“For me, [Miracle] is about the struggle between my selfdestructive side and my problem-solving, constructive side,” says Francis. “I suppose through a lot of these songs I’m dealing with these emotional problems, acknowledging the negative aspects of my behaviour instead of burying them, and providing an alternative point of view for myself”. Despite its serious subject matter, Miracle is far from austere in sound, marrying the cinematic, dreamlike quality of Francis’s earlier music with the pared-back charm of great singer-songwriters like Judee Sill, Jeff Tweedy and Elliott Smith.

The album opens with ‘Bad Hair Day’, a relentlessly catchy—and deceptively upbeat—ode to hangovers and missed connections. “I’ve been calling on you all night /But I never get through, I just get in the way” Francis laments; “I am a cloud in the sun’s light/Whatever I do, whatever I say.” Elsewhere, the title track finds him pondering the fickle nature of the music industry: “I think of [Miracle] as acknowledging and even encouraging the feelings we’re not supposed to succumb to - giving up, giving in - just because it can be comforting to hear it from someone else. ‘Why am I climbing these social ladders and jumping through the hoops of this creative industry? Does this make me happy?’”

These themes of longing, and lacking, missing and being missed, reoccur throughout Miracle. “When I die/Will I be missed/Or am I missing the point?” asks ‘Say So’; while ‘Lonesome No More’, inspired by the Kurt Vonnegut book of the same name, begs the question: if loneliness was eradicated, would we miss it? By confronting these feelings, Francis is able to move forward, as triumphant album closer ‘The Let Down’ proves. Its lyrics serve as a call to action, as Francis wills himself (and the listener) to ‘Get up/Get something going/Do something, do it/Do it now’

Miracle was produced by Francis in collaboration with Brendan Williams (Dutch Uncles, Matthew Halsall, Kiran Leonard) and Robin Koob (who co-arranged and performed strings). The opportunity to take creative control was one Francis relished. “I’m quite bad at delegating” he admits, noting that he played every instrument except strings on Miracle. The result is a cohesive, deeply personal record, which is as vital as it is vulnerable. “I don’t want to be defined by my anxiety, my depression or any history of substance abuse,” Francis says, “but I do want to reach out to other people who have had similar experiences, especially if it’s in a way that helps them feel a little better. To me, this music is celebrating healing as much as it focuses on the darker sides of the human psyche.”

STAFF COMMENTS

says: What an enchanting LP this is. Taking in facets of classic rock, psychedelia and folk rock of the late 60's, while remaining true to the sunshine indie-pop roots. Wry observations and even a Vonnegut reference! this is clever songwriting that's easily accessible and endlessly reveals elements the more you listen. Absolutely essential stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. Bad Hair Day
3. Blondes Have More Fun
4. Miracle
5. Empty Playgrounds, Broken Swings (Demo)
6. Don't Call Me Baby
7. Say So
8. Southern Skies
9. Want 2 Want U
10. Comedown (Again)
11. Uncommon
12. Lonesome No More
13. The Let Down

Carnage is a new album by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, recorded over a period of weeks during lockdown.

Although the pair have composed & recorded many soundtracks together, and Ellis is a long-term member of The Bad Seeds, this is the first time they have released an entire album of songs as a duo.

Cave describes the album as "a brutal but very beautiful record nested in a communal catastrophe."

"Making Carnage was an accelerated process of intense creativity," says Ellis, "the eight songs were there in one form or another within the first two and a half days."

Cave & Ellis' sonic and lyrical adventurism continues apace on Carnage, an album that emerged almost by accident out of the downtime created by the long, anxious, global emergency.

Carnage is a record for these uncertain times - one shot through with moments of distilled beauty and that resonates with an almost defiant sense of hope.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Ellis and Cave go together like chips and gravy, there's no doubting that, but until now, they've not done a full album together that isn't a soundtrack. Now here we get the unmatched songwriting capability of both parties fully focused on an album in which they're allowed free reign and it's BEAUTIFUL. Cinematic in parts, but imbued with the melodic sensibilities that are generally missing from soundtrack work. A brilliant document of two of the greatest musicians in the business, and together, a force that simply can't be bettered.

TRACK LISTING

Hand Of God
Old Time
Carnage
White Elephant
Albuquerque
Lavender Fields
Shattered Ground
Balcony Man

Stars collapse and new worlds arise in Devastations, the bold new album from Andrew Hung.

Andrew Hung is an artist known for his breakthrough debut Realisationship, film soundtracks (The Greasy Strangler, An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn) and his collaborations (Fuck Buttons, Beth Orton and Aimée Osbourne)

His work as Fuck Buttons brought about three critically-acclaimed albums, headline slots at festivals such as Glastonbury, Green Man and All Tomorrow’s Parties. Their music sound tracked key moments in the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony.

Hung went on to work with cult director Jim Hosking and his films “The Greasy Strangler” (winning best comedy at the Empire awards, “An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn” and “Tropical Cop Tales” for Adult Swim.

Hung continued his collaborative streak through writing and producing with artist Beth Orton on her career redefining album Kidsticks (described by The Skinny as “…an exceptional return to form.”) and daughter of a rock god, Aimée Osbourne on her incredible debut album Vacare Adamaré (Released under the name ARO).

Hung now returns his attention to his own expression.

Hung’s second album Devastations is the ecstatic cry of colour found between light and dark. The album documents a transitional period in Hung’s life; a stepping out from the shadows. Hung explores the deepest recesses of his psyche and in doing so finds himself reconciling the light and dark within. Underlying the propulsive bests and prisms of noise is a melodic tenderness that weaves throughout the album; an offering hand emerging from a turbulent sky. The deepening of inner space becomes an exploration of the universal; a new beginning from the Devastations of old worlds.

The artist wrote, performed, produced and mixed the whole album himself. He also painted the self-portrait that adorns the cover of the album. The oil painting further illuminates the artist’s intentions in his work; it depicts the artist stepping out of a shadowy world, partially lit by the bright light of the sun.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Former Fuck Button Andrew Hung returns for only his second full album under his own name, though has been busy with a number of superb soundtrack outings since then. 'Devastations' is a brilliantly innovative mix of gothic synth pop, avant electronica and slow motion loungy Krautrock grooves, all topped with Hung's distinctive vocal style. Bold and exciting, and filled with moments of pure joy.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Battle
2. Promises
3. Brother
4. Colour

Side B
1. Light
2. Wave
3. Space
4. Goodbye 

Returning with their first new music in a decade, Kings of Convenience today announce their forthcoming album, ‘Peace or Love’, out 18th June on EMI Records.

To celebrate, they’ve also released the first single from the album, ‘Rocky Trail’, out now. The gentle power of ‘Rocky Trail’ makes it clear that the band have lost none of their skill or emotional eloquence since they last recorded together. Lilting acoustic melodies are accompanied by violin and the pair’s distinctive dual-vocal approach to create something both subtle yet evocative. The contemplative lyrics deal with ideas of perception and regret.

“Another classic Eirik composition that skilfully ignores the verse-chorus-verse blueprint” explains Erlend on the origins of the song. “It’s pop music, but not as we know it”

‘Peace or Love’ is the sound of two old friends exploring the latest phase of their lives together and finding new ways to capture that elusive magic. recorded across five years in five different cities, the album sounds as fresh as spring: 11 songs about life and love with the alluring beauty, purity and emotional clarity that you would expect from Kings of Convenience.
Eirik Glambeck BoE and Erlend Oye met at school in Bergen, Norway and first performed together in the rock band Skog before breaking off and forming a duo in 1999. The pair established themselves as inadvertent trailblazers of a new wave of intimate, acoustic music. They’ve released 3 critically acclaimed albums, toured all around the world and cultivated a dedicated fanbase.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: What a brilliantly relaxing album to have at this exact time. Kings Of Convenience return to their thrones as masters of super easy listening acoustic fare, with their first album in TWELVE YEARS. Meandering guitars and perfect harmonies float atop a subtle wave of smooth percussion and loungy keys. This is hygge at it's very best from this Norwegian duo.

TRACK LISTING

01. Rumours
02. Rocky Trail
03. Comb My Hair
04. Angel
05. Love Is A Lonely Thing
06. Fever
07. Killers
08. Ask For Help
09. Catholic Country
10. Song About It
11. Washing Machine

Cornershop under the bonnet of the album to deliver a double platter instrumental version on ‘Lozenge Clear’ vinyl only in order to see and hear more clearly what has become a sports classic. This instrumental version has a new take on the album’s artwork by long term Cornershop sleeve designer Nick Edwards

Cornershop’s ‘England Is A Garden’ - “the latest in a series of albums that have mirrored the exceptional story of the band itself” Rough Trade Shop NY.

It strides in a sunshine glow, to deliver a full listening experience, bringing songs of experience, empire, protest and humour, steeped in the way only Tjinder Singh would come with.

The new album has, at last, sparked off significant interest in the back catalogue of Cornershop, with some titles including ‘Judy Sucks A Lemon’ and ‘Hold On It’s Easy’ now out of stock. A first time on vinyl issue of the ‘Cornershop & The Double-O Groove Of’ album by Cornershop Featuring Bubbley Kaur, featuring the John Peel favourite ‘Topknot’ and BBC 6Music perennial ‘Natch’, is planned for later this year.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: 'England Is A Garden' was without a doubt the deepest and most accomplished Cornershop album to date, and being able to hear the wonderfully crafted instrumentals on their own is a joy, as it really highlights the beautifully written pieces and wonderful mix of instrumentation beneath Singh's instantly recognisable vocals.

Indie pop comes of age!

Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey love pop songs, but pop songs with an edge. With their early bands Talulah Gosh and Heavenly, they were often dismissed by critics of the time as fey or ‘twee’, but this prejudice has since been revised: some of those sweet fizzy songs were about date-rape, and the band were an influential part of the movement that became riot grrrl.

On their new album as The Catenary Wires, the songs are as strong as ever, full of sweet melody and rich with vocal harmonies. But the tunes are now vehicles for startlingly honest adult concerns: the fractured relationships, anxieties, passions and politics of people who live on an island that’s turning in on itself. Like the Go-Betweens and XTC before them, The Catenary Wires know that pop music can convey dark, sardonic, complex emotions, just as well as it can celebrate teenage angst.

The album depicts England, not just in its lyrics, but in its music. The Catenary Wires have listened to the songs and stories England has comforted itself with over the decades, and re-imagined them. Canterbury Lanes presents a duetting couple, old now and worn down, but still aspiring to put their folk band back together, hoping to rekindle the idealistic flames of the early 1970s. Mirrorball, fizzy with syn-drums and Casio, presents another couple – middle-aged and unattached, who find unexpected love at a retro 80s disco. In the 70s-flavoured pop of Always on my Mind, love appears again, almost by surprise, conjured up by an old photo in a pile of memorabilia.

The opening track, Face on the Rail Line, is a love song set in the now, full of emotion, but shot through with the paranoia that we all feel, living at a time when we are constantly in contact, but rarely communicate the truth. The last two songs on the album, Like the Rain, and The Overview Effect, are anxious romances, set in a fragile world.

The Catenary Wires are now a five-piece band. The other members have impressive musical pedigrees of their own. Fay Hallam was in Makin’ Time, and now releases records in her own name. Andy Lewis played bass in the Weller Band, and has more recently worked with Louis Phillippe and Judy Dyble. Ian Button was in Thrashing Doves and Death in Vegas. These talented musicians elevate the songs, taking the arrangements onto another level.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Catenary Wires craft perfectly balanced pop songs, with rich production and a deep rooting in classic British indie music. there are echoes here of the storytelling vocals of Jarvis Cocker or the swooning harmonies of The Beautiful South, but with a casual and personable production aesthetic. Really lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Face On The Rail Line
2. Alpine
3. Always On My Mind
4. Mirrorball
5. Three Wheeled Car
6. Liminal
7. Canterbury Lanes
8. Cinematic
9. Like The Rain
10. The Overview Effect

A fantastic 5th album of the sensational French Jazz band from pianist Florian Pelissier, recorded at Rudy Van Gelder Studio (New Jersey, USA), mixed by Jordan Kouby at Question de Son (Paris) and mastered by Frank Merritt at The Carvery (London, UK). Hard Bop 2021 at his best, available as Deluxe Tip-On Vinyl LP! Florian Pellissiers tells the story:

"How did we get here? In this tropical daze, contemplating the surrounding landscape, the luxuriance of nature, with the ocean and her ballet of gentle waves, caressing the sand - timidly gaining a few inches with each passing adagio. The temperature, as if perfectly adjusted to the most precise degree by an artful yet mercurial hand knowing full well that it could, with idle ease, sway the fragile quality of this luscious and suave atmosphere...
However, just a few months before, the course had been set for New Jersey. More specifically; to Rudy Van Gelder's studio: one of jazz’s greatest institutions. This pilgrimage was to both celebrate and crown the twentieth anniversary of the Quintet. An unchanging line-up that yielded four albums, with this fifth recording intended to be our artistic culmination before moving onto something else. New adventures, on different roads perhaps.
Van Gelder's studio, long revered to be a chapel for the artists who passed through it with it’s exceptional acoustics, was the place to be. Its woodwork seemingly encrusted with thousands of hours of Blue Note recordings, still pulsating with years of incantations from past sessions…now we too were going to make our own mark. By lighting the voodoo fire there, we would submerge the place in a collective trance. Dark and dense. Did we seek to summon voodoo? Of course not. It is the Loa of music who decides whether or not they will be present.
Yet this record, or more, the one that I originally dreamt of, was so raw. The one I initially visualized to be messy, rich and spiritual actually clashed with the creative reality of the moment. The energy, the dynamics of the group were, at that time, not parallel with those tempestuous qualities so when we pushed, something resisted.
We strived to sink into darkness - yet reality lead us back again and again towards an ever more sensitive space of grace and elegance. We arrived wanting to take out the machete, but finesse, in the end, called out to us. Obviously, the sessions saw new trails emerge, basked in a serendipitous and welcoming light. Rather than battling, we instead turned our compass towards the calmer latitudes of Capricorn and Cancer. It was then the Quintet embarked for tropical promenades in the newfound tranquillity of this legendary studio.
So how did we get there?
By not upsetting the creative forces that willed the powers of voodoo against taking our souls, at least this time anyway. From afar, my faithful creative daemons came galloping out, like gazelles, from the groove and gracefully forged a rhythm machine, encased with futuristic vibes that I myself then layered with synthesizers. At once intoxicated by all these sultry elements and fulfilled by our orchestral solstice – I thought of Rio.
And this one’s to my Rio."

TRACK LISTING

A1. Rio
A2. The Wildcards
A3. Life At The Vanguard
A4. Between The Bars Feat. Agathe Iracema
B1. Baron Samedi
B2. Jungle De Guayanne
B3. Biches Dans L'Espace

Serving up everything from euphoric disco hooks to classic house choruses and forays into Latin funk, Balearic and psychedelia - New Zealand collective Flamingo Pier deliver their debut self-titled album in June 2021.

In 2019 and 2020 they released two widely lauded EPs on Soundway Records, garnering support from Maribou State, Tim Sweeney, BBC 6 Music DJs, The Blessed Madonna, and JD Twitch to name a few.

They wrote most of the album together in 2020 in South Auckland - “not the first place you’d expect to hear dance music being made,” reflects Luke, “you’re more likely to hear hip hop or sounds from the Pacific or India”.

Musicians from the tightly knit local scene swung through to contribute to the recording, including fellow Soundway act Julien Dyne on drums, as well as saxophonist Nathan Haines.

The group centred the album around the power of shared joy, after what has been a very difficult year for many people. “By being a source of joy for others, you amplify that joy for both yourself and those around you, rather than losing anything”, says Luke.

The self-titled album draws from the band’s wide-ranging taste, as well as what they’ve been playing in order to keep spirits up. Channelling classic emotive house, to disco, Afro and jazz funk on their debut album, Flamingo Pier cite a wide range of musical influences such as Khruangbin, Roisin Murphy, Peven Everett, house legends Masters at Work and Brazilian artist Tim Maia.

This translates into an uplifting but nostalgic current running throughout the album - reflecting on last chances, soul-searching and longing for the carefree days of the dance floor. The group were lucky enough in February 2021 however, to host the annual Flamingo Pier festival, on the paradisiacal Waiheke Island. While this year did not allow for international acts to perform, the vibrant local scene delivered.

The power of music, with its ability to create and heighten joy amongst a crowd of people could not have been more apparent, or more needed - something that this album aims to spread even further.

For fans of: Psychemagik, Jayda G, Todd Terje, Joey Negro

TRACK LISTING

Eternal
Last Call
Honey
Lost But I’m Leading
Make You Wonder
Cosmic Sunset
Deeper Soul

Gazelle Twin and Max de Wardener’s score to “The Power”, directed by BAFTA nominated director Corinna Faith.

Taking about the soundtrack, Gazelle Twin expands, “Working on The Power with Corinna and Max didn’t feel much like work. It was a long haul thrill, from our field trip to the derelict wing of Goodmayes Hospital to record squeaky trolleys and smashed pill bottles, to making countless experiments with samples, voice, and electronics, pushing them in every extreme direction we could think of. The results bring me a lot of joy. I hope the collaboration continues.”

Max de Wardener goes on to say, “For this score we tried to match Corinna’s terrifying vision of the dark by creating music that was both as ambiguous as it was frightening. Keeping the palette small to increase the feeling of claustrophobia, this ranged from quiet dusty out of focus sounds, to full blown dense vocal textures with pounding synths to evoke our primal fear of the unknown. Gazelle Twin’s brilliantly inventive approach to vocal music became such an important part of the film.”

Summoning the spirit of classic ghost stories such as Susan Hill’s novel The Woman in Black and the intense psychological atmosphere of Dario Argento’s Suspiria, The Power is set in a crumbling East London Royal Infirmary in 1974.

TRACK LISTING

First Day
Prayer In The Dark
Dream Come True
On Trial
Basement
Intensive Care
Ashes
Dark Won’t Hurt
Possession
Dark Shift
Nothing Happened
Black Pages
Babs’ Eyes
Gail Returns
White Sheets
Rescue
Confrontation
Revelation
Descent
You Will Listen To Us
The Well

Back in 2018 the Brighton-based three piece were on the crest of a wave. As well as regular plays on daytime Radio 1 and a Rockest Record from the Radio 1 Rock Show, years of near non-stop touring had seen them sell out The Scala and play a triumphant hometown show at The Concorde 2. On their last EP, Evolve Or Die, they’d pushed the live-wired sound of their 2016 debut, Abstract Figures In The Dark, massively broadening their sonic palette and delivering Tigercub’s pile-driving guitar gut-punch within an intense digital static.

It seemed like a good place to put things on pause for a bit and in the downtime the band's lead songwriter and frontman Jamie Hall started tinkering with his own brand of gonzoid psych-pop under the name Nancy. Intended only as a DIY experiment, the project massively took off. Nancy was Hype Machine’s most blogged artist, Hall bagged two record deals and played a string of dates around the world. Not bad for something he’d done in his bedroom chiefly to keep his songwriting chops up. In addition, Tigercub had started up their own label, Blame Records. Enough to keep you busy you’d think, but Hall was itching to get back to the day job, determined to use all he'd learned from the solo project to further Tigercub on their return.

And what a return it is.

TRACK LISTING

1. As Blue As Indigo
2. Sleepwalker
3. Blue Mist In My Head
4. Stop Beating On My Heart (Like A Bass Drum)
5. Funeral
6. Built To Fail
7. Shame
8. As Long As You're Next To Me
9. Beauty
10. In The Autumn Of My Years

Lingering at the remains of a campfire before dawn, with the politics of the personal burnt into ash, running his stick through what’s left, Wand singer/guitarist Cory Hanson is reflecting on a series of moments in which he steps farther into himself, finding the ultimate big sky country on the inside of his skull. It’s a combination of songs and sounds that journey through bleak and broken territory and places of sweet, lush remove and it adds up to the best record he’s been involved in yet: his second solo album, ‘Pale Horse Rider’.

Cory’s first solo, ‘The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo’, was an intense affair, a grand experiment that produced inspiring, unconventional music - but this time around, he wanted to breathe a bit easier, to feel that breath in the music as well. So he and his band drove out to the desert to record in a lowstress environment: Brian Harris’ Cactopia, a house surrounded by 6ft tall sculptural psychotropic cacti. They built a studio inside and then they made music and lived off pots of coffee and chili and cases of Miller High Life as they played guitars, bass, keyboards and drums in what seemed increasingly like a living biomech, their tech made out of fungal networks and cacti needles.

It was loose and flowed onto tape well. Recorded by Robbie Cody and Zac Hernandez (who assisted on Wand’s ‘Laughing Matter’), the sounds were great from the get-go. First takes were mostly best takes. Fuelled with DNA lifted from country-rock cut with native psych and prog strands, Cory guided his craft toward the cosmic side of the highway, a benevolent alien in ambient fields hazy with heat and synths, early morning fog and space echo spreading the harmonies wide.

‘Pale Horse Rider’’s got a lot to get out of its mind, looking around and seeing that, on the surface, things don’t always look like much. A lifelong Californian, Cory’s naturally found himself standing to the left of most of the country. The west may be only what you make it; these days, the roadside view looks exceptionally sunbleached and left behind. ‘Pale Horse Rider’ eyes the city, the country and the fragile environment that holds them both in its hands - a record as much about Los Angeles as it can be with its back to the town and the sun in its eyes; as much about nostalgia as new music can be with the apocalypse over the next rise.

On ‘Pale Horse Rider’, Cory Hanson moves ceaselessly forward. The old myths weave and waft, the shadows of tombstones flickering in the mirages and the light that lies dead ahead.

TRACK LISTING

Paper Fog
Angeles
Pale Horse Rider
Necklace
Bird Of Paradise
Limited Hangout
Vegas Knights
Surface To Air
Another Story From The
Center Of The Earth
Pigs

Hand-numbered tip-on gatefold sleeve with printed inner-sleeve. Limited to 666 copies. Standard LP is 180g ‘Orange Crush’ vinyl, single sleeve. Artwork and remaster exclusive to Fuzz Club Bootlegs. This Fuzz Club Official Bootleg is a live album of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard performing their ‘Infest The Rats’ Nest’ LP, assembled from a number of the band’s live shows in 2019. ‘Infest The Rats’ Nest’ was the fifteenth studio album from the Australian psych polymaths and the incoming live bootleg is due out May 28th 2021. A masterclass in apocalyptic thrash metal, it’s undoubtedly the band’s heaviest work to date, and all the more formidable when taken to the stage. This ‘Infest The Rats’ Nest’ live bootleg sees the band rally against climate change and the destruction of our planet to the tune of thunderous blast-beats, chugging riffs and face-melting solos. The merciless, hard-hitting nature of the songs amped-up tenfold in a live setting. The audio is remastered by Brett Orrison (The Black Angels, Jack White) exclusively for Fuzz Club and also comes with exclusive artwork. The deluxe version is limited to 666 copies and comes on 180g coloured, splatter-effect vinyl in a hand-numbered tip-on gatefold sleeve with a printed inner-sleeve.

TRACK LISTING

1) Planet B (Live)
2) Mars For The Rich (Live)
3) Organ Farmer (Live)
4) Superbug (Live)
5) Venusian 1 (Live)
6) Perihelion (Live)
7) Venusian 2 (Live)
8) Self-Immolate (Live)
9) Hell (Live)

The apotheosis of Band Of Holy Joy's bile toward today's pathetic state of affairs will be released shortly – a blistering remix of "The Devil Has A Hold On The Land" from their last album, Neon Primitives. Remixed by Youth (Killing Joke bassist, Paul McCartney collaborator, producer of Melanie C and U2!), who was so taken by the song as to remix it gratis, the remix will be part of a series of 23 discrete 7" 45s by Jon Langford of The Mekons and an assortment fellow travellers from around the globe. Dreams Take Flight transitions from political discourse into a post-virus rebirth of human relationship and the inevitable fumblings of the society's psychological reconstruction over the forthcoming year. Have you ever wondered what purpose your joy or my pain? All those moments shared together to be washed away by the rain . . . Have you ever doubted our super hipster being love-in at all? Just a pair of urbane fools passing through waiting for our call . . . Take a leap into the great unknown. Almost perversely heart-on-sleeve, Johny Brown and compatriots have never fitted well within a particular scene - nor have they ever seem to try.

Although recorded under the existence of quarantine and a healthy amount of paranoia, in search of the joy of greatly hindered collaboration, the band has opted to turn over each song to a different visionary video artist for an exhibition which will take place for a week at London's Gallery 46 beginning at the end of February and open to the public. The video exhibition will subsequently be available online, before the album's release. While still featuring some of the band's strongest songs, Dreams Take Flight has a strange film-like ambience in parts, almost as if planned as a soundtrack, a thought mirrored in Inga Tillere's sublime, dream-like sleeve, best seen in real life. "A Leap Into The Great Unknown" and "Notes From A Gallery" will likely be heard as too disarmingly direct for radio, and the videos will likely never see the entry door to MTV, but Dreams Take Flight will ultimately be considered a masterwork of clarity in a confused, contentious time.

TRACK LISTING

1. This Is The Festival Scene 
2. A Leap Into The Great Unknown 
3. That Magic Thing 
4. When Love Is Not Enough 
5. On Set Romance 
6. Notes From A Gallery 
7. The Rhythm Of Life 
8. A New Clear Vision 

"Several Others" marks Whispering Sons first full-length release since their 2018 debut "Image", which saw them garner early support at press and radio as well as tallying up millions of streams for their dark and unique blend of experimental and frenetic post-punk. Similarly, prior to lockdown, their infamously ferocious live shows had also seen them begin to firmly cement themselves as a must-see live band playing alongside the likes of The Murder Capital, Patti Smith, The Soft Moon and Croatian Amor, as well as touring across the UK and Europe with the likes of Editors.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dead End
2. Heat
3. (I Leave You) Wounded
4. Vision
5. Screens
6. Flood
7. Surface
8. Aftermath
9. Satantango
10. Surgery

'Nurture' is an album about hope, overcoming despair, faithfully pursuing a sense of purpose, and trying to prove that it's worthwhile to try. This album came about during a period of intense creative and emotional struggle. I had structured my life around the expectation that the only thing that made me happy was writing music. But it was exactly that obsession and imbalance that made writing music an impossibility for me for years. I wanted it too much, was highly self-critical, and I was so scared that I wouldn't ever be able to write music again. And the more desperate I became to write music, the harder it became.

Only by accepting that I might never be able to do it again, and by embracing and trying to find happiness in aspects of life outside of music, was I able to slowly claw my way into being able to do it again. And on the other side of all this fear and anxiety, I found this life-giving sort of light and beauty. I felt a gratitude towards real life that I used to only feel towards fiction. I'm really, deeply glad that I wrote this album. It's my favorite music I've ever made, and it made me feel purposeful and happy to write music again. I want to write music that tells people that an earnest and sincere effort to overcome that thing you're struggling with is the best path forward. There's no shortage of fuel for despair and nihilism, but I've found that those things don't help. I want the listener to know that even when it seems impossible and insurmountable, it's worthwhile to do your best, that there's no shame in hope, and that purpose and meaning are worth pursuing.

The first posthumous archival release from the 1988 touring band focuses on the historical last show Frank Zappa ever played in the U.S. The live concert material is taken from Uniondale, NY; Providence, RI and Towson, MD newly remixed from the 48-track digital master tapes. It features the first official release of “The Beatles Medley” along with over 25 unreleased performances and liner notes by FZ’s drummer, Chad Wackerman and Vaultmeister, Joe Travers. 

TRACK LISTING

2CD
DISC ONE
1. “We Are Doing Voter Registration Here”
2. The Black Page (New Age Version)
3. I Ain’t Got No Heart
4. Love Of My Life
5. Inca Roads
6. Sharleena
7. Who Needs The Peace Corps?
8. I Left My Heart In San Francisco
9. Dickie’s Such An Asshole
10. When The Lie’s So Big
11. Jesus Thinks You’re A Jerk
12. Sofa #1
13. One Man, One Vote
14. Happy Birthday, Chad!
15. Packard Goose Pt. I
16. Royal March From “L’Histoire Du Soldat” (Stravinsky)
17. Theme From The Bartok Piano Concerto #3 (Bartok)
18. Packard Goose Pt. II
19. The Torture Never Stops Pt. I
20. Theme From “Bonanza”

DISC TWO
1. Lonesome Cowboy Burt
2. The Torture Never Stops Pt. II
3. City Of Tiny Lites
4. Pound For A Brown
5. THE BEATLES MEDLEY (Lennon/McCartney)
6. Peaches En Regalia
7. Stairway To Heaven (Page/Plant)
8. I Am The Walrus (Lennon/McCartney)
9. Whipping Post (Allman)
10. Bolero (Ravel)
11. America The Beautiful (Bates/Ward)



4LP
RECORD ONE: SIDE 1
1. “We Are Doing Voter Registration Here”
2. The Black Page (New Age Version)
3. I Ain’t Got No Heart
4. Love Of My Life

RECORD ONE: SIDE 2
1. Inca Roads
2. Sharleena
3. Who Needs The Peace Corps?
4. I Left My Heart In San Francisco (Cory/Cross)

RECORD TWO: SIDE 3
1. Dickie’s Such An Asshole
2. When The Lie’s So Big
3. Jesus Thinks You’re A Jerk
4. Sofa #1
5. One Man, One Vote

RECORD TWO: SIDE 4
1. Happy Birthday, Chad!
2. Packard Goose Pt. I
3. Royal March From “L’Histoire Du Soldat” (Stravinsky)
4. Theme From The Bartok Piano Concerto #3 (Bartok)
5. Packard Goose Pt. II
6. The Torture Never Stops Pt. I
7. Theme From “Bonanza” (Levans/livingston)
8. Lonesome Cowboy Burt

RECORD THREE: SIDE 5
1. The Torture Never Stops Pt. II
2. City Of Tiny Lites
3. Pound For A Brown PT. I

RECORD THREE: SIDE 6
1. Pound For A Brown PT. II
2. The Beatles Medley (Lennon/McCartney)
3. Peaches En Regalia

RECORD FOUR: SIDE 7
1. Stairway To Heaven (Page/Plant)
2. I Am The Walrus (Lennon/McCartney)

RECORD FOUR: SIDE 8
1. Whipping Post (Allman)
2. Bolero (Ravel)
3. America The Beautiful (Bates/Ward)

With his ongoing commitment to like-minded archivist label Finders Keepers Records, industrial music pioneer Steven Stapleton further entrusts us to lift the veil and expose “the right tracks” from his uber-legendary and oft misinterpreted psych/prog/punk peculiarity shopping list known as The Nurse With Wound List. Following the critically lauded first instalment and it’s exclusively French tracklisting both parties now combine their vinyl-vulturous penchants to bring you the next ‘Strain Crack & Break’ edition which consists of twelve lesser-known German records that played a hugely important part in the initial foundations of the list which began to unfold when Stapleton was just thirteen years old.

From the perspective of a schoolboy Amon Düül (ONE) victim, at the start of a journey that commenced before phrases like kosmische and the xeno-ignant Krautrock tag had become mag hack currency, this compendium is devoid of the tropes that united what many would accurately argue to be the greatest progressive pop bands in Europe (namely CAN, Neu! and Kraftwerk) and rather shatters the ingredients across a ground zero landscape for both inquisitive fans and socially rehabbing musos to begin to assemble a unique self-styled identity. If Krautrock was the music that journalist told us lurked behind schlager (German pop) in the 1970s, then this record includes the music that skulked behind Krautrock and perhaps refused to polish its backhanded name belt. Including lesser-known artists like the late Wolfgang Dauner, whose career proceeded and outlived the kosmische movement while consistently informing and outsmarting them whenever they got stuck in their metronomic ruts, or how about Fritz Müller, the man who was to Kraftwerk what Stuart Sutcliffe was to The Beatles but had more in common with Yoko and quite rightly couldn’t give a stuff about the Fab Four’s Hamburg roots.

Elsewhere we have a plethora of German bands made for German audiences as they try and shed secondhand flower power Americanisms and feel the benefits of much harder drugs and the realisations of difficult second album budgets while Kommune 1 newsflashes wipe smiles from everybody’s faces and replace them with opioid chic or acid-sarcastic grins. Bonzo Cockettes show us their Big Muffs and drummers ask for extra mics while Conny Plank goes for parliamentary office and gives babies good firm handshakes for the camera.

‘Strain Crack & Break: Volume Two’ is the sound of Steve Stapleton’s sponge-like mind and the dividends of anyone who was brave enough to even peek inside those brick-thick gatefold covers never mind drop the needle. Over forty years since Nurse With Wound’s first album was released, Finders Keepers Records and Steve Stapleton take connoisseurs of our kind of music back to the disused elevator shaft towards ground zero. Arriving at the same checkout from different departments, Finders Keepers and Nurse With Wound continue to sing from the same hymnal with this ongoing collaborative attempt to officially, authentically and legally compile the best tracks from Steve’s list, where many overzealous nerds have faltered (or simply, got the wrong end of the stick).

After ‘Strain Crack & Break: Volume One’ merely scratched the surface of this DIY dossier of elongated punk-prog peculiarities, this second lavish metallic gatefold double vinyl compendium drives a much deeper groove which, in accordance with Steve’s wishes, focusses exclusively on individual tracks of German origin - the country whose music forged the prototype of the NWW inventory in the form of his secondary school vinyl wantlist in the early 1970s, comprised of disassembled free jazz, unshowered stoner psych, hypnotic prog, deranged monk funk and fuzzed out Deutschmark bin bonzo beats.

TRACK LISTING

Wolfgang Dauner - Output
My Solid Ground - The Executioner
Association PC - Scorpion
Fritz Müller - Fritz Müller Traum
Exmagma - It’s So Nice
Anima-Sound - It Loves Want To Have Done It
Tomorrow’s Gift - Jazzi Jazzi
Out Of Focus - See How A White Negro Flies
Brainstorm - Snakeskin Tango9
Thirsty Moon - Big City
Gomorrha - Trauma
Brainticket - Black Sand

One of the most significant collections in Trojan’s immense catalogue, the ‘The Trojan Story’ album dramatically changed the perception of Jamaican music among the general British public outside of the country’s Afro-Caribbean population.

Prior to its release in 1971 there had never been an attempt to present a comprehensive anthology of the island’s musical development, with vintage ska, rock steady and reggae widely regarded as obsolete and of precious little merit.

The treble disc set, which became an instant best-seller, had been the brainchild of Trojan’s label manager and Black Music fan, Rob Bell, who, assisted by Trojan stalwarts, Dandy, Webster Shrowder and Joe Sinclair, produced arguably the most significant Jamaican music retrospectives of all time.

Now, 50 years following its original release, this hugely influential album has been revisited by Bell, along with reggae musician, Rusty Zinn, who have succeeded in improving what was already an almost perfect collection.

Presented in the original eye-catching artwork, the set is further enhanced by a highly illustrated 50-page booklet in which Bell relates the stories behind the release and the 50 tracks featured on the compilation.

TRACK LISTING

3LP Vinyl  tracklisting:
LP 1
Side A
1. Invitation To Jamaica – Lord Tanamo
2. Fat Man – Derrick Morgan
3. Tell Me Darling – Jackie Edwards
4. Running Around – Owen Gray
5. Miss Jamaica – Jimmy Cliff
6. Housewife’s Choice – Derrick And Patsy
7. Give Me All Of Your Love – The Continentals
8. Darling Patricia – Owen Gray

Side B
1. Rough And Tough – Stranger Cole
2. Man To Man – Kentrick Patrick
3. Uno-Dos-Tres – Stranger & Ken
4. Slow Boat – Al T. Joe
5. Rude Boy – Duke Reid’s Group
6. Gone Is Yesterday – Higgs & Wilson
7. I'm In The Mood For Ska – Lord Tanamo
8. Virginia Ska – The Baba Brooks Band
9. Satan – Justin Hinds & The Dominoes

LP 2
Side A
1. One Eyed Giant – Baba Brooks & His Band
2. Every Night – Joe White And Chuck
3. King Size – Baba Brooks & His Band
4. Syncopate – The Astronauts
5. Keep The Pressure On – Winston & George
6. Oh Babe – The Techniques
7. Train To Skaville – The Ethiopians
8. Rudy, A Message To You - Dandy Livingstone

Side B
1. Dreader Than Dread – Honey Boy Martin & The Voices
2. It's Raining – The Three Tops
3. The Whip – The Ethiopians
4. Pretty Africa – Desmond Dekker & The Aces
5. Rock Steady – Alton Ellis & The Flames
6. Rock Steady Train – Ewan & Jerry
7. King Without A Throne – Sugar Simone
8. Perfidia – Phyllis Dillon

LP 3
Side A
1. Musical Train – Roy Shirley
2. Do The Beng Beng – Derrick Morgan
3. Way Of Life - Lynn Taitt & The Jets
4. Second Fiddle – Tommy McCook & The Supersonics
5. People Funny Boy – Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry
6. I've Got To Get You Off My Mind – The Tennors
7. Do The Reggay – The Maytals
8. Nana – The Slickers

Side B
1. Tell Me Baby – Delano Stewart
2. Mama Look Deh – The Reggae Boys
3. Hong Kong Flu – The Ethiopians
4. Pressure Drop – The Maytals
5. Them A Laugh And A Ki Ki – The Soul Mates
6. Walking In The Rain – The Melodians
7. Satisfaction – Carl Dawkins
8. Black And White – The Maytones
9. Rasta Never Fails – The Charmers

3CD Tracklisting:
Disc 1
1. Invitation To Jamaica – Lord Tanamo
2. Fat Man – Derrick Morgan
3. Tell Me Darling – Jackie Edwards
4. Running Around – Owen Gray
5. Miss Jamaica – Jimmy Cliff
6. Housewife’s Choice – Derrick And Patsy
7. Give Me All Your Love – The Continentals
8. Darling Patricia – Owen Gray
9. Rough And Tough – Stranger Cole
10. Man To Man – Kentrick Patrick
11. Uno-Dos-Tres – Stranger & Ken
12. Slow Boat – Al T. Joe
13. Rude Boy – Duke Reid’s Group
14. Gone Is Yesterday – Higgs & Wilson
15. I'm In The Mood For Ska – Lord Tanamo
16. Virginia Ska – The Baba Brooks Band
17. Satan – Justin Hinds & The Dominoes

Disc 2
1. One Eyed Giant – Baba Brooks & His Band
2. Every Night – Joe White And Chuck
3. King Size – Baba Brooks & His Band
4. Syncopate – The Astronauts
5. Keep The Pressure On – Winston & George
6. Oh Babe – The Techniques
7. Train To Skaville – The Ethiopians
8. Rudy, A Message To You - Dandy Livingstone
9. Dreader Than Dread – Honey Boy Martin & The Voices
10. It's Raining – The Three Tops
11. The Whip – The Ethiopians
12. Pretty Africa – Desmond Dekker & The Aces
13. Rock Steady – Alton Ellis & The Flames
14. Rock Steady Train – Ewan & Jerry
15. King Without A Throne – Sugar Simone
16. Perfidia – Phyllis Dillon

Disc 3
1. Musical Train – Roy Shirley
2. Do The Beng Beng – Derrick Morgan
3. Way Of Life - Lynn Taitt & The Jets
4. Second Fiddle – Tommy McCook & The Supersonics
5. People Funny Boy – Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry
6. I've Got To Get You Off My Mind – The Tennors
7. Do The Reggay – The Maytals
8. Nana – The Slickers
9. Tell Me Baby – Delano Stewart
10. Mama Look Deh – The Reggae Boys
11. Hong Kong Flu – The Ethiopians
12. Pressure Drop – The Maytals
13. Them A Laugh And A Ki Ki – The Soul Mates
14. Walking In The Rain – The Melodians
15. Satisfaction – Carl Dawkins
16. Black And White – The Maytones
17. Rasta Never Fails – The Charmers

A stellar compilation of 60s classics from the Ray Charles to the Beach Boys and Nina Simone to Ben E. King, alongside many other icons.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Ray Charles - Hit The Road Jack
A2. Dick Dale & The Del-Tones - Misirlou
A3. The Beach Boys - Surfin' Safari
A4. The Shadows - Apache
A5. Marvin Gaye & The Vandellas - Stubborn Kind Of Fellow
A6. Nina Simone - It Don't Mean A Thing
A7. Sam Cooke - (What A) Wonderful World
A8. Bob Dylan - House Of The Risin' Sun
B1. James Brown & The Famous Flames - Think
B2. Booker T & The Mg's - Green Onions
B3. Ben E. King - Stand By Me
B4. The Isley Brothers - Twist And Shout
B5. Quincy Jones & His Orchestra - Soul Bossa Nova
B6. John Barry Orchestra - The James Bond Theme (From "Dr. No.")
B7. Aretha Franklin - Try A Little Tenderness

Double LP set featuring 25 masterpieces from the queens of soul music - Nina Simone, Amy Winehouse, Diana Ross, Mary J. Blige and more.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Dinah Washington - Mad About The Boy
A2. Lavern Baker - Love Me Right
A3. The Shirelles - Will You Love Me Tomorrow
A4. Etta James - I Just Want To Make Love To You
A5. Gladys Knight & The Pips - Every Beat Of My Heart
A6. Mary Wells - Bad Boy
A7. Aretha Franklin - God Bless The Child
A8. Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - My Baby Won't Come Back
B1. Nina Simone - I Put A Spell On You
B2. Marlena Shaw - Women Of The Ghetto (Album Version)
B3. Lorraine Ellison - Stay With Me (Baby)

B4. Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Dancing In The Street
B5. Betty Wright - Clean Up Woman
B6. Minnie Riperton - Lovin’ You
C1. Diana Ross - Love Hangover
C2. Kellee Patterson - I'M Gonna Love You Just A Little More, Baby
C3. Dee Edwards - I Can Deal With That
C4. Gwen Mccrae - Let's Straighten It Out
C5. Millie Jackson - All The Way Lover
D1. Lyn Collins - Don't Make Me Over
D2. Donna Summer - Love To Love You Baby
D3. Tina Turner - Whole Lotta Love
D4. Erykah Badu & The Roots - You Got Me
D5. Amy Winehouse - Back To Black
D6. Jil Scott - Brotha 

RIYL: Beach House, Cocteau Twins, Cigarettes After Sex, Slowdive.

For songwriting duo Joey Cobb and Katie Drew of White Flowers, one of the most exciting young bands in the UK right now, it was only on leaving London to return to their native Preston that the dark-hued dreampop of their debut album, Day By Day, began to crystalize.

"There’s something uniquely bleak about the North,” says Joey, speaking from the abandoned textile mill that White Flowers call home, “but in that bleakness there’s a certain beauty.”

The pair had left Preston for London to study at art college, and it was there that they first began to explore the nascent psych scene bubbling under in the few remaining arts-orientated spaces in the east of the city. It soon inspired them to begin work on music of their own.

“We didn’t want to be a psych band,” explains Katie, "but discovering that music gave us both energy and focus. We’ve spent so many years developing these songs, because I think it was important we waited until White Flowers became its own defined thing."

The pair found that by using equipment they barely understood, they produced their most innovative work. Beginning on GarageBand, they crafted loops that turned into songs, and by the time they’d worked out how to use it, they’d graduated to a drum machine.

Now very much in control, and with a clear and determined focus, the pair began producing music that, whilst leaning into the North’s post-punk past, possessed a vision and depth informed by their own post-industrial Preston experiences. Creating all of their artwork, visuals and overall aesthetic, they began building a world that stretched beyond the music alone – in an unusual circular fashion, this auteurist-like approach became a way of translating their environment and experiences into a form of escapism from the very place that inspired them.

“We’ve always taken care to control every aspect of the White Flowers ‘world’, and because we’ve developed this over time, it feels to us like there’s a separate realm for White Flowers music to exist in,” observes Joey. “More than anything, the isolation that a place like Preston provides means that what we do is very much its own, separate thing”.

That ‘thing’ is the sound of the North at night; the unglamorous North, caught in the hinterlands that divide the main cities, a monochrome psychedelia formed in Preston and the imposing Lancashire hills that envelop them. As if always waiting there for them, in returning to their roots, White Flowers found themselves.

Nonetheless, it was shortly before leaving London that another creative breakthrough occurred. While performing a small show as a support act, a fan in the audience, impressed by the wall of noise that would frequently extend for minutes at the end of tracks, suggested they work with a like-minded friend. Within weeks, the pair were recording at the Manchester studio of Jez Williams, erstwhile member of Doves.

Williams and Manchester immediately made sense, and it’s that industrial gothic that White Flowers were able to tap into as they built the album during on-off sessions across two years – sometimes leaving the studio for a couple of months to work on ideas, other times crafting the minutiae of details across all-night studio sessions.

The access to flexible studio time was telling, and the band were able to develop an aesthetic that, whilst indebted to the various sounds that defined their youth, also leaned heavily into Kevin Shields’ droning wall of noise guitars, the palimpsestic hauntology of early Burial, and the ghost box sampleadelia of Boards of Canada.

“We like the more alien sounds” explains Joey, “where the focus is on creating atmosphere.” This is perhaps most obvious on the album title track, one of the more sonically enticing tracks on the record with its pulsing drone and Portishead-esque rhythm, or even ‘Night Drive’, a live favourite that the pair take pride in building into a monstrous wall of sound.

‘Daylight’ pushes forward with a prettiness matched by Katie’s oblique, near-glossolalia vocal. “We don’t like it when things are clean or overproduced” explains Katie, “and there’s something interesting in the instinctive nature of the first thing you sing, because you don’t really know what you’re singing until it comes out and it makes sense.” That psychographic-style process to writing informs a collection of songs that are at once both intuitive and fully-formed.

The oldest song on the record, ‘Help Me Help Myself’, bears witness to this approach. Perhaps their most direct and perfect ‘pop’ song to date, it suggests these songs were always there within, just waiting to be divined. "We’d just started using drum machines and there’s something of a naïve quality to it,” explains Katie, though its naivety has now been augmented by Jez Williams’ impossibly diaphanous production.

The constant upheaval of, well, everything has fed directly into Day By Day. “The songs on the album were written from when we were teenagers up to our early 20s, so it’s come of age in this weird apocalyptic time,” says Katie.

“Everything’s surrounded by uncertainty” notes Joey, "but it isn’t all doom and gloom, there are positives, rules are out the window and you can do what you want. There’s some hope in there.”

STAFF COMMENTS

says: 'Day By Day' presents a gorgeously plaintive mix of post-rock quiet/loud instrumentation, shimmering walls of sound and tender, delicate vocal accompaniment. A rich and sumptuous swell of talented songwriting and emotional delivery.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro - (02:25)
2. Night Drive - (04:57)
3. Daylight - (03:45)
4. Stars - (03:35)
5. Tried To Call - (04:26)
6. Help Me Help Myself - (04:43)
7. Day By Day - (06:07)
8. Different Time, Different Place - (04:16)
9. Portra - (04:03)
10. Nightfall - (03:23)

Ryley Walker currently resides in New York City. But his latest LP is a Chicago record in spirit. The masterful Course In Fable, the songwriter’s fifth solo effort, draws from the deep well of that city’s fertile 1990s scene, when bands like Tortoise, The Sea and Cake and Gastr del Sol were reshaping the underground, mixing and matching indie rock, jazz, prog and beyond.

Walker spent his formative years in Chicago, absorbing those heady sounds and finding ways to make them his own. Even though he emerged at first in folk-rock troubadour mode, it makes sense that he’s arrived at this point; each LP has grown more intricate and assured, his influences distilling into something original and unusual. To put it simply: Course In Fable is Walker’s best record yet, full of active imagination and endless possibilities.

Last October, Ryley went straight to one of the primary architects of the Chicago sound to make the LP. John McEntire, Course In Fable’s producer/engineer/ mixer, can rightly be called a legend for his work with Tortoise, Stereolab, The Red Krayola, Jim O’Rourke and countless others over a prolific career that now spans more than three decades. Seeing his name in an album’s liners is pretty much a trademark of quality.

Another Windy City exile, McEntire is based on the west coast these days, working out of the Portland, OR studio he’s dubbed Soma West. On the seven songs here, he delivers the signature shimmering and pristine sonics he’s become known for over the years. But McEntire was also intimately involved with Course In Fable’s overall creative process. “I told him to take the mixes and have at it,” Walker says.

The result is a rich, immersive affair — a headphones record if ever there was one. Course In Fable’s songs are twisty, labyrinthine things, stuffed full of ideas (Walker half-jokingly calls it his “prog record”). But no matter how complex it gets, the album is never overwhelmingly busy. Wiry guitars melt into gorgeous string sections (arranged by Douglas Jenkins of the Portland Cello Project). Tricky time signatures abound but feel as natural as can be. Melodies o@en dri@ in unexpected directions but remain downright hummable. Like Walker’s beloved Genesis, the pop element is never too far from the surface even when shit gets weird. (And speaking of weird, Ryley says that in addition to Genesis, much of the album’s inspiration comes from “Australian extreme scooter riders on YouTube and balding gear heads on Craigslist.” Go figure.)

To help put together these various puzzle pieces, Ryley assembled a band made up of several longtime collaborators. Bill MacKay (another Chicago mainstay) and Walker have made two excellent instrumental duo records of interlocking guitars and warm give-and-take — a rapport very much in evidence throughout Course In Fable. The freakishly talented drummer Ryan Jewell has performed with Walker for years now in a variety of settings, from straightforward song-centric sets to blown-out improv extravaganzas. Bassist Andrew Scott Young (Tiger Hatchery, Health & Beauty) has logged many miles on tour with Walker; he and Jewell are frequently astonishing, a buoyant-but-always-locked-in rhythm section, able to navigate sometimes dizzying turnarounds with apparent ease. Listening to the interplay between Walker and these musicians and you might be fooled into thinking they’d spent a year road-testing Course In Fable’s songs. But it all came together relatively fast, thanks to demos, rehearsals and the kind of musical empathy that comes from years of playing together.

Beneath the wondrous interplay, you’ll find some of Walker’s most personal – if still typically cryptic — lyrics, hinting at some of the trials the songwriter has been dealing with in recent years. Balanced with necessary doses of dark humour and oddball poetry, Course In Fable feels most of all like a life-affirming record, fresh air in the lungs, sun on your skin. “Fuck me, I’m alive,” Ryley sings at one point, a moment of both disbelief and pure joy.

Walker has released his albums on a who’s-who of independent labels over the past decade — Tompkins Square, Dead Oceans, Thrill Jockey and Drag City among them. This time around, he’s doing it DIY-style, putting Course In Fable out on his own Husky Pants imprint. You’re in good hands. This is an album that sounds great (mastered by Greg Calbi), looks great (artwork by Jenny Nelson and design by Michael Vallera). It probably even smells great. Whether you’ve been onboard since the beginning or are new to the Ryley Walker universe, you’re in for a treat.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Though we've seen a number of iterations of that Ryley Walker sound, it's great to hear him go back to the sound that drew me in in the first place. 'Course In Fable' touches upon the more avant-jazz leanings of his more recent output but lies firmly within the progressive full-bodied folk-rock ethos that made 'Primrose Green' and 'Golden Sings...' such essential listening experiences. Really marvellous stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Striking Your Big Premier (5:10)
2. Rang Dizzy (4:50)
3. A Lenticular Slap (7:54)
4. Axis Bent (4:36)
5. Clad With Bunk (6:15)
6. Pond Scum Ocean (8:05)
7. Shiva With Dustpan (5:43)

Garbage return with their seventh studio album ‘No Gods No Masters’, to be released 11th June 2021.

“This is our seventh record, the significant numerology of which affected the DNA of its content: the seven virtues, the seven sorrows, and the seven deadly sins,” says Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson of the band’s ferocious new album No Gods No Masters and its twists and turns from capitalism and lust to loss and grief. “It was our way of trying to make sense of how fucking nuts the world is and the astounding chaos we find ourselves in. It’s the record we felt that we had to make at this time.”

Since releasing their eponymous debut album in 1995, Garbage has blazed a unique sonic trail, garnering critical acclaim and amassing a passel of hits as well as seven Grammy nominations along the way to 17 million albums sold.

No Gods No Masters is a big, bold and indignant record – overtly political and socially charged in a way that the band has not been before. Its songs touch on themes ranging from global unrest and encroaching climate change (“The Men Who Rule the World”) to the Black Lives Matter movement (“Waiting For God”), to the Me Too movement, sexism and misogyny.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: I've heard a few Garbage albums since 1998's 'Version 2.0', but none of them have really captured groove and intensity of that career-defining moment, until now. 'No Gods No Masters' sees Manson and co reinvigorate that quintessential late-90's sound into an entirely adjacent but wonderfully renewed take. With the electronic intensity of the early LP's punctuated by wonderful moments of pop levity, it's a superb listen all round.

TRACK LISTING

Vinyl:
SIDE A
1. The Men Who Rule The World
2. The Creeps
3. Uncomfortably Me
4. Wolves
5. Anonymous XXX
6. Waiting For God

SIDE B
1. Godhead
2. A Woman Destroyed
3. Flipping The Bird
4. No Gods No Masters
5. This City Will Kill You

Deluxe CD:
CD 1
1. The Men Who Rule The World
2. The Creeps
3. Uncomfortably Me
4. Wolves
5. Anonymous XXX
6. Waiting For God
7. Godhead
8. A Woman Destroyed
9. Flipping The Bird
10. No Gods No Masters
11. This City Will Kill You

CD 2
1. No Horses
2. Starman
3. Girls Talk Featuring Brody Dalle
4. Because The Night Featuring Screaming Females
5. On Fire
6. The Chemicals Featuring Brian Aubert
7. Destroying Angels Featuring John Doe & Exene Cervenka
8. Time Will Destroy Everything

Sleater-Kinney's 10th studio album was recorded in Portland, Oregon during the summer of 2020 ' against a backdrop of social unrest, devastating wildfires, and a raging pandemic. It's music for an imagined togetherness. This marks the first Sleater-Kinney album produced by the band members themselves.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: This newest Sleater-Kinney outing presents a band completely comfortable with their considerable powers, ranging from grooving country-tinged rock to more upbeat groove-led numbers echoing the dynamism of their early years but infused with the anxieties of a changed world, and all the better for it. It's a warmingly familiar but not at all staid sound, and one that they clearly excel at.

TRACK LISTING

Path Of Wellness
High In The Grass
Worry With You
Method
Shadow Town
Favorite Neighbor
Tomorrow’s Grave
No Knives
Complex Female Characters
Down The Line
Bring Mercy

In the psychic wastelands of the 21st century, one particular sonic force looms large. Transcendental like the malignant force that fuels the zombie movies of lore, Part Chimp have made it their business to shake speaker-stacks, fry brains and induce jouissance and tinnitus alike all across the UK. Yet now Drool - their fifth and perhaps finest transmission to date - is set to launch forth triumphantly to a world beyond the vinyl racks and battered amps where they’ve already achieved godhead status.

Guitarist and vocalist Tim Cedar sums up the raison d’être of Chimp as “the stupid amounts of fun you can have with very loud amps, stupid tunings, weird pedals and weird people. That inspires us. I think our joy at playing our tunes comes through the panic and chaos“.

Echoes of their forebears - the ornery prehistoric lurch of Melvins and the droogy ur-clang of Sonic Youth among them - can be distantly discerned, Yet they’re now drowned out by an individual assault as pulverising as invigorating, nihilistic yet life-affirming. Smash together abandon and intent, and what you get is Drool - a fearsome testimony to a band with a skewed melodic skill to match their mighty potency. This band will demolish your house, but you’ll cheerfully thank them for it afterwards. Drool is where unwise decisions blossom into serendipity. It’s more joy through vacuum-tubed catharsis than you’re entitled to. It’s coming for the hearts and minds of heavy music dropouts everywhere whether they like it or not, so they’d be best advised to pay attention. 

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Yet another full-force sonic assault from the masters of catatonic grooving noise, Part Chimp. We get blazing riffs and half-hidden psychy wails wallowing beneath huge cavernous percussion and unmitigated distortion. It's yet another tour de force from one of the heaviest bands around.

TRACK LISTING

1. Back From The Dead
2. Wallow
3. One In The Eye
4. Clever
5. I Feel Fantastic
6. Drool
7. Up, With Notes
8. No Sad Faces
9. Dirty Birds
10. It’s True Man
11. USisA
12. Worms

Compilation album featuring Pye Corner Audio remixed tracks from 2020’s “the view from halfway down” Andy Bell’s critically acclaimed album + some unreleased acoustic versions. 

STAFF COMMENTS

says: In a brilliant twist, Pye Corner Audio reworked a bunch of Andy Bell's tunes for a series of 12's recently, and the results were stellar, this Cd compilation sees all of those singles and b-sides come together for a superb meeting of minds and a wonderfully rewarding listen.

TRACK LISTING

1.Indica (Pye Corner Audio Remix)
2.Skywalker (Pye Corner Audio Remix)
3.Cherry Cola (Pye Corner Audio Remix)
4.Love Comes In Waves (Pye Corner Audio Remix)
5.I Was Alone (Pye Corner Audio Remix)
6.Indica (Pye Corner Audio Remix – GLOK Re-edit)
7.The Commune (Pye Corner Audio Remix)
8.Plastic Bag (Pye Corner Audio Remix)
9.The Commune
10.Plastic Bag
11.Love Comes In Waves (Acoustic Version)
12.Cherry Cola (Acoustic Version)
13.Skywalker (Acoustic Version)
14.Perfume (Acoustic Version)
15.The Commune (Acoustic Version)

Back The Way We Came: Vol 1 (2011-2021) is a Best Of celebrating the first decade of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

This double album, curated and compiled entirely by Noel, includes tracks from the three Number One albums (‘Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’, ‘Chasing Yesterday’ and ‘Who Built The Moon?’) and the three acclaimed EPs (‘Black Star Dancing’, ‘This Is The Place’ and ‘Blue Moon Rising’) - plus 2 previously unreleased tracks including the brand new single ‘We’re On Our Way Now’.

The album is available on limited edition deluxe formats featuring a bonus disc including previously unreleased acoustic versions, remixes, instrumentals and an unheard demo.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Though the RSD version of this one follows one day later, you can have the chance to grab this retrospective / summary of the first ten years of Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds project on a variety of formats NOW. Including all of the releases thus far and providing a great overview for new fans and old hands alike.

TRACK LISTING

Double Vinyl Tracklisting
Disc 1
Side A
1. Everybody’s On The Run
2. The Death Of You And Me
3. AKA … What A Life!
4. If I Had A Gun …
5. In The Heat Of The Moment
Side B
1. Riverman
2. Lock All The Doors
3. The Dying Of The Light
4. Ballad Of The Mighty I
Disc 2
Side A
1. We're On Our Way Now
2. Black Star Dancing
3. Holy Mountain (Remastered)
4. A Dream Is All I Need To Get By
5. This Is The Place
Side B
1. It's A Beautiful World
2. Blue Moon Rising
3. Dead In The Water (Live At RTÉ 2FM Studios, Dublin)
4. Flying On The Ground

Double CD Tracklisting
Disc 1
1. Everybody’s On The Run
2. The Death Of You And Me
3. AKA … What A Life!
4. If I Had A Gun …
5. In The Heat Of The Moment
6. Riverman
7. Lock All The Doors
8. The Dying Of The Light
9. Ballad Of The Mighty I
10. We're On Our Way Now
Disc 2
1. Black Star Dancing
2. Holy Mountain (Remastered)
3. A Dream Is All I Need To Get By
4. This Is The Place
5. It's A Beautiful World
6. Blue Moon Rising
7. Dead In The Water (Live At RTÉ 2FM Studios, Dublin)
8. Flying On The Ground

Deluxe 3CD Tracklisting
Disc 1
1. Everybody’s On The Run
2. The Death Of You And Me
3. AKA … What A Life!
4. If I Had A Gun …
5. In The Heat Of The Moment
6. Riverman
7. Lock All The Doors
8. The Dying Of The Light
9. Ballad Of The Mighty I
10. We're On Our Way Now
Disc 2
1. Black Star Dancing
2. Holy Mountain (Remastered)
3. A Dream Is All I Need To Get By
4. This Is The Place
5. It's A Beautiful World
6. Blue Moon Rising
7. Dead In The Water (Live At RTÉ 2FM Studios, Dublin)
8. Flying On The Ground
Disc 3
1. It's A Beautiful World (Instrumental)
2. If I Had A Gun … (Acoustic Version)
3. Black Star Dancing (Skeleton Key Remix)
4. Black Star Dancing (12" Mix Instrumental)
5. The Man Who Built The Moon (Acoustic Version)
6. International Magic (Demo)
7. Blue Moon Rising (Sons Of The Desert Remix)
8. The Dying Of The Light (Acoustic Version)
9. This Is The Place (Skeleton Key Remix)
10. This Is The Place (Instrumental)
11. Black Star Dancing (The Reflex Revision)
12. Be Careful What You Wish For (Instrumental)

Deluxe Box Set Tracklisting
Standard LP
Disc 1
Side A
1. Everybody’s On The Run
2. The Death Of You And Me
3. AKA … What A Life!
4. If I Had A Gun …
5. In The Heat Of The Moment
Side B
1. Riverman
2. Lock All The Doors
3. The Dying Of The Light
4. Ballad Of The Mighty I
Disc 2
Side A
1. We're On Our Way Now
2. Black Star Dancing
3. Holy Mountain (Remastered)
4. A Dream Is All I Need To Get By
5. This Is The Place
Side B
1. It's A Beautiful World
2. Blue Moon Rising
3. Dead In The Water (Live At RTÉ 2FM Studios, Dublin)
4. Flying On The Ground

Bonus LP
Disc 1
Side A
1. It's A Beautiful World (instrumental)
2. If I Had A Gun ... (acoustic Version)
3. Black Star Dancing (skeleton Key Remix)
Side B
1. Black Star Dancing (12" Mix Instrumental)
2. The Man Who Built The Moon (acoustic Version)
3. International Magic (demo)
Disc 2
Side A
1. Blue Moon Rising (sons Of The Desert Remix)
2. The Dying Of The Light (acoustic Version)
3. This Is The Place (skeleton Key Remix)
Side B
1. This Is The Place (instrumental)
2. Black Star Dancing (the Reflex Revision)
3. Be Careful What You Wish For (instrumental)

Etched 7"
1. She Taught Me How To Fly

Deluxe 3CD
Disc 1
1. Everybody’s On The Run
2. The Death Of You And Me
3. AKA … What A Life!
4. If I Had A Gun …
5. In The Heat Of The Moment
6. Riverman
7. Lock All The Doors
8. The Dying Of The Light
9. Ballad Of The Mighty I
10. We're On Our Way Now
Disc 2
1. Black Star Dancing
2. Holy Mountain (Remastered)
3. A Dream Is All I Need To Get By
4. This Is The Place
5. It's A Beautiful World
6. Blue Moon Rising
7. Dead In The Water (Live At RTÉ 2FM Studios, Dublin)
8. Flying On The Ground
Disc 3
1. It's A Beautiful World (Instrumental)
2. If I Had A Gun … (Acoustic Version)
3. Black Star Dancing (Skeleton Key Remix)
4. Black Star Dancing (12" Mix Instrumental)
5. The Man Who Built The Moon (Acoustic Version)
6. International Magic (Demo)
7. Blue Moon Rising (Sons Of The Desert Remix)
8. The Dying Of The Light (Acoustic Version)
9. This Is The Place (Skeleton Key Remix)
10. This Is The Place (Instrumental)
11. Black Star Dancing (The Reflex Revision)
12. Be Careful What You Wish For (Instrumental)

"Scuro Chiaro" is the brand new solo album from Alessandro Cortini, following his recent collaboration with Daniel Avery. "Scuro Chiaro" means ‘dark light’, and the new album shares themes with his highly acclaimed previous solo LP, "Volume Massimo". Cortini recently joined the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame as the keyboard player and bass guitarist of Nine Inch Nails, but he's a world away from their grinding industrial funk here, instead shepherding pastoral sequences and spaced out electronics through the four track, encouraging wow and flutter before each track becomes absorbed in a fog of white noise. Essential for fans of ambient, synth and drone - Barry approves!

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Cortini's last album proper (not including various reissues and remasters) 'Volume Massimo' still hasn't left my heavy rotation pile, and 'Scuro Chiaro' will no doubt get the same reception. Endlessly rich swathes of meticulously crafted analogue synths grooves, all-encompassing ambient washes and Cortini's playful melodic leanings all coalesce into a quintessential outing from one of the masters of the business.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ecco
2. Chiaroscuro
3. Lo Specchio
4. Corri
5. Sempre
6. Verde
7. Nessuno
8. Fiamma

500 double lps ON BLUE / GREEN VINYL
VOLUME 1 IS sea blue
VOLUME 2 IS army green

Recorded between 2011 - 2020 by King Gizz

Mastered by Joseph Carra
Cover design by Jason Galea

STAFF COMMENTS

says: There's no stopping the 'Giz train is there? It's no wonder with that many superb albums under their belt, there's a wealth of unheard demo material out there, and this goes to show that even their unheard material is still worth hearing. A great collection and a great looking double LP.

The second album from Brighton based Balearic duo Andres y Xavi. This time with a little help from Rolo McGinty of Peel faves and Balearic Beat legends The Woodentops. This is a love letter to the forgotten side of Ibiza: dusty lanes, olive groves and clearings with sea views that go on for miles.

10 original compositions plus a cover of Talk Talk’s Renee.

The self released and distributed first album found favour with Balearic DJs across the world. Lead track ‘My alibi’ was picked out by the likes of Kenneth Bager, Danny Psychmagik and ‘Never seen Ibiza’ was a firm favourite of Phat Phil Cooper and Balearic Ultras.

Rolo adds guitar and vocals and a Woodentops vibe to two tracks on the album ‘What do you see in me?’ and ‘Walking in the sun’, his personal tribute to Jose Padilla.

First album received support from Kenneth Bager (Music for Dreams), Phat Phil Cooper (NuNorthernSoul), Chris Coco, Mike Salta, Leo Mas, Balearic Ultras, David Pickering (OneMillionSunsets) and many more!

And was described by Dr Rob (Ban Ban Ton Ton) as "Smokey Muscle Shoals organ plays, strings swoon, and Kosmische synths blink like distant stars... an overall “vibe” somewhere between Mo`Wax and the Sunday Best of Bent and Dan Mass... adorned by cascading Indie “neo-acoustic” guitar jangle. Like The Stone Roses by way of Horsebeach.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Brighton's Balearic flagbearers Andres Y Xavi mark the start of summer with this glorious sophomore offering, an 11 track stroll down coastal paths to tranquil waters. Blissed out electronics recall the heyday of Downbeat, while the gentle jangle adds a little of that C86 static to these vibrant vignettes.

TRACK LISTING

A1. A Sunny Morning At The Ashram
A2. Out On The Step
A3. Turn Left At The Egg
B1. Good News
B2. Not A Cloud On The Horizon
B3. What Do You See In Me?
C1. Raise
C2. Renee
C3. Perfect Timing
D1. Babel
D2. Walking In The Sun

A musical omnibus, ‘The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now’ is the first widely distributed Lily Konigsberg physical release, as well as the first vinyl treatment for EPs ‘Good Time Now’ and ‘4 Picture Tear’.

The collection loosely parallels the melancholic narrative behind the latter, where a mental break triggered Konigsberg’s depersonalized sense of her past self. Of the ‘4 Picture Tear’ EP Konigsberg says, “I would look at this photo booth picture I took with Matt [Norman] and cry because I thought I was looking at the person I used to be in that picture and that that person was gone.” In retrospect, these EPs feel like distinctive vignettes of Konigsberg’s progression as a songwriter, each version of her past self-tethered by an invisible thread to the present through musical alliances and fervent introspection.

‘Owe Me’, a song Konigsberg never felt fit on any of her previous releases, now serves as an opening curtain call. “Thank you all for coming to my show,” Konigsberg says to an invisible audience’s applause, “If you didn’t know, now you certainly know.” It’s a transportive moment that combines Konigsberg’s patient steps into the underground pop limelight with her exceptional ability to connect with a diverse and talented cohort of creatives.

One third of egalitarian art-punk outfit Palberta, the Brooklyn-born and-based Lily Konigsberg has occupied her time with music since her early childhood. “Basically I was born and immediately started wanting to be a rock star,” she says.

“Even before she became a fixture of the New York underground, Lily Konigsberg was staking out her place in local music.” - Pitchfork (Rising Artist, 2020)

“A crisp, catchy, and concise bit of 90s-indebted indie rock” - Stereogum

“The freewheeling, flitting melodies underline the precision of Konigsberg’s songwriting: She knows what she wants to say and she is methodical about how much to reveal.” - Pitchfork

“Warm and direct but tough to grasp, untraceable” - Tiny Mix Tapes

TRACK LISTING

Owe Me
To Hold It
Rock And Sin
7 Smile
At Best A #3
It’s Just Like All The Clouds
I Said
Summer In The City
Good Time (demo)
Lily’s National Anthem
Waterfall Snake Juice
Talk To Me W. Birds
Roses
North Porsche
I Don’t Like The Name
Big Tall Grass (demo)
Opening The Day

Transmeridian is the first album from Departure Lounge (ex-Bella Union) in 19 years. It features all four original members plus a guest appearance from legendary REM guitarist, Peter Buck, one of many long-standing admirers of a band that embodied a lost age of reflective, experimental pop music coming to the fore at the turn of the Millennium alongside The Beta Band, Tunng, Boards Of Canada and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci.

The surprise new album, named after the defunct ‘golden age of aviation’ cargo airline for which singer/guitarist Tim Keegan’s dad was chief pilot, is released on Violette Records (formed by Michael Head (Shack, The Pale Fountains) and Matt Lockett ) on digital and vinyl formats on Fri 26 March 2021.

Originally scooped up by Simon Raymonde’s Bella Union label (labelmates with John Grant’s Czars) following the self-funded release of their debut album Out Of Here (1999), Departure Lounge’s sophomore outing, Too Late To Die Young (2002) was equally acclaimed and was honoured as the first ever Album Of The Week on the emergent BBC 6 Music. The band toured extensively in the UK, Europe and the US, including outings with The Go-Betweens, Morcheeba, Paul Heaton and Robyn Hitchcock, peers whose stylistic contrasts reflect the eclectic nature of Departure Lounge themselves.

TRACK LISTING

1. Antelope Winnebago Club
2. Australia
3. Timber
4. Harvest Mood
5. Mercury In Retrograde
6. Al Aire Libre
7. Gurard Pines
8. Mr. Friendly
9. Paging Marco Polo
10. Frédéric’s Ghost
11. Don’t Be Afraid
12. Flying Home
13. So Long

Portugal. The Man had been a band for just over 2 years and in that period, they had released 3 full-lengths, 1 EP, and a couple standalone singles. In that same period, they had also performed just shy of 500 shows. This young band from Alaska was riding a creative wave that is rarely scene coupled with the most hardcore work ethic. Alaskans are tough and this band was tougher. They ended tour in December of 2008 and instead of taking a much needed break made the decision that they needed to record the culmination of what their live performance had become.

Finding a rare gem of a studio in the suburbs of Portland. They piled in to the studio with all their live gear and a handful of friends with handheld cameras. Longtime collaborator and filmmaker Graham (Baclagon) Agcaolli and engineer/mixer Jacob Portrait (who would later join Unknown Mortal Orchestra) would help to document. 2021. The band has been off the road for well over a year, by far the longest break from the road since they started and the time just seems right. Here is “Oregon City Sessions” dug out of the archives. Untouched, unchanged from the day it was finished. It is a time capsule of a band finding its way. A snapshot of young raw talent before they won awards, before they sold millions of records, before they headlined festivals. Just a couple kids from Alaska wanting to travel the world and play music.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A

1. Churchmouth
2. Horse Warming Party
3. New Orleans
4. Bellies Are Full

SIDE B

5. 1989
6. My Mind / The Home
7. Lay Me Back Down

SIDE C

8. Chicago
9. And I
10. The Devil
11. AKA M80 The Wolf

SIDE D

12. Colors
13. Marching With 6 / Elephants / Sit Back And Dream
14. Tommy / Helter Skelter

Catalan singer-songwriter Joana Serrat returns with new album ‘Hardcore From The Heart’, out June 11 on Loose Music. Serrat’s fifth album, ‘Hardcore From The Heart’ is the follow-up to 2017’s acclaimed ‘Dripping Springs’ (“…like Mazzy Star guesting on an early Neil Young demo,” Mojo). For the recording, Serrat travelled from her home in Vic, a small city near Barcelona, to Redwood Studio in Denton, Texas, where she teamed up with engineer and producer Ted Young (Kurt Vile, Sonic Youth, Lee Ranaldo).

TRACK LISTING

1. Easy
2. Pictures
3. These Roads
4. You're With Me Everywhere I Go
5. Summer Never Ends
6. How To Make You Love Me
7. Demons
8. Take Me Back Where I Belong
9. Hotel Room 609
10. Wild Beast

Moar's tribute to the sadly departed MF Doom sees him excavate many of Metal Finger's original sample sources for a kinda homage to our favourite, blunted MPC wielding wordsmith.

Authentic to the original vibe but with Moar's own unique inflections, it's a worthy addition to any stoned instrumental hip-hop collection or an imperative new collections of rhythms for your local battle rap contest.

As an aside it could also be fun to try and spot the original MF Doom tracks amongst the re-named version here. Add some spice via a bong-toke forfeit / reward for the winners and losers and everyone's gonna be having a party! 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Robin Wood
A2. Koala Tree
A3. Herbal Tea
A4. Himalaya
A5. He Shou Wu
A6. Kyton
A7. Dracanae
A8. Hot Weed
A9. Rhizome
B1. Rhus
B2. Queen Of Perfumery
B3. Alep Weed
B4. Hypnotizer
B5. Smilax
B6. Pungi Dance
B7. Wizards
B8. Muskroot

Koralle and Kuranes are two of the most inspiring and successful beat makers from Italy. As it happens, they are both from Bologna and they have been friends for a long time. Strangely enough they never did music together until now! "Beat Kiosk" is their frst joint album. Here they are treating us with 19 jazz-induced instrumentals with an Italien touch. Perfect for hip-hop heads, jazz cats and coffee lovers alike. If you are wondering what a "Beat Kiosk" is, here is the background story as told by Koralle & Kuranes: "Both of us were born in Romagna, a region in northern Italy well known for its high quality food traditions. If you'll ever visit it, driving around from the seaside to the hinterland, you can easily spot on any roadside these cool little kiosks, mostly painted in red/white or green/white stripes, where you can stop by and order some "piadina": a thin ?atbread, normally flled with ham, cheese or vegetables. It's just the most iconic street food, typical of this part of Italy. With this in mind, we would like to invite you to our very own Beat Kiosk, where you can sit and chill with your warm piadina and a cold beer while we are cooking beats and spinning some records for you. Let's get this party started right!" The kongenial artwork comes from Colombian illustrator SagaUno who was also responsible for the The Silhouettes Project artwork. Koralle has released two albums on Melting Pot Music that accumulated over 14 Mio. streams. Kuranes discography contains 9 albums and 14 EP's.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: A slice of cool for you in this sunny weather from Koralle and Kuranes with their debut album. The Beat Kiosk is the place to be to be served up juicy tunes and fat beats!

TRACK LISTING

1. Hurry
2. Cobalto
3. From Your Hearth
4. Binario2
5. My Own Thoughts (Skit)
6. Locanda Paradiso
7. Moka
8. Sweetaly (feat. Moose Dawa)
9. Statale 16
10. Amaro
11. Mud
12. Sangiovese
13. People Are Alike (Skit)
14. Look At You
15. Kickin'
16. Altamarea
17. Things Change
18. City/Nature
19. Persona

Temple present a new album from  Polish musician and visual artist, Wojciech Bąkowski; which follows on his 'Jazz Duo' album on Dunno which is currently going for crazy money on Discogs.

'Voyager' is an intimate record in the artist’s signature spoken-word style, loosely touching on stripped-down hip hop, RnB, dub, and pop. All records come with a booklet of the artist’s drawings and song lyrics in Polish and English.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Mad spellbound takes on modern formula given a crazy Polish twist!

TRACK LISTING

A1. MASKA
A2. ZŁOTO LECI Z GWIAZD
A3. TAŃCZY MÓJ GRÓB (1996 - 2019)
A4. PTAK
A5. CZŁOWIEK INTERESU
B1. WIADOMOŚĆ (SKIT)
B2. STARODAWNY PŁOMIEŃ
B3. UCIECZKA Z KINA WOLNOŚĆ (SKIT)
B4. CHIŃSKI ROK (1996 - 2020)
B5. CZASY (TEMAT)

Listening to Græns album ”Musique Pour L’Esprit En Expansion” is an awakening experience. This record pours new poison over rock music, a genre which the band’s founder Axel (Graveyard, Big Kiss etc) has a lot of experience from and, in his own words “a love/hate relation to”. That objective and sober perspective on the genre may be the main reason for the loosely assembled set of influences, put together by Axel, Lisen Rylander Löve (Midarcondo, Union Carbide Productions, Amason etc) and Rickard “Bobban” Johansson (Den Stora Vilan, Hills etc.), three experienced and wide eared musicians with a fearless approach to their main instruments and music in general.

With song titles like “Björkarnas Sus” (Whiz Of The Birch Trees) and “Commodification Blues”, ”Musique Pour L’Esprit En Expansion” mixes nature romanticism with raw political comments about consumption. The sound moves from stooges LA blues-land to Swedish progg with each instrumentalists shining through in grand style! Axel describes the less song-oriented tracks as “directed improvisation” – it’s loose but not eclectic.

Whatever sense you are using to catch this music, Græns message of cosmic unity and creative freedom will carry through to you!

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Yet another genre-defining outing from the ever reliable Hoga Nord here with the wonderful Graens encompassing aspects of Prog, Krautrock and even hints of slow folky minimalism. It's an intoxicating and fulfilling listen and one that cements Hoga Nord as one of the most continually exciting labels around.

TRACK LISTING

A1. D-Takt I D-Dur (D-Beat In D-Major)
A2. Open Up Your Fears
A3. Commodification Blues
A4. There Is No Origin
A5. Universal Dub
B1. Bjorkarnas Sus
B2. Le Ravail Continue (Melodie Par Et Pour Nordholm)

For Jayda G, joy is a state of mind. Whether she transmits it through her upbeat productions or magnetic energy at the decks, the Canadian-born DJ and producer, real name Jayda Guy, is a beacon of empathy on the dancefloor.

It’s no surprise, then, that Jayda G’s DJ-Kicks mix, releasing on 14 May, captures the buoyant spirit of the music that has influenced her most. “DJ-Kicks has been a personal goal of mine for a really long time. I've been a fan for decades now. I remember there was one mix by Chromeo and it had some French disco on it that always stood out in my mind,” she remembers. Clocking in at just over an hour, Guy’s mix takes you on a journey that moves through loved classics and new bubblers.

The mix contains Jayda's Brand new single "All I Need", the follow up to Grammy Nominated breakthrough single "Both Of Us", a slinky house tune co-produced with James Ford that fizzes with shimmering energy. A rallying cry for kinship and understanding, Guy’s insouciant vocals insist “all I need is you to hear me”, gliding across the perfectly swung house beat. “Because the mix was made during the pandemic, I thought, ‘What music makes me happy?’ I want people to feel like they know me. I wanted it to be approachable, still honouring the disco and soul music that I love. I hope that translates in some shape or form.”

STAFF COMMENTS

says: K7 present the eclectic electronics of one Jayda G. Unmixed for the purists, mixtape style for the party heads. What's not to love.

TRACK LISTING

CD (mixed)
** = Exclusive

1. Light Of The World - London Town
2. Aged In Harmony - You're A Melody
3. Glass Beams - Taurus
4. KOKOROKO - Uman
5. Atmosfear - Invasion
6. Universal Togetherness Band - More Than Enough
7. Royale - I Want Your Body
8. Don Blackman - Just Can't Stay Away
9. Gerry Read - 90’s Prostitution Racket
10. Naomi Daniel - Stars (Dos Cult Mix)
11. LNS - Bitumen **
12. DJ BORING - Gardenia **
13. Jennifer Loveless - In 10,000 Places **
14. HAAi - Good Ol'Fashioned Rugs
15. Jayda G - All I Need **
16. Fred Again.. - Diana (You Don't Even Know) **
17. House Of Jazz - Hold Your Head Up
18. 250 Lbs. Of Blue - Rejoice! (People C'mon) (Spen's New Vocal Mix)
19. FIT Siegel Feat. L'Renee - Tonite (Detroit Mix)
20. DJ Koze Feat. Ada - Homesick (feat. Ada)
21. Benny Sings - Summerlude


LP (unmixed + Mix DL)
** = Exclusive

A1. Jayda G - All I Need **
A2. Fred Again.. - Diana (You Don’t Even Know) **
B1. LNS - Bitumen **
B2. Jennifer Loveless - In 10,000 Places **
B3. HAAi - Good Ol'Fashioned Rugs
C1. DJ BORING - Gardenia **
C2. House Of Jazz - Hold Your Head Up
D1. Glass Beams - Taurus
D2. Royale - I Want Your Body
D3. Benny Sings – Summerlude

Following on from 2012’s acclaimed “Fame” Post-Punk & 2015's "Perfect Motion" Psychedelic-Baggy 1988-93 compilations, Jon Savage decided to focus upon Electronic music from the Post-Punk era 1978-82 & has compiled an album that takes in Disco, proto-techno & experimental sounds..

This compilation is selected and curated by renowned cultural commentator, writer and film-maker Jon Savage. Amongst many highly revered projects Jon has produced the definitive work on Punk Rock in “England's Dreaming” and the documentary & book “Teenage” The Creation of Youth, 1875 - 1945. He is also the biographer of Joy Division & author of the top 10 Sunday Times best seller "This Searing Light, The Sun & Everything Else" The Oral History Of Joy Division in 2019.

Includes rare tracks & full length 12" versions

Re-mastered with care & attention from the very best available audio sources for maximum listening pleasure.. 

TRACK LISTING

A1. The Droids - Do You Have The Force ? 3"25
A2. Sylvia Love - Extraterrestrial Lover 6"59
A3. Transvolta - Disco Computer 6"50
A4. Rayon Laser - Funky Meteor 2"40
B1. Harry Thurmann - Underwater (12" Version) 6"05
B2. Slick - Space Bass (12" Version) 7"06
B3. Suicide - Mr Ray 5"14
B4. The Flying Lizards - Steam Away 4"48
C1. BGM / And 4"36
C2. Monoton - Shortwavetransmission 3"03
C3. The Sea Of Wires - Seascape 12"10
D1. Cabaret Voltaire - Invocation 6"24
D2. A Number Of Names  - Sharevari 5"30
D3. Homenaje A Patrick Cowley 10"07

The Wagram fam offer a second volume of Afrobeat heat, this time in their vintage sounds series; and there ain't no disputing these are vintage jams. Dig in to find eight classics from the biggest names in the genre, including Manu Dibango, Ebo Taylor & Uhuru Yenzu, Orlando Julius and more. 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Wait For Me - Roger Damawuzan & Les As Du Bénin
A2. Gone With The Sun - The Wings
A3. Love And Death - Ebo Taylor & Uhuru Yenzu
A4. Khomo Tsaka Deile Kae – Marumo
B1. Disco Hi-Life - Orlando Julius
B2. African Dialects - Peter King
B3. Get Up And Do It Good - Super Elcados
B4. Ake Bo Je - Bukky Leo & Black Egypt

Wagram's globe trotting diggers turn their attention to South America with an essential set of sale classics, including Tito Puente, Orlando Marvin & His Orchestra, Eddie Palmieri & Ismael Quintana, Willie Rosario and more!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Conmigo - Eddie Palmieri & Ismael Quintana
A2. Guajira Y Tambo - Ray Barretto
A3. Ran Kan Kan - Tito Puente
A4. El Macao - Issac Delgado
A5. Ritmo Bembe - Orlando Marvin & His Orchestra
A6. Acuyuye - Johnny Pacheco Y Su Charanga
A7. El Paso De Encarnación - Orquesta Aragón
B1. Lluvia Con Nieve - Mon Rivera Y Su Orquesta
B2. El Que Siembra Su Maiz - Celia Cruz Con La Sonora Matancera
B3. Saona - Noro Morales Y Su Orquesta
B4. Cogele El Golpe - Cachao Y Su Combo
B5. El Gallo E'Jando - Compay Segundo
B6. Ay Camina Y Ven - The Alegre All Stars
B7. Dame Tu Amor Morenita - Willie Rosario

If some of these titles look familiar, it’s because they’re among the most majestic roots and culture songs ever recorded, and by singers whose credentials are beyond question. All tracks feature the original artists and even the actual seventies’ vocal in some cases, but the rhythms have been recreated with today’s sound-systems in mind and are heard at their very best when roaring out of giant speaker boxes, greeted by a forest of raised hands and with a deejay at the mic.

Producers Mafia & Fluxy include reggae legends Bunny “Striker” Lee and Fat Man among their mentors, and their mastery both in the studio and on stage is unrivalled outside of Jamaica. The way these two brothers play dub will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up whilst the messages in songs like Every Tongue Shall Tell, Declaration Of Rights, No Peace and Fittest Of The Fittest are relevant as ever but then the music on this album isn’t dated, and is reggae, roots and culture for the ages.

TRACK LISTING

1. Horace Andy – Every Tongue Shall Tell
2. Horace Andy – Every Tongue Shall Tell DUB
3. Linval Thompson – Long, Long Dreadlocks
4. Linval Thompson – Long, Long Dreadlocks DUB
5. Johnny Clarke – Blood Dunza
6. Johnny Clarke – Blood Dunza DUB
7. Barry Brown – Fittest Of The Fittest
8. Barry Brown – Fittest Of The Fittest DUB
9. Johnny Clarke – Declaration Of Rights (Steppas Remix)
10. Johnny Clarke – Declaration Of Rights (Steppas Remix) DUB
11. Gregory Isaaccs – Motherless Children (Dubplate Mix)
12. Gregory Isaaccs – Motherless Children (Dubplate Mix) DUB
13. Max Romeo – No Peace (Steppas Remix)
14. Max Romeo – No Peace (Steppas Remix) DUB
15. Litte Roy – Falling Angels (Dubplate Mix)
16. Litte Roy – Falling Angels (Dubplate Mix) DUB

Discover the gems of the old school hip hop with this double vinyl, focusing on the US scene, including great songs from Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, Fab 5 Freddy, West Street Mob, De La Soul and many more.

TRACK LISTING

1. That's The Joint (Remix) - Funky 4+1
2. Spoonin' Rap - Spoonie Gee
3. The Message - Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
4. Stoop Rap - Double Trouble
5. Money (Dollar Bill Y'All) - Jimmy Spicer
6. Charley Says! (Roller Boogie Baby) - King Tim III
7. Super-Wolf Can Do It - Super-Wolf
8. South Bronx Subway Rap - Grandmaster Caz
9. Wild Style Lesson - Kev Luckhurst
10. Bust A Move - Young MC
11. Down By Law - Fab 5 Freddy
12. Break Dance - Electric Boogie - West Street Mob
13. Passin' Me By - The Pharcyde
14. Fantastic Freaks At The Dixie - Fantastic Freaks
15. Shopping Bags (She Got From You) - De La Soul
16. Wild Thing - Tone-Loc
17. Grits - RZA
18. Give It To Me - Masters At Work Feat. Screetchy Dan
19. Get Low - Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz Feat. Ying Yang Twins

Discover the gems of the old school hip hop with two double vinyls from the French scene including great songs from Passi, Stomy Bugsy, Kool Shen, Tunisiano and many more! This one features our Patrick's French Hip Hop fave "Retour Aux Pyramides".

TRACK LISTING

1. 16 Rimes - La Brigade Feat. Lunatic
2. Les Flammes Du Mal - Passi
3. La Voie Que J'ai Donné À Ma Vie - Ideal J Feat. 113 & Intouchable
4. L'engrenage - Ol'Kainry
5. Imposteur - Busta Flex
6. Retour Aux Pyramides - X-Men
7. Hip-Hop Philosophie - Gang Du Lyonnais Feat. Kesto, Koma, Rocé & Sea
8. Avoir Le Pouvoir - Stomy Bugsy
9. Thé À La Menthe - La Caution
10. Avec Des Si On Mettrait Paris En Bouteille - Diam's & Antilop Sa
11. Y'a Plus De Place - Kool Shen
12. La Magie Du Tiroir - 2 Bal 2 Neg'
13. Attaque À Mic Armé - ATK Feat. Zoxea
14. Toute Vérité N'est Pas Bonne À Dire - Disiz La Peste Feat. Abuz
15. Stressés - Kamelancien Feat. IAM
16. 6 Minutes - Shurik'n, Scurfy, Daddy Lord C, Akhenaton, Spawn, Mkadam, Thony Montanna & Leïla Rami
17. Est-ce Que J'ai La Côte - Tunisiano
18. La Rue En Direct - Alonzo Feat. Sinik & Medine
19. J'ai La Rime - Mafia K'1 Fry
20. VIP Dans Le Tier-car - Seth Gueko

The Problem of Leisure: A Celebration of Andy Gill and Gang of Four is a double album of tracks written by Andy Gill and Gang of Four, all newly reinterpreted and recorded by artists whose own unique contributions to music were enriched by listening to Gang of Four.

The album features songs from across Gang of Four’s 40-plus year career, each individually chosen by the artists who covered them.

Andy Gill originally conceived of the album to mark the 40th anniversary of the release of Entertainment! in 2019.

His widow, Catherine Mayer, explains that this plan had already changed by the time of Andy’s death in 2020, after some artists chose tracks from different albums and periods.

“Andy was massively excited about this project,” Mayer says. “It wasn’t of course conceived as a tribute album, but it’s comforting to me that he lived to see artists he hugely admired enthusiastically agreeing to participate, signalling that the admiration was mutual.”

The album artwork has been created by English artist Damien Hirst, a long-time friend of Andy’s.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: a wonderful collection of some of the world's most respected artists covering the beloved tunes of Gang Of Four. From genres spanning electronic, indie and avant and from a huge variety of eras, it's clear how many people Andy Gill influenced, and how important these compositions are to today's musical landscape.

TRACK LISTING

Idles - Damaged Goods
Tom Morello & Serj Tankian - Natural’s Not In It
Helmet - In The Ditch
3D X Gang Of Four Feat. Nova Twins - Where The Nightingale Sings
Hotei - To Hell With Poverty
Gary Numan - Love Like Anthrax
Gail Ann Dorsey - We Live As We Dream Alone
Herbert Grönemeyer Feat. Alex Silva - I Love A Man In A Uniform
LoneLady - Not Great Men
JJ Sterry - 5.45
La Roux - Damaged Goods
Everything Everything - Natural’s Not In It
Dado Villa-Lobos - Return The Gift
The Dandy Warhols - What We All Want
Warpaint - Paralysed
Flea & John Frusciante - Not Great Men
The Sounds - I Love A Man In Uniform
Hardcore Raver In Tears - Last Mile
Killing Joke X Gang Of Four - Forever Starts Now (Killing Joke Dub)
Sekar Melati - Not Great Men (live Version)

First Word Records is extremely proud to welcome back Children of Zeus with their sophomore album, 'Balance'.

Following the release of their debut album 'Travel Light' in 2018 (which featured in numerous 'Album of the Year' lists), Tyler Daley and Konny Kon spent the next two years extensively touring the UK, Europe, Australia and South Africa.

With shows on ice over the last 12 months, Children of Zeus took the time to mature their sound; 'Balance' is 50 minutes of future-classic British soul music encompassing hip hop, neo-soul, gospel and r&b. Konny's laidback flow once again merges with Tyler's unmistakable buttery vocals across a set of bass-heavy backdrops and smoothed-out keys, taking the blueprint from their debut and evolving it into a deeper, more-refined sound.

As with previous material, the album is largely produced by the duo themselves, though we also see the return of Grammy-winner Beat Butcha, whose previous production credits include Jay Z, Beyonce, Nipsey Hussle, & Griselda (one of Butcha's productions graces first single 'No Love Song'). Title track 'Balance' comes from upcoming producer & Soulection regular, cay caleb and also features the only vocal feature on the album, from rising UK soul talents Akemi Fox and Georgie Sweet.

The Children of Zeus journey began with a mutual love of 90s Manchester pirate radio; consuming hip hop and beats, r&b and street soul, lovers rock and dancehall, garage and bass music. Then followed decades of performing, creating and collaborating in different guises. Over the past few years, the hip hop soul duo have garnered props far and wide; from Jazzie B to Jazzy Jeff. They've done performances for the likes of Soulection and BBC, in addition to hosting their monthly NTS Radio show and collaborating with artists like Black Milk and Goldie.

From travelling light, to travelling nowhere, it's been a time where we've all had to reflect on the lives we lead. This album is about equilibrium; walking the thin line of life and striving to keep your footing firm at all times, ever pushing forward. Balancing the rough with the smooth and the work with the play.

The Children of Zeus sound is now fully grown. It's time to bring 'Balance' into the universe. This is unashamedly big people music to be played out of big speakers. The definitive sound of UK street soul in 2021. The story continues..

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Super smooth soulful grooves and pristine production isn't beyond what we've come to expect from the great Children Of Zeus, but 'Balance' sees them refining their already lauded sound to a whole new level. Languid grooves and woozy beats perfectly coalesce into a wonderfully satisfying and genre-defining whole.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sunrise
2. No Love Song
3. I Know
4. Be Someone
5. I Need You
6. Nice & Sweet
7. Balance (feat. Akemi Fox & Georgie Sweet)
8. Cali Dreams
9. 42Long
10. The Most Humblest Of All Time, Ever
11. What I'm Seeing
12. Love Again
13: Sunset

This is incredibly Trees Speak’s third album on Soul Jazz Records released in the space of one year – and it’s amazing! Trees Speak’s new album Post-Human once again blends 1970s German electronic and ‘motorik’ Krautrock instrumentals (think Harmonia, Can, Cluster, Popul Vuh, Neu!), haunting and powerful 1960s and 1970s soundtracks (think Italian prog-rock Goblin and John Carpenter horror movies, Morricone and existential John Barry spy movies), together with a New York No Wave electronic synth and guitar analogue DIY-ness (think Suicide, anything on Soul Jazz’s New York Noise series or Eno's New York No Wave)!

The new album Post-Human draws further upon German krautrock high-concept albums from the likes of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze from the 1970s, as Trees Speak create their own powerful new landscapes of sound that manage to be at once contemporary as well as both timeless and with a sense of science-fiction futurism. Trees Speak’ seamlessly segue together all these musical elements into Post-Human, a conceptually expansive album which follows on from their critically-acclaimed debut LP Ohms, and the follow-up Shadow Forms released on Soul Jazz Records less than six months ago. This powerful new album is a high-concept collage of retro-futurist science-fiction music, which is fantastically illustrated by a specially commissioned cover design by the artist Eric Lee, a dramatic vision of life after humanity. Trees Speak are Daniel Martin Diaz and Damian Diaz from Tucson, Arizona and their music often draws on the cosmic night-time magic of Arizona’s natural desert landscapes. ‘Trees Speak’ relates to the idea of future technologies storing information and data in trees and plants - using them as hard drives – and the idea that Trees communicate collectively.

With Post-Human, Trees Speak take the listener deep into their unique musical world of unknown visions of the past and the future.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Trees speak manage to forge the most intricate, spacey German inspired electronica I've heard in a long time. With echoes of Neu and Harmonia, but with a more languid, dusty folk influence. It's a heady and intoxicating combination and PostHuman is a great development of their tried and tested formula. Really lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Double Slit
2. Glass
3. Chamber Of Frequencies
4. Divided Light
5. Elements Of Matter
6. Magic Transistor
7. Scheinwelt
8. PostHuman
9. Synthesis
10. X Zeit
11. Incandescent Sun
12. Healing Rods
13. Steckdose
14. Amnesia Transmitter
15. Quantize Humanize
16. Gläserner Mensch

From the moment she began writing her new album, Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner knew that she wanted to call it Jubilee. After all, a jubilee is a celebration of the passage of time—a festival to usher in the hope of a new era in brilliant technicolor. Zauner’s first two albums garnered acclaim for the way they grappled with anguish; Psychopomp was written as her mother underwent cancer treatment, while Soft Sounds From Another Planet took the grief she held from her mother‘s death and used it as a conduit to explore the cosmos. Now, at the start of a new decade, Japanese Breakfast is ready to fight for happiness, an all-too-scarce resource in our seemingly crumbling world.

Jubilee finds Michelle Zauner embracing ambition and, with it, her boldest ideas and songs yet. Inspired by records like Bjork’s Homogenic, Zauner delivers bigness throughout -- big ideas, big textures, colors, sounds and feelings. At a time when virtually everything feels extreme, Jubilee sets its sights on maximal joy, imagination, and exhilaration.

It is, in Michelle Zauner’s words, “a record about fighting to feel. I wanted to re-experience the pure, unadulterated joy of creation…The songs are about recalling the optimism of youth and applying it to adulthood. They’re about making difficult choices, fighting ignominious impulses and honoring commitments, confronting the constant struggle we have with ourselves to be better people.”

Throughout Jubilee, Zauner pours her own life into the universe of each song to tell real stories, and allowing those universes, in turn, to fill in the details. Joy, change, evolution—these things take real time, and real effort. And Japanese Breakfast is here for it.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Japanese Breakfast has an uncanny knack to sit right at the intersection of so many genres, while simultaneously defying them all. 'Jubilee' comes across as a celebration, taking the tried and tested sounds of synthpop and soul and fusing them with a wealth of influence from all over the musical spectrum, resulting in a gloriously well produced and uncannily uplifting end product.

TRACK LISTING

1. Paprika
2. Be Sweet
3. Kokomo, IN
4. Slide Tackle
5. Posing In Bondage
6. Sit
7. Savage Good Boy
8. In Hell
9. Tactics
10. Posing For Cars

Over the last two years, Sault’s music has arrived out of the blue: no interviews, no photos, no videos, no live appearances, no Wikipedia entry, a perfunctory and entirely non-interactive social media presence. Physical copies of their three previous albums have credited Inflo as producer – otherwise best-known as the producer of Little Simz’ Grey Area and co-writer of Michael Kiwanuka’s Black Man in a White World, each of which won him an Ivor Novello award. Kiwanuka got a guest artist credit on their last album, Untitled (Black Is), released in June. So did Laurette Josiah, the founder of a north London children’s charity, who it turns out is Leona Lewis’s aunt. The only other available fact is that proceeds from the album “will be going to charitable funds”. Speculation about the collective’s other members has neither been confirmed nor denied, nor has anyone claimed responsibility for music that’s thus far been rapturously received on both sides of the Atlantic.

TRACK LISTING

Strong 06:19
Fearless 04:09
Rise 01:01
I Just Want To Dance 04:21
Street Fighter 03:09
Son Shine 03:16
Rise Intently 00:50
The Beginning & The End 03:38
Free 05:05
You Know It Ain't 03:39
Uncomfortable 03:16
No Black Violins In London 01:28
Scary Times 03:39
The Black & Gold 03:04
Little Boy 03:53

“Man Made” feels like the perfect statement of intent and presentation of Greentea’s world - meditative, experimental, political, medicinal, trippy, humorous, and brimming with rich and varied influences.

Set against the backdrop of one of the most turbulent years in recent memory, Greentea and her band The Seng Seng Family retreated to the country last summer where the alchemy of “Man Made” took place, bringing a live element to the album, and chose to record the record in 432 Hz frequency, a pitch that falls a semitone below music industry standard, which is thought to vibrate healing energy. Executive-produced by long time collaborator Earbuds, Greentea worked with an incredible roll-call of producers; the likes of Swindle, long-standing collaborators Samo & Kiko, and Mala (part of the legendary dubstep production duo Digital Mystikz and the founder of the iconic DMZ dubstep label). The album was then mixed by the legendary Commissioner Gordon. The record seamlessly weaves genres from hip-hop to jazz, neo-soul, trip-hop, ragga, rock, dub and drum & bass, all anchored by signature sage vocals. At 18 tracks, “Man Made” is a true opus, a fluid and transportive listening experience, channelling deepest inner-thoughts and exploring different states of being, segued to be enjoyed in full. It encourages repeated revisits to fully explore the magic at work.

Greentea shares her manifesto:

"Man Made” an exploration of self and sound. A product of shifting paradigms both inner and outer.
An ultra sonic trip. This album is an offering of healing, a provocation of Hu Man spirit soul.
Out of tune with the industry and in tune with the universe, this is a 432hrz production.
Deliberately detuned out of any Babylon standard! It is to be felt…like a buzzing bee, in one's chest. A vibration. A jambalaya of expression, this project fits no genre, not to be digested easily by everyone.
However for those occupying the same space right now, upholding the frequency at such a transformative and challenging moment in time…I trust THIS SOUND will find you.
Dedicated and inspired by the late Jimtastic, join me and my boys as we travel the Sonicsphere on the way back to centre, through the depths of apathy and the heights of interconnection through surrender…
I offer you Man Made.”

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Greentea Peng has a sound all of her own, happily sitting between the super-smooth soul of the 70's and modern hip-hop, stopping at every stop along the way. An eminently listenable and hugely enjoyable journey, enriched with crystal clean production and perfectly penned songs. A delight all round.

TRACK LISTING

1) Man Made
2) This Sound
3) Free My People Featuring Simmy And Kid Cruise
4) Be Careful
5) Nah It Ain’t The Same”
6) Earnest
7) Suffer
8) Mataji Freestyle
9) Kali V2
10) Satta
11) Party Hard
12) Dingaling
13) Maya
14) Man Made
15) Meditation
16) Poor Man Skit
17) Sinner
18) Jimtastic Blues

Recorded in part before the Covid pandemic struck, the album was produced by the Grammy award-winning Jacknife Lee (U2, REM, Taylor Swift, Snow Patrol, The Killers). On production duties with James for the first time, he bought a fresh approach to their sound, working remotely from his studio liaising with Tim (his Topanga Canyon neighbour) liaising with Jim in a daisy chain, reimagining their demos, and capturing the band in all their virtual glory.

The result is a record with the most fresh and festival ready tracks of their 38-year career, the sound of one of Britain’s best bands, deconstructed and reassembled by one of the world’s most renowned producers. 

STAFF COMMENTS

says: There's no denying that James have a legendary legacy behind them, but with 'All The Colours Of You' we get proof that Booth & co are far from finished. Beautifully written stadium rock pieces sit well with more downplayed, hushed numbers and form a cohesive and enjoyable whole.

TRACK LISTING

1. ZERO
2. All The Colours Of You
3. Recover
4. Beautiful Beaches
5. Wherever It Takes Us
6. Hush
7. Miss America
8. Getting Myself Into
9. Magic Bus
10. Isabella
11. XYST

Four years on from their Mercury Prize winning "Visions Of A Life" LP, Wolf Alice return with their most expansive, ambitious release to date.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: It's wonderful to have a new album from Wolf Alice, and 'Blue Weekend' is indeed a stormer. Brilliantly inventive and full of the sort of rhythmic twists and turns we've come to expect from 2017's standout epic, 'Visions Of A Life'. This one sees a band full of energy and vigour, and should prove to be just as impactful as their previous work. A bold and wonderful beast.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Beach
2. Delicious Things
3. Lipstick On The Glass
4. Smile
5. Safe From Heartbreak (if You Never Fall In Love)
6. How Can Make It OK?
7. Play The Greatest Hits
8. Feeling Myself
9. The Last Man On Earth
10. No Hard Feelings
11. The Beach II

Following the recent ‘That’s All You Got’ 7”, Night Beats’ latest long-player lands May 4th via Fuzz Club Records. Made during the height of the California wildfires (where Danny now resides), rioting in the streets and a nation in lockdown, ‘Outlaw R&B’ deals in a psychedelic and R&B-infused garage-rock sound that’s “bathed in post-apocalyptic bliss”.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: You're always in good hands with Fuzz Club, and this latest Night Beats LP is a perfect example. Though there is a noteable country influence to the sound, it's a distinctly psychy affair and perfectly toes the line between bombastic, heavy riffs and shimmering melodic Americana. Brilliantly evocative and endlessly stirring, another classic from Night Beats.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A

1. Stuck In The Morning
2. Revolution
3. New Day
4. Hell In Texas
5. Thorns
6. Never Look Back (feat. Robert Levon Been)

SIDE B

1. Shadow
2. Crypt
3. Cream Johnny
4. Ticket
5. Holy Roller

Superhero? Supervillain? Super WHAT? CZARFACE & MF DOOM's newest team-up record Super What? is, much like the Avengers' arch-enemy Thanos...inevitable (and all-powerful!).

The icon MF DOOM unleashes his wizardry and wordplay throughout the record, while CZARFACE (bolstered by the legendary Wu-Tang Clan's Inspectah Deck and Esoteric) slash through each of the Czar-Keys' produced tracks as the team raises the bar on their previous LP, Czarface meets Metalface (2018). Featuring golden-age superhero DMC (of RUN-DMC) and Hieroglyphics' leader Del The Funky Homosapien, with art by longtime CZARFACE co-creator Lamour Supreme, this album will bring all the thrills of a cosmic summer blockbuster.

Recorded and slated for an early 2020 release, and paused while COVID raged, this collaboration of masked men is finally finding its way to you on all formats.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Though Doom may have joined the power cosmic, it's classics like this which mean he's gonna be with us forever. In cahoots with fellow masked man Czarface, the hip hop legend serves up some high grade golden age psychedelia with bars for days.

TRACK LISTING

DOOM SIDE:
A1. The King And Eye (feat. DMC Of Run DMC)
A2. Czarwyn's Theory Of People Getting Loose (feat. Kendra Morris)
A3. Mando Calrissian
A4. DOOM Unto Others

CZAR SIDE:
B1. Jason & The Czargonauts (feat. Del The Funky Homosapien)
B2. Break In The Action
B3. A Name To The Face
B4. This Is Canon Now
B5. So Strange (feat. Godforbid)
B6. Young World

Lei Line Eon - written and produced entirely by Iglooghost is the creative polymath's follow up to his breakthrough debut album Neō Wax Bloom. The sophomore album is a product of Iglooghost integrating a lost tradition he has spent his time researching called Lei Music with the laptop music he is known for. The performance of Lei Music has extraordinary effects and whilst there is no clear explanation of why - some believe it could be related to a variety of properties unique to Dorset. Lei Line Eon features collaborations with LOLA and BABii, the latter who he has worked with alongside Kai Whiston collectively as 'Gloo' - creating clothing, club nights and strange online artefacts.

Speaking on the album Iglooghost says “I wrote Lei Line Eon after studying my hometown’s secretive tradition of Lei Music - a mysterious subgenre that summons floating lifeforms. I wanted to make a slow-motion squelching giga-detailed opus that smells like granite & perfume.”

Slyph Fossil marks the second single from Iglooghost’s upcoming album. The track features glitch-heavy production as the foundation behind Iglooghost's distorted vocals as he puts his own mark on Lei Music. Slyph Fossil follows on from Eœ (Disk•Initiate) released last year alongside Iglooghost's short film around Lei Music. The short film was directed and designed by Iglooghost who enlisted the help of Christopher Casey Denton for the 3D animation which brings the visual together.

Iglooghost is a UK based artist who creates music, artwork and puzzles that all gravitate around a fictional ecosystem of strange entities and tiny gods. Each of Iglooghost’s releases expand on this universe through multimedia content and Lei Line Eon is sure to excite and intrigue listeners. To learn more about Lei Music; including an introduction to the genre and to Daosing, the M⚮rlands, Pebble Networks, & Celles please head over to https://www.leimusic.xyz/ to read research papers by Glyph Institute².

TRACK LISTING

1. Eœ (Disk•Initiate)
2. Pure Grey Circle
3. Slyph Fossil
4. Light Gutter (feat. LOLA)
5. Big Protector
6. UI Birth (feat. BABii)
7. Zones U Can't See
8. Amu (Disk•Mod)
9. Soil Bolt
10. Yellow Umbra 

From their genesis as members of the Venus club in-house band in the early 70s, Hailu Mergia and the Walias Band were at the forefront of the musical revolution during an era where modern instruments and foreign styles superseded the traditional fare to become the staple sound of Ethiopia. No one would argue that the Walias were the trailblazing powerhouse of modern Ethiopian music. They were the first band to form independently without affiliation to a theatre house, a club or a hotel; unprecedented and risky as they had to raise all funding for expenses by themselves including buying equipment. They were the first to release full instrumental albums, considered to be commercially unviable at the time. They opened their own recording studio, with band members Melake Gebre and Mahmoud Aman doubling as technical buffs during sessions. They were also the first independent band to tour abroad. In short, they were the pioneers every band tried to emulate; some more successfully than others. Odds are, any Ethiopian over the age of 35 who had access to TV or radio by the early 90s, will instantly recognize the sound of Walias. What is not a given is, how many would actually identify the band itself.

Barely a day went by without hearing the Walias either in the background on radio or as an accompaniment to various programs on TV. This Tezeta album, the band’s second recording, released in 1975, is one of those that have been impossible to find for nearly three decades. Sourced by Awesome Tapes From Africa and expertly remastered by Jessica Thompson, its unique and funky renditions of standards and popular songs of the day are so quintessentially Walias, flavorful and evocative. Hailu's melodic organ, unashamedly front and center in every track, makes even the complex pieces accessible. Profoundly engaging; it's an immersive trip down memory lane for those of us getting reacquainted with it, while also an enthralling and gratifying experience for fresh ears.

TRACK LISTING

01. Tezeta 04:30
02. Endegena 05:00
03. Zengadyw Derekou 03:40
04. Gumegum 04:26
05. Nefas New Zemedie 03:34
06. Atmetalegnem Woi 03:39
07. Mestirawi Debdabe 04:36
08. Ou-Ou-Ta 03:23
09. Aya Belew Belew 04:24

‘Changephobia’ is the second full length solo record from Grammy Award-winning songwriter, producer and composer Rostam Batmanglij. An adventurous new direction for Rostam, the songs collected on ‘Changephobia’ are deeply personal, yet universal for anyone who has ever experienced doubt. In addition to being a founding member of the seminal New York indie rock band Vampire Weekend, Rostam has been described as “one of the great pop and indie-rock producers of his generation.” Rostam has produced and co-written critically heralded recent albums by Clairo and Haim, as well as singles from Maggie Rogers, Solange, Charli XCX, Frank Ocean, Santigold and others. 

Dutch psych-musicians Jacco Gardner and Nic Mauskovic create a new take on no-wave, post-disco with their debut LP as Bruxas, Muscle Memory. It’s their third work for the Dekmantel label, following up earlier EPs Mas Profundo (2017) and Sirocco (2018). Immersing themselves in a world of bohemian synth, the duo experiment with vintage machines and cosmic effects, swimming in rhythmic grooves and psychedelic tones. It’s a style that reflects their respective musical backgrounds, and long partnership, one in which that has strengthened their collaborative, musical muscle memory.

After playing together in the revival tour for Zamrock band WITCH, Gardner and Mauskovic struck up a partnership centred around poolside antics, cocktail hours, and a mutual love for late-60s, German kosmische musik. Through their particular style of alchemy, the duo embarked on a quest crafting soundtracks to imaginary forgotten moments.

‘Cógelo, Rápido’ a disco-noire thriller, ‘Mountain Cruise’ playing on an upbeat Jodorowsky beat, while ‘Minitrip’ takes the listener through new, psychedelic planes of existence. Unsurprising then that there is a little bit of Patrick Cowley in this record. A pioneer whose own Muscle Music soundtracks also lent themselves to leftfield synth explorations.

Outside of Bruxas, Gardner and Mauskovic have both found success with their respective careers. Gardner, with his unique take on baroque pop, and Mauskovic with his rhythmic post-punk group solo-project The Mauskovic Dance Band. Together as Bruxas, they found a synergy full of youthful exuberance, that looks to recapture a vintage left-of-center, wave-scene feel. Recorded on a minimalist setup, Muscle Memory is full of such improvisation and psychedelic sound experimentation, proving that with time the subconscious can take over, creating patterns within music that the conscious mind would have otherwise been unable to perform. What one would call, true Muscle Memory. 

STAFF COMMENTS

says: A marriage of squelchy Cowley-esque synthesis with slinky afro-latin grooves and dubbed out vocals. A tasty dose of Menergy best served with an ice cold spritz!

TRACK LISTING

1. Muscle Memory
2. Red Pillows
3. Bodywarmer
4. People
5. Cogelo, Rapido
6. Mountain Cruise
7. Minitrip
8. Crazy Spacey
9. Salt Water Pool

“The Alias Sessions” is the most ambitious and wide-ranging Murcof album to date - less about the individual components of a track and more about the cumulative force of the set as a whole. Corona has composed several film scores and that experience with atmosphere informs these tracks. The record benefits from careful and focused attention, preferably over longer periods - it’s too expressive and dynamic to remain in the background.

Corona began work on this music in April 2017, when he met with choreographer Guilherme Botelho, leader of Geneva-based dance company Alias, about a new performance piece – “Contre-Mondes”. Versions of these compositions make up the first half of the album. Corona continued work with the organisation for a 2018 performance entitled “Normal.” which now forms the second part of the record.

‘I’m always looking for new unheard sounds,’ Corona says. ‘To create weird associations and contrasts between sounds of a different nature.’ “The Alias Sessions” is the glorious result of this desire put into practice.

TRACK LISTING

CD1 LP Contre-Mondes
1. A1. Inner Hunt
2. A2. Dandelion Heart
3. A3. Unboxing Utopia
4. B1. Nocturnal Sunrise
5. B2. Underwater Lament
6. B3. Inevitable Truth
7. C1. Between Thoughts
8. C2. Dropped Soul
9. C3. Shadow Surfing

CD2 LP Normal.
1. D1. Surface Wear
2. D2. Ideology Storm
3. D3. Dividing Space
4. E1. Fire Thief
5. E2. Systemic Amnesia
6. F1. Unread Letter
7. F2. Void Glance

Where’s João Donato? It’s a frequently asked question, referring simultaneously to the physical location and the musical moment he inhabits. A sampling of some of his more descriptive song titles suggests Donato’s comfort with musical hybrids: “Bluchanga,” “Sambolero,” and “Sambongo,” to name just a few. Lacking a formal genre for his style of music, Donato’s is a distinct sound, immediately recognizable from the first few bars of any of his compositions. He was funky back when “funk” was a bad word (listen to either of his 1960s Brazilian LPs, Sambou, Sambou and The New Sound if Brasil, for proof). His compositions are deceptively simple, while his arrangements are harmonically complex, revealing their intricate details upon repeat listening.

Today, Donato brings this flavor, now near synonymous with his name, to a new album in the Jazz Is Dead series with Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad: Joāo Donato JID007. “Donato is one of the greatest Brazilian composers from that golden era. His signature style, simple melodies combined with colorful chordal progressions, establishes a new lane for Jazz Is Dead,” explains Younge. “Joao is one of the most innovative Brazilian jazz composers of the last century. Creating with and learning from this maestro was one of the greatest experiences of my career.”

On the first day of recording, João Donato was so flattered that to learn Younge and Muhammad had crafted some tunes for him to grace that on the second day, the maestro showed up to the studio with a composition in honor of his new musical partners: “Adrian, Ali and Gregory.” Gregory (aka Greg Paul) delivers an effortlessly buoyant rhythm to support Donato’s whimsical and wistful Fender Rhodes. Younge and Muhammad added the flute melody after the sessions, a perfect tribute and compliment to this master arranger, sweet and melancholic at the same time. Building off a sinister interlocking drum and bass pattern, Donato, Younge, Muhammad, Paul and vocalist Loren Oden, assemble a swaying and swirling tune with a romantic mantra, “Nāo Negue Seu Coraçāo,” which translates to “Don’t Deny Your Heart.” Aspirational saxophones dance among cascading monophonic synths, a churning Hammond B3 and cutting fuzz guitar while Donato’s subtle and slinky Fender Rhodes leads the way through the musical maelstrom. Delivered in Portuguese, Loren Oden sings the song’s emotional energy into existence.

If Jon Lucien made a fusion album, it would have sounded something like “Forever More.” Oden’s vocals capture the longing and romanticism of the title, while the rhythm section harkens back to the last album Donato recorded in Los Angeles in 1970, a jazz fusion fore-runner full of pulsing polyrhythms and urgent melodies. “You guys made me like L.A. again,” Donato told Younge and Mohammad towards the end of his 2019 trip to record this album and perform at the Jazz Esta Morto series.

João Donato deserves a place among the legends of Brazilian music, alongside Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, Dorival Caymmi, Ary Barroso, and select few others. Ironically, his constant experimentation with different genres – the very essence of his greatness – make him a challenge to classify and perhaps held him back from becoming the household name some of his peers became. Asked how he would describe his own work, he says, “It’s my style of music, the way I think about [music]. I don’t even think about it, it’s just the way I do things. I don’t know if it even has a name.” Donato has finally received long overdue accolades for his contributions to date. An archetypal “musician’s musician,” Donato’s stepped out of the shadows more recently, recording at an unprecedented rate and collaborating with a variety of musicians, from Brazil and beyond, old and young. Still going strong at over eighty years old, the late praise and recognition is finally coming for the artist who Claus Ogerman offered to arrange an album, who Antonio Carlos Jobim called a genius, and who no other than João Gilberto claims invented the bossa nova beat

TRACK LISTING

CD
1. Não Negue Seu Coracão
2. Aquarius (Bring Her Back Home)
3. Desejo De Amor
4. Forever More
5. Sua Beleza E Beleza
6. Liaisons
7. Adrian, Ali & Gregory
8. Vermelho Quente
9. Conexão

LP
A1. Não Negue Seu Coracão
A2. Aquarius (Bring Her Back Home)
A3. Desejo De Amor
A4. Forever More
B1. Sua Beleza E Beleza
B2. Liaisons
B3. Adrian, Ali & Gregory
B4. Vermelho Quente
B5. Conexão

"Rare Pleasure" is prolific LA-based musician and producer Mndsgn’s third full-length album for Stones Throw, following "Body Wash"£ (2016) and "Yawn Zen" (2014) This is Mndsgn’s first traditional studio album as compared to his repertoire of homemade beat records. Album contributors include Kiefer, Swarvy, Fousheé, Carlos Niño and more. For fans of R&B, soundtrack / theme-music, psychedelia and jazz standard. Come with lyrics printed on inner sleeve. Artwork painted and designed by Mndsgn Release comes with limited edition merch offerings including t-shirts and stash tins.

For fans of Knxwledge, Flying Lotus, Thundercat, Mild High Club, Sofie, Helado Negro, Los Retros, Dave Dub, Cody Chestnutt etc. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A

01. Rare Pleasure I
02. Truth Interlude
03. 3Hands / Divine Hand I
04. Hope You’re Doin’ Better
05. Rare Pleasure II
06. Slowdance


Side B

01. Abundance
02. Masque
03. Rare Pleasure III
04. Medium Rare
05. Rare Pleasure IV
06. Colours Of The Sunset
07. Divine Hand II

On “A Tenuous Tale of Her”, Poté (aka Sylvern Mathurin) marks the debut album release for Bonobo’s Outlier imprint. A record that’s tough, tender and grand all at once, the connections he’s built along the way speaks to the variety of his influences: with connections from Lisbon’s kuduro-fused Enchufada label, to Benji B and Damon Albarn (who features on single "Young Lies"), he’s built a sound that’s packed with ideas and musical touchstones alike.

Poté’s music has always balanced contrasting impulses. On the one hand, there’s the rhythmic, celebratory music of his Caribbean upbringing, and on the other, there’s his interest in exploratory, emotive songwriting. On this record, he takes that approach in a bolder direction: immersive and atmospheric, it’s a platform for those two sides of his music to strike a fresh dialogue.

Channelled through an imagined theatrical performance with a pre-apocalyptic setting, Poté raises the curtain on a more vulnerable, open side to his music. A storyline of looming disaster runs through many of the tracks: he imagined how different people would react to the news of impending apocalyptic breakdown.

Musically, “A Tenuous Tale of Her” builds on the foundation that Poté laid with “Spiral, My Love”, which saw him explore beyond his earlier, club-focused productions, fleshing out the gentler sides to his music. Collaborating with Kojey Radical, Chelou and Alxndr London, he became bolder in using his own vocals, and put greater emphasis on writing melodies His growth as a performer has also shaped how he wrote this record. As he released “Spiral, My Love” in 2018, he was invited by Bonobo to support him on his European tour. Playing live for the first time in front of thousands-strong crowds, from Spain to the Czech Republic, it gave him the confidence to take a further step from music aimed solely at dancefloors.

Now based in Paris and setting out his ambition to bring together those two sides to his music – the tough, rhythmic foundation, and the outlet for his raw emotions – more dramatically than before, it’s the latest chapter in his journey to find newer and bolder ways to express himself. On this record, more than any project he’s released so far, Poté undoubtedly opens up – both in his sound, and in the parts of himself that he reveals. 

STAFF COMMENTS

says: A grandiose and really quite angelic offering, rather like standing at the vast guided expanse of heaven's gate. Enormous in sentiment whilst constructed using the most modern of music tools; splendid from start to finish.

TRACK LISTING

1.  Under
2.  Stare
3.  Lows
4.  Valley
5.  Valley II (feat. Pierre Kwenders)
6.  Pretty Penny's Interlude
7.  Open Up
8.  Young Lies (feat. Damon Albarn) 
9.  Good2u (feat. INFAMOUSIZAK)
10.  Plastic Prayers
11.  Together

First solo album from Budapest producer Norwell, includes 2 collaborations with Farbwechsel label head honcho "Alpar". Analogue synthwave, kraut, kosmiche, drone... A real journey! Illuzio was inspired by the book "mr. Vertigo" and especially by this part: "deep down, i don't believe it takes any special talent for a person to lift himself off the ground and hover in the air. We all have it in us--every man, woman, and child--and with enough hard work and concentration, every human being is capable of...the feat....you must learn to stop being yourself. That's where it begins, and everything else follows from that. You must let yourself evaporate. Let your muscles go limp, breathe until you feel your soul pouring out of you, and then shut your eyes. That's how it's done. The emptiness inside your body grows lighter than the air around you. Little by little, you begin to weigh less than nothing. You shut your eyes; you spread your arms; you let yourself evaporate. And then, little by little, you lift yourself off the ground. Like so."

TRACK LISTING

1. Lighter Than The Air (feat Alpar)
2. Outside Welikn
3. Tangerine Trees
4. Illuzio (feat Alpar)
5. Trancer
6. Contours
7. Full Circle Rising

Liz Phair is pleased to announce details of, Soberish, her highly-anticipated new album, and first collection of original material in eleven years. Produced by Phair’s longtime collaborator Brad Wood – known for helming Phair’s seminal albums Exile In Guyville, Whip-Smart, and whitechocolatespaceegg

Almost thirty years since her peerless debut album, Exile In Guyville, was released (voted #56 on Rolling Stone’s 2020 list of the 500 Greatest albums of All Time), Phair returns with a new record that will both intrigue and satisfy her long-standing fans, and introduce her to a smart young audience whose contemporary heroes have been reading from Phair’s playbook since they first picked up a guitar.

Liz Phair has achieved the kind of status in her industry rarely bestowed on recording artists. Her albums in the 1990s were central to the indie rock canon of the day. Her image was featured in countless magazines, early Apple commercials and Gap ads. Her eponymous album for Capitol Records in 2003 took Phair in a pop direction that ruffled some critics’ feathers but nonetheless went gold, galvanizing a host of new fans, particularly among young women who fell in love with hits like “Why Can’t I” and

“Extraordinary”, tracks that were featured in several major films and TV shows, including 13 going on 30, Raising Helen and How to Deal. Liz has picked up two Grammy nominations, and a spot in Pitchfork’s “Greatest Albums of the 90s” with over five million record sales to date (including three U.S. gold albums). She sang “God Bless America” at the opening game of the Chicago White Sox World Series victory in her hometown in 2005.

Her acclaimed memoir, Horror Stories, published by Random House in 2019, was an insightful, passionate and no-holds-barred look at the life of a singular woman who has been disrupting and influencing since she knew the meaning of the words. The New York Times, The Boston Globe, NPR and the Wall Street Journal championed her first foray into prose. She’s a guitar player who’s created her own voicings and structures; a feminist trailblazer; a composer for film and TV; a visual artist; a lyricist of brutal honesty and devil-may-care insouciance.

Soberish is a portrait of Phair in the present tense, taking all of the facets of her melodic output over the years and synthesizing them into a beautiful, perfect whole. She’s at the top of her game in the recording studio, drawing upon years of experience in television composition to weave through the songs daring and unexpected sound design. With Brad Wood’s exquisite engineering and masterful production, the result is a wholly fresh yet satisfyingly familiar sound that challenges on the first listen and seduces with each subsequent play through. The earworms are strong with this one!

Phair says, “I found my inspiration for Soberish by delving into an early era of my music development, my art school years spent listening to Art Rock and New Wave music non-stop on my Walkman. The English Beat, The Specials, Madness, R.E.M.s Automatic for the People, Yazoo, The Psychedelic Furs, Talking Heads, Velvet Underground, Laurie Anderson, and the Cars. The city came alive for me as a young person, the bands in my headphones lending me the courage to explore.”

None of the arrangements on Soberish are traditional songwriting standards, but the hooks are so catchy, the imagery so compelling, that the listener is drawn effortlessly along with the music. There are the off-kilter, unexpected guitar chords listeners will recognize as her signature style, a mainstay from her earliest work; the instantly knowable choruses of her most pop-friendly songs of the early 2000’s; the frank lyricism and storytelling that has opened doors for countless women picking up guitars and attempting to speak about their experiences.

To look forward, Phair has spent a little time looking back. Looking back at a career that has achieved so much, and with plenty more to come. The celebrated box set reissue of Guvyille and the Girly-Sound tapes back in 2018 acted as a catalyst for Liz to remember what teenage Liz felt when that music was putting her name up in lights. It was a dizzying blur of excitement, fueled by her innate knack for delivering straightforward but devastating, razor-sharp songs. Soberish arrives, shoulder to shoulder with her past work, full of world-weary experience but dancing with a breeziness and brashness that wouldn’t be out of place at any point in her career. From the record’s title track to “Spanish Doors,” “The Game,” ‘Ba Ba Ba,” “In There,” and “Hey Lou”, these hooks and melodies have never come easier for Phair, which is why Soberish is her best and most instantly enjoyable record in decades. Impactful, and with purpose.

Phair shares insight into the meaning of her title: “Soberish can be about partying. It can be about self-delusion. It can be a about chasing that first flush of love or, in fact, any state of mind that allows you to escape reality for a while and exist on a happier plane. It’s not self-destructive or out of control; it’s as simple as the cycle of dreaming and waking up. That’s why I chose to symbolize Soberish with a crossroads, with a street sign. It’s best described as a simple pivot of perspective. When you meet your ‘ish’ self again after a period of sobriety, there’s a deep recognition and emotional relief that floods you, reminding you that there is more to life, more to reality and to your own soul than you are consciously aware of. But if you reach for too much of a good thing, or starve yourself with too little, you’ll lose that critical balance.”

If Liz Phair’s career has had a governing philosophy, we might take it as this: hold to the centre, swing around. This return, this new collection of songs, shows her at her finest: playful, inquisitive, uncompromising, but anchored. The centre can still hold.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: It's been eleven long years since we had any music from Liz Phair, and this latest outing could easily have come from the grungy 90's, full of poppy hooks and distorted guitars and punky attitude but enriched with a distinctly modern production aesthetic. Brilliantly written, and wonderfully effervescent. A great return for Phair.

TRACK LISTING

Spanish Doors
The Game
Hey Lou
In There
Good Side
Sheridan Side
Ba Ba Ba
Soberish
Soul Sucker
Lonely Street
Dosage
Bad Kitty
Rain Scene

Marina Allen glides on angelic highs, surfing the husky deep; she is one of the great new voices of her generation. Writing songs that carry notes from other realms; these are kitchen table tales about love and fear, the capturing of the wild heart, sketching the breaking of dawn, bringing real life back to life. Every song on stunning debut album ‘Candlepower’ is a tick box of influences, asides, inspirations, quickfire theories, storylines and melodic progressions that galvanise a chemical reaction for each dramatic scene that unfolds on this genre-traversing seven song epic.

One listen to opening track ‘Oh, Louise’ underlines the range of Marina’s talent, it’s a filmic play on words, with an arrangement that’s like a Kate Bush dream sequence. It’s the perfect foil for the plaintive strum of ‘Sleeper Train’, a haunting, folky paean fit for Judee Sill brought up to date with some echoey electric guitar; or the conversational ‘Believer’; with a nod to Joni Mitchell in the lyrics it sounds every bit like Simon And Garfunkel at their Big Apple best listening to the ‘7 O’Clock News’ re-imagined on Sunset. The stuff of legend for a voice that surfs many musical tangents, hovers, and persists, that stings with honesty; morphing from Karen Carpenter’s gentle reverence to Laura Nyro’s soulful grit, moving through the phases like some possessed Dada performance artist before throwing in a melody from Joni at her jazziest or from the close harmonies of the lamented Roches when they flipped out with Robert Fripp. ‘Candlepower’ is a juxtaposition of melodies, an achingly beautiful set of songs set against the clank of the mundane world, a beguiling commentary on the everyday and everywhere. It’s all here, in under 20 minutes… every second counts.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Oh, Louise
A2 Original Goodness
A3 Belong Here
A4 Sleeper Tran
B1 Believer
B2 Ophelia
B3 Reunion

“When Bo Ningen decided to re-issue their first album on vinyl [for the first time ever. Originally it was only out on CD], they didn’t want to do the usual ‘remastering’ or ‘re-takes’. No. They “re-built” their our own debut album from a decade ago, using exactly the same material/sounds, “re-mixing”” with their new interpretation and perception.. Taigen says “we simply wanna listen to our 1st album again with fresh ears and mind” and we invite you to do the same. 10 Years on, Bo Ningen's debut is more fresh and relevant than it ever has been“

TRACK LISTING

LP 1:
4 Seconds To Ascension
Yurayura Kaeru
Gasmask Rabbit
Yuruyakana
Ao
Post Yohkai
Post Yohkai (ENA Remix)

LP 2:
Kage
Koroshitai Kimochi
Maguro
Maguro (Merzbow Remix)
_

"Devil's Workshop" is an instrumental album that sees DJ Format going in a slightly different direction to what you might have expected. Continuing the blueprint laid down in DJ Shadow's groundbreaking early work that made it possible for a hip hop producer to create genre-defying new compositions from old records, everything you hear is painstakingly pieced together from 100% samples to give the illusion you're listening to a band assembled by David Axelrod. There's no time for stagnant, repetitive loops that leave you wondering when a rapper is going to appear, instead each song keeps building in mood and intensity by the clever use of layer upon layer of carefully chosen samples. A rich tapestry of musical instruments from keyboards, horns & guitars through to vibes, bamboo flutes & sitars paint an exciting soundscape throughout the album and make it very difficult to pigeon-hole. While it is primarily an instrumental album, Format utilises a variety of vocal samples from sources as wide ranging as '60s spoken word, '70s religious records, right up to '80s & '90s rap records, all used out of their original context to tell a new story. "Devil's Workshop" is far from a typical DJ Format record or a typical hip hop record and should be listened to with an open mind. Everyone may have different ideas as to the meaning of certain songs but as long as they make you think....and feel something...that's all that really matters.
DJ Format says:"I wanted to make an instrumental album that perfectly reflects my musical tastes in 2021. Although hip hop was my first love and definitely shaped my whole relationship with music, nowadays I mostly listen to '60s jazz, psychedelic rock and everything in between. I've travelled half way around the world in search of old records that excite & inspired me to make music of my own and I truly believe that Devil's Workshop is my best work so far, it's the culmination of everything I've learnt over a lifetime of consuming & studying music".

TRACK LISTING

1. Time To Listen
2. The Light
3. Brainstorm
4. Warm Dust
5. Peace
6. Disaster Time
7. The Curse
8. Blind Man
9. Mountains Of Madness
10. Strange Sensations

Soul Jazz Records’ new ‘Cold Wave’ is a collection of current electronic artists who have all been shaped by the early European cold wave artists of the late 70s and early 80s.

This is the first release of Soul Jazz Records’ new Cold Wave overview and a second volume will follow.

These first artists created new electronic musical landscapes as well as pursuing a stubborn DIY aesthetic, often releasing material on cassette and pioneering use of lo-fi technology, primitive drum machines and home recording techniques. As part of this continued evolution today many of the artists featured here also self-release their own material, run labels, publish fanzines, or are part of wider musical collectives.

Aside from the first electronic, no wave and post-punk artists cited as influences – Suicide, Patrick Cowley, The Normal, Martin Hannett, Laurie Anderson, Public Image – this new generation of artists also show an exquisitely open source of electronic and disparate influences, everything from Underground Resistance to Purcell, from Scientist to new beat and more besides.

Most of the featured artists are based in Europe and include Krikor, Dissemblance and VQOA from France, De Ambassade from the Netherlands, Moisture from Sweden, Kreidler from Germany, Céline Gillian and Carcass Identity from Belgium. One exception is FIT Siegel out of Detroit, connecting the electronic pathways of Europe to the Motor City.

All of the bands featured here make distinctive contemporary music out of the 80s roots of the first cold wave movement.

This first edition of ‘Cold Wave’ comes in two vinyl editions – a one-off pressing orange coloured vinyl edition and a black vinyl edition. Both come as heavyweight double vinyl housed in bespoke individual inner sleeves and the first pressing of this album comes with its own free pullout fanzine on the groups featured. The CD edition comes with artist booklet / fanzine and slipcase. All editions are printed in special dayglo colour finish.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Not content with rocking our Piccadilly socks with the angular energy of their contemporary post punk round up, Soul Jazz now take a tour through the modern age of Cold Wave, picking out former Piccadilly records of the week from Krikor, Wang Inc., De Ambassade, Celine Gillain and Krikor. As a result, this whole comp comes most highly recommended from your favourite vinyl hustlers.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dissemblance – Capture
2. Carcass Identity – Reflexion Ocean
3. FIT Siegel – Wayne County Stomp
4. De Ambassade – Standhouden
5. Wang Inc. – Approdo
6. Krikor Kouchian – Niños Matadores
7. Céline Gillain – Fight Or Flight
8. Kreidler – Kannibal
9. Moisture – Gammut
10. Violent Quand On Aime – Of Course I’m A Liar

Oz Echoes peels away another layer of Australia’s ‘80s DIY hive mind. The Oz Waves successor exposes a deeper circuit of micro-run cassettes, community radio archives and irrationally abandoned studio sessions, as Steele Bonus sequences a 10-track compendium of drone pop, psyche-electronics and agitated tape cut-ups.

From the Sydney cassette network, The Horse He's Sick returns with an industrial car crash, alongside Wrong Kind of Stone Age’s pagan cacophony and primal riddims. M Squared dynamo Patrick Gibson appears in both Height/Dismay and Mr Knott, his respective studio-as-an-instrument collaborations with Dru Jones (Scattered Order) and ex-Slugfucker Gordon Renouf - the former’s worn out apparition hails from an instantly deleted 1981 7”, while Mr Knott entrust one of the compilation’s five previously unreleased tracks.

Matt Mawson represents Brisbane music media-printed matter collective ZIP, as Adelaide’s Three D Radio grants access to their vaults of live-to-air recordings and aspiring demo submissions, rescuing the slap-happy punk-funk of The Frenzied Bricks and Jandy Rainbow’s prodigious beginnings in Les Trois Etrangers and Aeroplane Footsteps. Synchronously in Melbourne, Ash Wednesday (Karen Marks, The Metronomes) leads Modern Jazz’ improvised proto-techno and EBM pioneers Shanghai Au Go-Go home record their sardonic synth-wave.

A cherry-picked cast of unusual suspects, Oz Echoes’ unfamed artist and non-band narratives are detailed by track-by-track liner notes with rarely published archival visions and artwork from Video Synth, prompting further rabbit hole ventures into this golden era of creative risk-taking and instant action.

TRACK LISTING

1. Height/Dismay - Mother’s Footsteps
2. The Frenzied Bricks - Vicious Circle
3. Modern Jazz - Zoom Dub
4. Mr Knott - Poor Galileo (He Has Gone Mad)
5. Aeroplane Footsteps - Arabia
6. Shanghai Au Go-Go - I Cried All Winter
7. Matt Mawson - Open The Goddam Door
8. The Horse He's Sick - Terminal Rebound
9. Wrong Kind Of Stone Age - Ravi Dubbi
10. Les Trois Etrangers – Luna

Tear in a Beer Cowboys and Magnificents Losers, that's what you get for the Roadhouse Fav Vol 2! The early sixties Honkytonk at his best.

Tracks from the likes of Dave Dudley, Tom T.Hall , Jimmy Martin, Skeets Mc Donald and more...

Wagram enlist FG to curate not 1, 2, 3 or 4 but FIVE volumes of their "Electronic Music Anthology". This catchy catch-all covers house, techno, downbeat, minimal, tech house and what we refer to as retail house, so you get all kinds of classic on here, from producers as respected as Mr Oizo and as reviled as Bob Sinclair - even Martin Solveig makes about 9 appearances on this series.
On this particular double-LP comp of timeless house classics we get Raze 'Break 4 Love', Robin S 'Show Me Love' and Hardrive 'Deep Inside'.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Raze - Break 4 Love (Original 12" Mix)
A2. Robin S. - Show Me Love (Stonebridge Radio Edit)
A3. Hardrive - Deep Inside (Edit)
A4. River Ocean Feat. India - Love & Happiness (Yemaya Y Ochun) (Radio Edit)
A5. Nightcrawlers - Push The Feeling On [The Dub Of Doom]
B1. Ultra Nate - Free (Mood II Swing Radio Edit)
B2. Nerio's Dubwork Meets Darryl Pandy - Sunshine And Happiness
B3. Heller'N'Farley Project - Ultra Flava
B4. St Germain - Alabama Blues (Todd Edwards Vocal Mix)
B5. Masters At Work Feat. India - I Can't Get No Sleep
C1. Moloko - Sing It Back (Boris Musical Mix; Edit)
C2. Superfunk Feat. Ron Carroll - Lucky Star (Album Mix)
C3. The Ethics - La Luna (Full Mix)
C4. Silicone Soul - Right On! (Original Instrumental Version)
D1. Soha - Eve
D2. Salome De Bahia - Outro Lugar
D3. Cunnie Williams - Saturday (Mousse T.'S House Edit)
D4. Bob Sinclar - My Only Love

Wagram enlist FG to curate not 1, 2, 3 or 4 but FIVE volumes of their "Electronic Music Anthology". This catchy catch-all covers house, techno, downbeat, minimal, tech house and what we refer to as retail house, so you get all kinds of classic on here, from producers as respected as Mr Oizo and as reviled as Bob Sinclair - even Martin Solveig makes about 9 appearances on this series.
A double-LP comp of timeless electro blasters including Martin Solveig 'Edony (Clap Your Hands)', Les Rythmes Digitales 'Jacques Your Body' and Mr Scruff 'Get a Move on'.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Martin Solveig Feat. Hossam Ramzy - Edony (Clap Your Hands)
A2. Les Rythmes Digitales - Jacques Your Body (Make Me Sweat) (Radio Edit)
A3. Mr Scruff - Get A Move On
A4. Kid Loco - She's My Lover
A5. Blue Boy - Remember Me
B1. Alex Gopher - The Child
B2. Swayzak - Make Up Your Mind
B3. Nufrequency Feat. Ben Onono - Fallen Hero (Motor City Drum Ensemble)
B4. Fritz Kalkbrenner - Facing The Sun (Radio Edit)
C1. Tiga - Hot In Herre
C2. Scott Grooves Feat. Parliament & Funkadelic - Mothership Reconnection (Daft Punk Remix)
C3. Benny Benassi Presents The Biz - Satisfaction (Isak Original Edit Single)
C4. Vitalic - Poison Lips
C5. C2C - Down The Road
D1. Kavinsky - Nightcall
D2. Claptone - No Eyes Feat. Jaw
D3. The Avener Feat. Phoebe Killder - Fade Out Lines
D4. Disclosure - Latch Feat. Sam Smith
D5. Flume Feat. Kai - Never Be Like You

Wagram enlist FG to curate not 1, 2, 3 or 4 but FIVE volumes of their "Electronic Music Anthology". This catchy catch-all covers house, techno, downbeat, minimal, tech house and what we refer to as retail house, so you get all kinds of classic on here, from producers as respected as Mr Oizo and as reviled as Bob Sinclair - even Martin Solveig makes about 9 appearances on this series.
A double-LP comp of timeless techno gems including Jaydee 'Plastic Dreams', Laurent Garnier 'Crispy Bacon' and Ame 'Rej'.

TRACK LISTING

A1. The Prodigy - Breathe
A2. Jaydee - Plastic Dreams (Radio Edit)
A3. Aurora Borealis - The Milky Way
A4. Laurent Garnier - Crispy Bacon
B1. Julian Jeweil - Air Conditionné
B2. Oxia - Domino (Original Rework)
B3. Âme - Rej
C1. Rone - Bye Bye Macadam
C2. RY X - Howling (Ame Remix)
C2. Eric Prydz - Opus (Four Tet Remix)
D1. Ornette - Crazy (Nôze Remix)
D2. Nu & Jo Ke - Who Loves The Sun
D3. Frankey & Sandrino - Acamar

Rediscover all the gems of electronic music in a double vinyl anthology collection. After the success of the first 3 volumes, here they are finally available again, accompanied by a new volume more emblematic than ever. Volume 4 includes Sandy B, Jon Cutler, Kid Cudi, Etienne De Crecy and Moderat.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Masters At Work Feat. India - When You Touch Me
A2. Jon Cutler Feat. E-Man - It's Yours
A3. Sandy B - Make The World Go Round (Deep Dish Radio Edit)
A4. Dj Rork Feat. C. Minos Alexander - I Wanna See You Come Down (Rk'S Mix)
B1. Dj Gregory - Block Party
B2. Martin Solveig - Heart Of Africa
B3. Didier Sinclair - Lovely Flight
C1. Kid Cudi - Day'N'Nite (Crookers Remix / Radio Version)
C2. Duck Sauce - Barbra Streisand (Radio Edit)
C3. Etienne De Crecy - Am I Wrong ?
C4. Surkin - Radio Fireworks
C5. Kiesza - Hideaway
D1. Rollercone - Palais Mascotte
D2. The Supermen Lovers - Hard Stuff (Solomun Edit)
D3. Kompromat - Niemand
D4. Moderat - A New Error

Rediscover all the gems of electronic music in a double vinyl anthology collection. After the success of the first 4 volumes, here they are finally available again, accompanied by a new volume more emblematic than ever. There's all sorts of big hitters here - where else can you hear Laurent Garnier, Kerri Chandler, The Hacker, Oizo, Wink and Digitalism?

TRACK LISTING

A1. Laurent Garnier - Wake Up
A2. Agoria - Panta Rei (Radio Edit)
A3. Kerri Chandler - Get Up
A4. Gui Boratto - Arquipelago
B1. Fatima Yamaha - What's A Girl To Do
B2. Kölsch - Loreley
B3. The Hacker - Classic Revisited Part 3
B4. Digitalism - Zdarlight (Fedde Le Grand & Deniz Koyu Remix)
C1. Superfunk - The Young MC
C2. Martin Solveig - Linda
C3. Josh Wink - Higher State Of Consciousness (Tweekin' Acid Funk Mix)
C4. Brodinski Feat. Louisahhh - Nobody Rules The Streets
D1. Mr. Oizo - Flat Beat (Radio Edit)
D2. Club Cheval - Now U Realize
D3. Bob Sinclar - Vision Of Paradise
D4. Apparat - Outlier (Solomun Remix)

black midi’s new album Cavalcade is to be released on 28th May. Cavalcade is a dynamic, hellacious, and inventive follow-up to 2019’s widely-praised Schlagenheim, “a labyrinth with hairpin-turn episodes and lyrics full of dourly corrosive observations” (New York Times, Best Albums of 2019).

It scales beautiful new heights, pulling widely from a plethora of genres and influences, reaching ever upwards from an already lofty base of early achievements. 

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Black Midi have always revelled in forging the most cacophonous and confounding noise, drawing skilfully from a diverse range of influences. 'Cavalcade' takes this one step further with such a varied and hugely skilled narrative, it's hard not to get drawn into their world after just a couple tracks. Jazzy, noisy, heavy and in parts eerie, this is peak Black Midi.

TRACK LISTING

1. John L
2. Marlene Dietrich
3. Chondromalacia Patella
4. Slow
5. Diamond Stuff
6. Dethroned
7. Hogwash And Balderdash
8. Ascending Forth

The album follows the recent January 2021 release of single 'O.N.E.' and the band's sixteenth studio album K.G (the second volume in the band's previous explorations into microtonal tunings), as well as Live In S.F. '16 (ATO Records), a live album recorded during the band's 2016 U.S. tour stop at San Francisco venue The Independent. As the band enter their second decade – and their frontman still only thirty years old - the creative future of the band, as showcased on L.W., promises to be bolder, madder and more imaginative than ever.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: They just keep going don't they? Fortunately, their artistic integrity and ability to write a tune hasn't been sacrificed at all with 'L.W' being possibly their most pronounced mix of dancefloor funk, groove and sludgy indie yet. It's more down the psych-funk route than some of their heavier numbers but is as ever, wildly inventive and quintessentially KGLW.

TRACK LISTING

CD
If Not Now, Then When?
O.N.E.
Pleaura
Supreme Ascendancy
Static Electricity
East West Link
Ataraxia
See Me
K.G.L.W

Vinyl
Side 1
If Not Now, Then When?
O.N.E.
Pleaura
Supreme Ascendancy
Static Electricity

Side 2
East West Link
Ataraxia
See Me
K.G.L.W

Bachelor, the new project from Melina Duterte (Jay Som) and Ellen Kempner (Palehound), is not a band, it’s a friend-ship. After being mutual fans for years, they finally met when sharing the bill at a show in Sacramento in 2017. Keeping in touch over text and Instagram posts, Duterte and Kempner started recording together for fun in 2018, resulting with what would become "Sand Angel", the seductive slow-burner that convinced the pair to write an album together.

Reconvening in January 2020, the duo packed the entirety of Duterte’s recording equipment into two cars and headed to a rental house in Topanga, CA. In this space Kempner and Duterte hybridized their individual song-writing talents, producing a collection that slips between moods with ease and showcases their lyrical prowess. Arriving with almost no songs written and no solid plan, they finished the 10 songs that make up Doomin’ Sun after two short weeks. That much work in so little time may sound exhausting, but it wasn’t, it was blissful and freeing.

There was a lot of pain that went into the record, especially around themes of queerness and climate change inspired by the red skies and wildfires subsuming Australia at the time. However, when the duo did shed tears during the creative process, they weren’t tears of sadness, they were tears of laughter. When Kempner and Duterte look back on those weeks, what they remember first is shortness of breath and the inability to track vocal takes without falling to the floor howling. They couldn’t remember a time they’d ever been so delirious with creativity, so overwhelmed with joy.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: With more than a little nod to seminal grunge bands of the 90's (and beyond), Bachelor sees Jay Som and Palehound team up for a riotous mix of pop-punk, grunge and grooving noisy rock. Tracks like 'Sand Angel' and 'Anything At All' tread a more minimal, psychy groove while 'Stay In The Car' is undoubtably the most riotous, melodic slice of pop on here. Really great stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Back Of My Hand
2. Sand Angel
3. Stay In The Car
4. Went Out Without You
5. Spin Out

Side B
6. Anything At All
7. Moon
8. Sick Of Spiraling
9. Aurora
10. Doomin’ Sun

Live in Stuttgart 1975 is the first of a curated series of Can live concerts available in full for the first time on vinyl, CD and digitally. Originally recorded on tape, these carefully restored live albums will comprise the entirety of each show in the format of a story with a beginning, middle and end, with Can’s performances taking on a life of their own.
Available on triple vinyl and double CD. 

STAFF COMMENTS

says: There's really not much that can be said about live Can material that you wouldn't already know, but it's safe to say that this sounds superb and is the perfect recreation of a perfectly sculpted live Can show from the comfort of your own home. An intoxicating and transportive collection, and an essential document of one of the greatest Krautrock pioneers in the biz.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Stuttgart 75 Eins
A2 Stuttgart 75 Zwei
B1 Stuttgart 75 Drei (Part 1)
B2 Stuttgart 75 Drei (Part 2)
C1 Stuttgart 75 Drei (Part 3)
C2 Stuttgart 75 Vier
C3 Stuttgart 75 Fünf

CD TRACKLIST
1 Stuttgart 75 Eins
2 Stuttgart 75 Zwei
3 Stuttgart 75 Drei
4 Stuttgart 75 Vier
5 Stuttgart 75 Fünf

Portico Quartet announce Terrain, a three-part suite drawing on American minimalism and ambient music alongside their own rich heritage as they explore new musical vistas

When Duncan Bellamy and Jack Wyllie – the driving force behind Portico Quartet got together in their East London studio in May 2020 and started work on the music that would become their new album, the world, or most of it, was in the midst of the first lockdown. The unique impact of the events of 2020 became the backdrop to their time composing and recording; causing them to take stock, re-think, and plot a new musical path.

Indian novelist Arundhati Roy expressed the sense of grief and rupture from the pandemic as "a portal, a gateway between one world and the next", and as they created the music that would become Terrain they were drawn towards longer, slowly unfolding pieces, which are perhaps the most artistically free and also the most beautiful they have ever made.


These are compositions more in the lineage of Line and Shed Song (Isla/2009), Rubidium (Portico Quartet/2012) and Immediately Visible (Memory Streams/2019). Wyllie expands: "We've always had this side of the band in some form. The core of it is having a repeated pattern, around which other parts move in and out, and start to form a narrative. We used to do longer improvisations not dissimilar to this around the time of our second record Isla. On Terrain we've really dug into it and explored that form. I suppose there are obvious influences such as American minimalism, but I was particularly inspired by the work of Japanese composer Midori Takada. Her approach, particularly on 'Through the Looking Glass', where she moves through different worlds incorporating elements of minimalism with non-Western instruments and melodies were at the front of my mind when writing this music".

Terrain I, II & III are all subtly different, but a short rhythmic motif that repeats is the starting point in all three movements. There is a sense of a shared journey to all these pieces, they move through different worlds, with a sense of horizontal movement that lends the music real momentum. Terrain I was the first piece they worked on and it started with a hang drum pattern, improvised by Bellamy, who added cymbals and synthesiser. From there on it grew, Wyllie adding saxophone, another synthesiser section, strings. For Bellamy "It felt more like filmmaking than music making, a bricolage of conflicting, shifting signs, subtle tension and multiple narratives. Andrei Tarkovsky's 'Mirror' and British artist John Akomfrah's incredible 'Handsworth Songs' were pivotal points of reference for me." Wyllie expands the point. "There is a sense of conversation between us both, in that someone presents a musical idea, the other person responds to it with something else, which would then be responded to again... until it feels finished. These responses are often consonant with each other but there is also a dissonance to some of this work. The music slowly evolves through these shared conversations."

It is this sense of dialogue, both between the composers, and between tranquillity and a subtly unsettling melancholy, that makes Terrain such a powerful statement. One that speaks to both our interior and exterior worlds, to our own personal landscape, to our Terrain.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: I've always been a fan of Portico Quartet but 'Terrain' leans even further into the improvisational, free-form jazz vibes of their previous work. The three parts on offer here display a keen sense of space and momentum while forging a gorgeous, plaintive undercurrent of ambient sensibilities. It's intoxicating and invigorating. A wonderful listen.

TRACK LISTING

1. Terrain: I
2. Terrain: II
3. Terrain: III

Cheval Sombre releases his fourth album, Days Go By, via Sonic Cathedral on May 28, 2021.

It is his second album this year, and a companion piece to Time Waits for No One, which came out at the end of February to great acclaim. Like that album, it has been produced and mixed by Sonic Boom and features guests including Galaxie 500 and Luna frontman Dean Wareham.

Cheval Sombre is the nome d’arte of Chris Porpora, a poet from upstate New York whose otherworldly psychedelic lullabies on his self-titled album from 2009 and its follow-up, Mad Love (2012), won him a cult following. Coming just three months after Time Waits for No One, Days Go By furthers the overarching theme of the inexorable and inevitable march of time and, musically, comes across like John Fahey sitting in with Spiritualized circa Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space.

The title Days Go By is actually taken from the lyrics of the previous record’s title track – and this is just one way in which the records are inextricably linked, via a number of symmetries. Both have ten tracks, with eight originals, one instrumental and a closing cover version, which this time around is a take on Scottish folk musician Alasdair Roberts’ ‘The Calfless Cow’.

“Having the opportunity to release two full-length albums in the same year doesn’t come around too often,” explains Chris, “so I wanted to go to every length to make it special – meaningful. It was a privilege to realise this meticulous level of symmetry – it truly became another vital dimension in the craft of record making. Around each turn, there was a chance to be incredibly measured and thoughtful, not least with Craig Carry’s artwork.”

But, as the intersecting flight paths of the two birds on the respective covers show, there are also plenty of differences. Not least, the mood, which on Days Go By is lighter, airier, punctuated by strings which are even more beautiful. Chris likens it to Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, but in reverse order. “How wonderful to discover that on the other side of experience, there is an innocence which has endured,” he explains.

“Beyond politics, love affairs, worldly woes, even life and death, it’s true – there is a calm after the storm. “It’s strange, this life – isn’t it? You’ve got all these songs around conceptions of time, it’s over eight years since your last album, you decide to release twin records, and their release dates somehow fall perfectly in line with the unfolding present. When folks say that the stars conspire to make things happen, I tend to believe it. Time Waits for No One is a dark record, already reminiscent of the shadowy days of winter, of the trials of the pandemic. If Days Go By can coincide with the promise of springtime, bringing with it light, lifting spirits – then I know my work has been done.”

STAFF COMMENTS

says: I always thought 'Cheval Sombre' meant 'Sad Horse' which would have made perfect sense, but it turns out it actually means 'Dark Horse'. Anyway, if horses were so inclined, I imagine that this mournful but uplifting suite of perfectly crafted acoustic balladry would make even the saddest of horses a little bit more cheery.

TRACK LISTING

1. If It’s You
2. So Long For This
3. Well It’s Hard
4. He Was My Gang
5. Give Me Something
6. Are You Ready
7. Pneumonia Blues
8. Sunlight In My Room
9. Walking At Night
10. The Calfless Cow

Sports Team will release a special, limited edition B-sides & Rarities Vinyl, Plant Test, available only at Independent retailers in the UK. Independent retail has been at the heart of Sports Team’s output, having had the biggest vinyl sales for a debut British artist in 2020, and number 1 on official vinyl chart week of release. This release is the first since their debut album ‘Deep Down Happy’ described as “a debut as wry, energetic and charismatic as their inexhaustible live presence has always promised”(L&Q) and “an album soaked in teen spirit, Sports Team are the complete package” (DORK). 

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Sports team caused quite the stir with their debut LP 'Deep Down Happy' last year, and these B-Sides and 'Rarities' are sure to have a similar effect. It's a fascinating insight into the genesis of some of their well loved songs, and full of superb cuts on it's own merits. Lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Happy [Tracking Demo]  
2. Jane [LP 2, Monkton Combe]         
3. Plastic, Plastic! [Propagations Studios, Devon, March 2020]  
4. Sleeping Every Night [Home Demo, 2019] 
5. The Races [Lamacq Live Recording, 2019]   
6. Give It A Day [Home Demo, 20??]
7. Rome [Home Demo, 2019]

Side B
1. High Brow [Westbourne Recording Phone]
2. Elvis, ‘54 [Going Soft Bedroom Demo]         
3. Beverly Rose [Live At Moth Club] 
4. Back To The Point [Live At Moth Club]           
5. On My Mind [Phone Recording Ft. Dave McCracken]
6. Ski Lifts [Live Phone Demo]             
7. Fishing [Lamacq Live Recording, 2019] 

The same crew as the boundary pulsing improvisation record Bent Arcana has made a trajectory shift and picked up Ben Boye along the path. The aptly-named Moon-Drenched is the second instalment from these sessions and keeps a heavy-lidded late night perspective on things as it eases from the somewhat familiar liminal twilight of skittering hues of black-blue and snaking street groove, to fizzing off into the ether in pursuit of lunar prism beams heretofore unseen. The more rhythmically dialed bits here have a lysergic halo of strangeness to them, and the wispy bits between are spun of iridescent gossamer. It sounds like a frizzled message from a future just filthy with guitar hoots echoing off of neon-splattered high rises, oil-slicked waterways and skittering digital beasts. For Castle Face’s money this is the strangest slice of this last bunch of John Dwyer and his crew’s improvisations.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: It's quite the lineup of musicians here, and true to the calibre on show, the tunes themselves are some of the most mind-meltingly psychedelic grooves committed to vinyl. Think JOMF but with a load of coffee instead of acres of weed and you might be somewhere near. Jazzy, loungy, psychedelic and groove-laden, classic Dwyer but with a host of wonderful guests.

TRACK LISTING

1. Psychic Liberation
2. X-Cannibal’s Kiss
3. The War Clock
4. Der Todesfall
5. Get Thee To The Rookery
6. Spoofing
7. Terra Incognito

Muslim poet and songwriter Mustafa presents his debut project, ‘When Smoke Rises’, via his own Regent Park Songs label.

Mustafa’s two singles to date - ‘Stay Alive’ and ‘Air Forces’ - have been met with adoration from fellow artists, critics and fans and serve as a near-perfect introduction to an important new voice in music. Both songs are included on ‘When Smoke Rises’ alongside ‘Ali’. They exemplify a style Mustafa himself describes as “inner city folk music” that finds musical inspiration in the folk greats such as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Richie Havens but channelled through the contemporary lens of Mustafa’s modern-day Toronto.

Mustafa was moved to release his own music following the loss of close friends to gun violence. Much of his music is addressed to those departed friends and to his Toronto neighbourhood, Regent Park; a vehicle to honour and affirm the concerns of his community while providing sonic solace for those looking to make sense of their own loss.

The video for ‘Stay Alive’ prominently features footage of Regent Park, one of the first housing projects in North America and one of the biggest redevelopment projects on the continent. Mustafa’s experience of seeing the blocks, community and culture that raised him transform into something unrecognizable is a story that is playing out in neighbourhoods across the world - the inner city from which his folk songs are born.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Gorgeous downbeat grooves, twinkling piano and shimmering acoustic guitars all coalesce into an organic sounding but perfectly produced backdrop to Mustafa's intoxicatingly smooth vocals. Falling somwehere between neo-soul, R&B and swimming in airy electronic beats, this is a wonderful listen and a great sign of what's to come.

TRACK LISTING

Stay Alive
Air Forces
Separate
The Hearse
Capo (ft. Sampha)
Ali
What About Heaven
Come Back

After decades on the road and the never-ending hustle of life as an artist, Lou Barlow has tapped into a new confidence in the chaos. In 2021, the concept of balance feels particularly intimidating. Now more than ever, it’s clear life isn’t just leveling out a pair of responsibilities. Instead, we’re chasing after a flock of different ideals with a butterfly net. On Barlow’s new solo album, Reason to Live, he has come to an understanding of that swirl rather than trying to contain it.

As a long-time indie legend, Barlow has found a life akin to a middle-class musician. In recent years, he’s moved from Los Angeles back to Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife and three kids. And yet rather than settle into a comfortable malaise or yearn for the open road, Barlow’s strengthened urgency finds a way to merge the two instincts. Reason to Live is shambolic and grand yet intimate and doting, warmly acoustic and crackling with grit. “I had been struggling for a way to connect both my home life and my recorded life, but this record is the first time I've integrated that,” Barlow says. By folding the many facets of his life into one package, Reason to Live radiates with a renewed balance and calm.

That comfort in complexity shines through even in the recording process, with select songs having origins in decades past and others written in the early stages of 2020.

The multitude of whirring messages of Reason to Live are united by Barlow’s roiling multilayered arrangements and the understanding that change is inevitable--and that it can bring you a new reason to live in the darkest times. “This album is me really opening up, and the album follows that through its many different themes,” he says. “Some of my other work could be almost claustrophobic in its insistence on being all tied together but there’s space for people to live inside these songs.”

After albums with Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr., Folk Implosion, and under his own name, listeners may have felt they knew the construction of a Barlow song, even that they knew Barlow himself. “People have this vision of me as this heartbroken, depressed guy, but this record feels so true to who I am, to this rich life I now have full of people I love,” he says. “The songs culminated over the last five years to show that music has returned to its central comforting role in my life. Now I’m home.”

TRACK LISTING

1 In My Arms
2 Reason To Live
3 Why Can’t It Wait
4 Love Intervene
5 Privatize
6 I Don’t Like Changes
7 Clouded Age
8 Over You
9 How Do I Know
10 Cold One
11 Thirsty
12 Maumee
13 Lows And Highs
14 Paws
15 Tempted
16 All You People Suck
17 Act Of Faith

New album from the UK stalwart on  Deutsche Grammophon (officially the world's longest serving record label don'tchaknow?!). "Reprise" sees Moby revisiting and reimagining musical highlights from his 30-year career. Together with the Budapest Art Orchestra, he has re-envisioned some of his most recognizable rave classics and anthems with new arrangements for orchestra and acoustic instruments. He’s also joined by a stellar line-up of guest artists from across the musical spectrum, including Alice Skye, Amythyst Kiah, Apollo Jane, Darlingside, Gregory Porter, Jim James, Kris Kristofferson, Luna Li, Mark Lanegan, Mindy Jones, Nataly Dawn, Skylar Grey and Vikingur Ólafsson.

TRACK LISTING

01 Everloving
02 Natural Blues - Feat Gregory Porter & Amythyst Kiah
03 Go
04 Porcelain - Feat Jim James
05 Extreme Ways
06 Heroes Feat. Mindy Jones
07 God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters – Feat Víkingur Ólafsson
08 Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? – Feat Deitrick Haddon & Apollo Jane
09 The Lonely Night - Feat Kris Kristofferson & Mark Lenegan
10 We Are All Made Of Stars
11 Lift Me Up
12 The Great Escape Feat Nataly Dawn, Alice Skye & Luna Li
13 Almost Home Feat Novo Amor, Mindy Jones & Darlingside
14 The Last Day - Feat Skylar Grey & Darlingside

Undeniable Japanese GEE Mori Ra shares the wealth here, furnishing us with a dozen dynamite edits plucked from his long-running and essential Japanese Breese mix series on Soundcloud. When Mori melted our collective mind at Outlaws and Wet Play a few years back he brought a clutch of these killers on dubplate and I begged him for a physical release (sadly I think the language barrier put pay to that). So, it might have taken a few years, but I can assure you it's been worth the wait. 

As ever, Mori sticks the scalpel into City Pop and electronic obscurities, imbuing each edit with his uniquely psychedelic sound, while adding a subtle bump for club play. This dope double pack opens with the blissful and Balearic "Feel", which just prompted a whole load of socially distanced hugs amongst the staff, followed by cosmic cooler "Starry" and super psychedelic "Pygmy". On the B-side, "Caravan" pitches and pumps up Ryo Kawasaki's "Hawaiian Caravan" (I've been after this particular edit for years!), "Magic" shimmies into some exotic Loft-style jazz-funk, while "Sky" fries the fretwork with a whole load of fusion guitar.

There's no let up on quality coming into the C-side as the intergalactic exotica of "Modern" moves into the Balearic jazz of "Mood" via sparkling synthpopper "Suddenly". Onto the final side we go and the trippy, twinkly chimes of "Bush" and "Image" take us into the forest temple before optimistic and electronic closer "Lyon" brings the curtain down in style.

Mori was already one of my favourite DJs and producers out there, and this represents his best release to date. Do Not Sleep!

TRACK LISTING

1 Feel
2 Starry
3 Pygmy
4 Caravan
5 Magical
6 Sky
7 Modern
8 Suddenly
9 Mood
10 Bush
11 Image
12 Lyon

Freddie Cruger was once best known as 3 Foot People but since 2007 he has done great work as Red Astaire. He is a deep digging DJ with a penuche for neo soul, downtempo, hip hop and soul drenched late night beats that ooze lush vibes. His Nuggets For The Needy series is always a treasure trove of such sounds and the third volume is one of the best yet across two slabs of vital wax. The 12 red hot cuts are influenced by classic reggae, hip hop, R&B, downtempo and dub with standouts like the out of print 'Ghetto Hell' and an unheard version of his classic 'Follow Me.'

TRACK LISTING

A1. Dum Dum
A2. B-Boy
A3. Ghetto Hell
B1. I'm The Queen
B2. Watcha Do
B3. Go Move
C1. It's Going Down
C2. Let The Horns Blow
C3. My Right To Be
D1. Follow Me (Alt Mix)
D2. Mambo El Kingston
D3. Chances R

Veteran Japanese producer Shigeru Ishihara (aka DJ Scotch Egg) has been assembling serrated, genre-busting ear bleeders for almost two decades, and arrives to the Hakuna Kulala stable with a crucial new project: Scotch Rolex, named after the popular Ugandan street food.

On "Tewari" the Berlin-based noisemaker melts his breakcore, gabber and chiptune background into a fresh palette of influences, with help from collaborators MC Yallah, DUMA's Lord Spikeheart, Swordman Kitala, Chrisman and Don Zilla. The record was assembled after Ishihara was invited to Uganda for a residency at the Nyege Nyege Villa in 2019. Exposed to Hakuna Kulala's family of artists, the producer began experimenting, twisting trap and dancehall rhythms with 8-bit immediacy and the ragged energy of grindcore. Somehow he has managed to distill the essence of Nyege Nyege's scene-shaping yearly festival, where global dance and experimental forms come together under a banner of East African musical experimentation and physicality.

Ishihara is no stranger to collaboration; in recent years he's been spotted working with King Midas Sound's Kiki Hitomi in dub-pop outfit WaqWaq Kingdom and playing bass with electro-shoegaze pioneers Seefeel. But Scotch Rolex is his most ambitious project to date, jumping seamlessly from slithering doom trap ('Omuzira') to anxious hyper-fast electro death metal ('Sniper') to breathless Ugandan club ('Afro Samurai') and beyond without stopping for breath. Whether crafting rhythms for MC Yallah's tongue-twisting rhymes, Lord Spikeheart's hoarse, guttural screams or Swordman Kitala's familiar sing-along chants, Ishihara feels completely at home with his collaborators and celebrates their presence. "Tewari" is a loveletter to Hakuna Kulala from one of experimental dance music's true originals, it's a joyful rumination on the fluidity and versatility of electronic music that manages eclecticism without ever sacrificing coherence.

TRACK LISTING

1. Omuzira (ft. MC Yallah)
2. Success (ft. Lord Spikeheart) 03:30
3. Cheza (ft. Chrisman)
4. Nfulula Biswa (ft. Swordman Kitala)
5. Afro Samurai (ft. Don Zilla)
6. Tewari
7. Juice (ft. MC Yallah)
8. U.T.B. 88
9. Sniper (ft. Lord Spikeheart)
10. Wa Kalebule
11. Lapis Lazuli (ft. Lord Spikeheart)

The latest collection by Cascadian resident loscil aka Scott Morgan is a stunning meditation on light, shade, and decay, sourced from a single three-minute composition performed by a 22-piece string orchestra in Budapest.

The subsequent recording was lathe-cut on to a 7-inch, then “scratched and abused to add texture and color,” from which the entirety of Clara was sampled, shape-shifted, and sculpted. Despite their limited palette, the compositions summon a sense of the infinite, swelling and swimming through luminous depths. Certain tracks percolate over narcoleptic metronomes while others slowdive in shimmering shadowplay, sounding at times like some noir music of the spheres.

Although Morgan's compositional premise for Clara was quite defined, the resultant work is wonderfully opaque and spatial, equal parts lush and lurking, traced in fine-grained gradients and radiant silences. The album's title comes from the Latin for ‘bright': a fitting muse for this masterpiece of celestial electric currents and interstitial ether, where “shadows are amplified and bright spots dimmed.”

STAFF COMMENTS

says: I love a bit of Loscil. 'Sketches From New Brighton' and 'Plume' get a heavy workout on my home stereo, and 'Clara' is sure to go the same way. It's a beautifully rewarding and rich collection of textural washes and shifting soundscapes, perfectly in line with the rest of Loscil's impressive canon, but standing entirely on its own. Beautiful stuff as ever.

TRACK LISTING

1.Lux
2. Lumina
3. Lucida
4. Stella
5. Vespera
6. Sol
7. Aura
8. Flamma
9. Orta
10. Clara 

Written, mixed and produced by Zoe Mead (Wyldest), her new album documents Mead’s empowerment not only as an entirely self-sufficient artist but also as a woman overcoming gender stereotypes and societal constraints. Indeed, the title itself, ‘Monthly Friend’, is a reference to something society taught her to be ashamed of which she now regards as a blessing. Musically speaking, ‘Monthly Friend’ sees Wyldest continue on that evolutionary journey. Taking inspiration from the tender songwriting of Elliot Smith and the precise guitar patchworks of Soccer Mommy and Hovvdy, she has fused together these two elements plus her knowledge of ambient, soundtrack-style textures to produce an intimate indie rock opus. As well as her biggest musical statement to date, ‘Monthly Friend’ is also Wyldest’s biggest political statement to state. An album about womanhood, it explores the physicality of it, the different ideas around it, its limitations and its advantages. “Throughout the album, I visit these feelings through metaphors, largely related to nature. I always found it really ironic that women commonly get compared to fruit Peaches for example get over-ripe and people throw them away, discard them, when in fact they are probably at their most delicious and nutritious. “A lot of the time, women are unfortunately subject to a similar fate. When they are young, they are sexualised and therefore their actual intellectual and creative worth can be overlooked. As they age, they get disregarded almost completely, and for what? Because they aren’t as useful to men anymore? Perhaps. But why does our ability to reproduce have to dictate our worth? It doesn’t and it shouldn’t.” 

TRACK LISTING

1. Beggar
2. Almost Bliss
3. Hollow
4. Glue
5. Buddy
6. Arrows
7. Monthly Friend
8. Burn
9. The Void
10. Heal

This week sees the 50th anniversary of the original U.K. release of The Man Who Sold The World David Bowie’s landmark entry into the 1970s. The album not only began the collaboration with guitarist Mick Ronson that would continue with such Bowie classics as Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, it kicked off a 10-year run of indispensable albums stretching through 1980’s Scary Monsters.

The 2020 re-release of The Man Who Sold The World restored the album’s intended title Metrobolist, while featuring a new mix by original producer Tony Visconti. Taking its name from the album’s opening track, which was named after a painting by Bowie’s friend George Underwood, the new two-CD set The Width Of A Circle acts as a complementary piece to that album. Its 21 tracks feature non-album singles, a BBC In Concert l session, music for a TV play and further Visconti remixes wrapping up David’s recordings from 1970 and revealing the first sonic steps toward Hunky Dory.

TRACK LISTING

CD 1:
THE SUNDAY SHOW INTRODUCED BY JOHN PEEL
Recorded On 5th February, 1970 And Broadcast On 8th February, 1970
1. Amsterdam *
2. God Knows I’m Good *
3. Buzz The Fuzz
4. Karma Man
5. London Bye, Ta-Ta
6. An Occasional Dream
7. The Width Of A Circle*
8. Janine
9. Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud
10. Unwashed And Somewhat Slightly Dazed*
11. Fill Your Heart
12. The Prettiest Star
13. Cygnet Committee*
14. Memory Of A Free Festival*

Performed By David Bowie And The Tony Visconti Trio (a.k.a. The Hype)

CD 2:
THE LOOKING GLASS MURDERS AKA PIERROT IN TURQUOISE:
1. When I Live My Dream
2. Columbine
3. The Mirror
4. Threepenny Pierrot
5. When I Live My Dream (Reprise)

SINGLES
6. The Prettiest Star (Alternative Mix)
Single Mix Released On 6th March, 1970 On Mercury Records MF 1135. This Is The Unreleased Alternative Mix Created For Promotion In The US Market.

7. London Bye, Ta-Ta*
Originally Recorded And Rejected As The Follow Up Single To ‘Space Oddity’. This Mono Mix Was Finally Released On The Sound & Vision Box Set In 1989.

8. London Bye, Ta-Ta (1970 Stereo Mix)*
This Stereo Mix Of The Above Remained Unreleased Until The Reformatted Reissue Of The Sound & Vision Box Set In 2003, Replacing The Mono Mix.

9.Memory Of A Free Festival (Single Version Part 1)*
10. Memory Of A Free Festival (Single Version Part 2)*
The Re-recorded Electric Version Of The Closing Track From The David Bowie (aka Space Oddity) Album Released As A Single On Mercury Records 6052 026 On 26th June, 1970.

11. Holy Holy*
This Non-album Single A Side, Backed By The Album Version Of ‘Black Country Rock’ From The Man Who Sold The World Album, Was Released On Mercury Records 6052 049 On 15th January, 1971.

SOUNDS OF THE 70’S: ANDY FERRIS SHOW
Recorded On 25th March, 1970 And Broadcast On The 6th April, 1970.

12. Waiting For The Man
13. The Width Of A Circle
14. The Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud*
15. The Supermen (Bowie At The Beeb Vinyl Only)*
Performed By David Bowie And The Hype

2020 MIXES
16. The Prettiest Star (2020 Mix)
17. London Bye, Ta-Ta (2020 Mix)
18. Memory Of A Free Festival (Single Version - 2020 Mix)
19. All The Madmen (Single Edit 2020 Mix)
Holy Holy (2020 Mix)

(*denotes Previously Released) 

On May 28th , 2021, Surfdog Records will release Brian Setzer - Rockabilly Riot! Volume One - A Tribute To Sun Records on vinyl again! Out of print since 2005, this record sees Brian Setzer paying tribute to one of the greatest rockabilly labels ever, the one that arguably started it all: Sun Records.

"Why should I record a tribute to Sun Records? And at that, narrowing in on only their rockabilly years... a narrow time frame between roughly 1954 through early 1957. For that matter, what the heck is rockabilly anyway? Sure, all of us greaser, guitar slingin' hep-cats know, but (for the most part) the general population has never even heard the word. Rockabilly, the musical bastard of rhythm and blues, hillbilly, country, gospel, and maybe even a little jazz sung by wild-eyed southern white boys with too much time and too little money just lookin' for trouble. After doing much homework, I have selected 23 of what I consider Sun Records' best recordings. Some I’m sure you know (at least I hope so) and some are very obscure gems." - Brian Setzer.

TRACK LISTING

Red Hot
Slow Down
Real Wild Child
Rockhouse
Put Your Cat Clothes On
Lonely Weekends
Get It Off Your Mind
Just Because
Glad All Over
Flatfoot Sam
Rock 'n Roll Ruby
Blue Suede Shoes
Tennessee Zip
Mona Lisa /
Peroxide Blonde In A Hopped Up Model Ford
Get Rhythm
Stairway To Nowhere
Boppin' The Blues
Rakin' And Scrapin'
Sweet Woman
Flyin' Saucer Rock And Roll
Lonely Wolf
Red Cadillac And A Black Moustache

The psychological thriller - directed by Ben Wheatley and starring Lily James, Armie Hammer and Kristin Scott Thomas - aired on Netflix on October 21 - one of Netflix’s biggest films of 2020.

Speaking about his score, Mansell says: “Of course the main objective is to serve the film, support the story, and have the music play its role. But aside from that, to be honest, when I approach a new film nothing is sacred, everything is up for grabs. You need to take it apart and then rebuild it to find one’s own voice within it. That said I love to do lots of research on a project before I start writing - it’s my most favourite part of the process. The film I’m scoring has to inform me of what it needs, to what it will respond. So, an intimate knowledge of the work, other interpretations, background, the author, etc. is key to my being receptive to that.”

As well as being one of the founding members of Pop Will Eat Itself, Clint Mansell is one of the most respected contemporary film composers and his hugely successful works include Requiem For A Dream, Moon, The Fountain, Black Mirror: San Junipero, High- Rise, Doom and more.

TRACK LISTING

Last Night I Dreamt I Went To Manderley Again
Une Douzaine D'Huîtres
Côte D’Azur
A Bond In Common
Rebecca Always Rebecca
The Peace Of Manderley
The Shadow Between Us
Do The Dead Come Back And
Watch The Living
The Happy Valley
Rebecca's Room
The Quality Of Insincerity
I Could Fight The Living But I Could Not Fight The Dead
Je Reviens
All Memories Are Bitter
By Night She’d Come
The Second Mrs De Winter
The Wings Of Mercury
I Should Never Be Rid Of Rebecca
Tell Me That You Love Me Now
We Can Never Go Back Again
We Are Both Alone In The World *
Dancing Till Three *
The Tradesman’s Complaint - Trad *
A Phantom In My Mind *
Ghosts Of Manderley *

* = 2LP Only

Bird Ambience brings several fresh changes for the artist. Until now, Fujita would separate his acoustic solo recordings from the electronic dub under his El Fog alias and experimental improvisations with contemporaries such as Jan Jelinek, Bird Ambience sees him unite all of these different sides to his work for the first time, into one singular vision. He also makes a lateral leap from his signature instrument the vibraphone, on which he created his acclaimed triptych Stories (2012), Apologues (2015) and Book of Life (2018), to the marimba, which takes centre stage on his new album alongside drums, percussion, synths, effectors and tape recorder.

“The way of playing the marimba is similar to the vibraphone, so it was kind of a natural development for me and easier to start with, yet it sounds very different”, explains Masayoshi. “The marimba bars are made with wood and it has a wider range than the vibraphone, which gives me a bigger sound palette with more possibilities. I play the instrument with bows and mallets, and sometimes manipulate it with effects.”

Bird Ambience also marks his liberation from fastidious preparation for past solo releases to new endeavours in improvisation. “I prioritised trying to capture the wonder which happens during those occasional magic improv moments. Sometimes the mic-ing and placement of instruments was pretty rough; things weren’t perfect and everything was done quickly, but it turned out as the final recording. Overall when I

couldn’t decide between two takes, I told myself to go with the first”, Masayoshi recalls.



Arranged with a perfect Kanso-like balance, the unhurried pace of Bird Ambience allows each sound and phrase enough time to be mindfully absorbed and savoured. This subtle but affective work carries ethereal remnants of Midori Takada’s minimalism, the static atmospheres of Mika Vainio, To Rococo Rot’s organics and the bucolic electronics of Minotaur Shock. Fujita vaporises contemporary and classical, ambient and dismantled dub, controlled noise and fragments of jazz into an atmospheric, static mist, which he skilfully coerces into new forms.

After 13 years in Berlin, Masayoshi recently relocated to a new home and studio in the rural Japanese mountain village of Kami-cho, Hyogo, following his life-long dream of creating music in nature. Even though the album was entirely recorded in Germany before he left, it has this palpable sense of reverie found in the natural world. From there we can only imagine the kind of impact his new life in rural West Japan will have on future works.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bird Ambience
2. Thunder
3. Anakreon
4. Cumulonimbus Dream
5. Gaia
6. Noise Marimba Tape
7. Morocco
8. Miyama No Kitsune
9. Nord Ambient
10. Stellar
11. Pons
12. Fabric

Without change, there is no progression, and being stagnant has never been an option for Gizelle Smith. On her third album, Revealing, the singer flexes her newfound artistic freedom, moving past the creative limits that have kept her pigeonholed as a soul and funk artist for too long.

Born and raised in Manchester, with a multicultural upbringing steeped in soulful music, Gizelle was destined to follow in the footsteps of her father, Joe Smith, the former guitarist, musical director and songwriter for Motown stalwarts The Four Tops. She took up singing at a young age, and in 2009, cut her first album of gritty deep funk tunes with the Mighty Mocambos in Hamburg, Germany, followed by extensive touring throughout Europe. Her follow-up, Ruthless Day, was released nearly a decade later, also rooted in the sounds of soul ingrained in her musical DNA.

For her latest effort, Gizelle could have played it safe and recorded just another soul album. But in a tragic twist, the course of her future was altered forever by her father's death in 2019, which prompted a total creative reset. "I was pretty much emotionless towards music in general and I had lost all sense of direction with my own artistry," Gizelle says of her darkest hour. "My whole identity as a song-writer and musician vanished into the ether with my dad, like a cord had been severed." Unable to focus on the material she had already been working on, she decided to start from scratch, "because regardless of what was happening in my life, an album needed to be written." Hunkering down in New York City with her producer Steffen Wagner and her fiance, bassist Joseph Sam, she embarked on a 10-day writing spree.

The nine tunes emerging from this session represent a unique combination of R&B and funk, but the singer doesn't shy away from experimenting with pop and rock stylings. With her impressive yet restrainedly candid voice, laced with a combination of coolness and sensitivity that's near impossible to mimic, Gizelle communicates authenticity, a completely fraught concept and one absolutely central to her art. In many ways, Revealing is a testament to Gizelle's musical growth, personal freedom and maturity.

It also draws attention to her writing talents. When songwriters talk about life-altering experiences, they often do so in exaggerated tones. But Gizelle's songs don't come off overstated, they are grounded and relatable. Take the opener "Agony Road," an almost therapeutic exercise in dealing with the seven stages of grief. Or take "Better Remember (They're Controlling You)," which addresses social conditioning. "Three Tiny Seeds" is a testament to self love and spiritual growth, and "The Girl Who Cried Slow" serves as an inspirational hymn for personal fulfillment. "Over the years, I feel like my lyrics especially have become more meaningful and they are particularly important on this album," Gizelle says of her writing.

Viewed in the context of her evolving sound, Revealing is more of a logical continuation of Gizelle's music, not a radical departure from her background in soul and funk. For connoisseurs of Aretha Franklin or Lyn Collins, there's still plenty to love here, as long as you're allowing Gizelle to take you with her on her new path. "I have such a plethora of beautiful influences, I just want to channel and express myself in any musical way I want, across musical landscapes that I choose," she explains.

With Revealing, Gizelle Smith reveals herself. This is what freedom sounds like.

TRACK LISTING

1. Agony Road
2. Superstar
3. Better Remember (They're Controlling You)
4. Maybe Baby (Lovin' You Was Never Ideal)
5. The Girl Who Cried Slow
6. King Of The Mountain
7. Three Tiny Seeds
8. Miss World (Less Is More)
9. Riot Cars

"Perihelion" is Guido Spannocchi's fifth studio album. The singles "Cafezinho", "A walk in Yoyogi Park" and "Nighttime in Soho" are enjoying regular airplay on JazzFm thanks to Chirs Philips: "The singles are great, i can't wait for the full album" the tunes are equally prominent on Worldwide Fm thank to the various shows by Tina Edwards, Charles Vaughan, Jay Phelps and Alabaster dePlume.

Spannocchi has gathered an all-star group for his release featuring the talents of Jay Phelps on trumpet who is known for his work with Amy Winehouse, Reuben James, Soweto Kinch, Moses Boyd and many more, tenor saxophonist Sylvie Leys a Berklee alumni and George Garzone protegée is a fixture on the Parisian scene, Robert Mitchell who features on wurlitzer and piano is probably one of the UKs most important keyboard players and renowned for his work with Jean Toussaint, Steve Coleman, Omar Puente and most recently with his own project True Think, bassplayer Michelangelo Scandroglio is Italy's next generation Umbria Jazz price winner and current sideman of Enrico Rava, Logan Richardson, Seamous Blake as well as many of the new italian generation such as Emanuele Filippi. Tristan Banks is UKs No1 session drummer and has toured the world with the likes of Roy Ayers, Steve Winwood, Beverly Knight and Marcos Valle just to name a few.

Recorded at London's tastemaking hub the Total Refreshment Centre by "The Comet is Coming" engineer Kristian Craig Robinson, Jordan Parry and Raphael Spannocchi the release was mixed at Fondle Studios Munich and Audiomanufaktur Vienna and mastered at BlackBay Studios Scotland.

"Perihelion" is Spannocchi's most ambitious work weaving lush melodic lines with subtle interplay and generous arrangements all being first takes and no edits this album is as truthful to Jazz tradition as it is modern in sound and composition.

TRACK LISTING

1. Uphill Blues (feat. Jay Phelps, Sylvie Leys, Robert Mitchell, Michelangelo Scandroglio & Tristan Banks)
2. Key Drop (feat. Jay Phelps, Sylvie Leys, Robert Mitchell, Michelangelo Scandroglio & Tristan Banks)
3. Cafezinho (feat. Jay Phelps, Sylvie Leys, Robert Mitchell, Michelangelo Scandroglio & Tristan Banks)
4. Strutting In Six (feat. Jay Phelps, Sylvie Leys, Robert Mitchell, Michelangelo Scandroglio & Tristan Banks)
5. A Walk In Yoyogi Park (feat. Jay Phelps, Sylvie Leys, Robert Mitchell, Michelangelo Scandroglio & Tristan Banks)
6. Das Ist Die Frage (feat. Jay Phelps, Sylvie Leys, Robert Mitchell, Michelangelo Scandroglio & Tristan Banks)
7. 187 South (feat. Jay Phelps, Sylvie Leys, Robert Mitchell, Michelangelo Scandroglio & Tristan Banks)
8. Midweek 330am Club Tune (feat. Jay Phelps, Sylvie Leys, Robert Mitchell, Michelangelo Scandroglio & Tristan Banks)
9. Nighttime In Soho (feat. Jay Phelps, Sylvie Leys, Robert Mitchell, Michelangelo Scandroglio & Tristan Banks)

Having already explored the archives of a number of overlooked Greek composers, Into The Light is now turning its attention to the uncharted territory of Greek film soundtracks of the 70s and 80s - a boom period for mystical, transcendental arthouse cinema in Greece.

GOST: A Spiritual Exploration into Greek Soundtracks (1975-1989) is a passion project from the Greek filmmaker and composer Yannis Veslemes, that took years of engagement, exhaustive research and persistence. The collection features a mixture of rare, hard-to-find and previously unreleased material from musicians and composers including Yannis Kostidakis, Thesia, Dimitris Papadimitriou, Michalis Christodoulides, Stamatis Spanoudakis, Haris Xanthoudakis, Vangelis Katsoulis and Charlotte Van Gelder . All material is accompanied by detailed linear notes from the curator Veslemes, explaining the stories behind the tracks and the movies they first featured on.

The compilation celebrates the inventiveness and experimentation of Greek soundtrack composers in the ‘70s and ‘80s, by presenting a surprising mixture of musical hybrids that bridge the worlds of electronic and acoustic music, and compositions that bring together Western and Eastern musical traditions, in uniquely idiosyncratic ways.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Thesia - Parodos
A2. Yannis Kostidakis - BSA 1939
A3. Yannis Kostidakis - Petaloudas
B1. Dimitris Papadimitriou/Dimitris Lekkas - Rock Star Fantasy II
B2. Stamatis Spanoudakis - Prometheus
B3. Dimitris Papadimitriou - Erotic Scene
B4. Michalis Christodoulides - Phalanx
B5. Michalis Christodoulides - Death At The Dried Champaign
B6. Giorgos Hatzinasios - The Death Of Baby Jane
C1. Dionysis Savvopoulos - Wind/Glutch
C2. Christodoulos Halaris - On The Road
C3. Dimitris Papadimitriou/Dimitris Lekkas - The Dance Of The Hands/Love At The Sea
C4. Vangelis Katsoulis - Closed Window
C5. Christodoulos Halaris - Variation Of A Lie
D1. Giorgos Hatzinasio - Games With Old Flicks
D2. Haris Xanthoudakis - L, Comme Bunuel, Ou La Foret Des Symboles
D3. Charlotte Van Gelder - Karkalou

Following the incredible (and successful!) compilation Taiwan Disco, the master minds behind Aberrant Records present us with this delicious record.

Subtitled "Disco Divas, Funky Queens and Psych Ladies from Asia from the 70s to the early 90s" you don´t have to take a wild guess to figure out what you´ll find here, a treasure trove filled with exotic jewels from Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia and South Korea, from Asian Funk to Psych tinged awesomeness, Disco madness and much more. Dig it!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Chailai & Sawanee - Track 1
A2. Chantana Kittiyapan - Track 2
A3. Lei Si Si - Track 3
A4. Ding Dai - Track 4
A5. Yasmin - Hati Yang Sepi
A6. Wong Foong Foong - Track 6 
B1. XYZ - Track 7
B2. Fatimah Razak - Dahaga
B3. Chen Qiong Mei - Track 9
B4. Sum Sum & Pan Pan - Track 10
B5. Grace Simon - Hanya Semalam 
B6. Hit Girls - Track 12 

The mix was recorded at the end of 2020 as the planet was struggling with the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Danilo Plessow, known best for his work as Motor City Drum Ensemble, inserts statements from friends about the meaning of the music to people in these times, reaching globally for inspiration. He plays with a range of eras, locations and genres with an emphasis on instrumentation. The double vinyl format with download card features eleven full length tracks taken from the compilation. It highlights the rarer cuts across the 70s, 80s and 90s many of which have never before been digitally released. It includes ‘Nightfall’ – Danilo’s exclusive composition with jazz instrumentalists Francesco Geminiani and Peter Schlamb and ‘Taxi Mutant’ by Cabaret Voltaire that has been cut to vinyl for the first time here.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Understanding Body Messages
3. SKUAS - Traversée
4. Rhythm & Sound W/ Paul St. Hilaire - Music A Fe Rule Part 1
5. Scientist - In Orbit6. Recloose Ft Dwele – Can’t Take It (Herbert’s Some Dumb Dub)
7. Moogroove - Dark Room
8. Jeroen Vink - Waka Wakah
9. Powder - Random Ladder With 40
10. Danilo Plessow Ft. Francesco Geminiani & Peter Schlamb - Nightfall
11. Proxyan - Sky Walkers
12. Basic Variation - Decay Sustain Release
13. Ciel - Raindance
14. Hypnobeat - Can God Rewind? (Part 2)
15. Cabaret Voltaire - Taxi Mutant
16. THE ORDER - E.W.R. (Sex)
17. The Other People Place - It’s Your Love
18. $tinkworx - Mnemosyne
19. Roy Davis Jr - Broken Machines
20. Jonny L - This Time (Carl Craig Mix 2)
21. Logue - Keep Me From Pain
22. A² - Rebirth
23. Sansibar - Absence Of Being
24. Family Unit - Freak (House Mix)
25. Iridium - Ill America
26. Jean-Claude Petit - Stones Of Law
27. Moonstarr - Detriot
28. John Kongos – I'm Dreaming (Any Moment I May Wake Up Screaming)

A1: SKUAS - Traversée
A2: Scientist - In Orbit
A3: Jeroen Vink - Waka Wakah
B1: Moogroove - Dark Room
B2: Cabaret Voltaire - Taxi Mutant
C1: Logue - Keep Me From Pain
C2: Family Unit – Freak (House Mix)
C3: Iridium - Ill America
D1: Danilo Plessow Ft. Francesco Geminiani & Peter Schlamb - Nightfall
D2: THE ORDER - E.W.R. (Sex)
D3: Jean-Claude Petit - Stones Of Law

Soul Jazz Records’ new Studio One collection ‘Fire Over Babylon: Dread, Peace and Conscious Sounds at Studio One’ features a stellar selection of 70s roots music - classic and rare tracks recorded at Clement Dodd’s musical empire at 13 Brentford Road in the 1970s.

Rastafarian-inspired Roots music was an ever-important aspect of Studio One’s output from the start of the 1970s onwards and this album features many of the groundbreaking groups and artists that established the sound of Jamaica during this decade and beyond.

Featured here are seminal artists such as Freddie McGregor, The Wailing Souls, The Gladiators, Horace Andy, Devon Russell, Cedric Brooks, Count Ossie and Judah Eskender Tafari alongside a host of lesser-known rare cuts made at Studio One from artists such as The Prospectors, Viceroys and Pablove Black.

Studio One and founder Clement Dodd’s connection with Rastafarianism dates back to the early 1960s, with Dodd accompanying members of the Skatalites up to the hills of Kingston to listen to the music of the Rastafarian Count Ossie and his drummers. The album sleevenotes discuss how Clement Dodd’s musical links, as well as his role in heading the most important record label in Reggae, are in many ways linked to the beliefs of Rastafarianism.

TRACK LISTING

Freddie McGregor - I Am A Revolutionist
The Silvertones - Burning In My Soul
Wailing Souls - Without You
Devon Russell - Jah Jah Fire
Trevor Clarke - Sufferation
The Gladiators - Sonia
Judah Eskender Tafari - Always Trying
The Viceroys - Ya Ho
Im And Count Ossie - Give Me Back Me Language And Me Culture
The Gladiators - Serious Thing
The Prospectors - Glory For I
Wailing Souls - Things And Time
Pablove Black - Inner Peace
The Gladiators - Peace
Horace Andy - Mr. Jolly Man
Wailing Souls - Rock But Don’t Fall
Albert Griffiths And The Gladiators - Righteous Man
So Many Problems - The Viceroys

Music From Memory turns 50 with a special release "Virtual Dreams: Ambient Explorations In The House & Techno Age, 1993-1997". The first in a series of compilations, alongside more in depth artist-focused releases, "Virtual Dreams" will delve into music produced during the 1990’s that redefined the boundaries of ‘Ambient’. This was music that explored the possibilities of Ambient music within a new setting, created often by House & Techno music producers for a world beyond dance floors but made very much with the pre and post-clubbing listener in mind.

When House and Techno exploded out of America in the mid 1980s a whole generation was redefined not only musically but also culturally and chemically speaking. Peaking, quite literally, with a second ‘Summer of Love’ in 1988, millions of young people across the world would experience the life-changing ups of a brave new world but with it of course came the downs; enter the concept of a ‘Chill-out’ room. Whilst early Chill-out rooms lacked a specific sound and were often soundtracked by music such as reggae and soul, slowly young Techno and House producers themselves would become increasingly interested in developing a futuristic ‘Ambient’ soundtrack to a world beyond the thud of the main room.

‘Ambient’ in this new age now though had sharper teeth than in Brian Eno's key text for ‘Music for Airports’, instead here the sounds were the mode of transport rather than the backdrop. While the melodies were pretty, the soundscape steered away from the pastoral, dreaming of outer-space and technology as opening up exciting new dimensions. Much like in the first Summer Of Love; the musicians were again exploring psychedelic, mind-altering and transcendental possibilities of music. And also much as in the first Summer Of Love, a psychedelic visual language would accompany the music. Though now the tracks could be accompanied by music videos, utilising early CGI techniques, they would look almost entirely to the future: envisioning technology, nature and humanity intertwined in a new Utopian future. Virtual Dreams of a better world.

From Ambient and early Chill-out classics, to lesser known one-off projects, as well as Ambient deviations by some of House and Techno’s leading producers, Volume One of Virtual Dreams features tracks by Bedouin Ascent, LA Synthesis, LFO, Marc Hollander, Mark Pritchard & Kirsty Hawkshaw, Richard H. Kirk and more.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. MLO - Birds & Flutes
2. Pulusha - Isolation (part Two)
3. Space Time Continuum - Fluresence
Side 2
1. David Moufang - Sergio Leone's Wet Dream
2. LA Synthesis - Frozen Tundra (dub)
Side 3
1. Richard H Kirk - Oneski
2. A Positive Life - The Calling (Loved'Ub Mix)
Side 4
1. Sideral - Mare Nostrum
2. Primitive Painter - Levitation
3. Sun Electric - Love 2 Love
Side 5
1. LFO - Helen
2. Dubtribe Sound System - Sunshine's Theme (Sunshine Remix)
3. Human Mesh Dance - 8 (Infinit)
Side 6
1. Link - Arcadian (Global Communication Remix)
2. The Arc - Orphic Mysteries
3. Bedouin Ascent - Joyriding III

The 1980s in the West saw the widespread use of synthesized sound technology, previously largely unobtainable for amateurs because of its price.
At that time in Great Britain synthesizers - cheaper and produced in bigger batches - found their way into the hands of youth raised on punk rock. In the US, the first samplers were already being used in hip hop, Roland's mass-produced drum machines and bass synthesizers were about to target suburban adolescents, while techno and acid house were emerging.

In communist Poland - then part of the Eastern Bloc - access to electronic instruments was still a different story. They were mostly only to be found in the recording studios of the state-run radio and television, some units were imported by western diplomats or Poles working on foreign contracts, and Soviet-made instruments were brought by soldiers of the Red Army stationed in Poland.

The album titled "Echo Wielkiej Plyty" (eng. The Echoes of Plattenbau) features a number of long-forgotten or never before released recordings of electronic music created in the mid 1980s.
These are unique and characteristic of the Polish scene, yet difficult to categorise, often hovering between the world-chasing trend of 'el-music', as it was dubbed in Poland, and muzak, often reduced to merely a background role in television programmes on science and computers.

The first compilation in the catalog of The Very Polish Cut Outs label is surely an attempt to acquaint listeners all over the world with some of the less known or completely forgotten representatives of the Polish electronic music scene, who in the 80s, despite limited access to equipment, created truly fascinating and diverse compositions.

All pieces were dug up and hand-picked by Maciej Zambon and Norbert Borzym, both of whom are also responsible for Renata Lewandowska's amazing album "Dotyk", release last year.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Andrzej Mikolajczak - Ring Modulator
A2. Andrzej Mikolajczak - Tori
A3. Andrzej Mikolajczak - Nocna Eskapada
B1. Grupo Jot - Pamietnik Manekina (Instrumental)
B2. Wojciech Jagielski - Salatka Z Bananow
B3. Wojciech Jagielski - Sniadanie Pod Palma
B4. Jacek Skubikowski - Ekstrakcja
C1. Krzysztof Duda - Robotron
C2. Krzysztof Duda - Tascam
C3. Mikolaj Hertel - Wewnetrzny Puls
C4. Mikolaj Hertel - Powitania I Rozstania
D1. Stefan Sendecki - Take Off (Instrumental)
D2. Stefan Sendecki - Tape Hunters
D3. Stefan Sendecki - Astrozaglowiec

From the vaults of Studio One comes an eclectic grouping of rare shots picked from the treasure chest of the label's releases. Here album tracks by Willie Williams, Lennie Hibbert and Freddie McGregor are joined by rarer releases by the Conquerors, Cool Operator, Roy Richards and the Freedom Singers. Also included are alternate versions of songs like "All the Way" and "Jah Light" as well as "Pirates Choice" that have circulated among Studio One collectors for some years. All tracks are taken from their original master tapes and completely remastered by GRAMMY-winning engineer Toby Mountain.

TRACK LISTING

1. Willie Williams - All The Way (Alternate Mix)
2. The Conquerors - You Hold The Handle
3. Lennie Hibbert - Chinese Beauty
4. Freddie McGregor - Sweet Child
5. Roy Richards - Dirty People
6. Roland Alphonso & The Brentford Disco Set - Jah Light
7. Brentford Rockers - Pirates Choice
8. Freedom Singers - Black Is Black (Original Mix)
9. Freedom Singers - Black Is Black (Single Mix)
10. The Main Roots - Plead My Cause
11. The Soul Rebels - Bongo Skank
12. Cool Operator & The New Establishment - Heart Breaker
13. Studio One Band - Jah Light Dub

50th anniversary of the legendary Philadelphia International Records label founded in 1971 by innovative & prolific songwriters/producers Kenneth Gamble & Leon Huff. This superb compilation showcases the sophisticated Philly Soul sound associated with the label also known as “The Sound of Philadelphia". Featuring the legendary roster of music stars who helped bring these chart topping disco, R&B, soul and funk sounds to life The O’Jays Patti LaBelle, Harold Melvin & the Blue-Notes, Billy Paul, Teddy Pendergrass, Lou Rawls, McFadden Whitehead, The Three Degrees, Phyllis Hyman, The Intruders & the ultimate “house band” MFSB. 

TRACK LISTING

Back Stabbers – The O’jays
The Love I Lost (part 1) – Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
Me And Mrs. Jones – Billy Paul
When Will I See You Again – The Three Degrees
You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine – Lou Rawls
T.s.o.p. (the Sound Of Philadelphia) – Mfsb (featuring The Three Degrees)
Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now – Mcfadden & Whitehead
If You Don’t Know Me By Now – Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
I’ll Always Love My Momma – The Intruders
Love Train – The O’jays
Close The Door – Teddy Pendergrass
If Only You Knew – Patti Labelle

Gruff Rhys is releasing his new album “Seeking New Gods” through Rough Trade Records on 21st May. This will be Gruff’s seventh solo album. “Seeking New Gods” was recorded following a US tour with his band and mixed in LA with superstar producer Mario C (Beastie Boys).

The album concept was originally driven to be the biography of a mountain, Mount Paektu (an East Asian active volcano). However, as Gruff’s writing began to reflect on the inhuman timescale of a peak’s existence and the intimate features that bring it to mythological life, both the songs and the mountain became more and more personal.

“The album is about people and the civilisations, and the spaces people inhabit over periods of time. How people come and go but the geology sticks around and changes more slowly. I think it’s about memory and time,” he suggests of Seeking New Gods’ meaning. “It’s still a biography of a mountain, but now it’s a Mount Paektu of the mind. You won’t learn much about the real mountain from listening to this record but you will feel something, hopefully.” - Gruff Rhys.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Gruff returns for yet another faultless slab of widescreen cinematic pop, full of his warmingly familiar but endlessly inventive chord progressions and swoon-inducing vocal drawl. Optimistic but filled with more introspective moments among the otherwise bombastic stomp. It's as dizzying and perfect as anything he's ever done. Peak Gruff.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Mausoleum Of My Former Self
2. Can’t Carry On
3. Loan Your Loneliness
4. Seeking New Gods
5. Hiking In Lightning
Side B
1. Holiest Of The Holy Of The Holy Men
2. The Keep
3. Everlasting Joy
4. Distant Snowy Peaks

Dinked Edition Flexi Disc
Tropical Messiah

Next up on Polytechnic Youth, comes the long planned and completely fabulous debut full length from Manchester based solo artist APTA. The wonderful “Rainbow Islands” follows its initial cassette only release from last year on “With Bells Records” which piqued the interest of PY head, Dom- via pointers from mutual friends….

The album comprises 8 killer tracks of crystal clean, melodic electronica- rich in subtle layers, seemingly simple and precise yet with hooks aplenty and incredibly rewarding. In Barry APTA’s own words: “'There’s something that triggers when we see or hear something that held an important place in our childhood; and a recent article about arcade games like ‘Bubble Bobble’ reminded me of the playing Rainbow Islands on the Atari ST in the 90’s. The clash of colour and sound, the shape of the character models and the enemies and the overall feel of the experience is something that came out easily in the studio. Rainbow Islands (NG+) isn't a re-soundtracking, it's a representation of the ‘feel’ I get when I think about it. Calming and synthetic, upbeat but with moments of frenetic activity. It's a wistful, musical representation of my childlike patience and rose-tinted memories."

Following last year’s 5” lathe cut 45 on PY, and releases / appearances on offerings from the likes of Woodford Halse, Black Beacon Sound, Castles in Space; The LP is expanded (by one track) from the cassette version and is released on yellow vinyl in a pressing of 300 whilst APTA himself handle digital via the bandcamp page. Strongly recommended!

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Fetishizing over technicoloured 16-bit soundscapes while your favourite C64 video game characters appear like entities thru a rose-tinted lucid dream? Look no further! Our in-house modular technician and computer game soundtrack composer extraordinaire, Barry is here under his APTA alias to whisk you away on a Tamagotchi canoe. All aboard the Atari-ST express!

TRACK LISTING

1. Loading
2. Act One
3. Putty's Party Video
4. Simulated Space Video
5. Reloading
6. Retry?
7. 10CC
8. Putty's Party (Slumber)

Kurt Wagner's signature brittle baritone is back, but that doesn't mean we're going to get a nostalgic Alt Country album. Showtunes is a continuation of Lambchop's explorations of new sound worlds and opens up another chapter. Each track is an exciting journey with an uncertain destination.

With Showtunes, as he has done so many times throughout his varied and fascinating career, Kurt in late 2019 was experimenting with something new. He took simple guitar tracks and converted them into midi piano tracks. It was a revelation that from those conversions he was able to manipulate each note and add, subtract, arrange the chords and melody into a form that didn't have any of the limitations he had with his previous methods of writing with a guitar.

Removing these limitations led to a surprising new sound, something akin to showtunes but with edges sanded down and viewed through Kurt's own specific lens. it's a genre he was none too fond of with the exceptions of a few Great American Songbook type of stuff or some of the works of artists like Tom Waits, early Randy Newman or even Gershwin or Carmichael. “I’d always wanted to make songs with a similar feel but my skills were limited until now” says Wagner.

“Anyone can be in Lambchop (so long as they behave themselves)” - Kurt Wagner.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Another wonderfully mournful, rich outing from lambchop here, leaning heavily on the slow-country roots of their early work but imbued with a heartbreaking tentative unease. Jazzy horns and slow upright bass licks help to lend a levity to proceedings, but still results in a thoroughly beautiful and unsettling whole.

TRACK LISTING

A1. A Chef's Kiss
A2. Drop C
A3. Papa Was A Rolling Stone Journalist
A4. Fuku
B5. Unknown Man
B6. Blue Leo
B7. Impossible Meatballs
B8. The Last Benedict

Intruder is the first new music from the iconic and influential Gary Numan since 2017’s album Savage: Songs From a Broken World, which charted at #2 in the UK.

Intruder sees Gary reunite with producer Ade Fenton, who previously produced four critically acclaimed albums for Numan: Jagged, Dead Son Rising, Splinter and Savage.

With a career that has spanned nearly four decades, his approach to electronic music remains an inspiration to artists across genres and eras, from stadium goliaths such as Depeche Mode, Prince and Nine Inch Nails to alternative heroes such as Beck, Damon Albarn and Marilyn Manson. Even Kanye West owes him a debt, and David Bowie once credited him with “writing two of the finest songs” in British music.

Gary has had 23 top 40 singles and 15 top 40 albums in the UK. The British electro pioneer was also awarded the Inspiration Award for songwriting and composition at the Ivor Novellos in 2017.

2020 saw Gary release his critically acclaimed rollercoaster of an autobiography, (R)evolution.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: There's always a rightful furore when Gary Numan releases new music. As one of the pioneers of Synth music as we know it today, it really is hard to overstate his importance, and this newest outing just goes to show why. A brilliantly inventive and constantly groundbreaking artist with a seemingly endless pool of musical expertise.

TRACK LISTING

Betrayed
The Gift
I Am Screaming
Intruder
Is This World Not Enough
A Black Sun
The Chosen
And It Breaks Me Again
Saints And Liars
Now And Forever
The End Of Dragons

Deluxe CD
Includes Bonus Track When You Fall (12 Tracks Total)

Vinyl 2LP
Includes Bonus Tracks When You Fall And The End Of Dragons (Alt) (13 Tracks Total)

Colleen is an aboundingly inventive composer and artist. For two decades Cécile Schott, as Colleen, has crafted welcoming, enchanting, and bewildering music. The multiinstrumentalist and vocalist’s timeless compositions make use of carefully selected tools to mold memories into transcendent splendor. The Tunnel and the Clearing finds Schott at her most vulnerable and confident, invoking contemplative and swirling organ processed through analog electronics, steady drum machine syncopations and her distinctive voice. On an album centered on processing the complicated washes of emotion through tribulations and revelations Colleen presents a vision of breathless clarity.

The Tunnel and the Clearing was developed over a period of transformative change. Colleen began work on the album in 2018 but was all but halted by extreme fatigue from a previously undiagnosed illness. Years of treatment and adjustment eventually led to relocating to Barcelona, soon followed by lockdowns and then the dissolution of her longtime partnership. Reflecting on these cumulative experiences she reimagined her compositional practices, spending months in near complete silence. Says Schott, “Never before had I felt so profoundly the power that music has, through harmony, melody, rhythm and sound itself, to express the whole range of human emotions.” The resulting seven pieces investigate the complex, at times contradictory relationship between excitement and fear, anger and understanding, struggle and triumph, all focused on a reconstruction of the self.

Colleen’s albums are unified by distinct and personal instrumentation, built around music boxes, viola da gamba, or electronics, they somehow all remarkably share a dreamlike modern quality. For The Tunnel and the Clearing Schott restricted herself to using analog electronic instruments including the Elka Drummer One, the Roland RE-201 Space Echo and Moog Grandmother synth, coupled with Yamaha organ keyboard. Stunningly, Colleen achieves the rich emotional intricacy and the lush density of textures on The Tunnel and the Clearing through almost entirely live performance and processing. These detailed and affecting compositions mirror Colleen’s grappling with her own psyche. Schott elaborates “I found direct correspondences between my internal discourse, its obsessive, frantic attempts at making sense of what I could not understand, and the music I was making, with motifs functioning as questions and answers, doubts and assertions.” Clicks, hums, warbles and throbs emulating our evolving internal worlds, an “emotional noise.” A musical journey through the tunnel toward the clearing at its end. The Tunnel and the Clearing is a work of lucid reverence, a constellation of marvels suspended in air.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: A beautifully produced juxtaposition of Space Lady-esque echoing vocal shards and slowly pulled organ swells, flickering drum machines and psychedelic reverb, 'The Tunnel..' is both brilliantly propulsive and warmingly lysergic, ending up somewhere between an arm-waving midday festival slot and loose, chillout room ambience. Really lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Crossing
2. Revelation
3. Implosion-Explosion
4. The Tunnel And The Clearing
5. Gazing At Taurus - Santa Eulalia
6. Gazing At Taurus - Night Sky Rumba
7. Hidden In The Current

With Afrique Victime the prodigious Tuareg guitarist and songwriter rips a new hole in the sky ­– boldly reforging contemporary Saharan music and “rock music” by melding guitar pyrotechnics, full-blast noise, and field recordings with poetic meditations on love, religion, women's rights, inequality, and Western Africa’s exploitation at the hands of colonial powers.

The music listeners are the beneficiaries of the staggeringly powerful do-it-yourself musical ethic of Mdou Moctar – the man and the band – who’ve worked so hard to bring the spirits of families and communities in Niger to the West. Afrique Victime sounds and feels like a Tuareg hand reaching down from the sky, and we are very lucky for this chance to get lifted.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: As far as Tuareg music goes, things don't get much more incendiary than this. Soaring, rolling bass and gymnastic guitar screams perfectly blend into a brain-melting mixture of groove and grit. A thoroughly bracing and riotously exciting listen.

TRACK LISTING

Chismiten
Taliat
Ya Habibti
Tala Tannam
Untitled
Asdikte Akal
Layla
Afrique Victime
Bismilahi Atagah

Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1 is a collection of eight improvised modular pieces recorded in various studio spaces across London in the spring and summer of 2019 by Sunroof, aka Daniel Miller, the Founder and Chairman of Mute and Gareth Jones, a producer and engineer, notable for working with Depeche Mode, Einstürzende Neubauten, Erasure and Yann Tiersen.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: A selection of deep modular cuts, blipping oscillators and paddling arpeggios, imbued with the spirit of experimental German synth music but brought to you by a couple of already legendary names in the music biz. It's entrancing and immersive experimental synth music at its best.

Flora Fauna is the forthcoming third album from Billie Marten.

Raised in the rolling hills of North Yorkshire on artists such as Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, Joan Armatrading, and Kate Bush, Marten’s critically acclaimed debut album Writing of Blues and Yellows, was released in 2016 when she was still just 17, while its follow-up Feeding Seahorses By Hand was similarly lauded in 2019 (# 53 in UK album chart).

Flora Fauna, was recorded with Rich Cooper in London. Marten’s new material blends those signature hushed, resonant vocals with a rapid pulse and rich instrumentation, her inspirations now stretching from krautrockers Can, to Broadcast, Arthur Russell, and Fiona Apple.

Built on the minimalist acoustic folk foundations she made a name for herself with, Flora Fauna is a more mature, embodied album fostered around a strong backbone of bass and rhythm. Shedding the timidity of previous work in favour of a more urgent sound, the songs mark a period of personal independence for Marten as she learned to nurture herself and break free from toxic relationships - and a big part of that was returning to nature.

“I wasn’t really treating myself very well, it was a bit of a disruptive time. All these songs are about getting myself out of that hole - they’re quite strong affirmations. The name Flora Fauna is like a green bath for my eyes. If the album was a painting, it would look like flora and fauna - it encompasses every organism, every corner of Earth, and a feeling of total abundance.”

STAFF COMMENTS

says: An uplifting and verdant mix of acoustic guitar, boisterous percussion and bursts of orchestral heft. Martin's voice soars above it all providing a beautifully grounding counterpoint to the jubilant instrumentation. Wonderfully textured and celebratory songwriting throughout.

TRACK LISTING

1. Garden Of Eden
2. Creature Of Mine
3. Human Replacement
4. Liquid Love
5. Heaven
6. Ruin
7. Pigeon
8. Kill The Clown
9. Walnut
10. Aquarium

It’s not easy to summarize any band whose career has stretched over two decades. In the case of Growing, though, it’s all in the name: since 2001, the core duo of Kevin Doria and Joe DeNardo have been making vibrating, explorative experimental music that is in a forever state of evolution. In that time, they have amassed a hard-to-define and influential body of work, and Diptych sees the band operating at the height of their “big amp ambient” powers.

Diptych is a masterclass in slowly undulating ambient drift, and quite possibly the definitive headphone album of the year. Guitars that sound like organs pointed at the heavens are cut with subtly damaged electronic moves, the end result being a record that is at once ecstatic, transportive and gritty.

Ambient and new age music have become part of the larger indie vocabulary. Things were different over twenty years ago in the Olympia, Washington punk community where Doria and DeNardo got their start. Both veterans of aggressive music by the time the band began, Growing emerged like a rainbow at the other end of the heavy music tunnel: loud as ever, but with a sonic and aesthetic position that ran counter to punk rock norms.

Created over the past year and a half, Diptych extrapolates on Growing’s formative drone-based work, showing a unit in full control of a language that they have built and reconfigured over time. The music here continues to be an intuitive outgrowth of a friendship that started in late-90s Olympia and still bears fruit today—even as each member lives in a different city.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: A wonderful, immersive slow-moving drift of an album. Huge tectonic waves of ambience slowly shift and morph, fluttering organic arps echo and brimming with resonant harmonics. It's a gorgeous, plaintive new-age wonder.

TRACK LISTING

1. Variable Speeds
2. Down + Distance

Indigo Sparke brings her deeply personal lived experiences to her music, highlighting the spaces between the polarity of softness and grit. Pulling from her experiences of addiction, of healing, of queerness, of heartbreak, of joy, of connection, of the softness and of the grit alchemizing it all into tenderness through her music, she conjures up a myriad of feelings that is undeniably potent.

Echo was co-produced by Sparke, Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker and Andrew Sarlo.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Brittle, lightly distorted guitar tastefully underpins the tender vocal delivery, swimming with influences from 70's psych folk to the minimalistic acoustic songwriting of Buckley or Joplin. Soulful and beautifully minimalistic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Colourblind
2. Undone
3. Bad Dreams
4. Carnival
5. Dog Bark Echo
6. Golden Age
7. Wolf
8. Baby
9. Everything Everything

Blackaby - aka London songwriter and multi-instrumentalist William Blackaby - offers-up his first two EPs - 'What's On The TV?' and 'Everything's Delicious' - on limited edition, random coloured recycled 12" vinyl, out 21st May 2021. Blackaby’s 2020 debut EP ‘What’s On The TV?’, released via Hand In Hive, served as a look back at the songwriter’s childhood, recounting hazy playground memories and his messy, formative teenage years. His second collection, ‘Everything’s Delicious’, is described by Blackaby as “another brief flirt with memory lane - not walking down it as much as peering from a safe distance”. In a poem written to accompany the new EP, William writes: “All grown up and what now? Let Time-Out decide. Is that a thin patch? Another day done and dinner’s on. What have I done? Left a mark or a stain?”

TRACK LISTING

1. What's On The TV?
2. Stevenson
3. Warm And Sweet
4. Semolina
5. Sweet Lemonade
6. My Paula
7. No Long Grass
8. Bubblegum
9. Lee

This long-awaited LP is finally finished. We agreed to put this record out a long time ago, and various issues got in the way of getting it finished. I have to say if it were not for Covid this record would likely remain unfinished. BLACK PUS is a BRIAN CHIPPENDALE music project outside of his band LIGHTNING BOLT. Same frantic drumming and distorted vocals you would expect from a Lightning Bolt record. The Bass is replaced with Oscillators.
In Brian’s words 'I created this album at a moment when Lightning Bolt was mired in a creative muck'.

The covers are assembled from used record jackets with new artwork applied. A nod to Sun Ra’s record aesthetic that both Brian and we here at Limited Appeal admire and was an inspiration to our record cover assembly of the label. We took a lot of time culling through the record covers we acquired to accomplish this project. With that said you may receive a record cover that has some wear along the edge, or a saw cut to signify the previous record within the jacket was a promo. Keep in mind these jackets were from previously loved records and thus will not be perfect.”

Monster Magnet's A Better Dystopia dominates with a psychotic selection of proto-metal and psych-rock obscurities! "Take a trip inside the mind of psychedelic rock legend Dave Wyndorf with Monster Magnet's A Better Dystopia – a delightfully psychotic selection of proto-metal and late-era psych songs that fit the band like a glove! With wonderfully obscure song choices and excellent sequencing, the mighty Magnet pay homage to some of their favorite songs of all time, crafting another exciting and unique listening experience alike what they’ve become famous for. While the album marks a new frontier for Monster Magnet as their first covers record, this is not your typical set of standards released to pass time. Wyndorf is at the top of his game on A Better Dystopia – howling, crooning, speaking… whatever it takes to get the emotional message of these very special tunes across, delivering each lyric in his own inimitable style. Musicians Phil Caivano, Bob Pantela, Garrett Sweeney and Alec Morton own the sound on A Better Dystopia – vintage and old school, dense and heavy, with searing fuzz leads and pounding bass and drums all played in a deft style that's almost been lost in modern music..

TRACK LISTING

1. The Diamond Mine
2. Born To Go
3. Epitaph For A Head
4. Solid Gold Hell
5. Be Forewarned
6. Mr. Destroyer
7. When The Wolf Sits
8. Death
9. Situation
10. It’s Trash
11. Motorcycle
12. Learning To Die
13. Welcome To The Void

‘Kick The Ladder’ the anticipated debut album from Icelandic composer and songwriter Kaktus Einarsson, frontman of post-punk outfit Fufanu, will be released by One Little Independent on May 7th. It was produced by Kaktus, alongside Swiss electronic composer Kurt Uenala, and finished in New York City. It draws heavily on the concept of how we as a society relate to our surroundings, whether it’s environmental or personal. 

TRACK LISTING

Kick The Ladder
Ocean’s Heart
Hypnotized
No Runaway
Daydream Echo
Gone To Bed
My Driver
45rpm
Story Of Charms
One Of Those
Space Soul
Chimes

The twelfth studio record by Refrigerator expands the line-up to five with the addition of Mark Givens from WCKR SPGT on second guitar. Along for the ride are guest appearances by legendary singer Claudia Lennear (vocals on the first single “Broken Glass Shore”), Shrimper Records stalwart Franklin Bruno, and the additional hand of Scott Solter, who mixed the record, which rests in a gorgeous sleeve with artwork by Jean Smith. The lovely live bleed of a band playing together in one room— guitars spilling onto the drum tracks, cymbals biting into the feedback from the amps—captures the live sound of Refrigerator as never before on record as caught by engineer Steve Folta.

There are two physical versions of the record, one on black 160 gram vinyl, as well as a deluxe edition, available on green and white swirled vinyl that couples a bonus CD with six tracks to a fifty page Bamboo Dart Press chapbook that features drawings, short stories, photographs, lyrics and essays by the band, in an edition of 150 copies.

TRACK LISTING

1. Broken Glass Shore
2. Drink Ourselves To Death
3. David Jove The Acid King
4. Tulsa
5. Time Well Wasted
6. Another Ghost Town
7. Corvette Winter
8. All The People I Lied To Are Dead Now
9. Greyhound Sundown
10. Part Time Lover Part II
11. From Eternity To 4AM
12. Masks In The Morning
13. I Could Be Anything
14. Jealousy Is Gone

Over three decades as the unassuming but pivotal figure behind some of Scotland’s most iconic pop, Jim McCulloch steps out of the shadows and onto centre stage with his debut solo album. The former Soup Dragon perfects his mastery of songcraft on When I Mean What I Say, released on Violette Records on 21 May 2021.

Lush and textured, delicate and intriguing, When I Mean What I Say is immersed in the melodic tapestries of Laurel Canyon but rooted in Jim’s life in his hometown of Glasgow. Written in Donegal’s wild Atlantic coast and recorded pre-Lockdown in Glasgow’s downtown Gorbals district, the warmth of the album’s classic pop and its lyrical openness transports the listener to an emotional and harmonic timelessness far from 2020’s claustrophobia.

Jim: “Violette Records are kindred spirits in the music world. Their ethos, aesthetic and generosity of spirit chime with me. Once I had finished the album, they were the only record company I sent it off to-the only record company I thought could do it justice.”

TRACK LISTING

Augmented :
1. Blacksticks Boogie
2. Chorus Of Lists
3. Augmented Yet Diminished
4. Downbeat
5. Shining Bright
Diminished:
1. Open & Shut
2. Come Little Waves Of Light
3. I Hope I Can Read The Forecast
4. When I Mean What I Say

Released in August 2020 to much acclaim, as well as receiving many accolades as one of the best albums of 2020, Duval Timothy presents "Help (2021 edition)".

This new and limited edition is released independently by Duval Timothy’s Carrying Colour label, fashion brand and shop. It comes on 2 x 140g milky clear vinyl, with new 2 x 12" square posters and shrink-wrapped.

"Help" was recorded in London and Los Angeles, and reveals the artists' experience traversing the meshes of the music industry, mental health, YouTube self-help videos, and the healing he discovered through friendship and collaboration. Co-produced by Rodaidh McDonald (King Krule, The XX) and Marta Salogni (Bjork), with collaborations from Lil Silva, Melanie Faye, Vegyn, Desta Haile, Mr Mitch, Dave Okumo, and Twin Shadow amongst others.

Duval Timothy is a multidisciplinary artist, whose practise is centred around colour and involves the use of music, photography, textiles, painting, sculpture, design, cooking and video. In between delivering a celebrated cookbook for Penguin Books, and an interactive installation at Tate Modern Turbine Hall, Duval makes music, which is sampled by the likes of Solange and Loyle Carner and collaborates frequetly with cktrl, Vegyn, Kwes, and Mr Mitch.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Next Tomorrow
A2. Slave Feat. Twin Shadow
A3 TDAGB
A4. Fall Again Feat. Lil Silva And Melanie Faye
A5. 9
B1. Groundnut Feat. Twin Shadow
B2. Like
B3. Radish
B4. Something Feat. Mr Mitch
C1. Alone
C2. Still Happened
C3. Look
C4. Same
D1. Ice
D2. C
D3. U
D4. Morning
D5. Pink

The award winning compilation series Future Disco returns with it’s 14th instalment ‘Dance Club’, an embodiment and celebration of dancing, unity and togetherness, packed with key artists such as Dimitri From Paris, Dr Packer, Gerd Janson, Aeroplane & more.

Eighteen carefully curated tracks by label owner and curator Sean Brosnan. Featured on the album are some of the finest selections of disco, and club ready DJ tools to soundtrack the summer of 2021 and beyond. The album also features a raft of exclusives, edits and unreleased tracks from Theo Kottis, New World, Antenna, and The Showfa.

Sean comments on the concept:

‘The dance club is a concept that focuses on the most important aspect of dance music - the dancing itself. This album is a celebration album, which sounds strange in such difficult times, but it’s a celebration of dancing and how we have so badly missed this expression. How we are ging to dance again in the future and it’s going to be better and bigger than ever.’

Opening proceedings, Dimitri from Paris is an obvious choice and Yusek’s remix of ‘Can’t Get Enough’ is a holding hands together moment that pours sunlight over you in rejoice.

Ron Basejam’s rework of label signee Black Hawks of Panama sets the tone, with an upright funk selection that bellows its bass with adorn. And a regular to the series, COEO drives through a melodic transition to early 90’s rave, with embracing power-chords that reverberate the kick drum.

Drawing out the excursion, Hot Creations aficionado Jansons, takes on remix duties for Tommy Farrow’s 2020 belter ‘Let’s Just’, which saw widespread success, reaching BBC Radio 1 playlisting and nearing 1m streams. This main room powerhouse of a record is fittingly escorted by Catz n Dogs and Gerd Janson’s epically euphoric ‘Modern Romance’.

TRACK LISTING

CD1: Mixed:
1. Dimitri From Paris & Aeroplane Featuring Leela - Can’t Get Enough (Yuksek Remix)
2. Titeknots – On My Mind
3. Black Hawks Of Panama Feat. Bisi - Feel For You (Ron Basejam Remix)
4. Theo Kottis - Seventies (Theo’s Future Disco Edit) [Exclusive]
5. Chevals - All I Wanna Do Is Love You
6. New World - Glances (Future Disco Vocal Edit) [Exclusive]
7. COEO - I Can Never Be Yours
8. Antenna - L’atellier [Exclusive]
9. Jex Opolis - Listen To The Band
10. Kahwe - All Day
11. Hustlers Convention - Final (Dr Packer Remix)
12. Gerd Janson & Jacques Renault - Never Saw Never
13. The Showfa - Joy (Future Disco’s More Joy Edit) [Exclusive]
14. Mix & Fairbanks - Red Light Runner
15. Tommy Farrow - Let’s Just (Jansons Remix)
16. Catz N Dogz & Gerd Janson - Modern Romance (Original Mix)
17. Emil Rottmayer - L.E.V.E.L
18. Ekkah - Wendy’s Yard (Gilligan Moss Remix)

CD2 : Unmixed :
1. Dimitri From Paris & Aeroplane Featuring Leela - Can’t Get Enough (Yuksek Remix)
2. Titeknots – On My Mind
3. Black Hawks Of Panama Feat. Bisi - Feel For You (Ron Basejam Remix)
4. Theo Kottis - Seventies (Theo’s Future Disco Edit)
5. New World - Glances (Future Disco Vocal Edit)
6. COEO - I Can Never Be Yours
7. Antenna - L’atellier
8. Kahwe - All Day
9. Hustlers Convention - Final (Dr Packer Remix)
10. Gerd Janson & Jacques Renault - Never Saw Never
11. Mix & Fairbanks - Red Light Runner
12. Tommy Farrow - Let’s Just (Jansons Remix)
13. Catz N Dogz & Gerd Janson - Modern Romance (Original Mix)
14. Ekkah - Wendy’s Yard (Gilligan Moss Remix)

LP:
A1. Dimitri From Paris & Aeroplane Featuring Leela - Can’t Get Enough (Yuksek Remix)
A2. Titeknots – On My Mind
A3. Black Hawks Of Panama Feat. Bisi - Feel For You (Ron Basejam Remix)
A4. Theo Kottis - Seventies (Theo’s Future Disco Edit)
B1. Chevals - All I Wanna Do Is Love You
B2. New World - Glances (Future Disco Vocal Edit)
B3. COEO - I Can Never Be Yours
B4. Jex Opolis - Listen To The Band
C1. Kahwe - All Day
C2. Hustlers Convention - Final (Dr Packer Remix)
C3. Gerd Janson & Jacques Renault - Never Saw Never
C4. The Showfa - Joy (Future Disco’s More Joy Edit)
D1. Tommy Farrow - Let’s Just (Jansons Remix)
D2. Catz N Dogz & Gerd Janson - Modern Romance (Original Mix)
D3. Emil Rottmayer - L.E.V.E.L
D4. Ekkah - Wendy’s Yard (Gilligan Moss Remix)

There's no let up from the Wagram camp this week, who hook us up with no less than four killer comps. Keeping things decidedly binary, they've taken a battle of the sexes approach, furnishing us with 'Funk Women', 'Jazz Men', 'Jazz Women' and 'Soul Men'.

There's a whole lotta heat to be found on this fresh set of femme-funk classics, featuring jams from the likes of Lyn Collins, Minnie Ripperton, Gwen McCrae and many, many more!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Gloria Lucas - One Sweet Song
A2. Lyn Collins - Think (About It)
A3. Minnie Riperton - Adventures In Paradise
A4. Ruby Delicious - Rock Steady
A5. Brenda George - What You See Is What You're Gonna Get
A6. Jackie Dee - Love You Wholeheartedly
A7. Gwen McCrae - All This Love That I'm Givin'
B1. Marva Whitney - What Do I Have To Do To Prove My Love To You [Single Version]
B2. Ruth Davis - I Need Money
B3. Millie Jackson - Do What Makes The World Go Round
B4. Gladys Knight & The Pips - Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) [Album Version]
B5. Spanky Wilson & The Quantic Soul Orchestra - Don't Joke With A Hungry Man
B6. Ann Peebles - Slipped, Tripped & Fell In Love
C1. Betty Wright - Clean Up Woman
C2. Little Rose Little - Family Tree
C3. The Quantic Soul Orchestra - Hold It Down
C4. Jackson Sisters - I Believe In Miracles
C5. Rose Royce - Car Wash [Single Version]
C6. Taana Gardner - Heartbeat (2012 – Remaster)
D1. Melba Moore - Mind Up Tonight
D2. Sisters Love - Gimme Your Love
D3. Diana Ross - Upside Down
D4. Donna Summer - Hot Stuff (Single Edit)
D5. Carrie Lucas - Dance With You (Single Edit)

There's no let up from the Wagram camp this week, who hook us up with no less than four killer comps. Keeping things decidedly binary, they've taken a battle of the sexes approach, furnishing us with 'Funk Women', 'Jazz Men', 'Jazz Women' and 'Soul Men'.

Rat Pack fans rejoice, "Jazz Men" gives us all the goodies from the golden age of swing, when the lamps were out on the tables at the copa, and the guys sipped brandy in sharp suits. Frank, Dean and Sammy rub shoulders with Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker and Nat "King" Cole.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Fred Astaire - Cheek To Cheek
A2. Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra - When You're Smiling
A3. Nat "King" Cole - My Baby Just Cares For Me
A4. Vic Damone - Let's Fall In Love
A5. Tony Bennett - I'm A Fool To Want You
A6. Gene Kelly - Singin' In The Rain
A7. Chet Baker - I Fall In Love Too Easily
B1. Frank Sinatra - I've Got You Under My Skin
B2. Perry Como - Papa Loves Mambo
B3. Sammy Davis Jr. - Something's Gotta Give
B4. Frankie Laine - I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby
B5. Johnny Mathis - Wonderful! Wonderful!
B6. Cab Calloway - Minnie The Moocher (Theme Song)
B7. Bing Crosby - Autumn Leaves
C1. Dean Martin - Sway (Quien Sera)
C2. Harry Belafonte - Day O (The Banana Boat Song)
C3. Bob McFadden & Dor - The Beat Generation
C4. Paul Anka - Put Your Head On My Shoulder
C5. Bobby Darin - Beyond The Sea
C6. João Gilberto - Chega De Saudade
C7. Mark Murphy - Firefly
C8. Oscar Brown Jr - Dat Dere
D1. Louis Prima, Sam Butera, Gia Malone & The Witnesses - Shadrack
D2. Mel Tormé - Comin' Home Baby
D3. Andy Williams - Moon River
D4. Leon Thomas - Song For My Father
D5. Brook Benton - Love Me Or Leave Me
D6. Bobby Cole - A Perfect Day

There's no let up from the Wagram camp this week, who hook us up with no less than four killer comps. Keeping things decidedly binary, they've taken a battle of the sexes approach, furnishing us with 'Funk Women', 'Jazz Men', 'Jazz Women' and 'Soul Men'.

Check out that tracklist!!! It's basically a hall of fame for female vocalists. If you like smooth instrumentation and rasping vocals, you're in the right place.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Sarah Vaughan - Summertime
A2. Billie Holiday - God Bless The Child
A3. Betty Carter - I Could Write A Book
A4. Julie London - Cry Me A River
A5. Chris Connor - Lullaby Of Birdland
A6. Peggy Lee - Black Coffee
A7. Lena Horne - Stormy Weather
A8. Nancy Wilson - I Wish You Love
B1. Anita O'Day - Sing, Sing, Sing
B2. Shirley Bassey - I've Got You Under My Skin
B3. Dinah Washington - What A Difference A Day Makes
B4. Etta James - At Last
B5. Ella Fitzgerald - My Funny Valentine
B6. Della Reese - Whatever Lola Wants
B7. Rosemary Clooney & Pérez Prado - Sway (Quien Sera)
C1. Doris Day - Keep Smilin', Keep Laughin', Be Happy
C2. Nina Simone - My Baby Just Cares For Me
C3. Carmen Mcrae & The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Take Five
C4. Aretha Franklin - Try A Little Tenderness
C5. Shirley Horn - And I Love Him
C6. Diana Krall - Straighten Up And Fly Right
C7. Cassandra Wilson - Fragile
D1. Terez Montcalm - Sweet Dreams
D2. Melody Gardot - Baby I'm A Fool
D3. Youn Sun Nah - My Favorite Things
D4. Stacey Kent - Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars (Live)
D5. Madeleine Peyroux - He's Got Me Goin'

There's no let up from the Wagram camp this week, who hook us up with no less than four killer comps. Keeping things decidedly binary, they've taken a battle of the sexes approach, furnishing us with 'Funk Women', 'Jazz Men', 'Jazz Women' and 'Soul Men'.

'Soul Men' serves us nothing but the finest male vocal soul cuts of the 60s and 70s in an all killer no filler fashion. Special mention has to go for Side C with a run of worldies from Gil Scott-Heron, Aaron Neville, Darondo, Lonnie Liston Smith and Joe Simon.

TRACK LISTING

A1. James Brown & The Famous Flames - Please, Please, Please
A2. Little Willie John - Fever
A3. Barrett Strong - Money (That's What I Want)
A4. Ben E. King - Stand By Me
A5. Sam Cooke - (What A) Wonderful World
A6. Ray Charles - Unchain My Heart
A7. Solomon Burke - Cry To Me
A8. James Ray - I've Got My Mind Set On You (Parts 1 & 2)
B1. Otis Redding - These Arms Of Mine
B2. Marvin Gaye & The Vandellas - Stubborn Kind Of Fellow
B3. Stevie Wonder - Hallelujah (I Love Her So)
B4. Gene Chandler - Duke Of Earl
B5. The Isley Brothers - Right Now
B6. Bob & Earl - Harlem Shuffle
B7. Timmy Thomas - Why Can’t We Live Together
C1. Gil Scott-Heron - Lady Day And John Coltrane
C2. Aaron Neville - Hercules
C3. Darondo - Didn't I
C4. Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes - Expansions
C5. Joe Simon - Drowning In The Sea Of Love
D1. Al Jarreau - Ain't No Sunshine
D2. Barry White - Ghetto Letto
D3. Curtis Mayfield - You Mean Everything To Me
D4. Syl Johnson - They Can't See Your Good Side
D5. Terry Callier - Running Around (Fug City Mix)

Stars, lesser names on the French pop scene and unknown artists rub shoulders on this tangy new compilation. Take off on a sonic journey through the starry night of the late sixties.

TRACK LISTING

1. Doukkali - Je Suis Jaloux
2. François Berheim - Tom
3. Michel Handson - Le Bric A Brac
4. Matty Kemer - Boeing
5. Gilles Du Janeyrand - Filles 2000
6. Alain Ricar - I Like Sex
7. Paul Dupret - Je T'aime Trop
8. Richard Hertel - Patatras Hola
9. Michel Didier - Comme Un Arc En Ciel
10. Liberatore - Vedette Internationale
11. Alain Serco - Kiki
12. Gérard Gray - Le Poisson Vert
13. François Faray - Le Grand Méchant Loup
14. Patrice Lamy - Laisse Moi Medire Que Je T'aime PART1
15. K.R. Nagati - Sidi Bou
16. Les Missiles - La (nouvelle) Guerre De 100 Ans 

The Black Keys release their tenth studio album, Delta Kream, via Nonesuch Records. The record celebrates the band’s roots, featuring eleven Mississippi hill country blues standards that they have loved since they were teenagers, before they were a band, including songs by R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, among others. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney recorded Delta Kream at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville; they were joined by musicians Kenny Brown and Eric Deaton, long-time members of the bands of blues legends including R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. The album takes its name from William Eggleston’s iconic Mississippi photograph that is on its cover.

Auerbach says of the album, “We made this record to honor the Mississippi hill country blues tradition that influenced us starting out. These songs are still as important to us today as they were the first day Pat and I started playing together and picked up our instruments. It was a very inspiring session with Pat and me along with Kenny Brown and Eric Deaton in a circle, playing these songs. It felt so natural.”

Auerbach says of Delta Kream’s first single ‘Crawling Kingsnake’: “I first heard [John Lee] Hooker’s version in high school. My uncle Tim would have given me that record. But our version is definitely Junior Kimbrough’s take on it. It’s almost a disco riff!” Carney adds, "We fell into this drum intro; it's kind of accidental. The ultimate goal was to highlight the interplay between the guitars. My role with Eric was to create a deeper groove."

The music from northern Mississippi, which came to life in juke joints, has long left an imprint on the band’s music, from their cover of R.L. Burnide’s ‘Busted’ and Junior Kimbrough’s ‘Do The Romp’ on their debut album, The Big Come Up; to their subsequent signing to Fat Possum Records, home to many of their musical heroes; and to their EP of Junior Kimbrough covers, Chulahoma.

TRACK LISTING

1. Crawling Kingsnake
2. Louise
3. Poor Boy A Long Way From Home
4. Stay All Night
5. Going Down South
6. Coal Black Mattie
7. Do The Romp
8. Sad Days, Lonely Nights
9. Walk With Me
10. Mellow Peaches
11. Come On And Go With Me

Fifth studio album by the American musician, produced by pop producer and long-term collaborator Jack Antonoff and featuring the single 'Pay Your Way in Pain'. 'I was inspired by the classic records of the '70s. Stevie, Sly, Stones, Steely Dan, Chords, Groove. The days when sophisticated harmony and rhythm didn't sound heady - they just sounded, and felt good. Lots of guitar. But warm sounds, not distortion and chaos. Hopefully a turn nobody will see coming' - Annie Clark.

TRACK LISTING

CD Tracklisting:
01. Pay Your Way In Pain
02. Down And Out Downtown
03. Daddy’s Home
04. Live In The Dream
05. The Melting Of The Sun
06. Humming Interlude 1
07. The Laughing Man
08. Down
09. Humming Interlude 2
10. Somebody Like Me
11. My Baby Wants A Baby
12. …At The Holiday Party
13. Candy Darling
14. Humming Interlude 3

Vinyl Tracklisting:
The Interlude Tracks Are Not Credited On The Vinyl, Although The Interludes Do Still Appear On The Disc Itself
01. Pay Your Way In Pain
02. Down And Out Downtown
03. Daddy’s Home
04. Live In The Dream
05. The Melting Of The Sun
06. The Laughing Man
07. Down
08. Somebody Like Me
09. My Baby Wants A Baby
10. …At The Holiday Party
11. Candy Darling

Sons of Kemet returns in 2021 with their new album Black To The Future. The follow up to 2018’s Mercury Prize nominated breakout release Your Queen Is A Reptile. This is their 4th record, and 2nd on impulse! Compared with ”Your Queen is a Reptile”, this album has featured vocalists and more of an emphasis on fuller compositions and arrangements. Guest artists include Kojey Radical, Moor Mother, Angel Bat Dawid, Joshua Idehen, D Double E.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: Oooft! Just what was lacking from this year, Sons of Kemet delivering the goods with 'Black To The Future'. Featuring vocals on this album adds an extra something special, definitely a firm favourite of mine for 2021.

TRACK LISTING

1. Field Negus Feat. Joshua Idehen
2. Pick Up Your Burning Cross Feat. Moor Mother, Angel Bat Dawid
3. Think Of Home
4. Hustle Feat. Kojey Radical
5. For The Culture Feat. D Double E
6. To Never Forget The Source
7. In Remembrance Of Those Fallen
8. Let The Circle Be Unbroken
9. Envision Yourself Levitating
10. Throughout The Madness, Stay Strong
11. Black Feat. Joshua Idehen

We may be cursed to be in the midst a global pandemic, buffeted by all of its stresses and pain. But everyone knows that art provides succour, that music is the most reliable balm. And for many there is further significant comfort to be drawn from the knowledge that Paul Weller is in the midst of an unbelievably prolific purple patch. Paul Weller will not let us down when we need him most.

On May 14th, Paul Weller releases his 16th solo album since his self-titled debut in 1992, his fourth in as many years and his second in just under twelve months following June 2020’s magnificent, chart-topping On Sunset. It’s not hyperbole to state that this new album, titled Fat Pop (Volume 1), is among his most compelling collections, bar none, including all of his era-defining work in the 1970s and ‘80s with The Jam and The Style Council. It’s an absolute scorcher.

When lockdown was declared in March 2020, Paul Weller decided immediately that he wanted something to focus on, since it seemed unlikely he’d be able to tour On Sunset as planned that summer.
“I had lots of ideas stored up on my phone,” he explains down that same handset, speaking from outside his London home, “and at least this gave me an opportunity to develop them.” So he started to record songs on his own, doing just vocals, piano and guitar, then sending those sound files to his core band members such as drummer Ben Gordelier, Steve Cradock on guitar and various other instruments, and bassist Andy Crofts for them to add their parts. “It was a bit weird not being together, but at least it kept the wheels rolling. I’d have gone potty otherwise.”

The band reconvened at Weller’s Black Barn studio in Surrey during the summer when restrictions were lifted to finish the work, with several of the songs being cut live. By this stage, the shape of the album was clear to all. Weller wanted to deliver an album of singles, twelve short, distinct blasts, each strong enough that they could stand alone if so desired.

“That was a conscious decision,” he confirms. “I even thought about putting every song out as a single first then gathering them all on an album, but that wasn’t practical at the moment. They all have that strength and immediacy, I think, and they’re all short, three minutes or so maximum.”
Producer Jan ‘Stan’ Kybert was so taken with the concept that he half-jokingly suggested that the album be called Greatest Hits. “I quite liked the idea and every song does stand up as a single, I think,” chuckles Weller, “but no, we couldn’t do that really.”

Instead, he plumped for Fat Pop (Volume 1). “I thought we’d add Volume 1 to it just to keep my options open in the future for a second volume!” The title track, a tight, heavy blast of ultra-modern funk, is itself the conceptual key to the whole album. “It’s a celebration of music and what it’s given us all. No matter what situation you are in, and we’re in one now, music doesn’t let you down, does it?”

As ever, Weller’s sonic masterplan was to avoid whatever had recently preceded it. “After [2018’s] True Meanings I thought I wouldn’t have any acoustic guitars for a little while, so I’ve largely avoided those with On Sunset and with Fat Pop,” he says. “But more than anything I wanted something vibey, something we could play live.” He laughs ruefully at the irony of that. “God knows when that will be, bearing in mind where we are with the virus. But in the imaginary gig in my mind I can see us playing all of the songs on Fat Pop live, along with the songs from On Sunset, blending them with some of the old favourites too. What a great set that would be.”

Live is where he imagines On Sunset and Fat Pop (Volume 1) working in tandem, because they don’t act as companion piece albums otherwise. “On Sunset was quite lavish in places, whereas with this one I wanted to limit it in some ways, make the production less expansive.”

Beyond that desire to keep it frill-free and tight, sonically Fat Pop (Volume 1) is a diverse selection of sounds. No one style dominates. There’s the synth-heavy, future-wave strut of Cosmic Fringes, the stately balladeering of Still Glides The Stream, Testify’s moving-on-up soul, and the kind of dramatic three minute pop symphonies on Failed, True and Shades of Blue with which Paul Weller has hooked in generation after generation of devotee.
More than sonic plans, though, Weller set himself the same task as he does before any recording. “Whenever I make an album I’m always just trying to at least match what’s gone before because each time I think the bar’s been raised. If all goes to plan, sometimes I manage to go over that bar too.”
Sometimes he does, sometimes he really does.

TRACK LISTING

CD
Cosmic Fringes
True
Fat Pop
Shades Of Blue
Glad Times
Cobweb / Connections
Testify
That Pleasure
Failed
Moving Canvas
In Better Times
Still Glides The Stream

3CD Box
CD1 – Standard Album
Cosmic Fringes
True
Fat Pop
Shades Of Blue
Glad Times
Cobweb / Connections
Testify
That Pleasure
Failed
Moving Canvas
In Better Times
Still Glides The Stream

CD2 – Mid-Sömmer Musik
On Sunset - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Old Father Tyme - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Moving Canvas - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Failed - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Village - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
More - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Testify - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Still Glides The Stream - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Rockets - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020
Mayfly - Live From Mid-Sömmer Musik, London / 2020

CD3 - Fat Pop Bonus
Round The Floor
Serafina
Crowboy
Into The Sea
Pure Sound
Fat Mix

Vinyl
Side A
Cosmic Fringes
True
Fat Pop
Shades Of Blue
Glad Times
Cobweb / Connections
Side B
Testify
That Pleasure
Failed
Moving Canvas
In Better Times
Still Glides The Stream

The American Negro is an unapologetic critique, detailing the systemic & malevolent psychology that afflicts people of color. It should be evident that any examination of black music is an examination of the relationship between black & white America.

This relationship has shaped the cultural evolution of the world and its negative roots run deep into our psyche. With an elaborate orchestral and soulful display, The American Negro re-invents the black native tongue: a politically conscious LP with a prescription to eradicate hate in America.


“The American Negro is the most important creative accomplishment of my life. This project dissects the chemistry behind blind racism, using music as the medium to restore dignity and self-worth to my people"

Adrian Younge is a multi-instrumentalist, film composer and producer with an analog studio and record store in Los Angeles. He is a member of The Midnight Hour and has produced for entertainment greats ranging from Jay Z, Kendrick Lamar and Wu Tang Clan.

He’s composed for television shows such as Marvel’s Luke Cage (with Ali Shaheed Muhammad), and films including Black Dynamite. He owns the boutique record label, Linear Labs, and is co-owner of Jazz Is Dead.

When he’s not working on scores for major studios or networks, he’s making albums that speak to his own artistry.

For The American Negro, Younge not only wrote, but played every instrument of the album’s rhythm section; he also orchestrated a 30-piece orchestra and recorded them in his analog studio.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: A moving political album which delves into the issues surrounding racism in America. Beautiful soulful vocals make this a truly spectacular release.

TRACK LISTING

1. Revisionist History
2. The American Negro
3. The Black Broadcast
4. Revolutionize
5. Double Consciousness
6. Watch The Children
7. Dying On The Run
8. Intransigence Of The Blind
9. James Mincey Jr.
10. Disadvantaged Without A Title
11. Mama (You Will Make It)
12. The Black Queen
13. Margaret Garner
14. Race Is A Fallacy
15. Light On The Horizon
16. A Symphony For Sahara
17. America Is Listening
18. The March On America
19. Paradox Of The Positive
20. The Death March
21. Black Lives Matter
22. Rotten Roses
23. Jim Crow's Dance
24. Patriotic Portraits
25. George Stinney Jr.
26. Sullen Countenance

In 2018, Sean Worsey, a successful lawyer in California, began to receive some rather surprising emails. These were not from prospective clients, or about current cases he was working on, but rather queries from record collectors. They wanted more details about a pair of obscure, largely forgotten records he’d made in the mid 1980s as part of a virtually unknown band called Passion Theatre.

To say he was surprised is an understatement. “People from around the world were emailing, calling and messaging us about the music, particularly a track called ‘Vacation Day’,” he says. “Our records were rare and gaining in value, mainly because there were not many manufactured at the time. By 2019, several individuals in the music industry had emailed me about licensing tracks.”

Space Talk eventually agreed with Sean to include ‘Vacation Day’ on Charles Bals’ second compilation, Retour Au Club Meduse. Impressed with the quality of the compilation Sean approached them again to discuss whether they would be interested in reissuing both of his old EP’s in full, an idea he’d been considering for a few months already.

The original studio tapes were long gone but a friend of Sean’s had some mint vinyl copies which made the trip from California to use as the master source, restored and mastered superbly by Technology Works in London. The striking original artwork from the two EP’s has been faithfully reworked into a gatefold double vinyl LP by designer Asger Behncke Jacobsen and features extensive interview/sleeve notes by Matt Anniss.

In the words of Sean Worsey - “One of the nicest things about the renewed interest in our music is that we can now enjoy it for what it is - back then we were a bit too worried about succeeding.” 

STAFF COMMENTS

says: I'm not sure this could be any more relevant to my interests; Painfully obscure 80s synthpop, heavy on the groove, angular, art-ish and kinda flouncy in a Balearic way. In other words, it's my dream record. Buy it now or regret it later!

TRACK LISTING

1. Strange Desire (EP1: Strange Desire EP)
2. International Love Affair
3. Menage A Trois
4. No For Answers
5. Mannequin (Fiesta Mix - EP2: Mannequin EP)
6. Vacation Day
7. In Love With A Mannequin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

In his tenth year with Acid Jazz, the ever-prolific Matt Berry has crafted a psych masterpiece. Once again proving his artistic progression and ambition knows no bounds

Recorded during the summer of 2020, ‘Blue Elephant’ is testament to Matt’s exceptional musicianship, production skills and songwriting prowess with every instrument played by Matt including, guitars, bass, a variety of keyboards and synthesizers (piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron, Moog, Hammond, Vox and Farfisa organs), with the exception of drums – supplied by Craig Blundell, on arguably his best album to date. 

This music soundtracks an album that explores themes surrounding today’s close scrutiny in all its bewildering, objectifying and unnerving experiences. Very much a conceptual and, therefore, continuous long-player, the album’s infectious grooves come to the fore on standout tracks ‘Summer Sun’, heavy-psych instrumental ‘Invisible’, the three-part ‘Blues Inside Me’, which encompasses a psych journey through a late ‘60s and early glam filter mixed with the propulsive ‘Like Stone’.

TRACK LISTING

1. Aboard
2. Summer Sun
3. Safe Passage
4. Now Disappear
5. Alone
6. Invisible
7. Blues Inside Me
8. I Cannot Speak
9. The Blue Elephant
10. Life Unknown
11. Safer Passage
12. Like Stone
13. Story Told
14. Forget Me
15. Now Disappear (Again)

Los Angeles’ Grave Flowers Bongo Band’s sophomore LP “Strength of Spring” is an inverted pyramid balanced on the headstock of an acoustic guitar, a rainbow painted in campfire smoke, an endless staircase circling into the clouds. That acoustic guitar, perfectly captured here by Ty Segall’s excellently sere and close mic’d production, plays skeleton to these conjurors woolly grooves, and singer Gabe Flores’ thousand-yard moan keeps us guessing as to exactly where this wildebeest is headed. He pinions these far out tunes, which burst generously with shit-hot guitar leads, Stoogeseque sax squalls, and a gaggle of great eight-armed drum fills, with a flinty wrist-flicking heartbeat as the band turns from whimsy to nimble riffery on a dime, following that pied-piper six string jangling down many lovely rabbit-holes of melody and exploration. It’s obvious these guys play together a lot (the lineup shares two members with acclaimed space rockers Hoover III to boot) and the telepathy on display here is synapse-snappy. Coursing throughout is that note-pad filling, lighter raising, undefinable black magic that feels so rare these days….

TRACK LISTING

1. Lazy River
2. Sleepy Eyes
3. Tomorrow
4. Smile
5. Inner Bongolia
6. Animal Lord
7. VATMM
8. Outer Bongolia
9. Down Man

In the midst of a global pandemic that has seen gigs, club nights and festivals cancelled, and tens of millions around the world in some kind of lockdown or quarantine, the need for musical escapism and aural daydreaming is greater than ever. It was this search for creativity and positivity that led to the recording of Sunday in June, the gorgeous and sun-kissed debut album from Hillside.

The outfit’s origins lie in the ongoing friendship and musical relationship of guitarist/bassist Alex Searle, percussionist Patrick Dawes and Claremont 56 founder Paul ‘Mudd’ Murphy, a trio who have been playing on each other’s records since the dawn of the millennium. They began jamming and creating instrumental music together for what would become the Hillside project a few years back, but the pace of production increased during the pandemic year of 2020, with multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger Michele Chiavarini (an experienced solo artist and long-term member of Dave Lee’s Sunburst Band) coming on board to help shape the sound of their eight-track debut album.

Built around warm, languid grooves, expansive musicality, simmering strings – arranged by Chiavarini and replayed live by Pete Whitfield – and seductive solos provided by a handful of guest musicians (most notably flutist Tamar Osborne and violinist Mike Piggott, who has previously worked with Ralph McTell, Pentangle and Bert Jansch), Sunday in June could be considered an imaginary soundtrack to a long, lazy drive down the U.S West Coast.

The collective’s intent is exemplified by stunning opener and title track ‘Sunday in June’, where soaring strings, eyes-closed guitar solos, expressive keys and subtle percussive touches seemingly dance atop a sun-soaked groove that sits somewhere between jazz-funk and vintage West Coast rock. It can be heard, too, on the low-down hustle of ‘Trinity Strut’ – think Steely Dan doing Blaxploitation movie funk and you’re close – and in the languid drift of ‘Aguila Negra’, with its heart-aching orchestration, jazzy guitars and sunset-ready synths.

Sunday in June has many subtle twists and turns. Check the swelling, flute-sporting, organ-rich breeze of ‘For Daniel’, a track written in tribute to an old friend of Murphy’s who passed away in 2020, and the kaleidoscopic, smile-inducing positivity of ‘1939 Grand Avenue’, whose title references the address of a favourite San Diego hang out. There’s also room for recent single ‘Walpole Days’, a gorgeous downtempo odyssey, and a new album mix of the combo’s most Steely Dan-esque cut, 2019 single ‘Hidden Port’.

Rounding things off is a rather impressive bonus cut: a previously unheard ‘Spiritual Healing Mix’ of ‘Walpole Days’ by the great Joaquin ‘Joe Claussell’. Whereas his previously released versions of the track were largely percussive and dancefloor-friendly, this interpretation takes us deep into the world of weightless new age ambient, with Hillside’s impeccable instrumentation slowly rising above immersive chords and pads.

As usual with Claremont 56, the album’s artwork is every bit as detailed and painstakingly crafted as the music, with the stunning cover illustration coming courtesy of regular label collaborator Mark Warrington. His vibrant vision is naturally a perfect fit with Hillside’s colourful and emotion-rich music.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: If my memory serves me correctly, Claremont's remit is 'releasing beautiful music', and they don't come much prettier than this sublime slice of deliciously drifting Balearic business. Shades of ambient, jazz and a sizable spliff in Formentera.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sunday In June
2. Trinity Strut
3. Walpole Days
4. Aguila Negra
5. For Daniel
6. Hidden Port (album Version
7. 1939 Grand Ave
8. Walpole Days (Joe Claussell Spiritual Healing Mix)

“My vision was big,” says Brighton-based singer Macve of the road to her second album. “I knew I wanted to do something more expansive than my first record.” With reach, feeling, storytelling power and a stop-you-dead voice, Macve sizes up to that mission boldly on Not The Girl. Following on from the rootsy saloon-noir conviction of her 2017 debut, Golden Eagle, Holly sets out for deeper, often darker territory with a firm, unhurried sense of direction on her second record: on all fronts, it’s an album that looks its upscaled ambitions in the eye fearlessly.

For Macve, the combination of influences such as Nancy & Lee with time spent touring helped widen her horizons. “I wasn’t afraid of trying new things, and I wanted to explore sounds and develop my skills in production, composing and engineering. When I wrote the songs on Golden Eagle I had never toured, it was just me in my bedroom playing acoustic guitar. I then got the chance to tour the world with a band and sing with a symphony orchestra [with Mercury Rev in 2017]. My little world grew and I realised there was so much for me to learn about how I can use my skills as a singer and writer. I didn’t want to limit myself – I wanted to push my boundaries.”

At every turn, Macve’s powers of evocation are matched by the depth and strength in her voice. Witness the meeting of a plangent pedal-steel with her elastic vocal on the atmospheric “Be My Friend”, or the sultry verses and soaring chorus of “You Can Do Better”, which bring to mind a prairie-sized Mazzy Star. Guest guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones’ spacious contributions help enhance its sense of space. “Bill was an important part of the story of this record,” says Holly. “I love his playing – it helped create that kind of heavy, lazy, dreamy sound I’m such a fan of.”

Elsewhere, rich seams of contrast and counterpoint emerge. The Velvet Underground-ish “Sweet Marie” is epic drone-country, “Little, Lonely Heart” a symphonic waltz around the rootsy stuff of bad love, jealousy, and guilt. “Who Am I” merges a Phil Spector-ish wall of sound with a grunge-y melodic insouciance, while “Daddy’s Gone” finds Macve reflecting on the death of her father over Memphis soul-style backing, rendering complex emotions with controlled reserves of detail and drama before a roistering climax. “Lonely Road” closes the album on a note of becalmed resilience, its narrator looking “past the prison walls and into the garden”, ready to face whatever waits out there.

Other contributors included Fiona Brice (Placebo, John Grant), whose string arrangements helped Macve fulfil an ambition to blend ’70s Laurel Canyon sounds and the rougher edges of ’90s grunge with the melodic sweep of Scott Walker. Collin Dupuis (Lana del Rey, Angel Olsen) mixed the album in Nashville; CJ Hillman (Billy Bragg) plays pedal-steel, Emily Druce plays viola, and David Dyson/Phil Murphy play drums. The Arts Council helped with funding, and recording took place between Holly’s home studio, Retreat Studios in Ovingdean, Ryder-Jones’ YAWN studio in Liverpool, and Kore Studios in London.

Brave, brooding, and beautiful, Not The Girl is the sound of that confidence in full, spectacular bloom.

TRACK LISTING

1 Bird
2 Eye Of The Storm
3 Be My Friend
4 You Can Do Better
5 Daddy’s Gone
6 Little Lonely Heart
7 Sweet Marie
8 Who Am I
9 Not The Girl
10 Behind The Flowers
11 Lonely Road

New studio album from the Dunedin (NZ) songsmiths helmed by the enigmatic Martin Phillipps with artwork by Trees’ David Costa. Dunedin’s finest, The Chills release their seventh studio album ‘Scatterbrain’, a glorious self-examination of Martin Phillipps’ songwriting hot (ish) on the heels of the hugely successful ‘Snowbound’ (2018) and the critically-acclaimed movie ‘The Chills: The Triumph And Tragedy Of Martin Phillipps’ a year later. “It’s about artistic integrity, self-realisation, self-acceptance and a reflection on mortality.” The Guardian Now in 2021, Phillipps is now taking stock of things – everything. Yes, everything.

The result is this triumphant new Chills’ album ‘Scatterbrain’, a thought-provoking and evocative take from a man who has lived through good times and bad. A mature and honest reflection on life, destiny and the fate of our times delivered in beautiful melodies with Phillipps’ trademarked incisive turn of phrase. Viewed from the perspective of a man understanding his age and indeed his own mortality, the new album takes a mature look at matters arising with a side order of perspective. ‘Scatterbrain’ is a life passing before your ears as uncertainty increases and fake news rumbles on; during which aliens invade, Phillipps scales the walls beyond abandon as he probes the minutiae of worlds within worlds and the hourglass fills. A landmark album from one of the great modern song writers, it’s pure pop music for the new normal and we can’t wait to see how it ends…

TRACK LISTING

Side A

A1 Monolith
A2 Hourglass
A3 Destiny
A4 Caught In My Eye
A5 You're Immortal

Side B

B1 Little Alien
B2 Safe And Sound
B3 Worlds Within Worlds
B4 Scatterbrain
B5 The Walls Beyond Abandon

Broken Mirror: A Selfie Reflection is a timely callout to the power of collaboration, of kindred spirits connecting in crowded rooms. More important, though, is this collision of two profoundly Southern artists, meeting to shed expectations of generation and genre, scene and situation and exchange truth, wisdom, and energy. The real world is more complicated than a pretty digital picture, bowdlerized of blemishes. As Broken Mirror: A Selfie Reflection reminds us, it can be more revelatory and transformative, too.

These racks are balls of energized contemplation, Holley crooning grievances and observations above surrealist grooves so irrepressible and heavy that the words strike with the force of gospel. Holley strolls into “I Cried Space Dust” as if he’s wandered into the On the Corner sessions and offered unsolicited insights on true transcendence. “I’m Not Tripping” is an anthem of self-worth and self-enjoyment for a society mired in self-doubt, the words breaking like light beams through clouds of atomized drums and synths. And Holley begins the title track as a character mindlessly staring into a cell phone, captivated by his own image like Narcissus at water’s edge. Holley ponders the egotism of projection over dizzying keyboards and guitars so jagged they conjure fractured glass. By song’s end, he’s mocking this infrastructure of pandering for likes, jeering us all above a savage bassline that dares you to differ.

Holley and White may seem like unlikely collaborators, divided as they are by decades and disciplines. Holley, 70, first earned attention as a sculptor far removed from the fiefdom of fine art, using society’s detritus to create curious bricolages that ferried deep narratives of ancestral pride, enduring pain, and eternal hope. His music privately stowed on stacks of cassettes before he released his staggering 2012 debut, Just Before Music, at the age of 62 aired those ideas over extemporaneous pieces for prismatic keyboards. But on Big Inner and Fresh Blood, White, now 38, came into acclaim as one of his generation’s most meticulous songwriters and arrangers. Stretching his assuredly soulful voice like a smile across little symphonies of strings, horns, choirs, and percussive cavalcades, White commanded sounds where Holley seemed to glide inside them.

TRACK LISTING

1. This Here Jungle Of Moderness/Composition 14
2. Broken Mirror (A Selfie Reflection) / Composition 9
3. I Cried Space Dust / Composition 12
4. I’m Not Tripping / Composition 8
5. Get Up! Come Walk With Me / Composition 7

Pioneers of the British music scene, ‘Blackest Blue’ will be the band's 10th studio album in a discography that spans three decades. 2020 saw Morcheeba unable to tour or perform live, which gave Skye Edwards & Ross Godfrey “time to write songs and really get to hone them,” as Godfrey puts it. “There weren’t so many pressures so we could really take our time getting the songs right,” adds Edwards.

The result of this time is a refined 10 track album that fuses previous incarnations and sound of the band - such as downbeat, chill, electro-pop & soul - into one cohesive record that dives deep into the soul of the band’s genre-mashing musical heritage. As usual, the band didn’t approach the album with any pre-conceptions, and instead created an organic journey that represents everything great about Morcheeba.

Edwards’ lyrics are primarily focused on positivity and overcoming personal adversity that lies within. ‘Sounds Of Blue’, is a stunning cut that puts Skye Edward's sultry vocals to the forefront, floating high above an ethereal backdrop.

The album includes features with Duke Garwood (known for his work with Mark Lanegan, amongst others) and Brad Barr (The Slip, The Barr Brothers). 

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracklisting:
1. Cut My Heart Out
2. Killed Our Love
3. Sounds Of Blue
4. Say It’s Over
5. Sulphur Soul
6. Oh Oh Yeah
7. Namaste
8. The Moon
9. Falling Skies
10. The Edge Of The World

Bonus 7” (Indies Exclusive Version Only)
A. Slow Rippling Surges
B. Falling Sky (Merther Hum Dub Remix)

Jorja Smith returns to announce a new 8-track project, the first body of work from Jorja since her 2019 critically-acclaimed, Mercury Prize nominated debut album 'Lost & Found', for which she won her second BRIT Award for 'Best Female' and earned herself a nomination for 'New Artist' at the GRAMMY Awards.

The project finds Jorja delivering some of the most emotive and imaginative songs of her career. Over string-heavy production, she unveils a collection of songs that are diverse in their range but still extremely cohesive as a body of work - "It's called be right back because it's just something I want my fans to have right now, this isn't an album and these songs wouldn't have made it. If I needed to make these songs, then someone needs to hear them too." - Jorja says of the project.

To coincide with the announcement, Jorja is sharing new single 'Gone.' Highly anticipated, Smith states that "There's something about being able to write about one thing and for it to mean so many different things to others. I love that this song, well any of my songs really, will be interpreted in different ways, depending on the experiences of the people listening. This one is just me asking why people have to be taken from us."

'Gone' follows in the footsteps of Jorja's stunning March release 'Addicted', which also appears on 'Be Right Back', alongside 6 additional unheard tracks including a feature from rising South London rapper, Shaybo on track 3, 'Bussdown'.

Over the past three years, Smith has been celebrated unanimously across the world for her evocative song-writing, powerful delivery, pure emotion and unbridled talent as a young woman navigating her way through the world. Smith has graced multiple magazine covers, performed at awards ceremonies and on late night TV, and sold out shows across the globe, now surpassing over one billion global streams. Her 2019 hit single 'Be Honest' featuring Burna Boy has become her biggest song to date at almost 250M streams worldwide.

TRACK LISTING

1. Addicted
2. Gone
3. Bussdown (feat. Shaybo)
4. Time
5. Home
6. Burn
7. Digging
8. Weekend

Voyager rattles with the live-wire feeling that’s thrummed through all of Rattigan’s previous releases: quavering, scream-itself-hoarse vocals and self-interrogation via song. But here, that bristling, sentimental rock ‘n’ roll cacophony is overlaid with a soundtrack orchestra guiding it along. It’s an odyssey, a grand-sounding journey of self-discovery spread across sixteen tracks. Part ekphrasis, part personal, it’s Rattigan learning new ways to understand his own feelings and identity while inspired by the highly-stylized, striking storytelling of filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, Lars Von Trier, Terrence Malick, Agnès Varda, and Andrei Tarkovsky.

Voyager, Rattigan’s most mature release to date, is an evolution built on Current Joys’ prolific output since 2013. A Nevada native, Rattigan began Current Joys in Reno, before moving to New York after school and busting his ass working as a production assistant in the film/TV industry. He relocated to Los Angeles in 2016, and the songs that make up Voyager began coming together shortly after. Each piece of Current Joys’ previous discography is wholly built and envisioned by Rattigan, self-recorded and quickly released, quivering with a lonely intensity. Within six months of beginning the project, Current Joys had already released its debut, Wild Heart; by 2018, the sixth Current Joys full length and visual album, A Different Age, was out. All the while, Current Joys’ profile quickly and quietly ascended, selling out venues like LA’s El Rey along with European tours, simultaneously amassing millions of streams of the catalog, and a dedicated following.

On Voyager, Rattigan eschews lo-fi home recordings for a full band and recording sessions at Stinson Beach Studios. As a vocalist/drummer in his other band Surf Curse, Rattigan had finally opened up to the possibility of working in a professional studio. But while the audiences and songwriting/recording approaches changed and continue to evolve for Current Joys, the inspiration Rattigan draws from cinema remains a guiding force. Frequently he uses film as a jumping off point for songwriting. Lead single “Amateur” and its video reflects his affinity for the cinematic. The track is piano-heavy, a slow-build of tension, flitting with prettiness. The self-directed video features Rattigan in costume, chaotically driving a retro car.


Rattigan, who stays up all night to perfect the sequencing of his records once they’re recorded, doesn’t set out with a typical aesthetic in mind – instead, it just happens. Performing is his catharsis. Which feels palpable on Voyager; there’s fragments of hours spent watching movies, as well as stories from his own life; there’s overly-caffeinated car rides blasting the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa; there’s inspiration taken from the crooning presence of frontmen like Jeff Buckley, Chris Isaak, and Nick Cave, as evidenced on Rattigan’s cover of the Boys Next Door’s “Shivers.” And there’s the simple, ecstatic energy of getting a bunch of friends in the studio.

It’s all held together by the fervor of Rattigan’s creative process. He believes in the premonitory power of music, and he latches onto the song ideas that strike him in the moment, propelled by an abstract existentialism or burst of feeling more than anything else. It imbues Voyager with an intensity and intimacy – with the sense that you’re getting to hear, all at once, the disparate parts that make a project – or person – into a sprawling, cinematic whole.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dancer In The Dark
2. American Honey
3. Naked
4. Altered States
5. Breaking The Waves
6. Big Star
7. Amateur
8. Rebecca
9. Shivers
10. Something Real
11. Money Making Machine
12. Voyager Pt. 1
13. Calypso
14. The Spirit Or The Curse
15. Vagabond
16. Voyager Pt. 2

Archive Series Volume No. 5: Tallahassee is the lost-in-time debut album from Iron & Wine. A collection of songs recorded three years prior to his official Sub Pop debut, The Creek Drank the Cradle (2002). A period before the concept of Iron & Wine existed and principal songwriter Sam Beam was studying at Florida State University with the intent of pursuing a career in film. Tallahassee documents the very first steps on a journey that would lead to a career as one of America’s most original and distinctive singer-songwriters.

Creek arrived like a thief in the night with its lo-fi, hushed vocals and intimate nature, while almost inversely Tallahassee comes with a strange sense of confidence. Perhaps an almost youthful discretion that likely comes from being too young to know better and too naïve to give a shit. The recordings themselves are more polished than Creek and give a peak into what a studio version of that record might have offered up.

Tallahassee was recorded over the course of 1998-1999 when Beam and future bandmate EJ Holowicki moved into a house together. Beam had not been performing publicly, however he was known for playing an original song or two in the early morning glow of a long night. Holowicki also in the film program and who would go onto a career as a sound designer at Skywalker Sound, had a mobile recording device and after some prodding convinced his friend to record these late-night meditations.

Together they would record close to twenty-four songs, ideas and sketches, with EJ on bass and Sam on vocals, guitar, harmonica and drums. The recordings – all captured in the house where they lived – have a “live in the room” feel akin to say Neil Young’s Harvest or Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left, rather than the homespun lo-fi 4-track home recording experiment taking place at the time.

These recordings, minus one track, have never been made available and were instead left preserved on a hard drive for the last twenty years. The one track that floated out there, called “In Your Own Time” was shared without a title to childhood friend Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses) at some point. The song became known as the “Fuck Like A Dog” song and Ben shared it with more than a few folks during the golden era of mix cd’s. Two of those folks were Jonathan Poneman from Sub Pop and journalist Mike McGonigal, who included it on his best songs of 2001 mix cd, passed out to friends and acquaintances. And for many that is where the Iron & Wine story begins, until now…

Tallahassee is the foreword to your favorite book that you’ve somehow skipped over time and time again. It’s an alternative history mixed with some revisionist history told over the course of eleven songs. It’s also the debut record by Iron & Wine some twenty years after the fact. 

TRACK LISTING

Why Hate The Winter
This Solemn Day
Loaning Me Secrets
John's Glass Eye
Calm On The Valley
Ex-Lover Lucy Jones
Elizabeth
Show Him The Ground
Straight And Tall
Cold Town
Valentine

With her ambidextrous and pedidextrous, multi-instrumental techniques of her own making and influences ranging from video games to West African griots subverting the predominantly white male canon of fingerstyle guitar, Yasmin Williams is truly a guitarist for the new century. So too is her stunning sophomore release, Urban Driftwood, an album for and of these times. Though the record is instrumental, its songs follow a narrative arc of 2020, illustrating both a personal journey and a national reckoning, through Williams’ evocative, lyrical compositions.

Williams, 24, began playing electric guitar in eighth grade, after she beat the video game Guitar Hero 2 on expert level. Initially inspired by Jimi Hendrix and other shredders she was familiar with through the game, she quickly moved on to acoustic guitar, finding that it allowed her to combine fingerstyle techniques with the lap-tapping she had developed, as well as perform as a solo artist. Deriving no lineage from “American primitive” and rejecting the problematic connotations of the term, Williams’ influences include the smooth jazz and R&B she listened to growing up, Hendrix and Nirvana, go-go and hip-hop. On Urban Driftwood, Williams references the music of West African griots through the inclusion of kora and hand drumming of 150th generation djeli Amadou Kouyate, on the title track.

Yasmin Williams is virtuosic in her mastery of the guitar and in the techniques of her own invention, but her playing never sacrifices lyricism, melody, and rhythm for pure demonstration of skill. Storytelling through sound is important to her too. As detailed in the liner notes, the songs on Urban Driftwood were completed during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown, in the midst of a national uprising of Black Lives Matter protests in response to the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. But while Urban Driftwood illustrates current struggle, can’t help but open-heartedly offer a timeless solace.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sunshowers
2. I Wonder
3. Juvenescence
4. Dragonfly
5. Swift Breeze
6. Adrift
7. Through The Woods
8. Jarabi
9. Urban Driftwood
10. After The Storm

That’s right, we’ve reached a toker’s dozen editions of brilliant long-lost, rare, and unreleased hard rock, heavy psych, and proto-metal tracks from the 60s-70s. Clearly this has become a bonafide archaeological movement as each new installment leads us to more exciting new discoveries. Like we’ve done throughout this series, all of these tracks were painstakingly licensed legitimately and the artists were paid. Make yourself comfortable and prepare for yet another deep, deep dive into the treasure trove of dank, subterranean, wild-eyed and hairy rock ’n’ roll.

The Waters start this Trip off right with swampy fuzz- and phaser-soaked dueling guitars oozing from the grooves of their 1969 single “Mother Samwell.” The Louisville, KY trio somehow failed to make much of a splash however, only issuing two 45s, one in ’68 and this rocker the following year, before eventually evaporating in ’72. The bassist went on to play in Hank Williams Jr.’s band for a couple of decades, so the band’s fortunes weren’t entirely sunken.

Hamilton, Ontario launched the Village S.T.O.P.’s freak-out heavy psych marauding, but it was after frequent trips to NYC that the Canadian band really learned to let their freak flag fly. Sometimes the band played with their faces painted black & white, other times draped in fluorescent ink & blacklight, with strobe lights and the whole nine yards of theatrics… occasionally even adding a few extra inches of male nudity. Musically, their 1969 track “Vibration” is a bopping number nodding to Frank Zappa, Hendrix and some really brown acid doses.



White Lightning’s blazing double-kick drum, sizzling melodic riffs and Jim Dandy howls on “1930” is a power metal rocker from 1969 that perfectly epitomizes the raison d’être of this series. The Minneapolis, MN band formed by guitarist Tom “Zippy” Caplan after he left garage psych heroes The Litter, later shortened its name to Lightning. The group only issued one proper album before disbanding in 1971. However, with the late 1990’s reissues and revival of The Litter, Lightning’s bevy of unreleased recordings also surfaced as a self-titled LP and Strikes Twice 1986-1969 CD compilation.



The blues runs deep in the veins of “Woman (Don’t You Go)” by Bay Area rockers Shane. The biracial group may have borrowed its heavy syncopated groove and lead singer/organist aesthetic from locals Sly & The Family Stone, but their troglodyte fuzz riffs and beastly drums owe just as much to blazing proto-metal hellfire. Sadly, they only released this 1968 single before these men decided to go.

Ace Song Service probably thought they were pretty clever with their risqué acronym name, but it’s their B-side “Persuasion” that really kicks A.S.S. Rollicking, relentless drums, walking bass, staggering guitars and shimmering Hammond organ shake the foundations while crooning blue-eyed soul vocals remind you that this is still the late-60s. The Dallas, TX band only issued this lone (star) 2-song single before crawling back up from whence they came.

Opus Est’s strange 1974 headbanger “Bed” has a bit of “Hocus Pocus” by Focus style mania — and we mean that in the best lunacy inducing way. However, it’s the Belgian trio’s heavy panting and squealing vocals in the amorous breakdown that nods to a particular whole lotta nub that gives this song its, um, thrust. After just two singles, Opus Est came and went.

The Mopptops’ heavy riff of “Our Lives” starts of sounding like Greg Ginn’s frantic guitar work on Black Flag’s Nervous Breakdown, before wah-wah and high harmony vocals turn it into more of a Blues Magoos-meets-Iron Butterfly tune. This Hawaiian Islands based quartet took its inspiration more from the British Invasion than local traditions and were quite popular for their gritty long-hair R&B but remained isolated from the world at large. They did however release a handful of 45s between 1965 and the early 70s. This 1968 banger on Fantastic Records is, well, fantastic.



Youngstown, OH artists Artist weren’t too creative with their band name, instead saving that energy to create meaty midwestern rock’n’roll like “Every Lady Does It.” Harmonized guitar leads and driving cowbell power their hook-filled lone 1977 single. Not much is known about the obscure band, other than singer/guitarist Al Tkach later fronted something he called Reality Rock.

Rural hard rock bar band Stagefright hailed from Carthage, MO and their 1980 album D-Day is a highly collectible selection of landlocked rippers. Album opener “Comin’ Home” is a barnstorming romp led by vocalist/drummer Jim Mills who somehow smoothly sings while simultaneously playing wild Keith Moon style drum rolls.

Dickens “Sho’ Need Love” / “Don’t Talk About My Music” 45 is one of those record collector’s Holy Grail type of releases. The 1971 single only exists as a demo, printed as a white label promo pressing for Scepter Records. Dickens were, essentially, a mockery of the era’s hard rock shenanigans, comprised of NRBQ’s road crew and some band members all playing instruments they didn’t know how to play. This recording happened essentially by accident when studio time became available after Gomer Pyle actor and balladeer Jim Nabors cancelled a session. The group quickly cut a few songs, which an enthusiastic A&R man had pressed up, before the label president nixed it and fired the VP for allowing such nonsense. It’s believed that only about 50 copies survived. It’s a shame, since this Flipper-before-Flipper dirge-metal freakout was way ahead of its time.

That’s that for this edition of Brown Acid, but the hits keep on a-bubblin’ up from the primordial rock’n’roll sludge. So, stay tuned for more as we continue to find wilder and weirder treasures from the underground comedown. 

Big Crown Records is proud to present Dear Sunny... a compilation of Sunny & The Sunliners covers by Big Crown artists. Since the first time we heard "Should I Take You Home" by Sunny & The Sunliners, we have been avid fans. That record, which we were introduced to on MF Classy Chris' now legendary mixtape, The Time Is Right, set a lot of things in motion. It started of course with tracking down copies and collecting all of Sunny's records for our personal collections.

That quickly turned into the desire to reissue some of his vast catalog on our label for the rest of the world to hear. We got in touch with Sunny and his son David and brought the idea to them. After getting to know each other well enough Dave said, "You have been calling us non-stop for more than three years, you MUST mean what you are saying" and with that, we signed a deal to do a reissue project on Big Crown. We then flew out to San Antonio again, this time with a scanner and a videographer. We sat down with Sunny to interview him, went through his vast collection of photos, and talked about his life and career. Sunny was even kind enough to let us film him performing acoustic versions of a few songs.

We used all of that material for our 2017 compilation, Mr Brown Eyed Soul. That release is our highlight reel of Sunny's Soul tunes. We also made his rarest records readily available to collectors at a price that wouldn't empty their pockets. The concept for Dear Sunn came to us right after we signed the deal. We wanted our artists to cover his music as a tribute to him. Three years later we released the digital album on Sept 4th to coincide with Sunny's 77th birthday. The response has been nothing but love and now we are ready to press this up on vinyl with the addition of Liam Bailey's scorching cover of "Give Me Time". Everyone here stepped up to fill very big shoes doing these covers. Bobby Oroza teamed up with Cold Diamond & Mink and made a smashing version of "Should I Take You Home". The Shacks took on the anthemic "Smile Now, Cry Later" while Holy Hive covers "If I Could See You Now" building off the uptempo dance floor energy of the original. Paul & The Tall Trees bring a crooning vibe to "Rain Makes Me Blue" and Brainstory turned "Runaway" into a haunting ballad reminiscent of early Lee Hazelwood productions.

Some of these turn out to be covers of covers. Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band takes on the funk collector's holy grail from Sunny, his cover of War's "Get Down" while 79.5 take Sunny's version of "My Dream" and change the vibe from a floating love song to theme music for the brokenhearted. Mr. Lee Fields does "The One Who's Hurting Is You" and the latest addition to the Big Crown Roster, Lizette and Quevin, do a rendition of the song that brought Sunny to Dick Clark's American Bandstand in 1963 and catapulted him to fame; his cover of Little Willie John's "Talk To Me". So as the letter begins, "Dear Sunny.." we hope that you enjoy this homage Sir. Thank you for all the music you have given all of us, it has been a pleasure to work with you and to get a chance to know you and your family. We hope everyone enjoys this homage to the living legend, San Antonio's finest, Mr. Brown Eyed Soul, Sunny Ozuna as much as we do

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A

1. Smile Now, Cry Later - The Shacks
2. Should I Take You Home - Bobby Oroza
3. My Dream - 79.5
4. If I Could See You Now - Holy Hive
5. Get Down - Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band.

SIDE B

1. Give Me Time - Liam Bailey
2. The One Who’s Hurting Is You - Lee Fields & The Expressions
3. Talk To Me - Lizette & Quevin
4. Rain Makes Me Blue - Paul & The Tall Trees
5. Runaway – Brainstory

Squid are thrilled to announce their debut album, Bright Green Field, already one of 2021’s most highly anticipated albums. It's an album of towering scope and ambition, it is deeply considered, paced and intricately constructed. With all band members playing such a vital and equal role, this album is very much the product of five heads operating as one.

Some bands might be tempted to include previous singles on their debut - and the band already released two more in 2020 via ‘Sludge’ and ‘Broadcaster’ - but instead Bright Green Field is completely new. This sense of limitlessness and perpetual forward motion is one of the the key ingredients that makes Squid so loved by fans and critics alike, from BBC Radio 6 Music who have A-Listed previous singles, ‘Houseplants’, ‘The Cleaner’ and ‘Match Bet’ to publications such as, The Guardian, NME, The Face, The Quietus and countless others. The band was also on the longlist for the BBC Music Sound of 2020 poll.

Bright Green Field features field recordings of ringing church bells, tooting bees, microphones swinging from the ceiling orbiting a room of guitar amps, a distorted choir of 30 voices as well as a horn and string ensemble featuring the likes of, Emma-Jean Thackray and Lewis Evans from Black Country, New Road.

Whilst the album title conjures up imagery of pastoral England, in reality, it’s something of a decoy that captures the band’s fondness for paradox and juxtaposition. Within the geography of Bright Green Field lies monolithic concrete buildings and dystopian visions plucked from imagined cities.

Squid’s music - be it agitated and discordant or groove-locked and flowing - has often been a reflection of the tumultuous world we live in and this continues that to some extent. “This album has created an imaginary cityscape,” says Ollie Judge, who writes the majority of the lyrics and plays drums. “The tracks illustrate the places, events and architecture that exist within it. Previous projects were playful and concerned with characters, whereas this project is darker and more concerned with place - the emotional depth of the music has deepened.”

These themes were further embedded and emphasised, almost serendipitously, as Judge began to read more. “Reading Douglas Coupland’s view that we’re living in the “Extreme Present” as well as Mark Fisher and Merlin Coverley’s writings on Hauntology and the slow cancellation of the future made me realise we’ve been living in a dystopian and futurist landscape for a long time.”

However, for all the innovative recording techniques, evolutionary leaps, lyrical themes, ideas and narratives that underpin the album, it’s also a joyous and emphatic record. One, that marries the uncertainties of the world with a curious sense of exploration, as it endlessly twists and turns down unpredictable avenues.

Formed in Brighton, Squid is the brainchild of Louis Borlase (Guitars & Vocals), Ollie Judge (Drums & Lead Vocals), Arthur Leadbetter (Keyboards, Strings, Percussion), Laurie Nankivell (Bass & Brass) and Anton Pearson (Guitars & Vocals).

STAFF COMMENTS

says: I can't think of a single band that sound like Squid. Four or five maybe, but no other single band could sound this varied, this coherently i'm sure of it. Meandering math-rock, snarling post-punk and arrythmic indie business coalesce into a wildly inventive and completely unique whole. Staggeringly brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Resolution Square
2. G.S.K.
3. Narrator Ft. Martha Skye Murphy
4. Boy Racers
5. Paddling
6. Documentary Filmmaker
7. 2010
8. The Flyover
9. Peel St.
10. Global Groove
11. Pamphlets

The wisdom of Tony Allen's words was as deep as his grooves, and these two sentences, which announce the dozen songs that follow, truly capture the spirit of There is No End. Tony’s motivating concept and desire was to work with younger artists, and especially the new generation of rappers, and give them voice in a time of global turmoil when music has never been more important – not necessarily as a "weapon" for the future in the manner of Fela's violently political songs, but also as medicine to heal a fractured world today.

For all those who knew him, he was a deeply spiritual man whose life's mission was not just to create a new musical language, but to pass it on to subsequent generations. In thinking back on the incredible process of creating this album without Tony physically present to guide him, producer Vincent Taeger remarked that his friend and mentor "was a teacher without speaking... a drummer and a guardian, with a great artistic vision and that vision filled the songs even after he had left us." Ben Okri, like everyone else involved in this valedictory album, had a very similar experience, declaring in awe that "this man could have lived another 150 years and kept creating new worlds. He had become the master shaman of his art. He knew himself and his mind. He wanted the album to be open to the energies of a new generation... but like a great mathematician or scientist who found a code of for a new world, with just a few beats, he created this extraordinary canvas."

Featured artists include Skepta, Sampa The Great, Lava La Rue, Danny Brown, Damon Albarn and many others.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: There are very few drummers (no shade on drummers here) that would be well known of their own accord like Tony Allen is. Having been consistently inventive and undeniably brilliant throughout his life all the way up to his 2020 masterpiece with Hugh Massakela, 'Rejoice', it's really no surprise that this Posthumous release is chock-full of wonderful rhythmic surprises, and has a lineup of perfectly chosen guests. A fittingly wonderful album from one of the greatest (and original) Afrobeat drummers of all time.

TRACK LISTING

CD (14 Tracks)
Tony’s Praeludium
Tony Allen

Stumbling Down
Tony Allen Featuring Sampa The Great

Crushed Grapes
Tony Allen Featuring Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon

Très Magnifique
Tony Allen Featuring Tsunami

Mau Mau
Tony Allen Featuring Nah Eeto

Coonta Kinte
Tony Allen Featuring Zelooperz

Rich Black
Tony Allen Featuring Koreatown Oddity

One Inna Million
Tony Allen Featuring Lava La Rue

Gang On Holiday (Em I Go We?)
Tony Allen Featuring Jeremiah Jae

Deer In Headlights
Tony Allen Featuring Danny Brown

Hurt Your Soul
Tony Allen Featuring Nate Bone

My Own
Tony Allen Featuring Marlowe

Cosmosis
Tony Allen Featuring Ben Okri + Skepta

There’s No End
Tony Allen

2LP (12 Tracks)
There Is No End
Tony Allen

Rich Black
Tony Allen Featuring Koreatown Oddity

Coonta Kinte
Tony Allen Featuring Zelooperz

One Inna Million
Tony Allen Featuring Lava La Rue

Stumbling Down
Tony Allen Featuring Sampa The Great

Crushed Grapes
Tony Allen Featuring Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon

Gang On Holiday (Em I Go We?)
Tony Allen Featuring Jeremiah Jae

Mau Mau
Tony Allen Featuring Nah Eeto

Très Magnifique
Tony Allen Featuring Tsunami

Hurt Your Soul
Tony Allen Featuring Nate Bone

Cosmosis
Tony Allen Featuring Ben Okri + Skepta

My Own
Tony Allen Featuring Marlowe

Cooked up in the Blue Note Lab, RMX presents last year’s band-defining masterpiece, GoGo Penguin, re-imagined through the filter of some of the world’s finest producers and remixers. For RMX the idea was both simple and inspired; commission a remix of every track from last year’s album and present a total re-imagination of the record, a remix, or as the band title it, a RMX. In the end they went one better; with a remix of every track (and two of one) plus a remix of the track Petit_a, which was originally released only in Japan before surfacing on their Live from Studio 2 digital EP. The idea behind RMX was also the catalyst for a remarkably inspired collaboration. The Manchester trio's music has always drawn heavily on electronica (alongside jazz, indie and classical influences) and so commissioning ten of their favourite artists to rework their music made perfect sense - and the results are spectacular. One of the very best remix projects you will hear anywhere. Amongst the many highlights are Squarepusher’s thumping remix of F Maj Pixie, alongside Japanese producers Cornelius and Yosi creating sublime new landscapes with the band’s music on Kora and Embers. James Holden assembles an epic synth odyssey around Totem and Portico Quartet produce a sympathetic reworking of Don’t Go. Band faves Clark and Nathan Fake produce inimitable reworkings as does noted French producer Rone, while American producer Machine Drum turns Atomised into dance floor friendly ‘belter’ which is also the first single. Finally, the band have not forgotten their hometown - Manchester is well represented, with remixes from elder statesman and dance music legend Graham Massey (808 state) and new discovery Shunya, whose enigmatic reworking of To The Nth almost steals the record.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: You only need look at the lineup for this to get some idea of how far GGP have come. From their early days as mellow jazz underdogs to their staggering newest LP for the legendary Blue Note records, they've proven their undeniable talent at every turn. This project sees a number of stratospherically big names remixing their work with incredible results. Stunning.

TRACK LISTING

1. Kora (Cornelius Remix)
2. Atomised (Machinedrum Remix)
3. Embers (Yosi Horikawa Remix)
4. F Major Pixie (Rone Remix)
5. F Major Pixie (Squarepusher Remix)
6. Open (Nathan Fake Remix)
7. Signal In The Noise (808 State Remix)
8. Totem (James Holden Remix)
9. To The Nth (Shunya Remix)
10. Petit_a (Clark Remix)
11. Don’t Go (Portico Quartet Remix)

Recorded live on 9th November 2018 (their only UK show of 2018), ‘education entertainment recreation’ is a brand new live album from London’s Alexandra Palace.

Sonically spectacular, spanning 2 hours 20 minutes, the show joyously mixed New Order classics, their latest acclaimed album ‘Music Complete’ and Joy Division’s finest.

Opening with ‘Singularity’ from ‘Music Complete’, they eased back in time to 1993’s ‘Regret’, to ‘Love Vigilantes’ from 1985’s ‘Low-Life’ to ‘Ultraviolence from 1983 debut ‘Power, Corruption and Lies’.

Later, their power over the dance floor was proven by sublime performances in the manner of the celebrated extended 12 inch remixes they are synonymous with - on ‘True Faith’, ‘Blue Monday’ and ‘Temptation’ before a Joy Division mini set to end.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: This superb set from Alexandra Palace sees New Order in peak form, and perfectly captures the raw energy and unbelievable musicianship of this legendary band. A perfect mix of older material and new, with all the hits being perfectly placed throughout. Presented in gorgeous triple LP, double CD and even one format with a blue ray of the show! Essential.

TRACK LISTING

2CD Set
CD 1:
1. Introduction
2. Singularity
3. Regret
4. Love Vigilantes
5. Ultraviolence
6. Disorder
7. Crystal
8. Academic
9. Your Silent Face
10. Subculture
CD 2:
1. BLT
2. Vanishing Point
3. Waiting For The Sirens Call
4. Plastic
5. Perfect Kiss
6. True Faith
7. Blue Monday
8. Temptation
9. Atmosphere
10. Decades
11. Love Will Tear Us Apart

2CD/ BluRay
2CD Tracklisting As Above
BluRay (Film)
1. Introduction
2. Singularity
3. Regret
4. Love Vigilantes
5. Ultraviolence
6. Disorder
7. Crystal
8. Academic
9. Your Silent Face
10. Tutti Fruitti
11. Subculture
12. BLT
13. Vanishing Point
14. Waiting For The Sirens Call
15. Plastic
16. Perfect Kiss
17. True Faith
18. Blue Monday
19. Temptation
20. Atmosphere
21. Decades
22. Love Will Tear Us Apart

3LP Set
LP 1 / Side 1
Introduction
Singularity
Regret
Love Vigilantes
Ultraviolence
LP 1 / Side 2
Disorder
Crystal
Academic
Your Silent Face
LP 2 / Side 1
Sub Culture
BLT
Vanishing Point
LP 2 / Side 2
Waiting For The Sirens’ Call
Plastic
Perfect Kiss
LP 3 / Side 1
True Faith
Blue Monday
Temptation
LP 3 / Side 2
Atmosphere
Decades
Love Will Tear Us Apart

‘At The BBC’ is the anticipated reissue from Amy Winehouse, originally released as a box set in 2012 this is the first time that the two discs ‘A Tribute To Amy Winehouse by Jools Holland’ and ‘BBC One Sessions Live at Porchester Hall’ are combined together to create this incredible masterpiece. The first time the tracks are available on vinyl, the set features tracks from Later with Jools across the year from 2003-2007 feature the most renowned tracks such as ‘Tears Dry On Their Own’, ‘Rehab’ and ‘Love Is A Losing Game’. And notably Amy’s first performance on the show in 2003 with ‘Stronger Than Me’. This is an essential listening and a celebration of the icon which is Amy Winehouse.

STAFF COMMENTS

says: There's very little that needs saying for this. Amy Winehouse has left more of an impression on the landscape of singer-songwritery than pretty much any artist I can think of, and this soulful collection of her various BBC and Jools Holland appearances sees her in absolute peak form. As mindblowing as it is heartbreaking, the stripped-back perfection displayed here couldn't be any more of a testament to the enduring appeal of Winehouse, and to have it all in one place is perfect.

TRACK LISTING

A Tribute To Amy Winehouse By Jools Holland

Stronger Than Me (Later With Jools Holland/Nov 2003)
Take The Box (Mercury Prize/Sept 2004)
Teach Me Tonight Feat. Jools Holland (Hootenanny/Dec 2004)
Rehab (Later With Jools Holland/Oct 2006)
Tenderly Feat. Jools Holland (Later With Jools Holland/Oct 2006)
Tears Dry On Their Own (Later With Jools Holland/Oct 2006)
Monkey Man Feat. Jools Holland (Hootenanny/Dec 2006)
I Heard It Through The Grapevine Feat. Paul Weller And Jools Holland (Hootenanny/Dec 2006)
Don't Go To Strangers Feat. Paul Weller And Jools Holland (Hootenanny/Dec 2006)
Love Is A Losing Game (Mercury Prize/Sept 2007)

The BBC Sessions

Know You Now (Leicester Summer Sundae 2004)
Fuck Me Pumps (T In The Park 2004)
In My Bed (T In The Park 2004)
October Song (T In The Park 2004)
Rehab (Pete Mitchell 2006)
You Know I'm No Good (Jo Whiley Live Lounge 2007)
Just Friends (Big Band Special 2009)
Love Is A Losing Game (Jools Holland 2009)
Tears Dry On Their Own (Jo Whiley Live Lounge 2007)
Best Friends, Right? (Leicester Summer Sundae 2004)
I Should Care (The Stables 2004)
Lullaby Of Birdla