Strut present an exclusive new compilation curated by Optimo’s JD Twitch, ‘Kreaturen Der Nacht’, bringing together classics, rarities and oddities from Germany’s original post-punk and DIY scene.

1979 to 1984 was an era of particular artistic upheaval in Germany as strong subculture scenes formed in many German cities. Emphasis was placed on expression rather than technical perfection, artistic impact rather than skill. DIY self-organisation prevailed with the establishment of small record labels and independently produced records and cassettes. Bands experimented across genres and consciously abandoned the English-speaking mainstream with German band names and lyrics. “Although we had a small underground scene, it was very vibrant,” explains Gudrun Gut of Malaria! “Bands like Die Haut, my first band Mania D., Malaria!... we organised gigs ourselves or friends would open a gallery and have bands playing. We hung around together in a handful of clubs like Risiko or Dschungel and went to gigs at SO36. West Germany had other regional scenes too: Düsseldorf and Köln around Der Plan and the Ata Tak label and there was the Hamburg side with Abwärts. Germany didn’t have a real music industry like the US or England back then."

This new collection is a personal selection from JD Twitch, built over years of playing the tracks in club sets. “It is not designed to tell a definitive story of what was going on in Germany in this era,” he explains. “Rather, it is simply an arbitrary collection of records I adore from a specific era with a specific attitude that hopefully together sum up some of the musical undercurrents in Germany at that time.”

The package features a host of rare and unseen photos from the period along with extensive interviews with artists including Beate Bartel (Mania D.), Christoph Dreher (Die Haut), Michael Hirsch (P1/E) and Thomas Voburka (Weltklang). All tracks are remastered by The Carvery with artwork by Optimo’s in-house design man Andrew Beltran.

As some of you may or may not know, for the past few years, as a holiday tradition, Sufjan has embarked on an extraordinary experiment to record an annual Christmas EP. It started in 2001, the year of Epiphanies, and continued onward (skipping only 2004), culminating into an odd and idiosyncratic catalog of music that has only existed in the Asthmatic Kitty archives (and on a number of file sharing sites). The recording process took place every December, for one week, usually at home, provoking collaborations with friends, roommates, and musical peers. Armed with a Reader's Digest Christmas Songbook (and a mug of hot cider) Sufjan & friends concocted a musical fruit cake year after year, implementing every musical instrument they could find lying around the house: banjo, oboe, Casiotone, wood flute, a buzzy guitar, hand claps, sleigh bells, Hammond organ, and some tree tinsel. Did we mention sleigh bells? It doesn't take much to capture that Creepy Christmas Feeling, does it? Recorded, mixed and mastered at home, the EPs themselves were often assembled in the kitchen, stapled together, and sent out with stickers and stamps to loved ones across the globe, year after year. Recording traditional favourites alongside unique originals, Sufjan has, over the course of five years, constructed an odd, impressive, and compelling collection of Christmas hits (and some misses) that will either warm your heart or make you throw up eggnog all over the bath mat (depending on your constitution). Asthmatic Kitty now releases ALL of the material (newly mixed and mastered) in one generous box set. It's chock full of surprises, including the following novelty items (if you don't mind us ruining the surprise): Five individually packaged CD EPs, five Christmas stickers, extensive liner notes and short stories by Sufjan Stevens, an original Christmas essay by Rick Moody and an animated music video and comic strip by Tom Eaton.

Remind Me Tomorrow comes over four years after the release of Are We There, a top 10 critically praised album of 2014, and reckons with the life that gets lived when you put off the small and inevitable maintenance in favor of something more present. Throughout, Van Etten veers towards the driving, dark glimmer moods that have illuminated the edges of her music and pursues them full force.

Written while pregnant, going to school for psychology, after taking The OA audition, Remind Me Tomorrow was written in stolen time: in scraps of hours wedged between myriad endeavors — Van Etten guest-starred in The OA, and brought her music onstage in David Lynch’s revival of Twin Peaks. Off-screen, she wrote her first score for Katherine Dieckmann’s movie Strange Weather and the closing title song for Tig Notaro’s show, Tig.

The songs on Remind Me Tomorrow have been transported from Van Etten’s original demos through producer John Congleton’s arrangement. He helped flip the signature Van Etten ratio, making the album more energetic-upbeat than minimal-meditative. The songs are as resonating as ever, the themes are still an honest and subtle approach to love and longing, but Congleton has plucked out new idiosyncrasies from Van Etten’s sound. Joined by Van Etten’s longtime collaborator and bandmate Heather Woods Broderick, plus Jamie Stewart, Zachary Dawes, Brian Reitzell, Lars Horntveth, McKenzie Smith, Joey Waronker, Luke Reynolds, and Stella Mozgawa, Remind Me Tomorrow was recorded at studios throughout Los Angeles.

For Remind Me Tomorrow, Van Etten put down the guitar. When she was writing the score for Strange Weather her reference was Ry Cooder, so she was playing her guitar constantly and getting either bored or writer's block. At the time, she was sharing a studio space with someone who had a synthesizer and an organ, and she wrote on piano at home, so she naturally gravitated to keys when not working on the score - to clear her mind. Lead single “Comeback Kid” was originally a piano ballad, but driven by Van Etten’s assertion that she “didn’t want it to be pretty,” it evolved into a menacing anthem. Remind Me Tomorrow as a whole shows this magnetism towards new instruments: piano keys that churn, deep drones, distinctive sharp drums. There are dark intense synths, a propulsive organ, a distorted harmonium.

The breadth of Van Etten’s passions (musical, emotional, otherwise), of new careers and projects and lifelong roles, have inflected Remind Me Tomorrow with a wise sense of a warped-time perspective. This is the tension that arches over the album, fusing a pained attentive realism and radiant lightness about new love.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Limited edition pink vinyl. Initial copies include "Remind Me Tomorrow" post-it notes.

Suspiria consists of 25 original compositions written by Thom specifically for Luca Guadagnino reimagining of the 1977 Dario Argento horror classic. The album is a mix of instrumental score work, interstitial pieces and interludes, and more traditional song structures featuring Thom’s vocals such as “Unmade”, “Has Ended” and “Suspirium,” the album's first single featuring the melodic theme that recurs throughout the film and its score.

As scoring a horror film presented Thom with altogether new challenges and opportunities, Suspiria stands apart from any of his other work. Piano/vocal ballads, Krautrock-esque modular synth work inspired by the film’s Berlin 1977 setting, multilayered vocals, and melodies that convey terror, longing and melancholy combine to create a chaotic yet cohesive musical spell.

Suspiria was written and arranged by Thom Yorke, recorded and produced by Thom and Sam Petts-Davies. The album also features the London Contemporary Orchestra and Choir, Noah Yorke on drums on “Has Ended” and “Volk,” and Pasha Mansurov on solo flute on “Suspirium.”

Near the end of Reagan's first term, the Western Massachusetts Hardcore scene coughed up an insanely shaped chunk called Dinosaur. Comprised of WMHC vets, the trio was a miasmic tornado of guitar noise, bad attitude and near-subliminal pop-based-shape-shifting. Through their existence, Dinosaur (amended to Dinosaur Jr. for legal reasons) defined a very specific, very aggressive set of oblique song-based responses to what was going on. Their one constant was the scalp-fryingly loud guitar and deeply buried vocals of J Mascis.

A couple of years before they ended their reign, J cut a solo album called Martin + Me. Recorded live and acoustic, the record allowed the bones of J's songs to be totally visible for the first time. Fans were surprised to hear how melodically elegant these compositions were, even if J still seemed interested in swallowing some of the words that most folks would have sung. Since then, through the reformation of the original Dinosaur Jr lineup in 2005, J has recorded solo albums now and then. And those album, Sings + Chant for AMMA (2005), Several Shades of Why (2011) and Tied to a Star (2014) had all delivered incredible sets of songs presented with a minimum of bombast and a surfeit of cool. Like its predecessors, Elastic Days was recorded at J's own Bisquiteen studio. Mascis does almost all his own stunts, although Ken Miauri (who also appeared on Tied to a Star) plays keyboards and there are a few guest vocal spots. These include old mates Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession), and Mark Mulcahy (Miracle Legion, etc.), as well as the newly added voice of Zoë Randell (Luluc)  among others. But the show is mostly J's and J's alone. He laughs when I tell him I'm surprised by how melodic his vocals seem to have gotten. Asked if that was intentional, he says, “No. I took some singing lessons and do vocal warm-ups now, but that was mostly just to keep from blowing out my vocal cords when Dino started touring again. The biggest difference with this record might have to do with the drums. I'd just got a new drum set I was really excited about. I don't have too many drum outlets at the moment, so I played a lot more drums than I'd originally planned. I just kept playing. [laughs] I'd play the acoustic guitar parts then head right to the drums.”

There is plenty of drumming on the dozen songs on Elastic Days. But for those expecting the hallucinatory overload of Dinosaur Jr's live attack, the gentleness of the approach here will draw easy comparisons to Neil Young's binary approach to working solo versus working with Crazy Horse. This is a lazy man's shorthand, but it still rings true. Elastic Days brims with great moments. Epic hooks that snare you in surprisingly subtle ways, guitar textures that slide against each other like old lovers, and structures that range from a neo-power-ballad (“Web So Dense”) to jazzily-canted West Coasty post-psych (“Give It Off”) to a track that subliminally recalls the keyboard approach of Scott Thurston-era Stooges (“Drop Me”). The album plays out with a combination of holism and variety that is certain to set many brains ablaze. J says he'll be taking this album on the road later in the year. He'll be playing by himself, but unlike other solo tours he says he'll be standing up this time. “I used to just sit down and build a little fort around myself -- amps, music stands, drinks stands, all that stuff. But I just realized it sounds better if the amps are higher up because I'm so used to playing with stacks. So I'll stand this time.” I ask if it's not pretty weird to stand alone on a big stage. “Yeah,” he says. “But it's weird sitting down too.” Ha. Good point. One needs to be elastic. In all things. - Byron Coley

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: limited indies only 'Loser Edition' crystal clear with a purple swirl!

Here we have OCS - recorded Live, at The Chapel, San Francisco, CA in December 2017 to be exact. OCS played four shows in California last December, raising funds for charity, and also enabling OCS to play out the tracks from the (then) recently released album "Memory of a Cut off head". Bandleader John Dwyer assembled his ensemble for these shows with players from the album and current Oh Sees members also, including Brigid Dawson, Emily Elkin, Eric Clark, Heather Lockie, Heidi Maureen Alexander, Paul Quattrone, Tim Hellman, and Tomas Dolas.

The shows sold out in a trice, and thankfully one of the San Francisco shows were recorded by Eric Bauer, Dwyer mixed the record and it was passed onto old friends the Austrian Label ROCK IS HELL (Oh Sees fans will note early releases by Thee Oh Sees appeared on Rock is Hell a whiles back).

Initially released (and long sold out) as a silk screened 4 LP set with some incredible artworks by Elzo Durt (he did the art for the Carrion Crawler / The Dream EP ).. Dwyer /Rock is Hell decided to make a more widely available 2LP version. 

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xLtd LP Info: Heavy weight black vinyl offset printed thick cardboard slip-in cover offset printed thick cardboard innersleeves download codes included shrinkwrapped.

Despite an incredibly short recording career Joy Division remarkably have stood the test of time in terms of influential British bands. Their dark, brooding sound has inspired more artists than could be listed and their continued adoration today is testament to the forward thinking yet inward projected music and lyricism of a young band on the brink of success yet unsure of how to deal with it. With the sad passing of Ian Curtis, from the ashes rose New Order; the same core band but with a new fresh approach to their chosen career path. Loud, colourful and full of life.

‘Total’ is a chronological look at the two bands most important tracks, covering Joy Division staples such as 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', and the resonating 'Atmosphere'. New Order bring to the table 'Blue Monday', 'Bizarre Love Triangle' and 'True Faith'. Also included is a brand new never released New Order track ‘Hellbent’.

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xLtd LP Info: Originally released in June 2011 on CD, available on vinyl for the very first time on 30th November 2018.
Mastered for vinyl by Frank Arkwright from his 2011 remasters.

Having written most of his previous albums alone, About The Light marks a change in approach for Steve.

“I decided with this album that I wanted to get my live band involved at every stage because I wanted to capture the energy that we produce when we play live shows, so this time the band and myself worked on a collection of songs over the course of last year,” he explains.

Picking Stephen Street to produce the album, and with a very clear plan in mind, from the off the goal was to capture the songs live and draw out their soulful elements.

Talking about the process, Stephen Street says, “Steve explained that he wanted to make this album with his band playing more ‘live’ than on some of his previous offerings and also to augment the songs with brass and female backing vocalists. I felt this approach of first stripping back the songs to a more ‘live’ feel to create more space for the more ‘soulful’ elements to breathe in was an interesting one and we got down to work!”

Recorded at studios in London and Brighton, About The Light, sees a subtle yet noticeable evolution in Steve’s sound.

“When I listen to this album it feels and sounds like the first ‘legitimate’ record that I have ever made. It’s hard to explain but it sounds like a ‘real’ album. I think that is partly the production, the playing and the work that I did with the band for all those months in our rehearsal room on the South Coast,” says Steve.

“It’s a beautiful, confident, positive, angry, loving and gentle album which once again moves what I do forward,” he adds. “David Bowie said that you should always be slightly out of your comfort zone if you want to achieve greatness, and for the first time perhaps ever, I deliberately pushed myself into that place. Who doesn’t want greatness?”

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Limited indies exclusive silver vinyl edition.

For the last decade, and almost secretly, Carwyn Ellis records have meant the greatest news for people who love pop with no labels, nor affiliations. People who, after a record-hunting afternoon, enthusiasticly arrives back home with findings like Françoise Hardy LPs from the Vogue era, Arthur Verocai, Broadcast reissues, an Alessandro Alessandroni soundtrack, Meic Stevens' "Outlander" and an original, mint condition, O'Jays' "Back Stabbers" LP.

Ellis has proved to be plenty of tools and talent to sum up, in forty minutes, all the magic of the best pop music recorded in the last fifty years, very well absorved and excitingly mixed, and steeped by a magic and pastoral halo from his native Wales.

Before Edwyn Collins decided that Carwyn had received much less attenction than what he deserved, and supported in his label AED two wonderful records like "Good Music" (2012) and "Temari" (2014), Ellis had already recorded the "Magic Lantern Show" EP (2009), the acclaimed by Shindig magazine, "Box" (2010); and this first album, "Cookie Zoo" (2008).
A debut, after his thirties, where we can find all his personal universe. "Cookie Zoo" is linked to "Dere Mewn", one of the most beautiful songs recorded in the United Kingdom in the last decade. An unique flower living in a botanical garden, filled with brilliant songs of all possible colours.

These four tracks were first performed in 2018, at the BBC's Biggest Weekend event, which saw the band debut the new material on the slipways on which the Titanic was built, broadcast live on BBC 6Music. The EP tells the story of the construction of the ship and its early, tragic, demise. The band focus on the perspectives of those who built and sailed her, whilst showing their own talent for using a mixture of music and archive audio footage to provide a new perspective on well-known events.

J. Willgoose, Esq. of Public Service Broadcasting says: “I thought it was an interesting challenge to tell the story of the ship's construction as part of Belfast's proud industrial history, the spirit of optimism of the pre-war age that she represented, and then an abstract and, I hope, respectful depiction of both the sinking of the ship (represented by the repeated Morse code distress call, C - Q - D) and the discovery of the wreck in 1985.”

The opening two tracks, ‘The Unsinkable Ship’ and ‘White Star Liner’, carry the EP forward with a motorik energy, carefully tracing the construction and launch of the ship. As the EP reaches its close, the music shifts into a more volatile state on the powerful ‘C - Q - D’ - the Morse code call sign for “All stations: distress” - before closing on the reflective ambience of ‘The Deep’, an adaptation of Archibald Joyce's ‘Songe d'automne’, the piece of music which noted Titanic historian Walter Lord concluded was probably the last to be played as the ship sank. Coupled with the impassioned voice of survivor Eva Hart, it’s a moving end to the EP, one that is a fitting tribute to those who built the ship and those who perished upon its demise. 

While recording Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s latest release, Sex & Food, Ruban Nielson, his longtime collaborator Jacob Portrait and his brother Kody Nielson, found themselves in the Vietnamese city of Hanoi playing and recording with local musicians at Phu Sa Studios. The studio, normally used for traditional Vietnamese music, found the band jamming on sessions dubbed IC-01 Hanoi: exploring the outer edges of the band’s influences in Jazz, Fusion and the avant-garde. The musicians, along with Ruban and Kody’s father, a Jazz musician in his own right, helped lay down the unique textures heard throughout Hanoi. At its core Hanoi is a record of exploration, finding its closest antecedent in Miles Davis’ experimental On The Corner – itself a record full of nods toward avant-garde composers and Jazz outsiders alike. Hanoi finds Ruban amplifying and stretching out on lead guitar, with a blown-out and wandering fuzz tone that slinks throughout the sessions. Kody and Jacob match Ruban’s melodic diversions with aplomb, mining their talents to finding as easy a role in the fusion of funk as they do in the more ambient and abstract tangents on Hanoi.

JON SPENCER, THE BLUES EXPLOSION MAN who put the BELLBOTTOMS on BABY DRIVER!

The Top Cat who spread the Secret Sauce in BOSS HOG!

The Rockabilly Right-Hook from Heavyweight Outlaws HEAVY TRASH!

The Swank-Fucking Master of PUSSY GALORE!

Jon Spencer is back! Often imitated, never duplicated, the original NYC underground-rock legend returns from the wilderness with twelve red-hot hits, each more powerful than the last!

This is Garage Punk for Now People! A wizard’s brew of rhythm & blues and subversive dance grooves, weaponized with sci-fi skronk and industrial attitude, calibrated for the Revolution, a Molotov cocktail of sound guaranteed to destroy any post-modern hangover!

Pulsing with energy, clanging with excitement, and dripping with radioactive soul and raw emotion, Jon Spencer opens up his heart like never before, exploring man’s modern condition with caustic guitars and outerworld crooning, asking and answering the musical question, “Is it possible to torch the cut-throat world of fake news and pre-fab, plastic-coated teen rebellion with the power of rock’n’roll?”

THE ANSWER IS YES!

SPENCER SINGS THE HITS!

This is the truth serum America has been craving, the beginning of a rock’n’roll rebellion that takes no prisoners and puts the squares on ice!

Recorded and mixed with Bill Skibbe at the Key Club in Benton Harbor, MI.

Featuring the talents of Sam Coomes (Quasi, Heatmeiser) and M. Sord (M. Sord).

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Very limited indie store exclusive coloured vinyl. 500 copies only!

Aviary is an epic journey through what Julia Holter describes as “the cacophony of the mind in a melting world.” Out on October 26th via Domino, it’s the Los Angeles composer’s most breathtakingly expansive album yet, full of startling turns and dazzling instrumental arrangements. The follow-up to her critically acclaimed 2015 record, Have You in My Wilderness, it takes as its starting point a line from a 2009 short story by writer Etel Adnan: "I found myself in an aviary full of shrieking birds." It’s a scenario that sounds straight out of a horror movie, but it’s also a pretty good metaphor for life in 2018, with its endless onslaught of political scandals, freakish natural disasters, and voices shouting their desires and resentments into the void.

“Amidst all the internal and external babble we experience daily, it's hard to find one's foundation,” says Holter. “I think this album is reflecting that feeling of cacophony and how one responds to it as a person - how one behaves, how one looks for love, for solace. Maybe it’s a matter of listening to and gathering the seeming madness, of forming something out of it and envisioning a future.”

The first song to be shared from Aviary, 'I Shall Love 2' echoes that hope: "I am in love... There is nothing else".

“In a lot of the songs, when I mention love, it’s about a seeking for compassion and humility in a world where it feels like empathy is always being tested,” Holter says. In Aviary’s case, that search for sweetness - that bridging of the gulf - becomes a metaphor for the creative process itself, cutting through the hierarchies of history, language, and musical form to offer something more fluid, more inclusive, more idiosyncratic.

Aviary combines Holter’s slyly theatrical vocals and Blade Runner-inspired synth work with an enveloping palette of strings and percussion that reveals itself, and the boundless scope of her vision, over the course of fifteen songs.

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xColoured LP Info: Indies exclusive clear vinyl.

You Tell Me is Field Music’s Peter Brewis and Admiral Fallow member Sarah Hayes. As one half of Field Music, Peter Brewis has been honing the craft of pop songwriting for almost fifteen years, whilst Sarah Hayes has been exploring contemporary folk in her solo work, and the world of indie-pop via her band Admiral Fallow. Their debut self-titled album, the last to be recorded at the old Field Music recording HQ, is set to be released in January on Memphis Industries.

After meeting at a Kate Bush celebration concert, the pair clicked. “I'd been an admirer of Field Music for a good while before meeting Peter at the gig,” Sarah recalls. “So I was pleased to discover he wasn't an insufferable diva, and delighted that he was keen to try working on some music together.” Peter had been “blown away” by Sarah’s voice during a rendition of “This Woman’s Work” and when investigating her solo work heard a lot of parallels to what he was trying to do in Field Music.

By blending their distinct compositional talents, they’ve created a record that possesses their own clear styles but also a new voice too. With both of them writing songs and lyrics, Peter describes it as “a sort of dual-personal record”. Sonically, the result is a subtly crafted album with a rich and intricate sense of composition, in which strings glide above multi-layered keyboards and percussion, and vocal melodies wrap around one another in snug unison. In many senses it feels like a classic songwriter record - rich in craft, songs, arrangements and vocal interplay - yet it manages to feel stylistically contemporary and void of nostalgia.

Lyrically, Peter says, “most of the songs seemed to either be about conversations, be conversational or about talking or not talking.” Sarah echoes this: “the subject of communication - talking and listening, guessing and questioning - looms large on this record and in general for me. It's something I think about a lot.” Which makes sense given that this record is fundamentally a musical conversation between two new collaborators and friends, a constant back and forth of new ideas, shared influences and the expunging of inner feelings.

Whilst the subject matter can occasionally be personal and explores troubled or conflicted conversations around inner turmoil, there’s also a stirring sense of beauty that comes from the record; a feeling of pastures new and moving onto new things rather than being held back by the past. What makes this an even more remarkable musical statement and achievement is that two first-time collaborators were able to channel so much of themselves into a project and create something coherent and poised.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Dinked Edition LP Info: Exclusive screen-printed sleeve.
Signed.
White vinyl.
Hand numbered.

In November 1968, millions of double LPs were shipped to record stores worldwide ahead of that tumultuous year’s most anticipated music event: the November 22nd release of The BEATLES (soon to be better known as ‘The White Album’). With their ninth studio album, The Beatles took the world on a whole new trip, side one blasting off with the exhilarating rush of a screaming jet escorting Paul McCartney’s punchy, exuberant vocals on “Back In The U.S.S.R.” “Dear Prudence” came next, John Lennon warmly beckoning his friend and all of us to “look around.” George Harrison imparted timeless wisdom in “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” singing, “With every mistake we must surely be learning.” Ringo Starr’s “Don’t Pass Me By” marked his first solo songwriting credit on a Beatles album. For 50 years, ‘The White Album’ has invited its listeners to venture forth and explore the breadth and ambition of its music, delighting and inspiring each new generation in turn. On November 9, The Beatles will release a suite of lavishly presented ‘White Album’ packages (Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe). The album’s 30 tracks are newly mixed by producer Giles Martin and mix engineer Sam Okell in stereo and 5.1 surround audio, joined by 27 early acoustic demos and 50 session takes, most of which are previously unreleased in any form.

“We had left Sgt. Pepper’s band to play in his sunny Elysian Fields and were now striding out in new directions without a map,” says Paul McCartney in his written introduction for the new ‘White Album’ releases.

This is the first time The BEATLES (‘White Album’) has been remixed and presented with additional demos and session recordings. The album’s sweeping new edition follows 2017’s universally acclaimed Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Anniversary Edition releases. To create the new stereo and 5.1 surround audio mixes for ‘The White Album,’ Martin and Okell worked with an expert team of engineers and audio restoration specialists at Abbey Road Studios in London. All the new ‘White Album’ releases include Martin’s new stereo album mix, sourced directly from the original four-track and eight-track session tapes. Martin’s new mix is guided by the album’s original stereo mix produced by his father, George Martin.

“In remixing ‘The White Album,’ we’ve tried to bring you as close as possible to The Beatles in the studio,” explains Giles Martin in his written introduction for the new edition. “We’ve peeled back the layers of the ‘Glass Onion’ with the hope of immersing old and new listeners into one of the most diverse and inspiring albums ever made.”

The minimalist artwork for ‘The White Album’ was created by artist Richard Hamilton, one of Britain’s leading figures in the creation and rise of pop art. The top-loading gatefold sleeve’s stark white exterior had ‘The BEATLES’ embossed on the front and printed on the spine with the album’s catalogue number. Early copies of ‘The White Album’ were also individually numbered on the front, which has also been done for the new edition’s Super Deluxe package. The set’s six CDs and Blu-ray disc are housed in a slipsleeved 164-page hardbound book, with pull-out reproductions of the original album’s four glossy color portrait photographs of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, as well as the album’s large fold-out poster with a photo collage on one side and lyrics on the other. The beautiful book is illustrated with rare photographs, reproductions of handwritten and notated lyrics, previously unpublished photos of recording sheets and tape boxes, and reproduced original ‘White Album’ print ads. The book’s comprehensive written pieces include new introductions by Paul McCartney and Giles Martin, and in-depth chapters covering track-by-track details and session notes reflecting The Beatles’ year between the release of ‘Sgt. Pepper’ and recording sessions for ‘The White Album,’ the band’s July 28 1968 “Mad Day Out” photo shoot in locations around London, the album artwork, the lead-up and execution of the album’s blockbuster release, and its far-ranging influence, written by Beatles historian, author and radio producer Kevin Howlett; journalist and author John Harris; and Tate Britain’s Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Andrew Wilson.

The Deluxe 3CD is presented in an embossed digipak with the fold-out poster and portrait photos, plus a 24-page booklet abridged from the Super Deluxe book. Presented in a lift-top box with a four-page booklet, the limited edition Deluxe 4LP vinyl set presents the 2LP album in a faithful, embossed reproduction of its original gatefold sleeve with the fold-out poster and portrait photos, paired with the 2LP Esher Demos in an embossed gatefold sleeve.

Much of the initial songwriting for ‘The White Album’ was done in Rishikesh, India between February and April 1968, when John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr joined a course at the Maharishi’s Academy of Transcendental Meditation. In a postcard to Ringo, who had returned to England before the others, John wrote, “we’ve got about two L.P.s worth of songs now so get your drums out.”

During the last week of May, The Beatles gathered at George’s house in Esher, Surrey, where they recorded acoustic demos for 27 songs. Known as the Esher Demos, all 27 recordings are included in the new edition’s Deluxe and Super Deluxe packages, sourced from the original four-track tapes. Twenty-one of the demoed songs were recorded during the subsequent studio sessions, and 19 were ultimately finished and included on ‘The White Album.’

The Beatles’ studio sessions for The BEATLES (‘White Album’) began on May 30, 1968 at Abbey Road Studios. In the 20 weeks that followed, The Beatles devoted most of their time to sessions there for the new album, with some recording also done at Trident Studios. The final session for the album took place at Abbey Road on October 16, a 24-hour marathon with producer George Martin to sequence the double album’s four sides and to complete edits and cross-fades between its songs. The Beatles’ approach to recording for ‘The White Album’ was quite different from what they had done for ‘Sgt. Pepper.’ Rather than layering individually overdubbed parts on a multi-track tape, many of the ‘White Album’ session takes were recorded to four-track and eight-track tape as group performances with a live lead vocal. The Beatles often recorded take after take for a song, as evidenced by the Super Deluxe set’s Take 102 for “Not Guilty,” a song that was not included on the album. This live-take recording style resulted in a less intricately structured, more unbridled album that would shift the course of rock music and cut a path for punk and indie rock.

The Beatles’ newly adopted method of recording all through the night was time consuming and exhausting for their producer, George Martin. Martin had other duties, including his management of AIR (Associated Independent Recording), and he had also composed the orchestral score for The Beatles’ animated feature film, Yellow Submarine, released in July 1968. After the first three months of ‘White Album’ sessions, Martin took a three-week holiday from the studio, entrusting the control room to his young assistant Chris Thomas and balance engineer Ken Scott. Scott had taken the place of engineer Geoff Emerick, who left the sessions in mid-July. On August 22, Ringo Starr also left the sessions, returning 11 days later to find his drum kit adorned with flowers from his bandmates. While the sessions’ four and a half months of long hours and many takes did spark occasional friction in the studio, the session recordings reveal the closeness, camaraderie, and collaborative strengths within the band, as well as with George Martin.

The BEATLES (‘White Album’) was the first Beatles album to be released on the group’s own Apple Records label. Issued in both stereo and mono for the U.K. and in stereo for the U.S., the double album was an immediate bestseller, entering the British chart at number one and remaining there for eight of the 22 weeks it was listed. ‘The White Album’ also debuted at number one on the U.S. chart, holding the top spot for nine weeks of its initial 65-week chart run. In his glowing ‘White Album’ review for Rolling Stone, the magazine’s co-founder Jann Wenner declared: “It is the best album they have ever released, and only The Beatles are capable of making a better one.” In the U.S., ‘The White Album’ is 19-times platinum-certified by the RIAA and in 2000, it was inducted into the Recording Academy’s GRAMMY® Hall of Fame, recognizing “recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance.”

FORMAT INFORMATION

4xDeluxe LP Info: 2018 stereo album mix + Esher Demos
The 180-gram 4LP vinyl box set (limited edition) pairs the 2018 stereo album mix with the 27 Esher Demos.

FREE SHIPPING This item has FREE UK shipping!

2xLP Info: 2018 stereo mix.
180-gram 2LP vinyl in gatefold sleeve with faithfully replicated original artwork.

3xDeluxe CD Info: 2018 stereo album mix + Esher Demos
The 3CD pairs the 2018 stereo album mix with the 27 Esher Demos.

Box set Info: Super Deluxe: The comprehensive, individually numbered 7-disc and digital audio collections feature:
CDs 1 & 2: The BEATLES (‘White Album’) 2018 stereo album mix
CD3: Esher Demos
- Esher Demo tracks 1 through 19 sequenced in order of the finished song’s placement on ‘The White Album.’ Tracks 20-27 were not included on the album.
CDs 4, 5 & 6: Sessions
- 50 additional recordings, most previously unreleased, from ‘White Album’ studio sessions; all newly mixed from the four-track

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By mid-1968 there was a growing consensus that something had gone horribly wrong with the American dream. The nation’s youth had loudly made their feelings clear, but now the older, pre-Beatles generations began to look at the country – with urban riots, Vietnam, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy – and wonder what the hell was happening. This album includes rare classics (The Beach Boys’ ‘Fourth Of July’), lost masterpieces (Roy Orbison’s seven-minute ‘Southbound Jericho Parkway’), and forgotten gems by some of the biggest names in the business (Elvis Presley’s ‘Clean Up Your Own Back Yard’).

Reactions to America’s existential crisis ranged in subject matter from divorce (Frank Sinatra’s ‘The Train’) and the break-up of the nuclear family (The Four Seasons’ ‘Saturday’s Father’), to eulogies for fallen heroes (Dion’s ‘Abraham Martin and John’), sympathy for Vietnam vets (Johnny Tillotson’s ‘Welfare Hero’), the church’s institutional racism (Eartha Kitt’s intense ‘Paint Me Black Angels’), and even questioning the ethics of the space programme (Bing Crosby’s terrific ‘What Do We Do With The World’).

Compiled by Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, State Of The Union follows on from their highly acclaimed English Weather and Paris In The Spring compilations. With clear parallels between today's fractured country and the USA fifty years ago, this is a fascinating condensation of what Americans were thinking when they turned on the TV, or the radio, or simply walked down Main Street in 1968.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: 180g blue vinyl double LP.

Saxophonist, composer and bandleader Nubya Garcia is back with the eagerly awaited next chapter to her musical unfolding, When We Are. Enabled with the support of the prestigious Steve Reid Foundation’s InNOVAtion award, and with Eglo records co-founder Sam Shepherd (Floating Points) as her mentor, this self-released EP features two newly recorded compositions from the much-lauded artist. The record also comes with B-side remixes from two generations of London’s finest producers, K-15 and Maxwell Owin. Following on from her scorching sophomore release, Nubya’s 5ive (jazz:refreshed), When We Are sees the trailblazing player take typically self assured steps into new territory with electronic experimentation. “I’ve been inspired a lot by the producers around me at the moment, people like Ben Hayes, Tom Misch, Joe Armon- Jones, Jake Long and Maxwell Owin”, said Garcia. “There’s an electronic vibe in there that I wanted to explore more, and this release feels like a positive evolution from the last EP.”

Much like the celebrated Brownswood release, We Out Here, where Garcia features on five of the nine tracks, When We Are offers a snapshot of the artist she is today and the organic musical languages she continues to form with her long term collaborators Femi Koleoso, Joe Armon-Jones and Daniel Casimir. The title track opens with the easy cascading of Armon-Jones on keys, Garcia’s signature erudite tone dancing against the drummer Koleoso’s boxy, afro-tinged hip hop runs; all three riding on Casimir’s beautifully subtle, abetting bass. Crisp and clean, the track’s sweet inflections are carried into spacious territory by light touch pedal effects. Source comprises of shape-shifting, Tetris-like grooves. It’s a characteristically sophisticated sound from the band, where each player is able to shine around the trademark fusion of gospel, soul, broken beat, Afro-Caribbean and Latin styles that Garcia has deftly crafted into her own. Alongside her releases, Garcia’s reputation as a DJ is burgeoning, bolstered by her hit radio residencies on platforms including Balamii and NTS, and a growing number of live sets across Europe. The record partly draws on the energy of the club-nights that shaped her formative years. The grime and garage nights in north London, dub nights across the river in south London, and of course, the infamous Steez performance jams that have served as a rite of passage for much of the scene. 

If you’re going to call your band audiobooks, you’d better have some good stories to tell. Stories that should move you and ones to make you move. Stories about real life and surreal life and all that weirdness that you just glimpsed out of the corner of your eye.

Luckily for you, audiobooks really do. The London based duo have developed a unique ability to conjure up magical aural snapshots that wallop you like bong hits. Each of their discombobulating observations comes stretched out over a series of discomfiting oscillations, like messages from the spirit world or pulp fictions found in a box at the end of your road or a crackling pop broadcast from a far away galaxy;

Out there, across the wavelengths or in the musty pages of their books, there’s a girl who’s lost in lust, sat eating mussels on a South Wales beach; there’s an alcohol-fuelled vision of Hell as a family melts down in an airport departure lounge and there’s a carsick dog in the back of your Grandma Jimmy’s car. There’s womanly blood flowing and there’s friends in your bubble bath and there’s some very large pinches of hot salt.

So who’s telling these stories? Who are the people writing these audiobooks?

On the face of it, Evangeline Ling - a 21 year old art student and musician from Wimbledon - and David Wrench - one of the most in demand mixers and producers in modern music, a sometime cohort of Julian Cope and former denizen of North Wales – might seem an unlikely pairing. Yet a chance encounter at a mutual friend’s party just one week after David had moved south to the capital very quickly led to an experimental studio session that’s been going on ever since.

Evangeline: “I’d found myself writing these odd stories as text messages on my phone. They were too short to be proper stories… they were fragments. I’d told David about them when we met and he said, ‘Come into the studio and let’s put them to music.’” David: “It was so perfect – this incredible text message…” Evangeline: “The next day, we started making music. We realised pretty much immediately that what we were doing might just connect. I’m not a technically minded person, musically – David is – but we kind of synced in because we bonded as human beings. We just met and connected; I immediately trusted David. We didn’t really chat about who we are…” David: “Neither of us are any good at small talk so we just got working and it was crazily fast, everything about it. We’ve never spent more than an hour on a track. We go in, we improvise and we either keep it or we don’t. There might be a bit of editing the next day but the creation is done incredibly quickly.” Evangeline: “We’d work on a track and then we’d just sit and do nothing. He’d work on a mix for someone or play some records, I’d have a nap or paint or draw…” David: “The second time Evangeline turned up at the studio she arrived in her pyjamas. She’d come all the way from Wimbledon to east London in a pair of Batman pyjamas.” Evangeline: “I hadn’t slept all night, I’d just had this crazy adrenaline. I knew we were doing something really special and I couldn’t wait to get there. I didn’t have any clean clothes so I just thought, ‘Sod this, I’ve got to go’.”

Stories about audiobooks are as fantastical as the ones they’ve set to music, whether it’s crossing London in bed wear, misheard lyrics accidentally creating perma-tanned Welsh women (Swansea’s “Orange Gina” was once innocently a can of the famous French fizzy pop) or the fact they bonded over a mutual frustration with people who hoard as much as they did shared taste in music.

From their first meeting, Evangeline and David’s friendship has been influenced by the records they flipped through in his newly set up studio in Old Street. Very quickly, the pair found inspiration in music by artists as diverse as Bauhaus, Aphrodite’s Child, Marilyn Manson, Michael Jackson, Flower Traveling Band, the Fall, Faust, Tropicalia and Dory Previn.

Evangeline: “Dory frickin Previn, man.” David: “Her record Mythical Kings and Iguanas is an incredible piece of work; she really was a genius. Lyrically, that’s maybe the closest link to audiobooks.”

If the bracingly honest and often troubled words of Previn helped influence Evangeline’s stories, the music they’re set to comes from an entirely different place. Having developed a kind of psychic musical response to Evangeline’s surrealist texts, David set about soundtracking the weird worlds she was delivering on a daily basis. Much of the resulting music – at times odd, beautiful, unique, hilarious, disquieting, pensive, hypnotic, open, free – is collected together on Now, in a minute! – the mind-bending follow up to the head-turning four track Gothenburg EP and the duo’s first full length album.

Like the band themselves, Now, in a minute! doesn’t do the things that you’d expect. While opener Mother Hen might be a modernist nursery rhyme sat atop skittering proggy electronics, the dual vocals on the tracks Hot Salt and Friends in the Bubble Bath perfectly channel the conflict and contradiction of Don’t You Want Me into something ultra-modern and almost ludicrously addictive. Elsewhere, the primal, gothic drone of Womanly Blood sits like a brooding weather condition until it rips apart thanks to some heavy percussive artillery from Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa (the only other contributor to the record) and Dance Your Life Away sounds like the soundtrack to the kind of inhibition free moonlight voodoo party that you wish your mates had invited you at Glastonbury last year.

David: “With that track particularly, we wanted to emulate that thing Michael Jackson did where he uses sounds really rhythmically to inject an incredible energy into his music… I love it when vocals become their own thing that can’t really be written down.” Evangeline: “And we were listening to a lot of Marilyn Manson in the studio. I find the way he sings very rhythmically really inspiring.”

A band that takes its cues from the King of Pop and the Antichrist Superstar, creates music in daily automatic writing sessions and rides the neon ley lines that connect of the North Wales coast to the psycho-bustle of after hours London are clearly on a very singular path to greatness – a path they’re already someway down, having taken their first footsteps out of the studio and onto the stage for a handful of truly mesmerizing live shows.

Time, then, to welcome these strange superheroes - this inhuman league - into your life. You might not know it yet but the story is already written. It says audiobooks are your new favourite band.

Andrew Weatherall meets audiobooks downtown

Those of us with a penchant for musical and spiritual psychogeography - 'believers in the laws and specific effects of the geographical environment' - will locate the exact root of this anthem of high abandon in the building which stands on the corner of White Street and Cortland Alley in the Manhattan borough of New York. The neighbourhood: Tribeca. This is where the vibes will be felt the strongest.

Times were tough then, the late 1970’s / early 1980’s. The squares were being taken seriously again. Menacing horror-show bigotry was rife. Sound familiar? And this was the place, home to the Mudd Club, that the post-punk art head freaks went to escape the crap and express themselves - create timelessness - flick the finger - look sharp - show off - have a bit of a laugh.

And dance their lives away.

Back to the present: It was inevitable that Andrew Weatherall would collaborate with audiobooks. They come from the same place. Trace their lineage and you’re back in Tribeca. Anya Phillips is on the door. James Chance is on the stage. Lizzy Mercier-Descloux is on the dance floor. and Karen Finlay is looking pretty fucking dangerous. Again.

Weirdly, depressingly, the current political landscape is a mirror image of those times and the freaks are having to look out for themselves once again. This song is one for the freaks. For the outsiders. Its message is one of liberation.

And that message is: Lose your shit. Stay free. Dance your life away.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Ltd 12" Info: 500 pressing, stamped white label.

First Collection 2006-2009 is a special limited edition collection to mark the 10th year anniversary of Fleet Foxes’ debut album

The collection comprises content spanning the early days of the group’s career, including the eponymous debut album, as well as the Sun Giant EP, The Fleet Foxes EP, and a compilation of B-sides & Rarities.

Available on limited edition 4-disc vinyl, as well as CD, the release also includes an extensive booklet featuring show flyers, lyrics, and artwork from the period.

FORMAT INFORMATION

LP Box Set Info: Limited x4 disc vinyl:
Eponymous debut album.
2006’s rare self-released The First EP, never widely commercially available or previously on vinyl.
2008’s Sun Giant EP.
B-sides & Rarities.
Extensive, deluxe booklet.

For the first Sprechen foray into vinyl we are pleased to have been able to coerce Justin Unabomber out of his self imposed studio retirement & 'borrow' him briefly from being a Manchester restauranteur so that we can drop 4 previously un-released cuts, tailor-made for the very dance floor of the legendary Electric Chair!

No 10 minute, Ableton stretched, kick-hat-snare kinda 'edits' here...just 4 powerhouse pumpers designed for maximum fist pumping/camo netting pulling, basement boogyism for late night jackers & early morning style crackers.

4 serious units that many will have lost their shit to on the dance floors of The Roadhouse (RIP) & The Music Box (RIP again!) as well as that annual gathering of misfits & dandies, The End Of Year Riot.

Exclusive to a limited run on vinyl with screen printed sleeves & hand stamped centres.

“The act of making this record has felt truly exotic for me by way of its minimalism,” says Liela Moss of her debut solo album. Released via Bella Union, ‘My Name Is Safe In Your Mouth’ more than lives up to Moss’s promise of fresh, bold adventure.

Sonically spare yet sumptuous in its emotions, elemental power and expansive melodies, the record is a richly felt, vividly-realised trip into the interior from the Duke Spirit singer.

A serene-to-stormy series of deep dream-pop meditations on devotion and selfhood, creativity and parenthood, it treats unknown territory not as something to fear but as a seed-bed of possibility.

Yawn is a buckle-up and knuckle-down listen that rewards the listeners’ attention with motifs and melodies that play hide and seek but never fail to deliver on those between-the-lines verities. This musical belief of delayed gratification is something Bill learnt from classical music as a child, from Elgar and Debussy in particular – and over the long hall of his short life, you can hear these riches being polished on Yawn. Most of the 10 songs clock-in over the 5 minute mark and this wide-angle lens affords us time to interpret and translate meaning – or just to revel in it.

Multi-instrumentalist, producer, string-arranger and composer Bill Ryder-Jones has had a career spanning 15 years, a rarity in a world that so often looks to the new. From his musical interpretation of Italo Calvino’s ‘If On A Winters Night A Traveller' (If… in 2011), 2013’s A Bad Wind Blows In My Heart, the acclaimed West Kirby County Primary (2015) and now to Yawn, Bill has constantly widened his scope, weaving in an overarching sense of authenticity, intimacy and wryness as he goes.

Yawn was recorded and produced entirely by Bill himself, with a little help from friends including guest vocals from The Orielles and Our Girl, cello by Rod Skip and mixing by Craig Silvey (Portishead, The Horrors, Arcade Fire). Bill has also been steadily building up a list of album production credits for other musicians including Our Girl, Hooton Tennis Club, Brooke Bentham and Holly Macve, who he records at his own place in West Kirby, aptly titled Yawn Studios.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Heavyweight clear vinyl.

Memento Mori charts Adamson’s career from 1978’s Magazine track, ‘Parade’ (co-written by Adamson, from their debut album Real Life), to his work as founding member, alongside Nick Cave, of the Bad Seeds (‘From Her To Eternity’, co-written by Adamson); through his nine solo albums, from 1988’s Moss Side Story to the latest Love Sick Dick EPs, bringing everything up to date with a brand new unreleased track, ‘The Hummingbird’.

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xColoured LP Info: Limited edition gold coloured vinyl

Not since it first appeared on vinyl in 2001 has The Charlatans’ 7th studio album ‘Wonderland’ been readily available, now almost after an 18 year absence ‘Wonderland’ has been re-pressed on 2 x 180g vinyl featuring original artwork and indie classics ‘Love Is The Key’ and ‘A Man Needs To Be Told’. With SoV download code.

Up At The Lake is the eighth studio album from Indie pioneers The Charlatans - which pretty much went under the radar upon its release in 2004 and is, still today, one of the more undiscovered and rewarding albums by The Charlatans.

Pressed onto 180g vinyl for the first time since its original release and with the correct vinyl side splits of Side A 6-songs and Side B 6-songs (as confirmed by Tim Burgees himself) along with the original artwork and download code, makes this an essential purchase for any Charlatans fan.

Fronted by Texan native Danny Lee Backwell, Myth Of A Man is Night Beats' fourth studio album, and their second for Heavenly Recordings following the release of Who Sold My Generation in 2016.

While Blackwell has always fed off the musical legacy of his Texas roots—Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, The Red Krayola, The Black Angels and more paving the way for the the napalm-coated psych-rock headtrip of past albums—Myth Of A Man has him pulling from the surrogate wellspring of Nashville, Tennessee.

It was there that he worked with the eminent Dan Auerbach, and a murderer’s row of battle-worn session musicians—the combined weight of experience that comes from working with every legend from Aretha Franklin to Elvis not lost on Blackwell. “I was just humbled by being accepted,” he explains, “Big hearts all around.”

In short, it’s an album that holds its own next to the classics, less of the bloodshot acid trip of Sonic Bloom (2013) and Who Sold My Generation (2016) here, Blackwell has recalibrated them, slowed them down just enough and allowed them the space to breathe and exist as something new. It’s the same book, just a different chapter. The moody organ comps and slow stroll of the 12-string on “Her Cold Cold Heart” evoke the noxious feeling and hypnotic state of toxic love, the spirit of Bill Withers is flowing through the acoustic guitar and sun-soaked shuffle of “I Wonder,” and string-trimmed ballads like “Footprints” and “Too Young To Pray” evoke the imaginative, cowboy psychedelia of fellow Texan, Lee Hazlewood. “Let Me Guess” with its searing riff and Elevators-esque organ assures us that the scuzzy sound we know and love is alive and well, while “One Thing,” a song about being used and abused—or as Blackwell sharply puts it, “being rolled up and smoked”—has plenty of fuzzed-out guitars to let us know he might just be happy about it.

Written during a particularly destructive period of the band, the album is populated by fallen angels, blood-sucking wanderers, and vindictive lovers—sketches of people the band has surely come across during their cosmic roving through the underground—but the character most present is Blackwell, himself. “Myth Of A Man can be summed up as a personal display of vulnerability and guilty conscience,” he explains, “Destroying the mythos of what it means to live and function in society.” With its bold steps forward, Myth Of A Man serves as both a takedown and reintroduction of the band as we know it—the strongest evidence that you’ll never be able to pin Night Beats down. 

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Red vinyl.

Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss

Old fat furry cat-puss

Wake up and look at this thing that I bring

Wake up, be bright

Be golden and light

Bagpuss, Oh hear what I sing

12th of February, 1974, and for an audience of small children at 1:45pm, a life irrevocably coloured by the wayward wonderings of one saggy cloth cat. Some 44 years later and Earth Recordings opens the door to Bagpuss & Co. once again, revealing for the first time the original music in all its newly-mastered splendour.

The 32 tracks that make up the main body of the compositions are – like all good folk music – a patchwork of traditional pieces, half-remembered tunes and pure improvisation. It's testament to Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner's musicianship that the recordings work so well, not only within the context of the television episodes, but as an album in its own right. Of the recording, Oliver Postgate (in his exquisite autobiography 'Seeing Things') says: "Between them Sandra and John could play every sort of instrument from a mountain dulcimer to an Irish fiddle. They knew and could sing every tune in the world and didn't bother with written music, except as a last resort. They were exactly suited to Gabriel the Toad and Madeleine the Rag Doll and in those roles were happy to play whatever music and sing whatever songs would be needed."

Those songs manifested themselves as reworkings of familiar tunes ('I Saw A Ship'; 'Row Your Boat'; 'Bucket's Burning'), takes on traditional ballads ('Brian O'Lynn'; 'The Frog Princess'; 'Weaving Song'; 'The Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket') and delicious flights of fancy ('The Bony King of Nowhere'; 'Turtle Calypso'; 'Uncle Feedle'). The counterpart to Madeleine and Gabriel's more polished ditties are the interludes from the mice; a raggle-taggle chorus that accompanies the creatures' efforts of help (with the mice once famously going on strike when they were not permitted sang as they worked). Again, Postgate muses: "Once I had worked out a few episodes I would make a very rough list of the bits where I though music would be appropriate. I would send it to [Sandra and John] to think about. Then we would borrow a fairly silent room in a remote house and, taking the various articles that we intended to celebrate with us, would spend a happy day with a tape recorder, thinking up and recording whatever songs and tunes came to mind."

The outtakes provide an intimate – and often very humourous – insight into the trio's work ethic, if it can be called such a thing. (By all accounts they sound as though they're having a very jolly time indeed.) Highlights include alternative opening words and end music, as well as Postgate sound-checking in character as Bagpuss. This never-before heard audio provides a real treat for fans (and indeed those new to the Smallfilms stable) – affirmation again to the enduring quality of these special recordings, and the beloved programme that inspired them.

"An accidental classic of the folk-roots underground that we never dared hope we’d hear with such clarity." -Stewart Lee.

And so their work was done.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Deluxe LP Info: LP, Die Cut w/ art cards. Reverse Board and DL card. Limited ‘Shop Window’ Edition LP with lithograph prints.

Deluxe CD Info: Book back CD edition with 24 page book.
Liner notes from Stewart Lee, Daniel Postgate, Frances Mckee (The Vaselines) Andy Votel and Sarah Martin (Belle & Sebastian)

Take a tour through Ty Segall’s musical psyche with his new solo album, Fudge Sandwich, a collection of Segall’s take on eleven songs that were originally done by other people. These aren’t just cover versions. Cover versions happen at weddings and high school band battles. The songs here are what happens when someone loves a song so much, they need to get inside it and let it propagate and transform into what it would have been if they had actually written it. Equal parts reverence and reimagination, this album shows Segall inhabiting the world of a song’s intent, filtering it through the muse that drove this year’s exceptional Freedom’s Goblin. Cluttered, passionate and inspired, the songs are barely recognizable, irresistible and by album’s end, present a cohesive collection that stands proudly alongside the best of Segall’s considerable output.

Covers album includes songs by War, The Spencer Davis Group, John Lennon, Funkadelic, The Dils, Neil Young, Gong, Amon Düül, Rudimentary Peni, The Grateful Dead, and Sparks.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: 500 only on coloured vinyl.

LP Info: Black vinyl edition.

Keep your ear to the sound and your feet on the ground, everyone's favourite disco misfits are back, armed to the teeth with chatter and clatter. That's right folks, the Talking Drums crew bring you 'Vol. 2', another blast of edit ecstasy and different disco.

'Disco Danube' snaps, crackles and pops off the A-side, humming like a Soviet-era satellite broadcasting a lost Bollywood gem. Stomping disco riffs and wild funk guitar show serious swagger, overdriven vocals shimmer and shudder and the thrusters head way into the red. Slap on your lurex spacesuit and meet us on the dance floor.

Flipside flyer 'Space Talk' cuts the engines and coasts through the asteroid belt, turning a Teutonic also-ran into an intergalactic groove mission. Knocking the spots off a neu wave B-side, the Talking Drums crew serve you hydraulic percussion, zero gravity bass chug and ice-cold vocals, soaked in synth sauce and finished with a tape echo garnish.

Fuel up your ship and take the trip amigos, the Drums are Talking...

STAFF COMMENTS

Sil says: Talking Drums are back and the expectations are high. You will not be disappointed as this is mega jolly good. On this gigantic instalment, you get 'Disco Danube' a groovy, bass heavy rolling disco stomper overridden by infectious vocals that create a truly respectable dancefloor hit. On the flipside, we head to the sofas in the back where we go cosmic aided by 'Space Talk', a slow burner chuggy trip exuding attention to detail and craftmanship. Folks, this is one to keep - check that gorgeous artwork too! Talking Drums Vol. 1 sold out almost straight away. I expect this to fly as it is as good if not better!

FORMAT INFORMATION

12" Info: Includes hand numbered insert!!!

Black Velvet is a celebration of Charles Bradley, lovingly assembled by his friends and family at Dunham/Daptone Records. Though chronologically the material spans Charles' entire career, this is no anthology, greatest hits or other shallow rehashing of the songs that already made him famous. Rather, this album is a profound exploration through the less-travelled corners of the soulful universe that Charles and his longtime producer, co-writer and friend Tommy "TNT" Brenneck created in the studio together over their decade-long partnership.

It features new songs recorded during the sessions from each of his three albums, heard here for the very first time in all their scorching glory: "Can't Fight the Feeling," "Fly Little Girl" and the heart-wrenching single "I Feel a Change"; hard core rarities like his funk-bomb duet with LaRose Jackson, "Luv Jones," the psychedelic groover, "(I Hope You Find) The Good Life" and the ever-illusive alternate full band electric version of "Victim of Love"; sought-after covers of Nirvana's "Stay Away," Neal Young's "Heart of Gold" and Rodriguez's "Slip Away"; and the title track "Black Velvet," a stirring Menahan Street Band instrumental to which Charles was never able to cut a vocal.

Charles was truly a transcendent singer who led a remarkable life, overcoming unimaginable adversity to achieve great success and international acclaim very late in his life. What was really special about him and made him different from everybody else in the world was how he understood his pain as a cry for universal love and humanity. He felt that if he loved enough—if we all loved each other enough—we could take away the world’s pain and sadness. That is why he jumped off the stage and literally tried to hug everybody he could. It's why he took such great care of a mother that had abandoned him. It's why he sang and danced like a lunatic. It's why he screamed like an eagle. And that's why we love him.

Black Velvet is a celebration of his life, and is destined to join Charles' first three albums alongside the cannon of essential soul records for the ages.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Indies only purple / black splatter vinyl.

2xLP Box Set Info: Box set is a one-time pressing for the super-fan; we have a gorgeous black velvet wrapped box set that includes the following:
180g vinyl version of the standard LP.
A bonus 12” 45rpm EP with stripped down mixes of 4 Charles Bradley classics.
An exclusive slip-mat.
2 printed heavy-duty inner sleeves sporting a surreal painting of Charles and the interview in which he explains the origin of the painting.
A 12x12 photo-book with extensive liner notes from producer Tommy 'tnt', an exact

From their inception n 1981, Australian duo Dead Can Dance have long been intrigued by European folk traditions, not solely in musical terms but also by secular, religious and the spiritual practises. Taking its inspiration from this backdrop and shaped as Brendan Perry explored the long and established spring and harvest festivals that originated from the Dionysus religious practices, a journey that brings to the fore, the rites and rituals that are still practised to the present day.

Two years in the making, Perry has amassed an array of folk instrumentation and as often heard on previous albums takes inspiration from across the world, tracks evolve less like songs more akin to fragments of the cohesive whole. Dionysus follows a familiar path, witness to field recordings, that includes chanting, beehives from New Zealand, bird calls from Latin America and a Swiss goatherd. The aim in Perry’s mind is to not just invoke the atmosphere and symbolic reference points but to highlight that music can be found everywhere in some form or other.

The album consists of two acts across seven movements that represent the different facets of the Dionysus myth and his cult and takes the musical form of an oratorio, which has informed both spiritual and secular pieces of music as far back in history as the early 16th century. Retaining a prevalent hold on contemporary paganism in Europe, the voices used on these movements are imagined as communities celebrating, in communion with each other at times, chanting and call and response – the various voices are present to convey emotion beyond the boundaries of language itself.

Although taking its main inspiration from the Dionysus story, the album’s artwork resonates with links to rituals depicting a mask made by the Huizhou of the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico – famed for their beadwork and yarn paintings, whilst also partaking in peyote as a sacred rite and ritual for the purposes of healing and mind expansion – this is at heart of Dionysus, a celebration of not just humanity but humanity working hand in hand with nature with respect and appreciation.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Deluxe LP Info: Deluxe format is on exclusive heavyweight transparent purple 12” vinyl, accompanied by a CD and deluxe 16-page 12” x 12” hardback picture book with padded cover.

French psych duo The Limiñanas will release their new album 'I've Got Trouble In Mind Vol. 2' through Because Music on 16th November. Featuring rare recordings, 7" singles and unrelased material, the collection is the follow up to 2014's album 'I've Got Trouble In Mind'. 

"We wrote and recorded 'The Gift' at home in Cabestany and then finished it Berlin at Anton Newcombe’s studio," explains Marie. "I’m pretty sure you'll recognise Peter Hook’s lead bass. He's been one of our heroes for a very long time. The video reflects on high school years in gangs; the mods, the skins, the rockabs and the rudeboys smoking cigarettes while hanging in the schoolyard. 'The Gift' looks at what's happened to two of these people over the years and how they may have missed out on a lifelong love story. The video is directed by Aurélien Richter and features actor and dancer Foulques de Boixo."

One of France’s most loved treasures, The Limiñanas are Marie (drums/vocals) and Lionel (guitar, bass, keyboards and vocals). Hailing from Perpignan, the duo straddles the boundary between psych, shoegaze, and yé-yé. With hazy, reverb-laden hooks, combined at times with noisy distortion, and fronted by effortlessly cool vocals, reminiscent of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, the band is at once timeless and quintessentially French. The Limiñanas, who have produced records in their own garage for the last ten years, released their first rarities collection 'Ive Got Trouble in Mind' through Bill and Lisa Roe's revered 'Trouble In Mind' label in 2014. As with the first installation, 'Vol. 2' features rare and unreleased tracks such as the duo's version of The Kinks' 'Two Sisters' (recorded for a MOJO magazine covermount compilation, produced by Anton Newcombe and remixed by Jim Diamond (White Stripes/The Sonics), a cover of The Lords of the New Church's 'Russian Roulette' and live versions of fan's favourites. 

 ‘The Groop Played Space Age Batchelor Pad Music’ is an 8-track mini album, released in 1993.

Often noted as being one of the most influential and original bands of the 90s, Stereolab were formed by Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier in London in 1990 and released 13 studio albums, 15 EPs and numerous singles. Simon Reynolds commented in Rolling Stone that the group’s early records form “an endlessly seductive body of work that sounds always the same, always different.”

They are often noted as being one of the most influential and original bands of the 90s. Theirs is a rich, overflowing palette, readily able to blur the gulf between Os Mutantes and the BBC Radiophonic Orchestra; merge Krzysztof Komeda with the Velvet Underground, Francoise Hardy with Neu! and Burt Bacharach with Esquivel. A deluxe blend, in other words, with ingredients plucked assiduously from pop’s coolest outposts: 50’s lounge, Rive Gauche chanson, Brazilian tropicalia, North American art rock, East European film music, Krautrock. hi-fi test recordings, mood music and more. Somehow they distil these apparently incongruent components into an ageless exotica that is all their own.

‘Peng!’ is the band’s 1992 debut album. 

Often noted as being one of the most influential and original bands of the 90s, Stereolab were formed by Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier in London in 1990 and released 13 studio albums, 15 EPs and numerous singles. Simon Reynolds commented in Rolling Stone that the group’s early records form “an endlessly seductive body of work that sounds always the same, always different.”

They are often noted as being one of the most influential and original bands of the 90s. Theirs is a rich, overflowing palette, readily able to blur the gulf between Os Mutantes and the BBC Radiophonic Orchestra; merge Krzysztof Komeda with the Velvet Underground, Francoise Hardy with Neu! and Burt Bacharach with Esquivel. A deluxe blend, in other words, with ingredients plucked assiduously from pop’s coolest outposts: 50’s lounge, Rive Gauche chanson, Brazilian tropicalia, North American art rock, East European film music, Krautrock. hi-fi test recordings, mood music and more. Somehow they distil these apparently incongruent components into an ageless exotica that is all their own.

From their unassuming origins as a group of school friends drawn together by a shared passion for music to the global touring force (supporting The Cure and Editors at arenas and stadiums), they have quietly become, The Twilight Sad’s ascent has been forged the old way with grit, graft and four exceptional studio albums. Now signed to Mogwai’s Rock Action Records, the bands fifth album does not disappoint and will certainly not disappoint fans of their previous works. It will also appeal to fans of The Cure, Frighten Rabbits, The National, Interpol and Editors.

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xColoured LP Info: Indies exclusive heavyweight blue vinyl.

2xColoured LP includes MP3 Download Code.

2xLP includes MP3 Download Code.

· The Kick Inside
· Lionheart
· Never For Ever
· The Dreaming

FORMAT INFORMATION

FREE SHIPPING This item has FREE UK shipping!

· Hounds Of Love
· The Sensual World
· The Red Shoes

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FREE SHIPPING This item has FREE UK shipping!

· Ariel
· Director’s Cut
· 50 Words For Snow

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FREE SHIPPING This item has FREE UK shipping!

12" Mixes
The Other Side 1
The Other Side 2
In Others' Words

FORMAT INFORMATION

FREE SHIPPING This item has FREE UK shipping!

B.E.D is the new collaboration from Baxter Dury, French Dance music pioneer Etienne De Crécy & Delilah Holiday of London punks Skinny Girl Diet. They will be releasing their debut album via Heavenly Recordings on 26.10.2018. The album will be available on CD / LP & Digital.

The record was recorded between 2017 & the start of 2018 and produced by Etienne De Crécy & Baxter Dury in France.

Baxter Dury says “Etienne has created a musical background for my confessional narrative and Delilah has encouraged it to be something more emotional. It’s an unlikely mix that works because its short, simple and honest.”

Marti Caine's infamous Point Of View is a groovy blend of slow-mo funk, dark disco and precise pop. Originally released on BBC Records in 1981, it has attracted a considerable cult following this century. The odd charity shop score aside, it has been impossible to find a copy for less than eye-watering sums (often selling for over £200) and, as such, it's an honour to present the first officially licensed vinyl reissue of this sublime record. Featuring expert liner notes written by Bill Brewster - perhaps the record's most notable champion - this lovingly curated release is limited to just 500 copies.

Marti Caine was a popular UK TV entertainer in the late 1970s onwards and Point Of View presented her with an opportunity to proceed in a hip direction by working with British R&B heavyweight Barry Blue. His legendary reputation was secured with a string of great records, among them the first three Heatwave albums, the Balearic hit "Afro Dizzi Act" by Cry Cisco and the cult smash "Breakin' In" by Javaroo. However, despite the array of talent working on the album, Point Of View sank without trace at the time. It's something that Blue attributes to the bizarre way BBC Records worked, and he entertainingly expands upon this within the liner notes.

Musically, the highlights are many and memorable. Its most notorious track is the sublime soul stepper "Love The Way You Love Me", the reason most people covet this album so profoundly. However, from the dark dubby disco of "Snowbird City" to the moody ballad "Love Is Running Through Me", the lesser heralded tracks are nothing short of exquisite. Indeed, the chugging elegance of sleazy disco opener "Can I Speak To The World Please?" showcases a string-drenched strutting-funk that would've been enviable the world over. It's that good.

The outlandish artwork - presenting a striking, green-eyed Marti treating a tiger to a headlock - has been faithfully restored and is arguably worth the price of admission alone. With access to the original tape transfers, Simon Francis' sensitive mastering elevates the sound throughout and, as ever, it has been pressed at a reassuringly weighty 180g. Sadly, Marti died of lymphatic cancer at the tragically early age of 50 in 1995, so is not here to experience what we hope will be a long overdue reappraisal of the hitherto underheard genius of Marti Caine, the singer.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Marti Caine slaying it with this groovy disco and funk-filled reissue of Point of View. Featuring the legendary track ‘Love The Way You Love Me’ which is an anthem in itself. This Be With release is super limited so don’t hesitate.

This Mortal Coil was the given name of a strictly-studio project that spawned three albums, conceived and produced by one-time 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell.

Over the span of eight years he, along with Blackwing Studios house engineer/ co-producer, John Fryer, and a rotating cast of musicians, created original works, musical links and reinterpretations of impeccably curated songs; introducing a new audience to the talents of a previous generation including Big Star, Tim Buckley, Roy Harper, Spirit, Gene Clark, Dino Valenti, Rain Parade, Emmylou Harris, Syd Barrett and Colin Newman, amongst others.

This Mortal Coil’s debut album It’ll End In Tears (1984) forged the template; helping to crystallise 4AD’s emerging signature sound whilst shining a light on some of their stable with Cocteau Twins, Colourbox, Dead Can Dance and The Wolfgang Press all involved. The line-up was completed by arranger Martin McCarrick, violinist Gini Ball, Howard Devoto of Buzzcocks / Magazine fame and Cindytalk’s Gordon Sharp.

Pitchfork recently named it one of the best Dream Pop albums ever, a moment which “catalysed 4AD’s ascendance from the stilted poetics of goth rock to the kings of gauzy transcendence.”

FORMAT INFORMATION

Ltd LP Info: The new deluxe vinyl version differs from the original release with its artwork reimagined by Ivo Watts-Russell and Vaughan Oliver (4AD’s long-time visual partner). Presented in beautiful, hand finished and high-gloss gatefold sleeve, using remastered audio made from the original analogue studio tapes by the late, great John Dent.

Deluxe CD Info: This deluxe CD edition is manufactured by the Ichikudo company in Japan, packaged in striking gatefold paper sleeve, printed to the highest standard. Originally made available as part of a highly limited boxset back in 2011, this new version differs by being UHQCDs (Ultimate High Quality Compact Disc) rather than HDCDs (High Definition Compatible Digital).

This Mortal Coil was the given name of a strictly-studio project that spawned three albums, conceived and produced by one-time 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell.

Over the span of eight years he, along with Blackwing Studios house engineer/ co-producer, John Fryer, and a rotating cast of musicians, created original works, musical links and reinterpretations of impeccably curated songs; introducing a new audience to the talents of a previous generation including Big Star, Tim Buckley, Roy Harper, Spirit, Gene Clark, Dino Valenti, Rain Parade, Emmylou Harris, Syd Barrett and Colin Newman, amongst others.

Released two years after their debut album, This Mortal Coil’s Filigree & Shadow (1986) was no less ornate than its predecessor; a double album with each of its four sides a self-contained unit.

New faces joined the cast for this record, including a variety of singers Ivo handpicked like Alison Limerick, Jeanette, Dominic Appleton (Breathless), sisters Deirdre and Louise Rutkowski (Sunset Gun), and Richenel.

An intense listen, The Quietus called it “tortured yet oddly euphoric… (music which) could easily rip flimsy souls apart.”

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xLtd LP Info: The new deluxe vinyl version differs from the original release with its artwork reimagined by Ivo Watts-Russell and Vaughan Oliver (4AD’s long-time visual partner). Presented in beautiful, hand finished and high-gloss gatefold sleeve, using remastered audio made from the original analogue studio tapes by the late, great John Dent.

Deluxe CD Info: This deluxe CD edition is manufactured by the Ichikudo company in Japan, packaged in striking gatefold paper sleeve, printed to the highest standard. Originally made available as part of a highly limited boxset back in 2011, this new version differs by being UHQCDs (Ultimate High Quality Compact Disc) rather than HDCDs (High Definition Compatible Digital).

This Mortal Coil was the given name of a strictly-studio project that spawned three albums, conceived and produced by one-time 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell.

Over the span of eight years he, along with Blackwing Studios house engineer/ co-producer, John Fryer, and a rotating cast of musicians, created original works, musical links and reinterpretations of impeccably curated songs; introducing a new audience to the talents of a previous generation including Big Star, Tim Buckley, Roy Harper, Spirit, Gene Clark, Dino Valenti, Rain Parade, Emmylou Harris, Syd Barrett and Colin Newman, amongst others.

Landing at the start of a new decade, after much had happened in both producer Ivo Watts-Russell’s life and with his 4AD label, the final part of the This Mortal Coil trilogy, Blood (1991), felt like a perfect conclusion.

Meticulously orchestrated, vocalists Alison Limerick, Deirdre and Louise Rutkowski return from the second album with Caroline Crawley (Shelleyan Orphan / Babacar) and 4AD signees Heidi Berry, Kim Deal (Pixies / The Breeders), Tanya Donelly (Throwing Muses / The Breeders / Belly) and Pieter Nooten all enlisted.

“Shedding some of its chillier post-punk components, blossoming into material airy and gorgeous. Covers — many from the psychedelic era — still dominate the material, but they are largely indistinguishable from the originals, so seamless is (it’s) indelible tone. Blood is a treasure.” Consequence of Sound

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xLtd LP Info: The new deluxe vinyl version differs from the original release with its artwork reimagined by Ivo Watts-Russell and Vaughan Oliver (4AD’s long-time visual partner). Presented in beautiful, hand finished and high-gloss gatefold sleeve, using remastered audio made from the original analogue studio tapes by the late, great John Dent.

Deluxe CD Info: This deluxe CD edition is manufactured by the Ichikudo company in Japan, packaged in striking gatefold paper sleeve, printed to the highest standard. Originally made available as part of a highly limited boxset back in 2011, this new version differs by being UHQCDs (Ultimate High Quality Compact Disc) rather than HDCDs (High Definition Compatible Digital).

Formed in Chicago, IL in 1988, The Smashing Pumpkins released their heralded debut album Gish in 1991 and found mainstream success with 1993’s 4x multi-platinum Siamese Dream and 1995’s 10x multi-platinum Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Following the release of Adore, Machina/The Machines of God, and Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music, the group’s original lineup disbanded in 2000. Singer/guitarist Billy Corgan reformed the group in 2005, enlisting various collaborators for Zeitgeist, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, Oceania, and Monuments to an Elegy.

In June of 2018, The Smashing Pumpkins released their new single “Solara” ahead of their monumental Shiny And Oh So Bright Tour. The track was the first song in over 18 years to feature founding members Billy Corgan, James Iha, and Jimmy Chamberlin, alongside longtime guitarist Jeff Schroeder and offered the first glimpse of music from the newly reformed lineup. In September of 2018, the band formally announced their forthcoming 10th studio album SHINY AND OH SO BRIGHT, VOL. 1 / LP: NO PAST. NO FUTURE. NO SUN. and shared its second single “Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)”.

Recorded at Shangri La Studios with legendary producer Rick Rubin, LP is due for release on November 16th, 2018 via Martha’s Music under license to Napalm Records. With over 30 million albums sold to date, the GRAMMY®, MTV VMA, and American Music Award winning band remains one of the most influential bands in history. 

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Indies stores exclusive silver LP.

Muse have announced that their eighth studio album, ‘Simulation Theory’. The eleven-track record was produced by the band, along with several award-winning producers, including Rich Costey, Mike Elizondo, Shellback and Timbaland. Each of the album’s songs will be accompanied by a video.

‘Simulation Theory’ follows ‘Drones’, released in 2015. Since then the internationally acclaimed three piece have toured extensively, taking the ground breaking ‘Drones World Tour’ to fans across the globe. This concert was filmed and released in cinemas worldwide for ‘One Night Only’ in July 2018.

Muse is Matt Bellamy, Dominic Howard and Chris Wolstenholme. Their last studio album, Drones, was released in June 2015 and debuted at No. 1 in 21 countries around the world including their first No. 1 album in the United States. The album went on to win the Grammy Award, their second, for Best Rock Album in February 2016. Since forming in 1994, Muse have released seven studio albums selling in advance of 20 million albums worldwide.

Widely recognised as one of the best live bands in the world, Muse have won numerous music awards including two Grammy Awards, an American Music Award, five MTV Europe Music Awards, two Brit Awards, ten NME Awards and seven Q Awards, amongst others.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Deluxe CD Info: As Standard CD plus:
Algorithm (Alternate Reality Version)
The Dark Side (Alternate Reality Version)
Propaganda (Acoustic)
Something Human (Acoustic)
Dig Down (Acoustic Gospel Version)

The Apparition / Melt the Arms is the third release from Los Angeles band Flat Worms (Tim Hellman, Justin Sullivan, Will Ivy) on New York's Famous Class Records. The 7" single follows their debut LP on Castle Face records. These songs were recorded with Ty Segall in his home studio during a global heatwave.

"The dream was an apparition."
- Teju Cole Open City.

Flat Worms are a band from Los Angeles. They released their 7” on Volar Records and their debut LP on Castle face Records. They continue their ride on a buzzsaw wave of feedback-tipped riffs into the middle distance, smog choked sunset receding in the rearview, a thousand yard dead-pan surgically pinned to a high octane set of boredom energized punk pistons. Flat Worms – an ears-a-ringing missive from the end of the cul-de-sac, the mirage of direction wavering above a mid-sized American suburb at dusk, constellations bleached black by the sprawl. A little Wipers, a little Wire, and a lot of late-capitalist era anxious energy.

Flat Worms consist of Will Ivy (Dream Boys, Wet Illustrated), Justin Sullivan (Night Shop, Kevin Morby, the Babies) and Tim Hellman (Oh Sees).

FORMAT INFORMATION

Ltd 7" Info: 300 only BUTTER vinyl for UK.

Benjamin Smith and Paul "Mudd" Murphy are back with a Balearic gem - The Distance. Featuring a vocal and instrumental on the A-side, and a remix on the flip by legend and consummate production ace - Ron Basejam. Lyrics and vocals are by Quinn Lamont, who's captivating earthy tones playfully tease us with emotional yearning, and it's Quinn who provides a stunning jazzy guitar performance that will have you air guitaring all over the dance floor, and which sits splendidly alongside the beautiful layers of rich electric piano and Balearic disco grooves. The remix by Ron Basejam recasts the track as an instantly affable yacht-rock-esque anthem, that will fill your hearts and have you reaching for the Campari. This is a sumptuous summer groover, with layer upon layer of blissed out disco warmth. A sublime masterclass in musicianship and production that will bring joy to the most discerning of ears.

For the next Collector's Cuts record; Hamburg is the destination and Basso is the collector.

Basso is the owner of Growing Bin Records, a DJ and a collector of mind blowing music.
Growing Bin Records is a fantastic place to dive deeply into the wonderful but slightly off the wall genres like Krautrock, Balearic, Yacht Rock, Synth, New-Wave and many other styles.
Originally started as a blog it is has grown to become a great online resource and small label where there are no rules or formulas.

Here Basso has delved into his vast record collection to splice together some rather exquisite selections. Dive in to the Bin!
Pressed heavy for late nights, early mornings or afternoons on the yacht.

To celebrate 40 years since their formation in Leeds in 1978, Soft Cell, aka Marc Almond and Dave Ball, release some brand-new remixes this summer on their own Big Frock imprint.

Soft Cell have been synonymous with the club scene since their debut single release Memorabilia in 1981, (produced by Mute Records’ Daniel Miller) which is widely cited by many dance music luminaries as the first ever acid house record. The band cut their teeth and built their notoriety in clubs across the world, from Leeds Warehouse right across the Atlantic to New York’s legendary Danceteria. Second single Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go went on to become one of the biggest club (and chart) hits of all time, reaching Number 1 in 17 countries later in 1981. The first true electronic UK duo, the band have sold over 30 million records throughout their career and have been covered or sampled by artists as diverse as Rihanna, Nine Inch Nails, a-Ha and Marilyn Manson, and well as influencing many others. The EP features remixes chosen by two internationally-renowned UK DJs, both massive fans of Soft Cell. Hifi Sean has remixed Insecure Me, B side to 1982 single Torch, as well as So, flip side to the single What. Jon Pleased Wimmin has remixed one of Soft Cell’s earliest compositions, A Man Could Get Lost.

While intended as a club tool for DJs, Soft Cell are making available a strictly limited number of the 12” picture disc EP, for their fans, on a first come, first served basis. These mixes will not be released on any other format, and do not feature on the upcoming Keychains & Snowstorms: The Soft Cell Story box set.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Ltd 12" Info: Very limited edition 12" picture disc.

For those who shine darkly......

During the transitional period in which Coil’s primary leadership, Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and John Balance, reorganized their creative direction by taking on new membership in the group through their inclusion of Drew McDowall, Coil took a drastic turn towards the metaphysical unknown.Employing the subtle handiwork of Coil’s“real life”members, as well as the cleverlyguised aliases and spiritual collaborators, the band chose to filter their identity through a the nome de guerre, Black Light District,setting the precedent of Coil’s future exploration of other worldy influence.

Recorded during the Winter of 1995/96, Black Light District reflects more on their formal avant-garde pursuits and academic interests rather than their industrial pedigree resume. Starting off with an obvious nod to John Cage with their introductory “Unprepared Piano”, the tone is prepared in exactly the same way... unpredictable. Conceptually abstract, Black Light District shows Coil’s old guard disregarding the pop rhythms found on previous albums, such as Love Secret Domain,and fully embracing their experimental electronic trajectory. Subtle patterns of looping melancholy and malaise are placed delicately underneath ghostly electronic timbre. Approaching their creative method as something from the beyond, another realm in which sounds blur and performers seemingly appear from the ether.

Dais Records announces the official reissue of "Coil presents Black Light District -A Thousand Lights in a Darkened Room". Remastered by engineer Josh Bonati and supervised by Coil's Drew McDowall, the double LP vinyl release is packaged in a beautiful matte 24pt stock gatefold jacket Also available on digipack CD with booklet and digital.

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xColoured LP Info: Limited edition of 500 on TRANSLUCENT YELLOW.

2xLtd LP Info: Limited edition of 500 on BLACK VINYL.

The story of 'Get Tragic' can be traced way back to the relentless gigging off the back of their 2014 self-produced and self-titled record, when the heels finally fell off of Blood Red Shoes at the end of that same year. A near-decade of incessant road time and a non-stop pace of life finally took its toll, with the band stopping only to quickly hammer out “another ten songs” to release as their next record, before ploughing straight back into touring. The pair exhausted themselves to the point of collapse. “We didn’t, at any point, have a breather,” says Steven Ansel (drums and vocals), “We probably didn’t see each other for about 10 days a year, tops, for six or seven years.” Understandably, such incessant close proximity led to implosion. “We got the to the end of the fourth record and were like, ‘F**k you, I never want to see you again’,”Steven adds, half-laughing, half-sighing.

Vocalist and guitarist Laura Mary-Carter packed her bags and bought a one-way flight to Los Angeles, a complete radio-silence between the two bandmates stretching on for months. She fell in with a songwriter’s crowd, penning tracks and collaborations with big-time pop producers and pitching songs for the likes of Rihanna. It provided her with “a lot of time to reassess,” she says. Steven, conversely, “went out and took drugs and went clubbing for about half a year,” he laughs. “I don’t remember a lot about it. Classic break-up move, right?”

“That’s the whole running theme of this record,” says Steven. “The reason we called it Get Tragic is because we realised that everything we’ve been doing over the last three years is kinda tragic!” he says, prompting laughter from the pair. “Just like, ‘Ooh, I hate you, I’m going to America to find myself’, and like ‘Ooh, I’m gonna party for the rest of the year!’ Everything about it is such a cliché – we were like, ‘We’ve turned into a f**kin tragedy!’”

'Get Tragic', then, fully embraces the absurdity of BLOOD RED SHOES situation. As a result, the pair come out the other side sounding fresher and more assured than ever. Recording in the States, working with a new producer, ditching the two-piece rock rulebook they arguably helped write - everything that went into Get Tragic was a leap into the unknown. Their first move, post-reconciliation was a writing retreat in rural Wales, which saw them woken up by the village community leaders, who entered the house while they were sleeping and banished them from town, fearful of the rock group’s proximity to the local church.

Regrouping once more and booking in some more sessions in Leeds, Steven took a phone call a few days before round two. Laura had broken her arm. “I fell off a motorbike,” she explains. “I didn’t tell anyone – I didn’t post anything about it, but the fact is I had a broken arm for a long time.” Throughout it all, they went through a conveyor belt of managers and manager firings, the group falling out with everyone around them as they attempted to rebuild their core, two-way relationship. One of those managers “led us into a record deal that was really fucked, and we shouldn’t have signed,” explains Steven. The subsequent fallout and legal trouble financially crippled them both. As that period came to a close, Laura went through a romantic break-up that still visibly affects her. “We were finally getting there,” says Laura, “and I was like, ‘No… don’t let this happen too…’.”

Remarkably, though, Laura’s broken arm proved to be a blessing in plaster-clad disguise. Leaving her unable to play guitar, it prompted the longtime-guitarist to pick up a keyboard, and sing more than she ever had before. Through mishap and misfortune, the songs that came out of the sessions were the duo’s light at the end of the ever-expanding tunnel. They decamped to L.A. to record with Nick Launay (Yeah Yeah Yeahs / Arcade Fire / Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds). He pushed them to explore these new worlds even further, and as such the the after-effects of Laura’s motorbike tragedy can be heard throughout 'Get Tragic' – more melodic and synth-led than any of the band’s records to date, it embraces electronics and nuance in a way their stripped-back and stomping two-piece rock sound of old never could have.

“That was where it started to make sense,” says Steven. “It was like, ‘How do we combine our songwriting with electronics and keyboards?’ We wanted to have the soul of a rock band, but change the style so it was more interesting, more groovy, and more sexy – and less like everybody else! I started to feel like all rock music around us was one shade of one colour.” Laura agrees: “I really find the music industry, and just culture in general, has a sheep mentality. Like, ‘Is it okay to like this?’ You just need to have a mind of your own. Whether people like it or not, we’re at least trying to do something that isn’t ‘of the moment’ or whatever.”

Through disaster and dismay, the band have emerged reinvigorated. Every incident has fed into a record of defiance and self-acceptance. Knowingly embracing the tragedy of their movements, and the clarity at the end of such woe – they even laugh at the very idea of having a picture of themselves on the cover – 'Get Tragic' is a total reimagining of the
BLOOD RED SHOES you might think you know.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Deluxe green and black coloured vinyl with an alternative sleeve, and a bonus 7".