experienced?" also established Hendrix as a singer-songwriter. His Dylanesque vocals and spacey imagery make each tune a little gem, especially on gentle outings such as the ballad "The Wind Cries Mary".

"Axis: Bold As Love" was the follow-up to "Are You Experienced?", and represented a much more conscious use of the recording studio's possibilities. Where his live shows continued to showcase the raw rocking power of the Experience, the recording studio gave Hendrix the composer/arranger a broader palette. There are still plenty of powerful blues/rock-inflected songs, such as the menacing "If 6 Was 9", the rolling "Spanish Castle Magic" and the spatial title tune. But "Up From The Skies" is a jazzy trio romp, featuring Hendrix's bluesy, vocalised wah-wah pedal. And on the ballads "Little Wing"and "Castles Made Of Sand", Hendrix shifts the focus from the band to the silvery chord/melody accompaniments he often employed to complement his vocals. They are an orchestral effect unto themselves.

On "Electric Ladyland" Jimi Hendrix stretched and experimented in the studio, going beyond the power-trio format on what would be his last studio album with the Experience. "Electric Ladyland" was revolutionary in its scope and execution. Using New York City's Record Plant as a gateway to free expression, Hendrix traversed an abstract landscape containing compositions as weird and wonderful as "...And The Gods Made Love" and "1983...(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)".  Simultaneously looking forwards and backwards, Hendrix mixed in a song reminiscent of his time on the chitlin' circuit (Earl King's "Come On [Part 1]"), a Bob Dylan favourite ("All Along The Watchtower"), and one of his snappiest singles ("CrosstownTraffic"). Although Hendrix produced and wrote most of this masterpiece, others weighed in with their own contributions. Noel Redding penned "Little Miss Strange", and other guests such as Al Kooper and Buddy Miles showed up to play. Traffic's Steve Winwood and Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane also made cameos, appearing on this classic album's spiritual centre, "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)".

The first album in 18 years from Greenwich Village troubadour John Herald, formerly of the Greenbriar Boys and The Woodstock Mountain Review. It was recorded between shows on a rare trip to Scotland with local musicians from Radio Sweethearts, Battlefield Band and Belle & Sebastian. Past favourites ("Roll On John", "I Heard The Bluebirds Sing"), country standards ("Walking The Floor Over To You", "Dark As A Dungeon")and some excellent originals (the Jimmy Rogers-esque "Hitch Hike Fever", the swampy rocker "Martha & Me") and turns his excellent singing voice to some inspired gospel songs ("Saved" and "Gone Home"). "Buy it and throw your Steve Earle albums in the bin . Roll On John, indeed. Doggone, lawdy, lawdy" - Country Music People.

John’s second release sees the return of the same melodic beauty but somehow more driving than his previous offering, ‘Tales From a Northern City.’ When asked why he wrote the album Herring says, ‘The last album was admittedly nostalgic whereas the challenge in the writing for these songs was to focus on now. Musicians often write about the past or the future in the same way we all think in life and I wanted to write an album that was about ‘Here’.

As one reviewer reflected, ‘Herring bridges that difficult divide between “popular music”, melody and “legitimate” rock with effortless aplomb... John can easily be compared to the likes of Kurt Wagner and Nick Drake as a master craftsman both lyrically and musically.”

Jerome Hill returns with his 5th full EP on the label to warm you up for winter and it’s maybe stylistically, his widest offering yet.

A joyous mash of influences collide and Hill spits them out of the blender with some typically unexpected curveballs.

From the strikingly moody break beat acid of "The Warning", to the 8 minute long extended disco workout of "Harlseden Shuffle". Then on the flip side, a reliably gnarly wedge of technoey acid house in "Combustion Zone’ and the EP culminates with a tip of the hat to mid nineties House with the rumbling bass and catchy percussion of ‘House Thing’.

Its obvious Jerome’s having fun with this EP and hopefully you will too ! 

TRACK LISTING

A1. The Warning
A2.Harlesden Shuffle (Extended 12” Disco Mix)
B1. Combustion Zone
B2. House Thing

More new Sound Signature this week as we get a bumper back of goodies from our friends in the D. Jason Hogans is a new signing, rarely heard outside of the Motor City but concocting up a deliciously tasty brew of broken beat, instrumental hip-hop and summery soul.

A mini-LP of sorts, it cruises between skeletal MPC downbeat experiments into radiant, jazz-breaks and occasional flurries of deep house a la The Rotating Assembly.

This is seriously strong stuff from Sound Signature; and of course limited copies available. Don't miss out on this killer vibe from this new producer - seriously recommended! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Sound Signature force our jaws to the floor by unveiling a mad good new artist from the D. Jason Hogans offers up something that tho typically Detroitian, also takes inspiration from Madlib's California-indebted soundscapes and London's broken beat edge. Mega!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Daydreamer And A Clown
A2. Favorite Coffee Mug
A3. Do This Proper
B1.Blue Blessed Rider
B2. For My Solids
B3. Kitchen Hype 

Let electronics guru James Holden and his newly-expanded band The Animal Spirits transport us to a magical other world with this third album: a bold new set of synth-led folk-trance standards, fusing elements of psychedelia, krautrock, world and spiritual jazz with Holden's usual propulsive melodic vigour into his most ambitious - but also most accessible - work to date.

The synth-and-drum core of Holden's Inheritors-era live touring outfit has picked up several members along the way, incorporating saxophone, cornet, recorder and cosmic percussion, all recorded live together in one room under the direction of band leader Holden to produce a genre-blending new form of universal music that feels inherently fluid and alive.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Holden, and his newly inherited (pun intended) band segue away from the dense, fractured electronic excursions of yesteryear, into a genre-bending percussive world-music odyssey. Progressive, multi-layered and incredibly rewarding. Another slice of genius from the Border Community head honcho.

TRACK LISTING

Incantation For Inanimate Object
Spinning Dance
Pass Through The Fire
Each Moment Like The First
The Beginning & End Of The World
Thunder Moon Gathering
The Animal Spirits
The Neverending
Go Gladly Into The Earth

The latest addition to the James Holden archive is an album of solo synth work originally written to accompany the critically-acclaimed documentary ‘A Cambodian Spring’: fourteen tracks of pulsing melancholy, foreboding drone and even the occasional burst of beatless trance in the form of the uplifting arpeggios of surefire album highlight ‘Solidarity Theme’.

Picking up where his classic 2013 album ‘The Inheritors’ left off (and giving ‘Self-Playing Schmaltz’ a new cinematic airing) Holden’s debut soundtrack project combines the sound palette of his beloved Prophet 600 with a cranky old Hammond organ to showcase the full breadth of his musical tastes across the epic documentary format.

The LP includes digital download code and sleevenotes by ‘Imaginary Cities’ author Darran Anderson.

TRACK LISTING

Srey Pov’s Theme
Monk’s Theme Part I
Downturn Medley
Solidarity Theme (Villagers)
Monk’s Theme Part II
The Villagers
Disintegration Drone I
Solidarity Theme (Release)
Monk’s Theme Part III (Exit)
Reprise
Disintegration Drone II (Torn Cone)
Disintegration Drone III (Death Rattle)
Self-Playing Schmaltz
Srey Pov’s Theme (End Credits)

Electronic explorer James Holden returns with a generically unconstrained new album of rave music for a parallel universe that seeks to reconnect with the feelings of hope, freedom and possibility that characterised the earliest days of dance music, coming to terms with his own musical past in the process.

In contrast to its jazz adjacent live band predecessor The Animal Spirits, Holden's trippy fourth solo artist album is more of a continuous sound collage, artfully juxtaposing audio worlds and field recordings with an anything goes approach in the style of early nineties pastoral classics like The KLF’s Chill Out and the sprawling radioscapes of Future Sound of London.

Physical formats include a colourful 12 page booklet of original illustrations by Jorge Velez (Professor Genius).

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: James Holden has been an inspiration for many a year, deftly moving from jagged instrumental genius ‘The Inheritors’ through jazzy ambient fare ‘Animal Spirits’ to this latest album, imbued with the spirit of both. It's a sprawling and multi-faceted triumph, another indication that Holden is one of the greatest producers around.

TRACK LISTING

1) You Are In A Clearing
2) Contains Multitudes
3) Common Land
4) Trust Your Feet
5) The Missing Key
6) In The End You’ll Know
7) Continuous Revolution
8) Four Ways Down The Valley
9) Worlds Collide Mountains Form
10) The Answer Is Yes
11) Infinite Fadeout
12) You Can Never Go Back

Come Out to Play bridges the gap between my previous two singles and combines the pad soundscape of Whispers with the angular unpredictability of Alone Again - though Come Out to Play is far more upbeat and lighthearted in terms of musical and lyrical themes.

Musically it draws inspiration from the classic songwriters of the 60/70s, but also harks to Aztec Camera and the Smiths. I've been told that it sounds as if Johnny Marr had joined the Beatles / Beach Boys in the studio for a day which is a huge compliment.

It is probably the catchiest chorus I’ve written to date, and it’s become a crowd favourite at gigs (not least because of my anecdotal monologue, with a slice of crowd interaction, before I play the song).

Lyrically, the song is a journey through the life of a shy, introverted person, and their struggle to socialise. There’s never an explicit reason why, but there are hints that they’re hoping for something more (“But I just keep holding on, for a day to reminisce on…”). Each verse is a different stage of his life, represented by the references to different seasons, but it’s in the last verse where our character sees himself in his son and tells him not to make the same mistakes he has made.

TRACK LISTING

1. Come Out To Play
2. Whispers
3. Alone Again
4. Burning Moon
5. Whatever Happened To John? 

Originally released in 1974 this album is made up of cover versions of classic pop and soul tracks, all rendered in a soulful reggae style. Reggae balladeer John Holt wraps his silken voice around standards like 'Never Never Never', 'Baby I'm A Want You', 'Help Me Make It Through The Night', 'Mr Bojangles' and 'Killing Me Softly With Her Song'. If you like smooth reggae you'll love the voice of John Holt. There's nothing rootsy or challenging here, just soulful reggae interpretations of some great songs, delivered in a clear, concise and heart-felt manner.

After fronting popular Jamaican vocal trio the Paragons on a succession of best-selling rock steady singles during the late Sixties, John Holt went on to become one of Jamaica’s most popular solo performers, scoring a series of reggae hits for many of the island’s leading record producers.

His international breakthrough came in 1974 with the hugely popular ‘1000 Volts of Holt’ album, which fused raw reggae rhythms with sophisticated orchestral arrangements.

The highlight of the long-player was a reworking of Kris Kristoffersson’s country hit, ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’, which the following year became a global hit, with the single, peaking at Number 6 in the UK charts. Over the years that followed, Holt remained a giant of the reggae scene with further best sellers and numerous sell-out shows around the world.

The very best of his solo work has been brought together on this ‘Essential Artist’ compilation, the latest release in Trojan Records’ newly launched range that showcases the work of Jamaica’s best-loved ‘foundation’ artists.

Available as a 28-track double vinyl LP and a comprehensive 2CD compilation, the collection superbly illustrates the talent that made John Holt one of the reggae music’s most popular and enduring singers. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: A nice catch-all / best of from one of reggae music's most popular and enduring singers. Mainly dealing with issues of love and longing, it's a light-hearted alternative to some of the more political and riotous music also being at the time. Lover's rock heads are certainly gonna dig this.

TRACK LISTING

Vinyl Tracklisting:
Side A
1. Help Me Make It Through The Night
2. Pledging My Love
3. Stealing Stealing
4. My Heart Is Gone
5. Looking Back
6. I'll Be Lonely
7. I Wanna Dance
Side B
1. Ali Baba
2. Stick By Me
3. Strange Things
4. Tonight
5. The Further You Look
6. Wild Fire
7. Sweetie Come Brush Me
Side C
1. Sister Big Stuff
2. My Desire
3. I'll Take A Melody
4. Time And The River
5. Let's Get It While It's Hot
6. Ghetto Queen
7. Reggae From The Ghetto
Side D
1. You Baby
2. You Will Never Find Another Love Like Mine
3. I See Your Face
4. The Tide Is High
5. Let's Build Our Dreams
6. Before The Next Teardrop
7. Just The Way You Are

CD Tracklisting:
CD 1
1. Help Me Make It Through The Night
2. Pledging My Love
3. Stealing Stealing
4. My Heart Is Gone
5. Looking Back
6. I'll Be Lonely
7. I Wanna Dance
8. Anymore
9. I Want You Closer
10. Morning Of My Life
11. Sometimes
12. What You Gonna Do Now
13. I’d Love You To Want Me
14. Ungrateful Lady
15. Keep It Up
16. My Eyes
17. In The Springtime
18. Tell Me Why
19. Ali Baba
20. Stick By Me
21. Strange Things
22. Tonight
23. The Further You Look
24. Wildfire
25. Sweetie Come Brush Me
26. Just The Way You Are
CD 2
1. Sister Big Stuff
2. My Desire
3. I'll Take A Melody
4. Time And The River
5. Let's Get It While It's Hot
6. Ghetto Queen
7. Reggae From The Ghetto
8. Riding For A Fall
9. All My Life
10. Love So Right
11. Winter World Of Love
12. Memories By The Score
13. Have You Ever Been To Heaven
14. Wasted Days And Wasted Nights
15. Try A Thing
16. The Treasure Of Love
17. I’m The One To Be Blamed
18. A Love Like Yours
19. You Baby
20. You Will Never Find Another Love Like Mine
21. I See Your Face
22. The Tide Is High
23. Let’s Build Our Dream
24. Before The Next Teardrop Falls 

Classic set from the great John Holt based around his monster 1983 reggae hit title track. Produced by Henry ‘Junjo’ Lawes with the Roots Radics. Another of those Greensleeves classics that pretty much any home with a love of lamb's bread but own!

The cover shot sees John and a huge bag of collie weed with Babylon in hot pursuit via helicopter. Subject matter is lighthearted with a typically JA slant. John is one of reggae's most successful and respected artists and in 2004 he was honoured by the Jamaican government with the Order Of Distinction for his contribution to Jamaican culture!

TRACK LISTING

1. Police In Helicopter
2. Private Doctor
3. Last Train
4. Beach Party
5. Reality
6. Fat She Fat
7. Chanting
8. Sugar And Spice
9. Can't Use Me
10. I Got Caught

Domino are to reissue ‘Ekstasis’, the second album by Julia Holter. The release, the artist's inaugural for the label, will also mark the first time the collection of songs has been widely available domestically since being released to phenomenal critical acclaim in north America earlier this year.

The double gatefold vinyl will be limited to 300 copies and pressed on deluxe heavyweight vinyl.

The album has just been confirmed as one of Mojo’s Top Ten Albums Of The Year.

The most fully-realised glimpse of Holter's steadilydeveloping, beautifully singular vision so far, ‘Ekstasis’ follows on from the playful searching nature of 2007's home-recorded ‘Eating The Stars’ EP and 2011's underground masterpiece ‘Tragedy’.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Like an even more esoteric Laura Veirs, this drifts and shifts like fractured lullabies, casting its spell on the way.

TRACK LISTING

Marienba
Our Sorrow
In The Same Room
Boy In The Moon
Für Felix
Goddess Eye II
Moni Mon Amie
Four Garden
Goddess Eyes I
This Is Ekstasis

THE PICCADILLY RECORDS ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2015.

'Have You In My Wilderness' is the fourth full length album by Los Angeles artist Julia Holter and her most intimate album yet. Recorded in her hometown over the last year and once again crafted with Grammy-winning producer and engineer Cole Greif-Neill, the album follows 2013's 'Loud City Song' and two much-lauded previous titles - 'Ekstasis' (2012) and 'Tragedy' (2011).

'Have You in My Wilderness' was written from the heart - warm, dark and raw - and explores love, trust, and power in human relationships. While love songs are familiar in pop music, Holter manages to stay fascinatingly oblique and enigmatic, with some of the most sublime and transcendent music she has ever written. Like Holter's previous albums, 'Have You in My Wilderness' is multi-layered and texturally rich, featuring an array of electronic and acoustic instruments played by an ensemble of gifted Los Angeles musicians.

'Have You in My Wilderness' is also Holter's most sonically intimate album, with her vocals front and centre in the mix, lifted out of the layers of smeared, hazy effects. The result is striking: clear and vivid, but disarmingly personal.

STAFF COMMENTS

David says: 'Have You In My Wilderness’ is Julia Holter’s fourth and most accessible album to date, but given that previous records have looked to Greek Philosophers and French novelists for their inspiration, this perhaps isn’t the boldest of statements.
Holter, a music and composition graduate, approaches her craft in a cerebral, conceptual way that is still very much apparent on the album’s arrangements and time signatures. However, on ‘Have You In My Wilderness’, her more exotic tendencies have been tamed by producer M Cole Grief-Neill. He’s convinced Holter to shake off the shackles of reverb in which her otherworldly voice has always been chained and let it take centre stage on the record. It’s a master stroke that’s culminated in a sonically direct, shimmering, leftfield pop classic that everyone at Piccadilly Records has been willing her to make since first hearing 2013’s ‘Loud City Song’.
Dark and lovely, exploring pop’s universalities of love and relationships, ‘Have You In My Wilderness’ is the perfect soundtrack to winter’s long nights. Where previously Holter could be accused of being cold and aloof, she now revels in a new found warmth and intimacy. It’s like the girl on the bus that’s been ignoring you for months suddenly walking over and saying “hi, fancy going for a drink later?” - Completely unexpected and all the more wonderful for it.
But wait, don’t go! I know what you’re thinking. ‘Love and relationships? Surely ballads are the end credit to a thousand, desperate Saturday nights; certainly nothing new in pop music?’ BUT, and it’s a big but, Holter’s take on this, the most clichéd of pop clichés, is brilliantly oblique. Flitting from orchestral chamber music to Laurel Canyon introspection, it’s a schizophrenic record, whose many competing voices have combined to make ‘Have You In My Wilderness’ Piccadilly’s favourite album of 2015.

Andy says: Finally Julia Holter does what she's been threatening to do for ages: combines all her arty, classical, jazzy, ehtereal, avanty otherness into one near-pop masterpiece! Definitely one of the best records this year.

TRACK LISTING

1. Feel You
2. Silhouette
3. How Long?
4. Lucette Stranded On The Island
5. Sea Calls Me Home
6. Night Song
7. Everytime Boots
8. Betsy On The Roof
9. Vasquez
10. Have You In My Wilderness

Long-awaited reissue of Los Angeles based artist Julia Holter’s debut album.

Originally released in November 2011 on Leaving Records in two runs of 500 copies only, this modern masterpiece proved to be the most inspired, captivating and unique debut album of the year, and has been out of print - and much coveted - ever since.

Inspired by Euripides’ ‘Hippolytus’, the sheer scope and scale of ambition evident in ‘Tragedy’s fifty minutes is staggering.

Comprised of voice, synths, drum machines, piano, cello, saxophone, samples, vocoders, ensemble musicians and a chorus, ‘Tragedy’ is a transcendental amalgamation of avant garde and pop conventions, and of organic and electronic compositional forms - an entire universe of a record blessed with its own beautifully peculiar logic.

TRACK LISTING

Introduction
Try To Make Yourself A Work Of Art
The Falling Age
Goddess Eyes
Interlude
Celebration
So Lillies
Finale