Beloved in equal measure for her deceptively subtle voice and her meticulous, incisive lyrics, Phoebe Bridgers’s solo records Stranger in the Alps (2017) and Punisher (2020) have been accompanied by a number of collaborations, including the supergroup boygenius, with whom Bridgers won three Grammys for 2023’s the record. Her songs are hallmarked by a kind of intimacy that’s hard-found in contemporary music, and scale between the macro and the micro with an ease that’s matched only by her towering, prodigious way with words.

‘Massive Champion’ is the highly anticipated new album from Bristol’s Getdown Services, the follow up to cult classic debut ‘Crisps’.

An odyssey of anarchic joy, seditious wit and boundless energy, the album finds Josh Law and Ben Sadler pushing deeper into the singular world they have been building for years, while opening up new emotional and lyrical ground. Written in green rooms, on long car journeys and in the gaps between relentless touring, it stands as their boldest and most expansive statement to date, an ode to childhood, British cultural detritus and the absurd poetry of everyday life, distilling everything that has made Getdown Services one of the most exhilarating and unpredictable bands around. In the band’s words it is “about self pity and realising that maybe all of the healing your inner child stuff you hear about isn’t actually total bollocks. Musically and lyrically I think it’s about us trying to clean up our act a bit.”

New single ‘I Can’t Die Like That’ provides the second taste of the album and is the kind of instant earworm built for festival crowds. Wildly infectious, it is quintessential Getdown Services, pairing huge hooks with the band’s perceptive and poignant lyricism. As the band explain, “‘I Can’t Die Like That’ is about the feeling of simple things becoming complicated. We thought it was interesting to think about the ways in which something as straightforward as dying can be difficult. It’s also about clinging on to feelings that comfort you but aren’t necessarily healthy.” Like much of ‘Massive Champion’, it finds catharsis in contradiction, meeting often heavy subject matter with both candour and humour.

A triumph of hard work and the grassroots scene, Getdown Services jokingly coined themselves Britain’s Best Band. With ‘Massive Champion’, it feels less like a punchline and more like a statement of intent. As their audience continues to grow exponentially both at home and across the world, they look every bit on a fast track to becoming one of the country’s biggest and most vital bands. Joyous and utterly singular, ‘Massive Champion’ feels set to soundtrack the year ahead and, very likely, many more to come.

Jungle cemented their status as a major global force with their 2023 album ‘Volcano’ - a record that earned them their first BRIT Award and featured their worldwide smash hit single ‘Back On 74’. The trio - J Lloyd, Tom McFarland and Lydia Kitto - return with their eagerly anticipated new album ‘Sunshine’.

TRACK LISTING

1. Come Back to Me
2. Sunshine
3. Where Are You Now?
4. Move Like You Do
5. Romeo II feat. Bas
6. Carry On
7. The Wave
8. Someday, Somewhere
9. Natural
10. Reflection
11. Heavy on My Soul

Laura Veirs returns with 'Temple Songs', her first album in four years—and the first she has written, recorded, arranged, produced, and performed entirely on her own. “I didn’t know if I would write songs again,” says Veirs, who spent the intervening years building a backyard studio, getting married, blending a family with four teenagers, deepening her visual art practice (painting), and expanding her music teaching. “Turns out that period was a gathering phase. When I made the commitment to recording the album myself, the muse caught me again and it came together very quickly.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Arc Still Bends
2. Golden Seams
3. Pulse
4. Feeling Returns
5. Flying Into Darkness
6. Colors Sing
7. Out From Undercover
8. New Life Over There
9. No Masters
10. River's Song
11. Sunlight and Doom

Lost In Another World is James Ellis Ford’s singular, emotionally resonant second solo album. Made from start to finish in just over two weeks in early 2025, while James was on a hospital ward between punishing rounds of chemotherapy, following a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), it shares the experiences from the frontline of illness; fear, love, reassurance, boredom, pain, calm, disbelief, and ultimately hope. These transmissions from the eye of the storm have informed an album which is truly something special.

Sweeping Promises’ introduction to the global punk underground was their debut album, 'Hunger for a Way Out', which ended up being one of the breakout successes in music during pandemic lockdown. In 2023, they followed up with 'Good Living is Coming for You', a satirical, hyper-critical rebuke of capitalism that made Album of the Year lists for Pitchfork, NPR, Paste, and BBC, just to name a few. Bassist/vocalist Lira Mondal and guitarist Caufield Schnug decided to tilt their approach a few degrees forward on their third LP.

The big theme of 'You Say I Romanticize' is hinted at in its title. Coming from a lyric sung on album closer 'Write Lightly'—a narrative about the importance of self-expression in writing being scrubbed away by “professional” concerns—many of the characters singer/bassist Mondal fleshed out here are outcasts, marginalized by society and turned into fanatics for a cornucopia of specific causes.

The visceral songwriting on 'You Say I Romanticize' features an equally visceral musical approach. Sweeping Promises brought live drummer Spenser Gralla into the recording sessions to give the songs a similar urgency to their live show. The frenzy of its execution also materializes in Mondal’s vocal performances.

A shadow side exists along with Sweeping Promises’ love of their artistic community—borne of weirdos channeling their “outcast” status into vibrant art and punk rock music. You Say I Romanticize takes the ethos Mondal and Schnug have developed and explores the obsessive, fanatical aspects of being ostracized and isolated by mainstream society.

TRACK LISTING

1. Shooting Shadows
2. My Friend's An Entomologist
3. Last Man
4. Rapture, Or...
5. Abduction On Camera
6. My Anchoress
7. Cocoon
8. Accent
9. Does He Want To Be The Weatherman?
10. Write Lightly

'One Assassination Under God - Chapter 2' the 13th album by Marilyn Manson featuring the single 'Exit Wound' and released via Nuclear Blast Records.

TRACK LISTING

1. Unalive
2. Don't Answer The Door 
3. Front Toward Enemy 
4. All The Vilest Things 
5. None of the Suns 
6. Lucifer's Teardrop 
7. The Arsonist 
8. Exit Wound 
9. Enantiomorph

L’Rain’s kaleidoscopic fourth album 'Fata Morgana' is a fearless reckoning with self-doubt and the mirages of belonging and alienation that shape Taja Cheek’s lived experience of the contemporary moment. A shimmering vision of light and sound, seductive, ephemeral, impossible to contain, 'Fata Morgana' is a genre-defiant synthesis of dancehall, tape meditations, slow jams, gospel, and crunched metal influences in answer to the question: How do you grow in a world not meant for you to thrive in?

TRACK LISTING

1. Rumors of Light
2. With Time
3. Blue
4. July 5th
5. Bedroom Songs
6. Borderline
7. Elmyra
8. Soulless Cycle
9. No Body / Know Body
10. Glass Ceiling
11. I Remember
12. Birthday
13. Church of No One

The Womack Sisters – Kucha, Zeimani, and BG Womack – were singing before they could walk. Their 2026 self-titled debut album, 'The Womack Sisters', is the musical culmination of the Sisters’ long and winding journey to find themselves. Over an intensely soulful collection of tunes that harkens back to when pop music had substance, vibe and purpose, each of their distinct voices have their moments in the spotlight.

The Sisters grew up on the road. Their schools were stages and studios all over the world, where they sang behind their parents, Zekkariyas & Zeriiya (fka Womack & Womack), alongside their four siblings. Nowhere was home for long. No matter where they lived—London, Thailand, Amsterdam, Kenya, Paris, Sydney, Zurich, Vienna, Tanzania, New York, Miami, West Virginia, the Bahamas—they were always surrounded by music and family.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chauffeur
2. If You Want Me
3. Monster
4. If I Let You
5. I Just Don't Want You
6. Laughter & Tears
7. Didn't Mean Much to Me
8. You Went Away Too Long
9. I am Your Season
10. All Around
11. My Sisters and Me

'Songs Before Bed' marks Otto Benson’s first physical release under his own name, following earlier work under aliases including Memo Boy, OTTO, and Pudding Club.

Originally published as a digital-only release through Otto's own WNOADIARWB website and platforms on New Year's Eve 2022, 'Songs Before Bed' bridges the gap between the more experimental psychedelic electronic works of Otto and his most recent release, the acclaimed 'Peanut', released on NYE 2025. Blending brief pop fragments with melodic bedroom guitar, droning ambient shoegaze textures, and blissful IDM jaunts reminiscent of the Rephlex catalog, the album offers a seamless overview of Otto Benson's genre-defying sound. Originally conceived as a late-night record, 'Songs Before Bed' rewards listening at any hour.

Remastered for vinyl by Stephan Mathieu and pressed on Sonopress EcoRecord, an environmentally conscious alternative to PVC, special care was taken by Palto Flats and Otto Benson to make a sustainable product without sacrificing sound quality.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: With opiated echoes of Mac Demarco and Cindy Lee, late night vintage synthesizer rhythm sections a la Timmy Thomas, future ambient and atmospheres that'd excite Dean Blunt, and even moments of inspired glitchy electronica; if it wasn't so humbly presented I'd say Otto Benson was showing off! This is incredible stuff folks.

TRACK LISTING

mr. sunday night
river dream
another long day
forgot
orange moon
jumping seeds
histamine
letting go
apogamy
tuning in and out
good night mantra
kittys midnight blessing

London artist Coupdekat releases her debut album: "Goodbye 2012!". A collection of songs that charts a path back to the unselfconscious optimism of the pre-social media era nodding to electroclash, vapourwave and synthwave styles whilst paying tribute to pioneers like Sophie, Charli XCX, Erika De Casier, MIA and AG Cook. 

Coupdekat aka Katherine Reilly is a co-founder of Loud LDN and has been a key figure in the capital's (hyper)pop revival.

“I wanted this album to be a return to a time before having a phone and social media, before the self-awareness and pressure of being perceived. I missed the freedom and spontaneity of girlhood, I was so much more confident expressing myself back then. I wanted Goodbye 2012! to feel like a return to that moment in time.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Finding her own little smidgen of unclaimed hyperpop territory, somewhere between the boarders of Sophie, Erika De Casier and Charli XCX; we have Coupdekat - who's hyped-up, slickly produced ode to the pre-I-Phone era is a fun, face-paced injection of chaos and charisma. Most recommended.

TRACK LISTING

1. 2012
2. money ft NATHALIA
3. i still think about the band
4. violet
5. kisses
6. mwah
7. crushing blushing rushing!!!!! (⸝⸝⸝>﹏<⸝⸝⸝)
8. lip service
9. heyyy ft Natalie Red + Ruby Bell
10. trashy
11. boldfont
12. this could b something I could feel

Brighton-based Swedish songwriter, poet and multi-instrumentalist Nina Winder-Lind debut solo album 'Wild Love'.

Best known as a member of the electrifying 'Hagstone rock' four-piece The New Eves, Winder-Lind's solo work channels the same raw intensity and liberatory spirit while revealing a more intimate, deeply personal side to her songwriting. Expanding on the world introduced through her 2023 EP 'The Spirit Is Carnal' and first poetry collection 'Rod Ska Jag Leva' (2025), 'Wild Love' is an ambitious and emotionally expansive body of work from one of the most enthralling new voices in music today.

Though connected to the fierce communal energy of The New Eves , 'Wild Love' inhabits its own distinct emotional landscape. Across eleven songs, Winder-Lind brings together the wealth of her experiences and passions and reflects them back outwards, distilled with shimmering intensity. The album spells out a liberatory vision which she refuses to compromise, one rooted in emotional honesty, ecstatic expression and unfettered selfhood.

Female experience is a constant thread throughout the record, with songs paying tribute to "foremothers" and girls alike in a society that still attempts to pigeonhole women into narrow roles. Yet 'Wild Love' reaches beyond resistance alone. More than anything, the album radiates untrammelled animal energy: an overwhelming sense of aliveness, movement and emotional abandon.

TRACK LISTING

1. Street Hassle
2. Girls 
3. Headfirst 
4. This Is Our Life 
5. Grandma and Robert De Niro
6. HYMN 
7. You're not an Angel 
8. Everything Is About You 
9. Love You So 
10. When the Cranes 
11. Foremothers

There is an ecstatic melancholy in Dent May’s music. The bedroom pop auteur’s songs are both bittersweet and exuberant, breaking your heart while you can’t help but sing along.

Over six albums, May has built a wildly diverse discography spanning 17 years. He has typically worked alone, assembling perfect pop gems on his laptop, playing nearly every instrument himself. But when he began preparations for his new album, May’s tried and true process suddenly felt stale.

'The Big One' brings together both the scrappy DIY ethos of Elephant 6 Collective and early The Magnetic Fields with May’s lifelong affinity for the great ’70s singer-songwriters like Harry Nilsson and Ram-era Paul McCartney. The songs balance a clear-eyed view of the world with a cautious optimism, looking at the everyday experiences of disappointment and heartbreak with a sense of possibility for the good that may still come. Things might seem bleak, May tells us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be thankful for our brief time here on Planet Earth.

The title track is the beating heart of the record. Over a steady drumbeat, piano, and accordion, a melancholy May sings, “The big one’s coming, the big one’s on its way,” promising disaster. But May won’t wallow in the misery: “Thank the Lord for all my friends/We can make it ’til the end/No we can’t stop now/Who knows? Tomorrow it all could turn around.” For May, hope comes in the form of others.

It’s with this joyful melancholy Dent May draws in the world. Everything might be ending, the planet could be careening off into chaos, but tonight there’s a party down the block and you’re invited. Be sure and bring your friends.

TRACK LISTING

1. Here We Go Again
2. I Remember
3. The Big One
4. I Don't Like You (But I Love You)
5. I Want To Believe
6. Silly Me
7. Second Wind
8. I-55
9. Last Night I Saw a UFO
10. Such A Thrill
11. Tell 'Em All I Said Hi

'Big World' lives up to its name. Arriving on the heels of Hovvdy’s 2024 self-titled album with a palpable sense of expansion – songs that stretch outwards and fill every room that they’re played in – while still being rooted in the close, unguarded intimacy characteristic of the Texas duo. It’s a progression that underscores how Charlie Martin and Will Taylor, now over a decade into their collaboration, continue to refine a shared language without losing the sincerity that has come to define it.

TRACK LISTING

1. Life So Wide
2. Way Down
3. JJ
4. What I Had
5. Blast
6. Starry
7. Try Try Try
8. Junk
9. You Will Go Far
10. Give It Away
11. Untitled
12. Wannabe (Radio Queen)

Joyce and Tutty Moreno, the legendary vocalist/guitarist and drummer who helped define the sound of Brazilian popular music, have partnered with Adrian Younge to create 'JID027'. The result is an album that captures the ethereal beauty of collective improvisation, the weight of saudade, and the unbreakable bond between two of Brazil's most revered musicians.

The album is a delicate balance of premeditation and improvisation. Joyce's compositions-'Mandala';' 'Uaná Eté': 'Is This Love?': 'Fingers': and 'Janeiro'-sit alongside instrumental pieces by Younge, where Joyce's voice becomes a horn, a flute, a river of melody without words. The album closes with 'Circulo Vicioso': a recitation of the iconic poem by Machado de Assis, Brazil's greatest writer. Joyce's spoken word, delivered in her native Portuguese, transforms the track into a meditation on life, death, and the cyclical nature of art.

TRACK LISTING

1.Mandala
2.Uaná Eté
3. Is This Love?
4.Fingers
5.Janeiro
6. Sorria De Novo
7. Flores Vermelhas
8. Circulo Vicioso

Veteran NYC producer Blockhead teams up with rising Baltimore MC Brian Ennals (usually seen in his lauded partnership with Infinity Knives) for vital, skillsharing new album Boatshoes, a canny and celebratory ride through everything that makes these artists great.

TRACK LISTING

1. Aldente
2. Roll Call
3. Pass the Yayo
4. Bareback
5. Let it Burn (like Usher)
6. Yellow School Buses feat. Mike Mayo and Defcee
7. Wet Noodle
8. Signed Sealed & Delivered
9. Soy Boy
10. Now That's What I Call a Posse Cut vol. 89 feat. feat Fatboi Sharif, Shrapknel, and DeathIRL
11. Smirnoff, via a Straw
12. Shyne
13. Wonderwall

In an era of excess and endless distraction, Margaret Glaspy rejects the noise in favor of something far more essential. Before setting to work on her fourth full-length album 'I Am Both', she stepped away from social media and soon discovered a clarity of mind she hadn’t experienced in years, followed by a sustained burst of creative momentum. As she penned her lyrics in longhand and then polished them up on a typewriter, Glaspy assembled a selection of songs that span from fictional vignettes to unguarded self-revelation to empathetic observation of the troubled world around her. Produced by Joe Henry (the three-time Grammy-winning singer/songwriter/producer known for his work with luminaries like Aimee Mann and Joan Baez), 'I Am Both' ultimately stands as a striking new statement from one of the modern music canon’s most formidable songwriters.

TRACK LISTING

1. Michigan
2. Reminder
3. That Rose
4. I Thought She Was A Song
5. Petty
6. Common Ground
7. James and Marie
8. Martin Luther King Jr.
9. Sharp Knife
10. Wildest Dreams
11. I Am Both

Minneapolis' Real Numbers return with a new full length album, the gorgeously pop-tastic 'Was It Always This Way'. Ten expectant, exuberant songs mixing hope and despair, the future and the past, all set to the sounds of late-80s/early-90s UK indie-pop. While definitely picking up where their 2021 EP 'Brighter Then' left off, the emphasis this time is on multi-layered guitars intended to complement the wistful and melancholy tracks with glittering awe.

'Was It Always This Way' refines Real Numbers' already-stunning songs, polishing the tunes into a swooningly perfect album that recalls 90s antecedents like Field Mice and St Christopher, as well as fellow pop practitioners like Ducks Ltd, Chime School and The Umbrellas. Album highlights like 'Darling' and 'Never Never Again' show that Real Numbers stand tall with their influences, paying close attention to the past while taking their art straight into the future with assurance and flair.

TRACK LISTING

1. This Empty Frame
2. I Can Tell
3. Darling
4. Star
5. Twist The Blade
6. Don't Look Away
7. Everlasting Happiness
8. Was It Always This Way
9. Never Never Again
10. Remembrance

It’s five years in a blender. It’s every troublesome misunderstanding of a half-decade relationship distorted and stretched into an absurdist black comedy mini-series on wax. It’s the sound of every fight we ever had, playing simultaneously. It’s several consecutive voice notes that you did not listen to, and instead read the transcription. It’s fifteen songs from iconoclastic rapper Mike Eagle and innovative producer Kenny Segal. It’s the world’s first half-whimsical break-up album. It’s 'DOOMED!'

It’s also LA. Maybe not first and foremost, but Los Angeles runs deep in this record’s present, and its lineage. The story of any big city is also one of transplants. DJ Premier in New York, Tupac in California. If you build it, they will come. Mike and Kenny both arrived in LA as young, aspiring artists who were drawn to the scene around groundbreaking rap crew Project Blowed. They have been friends—and occasional collaborators—for almost twenty years. Despite that, 'DOOMED!' is the first time the two have put together a full body of work. But everything happens in its time, and fate worked to bring them together at the exact moment that would allow the duo to create something extraordinary. Mike, fresh off a string of multi-producer records and processing the end of a tumultuous relationship, was in need of creative catharsis. Meanwhile, Kenny had locked in on his next challenge after a recent string of critically acclaimed collaborations not only with rappers like billy woods, and K-the-I???, but also jazz trio Human Error Club and bluesy indie rocker Benjamin Booker.

“In recent years, Kenny made it very clear that he wasn’t trying to keep having one or two beats on my projects; he wanted to build something,” Open Mike Eagle explains. “I was able to convince him to let me use a couple beats for 'Neighborhood Gods Unlimited' with the caveat that we would focus on our thing next. Then my relationship fell apart right when we started working, and it was like, ‘Perfect, I have a lot to say about this.’”

Here are some more particularly interesting insights from the man himself:
“If 'DOOMED!' is prestige TV, then think of 'Out To Lunch' as the pilot where we meet a man who’s not all there because his head is still in yesterday, and the following as a brief synopsis.

There’s a song that starts at an argument about the color of a rental car. There’s a song about trying to write a pair of lovers’ initials in wet concrete and the stick breaking. There’s a song that’s a prayer about finding the strength not to look at my ex’s social media. There’s a song about a character from Adventure Time who’s a piece of shit that I identify with. Each vision is a crashed airplane halfway on the border of dream and nightmare, bitter and sweet, sadness and freedom. Every one of Kenny’s beats is a chunk of ore from a different comet. I used each one as a canvas to paint my impression of a dead world.

TRACK LISTING

1. Out to Lunch
2. Streets of Rage: Public Arguments Edition feat Gothic Tropic
3. DOOMED!
4. Unfinished Concrete Initials feat Hemlock Ernst
5. Don’t Go Look (Battleworld Focus Prayer)
6. She Swear I’m Colorblind feat billy woods
7. Science Fiction/Fantasy
8. The Irredeemable Magic Man
9. The Many Hustles of my Lonely Time Traveling Uncle
10. Trying to Remember What I Aimed At
11. Schrödinger’s Green Room (There but Uninvited)
12. It Happens in Every Universe (interlude)
13. Sweetheart Jail
14. Infinity War Spoilers
15. Watching a Movie Called Freedom By Myself

Radical Friendship Theory was formed through a collection of like-minded musicians. Robert Rotifer (singer-songwriter and guitarist/bassist with everyone from Louis Philippe & The Night Mail to Swansea Sound, The Penrose Web, Papernut Cambridge, Keiron Phelan and Fay Hallam's band) asked Kenji (formerly of sunshine poppers Friedrich Sunlight, co-inventor of GlasGoesPop) why he wasn't singing in bands anymore, and it all ballooned from there into a luscious LP featuring, besides Robert & Kenji, post-Glam veteran John Howard, young Viennese talent The Zew, living she-punk legend Helen McCookerybook and everybody's favourite singing drummer Ian Button.

The original idea was that Robert would write songs for Kenji's voice whose gorgeousness naturally guided him into a melodic baroque pop direction. Lyrically, too, a theme evolved about friendship, mutual encouragement and the state of the world.

What started out as home made demos in unfamiliar keys grew into fully fledged arrangements. Everybody involved sings lead on a track or two and harmonies on everything, so the album itself is the musical embodiment of the Radical Friendship idea, not in theory but in practice.

Radical Friendship Theory is not a band, it's a lovingly realised set of songs in a wide range of styles and arrangements, from baroque pop, to psych, from country rock to bookish indie, sung by a circle of friends between Glasgow, Kent, London, Berlin and southern Spain - a celebration of actual human, creative friendship as a life-saving alternative to a world of fake digital engagement, captive consumption and artificially sown division.

TRACK LISTING

1. Considering (3:17)
2. Things to Do In Winter (3:10)
3. Listen to The News (3:01)
4. Radical Friendship (4:10)
5. The Words (3:06)
6. The More That I Think About What We Should Do (2:47)
7. Stay With Us (3:43)
8. Across The Great Divide (3:57)
9. Always In Landscape (3:29)
10. Sense Of Time (3:29)
11. Nobody Wants To Live In This House Anymore (3:05)
12. Is This Real Enough? (4:05)

Sharing a name with the beloved series of live events they launched in 2024, 'Pure Devotion' is Overmono’s most ambitious project to date. It’s the sound of beautiful imperfections, machine malfunctions and happy accidents, harnessed by the unflinching confidence that Overmono - aka brothers Tom and Ed Russell - have gained through years at the vanguard of underground electronic music, and subsequent breakthrough as one of the defining dance music acts of the decade.

Across the 11 tracks, Overmono have pushed their recording process into bold new territories, adopting experimental production techniques that involve synthesisers from the 70s and 80s, an antiquated train announcement speaker, and literally baking a crash cymbal in the oven. There’s a powerful sense of intention and physicality embedded in every choice, which extends to the emotive vocal features from revered British poet John Joseph Holt, close collaborator Kindora, and Paul Institute’s Ruthven. It’s an album that chooses emotion over desensitisation. Craft over efficiency. It's a labour of love. 'Pure Devotion'.

What started as a radical reimagining of Overmono’s live show in 2024 evolved into a phenomenon - from headlining Glastonbury’s West Holts to selling out London’s Alexandra Palace and curating Manchester’s Warehouse Project. As 'Pure Devotion' grew onstage in front of tens of thousands of people, its core ideas deepened and crystallised via isolated writing and recordings retreats to Spain and Iceland with nothing but two synths and an FX unit, channeling the momentum into the most life-affirming and groundbreaking music of their career.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A frenetic, intricately textured romp through the fringes of house music and IDM, with tactfully placed stabs of Italo-adjacent minimalism and floor-ready breakbeat drops. Musically astounding, incandescent dance music that pushes on the head as much as it pulls on the heart.

TRACK LISTING

1.⁠ ⁠Lockup
2.⁠ ⁠Knight In Shining Prada (feat. John Joseph Holt)
3. Slowmotion
4.⁠ ⁠Even Angels Ghost (feat. Kindora)
5.⁠ ⁠Barum
6.⁠ ⁠Mialon
7.⁠ ⁠Laxbrook
8.⁠ ⁠Gem Lingo (ovr now) (feat. Ruthven)
9.⁠ ⁠Adre
10.⁠ ⁠Ballad (feat. Kindora and Rock Floyd)
11.⁠ ⁠After The Rain

‘Cannonball’ is the highly anticipated debut album from Man/Woman/Chainsaw. Produced by Margo Broom (Fat White Family, Big Joanie), and Seth Evans (Geordie Greep, Black Midi), it includes the singles ‘Only Girl’, and ‘Nosedive’. Grand and exuberant, rich with unconventional structures and world-beating choruses, the long-awaited record makes good on the band’s years of hard touring while unearthing new dimensions and unlikely facets in their songwriting; It is a sharp, smart first record, one which presents Man/Woman/Chainsaw exactly as they are right now.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brilliantly inventive mix of warm, melodic indie music and more off-piste outsider influences like post-rock's soaring orchestral flourishes or the layered harmonies of ASMZ's more punky works, resulting in an album that's as ambitious as it is unique. A wonderfully fullscreen affair.

TRACK LISTING

1. Only Girl
2. Canyons
3. Goddamn, Lizard Man!
4. Lighter
5. Nosedive
6. Get Up And Dance
7. Snakebite
8. Flick Of The Wrist
9. The Thing
10. Still Angry
11. Something Else To Give

'As We Once Were' is the third studio album from twice Welsh Music Prize nominated artist and producer The Anchoress aka Catherine Anne Davies.

This new record is the long-awaited follow-up to the UK Top 40 album 'The Art Of Losing', which received wall-to-wall critical plaudits upon its release in 2021 and scooped up a raft of Album of The Year nods from The Sunday Times, to Prog, to the Mail on Sunday. With Sir Elton John naming it "one of my favourite records of the year" and Caitlin Moran calling it "the inadvertent, beautiful and truthful soundtrack to this moment".

Three-times Music Producers Guild nominated Davies created the new album at Black Lodge Studios while being given access to Pete Townshend's collection of vintage analogue synthesisers to produce an epic 14-track widescreen exploration of the nature of time and transformation.

Against the backdrop of the birth of her first child, after multiple losses and the discovery of her grandmother's voice on a long lost cassette tape in her mother's attic, Davies found herself asking the question: "What can we build out of the past? Are we destined to be held down by it? Can we ever return to these past versions of ourselves?"

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A spellbinding journey from The Anchoress that refuses to sit comfortably in any genre, instead flowing seamlessly from synth-imbued rock timbres and claustrophobic dance-adjacent build-ups to rich, grooving downbeat and poppy choruses. The achoress' sound is so distinct, and it's in full force here firmly placing here in the echelons of modern music royalty.

TRACK LISTING

TBC

Steve Lacy returns with 'Oh Yeah?' - the self-produced follow-up to his Grammy winning 'Gemini Rights', the Compton native continues to push the boundaries of modern pop, alt and R&B beyond his billion streaming 'Dark Red' and global #1 'Bad Habit'.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Bracingly raw at times, and elsewhere a sleekly defined mix of glittery synthpop and clattering, electronic R&B. Lacy's music has always had defined edges and crisp lines, but they blur slightly here into a more stream-of-consciousness genre blurring, much to Lacy's benefit.

TRACK LISTING

1. Oh Yeah?
2. Is It Cool?
3. The Feeling
4. Pure Colour
5. Show You Me
6. Doom
7. Nothing
8. Lovesexdrugbomb
9. Nice Shoes / In Your World
10. Bebe

We outgrow toys, but the impulse behind them lingers. As our worlds open up, we search for meaning beyond small plastic figurines. 'Dollhouse'—the self-produced debut from New York City's Slow Fiction—captures that curious instinct in motion, embracing growth while resisting any single point of view. An uneasy sense of play runs throughout these eleven tracks, where surveillance and introspection blur together. Lyrics twist in perspective, circling petty pain and other people's cruelties, searching for some kind of clarity. "Who are you when no one's looking back or through," Vassallo sings on opener 'Junior Year', over a quizzical bass line and refracting guitars. It's propulsive rock that encourages reflection. The songs edge toward something more unsettled, probing the line between who we are in private and who we become when we're seen.

'Dollhouse' embraces transformation, exploring different lenses of existence, trying on different characters to explore the deeper realms of vulnerability. More than anything, it reflects a band learning to let go: of expectations, of habits, and of the need to have all the answers before the music exists. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Intoxicating shoegazy rock that's imbued with the melodic spirit of 90's grunge yet ends up coming across as more of a triumphant statement piece that's both unerringly complex and incredibly approachable. A wonderfully written, effortlessly assured debut.

TRACK LISTING

1. Junior Year
2. Ninetynine
3. Mouthpiece
4. What The Night Told Me
5. Bottle Episode
6. Idle Hours
7. G.A.L.S.
8. Dollhouse
9. Satellite
10. Heavy Metal
11. Turning Down Flowers 

An abandoned cathedral. A gruesome murder. A powerful supernatural entity living in the catacombs. It all comes to a head in downtown Los Angeles. What will happen and who will live to tell the tale? Such is the storyline of 'Cathedral', the thrilling new album and terrifying graphic novel from director and musician John Carpenter, based on a dream Carpenter had in 2024. 'Cathedral' has all the drama, dark atmosphere, and frenetic pacing of a classic heavy metal record. Especially designed as the soundtrack to the graphic novel, each track corresponds to a specific section of the book.

The liner notes included with the album packaging feature prompts for each track, creating a fully interactive experience. Combined with the graphic novel, it’s the closest thing to a new John Carpenter film in years. The music on 'Cathedral' retains all the eerie atmosphere and sinister propulsion of the epochal scores Carpenter created for his films Halloween, The Fog, and Assault on Precinct 13, but this is a much heavier, riff-driven enterprise.

Carpenter is a firm believer that music plays a major role in what really makes something scary. That’s first and foremost,” the director says. “It’s all about making the music work.” “This is somewhat different sounding stuff that we’ve done, but it’s done with the same desire in mind,” he adds. “In other words, put this thing on and imagine you’re watching a movie. That’s what we want you to do.” Daniel Davies’ soaring, snaky guitars take center stage on opener 'Primeval', 'Elevator', and the metal masterpiece 'Lord of the Underground' while John Carpenter and Cody Carpenter’s synths take the lead on the ominous 'Desolation in the Underworld', the plaintive 'Death of the Mapmaker', and even converge with strings on 'Abandoned Cathedral'.

Whereas the 'Lost Themes' albums were written as scores to movies of the mind, 'Cathedral' scores the first original graphic novel written by Carpenter, his wife and long-time creative partner, producer and editor Sandy King, and writer Sean Sobczak, published by Storm King Comics. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A thrashing, metallic soundtrack to a comic book of Carpenter's own making, Cathedral is as intense as anything Carpenter's done, with pummelling percussion and distorted guitars taking centre-stage and ending up soundtracking what I assume is an equally dark and foreboding, Carpenteresque tale.

TRACK LISTING

1. Primeval 
2. Identity 
3. Inside Out 
4. Abandoned Cathedral 
5. Elevator 
6. Elevator Two 
7. Desolation in the Underworld
8. The Mapmaker
9. The Ferryman
10. Lord of the Underground 
11. Death of the Mapmaker 
12. Back to Ruins 
13. Revenge 
14. Resolution 

Bonus 7":
1. Lord of the Underground (Live at The Belasco Theater) 
2. Last Rites (Live at The Belasco Theater) 

This has been a very personal project and a mammoth undertaking for us folks here at PACE HQ: 12 tracks unearthed from the cult Scottish figure’s completely overlooked back catalogue. Collected archive material from the past 25 years, originally composed as an OST for the feature length film The Flesher (1992) which was also written, shot and directed by Rae. No copies remain. Deep cuts that span G-funk, hip-hop, house, synth-pop, electro, dub, downtempo, funk/soul, R’n’B with appearances from Rae’s heavyweight list of frequent collaborators… Bernie Worrell, Adrian Sherwood and Jimmy Douglass.

"In 1991, the Scottish Rugby Union & the Royal Bank of Scotland, commissioned me tae make the world's first Scotland World Cup music video... they didn’t pay me so I fought back. It took 18 years tae win, and I nearly lost everything. I turned to audio visual art: under the pseudonym Jock Pleasure - I wrote and directed a feature length film called The Flesher as well as creating 100s of full length DVDs and tracks” (Jesse Rae).

One man took on the banks and won, but it took its toll and in this totemic corpus of work Jesse Rae counts the cost. The Flesher is art as pure defiance: “this stuff is very dark and deep, it is such a vast body o’ work, but when I won my battle against the bank, I secretly returned tae Hodge Close (in the Scottish borders) and dropped the entire work sealed in stone intae the deep deep murky depths of that water, where it has remained since 2009. There are no mair copies."

What we have here then is the salvaged remains. A hopeful dunt of Scottish erotica that gets you right in the pits.

Splice DJ Screw with Dean Blunt, Moodymann, Prince, Cocteau Twins, MF DOOM, Luther Van fuckin’ Dross, Barry fuckin’ White; run that through the B-movie videotape static meets Harmony Korine, Les Blank & early Grand Theft Auto. Empty boulevards. Small-town strip joints. Late-night dial-up. Sacrifice and solace. Outside of the OST, there’s a cast of forgotten characters: primary school kids making house jams, teenage popstars from the Scottish Borders, and the rhapsodic Ayrshire soprano NIKA laying down haunting vocals in Miami.

Celebrated as a cult figure in the USA, Jesse’s work has never fully had the appreciation it deserves at home. Not really. Aye, we know Inside Out and The Thistle. But he’s too easily fobbed off as an eccentric outsider: a helmet-wearing, claymore-wielding gimmick. But do we really know the extent of what this man has done - and gone through - for the sake of art?

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Scotland's indefinable and ineffable maverick producer Jesse Rae is an absolute legend (if only for completely ruining his career taking RBS to court!). Here we get his ark of the covenant; long thought to be lost underground (it actually was), Jesse has finally realized its time to release it to us meagre mortals. Nothing short of outstanding, baffling and uncategorizable in equal measure. It's a work of absolute genius.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Ma Wee Lamb
A2. Have You Seen Bin?
A3. When U Slide The Pole
B1. Hodge’s Close
B2. Sex Ma Room
C1. Tuck n’ Gut
C2. Time And It Makes Me
C3. How Long Must I Wait For You
D1: I.S.D.N Live
D2. Homophonic Line
D3. Hawick
D4:. God’s In Hollywood ft. Nika

DJ Support: Nick Warren, Andy Wilson, Bill Brewster, Max Essa, Simon Lee, Pete Herbert, Mark Broadbent, Be Lanuit, Coyote, Andy Pye, Andy Taylor, Steve KIW, Mike Bradbury, Pathaan, Steve Optix

NuNorthern Soul welcomes Lonely Deckchair, a deeply personal and nostalgic long-player shaped by memory, place and the passing of time. Rooted in a return to Aguadulce on Spain’s southern coast, the album reflects on childhood summers, family connections and the quiet beauty of life coming full circle.

Written as a dedication to the artist’s children, the record moves between reflective ambient passages, Balearic rhythms and gently propulsive grooves. Across the album, reversed guitar sequences, soft synthetic textures and field recordings create a dreamlike sense of revisiting the past—like flicking through faded photographs or Super 8 footage.

From the misty-eyed opener Rayman’s Kingdom through to the closing drift of Alhambra Space Station, the album captures moments of wonder, movement and stillness—sunlit coastlines, long drives, first experiences, and the emotional pull between leaving and returning.

Full sleeve notes from Robert Harris aka Dr Rob from BanBanTonTon

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Beautifully textured synths and smooth, organic percussion swirl round each other, creating a dreamy bed for the more melodically grounding aspects like rolling basses and soaring melodies that punctuate the blissful atmosphere. A wonderfully evocative, deeply hypnotic triumph.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Rayman's Kingdom 
A2. Aguadulce
A3. Warren's Apology 
A4. Carr's Dub

B1. Sunrun
B2. Caminante Del Agua 
B3. Pulpo Dreams 
B4. Alhambra Space Station 

Always lurking amidst the underground Porto music scene is Spitbender, the most stable moniker of the ever-morphing Francisco Antão. Spin gathers a collection of tracks that demonstrate his experimentalism & coy sonic precision. Spitbender takes cues from Jungle & Hip Hop producers to create his own unique blend of Downtempo. What becomes clear throughout the album is the attention to detail: it is infused as much by Industrial's red-line spectra as it is by the dubplate logic of the Darkside Continuum, yet it does so at its own tripped out speed.

Spin begins with the laid-back but constantly shifting 'Global Overgroove'. Its breakbeat science moves in & out of DSP glitch-work & dub reflections. When its slinky bassline melody arrives, a certain dread sets in.

'Weyward Fold' drops into a driving, hard-edged chug, threaded with snippets of Malcolm X's disobedient pedagogy. The momentum carries into 'Headnod Doctor', where the bass distortion thickens & the cymbal circuit is overloaded, landing somewhere between Hip‑Hop grit & metal weight.

Side A ends with the downtempo roller 'Dogs and Moles (Skylurk Mix)'. The familiar break drifts into new territory, pulled along & wrapped in a slap-back echo. A quirky melody cuts through the haze, giving the track a fresh tilt. The mulch of the track forms a steady, unhurried pulse.

Spitbender's spacious atmospherics & groove-focused approach comes further into focus on 'Nothing Here But the Recordings'. Creating his own chapter in the book of Trip Hop, his minimalist touch is laid out in full.

'Force the Hand Ov Chance' pulls Boom Bap gently into dub mechanics, letting space do the heavy lifting. Its simplicity hides a deep pocket.

Returning to broken-up distortion, 'Mirrors of Flesh (Dub Mix)' finds Spitbender using the mixer as an instrument to push & pull the heavy drums of Benjamin Brejon [of Méchanosphere] alongside the voice of Rui intoning the title phrase.

Sitting between the album's two poles, 'Out Take Dub' fuses the clipped‑obsession timbres of Spin's heavier moments with its blissed out flow. Feedback & distortion are welcomed & drawn long.

In the end, Spin hits like a fully formed statement—lean, focused, & unmistakably Spitbender. Every track pushes its own angle, but together they land with a clarity that feels earned. It's a sharp marker in his trajectory, & it leaves a charge in the air.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Sharp, clinical cuts and sidechained subsonic bass deftly move around scattered percussion shards, resulting in an album that easily moves from the carefree wrecking ball of drum & bass into finely manicured glitch and keen IDM in the blink of an eye.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Global Overgroove
A2. Weyward Fold
A3. Headnod Docto
A4. Dogs and Moles (Skylurk Mix)
B1. Nothing Here But the Recordings
B2. Force the Hand Ov Chance
B3. Mirrors of Flesh (Dub Mix)
B4. Out Take Dub

Roy Montgomery, a key figure in the experimental underground rock scene, lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, just a short drive from the sea. Avant-garde vocalist and songwriter Martha Skye Murphy is based in London. Though geographically worlds apart, the pair inhabit an intimate and almost tactile shared sonic world. Their collaboration feels transformative, like the gradual shifting spell from night to day.

What draws them together is the emotional force of each other’s music. Montgomery’s cyclical, decaying compositions are shaped through intricate guitar and piano work, blending post-rock, folk, and drone. Murphy, meanwhile, possesses a rare gift for transformation, from the intimate cracked whispers of 'At Dawn' to the hypnotic drift of 'The Play of Dark and Light'. On the latter, she evokes old maritime folk tales of fishermen lured into the darkness by the sea’s siren call. The song both seduces and warns, finding something magical and frightening in the temptation of drowning. Though her vocals often resemble fragments of words, consonants, or vowels, they frequently function as pure sound, drawing on glossolalia and prioritising feeling over any ‘learnt’ language.

Emotion and intuition are the driving forces behind 'Nebular', an album that oscillates between the intimate with the unknown. This spirit is reflected in its artwork. Murphy shared a painting by Irish artist Simon English depicting a solitary house bathed in dusky blue light, and the pair quickly settled on it as the cover image. Both were captivated by its atmosphere. Montgomery related it to the isolated, seemingly uninhabited houses he encounters while travelling through rural New Zealand—places that inspire a desire to knock on the door and discover what lies beyond. “Terra incognita springs to mind. A search into the unknown,” Murphy agrees.

The nocturnal and remote nature of the artwork mirrors the process of making 'Nebular'. With Montgomery in New Zealand and Murphy in London, the album was created entirely through remote correspondence, with stems exchanged via email. Their messages were often written and read at different times of day, and, because of the time difference and the demands of daily life, replies usually were sent late at night and the music too often composed at nocturnal hours. Their exchanges took on the quality of pen pals sending letters across great distances. This suspended sense of time is echoed in 'Nebular’s sound, with its feeling of temporal drift and timelessness.

On 'Nebular', Montgomery and Murphy have harnessed raw emotion and launched it into a time capsule bound for the stars. It allows you to drift, to be present, and to feel; creating something timeless.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An astounding ambient behemoth that beautifully pulls together sparse, decaying delay lines oft heard in ambient minimalism with a soaring, orchestral leaning from the guitars stretching into forever, PLUS the sonically lifting aspects of the angelic vocal splashes across the musical spectrum.

TRACK LISTING

1. At Dawn
2. Cloudburst
3. Satellites Against the Milky Way
4. The Play of Light and Dark
5. At Dusk

'Even In Arcadia' - the fourth album from Sleep Token - is now available as an exclusive instrumental pressing. This version presents the full album without vocals, putting the musicianship and production front and center.

A must-have variant for collectors and fans looking to experience the record in a new way.

TRACK LISTING

1. Look To Windward (Instrumental)
2. Emergence (Instrumental)
3. Past Self (Instrumental)
4. Dangerous (Instrumental)
5. Caramel (Instrumental)
6. Even In Arcadia (Instrumental)
7. Provider (Instrumental)
8. Damocles (Instrumental)
9. Gethsemane (Instrumental)
10. Infinite Baths (Instrumental)

Glamgoth? Dark electro? Industrial cyberfunk? Dead Lights were founded in 2020, at the start of the Pandemic, forcing the international musician / producer duo (UK and Netherlands) to work on all their output from a distance.

Disguised as dark, sleazy electropop, Saul and Richard create their own personal blend of monumental synth basslines and gritty sounds, elaborate vocal arrangements and brutal, dance-orientated beats.

Their new album ‘Lash’ can be characterised as their boldest release to date. It contains eight previously released singles which all are dancefloor bangers - built to ignite strobes and command bodies into motion. On top of these, Dead Lights presents four brand-new songs that emphasize the more cinematic side that is also present in their music, moving further away from conventional song structures.

TRACK LISTING

Never Take Me Alive
The Human Touch
The Dream Membrane
(The Edge Of) Dusk
Break Out
Gravity
Killing Time
Take
The Algorithm
Grind
Resonate
Unmakerv

Within the broad church of metal and its many offshoots – rock, doom, stoner and all the rest – it remains a minor thrill to stumble across a group who seem to exist at a slight tangent to everything else. Crumbling Ghost is one such anomaly. Crumbling Ghost are not newcomers. They've been operating for some time, releasing records sporadically, 'Four' is in fact their fourth release. Along the way they've accumulated a fervent coterie of followers, not to mention the occasional nod of approval from tastemakers such as Stuart Maconie, Stewart Lee and Tom Ravenscroft. And though they've appeared at Roadburn, shared stages with Hawkwind and even Damo Suzuki, they remain (possibly by design) curiously under the radar.

The group's core idea is deceptively simple: traditional folk material refracted through the haze and heft of heavy, fuzzy stoner rock with a chunk of psyche and a smattering of doom. But crucially, this is done without the costumery and theatrical tics that often accompany such collisions. No mock pagan pageantry, no graveyard cosplay, no cartoon Satanism.

What Crumbling Ghost latch onto is not folk as a museum piece, but as a lived experience, the dramas rooted in the culture, stories, and daily lives of ordinary people, the folklore, the tales of love and death, murder and adultery, freedom and oppression. Singer Katie Harnett says. "Doting mothers, possessive, violent partners, vulnerable women, seasonal workers and Royal scandals this album is our representation of the trials and tribulations of human existence and universal experiences that still feel relevant today.

Guitarist John adds. "Themes of murder, betrayal, loss, jealousy, and love are found across the record. In particular, the songs of Martin Carthy have been a particular source of inspiration".

The result is a set of murder ballads, supernatural reckonings and cautionary tales, all wrapped in slabs of heavy, thumping fuzz and atmospheric sonics. Harnett's voice sits at the centre: unmistakably folk rooted, but shorn of prettification, melodic yet capable of real bite.

The album opener 'Bows Of London' is a murder ballad of sisterly hatred and grim sibling rivalry, centred on a haunted fiddle fashioned from a dead sister's bones. The loping relentless, hypnotic backing chillingly and perfectly accompanies the narrative. Of course, the story doesn't end well. 'Bill Norrie' follows, a hooky melody propelled by an insistent bassline and a haunting psych tinged haze punctured with sheets of noise.. The story of young Bill Norrie who sends a token to a married woman, whose jealous husband beheads him, without knowing he was his wife's son from an earlier affair. An instrumental palate cleanser arrives in the shape of 'Valtz Efter Tor Lohne' a Norwegian traditional the band jokingly describe as a "banger".

Then we have 'Lovely Joan' which offers a rare note of sly triumph: a quick witted woman outmanoeuvres a predatory nobleman, escaping with his ring and his horse. Muscular riffs give this tale of empowerment a welcome sense of teeth. 'Gower Wassail' is a traditional Welsh folk tune that captures the raucous spirit of communal ritual, noise making and drink fuelled hope for a good harvest. Captured perfectly here by CG complete with wah wah guitar and a drunken groove catching the song's celebratory chaos. Then we have a little gem in 'Last Of All Sleep' , an original band composition and a genuine highlight: a heavy lidded, shoegaze tinged folk reverie, equal parts distortion and delicacy. It's a drop-dead gorgeous shoegaze-tastic psychedelic grunge mini epic. The album closer 'The Unquiet Grave' is a very apt place to finish. It's about a young man whose constant grief at the death of his true love disturbs her eternal sleep so she cannot rest. Even though the playout on this track, complete with a demonic repeated riff and feedback feels suitably bleak, even this song allows a glimmer of release ... we think.

And there we have it, 7 songs, 7 worlds, all honed to perfection by producer Wayne Adams (Green Lung/Big Lad) that will reward every repeated listen.

Folk and metal/heavy rock do have a connection of course, just look at Green Lung and their 'folk horror' infused musical universe, but Crumbling Ghost are a very different beast.

'Four' amply and beautifully demonstrates that when it comes to 'folk horror' there's nothing quite as horrible as folk ... Here, the horror such as it is, and it must be said, the moments of light, comes not from theatrics, but from the songs themselves – which, after all, is where it's always lived.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bows of London
2. Bill Norrie
3. Valtz Efter Tor Lohne
4. Lovely Joan
5. Gower Wassail
6. Last of all Sleep
7. The Unquiet Grave

Edena Gardens unleash their most expansive work to date. 'Quintessence' is structured in 4 parts as a Magnum Opus—the ancient alchemical process of transformation. But this is not a work of high fantasy. It is a seismic meditation. A study of deep time, weighted matter, and the crushing gravity of change. 'Quintessence' is massive. 79+ minutes of tethered magnitude, carved into six sprawling tracks. The trio pushes further down into the void, discovering new dimensions. Each piece allow the form to stretch. To break its own boundaries. Shifting terrains and unpredictable geometry. The core remains unhurried: A slow, relentless, unabridged crawl. This sort of alchemy demands patience, allowing every sonic mutation to breathe, shift, and solidify in a new atmosphere.

Recorded by Jonas Munk (Causa Sui), the sound is rooted in a natural, anchored production, as if the band is right in front of you: Causa Sui drummer Jakob Skøtt drives the pulse and adds ghostly, sparse treatment to the mix. Nicklas Sørensen (Papir) weaves angular guitar geometry over the deep sediment of Martin Rude’s bass and baritone strings. Martin also supplies the original artwork, spreading across 4 panels (one for each vinyl side), coloured by Jakob Skøtt: A work in its own right. The final work is a massive, physical expanse: Their 'Quintessence'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nigredo
2. Earth Blemish
3. Calcified Bone & Weathered Stone
4. Amber Deposits
5. Into Citrinitas
6. The Vermillion Quintessence

There’s something quietly defiant about 'Melody Boy'. Written and recorded in a tiny beach hut studio on the English coast, and notably know for his previous work with Paul Weller and The Moons, Andy Crofts’ debut solo album arrives without compromise or concession to trend. It’s a record built on melody above all else, songs that feel unearthed rather than manufactured, guided by instinct, memory, and a lifelong obsession with the craft of songwriting.

Crofts, long established as a songwriter and musician, steps forward here with a voice that feels both seasoned and strangely elusive. There’s no rush to explain, no attempt to overstate. Instead, 'Melody Boy' unfolds with a natural confidence, hook laden, harmonically rich, and emotionally direct without ever losing its sense of mystery.

Drawing from a lineage of classic songwriting while remaining firmly his own, the album leans into warmth, analogue textures, and a sense of timelessness that resists the churn of the modern music cycle. It’s not chasing a moment, it’s creating its own space.

Lead single 'Blue' introduced that world: melodic, reflective, quietly anthemic. Across the album, that same thread runs deep, songs that reveal themselves slowly, rewarding repeat listens rather than demanding immediate attention.

There’s a deliberate sense of distance in 'Melody Boy'. Not coldness, but clarity. A refusal to overexplain. The result is a body of work that feels personal without being confessional, detailed without being crowded.

In a landscape built on constant output and fleeting attention, Andy Crofts offers something else entirely: a record that trusts the listener to meet it halfway.

TRACK LISTING

1. Blue
2. Meet Again
3. Don’t Think
4. On The Beach
5. Human Touch
6. Living In A Box
7. All I Need
8. Midnight By The Thames
9. I’m No Fool
10. Melody Boy
11. 1234
12. Save My Soul
13. Dancing With The Moon
14. Dream Factory

Din Of Celestial Birds have quickly become one of the UK's most championed and hard working heavy progressive post-rock bands, known for their vibrant, visually engaging live performances. The Leeds based instrumental quintet have often been praised for their ability to bring a sense of storytelling and heart-on-your-sleeve emotions into their elegantly textured and energetic songs. This desire for connection has seen Din Of Celestial Birds and their fanbase flock to bigger and wider stages, nesting at the likes of ArcTanGent, Damnation, dunk!, Can and StrangeForms festivals, and soaring across multiple headlining tours since the release of their debut album. Now, the quintet return with their brand new full length studio record 'Takeoffs & Landings', a concept album all about adventure, travel, and the journey of life - literally and figuratively - encompassing all the stresses and triumphs.

The instrumental quintet have chosen to work once again with producer and studio engineer Joe Clayton (guitarist of Pijn and Leeched) at his own sonic altar No Studio. The band doubled their studio time with Clayton compared to the recording of their debut, fully intending to allow more time for experimenting, playing with sound and finding those offthe-cuff moments. Building intensity and atmosphere with a surging momentum comes so naturally to Din Of Celestial Birds. These songs offer more contrast, twists and turns, showcasing heavier riffs and injecting more energy than ever before; but also finding moments of reflection in the calmer passages, all informed by the motif of travelling and adventure.

TRACK LISTING

1. Takeoff & Landings
2. Marmoris
3. From This Summit We Can See The Heavens & Stars
4. When Suddenly…
5. You Are My Temple
6. Migratory Patterns
7. I Hope That Road Leads You Somewhere Beautiful, Somewhere You Belong
8. Second Star To The Right, and Straight On 'Til Morning

‘Renascent’ marks the long-awaited return of legendary Manchester outfit The Durutti Column, their first new studio album in over fifteen years.

Around the guitar work of Vini Reilly, the album plays between sonic atmospherics and structure: warm ambient washes, piano, beats and guest vocal turns by a new generation (Caoilfhionn Rose).

Both contemporary and otherworldly, and with a swathe of new champions citing the band as an influence (Blood Orange, Harry Styles, The Avalanches, Mark William Lewis), 'Renascent' is a timely and vital rebirth for The Durutti Column.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An undeniably masterful return for one of the most lauded bands in Manchester history (and that's saying something!). 'Renascent' sees the atmospheric guitars and echoing, hypnotic grooves of olde revisited and bolstered with a selection of guest vocals from Caoilfhionn Rose and rippling, ambient synth swells.

TRACK LISTING

1. Echoes In The Memory
2. Your Shadow At Morning
3. Time Present And Time Past
4. Agonistes
5. Liars
6. Vapour In A Matchbox
7. Your Shadow At Evening
8. Sargasso Sea
9. Scammer
10. For Friends Everywhere
11. All They See is Fire - CD Only

'DON'T TAP THE GLASS' is the ninth studio album by Tyler, the Creator, and was originally released back in 2025 but was only available via a very limited first pressing on his own website or on a dodgy bootleg. Now finally widely available, this follow-up to 'CHROMAKOPIA' is a mix of hip-hop, dance, house, funk, and techno.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A riotous, feel-good maelstrom of funky soul, clever production and deep hip-hop grooves that stands apart from Tyler's other material for it's brevity and playfulness. Though there is a lack of conceptual gravitas that we'd get from albums like Igor or Goblin.

TRACK LISTING

1. Big Poe
2. Sugar On My Tongue
3. Sucka Free
4. Mommanem
5. Stop Playing With Me
6. Ring Ring Ring
7. Don't Tap That Glass / Tweakin'
8. Don't You Worry Baby
9. I'll Take Care Of You
10. Down Bad
11. Tell Me What It Is

For nearly a decade, Lucia has been carving out her place as an artist in the UK indie scene. Her latest record, Picking Petals, is the culmination of that hard graft and bold vision — an album rooted in her Scottish upbringing and shaped by the creative community she has built around her in Glasgow and beyond, featuring collaborations with Lauren Mayberry of CHVRCHES and Abigail Morris of The Last Dinner Party.

Lucia’s debut, Burning Castles, was streamlined and statuesque, built on metronomic beats and synth-led pop. The intention behind Picking Petals sharpened into focus in the face of this. This time, it was crucial to capture the essence of Lucia & The Best Boys’ live shows— loud and electric. In recent years, Fairfull has shared bills with a new wave of women in alternative music: joining Wolf Alice on their Blue Weekend tour in 2022 and, more recently, opening for the aforementioned The Last Dinner Party. In summer 2024, she toured alongside fellow Scottish icon Shirley Manson on the UK and European leg of Garbage’s live shows.

The Scottish synchronicity feels poignant. This rich and historical landscape is where Picking Petals came to be, Lucia heading north to write in weather-beaten bothies alongside the band or in solitude. Likewise, the songwriter was insistent that acclaimed alt-pop producer Yves Rothman experience her stomping ground rather than sun-drenched LA, hunkering down in Mogwai’s Castle of Doom studios, a Glasgow townhouse transformed into a citadel of sound. For some people, Picking Petals will be a coming-of-age album. For Lucia & The Best Boys, it’s just coming home.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A soaring, anthemic mix of classic rock, folky acoustic guitars and melodic indie music that's both warmly evocative and showcases Lucia's brilliantly powerful vocals and the band's undeniable chemistry. Hushed reverence and quietly blooming melodies turn into powerful waves of instrumentation and roaring, stadium-ready choruses. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Back Inside My Heart
2. Lonely Girl
3. Wolf Cry
4. Better For The Worse
5. You Look Like Somebody In Love

Side B
6. Picking Petals
7. Pleasure And A Prayer
8. Forgot The Arrow
9. Big Romance
10. Ephemeral

Having surprise announced their return after four years away with a standalone single, legendary Scottish five-piece, Trashcan Sinatras return with their first album in 10 years.

Espousing the “less careerist and more careering” definition of a life inside Trashcan Sinatras over the last forty years, the unchanged line up of Reader, Paul Livingston (guitars), John Douglas (guitars), Stephen Douglas (drums) and Davy Hughes (bass) has slowly shaped eleven new songs via writing sessions scattered between mountain cabins, late-night poker sessions and quiet everyday routines.

Celebrating a four-decade journey as a band this year, Trashcan Sinatras’ story began in 1986, signing to Go! Discs two years later. Their formation in Irvine on Scotland’s west coast. blew a fresh breeze into observational, literary and frequently romantic British guitar music. Initially supercharged by their 1990 debut album 'Cake' and the standout single 'Obscurity Knocks', a further five albums followed, including 1993’s 'I’ve Seen Everything', featuring hit track, 'Hayfever', and their third record, 'A Happy Pocket', originally released in 1996 and rediscovered by a new generation in 2023 when its reissue returned the band to the UK Official Albums Chart. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As if the surprise release of 'Melodramatic' after a decade wasn't enough of an indication that Trashcan Sinatras haven't lost any of their creative va-va-voom, we're treated to a whole new LP of rippling melodies and soaring, feel-good intensity.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ever The Optimist
2. Games For The ZX Spectrum
3. Bad Husband (ft. Traceyanne Campbell)
4. The Bitter End
5. A View From Nowhere
6. Hold On To Today (ft. Green Gartside)
7. The Associated Funk
8. Rome
9. Melodramatic
10. Birds I Couldn't Identify
11. Learning To Love Your Ghost 

In the past quarter-century, those in the know have watched Shearwater slyly become one of the most distinctive and adventurous American bands. Led (as always) by songwriter and natural historian Jonathan Meiburg, 'The New World’s nine immersive songs find the group farther afield than ever, and in rare company: along with Meiburg’s fellow Shearwaters Emily Lee and Dan Duszynski, the album’s supporting cast includes instrumental wizard Shahzad Ismaily, saxophonist and clarinetist Doug Wieselman, qanunist Farouz Zriek, guitarist Leo Abrahams, ngonist Mamadou Kouyate, percussionists Mahamadou Tounkara and Moctar Kouyate (of Ngoni Ba), and unclassifiable drummer Thor Harris. (There’s even a surprise visit from a certain L. Anderson.) That might sound like a lot of passengers, but they’re all ideal company for a headlong journey through joy, confusion, reverence and defiance, with Meiburg’s voice as a graceful yet elusive guide. Both spare and ornate, 'The New World' is absorbing in a way few albums are; it’s hard not to listen to the end once you drop in.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I remember listening to Shearwater after being recommended it because of my love of early 00's post-rock, and I have to admit I didn't understand back then, I was young. Things are different now, and I find it a lot easier to reconcile their unfathomably broad avant-rock style, and hear echoes of their influence in the epic arty musings of their contemporaries.

TRACK LISTING

1. Even Song
2. More and More
3. Daydream Unbeliever
4. A Mink in the Dusk
5. The Only Sound I’m Afraid Of
6. The High Ranges
7. Slugs in the Marigolds
8. Anamnesia
9. You and Your Dog

With their ever-mutating brand of jazz-and-country-laced punk, Opus Kink have always cut a singular figure in a saturated landscape. Making their name with incendiary, cult-like live shows, the band - formed in Brighton (UK) in 2017 — has developed a sound as elusive as it is recognisable. Underscored by a formidable horn section and ragged, sardonic delivery, the band bear passing resemblance to post-punk and no-wave acts like The Pop Group, Birthday Party and Lounge Lizards, but it’s the weaving of older, more traditional influences - choral, folk, country, Latin, Weimar cabaret, cruise-ship-crooning - into the fabric of their music that sets them apart. Their highly anticipated debut album 'The Sweet Goodbye' follows a series of EPs and singles which have earned acclaim from NME, DORK, DIY, CLASH, SO YOUNG, BBC Radio 1 and playlisting on BBC Radio 6 Music.

The album is produced by Grammy award-winning producer and mixer Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Florence & The Machine, Baxter Dury, REM, Kronos Quartet, Sam Fender), with album track 'The Head Tree' featuring The New Eves (No.1 Independent album in 2025).

TRACK LISTING

1. Come Over, Do Me Wrong
2. Will It Come For You?
3. I'm A Pretty Showboy
4. The Sweet Goodbye
5. Peckham Nocturne
6. I Have To Shine My Sunday Shoes
7. The Head Tree (ft. The New Eves)
8. 448C (The Colour of Love)
9. Crucify!
10. Oh, Irony

After the acclaimed "Bar Mediterraneo", Massimo Di Lena and Lucio Aquilina return with "People Of The Moon", expanding their sound into a space of creative freedom. The “People of the Moon” are not fictional, but a dimension within us all: a deeply personal yet universal force, an alternative mindset that emerges when freed from social constraints.

Under moonlight, the album explores anxieties and aspirations through groove and rhythm, expressed in Neapolitan, Arabic, English, Spanish, and Portuguese. It moves fluidly from Afro-Cuban influences in “Celavì” to Anatolian textures in “Ma Tu Che Bbuò”, blending highlife guitars with Nu Genea’s signature mandolins-new rhythms filtered through an Italian lens.

The first single “Sciallà” (2025) introduced this direction: dance as catharsis, not escape. The title track reflects a quiet resilience-persistent rather than triumphant. “Onenon”, featuring Tom Misch, channels Mediterranean-Brit-funk, while “Acelera”, with María José Llergo, evokes a flamenco-tinged pursuit of the unattainable.

“Puleza” recalls "Nuova Napoli" with driving energy and vintage synths, while “Shway Shway”, sung by Celinatique, captures the album’s orbital flow-measured, rich, and rhythmically complex, echoing afrobeat explorations with Tony Allen.

Melody remains central, as in “Carè”. Across ten tracks, falling, flying, and dancing merge in a suspended groove. Gabriel Prado’s “Ondas Do Mar” embodies this pull: a cyclical motion, like the tides—irresistible, transformative, and alive within us.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Naples' finest return with their third album to date. The same but different - it's a multi-lingual excursion; and the impeccable duo drift confidently into slightly new sonic territories. But it's still a perfect example of Neapolitan musical style and class. Unmissable.

TRACK LISTING

A1.Acelera (ft. María José Llergo)
A2.Onenon (ft. Tom Misch)
A3.Puleza (ft. Fabiana Martone)
A4.Celavi (ft. María José Llergo)
A5.Carè

B1.People of the Moon
B2.Ma tu che bbuò
B3.Sciallà
B4.Shway shway (ft. Celinatique)
B5.Ondas do mar (ft. Gabriel Prado)

From 1993, a hallmark UK dub album returns to the light. Originally pressed in a small run and extremely hard to find, this record was produced at Earthquake Studio by TNT Roots and Winston Dread.

Together, they provided a raw contribution to the early UK dub scene using a basic setup: a Siel DK-80 synth, a Yamaha home keyboard, a Casio RZ-1 drum machine, and an Atari 1040 computer running Cubase V2.0. The tracks were shaped through an old Dynamix 8-channel mixer and captured on a Casio portable DAT machine.

TNT Roots provided the drum, bass, and chord patterns, while Winston Dread added the lead lines and performed the mixing duties. This raw, undiluted music reflects the evolution of dub and contains the seeds of all their future work. Their dubplates were staples for legendary UK sound systems like Aba Shanti-I and Iration Steppas, becoming sought-after anthems that defined the 'heavyweight' digital roots sound.

These are heavy sounds that stand the test of time. Back on the streets after 30 years, the album has been fully restored and remastered to honor the dubplate masters of UK sound system culture

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: HOLY GRAIL BUSINESS! A early UK digi-dub blueprint that vanished into obscurity and has achieved mythical status amongst dub collectors and soundbwoys alike. Rewind selectah!

TRACK LISTING

A1. African Rough Beat
A2. The Almighty Creator
A3. Cosmic Warrior
A4. Earthquake Symphony
A5. Most High Dub
B1. Natural Dub Roots
B2. Downbeat From The Motherland
B3. Judgement Time
B4. Eastern Vibration
B5. The Power And The Glory

Welsh indie icons The Darling Buds return with a brand new album of melodic guitar pop, packed with catchy hooks, soaring harmonies and the band’s trademark upbeat energy.

Best known for singles such as ‘Hit The Ground’ and ‘You’ve Got To Choose’, the American hits ‘Crystal Clear’, ‘Please Yourself’, and ‘It Makes No Difference’, and the UK hit album ‘Pop Said...’, The Darling Buds remain favourites of the pre-Britpop landscape, rooted in great songwriting and powerful live performances.

Fronted by the acclaimed Andrea Lewis, the band continue to play live to a passionate fan base, and will be promoting ‘Same Sun / Same Sky’ around the UK.

For fans old and new, 'Same Sun / Same Sky' is a delightful return from a much-loved Welsh treasure.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hey Saint Jude
2. Intruder
3. Oh No You Don’t
4. Lost Time
5. Jump In
6. Giddy In A Good Way
7. Cut Me Dead
8. Cast A Stone
9. Pretenders
10. Paper Planes
11. Leaving The Scene
12. Pollyanna Says

A clear sense of confidence in restraint radiates out of the debut album from Blake Watt, the London-based singer/songwriter who records as Family Stereo.

The pleasure lies in the delicacy of measure on 'The Thread', an album of folk-tinged and brush-stroked reflections on distance and connection that majors in an evocative kind of narrative economy, suggesting rather than telling its stories. Inviting, dynamic and subtly cinematic, its artfully crafted precision feels like the work of a fastmaturing talent.

The record arrives in the aftermath of a string of prodigious EPs from the 25-year-old Blake, son of Everything but the Girl's Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt. The development from those early works is clear, but it's the kind of evolution that prefers to refine rather than embellish. As Blake says, "I think my writing has been getting more paredback as I've progressed. I find more and more that simple is better. I love telling a story in the simplest way or conveying a feeling in the simplest way, with not too many
frills."

TRACK LISTING

1. Remedy
2. Waiting On Nina
3. Sea Change
4. Fault Lines
5. The Thread
6. Removed
7. Collapsing
8. DLR
9. Silhouette On The Hill
10. Three Moon Trail
11. Tunnels

Guitar o'erlord Sir Richard Bishop: one guitar, six strings, no overdubs, 7/8ths improvised, 1/8 composed’ are the terms for a faux vol 2 of inspired modal post-grass recitals, inherited recollections and new national anthems, a psychotic mash of uninherited recollection. Are y’all ready for some 'Hillbilly Erotica'? RIYL: Doc Watson, Ricky Skaggs, Bill Orcutt

TRACK LISTING

1. Lick Skillet
2. Finger, Tennessee
3. Sweet Lips Spiritual
4. Back Forty Lashes
5. Bride of Rhythm Methodist
6. Finger Revisited
7. Hookers Bend
8. Postcoital Serenade

There is a kinetic energy that binds drummer and producer Karriem Riggins and singer-songwriter, rapper, and producer Liv.e, the spark that happens when instinct meets flow and spirit finds rhythm.

Their collaborative debut as GENA (short for “God Energy, Naturally Amazing,” and loosely inspired by Gina from Martin), 'The Pleasure Is Yours' feels like a playful, soulful conversation between two kindred improvisers: Liv.e’s smoky, unpolished vocals glide through Riggins’ warm, percussive universe. Rooted in jazz, soul, and hip-hop, Liv.e brings a raw, experimental approach to R&B, while Riggins known for his work with Common, Erykah Badu, The Roots, Madlib, and his close kinship with J Dilla, extends his lifelong dialogue between jazz improvisation and beat science.

Together they create a world that’s analog and ethereal, percussive and poetic, bridging eras without settling in one, the sound of two artists finding a new shared language rooted in rhythm, vulnerability, and exuberance.

TRACK LISTING

1. Who's Got A Problem With Gena
2. Theybetterbegladihavetherapy
3. Left The Club Like "Really Nigga!"
4. You've Outdone Yourself Today
5. Unspoken
6. TGD
7. Readymade
8. Douwannabwihtastar
9. This Is So Crazy
10. Lead It Up
11. Howwefl
12. Doobie Doo Wew
13. Circlez
14. Dream A Twinkle
15. Thatsmyluvr
16. Omo Iya Ati Baba

Ariana Grande returns with a new studio album 'Petal', the follow-up to 'Eternal Sunshine', is executive produced and co-written by Grande and Ilya, reuniting her with the 'Problem' hitmaker.

Grande describes 'Petal' as “something that is full of life and growing through the cracks of something cold and hard and challenging.” The album marks her return to music after a period of blockbuster screen success, notably in the Wicked franchise. 

TRACK LISTING

TBA

New single “1986” evokes a time when the world wasn’t connected by technology, but there was still a strong connection across the globe: music. Specifically in the song, it’s folk in Newcastle and Madrid who are dancing to the same music. The vinyl version also features an exclusive track “Is It Just Nostalgia?” which sees the band time-travelling past ‘The Tube’ and ‘Soul Train‘ to Friday nights of the past. Standby for the follow-up single in July…

Spearmint have been making great records since debut ‘A Week Away’ in 1999 (‘Sweeping The Nation’, ‘A Trip Into Space’, ‘We’re Going Out’). Still the same line-up: Shirley Lee (singing, guitar), Simon Calnan (singing, keyboards), James Parsons (guitar) and Ronan Larvor (drums). This will be their eleventh album proper and the 65th release on their own hitBACK label.

Re-united with producer Rhodri Marsden (Scritti Politti, Cardiacs), the ‘Chase Me’ album tells a story of success, disillusionment, disconnection, peril, and resurrection. Anchored by three chases across a city at night, book-ended by two out-of-body experiences, and working towards a suite of uplifting love songs, it’s a thriller, it’s a horror, it’s an allegory. Song-writer Shirley explains “The story would make a good movie I think… but we don’t know how to do that, so we did this.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Let Him Sleep
2. Go Outside
3. 1986
4. I'm Not OK
5. Feels More Lonely
6. Ellis Kind
7. The Chase
8. Leave Something Behind
9. My One And Only Life
10. Don't Leave Me
11. The Second Chance
12. The First Man On Earth
13. Stop Singing Baker Street
14. Still Falling
15. The Final Chase
16. Time To Wake Up
Format
Disc No.
Cat No.
Barcode
Dealer
Rel Date
Format Details
Restrictions
LP
1
WIA127LP
5063720382219
14.99
24 Jul 2026
Black Vinyl
No Restrictions

Ace Records are delighted to release Candi Staton’s new album “Back To My Roots”. The soul legend has recorded a sensational set of songs that draw heavily upon her gospel roots.

It is best to let this great lady of soul speak for herself: “This album was recorded over several years. We took our time. I planned for it to be my last full album, so it was a labor of love and a family affair. My son Marcus produced, mixed and mastered it. My daughter Cassandra runs our label and kept all the business straight.
“My son Marcel came up with the bass line for ‘1963’. My sister Maggie Peebles joined me for two songs we sang as kids. My British bandleader, Ernie McKone, cut ‘Shine A Light’ in London, which is only right considering it’s a Rolling Stones classic.

“Mark Nevers, who produced some of my past Americana albums, stepped in to do some sweetening on certain tracks. Guitar great Jonathan DuBose Jr gave ‘I Missed the Target Again’ new life. Blues great Larry McCray added some zing to 'Hang on in There'.

“My longtime friend William Bell was the perfect person to sing ‘My God Has A Telephone’ with me. I’d just like to thank my other sons, Terry and Clarence Jr for their support.”

Staton’s voice has always been a powerful and emotive instrument and it has never sounded finer. No wonder “Back To My Roots” was nominated for Best Gospel Album at the 2026 Grammys, her first nomination in 40 years.
It’s time to go back to church. God’s Candi store is open.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE ONE
1. I MISSED THE TARGET AGAIN (RADIO EDIT)
2. IT'S GONNA RAIN
3. HANG ON IN THERE
4. SHINE A LIGHT
5. THE LORD WILL MAKE A WAY

SIDE TWO
1. THERE WILL BE PEACE IN THE VALLEY
2. 1963
3. REACH DOWN AND TOUCH HEAVEN FOR ME
4. LOVE BREAKTHROUGH
5. IN GOD'S HANDS WE REST UNTROUBLED

7”
SIDE ONE
1, MY GOD HAS A TELEPHONE
SIDE TWO
1. GOD'S GONNA USE ME ANYWAY

"The Karl Hector adventure continues with their fourth studio album. Yolek digs deeper into the Krautrock history embedded deep in the soil of their native Munch – three of the most influential bands of the 1970s experimental German rock scene sprung from there: Amon Düül, Popol Vuh and Embryo. Drawing from those bands’ homebound and worldly influences, JJ Whitefield and Zdenko Curulija conceived and produced this kosmiche-werk. It’s been nearly twenty years since Karl Hector and the Malcouns’ Sahara Swing saw release on Now-Again in 2008. The album swung with influences from across the African diaspora and set the stage for a cult, but influential following. Unstraight Ahead, their sophomore release from 2014, found the band exploring territories even outside of the expansive scope of Sahara Swing: West African sounds of Ghana and Mali met the East African sounds of Mulatu Astatke’s Ethiopian jazz, tied together with the groove heavy experimentalism of

The Malcouns’ 70s Krautrock godfathers: Can, of course, but also more obscure and equally adventurous groups like Agitation Free, Ibliss and Tomorrow’s Gift. “We look to Middle Eastern funk and psychedelic fusions, and to various ethnic records for sound and phrasing,” Whitefield stated at the time of Unstraight Ahead’s release. “We’re trying to combine the global experimentalism of Krautrock with the backbeat of funk.” Non Ex Orbis, the band’s third studio album, dug deeper into the Krautrock history embedded deep in the soil of their native Munch – three of the most influential bands of the 1970s experimental German rock scene sprung from there: Amon Düül, Popol Vuh and Embryo. Influenced by these musical heroes, and following the path of Non Ex Orbis Whitefield and Curulija shape a sound that takes the experimental approach of the classic Krautrock era and slides between beat-heavy drone and spacey, prog-rock suites."

TRACK LISTING

A1. Go Caravan!
A2. Space Race
A3. Mellow Skyfall
A4. Blurry Time
A5. Yolek
A6. The Unseen Road
A7. Zen///topia

B1. Love Is The Key
B2. Aiaiai
B3. Noon At The Oasis
B4. Exot
B5. Crimson Dune
B6. Sahara Sepp

The Strokes return with their seventh album, “Reality Awaits”, their first release in six years. Produced by Rick Rubin, the record has a direct, stripped-back sound that still feels unmistakably like The Strokes. Albert Hammond Jr.'s signature guitar work shines throughout, while Julian Casablancas' distinctive vocals—despite the use of Auto-Tune—remain front and center. Hammond Jr. has called it his favourite Strokes album to date, saying, "I can't express how beautiful it is. I listen to the whole thing and wanna start from the beginning again. It grows and grows and becomes intoxicatingly good."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The first Strokes album in six long years comes leaping out of the starting gate, with jagged guitar lines and Casablancas' unique drawl perfectly twisting amongst each-other like a finely textured weave. Brilliantly fresh sounding, while retaining all of the off-kilter charm of their legendary catalogue.

TRACK LISTING

1. Psycho Shit
2. Dine N’Dash
3. Lonely in the Future
4. Falling out of Love
5. Going to Babble On
6. Going Shopping
7. Liar’s Remorse
8. The Fruits of Conquest
9. Pros and Cons

On her new album, Charli XCX swaps the relentless club rush of Brat for a more introspective, guitar-tinged sound, leaning into vulnerability without sacrificing her sharp pop instincts. The production remains adventurous, balancing raw textures with glitchy electronics, while her lyrics dissect fame, identity, and artistic obsession with wit and self-awareness. It’s an album that rewards repeat listens, revealing new details with each spin. Confident, restless, and emotionally rich, it proves Charli is still one of pop’s most inventive risk-takers.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stunning new album from Charli, with key collaborators A.G Cook and Finn Keane crafting a starkly different beast from the riotous 'Brat' (and indeed the offshoots of said album), with snappy guitars and woozy percussion joining Charli's clever, rhythmic lyricism. A wonderfully different, but still unmistakeably XCX affair.

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracklisting:
1. Rock Music
2. SS26
3. Card Declined
4. Camera
5. 2007
6. I’m Afraid
7. Yeah
8. Wink Wink
9. Persona
10. Magic Metal Montana
11. No One Lasts Forever

CD Tracklisting:
1. Rock Music
2. SS26
3. Card Declined
4. Camera
5. 2007
6. I’m Afraid
7. Yeah
8. Wink Wink
9. Persona
10. Magic Metal Montana
11. No One Lasts Forever featuring David Cronenberg

UK Balearic boss Pete Herbert has been dropping sounds inspired by his worldly travels for years and now gems from the last 20 years all make it on to this essential long player. These are all sounds for sunny spots, watery retreats and beach bliss-outs with Pete's signature touch everywhere. 'Back To Bahia' is a bubbly and loose house sound, 'Later That Night' has an edge that makes it suited for sundown dancing and 'South Seas' is a horizontal escape, while 'Legzira Sunrise' is dubby downtempo with tender chords that sink you in deep. This is the sort of record that elevates your collection with magical tunes for many different moments.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A sweltering blast of feel-good sunshine sounds from Maxi-discs founder and Balearic boss Pete Herbert. Thumping percussion and slidy filtered 303's working beside echoing FM key stabs and crisp, clicky clave, resulting in an album that's perfect for the beach bar. Music for Swimming Pools indeed.

TRACK LISTING

Early One Evening
Dear Hector
Far Flung
Back To Bahia
Havana Landing
Later That Night
At Zuka
South Seas
Legzira Sunrise

“I wanted to make a totally fried recording, quick and dirty. Sort of a cathartic expulsion. Clean the cobwebs. I recently bought a Vestax MR44 (the best sounding 4 track ever imho) the same 4 track I recorded some Coachwhips. early Ocs etc on now we had the tools we needed so I spent a week writing riffs and brought them to Tom Dolas and John Hodge. We ran them one time and then recorded them on the second go. Loosely improvised and unhinged. Everything turned all the way up. Hope you dig play loud for fans of Mainliner, High Rise , Comets On Fire , Hair Police.” - John Dwyer

Heathen Axe:
John Dwyer Guitar, Vocals & Noise Machines
Tom Dolas Bass, Tambourine & Claps
John Hodge Drums

Recorded On Vestax Mr44 Cassette Four Track Turned All The Way Up
Recorded, Mixed And Edited By John Dwyer At Practice Space & Stu Stu Studio
Mastered By Weasel Walter
Art By Sierra Smith
Layout By Ethan Miller

TRACK LISTING

1. Guzzler
2. Exit
3.False Floor
4. Infected
5. Agent
6. Caviar Spoon

Josh da Costa makes his solo debut with 'New Wave Graveyard', an album which pays tribute to a spectrum of underground music and carves out a new niche.

'New Wave Graveyard' might draw on the ‘70s and ‘80s genre that gives the album its name, but new wave is one of many of Josh da Costa’s musical inspirations – the album is a beautiful soup of styles and ideas, from glam to shoegaze, all informed by Josh’s eclectic taste. With witty lyrics and an abundance of catchy songs, 'New Wave Graveyard' is a thrilling statement from an exciting new artist.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: As a regular listener of Josh's NTS show 'Confusing Mix' (on which he has previously aired some of his own music) I was delighted to hear that he is finally putting out a record. Very excited about this one!

TRACK LISTING

1. Skygirl
2. Proving Me Right
3. Cordelia
4. Shireen
5. Tissues
6. Hospital Clown
7. After Your Heart
8. Slip By
9. Sleepy Babe
10. 96 Year Old Girl
11. Beach In The Rain

Over the last decade, Chicago quartet REZN have carved out a unique place in the landscape of heavy music, chiseling away at the crude formations of the topography, mining the most concentrated metallic ore from the dirt, and shaping it all into something monumental, imposing, and divine. While REZN has always fused seismic riffs with effortless beauty and grandeur, their shifting strategies for wielding that polarity have involved varied compositional and stylistic decisions, most notably the light-and-dark contrast of companion albums 'Solace' (2023) and 'Burden' (2024). But with their newest full-length offering, 'Cycles in the Infinite Dream', REZN masterfully harness the oppressive weight of their full sonic armory to celestial melodies and sublime synesthesia-inducing atmospherics in a manner so seamless it feels otherworldly, as if occupying a liminal space between two realities.
While REZN traffic in the unbridled realms of metal and untethered reaches of psychedelia, their latest release showcases a band working with discipline and intention, even when those intentions are rendered to be purposefully cryptic. As the album title implies, 'Cycles in the Infinite Dream' explores the nexus of our waking and nocturnal worlds. “We moved towards the dream and subconscious state as a lyrical concept and melodic theme,” the band explains. “The pseudo-waking state is a reflection of a second existence—something that you can flee to or be imprisoned by.” Much like the subconscious-guided work of David Lynch, Cycles in the Infinite Dream exists as parallax between the artist and the audience, creating an obscured and distorted space that is both familiar and alien, like a corridor into our past where we recognize our surroundings but somehow still feel lost within its warped geometry.

One of REZN’s most understated assets lies within guitarist/singer Rob McWilliams’ vocal approach. Eschewing heavy music’s guttural growls or operatic gymnastics, McWilliams has been steadfast in his soaring, delay-drenched melodies, providing a beguiling path through even the most primal and pummeling moments in the band’s repertoire. Like a piper calling you to join him, McWilliams forges through the darkness yet remains cloaked in mystery. Indeed, the voice serves more as an instrument and a guidepost than as a vehicle for poetry or a portrait of a personality. “Most of the instrumentation was created with vocal melodies in mind,” the band clarifies. “We made a lot of choices that were dictated by the vocals, sometimes rewriting songs completely if the vocal melodies demanded it.” That said, the band’s instrumentation on the album is still in the foreground and is an exceptionally mesmerizing presence throughout.

REZN have long operated—and thrived—in the subterranean realm of music heads who crave the aural equivalent of altered states. And with 'Cycles in the Infinite Dream', they have created their most psychotropic work to date.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Bracingly heavy, distorted mayhem on Sargen House's newest LP from Chicago post-metalers REZN. Though the overwhelming atmosphere is one of gothic intensity and metallic heft, the moments of (relatively) quiet introspective melodicism remind me of the later day ISIS albums or even Cave-In's more psychedelic moments. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

1. Rites of Passage
2. Transient
3. Cloudfall
4. Aerial Birth
5. Devotion
6. The Vessel
7. Escher
8. Primal Thread
9. Terra Preta

Ancient Infinity Orchestra return with their third album, 'It’s Always About Liberation', a new record that deepens the vision of their acclaimed recent work while moving into darker, more searching emotional territory.

Conceived as a partner to 'It’s Always About Love', this new body of work shares its predecessor’s generosity and spiritual openness, but carries a different charge. Where the previous album focused on healing and warmth, 'It’s Always About Liberation' is largely animated by struggle, perseverance and the desire for transformation while still offering a path to betterment. It is music made in full awareness of a fractured world, yet unwilling to surrender to it.

Like 'It’s Always About Love' the album title draws inspiration from words spoken by Moor Mother during their 2024 We Out Here festival performance that deeply affected bandleader Ozzy Moysey: “It’s always about love / It’s always about liberation.” Those twin ideas became a framework for the two albums Ancient Infinity Orchestra were creating. If one album explored love as repair, this one explores liberation as movement, continually striving toward freedom, clarity and deeper connection.

The 16-member ensemble is led by double bassist and composer Ozzy, with a distinctive line-up that explains their sound better than any artificial genre divisions: two double basses, harp, saxophones, clarinets, violin, viola, cello, oboe, flutes, mandolin, congas, piano, drum kit, with bells, shakers and other percussion instruments scattered on the floor of live sets and recording sessions, ready for members to use whenever the spirit takes them.

This orchestration, and the overlap between membership and friendship, gives Ancient Infinity Orchestra a sound that is at once expansive and intimate, earthy, and cosmic, constantly shifting yet grounded in shared intention. The attention to intention and the inviting sonic world connects the music to artists ranging from Alabaster dePlume to Gondwana label boss Matthew Halsall.

Gradually, the Orchestra became a grounding force in the emerging jazz scene in Leeds, bringing together individuals from different musical backgrounds co-founding the Café Oto-inspired Limpet Club or co-hosting the monthly Sonic Plunge (‘a platform for adventurous experimentation’) and co-founding the Leeds Improvisers Orchestra. Additionally, the ensemble acted as a bridge between musicians in Brighton and Leeds, after Ozzy spent a stint back on the south coast between 2020 and 2022.

Their debut, 'River of Light', was a vibrant celebration of togetherness recorded in three days and released on Gondwana in 2023. A Maida Vale session for Jamie Cullum’s BBC Radio 2 show brought them to a broader audience, as did bookings at North Sea Jazz Festival and Gretchen, Berlin. Since then, Ancient Infinity Orchestra has become a by-word for music that could be framed as ‘spiritual jazz’. Whilst Ozzy avoids the phrase when describing his music, he’s crystal clear that his heroes are associated with those words – citing Art Ensemble of Chicago, Pharoah Saunders, Coltrane (Alice and John), and Don Cherry as major influences.

Across trance-like meditations, rising grooves, moments of grief and collective uplift, It’s Always About Liberation speaks to the battle within the mind as much as the inequalities of the wider world. It acknowledges the darkness but lets connection and creativity have the last word Ancient Infinity Orchestra is a gathering of voices, traditions, and energies converging into something timeless. Their music is a journey inward and outward, always reaching toward the universal.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Lovely soft woodwind and incidental snare hits, chant-like instrumental repetition and athletic improvisational melodies on this soft spiritual jazz wonder from Leeds' Ancient Infinity Orchestra. A wonderfully hypnotic, beautifully textured marvel.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nafas
2. Akshay
3. Triton
4. Illuminations
5. Celebrating the Beautiful Lineage of Sound & Hypnotic States
6. Old Friends
7. Mountain

Sooj, a new collaboration between Duster and Dirty Art Club. In this diseased world where entireties of lives are cursed, Sooj makes a small racket for traveling alone, or dreaming together, or doing nothing at all.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beguiling mix of ambient shoegaze and doomjazz (Bohren Und De Club Of Gore / Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble), with breathy shadows and a crackling, fragmented intensity pervading all of these pieces. Shimmering highs and scattered, dreamy basslines vocals drifting past like a fever dream. Lovely, evocative bliss.

TRACK LISTING

1. Vers le Couloir de la Perte
2. In The Walls
3. Night Layers
4. Double Clutch
5. Fleece
6. 3,100 Luigis
7. Unfold Me
8. Lavender
9. Gallo Pinto
10. Moonbag

More than two decades into the ever - evolving world of Blue States, Andy Dragazis returns with new album, 'Where The Fades Meet'. Dragazis expands his signature cinematic sounds, placing a six-piece choir at the heart of the record. Continuing with the mot if of big, atmospheric, widescreen production, but this time built around the concept of a small choir singing lead vocals in unison, the album transforms intimate songwriting into something communal and immersive.

The album marks another step in the evolution of Blue States, which has morphed over the years from a one-man project, to a live band, and now back to a studio - based solo project. Most of the album was recorded in Dragazis’ London based studio, with the choir and strings tracked separately. “Recording an album with a choir and a string quartet felt like a way of pushing myself both musically and technically – taking me out of my comfort zone” says Dragazis of the record. The choir came together after Dragazis reconnected with Tahita Bulmer (New Young Pony Club) who had collaborated with him on second Blue States album 'Man Mountain'. Bulmer introduced him to vocalist Stacey Dowdeswell. Dowdeswell then helped assemble the six - piece vocal ensemble for the sessions, whose performances were largely recorded live in one take, capturing a raw, unpolished immediacy which adds to the human fragility and sense of presence at the core of the album. Bulmer herself joined the choir, marking a full-circle return to their earlier collaboration on 'Man Mountain' more than twenty years ago. Even within the collective, her distinctive voice occasionally rises above the others and briefly takes centre stage. Also featured throughout the album is the acclaimed string quartet The Elysian Quartet.

'Where The Fades Meet' stands out as one of Blue States’ most expansive and immersive works to date, balancing intricate orchestration with emotional intimacy and blurring the boundary between the personal and the universal.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Pretty, drifty 60's adjacent electronic pop in the vein of Co-Pilot or The Soundcarriers, with clear melodic intention and soaring washes of instrumentation, tempered by the gorgeous vocals of Andy Dragazis. Lovely, sunny summer sounds.

TRACK LISTING

1. Quiet Refrain
2. Waves Of Pines
3. Totality Of The Apex
4. White Sands
5. Restoral
6. Where The Fades Meet
7. Cold Control
8. Beneath the Intrigue
9. The Fine Line
10. Idle Hours

Big Crown Records is proud to present 'Glera', Marco Benevento’s debut album on the label. Marco Benevento has always moved like someone who understands the studio as its own instrument, not just a room where the toys are. Long before he began appearing on stages with Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, and in the liner notes of albums by Clairo and Leon Bridges, Benevento was already thinking like a producer - listening for texture, tension, and negative space, and for the strange emotional alchemy that occurs when groove and curiosity collide. His new album 'Glera' sharpens that instinct into focus, presenting Benevento not only as a virtuosic keyboardist and bandleader, but as a composer building worlds from rhythm, tone, and feeling.

'Glera' is a genre-bending jazz record that folds in soul and reggae’s elastic low end with an open-door sense of possibility. The project began three years ago as a kind of private exercise, with Benevento writing intuitively, inspired by Italian film scores and melody. Over time, those sketches evolved into something broader and more muscular, culminating in the grand majesty heard here. What emerges is music that moves cinematically without becoming precious. Tracks can feel like chase scenes or slow dissolves, sometimes within the same song, with jazz improvisation sharing space alongside reggae pocket, orchestral elements, and psych-pop atmosphere. It’s exploratory but grounded, complex yet unmistakably groove-forward.
Marco Benevento is operating at the highest level, shaping sound with purpose and curiosity. This album announces itself loudly—both outward-facing and deeply intimate. It’s music that moves—across genres, tempos, and registers—while remaining anchored to the joy of discovery. It’s a record that embodies motion, carrying the past forward without ever standing still.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautifully textured selection of drafty instrumentals and shimmering, chamelonic phrases that are both fleeting and instantly memorable. An uplifting fusion of upbeat jazz and soul with groovy reggae bass rolls and syncopated percussive rolls. Those pieces that do include vocals are perfectly selected and beautifully punctuate the mostly instrumental grooves.

TRACK LISTING

1. Frizzante
2. Turandot feat Marianne Mirage
3. Big Top
4. Houdini
5. Zio Tony feat. Molly Lewis
6. I Can’t Control This Bliss feat Dream Crease
7. Crema
8. Miss Neptune feat Elizabeth Steiner
9. Sorgini feat. Dave Guy
10. Sprezzatura
11. Hip Then
12. Catoni feat. 13th Ward Social Club
13. Quattro Passi feat. Chiara Civello
14. Over Now

In their own words Curio Curio's sonic vision "is not straight disco, not straight samba, not strictly old-school but inspired by all of them, creating something contemporary but still nostalgic".

A modern fusion influenced as much by Gal Costa and Jorge Ben Jor as Say She She and Bala Desejo, their sound deftly plots a course all of its own. A celebration of freedom, movement, love and life, intertwined with introspective moments of reflection. Treating tradition as something alive, migratory and unresolved, the album is not simply bound by a shared love of Brazilian music, but by a deeper question that runs through every track; where does one belong when home becomes plural? As a Brazilian living in Europe, Luiza's lyrics explore themes of identity, culture, and existence. The tracks move between cities and emotional registers without settling, tracing a sense of identity that shifts rather than resolves. Songs like 'Amor Doente' and 'Mar sem Dar Pe' circle around relationships that resist clarity, while 'Menina Passarinho' captures the fear and necessity of committing to music as a path. For Luiza, deepening her commitment to music alongside years in theatre was both inevitable and difficult.

Braun's production follows a similar logic. Initial ideas were often built without obvious reference points, only later incorporating rhythmic and vocal elements that hint at Brazil without reproducing it. Analogue techniques, tape, ribbon microphones and live ensemble recording bring a tactile quality that reflects the duo's interest in process as much as outcome. Highlights include 'Bem Querer', built on an authentic samba street vibe with a super-catchy sing-along chorus, and 'Vem pra Casa' with its cosmic-tinged Brazilian boogie flavour. The album closes with 'A Cor do Meu Sonho', a quiet act of insistence. A refusal to shrink in unfamiliar environments, and a belief in the strength of difference. It is less a conclusion than a continuation, leaving the central question open. "I started to understand that I can belong to many places at once", Luiza reflects. "And that can be something to embrace". Lyrics from the song 'Raiz' translate in English to "I value a burning sun and the cold in the air. Constant change is my companion".

With Curio Curio, that idea is lived through sound, story and collaboration. A debut that feels both searching and assured, grounded in heritage yet shaped by distance.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An effortlessly cool fusion of post-bossa and more traditional Brazilian soul that is perfect for the warm summer breeze, with psychedelic passages perfectly spliced between the recognisably familiar samba groove.

TRACK LISTING

1. To Chegando
2. Bem Querer
3. Menina Passarinho
4. Vem pra Casa
5. Raiz
6. Vida que Entorna (Interludio)
7. Amor Doente
8. Mar sem Dar Pe
9. Canto de Calma
10. Amizade
11. A Cor do Meu Sonho

'A*Pop' — is the sophomore masterpiece from two-time GRAMMY® Award-winning, multi-platinum global superstar Tyla. A bold evolution from her debut, this 14-track album mesmerizes with Tyla’s signature sultry vocals, seamlessly blending amapiano, pop, and R&B. 'A*Pop' is both a statement and a movement — a declaration that African music is pop music, with Tyla leading the charge at the forefront of a global shift. Featuring standout hits like 'Is It' 'Chanel' and 'She Did It Again' (feat. Zara Larsson), 'A*Pop' invites you into Tyla’s immersive, vibrant world — a defining second album that cements her as a true global icon.

TRACK LISTING

TBA

Edgar debuts on Dark Entries with Pavor, an 11 track LP of sleazy disco, warped synthpop, and gothic cumbia. Veteran musician Luis Gutierrez has spent the past two decades touring in bands, running Lalalandia Studio, and building his practice in Oakland and Guadalajara. But now, for his first solo outing, he has become Edgar, a pop star who knows no limits! "Edgar feels mightier than anyone but is always reduced to his vices" says Gutierrez, and Pavor delivers vices in spades. From the opening salvos of 'Otra Agua', it's clear we're in for a wild ride: seasick synths slide along slamming disco beats, menacingly chanted vocals sit amid a flurry of careening horror movie samples. The mischief does not abate as we're guided through a demented funhouse of genre detournements. Edgar puts his indelible fingerprints over every inch of this vinyl, from uptempo numbers like the spooky chip-tune frenzy of 'Nunca Mas' to the twisted cumbia of 'Panteon'. We're even treated to a fairly faithful (and majestic) Spanish-language cover of Amanda Lear's 'Follow Me', here titled "Sigueme." EBM, space disco, and horror movie soundtracks all find their way into the mix on Pavor, but the diverse palette comes together perfectly, like a Yello album for the 21st century. Edgar brings us a healthy dose of pure excess, reminding us that dread can be a hell of a lot of fun.

TRACK LISTING

Otra Agua
Teoria
Panteon
Pavor
La Cuca
Rostro
Sigueme
La Tez
Lechuga
Nunca Mas
Te Amo

Alt-pop pioneer Baby Queen releases her highly anticipated second album, 'I Hope You Don’t Remember Me' on Insanity Records. Seeking a radical creative shift, Baby Queen (the artistic moniker of South Africa-born, London-based songwriter Bella Latham) decamped to Los Angeles to make the album with producer Alex Cassnoff. The resulting record combines live instrumentation and synths and features a powerhouse rhythm section boasting legendary bassist Michael Shuman (Queens of the Stone Age) and drummer Carla Azar (PJ Harvey, Jack White).

Driven by the fallout of a seismic, strange romance and written in a period of intense emotional turbulence, the record marks a departure from early EP 'Medicine', 'The Yearbook' mixtape, and Baby Queen’s Top 5 hit debut album, 'Quarter Life Crisis'. Shifting away from her signature sociopolitical commentary, she turns the lens inward, delivering a deeply personal record of heartbreak and self-reckoning

TRACK LISTING

1. Abigail 
2. Feel Something 
3. Permanently Obsessed 
4. That's Fine 
5. Word Vomit
6. Minding The Explanatory Gap
7. The Protagonist
8. Spite 
9. Tongue-Tied
10. Bored Out of My Mind 
11. I Hope You Don't Remember Me

Seattle indie-folk icons The Head and the Heart commemorate the 15th anniversary of their landmark debut album with the release of a 2011 live show at their beloved hometown venue Neumos. This double-album captures a vibrant live set right at the moment the band was breaking out.

'Live at Neumos (2011)' features all the songs from The Head and the Heart’s platinum-selling self-titled album, plus two previously unreleased songs: the original 'Long Time Away', and a cover of Jimmie Rodgers’ 'T is for Texas (Blue Yodel #1)'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cats and Dogs
2. Couer D'Alene
3. Ghosts
4. Long Time Away
5. Sounds Like Hallelujah
6. Honey Come Home
7. Josh McBride
8. Heaven Go Easy On Me
9. Lost In My Mind
10. T Is For Texas (Blue Yodel No. 1)
11. Winter Song
12. Down In The Valley
13. Rivers and Roads

This is the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for Crime 101 by experimental electronic musician, producer and composer Blanck Mass (She Rides Shotgun).

The album is pressed on black vinyl and housed in a deluxe foil-stamped sleeve, complete with double sided insert.

Thunderous synth soundscapes are paired with nuanced character-driven themes creating a multi-faceted backdrop to the intense thriller. The Amazon MGM Studios film directed by Bart Layton is set against the sun-bleached grit of Los Angeles.

Crime 101 weaves the tale of an elusive jewel thief (Chris Hemsworth) whose string of heists along the 101 freeway have mystified police. When he eyes the score of a lifetime, his path crosses that of a disillusioned insurance broker (Halle Berry) who is facing her own crossroads. Convinced he has found a pattern, a relentless detective (Mark Ruffalo) is closing in, raising the stakes even higher. As the heist approaches, the line between hunter and hunted begins to blur, and all three are faced with life-defining choices– and the realization that there can be no turning back.

On creating the music, Power says :
“Crime 101 was an incredible movie to have the opportunity to score. At the centre of the story is, of course, the heist. However, it very quickly became apparent to me that this was not any heist movie, but more a Noir which happens to have a heist in it. The central characters and how their lives become intertwined was more important than the action, in a way. This is high-octane in parts, of course, but what really drew me to this movie was the character development. Lou, Davis and Sharon are the beating heart. I wanted to ‘be with them sonically’ throughout. Both the tender and the furious needed to be sympathetic with one another.”

TRACK LISTING

1. You Have Found Your Friend
2. Open It Up
3. It’s Going Down
4. The Set Off
5. Revelation
6. You Think I’m Playing Games?
7. Money Talks
8. The 101
9. Love
10. Things Will Never Be The Same
11. Game On
12. All You Are Is Bait
13. Vámonos
14. The Proposition
15. Wait For Me
16. Lou Calls It In
17. Ride Or Die

Yard Act's third album, You're Gonna Need A Little Music, marks a major creative evolution for the Leeds band. After their Mercury Prize-nominated debut The Overload (2022), which explored capitalism and ambition through sharp post-punk storytelling, and the more musically adventurous Where's My Utopia? (2024), the band now turns its attention to deeper existential questions about identity, fulfilment, and shared reality.

Unlike their previous albums, which were largely assembled remotely or while touring, this record was written and recorded with all four members playing together in the same room over an uninterrupted five-month period. Working from a new studio in Leeds before finishing the album in Los Angeles with producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Nine Inch Nails, Beck, St. Vincent), the band wrote around 40–50 songs, allowing for greater experimentation and collaboration.

Musically, the album is presented as Yard Act's most diverse and confident work yet. Tracks range from the aggressive intensity of "Redeemer" to the disco-inspired title track, the indie energy of "Cherophobe Rock," and the reflective "Janey Said." The band believe this album represents the point where they have fully developed their own distinctive sound, comparing it to Blur's Parklife as the moment when a band truly finds its identity.

Lyrically, frontman James Smith moves away from the character-driven narratives of previous records towards a more impressionistic style. The songs explore themes of multiple realities, modern individualism, neoliberalism, and the difficulty of finding a shared truth in contemporary society. Despite tackling dark and cynical subjects, the album ultimately argues that music and creativity offer hope and connection.

The closing track, "Over The Barrel," embodies this balance between uncertainty and optimism, ending the album on a hopeful note despite acknowledging that the future remains unclear.

Overall, You're Gonna Need A Little Music is presented as Yard Act's most collaborative, ambitious, and fully realised album to date, combining their sharp social commentary with broader philosophical themes and a more expansive musical palette.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Yard Act's fourth album shows a wealth of the gritty punk-adjacent thud and roaring heft of their incendiary discography, but this time with a little more of a musical stretch towards electronic and dancefloor territories. Wonderfully inventive, constantly engaging post-everything indie-rock, from one of the most engaging bands in the game.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Empty Pledges
New Beginnings
Tall Tales
Fiction
You're Gonna Need A Little Music
Cherophobe Rock

Side B
Thrill Of The Chase
Janey Said
Redeemer
Talky Talky People
Over The Barrel

The legendary artist and producer Tricky today announces his new album, Different When It’s Silent, out 17 July 2026 via False Idols.

His 15th studio album and first full-length release under his own name in six years, Different When It’s Silent is a direct, focused record that reconnects with the distinctive sonic language that has defined Tricky’s work since his groundbreaking 1995 debut, Maxinquaye.

Following a premiere by Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 6 Music, the album’s first single, “Out Of Place” arrives as a powerful closing moment for the record. Featuring longtime collaborator Marta, the track pairs Marta’s restrained vocal with Tricky’s urgent, almost punk-like delivery. The contrast between the two creates a dynamic finale that captures the album’s stripped back intensity. Originally written for Marta’s own album, Tricky ultimately reclaimed “Out Of Place” for Different When It’s Silent.

Different When It’s Silent follows a prolific period of activity. Since 2020’s Fall to Pieces, Tricky has released music under several different guises, including the collaborative project Lonely Guest, the Fifteen Days project with producer Mike Theis under the name Theis Thaws, and last year’s joint record Out The Way with Marta, al via his own label, False Idols. Yet returning to an album under his own name took on a different shape.

“In my mind it was another side project” he explains. But after hearing the material, his manager Alan McGee felt the songs clearly belonged to a Tricky record.

Recorded between Tricky’s home in France and sessions in Bristol, the album draws strongly on the musical community that shaped him. Central to its sound is the voice of Bristol singer Mitch Sanders, whose soulful falsetto runs through much of the record. Their connection reflects a shared musical background and an instinctive chemistry that carries through the performances.

Across fourteen tracks, Tricky blends skeletal blues, brooding electronics, distorted guitars and stark hip-hop rhythms into a sound that feels both stripped-back and expansive. The album moves fluidly across styles while maintaining the restless experimentation that has defined his work for more than three decades.

“I just love making music” Tricky says. “I’m grateful I’ve had the chance to live this life and keep creating.”

With Different When It’s Silent, Tricky delivers one of the most focused and powerful records of his career - a reminder that artists who build their own language never fall out of time.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A wonderfully fluid, darkly evocative album from one of the masters of trip hop, recalling the emotional depths and dark worldview of his stunning 'Maxinquaye' LP. A beautifully produced behemoth that twists and turns, meanders and races in equal measure. An album that instantly recalls the best of ambient and trip-hop, while sounding perfectly new. Stunner.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Still See Me There Ft. Mitch Sanders
A2. I'M Yours Ft. Mitch Sanders
A3. Be Still In The Pain Ft. Mitch Sanders & Run Red Rambo
A4. I Tried Ft. Mitch Sanders
A5. So Cold Ft. Mitch Sanders
A6. Paris Maybe Ft. Mitch Sanders
A7. Cannon Fodder Ft. Mitch Sanders
B1. Because I Don’T Know Ft. Mitch Sanders
B2. Marinade Ft. Mitch Sanders
B3. Radana Ft. Mitch Sanders & Radana
B4. Piano Ft. Mitch Sanders
B5. Frontier Town
B6. Hengrove Blues Ft. Mitch Sanders
B7. Out Of Place Ft. Marta 

Nia Archives returns with 'Emotional Junglist', an album about love – but not just the shimmering romantic parts. Written throughout 2025 – a year that saw Nia fall in, and horrifically back out of, love – each track will encompass something of the experience.

Marking her biggest sonic leap to date, her alt-jungle sound honed alongside James Ford (Arctic Monkey’s, Blur), Ethan P. Flynn (FKA Twigs, David Byrne) and Julia Michaels (Lady Gaga, Sabrina Carpenter), will see her flirt with everything from dewy-eyed indie pop and nineties electronica, underscored by the syncopated beats and thudding basslines of her jungle roots with a tracklist that features Jorja Smith and Sampha.

The motif for the album is a shell – tough on the outside, but through pressure, maturation and resilience, something precious is built within. Nodding to the female form, the spiral chamber also symbolizes growth and self-development.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stunning return for Bradford-born soulful musician, Nia Archives. Perfectly balancing the riotously heavy bass and glitched, skittering drums with silken vocals and soaring synth strings, 'Emotional Junglist' does what it says on the tin musically, and continues Nia's ascent to the upper echelons of production and songwriting mastery.

TRACK LISTING

1. Feelingz Go Numb
2. Around Tha Bend
3. Danger
4. Vertical
5. This Could Be…
6. Dance With Me 2nite
7. Get Me Down (feat. Jorja Smith)
8. Train Of Thought
9. Superlust
10. There Goes Ma Head
11. Almost Always
12. Tender (feat. Sampha)
13. Tha Darkest Hour
14. Lovers Grief
15. Boys In Blue

John Hassall & The April Rainers is the followup to 2017's 'Wheels to Idyll', which picked up critical applause on its release. Uncut Magazine described the album as “a Laurel Canyon- style bucolic rock voyage, with Hassall’s hushed tenor voice cooing over CSN harmonies, wistful major-sevenths and Robbie Krieger-ish guitar explorations.” Whilst Mojo Magazine raved “a long-player of mellifluous, melody soaked psychedelic pop. Hassall’s tune-fulness rarely misfires and the homely, nostalgic charms never wear out their welcome.”

Most of the songs were cowritten by John and longtime poet collaborator Steev Burgess exploring memories of school days, journeys and adventures, fading dreams, ancient empires and even somebody’s trinket collection. Burgess who has known Hassall for many years, wrote the lyrics to lead single 'Miracles', a sort of Ballad of John and Line. Libertines band mate Peter Doherty is also involved with a co-writing credit on 'Doing Time'.

Speaking on the album, John says "These 10 songs are the ones that survived, grew and took on a life of their own. There's no way of telling if a song will make it until the end. 'That Pale Lantern' in my opinion, started off as a rank outsider and then turned into one of the strongest songs on the album. Lessons were learnt from Wheels to Idyll and a new musical development runs through it. Whereas the last album was recorded pretty much live. The new album maintains similar classic songwriting and pop sensibilities, though with more complex arrangements and production.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another slice of sunny jangle-pop, rendered beautifully by John Hassall of Libertines fame, recalling The La's or early Coral mixed with soaring 60's psych. Beautifully evocative and wonderfully intricate indie-pop.

TRACK LISTING

1. Miracles
2. Doing Time
3. A 45 to 1967
4. That Pale Lantern
5. Silver Crucifixion
6. Last Lover of the Summer
7. A Land I’ll Never Know
8. Shaded Roman Eyes
9. Winter Term
10. Leaf-lined Song

Gracie Abrams’ highly anticipated third studio album, .Daughter from Hell'.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An effortlessly melodic mix of low key folky indie music and super sleek synthpop that screams 'Long Pond' so much i'd be very surprised if it wasn't a Dessner production (It is a Dessner production - ed). Abrams' voice is singularly affecting in this instance, with a cracking intensity and longing melodicism we've not heard before, leading to her most affecting outing yet. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hit the Wall
2. Death Wish
3. The Knife
4. Daughter from Hell
5. Look at My Life
6. Good Reason
7. Men Like You
8. Sober
9. Broke My Heart
10. Mews
11. Minibar
12. Imaginary Friend
13. Afflictions
14. Humming
15. What If It’s Right?
16. Cold Goodbyes

hackedepicciotto return with 'LICHTUNG', an electronically rich and structurally adventurous record that honours the German language.

This is Alexander Hacke’s first album since leaving Einstürzende Neubauten. It takes its title – and draws its inspiration – from the home he and Danielle de Picciotto recently established on the outskirts of Berlin, marking a milestone after 14 years of nomadic living. Named after the German word for ‘clearing’, 'LICHTUNG' has become their personal haven and a place for reflection amid a period of global upheaval.

On the album, the pair step beyond the familiar pull of repetitive drones, exploring more complex sound structures and uncharted electronic terrains. Recorded in their new home, the process was as demanding as it was creatively rewarding. They embraced experimentation with new textures, while Danielle returned to the piano, an instrument she had long missed, finding new ways to express herself.

Mindfully written in German as a nod to the language of their surroundings, the lyrics are a loving gesture that firmly anchors this Berlin-born record.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A majestic outing that is rich in German electronic tradition but with a distinct, mellowing influence from folk and rock. Though primarily a propulsive set of ambient pieces, there are moments of divine brightness and melodic intensity scattered liberally like on the stunning 'Einig'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lichtung
2. Vogelfrei
3. Wiederbelebung
4. Erntedank
5. Zeitenwende
6. Draussen
7. Einig
8. Der Marschal

"The story began with the contemplation of lines drawn in the white gravel of a Zen garden: that of the Tokaian temple in Kyoto, which was off-limits to visitors, a few years ago. From that stolen moment, suspended in time, came the inspiration for my new album, 'The Complexity of the Simple'.

"I worked on these instrumental pieces with meticulous craftsmanship, over a period of nearly ten years (2016-2025), continuing on my path towards minimalism. An aesthetic nourished by the visual arts — in particular the sculptor Pierre Labat, who also took the photograph for the cover.

"With this new opus, I want to draw attention to an issue that I believe will be crucial in the forthcoming years and decades. The music industry was born thanks to fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas) - which are responsible for the excess CO² we emit every day - and it is dependent on them at every single stage.

"But the use of these energies is set to decline sharply in the future: either because of the need to decarbonise our societies in order to limit climate change, or simply because they are non-renewable and their peak and decline are inevitable. This transition, in our time of ecological backlash, is a colossal and long-term undertaking. It will take many years, probably decades. And we know that in any case, the sooner the better.

"In this context, when do we get to work? When do we start preparing for a future world without hydrocarbons, and probably more sober? What new ways of producing, playing and listening to music will emerge?"

Sylvain 

TRACK LISTING

1. Le Zen Dans L'art Du Tir À L'arc
2. The Guitar Piece I Wrote For Masumi
3. Wabi Sabi For Beginners
4. Sen No Rikyu
5. Lignes Tranquilles Dans Le Gravier Blanc

NAD return to Funtown for another double pack of heavy hitting splices. From the low-slung disco-funk of opener "Riding High" to the slap-bass-driven, horn blasted funk stomp of "Afro Kissed" and back through the early hip-hop-disco meets Brit funk jive of (the very appropriately named) "Skate Groove", and the mellowed Rhodes jam, "Make It Right", which sounds like it's been recorded in the palm-shaded balmy confines of a tropical paradise. It's a right royal set throughout which our Idjut edit supremo delivers with his usual stylish finesse. Unmissable! 

TRACK LISTING

A. Riding High
B1. Make it Right Tonight
B2. Skate Groove
C1. Afro Kissed
C2. Edito
D. Love Downer

Horrorful Heights marks a formidable new chapter in The Bevis Frond’s deep and storied catalogue, showcasing the enduring creativity of songwriter, guitarist and frontman Nick Saloman as he moves into yet another decade of recording. Long established as one of the most distinctive voices in British underground rock, Saloman continues to refine the band’s signature blend of melodic psychedelia, wiry guitar epics and sharp, emotionally attuned songwriting. Horrorful Heights offers one of the most approachable entry points to the band’s world in years: a record that gathers their core strengths into a cohesive, vivid set. Recorded with long-time drummer Dave Pearce and guitarist Paul Simmons, alongside new bassist Louis Wiggett, the album moves fluidly between jangling psych-pop, heavy-lit guitar workouts and pastoral comedown reveries. Wiggett also brings a surprising new colour to the Frond palette, contributing pedal steel to “Best Laid Plans” and “Momma Bear,” recalling early-70s country-tinged British rock from Bronco or Cochise.

The album’s range is wide but sharply defined. “Draining The Bad Blood” channels the classic Bevis Frond mode of melodic guitar pop—cut from the same cloth as longtime fan favourites later covered by Teenage Fanclub and The Lemonheads. “Space Age Eyes,” a concise nine-minute odyssey, nods toward the transcendental explorations of ’70s electric Miles Davis, complete with a blistering solo from Simmons and rhythmic elasticity from Pearce. The sitar-laden title track, written off-the-cuff while Saloman half-watched a football match, drifts through incense-hazed psychedelia with layered vocals and tumbling tablas—an affectionate echo of the head-shop mysticism he has toyed with throughout the band’s history.

Alongside the core album, this deluxe edition includes Horrorful Offal, an eleven-track companion drawn from the same fertile sessions. Far from a grab-bag of leftovers, it extends the world of Horrorful Heights with alternate moods, deep-cut experiments and songs that illuminate the album’s edges. Together they form a panoramic view of the Frond’s current creative streak.

Both albums are housed in a striking deluxe edition, presented in a bespoke die-cut slipcase that frames the artwork. Though unmistakably eclectic, Horrorful Heights presents a focused portrait of The Bevis Frond in 2025 - vital, tuneful and unburdened by nostalgia. Saloman describes the collection simply: the best songs he’d written in recent years, arriving unforced and instinctive. The result is a late-period peak from one of Britain’s most quietly influential underground bands.

TRACK LISTING

Horrorful Heights (2LP):
A1 A Mess of Stress
A2 Best Laid Plans
A3 Square House
A4 Quietly A5 Space Age Eyes

B1 Naked Air
B2 Horrorful Heights
B3 Draining the Bad Blood
B4 A Simple Pursuit
B5 Hiss

C1 Animal Man
C2 Romany Blue
C3 Mossbacks' Dream
C4 Buffaloed
C5 Silver Insects

D1 That's Your Lot
D2 Sink Estate
D3 I'm Gonna Drag You Into My World
D4 Momma Bear
D5 King for a Day.

Horrorful Offal (LP).
A1 Hotel Foot
A2 I Saw You
A3 Sweeties
A4 It Doesn't Become You
A5 I Can't Hold On

B1 Brackets & Screws
B2 You Can Count On Me
B3 Our Little Star
B4 Bomber
B5 Swimming In The Everglades
B6 Everything All At Once

Following the release of 'Love Is Not Enough', 'Hum of Hurt' delivers a raw, emotionally exposed exploration of the human condition, born from sessions that ultimately yielded two distinct records.

This new ten-song album stands as a powerful statement piece that confronts the cost of a life devoted to creation, while enduring the weight of inner conflict and external turmoil.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Absolutely pummelling post-hardcore from one of the most phenomenally batshit bands out there, fresh off the stage from their legendarily hefty set over there (points at Depot Mayfield) for Outbreak fest. A snarling, rabid suite of jagged edges and incendiary riffs.

TRACK LISTING

1. Slip The Noose
2. Doom In Bloom
3. It Only Gets Worse
4. Detonator
5. I Won't Let You Go
6. It's Not Up To Us
7. Dream Debris
8. It Used To Matter
9. Hum Of Hurt
10. Nothing Is Over

"We here at Straight Arrows have spent years combing the damp forest floor, and now we're ready to deliver the fruits of our forage straight to YOU. Gathered from across our 12 or so 7" records, this harvest brings together the finest out-of-print specimens, plucked from the shadiest patches and trails. Lurking beneath the leaves there's also a track or two originally intended for release on 45 that never quite made it; a rare fungus left behind on the path. FRUITS OF THE FOREST, freshly picked, ready to gather in your basket or pouch, and savour comfortably in your home."

New South Wales’ rabble rousers The Straight Arrows are up here in the northern hemisphere playing some EU festys, and a string of EU Dates with buddys, Osees (two UK shows included) as well as a handful of UK headliners (dates below). They’ve bunged Agitated some hot and sparkling remastered and rocking tracks from their catalogue to make like a “Greatest Hits of the Straight Arrows”, a 15 track Primer of sorts to get you abreast of their bloody catchy and scuzzy pop songs.., includes loads a singles tracks, including the latest Good Bye Boozy 7” track “Middleman” and such like for a UK/ EU only tour supporting album. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Can't Count
Something Happens
Jeepster
Magic Sceptre
Running Wild
Can't Stand It
Make Up Your Mind
Two Timer

Side B
Petrified
Information, Mannn
Turn Me Off
Out and Down
21st Century
Fast Product
Middle Man

'The Weather Channel' is the new instrumental album from Bad Brains bassist Darryl Jenifer. It follows his 2010 solo debut, 'In Search of Black Judas'. The record features a venerable lineup of heavy-hitters from the jazz world, including the likes of John Medeski, Ben Perowsky, Jack DeJohnette, and Lenny White, among others. The tracklist includes nine new compositions, as well as new interpretations of two Bad Brains classics.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sacred Love II
2. August
3. Loves Harmony
4. Re-Ignition II
5. Rights
6. Rights Dub
7. End Finity
8. Punkbomba
9. Daisy
10. Rock Love
11. Just Around the Corner

Writing a bio for a secret band is a bit like cleaning a house that nobody is living in. It looks good on your resumé but do we really need it? Only ghosts do.

Talking about ghosts: there is AI for this kind of stuff, but unfortunately, even AI is too serious and will write a 'proper' bio because AI knows stuff. Name names. Name places. Name influences. Name tour dates. Name quotes by Oscar Wilde and/or Noel Gallagher. And none of that is relevant to Ferries.

After the 2025 release of Ferries' quickly-vanishing first LP, 'Eye Flutter', not much changed for the band. They continued to exist by not existing. Et voila, a new record, 'Eye Wander', is now here. Although the medium is the same as the previous one (black gold), they've taken a next step in a smoky journey into a dubby and kraut-y world of creating songs and musical moments. Is 'avant garde pop' a genre? Or even 'dub kraut'? I know 'indie' certainly is, and I don't really agree with that either, and even a broken clock is right twice a day so what's the point anyway.

TRACK LISTING

1. Running Out of Time
2. I Swear I Left It Right There
3. All At Once Again
4. Leave Behind
5. Don’t Stop
6. Don’t Stop Again
7. Eyes Wander
8. Knightville Brawl
9. Tank Town
10. Running Out of Time Again

'Everything I Ever Saw' finds The Menzingers entering a new era in what's already been a storied career.

The Philadelphia punk legends' eighth album chronicles moments of significant change-- the personal, the political, and the universal-- while returning to the core creative principles that first put them on the map with listeners the world over. Twenty years in, The Menzingers have discovered that the wisdom gained with time's passing is even stronger than the emotional armor they once wore in their youth, and 'Everything I Ever Saw' captures the quartet embracing the here and now while strengthening the bonds that have held them together.

The Menzingers have always created as a four- headed unit, with all members (vocalist/ guitarist Greg Barnett, vocalist/ guitarist Tom May, bassist Eric Keen, drummer Joe Godino) throwing in their respective talents as part of the craft--but for 'Everything I Ever Saw', the group worked in creative symbiosis more than ever before. "The way we made this record feels the most like how the band was in the very beginning: Me and Tom coming to the band with the most basic element of a song, and the four of us shaping that," Barnett says.

Instrumental in building that excitement was locally centered and nationally renowned production legend Will Yip, who threw in with the Menzingers on 2017's 'After the Party' and their sonically expansive 2019 record 'Hello Exile'. This time around, Yip once again became an unofficial Menzinger while the band crafted these 11 songs in their South Philly space. "Working with Will was like a homecoming," May beams while talking about Yip's contributions. "We've grown up together over these years, and we're still incredibly close friends. He's the best at gassing you up and making sure everybody's on the right page, but he's also so good at pointing out stuff that might not fit the vision without being a fucking prick. He's the hardest working person that we've come across in the music industry, and he's incredibly inspiring."

TRACK LISTING

1. Chance Encounters
2. Better Angels
3. Romanticism
4. Other People's Money
5. Gasoline & Matches 
6. The Fool 
7. Nobody's Heroes
8. Breathe With Me
9. When She Enters My Dreams
10. Parade Day
11. Everything I Ever Saw

Liverpool metal quartet Loathe return with 'A Stranger To You', a fourteen-track opus six years in the making. Spanning progressive metal, shoegaze, psychedelia, and electronic ambiance, the album weaves personal milestones into their most sonically ambitious work yet. A front-to-back listening experience that cements their place among heavy music's most vital acts.

TRACK LISTING

1. Entrance 
2. Block of Flats 
3. Fortress Down 
4. Gemini 
5. Nothing Like The Knife 
6. Harder to Pretend 
7. ثينا (Athena) 
8. Revenant feat. NOWHERE2RUN
9. The Way It Breaks
10. Meet My Maker 
11. Fangs
12. The Ladder
13. Gifted Every Strength
14. No Stranger To You...

A sweeping, guitar-driven road trip that recalls and reinvigorates the slowcore and alt rock of the 90s and early aughts, 'Mount Zero', the debut LP from Swapmeet, marks the moment the Australian four-piece come into their own. Following their dreamy 2024 debut EP 'Oxalis', 'Mount Zero' arrives on the heels of the band’s signing to LA-based label Winspear, after stirring up buzz throughout Australia, taking home awards for Best Release and Best Song ('Ceiling Fan') at the South Australian Music Awards and earning the title of ‘Best Emerging Artist’ at SXSW Sydney. Mingling airy sweetness with jagged surrealism, 'Mount Zero' transmutes so many of the regrets and uncertainties of young adulthood into a burgeoning, newfound confidence. Though the members of Swapmeet often begin their songs by writing individually, the tracks on 'Mount Zero' ended up circling common themes: first loves, first heartbreaks, first embarrassments, first disasters. As they've done since their earliest days as a band, Swapmeet traded instruments throughout 'Mount Zero' and shared production duties as a foursome, developing their sound by layering dozens (sometimes hundreds) of tracks within each song, then carefully removing elements until the production took a clear shape. The result is a record where Swapmeet bottle up the tooth-gritting intensity of feeling yourself change at the cellular level under reality's unyielding pressures. It's a tribute to all the lives that can never be lived, all the paths that will never be followed--and an ode to the one that lies just ahead, too.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Know!
2. Mount Zero
3. Bonny
4. Halfway
5. 2 C U
6. Seeds
7. Sand
8. Personal (Don’t Take It)
9. My Heart Breaks II

'Frozen Charlotte' - the 7th studio album from Jack White shows the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer at his best; backed by an incredible band (Patrick Keeler on drums, Dominic Davis on bass, Bobby Emmett on keys) whose collective hand is scorching hot after coming off a tour of universally-acclaimed performances. Instead of resting on a “job well done”, they went straight to work in the studio and laid down what became 'Frozen Charlotte'.

Recorded in White's Third Man Studio in Nashville, this album shows Jack carrying on the same raucous, raw, and frenetic energy from his lauded 2024 album, 'No Name'. 13 tracks of distinct feel and tone, 'Frozen Charlotte' is an intense rock and roll punch with never far behind blues underpinnings... all of which fits right at home with long time fans while leaving an inviting open door to newcomers alike.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A blazing return to the head-nodding guitar-heavy rock and/or roll White is so proficient at, and yet more evidence (as if any were needed) that as many musical twists and turns he takes in his solo career, there's still an incredibly strong core aesthetic in all of White's music that is unshakeable. Brilliantly groovy, wonderfully written, roaring rock music.

TRACK LISTING

1. G.O.D. And The Broken Ribs
2. Derecho Demonico
3. There's Nobody There
4. Raising The Grain
5. You’ll Never Fix Me Nobody Knows
6. Dollar Bill
7. I Can’t Believe What I’m Hearing
8. Thick As Thieves
9. All Alone Again
10. She's In A Frenzy
11. Making Contact
12. Neighbors Blues

Panda Bear and Sonic Boom’s second album together, 'A ? Of When', maintains the sense of musical play brought forth in their triumphant 2022 debut, 'Reset'. It is built on loops of harp (Mary Lattimore) and sequences of steel drum, webs of pedal steel and even bits of a mariachi band. These are, of course, deliberate choices, sounds and textures they’ve never used and that offered a clear sonic break from the success of 'Reset'.

But maybe more than ever, Sonic Boom and Panda Bear emerge through these 10 songs as two people with frank opinions about these times, with a real stake in the sway of the world. These tunes grapple with online exhaustion and pervasive depression, with political chicanery and ecological sustainability, all while advocating for respecting the power of luck and giving one another grace in a moment when very few of us actually know what the hell is happening. Has it ever been easier to complain publicly about something without trying to change it? Sonic Boom and Panda Bear are not content to gripe about circumstances or speculate about the fall on 'A ? Of When'. The goal is for the music to create physical connections between people, to encourage them to enjoy a real experience in the world with it and each other.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Panda Bear & Sonic Boom's second collaborative endeavour is a love letter to 60's pop, rock and the harmony-heavy vocal style of the Beach Boys, all wrapped in their uniquely experimental coating. Treble-heavy synth swells and lysergic instrumental blooms mixed with whimsical found-sound percussion and jangling, joyous guitars.

TRACK LISTING

1. Never Givin’ In
2. Lucky Charm
3. Revive Him
4. Something Like Dreaming
5. A ? Of When
6. Pray To You
7. Be The Bridge
8. Like A Moth To The Flame
9. Somethin’ That Lasts
10. Graveyard 

Here is the latest record from Konformer, "Konformer II", the follow up to "Konformer 1"!

3 years in the making "Konformer II" is a further & deeper probe of the world of electronic influenced instrumental, psychedelic Krautrock from the Nuremberg based trio, recorded at Frank Mollena's Lonestar Studios.
Rainer Ruder (bass), Andreas Berg (drums) and & Kristian Krauss (keyboards) continue their exploration with a bass loop anchored odyssey, a trip into the future with a firm nod to the past.

Released on Before I Die 03/07/26 on limited black vinyl LP with a full colour art book featuring artworks from independent artists from the city.

The band will commence a short UK Tour of Southern & Northern Grassroots venues from the end of August 2026 culminating in a performance at Manchester Psych Fest on Saturday 5th September.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: A sprawling, mini-epic of krautrock fuzz, buzz, thud n clatter that sees the band further cement their sonic foundations on the BiD turf. Instantly engaging, locking you into their hypnotic hurricane, sending you spiraling into the speaker stacks and painting patterns in your minds' eye. Just brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

A1-A2. Konfektio Suite - 1. Participation Mystique
A2. Konfektio Suite - 2. Persona 3. Affekt 3. Schatten
A3. Marseille

B1. Berufsverkehr
B2. Mont Ventoux
B3. Todmorden

A new solo album from Seu Jorge reveals his 'other side' on this new solo album featuring Beck and Maria Rita. Produced by Mario Caldato Jr. (Beastie Boys), the album moves between jazz and bossa nova and is the result of a 16-year musical journey. A departure from the soul and samba that defined his solo career, the new album is a sophisticated orchestral celebration of Brazilian music, moving between jazz and bossa nova.

The seed for this meeting between the Brazilian soul and orchestral sophistication was planted by a longtime friend and admirer: the legendary producer Mario Caldato Jr., known for his work with the Beastie Boys and Jack Johnson.

The spark for “The Other Side” came from a moment of pure sensitivity. “This album was born when I recorded Jorge playing a simple version of ‘Girl You Move Me,’ by the band Cane and Able, on a nylon-string guitar. The performance was very sensitive and dynamic, which moved me deeply,” says the producer.

It was then that Caldato had the idea to invite multi-instrumentalist and arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson to orchestrate that demo. The partnership, which began in 2009, blossomed organically. With his characteristically deep, velvety voice, Seu Jorge guides the listener through a repertoire that revives gems of MPB. The artist cites as references the catalog of the German label ECM Records and the arrangements of Claus Ogerman, a conductor who worked with Tom Jobim and João Gilberto.

Recorded in stages between 2009 and 2018, the album is a true work of musical
craftsmanship, created with calm and friendship. The live rhythmic foundations were
provided by Seu Jorge’s band. “Jorge has a lot of confidence in and pride for his musicians, allowing them to express themselves freely. Each one brings a special flavor to every song; this was their album too, ” notes Caldato Jr.


The album features covers of songs such as “Crença” by Milton Nascimento (from his 1969 debut album); “Caboclo” by Arthur Verocai, in a version with psychedelic guitars; and, of course, “Girl You Move Me” by the Canadian band Cane & Able, which inspired the project. Among the tracks featuring guest artists, “Vento de Maio” by Márcio Borges (a hit with Lô Borges and Elis Regina) features an intense duet with Maria Rita. Another major collaboration is with American singer Beck, a self-proclaimed fan of Brazilian music and Grammy winner. Together, they perform “River Man” by the revered British singer Nick Drake.

TRACK LISTING

A1: Crença (3:25min)
A2: Vento De Maio feat Maria Rita (6:15min)
A3: Girl You Move Me (4:09min)
A4: Luz Na Escuridão (3:37min)
A5: Caboclo (4:49min)
A6: Folias De Amor (2:52min)

B1: Quando Chego feat Marisa Monte (4:19min)
B2: Flor De Laranjeira (3:43min)
B3: River Man feat Beck (4:36min)
B4: Far From The Sea feat Zap Mama (5:22min)
B5: Beleza Bárbara (6:49min)

The scope, variety and ambition of Ebbb’s debut album 'Shallow Hits' is clear from the off. 'Come Alive' whirs into being quietly before morphing into a sun-kissed, radiant piece of calypso-esque electronic pop; the Latin-flavoured 'Now You Know' feels destined to soundtrack sun-drenched festivals this summer; 'Shallow Hits' is as deft and detailed as it is big, bold and euphoric; while the wonky yet propulsive charge of 'Side On' sounds like a drum ‘n’ bass club and church choir combined.

A fervent eclecticism and unpredictable restlessness underpins the album. Latterly the record dives into the moody technoid textures and multi-layered harmonies that characterised their debut EP 'All At Once' - exemplified by ‘Youth’ and the closing track 'I’m Not Enough' that lands an emotional gut punch to an album that is already littered with them. However there’s a remarkable coherence and identity that underpins the album. Ebbb are exploring far and wide, deep and vast, yet they do so via an approach that remains unmistakably them.

'Shallow Hits' is an album bursting with ideas, textures, rhythms, detail and emotion. A bold and singular debut record from a group who truly do not sound like anyone else right now.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's a lot of talk about Ebbb, and a lot of it is focused around the brilliantly athletic vocals of Will Rowland, but I think it's the combination of his pop-forward vocals and Lev Ceylan's airy, otherworldly glitch production that really hit home. A mix between jagged, neon glitch and melodic, beat-infused 00's electronic indie.

TRACK LISTING

1. Come Alive
2. Home Ground
3. Now You Know
4. Pander
5. Side On
6. Shallow Hits
7. Remedy
8. You’ve Got Me Where You Want Me
9. Moving On
10. Youth
11. I’m Not Enough

Dinked Edition Bonus 7":
Side A:
Book That You Like
Side B:
Manners

'Girls' is Princess Nokia at her most fully realized, a bold celebration of femininity in all its power, vulnerability, and duality. Blending hip-hop and dreamy pop textures, the album moves between confession and high-gloss attitude. Anchored by standout singles 'Drop Dead Gorgeous', 'Medusa', and 'Blue Velvet', that each capture a different facet of her sonic and emotional range.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A blazing run through high-nrg electronica infused with Nokia's inimitable flow and spoken word storytelling and more traditionally beat-heavy pieces that clearly show her effortlessly off-kilter rhythms. Though there's a huge variety of genres peeking through the pieces, it never feels too disjointed, and results in a highly chameleonic end result.

TRACK LISTING

1. Girl FM #1
2. Blue Velvet
3. Medusa
4. Period Blood
5. Matcha Cherry
6. Drop Dead Gorgeous
7. Gossip Girl
8. Beach Babe
9. Pink Bronco (feat. Lindsey Stirling)
10. Girl FM #2
11. Phoebe Philo
12. ArtStar

'Foreign Tongues', the incredibly vibrant 14-track new album from the Rolling Stones, follows less than three years after the band’s universally acclaimed, Grammy Award-winning 'Hackney Diamonds', which topped charts worldwide and achieved multi-platinum success. Preceded by the upbeat and infectious lead single ‘In The Stars’, 'Foreign Tongues' was brought to life in under a month at Metropolis Studios in West London, with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood reuniting with Grammy-winning producer Andrew Watt. The result is a dynamic and forward-looking record that captures the band’s unmistakable sound while pushing into new sonic and lyrical territory, further cementing their unparalleled legacy.

The album features standout performances from Jagger, Richards and Wood, alongside their core collaborators including Darryl Jones, Matt Clifford and Steve Jordan. It also includes a special appearance from Charlie Watts, captured during one of his final recording sessions before his passing in 2021. Additional contributions come from an impressive line-up of guest artists, including Steve Winwood, Paul McCartney, Robert Smith (The Cure) and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brand new outing from one of the most legendary bands in all of rock, The Rolling Stones. Like Hackney Diamonds, there are a host of famed producers and collaborators, but in the end it's The Stones' unsinkable songwriting talents and the singular, recognisable elements all of the members add that keeps them so popular. Unmistakeably the 'Stones.

TRACK LISTING

TBC

“My origin story as a songwriter and artist set the context for the catharsis I experienced while making 'New Avatar'. I wrote my very first songs in a punk house. The indie scene I was part of provided me with an outlet for genre-defying experiments that illuminated intersections I was hearing in my head. We didn’t spend tons of time on songs cuz the kids in that scene didn’t care about nailing it. It was (lowkey) about messing up, giving 0 fucks and dismantling the need to be perfect in the first place. It took the pressure off and allowed my first vision of myself to blossom. I used a similar approach with this body of work - moving through with a lot of intention while capturing the freedom and spontaneity that inspired my inception as an artist.

What you’re getting with this album is another facet of my world expressed with a new level of conviction, sometimes in the form of love+devotion and other times in the form of rage.” - Kelela

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A rich, deep distillation of modern R&b, crackling future beats and melodic soulful electronica. Though Kelela's pieces move quickly through influences, it never feels disjointed and results in an album that is as surprising as it is rousing, and shows that her compositions will stand up to multiple listens.

TRACK LISTING

1. Idea 1
2. Point Blank
3. Goin Down
4. Outta Time (feat. A. K. Paul)
5. Against Me
6. Crystalize
7. Retaliation Lullaby
8. Linknb
9. Don't Piss Me Off
10. New Life Forms (feat. Fousheé)
11. The Bridge (feat. PinkPantheress)
12. If We Meet Again

At the age of 72, "Evil" Graham Lee, the legendary pedal steel pioneer and veteran of the iconic Australian band The Triffids, delivers his first ever album under his own name titled ‘I Think I’m Alone Now’. In addition to his work with The Triffids, Graham’s place in ambient history was cemented in 1990 when his evocative pedal steel became the soulful centerpiece of The KLF’s masterpiece, Chill Out (specifically on the highlight “Baltimore to Fair Play”).

"I Think I’m Alone Now" is a profound exploration of the instrument's emotional range, blending traditional country infused melodies with vast, reverb drenched ambient textures. The album spans six tracks, anchored by the Side B title track, a 15 minute textural piece that leans heavily into the ambient genre. From the delicate melancholy of "Seeking Beauty in Sadness" to the curious abstraction of "Nursery in the Beehive," Lee uses his pedal steel and an array of pedals to sculpt unique, haunting soundscapes that exist between tradition and the avant garde.

The connection is brought full circle with exclusive liner notes written by The KLF’s Bill Drummond. Reflecting on a forty year friendship that began when The Triffids served as the backing band for Drummond’s solo debut, "The Man", Drummond provides a personal and poignant context for this long awaited solo bow.

A 180g pressing housed in a full sleeve designed by Bradley Pinkerton with metallic sticker and bespoke inner sleeve featuring liner notes signed by Bill Drummond.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Love a bit of experimental pedal steel me. Much like the zither, it's evolved way past it's traditional designated purpose; furthering experimental music through the ages with a delicate, sublime touch which few other instruments can compete with. Graham Lee completes the circle left slightly incomplete on the KLF's "Chill Out"....

TRACK LISTING

serein
seeking beauty in sadness
you are my sunshine
nursery in the beehive
i think i m alone now
is there any pedal steel in heaven

Paranoid, polyrhythmic ‘crowdrock’ from the not-too-distant future. Synthesised under the supervisory signal of an all-knowing, unofficially named, classified dialup modem that Wah Wah Wino have nicknamed "Sworx”, tasked with sifting through coded waveforms and neatly sorting into a secret filing cabinet. Post-fibre-optic technology [idm wav. tablé]. Your dreams are being monitored. Tip.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Absolutely phenominal stuff here from two audio sound wizards. They've somehow managed to impart onto the record a sonic patina that sounds like you're constantly huffing laughing gas or the kind of omnipresent buzz that accompanies a strong DMT / mushroom trip. Simply mind-bending!

TRACK LISTING

a1. OpportuniXt
a2. Lobby_agency_contract
a3. The System Works
a4. statecellar [ 641Amix ]
a5. dxmmy. pxtsy. rolodex.
a6. breathwx (half_life)
b1. Western_intel [ frontier 2056 ]
b2. $worx4k-Reaper-Cam
b3. Langley Prayer Room 9
b4. sWORxism_noclocks_notimekept
b5. SworXist2_source-c0de(xkyscr)
b6. Mastering The Internet

Straight from the weedy fields of swampville Bruxelles we bring you 8 ‘tranches de vie’ of deep zone-hall by weirdtronic bass veteran Michael Crabbé’s best fitting sound costume to date: the mighty Rudi J! You might know him from earlier outfits but that’s not the main issue here. Rudi J is!

When this swamp thing touches the pads, it’s off-road after three seconds, even if you’re in the middle of Europe’s capital. Mixing analog dirt and digital sound bits in a very loose and personal take on dancehall, we’re pretty far away from the dance floor but definitely swinging. It’s a trippy affair wandering around concrete flowers with a deep ambient flavor, but it’s edgy.

A hot summer fever dream following his own lusty path, full of life and wonder but with something sinister hiding around every corner. Often reaching for the stars, a deeper shade of bass keeps things nicely grounded. These sounds are built with a sound system in mind and bass culture at heart. Even if you can definitely surf on it from your couch, picking out all of its ear-pricking details, it will very much come alive on a big sound.

A layered affair with almost jazzy and orchestral elements peeping through the stereo-field, spectral and dissonant but also playful. Like early dubstep, some of these tunes can destroy a clubsound, keeping you skunking out in pedestrian mode and snorting up the atmospherics, finally forgetting about that damn phone.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Concocting a sonic world all of his own creation Rudi J brings forth the sound of 'swampy deep zone-hall' for our aural delectation. If you liked that DJ Firehouse from last week, yer gonna dig this. It's a winner from me Bob!

TRACK LISTING

i guess i'm not in tune after all
ftc
falling cards
it's just a phase
j's waltz
slanging talk
expect dis
i'm pretty sure now

Essential compilation of long lost hard to find Detroit classics!
"Now & Then" features five 90s original tracks and 2 brand new remixes from Detroit In Effect and Terrace. Top that up with 2 unreleased 90's tracks from John and we have the perfect compilation for the true heads, TIP!

TRACK LISTING

1 Aquatic
2 Aquatic Carl Craig Mix
3 Rainforest
4 Earth & Nightfall Original Mix
5 Earth & Nightfall Detroit In Effect Remix
6 High Tide
7 Bisous Au Revoir
8 Fragile
9 Fragile Terrace Rework

"'Funk Face' is a 9-track journey drawing from the raw energy of 80s funk. The concept? A duel between my two personas: the pure madness of P-Funk versus a smoother, late-night vibe.

"It’s a balance between two worlds, designed to follow you anywhere. Whether you’re cruising under the sun or settling into a late-night groove, the album adapts to your mood without ever losing the thread. Blending the influence of Rick James with nods to 90s sitcoms, it’s a cocktail of high-octane BPMs and sensual breathers.

"There’s no room for melancholy here. Just press play, smile, and feel the vibration. 'Funk Face' is, by definition, the ultimate happy face." - Mofak

TRACK LISTING

1. GOT THE LOVE
2. HOUSE PARTY
3. FUNK UP
4. NO TIME
5 CRIME
6. CALL ME
7. SOON
8. SLYDE
9. NIGHT RIDE (outro)

Bridging the sound of two distinctive auteurs within modern electronic music, 'Exhale' is the natural convergence of Batu and Donato Dozzy's revered, distinctive sonic signatures. With techno in the broadest sense as a framework, the pair have created an immersive listening experience that celebrates the flashpoint of inspiration and thrives on experimentation.

As Batu, Omar McCutcheon has made a huge impression on modern club music by channeling the soundsystem-rooted principles of dubstep into inventive mutations that defy easy categorisation. Donato Dozzy has been a leading figure in European techno since the mid 00s, helping pioneer a culture of deeply immersive, subtle dance music charged with ambient atmospheres. The pair first connected in Japan in 2019, discovering a mutual appreciation for each others' work and a curiosity about how their distinct sounds might intersect.

In February 2025 Batu visited Dozzy's studio in Rome. Within that Aladdin's cave of hardware, the pair mapped out a continuous, instinctive flow of sketches that became the bedrock of 'Exhale'.

Between Dozzy's gear-focused practice and Batu's detailed software manipulations a dialogue emerged between the duo's distinct styles, making space for each other and learning along the path to a record both unique and innately connected to their respective musical legacies.

The eight fully-formed pieces that make up 'Exhale' bear the hallmarks of both creators in equal measure. True to their musical mission, there are no one-dimensional approaches taken throughout 'Exhale'. Transcendental sequences are laser-guided by kinetic drum science, and even the most bruising moments are balanced with a delicacy that leads straight to the heart of both producers' profound appeal. The album that has emerged feels like an honest, instinctive celebration of Batu and Dozzy's respective strengths, made all the sharper in unison.

TRACK LISTING

1. Emergence
2. Spiral
3. Drift
4. Off Axis
5. Swarm
06. Flicker
7. Exhale
8. Bloom

Fabienne has been finessing her unique blend of neo- and classic psych, ye-ye, and ‘60s beat inspired pop since releasing her debut solo album 'No Time For Sorrows' in 2004. She’s now about to release her brand-new studio album 'Indigo Red'.

Fabienne’s recording of ‘I’m Gonna Haunt You’ (from 2004's 'No Time For Sorrows') was featured in the second season of the massive BBC show Killing Eve opening her music up to a wider audience.

Since her 2019 album 'Four', Fabienne has been working on tracks for her new album 'Indigo Red'. This is her first album to be recorded at Gizzard Studios by Ed Deegan (ex Toe Rag Studios) at the controls and co-produced by Delsol and Deegan. It features a crack team of musicians including Thomas Gardner, Carwyn Ellis, and Bradley Burgess, and Rupert Brown. The album mixes new original songs with covers of songs by artists including Silver Apples, The Count Five, Sharon Tandy, and Francoise Hardy.

TRACK LISTING

1. She Is Gone
2. I Heard About a Friend
3. Black Sheep
4. If All Things Were Never Said
5. I Have Known Love
6. The Morning After
7. I’m Leaving You
8. Daughter of the Sun
9. Peacekeeper
10. Le Premier Bonheur du Jour

'Alone Together' is an album about praxis. Putting belief into action. The opening line, “radical love compels me to fight”, reflects lived experience, standing up for one another and for what you believe in, regardless of outcome. Alongside producers Klas Åhlund and Kenneth Blume, Show Me The Body have recontextualized their core language into something with more clarity than ever before. This is not about atmosphere but direct communication, a call to galvanise ourselves and the people around us.

The hardcore, banjo-holding, activism &community-first band from NYC has made their strongest & most accessible date, without sacrificing message & values and due to take them to a further level. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Overture
2. Eat For Peace
3. No God
4. Good Time
5. Dance In The USA
6. Do What’s Right (Happy)
7. Interlude
8. See You Again
9. Mileage
10. New Line
11. Trust
12. Finale
13. Alone Together