Fat White Family are back with the most sophisticated, vital and flamboyant creation of their career.

The cult south-London band’s resplendent fourth album Forgiveness Is Yours, like everything they’ve done, has pushed them to the limits not only of their creative talent, but of their health, their sanity, their very existence.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another blistering outing from Fat White Family, their first since 2019's brilliant Serfs Up! We get a little more sleazy lounge groove this time around, and a little more synthesiser pulses among the instantly recognisable postpunk march and taut art-rock rhythms, but it's the same FWF at heart. Ace.

Annie Clark made her recorded debut as St. Vincent in 2007 with Marry Me, quickly becoming regarded as one of the most innovative and fascinating presences in modern music. Her subsequent albums would include Actor (2009), Strange Mercy (2011), her self-titled fourth album and winner of the 2014 GRAMMY for Best Alternative Album. In 2017, her fifth album MASSEDUCTION would break St. Vincent into the U.S. and UK top 10s and win two more GRAMMYs (Best Rock Song for its title track, and Best Recording Package). 2021’s Daddy’s Home found St. Vincent channeling the hungover glamor and gritty sepia-toned soundtrack of 1970s downtown NYC to an ecstatic reception, ultimately winning her a second Best Alternative Album GRAMMY.

Following a 2021-2022 global tour that reaffirmed St. Vincent’s status as one of live music's preeminent forces with headline appearances at the likes of the Hollywood Bowl and Radio City Music Hall, Clark would begin work on album number seven: Her first fully self-produced album (having co-produced every one of her previous efforts), All Born Screaming is St. Vincent at her most primal. Featuring Clark leading “a curated group of rippers” through the brawny “Broken Man,” the mordant catwalk sashay through the deafening assault of self-loathing that is “Big Time Nothing,” the sublime, elegiac earworm “Sweetest Fruit," All Born Screaming is equal parts spiritual desolation and rapturous acceptance. “If you’re born screaming, that’s a great sign,” says Clark, “because it means you’re breathing. You’re alive. My god. It’s joyous. And then it’s also a protest. We’re all born in protest in a certain way. It’s terrifying to be alive, it’s ecstatic to be alive. It’s everything.” 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another rhythmically intricate, stylistically varied suite of disco-adjacent guitars, tight rhythms and powerful vocal swathes, before breaking into industrial grit and jagged lo-fi melody shards. As exciting as it is inventive, it might be her finest moment yet.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hell Is Near
2. Reckless
3. Broken Man
4. Flea
5. Big Time Nothing
6. Violent Times
7. The Power’s Out
8. Sweetest Fruit
9. So Many Planets
10. All Born Screaming

The arrival of Teething invites you to take a leap beyond seeing dance music as a genre, built from this type of kick or that type of snare, and instead as its own dimension: a place you can escape to. It pays homage to the language of sounds on the dancefloor which have encouraged generations to feel, not to think. While, lyrically, the record delves into the tangle of lived experience, musically, it will free you from it.

Since the beginning, Porij had self-produced, self-mixed and entirely self-made their music, and even after having signed to [PIAS], the record was still incubated in their bedrooms where they would sit together for hours giving colour, shape and texture to this new world. It was only then that they enlisted legendary producer David Wrench, famed for his work with era-defining artists including Frank Ocean, FKA Twigs and The XX. His mentorship allowed Teething to transform their music from a live-angled proposition to something folded in the arms of pop.

Vocalist and keyboardist Scout Moore (Egg), bassist James Middleton, guitarist Jacob Maguire and drummer Nathan Carroll are armed with hard-won experience, strengthened bonds and a renewed sense of passion. Their debut album Teething is both a coming-of-age story and a bottling of the particular magic that is unmistakably – and definitively – Porij.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A syrup-smooth mix of airy Balearic beats and euphoric house-tinged synth-pop. Texturally varied, but without straying too far from dreamy front-room electronica or drifting dancefloor grooves.

TRACK LISTING

1. Marmite
2. Unpredictable
3. Don’t Talk To Me
4. Endlessly Waiting
5. My Only Love
6. Ghost
7. Stranger
8. Sweet Risk
9. Gutter Punch
10. You Should Know Me
11. Slow Down

After more than 1 billion streams, 800k records sold and sold-out world tours, the duo with the mythical cross come back with 'One Night/All Night' starring Tame Impala and 'Generator' from their fourth album: 'Hyperdrama'. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There are a lot of people since the mid 00's that have tried to sound like Justice, but though some have somewhat successfully replicated the rhythmically dense compositions and dj-mix motion of their instantly recognisable pieces, nobody sounds like justice. Hyperdrama proves the purveyors of the sound continue to be the frontrunners.

TRACK LISTING

1. Neverender With Tame Impala
2. Generator
3. Afterimage With RIMON
4. One Night/All Night With Tame Impala
5. Dear Alan
6. Incognito
7. Mannequin Love With The Flints
8. Moonlight Rendez-Vous
9. Explorer With Conan Mockasin
10. Muscle Memory
11. Harpy Dream
12. Saturnine
13. The End With Thundercat

A live performance of the "Ragged Glory" album, recorded at a club in Toronto in 2023

“Why do these old songs live so vividly now? They do to me.”

Neil Young with Crazy Horse in all their “Ragged Glory”.

Neil & The Horse have played together for over 50 years and the performances of these songs is a true highlight of that long relationship.

9 songs over 2LPs with the original song titles replaced with selected lyrics. (“Farmer John”, being a cover, retains its original title.)

The album was recorded in 2023, with this line-up:

Billy Talbot – Bass, vocal
Ralph Molina – Drums, vocal
Micah Nelson – Guitar, vocal, piano
Nils Lofgren – Guitar, vocal, piano
Neil Young – Guitar, vocal, harmonica

Neil: “In the spirit it’s offered…made this for the Horse lovers. I can’t stop it. The horse is runnin’. What a ride we have. I don’t want to mess with the vibe. I am so happy to have this to share.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another live document from one of the most storied and legendary figures in the music business. Fu##kin Up shows Young and the band in fine form, with captivating performances (obviously) and a stylistic fluidity that such a well-heeled collaboration fosters.

TRACK LISTING

1. City Life
2. Feels Like A Railroad (River Of Pride)
3. Heart Of Steel
4. Broken Circle
5. Valley Of Hearts
6. Farmer John
7. Walkin' In My Place (Road Of Tears)
8. To Follow One's Own Dream
9. Chance On Love

When the pandemic began, and the world shut down, so did the process of creating for Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam. In its place was a domesticity that the singer hadn’t felt in a long time, and although it was filled with many rewards, making music was not one of them. Reflecting on that time;

Beam notes:
“I feel blessed and grateful that I and most of my friends and family made it through the pandemic relatively unscathed compared to so many others, but it completely paralyzed the songwriter in me. The last thing I wanted to write about was COVID, and yet every moment I sat with my pen, it lingered around the edges and wouldn’t leave. This lasted for over two years.” The journey back began with a recording session in Memphis to record a handful of Lori McKenna tracks for the EP Lori with friend and producer Matt Ross-Spang. The cathartic experience reconnected Beam with his love for making music, and soon enough the paralysis had passed, and he was finishing lyrics and booking studio time for what would become Light Verse. Light Verse was recorded with engineer and mixer Dave Way at his studio Waystation high up in Laurel Canyon (with an additional session at Silent Zoo Studio with a 24-piece orchestra), with a host of talented musicians joining Beam: Tyler Chester, Sebastian Steinberg, David Garza, Griffin Goldsmith, Beth Goodfellow, Kyle Crane, and Paul Cartwright. And, Fiona Apple joined Beam on vocals for the duet “All In Good Time.” Beam lyrically once again takes focus on a series of both fictional and personal insights, filled with desperate characters and wide-eyed optimists, offering promise and a dose of heartache, tears and laughter, life and love. Taking stock in the album’s title, he jokes, “Light verse is a form of poetry about playful themes that often uses nonsense and wordplay, and it’s my first official Iron & Wine comedy album!…. Just kidding….”

While true this may be Iron & Wine’s most playful record, Beam says the title mostly reflects the way the songs were born with joy after the heaviness and anxiety of the pandemic. Where recent records like Beast Epic or Weed Garden gave air to the disquiet of middle-aged frailty and brokenness, these songs trade that for the focus acceptance can bring. Moment by moment, they delight in being pointed or silly (or both) and attempt beauty over prettiness.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Sam Beam presents a tenderly melodic suite of swinging symphonies and off-kilter jangle. Pieces like the enthralling opener 'You Never Know' are both wonderfully syncopated and display Sam's ability to switch from breezy to near-chaotic in the blink of an eye, without ever breaking the listening spell. Beautiful.

TRACK LISTING

1. You Never Know
2. Anyone's Game
3. All In Good Time
4. Cutting It Close
5. Taken By Surprise
6. Yellow Jacket
7. Sweet Talk
8. Tears That Don't Matter
9. Bag Of Cats
10. Angels Go Home

Internationally acclaimed vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and composer
releases her new studio album featuring Floating Points, Kofi Flexxx & Carlos Niño among others, and produced by Shabaka Hutchings on Hutchings’ Native Rebel Recordings

Since graduating from Berklee College of Music, UCLA and Harvard, ganavya has quickly become a much-in-demand artist on the US scene who consistently confounds expectations. Hailed as “among modern music's most compelling vocalists” (Wall Street Journal), “most enchanting” (NPR) and "extraordinary" (DownBeat), ganavya has worked with an array of luminaries including the likes of Quincy Jones, Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding and on new album like the sky, I've been too quiet she presents thirteen compelling tracks which showcase her ethereal voice and numinous energy. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Ganavya enlists an all-star cast for this spellbinding and and enchanted LP which is like Alice Coltrane's "Turiyasangitananda" given a completely modern renovation. You can clearly hear contemporary wizard Shabaka Hutchings' production influence throughout, and Floating Points' Arp Odessey drizzling through "Seal" is a particular album highlight.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Not In An Anthropological Mood
First Notebook Of Songs
Side B
Forgive Me My
Seal
El Kebda, Let It Go
We Made It To The Underpass
Side C
Our Mother Is Our Daughter Is Our Mother
(sister Said) Home Is A Direction
We're Still At The Underpass
Side D
Call It Luck If You Want To
Call Her By Her Name, Enheduanna
Growing Sense Of Wonder
I Walk Again, Eyes Towards The Sky

With Time is Glass, Six Organs of Admittance is captured once again in the intricate tangle of the fretboards, soaring in open skies above. Like lens flare cutting through the speakers; spiderwebs cracking the windshield that holds back all the onrushing reality. Blowing the dust away, cutting a new path for cognition. As is always endeavored.... After 20 years of living on the road in different places, Six Organs of Admittance had returned home to Humboldt County — a far country, to some, but still part of the world through which creatures of all kinds are moving through and contributing to. And some of them are human. Alone together — forming connection and exchange out of thought and expression — no different from the people on the other side of the Redwood Curtain. It was there, where Six Organs had long ago emerged, in the name of everything cycling, of circles that spiral concentrically and remain unbroken, the new music was conceived.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A startlingly focused and beautifully minimalistic recording of voice and guitar, showing the perfect juxtaposition of rhythmic guitar playing and soaring, swooning vocal work from Ben Chasny. An unhindered, unhurried gem.

TRACK LISTING

The Mission
Hephaestus
Slip Away
Pilar
Theophany Song
My Familiar
Spinning In A River
Summer’s Last Rays
New Year’s Song

London-based four-piece Adult Jazz announce their first full-length album in a decade, So Sorry So Slow, out 26 April 2024 via Spare Thought. Alongside the announcement comes lovesick new single ‘Suffer One’ featuring Owen Pallett, a cautious excavation of self and sexuality, clambering across a gorgeously shapeshifting, filmic five-minutes.

Containing some of the band’s most abrasive but gentle, beautiful and melismatic work to date, So Sorry So Slow has many defining characteristics: romance, panic, devotion and remorse, threaded together by an intentionally laser-focused love. It’s deeply personal, bruised and candid in its expressions of tenderness, and deeply pained in its concurrent reflections of ecological regret. Across its hour-long runtime, a delicate, frenetic energy and glacial heaviness coexist, the band pitting those paces against one another. In their richly experimental timbre, dancing strings and fluttering falsettos prang against a bed of brass drones like a wounded bird.

“We started writing in 2017 and began recording in 2018,” says vocalist Harry Burgess. “We genuinely thought it might be finished in 2018! But things kept developing and, having resolutely not struck while the iron was hot, there was no real external push to rush things after that, so we just kept letting things shift and unfold until it felt right. Listening back to my voice notes it’s nice to notice that there are fragments of ideas from the whole period 2017-2023 which have shaped the record.”

Recorded in bursts at studios across London and in the band members’ flats, at Konk, on the Isle of Wight and in Sussex, So Sorry is unambiguous in its evolution. Sonically, there are sparks of the arrhythmic brightness that afforded the band’s critically acclaimed debut album Gist Is its cult adoration, for fans of Arthur Russell and Meredith Monk, but with a blossoming, melancholic darkness often overhead. Piano sprees and luscious string sections appear like low-hanging stars on a night-time drive, whilst plunging vocal distortions and humming brass loops resurrect heavy limbs in a bad dream.

“I usually have objects as kind of totems for ideas,” explains Burgess. “The album initially started out to do with performance… [the totem] was a head mic, one of the subtle skin-tone ones, discreet on the forehead of a West End star. A number of the first songs in their original forms were almost musical theatre piano ballads. I think that was really a device to write about my life as the ‘main character’ (pre internet-speak reframing): regrets about romance, relationships - unsustainable relationships with the self and others.”

“However, once we started writing, the ideas about unsustainable personal relationships, loving unevenly and heartbreak conflated with a more expressly ecological regret. Like contending with big feelings of loss, endings, beauty, desolation, and with how much joy the earth contains in it. Feeling so much gratitude bound up in waves of sadness. Maybe witnessing a slow-motion goodbye to all that, or its last gasps. I love the earth and the life it supports so much. I love how ecosystems fit together - even the brutal stuff. It may be basic to say, but now is the time to be laser focused on that love. I was thinking about human centrality on earth, us as the ‘main character’, the way that is served by faith and romanticism, and the subsequent disingenuous understandings of our position in the ecosystem, as only stewards somehow, rather than subjects. The totems at this point: a herald’s horn, lorry inner tubes, archaeological tools. I guess from doom, industry, history respectively.”

“Now I would say the record is about gripping. Totems being: crampons, rope, drips, desalination equipment, accruing various survival tech. I think gripping sums up both of the threads. There’s the emotionally correct clinging to the earth that is the substrate of everything we value, or the delusional clinging to our imagined dominant position. But also the practical, technological aspects of creating a sustainable relationship, of remaining here. Then I think of romance again.”

So Sorry So Slow comes out 26th April 2024 on Spare Thought, mixed by Fabian Prynn at 4AD Studios and mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road.

Adult Jazz is Harry Burgess, Tim Slater, Steven Wells and Tom Howe.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It always surprises me when a band can inoffensively arrhythmically skip between themes and motifs in their music, because It never strikes me as something that should be doable without a noticeable thematic shift. There's something about the staggered determination and swaying dreamlike haze of Adult Jazz's music that has always been seamless and so organic, and remains in abundance here.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Bleat Melisma
Suffer One
Y-rod

Side B
No Relief
Plenary
Marquee

Side C
Dusk Song
Earth Of Worms
No Sentry

Side D
Bend
I Was Surprised
Windfarm

UK electronic pop icons Pet Shop Boys return with a brand-new studio album ‘Nonetheless’ on April 26, preceded by first single ‘Loneliness’.

Produced by James Ford, the music on ‘Nonetheless’ is both uplifting and reflective, mixing electronics, live instruments, and orchestral arrangements. The songs are very melodic and quintessentially Pet Shop Boys with a fresh, open sound, bringing together classic strands of PSB song-writing and moving them in new directions.

Having sold in excess of 50 million records, Pet Shop Boys are easily the most successful UK duo of all time. BRIT awards and Grammy nominations have been numerous, including in 2009 when Pet Shop Boys won the BRIT for outstanding contribution to music; in 2000 Pet Shop Boys’ song-writing was rewarded with the Ivor Novello award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music - with over 70 hit singles spanning five decades, song-writing remains resolutely at the core of Pet Shop Boys’ continuing relevance and success.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: If the swaying 'Dancing Star' single wasn't quite enough evidence for you, you'll be pleased to know that the Pet Shop Boys' newest offering 'Nonetheless' has all of the theatrical grandiosity and instrumental drive of their finest studio moments. Classic Pet Shop Boys.

TRACK LISTING

LP And Standard CD Tracklist:
1. Loneliness
2. Feel
3. Why Am I Dancing?
4. New London Boy
5. Dancing Star
6. A New Bohemia
7. The Schlager Hit Parade
8. The Secret Of Happiness
9. Bullet For Narcissus
10. Love Is The Law

Deluxe 2CD - Disc 2: Furthermore:
1. Heart (New PSB Version)
2. Being Boring (New PSB Version)
3. Always On My Mind (New PSB Version)
4. It’s A Sin (New PSB Version)

Recorded at Abbey Road Studios with legendary songwriter and producer Nile Rodgers, alongside the band's original producer Ian Broudie. The multi-platinum selling band released three studio albums between 2004 and 2008, scoring 9 UK Top 40 singles including two Top 10s with ‘Why Won’t You Give Me Your Love?’ and the all- conquering ‘Valerie’, the latter a triple-platinum hit for Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse. Today they return to share the fruits of their extended time away. The Big Decider comes into view as an album of stark significance to the band, completed by Dave McCabe (guitar, lead vocals), Abi Harding (saxophone, vocals) and Sean Payne (drums, vocals). Written against the backdrop of a decade and a half’s worth of lived experience, it is born under the weight of family tragedies, lives lost and created, reality checks, and home truths faced up to and stared down. Wrestled into shape under the kind of steam that only decades-long friendships - with all their messy fall-outs, make-ups, breakdowns and ultimately love - can muster, The Big Decider became the sound of water passing under the bridge, and love for music, love for each other, and love for creating together becoming the most important thing of all.

TRACK LISTING

1. Creeping On The Dancefloor
2. Pauline
3. Water
4. In Your Arms
5. Disappear
6. Company
7. The Big Decider
8. Rise
9. Best Of Me

‘Willson Williams’ witnesses the meeting of two likeminded musicians who’ve built their successful, independent careers on inventive folk instrumentation, reflective and sincere lyricism, and not a small amount of self-deprecation. Their modest confessionals, written poetically and over nostalgic and atmospheric melodies, are as relatable as ever, and together they find new ways to unpack their feelings.  

One overarching theme on the album is that of grief, when the writing process saw them both, tragically, in mourning for separate loved ones; Dan for his brother Karl and his friend Scott Hutchinson of Frightened Rabbit, and Kathryn for her friend, comedian and BBC Radio 4 presenter Jeremy Hardy. They explain that “the initial premise and starting point for us was discussions and open conversations on bereavement. We’d both recently lost friends who were also in the public eye, and we talked about the strange place between personal loss and the communal grieving of a public figure”. Contrastingly, the music on ‘Willson Williams’ is warm, heartfelt and even cheerful, an opposing nature that is completely in keeping with both their humour and candidness.

TRACK LISTING

1. Arrow
2. Grace
3. R U 4 Real
4. Our Best
5. Shelf
6. Wish
7. Sweetest Wine
8. Weekend
9. Sing Out
10. Elvis
11. Big Nothing

You get older, you have a family, and you start to slow down—that’s how things are supposed to go, right? Not for Montreal band Corridor, who have returned on their fourth album, Mimi, with a sound and style that’s more widescreen and expansive than anything that’s preceded it. The follow-up to 2019’s Junior is a huge step forward for the band, as the members themselves have undergone the type of personal changes that accompany the passage of time; even as these eight songs reflect a newfound and contemplative maturity, however, Corridor are branching out more than ever with richly detailed music, resulting in a record that feels like a fresh break for a band that’s already established themselves as forward-thinkers.

Mimi immediately recalls the best of the best when it comes to indie rock—Deerhunter’s silvery atmospherics immediately come to mind, as well as the spiky effervescence of classic post-punk—but despite these easy comparisons, Corridor remain impossible to pin down from song to song, which makes Mimi all the more thrilling as a listen.

“The goal was to work differently, which is the goal we have every time we work on a new album—to build something in a new way,” Robert explains. “This time, we took our time.” And so in the summer of 2020, Corridor’s members—Robert, vocalist/bassist Dominic Berthiaume, drummer Julien Bakvis, and multi-instrumentalist Samuel Gougoux—holed away in a cottage to engage in the sort of creative experimentation that would lead to Mimi’s ultimate creation.

Corridor tinkered with the songs’ raw parts digitally and remotely over the next few years, with co-producer Joojoo Ashworth (Dummy, Automatic) lending their own specific talents in the theoretical booth. The process was a byproduct of not having access to their rehearsal space due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also a result of the four-piece leaning harder into incorporating electronic textures than on previous records.

“For a long time, we identified as a guitar-oriented band, and the goal of making this whole record was trying to get away from that,” Berthiaume states. Berthiaume also describes Mimi as a record about “getting older” and “figuring out new parts of life”—but despite any claims of transitional growing pains from the band, Mimi is a record bursting with new energy and life, a vibrance that’s owed in no small part to Gougoux joining the band full-time after pitching in on live performances in the past.

“I come more from a background of electronic music, so it was nice to involve that with the band more,” he explains, and Mimi contains a distinct rhythmic pulse reminiscent of classic era-post-punk’s own melding of dance and rock textures. Over bright, chiming guitars and ascending synths, Robert addresses his looming mortality on “Mourir Demain”: “I wrote it when my girlfriend and I were shopping for life insurance,” he laughs. With our little daughter growing up, we also considered making our will. I said to myself, ‘Oh shit, from now on I’m slowly starting to plan my death.”

Don’t mistake this as music about dead ends, though, as Mimi embraces and champions unfettered creativity while paving a way for Corridor’s own bright future. “We just focused on making a record that sounded the way we wanted,” Gougoux exclaims while discussing the band’s aims. “There were no limitations when it came to what was possible.”

TRACK LISTING

Phase IV
Mon Argent
Jump Cut
Caméra
Chenil
Porte Ouverte
Mourir Demain
Pellicule

Green shoots have burst forth from Parsnip, let’s warmly welcome the Australian group’s sophomore album ‘Behold’.

The production is ambitious, with 12-string and acoustic guitars, percussion, piano, saxophone and harmonium all sitting comfortably in these outstanding songs. Drawing comparisons with Dolly Mixture, Sara Goes Pop, Look Blue Go Purple and The Field Mice, Parsnip are an animated ensemble, full of life, emotional complexity and humour. The laughter in the dark is real, but then the sun comes up and we all must meet the day. Even the flowers turn their faces. Behold!

Recorded across three sessions over the last three years, ‘Behold’ is a testament to Parsnip at their most creative, catchy and collaborative. This album showcases the multi-talents of all four members, with spirited performances adding dazzle to the thirteen tracks.

Paris Richens lets the bass playfully roam. Carolyn Hawkins tumbles feeling into the drum rumble. Stella Rennex’s guitar soars alongside her saxophone work, whilst a sprightly keyboard is tenderly attended by Rebecca Liston. Everyone sings amidst this lush canopy.

Patience, environmental cues and internal signals are integral for a garden to flourish. The same can be said of the conditions necessary for ‘Behold’ to emerge. It is an album gleeful in reassessment, changed priorities and anticipation. The roots are deeply anchored to mystery, drinking up a hidden wonderment that lies within. ‘Monument’ is a twist of melody and mania, “For what am I? But a channel of light” they attest amongst the whoops and hollers. ‘The Babble’ sounds like Ray Davies playing Wordle for enlightenment. In fact most of these songs are pointing the way towards growth and understanding. ‘Turn to Love’ is mesmeric and timeless, thoroughly serene and perfectly judged. Parsnip write songs as a form of communion with the intangible in our increasingly delusory world, but there is always a gentle reminder; don’t take anything too seriously! “My head is gonna split in two, fix it with flour and glue” they demand on ultimate bop ‘Papier-Mâché’, this juxtaposition of mature resolve with childlike astonishment packs a more powerful punch.

On ‘Behold’, Parsnip explore both the inner and outer realms of consciousness with quick wits and some seriously quality jangle and jolt. ‘The Light’ is a whip smart workout, sprouting naturally from the propulsive nature of their debut album ‘When the Tree Bears Fruit’ (2019). ‘Placeholder’ is also devastatingly honest and channels The Field Mice as it buries itself like an arrow into your heart. 

TRACK LISTING

01. Monument
02. The Light
03. Duality
04. L.O.N.E.
05. Placeholder
06. Pockets
07. Unearthing
08. The Babble
09. Turn To Love
10. Clear Blue Sky
11. Swan Song
12. Papier Mache
13. Kutastha

Brighton-based shoegazers Air Formation are set to release their self-titled sixth studio album this spring via Club AC30. Inspired by bands such as Flying Saucer Attack, Spiritual- ized, Explosions In The Sky and The Jesus and Mary Chain, Air Formation's music incorp- orates heavily delayed guitar and feedback, with droning keyboards, and ethereal vocals. Forming in 2000, long before spiritual forbearers Slowdive, Ride and Loop were consid- ered acceptable influences, the five-piece have been a mainstay of the modern shoegaze scene and have gained a devoted following, receiving critical acclaim from tastemakers including Consequence of Sound, Clash, and Louder Than War.

Briefly splitting in April 2011 after the release of their fourth studio album 'Nothing to Wish For (Nothing to Lose)', they reformed in 2014 for a special one-off show to celebrate 10 years of Club AC30. In 2018, the band released the critically acclaimed album 'Near Miss'. "Time goes fast," says guitarist and vocalist Matt Bartram. "We're still figuring it all out. But most importantly, I think Air Formation still feels totally relevant. All the time we enjoy doing it we will keep at it," he adds.

When it came to the writing and recording of the album, the band went back to listening to their favourite artists for influence including Bardo Pond and Mogwai to name a few, but ultimately, the album is influenced by all the Air Formation music that had come before. "How can we do something a bit different, but it still be Air Formation," says Bartram.

From the blissed-out vibes of album opener 'Pressure Drop' to the anthemic guitar crescendos of 'Only So Much Light', Air Formation are masters of noise and effects, constantly exploring the outer limits of guitar texture and volume. On 'Finding Gravity', fuzzed-out guitars explode into beatific distortion, while 'I Don't Want To Talk' and 'Crashing Out' shimmer and swirl. Elsewhere, the deafening waves of noise of 'The Day After Day' and dreamy 'Sparks Dies' reveal a band who find the heart in fuzz, while album closer 'The Final Wave' is a gorgeous, heavily textured expanse.

Air Formation is Matt Bartram (Guitars & Vocals), Ben Pierce (Bass), James Harrison (Drums), Ian Sheridan (Guitar) and Richard Parks (Keyboards).

TRACK LISTING

1. Pressure Drop
2. Only So Much Ligh
3. Finding Gravity
4. I Don't Want To Talk
5. Crashing Out
6. The Day After Day
7. Sparks Die
8. The Final Wave

Bullion is Nathan Jenkins, an enduring cult figure of electronic music. A producer and songwriter quietly to be found connecting artists, genre and UK subculture. His credits range from Carly Rae Jepsen, Ben Howard, NilüferYanya and Avalon Emerson’s breakout album & The Charm to records for Westerman and Joviale. Bullion’s celebrated solo releases, meanwhile, have run parallel on Young, The Trilogy Tapes, Jagjaguwar and his own DEEK Recordings. It’s a creative red-thread Bullion ties together on his surprise new album, Affection - a warm, occasionally off-kilter and beautifully realised pop record that’s bold enough to step from behind-the-scenes and show affection in public.

Affection started life upon Nathan’s move back to London from Lisbon, where he relocated in 2018. Back then, the comfort of the crowd suited him: self-confessedly passive and faltering by nature, the opportunity to exist somewhere without any personal history proved liberating. Returning home, Nathan increasingly found himself reflecting on his place in the world, seeking affection in place of cynicism.

Bullion’s music has always been difficult to pin down, but entirely distinctive - and on Affection, its rich pleasures are in hearing how this uncompromising approach is strengthened, in part, by softening. The album wonders-aloud about the meaning of intimacy, in relationship to others and the self. Masculinity and other contemporary concerns are punctuated by old-world charms, found in the ‘hat stands and watches’ of World_train. Influences stretch from morning swims to adolescent fears and a book of poems his Dad wrote as a young man, in songs that are tender if not always true of Nathan himself. Affection ultimately asks how we understand people, but in being more vulnerable at least attempts to care a little less about what they think, too.

Taking your own advice is integral to Bullion’s latest album, where Nathan applies what he’s encouraged fellow artists to do in the studio for years: be open to adventure. Affection steps into a more emotionally-present, often playful space, with collaborators Carly Rae Jepsen and Charlotte Adigéry gracing songs that prioritise feeling over fixed meaning. Rare, for instance, emerged during sessions for Jepsen’s recent album in Toronto: high energy turning coy to express something ‘deep in the heart’. World_train, meanwhile, is an eccentric and brilliantly odd angle on Bullion’s love of pop, its locomotive power summoning a lost past amidst the uncertainties of the everyday. ‘I can hardly understand what it takes to be a real man’, Bullion sings. ‘…and nobody can’, Adigéry confirms. Still, connections - missed, imagined, or still possible - cocoon much of Affection, with Panda Bear collaboration A City’s Never emerging after Noah and Nathan lived in Lisbon at the same time but never actually met. For Bullion, the willingness to allow others into his songwriting process is as much about opening up the world of the album as it is about bettering the work and the person.

In blurring the observational with the introspective, Affection’s avant-pop touch abandons categorisation. The albums lyrics are as unguarded and devotional as they are inquisitive of alternative ways of being, signing off with ‘being still is hard to do’. Nathan has mastered his sound, but life - in its expectations, contradictions, impulses and desires - remains impossible to control.

TRACK LISTING

1. A City’s Never (ft. Panda Bear)
2. Affection
3. Rare (ft. Carly Rae Jepsen)
4. Your Father
5. The Flooding
6. Cinch
7. World_train (ft. Charlotte Adigéry)
8. Cavalier
9. Once, In A Borrowed Car
10. Open Hands
11. 40 Waves
12. Hard To Do

Released periodically on three of 2024’s full moons – April 23rd’s Pink Moon, July 21st’s Buck Moon and October 17th’s Hunter Moon – the three-album cycle, “Triptych”, is (Steve Von Till from Neurosis) Harvestman’s most ambitious undertaking yet.

Guest musicians including Al Cisneros of Sleep / OM who plays bass on one track for each LP, of which he will also mix a dub version on the B-Side of each LP. Dave French of Yob, Sanford Parker and Wayne from Petbrick all make appearances.

It’s a dream diary narrating a passage through Summer Isle where Flying Saucer Attack are wafting out of a window, a distant Fairport Convention are being remixed by dub master Adrian Sherwood, celestial scanners Tangerine Dream are trying to drown out Bert Jansch and Hawkwind are playing Steeleye Span covers, all prised out of time yet bound to its singularity.

TRACK LISTING

Psilosynth
Give Your Heart To The Hawk
Coma
Psilosynth (harvest Dub)
How To Purify Mercury
Nocturnal Field Song
Mare And Foal

Futurismo present a new version of DEVO’s highly celebrated and sold-out box set release - 'ART DEVO 1973-1977'. Now available as a 3xLP in a choice of limited colours. The release all hardcore Devo fans have been waiting for, 'ART DEVO' is a vital collection housing unheard and obscure mind blowers sourced directly from the vaults of The De-Evolution Band. This anthology takes you from the band’s initial conception in Akron, Ohio to the moment before the world woke up, in a collection of sonic and visual art that captures DEVO at the dawn of industrial death.

In honour of their 50th Anniversary, 'ART DEVO' showcases the mesmerizing evolution of a band on the brink of discovery, mining irony, wit and dark humour from the madness of a distorted modern world still coming to terms with aftermath of a collapsed economy and the Vietnam war. From 1973-1977 DEVO would transform from an art project, pop art in the literal sense, into the group David Bowie would declare “the band of the future”. Here you will find the audio mutations of a band at the edge of greatness, initial concepts that gave birth to a new aesthetic that continually challenged preconceptions about music, art, performance, culture, composition and consumption...it was also the birth of Booji Boy. While the songs here may not be fully grown, raw even, these are the seeds of subversion that kickstarted DEVO’s 50 year legacy.

Spanning 3xLP’s almost completely unheard and unreleased material, this collection draws purely from that integral early history, garnered from unearthed basement recordings, original demo tapes, unfinished montages and rare live audio, all taken from the bands personal archive. This collection showcases why DEVO was, and is still, one of the most important bands in American history. De-evolution is real. The art of DEVO is real. Here is the evidence.

This 3xLP version is housed in a gloss laminated wide spined sleeve, it has a tracklist that has been curated by the band and contains a fold-out poster containing rare imagery and liner notes by Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald V Casale. 

TRACK LISTING

Exhibit [A] 1973-1976:
Booji’s Industrial Death
Total Love
Auto Modown (Early Version)
Space Girl Blues (Early Version)
Live Forever
Androgyny (Live At Kent Kove 74)+
Fraulein (Kent Kove 1974)

Exhibit [B] 1973-1975:
Bicentennial Birthday
Man From The Past
Midget/My Lai Mama (Kent Kove 74)
Shimmy Shake
All Of Us
Hubert House
The Tinkle Tune

Exhibit [C] 1973-1975:
Private Secretary (Kent Kove 74)+
I Don’t Know Why
Dixie
Pigs Waddle (Kent Kove 74)+
Death Of Lt. Casanova (Kent Kove 74)

Exhibit [D] 1975-1977:
U Got Me Bugged (Instrumental Version)
I Don’t Know What I Do Do
Huboon Stomp
Can U Take It (Early Version)
Uncontrollable Urge (Early Version)
Everything’s Gonna Be Alright
Falling In Love Again

Exhibit [E] 1975-1977:
Devo Corporate Anthem (Early Version)
Shrivel Up (Early Version)
Smart Patrol (Early Version)
I’m Lost At Home
Untitled
Never Go Back
Secret Agent Man (Mark Vocal)

Exhibit [F] 1975-1977:
Social Fools (Early Version)
A Plan For U (Early Version)
Nutty Buddy (Live At JB’s 76)
Dogs Of Democracy
Race Of Doom (Early Version)
Space Junk (Early Version)
Primal Satisfaction*
End Message

Great music is often about chance meetings and impromptu creative sessions and so it is that Hell Yeah proudly serves up Sensory Blending, a new collaborative album from Italian collective Aura Safari and Finnish musician Jimi Tenor. The nine-track record is a lush and luxurious fusion of jazz-funk styles.

This glorious record came about after Tenor was playing a Hell Yeah party at Tangram in Perugia. Aura Safari were local and, in some free time the day before the gig, everyone jumped in the studio together. They had never met before but soon found plenty of free-flowing common ground and the result of that one-off session is now served up on this vibrant new album that brims with musicality, indelible melodies and subtly uplifting vibrations.

Tenor has toured the world and previously collaborated with the likes of Japanese master Calm. He is a psychedelic space-jazz-funk king, skilled musician, composer and producer who, since the mid-nineties, has released more than 25 albums and 45 EPs. Aura Safari is made up of bass, synth, guitar and keys players Lorenzo Francioli, Ruggero Bonucci, Nicola Pitassio Andrea Moretti, Lorenzo Lavoratori, Daniele Melloni and Nicholas Iammatteo, and they are label regulars who served up their sublime Island Dreams album here last year.

Says Jimi, who enjoyed his time in Perugia and adds that 'the studio session was 100% efficient. I showed up and we started to play. Almost all that was made was material that we could use for the album. I love to work fast. Quick brushstrokes. Finish! I was amazed at how intuitively the Aura Safari guys could come up with new parts for songs. I mentioned some feeling or approach and they seemed to find it just like that.'

'Bodily Synesthesia' is the seductive opener with steamy sax notes and gentle grooves that are topped by aloof vocal whispers. 'Lunar Wind' is another slow and steamy mix of jazzy keys and soulful vocal hooks, 'Bewitched By The Sea' is a more tropical and percussive number with majestic melodies and 'My Bluebell' picks up the pace with jazz-funk grooves and hustling chords. 'Last Waltz In Perugia' has freeform sax lines soaring over meticulous drums that ebb and flow and 'Gimlet' brings a playful, samba-tinged rhythm and sunny flute leads straight from South America. There's a laidback, carefree mood to 'It's Too Easy To Love You' while 'Your Magic Touch' is a dancey number that exudes melodic joy, and 'Indigo' closes in dramatic fashion with a conversational sax that sticks long in the memory.

Sensory Blending is a seamless fusion of collaborative minds from Aura Safari and Jimi Tenor and it could well be performed live at some special select shows later in the year.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Bodily Synesthesia
A2. Lunar Wind
A3. Bewitched By The Sea
A4. My BlueBell
B1. Last Waltz In Perugia
B2. Gimlet
B3. It's Too Easy To Love You
B4. Your Magic Touch
B5. Indigo

From creator Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders, SAS Rogue Heroes) comes new drama This Town. A 6-part series set in 1981 Birmingham, which follows a bands formation amid the violence and social tensions of the time. The music from the Original BBC Series brings together the show’s genre-wide mix of timeless classics, brand new music, and iconic hits of the era. It features an eclectic, world-class mix of artists paying tribute to this hugely formative period and includes original covers from Self Esteem, Ray Laurél, Mercury-nominated breakthrough Olivia Dean, GRAMMY-winning powerhouse Gregory Porter, BRITs Rising Star nominee Sekou and Academy Award nominee Celeste. Additionally, the songs played by Fuck The Factory - the band at the heart of This Town - have been created by trailblazing producer Dan Carey (Fontaines D.C, Wet Leg) in collaboration with singer-songwriter ESKA and musician, novelist and poet Kae Tempest in work that adds another chapter to the story.

TRACK LISTING

1. Self Esteem - You Can Get It If You Really Want
2. Ray Laurél - Somewhere Over The Rainbow
3. Fuck The Factory - Estella
4. Olivia Dean - The Harder They Come
5. Fuck The Factory - Birdsong
6. Fuck The Factory - Pelicans
7. Celeste - Blue Moon
8. Fuck The Factory - Farewell To Matty And Her Flowers
9. Gregory Porter - The World’s Going Up In Flames
10. Fuck The Factory - This Town
11. Sekou - Wonderful World, Beautiful People

Blane Muise, better known by her stage name Shygirl, is an English singer, DJ, rapper, songwriter and co-head/founder of record label and collective Nuxxe. Shygirl's music incorporates elements of dance music, industrial hip-hop, experimental pop, grime and deconstructed club. Shygirl releases fabric exclusive single Making the Beast alongside the exciting announcement of her inclusion in fabric's prestigious presents series. The release of fabric presents Shygirl marks the beginning of fabric’s 25th-anniversary celebrations, with Shygirl leading the charge as the first of five artists to curate mixes throughout the year, each featuring the CD tins. Shygirl has gained recent support from Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Mixmag, and BBC Radio & 6 following her Club Shy EP.

TRACK LISTING

1. Angelita — Club Shy (Intro) Feat. Shygirl
2. Danny Daze & Jonny From Space — Sweet Spot (Nick León Dub)
3. Shygirl — Making The Beast (Extended)
4. Jacques Greene — Believe
5. Rose Gray — Promise Me
6. Shygirl, Empress Of, Kingdom — 4eva (Extended)
7. Eliza Rose & The Martinez Brothers — Pleasure Peak
8. Hudson Mohawke & Nikki Nair — Set The Roof (feat. Tayla Parx)
9. Laava — Wherever You Are (I Feel Love) [Dance Edit]
10. Club Winston — Summer
11. Kristine Blond & James Hype — Love Shy
12. Guchon — Piano Bros
13. Shygirl, Cosha — Thicc
14. Broosnica — Love On The Run
15. Skin On Skin — Magic
16. TDJ & Vitesse X — Into Dream
17. Elkka — DJ Friendly
18. Shygirl & Kingdom — F@k€
19. ANIMA — 7th
20. George Riley & Hudson Mohawke — S E X
21. 96 Back — Laco (Metrist Reworm)
22. Florentino — Pressure (feat. Shygirl)
23. CONALL — Up (feat. COUCOU CHLOE)

Third chapter of the “Milano Undiscovered” series, curated by Fred Ventura, takes us on a journey through the vibrant Milanese techno and house scene of 1988-1992.

This latest installment unveils a treasure of unreleased demos, showcasing the productions that emerged from the city’s flourishing underground during this era. Inspired by the pioneering sounds emanating from Chicago, Detroit, London and Sheffield, a wave of Milanese producers embarked on a creative odyssey, crafting their own unique sonic interpretations of the electronic dance music landscape.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Italo overlord Fred Ventura directs his attention towards the fertile and embryonic period of Milan's early house and techno seen. As usual, Italians do it better (or at least as good as) their counterparts in the US and UK as they take on the faithful blueprints supplied by our Chicago and Detroit brethren.

TRACK LISTING

Sigma Tibet - Pablo
B-Logic - Aliasing
Grey Area - Beyond Belief
Mont Blanc - Let Your Body
Straight Beat - Afterwork
Love Nation - Let's Make It Right
Soul City Crew - One Day
Visions Factory - Solitary Dancers
Periferico - In A Freedom World
Beat 4 Life - Your Lifestyle

For Remixes JID020, the label has tapped a few of their favourite contemporary artists and producers to offer their own take on the music of Series 2. The album features a variety of dynamic personalities with remixes from London based artists Shabaka Hitchins and Theon Cross, New York tastemaker Melanie Charles, LA based produces Bei Ru, Brazil's DK Nyack, Detroit based producer Tall Black Guy, Bay Area producer Mophono and the LA based house duo L.O. & Diisko.

The album earns its place in the Jazz Is Dead catalog as it further celebrated the spirit of collaboration amongst artists young and old. What unites these DJs, producers and musicians with the Jazz Is Dead ethos is their unbent dedication to remaining true to their own vibe and sound all the while preserving the energy and feeling of the original recordings.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tony Allen - Don't Believe The Dancers (Mophono Remix)
2. The Midnight Hour - Phoenix (Theon Cross Remix)
3. Katalyst - Reflections (Bei Ru Remix)
4. Jean Carne - Black Rainbow (Melanie Charles Remix)
5. Henry Franklin - African Sun (Shabaka Hutchins Remix)
6. Lonnie Liston Smith - Love Brings Happiness (Tall Black Guy Feat. Kaidi Tatham Remix)
7. Garrett Saracho - Altitude (L.O. & Diisko Remix)
8. Phil Ranelin & Wendell Harrison - Running With The Tribe (DJ Nyack Remix) 

Influential DJ, producer, radio-DJ and founder of the Acid Jazz and Talkin' Loud labels Gilles Peterson has handpicked his jazz favourites from the immense catalog of the Dutch jazz Timeless label. Included are Pharaoh Sanders' cosmic jazz "Moonchild”, vocal jazz from Carter Jefferson's "Why", danceable jazz from Tom Grant "No Me Esqueca", Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers' "In Case You Missed It", making a total of 11 tracks. In 2015, Peterson put together a Japan-only CD compilation of 10 of his favourite tracks, but for this version, the track list has been augmented with the previously unreleased version of "Mode For Joe" by Cedar Walton Trio.

TRACK LISTING

1. Pharoah Sanders – Moonchild
2. Carter Jefferson – Why
3. Tom Grant – No Me Esqueca
4. Eddie Harris – La Carnival
5. Rodney Jones – Articulations
6. Art Blakey & Jazz Messengers – In Case You Missed It
7. Eastern Rebellion – Bolivia
8. Joanne Brackeen – Haiti B
9. Brian Melvin Feat Jaco Pastorius – Zen Turtles
10. Timeless All Stars – World Peace (Bonus Track)
11. Cedar Walton Trio – Mode For Joe (Previously Unreleased Bonus Track)

FEATURING AN ALL NEW 11TRACK DOUBLE 12INCH VINYL DANCE MUSIC COMPILATION COMING FROM NEW JERSEY/NEW YORK FEATURING BRAND NEW MUSIC BY RON TRENT, TIMMY REGISFORD, VICK LAVENDER, JOVONN, MARK FRANCIS, DJ PUNCH, CASEY AND JOAQUIN JOE CLAUSSELL.

It was two and a half years ago when a conversation took place between Sal Carmona and Dj Producer Jovonn Armstrong; talks of which planted a seed in Sal Carmona’s ear, which years later would manifest what was once a dream into a reality. No stranger, nor a newcomer in the world of dance music, Sal’s experience in the club scene goes way back to the days when his sisters, to whom he credits for helping shape the person he is today, took him to Dave Mancuso's The Loft. An experience that he recalls being nothing short of magical. It was a spiritual encounter that immediately took over thus steering him towards the direction of clubs such as The Paradise Garage, Bentley's, Underground, Red Parrot, Latin Quarters, Roseland, Studio 54, just to name a few. Years later, Sal decided to take on the role, of which he became quite successful at, of promoting his own events in New York City; throwing regular parties at venues such as Park Circle & USA roller skating rinks, Red Parrot, The Palladium, The Copacabana and many others, soon becoming one of the premier go to promoters in NYC. Taking a long and well-deserved hiatus from the club scene, in 2012 Sal decided to make his return back to what he loves. It was around this time that he began thinking what it would be like to venture into creating his very own record label. Envisioning his first release being a bona fide House Music Album, one that would include some of his favorite producers. Not one to let dreams drift into the ether, while recollecting on that conversation with Jovan way back, Sal set out to make that vision manifest into a reality and thus emerged this dope compilation titled Banger “Make My Body Shake” “Make the Speakers Shake”

A great idea which brings together an interesting mix that includes highly sought out and respected veteran producers in the scene, such as Timmy Registford, Ron Trent, Dj Jovonn, and Joe Claussell. Alongside with up and coming DJ producers who are garnering their own adulation of fans, in the likes of Vick Lavender, Mark Francis, Conway Kasey, and DJ Punch. With valuable directional contributions from friend Joe Claussell, this, to say the least, has become far more than just a seriously dope compilation that consists of a unique coming together of serious dance music. More than the aforementioned, Sal Carmona has manifested a dream into a game changing music scripture that is one of a kind, especially in this day and age where it seems where things are thrown together hoping for something to stick. On the contrary, this is well planned and thought out dopeness at A higher level consisting of all new house music that hasn’t been brought together like this in a very long time and probably not for a while afterwards. 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Adira Kasey Cover (Conway Remix) 
A2. Ron Trent - Star Strut  
B1. Vick Lavender - Day Light 
B2. DJ Punch - Make My Body Shake 
C1. Timmy Registford Instrumental - Funa 
C2. Vick Lavender - MJs Revenge 
C3. Joe Claussell - A Deeper Grace LP Version 
D1. Jovonn Armstrong - Latin Deep 
D2. DJ Punch - Afro Congo Traxx 
D3. Mark Francis - Everlasting
D4. Conway Kasey - Caminho Espiritual (4:00) 03:00

It All Comes Down to This is the brand new album from Manchester legends A Certain Ratio, produced by Speedy Wunderground’s Dan Carey.

This album takes A Certain Ratio back to their roots, featuring 10 straight-to-the-point tracks, with a sprinkling of electronics for good measure. It is the first time the band has recorded as the core 3-piece lineup of Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop, and Donald Johnson, with no additional collaborators or members of the live setup. Following on from ACR's acclaimed 1982 album and the electrifying 2023 EP, It All Comes Down to This continues the lineage of constant progression demonstrated by the band.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brilliant new album from Manchester's Certain Ratio and a stunning example of ACR's unique fusion of vibrant, groove-led indie music and post-punk adjacent stomp. 'It All Comes Down To This' could be their most definitive statement yet both wilfully celebratory, and brilliantly hefty. A perfect distillation of their hugely varied sound.

Laura says: Speedy Wunderground's Dan Carey, has managed a near perfect distillation of ACR's sound here, as the trio of Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson draw on the post-punk-funk grooves of their early days while ruminating on the current state of the world. For me it's the best thing they've done in ages.

TRACK LISTING

Vinyl Tracklist
A1 All Comes Down To This
A2 Keep It Real
A3 We All Need
A4 Surfer Ticket
A5 Bitten By A Lizard
B1 God Knows
B2 Out From Under
B3 Estate Kings
B4 Where You Coming From
B5 Dorothy Says

CD Tracklist
1 All Comes Down To This
2 Keep It Real
3 We All Need
4 Surfer Ticket
5 Bitten By A Lizard
6 God Knows
7 Out From Under
8 Estate Kings
9 Where You Coming From
10 Dorothy Says

LAST REMAINING COPIES - PRE-ORDERS ESSENTIAL!!

The Flightpath Estate in association with the Golden Lion have compiled a double vinyl album.

'Sounds From the Flightpath Estate'

9 exclusive tracks plus a previously unavailable Two Lone Swordsmen track. An exclusive cover of 'Smokebelch' by Andy Bell plus one-off recordings by Hardway Bros, Timothy J. Fairplay, Justin Robertson, Richard Sen, Sons Of Slough, Rude Audio, 10:40 and a world renowned Belfast based DJ and producer.

The Flightpath Estate is a Facebook group dedicated to the music, art and work of Andrew Weatherall. It began life in 2013 and has become a virtual home to his fans, friends and family. It is also the host of the Weatherdrive - thousands of hours of recordings of Andrew Weatherall’s DJ sets, mixes and radio shows.

'Sounds From The Flightpath Estate' is a compilation celebrating people and places, the outlook, aesthetic and music Andrew Weatherall was known for, and the sense of community and love of music centered around The Golden Lion.

The sounds are forward thinking, created with a deep understanding of the music of the past but future facing, dance floor oriented and made with love.

----------

Limited edition double black vinyl, 500 copies only. Gatefold jacket with notes.

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Mastered by Andrew Liles

Sleeve art by Personality Crisis

Labels by Walter Russ

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: The first full length compilation to arrive from the creative hub / musical ashram that is The Golden Lion in Todmorden. Working with Andrew Weatherall’s friends, family and collaborators (plus two large online communities), the compilation even includes an unreleased Two Lone Swordman track and will likely be one of the most sought after releases on this incredibly strong and prolific label.

TRACK LISTING

A1 - Two Lone Swordsmen - The Crescents
A2 - Sons Of Slough - Red Machine (GL Soundcheck)
A3 - Timothy J. Fairplay - Centurion Version

B1 - Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33's - Curtains Twitch On Peaks
B2 - Richard Sen - Tough On Chug, Tough On The Causes Of Chug

C1 - Rude Audio - Running Wild
C2 - 10:40 - Three Rings

D1 - Hardway Bros - Theme For Flightpath Estate
D2 - The Light Brigade - Human : Remains
D3 - Andy Bell - Smokebelch II

After forming in 2016, Pillow Queens released a series of singles, honing their craft and working towards their first album, In Waiting (2020). Along the way there has been acclaim from UK and American press, many sold-out gigs and an appearance on James Corden's Late Late Show. After signing with Canada’s Royal Mountain Records, they released a follow-up album, Leave the Light On in 2022, touring the UK, US and Europe extensively, including shows at Austin’s SXSW and supporting Phoebe Bridgers in Glasgow.

Three albums in three years indicates a serious work ethic, for their new album Name Your Sorrow they stuck to a strict schedule. They showed up every day from 9-5, in a windowless Dublin room to just play, swap instruments and experiment. From there, they decamped to a rural retreat in County Clare along the Atlantic coastline of Ireland, to immerse themselves further. “ The palpable shift in sound and tone is possibly the result of working with a new producer, Collin Pastore from Nashville, who has produced boygenius, Lucy Dacus and Illuminati Hotties. The band holed up for three weeks at Analogue Catalogue studio in Newry, and quickly noticed that the change of scene and personnel impacted on the record.

The result of combining new experimentation, heartfelt lyrics and a sound that pinballs from quiet and loud offers a kind of catharsis. Of picking through the shrapnel to find slivers of hope. Previously, the band have road-tested new tracks live, playing them to an audience and reworking them based on the crowd’s reaction. They haven’t done that this time, because the songs already feel fully formed. The band also had to unlearn the process of questioning whether a song sounded like “a Pillow Queens song”. There are definite links to the last two albums, but Name Your Sorrow feels like a triumphant step in another direction.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Moody post-grunge riffs and soaring distorted guitar swells break into upbeat indie jangles and major-key lifts, all topped with the gothic-leaning vocals that easily switch from morose and solemn into stadium-fillingly grand in the blink of an eye. A wonderfully produced, perfectly written statement from the Pillow Queens.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. February 8th
2. Suffer
3. Like A Lesson
4. Blew Up The World
5. Friend Of Mine
6. The Bar's Closed
Side 2
1. So Kind
2. Heavy Pour
3. One Night
4. Love II
5. Notes On Worth

British musician Lucy Rose released a third album, No Words Left, back in 2019. It garnered the strongest critical acclaim of her career and culminated in a sell-out show at London’s Barbican theatre. It was a record that ruminated in a sort of hushed reverence, emotionally charged and deftly delivered.

Lucy had planned to spend some well-earned time at home in the record’s aftermath, having toured relentlessly since her late teens. She’d balanced that precariously spinning plate by forming her own record label too, Real Kind Records, putting out new records by artists she admired and thought deserved her due care and attention. With both plates spinning, she managed to catch them just before the pandemic ensured her plan for some rest and recouperation became an enforced reality. She welcomed her first child, Otis, in the summer of 2021. All was well until she was diagnosed with a rare form of pregnancy induced osteoporosis.

With a life being lived upside down, and only now without the indignity of excruciating pain, making music wasn’t seeded top of Lucy’s priority list. Any fleeting thought of writing a new record, or even sitting down with a guitar or at a piano, took a back seat to building up the strength to walk and care for Otis. As her confidence started to rebuild, so did her usual inhibitions in the making of music. Inspired by a trip to America with friend and rapper Logic, she later worked with renowned producer Kwes to finish the record.

This Ain’t The Way You Go Out is an album constructed from the ashes of despair, nurturing the tiniest of green shoots and giving life to something that had looked otherwise spent. It’s a new era for Lucy, and an era in its purest, truest sense. An artist re-awakening herself to the power of music, and having a lot of fun in the process of its discovery and delivery.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Lucy Roses's brilliant 'This Ain't The Way You Go Out' flawlessly straddles the disparate worlds of disco, folk and indie rock, delivered in Lucy's richly syncopated vocal style. There are myriad moments that could easily be made for the dancefloor but they classily move into similarly placid jazzy home listening fare. It's wonderfully done throughout, and hugely addictive the more you listen.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Light As Grass
Could You Help Me
Dusty Frames
Whatever You Want
Interlude I
Life’s Too Short
Side B
This Ain’t The Way You Go Out
Over When It’s Over
Sail Away
Interlude II
No More
The Racket

The Tortured Poets Department is the eleventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, released on 19th April 2024. Swift announced the album at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards on February 4, 2024, after winning Best Pop Vocal Album for her tenth studio album, 'Midnights' (2022).

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's no doubt there's been a big reassessment of Taylor's sound since the superb duo of Folklore and Evermore (and the brilliant Long Pond sessions LP from RSD last year), and mass appreciation for Midnights so it's with some excitement that her new LP 'The Tortured Poet's Department' lands. I for one am excited to hear it.

“It's a new lineup,” landlord of the avant-garage Kid Congo Powers exclaims of the Pink Monkey Birds edition responsible for the fifth studio full-length of their 19 year recording career, That Delicious Vice.

“We've gone from a four piece to a three piece,” continues Kid, whose unique guitar style has been at the center of some of the most forward-thinking bands in punk and garage: The Gun Club, The Cramps, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and Knoxville Girls, to name a handful.

“I'm not sure if living in the desert is making me want more space in music or not,” laughs Kid, a Tucson resident for a few years now. “Maybe I’m turning into a desert stoner rocker. But I'm not a stoner, so that's not happening.”

No, the former Brian Tristan is most decidedly not unleashing a Kyuss tribute album. But you hear the desert all over That Delicious Vice, beginning with opening instrumental “East Of East,” its Duane Eddy/Rowland S. Howard guitar twanging through some malicious reverb. You feel it in the slide guitar-drenched theme from an imaginary western, “Silver For My Sister,” which echoes the pioneering Los Angeles blues punk band Kid formed with Jeffrey Lee Pierce, The Gun Club. There’s also such unique pieces as the acid/garage cumbia title track, translated into Spanish at least for its name, “Ese Vicio Delicioso.” As he tells the tale of his musical journey over the Pink Monkey Birds’ cowbell-thumping Latinate rhythms, Kid’s thickly distorted guitar groans and screams with feedback, likely a conscious sonic homage to Jimi Hendrix, name checked in the lyrics.

But the album’s major hallmark has to be its extended collaboration with Alice Bag, the face of and voice of early LA punk titans The Bags. How and why these two took this long to unite creatively is a dense mystery, considering both graduated with honors from early Hollywood punk palace The Masque, and their photos had to have stared at one another from opposite pages of a few issues of Slash or fLiPSiDe.

This led to “Wicked World,” a full-on Kid Congo/Alice Bag duet that’s That Delicious Vice’s second track and major fulcrum. Over rat-a-tat “Big Bad John” drums, a blast of fuzz bass, and Kid’s siren-like slide guitar, the co-composers recount in tandem the tale of a child “born into trouble from a devil seed/Every fork in the road led her here.” It’s a short drive from there through a poor childhood and bad decisions to turning tricks and seeking kicks, amid an atmosphere heady with the scent of sex. The action stops, and Alice chants, “One two three four five six seven — you’re going to Hell, and I’M GOING TO HEAVEN!!” It’s a pulp paperback reincarnated as primal rock ‘n’ roll.

That Delicious Vice is produced by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds, recorded and mixed by Jim Waters [Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Sonic Youth] at his Waterworks Studios facility in Tucson. It features nine new original tracks that are the band’s strongest to date. The band will be touring Australia in April with more touring to follow.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Fuzzed-out breakdowns and soaring psychedelic freakouts are the bedrock of Kind Congo's sound, but on 'that Delicious Vice' the band are on peak form, effortlessly moving between walls of sound freakout drone and tender slide-guitar balladry. There 's groove and rhythm too, never eschewing the feel for needless heft, it's a beatifully balanced maelstrom.

Cloud Nothings are back! Cleveland's loudest export with their new album, Final Summer via Pure Noise Records. Over the past 15 years Cloud Nothings have become part of the fabric of modern indie rock with a steady run of reliably fantastic records, and this streak continues unabated with Final Summer – an album that’s so assured, so instantly satisfying, that it forces you to pause and realize you’re listening to one of the great American rock bands in their prime.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Equal parts rolling scuzz-garage and psydedelic grunge music, cloud nothings effortlessly lurch between sound worlds into places that are both terrifying and exciting. Even on record you can hear the tremendous energy emanating from the Ohioan trio, I bet they're a lot of fun to watch live. Brilliantly raucous.

TRACK LISTING

1. Final Summer
2. Daggers Of Light
3. I'd Get Along
4. Mouse Policy
5. Silence
6. Running Through The Campus
7. The Golden Halo
8. Thank Me For Playing
9. On The Chain
10. Common Mistake

Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame inductees, Pearl Jam, return with their highly anticipated new album Dark Matter.

The band’s 12th studio album was produced by Grammy® Award Winning Producer, Andrew Watt.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A blistering new LP of soaring grunge hooks and Big Ed's unmistakeable vocal fire. It's a brilliantly recognisable sound that Pearl Jam make, but has just enough moments that veer outside of their already venerable canon to make it sound fresh. Lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

CD & LP Tracklisting:
Sacred Of Fear
React, Respond
Wreckage
Dark Matter
Won’t Tell
Upper Hand
Waiting For Stevie
Running
Something Special
Got To Give
Setting Sun

The Baby Seals debut album, "Chaos," is a sonic exploration that blends heavy guitars, a pop edge, and a punk rock garage spirit with a heavy attack. The band, comprised of Amy "Amos" Devine on drums and backing vocals, Kate Shore on bass and backing vocals, and Kerry Devine on guitar and lead vocals, delivers a raw and energetic collection that captures the essence of their live performances.

Recorded in March 2023 in Thaxted, just outside of Essex, "Chaos" embodies the DIY ethos that has defined The Baby Seals' approach to music. Working with engineer Joe in a secluded outhouse surrounded by fields, the band laid down the tracks live over a day, capturing the unfiltered essence of their sound. Joe's extensive collection of homemade pedals added a unique touch to the recording, while Benny T's mixing expertise brought the album to its final form.

The decision to minimise post-production sets "Chaos" apart from previous recordings, reflecting the band's commitment to authenticity and a desire to showcase their growth and maturity.

On Chaos Kerry says: “Chaos is the next phase in life for us lasses in the band - babies and mid-life responsibilities. The album definitely is about how we feel and experience the world around us in our 30s and 40s. Someone who heard the album recently said it's like the The Baby Seals have grown up and I liked that because that's what I feel likes happened to me in the last two years… The album definitely has Themes: inclusivity, gender inequality, the mental load, the motherload, power, body positivity, challenging taboos, liberation. The importance of what to take seriously and what not to take seriously.

Title track, Chaos is one of the songs on the album which I'd written after a series of events including watching an interview with the late writer Benjamin Zephaniah who said the only way to liberation for all was to tear big governments down and to believe in your community.

The cover photo by Jeff Pitcher sums us up and hopefully gives you a feeling of what the album sounds like. Album design was created by Igor Prato Luna, he just seemed to understand what we are about. He referenced loads of wonderful album cover, poster and flyer artwork from the 60s - 90s, and even some fabulous sci-fi artwork from the 1920s and those incredible 1950s sci-fi pulp book covers. Nothing was referenced too heavily, though, and Igor definitely made it his own. “

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Clashing, distorted guitars and pumpelling percussion, topped with the near-shouted vocal trilogy of Amy and Kerry Devine and Kate Shore. It's rich in the traditions of punk rock and garage but with a more modern, sardonic vim. Superbly loud, and made for crashing around to.

TRACK LISTING

1. Yawn Porn
2. ID'd At Aldi
3. Vibrator
4. Chaos
5. Invisible Woman
6. My Labia Is Lopsided But I Don't Mind
7. Mild Misogynist
8. Nipple Hair
9. It's Not About The Money Honey

The latest suite by composer (and Stars Of The Lid co-founder) Adam Wiltzie took shape following a move north from Brussels into the Flemish countryside, although it was initially inspired by a recurring dream wherein “if someone listened to the music I created, then they would die.”

The album uniquely evokes and evades the allure of oblivion, keening between beauty and ruin, forever unresolved. Wiltzie cites the barbiturate of the title as both muse and sacred escape: “When you are sitting face forward on the daily emotional meat grinder of life, I always wished I could have some, so I could just fall asleep automatically and the feeling would not be there anymore.”

Recorded at Wilzie’s home studio, with strings added in Budapest at the old Hungarian National radio facility (Magyar Radio), the tracks feel simultaneously intimate and infinite, unfolding vistas glimpsed in an inner space.

Robert Hampson of English drone rock icons Loop mixed the album, further lending the music a sense of cinematic expanse and oblique hypnosis.

These are fugue states as much as fugues in a literal classical music sense-smeared epiphanies of uncertain memory and spatial dislocation, coaxed from the unconscious and set aloft.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There are incredibly few things that Adam Wiltzie or Dustin O'Dalloran put out that I won't buy (or Brian Mcbride for that matter), and that's obviously not going to stop at this impeccably conceived album by one of the most important composer in the modern-classical sphere. It's *beautiful* and every bit what you'd expect, with a little of what you wouldn't.

TRACK LISTING

1. Buried At Westwood Memorial Park, In An Unmarked Grave, To The Left Of Walter Matthau
2. Tissue Of Lies
3. Pelagic Swell
4. Stock Horror
5. Dim Hopes
6. As Above Perhaps So Below
7. Mexican Helium
8. We Were Vaporised
9. Don’t Go Back To (Boogerville)

Gotta say, I wasn't expecting this. Multifaceted producer AVOP - who's previously released on a wide range of labels - including Aficionado, Faze Action, Hell Yeah and many more - returns to one of his home stables with an album of Mediterrainian pleasure, touching on house, broken beats and Balearic boogie. It's a surprisingly house-orientated theme which guides the LP however, drizzled in a summer sun and blue sky aesthetic. 

For those seeking a musical experience reminiscent of the iconic Larry Heard, Ron Trent & Kerri Chandler, delving into the enchanting sounds of A Vision Of Panorama is a journey well worth taking. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: The seriously talented AVOP drops a house flavoured album for Star Creature oozing with organic instrumentation, natural rhythms and radiant hooks. There's a bit of broken beat / jazz-funk flavour injected into proceedings too. Be sure to check if ya dig Maurice Fulton, Instant House, International Feel and the original deep house innovators.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fusion To Illusion 05:04
2. Piano Sunset 04:31
3. Imagery 04:18
4. Blue Water 03:20
5. Lost In Palms 05:02
6. The Crossing 04:33
7. Sensitive 04:06
8. Outro 03:07

4 years in the making, this surprise collaboration between Drop and Ashong fuses soul and psychedelia with downtempo beats.

Ashong’s continuing mission to subvert expectations manifests greatly here, but the album is full of melodic hooks, layered to infinity alongside his acoustic guitar. Meanwhile Jonny Drop quietly flips samples unrecognisable from his extensive vinyl collections and once again makes a leap forward in his production identity.

Stand out single Puzzle Dust is a perfect slice of UK soul and jazz that sets everyone up for a unique sonic experience.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautifully laid-back fusion of mid-tempo Baleraric percussion and rich hazy reverbs. Dreamy, scattered soulful vocal snippets and swooming, opening pads. A perfectly paced, summery party piece.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Lightgeist
A2. Ephemera
A3. One To Free
A4. Blood
B1. We Are Here
B2. Puzzle Dust
B3. Sun Sailing
B4. Outsighed

Greg Foat's Greek Jazz quartet featuring Sokratis Votskos, Warren Hampshire and Ayo Salawu recorded live in Mykonos. Big fat Synth bass lines with Psychedelic Guitar, Hypnotic Bass Clarinet, mystical Flute and Killer Drums.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tsamykonos (feat. Warren Hampshire & Ayo Salawu)
2. Kiki's Tavern (For Vasilis) [feat. Warren Hampshire & Ayo Salawu]
3. On The Rose Bush (feat. Warren Hampshire & Ayo Salawu)
4. Secret World, Pt. 1 (feat. Warren Hampshire & Ayo Salawu)
5. Secret World, Pt. 2 (feat. Warren Hampshire & Ayo Salawu)
6. Secret World, Pt. 3 (feat. Warren Hampshire & Ayo Salawu)

Late 80s / early 90s body music, Attack Decay Sustain Release, or ADSR, was the name of Todd Nickolas and Dominic Paterson's high school synthesizer group, an outlet for their electronic music experiments recorded on Todd’s parents’ farm in Southwestern Ontario, Canada.

In the idyllic rural setting of the Nickolas' dairy and crop farm, the juxtaposition of natural ambience and the repetitive rhythms of the machinery merged within their youthful music-saturated subconscious and found its way into their recordings. This bucolic environment also inspired the teenagers to channel their restless energy into endlessly experimenting with whatever gear they could get their hands on and listening to a steady diet of new music.

A big part of that exposure to non-mainstream sounds came via CBC Radio's Brave New Waves program - a saviour for adventurous and curious listeners living outside of major urban centres. The title "Poised Over Pause Buttons" is directly borrowed from a live studio broadcast by Severed Heads, where host Brent Bambury introduced the set by saying, 'Do you know how many fingers are poised over pause buttons right now?' The title is also a head nod to those early processes of recording onto cassette decks or 4-track tape recorders, and to the tape culture of the time, capturing favourite songs off the radio with precision and making mixtapes from owned or borrowed record collections.

Todd was constantly seeking new electronic music through those formative years - whether it was the futuristic space rock of ELO's “Time” in grade school, Skinny Puppy’s blistering electronic body music in high school, or the ambient bliss of Aphex Twin in university. The tracks coming from their studio in those early days were inspired by a steady diet of these new discoveries. They were rapidly devouring a wide variety of acts from 4AD and Wax Trax!, indie artists like Husker Du, Chicago house to Belgian New Beat, the On-U Sound label to Public Enemy, and all points in between.

The unreleased cassettes that Todd recently rediscovered (some of which are included on this release) are a flashback to that era of pure discovery but also a reminder of the explorations and achievements accomplished by the confidence of the fearless amateur. Over the past three years, Todd and Linus Booth have compiled their favourite glimpses from that '87-'91 period and present them to you as a personal reflection of that time and place.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: An expansive and intriguing EBM curio from Canada. ADSR take cues from Belgium new beat and that fertile pre-house period to concoct their own blend of throbbing, coital dance music.

TRACK LISTING

Dreampain
Nightlife
I Dont Understand
Far Too Late
Great Mysteries
Herethere
Is This The World
Suboceana Demo
Your Whole Life
Freak Response
Fathom
Perpetual
As Soon As Possible V2
Where Are They Now

In "Ngélar" - the sextet’s sophomore LP - deeper social narratives and more intimate subject matters are more apparent. In which they speak a lot about ‘tanah’ or ‘land/soil,’ owing a lot to the fact that their hometown, Jatiwangi’s history of being the country’s largest producer of clay/terracotta-based products. The people in Jatiwangi’s intertwining relationship with ‘tanah’ is simply unparalleled - even their instruments are mostly made of terracotta.

From the reimagining of their hometown’s past glories, Lair, along with singer/songwriter Monica Hapsari (who co-wrote and co-composed three songs in the album) and Go Kurosawa (Kikagaku Moyo) helming the project as the producer, sings about the rituals and traditions of harvest, to sending off prayers towards their once-prospering land and the ruins of what was once a dense forest in Jatiwangi, which they are currently trying to reclaim while racing with the massive wave of industrialisation. It is a contextually-sorrowful album as much as it is a candid, cheery commemoration of the band members’ everyday life in today’s northern shores of Java, Indonesia.

"Ngélar" is one of the words that might be able to describe the essence of Lair as a group. The word itself can be traced back to the locals’ culture of ‘going around in celebration of something.’ In their village, ngélar simply means a traveling performance, in which the performers would play music and go around the village, greeting the people around them as they move from place to place, or simply within their immediate surroundings, indicating that there is something nearby that is being celebrated.

Lair are simply in love with journey, time, and all of their interactions. "Ngélar", for them, is a representation of their journey. How they go around, interacting and communicating, to celebrating and making sense of everything that is going on within and around them. For Lair, "Ngélar" is a method, a creative process, and - as an album - a culmination of each of their journeys since the group’s founding.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Hair raising psyche, fuzz and funk from this Indonesian group. Plenty for fans of Goat to enjoy, whilst it also sits perfectly into the Guruguru Brain ethos.

TRACK LISTING

Tatalu
Pesta Rakyat Pabrik Gula
Tanah Bertuah
Hareeng
Boa-Boa
Kawin Tebu
Bangkai Belantara
Gelombang Pemecah Malam
Mencari Selamat

Recorded in the past 25 years in different parts of the world, "Encyclopedia Sónica Vol. 1" compiles the music and sounds of Leo Heiblum. Comes with insert.

Since Leo Heiblum was a little boy, he always found music everywhere. Listening to the engine of his mother's car and hearing incredible rhythms. He always thought every sound we hear can be made into music, every sound that we hear can be heard as music and it can be felt and understood as music. Every sound has an attack, a decay; some have a pitch. What is more beautiful, the sound of a flute, a bird, a trumpet, a car horn, a violin or a mosquito buzzing? They can all be used to make music.

Leo Heiblum believes that If we learn to hear all sounds as musical or at least to have the potential to be used to make music, we might look at the world and listen to the world more lovingly. That car passing by had a beautiful crescendo. That dog barking in the distance created a fantastic melody with an impossible-to- transcribe rhythm. Is there no creative intention behind those sounds? Can the listener give them an intention, can the listener transform them into art? Leo Heiblum is trying to organise them and use them in a way that will be musical for us. He hopes that the next time we hear an ocean wave breaking a bond, fire crackling, or a fly flying, we can enjoy the notes and the rhythms they are making. They are being created by something; who knows what the intention is, but some of the most unique beats he's heard come from rocks falling in cenotes or ice breaking down in a glacier. And the melodies he's heard from bats, dogs fighting, or a newborn dog are both haunting and beautiful. The timber from sounds such as the thorn of a cactus, the voice of a homeless person in the street or a mosquito buzzing can be used to create instruments as beautiful as any instrument. And they have a new sound or a familiar old sound used differently. A way that invites us to hear the music created by this planet.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Childlike, naïve, beguiling, but above all BATSHIT CRAZY. Completely singular found-sound madness from Heiblum which despite it's eccentricity, maintains a degree of mellifluousness and intrigue that should keep any modest sonic explorer hooked till the end.

TRACK LISTING

The Monk And The Elephant
Chis Chis
Las Pelotas De Riesman
Kasol
Tanganazo
Shamani En El Metro De Mazunte
1
Velorio
Bebe Y Monos
Oakland C
Church And Branch
Chacarera

UK jazz ensemble The Jazz Defenders release their third album "Memory In Motion" in April on Haggis Records (home of The Haggis Horns and Malcolm Strachan). The Bristol jazz boppers deliver another quality release of original material that takes in their usual diverse mix of influences and genres, from timeless acoustic jazz referencing the classic sounds of Blue Note Records, to a more contemporary fusion where jazz meets soul, funk and hip-hop.

Although they love to mix things up, their roots are in the classic acoustic jazz quintet sound of the late 1950s/early 1960s, back when hard bop and modal jazz ruled. They have already explored this musical path well on their previous albums but they still deliver a couple of classic inspired jazz cuts here. "Chasing Fantasies" and "Fuffle Kerfuffle" both give the band some space to cut loose on solos over swing jazz beats that will keep their original jazz audience happy. The latter bubbles away with a jazz shuffle beat that would make drum legend Art Blakey smile.

"Meanderthal" and "Snakebite Playfight" bring soul to this jazz party. Exactly like jazz legends Lee Morgan/Herbie Hancock/Freddie Hubbard etc did back in the early-mid 1960s. The first is a feel-good, toe-tapping gem that's heavy on the backbeat and short and snappy on the solos, the exact reasons that made it the perfect opening single from the album. "Snakebite Playfight" comes with a jaunty New Orleans shuffle before transforming into a heavy psychedelic soul jazz burner, flipping back with ease to the NOLA shuffle for the Mardi Gras meets bebop piano solo by band leader George Cooper.

"Rolling On A High" is a hip-hop/jazz banger that sees the band continue their collaborations with UK rapper Doc Brown, a perfect combination that began on their second album "King Phoenix''. This time, the Doc spits some old-school block party-style bars over a bouncy uptempo funky beat with the band cooking up some soul stew behind him. Definitely dancefloor material.

Another uptempo jam is the heavy jazz fusion jam "Net Zero". It kicks off with some live broken beat kit playing and piano/bass staccato vamping before taking off into Headhunters territory on the solos, sounding both contemporary and classic at the same time. This is The Jazz Defenders at their fiercest and toughest and delivering a track that will have jazz dancers worldwide in an utter frenzy.

It's not all uptempo numbers or dancefloor-oriented compositions on this album. Two tracks take the musical dynamics right down to give a temporary break from the high-energy numbers. "Take A Minute" has a rolling double bass line locked into the groove while the horns play a lazy and laid-back theme with vibes embellishment, sounding like some trippy independent film soundtrack. Another recurring musical reference point for this band over the years.

The album finishes on a poignant and introspective note with a beautiful piano and double bass feature for George Cooper and bassist Will Harris. It's called "Enigma", it was recorded live in Paris and it closes the album on a peaceful note evoking the music and playing of Bill Evans. The perfect way to close this brilliant third album from The Jazz Defenders.

With Memory In Motion, pianist George Cooper and his band undoubtedly pay great homage to a golden era of jazz music that they love, but also elaborate on this influence with a wealth of modern musical experience, to create their own raw and vibrant compositions. The result is an enthrallingly unique sound that is as danceable as it is listenable.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: More treats from the UK jazz landscape. Bristol's The Jazz Defenders are the full package - continuing the lineage and traditions of the genre authentically and with their own unique style. The playing is fabulous throughout, as is the arrangements and production. Seriously, modern jazz has never been in such great shape!

TRACK LISTING

1. Meanderthal
2. The Long Haul
3. Chasing Fantasies
4. Rolling On A High (feat. Doc Brown)
5. Take A Minute
6. Fuffle Kershuffle
7. Snakebite Playfight
8. Net Zero
9. Enigma (Live In Paris)

2023 sees the return of multi-talented Norwegian producer Espen Horne to Wah Wah 45s, after a 24 year hiatus. The man behind the label's very first release, the now seminal Magnetica, never lost his connection with the imprint and has remained very much part of the Wah Wah family, making a comeback this year with his first solo material under his own name since that club classic from 1999.

Back in the spring, the first single from the project, the gorgeous soul-jazz beauty Bakeren, featuring the stunning vocals of Resonators' Faye Houston, quickly found a home on Gilles Peterson's internationally renowned BBC Radio 6 show as well as that of Jazz FM legend Robbie Vincent, Bandcamp Weekly and the Fresh Finds Jazz Spotify playlist.

Following that, Bergen Sunrays, became a weekly fixture on the Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show on BBC 6 Music, with the limited 7-inch of both singles selling out within hours of release.

Next up was the wistful Den Franske Gitaren, a lugubrious soul-jazz piece with drum & bass leanings featuring Bergen based MC and vocalist Aich, which found favour with legends Laurent Garnier and Jazzanova as well as hot Japanese production outfit Dazzle Drums.

This was closely followed by the final single to be taken from the album, the stunning and outspoken vocal jazz waltzer Nada Pode Me Calar (which roughly translates to Nothing Can Shut Me Up!) featuring the sublime talent of Olav Wöllo on vocals and Juno - anotherr big one with Gilles Peterson on Worldwide FM and Deb Grant on BBC 6 Music.

And now the full album, entitled The Anatomy Of Serene Eloquence is available for your aural delectation. Recorded largely during lockdown, the LP is a sophisticated and composed piece of work that sees the Norwegian producer make connections with musicians from across Europe, and some closer to home, to collaborate on this sedate and peaceful collection of songs.

The aforementioned Faye Houston also appears on the soulful, dub flavoured Don't Fall Asleep, a piece of music that explores the feeling of being isolated whilst sharing a mutual love and drive to explore new sonic possibilities.

Elsewhere, Olav Wöllo pops up again too, this time on O Mar E A Lua and once again singing in Portuguese to give this track a certain Tropicalia feel, as Espen explains:

"Olav Wöllo is a close friend, an excellent musician and vocalist, and a capoeira professor here in Bergen. He has spent much of his life living in Brazil and speaks Portuguese fluently. He wrote the lyrics for this tune years ago and had just been waiting for the right collaboration to come along.

We went to his lovely studio out on this remote island, made a massive gyoza meal, had some serious good wine and stayed the whole night to record his vocal harmonies and outspoken lyrics."

The single Bergen Sunrays also appears on the album in instrumental form with featured keys courtesy of London based player Rory More - here entitled Rory's Sunrays. His Lowrey organ adds a more melancholic feel to the track, as it does on the stunning Belle Époque, alongside the ivory work of Eirik Blåsternes - an emotional, contemplative and atmospheric track that was tested and shaped in the eclipse of Covid.

As with Belle Époque, La Psychosomnie is a playful yet explorative cut that examines insomnia, paralysis and hypnosis courtesy of some enigmatic French spoken word spinning around a framework of drums, bass and swirling keys.

And finally, the album offers up an alternative version of the single Den Franske Gitaren, this time featuring Martin Halla, a vocalist out of the Bergen Grieg Jazz Academy and winner of the Norwegian version of The Voice back in 2012! The perfect flip to Aich's more mournful interpretation of this bass and drum future classic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bakeren (feat. Faye Houston)
2. O Mar E A Lua (feat. Olav Wöllo)
3. Bergen Sunrays (feat. Selim Mutic)
4. Belle Époque
5. Den Franske Gitaren (feat. Aich)
6. Don't Fall Asleep (feat. Faye Houston)
7. Rory's Sunrays
8. Nada Pode Me Calar (feat. Olav Wöllo)
9. La Psychosomnie
10. Den Franske Gitaren (feat. Martin Halla)

Best Of Bruce Springsteen is a collection of original songs spanning his storied 50-year recording career, from 1973's Greeting from Asbury Park, NJ to 2020's Letter To You. It will be available as an 18-track set across 2 LPs or 1 CD - and digitally as an expanded 31-song package. The collection will span early-career favorites like "Growin' Up" and "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)," staples of Springsteen's live shows from "Dancing In The Dark" to "The Rising," best-selling breakouts like "Born To Run" and "Hungry Heart," as well as recent releases "Hello Sunshine" and "Letter To You." Here, these career-spanning works appear together in one set for the first time. The packaging includes archival photos and a new essay. 

TRACK LISTING

CD:
1. Growin’ Up Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ (1973)
2. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle (1973)
3. Born To Run Born To Run (1975)
4. Thunder Road Born To Run (1975)
5. Badlands Darkness On The Edge Of Town (1978)
6. Hungry Heart The River (1980)
7. Atlantic City Nebraska (1982)
8. Dancing In The Dark Born In The U.S.A. (1984)
9. Born In The U.S.A Born In The U.S.A. (1984)
10. Brilliant Disguise Tunnel Of Love (1987)
11. Human Touch Human Touch Single (1992)
12. Streets Of Philadelphia Streets Of Philadelphia Single (1993)
13. The Ghost Of Tom Joad The Ghost Of Tom Joad (1995)
14. Secret Garden Greatest Hits (1995)
15. The Rising The Rising (2002)
16. Girls In Their Summer Clothes Magic (2007)
17. Hello Sunshine Western Stars (2019)
18. Letter To You Letter To You (2020)

VINYL (2LP):
SIDE A
1. Growin’ Up Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ (1973)
2. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle (1973)
3. Born To Run Born To Run (1975)
4. Thunder Road Born To Run (1975)
SIDE B
1. Badlands Darkness On The Edge Of Town (1978)
2. Hungry Heart The River (1980)
3. Atlantic City Nebraska (1982)
4. Dancing In The Dark Born In The U.S.A. (1984)
5. Born In The U.S.A Born In The U.S.A. (1984)
SIDE C
1. Brilliant Disguise Tunnel Of Love (1987)
2. Human Touch Human Touch Single (1992)
3. Streets Of Philadelphia Streets Of Philadelphia Single (1993)
4. The Ghost Of Tom Joad The Ghost Of Tom Joad (1995)
SIDE D
1. Secret Garden Greatest Hits (1995)
2. The Rising The Rising (2002)
3. Girls In Their Summer Clothes Magic (2007)
4. Hello Sunshine Western Stars (2019)
5. Letter To You Letter To You (2020)

After the psychedelic opus Cut From A Star (2012) and understated country weirdness of Drifter’s Skyline (2020) Ian Skelly is no stranger to the strange. He’s been busy the last few years at his day job as drummer/ songwriter for The Coral, playing and contributing to the critically acclaimed Coral Island and latest albums Sea Of Mirrors/ Holy Joe… Amidst all this, he’s found time to etch out a new and wonderful solo LP.

Lotus And The Butterfly is a treasure trove of psychedelic colour and freak-folk. Think Brian McLean in a seance with Karen Dalton, dreaming up the soundtrack to a lost American road movie. Recorded between Parr Street Studios, Coastal Studios and band HQ the Coral Caves, it features cameos from James Redmond and bandmates Paul Duffy, Paul Molloy and Zak McDonell. Extended liner notes are written by Nick Power.

Speaking to Shindig Magazine, Ian says of the album’s theme and feel:

A lot of the sounds I hear these days bore me, so I wanted to make a record that rips up the rule book a bit. I wanted ‘Sweet Love’ to feel as if it was something from a 1969 biker movie starring Dennis Wilson, you know? No dialogue but plenty of great shots. I put that down originally with just guitar, no click track. Then later I added the drums, that's what gives it that feel, I was having to guess where the ‘one' might be.’ Elsewhere, hardened Coral heads will clock a folk-psych version of Rovin’ Jewel from Butterfly House.

Big Crown Records is proud to present Brainstory’s sophomore full-length album Sounds Good.

Based in L.A. but hailing from the Inland Empire's own Rialto, California, two-thirds of Brainstory, Kevin and Tony Martin are brothers by blood, while Eric Hagstrom is a brother through their music and long term friendship. Since they started the band they have constantly faced situations that forced them to rise to the occasion. They got signed to Big Crown Records, they stepped up their game. COVID happened, they learned to record themselves. They started touring a ton sharing the stage with the likes of Lady Wray and they got their live show super tight. All of this time spent grinding and growing has certainly paid off. The path to take their art to the next level is clearer than ever, and once again, they are here for it. If there is one thing that is abundantly clear on Sounds Good, it’s that Brainstory has leveled up.

Part of this evolution is undoubtedly attributed to having access to and working constantly in their own studio in Long Beach. Another major factor is that their brotherhood has expanded. "I've been playing music with my brother all my life and now with Eric for a long time," Tony tells us. "Leon, though, is like another brother I've just met."

Leon Michels, Big Crown's co-owner, produced this record and applied his unmistakable golden touch in crucial ways. The other member of the extended Brainstory brotherhood whose contributions were essential to the album, is studio engineer legend Jens Jungkurth who controls the tones and textures of the music. "That's what you're hearing, our connection, the fun moments, the little details," Kevin describes. "This record isn't half what it is without them—and it made us want to match that effort," and match that effort they did. Album opener "Nobody But You" is an uplifting, dance ­oor burner, that shows off a new side of Brainstory's range. Drummer Eric Hagstrom’s crushing back beat lays the foundation for an inspirational feel good banger that manages to take the uncomfortable truth that “nobody will save you but you” and turn it into pure blissful motivation. "Peach Optimo" is a laid back half time tune that blends the bounce of Down South Hip-Hop with California G funk and Jazz. They once again show off their B said ballad talents with "Gift Of Life" but this time taking the genre to a new place with lyrics about existentialism and a track that is drop dead gorgeous, haunting, and profound all at once. "NyNy" is an homage to Kev and Tony's recently deceased grandfather while "Too Yung" is a show stopping, deeply personal, stripped down number about being introduced to alcohol at a young age. They put another hit on the boards with "Hanging On," a Latin / Psychedelic Soul inspired banger featuring Claire Cottrill on background vocals while "XFaded” addresses the all too common vicious cycle of smoking and drinking too much over a trippy shuf­e.

"It's been four years since our last full length record, and with everything that's happened since, it's like we've been catching up to ourselves." That's one way to describe change: catching up to oneself. Each member of Brainstory has gone through shifts, both personally and musically, and all of that threads through Sounds Good. It's easy to say that the music industry can be short on lasting, genuine relationships. However, for Brainstory, from day one it's been about standing by each other, for each other. Their friendship started the group. 

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
Nobody But You
Peach Optimo
Listen
Gift Of Life
NyNy
I Will Be

SIDE B:
Hanging On
XFaded
Too Yung
Stay
Sweet & Lovely
Rialto Winds

Death Songbook is an exquisite and unique collaboration between Suede’s Brett Anderson, Charles Hazlewood and Paraorchestra featuring special guests Nadine Shah and Gwenno.

The album features delicate new interpretations of iconic songs by the likes of Echo & The Bunnymen, Suede, Depeche Mode, Mercury Rev and Japan tackling themes of death, the death of love, anxiety, loss and transcendence.

Paraorchestra is the world's first large-scale virtuoso ensemble of professional disabled and non-disabled musicians.

The CD and LP packages feature beautiful photography from the original recordings at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Killing Moon
2. Unsung
3. Holes (feat. Nadine Shah)
4. Nightporter
5. She Still Leads Me On
6. Wonderful Life
7. The Next Life
8. He's Dead
9. Enjoy The Silence (feat. Gwenno)
10. The End Of The World (feat. Nadine Shah)
11. My Death
12. Brutal Lover

The Melvins new album Tarantula Heart is like nothing the band has ever done before. Probably the best record they’ve ever recorded. Certainly one of their weirdest. The five song album centers around the mammoth 19-minute opening track “Pain Equals Funny” and the noise laden heavy hitter “Working the Ditch.”

In addition to the core three members, also appearing on the album are second drummer Roy Mayorga (Ministry, Soulfly, Stone Sour and Nausea) and We Are The Asteroid guitar player Gary Chester, who the Melvins recently toured with.

“The way we approached Tarantula Heart was different than any other Melvins’ album,” explains Buzz Osborne. “I had Dale and Roy Mayorga come in and play along with Steven and I to some riffs, then I took those sessions and figured out what parts would work and wrote new music to fit. This isn’t a studio approach we’ve ever taken. Usually we have the songs written BEFORE we start recording!”

Buzz often surprises fans and friends with the diverse influences that factor into his process; you’re just as likely to find him enjoying Judy Garland classics one moment and diving into the raw energy of The Birthday Party the next. Drawing inspiration from the legendary Miles Davis, a master of the improvisation studio approach which showcased the talent and creativity of his collaborators certainly influenced Osborne’s approach to Tarantula Heart.

Without question Tarantula Heart is a huge milestone for the Melvins. it’s rock solid sound wise and looks great with brilliantly executed cover art by Mackie Osborne.

TRACK LISTING

1. Pain Equals Funny
2. Working The Ditch
3. She’s Got Weird Arms
4. Allergic To Food
5. Smiler

'Standing at The Sky' Edge' is the 2023 Olivier Award-winning Best New Musical - written as a love letter to Sheffield and the city's iconic Park Hill Estate, is directed by Sheffield Theatres' Artistic Director, Robert Hastie and features songs by the legendary Sheffield singer-songwriter, Richard Hawley.

With a hilarious and gut-wrenching book by Chris Bush, 'Standing at the Sky's Edge' charts the hopes and dreams of three generations over the course of six tumultuous decades, navigating universal themes of love, loss and survival. 'Standing at the Sky's Edge' is a multi-award-winning production, winning 'Best New Musical' at the 2023 Olivier Awards with Sheffield singer-songwriter, Richard Hawley and Tom Deering also winning 'Best Original Score and New Orchestrations'.

It was recently awarded the internationally recognised 'Made in Sheffield' accolade, the first time a theatre production has received this unique trademark. Previously it has won the 2020 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Theatre and 'Best Musical Production' at the UK Theatre Awards in 2019. First commissioned by Sheffield Theatres and Various Productions, 'Standing at the Sky's Edge' had its world premiere at the Crucible Theatre in 2019.

Following a hugely successful, sold-out run, it returned to the Crucible Theatre in December 2022, selling out again, before making its London premiere in the National Theatre's Olivier theatre in early 2023 where it continued to sell out and receive standing ovations.

TRACK LISTING

1. As The Dawn Breaks
2. Time Is
3. Naked In Pitsmoor
4. I'm Looking For Someone To Find Me
5. Tonight The Streets Are Ours
6. Open Your Door
7. My Little Treasures
8. Coles Corner
9. There's A Storm A Comin'
10. Standing At The Sky's Edge
11. Our Darkness
12. Midnight Train
13. For Your Lover Give Some Time
14. There's A Storm A Comin' (Reprise)
15. After The Rain
16. Don't Get Hung Up In Your Soul
17. Finale
18. As The Dawn Breaks (Reprise)

Favorite Recordings and Lea Lisa present "Many Shades of House": a personal selection of house music tracks that have a very special place in Lea Lisa's heart and in her record box.

Amongst this selection, "Many Shades Of House" includes many very rare and hard to find titles, mostly never reissued on vinyl until now.

Lea Lisa (Phonica Records, Wolf Music…) is a DJ, producer & vinyl addict who never stops digging and hasn’t since she first started in 1995. House music is so rich and varied that she naturally felt the desire to show and share this diversity. 'Through this compilation I wanted to present artists and records that have greatly influenced me throughout my career. Whether through the strong messages they convey or through the emotions I felt discovering each of these vinyl.' said Lea Lisa.

Carefully packed with long-forgotten US house gems (Transient's groove keeper "Higher" and a 1997 NYC House tune from Kerri Chandler in his garage house days), iconic early house/techno treasure (Mark Goddard's "Truth"), intensive journeys (Passion Dance Orchestra) to atmospheric soundscapes (Pure Science), soulful grooves (Ron Trent's boogie infused "Can't Change Me") and timeless deep house gems (Slowhouse, Abacus).

Created in 2005, Favorite Recordings presents a rich catalogue combining the productions of new artists with reissues of forgotten masterpieces all along the wide groove music spectrum, from soul / funk, jazz, disco, to reggae, hip-hop, house or electronic genres. Before launching Favorite, Pascal Rioux, founder and label honcho, started in the mid-90s with the house music label Rotax Disques. In 2014, following his meeting and affinity with French house DJ Jeremy Underground, they quickly collaborated on a series of compilations ("My Love Is Underground") curated by Jeremy and reissuing some of his finest underground house music hidden gems. Today the story starts again with Lea Lisa with this finest compilation for house music lovers…

TRACK LISTING

A1. Kerri Kaoz 6:23 Chandler - Be There (Kerri's Club Mix)
A2. Slowhouse 2 - Untitled
B1. Truth - Emotional
B2. Passion Dance Orchestra - Inner Dance
C1. Abacus - Blax Thanxs
C2. Transient Feat Sherman Benton - Higher (Club Mix)
D1. Pure Science - Ekeyz
D2. N'Dambi - Can't Change Me (Ron Trent Remix)

Leeds indie frontrunners English Teacher announce debut LP ‘This Could Be Texas’. Preceded by initial LP reveals ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’, ‘Nearly Daffodils’ and ‘Mastermind Specialism’, which were all A-listed on the BBC 6 Music playlist, English Teacher’s remarkable ascent continues to reach new levels, having completed sold-out debut UK and US headline runs last autumn, following their thrilling debut appearance on Later With...Jools Holland. Announced as Independent Venue Week Artist Ambassador for 2024. Lead singer Lily Fontaine explains, “I want this album to feel like you’ve gone to space, and it turns out its almost identical to Doncaster. It’s about in-betweens, it’s about home, and it’s about Desire Paths." In several songs, Fontaine reflects on growing up as a mixed-race individual in a place, she says, “where many didn’t have any tolerance towards people who are different” in a post-Brexit landscape.

The debut album by Leeds frontrunners ‘This Could Be Texas’ will be released on 12th April 2023.

Lead singer Lily Fontaine explains, “I want this album to feel like you’ve gone to space, and it turns out its almost identical to Doncaster. It’s about in-betweens, it’s about home, and it’s about Desire Paths."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's some brilliant music coming out of the London art/noise/garage rock scene at the moment and while i'm a big fan of pretty much all of it, there's nothing there that hits my feels quite as much as Leeds' English Teacher. Jagged, energetic instrumentation and moments of placid, drifting ambience abound, this is a startlingly cohesive and wonderfully deep debut.

Sometimes you have to move backwards to move forwards. Just ask punk cultural commentators BODEGA, whose new album sees them carve a new future from fuzz-soaked, consumerism-skewering shards of their past.

‘Our Brand Could Be YR Life’ is BODEGA's first album release through Chrysalis Records. “It’s something we’ve been wanting to do for years,” guitarist and vocalist Ben Hozie explains of ‘Our Brand Could Be Yr Life’ – a collection of catchy indie-rock ruminations on the slow-creep of corporate-think into youth culture, first written eight years ago.

‘Our Brand Could Be YR Life’'s 15 tracks explore indie-rock subgenres, self-critique and everything in between. "I think it’s our best- sounding record to date,” says Hozie, "I t’s got dance-punk. There's some shoegaze on there. There's slacker rock on there. There's psychedelic rock on there. R.E.M, too. We wanted to be another band in a long stream of missionaries, proselytising a certain type of rock subculture.” 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's been a couple years since Bodega's last LP, and 'Our Brand...' shows that the Brooklyn band have honed their propulsive, soaring garage-adjacent rock and with it brought in a wealth of perfectly integrated influences. Brilliantly produced and beautifully performed, it's definitely the most exciting of their releases to date.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Dedicated To The Dedicated
2. G.N.D. Deity
3. Bodega Bait
4. Tarkovski
5. Major Amberson
6. Stain Gaze
7. Webster Hall
Side B
1. ATM
2. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Drum
3. Protean
4. Born Into By What Consumes
5. Cultural Consumer I
6. Cultural Consumer II
7. Cultural Consumer III
8. City Is Taken

2023 was a remarkable year for James - with a Top 3 album (their 9th Top 10 album), a sell out UK tour with a 25 piece orchestra and 8 piece choir onstage with them, a stunning special guest appearance at Latitude Festival, a headline show at The Acropolis in Greece and receiving the Icon award at The Ivor Novello awards in recognition of their songwriting. Amongst all of this, the band have recorded their new album to be released in April 2024. It is produced by Leo Abrahams (who has previously collaborated with Jon Hopkins, Brian Eno, Jarvis Cocker, Imogen Heap and Regina Spektor) and mixed by Cenzo Townsend (Courteeners, Specials, Keane, Snow Patrol, Everything Everything).

2024 is already shaping up to being another huge year for the band - their June Arena tour is their biggest ever tour and they are already close to selling out both The O2 and the new Manchester Co-Op arena. James release their new album Yummy, with the first single ‘Is This Love’. The artwork for both the album and first single was designed by Stephen Kennedy (Studio Fury) who is responsible for a number of iconic works over the years including the Rolling Stones’ latest album Hackney Diamonds.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: One of the most legendary bands in Manchester's storied musical history return for their latest LP, 'Yummy'. It's got all of the soaring melodic turns and presents a perfectly produced, meticulously paced backdrop for Tim Booth's instantly recognisable vocals. Another brilliant statement from a band that show no signs of slowing down.

TRACK LISTING

Standard CD And LP Tracklisting:
1. Is This Love
2. Life Is A Fucking Miracle
3. Better With You
4. Stay
5. Shadow Of A Giant
6. Way Over Your Head
7. Mobile God
8. Our World
9. Rogue
10. Hey
11. Butterfly
12. Folks

Deluxe 2CD Tracklisting:
1. Is This Love
2. Life Is A Fucking Miracle
3. Better With You
4. Stay
5. Shadow Of A Giant
6. Way Over Your Head
7. Mobile God
8. Our World
9. Rogue
10. Hey
11. Butterfly
12. Folks
13. Anyone But You
14. Close Enough
15. Mine To Lose
16. Activist Song
17. Won’t Be The Same
18. Tell Me Something
19. Poolewe Day1Jam4
20. Arpen Charp
21. Deliver The Dawn
22. Something Of A Pleasure
23. Walk Tall
24. 50s Out Takes

RIYL: The Field Mice, Blue Boy, The Clientele, Cindy.

The cinema of the scenes as told from the heart and spirit of the omniscient narrator shines through the awe-inspiring oeuvre of Glenn Donaldson's canonical titan that is The Reds, Pinks & Purples. The storied and esoteric histories of every underserved underdog becomes immortalized in records and poignantly penned paeans that evoke the eras and underachievers that became synonymous with their own respective corresponding localized micro-movements. Donaldson channels that psychic spirit and journeyman earned wisdom to provide contemporary era rock operas that eulogize tales of infinitely influential rises and falls. Crystalizing the tragic self-celebrating kingdoms of fortunate failures, false heroes, music press deities of limitless deceit, hometown dive gods and humanity in the grips of all its romanticized wonder and woe — the latest sortie of the sensational and spectacular takes aim at the threads of hope and an untethered abandon into the intimacy and dualities of idolatry and isolation with Unwishing Well.

Ever since its emergence from the harried late 2010s — The Reds, Pinks & Purples have become the absolute encapsulation of Donaldson's own proliferation and prestige. From a musical legacy that chronicles a long list of minor successes and major tragedies; Glenn distills the timelines of distinction from yesterday, today, tomorrow and whatever may be into a musical phenomenon that embodies something more than all of its analogous inspirations. Beyond the clamor about the retro cult pop artistic allusions and tropes that can be found in those spirit expanding kaleidoscope chord chimes; Donaldson takes you on a guided tour through the San Francisco underground movements that would have been, could have been or perhaps never were at all from the start. The Reds, Pinks & Purples’ coveted catalog inadvertently, consciously or unconsciously, offers an authorized and anonymous history of imperfect and ambitious debutantes, dilettantes, auteurs, et al. The lauded visionaries whose volition informed the big money touring stage headliners, but only enjoyed a fleeting jaunt through the glorious corporate clad carnival canopies from the touring circuit routes and tech funded festival tent tabernacles. Unwishing Well is a eulogy for the buzz bands that crashed, the wily one hit wizards, and omnipresent (and often uninspired) eternal aesthetes who work the lucrative outlets of licensing media markets.

Glenn pulls no punches with the promiscuity of the pop machines and their exploited propped up brand ambassadors on the cutting "Your Worst Song is Your Greatest Hit" that tangles with the lumbering and inescapable creatives and careerist trajectories that trade in boardroom playbooks and verticals. Expressions and influencers break out into the collective commissaries of commerce exhibitionism on “Public Art”, to auditing the forums of fandom that pertain to developed affinities and the roads to rabid infatuation with the obsessive in earnest, “Learning to Love a Band”.

And while the Glenn spins many yarns on the under-appreciated secret histories of DIY, Unwishing Well offers cathartic hymns of modern malaise. Sighing in lamentation of regressive trends, “What’s Going on with Ordinary People'' balks with concern over contemporary states of devolution, while “Faith in Daydreaming Youth” questions what vestiges of hope and valor can be found in the new vanguards of political bodies that govern the world’s sovereign daydream nations. The dustbins of dastardly discontinuity are imbued with desire and grief on the dramatist tragedy of “Dead Stars in Your Eyes”, to basking in the discarded ditches of the damned below in voids of obscurity on “Nothing Between the Lines at All”. The human addiction to languishing in anguish, misery and negativity tussles, tosses and turns on “We Only Hear the Bad Things People Say”, the penultimate ode to inherent human infallibility as Donaldson rides the audience out into the gilded sunset glow of “Goodbye Bobby”.

The central set piece of Unwishing Well revolves around the title track that wrestles with wellness and wishes tempered by the sobering reality of ultra pragmatic skepticism. Donaldson shows the audience where the dream falls short, an indictment on the fickleness of wants and the life/work/art balances of making it all work. It's the group that never makes it, the idea that never gets off the ground, the recognition that never arrives, the raise that is never awarded, nor the promotion to the next ladder rung that remains laughably inaccessible. Glenn has the gift of bridging the divide between the hunger artist, their adoring cult public and the common threads that connect these local and global communities through the humanist cause of collective commiseration.

As increasingly found in the continued adventures of The Reds, Pinks and Purples canon — Glenn circles the drain of surrendering to unabashed sentimentality in passions worthy of being showcased as the top headlining spot that your favorite revered then later reviled pop act never even had the chance to claim or ascend. Unwishing Well uplifts and uproots the undercurrents that carry the commonalities between the spectators and the spectacles. Donaldson pays homage in heart to everything and everyone that never got their due or to the lucky ones that made the grade, but paid an ultimate price. The cycle of these pop vignettes depict successes and failures in the same sentences, existing within the same stanzas, where the stories of making it and breaking it operate as events that live on different sides of the same coin. Unwishing Well is a reflection of us, the icons we adore, the Adonises we worship, the false prophets that proselytize the edicts from theses cults of personality, the fallouts, the third acts and the artistic fabrics that spool these sub-sects of artful dodgers into the stuff of legend.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There are obvious comparisons to be made here with the jangling, morose indie of the late 80's and 90's but the resulting sound on The Red Pinks & Purples' new album is both hugely modern, while breezily embracing the lo-fi jangle and airy melodicism of the era. 'Unwishing Well' is a perfect distillation of both Donaldson's established sound and the musical influences he absorbs, and results in an absorbing and emotional listen.

TRACK LISTING

1. What’s Going On With Ordinary People
2. Learning To Love A Band
3. Unwishing Well
4. Faith In Daydreaming Youth
5. Your Worst Song Is Your Greatest Hit
6. Dead Stars In Your Eyes
7. Nothing Between The Lines At All
8. Public Art
9. We Only Hear The Bad Things People Say
10. Goodbye Bobby

After putting down the saxophone, the instrument he has become synonymous with, Shabaka returns with his first full length album under his own name. Expanding off the meditative 2022 EP Afrikan Culture, his new album Perceive its beauty, Acknowledge its Grace is a deeply moving suite of primarily instrumental music. The listening experience is reflective and contemplative, with passages flowering from one musical concept to the next, encouraging deep attention that rewards the listener with throughlines and motifs throughout the record. Shabaka is found playing the flute on this album, and has enlisted key artists such as Andre 3000, Lianne La Havas, Moses Sumney, Floating Points, and more to help build this all-encompassing aural landscape.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I'm not typically a massive Jazz fan, I say this with some trepidation because the more I say it, the more I hear that I enjoy. While Hutchings has in the past, superbly done exactly the sort of Jazz I don't enjoy, 'Perceive It's Beauty, Acknowledge its Grace' is a beautiful collection of new-age leaning instrumentals and flute-heavy spiritual jazz. With a stellar lineup of guests too (Laraaji, Floating Points, and fellow flautist Andre 3000), you really need to give this masterwork time to develop in the ears.

TRACK LISTING

End Of Innocence
As The Planets And The Stars Collapse
Insecurities
Managing My Breath, What Fear Had Become
The Wounded Need To Be Replenished
Body To Inhabit
I’ll Do Whatever You Want
Living
Breathing
Kiss Me Before I Forget
Song Of The Motherland

With time, we come to understand the way the joy of connection is mirrored by the void of loss, how the constancy of love is matched only by the impermanence of life, the simple idea that we could not create light if we did not risk the dark—we’d never need to.

So it is with METZ, a band once known for blowing out eardrums with songs of joyous rage who have, over their past few records, begun exploring ways to turn abrasiveness into atmospherics, the evolution of their sound not only a reflection of the maturing of the band themselves but also of a changed world that demands nuance and compassion to comprehend and to survive.

It was a journey already underway on 2020’s Atlas Vending, but one that reaches new heights on Up On Gravity Hill, where the Canadian trio creates a kaleidoscopic sonic world as tender as it is dark, aided once again by engineer Seth Manchester (Mdou Moctar, Lingua Ignota, Battles, The Body). Deep, detailed, and unyieldingly personal, it is not only METZ’s most powerful record to date but also their most beautiful.

Still three punks from Ontario at heart, guitarist and vocalist Alex Edkins, drummer Hayden Menzies, and bassist Chris Slorach waste no time as opener “No Reservation/Love Comes Crashing” sweeps in like a wave, sonically and thematically setting the scene for the record to come. A dynamic song about feeling suspended in stasis, layers of dissonance melt into a restlessly heady outro marked by escalating crescendos of shimmering noise that reach for the stars—and is that a violin quivering brightly beneath those elegant swells of guitar, those charging drum fills, those intricate bass lines? It is indeed, courtesy of composer Owen Pallett; his presence an immediate indicator that METZ are thinking more cinematically than ever before.

The change is partially inspired by Edkins’ work as a scorer for film and television and his pop-leaning solo project, Weird Nightmare, where, he says, he learned to write more intuitively, letting his emotions lead the way. But make no mistake: Up On Gravity Hill is a total band effort, the work of three musicians who have been playing together for over a decade, with all the trust that entails.

For those who believe in the power of the rock band to exemplify the highest resonance of human connection, there is much on Up On Gravity Hill to lift the spirit, a puzzle worth repeated listening to unlock or just to get lost in again and again. Rather than the music being flattened into a single plane, the band explores “the space above the cymbals,” resulting in some of the most spacious, sympathetic, and accessible songs—could we call them pop?—of their career. If this seems contradictory, well, METZ has always been something of a contradiction. “We’ve never been heavy enough for metal or hardcore purists, but we're way too heavy for indie rock. We just don't have a lane—and that's okay. We exist outside the lines of delineation. I think this record is even more like that,” says Edkins.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Thumping percussion and soaring guitars, beneath a shoegaze-indebted wall of sound and Edkins' snarling, harmonised vocal on top. It's an absorbing and perfectly paced punky blast.

TRACK LISTING

1. No Reservation / Love Comes Crashing
2. Glass Eye
3. Entwined (Street Light Buzz)
4. 99
5. Superior Mirage
6. Wound Tight
7. Never Still Again
8. Light Your Way Home

The time has come. After three EPs, sell-out UK tours, and a rapidly developing cult-leader status, the unapologetically uncategorisable Lynks - now signed to the renowned Heavenly Recordings - is ready to unveil their debut album Abomination. Ricocheting between visceral, abject shame and giddy, hedonistic delight, throughout the album Lynks takes us on a dizzying tour of modern queer culture via casual sex, references to Sean Cody, and a one-sided love affair with a straight tennis coach.

With their inspirations pinballing from Peaches to M.I.A, Courtney Barnett to Janelle Monae, and more, Lynks’ sound is something akin to a club night being thrown in a blender. Each genre touchstone here is hyphenated, and every endlessly quotable couplet takes a surprising turn. Self-written, self-produced, self-effacing and self-aggrandising, the album brings together half a decade’s worth of artistic and personal progression in under 40 minutes.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Bonkers, hi-nrg synth-pop from Lynks for their debut LP for Heavenly Recordings, brimming with snapping disco and scuzzy distorted beats, all with the almost robotic vocals smeared over the top. Brilliantly mad, but undeniably catchy and full of groove.

TRACK LISTING

1. USE IT OR LOSE IT
2. NEW BOYFRIEND
3. CPR
4. (WHAT DID YOU EXPECT FROM) SEX WITH A STRANGER
5. TENNIS SONG
6. I FEEL LIKE SHIT
7. ROOM 116
8. LEVITICUS 18
9. ABOMINATION
10. LUCKY
11. SMALLTALK
12. LYNKS THINKS
13. FLASH IN THE PAN

Nia Archives is not interested in being one fixed thing. Since emerging in 2020, the 24-year-old producer, DJ, singer and songwriter has been at the forefront of the latest era of jungle. The Bradford-born, Leeds-raised artist has garnered accolades including placing third in the prestigious BBC Sound Poll for 2023, alongside a nomination for the Brit Awards’ Rising Star prize, plus wins at the DJ Mag, NME, the MOBOs and Artist and Manager Awards. She has also toured the world – be it North America, Europe or Asia – and even opened a show in London as part of a little something called Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour. She’s renowned as a party-starter in her own right, too, with takeovers at Glastonbury, Warehouse Project and her own Bad Gyalz day event. She’s done official remixes for the likes of Jorja Smith, had a huge summer hit with her Yeah Yeah Yeahs rework ‘Off Wiv Ya Headz’, and worked with brands like Corteiz, Nike, Flannels, Burberry, FIFA and Apple. In just three years, it’s fair to say that Nia Archives has become a need-to-know name in dance music.

On Silence Is Loud, her much-anticipated debut album, Nia Archives sounds thrillingly free as she looks to make music for beyond the rave. Working with Ethan P. Flynn (known for his work with FKA twigs and David Byrne) Nia is intent that Silence Is Loud is taken in as a full body of work of something “more song-focussed, putting interesting sounds on jungle.” It means that this is a record which finds gloomy Britpop, warm Motown, soaring indie, a love for Kings of Leon’s Aha Shake Heartbreak, skittering IDM, Madchester, classic rock, old skool hardcore and more, woven and fused into her ragga and junglist tapestry, all layered with feeling, imbued with her songwriterly lyricism about loneliness, relationships, family, navigating her 20s, and the intense potential power of silence.

Sitting in the push and pull between melancholy and euphoria, Nia’s work is always a snapshot of where she’s at when she’s making it. This might not be the debut album you were expecting, but that’s what makes Silence Is Loud so special. Nia Archives has learned the rules of her sound, and is unafraid to break them, pushing jungle and herself into new, unchartered territories that, in turn, go some way to map the history of the greats of British dance music. More than that, it plants her firmly in that lineage.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'Silence Is Loud' sees the brilliant Nia Archives flawlessly pulling together soul, jungle and synth-pop influences into a distinctly after-party flavoured groove thats both hugely enjoyable and undeniably skilled. A ground-breaking and hugely enjoyable debut from one of the biggest upcoming names in UK dance music.

TRACK LISTING

Silence Is Loud
Cards On The Table
Unfinished Business
Crowded Roomz
Forbidden Feelingz
Blind Devotion
Tell Me What It’s Like?
Nightmares
F.A.M.I.L.Y
Out Of Options
Silence Is Loud (Reprise)
Killjoy !
So Tell Me…

Ståle Storløkken – Fender Rhodes, Hammond L100, Minimoog, Mellotron, grand piano, celeste, Continuum. Nikolai Hængsle – Electric bass. Torstein Lofthus – Drums, percussion. After a solid run of five studio albums and two double live albums, Psychedelic Backfire I and II, (both 2019), Elephant9 had taken their groovy mix of high energy rock and power jazz as far as they could. In this respect their previous album Arrival of The New Elders (2021) came as a welcome and most timely addition to their recorded output. More varied, mature and reflective, they were as groovy as ever, but more structured and less jam oriented, earning them a 9/10 review in Uncut and a spot in their albums of the year list, noting their telepathic communion and concluding with “this is an Elephant9 you´ll never forget”. Jazzwise, Shindig, Prog, Electronic Sound, The Quietus and several others followed in the same fashion. Mythical River is moulded much in the same way and a natural follow-up, with six stellar new compositions by keyboard maestro Ståle Storløkken, bookended by two short cosmic snippets. From the hypnotic and magical to the razor sharp and polyrhythmic, this is yet another strong group effort from a trio on top of their game. Comparisons have been made with bands dating as far back as the sixties, but with Arrival of The New Elders and Mythical River, Elephant9 appear as a thoroughly contemporary, timeless and even futuristic sounding band. Mythical River was recorded and mixed by previous Dungen producer Mattias Glavå. Ståle started his musical journey in Veslefrekk with Jarle Vespestad and Arve Henriksen in the 90s, soon morphing into Supersilent with Helge Sten on board. He´s also a member of Hedvig Mollestad Weejuns, Møster! and Humcrush, and have collaborated with a number of artists, most notably Motorpsycho. Nikolai is also a member of Bigbang, Needlepoint and Band of Gold and have appeared on a couple of hundred records. The same goes for Torstein, an associate member of numerous bands ranging from pop and soul to free jazz. But Elephant9 has always been their special baby.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The brilliant Elephant9 return, this time bringing with them a suite of kosmische-flavoured experimental rock, rich with soaring organs, snapping percussion and airy progressive melodies.

TRACK LISTING

Solitude In Limbo #2
Mythical River
Party Among The Stars
Chamber Of Silence
Heading For Desolate Wastelands
Star Cluster Detective
Cavern Of The Red Lion
Solitude In Limbo #1

If the setting is right, magic will happen - And so, this record came into being - Sunburned Hand of the Man, three decades into their one of a kind run, still possess the ability to amaze, stupefy and astound - even themselves - Recorded over a week at Big Blue, Adam Langellotti's (Kurt Vile & The Violators) studio/house, "Nimbus" sees the band's amorphous lineup produce results such as high-test workouts, cryptic readings & a choice cover (Sun City Girls)

A record that this band could only produce in 2024 and the required next step for the devoted fan base and or those interested in doing some self- work in an unconventional setting.

TRACK LISTING

The duo's third album of instrumental guitar recordings pushes their sinuous compositions into labyrinthine new shapes, interlocking and interlocutory, supported by a cast of stellar collaborators. Interwoven among the dazzling original pieces is a fascinating array of covers, ranging from traditional Breton dance tunes to a deconstruction of Neneh Cherry's "Buffalo Stance." How it was made - in two segments of three days, one in early Winter, one in late Winter, in Chicago—is a testament to James and Nathan’s enthusiasm for the project. As they’d done on their previous two duo records, each brought fragments of varying lengths to the table (literally James and his family’s kitchen table) and, in varying degrees of frenzy, built songs out of them. Some, like “Numb Limbs,” took several intense hours of tinkering, mostly for Nathan to carve sympathetic designs around the knotty edifice James had constructed—thus its title. Others, like “Death Wishes to Kill” (a phrase lifted from a T.F. Powys novel the two had each recently read and loved) took its feverish shape in forty minutes full of shrieks and groans and hysterical laughs hard-stopped by James rushing out, late, to get his son from school. The acceptable window for coffee consumption was pushed to its reasonable limits, and then beyond them, slamming up against a reasonable hour to start drinking beer. As with Ambsace, the covers on All Gist outline a Venn diagram of Elkington and Salsburg’s abiding interests. On one end is a faithful arrangement of English composer Howard Skempton’s resplendent “Well, Well, Cornelius” (1999); on the other is a composite of two traditional Breton dance tunes (pieced together from Canadian, Irish, and Breton sources); and in the middle where else is a transmutation of Neneh Cherry’s monumental “Buffalo Stance” (1988), a song that no one aside from James and Nathan would ever have thought for a moment could or should be made into fodder for two acoustic guitars. But it was, and with delicacy and joy and sincere reverence for the original, which they painstakingly deconstructed. All Gist perhaps demonstrates more than anything the precarious balance struck between what the Elkington-Salsburg duo is exemplified by cramming to compose or remember guitar parts in James’s kitchen and what the duo could be if it was the engine of a small orchestra in a government-funded arts enclave in some Central European country … where they’d be contractually obliged to perform in matching well-tailored suits.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Death Wishes To Kill
A2. Long In The Tooth Again
A3. Numb Limbs
A4. Nicest Distinction
A5. Well, Well, Cornelius
B1. Explanation Point
B2. Fears Of This Nature
B3. Rule Bretagne
B4. All Gist Could Be Yours
B5. Buffalo Stance

'Field Theory' is the second studio album from Dublin four-piece MELTS, due for release April 12th 2024 on Fuzz Club. Recorded live to tape at Black Mountain Studios in Summer 2023 and produced by Gilla Band's Daniel Fox, it's a collection of turbulent electronic psych-rock shaped by bulldozing motorik synth lines, densely layered guitars, primal percussion and the cavernous vocals of frontman Eoin Kenny. While their highly-praised 2022 debut ‘Maelstrom’ dealt with forces on a larger scale affecting a whole city, ‘Field Theory’ explores connections on a smaller, interpersonal scale.

The title takes the scientific term ‘Field Theory’, which describes how forces interact and influence particles around them, and applies it to the interactions between people, to the space between all of us, how people interact and affect others around them. Expanding on the album’s themes, MELTS write: “Like gravity we are drawn to and miss people and like light waves we love people and are loved. We live in orbits of each other, drawn by unseen forces. The album explores these forces, how we relate to each other, the people we live with and the people we live without. At the heart of Field Theory lies the realisation that we inhabit each other's worlds as much as our own, through a field of wide-ranging forces, as important as the ones keeping the planets in place.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Figment
2. Waves Of Wonder
3. Clouded
4. WLDNG
5. Shelter Of The Shade
6. Main Sequence
7. Altered
8. The Never
9. Softly Breathes

Beyonce's eighth studio album is also Act ll of a trilogy which started with Renaissance in 2022.

The album is presented as a radio broadcast by 'KNTRY Radio Texas', a fictitious station hosted by DJ's Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Linda Martell. And while the LP has a predominantly country feel, it alos takes in a whole host of other styles: Pop, rock, psychedelic soul, hip hop, folk and blues amongst others.

There's an impressive guest list of musicians on the album: including Jon Batiste, Stevie Wonder, Nile Rodgers, Paul McCartney, Gary Clark Jr. and Rhiannon Giddens, along with a whold host of lesser know black country artists such as Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, Tanner Adell, Reyna Roberts, Shaboozey, and Willie Jones.

Once again Beyonce proves what a global pop phenomemon she is.

TRACK LISTING

Ameriican Requiem
Blackbiird Ft Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts
16 Carriages
Protector Ft Rumi Carter
My Rose
Smoke Hour Ft Willie Nelson
Texas Hold ’Em
Bodyguard
Dolly P
Jolene
Daughter
Spaghettii Ft Linda Martell, Shaboozey
Alliigator Tears
Smoke Hour II Ft Willie Nelson
Just For Fun Ft Willie Jones
II Most Wanted Ft Miley Cyrus
Levii’s Jeans Ft Post Malone
Flamenco
The Linda Martell Show Ft Linda Martell
Ya Ya
Oh Louisiana
Desert Eagle
Riiverdance
II Hands II Heaven
Tyrant
Sweet ˜� Honey ˜� Buckiin’ Ft Shaboozey
Amen

Norwegian artist girl in red started sharing her home-recorded songs as a teenager in 2017. Noted for her candid lyrics about the frustrations of everyday life and relationships, she emerged with catchy, guitar-based indie pop on early tracks, including her viral debut, "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend," and 2018's "We Fell in Love in October." In 2021, she released her first full-length and studio effort, if i could make it go quiet, hitting number two in Norway and charting on the Billboard 200. A sequel to her earlier October-themed anthem, "October Passed Me By," arrived in 2022.

Diane Birch emerges as a formidable American singer-songwriter and pianist, boasting a repertoire of critically lauded releases spanning a rich decade-long career. With an eclectic array of musical influences stemming from a globe-trotting childhood - ranging from her humble beginnings as a preacher's daughter in Zimbabwe and South Africa to her transformative years as a gothic teen immersed in the vibrant cultural underbelly of Portland, Oregon. Her discovery while living in London via Myspace led to a record deal in New York, where she then spent the next few years.

Diane's journey is as diverse as her sound. Her profound experiences have culminated in a unique musical blend, characterized by her stint performing soulful covers and original pieces in the swanky lounges of the Beverly Hills elite. Receiving widespread attention with her debut album "Bible Belt" and her follow-up projects "Speak A Little Louder" and "Nous", these works not only cemented her position in the international music scene but also earned her accolades and respect from esteemed peers including Prince, Daryl Hall, Mark Ronson, Dave Stewart, Questlove, Elvis Costello, Bryan Ferry and Stevie Wonder.

Returning with her latest work, "Flying On Abraham", Diane presents a meticulously crafted collection of original compositions. This album is a heartfelt homage to her vast and varied musical roots, weaving together the rich tapestry of 70s AM radio, soul, jazz, classic rock, 80s/90s pop and R&B. Despite the eclectic mix, Diane's sound remains distinctly her own - her voice a blend of raw emotion and refined grace, echoing the legacy of iconic artists like Carole King, Carly Simon and Rickie Lee Jones, yet standing out with an authenticity and individuality that is unmistakably Diane Birch. Produced by renowned English musician Paul Stacey, known for his work with Noel Gallagher and the Black Crowes, "Flying On Abraham" was recorded in the UK, backed by an impressive lineup of musicians. This album is not just a collection of songs but a narrative of her artistic journey, offering a window into the soul of a woman who has traversed continents and musical genres to create something truly extraordinary.

With "Flying On Abraham", Diane Birch reaffirms her status as a musical virtuoso, continuing to enchant audiences worldwide with her evocative lyrics. It represents Diane's enduring vision of "making American music with an English sensibility."

TRACK LISTING

1. Wind Machine
2. Jukebox Johnny
3. Moto Moon
4. Shade
5. Critics Lullaby
6. Boys On Canvas
7. Juno
8. Russian Doll
9. Used To Lovin' You
10. Trampoline

I love these musicians [Sam Amidon, Karl Blau, Charlotte Greve, Shahzad Ismaily] - I've played with some of them for two years and some for over twenty - We met up last spring at Figure 8 Studios in Brooklyn and rehearsed for one day before recording this album at the nearby Owl Parlor on March 29 and 30, 2023

It fills me with joy to hear my songs reinterpreted through the spirits of these masterful musicians (who are also my dear friends). I hope you enjoy this document, too. Thank you to Oren Bloedow at The Owl Parlor for creating a beautiful space for us to perform and record this music." Pressed on Black- In- Ultra-Clear color vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

1. Autumn Song
2. White Cherry
3. Ring Song
4. Time Will Show You
5. Signal 
6. Seaside Haiku
7. Pink Light
8. New Arms
9. My Lantern
10. I Can See Your Tracks

Two brothers, surname Summers. London rap duo Summers Sons return with a new sound & vision.Still Nothing Stillis a far cry from the beloved jazz rap the group is known for. The jazz influence is still there but sonically and lyrically Turt & Slim are playing in a class of their own.

Slim is adding a more electronic, trip-hoppy vibe to his beautifully executed beats. Turt delivers his raps with a new urgency and confidence. Having been diagnosed with epilepsy in 2021 had a major impact on his life and art. As a lyricist, Turt has always worn his heart on his sleeve but never so honestly, poetically, vulnerably, angrily, and sharp as onStill Nothing Still.

Since 2018, Summers Sons have released four albums (Undertones,Uhuru,The Rain,Nostalgia) and a string of high profile collabos with artists like C.Tappin, Twit One, The Silhouettes Project and Koralle. Not forgetting Slim's beat tape for KO-OP. They have been touring with Children of Zeus, performed shows with FloFilz and Melodiesinfonie and are part of The Silhouettes Project.

In 2023, Turt released the albumThe Questionsas one third of the project Syrup (with Twit One & C.Tappin) while Slim released the album projectCeruleanwith Benaddict and Ella Mae Suref. Turt also dropped two singles with The Silhouettes Project alongside Nix Northwest and Frankie Stew & Harvey Gunn.

TRACK LISTING

1. Amnesia
2. What It Is
3. Growing Pains
4. Roots
5. Sonbeams
6 Numb
7. The Buzz
8. The Blues
9. Epilectric
10. Nothing Still (feat. C.Tappin & Poppy Daniels)
11. One
12. Only Change
13. Fidget
14. Harmony
15. The Thirst
16. Mother Earth
17. Summers Sons Pt. 2

Konkolo Orchestra is a Zürich/Switzerland based project initiated by multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer Alexis Malefakis. With strong jazzy afrobeat and highlife references, Konkolo Orchestra pays homage to musical innovators such as Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Tony Oladipo Allen, Ebo Taylor and many more.

This first album continues the warm, vibrant, percussive motif of the hugely popular "Blue G." single of 2022. For those who like their music to inspire journey and movement, this album is the equivalent of gatecrashing a wedding party where even granny can get her groove on.

Malefakis is hardly rewriting the afrobeat textbook here, but his production charms the listener with a confident mastery of the genre. His compositions have a distinct personality and a tight structure, and are peppered with a talented array of guest vocalists: Nongoma (South Africa), Sir Frank Karikari (Ghana) and Kitio Batola (Congo); alongside Eric Owusu (Ghana) on percussion. The uplifting lyrics and joyful melodies are held together by a powerhouse horn section bearing all the swinging hallmarks of a highlife fanfare.

Deeply funky and syncopated, Malefakis has produced a motivational winter warmer for both feet and spirit.

TRACK LISTING

1. Blue G. (feat. Nongoma)
2. Future Pasts (feat. Nongoma)
3. Yese Yese (feat. Sir Frank Karikari)
4. That Good Thing
5. Count Your Blessings (feat. Nongoma)
6. Cover Up The Bruises (feat. Nongoma)
7. Le Secret (feat. Kitio Batola)
8. How We Got Here

“Blow My Mind!” is the natural sequel to the recent, well-received collection “Lost Innocence” and is an essential purchase for the dedicated garage head. It collects together the best of the quirkier imprints from Hollywood’s heyday in the mid-1960s (the record labels Doré, Era and Mira) in a power-packed set comprising many outstanding garage and proto-psych 45s that today are sought-after collectors’ items.

Compiled by genre expert Alec Palao and originally released by Big Beat/ACE on CD only a few years back, it is now available on vinyl for the first time.

Three of the quirkier imprints from Hollywood’s heyday in the mid-1960s were the record labels Doré, Era and Mira. Like most seasoned indie producers in that epoch, their owners Lew Bedell, Herb Newman and Randy Wood struggled to get to grips with the onslaught of rock’n’roll activity that followed in the wake of the British Invasion. But amongst each company’s catalogue of R&B, pop schlock and novelty discs were a number of outstanding garage and proto-psych 45s that today are sought-after collectors’ items.

“Blow My Mind!: The Doré-Era-Mira Punk & Psych Legacy” collects together the best of this venerated repertoire in a power-packed set that also constitutes the first official reissue for many oft-bootlegged titles. Cuts like ‘The Thief’, ‘Slander’ and ‘I’ll Blow My Mind’ would be expensive to acquire in their original, minutely-pressed incarnation. Here, with top-notch sound and extensive annotation, these totemic garage rock items shine brighter than ever. There is the expected quota of attitude-laden classics such as ‘My Baby’s Barefoot’, ‘Just Wanna Be Myself’ and the incredibly snotty ‘So What!!’, along with less heralded gems by bands such as South Hampton Story, the Puddin’ Heads, Yesterday’s Tomorrow and the Search. An unexpected bonus is a superb unreleased cut by ‘Hey Joe’ hitmakers the Leaves, along with off-beat garage- psych titles by Simon T Stokes, the Outlaw Blues and the Wrench.

“Blow My Mind!” is the natural sequel to the recent, well-received collection “Lost Innocence” and is an essential purchase for the dedicated garage head. Compiled by genre expert Alec Palao and originally released by Big Beat/ACE on CD only a few years back, it is now available on vinyl for the first time.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. My Babys Barefoot – The Syndicate
2. Do Me A Favor – The Leaves
3. Gotta Hold On – The No-Nâ-Mee’s
4. The Thief – The Motion
5. So What!! – The Lyrics
6. Leave Me Behind – South Hampton Story
Side B
1. Big City Blues – Simon T Stokes
2. The Other Half – Yesterday’s Tomorrow
3. Worryin’ Kid – The Regents
4. She Touched My Soul – John Winfield Jr.
5. Slander – Ty Wagner
6. Now You Say We’re Through – The Puddin’ Heads
Side C
1. They Can’t Hurt Me – The Lyrics
2. I’ll Blow My Mind – Spencer’s Van Dykes
3. I’m Gonna Dance – The Decades
4. The Day Is Hard – The Wrench
5. Climate – The Search
6. Just Wanna Be Myself – The No-Nâ-Mee’s
Side D
1. Non-Stop Blues – The Outlaw Blues
2. Shame – The Front Page & Her
3. Forget Me Girl – The Bees
4. She’s Gone – The Tormentors
5. It’s No Use – Basil & The Baroques
6. To Make A Lie – Unknown Artist

A post-modern mixtape of 12 microgenres created by The Numero Group. Bending the rules of the compilation with a selection of songs bound by their soaring spirit and adventurous approach, REACH is inspirational living for algorithmic times. The only LP guaranteed to save your life during humanity’s apocalyptic demise.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lenny White - Enchanted Pool Suite: Prelude & Part 1
2. Masumi Hara - To Live In The Sea
3. Alex Johnson - The Kiss
4. LaRhonda LeGette - Thou Art With Me
5. Ascending Wave - Modulation Del Sol
6. A.R.T. Wilson - Past Life Regression
7. John D. Curnow - Wisconsin Bird Songs
8. Calvin Keys - Touch
9. Suse Millemann - Open Heart-Hawk Belly
10. Batang Frisco - Myth
11. Bob Siebert - Rain
12. Reach - Gold Dust Twins

Khruangbin’s fourth studio album, A La Sala (“To the Room” in Spanish), is an exercise in returning in order to go further, and doing so on your own terms. It continues the mystery and sanctity that is the key to how bassist Laura Lee Ochoa, drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson, Jr. and guitarist Mark “Marko” Speer approach music. If 2020’s Mordechai, the last studio LP Khruangbin made without collaborators, was a party record that enhanced the band’s musical reputation far and wide, then A La Sala is the measured morning after. It’s a gorgeously airy record completed only in the company of the group’s longtime engineer Steve Christensen, with minimal overdubs. It’s a window onto the bounties powering Khruangbin’s vision, a reimagining and refueling for the long haul ahead. A La Sala scales Khruangbin down to scale up, a creative strategy with the future in mind.

The trio’s collective musical DNA, the years spent constructing it in Houston’s local-meets-global cultural stew, ensures the band continues to sound like no one but itself. A cascade of crisp melodies emanates from Marko’s reverb-heavy electric, dancing gently around Laura Lee’s minimalist almost-dub bass triangles, while DJ’s drums serve as the tightened-up pocket and unwavering dance-floor on which all this movement takes place. Yet there’s a freshness to A La Sala’s instrumental interactivity, less concerned with getting further out than going deeper in, a profound desire to celebrate the world’s external wonders. Where prior albums strived towards music’s polyglot edges, such inquiries now sound like beloved intimacies. Here, Khruangbin’s sonic touch-points — whether spaghetti-western film scores (on “Fifteen Fifty-Three”), West African discos (on “Pon Pón”), G-funk fantasias (“Todavía Viva”), living room dancing moments (the first single, “A Love International”), or even ambient found-sounds (on “Farolim de Felgueiras and throughout the album”) — are ingrained characteristics. This is who they are! Unique and huge (and growing), ambitious and driven.

Khruangbin’s aspirations and commitment to playful creativity even extends to A La Sala’s vinyl packages, of which there will be seven distinctive covers and color-sets. Designed by the band using Marko’s multitude of travelog photos, the images are windows from the band’s living room onto a set of daydreams, scenes of impossible skies, external glances that illuminate what is going on inside. Each cover image comes with a matching color vinyl. These too are all about looking out and looking back, in order to better look ahead.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The inimitable Khruangbin bring us another slice of beautifully rendered, loungey ambient jazz. Swimming with atmosphere and as perfectly performed as you'd expect from the Texan trio. Beautifully evocative and warmly hazy instrumental business.

TRACK LISTING

1.Fifteen Fifty-Three
2.May Ninth
3.Ada Jean
4.Farolim De Felgueiras
5.Pon Pón
6.Todavía Viva
7.Juegos Y Nubes
8.Hold Me Up (Thank You)
9.Caja De La Sala
10.Three From Two
11.A Love International
12.Les Petits Gris

Recalibrating her singular journey in the British musical landscape with her most open-hearted, direct and intimate collection of material yet. Love In Constant Spectacle evokes spectacular imagery and distills the artists’ vision in its purest form, elevating her inimitable sound and poetic vision to new heights.

Recapturing the melancholy of her early work whilst propelling it forward, she sketches scenes as we watch new colours, shapes and languages emerge and fill the frame. Love In Constant Spectacle sees her take measured steps towards a vivid, dreamlike record, that offers resolve in the face of life’s inevitability.

The foundations of Weaver’s sound are still evident – lush motorik drums, pulsating bass, custom modded synths and exotic fuzz pedals - but the stream is awash with scrabble piece poetry and Letraset lullabies leading to lush escapism, the free abandon that you’d associate with free jazz and the avant-garde. But, as determined and visionary as Weaver might be, Love In Constant Spectacle wasn’t executed without assistance. Here we find a long mooted unison with Jane’s first ever producer, John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding), who has shared Weaver’s process in the surrounds of Rockfield Studios and Geoff Barrow’s Invada studio.

Love In Constant Spectacle is otherworldly, it is both intimate yet distant, a surrealist interpretation of the foundations that make us human – the stories and landscapes it paints are habitats of their own. A voyage into undisclosed pastures, it’s a heartfelt manifesto from an artist that continues to boundlessly evolve with each chapter in her career.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: We're big fans of Jane & co. here at Piccadilly, and 'Love In Constant Spectacle' takes everything we've known and loved from previous releases; her rich melodic thread and progressive instrumental leanings, and injects the pieces with perfectly extracted DNA from jazz, 60's psychedelic pop and art-rock.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Perfect Storm
A2 Emotional Components
A3 Love In Constant Spectacle -
A4 Motif
A5 The Axis And The Seed
Side B
B1 Is Metal
B2 Happiness In Proximity
B3 Romantic Worlds
B4 Univers
B5 Family Of The Sun

Written by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney with longtime friends Dan “The Automator” Nakamura and Beck, the celebratory, joyful ‘Beautiful People (Stay High)’ is one of several songs on the album that feature collaborations between the band and various additional friends and colleagues, including Noel Gallagher, Greg Kurstin, and others. Speaking on the collaborative nature of the album, Carney shares, “We had this epiphany: ‘We can call our friends to help us make music.’ It’s funny because we both write songs with other people – Dan all the time [as a solo artist and producer], me when I'm producing a record. That’s what we do.”

Auerbach adds, “No matter who we work with, it never feels like we're sacrificing who we are. It only feels like it adds some special flavor. We just expanded that palette with people we wanted to work with. We were there to support them and their ideas, to do whatever we could to see that moment flourish. But when it came time to finish the album, it was just Pat and me. We'd never worked harder to make a record,” he continues. “It's never taken us this long to make an album. We took our time and did it right.”

“What we wanted to accomplish with this record was make something that was fun,” Carney says. “And something that most bands 20 years into their career don’t make, which is an approachable, fun record that is also cool.”

While making Ohio Players, a title inspired by the legendary Dayton, OH funk band of the same name, The Black Keys were also DJing dance parties in cities around the world that they called “record hangs”, spinning 45s from their own eclectic and growing collections. Mojo reports, ‘The spirit of those parties infused the album’s DNA. ‘That’s been the fun of it,’ [says] Auerbach. ‘Letting go a little bit.’”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A lovely new one from Blues-rock troubadours The Black Keys including collaborations with some of the biggest names in music today. There are a selection of classic 'Keys outings alongside some more outsider pieces, all perfectly produced with the help of Beck and Noel Gallagher. It's a beautifully produced, perfectly paced new direction for the band.

###### COMPETITION TIME!!!!!######
Preorder the album on any format and you could win a pair of tickets for their show at New Century on Saturday 4th May.
NPN*

##################################################

The Sunset Violent began in a disused frat house in the American Yucca Valley. Kimbie’s founding members Dominic Maker & Kai Campos began work on their first proper album together since 2017’s Love What Survives – the decision was made to leave London. Campos and Maker relocated for a month to a town in the middle of a desert. The resulting album, finished in London with longtime confidante Dillip Harris and their band mates Andrea Balency-Béarn and Marc Pell, is 37 minutes of Mount Kimbie at simultaneously their most daring and their most giddily infectious.

*NPN - drop us an email - mail@piccadillyrecords.com with 'Mount Kimbie Comp' in the subject title.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Mount Kimbie have taken a little swerve with 'The Sunset Violent', taking their usual sound and injecting it with a concept that's both perfectly conceived and accomplished. While all the usual MK sounds are in-situ here, there outer reaches of their sound swerves into synth-pop, gritty electronics and moody post-punk.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Trail
2. Dumb Guitar
3. Shipwreck
4. Boxing (Feat. King Krule)
5. Got Me
6. A Figure In The Surf
7. Fishbrain
8. Yukka Tree
9. Empty And Silent (Feat. King Krule)

What a difference a year makes, right? HOUSE Of ALL's follow-up to their self-titled debut came about at some risk to band and label . . . so absolutely sure of their debut, Martin Bramah asked for an advance on recording costs for the follow-up before their self-titled album had even been released. Needless to say, things went pretty well with the debut, which led to a few sold-out tours, wildly enthusiastic press and great sales.

Follow-ups do come with perils, but perhaps Bramah's presumption was the very thing which has allowed CONTINUUM to escape the dread second album syndrome, because . . . it's fantastic! Whatever initial re-establishment of synaptic connection was needed to get things grooving on their debut, after many years since they'd last played together (excepting Peter Greenway, whose genuine bravery in joining four former members of The Fall whom he alone had never played with before) is history now. The grooves are bigger, the lyrics brilliant, Tomos Williams' production is top-notch and the necessity sitting on this album while the first one kept on rolling offered the advantage of allowing Dave Trumfio (of The Mekons and Pulsars) time to fine-tune the mixing and mastering . . . and it sounds HOT.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's no doubting House Of All's credentials, being formed of Fall alumni and clearly heavily influenced by the sound of their former band. What we get here is a slightly less abrasive, heavily punky redux of The Fall's soaring momentum and chaotic wall-of-sound roars, but topped with brilliantly sung vocals and produced to perfection. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

1. For This Be Glory
2. Murmuration
3. Gaudy Pop Scramble
4. Cuckoo In The Nest
5. Under A Crooked Sky
6. Aim Higher
7. Letter To A Young Poet
8. A Taste Of Money
9. I Must Get Clean
10. Each Ending Has A Beginning

Only God Was Above Us is the fifth studio album from Vampire Weekend. The album is inspired by and infused with the essence of the band’s birthplace of New York City, though recorded all over the world, from New York to Los Angeles to London and Tokyo. The album was produced by Ezra Koenig, and longtime collaborator Ariel Rechtshaid. The album title is lifted directly from the album artwork, which is a photo taken from a Subway graveyard in New Jersey in 1988 by photographer Steven Siegel.

Only God Was Above Us includes universal themes ranging from the urge to question the world in which we live, and the quest for peace that can only be found through acceptance. The album is equal parts as direct yet complex as anything the band has ever released, as beautiful and melodic as they’ve ever sounded but also at their grittiest.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's something unmistakeable about the way Vampire Weekend form their songs, and it's been the case since they first burst onto the scene with their debut LP in 2008. 'Only God...' has all of the pitch-shifted guitar lines and rolling basslines of their early work with Koenig's vocals working away beautifully over the top, but there's a sense of a more mature songwriting drive, and results in possibly their greatest work yet.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ice Cream Piano
2. Classical
3. Capricorn
4. Connect
5. Prep-School Gangsters
6. The Surfer
7. Gen-X Cops
8. Mary Boone
9. Pravda
10. Hope

When Bob Vylan won the first MOBO award for Best Alternative Music Act in 2022, the punk-grime duo took to the stage and used the platform to speak about how they managed to achieve the impossible as independent artists in a genre-defying space. “We released an album this year that we produced entirely, mixed entirely, recorded entirely, all from my bedroom…so everybody that’s here, bigging up Atlantic and bigging up Warner, fuck that, us man did it ourselves”.

It was an acceptance speech that rattled the room and built anticipation for their next projects.

Humble as the Sun, the forthcoming album from Bob Vylan continues with much of the rage and urgency that they have come to be known and loved for, but this latest project shows that they are now stronger and wiser, bolstered by the wins and learnings that they have fought hard for along the way. The resulting tracklist aims to leave the listener feeling power alongside their anger, and brings a fresh and compelling blend of punk, rock, grime and rap together in an experimental way.

Following on from the last album, Bob Vylan Presents the Price of Life, the message woven throughout Humble as the Sun remains dark in places but is high-energy, defiant and unapologetic in its critique of a broken social and political system that so many have fallen victim to, but feel powerless against.

This album is for the underdogs, the ones who come out swinging and those who refuse to be defeated in the face of injustice, and aims to remind listeners that anger is a fire that can be harnessed and put to use. The album creation started from a conversation with the sun, which is, after all, a big ball of fire that sustains life.

From masculinity to myths about the G Spot, the themes and topics explored on Humble As The Sun make for an often humorously empowering celebration of the people’s ability to endure, overcome and bring about change.

The lyricism on this album is even more layered than their previous projects, still darkly humorous, anti-establishment and unforgiving but at times pauses to deliver much-needed words of affirmation to listeners, “You are loved. You are not alone. You are going through hell but keep going.” Bobby assures the listener, offering an antidote to the state of the world, aiming to give some power and agency to those who hear it. At a time when so little trust or faith exists between the people and the powers that be, Bob Vylan offers out a hand in the despondent darkness that has overwhelmed so many in the shadow of a burning planet. They guides the listener to a place where they can see some light and feel empowered to do something, to fight back, to continue pushing forwards despite the challenges faced along the way.

Mixing all of the best quintessentially British - and Jamaican - musical elements from punk to drum and bass, grime and rock, Bob Vylan creates a sound that reflects the state of the nation, at once voicing the frustrations that normal people have, while also highlighting one’s ability to persevere, overcome hardship and to change.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Humble As the Sun is almost certain to bring Bob Vylan to the wider public consciousness. It's a momentum-filled, chaos embracing collection of grime-adjacent, punky rock pieces. Brilliantly propulsive and more than a little reminiscent of rap-rock superstars RATM.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Humble As The Sun
A2. Reign
A3. GYAG
A4. Dream Big
A5. Hunger Games
B1. Right Here
B2. Makes Me Violent
B3. He's A Man
B4. Ring The Alarm
B5. I'm Still Here 

There’s a party in Dana Gavanski’s head and everyone’s invited- well, kind of. Late Slap, Gavanski’s third album, gives voice to the highs and lows of the mindscape in all its joys and terrors, injecting some much needed playfulness into the process of writing about emotionally hard things. “The album holds together the seemingly disparate aspects of my character that I have sometimes tried to repress,” says Dana. “With this album I’m letting them into the room, celebrating them for all their strangeness a strangeness which I think we all, on some level, share.”

Having (literally) lost her voice during the writing of her previous album, When It Comes, Late Slap finds Dana in magisterial mode, displaying a newfound confidence and energy—in both her writing and singing—borne, paradoxically, from embracing feelings of discomfort. “I realized,” says Dana, “that in order to become stronger I needed to get used to being uncomfortable. ”It’s appropriate, then, that the album opens with ‘How to Feel Uncomfortable,” a quick sonic punch of a song, which bemoans the growing distances between people in the digital landscapes where we spend so much time wandering aimlessly: “stand too close, face in your phone/ it’s scrambling your mind/ tired of your zombie glow/soaking up your eyes.”. The song attests to the difficulty of sitting with yourself, in boredom, insecurity and indecision—and the important emotional and spiritual rewards of doing so. Or, as Susan Sontag, a major influence on the album, puts it in "Regarding the Pain of Others: “It is passivity that dulls feeling. The states described as apathy, moral or emotional anesthesia, are full of feelings; the feelings are rage and frustration...

”In the writing of Late Slap, Gavanski swapped out the familiar for the new, training herself to use LogicPro rather than just her usual guitar-and-voice approach. If composing somewhat neo-Luddite anthems on a Macbook seems a little contradictory, well, that’s kind of the point: “21st century life is so full of contradictions and headfucks that it can be hard to do anything with conviction—you could cynic your way out of doing or believing anything.” Initially overwhelmed by its seemingly limitless possibilities, Dana began to create demos and collages of small sound worlds across various influences, at times orchestral pop, art rock and new wave, again embracing difference and variety. “Whenever I’m stuck in a certain way of working, it helps to try something new, to challenge myself in a different way. Like when you learn a new instrument: you’re excited by it and less concerned with perfection.”

Gavanski fleshed out the demos with her band before taking the album—and the band—to Mike Lindsay (Tunng, LUMP) at MESS, the producer’s studio in Margate. The five-piece, which includes Gavanski’s fellow co-producer James Howard (Rozi Plain, Alabaster dePlume), tracked the record over five days. “I knew Mike could help me find the range of sound I was looking for; he has an amazing attention to sonic detail and we’ve worked well together on previous records.” Lindsay acquired a Yamaha DX7 synth at Dana’s request just for the album, and they used it to conjure an atmosphere of digital warmth that recalls the Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s meditative masterpiece Keyboard Fantasies.

But the Gavanski mind-party has a varied playlist. ‘Ears Were Growing,’ for example, encapsulates the eighties zeal of Talking Heads or Klaus Nomi, pitching fantasy against reality through a playful lyric about negative self-talk, the domestic interior, and their way of creating a kind of Stockholm Syndrome equal parts comfort and fear. The line “take me to the cinema/ I want to inhabit the actress!” testifies to Dana’s appreciation for the theatrical and the cinematic. She cites the influence of golden age Hollywood star Gena Rowlands, whose portrayal of an aging theatre actor in Opening Night leads to a frightening loss of self and a dark, sobering transformation: “Gena manages to express so many feelings just through her face. She’s strikingly beautiful in a classic Hollywood way but she’s not scared to look silly and childish. She makes me laugh and cry at the same time—there’s something transformative in going over the top. ”Some tracks take a less in-your-face approach (it takes all sorts to make a memorable party). ‘Ribbon,’ a tender song about the recent loss of a childhood friend, looks at the world through the lens of grief, marveling at the way the familiar suddenly loses its meaning and shape: “To face the rays all saddled in silence/How do I rearrange my room/ the walls are a shell/That’s opened too soon/ I can’t manage it from here.” The gently propulsive ‘Song for Rachel’ approaches the same subject matter from another angle, finding release in the simple, straight-to-the-point chorus refrain of “Cause’ you’re gone/ it’s just that I’m lost/ and I don’t know how to feel.” Not knowing how to feel, Gavanski shows us, is as valid and important a feeling as any other.

Late Slap’s unsettling artwork places the album themes in plain sight, Gavanski’s ambiguous, animated expression and screened-out black eyes bearing witness to what might be a revolving exhibition of contradictory images: cute play-fighting kittens giving way to pictures of suffering and war, golden hours dissolving into lost hours never to be reclaimed. But Late Slap is also what its title suggests—a sudden jolt, a shock to the system that seeks to reconnect with the messy flesh-and-thought humanity of simply being human. The album’s tension between cynicism and trust, openness and despair, melodrama and silliness, ultimately invites the listeners in (throw your coat on the bed over there, stranger). It welcomes you at the door, and beckons you to find tenderness in a world doing its best to desensitize us.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I'll be honest, I thought this was Cate Le Bon when I first heard it. Dana's beautifully evocative vocals and off-piste rhythmic turns are at once reminiscent of CLB's unmistakeable jagged syncopation and soaring 60's pop majesty. Gavanski's talents are in full show here, and sounding better than ever.

TRACK LISTING

1. How To Feel Uncomfortable
2. Let Them Row
3. Late Slap
4. Ears Were Growing
5. Singular Coincidence
6. Song For Rachel
7. Eye On Love
8. Ribbon
9. Dark Side
10. Reiteration

The sixth album from Still Corners is “Dream Talk”. Beautifully arranged, elegant and wistful, Dream Talks is a set of ten carefully crafted classic songs. From the autumnal opener "Today is the Day" to the hot summer night finale of "Turquoise Moon", Still Corners have created a sound that is focused, stylish and seductive. Tessa Murray says, "The genesis for a lot of these songs came from dreams. Every night I would write down the dreams I could remember. While recording I would pull out my book of dreams and sing over various looped phrases Greg had been working on, the repetitive nature of the looping and singing almost felt like going into a trance. A lot of the songs came from that process, it was fun and what I thought were sort of ramblings ended up surprising us with their various meanings and imagery."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Drifting, 50's influenced indie music that's both warmly evocative and hugely danceable. There are moments that could easily be played on a Balearic beach bar soundsystem, but soaring synth moments pull us out of the reverie and onto a swaying, undulating dancefloor.

TRACK LISTING

1. Today Is The Day
2. The Dream
3. Faded Love
4. What Is Real
5. Lose More Slowly
6. Secret World
7. Let's Make Up
8. Crystal Blue
9. The Ship
10. Turquoise Moon

The Libertines are excited to announce the release of their fourth studio album entitled, All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade out 8th March 2024. The release marks the band’s first new album in nine years and opens with the infectious new single, Run Run Run.

On All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade, the quartet of unlikely lads have gathered from their new-found homes in France, Denmark, Margate and London to solder a strongest-ever internal bond, and scale new creative heights resulting in the best music of their extraordinary career so far.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Gotta love a bit of The Libertines, and this their first album in nine years continues the legacy of swooning, melodically rich pieces centred around the perfect chemistry of Doherty & Barat. Guitar lines and vocals weaving together effortlessly like they always did, a more mature, slightly less chaotic maelstrom but ram-packed with classic Libertines sounds.

TRACK LISTING

Run Run Run
Mustang
I Have A Friend
Man With The Melody
Oh Shit
Merry Old England
Night Of The Hunter
Baron’s Claw
Shiver
Be Young
Songs They Never Play On The Radio

Made in the wake of the end of a long relationship, this album is an intimate record that sees Fabiana Palladino confront complex questions about love, loneliness and normativity in relationships. The result is a 10-track full-length of shapeshifting sonics that draws inspiration from the big R&B, Soul, Pop and Disco studio productions of the 80s and 90s and filters them through a modern lens. Written and self-produced by Palladino, the album features performances from renowned musicians and close friends including Paul Institute co-founder Jai Paul, her father and legendary session bassist Pino Palladino, brother and Yussef Dayes bassist Rocco Palladino, renowned drummer Steve Ferrone and strings from Rob Moose.

Speaking on the new music Fabiana Palladino says:
“A central theme of the album is aloneness. Whether it’s a song where I’m searching for connection with someone else, or trying to embrace the aloneness, it tends to come back to me, who I am when I’m alone, what I feel when I really look inwards. I’d say it’s a pretty introspective record overall. The songs are often about trying to go deeper into yourself, exploring your true feelings and how they then relate to and affect your relationships with others.

“Stay With Me Through The Night” is the first song I wrote for the album. It was at the end of a tricky period where I hadn’t written music for nearly two years, and it came out in a bit of a flood, I barely even remember where or how I wrote it, but I knew it was going to be an important song for me. It ended up being the centrepiece of the album, a song that encapsulates a lot of the feeling and emotion of the rest of the record and musically it brings old together with new, which became a theme across the record…a way of combining my influences with a modern perspective.

Rhythmically the feeling of the song comes from funk and disco, I was thinking about the piano playing of Patrice Rushen and Michael McDonald, Chaka Khan’s ‘What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me’, Bernard Edwards bass playing on Chic’s ‘Good Times’, and The Bee Gees ‘Spirits Having Flown’ but we tried to take the track somewhere else in other aspects of the production to bring out the big feelings in the song. It situates us in the emotional world that I tried to create for the rest of the album.”

Fabiana Palladino first broke out in 2017 as one of Paul Institute’s founding artists after her shadowy R&B-influenced spectral pop reached Jai Paul, who founded the label alongside his brother A.K. Paul. Releasing three singles in four years, she caught the ear of critics - Pitchfork likened “Mystery” to “a scratch track from a big-budget 80s studio that’s been smuggled out on reel-to-reel tape” – but Palladino’s output remained slight. The intervening years have seen her working as an in-demand session musician for the likes of Jessie Ware, Sampha, SBTRKT and Laura Groves while intensely striving for pop perfection in her own music. Last year, she formed part of Jai Paul’s band for his live debut (which she also supported solo) on his hugely celebrated comeback tour.

TRACK LISTING

1. Closer
2. Can You Look In The Mirror?
3. I Can’t Dream Anymore
4. Give Me A Sign
5. I Care
6. Stay With Me Through The Night
7. Shoulda
8. Deeper
9. In The Fire
10. Forever

Alice Russell is universally acclaimed as one of the best modern soul voices of our time, while her raw talent and charisma commands attention and affection.

The much-loved British soulstress returns with the most personal album of her career. I Am is vulnerable and bold while addressing how we must all work on ourselves to heal - so that we can love and connect with those and the world around us more honestly and with depth.

Life, loss and grief have been a central part of this period and a new approach to creating music: "Two little ones have joined me, and one has left - my dad passed away the summer after To Dust was released. The day after my Dad's funeral, I found out I was pregnant with my first little one." Alice continues: "The grief journey has cracked me open and created a more urgent need to be focused and try to go deeper with how I communicate creatively and who I am today, and I welcome it with open arms".

Written and produced alongside long-time collaborator TM Juke, I Am is the first offering of new music from the iconic singer in over a decade and marks a new era in the remarkable career of the down-to-earth vocal powerhouse. This summer, Alice graced the main stage of Gilles Peterson's We Out Here, supported Nile Rogers and performed as part of a tribute to Aretha Franklin across France, marking her return to the stage, where she belongs.

TRACK LISTING

1. Agreement
2. Gravity
3. Square
4. I Am
5. I See You
6. Rain
7. Things
8. Sinner
9. Light

We Belong, is the eighth studio album from Sinkane, a band led by multi- instrumentalist Ahmed Gallab. And like much of Sinkane’s previous releases, it resists genre. It’s pop. It’s funk. It’s electronic. It blends the gritty punk newness of a 70s and 80s New York with the steady, foundational soul of the rhythms of his native Sudan. Though We Belong comes deep into the catalog of a long career, it also resists stagnation. It moves and travels—through words and eras, through emotion and healing. Gallab calls this album his “love letter to Black music,” and each track pulses with the energy of different eras and forms: the gospel-soaked “Everything Is Everything,” the dreamy, Quiet Storm-influenced Afro-beats of “Rise Above,” the 70s-funk of “We Belong” and its Sly Stone influence, the Stevie Wonder-edged “Another Day”—they tell a story about Black music and Black people.

TRACK LISTING

1. Come Together
2. Another Day (ft. STOUT & Bilal)
3. Rise Above
4. Invisible Distance (ft. Tru Osborne)
5. Everything Is Everything (ft. Tru Osborne)
6. We Belong (ft. STOUT)
7. How Sweet Is Your Love
8. Liming
9. Home (ft. Hollie Cook)
10. The Anthem (ft. STOUT)

Drahla make their long-awaited return with their astounding second record angeltape, offering an intriguing world for audiences to explore while eschewing conventional melodic structures and embracing uncertainty. Their latest material gives an unfiltered insight into the challenging transitional period the band found themselves in following the release of their 2019 critically acclaimed debut, Useless Coordinates. angeltape is an altogether more introspective and abstract examination of the self, an avant garde document of the events that unfolded over the five-year gap between records. Over the last few years, the band have experienced devastating personal losses, while expanding their sound with guitarist Ewan Barr joining vocalist and guitarist Luciel Brown, bassist Rob Riggs and drummer Mike Ainsley. These recent experiences – collective and individual – culminate in a sound that is considerably darker and tonally more complex and conceptual in its essence. Delving into themes of grief and trauma whilst simultaneously celebrating moments of sentimentality and support during difficult times, angeltape shifts between being a challenging, comforting and ultimately rewarding record for both artist and audience.

The addition of Ewan Barr to Drahla’s visceral and vital arrangements signaled a significant shift in the band’s dynamic, ultimately reshaping the way they approach their angular arrangements. Crucially, it allowed Drahla to dismantle previous limitations and carve out new sonic avenues to experiment with form more than ever before. The exhilarating interplay of driving bass riffs and charged drum patterns provide a captivating contrast to Brown’s melodic spoken delivery. The enveloping atmosphere emanating from the quartet is heightened by searing saxophone accompaniments from long-standing collaborator Chris Duffin. There’s an irresistible and unwavering potency surging throughout this masterful second record, one that stays with you long after you first step into Drahla’s enticing world.

TRACK LISTING

1. Under The Glass
2. Default Parody
3. Zig-zag
4. Second Rhythm
5. Talk Ing Radiance
6. Concrete Lily
7. Lip Sync
8. A
9. Venus
10. Grief In Phantasia

The Left Side is the latest body of work from the Iggy Pop-endorsed teens since the release of their acclaimed second EP We Aren’t Getting Out But Tonight We Might in summer 2022. With Saul at the creative helm, The Left Side is a mature and cerebral body of work with Saul once again writing and producing the entire EP (with co-production by Ali Chant (Yard Act, Katy J Pearson, Dry Cleaning) on ‘Conman’ and ‘ITSA’). Written in Saul’s bedroom, the EP is a retrospective insight into the young band’s journey so far as they tie up their teenage years.

A coming of age saga, the EP acts as a vehicle for Saul to dive into the psyche behind emotional evolution, and to unpack the complexities of maturity and the ability to say goodbye to the past. These themes present themselves not only in the songs, but right down to the title of the EP itself - which refers to the fact that the left side of the brain is responsible for comprehension.

Summarising the EP, Saul says: “It’s the closest we have been to knowing what picture we want to paint. It’s another window into the musical space we wish to explore, yet I think we’re closer to having our sound. I think the project signifies the end of a section in our lives, moving out from the haze of the moment and reflecting on our teenage years and all its chaos with more understanding.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Entitled
2. Conman
3. The Dance You Sell
4. Puppy
5. ITSA
6. What A Time To Be Alive
7. Lily Of The Valley

Midway through At Home, Dog Unit’s debut album, at the end of the record’s fourth earworm in succession, there’s a pause for breath. It’s the first time the music has come to a halt since the LP began — the first time this ribbon of sound has been cut, after twenty-plus minutes of motorik groove, nagging riff, and insistent hook — and as a result, it also serves as perhaps the clearest indicator yet that At Home is more than just a collection of individually wound super-melodic instrumental rock songs; it’s a suite of music precision-engineered for a single sitting, complete with resting stops, signposts and tiny diversions in just the right places along the way.

Anyone who’s seen Dog Unit live won’t be surprised by what that pause signifies: indeed, this knack for world creation has been the band’s MO since their inception in 2019, writing and performing music designed to arc over the course of an uninterrupted hour, with the four Londoners’ musical idiosyncrasies combining for just the right recipe: Henry Scowcroft and Sam Walton on guitars that alternate between howling feedback and poised melodicism, James Weaver, a pop-dub bass maestro whose minimalist style reveals a genius for conciseness, and motorik drummer Lucy Jamieson, the most reliable timekeeper this side of an atomic clock. Together, on stage or on record, there’s a sense that this isn’t four musicians, but one 16-limbed creature guiding its listeners on an undulating journey of sleek modernist wonder, like a bullet train scything beautifully through Japanese countryside.

That half-time pause on At Home might be the album’s most noticeable breath-point, but on closer listening, moments like that are dotted all over the album, and this focus on flow, aiming to make the entirely instrumental record sing, is 100% played-for. “On tour last year, we road-tested two or three new songs that had a really strong sense of where in an hour-long gig or on an imagined album they should sit,” explains Sam of At Home’s gestation. “Once those tent-pole tracks were finished, and once we had a blueprint for the structure of the as-yet unwritten album, we realised the rest of the music could kind of be written to order: we knew we needed an opener to side two and a midway breather, for example, and a sort of ‘closing credits’ song, and a climactic moment near the end that led from civility to menace.

“And because we’d already made those plot decisions, we knew what to write, which keys to write in, how long each song should be, etc, to make sure everything flowed from start to finish as well as possible — we were just answering our self-imposed briefs.”

Over the course of 2023, then, Dog Unit enacted their meticulous plan, writing and recording in the studio while trying out newly written parts of At Home at their Servant Jazz Quarters live residency. Each time at the intimate Dalston bar, the band tweaked and perfected their new material in front of a curious audience who grew into a cult following, drawn to an unorthodox live show in which a boiler-suited band, seated in horseshoe formation, played straight through for a gloriously intense unbroken hour of music.

In short, At Home is Dog Unit’s first major statement. That statement may be wordless, but it’s also sonically and conceptually articulate: here are four friends and native Londoners making an album in their home city that’s custom-built to feel enveloping, warm and transporting as listeners wend their way through its running order. Put simply, with this debut record of all-encompassing world-building, Dog Unit are inviting you to lap up those tunes, bathe in those washes of sound, and yes, even revel in those pauses — ultimately, they want you to feel At Home. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stunning, spellbinding mix of math-rock intricacy, post-rock groove and indie pep. Dog Unit's music is endlessly evolving, but pulls you into each segment within moments of them starting, effortlessly pulling your ears along without a hitch. It's a brilliantly crafted and beautifully hearty noise.

TRACK LISTING

1. Concrete Barges On The Banks Of The Thames
2. Lab Coats
3. When Do We Start Fighting?
4. We Can Still Win This
5. In A Magic World, Then Yes
6. John X Kennedy
7. Consistent Effort
8. The Dogs Are Barking Again 

Armed with an already extensive back-catalogue of stunning music, Palace return with the announcement of their brand new, deeply personal, fourth studio album, Ultrasound - out April 5th, 2024. The record’s production sees the band reunited with Adam Jaffery, 8 years after working together on their debut album, and arrives off the back of ‘Part I - When Everything Was Lost’ and ‘Part II - Nightmares & Ice Cream’, the band’s 2023 companion EPs. While writing the first batch of songs for the album, frontman Leo Wyndham’s partner suffered a late miscarriage, which left the band’s chief song-writer bereft and adrift. Ultrasound naturally became an open diary of their year-long struggle from devastation to deliverance.

“It was incredibly hard to comprehend what had happened, how to deal with it and how to move forward,” Leo says. “The album is the journey of that absolutely earth-shattering experience - starting with a loss, then a period of processing, and then finally acceptance, release and growth. And being in awe of women within that. Their dignity, strength and courage in how they can deal with these things that feel beyond a man.”

Currently based in Nashville, TN – Phosphorescent continues to be a notable indie figurehead and his return after five years is anticipated by fans and critics alike. In the meantime, most recent 2022 covers album – Full Moon Project - encapsulates his major influences including the Bee Gees, Bob Dylan and Nina Simone. Phosphorescent is a self-taught producer and a constant seeker. His new record Revelator is a meditation on all that he’s learned about life and all that is still unknown.

If you haven’t encountered The K’s impassioned bangers, catch up. In the last 12 months alone, they’ve sold out a UK tour, and sold every ticket for their upcoming Manchester Academy show in under 24 hours. They opened the main stages at Isle of Wight and Neighbourhood Festivals, as well as gracing the main stages at Leeds, Reading and Kendal Calling, and tore the roof down at this year's Tramlines, with hundreds unable to get into the big top to see them play. They’ve supported Liam Gallagher, James and Blondie, their streams are also getting comfortably in the millions…not bad for a band from Warrington.

Their gigs are a guaranteed riot, with the recent 13 date sellout UK and Ireland tour leading them to being asked to put in a Royal Albert Hall appearance with Kasabian on their day off. This pulsing live reputation shouldn’t overlook the sophistication that gives The K’s their immediately identifiable blueprint though. Their debut single “Sarajevo” was one of the few rock and roll songs to namecheck Austro-Hungary, whilst notching up over 4 million streams in the process, and their recent single ‘Hoping Maybe’ became a phone-lights-on live anthem that reached number 2 on the iTunes chart, kept off the top spot only by Miley Cyrus.

So where next? The band have just been announced as main support on the upcoming tour for the recent number 1 album success story that is The Reytons, taking in arenas, warehouses and Academy venues.

Their debut album is released in early 2024 on thriving Manchester indie LAB Records. With each new release, The K’s just keep growing. A cult sensation, an irresistible, irrefutable spirit, welcoming to anyone who wants to join and escape into a better, more hopeful world.

FYEAR is a Montréal-based ensemble led by composer Jason Sharp and poet/writer Kaie Kellough that fuses spoken word into genre-bending compositions for electronics, two voices, two drummers, and processed saxophone, pedal steel guitar, and violins. FYEAR incorporates drone, out-jazz, post-classical, ambient metal, avant-rock, and modular synthesis in a sonic and stylistic palette the opposite of collage or pastiche: the FYEAR ensemble integrates a unique and unified sound/aesthetic while traversing adventurous and variegated terrain. Kellough’s poetic materiality conveys acute political-existential themes, alternating between declarative, meditative, and cut-up/semiotic manifestations. This self-titled debut album is a supremely innovative 40-minute multi-movement work; an ardent mission statement that mines the interzone where Saul Williams, Moor Mother/Irreversible Entanglements, Shabazz Palaces, Zulu, Angel Bat Dawid, Damon Locks/Black Monument Ensemble, Shabaka Hutchings, and Matana Roberts are all iconoclastic neighbours.

FYEAR melds improvisation and composition, traditional notation and graphic scoring, electronic and acoustic instrumentation, lucid recitation and abstract vocalization, balancing intensive structure with an expansive sense of exploration. Through several years of collaboration, development, workshops, commissions and performances conducted by Sharp and Kellough, their wordsound practice has culminated in this nine-piece group which also features poet/writer/activist Tawhida Tanya Evanson (present director of the Banff Centre Spoken Word program) violinists Josh Zubot and Jesse Zubot (Tanya Tagaq, Darius Jones, Joshua Hyslop), pedal steel player Joe Grass (Tim Hecker, Patrick Watson), drummers Stefan Schneider (Bell Orchestre) and Tommy Crane (The Mingus Big Band, Aaron Parks), with live visual [typo]graphics from Kevin Yuen-Kit Lo, who also designs the album art. Propelled by the vocal interactions of Kellough and Evanson, FYEAR interrogates our present and future post-capitalist polycrisis, invoking collective anxieties, emotions, and critiques. FYEAR re-poetizes our constructed, manipulated social/conceptual realities, re-inscribing questions about the future by setting them to a wildly dynamic and evocative temporal soundtrack: Who does it belong to? How will it be shared? How do we project a collective future into the contested challenges of climate change, global migration, wealth gaps, safety/precarity, identity/affinity, segmentation / segregation, all our seemingly irreconcilable histories and forward visions for the world we dream to inhabit?

TRACK LISTING

Pt I Trajectory
Pt Ii Mercury Looms
Pt Iii Counter Clock
Pt Iv Degrees
Pt V Misconception
Pt Vi Precipice
Pt Vii Pure Pursuit

Both Tymon Dogg and Richard Dudanski had musical roots playing in The 101'ers with future Clash singer/guitarist Joe Strummer. All three shared a deep love for southern Spain, due perhaps to the influence of the Romero sisters, Paloma (later "Palmolive" of The Slits) and the artist Esperanza, who were among the first Spanish punk refugees in London. Tymon's career began with beguiling interactions with Apple Records, The Moody Blues and future Led Zeppelin members John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page before he discovered his true musical self as a punk / folk experimentalist, opening shows for the likes of The Slits, Raincoats and Pop Group and becoming the longest-running musical foil in Strummer's career, continuing into The Clash and Mescaleros. Similarly, Richard played in Basement 5, Public Image Ltd, The Raincoats and others before following Esperanza back to Granada...which subsequently became second home to Tymon and Joe.

Spain is not without its own punk heroes, and chief among them was Granada's Antonio Arias, another pal of Joe's and leader of Spain's musical heroes, Lagartija Nick, which also included Dacoits members Juan Codorniu and JJ Machuca. Antonio sings the albums two Spanish-language songs. while Tymon sings the other nine...and there's an instrumental, "Mongols", which the band considered too epic as a stand-alone instrumental to mess with! Tymon sings three songs from his past: "The Wheel Of Life And Death" has been heard before as a live bonus track on the expanded reissue of "Battle Of Wills", "Conscience Money" was heard in a very different version on the impossible-to-find "Made Of Light" album, and an embryonic take of "Something To Prove" turned up the even rarer 1989 solo album, "Relentless". If you imagine the playful elasticity of "Sandinista!" recast into a more straightforward record, with Tymon taking the lead on something more than that album's "Lose This Skin", you're halfway there. Guests include Killing Joke bassist / famed producer Youth and Dr Robert from The Blow Monkeys. 

TRACK LISTING

01 Wheel Of Life And Death
02 Cruel Mind
03 Casida Del Herido Por El Agua
04 Something To Prove
05 Brother Of Genghis Khan
06 I Don't Wanna Be Poor
07 Nadsat
08 Chimney Sweep
09 Conscience Money
10 Give Us A Jesus
11 Turning Of The World 

Caleb Landry Jones, the enigmatic and multi-talented artist, is set to release his highly anticipated fourth album, Hey Gary, Hey Dawn, on the esteemed Sacred Bones label.

Renowned as a multi-instrumentalist crafting intricate cinematic works that hover on the fringes of prog, Jones breaks new ground with a deliberate focus on live performance for his latest record. Jones has in fact intentionally designed Hey Gary, Hey Dawn with the live stage in mind, a previously missing element in his musical career.

Assembling a formidable band, he sets the stage for an enthralling experience, kickstarting a month-long residency in Austin, Texas, this February, culminating in a standout performance at SXSW. The residency serves as a precursor to a series of planned US and international tours, promising to bring the album’s electrifying energy to audiences worldwide.

The music is Jones’s heaviest to date, and though often reticent about direct influences and resistant to categorizations, he weaves a sonic tapestry that hints at punk and grunge elements within his signature kaleidoscopic symphonies. “It’s not for me to say what it is. I’m only here to give it up,” he asserts, emphasizing the individual listening experience. But even though these songs are his most succinct, they are anything but simple. Over 20 talented musicians, including a quartet, contributed to the album, adding layers of depth and complexity to this dynamic collection of songs that seamlessly traverse a multitude of genres.

Since his last album Gadzooks Vol. 2 Jones has been steadfast in making visual art, some of which graces the album art for Hey Gary, Hey Dawn. Simultaneously, he has continued to captivate audiences on the big screen, starring in Luc Besson’s acclaimed film Dogman and preparing for multiple roles in 2024.

Hey Gary, Hey Dawn is a testament to Caleb Landry Jones’s artistic evolution, demonstrating his ability to push boundaries while maintaining a distinct and indescribable quality. With a blend of intensity, vulnerability, and musical virtuosity, Jones invites listeners to embark on a journey that transcends traditional genres, promising an immersive experience that resonates long after the final note.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hey Dawn
2. Too Sharp To Be My Carrot
3. The Moonkey Light Hey Dawn
4. Spot A Fly
5. Corn Mine
6. Your Favorite Song
7. Hey Gary
8. The Bonzo Bargain
9. Masandoia
10. He Sued His Wife
11. Useless
12. The Pageant Thieves

Joe Pernice has been writing for a long time—most of his life, in fact—and has crafted a remarkable catalog that boldly reinterprets and recasts classic American pop. Who Will You Believe may be his most moving and nuanced album yet; it’s certainly his timeliest. “These songs were all written during the same time period,” he says, “and they all seemed to tap into a mood I was in at the time. I go through spells where I’m a certain way for three or four months. I might be more reticent than usual, or more outgoing. With all of my records—and especially with this one—the songs all feel like they belong together, probably because they all arrived during the same stretch of time.”

In a single six-month stretch he was left reeling from the deaths of three close friends, including David Berman, poet and songwriter for Silver Jews and Purple Mountains, and Gary Stewart, the Rhino Records co-founder and tireless Pernice Brothers supporter since their first album in 1998. “That was such a bad patch when David and Gary both took their own lives. And my cousin Joe Harvard, who started Fort Apache Studios in Boston and was like a brother to me—he died, too. It was such a tough year. I was thinking about them a lot and watching how divided America had become. I was doing my best to try and take nothing for granted.”

Pernice has been releasing albums for over 25 years. And with age comes a greater patience and an immense appreciation for the act of creation. Who Will You Believe showcases a beautiful balance between such sadness and moments of solemnity with warm humor and camaraderie. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Who Will You Believe
2. Look Alive
3. Not This Pig
4. What We Had
5. December In Her Eyes
6. A Song For Sir Robert Helpmann
7. Hey, Guitar
8. A Man Of Means
9. I Don't Need That Anymore (feat Neko Case)
10. Ordinary Goldmine
11. How Will We Sleep
12. The Purple Rain

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

Erstwhile druggie, drifter, storyteller, taxi-driver, recovering pentecostal maverick from pensacola, Florida. It’s the 20th anniversary of jim white’s haunting outer space alt-country classic that has a title so long nobody can remember the name of it. Featuring Aimee Mann, M. Ward, Bill Frisell and the Barenaked Ladies —to name a few of the artists here—this album quickly rose to cult status. Now it’s on vinyl for the first time, pressed on substrate black in a gatefold jacket. And because he wasn’t wordy enough the first time around, Jim’s added three extra tracks.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Static On The Radio
2. Bluebird
3. Combing My Hair In A Brand New Style
Side B
4. That Girl From Brownsville Texas
5. Borrowed Wings
6. If Jesus Drove A Motor Home
7. Objects In Motion
Side C
8. Buzzards Of Love
9. Alabama Chrome
10. Phone Booth In Heaven
11. Land Called Home
Side D *Unreleased Bonus Tracks!
12. Suckerz Promisez*
13. Stranger Candy*
14. Cinderblock Walls*

Garrett T Capps is one bad mofo. GTC is a real hombre. He makes cowboy kraut with his band NASA Country & also lots of Tex-Mex rock n' roll. He is San Antonio's resident cosmic country gonzo honky tonk weirdo freak! And he is a national treasure in Holland. He can usually be found at The Lonesome Rose, the bar he owns in the city he was born in. And now you can hear his iconic debut album, Y Los Lonely Hipsters, on vinyl on Cow Pie Recordings. Garrett T. Capps and his band, The Only Hipsters, recorded and released the nine-track L.P back in 2016.

“It’s good to change up the diet here and there, but I felt strongly that sticking to menudo in the studio would help us achieve the acoustic terroir we were after,” said Capps. “The Only Hipsters and I are all San Antonio guys, and I wanted the music to reflect that. Tex-Mex in the left ear and T-bone steaks in the right ear.” With Songs like “Born in San Antone,” Capps and The Only Hipsters hope to serve up a solid portion of South Texas timbre, complete with heavy steel guitar, accordion, violin, acoustic and electric guitars, organ, bass and drums in various arrangements. This record holds an esteemed spot in Texas cosmic-country releases. 

TRACK LISTING

Bitchin
She Likes Doom Metal
No Reason
Road For Days
Some Times
Don’t Come Around Here
Runnin’ Back
Born In San Antone
Mr. Pike

A glorious 2x LP / 2x CD gatefold double album resplendent with OBIs featuring some of the best examples of, until recently, a very underrated genre. Now of course, it's the hippest sound around.

Curated from the extensive Nippon Columbia catalogue by Japanese renaissance man Cunimondo Takiguchi, this compilation chronicles the hottest cuts from the most innovative originators of the City Pop genre.

It's the best bits from 70s and 80s funk, soul, disco, AOR, R&B and Pop; Tokyo's tastiest cocktail. Add to this Gearbox's famed high production values and quality control, and you have an early contender for Compilation of 2024.

"A deeply glamorous combination of penthouse glitz, exquisite studio smarts and razor-sharp musicianship...A glut of sophisticated pop pleasures" THE WIRE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2024.

TRACK LISTING

1. CARNATION - Edo River
2. Yakushi Nakanishi - Futari Bun No Atsui Yume
3. JADOES - STARDUST NIGHT
4. Keiko Kimurai - Don't Call Me On The Phone
5. Tomoki Kikuchi - Samugari
6. Yumi Seino - Mayonaka No Denwa
7. Takaki Horigome - Fuyu Kitari Naba
8. Midori Hara - Spacewalk
9. Emi Necozawa - Me Ni Mienai Mono
10. Nanako Sato - Umi Ni Ukabu Piano
11. Kyoko Furuya - Harumi Futo
12. Escalators - Fly High
13. Mitsuko Horie - Weekend Night
14. Namihiko Ohmura - Moonlight, Starlight
15. Chikako Ueno - Nostalgic Spaceman
16. Hiroshi Sato - F.W.Y.

Operating in the farthest margins of L.A.’s cutthroat music business from 1961-1991, Mel Alexander’s Consolidated Productions was among the longest running Black-owned independent record conglomerates of the 20th century. Caught up in a confusing web of imprints— including Ajax, Angel Town, Car-A-Mel, Emanuel, and Kris—this first volume gathers 28 smoldering R&B cuts by the likes of Lee Harvey, B.B.Carter, Marilyn Calloway, Del Reys, Deb Tones, De Velles, Gene Russell ’s Trio, Jimmy “Preacher” Ellis, and Ty Karim. Remastered from the original 1 /4” tapes, Consolidated Productions Vol. I includes carefully researched annotation, discography, and photographs from a vital producer.

TRACK LISTING

1. James Foster & The L.A. Untouchables - The Time Has Come
2. The Del-Reys - Don’t You Know
3. The L.A Untouchables - Money Man
4. Spider Walker - I’m Mad
5. The Del-Reys - Walk Proud
6. Billy Williams - So Called Friend (Oh! What A Friend)
7. Ty Karim - Lighten Up Baby
8. B.B. Carter - Cool It Baby
9. Marilyn Calloway & The 4-Silvertones - My Lover
10. Deb Tones & The Del-Reys - Knock On Wood
11.The De Velles - Misery
12. Ann Stacy - Don’t You Fool Me
13. B.B. Carter - Leave Me Alone
14. Marilyn Calloway & The 4-Silvertones - Shut Up (Demo)
15. Jimmy “Preacher” Ellis -(C’mon) Dance To The Drumbeat
16. The LA Untouchables- Acey Deucey
17. Gene Russell’s Trio - Doin’ The Snake Hips
18. The De Velles - Let’s Do The Hunch
19. Gene Russell’s Trio - Jet Set
20. Dynamic Duo And The Penguiness - Turkey Trot
21. Gene Russell’s Trio - Foggy Bottom)
22. Lee Harvey - Only True Love
23. Lee Harvey - Need Of Love
24. Lee Jones - I Got To See My Baby
25. Lee Harvey - Prove It
26. Lee Harvey And The L.A. Untouchables - My Assurance
27. Lee Harvey And The L.A. Untouchables - If I’m Dreaming
28. Lee Harvey - False Pride

12 tracks originally released on the indie dance label Gomma between 2001 and 2010. (Gomma was the label Toy Tonics did before starting Toy Tonics.) Along with DFA and Output records Gomma released a wild mix of electronic dance music, indie rock, underground disco, post punk and new wave funk that was big in the 2000s. The Y2K sound!

Gomma released music by artists like Peaches, Whomadewho, The Rammellzee, James Murphy, LCD soundsystem and artists like Nick McCarthy of Franz Ferdinand.

Now it’s 2024 and its feels fresh to put a spotlight on some of these tracks again. And so here comes a 2nd compilation part of Gomma tracks:
Nancy Whang the singer of LCD Soundsystem, WhoMadeWho (the band started their career on Gomma), Italian disco producer Bottin, UK indie disco hero The Deadstock 33s aka Justin Robertson, NY disco hipsters In Flagranti, German producers Munk and many more on this compilation.

Gomma not only was a record label, but was also a home for cutting edge design: wild T-shirt styles, underground exhibitions with new artists from the Berlin scene and crazy poster and fanzine design. Many graphic design trends of the last years were preceded by what the artists on Gomma were doing. And many record and street wear labels of today look a bit like Gomma was looking before ... copying the images that Gomma preceded: ironic cartoons, trash aesthetics, greek symbols, ugly design ideas and lot of ironic things.

The Gomma visuals world was exposed in a couple of exhibitions around the world and at a big exhibition at #hausderkunst München before the label was closed in 2015. (when Toy Tonics took off...) Grab a slice of history kids...

TRACK LISTING

A1) The Deadstock 33s - My Best Dub
A2) Bottin - Red Onions
A3) Munk - Violent Love (2024 Version)

B1) Leroy Hanghofer - Das Pi
B2) Headman - Whomadewho – Satisfaction
B3) Mercury - Sweetness

C1) In Flagranti - In The Silver White Box
C2) Munk - Kick Out The Chairs (Whomadewho Remix)
C3) Golden Bug - St Tropez

D1) Cecile - Sweetness 86
D2) Hiltmeyer Inc - Chefsong
D3) Nancy Whang & Bonar Bradberry - Working The Midnight Shift (Disco Version)

Under The Bridge 2 is the sequel to the celebrated 2022 compilation album that reunited groups and songwriters who had once recorded for cult label Sarah Records. The new album showcases the continuing creativity of a special group of musicians who have never rested on their laurels.

Bigger and more expansive than the first album, Under the Bridge 2 is a double LP, containing twenty brand new tracks. There is a huge range of material here, from intense, dark chamber pop to dense shoegaze to out-and-out indiepop. Exciting new groups are unveiled: The Gentle Spring (a new project by Michael Hiscock of The Field Mice); Vetchinsky Settings (a collaboration between Mark Tranmer and James Hackett of The Orchids); and Mystic Village (which features new songs by Robert Cooksey of The Sea Urchins).

You will also see familiar starry names like Even As We Speak, The Orchids and Secret Shine - bands whose line-ups have remained mostly unchanged since the 1990s. And there are established bands who didn’t appear on the first album but are now represented – bands like Action Painting! and The Hit Parade.

Most of the tracks are exclusive and unreleased: there’s the first new song from The Catenary Wires since 2021, a brand new fizzbomb from Jetstream Pony, a haunting instrumental from GNAC.

The emphasis of Under The Bridge is on the new. The bands’ shared history means they have a shared aesthetic, even a shared ethos – they all believe that the future is more important than the past. They are as independent and as uncompromising as ever, but they are still uncynical - and still excited about what Pop Music can be.

TRACK LISTING

The Gentle Spring - Dodge The Rain (Previously In The Field Mice)
Action Painting! - Just Who Are The Cockleshell Heroes?
The Catenary Wires - Alone Tonight (Previously In Heavenly)
The Hit Parade - Apple Tree
Jetstream Pony - Look Alive! (Previously In Aberdeen)
Soundwire - Everything Is Real (Previously In The Sweetest Ache)
Leaf Mosaic - The Branch Line (Previously In The Springfields)
Secret Shine - Captivate This Broken Love
Even As We Speak - Beauty, You Will Break Us All
GNAC – Double Ninth (Previously In St Christopher)
Tufthunter – Chemistry (Previously In Heavenly)
Useless Users - In This, The House Of The Solitary Bees (Previously In Action Painting! & Secret Shine)
The Orchids - A Final Love Song
Wandering Summer - Wake The Silver Dancing Waves (Previously In Boyracer)
Mystic Village - Open Your Eyes (Previously In The Sea Urchins)
Boyracer - Unknown Frequencies
Robert Sekula – Pamela (Previously In Fourteen Iced Bears)
Vetchinsky Settings - Laugh While You Can (Previously In The Orchids & St Christopher)
St Christopher - Burnout ’23
Sepiasound - June In Her Eyes (Previously In Blueboy) 

Everything feels like it has been leading to 'Interplay', Ride's seventh album, the third since their 2015 reunion. It’s the sound of the group connecting all the dots, taking the frenzied guitar attacks, hypnotic grooves and dreamy melodic hooks of their early work and setting it to a more expansive sonic template, one that takes in synth flourishes, psychedelic folk, electronic beats and noir-pop soundscapes.

It has been a period of adversity in the world of Ride. Much of that was down to writing and recording during a pandemic – a period of adversity shared by everyone, everywhere – but there was also break-ups and a messy legal battle with an ex-manager that, singer and guitarist Mark Gardener states, “threatened our very existence.” It has instilled in the record a feeling of defiance, an album that pairs classic Ride lyrical hallmarks such as escapism, dreams, the dissatisfaction of modern life, yearning and freedom with a sense of resilience.

Songs began springing up in a variety of ways. Initially working at Gardener’s own OX4 studio, there were extended jams from which pieces of music would be honed upon and reworked into something more concise whilst each band member also brought in their own home-recorded demos to work from too. That everything was filtered through what happens when the four-piece play in a room together is alluded to the record’s title.

After a year or so of sporadic sessions at OX4, the record started to take a more defined shape when, at producer Richie Kennedy’s suggestion, they decamped to Vada Studios in the Midlands. Kennedy, who was part of Erol Alkan’s team on Ride’s previous two records, had entered the sessions as a spare pair of hands but his role grew organically into producer. He became a crucial part of Interplay’s creation – the band credit him as a galvanising force when they were running out of steam.

'Interplay' is a rich listen that flows from start to finish, at times urgent and formidable, at others wistful and melancholic. It's the sound of a great British band hitting a second peak. It’s a record about perseverance, about sticking together, about finding a way forward. Nine years after coming back together, Ride keep rewriting their story.

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Shoegaze legends Ride return with 'Interplay' and it once again shows that this reunion was worth waiting for! Whist Ride still have their roots planted within the shoegaze pantheon, 'Interplay's sonic palette sees the band at their most synth heavy and electronic to date. It's a welcome excursion and Ride's signature hooks and DNA remain intact!

TRACK LISTING

1. Peace Sign
2. Last Frontier
3. Light In A Quiet Room
4. Monaco
5. I Came To See The Wreck
6. Stay Free
7. Last Night I Went Somewhere To Dream
8. Sunrise Chaser
9. Midnight Rider
10. Portland Rocks
11. Essaouira
12. Yesterday Is Just A Song

Liverpool-based four piece; Courting returns with the first act from their upcoming sophomore album, 'New Last Name'. The new album came together as a play, even though the band admits that 'New Last Name' isn’t really a play...

Whilst it IS tied together by a narrative thread – it’s actually a collection of their most contained pop songs, and strangest experiments sat side by side. 'New Last Name' is unrestrained and chaotic, and at the same time more focused and detail-oriented than anything Courting have done before. It’s a study in contradictions, and it’s the best damn play south of the north pole.

Brimming with nuance and pop culture references, the only constant is that the Liverpool gang maintains their irrepressible sense of abandon.

“We’d spent our last album campaign giving ourselves a fresh slate,” explains vocalist Sean Murphy-O’Neill. “That whole record to me in hindsight felt like we had a chance to get rid of any misconceptions about us and present ourselves as an interesting band. On ‘New Last Name’, we’re moving past that, we just want to make something really special.” In a strange way this album is the band’s true introduction, or they confidently put it, “It’s all hits.”

The results are as thrilling as they are rewarding. From the funk-pop guitars in ‘We Look Good Together’ through to the baroque strings in ‘Flex’ or even the country-tinged stylings of ‘Babys’, it would be an understatement to call ‘New Last Name’ adventurous.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though the style of Courting's 'New Last Name' veers drastically from neon hyper-pop melodies to slow, minimalistic post-hardcore, it is in essence a hugely inventive and blazingly new sounding punk record. Huge, mad mayhem.

TRACK LISTING

1. Throw
2. We Look Good Together (Big Words)
3. The Hills
4. Flex
5. Emily G
6. Babys
7. The Wedding
8. Happy Endings
9. America

Making his debut with the Mercury Prize-nominated Here Be Monsters in 2001, Harcourt has released music under his own name that blends raw emotions, impeccable songwriting and visionary flights of imagination. A succession of ten rich, enthralling albums have followed that first spark of his, including the intoxicating addictive Strangers in 2004; 2013’s breathless Back Into The Woods which was recorded in just eight hours; and Furnaces which compellingly and entreatingly envisioned family ties confronted by the small matter of the apocalypse. After that LP in 2016, Harcourt then moved to explore the instrumental sphere with recent soundscape albums Beyond The End and Monochrome To Colour.

While recognisably bearing all the hallmarks that have made him such an admired and prolific songwriter, one of Britain’s most cherished yet inventive music creators, Ed’s new record, El Magnifico, also finds him striving for something new. It is an Ed Harcourt record, but one with a desire to seek fresh reward.

With his body of work to date, it would be foolhardy for Harcourt not to lean on his artistic foundations, not just as a solo artist, but as an acclaimed music-maker in a variety of guises. His creativity has stretched beyond his own impressive catalogue too. Consistently inspired by the power of collaboration, as a writer, producer and, often, one-man backing band, he has aided the musical visions of the likes of Afghan Whigs, Lissie, Jamie Cullum, The Libertines and Marianne Faithfull, plus has worked with an array of fast-rising new talents. He has also engaged closely with filmmakers, scoring movies and documentaries and is a member of the gloriously louche, sonically hard bitten rock trio Loup Garoux.

With that array of creativity fizzing behind him, Harcourt enjoys a spectrum-spanning number of outlets of expression, ensuring his bountiful creativity and cascading of ideas always find an appropriately unique home. And ‘El Magnifico’ is the beneficiary of this immense scope and musical insight. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Classic, swooning ballads written with Harcourt's unmistakeable melodic ear and wry lyrical style. there are as many moments of brittle restraint as there are jubilant celebration. It's a beautifully sequenced and wonderfully produced wonder.

TRACK LISTING

1. 1987
2. Into The Loving Arms Of Your Enemy
3. Broken Keys
4. Strange Beauty
5. The Violence Of The Rose
6. Ghost Ship
7. Deathless
8. Anvils & Hammers
9. My Heart Can’t Keep Up With My Mind
10. At The Dead Of The World
11. Seraphina
12. El Magnifico

Introducing the Instrumental album for Thee Sacred Souls’ critically acclaimed, self-titled debut, featuring instrumental versions of their hit singles, “Can I Call You Rose?”, “Weak For Your Love” and “Future Lover”.

Since the release of their debut, the breakout San Diego-based sweet soul group (who helped launch the Daptone imprint Penrose Records) has had a remarkable run, including 170 million streams on Spotify, performances on Jimmy Kimmel Live, CBS Saturday Morning, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Kelly Clarkson Show, and sold out shows in major rooms from NYC & Chicago, to LA & London.

This release is limited to 10k worldwide and will not be repressed. A true collectors item for the die-hard fans.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though the vocals of Sacred Souls' Josh Lane add the smooth, zesty topping to the sweet sugar of the instrumental backdrop, there's a real joy to be had in the pure groove of the instrumentals. Plus, what Karaoke machine would have the backing tracks you, as a Sacred Sould fan needs? Exactly. It's ace.

TRACK LISTING

1. Can I Call You Rose?
2. Lady Love
3. Easier Said Than Done
4. Overflowing
5. Trade Of Hearts
6. Weak For Your Love
7. Future Lover
8. Sorrow For Tomorrow
9. For Now
10. Once You Know (Then You’ll Know)
11. Happy And Well
12. Loves Comes Easy

Leeds shoegaze outfit Van Houten release their debut album. After the huge success of the lead single, ‘Coming of Age’, the band have been branded as a BBC 6Music’s artist tip of the year 2024 on Tom Robinson’s New Year’s Day show.

Reminiscent of artists like Deerhunter, DIIV or Yuck with an unmistakable Yorkshire edge, Van Houten open up a unique sonic world. A cavernous shoegaze affair, filled with woozy psych, sincere storytelling and a bag full of earworms. Van Houten have honed a truly unique, melding a 90’s & alternative sound & aesthetic with true pop sensibility, crafting their own blend of lo-fi indie, psych rock, shoegaze and garage rock.

‘The Tallest Room’ marks a brand new release from the exciting new partnership between Clue Records and EMI North, the first physical major label office to open outside London. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: From one listen, this is easily one of my albums of 2024! A bit of shoegaze, a bit of krautrock, a bit of woozy psych, this debut from Van Houten is properly, properly mega and you should all get on it - TIPPY TIPPY TIP TIP!!!

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Black And White
Never Did Come Back
Coming Of Age
Panoramic View

Side B
Note To Self
I Only Wanna Be With You
Head Straight
I Let You

Dinked 7” Tracklisting:
A Side: I Only Wanna Be With You - Acoustic Version
B Side: Panoramic View - Acoustic Version

In their decade-plus together, the four-piece Julia Shapiro (guitar, vocals), Lydia Lund (guitar, vocals), Gretchen Grimm (drums, vocals), and Annie Truscott (bass, vocals)—have created a resonant body of work. Live Laugh Love is a natural continuation. Against the bizarre backdrop of the past few years, Chastity Belt remained a supportive space for the members to grow and experiment, drawing on the ingredients most essential to their process since the beginning: authenticity and levity. Recorded over three sessions in as many years (January 2020, November 2021 and 2022), the focus became more about enjoying their time together in the studio than making it feel like work. Their ease and familiarity with engineer Samur Khouja in LA, who also recorded their last album, made for a particularly enjoyable process. Once completed, they returned to renowned engineer Heba Kadry who mastered the album.

Album opener “Hollow” sets the tone with a gently driving rhythm while guitar layers stream like sun rays through an open car window. A warmth radiates through Shapiro’s voice, even while grappling with feeling lost and stuck. “The older I get,” Shapiro says of the lyrics, “the more I realize that I might just always feel this way, and it’s more about sitting with the feeling and accepting it, rather than trying to fight it.” That wisdom seems to anchor Live Laugh Love. Chastity Belt has never shied from navigating the spectrum of difficult emotions, and an existential thread weaves throughout the subject matter. And yet the songs feel more grounded than ever; there’s a sense of quiet confidence and self-assurance that comes with being less numb and more present. Facing discomfort takes more fortitude, after all.

Live Laugh Love finds the members in their prime as musicians. Their parts trace intricate patterns over one another, but there’s room to breathe between the layers. Everyone contributes to the writing, sometimes switching instruments, and for the first time, all four members sing a song. It’s never been more apparent that they are creative siblings, cut from the same belt. “We’ve been playing music with each other for over a decade,” says Shapiro, “so it really does feel like we’re all fluent in the same language, and a lot of it just happens naturally.”

“Laugh” seeks in the balm of friendship, aware of the anticipatory nostalgia that hits during a good time that you’re already missing before it’s gone; the heavier guitar tones on “Chemtrails” streak ominous chord progressions over Grimm’s precision timekeeping, lamenting memories that won’t fade easily. During a transitional time, Truscott came across a note in their phone that read, “it's not hard all day, just sometimes,” which inspired a poignant line in the chorus of “Kool-Aid,” their first song as lead vocalist on a Chastity Belt recording. Another standout, “I-90 Bridge” shines with a silvery melody that soars as Lund belts one of the most resounding moments on the album: “Tell your girlfriend she’s got nothing to fear/I’m set in my head/My body’s a different story.” The track “Blue” saunters nonchalantly with a wink; you can almost hear Shapiro’s smile as she sings “Faking it big time/So I can hit my stride/Man, it feels good to be alive,” channeling early Chastity Belt channeling early ’90s before channeling the late Elliott Smith in a spiral of distortion and insight: “Don’t get upset about it/It’s gonna pass/Tell all your friends about it/They’re gonna laugh.” “We have such a strong sense of each other’s musical inclinations” says Lund. “I think this allows for a lot of playfulness…we can kinda surprise each other, like a good punchline would.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Jangling indie guitars float beautifully around airy vocal melodies, crafting a beautifully honed noise that lands somewhere between shoegaze, folk and art-rock. Brilliantly inventive throughout, but never shy a melody or two. Lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Hollow
Funny
Clumsy
It’s Cool
Kool-Aid
Chemtrails
Blue
Tethered
1-90 Bridge
Laugh
Like That

High Llamas present Hey Panda - a modern pop music/deep listening experience that could only issue forth from their personal quadrant of the galaxy. Hey Panda projects soulfully through an enervating abstract of today’s popular music; the sound of the Llamas’ stately melodies and expressive ditties laid open – blissfully shattered – with drums and vocals hitting different, burning sounds and contemporary production twists pulling the ear at every turn.

For the past few decades, High Llamas have trafficked in contemporary pop sounds directed toward the avant end of the spectrum as much as not. But here the message was clear. Llamas’ composer-in-residence Sean O’Hagan was determined to let go. Hey Panda does just that, with a set of tunes reflecting on multiple levels how definitions change over the course of a lifetime, radiating an optimism derived from the diverse conundrums of today.

Eight years since their last release, the pop musical Here Come The Rattling Trees, High Llamas have reinvented themselves again, mixing their peerless harmonic voice with what Sean regards as the “extraordinarily good” production sounds of today on Hey Panda.

Choosing not to look backward to former golden ages celebrated in earlier Llamas eras, Sean’s instead found himself opened up by the sounds of music brought into the house by his adult children and the sounds encountered at sessions for which he’s recently written arrangements. In addition to the more traditional contributions he made to The Coral’s Sea of Mirrors album, plus his score for the Safdie brothers’ 2022 film production, Funny Pages, Sean’s drawn great inspiration through working with Fryars, Rae Morris, King Krule, Pearl and The Oyster, while also soaking up the work of Tierra Whack and Chicago's Pivot Gang, and being cheered on from a distance by longtime admirer Tyler The Creator.

Thus, Sean’s producer procedural has evolved again, with upgrades first detected in his 2019 solo effort, Radum Calls, Radum Calls. With a cover of Billie Eilish’s “Wish You Were Gay” arranged for Bill Callahan and Bonnie Prince Billy’s Blind Date Party, along with his COVID-era solo single, “The Wild Are Welcome”, Sean has leveled up again and again, leading to the delirious revelations of Hey Panda.

Hey Panda’s wide reach is aided by two co-writes from Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, (who bonded with Sean over a shared love of gospel soul during writing sessions), guest vocals from Rae Morris and Sean’s daughter Livvy, production twists from Fryars and the stalwart, flexible presence of High Llamas.

For all of its sense of departure, Hey Panda is a movement in the High Llamas oeuvre that’s been a long time in development. Aspects of soul music were addressed at the time of Can Cladders; similarly, aspects of electronic dance music were in the mix in the late 90s, around the time of Cold and Bouncy. But nothing up to now has refocused the music of High Llamas so completely. Sharing the impulse of late-period Miles Davis and Quincy Jones, with further inspiration from Steve Lacy, SZA, Sault, No Name and Ezra Collective, among many others, Sean O’Hagan and High Llamas are living joyfully in the new and the now, with Hey Panda.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A constantly evolving, soulful collection of syncopated orchestration and flickering electronic indie songwriting. Seamlessly mixing lounge-jazz, folk and synth-pop into the mix, all topped with vocals both human and *otherwise*. Baffling, but always surprisingly smooth and accessible.

TRACK LISTING

Hey Panda
Fall Off The Mountain
Bade Amey
Sisters Friends (featuring Rae Morris)
How The Best Was Won (featuring Bonnie "Prince" Billy)
The Grade
Yoga Goat
Stone Cold Slow
Toriafan
Hungriest Man (featuring Bonnie "Prince" Billy)
The Water Moves
La Masse (featuring Fryars)

Ryan Kaiser has already made a name for himself creating daydreamy, sun-blasted, Polaroid-pop as Yot Club. With his second full-length, Rufus, Kaiser is expanding his sonic palette and challenging his own established modes of music making by letting collaborators in. The record includes co-writes with the likes of Tommy English (Carly Rae Jepsen, Kacey Musgraves), and singer Charli Adams, with Patrick Wimberly (formerly one-half of Chairlift) on mixing duties, and the result is a collection of songs that sounds bolder and brighter. From the shimmering surf-pop of opener “Stuntman,” to the minor chord angst and quiet-loud-quiet pulse of “New Day,” to The Strokesian swoon of album closer “Lazy Eyes,” Kaiser lo-fi hooks have a new cinematic scope. It continues Kaiser’s coming of age — looking back, picking it all apart, trying to work it all out, and constantly pushing forward. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: A lovely bit of optimistic indie-pop, reminiscent of the Moldy Peaches or Claud, beautifully realised and showing all the cleverly written nuances with a new production focus.

TRACK LISTING

1. Stuntman
2. Rufus
3. Too Far Gone
4. Wake Up
5. Lazy Eyes
6. Nostalgia
7. Poison In Your Mind
8. Drowning
9. Human Nature
10. 2084
11. Fool
12. Other World 

Vinyl reissue of 5 much sought after albums, most of which have been out of print for over 40 years, plus 6CD anthology set. A crucial reissue campaign of key albums by ‘Creation Rebel’ the original On-U Sound house band. Originally conceived by Adrian Sherwood as a dub outfit to make his first album, Creation Rebel evolved to become the live backing band for Prince Far I, produced a string of classic records in the late 70s and early 80s, and recently returned from exile in space with a triumphant comeback set.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Ooof. 6 CD's of legendary On-U material, all together in one place. Creation Rebel are one of the most well regarded UK dub acts of all time, and this is some of their finest work. Essential.

TRACK LISTING

CD 1
1. Dub From Creation
2. Basic Principals
3. Rebel Rouser
4. Creation Vibration
5. Creation In A Iration
6. Dub Fusion
7. Mirage
8. Liberation
9. Rising Star
10. Vision Of Creation
11. Frontline Dub

CD 2
1. Know Yourself
2. Conspiring
3. Beware
4. Dangerous And Deadly
5.. Shouldn’t Do That
6. Creation Fever
7. Natty Conscience Free
8. Joyful Noise

CD 3
1. Rebel Vibration
2. Jungle Affair
3. Hunger And Strife
4. Ian Smith Rock (Dub)
5. Diverse Doctor
6. Mountain Melody
7. Black Lion Dub
8. Doctor’s Remedy

CD 4
1. Starship Africa Section 1
2. Starship Africa Section 2
3. Starship Africa Section 3
4. Starship Africa Section 4
5. Starship Africa Section 5
6. Space Movement Section 1
7. Space Movement Section 2
8. Space Movement Section 3
9. Space Movement Section 4
10. Creation Rock
11. Give Me Power
12. Original Power

CD 5
1. The Dope
2. African Space
3. Chatti Mouth / Threat To Creation
4. Highest Degree
5. Mother Don’t Cry
6. Yuk Up
7. Drum Talk
8. Independent Man
9. Creation Rebel
10. Monkey Grinds The Organ

CD 6
1. Swiftly (The Right One)
2. Stonebridge Warrior
3. Under Pressure
4. That’s More Like It
5. Jubilee Clock
6. This Thinking Feeling
7. Whatever It Takes
8. Salutation Gardens
9. Crown Hill Road
10. The Peoples’ Sound (Tribute To Daddy Vego)
11. Off The Spectrum

Well, after a nigh on three year sabbatical, North London’s POLYTECHNIC YOUTH label returns to the fray with an absolute cracker. The label built up not only an esteemed back catalogue of releases (featuring the likes of Sonic Boom / Spectrum, Tim Gane’s Cavern of Anti-Matter, Pye Corner Audio, Polypores, Heartwood Instititute and so on) but was also constantly name dropped as a source of inspiration to a number of newer electronic labels such as Castles in Space, Woodford Halse and Library of the Occult .

This new release is an absolute banger. ‘SELF MODIFIER’ is the new project from Peter Duggal, the current musical partner of ex-KRAFTWERK legend WOLFGANG FLUR. His work with Wolfgang has seen collaborations with Peter Hook, Juan Atkins, Midge Ure, Claudia Brücken, Carl Cox and many others for the critically acclaimed 2022 album ‘Magazine 1’ (which reached the top of the UK Electronic Album Charts).

His background is particularly interesting, as he himself explains “growing up in Lozells and Handsworth in inner city Birmingham during the Thatcher years, technology and music were the ticket to escape out of the fear and oppression to somewhere unreal. On the TV were threats of impending nuclear war and out on the streets in Lozells (as in other deprived inner cities around England at this time), there were the well publicised riots - police banging on the door instructing us to turn the lights off and lock ourselves inside until further notice. Shops, houses and cars were ablaze, and some lost their lives - those who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Computers were appearing everywhere… including the home. According to the older generation they were going to take over the world, destroy everybodys’ jobs and eventually start thinking for themselves at which point they would be out of control and destroy everything else too. I, like many of my friends, became totally fascinated to the point of obsession with these machines—these were ours, and the idea of creating a whole world in your bedroom by typing in obscure commands was something truly magical.

Rooted in the memories and landscape of that time, this collection of pieces emerged from nostalgia of people and places, and a deep yearning to engage with all that is no longer real”.

4 intensely beautiful slow building pieces of electronica, rhythmic and richly melodic, it's a beautiful record and a fine addition to the PY canon. Pressed on lush marbled orange wax and with a sleeve continuing the labels’ tip of the hat theme to the 70s BBC sound effects series of library releases, this one is not be missed....

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: PY Are back?! Praise Be! One of the bastions of electronic music and one of the reasons I got into playing about with oscillators return with a lovely suite of woozy arps and brilliantly heady percussives. Think Sankt Otten or Kriedler, Kosmischer Laufer etc. Lovely.

A virtuoso in her field, this classically trained musician has quickly established herself as an essential player in the UK jazz scene, carving her own unique sound, following on from the paths forged by Ashby and Coltrane.

Amanda recently joined the First Word label roster, via a collaborative project with Don Leisure, 'Beyond The Midnight Sun', as well as a feature on his Welsh Music Prize nominated project 'Shaboo Strikes Back'.

She's previously toured extensively with her own band, as well as with Matthew Halsall, Rebecca Vasmant, DJ Yoda and Chip Wickham (who also features on this new project), whilst previously releasing three solo albums on Jazzman Records, and a remix project for Scrimshire's Albert's Favourites imprint. Along the way, there's been a nomination for 'Instrumentalist of the Year' from Jazz FM and she's garnered the support of DJs such as Radio 2's Jamie Cullum ("highly recommended") and BBC 6Music's Cerys Matthews ("my highlight of the Cheltenham Jazz festival 2023").

This 10-track album exemplifies Amanda's talents as a performer and composer, taking in an array of hypnotising sonics from the worlds of jazz; from fusion to spiritual and beyond. She is backed with accompaniment from a remarkable set of players in their own right, including Chip Wickham on flute and PEACH. on vocals. A confident display of purposefully blissful compositions that saunter as much as they soothe, whilst being unafraid to lean into some deep uptempo grooves.

Amanda describes the theme of this project as "liminality... that place in between, the transition from one place to another. No longer what it was, yet not what it's going to be.

The harp always presents itself at these moments. It's a sound that causes an emotion. My instrument chose me. It's been with me through every chapter of life. It's how I speak, especially when there are no words.

This album is a rite of passage for "her". A feeling of alchemy, a feeling of liberation. Moments of inner searching, intertwined, waiting but moving forward. Never looking back.

'The Liminality of Her' encompasses the highs and the lows. The nomadic love of freedom and spirituality. It's all so much bigger than you or I…"

From the cinematic, classical fusion of 'After Dark', to the more playful 'Lost in Abstraction', this album invites you to float in a soundscape of liminality...

TRACK LISTING

1. Finding The Way
2. Facing The Sun
3. Intertwined (feat. PEACH.)
4. Liminal
5. Nomad
6. Alchemy
7. Waiting To Go (feat. Chip Wickham)
8. No Turning Back
9. Rite Of Passage (feat. PEACH.)
10. Feels So Far Away

The much anticipated album by Another Taste released on Space Grapes - an eclectic ooze of boogie, funk, and obscure disco. Comes in a tip-on sleeve and with a download code.

Another Taste's debut brings together a blend of boogie, 70’s funk and obscure disco - birthed from unearthing forgotten sounds and reinventing them for the modern era. A recipe they’ve been cooking up successfully over the last years in the studio, through their label Space Grapes and on tour through some of Europe’s finest stages.

Another Taste is a Rotterdam-born concept band formed by a group of longtime friends, consisting of Bobby van Putten (keys), Bob Roche (bass), Barend Lippens (keys) and Teun van Zoggel (drums).

Inspired by the obscurity and the do-it-yourself approach of private press culture of the late 1970s and 80s, their first releases were mostly a product of late night sessions between the four of them at the studio of their co-producer Danilo Plessow (MCDE), leading to the founding of Space Grapes Records.

The band’s first songs were released under various pseudonyms such as Mad Honey, GALXTC or Jambonne and quickly gathered them a loyal following and support from the likes of Gilles Peterson, Kenny Dope and many more.

Another Taste ripples their sound beyond the studio and onto the stage. In their live performances they introduce additional band members in Sarina Voorn (Vox), Diogo Carvalho (percussion) and Florian Verhagen (guitar). A core group with whom they’ve played at prestigious festivals such as Worldwide or Kappa Futur and legendary venues such as Jazz Cafe London, New Morning Paris, and Tresor Berlin.

 From the A-side opener "Turn Up" to the B-side closer "Perfect Night," the album is a testament to Another Taste’s ceaseless creative exploration. Each of the 6 songs on the album presents a new invitation to experience their genre-defying sound and bring people together in delight!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Probably the most anticipated modern disco record of the last few years. Another Taste, up till recenlt, have remained ellusive and anonymous, operating under various guises yet still completely dominating the landscape with releases on Star Creature. Now with the veil removed, the band are set to receive global discoball recognition, most probably coming to a festival stage near you this summer!

TRACK LISTING

Turn Up
It Takes Time
Anything You Want
Mad Honey Theme
Time Is On Our Side
Perfect Night

Coming from a diverse background of equal amounts hip hop and rock, the producer behind the alias of nrl:ndr got into dance music late in his musical career. After playing in kraut-oriented bands like So Many Mammals, parts of that group reformed into the live techno outfit Tren Né, with the goal of fusing techno elements with live drums. Playing for illegal raves with a punk-like energy, nrl:ndr has cemented his relationship with his machines in service of the dance floor.

But his solo debut on blundar is quite far removed from that scene. To understand this music, one should be aware of the conditions under which it was manufactured. Reluctant to consider himself an artist in the traditional sense, nrl:ndr makes his music free of anticipation and without apparent goals. To glean into this outré musical space is like putting one's ear to the boarded up windows of the photograph that adorn the front sleeve.

The album makes extensive use of the Roland JV-2080, a sample-based synth rack from 1996 with a distinctly clean sound. Our producer dives deep into the expansion cards (labeled after genres like “Hip Hop” and “World”) for curious and sometimes cheesy samples. But he also forces the JV-2080 to do things which are not its forte, like the arduous task of programming decent kick drums.

Another technique that is testament to his experimental view on music making, is the idea of using sketches of unfinished tracks with different time signatures, and mash them together into something new - of which the results of one of these experiments can be heard on the closing track and its bilingual conversation between ambient and tribal.

Full of stunted rhythms and eerie melodies, the unclassifiable nature of the music of nrl:ndr lies somewhere in the vicinity of IDM, classical avant garde and private press synth. From the epic opening track - echoing the post-kraut drumming style of Michael Shrieve - to juggling with chopped up vocal samples and treading into almost trap-like territories on A4, he crosses into a multitude of genres without getting his hands too dirty with nostalgia.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Nice, off kilter electronics from Nrl:ndr who demonstrates a keen flair for machine management across a non-linear LP of intricate rhythms and stripped back mainframe sonics. Real interesting stuff for any DIY synthesizer nuts out there.

Shabazz Palaces is masterminded by Ishmael Butler (Digable Planets), whose relentless drive to reimagine hip-hop – even as he enjoys his fifth decade on Earth – remains undiminished.

When Robed in Rareness hit digital platforms in 2023, NPR Music called it “enchanting and subversive," while Pitchfork observed that “the futurism of Shabazz Palaces has always been interwoven with the past and present, their songs scintillating tapestries of old-school shit talk, proggy psychedelia, and melodic flossing. Robed in Rareness is draped in this multiplicity as Butler and a team of close collaborators swagger across eras of rap.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Binoculars (feat. Royce The Choice)
2. Woke Up In A Dream (feat. Lil Tracy)
3. P Kicking G (feat. Porter Ray)
4. Cinnamon Bun (feat. Lavarr The Starr)
5. Scarface Mace (feat. O Finess)
6. Gel Bait (feat. Geechi Suede)
7. Hustle Crossers

The scenic artist and multi-instrumentalist CLARAGUILAR moves from performing arts to cinema as a composer and live performer. Over the last few years he has created soundscapes that blend electronics and sampled elements with orchestral arrangements, becoming one of the main names of the Spanish theater scene when it comes to soundtrack and sound design creation.

After her acclaimed EP 'Mystery is All' Lapsus is proud to present 'Figura', CLARAGUILAR's debut album, a heartfelt tribute to her connection with the scenic world, and especially with the operatic universe. The starting point of this project was born with the concept of an "invisible orchestra", an imaginary that aesthetically becomes a reality on stage thanks to the collaboration with the Barcelona studio Oscila, as well as with the help of the stylist Joan Ros, who has been in charge of the costume design.

'Figure' is a space in which electronica, ambient, and chamber-pop coexist; all under an operatic halo full of drama. Once again, the producer locked herself down from late 2022 to the beginning of 2023 to compose all the tracks in a very intimate and closed composition process. The album dives into the melodic landscapes, merged with orchestral samples and chopped voices containing mysterious messages inside.

Each track is a pixelated lightshow and a live electronic instrumentation, presented onstage as an elegant performance with an expansive emotional range.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Invisible Orchestra
A2. Veo Un Ciervo A Oscuras
A3. Ros Elavy
A4. Mirada Interior
B1. Eyes Form You
B2. Al Bosc, Cega I Visionària
B3. Mise En Abyme

New York-based artist Kelly Moran unveils her second album for Warp Records, “Moves in the Field.” As an accomplished and highly sought-after composer, Moran has collaborated with artists such as Oneohtrix Point Never and FKA Twigs as part of their live ensembles. As a solo artist, Moran has developed a unique strand of experimental piano compositions across a critically acclaimed discography.

“Moves in the Field” showcases duets with the Yamaha Disklavier, a technologically advanced version of a player piano. Moran augments her pianistic abilities by utilizing the Disklavier to write intricate piano parts that go beyond human capabilities, resulting in multi-layered compositions that blur the lines between human and machine. Influenced by contemporary classical, alternative, and electronic music, the album stands at a precipice above two unlikely worlds.

TRACK LISTING

1. Butterfly Phase
2. Superhuman
3. Don’t Trust Mirrors
4. Dancer Polynomials
5. Sodalis (II)
6. Leitmotif
7. It’s Okay To Disappear
8. Hypno
9. Moves In The Field
10. Solar Flare

This is long overdue. I mean, looooooonnnnnng overdue. A solo album by Jim.

The trap kit - so straightforward, so mysterious. What’s inside those things? Air and light - from which century? Which continent? Which planet? Depending on how and when you hit them it can be a vibration sent through a prehistoric breath, particles of Saturn’s atmosphere, the dead, wet leaves you walked through on the way to the first day of school. These are the memories of the drums on this record. Infinite and personal. Editing each other as they muscle to the front or soft shoe to the shadow. Cymbals can override/cancel everything out - wipe your memory clear or make the memory clearer. Drums are the instrument where you can feel the presence of the player the most - the full body - and sense the thoughts of the player the most. The instrument with the most choices to be made sends out the most brainwaves. A bouquet of brainwaves is on this LP.

Jim oversees it all, surveys from the lost place we’re in, the void - the drumless song. We trust. We trust, Jim. His big green eyes search for the right tool (mallet, brush, etc), eyes that search you like you’re a song he wants to join, wants to see if he can add to or understand. Before humans, drums were playing - these drums. Genesis was a solo drum piece. After humans, these drums, this album.

Someone - the last man - is out in a spaceship at the edge of space. He plays a single chord on a synth to set time free from its bind and then lets go. This album sets time free, lets it frolic, lets it graze, lets it remember. This is a record of thoughts, memories, surgery. A deft surgical operation you may not even realize is happening as it’s happening but you’re back on your feet when it’s over. Memories refreshed. Did you really even listen to it? Bill Callahan, November 2023

TRACK LISTING

1. Curtains
2. Percussion Build
3. Marketplace
4. Soft Material
5. St. Francis Place Set Up
6. Uncoverup
7. Walking The Block
8. Jully
9. Long Assemblage
10. Names Make The Name
11. No/Know Now
12. Stationary Figure
13. Here Comes

serpentwithfeet, the Baltimore born singer-songwriter, is taking natural steps as a versatile talent from chapter to chapter in his career. His third album GRIP is the result of these latest steps. GRIP finds its home on the dance floor of Black gay clubs and the intimate moments that happen there and afterward, no matter the location. It explores the small moments of physical touch and how they occur. Whether it be a grip around the waist or the face, serpentwithfeet manages to explore all angles.

GRIP and the Black gay club share an interesting juxtaposition: the club is public; the dancefloor is obviously a place where people look at and watch one another. At the same time, the Black gay club is a safe community space, it is “for us”, and in that way is very private, very intimate. These clubs provided a different atmosphere for him, a different comfort, and a different sense of welcoming that nurtured him in a new way.

From start to finish, GRIP sonically lives the highs and lows of not only a night out at the club but of romance as well. “Damn Gloves (ft. Ty Dolla $ign and Yanga YaYa)” captures the adrenaline rush of a night’s peak with a thumping bass entwined in dance production that mimics the heartbeat’s speed as intimacy runs high between two lovers. “Spades” employs a sweet guitar-driven melody to create a tender moment as a slow-dance would. “Lucky Me” is sweet and honest, void of anything that distracts from the moment at hand as serpent’s voice, a twinkling guitar melody, and enchanting synths serve as the driving force to champion a new romance.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:

1. Damn Gloves
2. Safe Word
3. Spades
4. Deep End
5. Rum / Throwback

SIDE B:

6. Black Air Force
7. Hummin’
8. Ellipsis
9. Lucky Me
10. 1 To 10

On-Ly is the solo and collaborative moniker of pianist and producer Joshua Smeltink. Spanning genres, On-Ly's house and hip-hop history is ever-present and imbued with the hard-hitting post-bop jazz-rock of the 60's / 70's, harking back to bands such as Weather Report and Miles Davis Group (70s).

Reflecting on great leaders and great bands and what makes them essential; there is not too much more that On-Ly has considered for Wonderlust. Distinct in that it inaugurates his first release with a band; Wonderlust simultaneously pulls at the coat-tails of Santana's Moonflower, The Mars Volta and the original Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters all whilst serving you some Bob James on the side. The album takes on a facilitating role in the style of great psychedelic albums as one finds themselves at the whimsy of through-composed pilgrimages to soft, heartfelt song and back to sun-soaked heights woven with engaging arrangement, a one-of-a-kind production style and an incredible pedigree of musicianship.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bosco I
2. Bosco II
3. Fresco
4. B U Kno
5. J. Scofield
6. Icarus

A compilation of rare and previously unreleased tracks from Greater Manchester’s lesser well known bands from the last 30 years. Not household names but bands who all deserve a place in Manchester’s musical history. Less “Unknown Pleasures,” more “Unknown Treasures”.

Proud Mary were the first band to sign to Noel Gallagher’s Sour Mash label. Autograph Hunter is an unreleased demo recorded with the bands’ early line up, featuring Craig Gill (Inspiral Carpets) on drums. The Delaplains made ripples on the live circuit, and you would often find Blossoms supporting them in various Northern Quarter venues. They split after the release of their second single. The Salford based band Death To The Strange released a handful of EPs before their demise; Peter Hook was known to sing their praises. The Children recorded demos at Paul Weller’s studio with no physical releases until they morphed into Twisted Wheel. Omerta released 2 independent singles before a line-up change and had further success as The Slow Readers Club.

Rubber Orange were one of the many Oldham bands making a name for themselves on the Manchester gig circuit in the late 80’s/early90s and released one 12” EP. ‘Magnetized’ is by far their masterpiece and previously unreleased. The Broadcast were another short lived Manchester band featuring John Mackie on vocals, who went onto further success in acting. They recorded a handful of tracks but never released anything. Rambo and Leroy hailed from Macclesfield and after a New Order support slot, Jake Evans (vocals and guitar) was approached by Bernard Sumner and became a member of Bad Lieutenant. Their sole release, ‘Last One Standing’ was single of the week on XFM. The Fayre, another band from Oldham were a live favourite around the same time as Twisted Wheel but called it a day after a Glastonbury appearance. Asia Fields were ‘Funkier than a mosquito’s tweeter’. Think Haircut 100 on acid. They sold 5000 copies of their debut EP and refused numerous offers from major labels at the height of Madchester.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Proud Mary - ‘Autograph Hunter’
2. The Delaplains - ‘Gypsy Blood
3. Death To The Strange - ‘Closer’
4. The Children - ‘Sweet
5. Omerta - ‘Synchronise Your Smiles’

Side 2
1. Rubber Orange - ‘Magnetised
2. The Broadcast - ‘The Great Divide’
3. Rambo & Leroy - ‘Last One Standing’,
4. The Fayre - ‘Linda Boom’
5. Asia Fields - ‘Aint The Just What Love Is?’

With an intrigue for a particular niche of old UK hardcore which takes cues from Sheffield bleep ambience, heady rave futurism and soft, almost new age synth pads, Blank Mind presents ‘Lost Paradise: Blissed Out Hardcore 91-94’. Though the records gathered for the compilation span a short three-year period and bridge the gap between scenes, the collection manages to find a sweet spot where the influence of Warp’s Artificial Intelligence, back room chill out sonics and the nascent jungle boom meet with elements of Italian piano house and slower breakbeat cuts.

Opting to focus on atmosphere to highlight shared connections; in this case the duality of often serene and calming soundscapes with frenzied breaks and bass (see Hedgehog Affair’s ‘Parameters’ and Luxury’s ‘Twirl’ respectively); Lost Paradise is a formidable collection of tracks plucked from a thriving time for British dance music experimentation. The general themes of ascension and escapism channeled through digital samplers are also inescapably linked to a turbulent time in politics, beginning in the post-Thatcher years and culminating in the year the harshest anti-rave Criminal Justice Act came into force.

Initially building the compilation around DJ Mayhem’s track ‘Inesse’, Blank Mind label founder Sam Purcell and Amsterdam based producer Tammo Hesselink began a process of swapping favourites and deep cuts to spread across this 2x12” doublepack. The compilation avoids any obvious centerpieces through masterful sequencing, allowing for moments of refrain and tempo changes in a way that helps add to their overall vision of what this music is and can be; “We wanted to frame hardcore in a different light, looking at this idea of ecstasy through the traditional meaning of the word and exploring that symbolism”. By drawing from what some might consider the softer edges of the movement, the pair offer a look into the relevance of these tracks in the contemporary era, where the past years have seen both an explosion in popularity of old ambient/new-age music and a certified jungle revival.

All tracks remastered from original DATs, with the exception of Sleepwalker's "Age Of Aquarius" which has been professionally ripped and cleaned.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: The hardcore revival is truly in full force now, with plenty of labels and producers mining this fruitful period of UK decadence. Blank Mind curate a rather special set that should have the spine tingling and the bassbins rattling nicely.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Sleepwalker - Age Of Aquarius (L.D Remix)
A2. Hedgehog Affair - Parameters
B1. DJ Mayhem - Inesse
B2. Luxury - Twirl
C1. The Invisible Man - The Flute Tune
C2. Escape - Escape (The Optical Mix)
D1. Skanna - This Way
D2. Xray Xperiments - Techcore

The follow-up compilation to Time Capsule’s "Nippon Acid Folk", "Nippon Psychedelic Soul" takes myriad pathways into the tripped-out undergrowth of 1970s Japan. Finding their feet at home and looking for inspiration abroad, the musicians featured here were engaged in the communal soul-searching that followed the breakdown of the 1960s protest movements. Some made it big, others drifted into oblivion. The music they left behind shimmers with intensity.

At the core was Happy End, the first project of YMO’s Haroumi Hosono, whose distortion-heavy guitar and crisp back-beat laid the foundations for Japanese lyrics that flipped the paradigm of Japanese rock music on its head. With it came a new found sonic ambition, such as in the bold Philly-soul style arrangements of producer Yuji Ohno, whose work with occult wandered Yoshiko Sai shares some of the bittersweet grandeur of Rotary Connection or David Axelrod.

Then there was Jun Fukamachi, a pioneer of Japanese synthesis, whose debut album was a carnival of orchestral funk, euphoric horn lines and rich production, complete with soaring guitar solos, psychedelic organ and a truly cinematic finale. The first and only time Fukamachi would sing on record, "Omae" rips like the ultimate end-of-nighter.

Influenced by giants of the US soul scene, maverick composer Hiroshi 'Monsieur' Kamayatsu (otherwise known as ‘the Brian Wilson of Japan’) went one step further, enlisting Tower of Power to play on "Have You Smoked Gauloises?" The B-side to Monsieur’s biggest-selling single, it coasts with sophisticated cool - a liquid bassline and suave keys comping under a roaring trademark ToP sax solo. No surprise it found favour once more on the acid jazz dancefloors of ‘90s London.

Such was the spirit of experimentation that big studio productions and private press releases sat side-by-side, with the likes of Momotaro Pink and Kazushi Inamura, taking their hopes of success into their own hands with the resources available to them. More reflective but no less robust, theirs was a heavy, fat-backed drum sound, soaked in dramatic, soulful psychedelia.

If some were dreamers and others space cadets, none were further out than sci-fi writer, musician, activist and self-made scientist Tadashi Goino, who transformed his own fantasy novel Messenger from the Seventh Dimension into an operatic prog odyssey with few discernible musical reference points – a majestic and completely bonkers outlier even among company as strange and brilliant as that which is collected here.

Less a compilation of a scene, as a compilation of a sentiment, "Nippon Psychedelic Soul" is a wild ride from start to finish, shattering the narratives of the Japanese folk and rock tradition into a million tiny pieces.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Hiroshi Kamayatsu - Have You Smoked Gauloise?
A2. Happy End - Haruyo Koi (Come, Spring)
A3. Yoshiko Sai - Aoi Galasu Dama (Blue Glass Ball)
A4. Tadashi Goino Group - Jikan Wo Koero (Go Beyond Time)
B1. Jun Fukamachi - Omae (You) 4
B2. Momotaro Pink With Original PINKS - Hachigatsu No Inshow (August’s Impression)
B3: Vol.1 Chap.100 - Heya No Naka (In The Room) 

A 2LP compilation featuring 42 of the world’s most supreme Northern Soul anthems.

An essential collection for any fan of great timeless music, this compilation celebrates the dance movement that emerged in Northern England and the Midlands in the early 1970s. Be transported back to the swinging sounds of Northern Soul, featuring the soulful classics from Gloria Jones, The Supremes, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Dusty Springfield and Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1. Gloria Jones - Tainted Love
2. Frank Wilson - Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)
3. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - Going To A Go-Go
4. The Supremes - Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart
5. Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Nowhere To Run
6. Barbara Randolph - I Got A Feelin'
7. The Flirtations - Nothing But A Heartache
8. Brenda Holloway - When I'm Gone
9. Darrell Banks - Open The Door To Your Heart
10. Jimmy James & The Vagabonds - Ain't No Big Thing
11. Dean Parrish - I'm On My Way

SIDE B:
1. Stevie Wonder - Uptight (Everything's Alright)
2. R. Dean Taylor - There's A Ghost In My House
3. The Marvellettes - I'll Keep Holding On
4. The Elgins - Heaven Must Have Sent You
5. Dusty Springfield - Live It Up
6. Fontella Bass - Rescue Me
7. Dana Valery - You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies
8. Archie Bell & The Drells - Here I Go Again
9. Edwin Starr - Stop Her On Sight (S.O.S)
10. Barbara McNair - You're Gonna Love My Baby
11. The Tams - Hey Girl Don't Bother Me

SIDE C:
1. Al Wilson - The Snake
2. Dee Dee Sharp - What Kind Of Lady
3. The Velvelettes - He Was Really Saying Something
4. Marlena Shaw - Let's Wade In The Water
5. Diana Ross -
6. Tammi Terrell - This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You)
7. Paul Anka - I Can't Help Lovin' You
8. Brotherhood Of Man - Reach Out Your Hand
9. Coasters - Crazy Baby
10. Marvin Gaye - This Love Starved Heart Of Mine (It’s Killing Me)

SIDE D:
1. Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons - The Night
2. Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes - The Love I Lost
3. The Exciters - Blowing Up My Mind
4. Shirley Ellis - Soul Time
5. Joy Lovejoy - In Orbit
6. Bobby Hebb - Love, Love, Love
7. Tami Lynn - I'm Gonna Run Away From You
8. Mary Wells - Shop Around
9. The Isley Brothers - My Love Is Your Love (Forever)
10. Tobi Legend - Time Will Pass You By

Soul Jazz Records’ ‘Down Beat Special’ is a rollercoaster Greatest Hits ride through many of the alltime classic tunes hand-picked from across the mighty vaults of, without doubt, Jamaica’s finest ever record label and pioneering powerhouse of reggae music.

Seminal tracks such as Michigan and Smiley’s ‘Nice Up The Dance’, Dawn Penn’s ‘No, No, No’, The Wailers’ ‘Simmer Down’, The Eternals’ ‘Queen of the Minstrels’… and on it goes. Non-stop big tunes - ‘Down Beat Special’ is an essential primer to Studio One Records.

Originally released as a one-off pressing limited edition (long-since deleted) 7” box set, this new edition is fully remastered and expanded to a massive 18 rare and killer cuts from the Studio One empire.

Featuring The Skatalites, Jackie Mittoo, Bob Marley & The Wailers, Horace Andy, Alton Ellis, Lone Ranger and many more, the album features rare and classic tracks throughout.

Newly commissioned sleevenotes by Noel Hawks (History of the Jamaican Recording Industry) featuring a track by track historical and musical analysis, label scans and more added to this fantastic collection.

TRACK LISTING

The Eternals - Queen Of The Minstrels
Michigan And Smiley - Nice Up The Dance
The Mad Lads - Ten To One
Jackie Mittoo - Totally Together
Horace Andy - Just Say Who
The Skatalites - Addis Ababa
Sugar Minott - Live Loving
Lone Ranger - Can't Stand It
Wailing Souls - I've Got A Burning Fire
Bob Marley And The Wailers - Simmer Down
Dub Specialist - Hooligan
Alton Ellis - Your Heart Is Gonna Pay
Roland Alphonso - Do It Good
Wailing Souls - You Should Have Known
Dawn Penn - No No No 
Freddie McKay - You'll Be Sorry
Alton Ellis - We Need Love
Cornel Campbell - Best To Be Free

25 all-time classic soul tracks, from the bouncy, catchy acts from Motown (like The Temptations, The Marvelettes, and Stevie Wonder), to the horn-driven, gritty soul of Stax and Volt (such as Otis Redding and Booker T. & The MG's), there was much diversity within classic soul. This essential LP edition contains 25 of the most legendary original songs of the idiom. If you're looking for a way to start a soul music collection on vinyl, this is a fantastic set to begin with. Here you can fnd the most infuential artists, from the genre's inception in the 1950s until 1962. The track listing covers the period when R&B was giving way to soul music. It includes smash hits and classic soul anthems by such celebrated fgures as Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Ike & Tina Turner, Ben E. King, and Marvin Gaye, to name a few.

TRACK LISTING

Otis Redding - These Arms Of Mine
James Brown - Think
Mary Wells - The One Who Really Loves You
Marvin Gaye - Stubborn Kind Of Fellow
Ray Charles - Hit The Road Jack
The Marvelettes - Please Mr. Postman
Jimmy Rufn - Don't Feel Sorry For Me
Ike & Tina Turner - A Fool In Love
Wilson Pickett - If You Need Me
Aretha Franklin - It's So Heartbreakin'
The Impressions Feat. Curtis Mayfeld - Little Young Lover
Sam Cooke - Twistin' The Night Away
Stevie Wonder - Contract On Love
The Crystals - He's A Rebel
The Drifters - I Count The Tears
Chuck Jackson - The Breaking Point
The Isley Brothers - Shout
The Temptations - Check Yourself
Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs - Stay
Booker T. & The MGs - Green Onions
Maxine Brown - Wanting You
Barrett Strong - Money (That's What I Want)
Solomon Burke - Cry To Me
The Coasters - Yakety Yak
Ben E. King - Stand By Me

elbow return with their tenth studio album, ‘AUDIO VERTIGO.’ Recorded throughout 2023 at the band’s home studios, Migration Studios in Gloucestershire, The Dairy in London and mixed at the band’s facility at Blueprint Studios, Salford, the album marks a significant step change for the group following 2021’s ‘Flying Dream 1’.

In the words of lead singer and lyricist Guy Garvey, ‘AUDIO VERTIGO’ was built from ‘gnarly, seedy grooves created by us playing together in garagey rooms’ and is both more direct and sonically varied by purpose that its predecessor.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Elbow bring us their comfortingly familiar but sonically surprising 'Audio Vertigo', a perfect mix of the melodic leanings and swooning choruses that have won us over so many times over the years, and a more gritty garage-rock scuzz. Jagged drums and frantic percussion give way to Garvey's beautifully emotive vocals and airy guitar stabs. A welcome return for a beloved band in perfect control of their craft.

TRACK LISTING

1. Things I’ve Been Telling Myself For Years
2. Lovers’ Leap
3. (Where Is It?)
4. Balu
5. Very Heaven
6. Her To The Earth
7. The Picture
8. Poker Face
9. Knife Fight
10. Embers Of Day
11. Good Blood Mexico City
12. From The River

She was born in Alabama, grew up near Waxahatchee Creek. Skipped town and struck out on her own as Waxahatchee. That was over a decade ago. Crutchfield says she never knew the road would lead her here, but after six critically acclaimed albums, she's never felt more confident in herself as an artist. While her sound has evolved from lo- fi folk to lush alt- tinged country, her voice has always remained the same. Honest and close, poetic with Southern lilting. Much like Carson McCullers's Mick Kelly, determined in her desires and convictions, ready to tell whoever will listen.

And after years of being sober and stable in Kansas City-after years of sacrificing herself to her work and the road- Crutchfield has arrived at her most potent songwriting yet. On her new album, Tigers Blood, Crutchfield emerges as a powerhouse-an ethnologist of the self-forever dedicated to revisiting her wins and losses. But now she's arriving at revelations and she ain't holding them back.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's something timeless about a simple-yet-effective country ballad, and while that's not quite what Waxahatchee does, there's something about Cruthfield's writing that triggers the instant recognition and innate warmth of those tried and tested campfire classics. Beautifully bucolic melodies and warmly presented instrumentation, all wrapped in Waxahatchee's unmistakeable style. Stunning.

TRACK LISTING

1. 3 Sisters
2. Evil Spawn
3. Ice Cold
4. Right Back To It
5. Burns
6. Out At Midnight
7. Bored
8. Lone Star Lake
9. Crimes Of The Heart
10. Crowbar
11. 365 
12. The Wolves
13. Tigers Blood

Marking 40 years of The Jesus And Mary Chain, ‘Glasgow Eyes’ was recorded at Mogwai’s Castle of Doom studio in Glasgow, where Jim and William continued the creative process that resulted in their previous album, 2017’s ‘Damage and Joy’, becoming their highest charting album in over twenty years. What emerged is a record that finds one of the UK’s most influential groups embracing a productive second chapter, their maelstrom of melody, feedback and controlled chaos now informed more audibly by their love for Suicide and Kraftwerk and a fresh appreciation of the less disciplined attitudes found in jazz.

Jim Reid says, “But don’t expect ‘the Mary Chain goes jazz.’ People should expect a Jesus and Mary Chain record, and that’s certainly what ‘Glasgow Eyes’ is. Our creative approach is remarkably the same as it was in 1984, just hit the studio and see what happens. We went in with a bunch of songs and let it take its course. There are no rules, you just do whatever it takes. And there’s a telepathy there - we are those weird not-quite twins that finish each other’s sentences.” ‘Glasgow Eyes’ not only extends The Jesus and Mary Chain's story, but feels simultaneously like a return to roots. From the incendiary ‘Psychocandy’ debut and its classic ‘Just Like Honey’ onwards, the Reid brothers steadily became the misfits who made good without compromise.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: A gentle tweak of the template brings electronic bleeps and keys to that trademark Mary Chain sound. Hear the new track and you'll be left in no doubt. JAMC Forever!!

TRACK LISTING

1. Venal Joy
2. American Born
3. Mediterranean X Film
4. Jamcod
5. Discotheque
6. Pure Poor
7. The Eagles And The Beatles
8. Silver Strings
9. Chemical Animal
10. Second Of June 1
1. Girl 71
12. Hey Lou Reid

It was in December 2022 that The Staves celebrated the 10th anniversary of their debut album Dead & Born & Grown – a strange and beautiful period in the lives of sisters and band members Jessica, Camilla and Emily Staveley-Taylor, making their fourth album All Now with the same organic vulnerability as that first record: except now everything was different, and they kind of were too.

All Now emerges, bold and bright, from a period of quiet, which followed a period of chaos, for the band. When Good Woman was released in 2021, to positive reviews, it felt like “an echoing silence” to share such a cathartic album with a world shut down. So The Staves had to retreat, again, and actually wrestle with everything they had been through.

The result? An album as rich and honest as all the most profound music by The Staves scattered across albums for the last decade, calcified here into something special.

But the most thrilling part of this album, is that the hardest pills to swallow, here, almost have a sweeter taste. Once you’ve survived the climb to the top, learned from the journey, you may as well enjoy the view. “When you sing about hesitation and fear, there’s a lot of power in not making it sound fearful and being quite steadfast instead,” says Camilla. “It feels like an act of taking control.” With All Now, there’s no letting go. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though it's the vocal interplay between Jessica and Camilla Stavely-Taylor and the relative instrumental minimalism that first comes to mind when you think of The Staves, their formula works just as well when transplanted onto a hefty backdrop of soaring synths and throbbing basses, and 'All Now' is the perfect display of a more hi-nrg version of their trademark sound.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
All Now
I Don’t Say It, But I Feel It
Fundamental Memory
Make A Decision
The Echo
Side B
I’ll Never Leave You Alone
After School
Great Wave
Recognise
So Gracefully
The Important One
You Held It All

Recent years brought about for Julia Holter an existential focus on human connection, amid the staggering change that came with the death of loved ones (including her young nephew, to whom the album is dedicated) and the birth of her daughter. On Something in the Room She Moves, Holter vividly processes the complexity, gravity, and awe of this confluence of experience. She calls the music “sensual,” “flowing,” and “nocturnal” - a testament to how love, with all of its challenges, “reroutes neural pathways.” The cover art by Holter’s childhood friend, artist Christina Quarles, highlights the multiplicity of intimate connection: are the figures embracing or in battle?

The title Something in the Room She Moves came to Holter spontaneously as she was naming the Logic project file for an early demo of what would become the album’s title track on her computer for the first time. Coincidentally, a few months later, she found herself mesmerized by the eight-hour Beatles documentary Get Back in 2021. Her titular phrase flips the gaze of the Beatles lyrics (“Something in the way she moves…”); the woman is no longer passively observed, but actively augmenting space. Holter has loved the Beatles since childhood, but sees the title less as a tribute than as a semi-surreal bit of automatic writing from her subconscious. (She had been singing Beatles tunes to her daughter at night.)

After a string of dream pop albums that established her searching voice in independent music—from 2012 breakthrough Ekstasis to Loud City Song and Have You in My Wilderness—Holter released the sprawling and thrillingly experimental Aviary in 2018. Since then, she has scored films like Never Rarely Sometimes Always, performed a commissioned live score for The Passion of Joan of Arc with the Chorus of Opera North, and collaborated with her partner, the musician Tashi Wada, who plays synth and bagpipes on her new album. Something in the Room She Moves is a remarkable progression in Holter’s oeuvre, synthesizing her free, improvisatory energy with her signature eloquence.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'Have You In My Wilderness' was the shop's favourite album all the way back in 2015, and she's even moved on significantly since that, to her bafflingly complex but melodically rich new album. Organic instrumental swells and glitched reverb tails ensconce her enduringly gorgeous vocal direction, while the scattered glitch and ambient wooze of new perfectly suit her dreamy composition style.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sun Girl
2. These Morning
3. Something In The Room She Moves
4. Materia
5. Meyou
6. Spinning
7. Ocean
8. Evening Mood
9. Talking To The Whisper
10. Who Brings Me

For multi-instrumentalist, singer and producer Halo Maud (previously known as Maud Nadal), the title of both song and album reflect from her natural reactions to the creation of the music itself.

"For me, music contains what words cannot. It is its power to shape these things, and it’s what I hope to find while taking random bits, here and there, from the pitch of each note, their texture, their timbres, massaging and mixing them together until the sound resembles what is inside me. When everything fits together well the words settle in with the music to spread their clues. That’s when the song is ready. I called the album ‘Celebrate' because I danced a lot while creating it. I now feel that I can release it into the air. I hope that it will alight in your hands and ears, keep you company and resonate within you through multiple waves.”

Those multiple waves are Celebrate’s twelve tracks. Collectively, they offer a seamless mix of French and English; analogue electronics, scratchy guitars and tumbling drums; dream pop, woozy Yé-Yé and 1960s and 2020s psychedelia.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I was a big fan of Halo Maud's brilliant Je Suis Une île all the way back in 2018, so it was with some joy that I saw her on the new release schedule, and Celebrate has all of the wispy pop charm of that brilliant outing but with more of a focus on grand, orchestral jubilance and airy major-key crescendos. It's a lovely experience, and further cements my love of Maud's work.

TRACK LISTING

1. Celebrate
2. Terres Infinies
3. My Desire Is Pure
4. Last Day Song
5. Slowly Surely
6. Catch The Wave
7. Le Ciel Est Grand
8. You Float
9. À Te Voir
10. Iceberg
11. Pesnopoïka
12. Entends-Tu Ma Voix

Following the previously released single ‘Ruined,’ ‘Sadness As A Gift’ sees Lenker at her most familiar and warm, a track that is both utterly timeless, yet sounding new and surprising on every listen. The aliveness of Adrianne’s voice keeps her poetry aloft. She sings in a circle completed by guitar, piano, violin, and all voices. “The seasons go so fast // Thinking that this one was going to last // Maybe the question was too much to ask.”

On Bright Future, Adrianne Lenker, a songwriter known for turns of phrase and currents of rhyme, says it plainly, “You have my heart // I want it back.” Documented with analogue precision, what began as an experiment in collaboration, became proof Adrianne’s heart did return, full to the brim, daring her into the unknown.

During the high vibrance of autumn 2022, the Big Thief band member got lucky. Everyone could come. Three musical friends, “Some of my favourite people,” had space in their busy touring schedules to join her at the forest-hidden, analogue studio, Double Infinity. The musicians - Hakim, Davidson, and Runsteen - were known to Adrianne but newer to each other. “I had no idea what the outcome would be,” she recalls. The result? “It was magical,” she says. Adrianne’s musical risk became Bright Future, the studio’s first album, a 12-track telling of a journeyed heart.

Bright Future’s co-producer and engineer, Philip Weinrobe, prepared the studio. He has been Adrianne’s partner on previous solo albums, but this was something new. Adrianne did not intend to make an album. They would instead explore the songs with no expectations. Even with an open outcome, from the start, Phil wanted to capture the sessions with the purest, technical honesty. He rolled onto Double Infinity’s old cherry wood floors an Otari 1/2 inch 8-Track and Studer console. To fill the air of the 150 year-old main room, Adrianne wanted piano, guitar, and violin. Mat Davidson plays them all. “I’ve known Mat a long time,” she says, “It doesn’t matter what instrument, his spirit just pours through.” At 17, Adrianne met Nick Hakim. She trusted her friend of 15 years to bring his sensitivity to the piano. “The way Nick would hold my songs, he would put every ounce of love.” Adrianne first met Josefin Runsteen in an Italian castle, and sought the classically trained violinist and percussionist’s “magnetic and contagious” energy. “She has such fire.” In addition to instrumentation, they made a chorus, adding carefully measured vocal harmonies. The sessions impressed and enchanted Adrianne. “I think the thing these people have in common, they are some of the best listeners I know musically. They have extreme presence.”

The shelter and ease of the woodland Double Infinity studio is an element of the recordings. “It felt like everyone’s nervous systems released,” she says. “Once we were IN the song, somehow we just knew. No one stopped a take. We didn’t listen back. I only listened after everybody else left.” As a result, Bright Future has the best qualities of thoughtful engineering with the spontaneous swim of a field recording. There are details to savour, fingertips on strings, felt pads nodding in the piano, the harmonies a few steps back, all smoothly laid to tape. It comes together to allow Adrianne’s songs to be as they are, unarmoured and light-footed.

Admirers of Adrianne’s solo music and Big Thief will find on Bright Future her reliable talent captured in stunning, magnetic clarity. In the company of parlour instruments, Adrianne’s modern melodic and lyrical inventions create new traditions. Her vocal flights at times outwit gravity, then land, guiding along an earthly path. The wholeness of the un-spliced recordings preserves a time of musical friendship during a golden season. The album also features the original recording of the now-beloved Big Thief song ‘Vampire Empire.’ Although they recorded for only some days, in Adrianne’s recollection, “It felt like we were together forever.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker is back at it again with another gorgeous solo album. Painstakingly beautiful and incredibly intimate, these twelve tracks once again prove that Lenker is one of the best songwriters of our generation - a must buy!

TRACK LISTING

1. Real House
2. Sadness As A Gift
3. Fool
4. No Machine
5. Free Treasure
6. Vampire Empire
7. Evol
8. Candleflame
9. Already Lost
10. Cell Phone Says
11. Donut Seam
12. Ruined

Beloved, Portland pop/indie-rock trio Gossip returns with Real Power, their first album in 14 years, set for release on March 22, 2024, on Sony Music UK. The album marks a reunion with acclaimed producer Rick Rubin, who helmed the band’s pivotal 2009 album Music For Men. Rubin coaxed the band started recording in 2019 after completing a tour for the ten-year anniversary of Music For Men. Recorded at Rubin’s home studio in Kauai, the process was temporarily halted by the pandemic and resumed when restrictions lifted. The result is an 11-track celebration of the galvanizing might of music, the joy of creative expression, and the power of chosen family in the aftermath of collective and personal trauma. The timing is ripe for a Gossip reunion, and Real Power heralds a new maturity and renewed sense of purpose for the trio. “When we began, so much about Gossip was about running away—that was always in the music,” says Ditto. “We survived. We came from nothing, and we got the fuck out of there. And to be here 20 years later and still making music together is just incredible.”

Gossip consists of vocalist Beth Ditto, guitarist Nathan "Brace Paine" Howdeshell and drummer Hannah Blilie. ​​The band’s 2016 breakout studio album, Standing In The Way Of Control, reached #1 on UK Indie chart (certified Gold) and solidified the band as a dynamic force in the music scene. “Standing In The Way Of Control,” the album’s battle-cry title track, is a queer anthem written in response to U.S. government’s proposition to define marriage and exclude homosexuals. The band achieved multiplatinum success with their follow up Music For Men, certified 2x platinum in Germany and France, 1x platinum in Australia and Switzerland with sales in excess of 1.5m copies. Gossip is renowned for their high energy live performances and have delivered incredible sets at some of the worlds biggest festivals including Glastonbury, Coachella and Pukkelpop Festival to name a few.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An incendiary, soaring return from The Gossip. Full of all the fire of their early work, and all the more prescient now. Perfect timing.

TRACK LISTING

01. Act Of God
02. Real Power
03. Don’t Be Afraid
04. Crazy Again
05. Edge Of The Sun
06. Give It Up For Love
07. Turn The Card Slowly
08. Tell Me Something
09. Light It Up
10. Tough
11. Peace And Quiet

Since first emerging in early 2020 with the anthemic ‘Quit Fucking Around’ and releasing a critically acclaimed 3-part EP trilogy between 2020 and 2022, Francis of Delirium gained praise for distilling the angst and despair that plagues a generation who faces an uncertain present and future.

Francis of Delirium was shortlisted for 2022’s highly prestigious ESNS Music Moves Europe Award, as well as gaining accolades from the world’s music press and supporting some of the biggest artists on the planet, at still only 22 years old. A restless energy and desire to connect with the listener lies at the core of the project, with Jana’s personal lyrics being underpinned by a fierce rock sound that is as liberating as it is intense. Hailed as a Gen Z’er excitingly redrawing 90s classic indie rock (unsurprising given her chief collaborator Chris Hewett hails from Seattle and is three decades her senior) a deep admiration for contemporary acts such as Car Seat Headrest, Japanese Breakfast, Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers and Sufjan Stevens is also abundantly clear.

The upcoming album is titled ‘Lighthouse’, as their music has always straddled the line of light and darkness, both musically and lyrically. Expanding the instrumentation by incorporating more pianos and acoustic guitars, the tracks on ‘Lighthouse’ are intimate and disarming.

“Tackling big existential questions and turbulent emotions, (Francis of Delirium) throw off promising sparks of brilliance.” Pitchfork, 7.4 EP Review.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Ballet Dancers (Never Love Again)
2. Real Love
3. First Touch
4. Want You
5. Blue Tuesday
6. Cliffs

Side B
7. Starts To End
8. Alone Tonight
9. Something's Changed
10. Who You Are
11. Give It Back To Me

Plunge is Sam Evian's 4th studio album, and the debut on his new imprint Flying Cloud Recordings/Thirty Tigers set for release on March 22, 2024. Joined by his closest friends and collaborators (including Liam Kazar, Sean Mullins, El Kempner of Palehound and Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief), the album was tracked live to tape in the early winter months of 2023 over a 10-day period at his quaint Flying Cloud Recording studio tucked away in the Catskills Mountains. With a wide-open recording approach, the result is Evian’s best album to date: a cathartic rock record that melds power pop, iridescent guitar, raucous psychedelia, and Sam’s now sought-after grooves. The music is both fresh and familiar, sonically inspired by his penchant for early 70s production and creatively propelled by the free-spirited process depicted in the Beatles documentary Get Back, as well as his urge to let go. “No-one knew the songs or what the plan was. We kept it loose and fun. This was the spirit of the sessions. No headphones, no playback, minimal overdubs, or bleed. Fast and loose” Evian remarks. Lyrically, Plunge is heavier than previous records, touching on themes surrounding his family, from unearthing past traumas, to celebrating his parents’ creative influence on his life. “Relationships stalling, failing, coming back together,” says Evian. It is an album about love. It’s an homage to true love finding its way home, even if it takes a bit of a beating along the way.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wild Days
2. Jacket
3. Rollin' In
4. Why Does It Take So Long
5. Freakz
6. Wind Blows
7. Runaway
8. Another Way
9. Stay

Not Me But Us are a new duo from Naples, Italy formed by acclaimed pianist and composer Bruno Bavota (who records for Temporary Residence) and electronic producer Fabrizio Somma (aka K-Conjog).

Together they have made Two, a beautiful album that blends both of their influences with added echoes of ambient, techno, 2000s club culture, post-classical and post-rock. It’s a stunning record and proof that when two very different musicians meet it’s always possible for magic to happen. The eight tracks are a testament to their ability to translate raw emotion into a musical journey, forging a connection that goes beyond sound. 

TRACK LISTING

1. No Words
2. Inner Space
3. Interlocking Mechanics
4. Buildings
5. In A Box
6. Nocturnal Humans
7. When We See
8. Us
9. Nocturnal Emissions*
*CD-only Bonus Track

Kicking off what will be an Alice Coltrane year with more releases to come in the next 12 months, is a previously unreleased, killer live recording from 1971. Recorded live, by Impulse! at a charity gala given at Carnegie Hall for the benefit of the Integral Yoga Institute in 1971, this incredible set never saw commercial release until now. The gala concert was one of two halves with the first two transcendental tunes by Alice taken from the album she had just released on Impulse! and then two explosive tunes by her late husband John Coltrane. Naturally, à la Coltrane/Dolphy at the Gate, which picked up the recent Grammy nomination for Best Liner Notes, the package includes some knockout editorial, with essays by Lauren Du Graf and Alice’s producer Ed Michel. 

TRACK LISTING

Journey In Satchidananda
Shiva-Loka
Africa
Leo 

Awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Cape Town in 2023, pianist Tete Mbambisa (84) is a legendary figure in South African jazz. Supported by the cream of the local scene, his albums from the 1970s are among the most cherished vinyl documents from this golden era. A monumental archival undertaking, "African Day" compiles unreleased recordings from 1976 to resurrect a 'lost' Tete Mbambisa double album that falls between his seminal works "Tete's Big Sound" (1975) and "Did You Tell Your Mother" (1979).

Born in 1942 and raised in South Africa's Eastern Cape province, Tete Mbambisa’s childhood home served as an informal tavern where social gatherings orbited around the family's carefully curated music collection with live performances by a local pianist. Growing up in this environment, his musical roots are embedded in marabi, the syncopated piano sound that blended cues from American jazz, blues and ragtime with the cultural sensibilities that shape modern South African jazz.

A self-taught musician, it was as leader of the vocal group The Four Yanks in the early 1960s that Tete Mbambisa’s music career began in earnest. With encouragement from Abdullah Ibrahim, he dedicated himself to the piano and went on to record with The Soul Jazzmen in 1969. Mbambisa's two solo recordings from the 1970s were produced by Rashid Vally for the independent As-Shams/The Sun record label. With an abundance of strong material but limited resources, some of the label's prospective releases were not issued at the time of recording. Featuring the intended artwork commissioned for the project in 1976, African Day marks the first major unveiling of unreleased gems from the As-Shams master tape archive.

TRACK LISTING

African Day
Khumbula Jane
Siviwe
Kohinoor
Mr. Mecca
Siyanda
Umsenge
Relaxin
Untitled For Duke Makasi

Star Creature regular E. Live returns with his third album for the label. "Soft Approach" begins with the west coast feels of the title track and features a more jazz-funk approach than we usually get from this boogie don. Infact, there's definite whiffs of Herbie Hancock throughout, with its laid back syncopation and elevating chord progressions. 

There's an amazing cover of Skyy's "First Time Around", entitled "Make Me Move". I say cover, it simply uses the vocal hook 'make me move, make me feel like my whole world's on fire', transforming it into an erotic funk ultra-anthem; and one that you'll be spinning back for multiple plays time and time again.

There's a seriously high level of instrumentation at play, and although E Live makes use of the large array of synthesizers featured on the album's sleeve, there's plenty of live drums, guitar and bass that make you think you're witnessing a live band in full swing. To consider that he's written and recorded this all by himself it quite a feat! 

Anyway, enough waffle - let the music do the talking. One of the strongest, grooviest and uplifting records we've had from the boogie / jazz-funk cannon for a while, and comes highly recommended from us here at Picc HQ. 

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Soft Approach 
2. Wet Summer 
3. Make Me Move 
4. North Star 
Side 2
1. Bossa Banger 
2. Hidden Oasis 
3. Night Raid 
4. Desert Caravan 

Susana Baron Supervielle was born in Buenos Aires in 1910, but she lived in Brazil most of her life. Creation with electroacoustic means represented one more step in her search for renewal and a new articulation of her triple cultural horizon articulated between São Paulo, Buenos Aires and Paris. The results open a new dimension in the interstices of the sound montage. Susana had been a follower of Pierre Schaffer and his peers in the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète from Paris since they began in the early 1950s.

Baron Superveille’s catalogue of works, as selected by the artist herself, shows nine compositions for magnetic tape. With one exception (1977’s Continuo variante), the pieces are in the personal archives of the composer filed in the Archivo del Instituto Nacional de Musicología “Carlos Vega”, in Buenos Aires, which depends on the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Argentina. This edition on Wah Wah Records is a coproduction with the Instituto Nacional de Musicología “Carlos Vega” and recovers all the available electroacoustic works composed between 1974 and 1980. While most of the collected works premiered in both Buenos Aires and São Paulo on dates close to those of their composition, there are not any previous known releases of these recordings, so this LP is not only an exception, but also a novelty.

RIYL: Raymond Scott's "Manhattan Research Inc", Suzanne Ciani, Delia Derbyshire, recent Light Sounds Dark compilations etc etc. 

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
Vida
Encontro
Melancolía
Marabá

SIDE 2
Acuario
Allí
Angustia
Espiral

Band Of Nowhere is a new constellation project by Juanjo Sánchez, together with other collaborators with whom he had previously worked. It is worth mentioning Bob Drake on drums, former member of the legendary formation Thinking Plague (also on Hail, 5UU's, The Science Group) who has also mastered the project from their studio in the Midi-Pyrénées and also to mention the guitarist Jordi Cabayol (Camino al Desván) both Juanjo and Jordi began their career in a significant band of Barcelona of the early eighties, such as Entr'acte.

The becoming of Juanjo Sánchez would take him to other latitudes as a member of Alondra Satori and without losing the lighthouse of his city, he would collaborate with other outstanding musicians such as Quicu Samsó (Koniec, Macromassa).

The fluidity and chromaticism of his previous album Gonza Magilla is still perceived in here, but in a much more electrified way with guitars that are sometimes expansive, other times exuberant wrapped up with contagious synthesizer modulations and very marked rhythms. The production and especially the arrangements are fantastic with those special presences of synthesizers that are not common around here.

Its original improvisation and experimentation is skilfully adjusted by Juanjo Sánchez, giving a much more playful result with unexpected combinations, very much in continuity with a certain European Art Rock such as Aksak Maboul, Etron Fou, Zamla,The Work or the mischievous resonances of The League of Gentlemen; all this mapping the sound transit, to an unpredictable and vibrant non-place.

Housed in it's original hand made artwork with the little upgrade twist of silk-screen printing textured grey cardboard and including a insert colour with photos and text provided by Juanjo Sánchez.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
Calling All Beginners
Fleeing To The Poles
Ashes
Rouler Ma Bosse
Sunday Machinery

SIDE B
Lucid Dreams
Twisted Maze
Rolla Bolla
Chinese Forecast

In March of 2023 Mercury Prize nominated composer &alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi premiered acommissioned suite of music ni front of a sold out crowd at London's Southbank Centre. She wrote the piece - gratitude - for her flagship large ensemble seed., ni a special augmented formation that also featured turntablist NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra. Months later, Kinoshi passed the live recording to Dave Vettraino, who began the mixing process at International Anthem Studios ni Chicago. Kinoshi and Vettraino then convened ni November of2024 at Livingston Studios ni London to do final mixes and overdub additional sounds from members of seed.

Some know Kinoshi from her work as a former member of Kokoroko. And even beyond her work as leader of seed. (including Driftglass, the band's critically-lauded 2019 debut on jazz re:freshed) her compositional résumé extendsdeeply into orchestral work for concert hal, contemporary dance, film, visual art, and theatre, with high profile collaborators including London Sinfonietta, Philharmonia Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra. That depth of experience si on ful display here, with the textural and dynamic flexibility of her large ensemble covering musical ground from groove-focused modal melancholia ot anthemic brass and string themes. Striking upon first listen and even richer on repeat visits, gratitude scores the soul of contemporary Black London with philharmonic craftwork ni the tradition of legendary jazz arrangers like Mary Lou Williams, Oliver Nelson, and Carla Bley.

TRACK LISTING

1. I
2. Ii
3. Interlude I
4. Iii Sun Through My Window
5. Interlude Ii
6. Iv
7. Smoke In The Sun

Evening News is the new moniker of instrumental dance group formerly known as Beatnik Collective. A 4-piece hailing from Melbourne's inner north, the band composes house and electronica infused grooves, with influences ranging from Drum & Bass and 2 Step Garage.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wormhole
2. Southside
3. Ring Mod
4. Sad Robot Theme
5. It's Jay
6. San Andreas

Saint Saviour, the alt-pop solo act from singer-songwriter Becky Jones, has released her much anticipated fourth album, Sunseeker via VLF Records. Produced again by Bill Ryder-Jones, Sunseeker is an experiment in challenging dourness; eleven tracks of warm, light, baroque pop that swim in light. It features collaborations with the aforementioned Bill Ryder-Jones as well as indie-pysch duo Jadu Heart and The Maccabees frontman Orlando Weeks.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Better Than
A2. A Picture Is All I Have (feat. Orlando Weeks)
A3. Be Gentle
A4. I Just Can’t Take The Risk (feat. Jadu Heart)
A5. Poetry
B1. Let’s Go Outside
B2. Gold In The Water
B3. Cellophane
B4. Morning Bird
B5. Not Nothing (feat. Bill Ryder Jones)
B6. Little Bee

Bondax, the established UK Dance act, makes a triumphant return with their highly anticipated album, "Journey." This release holds special significance as it marks Bondax's first-ever venture into the world of vinyl, adding a tangible layer to their illustrious 10-year career. With a decade of experience and a string of hit singles under their belt, Bondax brings a fresh and vibrant energy to the electronic music scene, making "Journey" a milestone in their artistic journey.

Bondax has strategically released six singles in the lead-up to the album's launch, creating anticipation and generating buzz among fans. Notable singles include "I Only Have You," "Don’t Want It," "Fade ft. SHELLS," "YabaalTo London” with Dur Dur Band," and "Energy" featuring the soulful AndreyaTriana. These singles, and their stellar remixes from the likes of Never Dull, Athlete Whippet, JKriv and more, have already made waves and set the stage for the album's success.

With a rich history spanning 10 years, Bondax has firmly established themselves as a prominent force in the UK Dance scene. Their previous hits, such as 'Gold' and 'Give It All,' released under Sony Music, have amassed over 100 million streams, showcasing the enduring appeal of their music.

TRACK LISTING

1. Don’t Want It
2. I Only Have You (Feat. Eno Williams)
3. Fade (Feat. SHELLS)
4. Yabaal To London (Feat. Dur-Dur Band)
5. Energy (Feat. Andreya Triana)
6. Journey (feat. Mysie)
7. Signal Generator
8. Infra 

Super db is a 4-piece band from the South of England whose sound is a distinctive mix of pop, disco, funk, rock and jazz is evoking the sound of the early 80s American West Coast. The lineup consists of twin brothers J-M Sutcliffe (Guitars & Vocals) and J-P Sutcliffe (Keyboards, Percussion & Vocals), along with two new members, Jonathan Wills (Drums, Percussion) and Indigo Pearce (Bass). Following their second album "Ecoute Ca", Super db now release their third album "Downtown". The album has spawned four singles so far, "Back To Me", "Downtown City Girl", "Side By Side" and "Hard Drivin'".

"Downtown" features all the trademark Super db ingredients, including soulful close harmony vocal stacks, popping bass lines, ripping guitar solos, and jazz infused harmony, all set to the tones of the West Coast Funk and Disco era of the early 1980s. The band also hark back to some of the Latin flavors featured on their previous album, with songs such as 'Brazil', and the album's infectious closer, 'Maquina'.

"Downtown" is an album that promises to take the listener on a journey back in time when Disco was king and Walkmans were all the rage. Twelve songs all evoke the feel-good vibes of summer nights at the beach.

TRACK LISTING

1. Downtown City Girl
2. Back To Me
3. Side By Side
4. And She Cries
5. Moment In Time
6. Hard Drivin'
7. Shake It
8. Spicoli's Jam
9. All They Wanted
10. Song For Matt (Edit)
11. Brazil
12. Maquina

For Fans Of... Thee Sacred Souls, Joey Quinones, Durand Jones & The Indications,Thee Midniters, The Altons, Trish Toledo, Sunny & The Sunliners

To say that The Sinseers play oldies would be a misnomer. Fronted by bandleader and son of East Los Angeles Joey Quiniones, the group has quietly chipped away at the sounds of R&B and soul for the last half-decade. Quinones and his crew have continuously created a distinctive vibe that explores all aspects of a timeless genre, bringing together their interpretation of music through an unmistakable modern lens.

With their most recent effort, the aptly titled Sinseerly Yours (Colemine 2023), the band recorded most of the album live in the studio. With Quinones on vocals and keys, vocalist Adriana Flores, Christopher Manjarrez on bass, Francisco Floreson on guitar, Bryan Ponce on guitar and vocals, Luis Carpio on drums and vocals, saxophonists Eric Johnson and Steve Surman, and Jose Luis Jimenez on trombone, The Sinseers achieves their most fully realized sound to date.

All of the album's stunning tracks were recorded in a converted studio space in Rialto, California, known as Second Hand Sounds. The converted studio space, which used to be a dentist's office, allowed the group to experiment with their sound like never before - this time, the group managed to take a series of big swings, only to emerge with a fuller, more pronounced version of themselves. Despite those new strides, the band remains wholly committed to its sonic aesthetic while injecting its brand of vibrant 21st-century cool.

Of course, the group has never been the type to shy away from their influences as they expertly toggle between 60s pop vis-à-vie early Beatles records to obscure dancehall Jamaican tunes - all fully extrapolated and reinterpreted through modern Chicano soul sound that the group has built their everlasting repertoire on.

Quinones and bandmates have continued to apply what they've learned from their previous releases and their relentless touring schedule throughout the country. It's clear here that the work is paying off, putting to practice their musical chops thoroughly with all members expertly honing their sound. The melting pot of ideas is showcased with incredibly lush orchestrations and arrangements, married with pitch-perfect harmonies, allowing the group to further solidify themselves in the pantheon of the Southern Californian songbook.

TRACK LISTING

1. What’s His Name
2. Keep On Calling
3. Can’t Call Me Baby
4. Give It Up You Fool
5. Hold On
6. It’s Such A Shame
7. Talking Back
8. Like I Can Give
9. Can’t Do That To Her
10. Sinseerly Yours

The history of BBC Maida Vale Sessions is familiar to The Utopia Strong. As musicians, and lifelong music fans, the legacy - the importance - of such recordings is not lost on them. Space and place influence creativity, as is the case here, and the sleeve is a loving homage to those classic BBC releases, affectionately nodding to Strange Fruit Peel Sessions from days of yore.These pieces, originally recorded live at Maida Vale for a Marc Riley session on BBC 6 Music in September 2022, capture The Utopia Strong stretching themselves and continuing to develop their aural explorations.The five-track album opens with the analogue arpeggios of ‘Minature Citadels’, a title perfectly summing up the imagery provoked by the music; evolving, jagged patterns of skylines and castellations, turrets and towers. The closing outro of squarks and drones could be twice as long and not outstay its welcome.

The nagging refrain running through ‘Lamp Of Glory’ is Mike York on the pipes, which he handmakes himself. The overall effect is a sublime, warped concoction of balearic energy and non-Western modes. ‘Disaster 2’ (a piece initially recorded on their second studio album, 2022’s International Treasure) begins with a beautiful synth drone that maintains its position, overpowering the modular patterns pulsating behind it, augmented by yet more glorious, lamenting pipes. The last two tracks both exceed ten minutes and allow the band to extend out further. Release comes as the drums kick in after six minutes of ‘The Tower Is Locked’, emulating the live sets The Utopia Strong have become famed for.The final track, ‘Weather All’, was also honed across several live performances. Having been booked for Andrew Weatherall’s Conveanza festival pre-lockdown, the band finally performed there in September 2022, following his passing. While performing this piece, the heavens opened and the entire festival, band and audience, were drenched. “It felt absolutely biblical”, says the band. Steve Davis has a rich history with the Beeb, but on this occasion he is wrangling his ever-expanding array of analogue synths, dilating his musical imagination. The heritage of the location and overall experience was not lost on the band.‘

We've managed to snaffle some copies of this under-the-radar hip-hop comp from last year. "Down The Local" is an absolute gem; featuring a plethora of rappers I haven't heard yet but the UK flavours are strong throughout with each MC having their own unique flow and style with clear regional accent variations indicating a nationwide roster. Meanwhile the instrumentals are rich with that smokey, jazzy, boom-bap flavour synonymous with the golden days of UK hip-hop complete with nice scratch passages and clever sampling.

Real rap heads ain't gonna wanna sleep on this one trrruusst! 

TRACK LISTING

1. Deeflux & Miracle - Unquenchable
2. Louie G X Barry Manalog - Stylin Merd
3. Cappo X Luther Andross - Ellar 
4. Deeflux & Miracle Feat Ash The Author & Gee Bag - Reel Me Back In 
5. Ash The Author X Barry Manalog Feat Mysdiggi & Dj Chud - Same As It Never Was 
6. Cappo X Luther Andross - Nye 
7. Louie G X Barry Manalog - Milty 
8. Ash The Author X Barry Manalog Feat Dj Chud - Modern Day Jazz Crumpet 
9. Deeflux & Miracle Feat Chrome - Oovavoo 

A crate staple for any lover of feminine funk, Beehive Breaks gathers 15 sultry singles from across the Numero-verse. From Sandy Gaye’s Cruella-synched “Watch The Dog That Brings The Bone” to James Brown ’s soul sister #1 Marva Whitney, teenage girl gangs The Trinikas and Promise, Miami’s queen of soul Betty Wright, plus a previously unissued belter from Chicago’s Sonics Band, Beehive Breaks picks up where sister funk left off.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
Sandy Gaye - Watch The Dog That Bring The Bone
Betty Wright - Mr. Lucky
Marva Whitney - Daddy Don’t Know About Sugar Bear
The Trinikas - Remember Me
Betty & Angel - Honey Coated Loving
Arelean Brown - I’m A Streaker Baby
The 20th Century - Hot Pants (Part I)

SIDE B
Promise - I’m Not Ready For Love
Pearl Dowdell - Good Things
Fay Cooper - Closer Together
Lolla Collins - Save The Children (If There Is To Be A Tomorrow)
Soul Revival - Do What You Gotta Do
Mae Young - You Got Me Under Your Spell
The Ba-Roz - Come Back Boy
Sonics Band - Second Avenue

Presenting a collection of deep spatial gems mined from the ever impressive TK Disco vaults for your playback listening pleasure!

The TK Disco music empire has blessed our ears and minds with an endless stream of music since it's late 1960's inception. Countless soul and funk sides were produced, cut and released by label founder Henry Stone and his associates, in turn changing the face of contemporary black music in the USA and across the world forever. It is true that the TK story originated on America's 'Space Coast', the modern frontier of lunar exploration and galactic travel, the home of NASA and countless missions beyond the stars nestled on the East Coast of the United States.

'Moon Ride' - The compilation you hold in your hands, is merely one strand of the incredible music that was beamed out of Hialeah, FL over the decades. The focus on this collection is the idea of the 'cosmic' from the Disco era. These are records that emit a spacey vibe, either from their lyrical content or equally from their sonic qualities, imbibing synths and electronics to create otherworldly grooves. These records were big hits on underground music scenes such as Daniele Baldelli's cosmic movement in the 70's and 80's in Lake Garda, they were vehicles of escapism and hedonism on the discerning dancefloors of NYC in the hands of progressive DJs like David Mancuso and Nicky Siano and they were also essential building blocks in the creation of House and Techno music in the Midwestern cities of Chicago and Detroit, inspiring legendary artists such as Mr Fingers and Jeff Mills and countless others. An essential collection of music for listening, dancing, loving and travelling!

TRACK LISTING

A1. John Tropea - Livin' In The Jungle
A2. Universal Love - Moon Ride
B1. Stevo - Pay The Price
B2. Ish - Don't Stop
C1. Wanda Star Williams - Mr UFO
C2. King Sporty & The Root Rockers - Get On Down
D1. Mad Dog Fire Department - Cosmic Funk
D2. Fern Kinney - Groove Me

Following on from 2019's 'The Unforgiving Current', Horsebeach's Ryan Kennedy returns with his fifth record 'Things To Keep Alive'. With 'The Unforgiving Current' exploring the themes of isolation whilst living in Tokyo, Kennedy has since returned to the perpetual grey of Mancunia. But rather than viewing his return to Manchester as a step back, Kennedy has used Horsebeach as a catalyst to explore and make positive strides within his mental health.

From Beatles-esque balladry, fuzzed out shoegaze and a lavish cover of a 00s pop classic, 'Things To Keep Alive' still importantly retains the Horsebeach DNA and even has moments that will take fans all the way back to Kennedy's C86 inspired debut LP. In turn, this results in Horsebeach's most varied and rewarding album to date. A record that inspires and shows growth; a record that makes you appreciate the things you help to keep alive.

Here’s what Ryan (Horsebeach) had to say about the album."I always treat each album as a snapshot of a certain period of my life and Things To Keep Alive is no different. However, it's less of a measure of time and more a snapshot of the mental space I've come to occupy over the past few years.

Fundamentally, this album is about my own struggle with one particular side effect of my mental health. Especially my propensity to long for the sweet release of death. I've come to learn how to deal with these things over time and I have always cared for my many cats, plants and important people close to me. These things bring me great joy and through the fog of my depressed haze I have finally learned to water, feed and care for myself as well. These are the things I keep alive. Musically I've decided to revisit themes from my earlier work but allow myself to open up to sounds I might have restricted from the Horsebeach palette in the past. It's quite a simple album thematically but perhaps the one I'm most proud of to date. I've given myself much longer to write this album and I hope the extra time I’ve spent nurturing each song comes through in the end."

Ryan

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: After an unbearable wait, Horsebeach finally return, and guess what, it's their best album so far! Fabulously varied and with tunes to die for, this record will jangle and sigh its way straight into your hearts.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Friend By The Lake
2. In The Shadow Of Her
3. A Fault In All Of Us
4. Things To Keep Alive
5. Let Me Stay In Tonight
6. Until You
7. Cinnamon Challenge
8. Pure Shores
9. Colourless
10. Tradition 

Brand new album from electronic titan Kieran Hebden who continues his futuristic creation of sound across eight elegant and fantastic tracks. Utilizing a now well versed palette which seems to effortlessly merge organic instrumentation and hybridized vocals into digitally processed pastoral soundscapes. All the usual Hebdenian traits are audible on album opener "Loved" - from his well loved live drum breaks to the slightly melancholic piano lines. Quickly ushering in a more liminal experience, "Gliding Through Everything" is a crystalline waterfall that reimagines H2O as a 4D particle cascading through your fingertips. "Storm Crystals" quickly soothes with twangy mallets, downbeat groove and healing tones; the moment you quietly settle into your seat, expectations met and suitably zoned in for the rest of the LP. Hebden concludes side A with the accelerated pace of "Daydream Repeat"; which doesn't drift too far from themes explored throughout the side but ups the bpm and buoyancy.

Side B slows us back down, ready for the second half of the trip; emotive guitar lines picked from the ether as angelic vox are gently smudged and diced before our ears - a sonic trademark the producer has previously used on tracks such as "Love Cry" and "Baby". "31 Bloom" bounces out of the mainframe at another slightly increased tempo, glitched arpeggios and highly sequenced piano fragments beautifully coalesced into a moment of transcendental ascension. Penultimate track, "So Blue" allows us a moment of reflection, stark elements imparting such strong emotions - there's few producers who can squeeze so much human feeling out of their machines. Finally, "Three Drums" concludes in suitable form - a slowly spiraling semi-orchestral fury into a white hot, retina-scorching sun'; almost hallucinatory in its saturation yet carried along at a languid pace; allowing the listener to unwind into a paradisical dream state of Hebden's own creation.

Have to say he's done it again. It's nicely succinct and sequenced to perfection, with the four tracks on each side perfectly 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I've always been a massive fan of the ol' Four Tet, and while I think the more recent outings share characteristics with the glitched melodies and syncopated percussion of Pause or Rounds, it's a far more relaxing affair in all, owing a lot more to ambient music than the dancefloor-focused outings of the past. 'Three' is possibly his most focused and enjoyable work to date, and that's really something for a man with such a stellar discography.

TRACK LISTING

01 Loved 4:03
02 Gliding Through Everything 4:08
03 Storm Crystals 6:40
04 Daydream Repeat 6:09
05 Skater 4:16
06 31 Bloom 5:52
07 So Blue 5:30
08 Three Drums 8:16

Engelchen literally translates as ‘little angels’ What’s more, for many in the febrile, dangerous era of the 1930s in Nazi-occupied Europe, as they wrote letters to arrange their paths out of danger as refugees, these were Ida and Louise Cook. Ida and Louise spent much of their early years in Sunderland, and in adulthood lived in a suburb of London with their parents. They were enormous fans of opera and led relatively quiet and unfussy lives. Yet secretly these resourceful and eccentric women were using their musical obsessions as a means to help dozens of refugees escape with their lives. Their secretive heroics now almost beggar belief, and when Alison Cotton, herself from Sunderland, first discovered their story, she couldn’t understand why it wasn’t more widely known. Furthermore, she was inspired by their courage, fortitude and derring-do to compose Engelchen, a musical tribute to the duo’s lives and work, now a full-length release by Rocket Recordings.

Throughout, this story is relayed by Alison, whether acapella or by means of richly emotive string arrangements, with a deftness of touch, sensitivity and intensity that matches the feverish nature of the experiences and the unforgiving environs in which they took place. Engelchen is a transporting work whose spirit is situated in a very specific time and place, Nonetheless, the story of Ida and Louise Cook is more than merely an inspirational tribute to two mavericks who beat the odds in an unforgettable feat of altruism. It’s a celebration of the human spirit, one that reflects a universality in its narrative which transcends the boundaries of history and impacts very urgently on our daily lives. Whatever attempts may be made to tell this story, it’s hard to imagine one that resonates deeper than Engelchen.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A fittingly haunting, but beautifully presented new LP from Alison Cotton on the always-superb Rocket Recordings. Intensely cinematic instrumentals, shadowy operatic phrasing and swooning, wistful melancholy abound. A warming tribute, and a typically skilled and beautifully emotive selection from Cotton. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

01. We Were Smuggling People’s Lives
02. The Gramophone Circle Parties
03. Engelchen
04. The Letter Burning
05. Crépuscul
06. Dolphin Square
07. Engelchen Now

The cheekiest band in the land is back with ROCKMAKER, The Dandy Warhols' 12th studio album.

Produced and recorded by the band at their studio/funhouse The Odditorium in Portland, OR, ROCKMAKER sees the "Bohemian Like You\" hitmakers celebrate their 30th year together with a sprinkle of glitter on their grime. Accompanied by guests Debbie Harry, Slash, and Pixies' Frank Black, The Dandy Warhols wrangle paranoia, untangle anxious discontent, and lust after life while the dance grooves go deeper, heady drones get weirder, and riffage fit for bong rips hammers. ROCKMAKER is the Dandy's clearest statement yet, at no sacrifice to their outre leanings. This is the sound of outsider alt-psych fixtures looking in as the walls come down.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A soaring, grungy maelstrom of riffs and groove from Courtney and co, still very much full of the youthful fire that made them such a household name on the briliant 'Dandy Warhols Come Down'. Brilliantly dynamic, fiery rock and roll.

TRACK LISTING

1. Doomsday Bells 
2. Danzig With Myself (Feat. Black Francis) 
3. Teutonic Wine 
4. The Summer Of Hate 
5. I'd Like To Help You With Your Problem (Feat. Slash) 
6. The Cross / Root Of All Evil 
7. Alcohol And Cocainemarijuananicotine 
8. Love Thyself 
9. Real People 
10. I Will Never Stop Loving You (Feat. Debbie Harry)

Hold on to your mind! Led by Belfastborn phenom David Lewis, Andwella made three LPs circa 1970 for London’s Reflection label, redolent with Cream-y rock workouts, soaring post-Sgt. Pepper psych experimentation, and earthbound laments The Band might’ve dreamt up at Big Pink. Barely heard back then, they now conjure a popular rock fantasia to challenge the most expertly composed and orchestrated songs of the era. This deluxe set includes meticulous reproductions of the band’s 3-LP discography, plus an ephemera-packed booklet detailing Lewis’s brief moment as a downbeat songwriting visionary at the height of his powers.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A gorgeous, and surprisingly reasonably priced, exhaustive selection of Andwella / Andwella's Dream's releases. Featuring folk-tinged psychedelic riffs and lysergic twists of guitar and vocals, some of these could just as easily have sat among Floyd's early work just as easily as they could Cream or Crosby Stills & Nash. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Days Grew Longer For Love
2. Sunday
3. Lost A Number Found A King
4. Man Without A Name
5. Clockwork Man
6. Cocaine
7. Shades Of Grey
8. High On A Mountain
9. Andwella
10. Midday Sun
11. Take My Road
12. Felix
13. Goodbye
14. Hold On To Your Mind
15. Lady Love
16. Michael Fitzhenry
17. I’m Just Happy To See You Get Her
18. Just How Long
19. World’s End Part I
20. World’s End Part II
21. Back On The Road
22. I Got A Woman
23. Reason For Living
24. Shadow Of The Night
25. She Taught Me To Love
26. Saint Bartholomew
27. The World Of Angelique
28. Mississippi Water
29. I’ve Got My Own
30. Are You Ready
31. Four Days In September
32. Lazy Days
33. People’s People
34. Behind The Painted Screen
35. All For You

The Black Crowes are leaving the bullshit in the past. 15 years after their last album of original music, the Robinson Brothers present 'Happiness Bastards'- their 10th studio album. Some may say the project has been several tumultuous years in the making, but we argue it's arriving at just the right time. Call it brotherly love or music destiny that brought them back together, the highly anticipated record consecrating the reunion of this legendary band just may be the thing that saves rock & roll. In a time where the art form is buried beneath the corporate sheen of its successors, The Black Crowes are biting back with the angst of words left unsaid penned on paper and electrified by guitar strings, revealing stripped, bare-boned rock & roll. No gloss, no glitter, just rhythm and blues at it's very best - gritty, loud, and in your face.

Since The Black Crowes reunited in 2019, they've made a triumphant return to form with over 150 shows spanning 20 countries worldwide, celebrating the 30th anniversary of'Shake Your Money Maker', the album that put them on the map. Upon their return from the road, they knew they needed something new to show for their lost time. The Robinson Brothers and longtime bassist Sven Pipien headed to the studio with producer Jay Joyce in early 2023 and the experiences of years past transcribed themself through the music as the band found their way back to their roots.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's a big surprise that the Robinsons have reformed to make another album fifteen years after their last studio outing as Black Crowes, so for it to have retained all of the intensity of their earlier work and to still sing with that unmistakeable Black Crowes energy is indeed something of note. Brimming with fiery Southern rock energy and beautifully produced, it's a delight to see BC back in the saddle.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Bedside Manners
2. Rats And Clowns
3. Cross Your Fingers
4. Wanting And Waiting
5. Wilted Rose F/ Lainey Wilson
Side 2
1. Dirty Cold Sun
2. Bleed It Dry
3. Flesh Wound
4. Follow The Moon
5. Kindred Friend

'Please, Wait...', their sophomore album, emerges from a profound collaborative evolution, contrasting with Once, which was crafted remotely during the lockdown. This album is steeped in shared experiences from two years of touring, showcasing a symbiotic musical evolution between Maxwell and Christophe. Please, Wait...is a journey into the realm of the senses, an invitation to a dreamscape where listeners are free to find their own meaning. This record is a testament to beauty and modern hedonism, crafted by artists who live and breathe the epicurean ethos.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Wistful hazy melodies, psychedelic twists and theatrical vocal work all mix together into a lovely distillation of influences. Lounge, melancholic rock and grand orchestral melodies all slotted together perfectly.

TRACK LISTING

The Boat
The Nimbostratus Jig
Plat Du Jour
Backgammon
Hexagon
Galbulus
Begging's Not My Business
Catch 42
Topinambur
Postprandial Promenade (feat. Nadine Khouri)
Stirred But Not Shaken

"As the fiftieth birthday approaches, you get the sense that your life is thinning out and will continue to thin out, until it thins out into nothing. And you sometimes say to yourself: that went a bit quick. In certain moods, you may want to put it rather more forcefully. As in: OY!! THAT went a BIT FUCKING QUICK!!!... then fifty comes and goes, and fifty-one, and fifty-two. And life thickens out again. Because there is now an enormous and unsuspected presence within your being, like an undiscovered continent. This is the past." – Martin Amis

2024 marks 40 years of Pete Astor making records, a suitable anniversary point at which to take stock and double back on songs that first appeared on records by Astor-fronted combos such as Creation Records trailblazers The Loft and The Weather Prophets and Matador recording artists The Wisdom of Harry, as well as selections from solo albums that appeared on labels such as Danceteria and Static Caravan.

Astor’s motivation for TS&NR is manifold. Some songs are effectively re-examined in the way one might linger over a resonant picture from a box of old photographs – connecting with the essence of a younger self. Other songs are newly recast in wiser and more reflective hues, while others simply demanded exhumation from wilfully opaque, lo fi non-production. The songs chosen are not the obvious ones – there’s no "Up the Hill and Down the Slope" or “Almost Prayed” here - but have been selected for more interesting, often esoteric, reasons.

Astor is accompanied by an estimable band of co-conspirators, evolving out of many hours spent playing music together on records and at shows over the last decade. They are drummer Ian Button, (Death in Vegas, Papernut Cambridge, Go Kart Mozart), bassist Andy Lewis (Paul Weller, Soho Radio and Blow Up DJ), guitarist Wilson Neil Scott (Summerhill, Felt, Everything But the Girl) and keyboardist/ multi-instrumentalist/ producer Sean Read (Dexys, Mark Lanegan, Dave Gahan, Iggy Pop, Manic Street Preachers, Beth Orton, Chrissie Hynde...).

Together they’ve revisited these lost gems of songs in a manner that has allowed Astor to balance the way that they still make sense to him now, looking both to the future and to that big and interesting new country, the past.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Model Village
A2. Ladies And Gentlemen
A3. Chinese Cadillac
A4. The Emperor, The Dealer And The Birthday Boy
A5. She Comes From The Rain
A6. Nancy True Knot
B1. Caesar Boots
B2. Head Over Heels
B3. Marsh Blues
B4. Emblem
B5. Disney Queen
B6. On Top Above The Driver

On their Impulse! debut album, Washington DC’s experimental jazz punk trio The Messthetics (drummer Brendan Canty and Joe Lally of iconic punk band Fugazi, with guitarist Anthony Pirog) join forces with acclaimed jazz tenor saxophonist, composer and bandleader James Brandon Lewis. Together, they widen the reach of decisive instrumental music through their overlapping of jazz, punk, funk, aggression and innovation.

TRACK LISTING

1. L’Orso
2. Emergence
3. That Thang
4. Three Sisters
5. Boatly
6. The Time Is The Place
7. Railroad Tracks Home
8. Asthenia
9. Fourth Wall

Special Poolside Analogue Synth and drum machine session recorded live in Ibiza. Bearing in mind the setting this beautiful album was recorded in and the calming album cover, the whole thing evokes a sense of relaxation. Greg Foat is a master of the combination of Ambient, Balearic and Funk.

TRACK LISTING

1. Pool Side Part 1 (Live)
2. Pool Side Part 2 (Live)
3. Pool Side Part 3 (Live)
4. Pool Side Part 4 (Live)
5. Dining Table Grooves (Live)
6. Sunset Part 1 (Live)
7. Sunset Part 2 (Live)

Mad-heads, rave veterans and lovers of having their brains rewired by previously unexplored sonic realms unite, because here comes the first of four, yes four, new albums from the fantastic freak of nature that is Special Request. His 'What Time Is Love? Sessions' arrives in several different formats this month and across six sizzling tracks that re-wire the KLF's hit of that name, he taps into everything from "ephemeral ambiance to barnstorming hardcore, pummelling house to pointillist trance" and does so with a mix of the surreal and the psychotic, the psychedelic and the downright ridiculous. It's mental, and we love it.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A monolithic undertaking here from Special Request, with four albums in a year of pummeling basslines and euphoric arps, all underpinned with bone-breaking kick drum and sidechained throb. Bangers, all.

TRACK LISTING

1. T Minus 23/Luminosity/Mu Sagitarri
2. What Time Is Love (Redux)
3. What Time Is Ardkore
4. Turning Point
5. Spiral Sunrise/Pure Trance Artefact/Synchronicity
6. That Wisnae A Microdose/Epsilon/Sheep To Shepherd

Viernulvier Records presents its new LP release ‘Quadric Surfaces’ by iconic electronic producer Hieroglyphic Being aka Jamal R Moss. It collects the soundtracks Moss wrote for ‘Parellel Spheres’ & ‘Figures in Mynd’, two parts of an abstract animation film by visual artist Gabriela González Rondon. The film premiered in October 2023 during Videodroom / Film Festival Ghent.

In her surreal and trippy gem of analog filmmaking Gonzales draws up whole universes of movement and color that seem to share a spiritual space with likeminded sci-fi writers such as Ursula K Le Guin or filmmaker John Whitney. The soundtrack for this dreamy experiment was provided by kindred soul and psychonaut Hieroglyphic Being.

For over 20 years Moss has been an one-off musical explorer that takes inspiration from House, Industrial, Kraut, Avant-Jazz and Noise to make his spectacularly unique take on radical & psychedelic (dance) music.

Viernulvier Records is the Belgian record label by VIERNULVIER Arts Centre (Ghent). The label focuses on music that is unconventional, unafraid to go against the grain. A mix of local and international talent, always linked to visual arts or performances.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Quadric Surfaces 7:18
A2. Triquetra 4:11
B1. Ogee 7:21
B2. Cellies 5:04
C1. Brachistochrone 4:35
C2. Conchospiral 7:52
D1. Bueerfly Curve 6:07
D2. DiacausTc 8:13

“In Season 5, the long-awaited fifth full-length by beach-pop project The Tyde, frontman Darren Rademaker unveils his vision of an ’80s-inspired Suave Nouveau, with a clutch of sweet, melancholic love songs evoking lush mustaches, mellow macho, the ghost of Jimmy Buffett, white sand beaches, flamingos swooping across a cerulean sky, speedboats cutting through the bay and pastel linen suits billowing in the breeze as the sun dips beneath the horizon.

“Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León ‘discovered’ Florida in 1513, naming the peninsula La Florida, the flowering land. In Season 5, Rademaker reflects on his own return to the flowering land, and the artistic diaspora that caused him to quit California in 2020 in search of a New World of his own. ‘I lived in Florida from the ages of ten to twenty-five, but never really got to explore it,’ he says. ‘When I came back, I decided to really embrace the whole Florida aesthetic. I moved into an art deco home in Sarasota with pink seashell lamps. I visited Key West, like seven times. I also quit smoking weed and cigarettes, and stopped saying shit like LOL and amazeballs. It felt different. It felt good.’

“The record features the talents of many good friends, including Dan Horne, Colby Buddelmeyer, Matt Correia (Allah-Las), Clay Finch (Mapache), Albert Hickman, Derek James (The Entrance Band), Alex Knost (Tomorrow’s Tulips) and Adam MacDougall (Circles Around The Sun / Black Crowes), with artist / musician Matt Fishbeck (Holy Shit) designing the deco-inspired album artwork.

“And as much as they are inspired by the past, these songs are keenly aware of an uncertain future—because there is no such thing as a time machine, and there is no going back. Ultimately, Season 5 asks the question—where do we go after the sun sets on our dreams? Where the fuck is the New New World? In Rademaker’s eyes, it no longer exists in any specific American geography—rather, all hope remains in the timeless, unending power of music, and its power to take us to the places we wish we could be. Even if they don’t exist anymore.” - Caroline Ryder.

TRACK LISTING

1. Heal Thyself
2. Tropical Madness
3. Glades
4. Did You See The Sunrise
5. Legend Of The Lost Art
6. Streetwise
7. Use Them
8. Leaving California
9. Let Me Hear The Music

When Paul Murphy released his critically acclaimed debut solo album, Claremont 56, in 2006, many thought it would be the first of many. In a way, it was, as in the years since he’s released a string of collaborative sets alongside Benjamin J Smith (as Smith & Mudd), and as part of underground ‘supergroups’ Paqua, Bison and Hillside. But that second solo album? Well, it just had to wait. In early 2023, Murphy finally decided to scratch that itch, roping in some of his most trusted collaborators (keyboardist and bassist Michele Chiavarini, percussionist Patrick Dawes, guitarist Dave Noble and HF International’s Kashif included) to lay down a sumptuous set of tracks that not only showcases his now familiar (bit hard to pigeonhole) neo-Balearic sound, but also proves how much he has matured as a writer and producer since 2006.

In The Garden of Mindfulness is richly musically detailed, expertly arranged and full to bursting with fluid instrumental solos, with Murphy and his collaborators serving up tracks that brilliantly blur the boundaries between languid jazz-funk, downtempo, vintage synth-laden krautrock, dubby grooves and sun-splashed soundscapes. It simply sparkles from the moment that opener ‘Eighty Three’ slowly rises like the morning sun, with gentle, undulating synth sounds ushering in a slow-motion jazz-funk excursion rich in twinkling electronics, spacey pads and warming bass. Recent single ‘Katanaboy’, a lusciously layered dub disco-infused dancefloor excursion in Murphy’s familiar style, raises the temperature a touch, before ‘Bonne Anse’ and the sublime ‘Unka Paw’ (whose combination of evocative fretless bass, extended electric piano solos, Clavinet licks and acoustic guitars is genuinely spellbinding) invite a combination of wavy shuffling and flat-on-the-back, eyes-closed appreciation.

And so it continues, with gorgeous title track ‘In The Garden of Mindfulness’ making way for the boogie-influenced, Japanese-British brilliance of ‘Hangsang’ (check the jaunty pianos, yearning breakdown and exotic melodies). Murphy’s long held love of warm, weighty bass, hypnotic disco grooves, colourful analogue synth sounds and jazzy guitars once again comes to the fore on ‘Way Of The Hollow’ before the album reaches a fittingly triumphant conclusion with ‘Late In March’.

A neat sonic summary of all that makes the set such a rewarding and entertaining experience, repeat listens reveals a wealth of musical details, from off-kilter triple-time drums and surprise bass guitar solos, to impeccable piano solos (provided by the immensely talented Chiavarini), fizzing jazz-funk synth doodles and stirring synth-strings. It’s a breathlessly brilliant way to end an album that was genuinely worth waiting for.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Eighty Three
A2. Katanaboy
B1. Bonne Anse
B2. Unka Paw
C1. In The Garden Of Mindfulness
C2. Hangsang
D1. Way Of The Hollow
D2. Late In March

Miles away from the current UK jazz scene, a mysterious composer from the Nottingham area cooks raw and noisy library music with groovy jazz fusion and beat-heavy funk breaks tackling themes of satanism and witchcraft.

Having previously released music with Jazzman Records, Stones Throw subsidiary Now-Again and French label BMM Records, The Natural Yogurt Band presents the 7th album of his discography that marks an experimental turn.

"Spores" takes us on an obscure sci-fi journey into extra-terrestrial territories where tropical flutes, pianos, guitars and organs melt under corrosive electronic sounds, modular bird chirps and vintage drum machines sounds.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Natural Yoghurt Band's deliciously free and experimental jazz / library project is a true feast for the ears. Incomparable and infectious; it's a wild, untamed beast of electronics and improvisation that you're gonna love.

TRACK LISTING

A1.Vital Signs
A2.Children Of The Black Planet
A3.Life Forms
A4.Strange Life On A Distant Planet
A5.Exotic Creatures
A6.First Contact
A7.Obscure Jungle

B1.Warning Signs
B2.Followers Of A New Moon
B3.Gas Narcosis
B4.We Are Alone
B5.Possible Danger
B6.Unknown Landscapes

Hannah Nicholson and David Page are London based boat dwellers who have cruised the river Thames whilst writing, playing and self-producing their debut album. Named after their boat Ederlezi it became their muse, refuge and recording studio during 2023.

Ederlezi have taken inspiration from the classic songwriting of the 1960s. Hannah is influenced by songwriters such as Scott Walker, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell and is always looking for a story. David is influenced by the guitar based Rock'n'roll of the 50s, the psychedelic 60s and the bass styles of Serge Gainsbourg with some prog rock mixed in.

David is the bass player in The Pretenders and has worked with Jonathan Jeremiah, Young Gun Silver Fox, Rio 18, His Lordship, Nell Bryden, Edwyn Collins, The Black Pumas as a guitarist, bass player, singer and collaborator touring extensively around the world. Hannah is a solo artist in her own right, a prominent troubadour and songwriter on the London Folk scene. She has also worked with Hannah Williams & The Affirmations, Ellie Goulding, Gary Barlow, Jonathan Jeremiah and Nell Bryden as a backing singer and instrumentalist.

TRACK LISTING

1. Run Run Run
2. Children
3. Mary Beth
4. Buried Words
5. Draw A Line
6. Burn
7. Drawn To The Ruin
8. Gravesend
9. Troubled Mind
10. Codeine

Demon presents the first official compilation from Tim Burgess celebrating Tim’s Listening Party. “I’d done Charlatans listening parties and some solo album listening parties, and as the Twitter followers grew, I’d repeat it and do it again and again. It was maybe about a week before being told that we were going to go into a lockdown before we actually did something. I saw all the TV stuff, all the kind of crazy things that were happening and thought if there’s going to be a lockdown, there’s going to be something that I can do.” - Tim Burgess

Available as a 62 track 4CD Deluxe Packaging set and as a 24 track 2LP, these compilations bring together highlights from the 1,278 Listening Parties
that took place. The parties themselves were an eclectic mix of genres and eras, and the compilation reflects that with Suede, New Order, The Chemical Brothers, Sparks, The Breeders, The Lovely Eggs, John Grant, Joan As Police Woman and The Charlatans.

Within the top 100 listening parties, artists reflected on the compilation include Iron Maiden, Liam Gallagher, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, The Libertines, MGMT, Dexys Midnight Runners, The Specials and Belle & Sebastian. The
booklet also includes an interview conducted by Danielle Perry with Tim Burgess, detailing the cultural importance of the Listening Party during lockdown.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: What a collection! A truly stylistically diverse selection of some of the greatest tracks from some of the greatest albums of all time, collected together as a lovely reminder of Tim's legendary listening parties that kept so many of us listening to music together during lockdown. Win-win.

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracklisting:
Side A
1. John Lennon - Hold On (Ultimate Mix)
2. The Charlatans - One To Another
3. The Orielles - Space Samba (Disco Volador Theme)
4. Suede - The Wild Ones
5. Joan As Police Woman - Real Life
6. Billy Bragg - Sexuality

Side B
1. The Chemical Brothers - Setting Sun
2. Hercules & Love Affair - Blind
3. The Breeders - Cannonball
4. Belle & Sebastian - Ease Your Feet In The Sea
5. The Style Council - My Ever Changing Moods (Album Version)

Side C
1. This Is The Kit - Moonshine Freeze
2. Tim Burgess - Oh My Corazon
3. The Libertines - Music When The Lights Go Out
4. The Lovely Eggs - Wiggy Giggy
5. Art Brut - Emily Kane
6. MGMT - Flash Delirium

Side D
1. The Specials - Too Much Too Young
2. Sparks - Self-Effacing
3. John Grant - Black Belt
4. KT Tunstall - Other Side Of The World
5. The Shins - Girl Inform Me
6. The Streets - Let's Push Things Forward
7. Dexys Midnight Runners - Jackie Wilson Said (I'm In Heaven When You Smile)

CD Tracklisting:
CD1
1. John Lennon - Hold On (Ultimate Mix)
2. The Charlatans - One To Another
3. The Orielles - Space Samba (Disco Volador Theme)
4. New Order - Age Of Consent
5. Suede - The Wild Ones
6. Supergrass - Caught By The Fuzz
7. Joan As Police Woman - Real Life
8. Billy Bragg - Sexuality
9. The Chemical Brothers - Setting Sun
10. Hercules & Love Affair - Blind
11. The Breeders - Cannonball
12. Belle And Sebastian - Ease Your Feet In The Sea
13. The Style Council - My Ever Changing Moods
14. John Shuttleworth - Y Reg
15. This Is The Kit - Moonshine Freeze
16. Tim Burgess - Oh My Corazon
17. Sleaford Mods Feat. Billy Nomates - Mork N Mindy

CD2
1. The Libertines - Music When The Lights Go Out
2. The Lovely Eggs - Wiggy Giggy
3. Art Brut - Emily Kane
4. MGMT - Flash Delirium
5. The Specials - Too Much Too Young
6. Sparks - Self-Effacing
7. John Grant - Black Belt
8. KT Tunstall - Other Side Of The World
9. The Shins - Girl Inform Me
10. Duran Duran - Save A Prayer
11. The Streets - Let's Push Things Forward
12. Dexys Midnight Runners - Jackie Wilson Said (I'm In Love When You Smile)
13. Liam Gallagher - Some Might Say (MTV Unplugged Live At Hull City Hall)
14. The Magic Numbers - Love Me Like You
15. The Soft Boys - Insanely Jealous Of You
16. Talking Heads - Heaven
17. Joy Division - Isolation

CD3
1. Level 42 - Running In The Family (Extended Version)
2. Ibibio Sound Machine - Tell Me (Doko Mien)
3. Hot Chip - Hungry Child
4. Liam Frost & The Slowdown Family - The Mourner's Of St Paul's
5. Boy Azooga - Breakfast Epiphany
6. Biffy Clyro - Tiny Indoor Fireworks
7. Pixies - Debaser
8. Georgia - About Work The Dancefloor
9. Michael Kiwanuka - Piano Joint (This Kind Of Love)
10. Run The Jewels - Out Of Sight (feat. 2 Chainz)
11. Róisín Murphy - Murphy's Law
12. Tears For Fears - Head Over Heels / Broken
13. Paul McCartney - The Kiss Of Venus
14. Steven Wilson - Personal Shopper

CD4
1. Iron Maiden - Powerslave (2015 Remaster)
2. Gang Of Four - Natural's Not In It
3. Jesus Jones - The Devil You Know
4. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
5. Laurie Anderson - Born, Never Asked
6. Echo & The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon
7. Metronomy - Corinne
8. Flyte - Cathy Come Home
9. The Pipettes - Pull Shapes
10. Joel Culpepper - Black Boy
11. Saint Etienne - Pond House
12. Big Joanie - Fall Asleep
13. Norah Jones - Come Away With Me
14. Kae Tempest - Salt Coast

The Last Resort: Balearic At The End Of Time is a collection of nu-Balearic sounds from plenty of established names in the game as well as some new and rising talents via Portuguese label Secrets Of Sound. Lord Of The Isles offers an early standout with 'Neptune's Staircase' which has a new age feel as soft synth sequins shimmer up amongst the clouds, Jura Soundsystem brings some gently persuasive rhythms to the fore on their impossibly light and airy 'Flotsam & Jetsam' and Leeds-based Joe Morris layers up loopy late night whispers with dubby currents on 'The New Dawn Will Come.' A soothing collection for overactive minds.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A hotly tipped, beautiful looking Balearic comp here, which has unsurprisingly *almost* sold out at the first hint of the website.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
Lova - Lento Levante
Lord Of The Isles - Neptunes Staircase
Daniel O'Sullivan - Octopolis
Jura Soundsystem - Flotsam & Jetsam

Side 2
Mark Barrott - Watching Stars Over The Rubicon Beltway
Joe Morris - The New Dawn Will Come
Lovelock - Eau Sauvage
Seahawks - Spirit Of Ether

Following the success of the 'Tokyo Glow' compilation, Wewantsounds once again teams up with Japanese Tokyo-based DJ Notoya to dig the rich Electric Bird catalogue and come with a versatile selection of sunny Jazz-Funk gems recorded between 1978 and 1987 for the label. A tasty selection featuring Yasuaki Shimizu, Toshiyuki Honda and Mikio Masuda, together with a few American musicians such as Ronnie Foster and Bobby Lyle. Most tracks make their vinyl debut outside of Japan and the album has been designed by Optigram/Manuel Sepulveda and is annotated by DJ Notoya. Audio newly remastered in Tokyo by King Records.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Shunzo Ohno - In The Sky
A2. Mikio Masuda - Let's Get Together
A3. Yasuaki Shimizu - Summer Time
A4. David Matthews & The Electric Birds - Special Delivery
B1. Toshiyuki Honda - Living In A City
B2. Ronnie Foster - Night Life
B3. Bobby Lyle Trio - Night Breeze
B4. Katsutoshi Morizono - Space Traveller

Active as a professional DJ in Japan since the late eighties, DJ Yoshizawa Dynamite is also a renowned remixer, compiler and producer. An avid record collector and an expert of the Wamono style, Yoshizawa published the Wamono A to Z records guide book in 2015 which instantly sold-out. The book unveiled a myriad of beautiful and rare records from a highly prolific, but still then unknown, Japanese groove scene.

After many years working as a record buyer for several stores, DJ Chintam opened his own Blow Up shop in 2018 in Tokyo's Shibuya district. A member of the Dayjam Crew and a specialist of soul, funk, rare groove and disco music, Chintam is also an expert of the home-brewed Wamono grooves. He supervised and wrote the Wamono A to Z records guide book together with Yoshizawa.

With this first volume of the Wamono series, our two DJs here guide you through some of the best and rarest jazz funk and rare groove tunes produced in Japan between 1968 and 1980. Put the needle on the record, turn up the volume and dig right now into the Wamono sound - the cream of the Japanese funk, soul, rare groove and disco music developed throughout the years since the end of the sixties in Japan!

TRACK LISTING

1. Toshiko Yonekawa - Soran Bushi
2. Takeo Yamashita - A Touch Of Japanese Tone
3. Tadaaki Misago & Tokyo Cuban Boys - Jongara Reggae
4. Chikara Ueda & The Power Station - Cloudy
5. Chumei Watanabe - Downtown Blues
6. Kifu Mitsuhashi - Hanagasa Ondo
7. Monica Lassen & The Sounds - Incitation
8. Norio Maeda Jiro Inagaki & The All-Stars - Go Go A Go Go
9. Akira Ishikawa & The Jazz Rock Band - The Sidewinder
10. Masahiko Sato Jiro Inagaki & Big Soul Media - Sniper's Snooze

Active as a professional DJ in Japan since the late eighties, DJ Yoshizawa Dynamite is also a renowned remixer, compiler and producer. An avid record collector and an expert of the Wamono style, Yoshizawa published the Wamono A to Z records guide book in 2015 which instantly sold-out. The book unveiled a myriad of beautiful and rare records from a highly prolific, but still then unknown, Japanese groove scene.

After many years working as a record buyer for several stores, DJ Chintam opened his own Blow Up shop in 2018 in Tokyo's Shibuya district. A member of the Dayjam Crew and a specialist of soul, funk, rare groove and disco music, Chintam is also an expert of the home-brewed Wamono grooves. He supervised and wrote the Wamono A to Z records guide book together with Yoshizawa.

In this second volume of the acclaimed Wamono series, Yoshizawa and Chintam dig into some of the best and rarest funky tunes produced in Japan during the seventies. Put the needle on the record, turn up the volume and dig right now into the Wamono sound - the cream of the Japanese jazz, funk, soul, rare groove and disco music developed throughout the years since the end of the sixties in Japan!

TRACK LISTING

1. Mieko Hirota - Theme Of "Doberman Cop"
2. Hiroshi Sato - Bad Junky Blues
3. Sammy With Jiro Inagaki & Soul Media - The In-And-Outer-Stomp-And-Shouter
4. Fujio Tokita - Watashi No Beatles
5. School Band - I Hope It's Fine
6. Bread & Butter - Devil Woman
7. Hatsumi Shibata - Singer Lady
8. Kan Mikami - Jikokeno No Samba
9. Akira Yasuda & Beat Folk - Yumura No Obaba
1.0 Pinky Chicks - Tosetsu Donpan Bushi