Mexican duo Lorelle Meets The Obsolete release their new album De Facto on January 11, 2019. The album, their fifth, was recorded at their home studio in Ensenada, Baja California, mixed by Cooper Crain (of Cave and Bitchin Bajas) and mastered by Mikey Young (of Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Total Control). It’s easily their best and most coherent album to date, and also the one that fully explores the outer limits of their sound. “There was a conscious desire to push further with what we were doing,” says The Obsolete, aka Alberto González. “One of our rules for this album was to go all in without middle grounds in terms of what we wanted the songs to be. We were committed to developing ideas that made our heads go ‘POW!’ from the beginning.” The end result is somewhere between the brave experimentation of the new Low album, Double Negative, and Tender Buttons-era Broadcast put through a heavy psych filter. There are pure pop songs that come across like lost ’60s nuggets (‘Linéas En Hojas’), blistering white noise jams (‘Unificado’) and meditative incantations (‘La Maga’) – all of which will, indeed, make heads go ‘POW!’

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Perhaps the best thing anyone can do with a legacy is build on it. A change of scene certainly helps to avoid getting stuck in the ever diminishing returns of routine, churning out the same result every time, but with ever less inspiration. So when Lorelle Meets The Obsolete swapped the sprawling chaos of Mexico City for the wide open Baja peninsula, Mexico’s remaining bit of California, it turned out to be a very smart move. The formal inclusion of members of their live band, drummer Andrea Davi, José Orozco on synthesizer and bassist Fernando Nuti, into the creative process broadened the sonic palette still more, with the net result that their fifth album, often a marker by which time only diehards have maintained any interest, is their most fully realised and beautiful to date.
It’s not as if they’ve abandoned their past mind. Wigout wildness is still very much to the fore in “Unificado”, for example, but change is apparent after the crawling menace of album opener “Ana”. “Líneas en Hojas” introduces itself with a bassline on the verge of breaking into “Billie Jean”, gritty guitar lines and pretty distorted vocals before a bright, clear chorus sends a shaft of light and warmth through the clouds. Perhaps the album’s highlight however is the mesmerising “La Maga”, where the gentle rolling shimmer of the opening three minutes shifts into a drifting, sunset glide of undulating keyboards and repeating guitars that build softly on...and on...

TRACK LISTING

1. Ana
2. Líneas En Hojas
3. Acción – Vaciar
4. Unificado
5. Inundación
6. Lux, Lumina
7. Resistir
8. El Derrumbe
9. La Maga

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.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: “Sitting in a bar, I told you everything, you said ‘holy shit, you almost died’”. Album opener, “I Told You Everything” is a love song of sorts, and while it hints at her turbulent past it’s about trust, optimism and moving forward and marks a shift both musically and emotionally. The addition of synths and electronics, give a whole new dimension to her songs, at times providing rhythm and melody, at others a jarring tension and an air of menace. As ever her writing is deeply personal, but whereas previously the past was filled with regret and self doubt, this time around she reflects on it with an air of nostalgia and knowing. There’s still a sense of fragility when she writes about love, but you get the impression that she’s more at ease with her place in the world now and this has given her the confidence to write her most ambitious and assured album yet.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. I Told You Everything
2. No One's Easy To Love
3. Memorial Day
4. Comeback Kid
5. Jupiter 4

Side B
6. Seventeen
7. Malibu
8. You Shadow
9. Hands
10. Stay

FOR A LIMITED PERIOD ONLY BOTH ALL FORMATS INCLUDE A FREE CD BONUS DISC, 'ACOUSTIC UNSEEN' (TRACKLISTING BELOW).

For over a decade, guitarist/vocalist Steve Gunn has been one the American music’s most pivotal figures-conjuring immersive and psychedelic sonic landscapes both live and on record, releasing revered solo albums ranking high on in-the-know end of year lists, alongside exploratory collaborations with artists as diverse as Mike Cooper, Kurt Vile, and Michael Chapman (whose most recent studio album he produced). Gunn is known for telling other people's stories, but on his breakthrough fourth album, The Unseen In Between, he explores his own emotional landscapes with his most complex, fully realized songs to date. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Steve Gunn’s talents as a guitarist are well known, whether it be the American primitive finger picking style of his early work, as a member of Kurt Vile’s Violators or from any number of collaborations over the years, but on this album it’s as much about the songs as the guitar. His songwriting conjures vivid images while at the same time leaving space for your imagination to fill the gaps. This is beautifully exemplified on “Vagabond” on which he duets with Espers’ Meg Baird and “Stonehurst Cowboy” a tribute to his father and his generation who grew up in the shadow of Vietnam. And the guitars! Did I mention the guitars? Whether it’s the gentle acoustics of “New Moon” or the hypnotic looping riffs of “New Familiar” and “Morning Is Mended”, they are truly mesmerizing. A wonderfully understated record that’s already worked its way into my all time favourites.

TRACK LISTING

New Moon
Vagabond
Chance
Stonehurst Cowboy
Luciano
New Familiar
Lightning Field
Morning Is Mended
Paranoid

'ACOUSTIC UNSEEN' BONUS DISC:
1. New Moon
2. Vagabond
3. Chance
4. Luciano
5. New Familiar
6. Lightining Field
7. Paranoid

As thrilling and unpredictable as anything in Deerhunter’s near 15-year career, Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? was recorded in several strategic geographic points across North America, and produced by the band, Cate LeBon, Ben H. Allen III, and Ben Etter. Forgetting the questions and making up unrelated answers, Deerhunter’s eighth LP is a science fiction album about the present. Exhausted with the toxic concept of nostalgia, they reinvent their approach to microphones, the drum kit, the harpsichord, the electromechanical and synthetic sounds of keyboards. Whatever guitars are left are pure chrome, plugged straight into the mixing desk with no amplifier or vintage warmth.

STAFF COMMENTS

Javi says: Is it a guitar? Is it a synth? Is it some old-time harpsichord-y thing plugged through a sh*t-ton of reverb? Your guess is as good as mine. The only thing for sure is that indie darlings Deerhunter have created their most consistent and nuanced album since 2010’s ‘Halcyon Digest’ in their seventh LP, ‘Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?’.
With fellow Top 20 maverick Cate Le Bon at the production helm, there’s nothing the band can’t do—whimsical groove-laced indie and atmospheric expansiveness are married perfectly on songs like the opener “What Happens to People?” and penultimate bop “Plains”, and just as the voice of God bids us good morning on “Detournement”, guitarist Lockett Pundt’s sole offering “Tarnung” is already preparing to tuck us into bed.
Every song is a stutter-funk gem, a space-age exploration of pastoral life, a strutting jaunt into the end of days. Every song is a grower, and boy, how big they grow…

TRACK LISTING

1. Death In Midsummer
2. No One’s Sleeping
3. Greenpoint Gothic
4. Element
5. What Happens To People?
6. Détournement
7. Futurism
8. Tarnung
9. Plains
10. Nocturne

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?”

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Wearing his heart on his sleeve both emotionally and politically, the former Beta Band front man brings us his best and most direct album to date. As ever he dabbles with different genres, be it folky ballads, melodica tinged dub, Stones-ey southern Soul or big hook filled pop songs, but this time around, more than ever, he’s managed to meld everything into a cohesive, uplifting whole.

TRACK LISTING

1. America Is Your Boyfriend
2. Rocket
3. No Clue
4. About The Light
5. Fox On The Rooftop
6. Stars Around My Heart
7. Spanish Brigade
8. Don’t Know Where
9. Walking Away From Love
10. The End

The lives we lead can feel like a simulation as the line between our reality and augmented futures continues to blur. Following the ever-emotive Boo Boo, Toro Y Moi’s new album Outer Peace is a time capsule that captures our relationship to contemporary culture into one comprehensive, sonic package.
Shortly after the release of his 2015 record What For?, Toro Y Moi (also known as Chaz Bear) packed up his belongings, leaving the comfort of his Oakland base for the relative solitude of Portland to write Boo Boo. Apart from the familiarity of his surroundings, Bear focused on what would become his next sonic statement. In doing so, he was struck by the reign that technology holds over our day to day lives and its ability to obscure the consumption of creativity. His change of envi- ronment resulted in freedom from disturbances and, in those quiet and tranquil spaces, the creation of music acted as a protest in favor of peace.

Having now moved back to Oakland, Bear’s new record Outer Peace is a response to the lessons gleaned while making Boo Boo — a response to the expendable state of art that is a product of instant grati cation. Bear’s ingenuity reveals a multifaceted expression of his universe on this record. It’s the space be- tween the accessible and unconventional where he invites us to experience Outer Peace, which is rooted in nding peace in antithetical conditions: being stuck in traffic, hustling for your next check as a freelancer and all other chaotic moments in life that require digging beneath the surface to nd solace.

As both a producer and designer, Bear utilizes abstract sound pairings with recognizable samples for his most pop in uenced record to date. This is no de- parture from his funk and disco roots, which can be heard on “Ordinary Pleasure”, later fusing into variations of house with tracks like “Freelance” and “Laws of the Universe.” Smooth interludes melt into fast paced beats, paralleling the feeling  of driving through the Bay Area, where Bear spent most of his time writing the album.

Outer Peace is duality. It embodies whatever form you choose to inhabit in the moment. Listen and let your imagination become the universe. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another great LP from Toro Y Moi, with pulsing beats and smooth synths all wrapping comfortably around the machinated vocal delivery. Working it's way between the dancefloor and home listening, there’s enough activity to keep you moving, but the whole thing is imbued with the kind of languid beats and euphoric basses that a more horizontal position can benefit. Perfect.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fading
2. Ordinary Pleasure
3. Laws Of The Universe
4. Miss Me (feat. ABRA)
5. New House
6. Baby Drive It Down
7. Freelance
8. Who Am I
9. Monte Carlo (feat. WET)
10. 50-50 (feat. Instupendo)

RIYL: The Horrors, Moon Duo, Wooden Shjips, Spiritualized, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Dungen, Goat, Clinic.

Toy release their fourth album, and their first for new label Tough Love Records, and it is unquestionably their most direct and propulsive album to date.

Recorded between their own home tape studios and mixed at Dan Carey’s Studio B in South London, the album was entirely produced and mixed by the band.

"Happy In The Hollow is entirely uncompromising: an atmospheric capturing of a state of mind that touches on Post Punk, electronic dissonance, acid folk and Krautrock. Familiar qualities like metronomic rhythms, warping guitars, undulating synths and Tom’s gentle, reedy vocals are all in there, but so is a greater emphasis on melody, a wider scope, and a combining of the reassuring and the sinister that is as unnerving as it is captivating."

The sound has without doubt expanded — and grown more confident — in part because this is the first album for which Toy has become a self-sufficient five-person unit doing everything for themselves.

“Each song was a blank canvas,” says Maxim. “Producers inevitably develop their own patterns over time, right down to certain drum sounds. We were starting from scratch and it felt very creative as a result. It’s an album we feel deeply connected to”.

TOY are: Tom Dougall (vocals / guitar), Dominic O’Dair (guitars), Maxim Barron (bass / vocals), Max Oscarnold (synths / modulations) & Charlie Salvidge (drums / vocals).

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Toy on fine form here, in a somewhat more dreamy and progressive mood than on 2016's 'Clear Shot', with swirling guitars and cavernous reverb surrounding the psychedelic chord changes and echoing haunted vox. They've managed to craft something that is both immediate and deep, easy to engage with but develops the more you listen. A truly stunning work.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sequence One
2. Mistake A Stranger
3. Energy
4. Last Warmth Of The Day
5. The Willo
6. Jolt Awake
7. Mechanism
8. Strangulation Day
9. You Make Me Forget Myself
10. Charlie’s House
11. Move Through The Dark

Conceived and recorded after Paddy was diagnosed with a medical condition that seriously affected his vision, the album is a testament to the healing power of music.

Remastered and complete with new artwork and liner notes from Paddy himself.

STAFF COMMENTS

David says: The year is 1999 and Prefab Sprout main man, Paddy McAloon, finds himself nearly blind after surgery to reattach his retinas. Unable to either write songs or read, he spends his time listening to short-wave radio, recording snippets from the phone-ins and documentaries that will engender ‘I Trawl The Megahertz’.
When it came out in 2003 Paddy, now fully recovered, had decided it was too personal a piece of work to be released under the Prefab Sprout moniker. Worried that an audience expecting a follow up to ‘Cars And Girls’ might be a little nonplussed by his new direction, it appeared as a solo album. Like cotton in a blizzard the record scattered into the ether and was, for the most part, largely forgotten.
Not only is ‘I Trawl The Megahertz’ entirely unlike anything recorded by Prefab Sprout, it’s unlike anything recorded in pop. The record’s otherworldly mixture of samples and soaring, Debussy inspired classical interludes has more in common with one of those epic, old Hollywood films that you’d watch for hours on a rainy Sunday afternoon than anything you might hear on the radio, either then or now.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Trawl The Megahertz
2. Esprit De Corps
3. Fall From Grace
4. We Were Poor….
5. Orchid 7
6. I’m 49
7. Sleeping Rough
8. Ineffable
9. …but We Were Happy

Elena Tonra, guitarist, vocalist and lyricist of Daughter, has announced details of a solo project. Running parallel to Daughter, she’s assumed the pseudonym Ex:Re (pronounced ex ray) for her eponymously-titled debut solo album, a deeply personal record that was made with both a sense of urgency and a cathartic need. Just finished, it’s being released with equal speed and will be out digitally on 30th November

Tonra’s candid solo songs document the time after a relationship ended and are written like unsent letters to herself and others. Taking on a creative moniker, she chose Ex:Re to mean ‘regarding ex’ and also ‘X-Ray’ as a way to look inside and see what is really there. Writing took a year but the recording process lasted mere months, turning to Fabian Prynn (4AD’s in-house engineer and producer) and composer Josephine Stephenson on cello to help bring Ex:Re to life.

Elena said of the album, “Although the record is written for someone, a lot of the time it’s about the space without that person in it. In every scenario, there's either the person in memory or the noticeable absence of that person in the present moment. I suppose it is a break-up record, however I do not talk about the relationship at all, and he hardly features in the scenes. He is only felt as a ghostly presence.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Daughter were one of the most refreshing bands to come out a good few years ago, and this Solo album from haunting voiced singer, Elena Tonra is a beautiful and comfortingly different outlet for her undeniable vocal and songwriting talents. Beautiful.

TRACK LISTING

Where The Time Went
Crushing
New York
Romance
The Dazzler
Too Sad
Liar
I Can't Keep You
5AM
My Heart

The Specials, one of the most electrifying, influential and important bands of all time, release “Encore”, their first new music for 37 years.

2019 marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of The Specials and the legendary Two-Tone label in Coventry in 1979, and also marks 10 years since the band reformed to play some of the most vital and joyous live shows in recent memory.

The 10-song “Encore” was produced by Specials founding members Terry Hall, Lynval Golding and Horace Panter alongside Danish musician/producer Torp Larsen and indeed is the first time Hall, Golding & Panter have recorded new material together since the band’s 1981 No.1 single Ghost Town.

TRACK LISTING

CD1
Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys
B.L.M.
Vote For Me
The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum
Breaking Point
Blam Blam Fever
The Ten Commandments
Embarrassed By You
The Life And Times Of A Man Called Depression
We Sell Hope

CD2
The Best Of The Specials Live – Tracklisting TBC

LP Tracklisting
Side One
Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys
B.L.M.
Vote For Me
The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum
Breaking Point

Side Two
Blam Blam Fever
The Ten Commandments
Embarrassed By You
The Life And Times Of A Man Called Depression
We Sell Hope

Ian Brown's comeback record is everything you'd want from the funky monkey. Care-free, breezy, uplifting vibes with words that mix the cosmic with a conscience, this record was made almost totally independently. Just Ian, his sons and his old engineer provide that unique blend of the groovy, quirky, and endlessly catchy that we've all come to love and expect.

There's mellow, soulful, bluesy funkers, a rock reggae cover, a reggae reggae cover, a couple of slinky, bouncy, elastic shufflers, some massive, psych-tinged slowies (Syd meets Lennon!) and his most Roses sounding tune so far: evidently a ballad ABOUT The Roses (insert broken-hearted emoji here!?)

Soundwise this is Ian's most beautifully produced record by a mile. Warm, fat and analogue, with killer basslines and a big bottom end, there's a sparseness in the textures but a depth and width in the mix that's more akin to late 70's reggae than any old 'indie' rock. Ripples is all about the SPACE. Ian's voice and words, as charismatic and enigmatic as ever, are central to it all. And he's never sounded better. Self produced, self written (bar 3 co-writes with his sons. What could be more natural?) and with zero session musicians in sight, this feels like Unfinished Monkey Business, the Second Chapter. But with way better songs, way lusher production; a glorious combo of Tunes, space and sound. The dream belongs to the dreamers!

TRACK LISTING

First World Problems
Black Roses
Breathe And Breathe Easy (the Everness Of Now)
The Dream And The Dreamer
From Chaos To Harmony
It’s Raining Diamonds
Ripples
Blue Sky Day
Soul Satisfaction
Break Down The Walls (warm Up Jam)

Andrew Wasylyk is the alias of Scottish writer, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Andrew Mitchell.

In 2018, Andrew was extended a residency invite from arts centre and historic house, Hospitalfield, Arbroath, Scotland to create new music for their restored, 19th century, Erard Grecian harp.
During Wasylyk's five-month sojourn he created melodies and progressions echoing the building's unique relationship with the looming North Sea horizon. Using not only the harp, but the house's original grand piano, Andrew explored the Angus landscape and beyond, gathering field recordings on trips to neighbouring Seaton Cliffs and Bell Rock Lighthouse (the world's oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse).
Winter slipped into spring, and harp-led compositions gave way to an ambitious third, full-length album, exploring a range of themes utilising a broad palette of instrumentation, including flugelhorn, euphonium, oboe, string trio, vintage synthesisers, drones and upright piano.

From the wandering, Bob James-esque, Fender Rhodes and shimmering strings in the study of coastal light, "(Welter) In The Haar", to the plaintive brass and farewell transmission blowing through, "Adrift Below A Constellation", punctuated by the fragility of Wasylyk's sole lead vocal of this collection - "The Paralian" (a dweller by the sea), is a conclusion embued with blue and golden melodies that land in a territory akin to experimentalists such as Robert Wyatt and Brian Eno. Through which, Wasylyk weaves the listener along a Modern-classical, Ambient and Jazz dream of Scotland's east coast.

Athens Of The North team were stunned by the luminous beauty and creativity at play in this work. Falling between genres and time, it stands next to 60s British Jazz, effortlessly blending notes of Library and soundtracks with dashes of British Folk.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Athens Of The North have always been a big hit in the shop, with their jazzy hazy folk offerings proving particularly popular (Hampshire & Foat come instantly to mind), but nothing has quite hit home like the mind-blowing debut from ‘Andrew Wasylyk’ (aka Dundee’s Andrew Mitchell). From the outset, the paddling ambience and perfectly weighted piano of “Through The Field Beyond The Trees Lies The Ocean” sets the scene perfectly for the lysergic journey that is ‘The Paralian’. While “Greendrive #2” slowly ambles from plucked harp (I mean really, it could be anything, the last time I spoke to him he was off picking up a vibraphone because it’s yet another sound to shape into the electro-acoustic narrative he so perfectly forms) into a meandering percussive stroll through the Scottish countryside, it’s follower “Journey To Inchcape” that forms the peak of this narrative microclimate. Slowly swelling horns and reverbed CR-78 work away beneath the melancholic woodwind and shimmering guitar, hinting at sorrow, but working through it with a combination of otherworldly, soothing ambience and momentous stoicism. Later, we explore the same story arcs, but with each stroke rendering a broader and more colourful palette. The slightly tense “Flight Of The Cormorant” for instance giving way to the anxiolytic majesty of “Mariner’s Hymn” by way of the brittle “Westway Nocturne”, dispelling all tension and making every moment of dispirited majesty all the more necessary. ‘The Paralian’ is a masterwork, and an unbeatable way to spend a winter evening.

TRACK LISTING

1 Trough The Field Beyond The Trees Lies The Ocean
2 Greendrive #2
3 Journey To Inchcape
4 Welter In The Haar
5 Dreamt The Breakers Spill
6 Flight Of The Cormorant
7 Westway Nocturne
8 Mariner's Hymn
9 Adrift Below A Constellation
10 Unsurfacing 

The Moonlandingz founders / writers Adrian Flanagan (Eccentronic Research Council) & Dean Honer (All Seeing I / I Monster) bumped in to lead singer, Leonore Wheatley (The Soundcarriers) at a ‘Circuit Bending Workshop’ in South Yorkshire where they decided to try writing “one song together and see what happens!”

Well, what happened from writing that one song was; Marc Riley at BBC 6 Music invited them in to do a live radio session for which they wrote a couple more songs. Then the Lord & Lady Mayoress of SHEFFIELD outsider pop music, Jarvis Cocker & Roisin Murphy, both invited the group (now calling themselves, INTERNATIONAL TEACHERS OF POP) to do a few live shows with them. One (with Jarvis) was for two nights in a cave in Derbyshire and the other (with Roisin) at the prestigious Somerset House in London, so the band wrote a few more songs to give themselves something resembling a live set.

Immediately after those live shows they signed a record & distribution deal with Republic of Music in Brighton which allowed the group to put out a couple of killer singles over the summer - the Northern Rail baiting, nerd disco of ‘Age of the Train’ & the ‘Moroder playing down a youth club in Rotherham’ radio bothering, ‘After Dark’ which helped the group build some traction via their own label imprint, Desolate Spools. Now, after a spate of sporadic sell out shows, a mini tour and electrifying festival appearances, ITOP are proud to announce the release of their eponymously titled debut album and a full U.K. tour to support it.

‘International Teachers of Pop’ was all written, recorded and Mixed at Dean Honer’s Bowling Green Studios in Sheffield using mainly pre- 1980’s U.S & Soviet analogue synthersizers and a collection of dusty old drum machines and is influenced by producers of disco & pop such as Giorgio Moroder, Martin Rushent & Bobby Orlando whilst straddling a lineage of artist such as Kraftwerk, the Human League, Suzanne Ciani & Broadcast.

An album covering an esoterically wide array of subjects from throbbing disco monster (and possible next single) ‘The Ballad of Remedy Nilsson’, a song about a disobedient pet, ‘On Repeat’ which is a song about the monotony of going to work in Brexit Britain, or album closer, and ode to terrible pronunciation, - ‘Oh Yosemite’ which also features additional vocals & drums from ‘Levenshulme High School Choir’ and Moonlandingz / ITOP live drummer, Richy Westley.

Always with one eye on pop music and the other on something more artful, playful and slightly wicked, Leonore Wheatley from the group describes it as “Grace Slick on the raz with Donna Summer and the Pet Shop Boys, legging it over to Kraftwerk’s gaff for a quick synth-sesh before getting a cab round to All Saints gaff to sing at the telly til the sun comes up!”

Adrian Flanagan of the group continues: “I think It’s the 3rd most important outsider pop album to come out of Sheffield since Dare & Different Class. Sheffield has a great history of drawing out these awkward, gangly weirdoes that make a very British, nay eccentric, kind of pop music that stews in the underground for a few years then appears seemingly from nowhere fully formed, like a very peculiar butterfly. I think as we collide head first in to this political sea of ‘total and absolute’ carnage, people are gonna need music & live shows like ours. We are not about separating ourselves from society and being another bunch of rockstar /pop star dicks, we have always been on the outside anyway, it’s about unifying ; ITOP is a bonafide 125 BPM cuddle for the masses!”

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1: After Dark
2: The Ballad Of Remedy Nilsson
3: On Repeat
4. Time For The Seasons
5. She Walks In Beauty

Side B:
1. Interstellar
2. Age Of The Train
3. Praxis Makes Prefect
4. Love Girl
5. Oh Yosemite 

Sleaford Mods are one of the most important, politically charged and thought-provoking duos currently making their mark on the UK music scene and beyond. They are now poised to release their fifth studio album entitled ‘Eton Alive’ in February 2019. The album, which features 12 new tracks from the prolific artists, was recorded in Nottingham. The record will be the first release on Jason and Andrew’s newly formed label ‘Extreme Eating’ and their first album since parting ways with Rough Trade Records.

“Eton Alive speaks for itself really. Here we are once again in the middle of another elitist plan being digested slowly as we wait to be turned into faeces once more. Some already are, some are dead and the rest of us erode in the belly of prehistoric ideology which depending on our abilities and willingness, assigns to each of us varying levels of comfort that range from horrible to reasonably acceptable, based on contribution. So after the digestive system of the Nobles rejects our inedible bones we exit the Arse of Rule, we fall into the toilet again and at the mercy of whatever policies are holding order in the shit pipe of this tatty civilisation. It is here our flesh regenerates as we rattle into another form, ready, and ripe for order”. – Jason Williamson.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The Mods return once again for another politically charged slice of snarling vocal fire and wry social commentary. This time we get a more momentous charge towards post-punk minimalism, drum machines and distorted bass taking a back seat to the increasingly effective two-part baying of Williamson & Fearn.

TRACK LISTING

1. Into The Payzone
2. Kebab Spider
3. Policy Cream
4. O.B.C.T.
5. When You Come Up To Me
6. Top It Up
7. Flipside
8. Subtraction
9. Firewall
10. Big Burt
11. Discourse
12. Negative Script

Snapped Ankles have taken on the guise of the very agents of their community’s demise – the property developers and brokers who heat the market on the promise of ‘Stunning Luxury’. With their adopted warehouse habitat under constant threat, the woodwose have taken this sharp-suited incarnation in order to infiltrate. The resistance starts here.

From humble forest beginnings via bohemian East London on debut album Come Play The Trees, Snapped Ankles are moving on. The log synths have been transformed into gaudy “To Let” and “For Sale” signs, which have become the new instrument of choice for the discerning woodwose. The sounds they eke out of the housing bubble are as frenzied and unstable as you’d expect. Dystopian bangers. Illicit thrills. Stunning Luxury moves quickly through life in the capital: microdosing mindfulness in the morning, a poisoned nod to the marketing department, investment portfolios and death by same day delivery.

The primal rhythms and forest chants are all present and correct. On the surface it’s hedonistic business as usual – a communal dance for the ages. But there’s a sense of discomfort too. There’s subversion, but it’s not clear who’s subverting who. There’s a message, but it’s often fragmented. Keep dancing. Keep foraging. Perhaps the woodwose are human after all…

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Throbbing pulses, primal motorik melodies and fiery post-punk aggression spew forth from the sophomore Snapped Ankles outing. Continuing on from 2017 triumphant debut ‘Come Play The Trees’, it’s as if they were born to make this sound. A destabilizing stew that moves the body and the mind.

TRACK LISTING

CD: LP:
1. A1. Pestisound (Moving Out)
2. A2. Tailpipe
3. A3. Letter From Hampi Mountain
4. A4. Rechargeable
5. A5. Delivery Van
6. B1. Three Steps To A Development
7. B2. Skirmish In The Suburbs
8. B3. Dial The Rings On A Tree
9. B4. Drink And Glide
10. B5. Dream And Formaldehyde

Simbi Ajikawo, crowned Little Simz, lets her work do the talking - and her prolific releases and boundary-breaking achievements clearly tell a story of a pioneering hip-hop artist who leads the way on her own terms. Giving lauded, energetic performances, critically acclaimed albums, sold-out headline shows around the world, and international tours with the likes of Gorillaz, Anderson .Paak and Ab-Soul, this visionary 24 year old woman from North London is living out her childhood dreams to heights of excellence - and inspiring her generation to do the same.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: North London’s Little Simz has turned hip hop on its axis in recent years and excels herself with ‘Grey Area’, an LP exploding with high energy, rapid flow and sharp production. A bold and ingenious lyricist, she peppers her fourth album with twists of dry humour and quick wit; ‘had to let you mature like some fine wine’ from the hit track “Selfish” gets me every time. These comedic phrases are matched with provocative barbs and personal experiences, lending this flawless listen depth and realness. Her bars are intelligent and fierce, leaving no doubt that this is a powerful black female voice in hip hop whose importance should not be overlooked. “Pressure” juxtaposes melancholic piano chords with fat off-kilter beats, a balance which is mirrored by her emotive and gritty lyrics. Alongside this, “101 FM”s’ 8-bit beats are reminiscent of a forgotten game-console soundtrack, the perfect backdrop for a nostalgic narrative focusing on growing up in London and playing Mortal Kombat.
However “Venom” has to be the stand out track on the album for me, you can feel her rage as it strikes through each verse, exploring themes of inequality of race, gender and class throughout: “They would never wanna admit I'm the best here, from the mere fact that I've got ovaries”. The focus she draws upon surrounding her experience as a woman in hip-hop and within wider-society is refreshing and important. Her flow is incredible, I can’t do it justice to just say how good it actually is; this is one amazingly talented woman. If you listen to one song from this entire booklet, make it this.

TRACK LISTING

Offence
Boss
Selfish (Ft. Cleo Soul)
Wounds (Ft. Chronixx)
Venom
101FM
Pressure (Ft. Little Dragon)
Therapy
Sherbet Sunset
Flowers (Ft. Michael Kiwanuka)

Los Angeles-based artist SASAMI announces her self-titled debut album.

If you’ve ever drafted an overly long text to someone and decided against sending it, then you'll probably hear something of yourself in SASAMI. Los Angeles based songwriter and multiinstrumentalist Sasami Ashworth wrote the album’s ten tautly melodic rock tracks over the course of a year on tour, playing keys and guitar with Cherry Glazerr, tracking the thrills, disappointments and non-starters of a year spent newly single and on the road.

With featured artists Dustin Payseur (Beach Fossils), Devendra Banhart and Soko, this is a slice of 90s distorted guitar pop wonderment you won’t want to miss.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Wonderfully wonky at points, rhythmically diverse and musically immersive, Sasami's debut LP is an absolute storm of inventive poly-rhythms ('In Hollywood' is a prime example) presenting themselves without getting in the way of the listeners enjoyment. From tender, almost whispered vocals to huge distorted scree, this debut LP is an absolute rollercoaster, and unlike a rollercoaster, enjoyable throughout.

TRACK LISTING

I Was A Window (feat. Dustin Payseur)
Not The Time
Morning Comes
Free (feat. Devendra Banhart)
Pacify My Heart
At Hollywood
Jealousy
Callous
Adult Contemporary (feat. Soko)
Turned Out I Was Everyone

Brian Jonestown Massacre burst into 2019 with the release of their 18th full-length album, just 7 months after their last one. The self-titled 9-track album was recorded and produced at Anton’s Cobra Studio in Berlin and is release on Anton Newcombe’s A Recordings.

Recorded last year, the album features Sara Neidorf on drums, Heike Marie Radeker (LeVent) on bass, Hakon Adalsteinsson (BJM / Third Sound & Gunman & Holy Ghost) on guitar and Anton Newcombe on multiple instruments. Also making a guest vocal appearance on ‘Tombes Oubliées’ is Rike Bienert who has sung on previous BJM albums.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: You would think that after 17 studio albums fans might get a bit bored - or that a band might have lost its momentum - but the opposite is true on the aptly titled 'Brian Jonestown Massacre'. Despite sounding 100% like Anton Newcombe, the record feels fresh and relevant, much more so than the only recently released 'Something Else' if you ask me. Highly recommend!

TRACK LISTING

1) Drained
2) Tombes Oubliées
3) My Mind Is Filled With Stuff
4) Cannot Be Saved
5) A Word
6) We Never Had A Chance
7) Too Sad To Tell You
8) Remember Me This
9) What Can I Say

The Cinematic Orchestra are back with a definitive new album that explores a timeless question of vital importance in 2019 - what to believe? Founding member Jason Swinscoe and longtime partner Dominic Smith have enlisted album contributions from collaborators old and new: Moses Sumney, Roots Manuva, Heidi Vogel, Grey Reverend (vocalist on Bonobo’s 'First Fires’), Dorian Concept and Tawiah (Mark Ronson, Kindness). Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (Flying Lotus, Anderson Paak, Thundercat, Hiatus Kaiyote) features on strings and photographer and visual artist Brian “B+” Cross collaborated with Swinscoe and Smith on the album’s concept. The record was mixed by multiple Grammy winner Tom Elmhirst (David Bowie, Frank Ocean, Adele) in Jimi Hendrix’s legendary Electric Lady Studios. The album artwork comes courtesy of The Designers Republic™ (Aphex Twin).

In 2019 it is easy to see the band’s influence, jazz is all around us, London and LA have recently produced scenes more prolific than anyone expected; Kamasi Washington has been nominated for both Grammy and Brit Awards, Sons Of Kemet a Mercury Prize, BADBADNOTGOOD provide jazz soundtracks to high fashion shows and Kendrick Lamar has put the jazz palette at the top of the charts. When The Cinematic Orchestra released their critically acclaimed debut album “Motion” it helped pave the way for this moment, incorporating as it did an interpretation that had been lacking in the oeuvre and encouraging a new generation of musicians to break rules. “To Believe” doesn’t shy away from this ethos - its articulation of the band’s unique sonic language, encompassing not only jazz but the sort of transcendental orchestration combined with the elegant electronics of artists like Ólafur Arnalds and Floating Points, artists they have helped forge a path for, has never been more cohesive and compelling.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: This year is the 20th birthday of this prestigious band who, out of the fertile soils of UK jazz, hip-hop and electronica, have grown into a much-celebrated household name. What better crown to mark the end of their teens than ‘To Believe’. With another ambrosial list of vocal collaborations, its (notably) reduced number of tracks and a huge injection of neo-classical nuances, it aims its bow directly at the heart; a body of work that seems to exist and transmit out of a heavenly and divine realm. The band employ a beguiling tapestry of organic and electronic instruments, samples and improvisation throughout. There's a deliberate and considered higher consciousness to the entire album, like it's whispering into your ear late at night between the pillows. Sometimes like a snow-dusted fairytale with its highly cinematic string arrangements, at other's deeply introspective; it's the message that matters after everything else is removed, and on ‘I Believe’ we receive it with a fragile yet focussed intimacy.

TRACK LISTING

1. To Believe (feat. Moses Sumney)
2. A Caged Bird/Imitations Of Life (feat. Roots Manuva)
3. Lessons
4. Wait For Now/Leave The World (feat. Tawiah)
5. The Workers Of Art
6. Zero One/This Fantasy (feat. Grey Reverend)
7. A Promise (feat. Heidi Vogel)

From playing chaotic house parties in their home city of Oxford to becoming major festival headliners across Europe, Foals’ trajectory has been remarkable. They’ve earned critical acclaim (NME and Q Award wins, plus Mercury Prize, Ivor Novello and BRIT Award nominations) and fan devotion (1.7 million sales of their four Gold-certified albums) in equal measure. And while the majority of contemporaries have fallen by the wayside, Foals continue to hit new peaks.

After more than a decade in the game, Foals again embrace that love for the unconventional with the bravest and most ambitious project of their career: not one, but two astonishing new albums: ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost’. A pair of releases, separate but related, they share a title, themes and artwork. ‘Part 1’ is released on March 8th, with ‘Part 2’ following later in the year.

“They’re two halves of the same locket,” frontman Yannis Philippakis explains. “They can be listened to and appreciated individually, but fundamentally, they are companion pieces.”

Fundamentally tethered but possessing their own personalities, the two bodies capture the most compelling, ambitious and cohesive creations they’ve ever produced. Eager to break the traditional pop song structure which they felt they were becoming increasingly tapered to, the 20 tracks defy expectation. There are exploratory, progressive-tinged tracks alongside atmospheric segues which make the music an experience rather than a mere collection of songs. Yet the band’s renowned ability to wield relentless grooves with striking power and skyscraper hooks also reaches new heights.

The album’s lead single ‘Exits’ is a case in point, featuring Philippakis conjuring the image of a disorienting world via a contagious vocal melody. It’s a fresh anthem for Foals’ formidable arsenal, but also an ominous forecast.

“There's a definite idea about the world being no longer habitable in the way that it was,” says Yannis. “A kind of perilousness lack of predictability and a feeling of being overwhelmed by the magnitudes of the problems we face. What's the response? And what’s the purpose of any response that one individual can have?”

‘Exits’ signposts what to expect thematically from both instalments of ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost’. The title is a warning that anything – from the tiniest fleeting moment of inspiration through to the planet’s own biological diversity – can be under threat of being irrevocably erased.

It’s a theme that permeates throughout the album’s material, as Foal mirror the public neuroses that have been provoked by our current cultural climate. Paranoia of state surveillance? Fear of environmental collapse? Anxiety over Trump’s next potentially cataclysmic move? It’s all there in these apocalyptic songs.

“Lyrically, there are resonances with what's going on in the world at the moment,” summarises Yannis. “I just feel like, what’s the utility of being a musician these days, if you can’t engage with at least some of this stuff? These songs are white flags, or they’re SOSs, or they’re cries for help… each in a different way.”
The new albums’ journeys began as the ‘What Went Down’ era ended. Founding bassist Walter Gervers departed on amicable terms after playing the Festival Paredes de Coura in Portugal in August 2017. Foals felt that he couldn’t be replaced – a decision that ushered in a period of recalibration, reorganisation and, ultimately, rejuvenation.

After taking a little time out, Foals – completed by Jimmy Smith (guitar), Jack Bevan (drums) and Edwin Congreave (keys) reconvened – with Yannis on production duties, who, together with Edwin, also covered the bass parts. They began by writing in a rehearsal space before exporting those sketches into the recording phase at 123 Studios, Peckham, with the assistance of engineer Brett Shaw. They’d repeat the cycle between the two spaces, effectively creating an ongoing feedback loop as they sought to push every new idea to the finish line.

TRACK LISTING

1. Moonlight
2. Exits
3. White Onions
4. In Degrees
5. Syrups
6. On The Luna
7. Cafe D'Athens
8. Surf Pt.1
9. Sunday
10. I'm Done With The World (& It’s Done With Me)

Karen O says:  “After making music for the past twenty years and embarking on making this record with Danger Mouse I knew a couple things: one was that the spirit of collaboration between us was going to be a pure one, and two was that the more I live the less is clear to me. When you create from a blurry place you can go places further than you’ve ever been. I think we both were excited to go far out.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: The voice of the Naughties teams up with the producer to the (cool!) stars and the result is stunning! Karen O has been rather quiet lately. Her lo-fi solo record ‘Crush Songs’ (2014) was preceded by the least interesting Yeah Yeah Yeahs record so far (2013's ‘Mosquito’) so it’s really refreshing to firstly hear her in a new context, and secondly, singing some flipping good pop songs again. The title of this record loosely translates as “luxury first” and yes, it does what it says on the tin! Dangermouse mines a similar sonic seam to his cinematic soundscapes with Daniel Luppi (2011’s ‘Rome’) whilst of course staying true to his downtempo template. But with sweeping strings and beautiful blends of funk, pop, soul and disco, all luxuriously spacey and deliciously swoony, you’ll be in for a nice surprise: the mix with Karen’s distinctive voice really does work. She’s never sounded better.

TRACK LISTING

Lux Prima
Ministry
Turn The Light
Woman
Redeemer
Drown
Leopards Tongue
Reveries
Nox Lumina

Jenny Lewis returns with her fourth solo album, On The Line - the follow up to 2014’s critically acclaimed The Voyager.

The 11 all new original songs were written by Lewis and recorded at Capitol Records’ Studio B, and feature a backing band of legendary talent including Beck, Benmont Tench, Don Was, Jim Keltner, Ringo Starr and Ryan Adams. 

STAFF COMMENTS

David says: Jenny's fourth solo album is by a long way, her best. The self confessional songwriting that works its magic throughout 'On The Line' is like a gossipy phone call with your favourite (forsaken) 'bad' sister, full of tales of the kind of life you wish you were living and all delivered in THAT voice. Unmissable.

TRACK LISTING

1. Heads Gonna Roll
2. Wasted Youth
3. Red Bull & Hennessy
4. Hollywood Lawn
5. Do Si Do
6. Dogwood
7. Party Clown
8. Little White Dove
9. Taffy
10. On The Line
11. Rabbit Hole

THE PICCADILLY RECORDS ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2019.

W. H. Lung’s arrival at their debut album has been less conventional than most. A trait shared with the music they make, which weaves between shimmering synth pop and the infectious grooves of 70’s Berlin. The band never had any intention of playing live when forming, aiming instead to be a primarily studio-based project.

That approach was challenged when they released their debut 10” ('Inspiration!/Nothing Is') in 2017, which meant that they were quickly in demand. Booking requests started to flood in and W. H. Lung found themselves cutting their teeth on festival stages that summer. Though whilst some new bands may have let that interest change the course of the project, W. H. Lung stayed true to their original reticence and worked mainly as a studio band with their formidable live shows kept sporadic.

W. H. Lung have allowed this album to naturally gestate over the course of two years . The result is a remarkably considered debut - the production is crisp and pristine but not over-polished, the synths and electronics radiate and hum with a golden aura and the vocals weave between tender delivery and forceful eruptions. There is a palpable energy to the songs, as experienced in 10 glorious minutes of opening statement 'Simpatico People'.

“I think it’s important to erase the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture,” states Joseph E. This colliding of worlds not only exists in the potent mix between whip-smart arrangements, lyrics and seamlessly danceable music but also in the fact that they are named after a cash and carry in Manchester.

STAFF COMMENTS

Emily says: Around this time last year I found myself in Soup Kitchen’s basement with the rest of the Piccadilly crew, absorbed in what was unfolding onstage. A magnetic frontman was delivering half sung, half spoken vocals over a kaleidoscopic haze of synths and a propulsive motorik beat. It seems fitting that the group we were watching, W.H. Lung, are now sitting at the top of our chart a year later. The homegrown Manchester trio have coalesced a series of hypnotic, synth fuelled krautrock grooves into their first full length release ‘Incidental Music’. In it, they strike a perfect balance between taking reference from the past and keeping their gaze tilted towards the future. Well worth a listen!

Mine says: Possibly one of the most anticipated albums of the year here at Piccadilly (we wouldn't interrupt our Christmas do for just anyone but if it clashes with a W.H. Lung gig then that's where we end up!)... Like a joint effort from Talking Heads and NEU! thrown head first into 2019 with an extra portion of shimmery beats and hooks. PLAY IT LOUD!

Darryl says: One of the most assured and confident Mancunian debuts of the past few decades, ‘Incidental Music’ is a dream of a Piccadilly Records album. With its sparkling synth laden grooves, motorik beats, sweeping electronics, crisp guitar lines and a hazy psychedelic soundscape it’s no surprise that it’s united both the indie and dance staff divide and taken the number one spot this year. Two years in the making, this is a euphoric and fully-formed masterpiece.

Barry says: It's clear from the first moments of 'Incidental Music' that the title couldn't be any less true, moving from soaring echoing kosmische into a groove-led psychedelic soup in the blink of an eye. Rich in rhythm but still undeniably melody-led, W.H. Lung are at the top for the important reason that they are something different to everyone, and everything they are is undeniably brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Simpatico People 
2. Bring It Up 
3. Inspriation! 
4. An Empty Room
5. Nothing Is
6. Want
7. Second Death Of My Face
8. Overnight Phenomenon

Rozi Plain has been making music since her brother taught her a few chords on the guitar aged 13. Raised in Winchester, she spent a few years studying art and painting boats in Bristol, where she began collaborating with long-term friends Kate Stables (This Is The Kit) and Rachael Dadd among many others on a thriving local scene. It was there that Rozi made her first two albums, 2008’s Inside Over Here and 2012’s Joined Sometimes Unjoined, each works of deliciously sad and beautiful pop full of heart-wrenching harmonies dotted with unexpected instrumental flourishes. Released in April 2015 on Lost Map and featuring contributions from Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor among others her last album Friend was a deeply meaningful and wonderfully measured ode to memory, place, companionship and music’s remarkable power as an emotional salve. A companion album of remixes, unreleased tracks and radio sessions, Friend Of A Friend, was released in 2016.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Rozi Plain's distinctive, gentle delivery is the glue that binds this follow up to the sublime "Friends" together - it's a fuller, more coherent release than it's predecessor and no less gorgeous.

TRACK LISTING

1. Inner Circle
2. Swing Shut
3. Symmetrical
4. The Gap
5. Old Money
6. Conditions
7. Dark Park
8. Trouble
9. Quiz
10. When There Is No Sun

The phantom zone, the parallax, the upside down—there is a rich cultural history of exploring in-between places. Through her latest, Titanic Rising, Weyes Blood, a.k.a. Natalie Mering, has designed her own universe to soulfully navigate life’s mysteries. Maneuvering through a space-time continuum, she plays the role of melodic, sometimes melancholic, anthropologist. Tellingly, Mering classifies Titanic Rising – which was written and recorded during the first half of 2018, after three albums and years of touring - as the Kinks meet WWII or Bob Seger meets Enya. The latter captures the album’s willful expansiveness (“You can tell there’s not a guy pulling the strings in Enya’s studio,” she notes, admiringly). The former relays her imperative to connect with listeners. “The clarity of Bob Seger is unmistakable. I’m a big fan of conversational songwriting,” she adds. “I just try to do that in a way that uses abstract imagery as well.” The Weyes Blood frontwoman grew up singing in gospel and madrigal choirs. (Listen closely to Titanic Rising, and you’ll also hear the jazz of Hoagy Carmichael mingle with the artful mysticism of Alejandro Jodorowsky and the monomyth of scholar Joseph Campbell.) “Something to Believe,” a confessional that makes judicious use of the slide guitar, touches on that cosmological upbringing. “Belief is something all humans need. Shared myths are part of our psychology and survival,” she says. “Now we have a weird mishmash of capitalism and movies and science. There have been moments where I felt very existential and lost.” As a kid, she filled that void with Titanic. (Yes, the movie.) “It was engineered for little girls and had its own mythology,” she explains. Mering also noticed that the blockbuster romance actually offered a story about loss born of man’s hubris. “It’s so symbolic that The Titanic would crash into an iceberg, and now that iceberg is melting, sinking civilization.” Today, this hubris also extends to the relentless adoption of technology, at the expense of both happiness and attention spans. But Weyes Blood isn’t one to stew. Her observations play out in an ethereal saunter: far more meditative than cynical. To Mering, listening and thinking are concurrent experiences. “There are complicated influences mixed in with more relatable nostalgic melodies,” she says. “In my mind my music feels so big, a true production. I’m not a huge, popular artist, but I feel like one when I’m in the studio. But it’s never taking away from the music. I’m just making a bigger space for myself.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: A classy drift from psych-tinged folk to warm, honeyed West Coast soft rock; gorgeous early-70's singer-songwriter territory with the occasional whiff of Karen Carpenter, and all the melancholic sweep and drama you might expect. A surprising and beautiful return.

TRACK LISTING

A Lot's Gonna Change
Andromeda
Everyday
Something To Believe
Titanic Rising
Movies
Mirror Forever
Wild Time
Picture Me Better
Nearer To Thee

Folly is O’Sullivan’s second album under his own name and embodies a confident, evolution from his acclaimed debut Veld (2017, O Genesis), an album which distilled the multiverse into a rich and complex soundworld; textured and allusive, alive with sonic diversions, hypnotic mantras and ornately arranged songcraft.

Folly was written around the birth of his son Ari and the passing of his friend Ian Johnstone, and both events were significant in the album that followed. O’Sullivan explains, “Joy is inseparable from suffering and sometimes those polarities arrive at the same moment. Music offers a vessel to contain the unspeakable.”

This cycle of twelve songs deftly illustrates O'Sullivan's ascent as a unique and multidimensional songwriter. Moving from the familiar pantheon of experimental music and arriving upon a universal narrative probing the human condition from the inside out. Both lyrically and within the intricate lattice of arrangements, traditional forms are reshaped into transcendent pop symphonies. Both intimate and alien, archetypal and atypical, joyous and melancholic, the aperture of Folly is wide open and light streams in.

O’Sullivan explains the solo writing process, “Writing songs alone can take some time even if a song arrives fully formed in your mind. The execution of it involves long durations with each individual part of the arrangement until it reaches something concise. The song tells you what it needs and I try not to force ideas onto it.” and goes on to say, “These songs are outside in rather than inside out, there was always a latency between the birth of the song and my understanding of its purpose. Folly is looking at who is doing the shaping, most of these songs are about writing songs.”

Folly was recorded and mixed by Thighpaulsandra (Coil, Julian Cope Band, Spiritualized) at his Aeriel studio premises in Wales and mastered by Matt Colton at Alchemy.

Written mostly in London, O’Sullivan explains the inspiration for the title, “There's a folly of a medieval abbey in these gardens that surround where I live. My family and I spend a lot of time roaming around there, amongst the frogs, foxes, mushrooms, owls, and the many strange "introduced" plants and trees. It was landscaped to be a rabbit hole sort of place.”

Daniel O’Sullivan is a composer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist living and working in London and has been contributing a vibrant, chameleonic brew to the music landscape since the late 1990's. He has achieved international acclaim writing, recording and performing with Grumbling Fur (with longtime friend and collaborator Alexander Tucker), Ulver, Sunn O))), Guapo, Miracle, Æthenor and the recent reincarnation of This Heat in the form of This Is Not This Heat.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Air St Evignne
2. Under The Knife
3. Time Elapsing Blue
4. Rattleman
5. Honour Wave
6. Air Tunes
7. The Diamond Vehicle
8. Penny Rag
9. Silhouette
10. Utopiary
11. Amnion
12. The Coming Of Age Story

Hania Rani is a pianist, composer and musician who splits her life between Warsaw, where she makes her home, and Berlin where she studied and often works. She has written for strings, piano, voice and electronics and has collaborated with the likes of Christian Löffler, Dobrawa Czocher and Hior Chronik, and released an album with her Polish group tęskno last year. She has performed at some of the most prestigious venues in Europe - from the National Philharmony in Warsaw, to Funkhaus in Berlin, to The Roundhouse in London (where she made her debut at the Gondwana 10thanniversary festival last October) and at festivals such as Open'er, Scope Festival and Eurosonic. Her compositions for solo piano were born out of a fascination with the piano as an instrument, and her desire to interpret its sound and harmonic possibilities in their entirety and in her own way. "I think I am the same as an artist and as a person. Music is my way of communication and I see the art, the music as a whole thing, with no borders, divisions, or even genres."

Esja is her debut solo album and for Rani it is her first, real, personal statement as an artist. "No hiding behind the "collaborations" or "projects" anymore. For the very first time, finally - just me, as I am".

Recorded at Rani's apartment in Warsaw (the piano room has a beautiful reverb and the space has become part art studio and part sound laboratory for Rani) and at her friend Bergur Þórisson'sstudio in Reykjavik, Esja is a series of beautiful melodic vignettes. Sensual, sensitive, rhythmic, atmospheric, free but harmonious, beguiling and hypnotic, collectively they project a sense of unlimited space and time.

TRACK LISTING

1. Eden
2. Sun
3. Hawaii Oslo
4. Pour Trois
5. Biesy
6. Luka
7. Glass
8. Today It Came
9. Esja
10. Now, Run 

Shana Cleveland has been beguiling listeners for years in her role as the superlative frontwoman for elastic surf rockers La Luz. Now Cleveland is evolving her sound on the new solo full-length Night of the Worm Moon, a serene album that flows like a warm current while simultaneously wresting open a portal to another dimension. As much a work of California sci-fi as Octavia Butler’s Parable novels, Night of the Worm Moon incorporates everything from alternate realities to divine celestial bodies. Inspired in part by one of her musical idols, the Afro-futurist visionary Sun Ra (the album’s title is a tip of the hat to his 1970 release Night of the Purple Moon), the record blends pastoral folk with cosmic concerns.

Cleveland dreamt up this premise while living in Los Angeles, a city where--as deftly explored on La Luz’s recent Floating Features--reality and fantasy casually co-exist. Abetting Cleveland during the recording process was a familiar gallery of co-conspirators: multi-instrumentalist Will Sprott of Shannon & the Clams, original La Luz bassist Abbey Blackwell, Goss, pedal steel player Olie Eshelman, and Kristian Garrard, who drummed on Cleveland’s previous solo effort (with then-backing band The Sandcastles), 2011’s Oh Man, Cover the Ground.

But whereas that album was internal and contemplative, Night of the Worm Moon occupies a different, vibrant kind of headspace. UFO sightings, insect carcasses, and twilight dimensions are all grist for Cleveland’s restless creativity, and they and other inspirations collide beautifully on the album’s 10 kaleidoscopic tracks--a spacebound transmission from America’s weirdo frontier.

STAFF COMMENTS

Javi says: ‘Night of the Worm Moon’ is as much an album of acoustic lullabies as it is of shifting ethereal nightmares - and it’s this balance between the beautiful and the unnerving which allows Shana Cleveland’s ruminations on sleep, love, and identity to be so beguiling.
“Don’t Let Me Sleep” pulls us gently into this nocturnal world full of harps, zithers, vibraphones and lutes before second track and album highlight “Face of the Sun” trembles in, lilting between Latin guitar rhythms and wailing slide guitar. There are such nods to spaghetti western soundtracks throughout the album, in both the instrumentation and the slow, trundling tempo of tracks like “Solar Creep” and masterful “Invisible When The Sun Leaves”.
That’s not to say the album is a wholly analogue affair, though - the synth bass and eerie affected whistles of “The Fireball” are just as poignant as the more stripped back moments. At times the bass sounds like it’s going to swallow the song whole, lending a sense of intense anxiety to the proceedings, sucking the listener in.
If La Luz are the sound of bright summer days spent surfing and swimming in the sun, then ‘Night of the Worm Moon’ - the debut solo offering by frontwoman Shana Cleveland - shows us a parallel world that only appears once the sun has set and the stars have taken its place in the sky. From the first tender plucks to the final twilit twinkles, Cleveland has crafted an album as warm as it is melancholy, and as intimate as it is intoxicating.

TRACK LISTING

1. Don’t Let Me Sleep
2. Face Of The Sun
3. In Another Realm
4. Castle Milk
5. Night Of The Worm Moon
6. Invisible When The Sun Leaves
7. The Fireball
8. Solar Creep
9. A New Song
10. I’ll Never Know

After a handful of singles (all of are included here), one of the most talked about new bands of the last 12 months finally release their debut album. Their visceral pop has drawn comparisons to Idles amongst others, but what really stands out and sets them apart is their roots. Straight from the off, there is no doubt where they’re from; Irish through and through. Their hometown of Dublin is a constant reference point throughout from it’s literary past to modern day life in the city. Considering the band have only actually been a band for three years, this is a remarkably assured debut that’s hard to ignore.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: One of the year's most eagerly awaited albums did not disappoint when it arrived in April. A punk/post punk rock'n'roll band who actually sing about stuff, this record hits with the power of an early Smiths, Arctic Monkeys or even Oasis (more in attitude than anything else). It's like a poem to Dublin, getting out as much as revelling in, and singer Grian Chatten is the most authentic frontman we've heard in a long time.

TRACK LISTING

1 Big
2 Sha Sha Sha
3 Too Real
4 Television Screens
5 Hurricane Laughter
6 Roy's Tune
7 The Lotts
8 Chequeless Reckless
9 Liberty Belle
10 Boys In The Better Land
11 Dublin City Sky

Not Waving, But Drowning’ follows Loyle’s BRIT (Best Male, Best Newcomer) and Mercury Prize nominated, top 20 debut ‘Yesterday’s Gone’. The bedrock of honest and raw sentimentality that you heard on ‘Yesterday’s Gone’ left an inextinguishable mark on music in general and UK Hip Hop in particular, standing out as an ageless, bulletproof debut.

‘Not Waving, But Drowning’, Loyle’s new album, gives yet more evidence - as if it were needed - of his razor-sharp flow and his unique storytelling ability. Yes, he can rap, but he allies that with the sensitivity of a poet, the observational skills of a novelist, and warmth of your best friend. The album opens with ‘Dear Jean’, a letter to his mother in which he’s telling her that he has found the love of his life, “a woman from the skies”, and he’s moving out.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Loyle Carner’s poetic and distinctive rap makes him stand out from the crowd by miles, consistently making innovative music. His ability to weave in touching narratives and heartfelt open letters are captured perfectly on ‘Not Waving, But Drowning’, a truly beautiful and awe inspiring listen from start to finish.

TRACK LISTING

Dear John
Angel Artist Ft. Tom Misch
Ice Water
Ottolenghi Ft. Jordan Rakei
You Don’t Know Ft. Rebel Kleff & Kiko Bun
Still
It’s Coming Home
Desoleil (Brilliant Corners) Ft. Sampha
Loose Ends Ft. Jorja Smith
Not Waving, But Drowning
Krispy
Sail Away Freestyle
Looking Back
Carluccio
Dear Ben

Serfs Up! is Fat White Family’s third album and their first for new label Domino. It marks the most gratifying and unexpected creative volte face in recent musical history.

Having released their second album, Songs For Our Mothers in January 2016, core-members Lias and Nathan Saoudi relocated to Sheffield and set about writing the album. Joined by co-conspirator Saul Adamczewski and recorded at their own Champzone studios in the Attercliffe area of the city, Serfs Up! was finished in late autumn 2018 with the help of long-time collaborator, Liam D. May and features a guest appearance from Baxter Dury on Tastes Good With The Money.

Serfs Up! is a lush and masterful work, lascivious and personal. Tropical, sympathetic and monumental. It invites the listener in rather than repel them through wilful abrasion. Fat White Family have broken previous default patterns of behaviour, and as such their third album heralds a new day dawning.

Gregorian chants, jackboot glam beats, string flourishes, sophisticated and lush cocktail exotica, electro funk and the twin spirits of Alan Vega and Afrika Bambaataa punctuate the record at various junctures, while the dramatic production of Feet is as immaculately-rendered as ‘Hounds of Love’-era Kate Bush. The dirt is still there of course, but scrape it away and you’ll find a purring engine, gleaming chrome.

Echoing within the arrangements throughout are traces of blissed-out 60s Tropicalia, Velvets/Bowie sleaze-making and star-gazing, 80s digital dancehall, David Axelrod-style easy listening, joyous Pet Shop Boys synth crescendos, acid house, post-PIL dub, metropolitan murder ballads, doom-disco and mouth-gurning, slow-mo psychedelia so by the time it comes to a close only a fool would deny that Serfs Up! is something very special. No longer is unadulterated music malevolence Fat White Family’s stock in trade; this is cultivated music for the head, the heart. For tomorrow’s unborn children.

Where once they soundtracked a grubby Britain of vape shops, Fray Bentos dinners and blackened tin-foil, a crepuscular comedown realm stalked by Shipman, Goebbels and Mark E. Smith, Fat White Family now inhabit another cosmos entirely. Serfs Up! is the product of a band of outlaws reborn. Few but themselves could have forecast it: Fat White Family survived. Fat White Family got wise. Fat White Family got sophisticated.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Fat White Family’s turbulent and well documented Peckham squat/smack/crack background has found unfiltered expression in their anarchic output, exacting gleeful slaughter on common decency and sacred cows alike. Both artwork and lyrics are used as iconoclastic dirty bombs; butchered Nazi and Communist symbolism, the IRA, dead pigs, big cocks, Harold Shipman and your mum have been deployed with a complete lack of due reverence. Decamping to Sheffield, kicking heroin and recent diversions into more melodic side projects might have led them into calmer and broader sonic waters, taking in glam, corrupted disco and cod reggae, but they are still viciously irreverent. Amongst the carnage, Kim Jong Un’s nuclear potential is saluted in the Balearic balm of “Kim’s Sunsets”, “Tastes Good With The Money” makes bitter reference to wealthy sightseers of Grenfell and the dark disco rampage of “Feet” to the human cost of war in Syria.
It ought to have been a shambles, but it actually works just beautifully.

TRACK LISTING

1. Feet
2. I Believe In Something Better
3. Vagina Dentata
4. Kim’s Sunsets
5. Fringe Runner
6. Oh Sebastian
7. Tastes Good With The Money
8. Rock Fishes
9. When I Leave
10. Bobby’s Boyfriend

After scoring a breakout success (and Piccadilly End Of Year nod) with their debut LP "On", Altın Gün return with an exhilarating second album. “Gece” firmly establishes the band as essential interpreters of the Anatolian rock and folk legacy and as a leading voice in the emergent global psych-rock scene. Explosive, funky and transcendent.  The world is rarely what it seems. A quick glance doesn’t always reveal the full truth. To find that, you need to burrow deeper. Listen to Altın Gün, for example: they sound utterly Turkish, but only one of the Netherlands based band’s six members was actually born there. And while their new album, Gece, is absolutely electric, filled with funk-like grooves and explosive psychedelic textures, what they play - by their own estimation - is folk music. “It really is,” insists band founder and bass player Jasper Verhulst. “The songs come out of a long tradition. This is music that tries to be a voice for a lot of other people.”

While most of the material here has been a familiar part of Turkish life for many years - some of it associated with the late national icon Neşet Ertaş – it’s definitely never been heard like this before. This music is electric Turkish history, shot through with a heady buzz of 21st century intensity. Pumping, flowing, a new and leading voice in the emergent global psych scene. “We do have a weak spot for the music of the late ‘60s and ‘70s,” Verhulst admits. “With all the instruments and effects that arrived then, it was an exciting time. Everything was new, and it still feels fresh. We’re not trying to copy it, but these are the sounds we like and we’re trying to make them our own.”

And what they create really is theirs. Altın Gün radically reimagine an entire tradition. The electric saz (a three-string Turkish lute) and voice of Erdinç Ecevit (who has Turkish roots) is urgent and immediately distinctive, while keyboards, guitar, bass, drums, and percussion power the surging rhythms and Merve Daşdemir (born and raised in Istanbul) sings with the mesmerizing power of a young Grace Slick. This isn’t music that seduces the listener: it demands attention.

Altın Gün – the name translates as “golden day” - are focused, relentless and absolutely assured in what they do. What is remarkable is the band has only existed for two years and didn’t play in public until November 2017; now they have almost 200 shows under their belt. It all grew from Verhulst’s obsession with Turkish music. He’d been aware of it for some time but a trip to Istanbul while playing in another band gave him the chance to discover so much more. But Verhulst wasn’t content to just listen, he had a vision for what the music could be. And Altın Gün was born. “For me, finding out about this music is crate digging,” he admits. “None of it is widely available in the Netherlands. Of course, since our singers are Turkish, they know many of these pieces. All this is part of the country’s musical past, their heritage, like 'House of The Rising Sun' is in America.” As Verhulst delves deeper and deeper into old Turkish music, he’s constantly seeking out things that grab his ear.

“I’m listening for something we can change and make into our own. You have to understand that most of these songs have had hundreds of different interpretations over the years. We need something that will make people stop and listen, as if it’s the first time they’ve heard it.” It’s a testament to Altın Gün’s work and vision that everything on Gece sounds so cohesive. They bring together music from many different Anatolian sources (the only original is the improvised piece “Şoför Bey”) so that it bristles with the power and tightness of a rock band; echoing new textures and radiating a spectrum of vibrant color (ironic, as gece means “night” in Turkish). It’s the sound of a band both committed to its sources and excitedly transforming them. It’s the sound of Altın Gün. Incandescent and sweltering.

Creating the band’s sound is very much a collaborative process, Verhulst explains. “Sometimes me or the singer will come in with a demo of our ideas. Sometimes an idea will just come up and we’ll work on it together at rehearsals. However we start, it’s always finished by the whole band. We can feel very quickly if it’s going to work, if this is really our song.” Just how Altın Gün can collectively spark and burn is evident in the YouTube concert video they made for the legendary Seattle radio station KEXP. In just under 20 minutes they set out their irresistible manifesto for an electrified, contemporary Turkish folk rock. It’s utterly compelling. And with around 800,000 views, it has helped make them known around the world. “It certainly got us a lot of attention,” Verhulst agrees. “I think a lot of that interest originally came from Turkey, plenty of people there shared it.”

That might be how it began, but it’s not the whole tale. The waves have spread far beyond the Bosphorus. What started out as a deep passion for Turkish folk and psychedelia has taken on a resonance that now travels widely. The band has played all over Europe, has ventured to Turkey and Australia and will soon bring their music to North America for the first time. “Not a lot of other bands are doing what we do,” he says, “playing songs in that style and seeing folk music in the same way.”

Altın Gün are: Ben Rider (guitar) / Daniel Smienk (drums) / Erdinç Ecevit (synths, saz, vocals) / Gino Groenveld (percussion) / Jasper Verhulst (electric bass) / Merve Daşdemir (vocals, keys)

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Almost exactly one year after their debut album ‘On’ has taken us by storm, Altin Gün return with their follow-up ‘Gece’, on which the six piece continue their journey through the vast and wonderful world of Turkish folk, funk and psychedelia - more of the same, but different, so to speak. Similar to ‘On’, ‘Gece’ sees the band reinterpret old Turkish folk songs by the likes of Ne?et Erta? and the result has not only impressed fans of Turkish music. In fact, a lot of their fans outside Turkey have probably never heard any of the originals before and while Altin Gün pay homage to these artists, their interpretations don’t bear much resemblance to the originals after they’ve been given a new lease of life by the Dutch-based band. Groovy bass lines, cosmic synths and wah wah guitars melt into an addictive concoction of Anatolian rock, funk and psychedelia which has been taken a step further on ‘Gece’ where the band seem eager to try new things and to develop their sound. The record sounds bigger and bolder, sometimes fuzzier and rockier, sometimes more electronic and spaced out than its predecessor. Both are absolutely brilliant and I couldn’t pick a favourite, but if you have enjoyed ‘On’ there is no question you will also like ‘Gece’. And if you’ve never heard of Altin Gün before, give ‘Gece’ a spin. It’s an absolute delight.

TRACK LISTING

Yolcu (2:38)
Vay Dunya (4:18)
Leyla (3:17)
Anlatmam Derdimi (4:13)
Sofor Bey (3:13)
Derdimi Dokersem (3:53)
Kolbasti (3:27)
Ervah-I Ezelde (4:45)
Gesi Baglari (1:51)
Supurgesi Yoncadan (5:29)

"Juan Pablo: The Philosopher" has been one of our favourite releases here at Piccadilly in recent years, so we were utterly buzzing to hear word of a new LP from the mighty Ezra Collective. Soon enough the London five-piece furnished us with a promo CD, and it's been on the Piccadilly player ever since. Continuing the genre-bending journey they began on "Juan Pablo", "You Can't Steal My Joy" sees the ensemble apply their incredible musicianship to elements of Afrobeat, hip-hop, grime and dub, wrapping their diverse influences into their fearless, fun and contemporary take on jazz. If you needed any further evidence of their top tier credentials, they recently broke off from a sold out, mosh-pit-filled UK tour to play at Quincy Jones' birthday party - nuff respect. This is the jazz sound of 2019 folks - get joyful.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Contemporary Jazz 5-piece Ezra Collective have encapsulated joy in record form, and you can feel the happiness radiating through the tracks here, especially “Chris And Jane” and “Quest For Coin”. My record of the year by far, Afro-beat meets Jazz meets Hip Hop makes for a glorious combination to put you in an upbeat mood.

TRACK LISTING

DISC 1
SIDE A
1. Space Is The Place (Reprise)
2. Why You Mad?
3. Red Whine
4. Quest For Coin

SIDE B
1. Reason In Disguise Feat. Jorja Smith
2. What Am I To Do? Feat. Loyle Carner
3. Chris And Jane

DISC 2
SIDE C
1. People Saved
2. Philosopher II

SIDE D
1. São Paulo
2. King Of The Jungle
3. You Can't Steal My Joy
4. Shakara Feat. KOKOROKO

Aldous Harding releases her third album, Designer. Designer finds the New Zealander hitting her creative stride. After the sleeper success of the internationally lauded Party, Harding came off a 100-date tour last summer and went straight into the studio with a collection of songs written on the road.

Reuniting with John Parish, producer of Party, Harding spent 15 days recording and 10 days mixing at Rockfield Studios, Monmouth and Bristol’s J&J Studio and Playpen. From the bold strokes of opening track ‘Fixture Picture’, there is an overriding sense of an artist confident in their work, with contributions from Huw Evans (H. Hawkline), Stephen Black (Sweet Baboo), drummer Gwion Llewelyn and violinist Clare Mactaggart broadening and complimenting Harding’s rich and timeless songwriting.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another stunning LP from Harding here, being a favourite in the shop, we're no newbies to her own brand of rhythmic country-tinged melodic indie, but this time around we get the Welsh input from Huw Hawkline and Steve Baboo, both acts i'm well accustomed with from my time in Cardiff, and both perfectly fitting in to Harding's musical world. Beautiful stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fixture Picture
2. Designer
3. Zoo Eyes
4. Treasure
5. The Barrel
6. Damn
7. Weight Of The Planets
8. Heaven Is Empty
9. Pilot

London-based psychedelic stalwarts Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation are proud to reveal their third album 'Sacred Dreams' for Rocket Recordings. Continuing to dive into the deeper waters of experimentation, ‘Sacred Dreams’ is both a musically hefty amalgamation of reverb drenched space-rock and retro centric electronics, as well as an emotionally cathartic release for the band, marking a new direction and fresh approach.

Since their critically acclaimed album 'Mirage' was released, Josefin and writing partner Fredrik have relocated from Stockholm to London and have created a new Liberation around them - this new band consists of the powerful and intuitive assemblage of musicians; Maki (Go Team), Patrick C Smith (Eskimo Chain), Matt Loft (Lola Colt) and Ben Ellis, who’s worked with both Iggy Pop and Swervedriver. ‘Sacred Dreams’ was largely recorded at Press Play Studios (King Krule, Fat White Family, Yves Tumor, Stereolab, High Llamas and many others) run by Andy Ramsay of Stereolab, who also produced and even programmed his non synced drum machines adding a lot of inspiration to the album.

‘Scared Dreams’ invites you into the bands own dimensional soundscape, a world built with transcendental guitars, driving grooves and otherworldly, enchanting vocals, altogether seeped in layers of blissfully produced synths. Opener and lead single ‘Feel The Sun’ encapsulates this new direction perfectly before the anthemic ‘I Can Feel It’ makes the bands intentions known. Elsewhere playful 80s electronics sit alongside a shoegaze sensibility effortlessly and amongst the textured flow of the LP emerge pop hooks like the infectiously bluesy ‘Baby Come On’.

Josefin tells us “This album comes out of a period of heartbreak, loss and dissolution, but also of deep love, warmth and beauty unveiled in the middle of it. A sacred dream, the way we see it, is not necessarily a golden fluffy cloud river, but instead also contains all the shadows that need to be seen and felt in order to drop what has to go in order to truly live. And the dissonance of such a dream may not be immediately apparent, let alone the meaning of it. In a way all of these tracks seem to emanate from that place where we have almost reached a new shore, or maybe we missed it and are headed somewhere else entirely, but there’s no way of telling until afterwards.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: After the experimental krautrock LP ‘Horse Dance’ (2015) and the pulsing psychedelia on shop-favourite ‘Mirage’ (2016), London-based Swedes Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation return with their most diverse album to date, showcasing a variation of sounds, including, but not limited to, 80s synths, trippy, reverb-laden guitars and dreamy, 60s inspired pop. ‘Sacred Dreams’, which was written during a ”period of heartbreak, loss and dissolution”, is less of a sonic journey than its predecessors and instead seems to show that Josefin and her band don’t want to be confined to a particular genre. After opening with the electronic and motorik dance tracks “Feel The Sun”; “I Can Feel It” and “Desire” the Spiritualized-esque “Hey Little Boy”, the transcendental “Only Lovers” and the blues stomper “Baby Come On” lead the album into a hazier, mellower and more psychedelic direction.

TRACK LISTING

01/ Feel The Sun
02/ Honey Slumber
03/ I Can Feel It
04/ Desire
05/ Hey Little Boy
06/ Only Lovers
07/ Baby Come On
08/ New Horizons
09/ Caramel Head
10/ Let It Come
11/ Whatever You Want
12/ Floating Away

U.F.O.F., F standing for ‘Friend’, is the name of the highly anticipated third record by Big Thief, set to be released by 4AD on May. It was recorded in rural western Washington at Bear Creek Studios with engineer Dom Monks, and producer Andrew Sarlo who was also behind their previous albums.

The New York-based band, featuring Adrianne Lenker (guitar, vocals), Buck Meek (guitar), Max Oleartchik (bass), and James Krivchenia (drums), has spent the last 4 years on an incessant world tour, winning the devotion of an enthusiastic and rapidly expanding audience.

Their songs represent an emotional bravery and realness that weaves intimate relationships with the listener, a phenomenon that has made them one of the most widely-respected bands of the current era.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Big Thief are one of our favourites in Piccadilly, and this latest iteration of their sound really shows why. Skilfully toeing the line between mournful acoustic balladry, simmering country and more upbeat melodic indie, Big Thief have once again brought us an eminently listenable and transportative triumph.

TRACK LISTING

1. Contact
2. UFOF
3. Cattails
4. From
5. Open Desert
6. Orange
7. Century
8. Strange
9. Betsy
10. Terminal Paradise
11. Jenni
12. Magic Dealer

International psych explorers Flamingods are back with brand new album ‘Levitation’ coming out on via Moshi Moshi Records.

Inspired largely by the disco, funk and psychedelic sounds coming out of the Middle East and South Asia in the 70s, the album channels these influences through a vision soaked in mysticism, positivity and sun-drenched imagery.

During the process of writing and recording ‘Levitation’, Flamingods for the first time in four years found themselves living in the same continent, it’s this new unified feel that defines the confident and eclectic sound of the album.

‘Levitation’ is the follow-up to Flamingods’ breakthrough 2016 album ‘Majesty’ and follows their ‘Kewali’ EP release for Moshi Moshi in 2017 and a one-off release with Dan Carey for his Speedy Wunderground singles club. During this time they’ve performed live sessions at 6Music (with Gilles Peterson & Lauren Laverne), KEXP, Boiler Room and have been travelling the globe spreading their exotic psychedelia to the masses and getting people dancing from Austin to Amsterdam. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Flamingods return, bringing with them a brilliantly psychedelic mix of eastern-influenced groove, dreamy anthemic pop and acid-tinged folk. With pummeling percusion and rolling distorted bass holding down the backline, the guitars and echoing vox are allowed free-reign over the sonic spectrum. Killer stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Paradise Drive
2. Koray
3. Marigold
4. Astral Plane
5. Peaches
6. Moonshine On Water
7. Olympia
8. Club Coco
9. Mantra East
10. Nizwa
11. Levitation 

"Age Of The Ego" is the immaculately-crafted eighth album by dance-music-national-treasures Crazy P. Fans of Fleetwood Mac, Peter Gabriel, Grace Jones, Arthur Russell, Jam Hammer, Prince and Bobby O will find much to like, but this is clearly modern music, where heavy clubs beats are layered-up with perfectly-placed arrangement, ace playing and stratospheric soundscapes. Musically, Crazy P’s breadth of studio and writing experience shines brighter than ever, and "Age Of The Ego" has their unmistakeable stamp of quality, but is now augmented with a broader palate, and - like many - a feeling of upset with the state of the world.

'I don't usually write my lyrics in advance, as I feel they’re expressed better in tandem with the music, which seems to help tap into my subconscious. What came out on several tracks was Brexit, the state of UK politics and the way I feel about divisive, abhorrent manipulation by certain media outlets. Thematically parts of album were also influenced by the rise of social media, the struggling education system and how it’s failing our young, and the impact all of this has on us. It’s been hard to not be emotionally influenced by the situation we find ourselves in; not just in this country, but worldwide. I feel very angry and frustrated, but sometimes have to laugh at myself, because I struggle to articulate my feelings in normal conversation. I suppose lyrically it is political, a reflection of the times, but with a twist of humour and always a lot of love,' explains Danielle.

Ok but what do we think? Obviously, it's quite bitter sweet hearing Dani express herself this way; as their music has always sought to uplift and elevate through the optimistic and energetic vibe of disco's past glories. Don't worry though, the music still shines, and the grooves are here to make you wobbly, dance and jump; but look beyond that and there's some inspired lyrical genius contained within. And for that we have to applaud Danielle - it'd be very easy to ignore the current world situation and bury your head in a sand of instagram posts and self-indulgent tweetings. Instead Danielle, and the rest of the band of course, have taken the moral stand and addressed the issue. When musicians have the platform and influence that they do, Dani almost makes it seem criminal that on the whole the music community doesn't do more to change things. Here's to the revolution! 

TRACK LISTING

1. Is This All It Seems
2. The Witness
3. SOS
4. We Will F**K You Up
5. Kari
6. Barefooted
7. Step Into The Light
8. Love Is With You
9. This Fire
10. Lean On Me
11. Night Rain

New album from the Malmo-based trio of Marleen Nilsson, Anders Hansson and Magners Bodin.

Following the critically-acclaimed ‘To Where The Wild Things Are’ from 2015 and their haunting collection of soundtracks in between.

“Lush and enveloping, reminiscent of Curt Boettcher and Margo Guryan.” The Wire. 

“Fantastically eerie.” Clash.

Exposing the trio’s love of all things retro with a nod to everything from Fun Boy Three to Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Contonou, while still roaming somewhere between an ambient Eno and Cocteau Twins at a late-night soiree. A unique, individual sound: Longer, more plush and pampered; more hypnotic and haunting, mixing mellotron and affected guitar with a refined rhythm. Electronic melancholy at its most evocative, riddled with super-memorable motifs and melodies that nestle in reflective echo.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Death and Vanilla have eschewed their classic sound slightly for a more open and airy offering, channelling the vibes of 70's soundtracks, hazy psychedelia and tie-dyed synthplay as well as their more direct offerings mixed in for good measure. Definitely the soundtrack to the summer. Stunning stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Flaw In The Iris
2. Let's Never Leave Here
3. Mercier
4. Eye Bath
5. The Hum
6. Nothing Is Real
7. Vespertine
8. Wallpaper Pattern

"Hi, Mac Here. First off, thank you for listening to my new record. This one is my cowboy record. Cowboy is a term of endearment to me, I use it often when referring to people in my life. The rusty old grinning pin on the front and back covers of the record was purchased from a man in the mountains somewhere in the Nantahala National Forest between Chattanooga, TN and Asheville, NC.

Where I grew up there are many people that sincerely wear cowboy hats and do cowboy activities, these aren’t the people I’m referring to. Before realizing that your surroundings don’t necessarily define who you are, I felt very uncomfortable in the company of that culture. This record was recorded in my garage during the first two weeks of January 2019. I played all the instruments, except for a little bit of keyboard here and there, which was played by my touring keyboard player, and friend for most o me life now, Alec Meen. My travelling sound man Yakitori Santar helped me track it and put it together as well. It was raining a lot in Los Angeles while we were recording, you can hear it tapping on the windows of the garage here and there if you listen closely."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Classic Mac this, snappy CR-78, lo-fi chord swells and Demarco's unmistakeable vocals. Add these classic sounds to the more esoteric offerings (the simmering funk of 'Choo Choo' or the minimalist lolloping groove of 'Nobody' for example) and you have the most rounded and satisfying offering yet.

TRACK LISTING

1. Here Comes The Cowboy
2. Nobody
3. Finally Alone
4. Little Dogs March
5. Preoccupied
6. Choo Choo
7. K
8. Heart To Heart
9. Hey Cowgirl
10. On The Square
11. All Of Our Yesterdays
12. Skyless Moon
13. Baby Bye Bye

‘Colours. Reflect. Time. Loss.’ is a career-defining, ambitious album that sees the bedroom producer step out of the bedroom with his most collaborative project to date, including work with classical ensemble The Echo Collective, percussionists and guest vocalists from across the world.

These stunning, immersive and impressionistic songs, scored and produced by Maps himself, are inspired by an orchestral approach and by the rolling Northamptonshire countryside beyond the window of his studio, which provides peace, isolation and inspiration.

“I wanted to push everything to the limit with this record, and explore new territory for Maps. The orchestral instrumentation and addition of other musicians and singers played a huge part in finding the purer and more human emotion I was searching for. I learnt the violin as I was growing up, so I’m glad it finally came in useful!” (Maps)

Three years in the making, ‘Colours. Reflect. Time. Loss.’ is informed by the richness of life experience. It is an album he could only have made now and one that represents a creative reinvention for Maps.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Chapman has created his opus here, swinging from soaring anthemic rock to brittle shoegazing ambience in the blink of an eye, but bolseted throughout with a firm emphasis on driven percussion and shimmering synths to keep things moving forward in spectacular fashion. A shining and spine-tingling collection, an absolute career high.

TRACK LISTING

1 Surveil
2 Both Sides
3 Howl Around
4 Wildfire
5 Just Reflecting
6 She Sang To Me
7 Sophia
8 The Plans We Made
9 New Star
10 You Exist In Everything

In the clip of an older Eartha Kitt that everyone kicks around the internet, her cheekbones are still as pronounced as many would remember them from her glory days on Broadway, and her eyes are still piercing and inviting. She sips from a metal cup. The wind blows the flowers behind her until those flowers crane their stems toward her face, and the petals tilt upward, forcing out a smile. A dog barks in the background. In the best part of the clip, Kitt throws her head back and feigns a large, sky-rattling laugh upon being asked by her interviewer whether or not she’d compromise parts of herself if a man came into her life. When the laugh dies down, Kitt insists on the same, rhetorical statement. “Compromise!?!?” she flings. “For what?”

She repeats “For what?” until it grows more fierce, more unanswerable. Until it holds the very answer itself.

On the hook to the song “Eartha,” Jamila Woods sings “I don’t want to compromise / can we make it through the night” and as an album, Legacy! Legacy! stakes itself on the uncompromising nature of its creator, and the histories honored within its many layers. There is a lot of talk about black people in America and lineage, and who will tell the stories of our ancestors and their ancestors and the ones before them. But there is significantly less talk about the actions taken to uphold that lineage in a country obsessed with forgetting. There are hands who built the corners of ourselves we love most, and it is good to shout something sweet at those hands from time to time. Woods, a Chicago-born poet, organizer, and consistent glory merchant, seeks to honor black people first, always. And so, Legacy! Legacy! A song for Zora! Zora, who gave so much to a culture before she died alone and longing. A song for Octavia and her huge and savage conscience! A song for Miles! One for Jean-Michel and one for my man Jimmy Baldwin!

More than just giving the song titles the names of historical black and brown icons of literature, art, and music, Jamila Woods builds a sonic and lyrical monument to the various modes of how these icons tried to push beyond the margins a country had assigned to them. On “Sun Ra,” Woods sings “I just gotta get away from this earth, man / this marble was doomed from the start” and that type of dreaming and vision honors not only the legacy of Sun Ra, but the idea that there is a better future, and in it, there will still be black people.

Jamila Woods has a voice and lyrical sensibility that transcends generations, and so it makes sense to have this lush and layered album that bounces seamlessly from one sonic aesthetic to another. This was the case on 2016’s HEAVN, which found Woods hopeful and exploratory, looking along the edges resilience and exhaustion for some measures of joy. Legacy! Legacy! is the logical conclusion to that looking. From the airy boom-bap of “Giovanni” to the psychedelic flourishes of “Sonia,” the instrument which ties the musical threads together is the ability of Woods to find her pockets in the waves of instrumentation, stretching syllables and vowels over the harmony of noise until each puzzle piece has a home. The whimsical and malleable nature of sonic delights also grants a path for collaborators to flourish: the sparkling flows of Nitty Scott on “Sonia” and Saba on “Basquiat,” or the bloom of Nico Segal’s horns on “Baldwin.”

Soul music did not just appear in America, and soul does not just mean music. Rather, soul is what gold can be dug from the depths of ruin, and refashioned by those who have true vision. True soul lives in the pages of a worn novel that no one talks about anymore, or a painting that sits in a gallery for a while but then in an attic forever. Soul is all the things a country tries to force itself into forgetting. Soul is all of those things come back to claim what is theirs. Jamila Woods is a singular soul singer who, in voice, holds the rhetorical demand. The knowing that there is no compromise for someone with vision this endless. That the revolution must take many forms, and it sometimes starts with songs like these. Songs that feel like the sun on your face and the wind pushing flowers against your back while you kick your head to the heavens and laugh at how foolish the world seems.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Jamila Woods returns with her soul-filled lyrics and incredible, strong vocals. The song titles are named after inspiration black people in creative industries and in her lyrics incorporates their experiences and how they came to be. The album is truly beautiful and holds the same strength and passion as her debut, Heavn.

TRACK LISTING

BETTY
ZORA
GIOVANNI
SONIA (ft Nitty Scott)
FRIDA
EARTHA
MILES
MUDDY
BASQUIAT (ft Saba)
SUN RA (ft TheMIND &
Jasminfire)
OCTAVIA
BALDWIN (ft Nico Segal)
BETTY (for Boogie)

I Am Easy To Find is the band’s eighth studio album and the follow-up to 2017’s GRAMMY®-award winning release Sleep Well Beast. A companion short film with the same name will also be released with music by The National and inspired by the album. The film was directed by Academy Award-nominated director Mike Mills (20th Century Women, Beginners), and starring Academy Award Winner Alicia Vikander. Mills, along with the band, is credited as co-producer of the album, which was mostly recorded at Long Pond, Hudson Valley, NY with additional sessions in Paris, Berlin, Cincinnati, Austin, Dublin, Brooklyn and more far flung locations. The album features vocal contributions from Sharon Van Etten, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Lisa Hannigan, Mina Tindle and more.

I Am Easy to Find is a 24-minute film by Mills starring Alicia Vikander, and a 68-minute album by the National. The former is not the video for the latter; the latter is not the soundtrack to the former. The two projects are, as Mills calls them, “Playfully hostile siblings that love to steal from each other”—they share music and words and DNA and impulses and a vision about what it means to be human in 2019, but don’t necessarily need one another. The movie was composed like a piece of music; the music was assembled like a film, by a film director. The frontman and natural focal point was deliberately and dramatically sidestaged in favour of a variety of female voices, nearly all of whom have long been in the group’s orbit. It is unlike anything either artist has ever attempted and also totally in line with how they’ve created for much of their careers.

As the album’s opening track, ‘You Had Your Soul With You,’ unfurls, it’s so far, so National: a digitally manipulated guitar line, skittering drums, Berninger’s familiar baritone, mounting tension. Then around the 2:15 mark, the true nature of I Am Easy To Find announces itself: The racket subsides, strings swell, and the voice of long-time David Bowie bandmate Gail Ann Dorsey booms out—not as background vocals, not as a hook, but to take over the song. Elsewhere it’s Irish singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan, or Sharon Van Etten, or Mina Tindle or Kate Stables of This Is the Kit, or varying combinations of them. The Brooklyn Youth Choir, whom Bryce Dessner had worked with before. There are choral arrangements and strings on nearly every track, largely put together by Bryce in Paris—not a negation of the band’s dramatic tendencies, but a redistribution of them.

“Yes, there are a lot of women singing on this, but it wasn't because, ‘Oh, let's have more women's voices,’ says Berninger. “It was more, ‘Let's have more of a fabric of people's identities.’ It would have been better to have had other male singers, but my ego wouldn't let that happen.”

TRACK LISTING

1. You Had Your Soul With You
2. Quiet Light
3. Roman Holiday
4. Oblivions
5. The Pull Of You
6. Hey Rosey
7. I Am Easy To Find
8. Her Father In The Pool
9. Where Is Her Head
10. Not In Kansas
11. So Far So Fast
12. Dust Swirls In Strange Light
13. Hairpin Turns
14. Rylan
15. Underwater
16. Light Years

Side 5 On Deluxe Triple – Contains 22 Minutes Of Music From The I Am Easy To Find Original Film Score – EXCLUSIVE To This Format.
Side 6 On 3LP - Etching.

The debut album from Amyl and the Sniffers is the sound of 21st century Australia recorded in Sheffield with producer Ross Orton. It's primal and explosive with a love of glam, the 70's Sharpie movement and good time rock n roll backed with lyrics that somehow are simultaneously bleak and nihilistic, yet humorous and celebratory. The album is full of beefy riffs and stomping drums that rages and rolls and lives up to all the hype. It has attitude, sass and Amy's sore throat howl.

Coming off the back of a hair raising gig at London's Moth Club (the band 'almost literally tore the roof off'), Amyl And The Sniffers are certainly one to watch if you like feisty, independent punk-n-roll.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Gnarly, energetic garage Aussie punk that demands to be played loud. Like a cross between GØGGS and Be Your Own Pet, this is their debut long player on Rough Trade! Thrashing guitars and an irreverent band name - what more could you ask for?

TRACK LISTING

Starfire 500
Gacked On Anger
Cup Of Destiny
GFY
Angel
Monsoon Rock
Control
Got You
Punisha
Shake Ya
Some Mutts (Can't Be Muzzled)

Nearly 5 years after the last Flying Lotus album, the Grammy-nominated You’re Dead!, and Flying Lotus’ stock has never been higher. The interim years have seen him collaborating with Kendrick Lamar on the classic "To Pimp a Butterfly", directing and writing the Sundance-premiered Kuso movie, and producing much of Thundercat’s "Drunk".

Flamagra encompasses hip-hop, funk, soul, jazz, global dance music, tribal poly-rhythms, IDM, the L.A. Beat scene, but it soars above a specific vortex whose coordinates can’t be accurately charted. Other than to say that it is a Flying Lotus record, perhaps the definitive one.

Flamagra features (in order of appearance): Anderson .Paak, George Clinton, Little Dragon, Tierra Whack, Denzel Curry, David Lynch, Shabazz Palaces, Thundercat, Toro y Moi, Solange and more.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Blurring genre boundaries as ever, Steven Ellison AKA Flying Lotus fucks with jazz, hip-hop, RnB, juke, soul and soft rock on his sixth LP. This time he keeps the interludes short and so so sweet, and invites the likes of Solange, Anderson .Paak, George Clinton and Thundercat to guest on his strongest songs to date. Sublime, beautiful and brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Heroes
2. Post Requisite
3. Heroes In A Half Shell
4. More Feat. Anderson .Paak
5. Capillaries
6. Burning Down The House Feat. George Clinton
7. Spontaneous Feat. Little Dragon
8. Takashi
9. Pilgrim Side Eye
10. All Spies
11. Yellow Belly Feat. Tierra Whack
12. Black Balloons Reprise Feat. Denzel Curry
13. Fire Is Coming Feat. David Lynch
14. Inside Your Home
15. Actually Virtual Feat. Shabazz Palaces
16. Andromeda
17. Remind U
18. Say Something
19. Debbie Is Depressed
20. Find Your Own Way Home
21. The Climb Feat. Thundercat
22. Pygmy
23. 9 Carrots Feat. Toro Y Moi
24. FF4
25. Land Of Honey Feat. Solange
26. Thank U Malcolm
27. Hot Oct.

It was on a mountainside in Cumbria that the first whispers of Cate Le Bon’s fifth studio album poked their buds above the earth. “There’s a strange romanticism to going a little bit crazy and playing the piano to yourself and singing into the night,” she says, recounting the year living solitarily in the Lake District which gave way to Reward. By day, ever the polymath, Le Bon painstakingly learnt to make solid wood tables, stools and chairs from scratch; by night she looked to a second-hand Meers - the first piano she had ever owned - for company, “windows closed to absolutely everyone”, and accidentally poured her heart out. The result is an album every bit as stylistically varied, surrealistically-inclined and tactile as those in the enduring outsider’s back catalogue, but one that is also intensely introspective and profound; her most personal to date.

This sense of privacy maintained throughout is helped by the various landscapes within which Reward took shape: Stinson Beach, LA, and Brooklyn via Cardiff and The Lakes. Recording at Panoramic House [Stinson Beach, CA], a residential studio on a mountain overlooking the ocean, afforded Le Bon the ability to preserve the remoteness she had captured during the writing of Reward in Staveley, Lake District.

Over this extended period a cast of trusted and loved musicians joined Le Bon, Khouja and fellow co-producer Josiah Steinbrick - Stella Mozgawa (of Warpaint) on drums and percussion; Stephen Black (aka Sweet Baboo) on bass and saxophone and longtime collaborators Huw Evans (aka H.Hawkline) and Josh Klinghoffer on guitars - and were added to the album, “one by one, one on one”. The fact that these collaborators have appeared variously on Le Bon’s previous outputs no doubt goes some way to aid the preservation of a signature sound despite a relatively drastic change in approach.

Be it on her more minimalist, acoustic-leaning 2009 debut album Me Oh My or critically acclaimed, liquid-riffed 2013 LP Mug Museum, Cate Le Bon’s solo work - and indeed also her production work, such as that carried out on recent Deerhunter album Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? (4AD, January 2019) - has always resisted pigeonholing, walking the tightrope between krautrock aloofness and heartbreaking tenderness; deadpan served with a twinkle in the eye, a flick of the fringe and a lick of the Telecaster.

The multifaceted nature of Le Bon’s art - its ability to take on multiple meanings and hold motivations which are not immediately obvious - is evident right down to the album’s very name. “People hear the word ‘reward’ and they think that it’s a positive word” says Le Bon, “and to me it’s quite a sinister word in that it depends on the relationship between the giver and the receiver. I feel like it’s really indicative of the times we’re living in where words are used as slogans, and everything is slowly losing its meaning.” The record, then, signals a scrambling to hold onto meaning; it is a warning against lazy comparisons and face values. It is a sentiment nicely summed up by the furniture-making musician as she advises: “Always keep your hand behind the chisel.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Emily says: Cate Le Bon’s fifth album came together during a period of self imposed solitude in the Lake District. Retreating from L.A. to a mountainside in Cumbria, she spent a year building wooden furniture and penning songs into the night. While writing an album in the woods may sound like a bit of an old singer-songwriter cliché, Le Bon’s offering is far from the soppy acoustic balladry you might expect. Instead, she has produced an album of delightfully unhinged art-pop which reveals the curiosities of her inner world.
‘Reward’ retains the off-kilter whimsy which is characteristic of Le Bon’s ever expanding back catalogue. She expertly toes the line between heartfelt sincerity and playful absurdity, maintaining an edge to her songwriting which keeps it from sounding twee. Some of her vocal melodies alone would feel at home in a more conventional pop album, but the instrumentation elevates it to outsider status - discordant stings of electric guitar, metallic synths and an anxious ticking always lurking in the background.
The slow, stately opener “Miami” builds through a rising dialogue between the vocals, horns and synth which eventually disappears into thin air. Le Bon then takes us on a soft rock jaunt permeated by a sense of distance and longing: “Love you, I love you, but you’re not here”. “Mother’s Mother’s Magazines” spirals into nervy post punk territory, with each instrument locked into a mechanical groove which rolls forwards like a steam train. But it’s the final song “Meet The Man” which shines the brightest lyrically and melodically, ending the album with a heartwarming resolution: “Love is good, love is ancient to me, love is you, love is beautiful to me”.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Miami
2. Daylight Matters
3. Home To You
4. Mother's Mother's Magazines
5. Here It Comes Again

SIDE B
1. Sad Nudes
2. The Light
3. Magnificent Gestures
4. You Don't Love Me
5. Meet The Man

Something special happened to Pip Blom at the tail end of last year. It was a busy twelve months that saw the release of her frenetic EP ‘Paycheck’, two A-Listed singles at 6 Music and support slots to the likes of The Breeders, Franz Ferdinand and Garbage. Capping that off, though, moments before stepping onstage at a sold out Lexington – the London stop-off on her debut UK headline tour – the band put pen to paper and signed to Heavenly Recordings.

Now, Pip announces her first release for the label – her debut album ‘Boat’, out 31st May 2019.

Signing to Heavenly was another item crossed off Pip’s to-do list, fulfilment of one of the things she dreamed of since first picking up a guitar and the culmination of a storming 2018 that propelled Pip Blom as one of the year’s most exciting rising guitar bands.

Growing up intensely shy, it was an uncharacteristic plunge into the limelight during her teens that first kicked off Pip Blom’s musical passage: in the form of answering an advertisement for a songwriting competition.

Pip earnestly set about writing songs on a Loog guitar, a three-stringed children’s line of the instrument that aids learning, cultivating a 20-minute set and performing for the first time in front of an audience - eventually reaching the semi-finals of said competition. As you have gathered, the story didn’t end there and failing to win was anything but a deterrent.

Neither was struggling to find band members post-competition. Pip simply ploughed on as she always has, finding a way to make things work with the resources around her. Programming drums on a computer and writing and recording both bass and guitar parts, Pip decided to start self-releasing songs on the internet and it didn’t take long for people to start taking notice.

Today, that same plucky, head-on attitude characterises everything she does and it’s an absolute joy to behold - whether that’s witnessing her band’s powerfully impressive live show or listening to her honest, heart-on-sleeve approach to writing songs on record.

And ‘Boat’ is emblematic of that – an open book of Pip Blom, delivered via her undeniable knack for writing a hook-laden, 3-4 minute song; planting it in your head and making it stay there looping days after first hearing it.

There’s the kinetic combination of guitars from herself and brother Tender Blom, the effortlessly captivating vocal range which can be authoritative and intent like in the driving album opener ‘Daddy Issues’, or soothing and warm as heard in melodic middle track ‘Bedhead’. Then there are the choruses that seem to stop songs in their tracks and lift them into a different stratosphere.

The album’s earworm quality is something that has been connecting across the waters from her home country of the Netherlands, aside from the aforementioned 6 Music playlists, landing an impressive amount of spins across US college radio and a spot on the coveted Triple J playlist in Australia.

Listening through, it’s not hard to understand why. The album is wrapped up in a certain energy that, while evident the band put everything into recording it, would indicate they had a blast doing so – its infectious and, most importantly, wholeheartedly believable.

Dave McCracken bottled up that energy while overseeing the recording at Big Jelly studios in Margate, with the album then mixed by Dillip Harris in a shipping container on the banks of the Thames in East London. Its result is ten songs that, alluding to the album’s title, ferry you through Pip’s headspace via expertly crafted songs gelled together through their unassuming depth.

Pip Blom are: Pip Blom (vocals, guitar), Tender Blom (vocals, guitar), Darek Mercks (bass), Gini Cameron (drums)

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Pip has the knack of writing such immediate, hook filled pop songs that they seem immediately familiar, and not just the odd one, a whole album full! If you're a fan of classic 3 minute indie pop then this is an absolute peach!

TRACK LISTING

1 Daddy Issues
2 Don't Make It Difficult
3 Say It
4 Tired
5 Bedhead
6 Tinfoil
7 Ruby
8 Set Of Stairs
9 Sorry
10 Aha

'Vanishing Twin is songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas, drummer Valentina Magaletti, bassist Susumu Mukai, synth/guitar player Phil MFU and visual artist/film maker Elliott Arndt on flute and percussion; and on this album they have made their first artistic statement for the ages. Some of its great power comes from liberation. The album was produced by Lucas in a number of non-standard, non-studio settings. ‘KRK (At Home In Strange Places)’ summons up the spirit of Sun Ra’s Lanquidity and Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio was simply recorded on an iPhone during a live set which crackled with psychic connectivity on the Croatian island of Krk. The magical Morricone-esque lounge of ‘You Are Not an Island’, the blissed-out Jean-Claude Vannier style arrangement of ‘Invisible World’ and burbling sci fi funk ode to a 1972 cult French animation, ‘Planète Sauvage’, were all recorded in nighttime sessions in an abandoned mill in Sudbury.

The only two outsiders to work on the recording were ‘6th member’ and engineer Syd Kemp and trusted friend Malcolm Catto, band leader of the spiritual jazz/future funk outfit The Heliocentrics, who mixed seven of the tracks (with Lucas taking care of the other three). Vanishing Twin formed in 2015 - their first LP, Choose Your Own Adventure, which came out on Soundway in 2016; followed by the darker, more abstract, mostly instrumental Dream By Numbers EP in 2017. The band explored their more experimental tendencies on the Magic And Machines tape released by Blank Editions in 2018, an improvised session recorded in the dead of night, offering a glimpse into their practice of deep listening, near band telepathy, and ritually improvised sound making. These sessions formed the basis of The Age Of Immunology.

STAFF COMMENTS

Emily says: Vanishing Twin have returned this year with a second album of transcendent psychedelic pop. Drawing on far reaching influences in a similar manner to Stereolab, they incorporate elements of krautrock, tropicália and lounge into their expansive soundworld. The comparisons which can be drawn between the two bands are abundant - you can even hear echoes of Lætitia Sadier in Cathy Lucas’ pure, unaffected lead vocals. But the output of Vanishing Twin is not simply derivative. Its members are unique artists in their own right, and their collective sound already bears its own significance.
Listening to ‘The Age Of Immunology’ feels like drifting off to a strange, mythological world somewhere in the unknown depths of space. Each track glides effortlessly into the next and is steeped in dreamlike imagery. In “KRK (At Home In Strange Places)” Lucas’ vocals weave around a loose, polyrhythmic groove and soaring string arrangements. The acoustic guitar steadily sets the pulse in “You Are Not An Island”, suspended above gently glowing electronics and hints of Reichian minimalism. And “Planète Sauvage” is an ode to the cult animated sci-fi film of the same name, featuring a french spoken word monologue which gives way to cinematic strings and a curious synth-organ solo.
It seems Vanishing Twin are a group intent on creating music that defies borders and dissolves genre into genre. Perhaps they fit into an alternative definition of “World Music”, with their influences which reach as far around the globe as their combined nationalities - Belgian, Japanese, Italian, French and American. Who knows where their psychedelic voyage will take them next? For now, let’s delight in their twinkling, cosmic splendour.

TRACK LISTING

1 KRK (At Home In Strange Places)
2 Wise Children
3 Cryonic Suspension May Save Your Life
4 You Are Not An Island
5 The Age Of Immunology
6 Magician’s Success
7 Planète Sauvage
8 Backstroke
9 Invisible World
10 Language Is A City (Let Me Out!)

black midi -- Georgie Greep (vocals/guitar), Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin (vocals/guitar), Cameron Picton (vocals/bass), and Morgan Simpson (drums) -- have a dynamic energy, playing as a musical unit that’s constantly in a state of flux and development.

Schlagenheim was recorded with Speedy Wunderground producer Dan Carey, who the band praises for his quick, unfussy approach. black midi laid down eight of the record’s nine tracks in just five days. The process was one of refining and rebuilding tracks around the initial structures. Five hour jams would sometimes yield a riff that then became a few bars of a song. As anyone who’s been lucky enough to catch black midi live over recent months will testify, black midi’s songs are slippery creatures.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Much like the fervour that accompanied Battles' 2007 outing 'Mirrored', Black Midi have managed to make an indefinable and thrilling collection of angular post-punk, avant math-rock and percussive glitch without so much as a glance into their stylistic forebears. Singular in artistic scope and as forward thinking as they come, they are sure to have a loyal and enthusiastic following through their use of unexpected rhythms and off-piste stylistic flair.

TRACK LISTING

953
Speedway
Reggae
Near Dt, Mi
Western
Of Schlagenheim
Bmbmbm
Years Ago
Ducter

The Black Keys’ long-awaited ninth studio album, “Let’s Rock”, their first in five years, is a return to the straightforward rock of the singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney’s early days as a band. Auerbach says, “When we’re together we are The Black Keys, that’s where that real magic is, and always has been since we were sixteen.” 

“Let’s Rock” was written, tracked live, and produced by Auerbach and Carney at Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville and features backing vocals from Leisa Hans and Ashley Wilcoxson. “The record is like a homage to electric guitar,” says Carney. “We took a simple approach and trimmed all the fat like we used to.”

Rolling Stone named ‘Lo/Hi’ a “Song You Need to Know” and said, ‘the Keys have officially returned, louder than ever’ and the New York Times calls the song ‘the kind of garage-boogie stomp that the band never left behind.’ In the words of the NME, ‘It’s the soundtrack to the type of party that doesn’t exist anymore, but one you still wish you were cool enough to get the invite to.’

Formed in Akron, Ohio in 2001, The Black Keys have released eight studio albums: their debut The Big Come Up (2002), followed by Thickfreakness (2003) and Rubber Factory (2004), along with their releases on Nonesuch Records, Magic Potion (2006), Attack & Release (2008), Brothers (2010), El Camino (2011), and, most recently, Turn Blue (2014). The band has won six Grammy Awards and headlined festivals including Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Governors Ball.

Since their last album together, both Auerbach and Carney have been creative forces behind a number of wide-ranging artists:
Dan Auerbach formed the Easy Eye Sound record label, named after his Nashville studio, in 2017, with the release of his second solo album, Waiting on a Song. Since its launch, Easy Eye Sound has become home to a wide range of artists including Yola, Shannon & The Clams, Dee White, Shannon Shaw, Sonny Smith, Robert Finley, and The Gibson Brothers; it also has released the posthumous album by Leo Bud Welch as well as previously unreleased material by Link Wray.

Patrick Carney has produced and recorded new music with artists such as Calvin Johnson, Michelle Branch, Damns of the West, Tobias Jesso, Jr., Jessy Wilson, Tennis, *repeat repeat, Wild Belle, Sad Planets, Turbo Fruits, and more. He also created the theme music for the Netflix TV show BoJack Horseman with his late uncle, Ralph Carney.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Having always epitomised the fuzzy groove-led party vibe, it's no surprise that their latest is the most danceable and head-nodding instalment yet, but here it is. Bluesy, sleazy and heavy but crisp and beautifully presented. Black Keys do it again!

TRACK LISTING

1. Shine A Little Light
2. Eagle Birds
3. Lo/Hi
4. Walk Across The Water
5. Tell Me Lies
6. Every Little Thing
7. Get Yourself Together
8. Sit Around And Miss You
9. Go
10. Breaking Down
11. Under The Gun
12. Fire Walk With Me