Since their debut, Lambrini Girls have evolved from one of the UK's most incendiary new punk acts into an international touring force, reaching #16 on the Official UK Album Chart. They subsequently performed across the UK, Europe and North America, then taking their explosive live show to festivals worldwide, including Glastonbury, Reading & Leeds, Roskilde, Rock Werchter and Riot Fest. The girls have become a fixture across the cultural landscape, appearing on covers and features spanning Kerrang!, NME, DIY, Gay Times, Dazed, The Times and Teen Vogue, all while earning major support from BBC Radio 6 Music and key DSP platforms.

‘No Refunds’ confronts a litany of modern horrors, from genocide and fascism to the rise of AI, reproductive rights, and the descent into the grubby basement of the ‘manosphere’, all whilst expanding the sonic world that made Lambrini Girls’ debut so memorable. Industrial punk sits alongside moments of pop-adjacent immediacy, angular basslines and unexpected vulnerability, with the duo pairing their most confrontational material with the dark humour and wit that has become synonymous with the duo.

TRACK LISTING

01. Truth to Power
02. Cult of Celebrity
03. White Man's World
04. Spilt
05. Succulent Chinese Meal
06. Bang Bang Bang
07. Don't Talk to Me Until I've Had My Abortion
08. Gaza Beach
09. The Basement
10. Wake Up!
11. Is This Al?

Asthmatic Kitty Records announces Worst Christmas Ever!, a single-album compiling Sufjan Stevens' expansive holiday catalog. Worst Christmas Ever! features 15 essentials of Sufjan’s indie-Christmas staples, drawn from more than 100 Christmas recordings across the box sets Songs for Christmas and Silver & Gold, plus the previously unheard track “On This Christmas (It Only Gets Better).”

Sufjan first started making Christmas music in 2001. At the time he didn’t plan for those early songs to start a snowball that would lead to nearly five hours of Christmas songs that now makes up his holiday catalogue. The intention was simple - make a few Christmas gifts for friends and family. And the process was the same each time: one week in December, usually at home, he’d pull in whoever was around, usually friends, roommates, or musical peers. In 2006, Asthmatic Kitty collected the first five volumes as Songs for Christmas, Vols. 1-5 and in 2012 the label released Silver & Gold: Songs for Christmas, Vols. 6-10, compiling five more EPs recorded between 2006 and 2010.

Worst Christmas Ever! pulls from across both. The perennial fan favorites are all here: "Sister Winter," "Put The Lights On The Tree," "Only At Christmas Time," and the title track, "That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!." As is "Justice Delivers Its Gift," Sufjan's ecclesiastical take on the Burl Ives classic, "Silver & Gold," "Christmas In The Room," “Silent Night” and more.

The volumes these songs come from were made with a long running cast of collaborators, including Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National, Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire, Cat Martino, Gabriel Kahane, Casey Foubert, James McAlister, Rosie Thomas, Marla Hansen, Olivier Manchon, Sebastian Krueger, and Daniel, Elin, Lilly, and Ida Smith of Danielson.

Speaking to Vulture about his holiday catalog in 2022, Sufjan put it plainly: "There are no rules and regulations when it comes to Christmas culture." His unguarded enthusiasm for the genre itself, the freedom he takes in celebrating with both reverence and rebellion, and his belief that Christmas music holds a multiplicity of sacred and secular significance that is ultimately ours for the taking make his Christmas catalog a standout.

- Features "On This Christmas (It Only Gets Better)," Sufjan's first new original Christmas song in nearly 15 years.

- Collection of 16 holiday favorites hand-picked by Sufjan's fans from his Songs for Christmas and Silver & Gold box sets.

- RIYL: Phoebe Bridgers, Bright Eyes, Bon Iver, Father John Misty, Fleet Foxes, Beach House, St. Vincent, Patrick Watson, Tom Rosenthal… CHRISTMAS!

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Silent Night
Put the Lights On the Tree
Holly Jolly Christmas
Christmas In The Room
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear (Christmas Infinity Voyage Version)
Sister Winter
Joy To The World

Side B
On This Christmas (It Only Gets Better)
Angels We Have Heard On High (Christmas Infinity Voyage Version)
Only at Christmas Time
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear (Christmas Unicorn Version)
That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!
Sleigh Ride
Justice Delivers Its Gift
Auld Lang Syne
Maoz Tzur (Rock of Ages)

Some things in life are meant to be consumed whole: a perfectly paced movie, an oyster at Whitstable Bay, a novella on a sunny afternoon. Into this pantheon of singular experiences comes Runners, the second album from London instrumental rock quartet Dog Unit.

The follow-up to At Home, the band’s cult favourite 2024 debut album, Runners moves seamlessly across its 42-minute runtime. It finds the quartet – comprising Sam Walton, Henry Scowcroft, James Weaver and Lucy Jamieson – crafting tracks that undulate, churn and yearn in service of a greater purpose as they plough fertile fields of sonic storytelling. Made over the first four months of 2026 at the band’s studio in Limehouse, East London, Runners finds the core group, alongside producer and long-time collaborator Mark Estall, operating with greater ambition and scope than ever before. This time they commissioned a string quartet specifically for this project, and reappointed noted experimental bass clarinetist Heather Roche, as well as taking in a cavalcade of instruments at their studio, including vintage synths, drum machines, pianos, and harmonium. The band’s music is often compared to cinema, and if At Home was a charming micro-budget indie flick bursting with potential, Runners is a widescreen realisation that stands up to repeat viewings.

The album’s quantum leap of progress was spurred on, in part, by the band’s detour into acoustic instrumentation for the At Home, Still EP that followed their debut LP. Their knack for creating instrumental music that has undeniable melody, rich texture and inescapable groove remains, as does the sense that this is album-music built for continuous play, not one-off singles, but for their latest record, that ethos has been augmented by a soundworld that has become richer and more nuanced, compositional techniques that have become more ambitious, and musicianship that feels simultaneously more accomplished and effortless. In short, Runners is the sound of Dog Unit at their most fluent to date, completely in charge of their own musical–emotional architecture, and this time round charging it with stillness and swagger, melancholy and joy, and tension and release with exacting judgment.

For an album brimming with complementary ideas, it figures that its title should have so many interpretations: runners can be candidates for selection (and the tracks on this album are a little like that, especially when the band were compiling the tracklist or – hey! – running order); runners can be lines of paint that drip down a canvas, merging and blending into one big work; runners can be the connecting shoots between plants, overlapping one another; and runners can also be messengers that carry information from one place to another, bridging a listener to their signal. All of the tracks on Runners are runners in some way. Prepare to be transported in the way only a proper album can.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1. TINY DIVERSIONS
A2. THREE HUNDRED BEARS
A3. PUSH ALERT
A4. EVERYBODY HAS A FAVOURITE PIN

Side B
B1. AUTO-REVERSE
B2. THE KNOWLEDGE
B3. PRESS “2” FOR DOG UNIT
B4. PROBLEMS COME WITH SOLUTIONS

Opal Records, the label founded by Brian Eno in 1988 as an extension of his artistic world is returning after more than three decades. Launching with the reissue of acclaimed and much loved Eno album, Another Day On Earth (2005) - unavailable outside of Japan for close to twenty years.

Another Day on Earth (2005) was Brian Eno’s first song-based album since Nerve Net in 1992, and remains one of his most acclaimed solo records. It featured a young Jon Hopkins alongside long-standing collaborators Nell Catchpole, J. Peter Schwalm and Leo Abrahams, with lyrics co-written by Michel Faber and Danny Hillis. The album was launched with a public conversation between Eno and the writer Michael Bracewell at the Marble Palace in St Petersburg and its cover photograph was taken by Eno himself in Beijing, during his first Chinese audio installation in the city’s Ritan Park.

The 2026 reissue will be available across all formats for the first time in almost two decades, and includes the previously Japan-only bonus track ‘The Demon of the Mines’.

“Grand, sweeping choruses [...] that insinuate themselves deep into the memory, but also moments of whispering intimacy - a wistful, haunting record that runs warm with understated emotion. ★★★★★” - Matthew Collin, The Guardian (2005)

“Another Day On Earth represents the best of Eno’s sound worlds, an eloquent, articulate collection combining in a triumphant record of memorable songs. It’s an old friend returning, a big friendly hug of an album; it’s music to put a smile on your face.” - Sid Smith (2005)

“A true Eno classic.” - Jeff Terich, Treble (2005)

TRACK LISTING

Side A
This
And Then So Clear
Going Unconscious
Caught Between
Passing Over

Side B
1. How Many Worlds
2. Bottomliners
3. Just Another Day
4. Under
5. Bone Bomb
6. The Demon of the Mines

Khudgarzi is the stunning, self-produced, debut full-length album from American composer and theatre artist, Sheherazaad. A cinematic blend of dystopic folk-noir and experimental pop laced with South Asian musical sensibilities, that has established her as one of the most distinctive new voices in contemporary music. Immersive, genre-defying soundscapes.

‘Khudgarzi’ (English: Selfishness), is the anticipated follow-up to the American songstress-producer-theatre artist Sheherazaad’s highly praised 2024 EP ‘Qasr’. The record encompasses a woman's forensic deep dive into the space between duty and autonomy; sacrifice and survival. While composing, Sheherazaad became consumed by the figure of the so-called Khudgarz Aurat – the "Selfish Woman" – a label she had heard since childhood, levelled at women whose desire for agency was often met with suspicion or exile.

"Selfishness became a kind of silent prayer," Sheherazaad recalls. "A portal into a haunted universe of anxieties and desires. I was made to fear a 'selfish' kind of woman – embracing her felt like stepping into a forbidden forest I'd been running away from."

Written in the aftermath of a broken engagement, 'Khudgarzi' carries the emotional debris of rage, guilt and grief, while imagining an alternative mythology populated by women who shapeshift between storytellers, courtesans, historians, survivors and witnesses. Across ten theatrical pieces, Sheherazaad refuses neat resolutions, instead creating an oral archive where feminine survival is neither sanctified nor condemned, but revealed as an ongoing ritual of performance, strategy and insurgency.

Alongside the album’s announcement, she shares "Andhera" (Darkness), an album centrepiece. The song emerges from the same shadowy universe first conjured by last year's single "Gulukara". It’s a Bolly-goth pop hymn, following a vilified lover who ushers in cosmic darkness, transmuting heartbreak into something vast, mythical and the deepest pigment of darkness.

Musically, 'Khudgarzi' expands the wilderness of Sheherazaad's signature dystopic folk-noir and dark pop sound, where instruments from Hindustani, Turkish, Arabic and Carnatic traditions – including tanbur, santoor, veena, rabab, ghatam and gungaroo – intertwine with weather recordings, breath, echoes, moans and the sounds of the animal world. Resultingly, every song becomes its own self-contained universe: an enchanted back alley, a desert wasteland, a rain-soaked steel plant, or an artificial constellation suspended in silence.

Mostly sung in Urdu, with passages in English and Tamil, the album explores layered questions of language and belonging. Throughout, Sheherazaad preserves the intimacy of room noise and stillness, allowing spacious arrangements to absorb the brooding lyricism. "So much music feels like an assault to me," she says. "I want to open a gentle rupture, where a listener may truly sit with herself."

The songs came together like a diasporic family across disjointed time zones: recorded between Brooklyn, London, and the San Francisco Bay Area, with fragments arriving from Istanbul, Islamabad, and Trivandrum among others.

A cast of more than thirty musicians contributes to the project, including Ria Modak, Sarathy Korwar, Jay Chakravorty, Shunya and Qasim Naqvi, while emerging India - based artists Irfana and Daatri Dadhich appear as sympathetic co-narrators. Though born from an exploration of selfishness, the record ultimately became an exercise in shared storytelling and generosity.

Neither villain nor virtue, 'Khudgarzi' presents selfishness as instinct and reclamation. Rather than offering answers, Sheherazaad leaves space for listeners to navigate their own relationship between sacrifice and selfhood, illuminating a world of contradictions that lingers long after the final note.

TRACK LISTING

1. Qatil
2. Pakeezah
3. Registaan
4. Gulukara
5. Mard
6. Haqeeqat
7. Andhera
8. Zeher
9. Kohinoor
10. Haqeeqat II

Emerging from Manchester’s underground, SILVERWINGKILLER (Yushang Ni and James Baca) are a high-energy electronic two-piece carving out their own uncompromising corner of the UK music scene.

“Manchester is the first place I ever felt free,” says Shanghainese Yushang, a freedom that underpins the duo’s unrestrained sound. Their music is a collision of cultures and technologies: world music influences twisted through analogue arpeggiators, aggressive basslines, frenetic live breakbeats, and vocals split between English, Mandarin and Shanghainese. The result is a sonic assault—urgent, chaotic, and impossible to ignore.

Inspired by human culture, science fiction and deep cut video games, the duo bring an otherworldly yet deeply human perspective to their work. The SILVERWINGKILLER live show is visceral and infectious, as witnesses to their shows with Machine Girl and Fat Dog will testify, equal parts punk ferocity and electronic experimentation, demanding the audience move, react, and confront the intensity head on.

Ear-gouging synth stabs, rib-snapping breakbeats, and vocals which swerve enticingly between Mandarin, English, and Shanghainese are unleashed with a danceable vigour that is nigh-on impossible to resist… We’re dead excited!

TRACK LISTING

Side A
人民公園 (PEOPLE'S SQUARE)
S.W.K.
ROOF ON FIRE (X OVER9000)
JING'AN TEMPLE
HOLD UP (ALL FIREARMS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM)

Side B
KID AFRICA
WORLDSTAR
电子水稻田 (E-SILT)
GUNMAN CORNER
SHANG FILM

Some albums simply get better with time. Others wait patiently for the world to catch up. As it celebrates its 25th anniversary, The Joy of Sing-Sing feels less like an overlooked curiosity and more like one of the great lost British albums of its era.

When Lush came to an abrupt end in 1996 following the tragic death of drummer Chris Acland, guitarist and songwriter Emma Anderson wasn't looking to recreate the past. She was searching for an entirely new musical partnership. A mutual friend suggested she meet singer-songwriter Lisa O'Neill (not the Irish folk singer of the same name), who had recently appeared on Locust's Morning Light and was looking for a full-time collaborator. Unknown to either of them, Emma already owned - and loved - the album. Their first meeting, over a drink, sparked an immediate creative connection. Within weeks they were writing together, united by a love of sophisticated pop, dreamlike atmospheres and leftfield electronica. With producer Mark Van Hoen, who had worked with Lisa on Morning Light, they quickly forged the distinctive sound that would become Sing-Sing.

This 25th Anniversary reissue features newly remastered audio by Kevin Vanbergen (Lush, Pixies, Radiohead and numerous 4AD/Beggars artists) and brand-new artwork by Chris Bigg, celebrated for his long creative partnership with Vaughan Oliver.

Available as a limited pressing of 400, the custom Dinked Archive edition is pressed on translucent 'Delicious' orange vinyl, with a signed 12" x 12" print and a CD of bonus tracks.

Remarkably, Sing-Sing never sounded like a post-Lush band. Rather than revisiting shoegaze, Anderson and O'Neill created something altogether more understated and cinematic: shimmering electronic textures, hypnotic melodies and exquisitely restrained vocals that felt equally indebted to classic pop and forward-thinking electronica.

Released in 2001, The Joy of Sing-Sing quietly occupied a world of its own. At a time when British indie was still dominated by post-Britpop guitar bands, Sing-Sing offered something softer, stranger and effortlessly elegant. The album blended luminous electronics, intricate arrangements and timeless songwriting into a record that refused to follow prevailing trends -and as a result, has barely dated.

From the lilting, lullaby-like opener 'Everything' to the brooding pulse of 'Command', The Joy of Sing-Sing unfolds as a richly textured collection of intimate, cinematic songs. Delicate moments such as 'Tegan' sit alongside the noir-like sweep of 'Far Away from Love', while the surreal, off-kilter pop of 'Panda Eyes' adds a playful twist. Beneath the album's shimmering beauty lies an emotional depth that culminates in 'Underage', a moving tribute to Emma Anderson's former Lush bandmate Chris Acland. Critics recognised its quiet brilliance. Uncut hailed it as "a supernova in indie's imaginary universe of perfect pop," while NME praised its "electronic trip-hoppy vibe," describing Lisa O'Neill's crystalline voice as leading listeners "siren-like into the twilight netherworld where The Carpenters commune with Portishead." Q celebrated its "airy, breathy dreampop" and called it "a plaintive and persuasive debut that promises much."

Time has only strengthened the album's reputation. Long cherished by those who discovered it first time around, The Joy of Sing-Sing has steadily been recognised as one of the hidden gems of early-2000s British independent music. In today's landscape - where dream-pop, shoegaze and beautifully crafted alternative pop have found a new generation of listeners - it sounds remarkably contemporary.

More than twenty-five years after it was first recorded, The Joy of Sing-Sing finally receives the wider recognition it has always deserved: an elegant, emotionally resonant collection of songs that feels every bit as fresh, immersive and quietly captivating today as it did on its original release.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Everything (2026 Remaster)
Tegan (2026 Remaster)
I'll Be (2026 Remaster)
Me And My Friend (2026 Remaster)
Far Away From Love (2026 Remaster)
Panda Eyes (2026 Remaster)

Side B
Command (2026 Remasater)
Feels Like Summer (2026 Remaster)
Émigré (2026 Remaster)
You Don't Know (2026 Remaster)
Underage (2026 Remaster)
I Can See You (2026 Remaster)

Bonus CD
01 . Hit And Run
02 . Western
03 . I’ll Be (Dub You Can Love Mix)
04 . Make It Mine
05 . Office Party
06 . Far Away From Love (Emma’s 1997 Demo)
07 . Cartoon (Emma’s 1997 Crown Demo)
08 . Everything (Lisa’s Audition Session)
09 . Feels Like Summer (Original Like Band Demo)
10. Tegan ( 8-Track Home Demo)
11. Émigré (Acoustic)
12. Fame (Acoustic)

Formed in 2011, The Spook School carved out a reputation as one of the most beloved queer acts of their generation. Nominated for Scottish Album of The Year in 2018 with their third and final studio album Could It Be Different? on Alcopop! Records, it was an internationally acclaimed release that was packed with hope and good will, passionately championing LGBTQ+ rights and inclusivity years ahead of the public discourse.

Following their final farewell tour and subsequent split in August/September 2019, The Spook School staged their own disappearance to the moon, remaining otherwise inactive, save for a sold-out duo of December 2023 reunion shows celebrating the 10th anniversary of their Fortuna POP! debut album Dress Up.

Now, with the political climate growing ever more hostile and LGBTQ+ rights under threat around the world once more, the time is ripe for The Spook School’s return with new album Like A Heartbeat; the heroes we deserve, carrying a message of resilience, solidarity, and—vitally—hope for the future.

“Unfortunately our songs seem more relevant than ever.” laments Nye. “We kind of hoped our old material would become culturally outdated, but we still feel we have something so important to say, especially as things seem to be getting so much worse. Something particularly infuriating about the last few years is the never-ending torrent of conversations and decisions about trans people's right to exist which take place without any trans people actually having a voice. Sometimes the level of ignorance is so extreme that it would almost be funny if it wasn’t being used as the basis to try and kick us out of society, but when it’s judges, or politicians, or employers that are choosing to get all of their ‘facts’ from anti-trans hate groups it’s not funny—it’s dangerous and negligent.”

Recorded with Rod Jones of Scottish rock titans Idlewild at his Post Electric Studio in Leith, Edinburgh, new album Like A Heartbeat is undeniably The Spook School’s most fully realised, cohesive, and sonically refined record to date. This is a timely, vital return. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Margins
Saying It All
Corporate Caring
A Little Clearer
Falling
Same Old Song

Side B
Time
Can’t Speak Up
Survive
New Town
You’re Wrong

The South Facade is the long-awaited debut album from Ugly.

Since forming in Cambridge in 2016, the six-piece have spent the best part of the last decade relentlessly gigging which eventually led to 2024’s breakout EP Twice Around The Sun, which drew critical acclaim and established Ugly as one of the UK's most exciting and ambitious new bands.

Written over almost three years, The South Facade has been taking shape alongside much of that journey. Rather than bringing finished material into the room, Ugly would gather together and build collectively. Early writing sessions took place during extended retreats in a converted barn overlooking Ely Cathedral, before songs followed the band through rehearsal rooms, bedrooms, studios and eventually onto stages. Ideas were passed between members, arrangements dismantled and rebuilt, choruses rewritten at the eleventh hour and individual parts debated down to the smallest detail.

Some of the songs on their debut album have already become familiar fixtures of Ugly’s live shows. Audiences have effectively watched The South Facade evolve in real time and this October they finally get to hear where the band landed.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1. Wasteland
A2. Marina
A3. Nat Cora & The Nations
A4. Die Another Day
A5. In Samphedoo

Side B
B1. Gavement
B2. The South Facade
B3. Gallowine
B4. Orance

Trumpeter, rapper and sonic wanderer Pan Amsterdam has carved out one of the most distinctive voices operating at the intersection of jazz and hip-hop today.

Pan Amsterdam is a musical enigma wrapped in an enduring riddle. His creator is a jazz musician from Houston who’s found fame working with Detroit punk rock God, Iggy Pop, and British indie royalty, Metronomy, and now makes shapeshifting, adventurous hip hop out of the music’s spiritual home, New York.

He’s an irreverent character born out of frustration and named after a misunderstanding, yet one who’s on the verge of releasing his fifth album of truth-slaying, genre-crossing rhymes and beats. The result is a catalogue that feels both deeply rooted in Black American musical tradition and completely untethered by convention.
Pan Amsterdam returns with ‘Panarama’, his fourth full length album and a bold reassertion of his hip hop identity, released via Def Pressé. Created by Houston-born, New York-based musician and composer Leron Thomas, the record finds Pan Amsterdam embracing the harder edges of his sound while continuing to blur the lines between jazz improvisation, abstract rap, punk attitude, and experimental production.

Written as a response to contemporary life and the endless cycle of information, conflict and distraction that defines modern culture, ‘Panarama’ unfolds as a stream of consciousness journey through hyper-normalised realities. Across sixteen tracks, Thomas navigates social commentary, personal reflection, absurdist humour, and cultural critique, delivering his observations with the same spontaneity and freedom that have become central to the Pan Amsterdam project.

Lead single ‘Szechuan Beef’, produced by acclaimed collaborator 1FS, serves as one of the album’s defining statements. Built around Thomas’ signature free-flowing delivery, the track explores the overwhelming nature of contemporary life, where domestic conflict, social division, entertainment scandals and political discourse become flattened into a constant stream of content.

In Thomas’ own words: “My stream of consciousness style comes quite naturally to me due to the conditioning of scroll down culture where everything, no matter how minor or extreme, is hyper normalised.”

Elsewhere, the track ‘Vanilla Ice’ was written in response to widely publicised ICE killings and the speed at which tragedy is absorbed and forgotten within online culture. Thomas channels the anxiety and emotional disorientation of endlessly consuming information, allowing his thoughts to unfold in real time as social commentary collides with everyday digital noise. The result is both deeply personal and sharply observational, reflecting the fragmented reality of modern life. Other album highlights include the cinematic, Interpol-esque opener - ‘Old Friend’ complete with shimmering guitar lines and an far-reaching introspective, no-filter vocal as Thomas teams up with Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Brad Truax (Interpol) across multiple tracks, often the production traverses left-field indie territory, but always maintaining Pan Amsterdam’s unique musical identity throughout. For the hip hop purists and beats lovers there are plenty of riches to discover from the clever nostalgic sample flips of ‘Cutlery’, the sleepy lofi of ‘Shuriken’ and the wonky LA beat scene / early Flying Lotus era beats of ‘Drunken Noodles’ - all boasting quick witted lyricism. ‘Deep Fried Shiney Things’ explores early electro and industrial sonics while album finisher is an upbeat new wave / indie band cut which sees Thomas take a break from rapping, but of course never letting up on the sharp observations nonetheless.

While his previous record explored more alternative territory, ‘Panarama’ marks a deliberate return to rap, as Pan Amsterdam explains:

“I just wanted to do a rap album again.I enjoyed making my last album, but I felt like rapping again. I like to have the freedom to move in between musical worlds that suit the current state I’m in. Frequency accommodating frequency.”

This philosophy runs throughout the album. Tracks move effortlessly between jazz-inflected arrangements, experimental beats, punk energy and underground hip hop aesthetics, allowing ideas to evolve organically rather than conforming to traditional structures. Thomas describes himself as an improviser first and foremost: “I think like an improvisor. That’s how my albums pretty much move. It’s improvisation.”

Featuring additional contributions from Spice Programmers, AnOtter and Mr. Shn, ‘Panarama’ presents a wide-ranging cast of collaborators while remaining firmly rooted in Thomas’ singular creative vision. The record embraces contradiction, humour and unpredictability, capturing fleeting thoughts and observations with the same freedom and spontaneity that define jazz improvisation itself.

A musical enigma wrapped in an enduring riddle, Pan Amsterdam has built a reputation as one of contemporary music’s true outsiders. The project emerged from frustration, experimentation and artistic freedom, with Thomas drawing equally from his background as a jazz musician and his collaborations with artists including Iggy Pop and Metronomy. Operating from New York while carrying the spirit of Houston’s musical heritage, Pan Amsterdam has developed a distinctive voice that sits comfortably between avant-garde jazz, underground hip hop and experimental music.

Reuniting with Def Pressé for ‘Panarama’, Thomas explores what he describes as the more hardcore side of his artistic identity:

“They let me do anything and everything I wanna do so long as it’s on audio, and I need that freedom. What may verbally be perceived as vulgar to one group of people may be very thoughtful and a poignant description of the times that we’re presently in, so I’m glad that I’m part of a label home that understands that.”

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Old Friend
(Feat. Nick Zinner, Brad Truax, and Leron Thomas)
2. Cutlery
(Feat. Spice Programmers)
3. Hot Potato
(Feat. Spice Programmers)
4. Vanilla Ice
(Feat. 1FS)
5. Szechuan Beef
(Feat. 1FS)
6. Pan Out
(Feat. 1FS)
7. Itchy Cashews
(Feat. AnOtter)
8. Impossible Meat
(Feat. Mr.Shn)

SIDE B
1. Shuriken
(Feat. AnOtter)
2. Unseasoned
(Feat. AnOtter)
3. Drunken Noodles
Feat. (Mr.Shn)
4. Plantain De Negro
(Feat. Spice Programmers)
5. Blushing
(Feat. Leron Thomas)
6. Stingray
(Feat. Leron Thomas)
7. Deep Fried Shiney Things
(Feat. Leron Thomas)
8. This Coverband Rules
(Feat. Nick Zinner, Brad Truax, and Leron Thomas)

Clara Mann’s luminous new album, Wishbone, is built on contrast; the brightest passages made legible by shadow, as Mann strove to picture a beautiful life and then to allow herself to want it, with absolute vulnerability.

Leaning deliberately into the songwriting tradition, Mann reached for the rough-edged, performance-driven spirit of artists like Fiona Apple and Tom Waits; while keeping faith with an older lineage of plainspoken English balladry. With the folk singer’s instinct for letting air move through a song and trusting a melody to carry without ornament, the songs across the new album resist the costume-drama pieties of revivalism. The ballad here is a living form; a way of telling the truth, at a slight angle.

Produced by 4AD resident Fabian Prynn, Mann was also joined by guitarist Kit Mosely, double bassist Marianne Schofield, as well as Owen Spafford on viola, Martin Egidi on cell and Tennessee Woodiel on banjo. The album shimmers without dilution; beautiful and bright with grounding intention, a product of the collaborative approach to the recordings.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Fortuna
Go Getter
Wishbone
I’m Everyone Who’s Ever Said I Love You
The Izaac Walton Hotel

Side B
Oblivion
News From Home
All My Devotion
Connie’s Song
Song For Joy
Video Games

Nieve’s potent indie-rock confessionals, seamlessly melded with 90’s guitar ambience, continue to resonate with her hyper-engaged fan base. She is now poised to continue her impressive rise in 2026 with a bold new look and sound. 2026; the year of Nieve.

Nieve has picked up fans in acts like Beabadoobee, Yungblud and Grian from Fontaines DC. Her summer has included performances at BST Hyde Park, Crystal Palace Park with Snow Patrol, Bludfest and upcoming performances at Lollapalooza Berlin and Electric Picnic.

LONG BIO:
Debut albums either arrive as a statement or instead pose a question. The question Nieve Ella has found herself asking echoes back, not only through her own life, but through the anxious existentialism of an entire two generations. How Long Will It Take? It’s a vulnerable question for the audience that has grown up alongside Nieve, gravitating towards her self-depreciating humour and straight-talking attitude.

One image haunted her through the album writing process, and it’s one that is behind the album’s visual world: the staircase. “I feel like I’m on one neverending set of stairs and I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to get to the top, and there’s no bottom anymore,” she muses. “You might stop and have a breather but you’re always on those stairs. My legs are wobbly now but I’ve got no choice but to carry on.” That staircase represents her career and the possibility of success, but it also represents her becoming more herself, a version that’s more together and less self-sabotaging. When is she going to get there? It doesn’t matter if you’re a teenager or in your late-30s, you’ll know the constant trying to keep up while being exhaustingly stagnant. Her thrillingly ungovernable debut alt pop album explores that frustrating journey, every metaphorical step of the way.

Even as a young rebellious teen Nieve Ella could sense that staircase ahead. At school, she landed in serious trouble for making TikTok videos during lessons. “I was just chitchatting about my teachers or making jokes about Ofsted,” she laughs. “I’d get hundreds of thousands of views and had about 30,000 followers. It was all because I wanted to build a following so I could start posting singing videos.” Only a couple of years later, singing live every single day on that very TikTok account got her discovered by a young A&R and signed. “I think the school system really failed me and hundreds of thousands of other kids like me who are energetic, or creative, or anyone who breaks the mold,” Nieve says. “But if my brain wasn’t wired the way it is I would not be here today making music.”

Growing up in a small village in Shropshire, Nieve loved Hannah Montana for the idea that a normal girl could switch into a popstar without anyone questioning her. “I used to go to sleep every single night wishing that we won the lottery so that I could have the money to be famous and live in a big house and have music lessons,” she says. Her musical father left the family and moved to Spain when she was four. When she was ten, he passed away, leaving behind two guitars. As a young adult, she began to learn guitar herself, and with it came a different understanding of her purpose: she wanted to make it in music for the both of them.

After three painfully catchy EPs of guitar-driven alt-rock, in the vein of Wolf Alice, beabadoobee, Wet Leg and The Last Dinner Party, Nieve Ella has built serious momentum: a support slot with girl in red, a performance at Reading and Leeds Festival, over 20 million streams, and praise from Rolling Stone UK, who called her a “leader in the next generation of indie.” But when it came to writing her debut album, she pushed her voice into new spaces. “I want to create a sound that people aren’t listening to yet and change culture,” she says passionately.

In this original reimagining of alt pop, How Long Will It Take? experiments with dynamics flipping up and down at the same time, and is full of tiny intrigues and textures, reflective of Nieve’s “creatively chaotic brain”. “I’m not stable or put together. I’m 23 years old and this is the state of my being,” she says excitedly, of idiosyncratic music that has the slant of a rockier, grungier Lola Young.
The album opens with the optimistic indie rock sound of “101” – we’re on the way somewhere! – but then Nieve calls out repeatedly: “TV falling.” For her, the sparse track was to lay out her state of mind immediately: “My brain is like a TV thrown out of a window, carrying all these stories and voices before it smashes.” At times, she admits, she is the one throwing herself out of the window, self-sabotaging and hurting those closest to her.

First groove-led single “Drive” reintroduced Nieve Ella with a quiet swagger – heavy on the bass and drums, it pulses with attitude. The deliberately cheeky chorus “You wanna talk talk talk and blah blah blah” leans into the simplicity of pop boldness rather than shying away from it. On the brash second single, “Bite Back”, she cusses out two people who wronged her. But those flashes of self-assurance are always undercut with insecurity. Surprising third single, “Standing on a Pane of Glass”, is an alt rock anthem that brings a heavy operatic intensity to the stomach-churning feeling of being trapped in a mental headspace. She rides that same rock ‘n’ roll edge into “Back To Basics”, a brooding fourth single about trying, failing and admitting the damage. “Artists are normal people that love and hate and feel so much, and I wrote that song to make it clear that I’m not always the victim; I do handle shit wrongly sometimes,” she explains.

Glitchy electro-pop ballad “Love:Hate” and mid-tempo dance-pop contemplation “At Any Cost” sit in the same emotional room. “They talk about how I feel in my current relationship, and friendships – I know that I take myself out on people and I’m not helping myself by doing that,” she says. Sunny indie rock bop “Romance Is A Desert” with hot riffs and sultry vocals could almost suggest reprieve in the form of a love song. But listen closer and the seduction and the dread are entwined in the images of the lyrics: “I imagine ‘you quench my thirst with your tongue in my mouth’ and it’s so sexy but there’s a snapshot of worry in my eyes – it’s almost like a horror movie,” she explains.

This tornado of emotions spiral into the eye of the storm: the expansive title-track ballad, “How Long Will It Take?”. With a billowing vocal, she claws and grasps at the album’s biggest ask – “How long will it take to change?” – leaving the listener suspended between sadness, determination, resignation and hope.

Nieve doesn’t want people to only know the light, fun parts of her. “I want them to know the mess behind the scenes,” she says proudly of this debut album, a record more interested in proof than polish. Proof that the drama in her head is survivable, maybe even useful: “I want to be that voice for people to feel like it’s going to be OK because I’m going through it too.” Nieve Ella doesn’t have the answers yet and she’s refusing to fake them – but the first step to salvation is always asking the right question.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
101
Drive
Standing On A Pane Of Glass
Romance Is A Desert
Bite Back
At Any Cost

Side B
Angie
Love:Hate
I'M NOT DEAD
Back To Basics
How Long Will It Take?

3 years after their critically acclaimed album ‘On The Inside’, Gotts Street Park come back with their new album ‘Somewhere Between’, featuring Celeste, Matt Maltese, Rosie Lowe, Pip Millett, Sofia and the Antoinettes, anaiis and Olive Jones.

A departure from their previous work, the new record draws on richly emotional folk and Americana, with Blaze Foley, Jessica Pratt and Big Thief on heavy rotation around the time of its recording. The result combines their production prowess with even greater warmth than before, as they draw on classic songwriting alongside an exceptional roster of guest vocalists.

They channelled their analogue values into the modern Americana style of the record. There was no big conversation about their new direction, but they were all listening to that type of music, with Josh mainlining Neil Young and other “early ’70s stuff” too.

For ‘Somewhere Between’, they got together in a room with their featured vocalists and created magic, as the singers conjured their own lyrics after tuning into the trio’s music. “Writing with GSP is always a pleasurable experience,” says Rosie Lowe. “The music is so emotive that songs seem to flow with ease.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Wake Me Up ft. Olive Jones
2. Flowers ft. Pip Millett
3. Nico’s Theme
4. Some Birds Don’t Fly ft. Matt Maltese
5. Shape Of America ft. Sofia and the Antoinette

Side B
1. Easy ft. Celeste
2. Lay Low
3. Below The Water ft. Rosie Lowe
4. Don’t Give Up ft. anaiis
5. Slippy
6. Going Home

Master Peace returns with a highly anticipated second album 'If I Don't Love You, Who Will?', led by singles 'Love Hate' and 'Sucker Punch!'. Winner of the Ivor Novello Rising Star Award, his critically acclaimed debut 'How To Build A Master Peace' was backed by BBC Radio 1, Franz Ferdinand, The Streets and Zane Lowe. Support tours with Franz Ferdinand and The Streets followed along with shows with Bastille, Good Neighbours and 5 Seconds Of Summer, plus sold-out headline Scala and Electric Ballroom shows.

Across 'If I Don't Love You Who Will?', Peace explores young romance in all its forms - lovelorn, romantic, confident, bolshy and sometimes in crisis. 'Sucker Punch!' captures one of the album's more intimate moments, balancing tenderness with the sense of urgency that runs throughout his work.

The release and news follows previous singles 'ONE of ONE' and 'Love Hate' (feat. Thomas Day)’, which introduced listeners to this new era and began sketching out the shape of the forthcoming album. Picking widescale playlists, press and radio support the releases showcase an artist becoming increasingly comfortable in his own skin, broadening his sound without losing the energy and individuality that first set him apart.

As Master Peace moves from his acclaimed 'Stupid Kids' EP into his 2nd album 'If I Don’t Love You, Who Will?' will find Master Peace at his most complete yet: sharper, more assured and backed by some of the industry’s very best.

TRACK LISTING

1. Save Your Love xx
2. New Boyfriend
3. Falling In Love With You Friends
4. Back At Me
5. Act Live You Know?
6. Love Hate feat. Thomas Day
7. Stay On Me!
8. ONE of ONE
9. Sucker Puncher!
10. Never Moved On?

Strut presents 'Nigeria 80', the next essential chapter in the legendary 'Nigeria 70' series, diving deep into the explosive sound world of 1980s Nigeria.

Following the global impact of 2001's 'Nigeria 70', which helped introduce rare Nigerian recordings to international audiences, 'Nigeria 80' continues the journey, unearthing a rich, restless, and wildly creative decade of music from Lagos to Enugu. Despite economic instability and restrictive political conditions in the 1980's, Nigeria’s music industry flourished, driven by a growing network of independent labels such as Tabansi and Phonodisk, which championed local artists and expanded creative freedom. The 1980s also marked a significant rise in visibility for female artists, with trailblazers like Onyeka Onwenu helping to reshape the landscape and open doors for a new generation of performers, writers, and producers.

'Nigeria 80' showcases the extraordinary breadth of this era, with all tracks reissued here for the first time. The compilation brings together essential recordings from across Nigeria’s musical spectrum: highlife greats Victor Uwaifo and Nico Mbarga appear alongside Paulson Kalu, whose personal favourite 'Akugbue Nwa Ewu' stands out as a prime example of the style. Prince David Bull’s 'Soko Soko' (later reinterpreted in Starboy’s Afrobeats hit 'Soco') features as a key touchpoint between eras. Segun Adewale delivers a driving juju workout, while Lekan Animashaun, longtime bandleader of Africa 70, contributes a late-era Afrobeat classic produced in collaboration with Fela Kuti.

The compilation also highlights more experimental and hybrid sounds, from I.C. Rock’s proto–hip hop gem 'Advice' to Evi-Edna Ogholi’s self-produced reggae statement 'The World'. The set closes with 'Apama' by Ibealaoke Chukwukeziri, the 'Apama Boy' from Achi in eastern Nigeria, featuring hypnotic vocals and percussion from his Anaedeonu band.

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracklisting:
1. Akugbue Nwa Ewu – Paulson Kalu & His Stars 25 International
2. Ocheme Mia – Prince Nico Mbarga & His New Rocafil Jazz
3. Ayubele – Sir Victor Uwaifo & His Titibitis
4. Advice / Oge Chi Kanma – I.C. Rock
5. We Have Got It – Mansour
6. The World – Evi-Edna Ogholi
7. Soko Soko – Prince David Bull & His Professional Seagulls Dance Band
8. Ije Love Pt. 2 – General Franco-Lee Ezute & His Harmony Kings International Band
9. Yo-Pop Music – Segun Adewale & His Superstars International
10. Se Rere – Lekan Animashaun
11. Apama – Ibealaoke Chukwukeziri & His Anaedeonu Band

CD Tracklisting:
1. Akugbue Nwa Ewu – Paulson Kalu & His Stars 25 International
2. Ocheme Mia – Prince Nico Mbarga & His New Rocafil Jazz
3. Ayubele – Sir Victor Uwaifo & His Titibitis
4. Eyi Yato – Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey & His Inter-Reformers Band
5. We Have Got It – Mansour
6. Advice / Oge Chi Kanma – I.C. Rock
7. The World – Evi-Edna Ogholi
8. Oke Mi Ye – Stella Monye
9. Se Rere – Lekan Animashaun
10. Apama – Ibealaoke Chukwukeziri & His Anaedeonu Band
11. Yo-Pop Music – Segun Adewale & His Superstars International
12. Soko Soko – Prince David Bull & His Professional Seagulls Dance Band
13. Ije Love Pt. 2 – General Franco-Lee Ezute & His Harmony Kings International Band

Greg Freeman was barely done making his breakthrough album, 'Burnover', which was released to wide critical praise and landed in The New York Times Best Albums of 2025 list and received the coveted 'Best New Album' distinction from Pitchfork, when he started writing his new record 'All Set The Bone'.

On 'All Set The Bone', he embraces friction instead of refusing it, using scant rehearsal times and urgent, self- appointed deadlines, which was finished quickly, in a real Hollywood studio with one of rock's best modern architects, John Congleton.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cahokia 
2. Totaled 
3. Culture 
4. Withdrawn
5. Indu 
6. Loser's Prize
7. Hail Mary 
8. Decade 
9. Marooned 
10. Untitled 10 
11. Next To Nothing 
12. Costs 
13. Bury Me The Shovel

It's hard to pin an age on chest.'s music - constantly in motion, where spontaneous energy collides with timeless electricity. The name is no accident: its five members first bonded in the darkness of Supersonic, one of Paris' beating hearts of independent music, over a shared love of loud rock'n'roll and sonic experimentation. That friendship shaped a sound that's hybrid by nature - abrasive noise rock, unifying melodies and hard-hitting electronic energy - all filtered through a healthy dose of self-deprecation.

Tipped by NME as one of the "100 artists to watch in 2025" before even releasing a record, chest. confirmed the hype with their debut EP All Good Things End (Howlin Banana, February 2025), then went on to open for DITZ, Jehnny Beth, Heavy Lungs and KNIVES, and tore through La Maroquinerie, Rock en Seine and Eurosonic Noorderslag. In autumn 2025, the band self-produced their debut album at Studio La Frette (Nick Cave, Arctic Monkeys), absorbing industrial, techno and shoegaze influences - with Otto, Cor and Entertainment as standout tracks. chest. is emerging as the spearhead of a French rock scene that's no longer afraid of anything.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Everyone Learns To Leave Quietly
Lotus Eater
cor
Otto
Half Step // Full Step

Side B
Raincheck
Roger Roger
Entertainment
Again
I'm Proud

At the beginning of this year, Dry Cleaning released their new album, Secret Love. The third album from the London-based group consisting of lyricist Florence Shaw, guitarist Tom Dowse, drummer Nick Buxton and bassist Lewis Maynard received glowing accolades across the globe. Now, Dry Cleaning announce this expanded version, Secret Love (Deluxe Edition), featuring three brand-new tracks recorded during album sessions with producer Cate Le Bon last year; ‘Grass’, ‘I Have The Key’, and the recently released single, ‘Sliced by a Fingernail’.

For the deluxe edition, BULLYACHE (who choreographed visualisers for all 11 songs of Secret Love), joined forces with the band again to visuals for the three new tracks, all shot at the Mandrake Hotel in London. Secret Love (Deluxe Edition) also features alternate Erica Eyres artwork.

Bassist Lewis Maynard comments: “As difficult as it is to choose the final tracklist, we've learned with previous records that songs which don't make the album will see the light of day and sometimes even receive more attention. This is the first time we've released a deluxe edition, and we're especially excited because it includes some of our favourite songs from the session.”

Florence Shaw says: “The three new songs have a lot of tenderness and vulnerability to them. They’re about feelings of love and loss but also humour that comes along with those heavy feelings.

‘Sliced by a Fingernail’ is about looking for places to hide; fantasies like packing yourself into the centre of a huge flower bud, but also more everyday ones like being part of the crowd at a karaoke bar.

‘Grass’ is about grieving for someone still alive. The lyrics use some metaphors from nature inspired by two trips; one to see the melting Rhône Glacier in Switzerland and the other to Laurissilva, the ‘living fossil’ ancient forest on the island of Madeira. Whilst it has lots of imperfections and was a bit improvised, Cate [Le Bon, producer] had a real affinity for the vocal performance we chose for this track.

The lyrics to ‘I Have The Key’ came from a feeling of sadness and helplessness at the state of the world. The genocide in Gaza had begun around the time I was writing some of the lyrics. The saxophone part was improvised by Bruce Lamont at the Loft studio in Chicago, and the structure and delivery of the vocal, as well as the choice of words came as a response to his playing.”

“These are three short films that sum up our response to the record,” say BULLYACHE. “We tried to contain all the beautiful conflicts and contrasts. Each video is a portrait of elation, grief, push and pull. With Nicole Nevitt and Sam Dilke playing the different poles of the songs, Nicole’s hair whipping against Sam’s exhaustive thrash against the luxury of the Mandrake Hotel.”

In support of Secret Love, the year has already seen Dry Cleaning play shows across North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. The next leg of their tour takes the band to South America and back to the UK and Europe for festival appearances including Rock en Seine, Green Man, Latitude, Sonic City, with more to be added. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Hit My Head All Day
Cruise Ship Designer
My Soul / Half Pint
Secret Love (Concealed in a Drawing of a Boy)
Let Me Grow and You’ll See the Fruit
Side B
Blood
Evil Evil Idiot
Rocks
The Cute Things
I Need You
Joy

Bonus 12”
Slice By A Fingernail
Grass
I Have The Key

Before Brian Eno did it, Mort Garson was making discreet music. Julliard-educated and active as a session player in the post-war era, Garson wrote lounge hits, scored the 1969 moon-landing and plush arrangements for Doris Day, and garlanded weeping countrypolitan strings around Glen Campbell’s By the Time I Get to Phoenix.

In the mid-1970s, a force of nature swept across the continental United States, cutting across all strata of race and class, rooting in our minds, our homes, our culture. It wasn’t The Exorcist, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, or even bellbottoms, but instead a book called The Secret Life of Plants. The work of occultist/ former OSS agent Peter Tompkins and former CIA agent/dowsing enthusiast Christopher Bird, the book shot up the bestseller charts and spread like kudzu across the landscape, becoming a phenomenon.

Seemingly overnight, the indoor plant business was in full bloom and photosynthetic eukaryotes of every genus were hanging off walls, lording over bookshelves, and basking on sunny window ledges. The science behind Secret Life was specious: plants can hear our prayers, they’re lie detectors, they’re telepathic, able to predict natural disasters and receive signals from distant galaxies. But that didn’t stop millions from buying and nurturing their new plants.

Perhaps the craziest claim of the book was that plants also dug music. And whether you purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern, peace lily, or what have you from Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or bought a Simmons mattress from Sears), you also took home Plantasia, an album recorded especially for them. Subtitled “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” it was full of bucolic, charming, stoner-friendly, decidedly unscientific tunes enacted on the new-fangled device called the Moog.

The album gained an enormous cult following decades after its release. Sacred Bones’ 2019 reissue helped introduce Plantasia to a wider global audience, sparking a remarkable second life for Garson’s unlikely masterpiece.
What was once a strange artifact of 1970s plant-mania has become a beloved evergreen, rediscovered and re-embraced by a new generation of listeners and flourishing far beyond its original moment, evolving from obscure novelty into a beloved cult classic and streaming-era touchstone.

Now, 50 years after its original release, Mother Earth’s Plantasia marks a major anniversary moment. Half a century on, it continues to resonate - an enduring reminder of Mort Garson’s ability to make the synthetic feel strangely alive and the whimsical feel oddly profound.

TRACK LISTING

01. Plantasia (3:23)
02. Symphony for a Spider Plant (2:41)
03. Baby’s Tears Blues (3:03)
04. Ode to an African Violet (4:04)
05. Concerto For Philodendron And Pothos (3:09)
06. Rhapsody In Green (3:28)
07. Swingin’ Spathiphyllums (2:59)
08. You Don’t Have To Walk A Begonia (2:31)
09. A Mellow Mood For Maidenhair (2:17)
10. Music To Soothe The Savage Snake Plant (3:23)

Twenty years after the release of one of the most captivating albums of the 2000s, Howling Bells announce the 20th Anniversary Edition of their self-titled debut album, released on 2nd October via Nude Records.

Originally released in 2006, 'Howling Bells' marked a striking debut for the Australian band Produced by Grammy Award-winning Ken Nelson (Coldplay, Gomez, The Charlatans), the album introduced their cinematic blend of darkly romantic songwriting, atmospheric guitars, and Juanita Stein's unmistakable vocals. Hailed upon release as a moder alternative classic, Pitchfork raised Stein's "thoroughly unexpected, confidently strange, and immediately commanding voice, while NME simply called it "an extraordinary album." The Guardian described it as "bruising, narcotised rock'n'roll, refracted through the bottom of a glass, darkly... on the verge of unequivocal magnificence'. MOJO celebrated "an utterly flawless, heart-twisting vocal throughout," praising her ability to turn "tales of sorrow and betrayal" into "something exquisite," and Clash observed that it's the voice that grabs you," calling it a wonderfully lucid piece of songwriting, emotion lingering on each note.'

Twenty years later, the album retains its intoxicating magic. Still, the opening seconds pull you in; still, the record won't let you go. For the first time ever on vinyl, listeners can experience one of the great alternative debuts of its era in a format worthy of its enduring legacy.

"OK, now I can finally listen to Setting Sun on vinyl and be reminded all over again why I love Howling Bells" Chris Martin.

"There was a time when we thought great records would just keep rolling in. We didn't realize we were living in a golden age until it was gone. Twenty years later, Howling Bells stands as a testament to what we've been missing" Brandon Flowers.

“A haunting, beautiful and at times emotionally brutal debut by one of alt-rock's unsung talents” Brett Anderson.

"Listening to Howling Bells' debut album was a cultural awakening for me back in the early 2000s. It reminded me that writing artful, sophisticated pop music was absolutely possible. Twenty years later, this record still sounds so fresh and exciting" Anna Calvi.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
The Bell Hit
Velvet Girl
Low Happening
Broken Bones
Wishing Stone
A Ballad For The Bleeding Hearts

Side B
The Night Is Young
Across The Avenue
Setting Sun
Blessed Night
In The Woods
I’m Not Afraid

You have to wonder why Railcard took so long to be born: their debut album feels like it should have been in your collection for years.

But it wasn’t until 2025 that Rachel Love (Dolly Mixture), Ian Button and Peter Momtchiloff (Heavenly) met at a gig, realised that they were exactly the same age, and decided that this was an excellent reason to form a new band. The shared history, the same pop references, the parallel lives… Railcard had to happen, and there was no time to lose. Two Steps At A Time - the album title and theme song - express exactly how quickly Railcard have worked since then - jumping over pavement cracks and whistling past graveyards to get these songs written, recorded and released while they are still sweet and fresh.

The band released three digital EPs in early 2026, which were then gathered onto a CD and released by Skep Wax and Slumberland. The CDs sold out very quickly. (New copies will be made available to coincide with the album release.) The critical response to a mail-order-only CD was far greater than anyone expected.

Railcard made their live debut in December 2025 and had by then recruited their fourth member: Allison Thomson (Trash Can Sinatras, The Love Band), whose flawless trumpet and swirly keyboard-playing complete the Railcard sound, allowing the band to fulfil the significant ambition and range of the songs, which are mostly co-written and often co-sung by Love and Button. “Flannelette” and “Sunday Sun”, delicate and swoony, could almost be Slapp Happy at their most Bacharach. “Foxy”, mysterious and charming, has more than a hint of Kate Bush December magic. The raucous duet “I’m A Disaster” is The Kinks meets deadpan Shangri-Las. The title track could have been an alternative theme tune for Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads. “Runaround” is like a school choir doing The Raincoats. “Unstable Neighbour”, mesmerising and insistent: it might make you think of Stereolab; we might imagine an indiepop Hawkwind. Peter Momtchiloff also contributes two wonderful songs on the album: the fragile and hallucinatory “Paper Thin” and the Love-meets-Undertones rush of “Hillman Minx”.

As with the first EPs, Railcard enlisted the sonic services of Medway psych expert Allan Crockford (of The Prisoners, JTQ and many more) who has delivered mixes that pump with vintage valve energy and reverby depth.

Two Steps At A Time is released on Skep Wax and Slumberland September 18th, and the band have a string of UK dates through the summer and Autumn.

Ian Button also performs with The Penrose Web, Heavenly, Swansea Sound and The Catenary Wires. Peter Momtchiloff also performs with Heavenly and Would-be-goods.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Two Steps At A Time
2. 1962 Forever
3. Hillman Minx
4. Flannelette
5. Foxy
6. I’m A Disaster

Side B
1. Paper Thin
2. Unstable Neighbour
3. Runaround
4. When You Say You Love Me Something’s Wrong
5. Snow Blind
6. Sunday Sun

The Intermittent Signal is the sound of resistance.

In the year since The Sick Man Of Europe’s debut album was released, the world has moved on. Steady hands have slipped from the levers of power, logic has shifted underground and the message grows more urgent with every passing day.

Repetition has been relearned and the machine rhythms repurposed, this time with increased intensity. Arrangements have moved beyond the bare bones economy of the first record and there’s a newfound melodicism in places. Clarity and conviction ring true through the static and noise, while utopian ideas to remodel a broken system gain traction. This is a rejection of the attention economy and a call to reconnect through community and organisation. Those simple acts that were once commonplace have become increasingly radical as new fractures emerge.

“Through repetition the message has gained weight and become something more urgent,” The Sick Man Of Europe explains. “The vehicle for this message needed to evolve, grow to gain the strength to carry it. We’ve landed on something more expansive, immediate and immersive. Less is more. Until it isn't.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1. Negative Stimuli (5:52)
A2. Chromophobia (3:37)
A3. Apathy (4:41)
A4. The Cadogan Gate (6:43)

Side B
B1. The Intermittent Signal (3:36)
B2. Eyeless/Mindless (3.59)
B3. Creatures Of Habit (5:09)
B4. A Love Song (7:05)

When the members of Adult DVD first started experimenting with synths the Leeds-based band had zero expectations as to where it would take them. Now signed to Fat Possum Records, their debut album Adult DVD, establishes their landing point, an irreverent new voice existing in the space between electronic euphoria and spiky hardcore energy.

Both unique in their approach and thrilling in impact, the band’s music has been shown love by Stereogum, Rolling Stone UK and The Line of Best Fit among others. Their breakout moment came with the single “Bill Murray,” an incessantly catchy distillation of people on the internet believing Tom Hanks and Bill Murray are the same person. More recently, the glitchy and anthemic “Real Tree Lee” was an A-list record at BBC 6Music and had support from BBC Radio 1.

At both Brighton’s The Great Escape and SXSW in Austin this year the band were championed as one of the buzziest acts of the festival with snaking queues of people waiting hours to see them perform . A relentless touring schedule in 2025 saw them hone their status as festival headliners in waiting, picking up a global army of new fans and playing to huge crowds at Glastonbury, Green Man, End Of The Road and more. The band recently toured Japan where they were greeted by fans in homemade Adult DVD merch, played a series of sold-out shows and saw posts about their performances go viral with millions of views.

In the making of their exhilarating debut album, vocalist Harry Hanson and synth-player Greg Lonsdale, alongside Danny Blackburn (guitar/synth), Jake Williams (synth), Jonathan Newell (drums), and George Manson (bass), went harder on what was already working for them: witty observational songwriting based in real-life characters and a pulsating synth-punk sound perfect for both the rave and the mosh pit. Fusing together an intense musical workout with depictions of a motley crew of figures ranging from 5G conspiracy theorists to an existential cowboy, Adult DVD is the electrifying sound of a band exceeding their own expectations while going just as hard, if not harder than their adrenaline-fuelled live shows.

On Adult DVD Hanson and Lonsdale continue to take a screenwriter’s approach to songwriting, filling their lyrics with stories pulled from the outskirts of society yet painting a vivid and comic picture of modern Britain. “We don't take things too seriously,” Lonsdale explains. “The lyrics have got sillier, the songs have got sillier. We make music for people to enjoy, so let them have a laugh.”

Produced by the band at The Nave Studios Leeds , the general theme of the album is to let go and take life a little less seriously. “Cowboy On Aisle Three” conjures an image of a wrangler swapping the rodeo for a supermarket over a swaggering synth riff . It’s an EQ-pushing beast that merges an existential crisis with the band’s playful spirit and relentless pursuit of bangers. Speaking about the song, Hanson says: “I came up with the idea when I was in Lidl. I’m sure everyone has thought, ‘Imagine if I just went nuts now,’ to get out of doing the big shop.”

Adult DVD might favour fiction over facts but that’s not to say these songs don’t tap into something real. Album opener “Do As I Please” unpicks the myth of community spirit and zeroes in on the post-pandemic sensation of the self-serving individual. “World’s Best Boss,” meanwhile, rages against authority figures warped by tiny amounts of power (“I’m shaking your hand just because I get paid”) and the importance of establishing an identity outside work. Another hit of pure unbridled energy, the industrial clatter of “Jesus Christ Supercar” finds the band taking aim at life’s bullshitters all too quick to explain away their lack of adventure. It stands as the opposite to their song “Do Something,” one of a few occasions when Adult DVD tips its cap to the band’s older material. “‘Do Something’ was about somebody trying things,” Lonsdale explains. “‘Jesus Christ Supercar’ is about always putting an excuse in the way.”

Simmering with boredom, wasted time, scams and a preoccupation with death and sex, the Adult DVD universe is a place to escape to and also get lost. These are songs that untangle the complicated ways in which people find themselves living, mining both laughter and energy from thinking. “There isn't that much down time on the album,” Hanson says in reference to its pulsating energy and high BPM count. “It's got harder in both directions. It’s like the EPs but on steroids.”

Adult DVD closes with a two song salvo that pushes things to new heights. “Real Tree Lee” shows what happens when questioning the truth leads to falling down the “cretin side” of the internet and into a bog of conspiracy theories. “I remember my mate from school whose dad used to make his own diesel in his shed,” says Lonsdale. “There was another guy who had loads of guns, too. We were interested in writing about these old boys with wild shit going on and where they go when they spend too much time online.”

“Rolling Face”—an acid house exploration of a wild night out that ends with its main character out of his mind — brings the album to a close. Its frantic pace, heavy breakbeats, and chanted vocals captures the band’s pulsating live show, concluding a journey that hurtles out of the screen and into real life. “The album starts in the evening and by the end of it, it's like it’s 3am,” says Hanson.

That release, from the twin streams of mundanity and chaos of modern life, makes Adult DVD one of the most entertaining and essential albums of the year. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1.⁠ ⁠Do As I Please
2.⁠ ⁠Coffin Dodger
3.⁠ ⁠Cold Caller
4.⁠ ⁠Minimal Criminal
5.⁠ ⁠Jesus Christ Supercar
6.⁠ ⁠Cowboy On Aisle Three
7.⁠ ⁠The Steaks Are High

Side B
8.⁠ ⁠World’s Best Boss
9.⁠ ⁠All I Need
10.⁠ ⁠Ghillie Suit
11.⁠ ⁠Real Tree Lee
12.⁠ ⁠Rolling Face

Chicago band Beach Bunny revisits their first three original releases, Animalism, Pool Party, and Crybaby. Featuring fan-favorite tracks “February,” “July,” and “6 Weeks,” this revamped edition reintroduces the band’s roots over a decade later.

Begun a decade ago as a Trifilio solo project, Beach Bunny have amassed a loyal fanbase thanks to things such as constant touring and collaborations with artists like Tegan and Sara and Marina. And today, Beach Bunny continues to nurture their community with appearances at Coachella and Lollapalooza and by curating their own Pool Party festivals in their hometown of Chicago.

So far, this approach has worked like a charm. The band - the name refers interchangeably to both Trifilio and the full band that also features bassist/lead guitarist Anthony Vaccaro and drummer Jon Alvarado - has landed viral hits such as the RIAA-certified Platinum "Prom Queen" and "Cloud 9” and the RIAA-certified Gold "Sports," and earned over a billion streams on Spotify alone plus countless appearances on critics' best of the year lists. 2022’s Emotional Creature, which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Albums chart, while “Vertigo," the first single released from Tunnel Vision, became their highest charting song at AAA radio to date upon its 2024 release.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Intro
6 Weeks
Oozin
California
Baby

Side B
July
Deja Vu
Waves
Shoegazer
Ghost

Side C
Feb
Boys
Jenny

Side D
Screen-printed D-Side

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

TRACK LISTING

1. The Outside
2. Lost Boys
3. Kill Me
4. The Governor's Waltz
5. Bobby
6. Lost Weekend
7. Haunted
8. Panorama
9. Still Standing
10. Liberty Tree
11. Never Going Back!
12. Other Plans
13. Lost Parade
14. I Can't Wait
15. As Above
16. Lost Weekend (Reprise)

For the best part of the last decade, Dumfries-born, Glasgow-raised Liam Shortall AKA corto.alto has been in his home studio in the Southside of the Scottish city, cooking up frenetic improvisations, diligently wonky productions and genre-spanning compositions with a close-knit group of local collaborators. Now signed to Ninja Tune, the multi-instrumentalist producer, composer and performer announces “SOME SMALL FORTUNE”, which finds Shortall at his most expansive and unpredictably exciting, working with his widest range of features to date, collaborating with the likes of Mick Jenkins, Vector, anaiis, Oscar Jerome, Jacob Alon (Brit Award winner), BINA., Terra Kin and Eriff alongside his longtime Glaswegian band, drummer Graham Costello, Mercury Prize nominated Fergus McCreadie and saxophonist Mateusz Sobieski to produce an electronic, classical, pop and indie-influenced record that extends far beyond the confines of its meticulous making.

It’s been an intense but rewarding few years for Shortall and his corto.alto project (the stage name a nod to his Irish-Spanish heritage, translating as “short.tall” in Spanish). The release of his debut album ‘Bad With Names’ saw him nominated for the 2024 Mercury Music Prize – alongside fellow Scot and now label-mate Barry Can’t Swim and the likes of Charli xcx, Ghetts, Beth Gibbons (Portishead), Nia Archives, CMAT and more – and saw him booked to play hundreds of shows across the world, including high-profile festival performances and a sold-out UK tour that featured his own personally curated 2000-capacity “Made In Glasgow” mini-festival at the city’s legendary Barrowlands Ballroom venue.

The music he makes as corto.alto is never easily categorised. It leans as much on his formal studies at the prestigious Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, as on his time spent as part of the burgeoning and fertile music scene in Glasgow; incorporating an eclectic mix of influences that draw as much on his affinity with club-culture and all its forms of Electronic Music, or to his love of classic Hip-Hop, Soul and Funk. His 2024 album ‘30/108’ saw him freely blend genre, tempo and instrumentation across 30 tracks – one released each day of the month, drawn from a pool of 108 demos and accompanied by live performance videos – showcasing his flair for fast-thinking creativity, innovation and improvisation over a more rigid studio approach. Exploring the fertile ground between live instrumentation and electronic productions and sound design is also a cornerstone of corto.alto’s blistering live shows that – along with handling bass, synth, trombone and effects – sees him turn band-leader, amongst his crew of hyper-talented musicians; all close friends and frequent collaborators.

It’s this fresh outlook and a hunger to subvert expectations that sets Shortall apart, winning him a new generation of music fans unbeholden to any one scene, alongside champions across radio and media like Gilles Peterson, Sian Eleri, Jamz Supernova, Deb Grant, KCRW and many more.

“If Hiatus Kaiyote and Masters At Work had a child, corto.alto would be it - the future is now!” GILLES PETERSON.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An endlessly shifting bed of deeply intricate electronic soundscapes and athletic percussion move beneath a series of vocal guests ranging from Mick Jenkins' syncopated hip-hop flow and the soaring, angelic float of Jacob Alon. Though the input of each artist is definite and impeccable, the directional and pacing of Corto.alto (Liam Shortall) is unmistakeable, and remarkable. An astounding, hypnotic masterpiece.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
SOME SMALL FORTUNE
THIEF
APRIL (feat. anaiis)
TEMPLE
GO (feat. Vector)
NOTHING (feat. Eriff)
DON’T LISTEN
PRAYED WE WOULD (feat. Oscar Jerome)

Side B
PAPER
WHODIS (feat. Mick Jenkins)
YURA
OMNI (feat. Terra Kin)
IJUSTIDONTKNOW
SOMETHING (feat. BINA.)
NOBLEHILL (feat. Jacob Alon)

The last few years have been transformative for Nate Amos. Between delivering breakout records both as a solo artist — under his This Is Lorelei moniker — and with his band Water From Your Eyes, sold out shows across multiple continents, to seeing some of today’s most influential artists cover his songs, the ascending songwriter has found his stride. As the first This Is Lorelei album for Matador Records, The Singer in My Band takes the building blocks of the Great American Songbook and twists those elemental pieces into new shapes, at once both strangely familiar and endearingly offbeat in Amos’ signature style.

Written while touring the globe in support of releases from both his bands, The Singer in My Band arrives as the first true “road record” in Amos’ discography. “The ideas incubated while daydreaming in the car without access to any instruments,” he recalls, “so instead of being home and writing on the guitar or a computer, they developed slowly and subconsciously, existing as a sort of intangible thing while looking out the van window.”

2024’s Box for Buddy, Box for Star was Amos’ first attempt at an intentionally written full-length solo album, tackling newfound sobriety through a roving tongue-in-cheek take on musical personas, all strained through Amos’ genre-agnostic lens. It was a critical and word-of-mouth success, spawning a deluxe version with covers and collaborations including MJ Lenderman, Hayley Williams, Jeff Tweedy, Cameron Winter and many more.

The Singer in My Band came together in the same apartment Amos has produced much of his music, with final touches made at his parents’ house in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Amos engineered, produced, and performed everything on Singer, save for a blistering banjo lead on the title track courtesy of his father, bluegrass musician Bob Amos, and the occasional vocals from his sister Sarah Amos and partner Al Nardo. “They’re three people who had a fundamental impact on what this album was to begin with, and the ways they could contribute were things that I had in mind as I was writing the songs,” he explains.

There’s an economy of style to Singer that’s distinct in the Lorelei catalog, harkening back to Amos’ earliest experiences with songwriting and a lifelong reverence for bluegrass music. “It’s the most fundamental form of music to me,” he says, but is quick to note any influence is more as a set of principles than a sound. “There’s a simplicity to bluegrass, where there are very particular rules and a very particular box - songs have to stand up by themselves in terms of melody, lyrics and chord progression.”

Inspired by the textured and organic production of Gordon Lightfoot, songs like “Billy Came Back” and “The Kid With the Crown” feature richly layered choruses made all the more effective by their spartan verses. The glitchy vocal harmonies on “Oh No Now My” feel beamed in from some distant future, fleetingly captured on decaying equipment for the album’s most anthemic song, second only to the widescreen climax of “Hey Sarah Is It Gonna Rain Forever.”

There’s Joey, Billy, Genevieve, Sarah, and the ever present Buddy, an Altman-esque ensemble cast who populate the album’s stories, scattered through distinctly American scenes and landmarks. As narrators go, they aren’t terribly reliable. They traffic in wild stories and chaotic experiences that are at once weirdly specific and just a bit blurry, mirroring Amos’ experience of these last several years. “It’s funny, I sent my dad the album after I finished it, and he said it was kind of an “on the road beatnik” album and that kind of reframed it for me,” says Amos. “It really is like a collection of chaotic experiences that you have while travelling. They’re also very much little works of fiction with elements of truth to them.”

For many years, Amos’ This Is Lorelei project was known only to a close knit group of creatives in Chicago, where he relocated in his early 20s and produced hundreds of albums and EP’s, tracing the outlines for both of his prolific projects before relocating to New York. In the time since, he’s flourished as a wildly creative polymath who is equally adept at slinging heartworn hooks and eyeball-exploding art-pop. These are songs about songwriting as a way of life – messy, debilitating, transcendent – from one of the most gifted contemporary interpreters of the form.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Jangling guitars and gravelly vocals, reminicent of Kurt Vile or a slightly sped up MJ Lenderman, This Is Lorelei's grasp of melody and progression is second to none and shows what majesty can come from what is ostensibly a relatively safe country-rock sound.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
I Will Eat My Heart in the Morning Light
On No How My
Billy Came Back
Watching Heaven Fall
Sailing (Your Baby’s Down)

Side B
The Singer In My Band
Nitro
Hey Sarah Is It Going To Rain Forever
The Kid With the Crown
And I Haven’t Seen My Love in Quite a While
Don’t You Cry in Lonesomeness

Bonus 7”
Side A
Chestnut

Side B
Dust in the Wine

Dundalk’s finest The Mary Wallopers have announced details of their third album – produced by The Coral’s James Skelly and packed with their own songs - a new single and their biggest headline tour to date, including arena shows in Scotland and Ireland

Paddywhackery follows up 2023’s hugely acclaimed Irish Rock’n’Roll. That album saw the band grow in confidence, writing their own songs for the first time. Paddywhackery finds them leaping forwards to create an album that sounds like it’s been made by a band with a tightness and a power that’s unparalleled in music right now.

Recorded in an intense two-week period in Liverpool with producer James Skelly and engineer Chris Taylor, Paddywhackery lets the band’s grand wildness shine through and allows their songs to flow out of the speakers with the kind of verve and potency that will make you - the listener - press play again, and again, and again.

Andrew and Charles Hendy on the album: “It’s mainly about the fact that people would call us “paddywhackery” because we are too Irish or whatever, but it’s all very fucking hip to be Irish the last couple of years, and maybe that’s performative too, it’s very sincere. If all you do is serious songs, it sterilises everything. It becomes like there’s only one human emotion and its seriousness. People are terrified of being laughed at. If people are going to call us paddywhackery anyway, we might as well just call the album Paddywhackery. So its more of a “fuck you” than anything else. We want to spread like a virus and destroy anyone who thinks they are above The Mary Wallopers”.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Crowns of England
The Juice
Seán na Sagart
Smuggling the Tin
Castlecoe Hill

Side B
The Big Mixer
Worker’s Song
Banks of the Roses
Landlord’s Demise
Kit Kat Club
Mickey Dam

'Bossanova' is the third Pixies album. The band continued to work with Gil Norton after collaborating to such success on their platinum-selling second album 'Doolittle'. Their third album in as many years, 1990 was a particularly fertile time for the band with Kim Deal also having success with The Breeders, who released their debut album 'Pod' just a few months prior.

Featuring the singles ‘Allison’ (a tribute to jazz and blues pianist Mose Allison), ‘Dig For Fire’ and ‘Velouria’, plus the first cover to feature on one of their albums ‘Cecilia Ann’ (originally by The Surftones), 'Bossanova' showed a less primal side to the band, with surf and space rock rising to the fore. Lyrically, Black Francis is even more cryptic with a recurring sci-fi theme running throughout, which in turn influenced Vaughan Oliver’s classic planet design for the sleeve.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cecilia Ann
2. Rock Music
3. Velouria
4. Allison
5. Is She Weird
6. Ana
7. All Over The World
8. Dig For Fire
9. Down To The Well
10. The Happening
11. Blown Away
12. Hang Wire
13. Stormy Weather
14. Havalina

'Trompe le Monde' bookended a golden run of landmark records released in quick succession that cemented Pixies as one of the best of a generation.

Translated from French to mean “fool the world”, 'Trompe le Monde' showed the band still restless to push their sound forward. With producer Gil Norton again at the controls, their fourth album is arguably their most playful with Black Francis’s lyrics on UFOs and conspiracy theories keeping things weird while power pop creeps in to amplify the space rock established on predecessor 'Bossanova'.

'Trompe le Monde' goes full throttle with 15 tracks coming in a quickfire 40-minute salvo. It proved to be the end of act one for the band with them taking over a decade before returning to stage together.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: This is an absolutely incredible record. Motorway to Roswell: what a stunner.

TRACK LISTING

1. Trompe le Monde
2. Planet of Sound
3. Alec Eiffel
4. The Sad Punk
5. Head On
6. U-Mass
7. Palace of the Brine
8. Letter to Memphis
9. Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons
10. Space (I Believe In)
11. Subbacultcha
12. Distance Equals Rate Times Time
13. Lovely Day
14. Motorway to Roswell
15. The Navajo Know

Some artists don’t ask permission; they just land in your gut and stay there. Some records arrive polished and pristine. Others bleed the moment you press play. On their debut album ‘Put A Smile On For Me’, the fast-rising London four-piece Keo choose the latter. Raw, bruised, and unflinchingly self-aware, their first full-length release captures the emotional fallout of love, guilt, shame, and self-destruction with a clarity that feels almost confrontational. The record captures a band documenting themselves in real time, preserving every fracture, ugly thought and moment of collapse without compromise.

Blending grunge intensity, shoegaze textures and confessional songwriting, the record draws on the charged candour of artists including Led Zeppelin, Sun Kil Moon and Smashing Pumpkins, while carrying the lyrical directness and storytelling instinct of artists like Radiohead. Across its 11 tracks, Keo move between moments of towering vulnerability and total collapse, pairing brooding atmospheres with melodies that feel built to be screamed back in over-spilling rooms.

“The next big guitar band." - The London Standard.
“A sound that has given UK guitar its biggest kick up the fretboard in years.” Rolling Stone UK.
“Keo are already that band." - DORK.
“There’s something undeniably compelling about Keo’s willingness to lay everything bare.” -Kerrang!
"Indie-rock’s most promising new proposition” - DIY.

The Dinked Edition of ‘Put A Smile On For Me’ comes in an exclusive collector’s format featuring alternative artwork and a limited yellow marbled vinyl pressing. It includes a heavyweight outer sleeve with alternate artwork, a printed inner sleeve, transparent outer sticker and exclusive fold-out poster. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Be Happy
That’s Me
Fly
Best I Can Do
Bird On The Wire

Side B
Pistol
Loser
Black Dress
Blue Song
Spent On You

‘Baby You’re A Winner’ is a perfect illustration of the elevated musicality of the album that bears its name. Linking up across the record’s twelve tracks with producer Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius, Yard Act), Baby You’re A Winner showcases a real levelling up for Grandmas House: more layered and involved than their trio of previous EPs - Grandmas House (2021), Who Am I (2023), Anything For You (2025) - with a greater focus on the use of vocals and harmonies to embolden the meticulously crafted arrangements.

It’s the sound of the quartet - Yasmin Berndt (guitar, vocals), Poppy Dodgson (vocal, drums), Zoë Zinsmeister (bass, vocals) and Polly Jessett (guitar) - bringing a greater sense of nuance and space to their music, while deploying myriad genres to maximum effect. From the righteous, elasticated rock of recent single ‘DOG’ to the syncopated post-punk and brass blasts of ‘Dance’ and on to the chamber folk ambiance of closer ‘Spring’, Baby You’re A Winner is the most authentic, realised portrait of Grandmas House to date.

The songs here navigate a precarious balancing act between sadness and catharsis, ultimately landing in a place of salvation - the product of the band’s tight-knit friendship, this album is their gift to the world, born from a period of grief and hardship but emerging from the other side with profound love and strength. It’s a testament that even when the odds are against you, anyone can be a winner.

“We wrote this album about the existential crisis of going through life,” explain the band. “It’s about love and infatuation but also about grief and loneliness. It’s emotional, powerful, sad and a good time all at once.” 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Grunge-flavoured vocal lines sit atop the crunchy, lo-fi drums and gritty power-chords, landing Grandma's House somewhere between CTMF, Hole and Amyl & The Sniffers. An immersive and rousing noise.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
Baby You’re A Winner
DOG
Blue Oblivion
The Table
Hurricane
Dance

Side B:
Next Big Hit (Choo Choo)
Taxidermy
Soaked
I Miss That House
How It Is
Spring

Stoke-On-Trent’s most tuned-in and turned-out trio are releasing debut album Punch Card, which might be the avant-garde pop record of the year.

Driven by a desire for sonic collage and bolstered by lateral thinking, ‘Punch Card’ is a crafty lesson in how, with touches of masterful manipulation, the collision of opposing forces can cause sparks to fly and an irrepressible need to dance. “Our aim is to undermine anything leaning too far one way or the other. We shoot for homogeneity - if it sounds good and its component parts can't be pulled out, we’ve matched the job description,” they say of finding balance in their desire to ‘pull the rug’ musically whenever listeners least expect it.

Much like the typo in their name, now proudly worn by the band as a badge of honour, the result is an album of happy accidents that truly embody their audiences’ visceral knee-jerk reactions. The cut-out windows of an eighties protocomputer punch card that line the sleeve offer a portal into Formal Sppeedwear’s universe.

After signing with melodic in 2023, the trio’s now sold out 2024 debut EP - a self-titled, self-produced 12” sample of elastic bass arrangements, leaping guitar motifs and sparse, un-assuming percussive work - picked up notable fans at BBC 6 Music and helped to secure shows around the country with the likes of Fat Dog, Preoccupations, Warmduscher and Divorce. A legion of listeners grew, barraging Instagram DMs curious to unearth the mystery behind their idiosyncratic, off-kilter lyrics – usually a product of Beck’s phonetically-associated wordplay.

Prolific in their output, the band diligently produced Punch Card themselves with mastering from Paul D. Millar (Slug Bug). Led by a preference for sonic variety, they even discarded three tracks not belonging on the record; not because they didn’t fit - but because they did. Through their boomerang voice notes and a sense of telepathy that only college friends bonded by Neu! and Yellow Magic Orchestra could possess, they explain; “There’s definitely a subconscious level to what we do but it’s always driven by what works sonically. The real challenge becomes how to recreate it live.”

Blame those tracks which formed quickly when raw ideas and lyrics flowed from jam sessions in their Tremolo rehearsal room. Jagged, punchy ‘Indecent’ was largely improvised by the trio as a single recorded live take, and ‘The Ballad of DCB’ (avid bookworms in Stoke may have an inkling as to the meaning behind its acronym) was wrangled from a spritely brink of uncertainty after twilight tinkering powered a plethora of jangling guitar lines. Live staple ‘Wait (Hatchet Gets a New Hide) serves as collage of ideas and melodies harking back to the early days of Sppeedwear, completed on a Tascam 488 cassette recorder.

But, between joyfully jarring twists and turns, it is a rare moment of wistfulness which offers the biggest hint to the album’s wider Punch Card themes. A turning point in the recording process, finale ‘Friedrich Backs Up Nothing’ shimmers with strange atmospheres and sound-manipulated cellos; lyrically considering how history might react to the world today.

Formal Sppeedwear may look and sound something like pop, but Punch Card emerges through collision, constraint, and chance - much like the stamped out geometry that inspired its artwork.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Jagged, surprising alt-indie that moves through punk and new-wave seamlessly, recalling every era of rock music since the 1950's and sticking to nothing for more than a minute or so. A fast-paced but eminently enjoyable synthy, janky ball of rhythm and groove. Inventive throughout, and a top listen all round.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Hit ‘n’ Run
Who Needs Spain Ball?
Indecent
Knutmo 1-5
Aardvark x2
A Concise History
Fleas

Side B
Wait (Hatchet Gets A New Hide)
The Ballad Of DCB
New Brother
Appointment

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

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

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

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

Mystery Jets return with ‘A Hole To See The Sky Through’, a conceptually rich new album that acts as the inward-facing counterpart to ‘Curve of the Earth’, shifting focus from vast external landscapes to the intimate ways we perceive and process the world. Inspired by Yoko Ono’s artwork of the same name (used with permission as the cover art) and her recent London exhibition, the record embraces the idea of finding meaning, hope, and perspective through absence, limitation, and reframing.

Mystery Jets are a highly regarded London-based indie rock band, known for their evolving, critically acclaimed albums and captivating live performances. They have been recognized with a prestigious Ivor Novello Award nomination, achieved multiple chart-reaching albums and singles, and are often noted for their distinctive songwriting and artistic longevity.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Widescreen rock music that moves from grand, stadium melodies and soaring shoegaze-adjacent walls of sound into more restrained, grooving psychedelic workouts. There are points of deep melancholy and introspection but it's all presented with the sort of swaying grandiosoty that they're known for.

Bloc Party’s place in hearts & minds was never up for debate, but the past four years have reaffirmed that position and simultaneously ignited the a new passion with fans young & old. From touring the world with their friends Paramore to headlining a sold out Crystal Palace Park, performing songs from their seminal debut Silent Alarm through to the constant reinvention of their more recent work, before returning to Reading & Leeds last year to enormous crowds.

Now, propelled by this renewed energy and buoyed by their biggest year of touring in two decades, Bloc Party are ready to release their next album; a narrative work examining a year-long relationship in intimate and often brutal detail, realised in the studio with the legendary Trevor Horn.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A heartfelt, melodically rich new outing from Bloc Party that deals with lead singer Okereke's past relationship. We definitely get a good slice of Bloc Party's trademark euphoria and driving beats, but this time it's a little more thoughtful and a lot more nuanced. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

22.01.22
Coming On Strong
Love Bombs
Pigwig
Lagoon Blue
Muscleworks
Clark Kent
Worst Birthday Ever
Not Your Problem
Now We Can't Be Friends
Rotherhithe
Stories
Moving On
Eulogy

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

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

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

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

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

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

STAFF COMMENTS

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

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

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

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

STAFF COMMENTS

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

Originally released in 1990 by Happy Mondays, Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches captured the chaotic, euphoric spirit of the Madchester movement, blending indie rock, acid house rhythms and funk grooves into a sound that helped reshape British alternative music. Featuring era-defining tracks such as “Step On” and “Kinky Afro,” the record became both a commercial breakthrough and a cultural snapshot of a generation fuelled by dance culture and Northern nightlife.

More than three decades later, its grooves, attitude and genre-blurring production still resonate strongly with contemporary audiences, influencing modern indie and electronic artists alike.

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracklisting:
Side One
A1. Kinky Afro
A2. God's Cop
A3. Donovan
A4. Grandbag's Funeral
A5. Loose Fit
Side Two
B1. Dennis And Lois
B2. Bob's Yer Uncle
B3. Step On
B4. Holiday
B5. Harmony

2CD Tracklisting:
Disc One - Album Remastered
1. Kinky Afro
2. God's Cop
3. Donovan
4. Grandbag's Funeral
5. Loose Fit
6. Dennis And Lois
7. Bob's Yer Uncle
8. Step On
9. Holiday
10. Harmony
Disc Two - Remixes Remastered
1. Hallelujah (Club Mix)
2. Rave On (Club Mix)
3. W.F.L. (Think About The Future Mix)
4. Step On (Stuff It In Mix)
5. Kinky Groovy Afro Remix (12")
6. Loose Fit (Perfecto 12" Mix)
7. Tokoloshe Man
8. Hallelujah (Daniel Avery Edit)
9. Loose Fit (Shadow Child Edit)
10. Gods Cop (Anna Prior Edit)
11. Step On (Paul Oakenfold Edit)
12. Hallelujah (Ewan Pearson Remix)

5LP Box Set Tracklisting:
Side One - Album Remastered
A1. Kinky Afro
A2. God's Cop
A3. Donovan
A4. Grandbag's Funeral
A5. Loose Fit
Side Two - Album Remastered
B1. Dennis And Lois
B2. Bob's Yer Uncle
B3. Step On
B4. Holiday
B5. Harmony
Side Three - Madchester - Rave On Remastered
C1. Hallelujah
C2. Holy Ghost
C3. Clap Your Hands
C4. Rave On
Side Four - Hallelujah Remastered
D1. Hallelujah (MacColl Mix)
D2. Hallelujah (Club Mix)
D3. Rave On (Club Mix)
D4. W.F.L. (Think About The Future Mix)
Side Five - Baby Bighead Bootleg Remastered
E1. Hallelujah (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
E2. Donovan (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
E3. Kinky Afro (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
Side Six - Baby Bighead Bootleg Remastered
F1. Clap Your Hands (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
F2. Loose Fit (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
F3. Holiday (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
F5. Rave On (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
Side Seven - Baby Bighead Bootleg Remastered
G1. E (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
G2. Tokoloshe Man (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
G3. Dennis And Lois (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
Side Eight - Baby Bighead Bootleg Remastered
H1. God's Cop (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
H2. Step On (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
H3. Bobs Yer Uncle (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
Side Nine - Remixes Remastered
I1. Step On (Stuff It In Mix)
I2. Kinky Groovy Afro Remix (12")
I3. Loose Fit (Perfecto 12" Mix)
I4. Tokoloshe Man
Side Ten - Remixes Remastered
J1. Hallelujah (Daniel Avery Edit)
J2. Loose Fit (Shadow Child Edit)
J3. Gods Cop (Anna Prior Edit)
J4. Step On (Paul Oakenfold Edit)
J5. Hallelujah (Ewan Pearson Remix)

4CD Bookset Tracklisting:
Disc One - Album Remastered
1. Kinky Afro
2. God's Cop
3. Donovan
4. Grandbag's Funeral
5. Loose Fit
6. Dennis And Lois
7. Bob's Yer Uncle
8. Step On
9. Holiday
10. Harmony
Disc Two - Madchester - Rave On - Hallelujah Remastered
1. Hallelujah
2. Holy Ghost
3. Clap Your Hands
4. Rave On
5. Hallelujah (MacColl Mix)
6. Hallelujah (Club Mix)
7. Rave On (Club Mix)
8. W.F.L. (Think About The Future Mix)
Disc Three - Baby Bighead Bootleg Remastered
1. Hallelujah (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
2. Donovan (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
3. Kinky Afro (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
4. Clap Your Hands (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
5. Loose Fit (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
6. Holiday (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
7. Rave On (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
8. E (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
9. Tokoloshe Man (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
10. Dennis And Lois (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
11. God's Cop (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
12. Step On (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
13. Bobs Yer Uncle (Live at Elland Road, 1991)
Disc Four - Remixes Remastered
1. Step On (Stuff It In Mix)
2. Kinky Groovy Afro Remix (12")
3. Loose Fit (Perfecto 12" Mix)
4. Tokoloshe Man
5. Hallelujah (Daniel Avery Edit)
6. Loose Fit (Shadow Child Edit)
7. Gods Cop (Anna Prior Edit)
8. Step On (Paul Oakenfold Edit)
9. Hallelujah (Ewan Pearson Remix)

Manchester-born poet, writer, and producer Antony Szmierek has announced the release of his second album, Decoding Birdsong. Just eighteen months after his critically acclaimed debut, Szmierek returns with a new body of work that signals a clear evolution in both sound and scope. Rooted in his personal touchstones within electronic music, the album pairs expansive, immersive production with his trademark razor-sharp lyricism.

Where his debut had been a solo endeavour, Decoding Birdsong brims with collaboration, including Australia’s Pretty Girl, London band Los Bitchos, and Bristol producer 1-800 GIRLS, as well as Imogen and the Knife and indie pop star Ellur. Speaking about the new record, Antony explains “Decoding Birdsong is about choosing to believe in something. Coincidence as a religion. Making your own luck in the face of loneliness and doubt. The smallest things can feel seminal, seismic and life affirming if you just choose to lean in, but it also asks if this is a dangerous way to live. What happens when your numbers come in? What are the consequences of luck? Should you listen to the birds, or are you only ever going to hear what you want to hear? To help us explore this: a heron, dice, a plummeting airplane, the late-night TV show Aussie Gold Hunters and a fibreglass replica of Godzilla.”

Decoding Birdsong follows the wild success of his debut album, 2025’s Service Station at the End of the Universe, which launched Antony into a whirlwind of Glastonbury, Jools Holland, and repeat BBC airplay. He’s sold out venues across the UK and Europe, and in February 2026 performed to 20,000 while closing Solomun’s Alexandra Palace shows. The former English teacher had been working at a college for special needs students when his blend of spoken word and dance music started taking off, earning him accolades such as 6Music’s Artist of the Year in 2023 following his Poems To Dance To EP, and frequent comparisons to Mike Skinner, Jarvis Cocker and John Cooper Clarke.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Nothing could make me happier than seeing Szmierek's latest album, and this downright lovely bunch of lads making such a meteoric splash. Huge, pumping percussion and deep basses beneath Antony's perfect vocal drawl, ideal for the dancefloor but also custom made for a sweaty gig in a packed-out venue. Soaring, inventive and rousing spoken-word / electronic / indie / everything else. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Chalk
2. The Heron
3. Bookie’s Favourite (ft. Ellur)
4. Godzilla Hotel (ft. 1-800 Girls)
5. Seminal
6. Flight Simulator (ft. Imogen and the Knife)

Side B:
1. Dave’s Angling Superstore (ft. MAX RAD)
2. The First Five Minutes Of Magnolia (ft. Pretty Girl)
3. The Same Heron Again
4. Commune
5. You’re Not Supposed To Do This Forever
6. Decoding Birdsong
7. Aussie Gold Hunters

DINKED EDITION 7” TRACKLISTING:
Side A:
Three Crystals
Side B:
Seminal - Los Bitchos Remix

Five-piece 1000 Rabbits (FKA Rabbitfoot) release their debut EP Are we friends yet?, a six-track release that captures the band’s first two years in motion. Featuring recent singles “Virgin Soil” and “Rubik’s Cube”, the EP arrives via YOUNG as a snapshot of a band defining themselves in real time.

Written across living rooms, rehearsal spaces, and stages over the course of two years, Are we friends yet? captures a formative chapter: six tracks shaped by time, space, and the energy of the people in the room. Some tracks date back to their earliest days, others are more recent, but together they form a vivid introduction to the band’s world. Each track has been molded through live performance, evolving night after night.

The EP’s title - Are we friends yet? - comes from a defining moment that has emerged in their live show; a question posed by River during the closing track “Spring Cleaning”, the final song of both the record and every set they play. It’s a moment that captures both the warmth and vulnerability at the heart of the band.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
White Horse
Virgin Soil
Bear Hunt

Side B
Cinema Aisle
Rubik’s Cube
Spring Cleaning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

STAFF COMMENTS

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

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

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

STAFF COMMENTS

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

JJerome87 is the solo moniker of British songwriter Joe Newman, musician and frontman of the critically acclaimed Mercury Prize and Ivor Novello-winning band, alt-J. Recorded in LA alongside producer Carlos De La Gaza, a dedicated group of session musicians and a trio of female vocalists, The Canyon is a collection of alt-J (esque) songs with a Californian, Motown, Blues and Gospel energy.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brilliantly chameleonic suite of slo-blues and swampy rock with a little hint of Alt-J's otherworldly wonkiness. Though there is a hint of the sound of his former band and an obviously recognisable vocal style (though a lot less than you'd think - if that was an Alt-J sticking point for you, like it was for me), this is a uniquely forged solo expedition, and it's a great one to boot.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Mr. Alligator
Green Velvet
Quaaludes
Interlude
Juicy
Walkaway Music

Side B
Brush Me Like A Horse
Two Hearts
Track And Field
Last Man Alive
Pennine

Indie-rock group The Temper Trap make a triumphant return with 'Sungazer', a decade on from their last album. An explosive, anthemic new record that looks to the future as much as embodying their wildly successful past. Including singles 'Giving Up Air', 'Lucky Dimes' and 'Into The Wild', 'Sungazer' sees a new era of The Temper Trap unfurl. The past few years have seen the band return to live stages around the world, huge dance remixes of their hit 'Sweet Disposition' by John Summit, Lost Frequencies and BUNT., and a long-awaited official release of Mac Miller bootleg 'Love Lost'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lucky Dimes
2. Into The Wild
3. These Arms
4. Bird on a Wire
5. Giving Up Air
6. Sungazer
7. Lifeline
8. Runaways
9. Halfway
10. Dystopia Radio
11. Kuru

In the technical sense, every previous album by the radiant and heavy French trio SLIFT has been a fantasia—a composite of genres and forms that allowed the band to improvise, to jam on themes until they seemed to spiral together into space. Their acclaimed third album, 2024’s 'Ilion', was a sci-fi story built with 10-to13-minute exploratory escapades, often starting with doom metal or stoner rock before spinning freely into glorious instrumental oblivion. But, in a bit of intentional irony, SLIFT’s fourth album is actually called 'Fantasia'. It’s their leanest and most direct record to date. It is also their most riveting album yet, a pointed saga about overcoming international upheaval delivered by a band bearing down, not wasting a single second in the process.

Though only Jean and bassist Rémi Fossat are related, SLIFT is essentially a band of brothers. They’ve been friends with drummer Canek Flores since high school, and 2026 marks a decade together in this trio. They rehearse with religious regularity in a basement in the countryside near Toulouse, inside the jam room where they’ve long indulged their propensity for longform wonder. But they built the songs of 'Fantasia' differently. Jean started many of the songs by himself, then quickly brought them to basement rehearsals with a clear and concise idea of how he imagined them taking shape. By the time they crossed France’s northern border into Belgium to record in the enormous live room at Daft Studios, they had a tight set of lean, agile, and punchy songs.

The band’s vast influences are evident: the album evokes Clutch getting wild, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov, Pink Floyd, and 'Master of Reality'-era Sabbath. And the sonic tapestry is aided by the skillful mixing of Kurt Ballou (Converge, Cave In, High on Fire). The songs aren’t lacking the complexity or intensity that have made SLIFT a rising star in heavy music; they’ve simply found new ways to weave the complexities of their past inside every piece, like a tapestry that reveals a new layer every time you look. In doing so, they offer an affirming and urgent message: Together, we can still change the times in which we live.

It is dreadfully easy these days to feel powerless. SLIFT reckons directly with the modern onslaught of cruelty and absurdity on 'Fantasia', whether that’s not caring about our home planet or one another. But these eight songs are about trusting in some hidden power for fighting back, for believing in a world where something we cannot yet articulate or define offers not just a way to disrupt the status quo but perhaps to destroy it completely. SLIFT is loud, heavy, and aggressive inside these anthems. They’re preparing for a battle they think we can still win.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A roaring wave of pummeling percussion, rolling bass and snappy drums beneath the perfectly pitched roar of vocalist Jean Fossat. Taut, burning leads and psychedelic mathy guitar licks to boot. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fantasia
2. Corrupted Sky
3. The Village
4. A Storm of Wings
5. Orbis Tertius
6. Waiting Man
7. The Day of Execution
8. Secret Mirror

First released in 1986 on Geoff Travis’ ‘Blue Guitar’ label, Happy Head is the debut album from Wolverhampton’s The Mighty Lemon Drops. Produced by Stephen Street, fresh from his work with The Smiths, the record shimmers with ringing guitars and a vibrant blend of psychedelia and post-punk energy.

Includes the singles ’The Other Side Of You’ and ‘My Biggest Thrill’, alongside the title track ‘Happy Head’ - a song which first appeared on C86 - NME’s now iconic compilation that helped define a generation of indie guitar music.

The album also features a re-recorded version of ‘Like An Angel’, the band’s breakthrough independent single.

Newly remastered from the original tapes by Phil Kinrade at AIR Mastering to mark the album’s 40th anniversary. Pressed on 140g black and red marbled vinyl, accompanied by a bonus black 7” featuring the early ‘Dreamworld’ versions of ‘Something Happens’ and ‘Now She’s Gone’. Assembled with the assistance of the band who have provided a new introductory sleeve note. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
The Other Side Of You
My Biggest Thrill
All The Way
Hypnotised
Like An Angel
Behind Your Back

Side B
Happy Head
Pass You By
Take Me Up
On My Mind
Something Happens
Turn Me Round

Bonus 7"
Something Happens (Dreamworld Version)
Now She’s Gone (Dreamworld Version)

Hailing from Darlington, Pollyfromthedirt creates raw, rough-edged alternative music steeped in grit, emotion, and unfiltered truth. Blending jagged guitar work with lo-fi textures and stark lyricism, their sound is as uncompromising as it is evocative. At the heart of Pollyfromthedirt’s music lies a deep sense of place and memory – songs that dig into the bones of English nostalgia, suburban unease, and the beauty found in broken things.

Distinctly British in both name and spirit, Pollyfromthedirt – a playful nod to his hometown’s affectionate nickname, The Dirt, and his mum Polly – is an artist who wears his roots on his sleeve.

If folk and lo-fi punk share any kind of resemblance - strained balladry, a DIY ethos and bewildering sparse arrangements - then an act like Pollyfromthedirt, fluent in both mocking dry wit and heavier techniques, is perfectly poised to disrupt them. His playfully defiant name thumbs its nose at the local archetype of a true northerner. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Mucky town
2. Kalm
3. Theres no such thing as england
4. Cherry seeds
5. Darlos cowboys
6. A weekend in majorca

Side B:
1. When england comes
2. Blow my lid
3. Mucky town2
4. Sounds like hell
5. Dont shoot now
6. The dirt

The Indigenous fronted punk band from Denver CO unleash their third album ‘Wagon Burner’. Dead Pioneers is rooted in a 2020 piece called The Punk Pan-Indian Romantic Comedy, a deeply personal work that dealt with vocalist Gregg Deal’s cultural upbringing. Following an embryonic performance of the piece, Deal secured a grant to expand it to include music created especially for the work. “The idea was to mix spoken-word with punk music” explains Deal, who hooked up with drummer Shane Zweygardt and guitarist Abe Brennan during lockdown and began kicking the concept around.

But what became Dead Pioneers didn’t truly take shape until Deal connected with bassist Lee Tesche, who you may know from righteous Atlantan post-punks Algiers. Unlikely as it sounds, a conversation between Tesche and Deal about Sleaford Mods evolved into a creative connection that’s now three albums deep; the arrival of guitarist Joshua Rivera made the quintet quorate. “Josh is Mexican-American,” says Deal. “He is also inherently indigenous, under a different set of circumstances within colonialism. But I consider him to be my indigenous brother. We spend a lot of time trying to figure out how all of this fits together.”

A miraculous, natural chemistry made this supposed one-off project an actual band almost as soon as they cut what became their 2023 self-titled debut album (“We approached it like I approach my visual art: execute quickly, first thought is best thought,” Deal says), but they didn’t necessarily take it seriously until, unexpectedly, the outside world did. “I was like, we’ve made this record – what should I do with it? Put it online?” Deal remembers. The response was vigorously positive, and soon came demands to commit this noise to vinyl. A first thousand-copy pressing sold out in minutes. “So then we pressed another thousand,” he adds, still marvelling at it all. “And then they were gone, too.”

What followed was “a series of strange accidents” that led to the group signing to Hassle, befriending Jello Biafra and touring with kindred spirits like Pennywise, Propaghandi, even Pearl Jam. “Punk-rock had made everything seem so accessible when I was a kid,” says Deal. “Like, simply having the balls to get up on stage and stage dive and then be carried off by people that become your best friends once they get your feet back on the ground.” Now, punk-rock was reaching out its hands to Dead Pioneers and pulling them onto larger and larger stages. The group returned that favour by simply getting better and better: their second album, 2025’s PO$T AMERICAN, was sharper, angrier, funnier than the debut, a riot riveted with punch-a-Nazi thrills.

And now, Wagon Burner, their fearsome third album. Described by Deal as “more collaborative”, it’s a heavier, harder but also more accessible set, vicious hooks scattered among the punk-rock melee and guest appearances by kindred spirits Cheap Perfume (on the righteous ‘Nazi Teeth’), The Interrupters (on the shout-a-long anthem ‘Never Alone’) and, bringing it back to the group’s beginnings, Sleaford Mods (on the searing slow-burn of ‘The Worst Among Us’). The world might be darkening by the day, but Dead Pioneers are rising to that miserable occasion, casting their empowering light into the gloom.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Dead Pioneers blaze a path through modern punk-rock with a sound that harks back to the days of 90's west-coast American punk, but with a strong lyrical focus on Gregg Deal's indigenous heritage, and cultural issues in the USA as a whole. A brilliantly hefty, scathing blast of noisy punk rock. Just what we need.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Dead Presidents
Nazi Teeth (feat. Cheap Perfume)
A Message From Mr. Bell
No Kings
Animals The Roam The Earth
Never Alone (feat. The Interrupters)
The Worst Among Us (feat. Sleaford Mods)

Side B
1. Seeing Red
2. Circle Jerk The Wagons
3. Zealots
4. Nobody
5. LFG

Today, South London outfit Ain’t return with their first new music of 2026. The propulsive new track “Grazer” comes on the heels of an enviable last year for the five-piece, with highlights that include a spot in the latest NME 100 list, showcase performances at The Great Escape’s First Fifty for NOTION, DORK 100 (alongside Lime Garden), and The Line Of Best Fit’s Five Day Forecast. All of this is on top of a packed-out UK tour with THUS LOVE and shows with the likes of The Belair Lip Bombs, The Hold Steady, Thistle, Sunflower Bean, and a sold-out headline London date.

“Grazer” also follows an immaculate run of five singles which have seen the band deliver on all the promise of their early word-of-mouth live reputation, earning widespread support that includes a digital cover with Dork, and props from the likes of Stereogum, Consequence, Under The Radar, NME, CLASH, DIY, The Line Of Best Fit, Paste, and So Young, as well as radio play from BBC Radio 6 Music, Radio X, Apple Music 1 and more. These singles, alongside “Grazer”, will now form a six track EP titled How They Faked The Moon Landing. The one-stop introductory release will be landing on 12” vinyl on 22nd May via Fear Of Missing Out Records, as one of DINKED’s Early Doors Editions.

Recorded with Ali Chant (Dry Cleaning, Yard Act, Sorry), the sub-3-minute new single epitomises everything that has brought Ain’t to this point. It’s full of warm, slurring guitar lines, hooky vocal harmonies, subtly intricate drumming, fluid bass, and contemplative lyrics. In keeping with their earlier material there are knowing nods to idiosyncratic guitar music and 90s slacker indie with hints of shoegaze, Midwest rock, and lo-fi, atmospheric dream pop.

How They Faked The Moon Landing rounds off an incendiary start for Ain’t, start being the operative word. With more music planned for 2026 and a slew of headline dates and festival appearances at 2000trees, The Great Escape, Ritual Union, and more, the new single and EP act less as a rounding off and more as a primer for what’s yet to come.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Airy, melodic grunge-adjacent indie with beautifully harmonised vocals (they particularly remind me of Joanna Gruesome) and huge, Smashing Pumpkins fuzz and breakdowns. Wonderfully arty but beautifully rendered psychedelic grunge pop.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Long Short Round
Jude
Teething

Side B
Oar
Grazer
Pirouette

Death Cab for Cutie is one of the definitive indie-rock bands of the century.

After twenty-odd years in the major label system, the band returned to their indie roots and signed with ANTI- Records and they're back with their brand-new eleventh album. I Built You A Tower is the sound of loss, compartmentalization, and then grief bursting out from the seams. It's also the sound of the growth that comes after falling apart, of acknowledging pain without letting it destroy you. "I see the tower existing on your emotional horizon," Ben Gibbard states. "You don't always have to look at what's inside it, but it's a reminder that it happened. You know it's there. You have to face it."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brand new, vigorously energetic slice of DCFC's trademark poppy indie, wrapped in the freedom of small-label release and unhindered by expectation. The resulting album is gloriously chameleonic and in parts, emotionally taxing. In the end though, if you're a fan of DCFC, you'll love this and if you're not already then this might be time!

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Full Of Stars
2. Punching The Flowers
3. Pep Talk
4. I Built You A Tower (a)
5. Envy The Birds
6. Stone Over Water

Side B
1. How Heavenly A State
2. Trap Door
3. Riptides
4. The Flavor Of Metal
5. I Built You A Tower (b)

Drawn to the darker nuances of human experience, Night Swimming craft vivid, cinematic soundscapes that blur the lines between dream-pop and indie rock. Driven by a love of film, the Bath-based five-piece invite listeners to visualise and indulge their imaginations, pairing atmosphere and texture with intimate emotional honesty.

Night Swimming's influences span Cocteau Twins, The Cure, Radiohead and Slowdive, through to contemporary touchpoints like Wolf Alice, Daughter, Just Mustard and Warpaint - artists whose sensory depth and emotional clarity continue to shape the band's evolving sound.

Across five Summer days in August 2025, producer Peter Miles recorded the EP tracks live to tape at Middlefarm Studios in Devon. The surrounding moors provided a haunting backdrop, enveloping the creative process and setting the tone for 'Melting, Sometimes Bleeding'.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Nothing Safe Is Technicolour
Submarine
Poison Berry

Side B
Hope And Wavering
Dark Clouds

Mabe Fratti is a Guatemalan cellist, vocalist, and composer based in Mexico City, celebrated for her experimental yet deeply melodic work. Blending cello, voice, synthesizers, and electroacoustic textures, she builds songs that move between improvisation, ambient soundscapes, and off-kilter pop forms. Emerging from Mexico City’s improvisational and experimental scene, she has become a key voice in contemporary avant-pop

Bill Orcutt is an American guitarist and composer known for his raw, highly individual approach to improvisation. A co-founder of the 1990s noise-rock duo Harry Pussy, he helped shape a fiercely abrasive aesthetic that drew from no wave, hardcore punk, and free jazz. Often playing a four-string guitar in unconventional tunings, he combines shards of melody, sudden silences, and surging rhythmic bursts, creating music that feels both primitive and structurally intricate. In parallel with his work as a guitarist, he runs the Palilalia and Fake Estates imprints and develops his own audio software, continuing to blur lines between avant-garde experimentation, song form, and DIY practice.

Almost Waking
I had known about Bill’s music for a while: since his 2017 release under his own name. I connected a lot with his music and I had no idea that years later we would be collaborating! It was a total surprise that we started chatting on the internet of collaborating! — we bounced ideas back and forth, all starting with a series of guitar solo stuff that Bill sent me. I had a great time with the pieces and in some of them had the honor to collaborate with I. La Catolica in the studio here in Mexico as well where we were trying to decipher the harmonic possibilities of Bill’s ideas and very carefully develop some good melodies that followed correctly the guitar. The vocal melodies followed also the same principle of trying to get tight with Bill’s iniciatives. The idea was to leave a lot of space but in only one of the tracks I just went on with the idea of harmonizing shamelessly the vocals. The album ended up having this nostalgic vibe to it. I am so happy on how it turned out and grateful with the crazy coincidence that made it happen!

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Breathy, avant chamber classical with free-wheeling psychedelic guitar and constantly evolving key changes, resulting in something that's as organic as it is surprising. Wonderfully deep, emotionally wrought experimental sounds, RIYL Constellation Records, John Zorn etc.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Almost Waking
El Inicio Es Cuestión De Suerte
Forced & Forced & Forced
Arise From Graves And Aspire

Side B
The Heaven Of Our Misery
Steps Of The Sun
Todo Puede Ser Error
A Rural Pen

Frankie Archer has exploded onto the electro folk scene with music that transcends stereotypes. Frankie has been featured on ‘Later... With Jools Holland’ and championed by tastemakers at BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music. Following the release of her debut EP ‘Never So Red’ (November, 2023), she has supported the likes of The Futureheads and The Last Dinner Party on tour. On 'The Dance Of Death', Archer channels these experiences and reconstructs some of the oldest songs in the English canon with fractured, future-facing production. Working from archival ballads of obsession, devotion and loss, she warps fiddle lines, processes her own vocals and drives the material with pulsing drum machines and colourful synth arrangements.

Co-produced with Guy Massey (Kylie Minogue, Spiritualized, Richard Hawley), the record expands English folk into something immersive and modern. Influenced by the work of Little Dragon, Hannah Peel, Rosalía, Björk and Bat for Lashes, Archer approaches folk as a producer first. Inspired by the medieval Danse Macabre, 'The Dance Of Death' is, in Archer’s words, “a collection of nu-ancient trad bangers” - stark narratives of mortality and longing rebuilt through meticulous studio experimentation.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A hugely inventive clash of traditional folk and gothic danse macabre flamboyancy, wrapped in beguiling production and off-kilter rhythmic pacing. A brilliantly mad and uncompromisingly hefty electrifying of classic folksong.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Death And The Maiden
2. The Dance Of Death
3. The Outlandish Knight
4. In Brunton Town
Side B
5. The Unquiet Grave
6. The Demon Lover
7. Young Edwin Of The Lowlands Low
8. Oxford City
9. The Lover’s Ghost

Following an illustrious stint as founding member of Mercury Music Prize nominated The Comet Is Coming, and also Soccer96, the producer and synthesist Danalogue heralds a new chapter, with his debut solo album Teleportations. His music has been supported by Mike D from The Beastie Boys and Thom Yorke, has been A-listed on BBC6 Music, where he has performed sessions for Mary Anne Hobbs, Tom Ravenscroft, Gilles Peterson and Steve Lamacq. His tracks have featured on numerous TV shows such as I May Destroy You, Black Ops and Utopia. He recently wrote his first video game soundtrack for C Smash VRS on Playstation, his work featuring alongside UNKLE and Ken Ishii. As an integral part of the legendary East London studio/venue/community Total Refreshment Centre, Danalogue has produced/mixed records for Snapped Ankles, Joshua Idehen and Rozi Plain, and collaborated on albums with Alabaster DePlume, and Sarathy Korwar.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Awakening On The Planet
Mother Of Mars
Far Beyond The Sun
Moebius Triptych
You Are On The Right Track 

Side B
Theta Wave Convergence
Arrival At Rho Ophiuchi
Fallen Out Of Phase
Onto The Next Dimension
Earth Remembrance Day

The epitome of a modern artist, Jana Bahrich does most things herself, no matter how painstaking - writing, producing, directing, often hand painting t-shirts the day of shows when the band have run out of merch. This has helped give her band Francis of Delirium a unique identity, with her rock confessionals breathing a new life in to the genre and her paintings creating a striking design aesthetic.

Released as she was finishing high school, 2020’s single 'Quit Fucking Around’ was a great introduction and it remains one of her most enduring songs. Shortly after it’s release, she signed to artist-first indie Dalliance Recordings (Gia Margaret, HighSchool, lilo) and three EPs - 'All Change' (2020), 'Wading' (2021), 'The Funhouse' (2022) and a striking debut album - 'Lighthouse' (2024) - on and Jana has Francis of Delirium flying.

While the EP’s fizzed with promise, her debut album 'Lighthouse' landed its punches. Seeking a more vulnerable and open sonic palette, she wove in pop elements to create anthems that celebrated heartbreak and love. Lead singles ‘Real Love’ and ‘First Touch’ were the first tracks she made with an outsider - working with GRAMMY winning producer Catherine Marks (boygenius, The Killers, Wolf Alice) - while the rest of the album was produced by Jana herself and day one collaborator Chris Hewett. 

Live, Francis of Delirium are Jana (guitar and vocals), Jeff Hennico (bass) and Denis Schumacher (drums). Together, their brilliant quiet-loud dynamic and tight interplay only elevate her songs and over the last 5 years, they’ve toured across Europe and North America, playing headline shows, festivals and tours with the likes of Blondshell, Briston Maroney, The Districts, Horsegirl and Soccer Mommy. They’ve also supported The 1975, Alanis Morissette, DIIV and Wolf Alice.

Last summer saw a memorable UK tour with Bôa, the 90s band resurrected by a huge TikTok moment for their track ‘Duvet’. There was a real sense of excitement for these shows with young crowds snaking outside every venue hours before doors and bringing the sort of energy Jana thrives on, she road tested new material to an overwhelmingly positive response, giving her the impetus to go and finish album two.

An artist who seeks to connect with her listener on a deeper level, it’s no surprise then that she’s made hope and inner strength central themes on her new album, 'Run, Run Pure Beauty'. Jana says the title track is “an imagining of the world after it has been destroyed by humans and technology. Thrashing against what humans have left behind, ultimately the pure beauty of nature wins out.” Wanting to bring different perspectives into her songwriting with this record - informed by both her travels and the tumultuous times we find ourselves in - she’s also brought about a progression in her sound with these new songs somehow sounding larger, with undeniable harmonies and more orchestration.

Featuring the singles ‘Little Black Dress’ and ‘It’s a Beautiful Life’, 'Run, Run Pure Beauty' serves as an excavation of hope in bleak times. Produced by Jana and Chris, and mixed by Nicolas Vernhes (Deerhunter, Dirty Projectors, Silver Jews, Wild Nothing), its eleven songs of discovery, despair and perseverance ultimately serve as a mirror on its creator and is a brilliant next installment in the Francis of Delirium arc.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's a strong sense of fist-waving Springsteen-adjacent country-rock here, but it never feels like Frances Of Delerium puts the melody above the nuance behind the pieces, with roaring rock offset with tender balladry and shimmering echoic acoustic guitar, resulting in an end product that is as capable as it is revelatory. A beautifully developing journey.

TRACK LISTING

1. Aliens
2. Out Tonight
3. Run, Run Pure Beauty
4. Higher
5. Damned
6. Little Black Dress
7. Sucker Punch
8. Open Up Your Mouth To Love
9. Requiem For A Dying Day
10. Modern Madonna
11. It’s A Beautiful Life

Recorded in the aftermath of Strawberry Switchblade's break up, the original "Sunflower Demos" included songs intended for the unrealised 2nd album. These songs posit an alternative future where McDowall pursued a Pop career instead of becoming an underground icon.

"In McDowall’s world, cake and chaos go hand in hand. She’s the witch at the door of the gingerbread house, beckoning you inside."
- Pitchfork

"One wonders what would have happened had these delirious songs made it to mainstream radio airplay. The exquisite nature of this slices of dappled pop genius is a joy to behold."
-The Quietus

Rose McDowall's Cut With The Cake Knife was originally reissued in 2015 by Night School Records and Sacred Bones. Since then, Rose McDowall and her previous band Strawberry Switchblade have only grown in cult status. Following a discovery by a generation of young, disaffected kids on social media of Strawberry Switchblade and McDowall's succeeding band Sorrow, Night School Records has remastered Cut With The Cake Knife and presents the album with a reimagined artwork that more closely recreates the original hand-made CD produced by McDowall.

Cut The With The Cake Knife was recorded by Rose McDowall in 1988/89 following the break up of her group Strawberry Switchblade. Produced with the aid of several musicians in several studios, the album features songs written for the fabled second Strawberry Switchblade album. More importantly perhaps it showcases the honest, direct and life-affirming songs of one of the greatest unsung songwriters of the modern pop era at a tumultuous time in her career.

Tibet opens the set and could be one of the best pop songs you’ve never heard. The innate sadness of the songs’ content – the loss of a friendship, impending sorrow – is heightened to heart-melting level by McDowall’s pop nous and melodic sensibility. Choruses and hooks are everywhere on Cake Knife, from the outsider take on stadium 80s pop in Wings Of Heaven to the spiraling, ecstatic So Vicious, a glorious anthem that highlights the human fragility in McDowall’s vocal performance, an instrument that has never lost the naïve purity it first exemplified in Strawberry Switchblade’s early 80s recordings. The centerpiece of the album, the title-track, is the greatest Switchblade pop chart hit that never was. Like the veiled melancholy of her former group’s hits, Cut With The Cake Knife hints at a darkness beneath the gloss, a darkness that saw McDowall delve into more esoteric territory with her subsequent recordings and collaborations. Cut With The Cake Knife serves as the bridge between the pop music McDowall had been making with her friends Jill Bryson, Lawrence from Felt and Primal Scream to what became a more extreme, deep sound informed by neo-folk and post industrial music.

Rose McDowall’s role in the canon has always been one of an outsider. Beginning in Glasgow’s East End in the avant proto-noise group The Poems, achieving fame briefly in the 80s and then disappearing into counter-cultural folklore, the emphasis in the internet-age has been skewed towards her image and cultural significance. Unseen to many, her solo work, her groups Sorrow and Spell and her collaborations with a whole host of underground luminaries have still touched lives. As McDowall elucidates: “They're real sad songs, about real life. I've had people come up to me to say I'd connected with them and helped them. I remember a gig in America when we made a whole room cry. It was bizarre. A couple at the front of the stage started crying and then these two boys beside and suddenly everyone was crying. And I thought, "that's power."

Night School’s issue of Cut With The Cake Knife includes unpublished photographs, extensive sleeve notes from Rose McDowall and 2 bonus tracks culled from the bootleg 7” “Don’t Fear The Reaper.” 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Tibet
A2 Sunboy
A3 Wings Of Heaven
A4 Sixty Cowboys
A5 On The Sun
A6 Cut With The Cake Knife

Side B
B1 Crystal Nights
B2 Soldier
B3 So Vicious
Don't Fear The Reaper 7" EP (Rio Digital 7RDS3)
B4 Crystal Days
B5 Don't Fear The Reaper (Written-By [Uncredited] – Blue Öyster Cult)

Released on 7th November 2025 - Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party was a standout album last year and puts Hayley Williams’ full range on display. “Mirtazapine” is a late-’90s alt-rock love letter to antidepressants, while on “Glum,” she subverts her own voice - using vocal presets to striking effect as the track meditates on loneliness. Other standouts include “Whim,” an easy Americana earworm with a songwriting backbone that nods to her Nashville roots, and “Ice in My OJ,” a thoroughly modern track that pairs sharp production with some of Williams’ most biting and humorous lyrics to date.

Long-time Paramore fans may quickly recognize the “Ice In My OJ” chorus, as it was first sung by Williams in 2004 on “Jumping Inside” by the Mammoth City Messengers. But perhaps all of her talents converge most impactfully on the album’s only previously unreleased track, “Parachute.” It’s a reminder of Williams ability to strike right at the heart, with not only her confessional lyrics, but her unmatched delivery. The album captures all the dynamism Williams has shown throughout her career and collaborations. At its core, these songs are the work of a supremely gifted artist with a voracious, genre-defying appetite for music and creative exploration.

These songs come as the third batch of work released from Williams as a solo artist. The COVID-era saw her release two extraordinary albums – 2020’s Petals For Armor and 2021’s Flowers for Vases. Both albums were gorgeous and stark meditations on loss and offered up a contrast to the high-energy and up-tempo muscle she displays in Paramore. “The record—epitomizing vulnerability and transformative growth—reveals a more mature and introspective side of Williams,” said Pitchfork of Petals, and went on to say of Flowers “her voice is undoubtedly the standout feature… husky and gentle, dangerous yet warm,” and explained that the minimal production “makes this a purposeful reset.”

Hayley Williams is a 3x GRAMMY winning singer, songwriter and musician best known for her role as the frontperson of legendary rock band Paramore. With her incredible range and delivery, Billboard ranked her at #13 on their list of 50 Greatest Rock Singers of All Times saying, “when it comes to singers in contemporary rock, Hayley Williams reigns supreme.” Frequently listed as a source of inspiration from contemporary performers as varied as Chappell Roan, Doechii and Billie Eilish – she’s also appeared on a wide variety of albums and singles as a collaborator and guest vocalist including Turnstile’s latest “Seein’ Stars”, Moses Sumney’s “I Like It I Like It,” and Taylor Swift’s “Castles Crumbling.” Swift went on to have Paramore open the first ever The Eras Tour show that debuted in Arizona and later they went on to open all dates on the European leg of her world tour.

At just 16 she brought the band to the masses with the release of their album All We Know Is Falling which was certified Gold and just celebrated its 20 year anniversary last week. The band’s breakthrough came with 2007’s Riot!, powered by the success of the 6X certified platinum single “Misery Business.” In 2009, Brand New Eyes solidified their place in the rock landscape. Paramore’s self-titled 2013 album marked a commercial and critical peak, with the platinum single “Ain’t It Fun” earning Paramore their first Grammy win for ‘Best Rock Song’ in 2015 and further nominations for ‘Best Rock Album.’ 2017’s After Laughter introduced a polished, ‘pop-influenced sound that continued to attract acclaim with the breakout single “Hard Times.” After a long hiatus, in 2023, they returned with This Is Why, a full grown, alternative-leaning record that earned the band two Grammy wins for ‘Best Alternative Song’ and ‘Best Rock Album’ making Paramore the first female-fronted rock band to ever win the category in its 31-year history. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Ice In My OJ
2. Glum
3. Kill Me
4. Whim
5. Mirtazapine

Side B
6. Disappearing Man
7. Love Me Different
8. Brotherly Hate
9. Negative Self Talk
10. Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party

Side C
11. Hard
12. Discovery Channel
13. True Believer
14. Zissou
15. Dream Girl In Shibuya

Side D
16. Blood Bros
17. I Won’t Quit On You
18. Parachute
19. Good Ol’ Days
20. Showbiz

'The Endless Dance' is the first collaborative album from Northern Irish producer and composer Hannah Peel and Chinese percussionist Beibei Wang. The record is grounded in the strength of ancient concepts, but comes alive with the joy and freedom of play as together, Peel and Wang travel through the 24 solar terms of the Chinese calendar with a cornucopia of sound in tow – synths and prepared piano alongside traditional and unconventional percussion.

The album is collaged together from recordings made over five days at legendary rural studio Real World, a setting which aligned with the duo’s inspiration from the natural world creating a permanent record of their shared musical landscape, informed by the flora and fauna that emerge and retreat through the seasons. 

Both genre-defying, storied artists in their own right, Peel and Wang met while working on Manchester Collective’s 2023 album NEON and 'The Endless Dance' certainly represents a step-change from the duo’s shared classical backgrounds – but their knowledge and training is also the foundation of its freewheeling audacity, giving them the confidence to trust their instincts.

The album is produced by Mike Lindsay [LUMP, Tunng, Guy Garvey, Jon Hopkins] who, with free rein, brings added energy and creativity to the album, whilst Peel & Wang are also joined by Hyelim Kim on Daegeum, a Korean flute with “colourful overtones on every note”. 

Track to track, 'The Endless Dance' is unpredictable and unexpected, which is in part due to the genuine curiosity and outside perspectives that each player brought to the sessions. “I am so familiar with Chinese heritage, but I don't see how it can present in electronics, for instance,” says Wang. “Hannah comes in with that direction, to imagine what the sounds could be together.” The characterful richness of the album stems from the commonalities they found in the sessions. “We both come from cultures where story is really important,” explains Peel. “The attention to detail comes from telling a story, and one note can set that off in a different direction.” 

'The Endless Dance' is a major work from two accomplished, singular artists - but it’s also the sound of mutual curiosity and shared fun, or as Wang puts it: “Two women talking in totally different language that had a wonderful chat.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A wonderfully evocative album, forged through a mutual understanding and collaborative chemistry that you dont often hear. Peel's powerful electronic core and jagged, glitched melodies are bolstered by the thundering percussive power of the myriad instruments of Chinese percussionist extraordinaire, BeiBei Wang. A wonderful collaborative endeavor.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wild Geese Arrive
2. Awaken The Insects
3. Mantis Vs Horse
4. Grain Rain
5. Tiger Sex
6. Feed The Fireflies
7. Offerings To The Beast
8. Limit Of Heat
9. Thunder Begins To Soften

White Flowers, the long-running collaboration between Joey Cobb and Katie Drew, exists within what they call “the realm” – a shared creative space, wherein time, rather than being a restrictive force, is fluid and boundless, and music exists as an endless conversation with their past and present selves. Adopting what the band describe as a “sketchbook” approach to writing, White Flowers is the product of a decade’s worth of recordings - snippets nestled away on hard drives, only to truly make sense years later.

On Dreams For Somebody Else, the band expand upon the dark-hued dream pop of their debut, this time channelling the catharsis of dance music via repetitive structures and “sad, euphoric sounds”: a mosaic of soaring choruses swirl around imposing arrays of synths, guitars, and percussion. Drawing inspiration from Annie Ernaux’s The Years, the album delves into themes of isolation, dissociation and identity. “The album has that same feeling of disassociating from your own life, because you’re just blending into everyone else”, the band explains. “There’s a sadness there, because it’s as if you’re looking back on things that happened to you, and they feel like they don’t belong to you anymore”. It’s the dull ache of nostalgia intertwined with a sense of wonder at what could lie ahead - the hopeful optimism and endless loss that defines the human experience. “It’s this idea of identity not being a fixed thing, but something that’s always changing. It’s a fluid thing, similar to time. Things aren’t really fixed, but rather in a constant state of change. It’s important to remember that we’re all going through that.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Spinning
2. Heaven
3. Backseat
4. Tear
5. Lamp
6. Heart Breaks
7. Visual
8. In The Sky
9. Dreams For Somebody Else
10. Thinking Of You

Proudly independent and deeply rooted in community, LIFE are a tightly-bonded collective whose creative world has always extended far beyond their music. On ABSTRACT / NATURAL, that world expands further still.

Lead single ‘The Dollywaggon’ stands as a compelling entry point to the record as a whole. Built on razor-sharp guitars, swirling synths and lightning-quick, surgically precise drumming, the track finds frontman Mez Sanders-Green delivering near stream-of-consciousness reflections from a protagonist caught between escape and self-reckoning (“I never wanted to leave myself, but I’m leaving now”), and driven by a restless sense of adventure: “the placard reads right to roam, and the boy is roaming”. Written while Mez was walking the 193-mile UK coast-to-coast route, the song traces a physical and emotional journey from the West Coast, over the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, across the moors and finally home to the East Coast.

That sense of movement runs throughout ABSTRACT / NATURAL. Characters rooted in folklore and landscape sit alongside reflections on fatherhood, freedom and personal evolution, forming a body of work that feels both intimate and outward-looking. The album began life not in a rehearsal room, but on the pages of a poetry book frontman Mez has been writing; a collection of musings on landscape, nature, love, acceptance and letting go. Hearing melodies embedded in his words, Mez began presenting fragments to the band as “wonky lullabies”, turning hills, ridges and landmarks into characters: Hen Comb, Pavey Arc, Sergeant Man, The Grey Friar and The Dollywaggon. From there, bandmates Stewart Baxter, Lydia Palmeira and Mick Sanders shaped the music around these narratives, instinctively weaving them into vivid arrangements that collectively present a fully-realised universe.

Produced by Stewart Baxter and Oliver Varga, mixed by James Kenosha and mastered by Stephen Kerrison, ABSTRACT / NATURAL was recorded at LIFE’s own studio in Hull (The Moon Factory); a space the band built themselves on the banks of the river and now run as a creative hub for emerging Northern artists.

The result is LIFE’s most expansive and experimental work to date: story-rich, exploratory and beautifully rooted in a sense of place. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Wild Grasses
The Dollywaggon
Turning In
Thistles Kiss
Mermaid Feet

Side B
My Yan
Drinking Games
Sun In Nancy
Buried Giant
Morning Fog

Brighton quartet ladylike sign to cult label Heist or Hit (Her’s, Westside Cowboy) and announce their debut EP 'It’s A Pleasure Of Mine, to Know You’re Fine'.

The EP delicately treads the tightrope between folk and post-rock - evidence of the particular kind of quiet the four-piece inhabit: Natural, controlled, and brimming with a subtle euphoria, it speaks to renewal, growth and repair. The quartet — Georgia Butler (vocals, guitar), Spencer Withey (vocals, guitar, synth), James Ely (drums), and Archie Sagers (six-string bass) serve their folk rare: raw and pastoral, but with a side of textural, atmospheric builds directly wired into the tensions of the modern world. It’s a formula that has gained them slots at Green Man; Left Of The Dial; The Great Escape; and Dot To Dot, plus support slots with Ugly, Mary in the Junkyard and Lime Garden.

After soft-launching the idea of starting a project together at End of the Road, the band’s initial practices took place in a recital room on a brutalist university campus. A setting that, on the surface, is wildly at odds with the rural authenticity of their sound. Pause and look, however, and the campus may have seeped its way into the architectural structures of their songs, with an emphasis on functionality, honesty, and the incorporation of rougher textures and exposed materials. The alchemy lies in the band’s ability to marry those spaces, and when raw elements meet modernity, they absolutely soar.

The band’s debut EP was recorded with producer Ali Chant (Aldous Harding, Perfume Genius, PJ Harvey). It captures the quiet urgency that has always been ladylike’s hallmark. Across four tracks, they explore cycles renewal, and the beauty of persistence, finding poetry in English idioms and the banality of the mundane.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's definitely a sort of post-rock leaning here from ladylike, with woozy guitars and growing reverb swells dancing around brittle melodicism and tentative wisps of melody before plunging into a pool of reverb and skittering snares. I get a little reminder of Daughter in there as well as Cate Le Bon and a good dose of instrumental rock.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Burning Heather
2. Rome (in Progress)
3. Mountains
4. Burning Heather (continued)

Side B
1. Fresh Linen
2. Sour Carol, I

South London sibling duo PUNCHBAG (Clara and Anders Bach) pair their new EP 'I Am Obsessed' with their debut EP 'I'm Not Your Punchbag' in one combined record, marking their first-ever physical release, arriving as a Dinked Early Doors Edition.

Opening on off-kilter piano stabs, the track sets up a tension that quickly gives way to something far darker beneath their restless left-field pop. Clara’s lyrics frame fixation as bodily and inescapable, from dirt under fingernails to crumbs in bedsheets and thoughts that won’t leave your chest.

"It's about being completely obsessed with something or someone, but not in a cute way, more in a 'your whole body is under attack' kinda way. It's sort of disordered, chaotic, overwhelming," Clara explains.

The new single follows July 2025 release ‘I Love This!’ (also set to feature on the EP) – a wide-eyed surge of feeling that reinforced PUNCHBAG’s instinct for pairing pop immediacy with emotional overload.

Speaking more on their upcoming second EP, the band said:

"If our first EP was a selfie, these new songs are like zooming in and thinking, 'fucking hell my pores look huge'. This EP is turning up the contrast on everyday life, rinsing the disgusting dish towel so far that all the gunk comes out. It’s pushing PUNCHBAG’s sonic world even further, into a grander landscape, and dramatising the everyday more than ever before."

With each release, Clara and Anders continue to push their instincts further, tightening their sound and leaning harder into the extremes that define it - all part of a wider mission to distil the most intense, concentrated version of who they are as artists.

That intensity spills directly into their live shows, where the duo’s sibling chemistry and unfiltered energy have earned a reputation for turning rooms into something closer to group therapy than a gig - a visceral, communal thrill and a celebration of feeling too much, all at once.

Clocking in at just under 15 minutes, PUNCHBAG's debut EP 'I'm Not Your Punchbag' (released May 2025) was a breathless introduction. Veering between chaos and clarity where sweetness clashed with distortion, every track felt like a full-body jolt. The EP saw the band receive early tastemaker press: NME (Radar Interview), Dork (HYPE Cover + ★★★★ review), CLASH (Next Wave), Wonderland (New Noise), DIY (★★★★ review), plus further tips from PAPER Mag, The Line of Best Fit, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, Popjustice and many more.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. FUCK IT
2. I’M NOT YOUR PUNCHBAG
3. PRETTY YOUTH
4. YOU USED TO BE SO SEXY

Side B
1. WHAT’S IN MY BAG
2. PILE OF CLOTHES
3. PLAYING GOD
4. I LOVE THIS!
5. I AM OBSESSED

Mildred is a band from Oakland, CA of four equal parts. They don’t have a lead singer, no one person writes the songs. The songs that make up their debut album Fenceline come together as a group with their genesis sprouting from any one of their members each time. This isn’t a case of Henry (vocals, guitar), Jack (vocals, guitar), Matt (vocals, bass, woodwinds) or Will (drums, production) sauntering in and slapping their latest offering down on the table to be fleshed out as they see it in their mind though. Mildred have a quieter, sweeter process. The songs are often wrestled from the lead writer by the other three, a lyric might have been mumbled absentmindedly for a few days before one of the other three grabs at it, forcing the lead writer to focus on something great they had come up with without really noticing. If you ask any Mildred member what their favourite part of Fenceline is, it will never be something they wrote. If you pin them down and ask them what their favourite part of something they did write was, it will always be something somebody else added to it.

This is what makes Mildred - in many ways a classic four piece - so special. This wonderfully easy bond between four friends just hanging out and writing songs is so palpable it’s intoxicating. Summed up neatly by Clash Magazine saying, “imagine if Pavement went Americana and you’d be close”, Mildred make music that is pure and poetic, gently addictive and never overwrought. They describe the creation of the band as being born from “deciding that playing/talking about/thinking about music together is fun and something we want to structure our lives around as best we can”. Mildred is a vehicle for these four people to continue to spend time in each other’s company, encouraging whatever phrase one of them might have been humming to be explored as fully as possible, nurtured into something tangible. Most bands are formed so they can get out of whatever diy space they start out playing in, Mildred was formed so they can spend more time there.

The space in question for Mildred is a house. The Ward St. house in Berkeley to be exact, already a landmark in Mildred lore. When Fenceline began taking shape Henry, Jack, Matt, and occasionally Will were living there together; Matt hunkered in an “extra-legal” room in the attic where he bathed on his knees and Henry and Will would have to stoop to visit. Jack and Henry shared a wall in adjacent shoeboxes on the middle floor, Henry staring directly out at an old walnut tree they nicknamed Walter. Will was away studying in the desert but would stay whenever he was in town. While living on Ward St. they would write songs in the porous space between the kitchen and the living room after dinner, before they even knew they were a band. A drum set, guitars, and Matt’s woodwinds were always strewn about. After that they would go up to the roof - beautifully painted by Jack for the cover of Fenceline -, Jones the cat often creeping up the stairs curiously behind, and talk the songs over some more, or just continue hanging out, talking about whatever. (The Mildred core belief system goes as follows: “talking about the weather is a legitimate and profound form of human discourse and exchange. So is talking about grocery stores and produce prices. Front lawns are too tidy, let them grow. Free associating is one of life's great pleasures. We believe in the reality of pathetic fallacy. The crunch wrap supreme is the pinnacle of modernity.”).

This is what makes the songs on Fenceline hang together, naturally, as roommates do. These four people are very different in many ways. Jack is a PHD student, often working underground, studying the atom beyond any conceivable point. Will is an environmental lawyer. Matt is an architect, a job he took up properly after a year in a Benedictine monastery. Henry works in affordable housing, helps his dad grow beans, and plays a lot of basketball. The lyrics for their songs are written largely alone and often draw from their own individual lives and experiences but there’s a shared something there. “It makes sense when common threads emerge” they say, “because we do things together a lot as friends: cook, laze about on a weekend, listen to an album, go walkabout, read, go see movies etc. People will tell us after seeing us live that we’re, “like… a real band.” There’s maybe a shared rhythm and camaraderie in our lives that comes through in the music.”

That shared something takes many forms; flaming pinecones floating down the river, scattered papers and dog-eared books, exhausting party conversation and Irish goodbyes, leaves the colour of UPS trucks. Songs often take place across whole days: long days working at Henry’s aunt and uncle’s farm, an afternoon down in San Francisco on the day the sailors come in and booze all day in their cracker-jack uniforms, one of those youthful afternoons that seemed to stretch forever. Others stem from a shared love of a good reference; breadcrumbs dropped from old favourite books, songs and poems, or Matt’s favourite little red book on architecture, waiting to be found by those who love to go over lyrics with a fine-toothed comb. Strikingly literal or intriguingly oblique, Mildred have a remarkable way with lyrics that lodge themselves in your head softly but with such determination that they begin to feel like shimmering memories from your own life. Fenceline is a collection of songs that you want to hold close and delve into, and yet play to everyone you know.

While the lyrics were largely written in and around the Ward St. house, the fleshing out of the songs had to take place elsewhere. The house was owned by septuagenarian slumlord Suzanne, along with 17 others in various states of decay across Oakland. “She drove around in a BMW, with red lipstick smeared on and beyond her lips, and thick black sunglasses” the band recall, “one time she made our friend get down on his knees on the curb and bend over to sign his lease on the passenger seat.” When the band called her one day to let her know that the makeshift sauna they had built in the backyard had gone up in flames and set fire to Walter the tree, she didn’t even call them back. That kind of landlord. Suzanne eventually did catch wind of Matt’s secret bedroom though and that was enough to stir her into action. She called them “matricidal felonious degenerates” and asked if they would inflict such horrors on their own mothers, threatening to lock them out in the next 24 hours. They managed to stay until the end of the month, but Ward St. was no more.

Fleshing out the songs written in Ward St. was therefore largely done in Matt’s new abode. He moved in with a handsome but fragile 97-year-old ex-lawyer/taxi driver who likes to chat about baseball and has a sizable garage. He didn’t mind the band setting up there in the evenings and they would power up a bunch of big stage lights Matt found in a dumpster and play. “They make the room feel atmospheric in a way that borders on over-the-top corny/comical” Mildred say, “often when the lights come out is when our practices devolve into heinous nonsense:bad spoken word, screaming, impersonations etc.” In amongst this heinous nonsense the songs took on their final forms, a lot of that atmosphere creeping into their makeup. Mildred’s songs have a magic that makes them feel like they were purposely written for whatever time of day or time of year you’re listening to them in, maybe a result of this liminal space where they were finalised, maybe just the sign of great songs.

For recording, the band took a week off work and decamped to Luke Temple’s studio in Pasadena, having all been carried through the pandemic by his 2019 album Both-And. Thrilled by the prospect of a full week of just playing music together rather than squeezing in around work, they recorded live together in the room, the only way they know how.

The sound that emerged is warm and organic rather than polished or ‘perfect’. Mildred slip effortlessly into grooves and perfect harmonies on songs like ‘Charlie’, ‘Fenceline’ and the extended rolling free association of ‘Mumblecore Melody’ while on the like of ‘Cobwebs’ with its racing pulse and distant, roomy vocals or closer ‘Hardcore of Beauty’ which tumbles from steady drum-machine languor into yelping, shouting crescendo, you can hear the thrill of more left-field ideas taking shape live in the room. When the recording week had finished, only one song didn’t feel quite right, ‘Fish Sticks’.

Ahead of Fenceline, Mildred have just released their debut twin EPs mild and red, a collection of songs impossible not to play over and over in a startling way considering they were created before Mildred even knew they were a band, with no thoughts beyond just messing around back in Ward St. Arriving purposefully on the scene in that gentle, approachable Mildred way, the EPs picked up support from The Guardian, The Line of Best Fit, DIY, Uncut, The New Cue, Clash, Brooklyn Vegan and more. In amongst the release, they also played made their debut on UK shores with a headline show at The Windmill in Brixton (during which they took a blackout well in their stride with some rip-roaring acapella fun), as well as playing at London’s The Shacklewell Arms and Bristol’s The Louisiana.

While in Bristol with a free afternoon, Mildred took ‘Fish Sticks’ to a friend, Jack Ogborne aka Bingo Fury (The Cindys, Naima Bock), to give it another go in his studio in the basement of a centuries-old pub across the street from what used to be a prison, with a secret passageway connecting the two. It’s not easy to tell that ‘Fish Sticks’ has a very different recording setup as it settles so comfortably in with the rest of Fenceline; but the change of scenery gave it new life and a final product - an endlessly repayable distillation of the Mildred sound with a central guitar line for the ages and irresistible harmonies - that they all liked so much it became the lead single.

A bit of tinkering, overdubs and a beautifully cohesive final mix from Will followed by mastering from GRAMMY nominee Jason Mitchell, and Fenceline was finished.

The title track, and album title, in part stems from long drives (Mildred’s music is perfect for long drives). In the US you can’t drive anywhere for any length of time without seeing an ‘Adopt-a-Highway’ sign. “It’s some sort of state program whereby businesses/individuals sign up to clean a portion of a highway a couple times a year in return for roadside advertisement” Henry explains, “I had the line “I’m adopting a highway... just to try things my way” and then an image of a narrator “adopting” a stretch of highway, not out of civic duty, but as a petty way to remain in someone’s mind, knowing they’ll have to drive past the signs over and over again”.

This is a perfect example of the kind of songwriting that makes Mildred already feel timeless. Ordinary - everyday, even - objects from daily life looked at in such a way as to change the way you see them forever. Songs dance back and forth over the line between crystal clear snapshots of the real world and hazy poetic embellishment, to create a dream-like version of life that is both intensely relatable and tantalizingly out of reach. It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what it is about this band that makes the atmosphere they conjure so enticing but it’s impossible to step away from.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Deep, melodic country rock and gorgeously evocative instrumentals from Oakland's Mildred. Though all the songs here are impeccably written and perfectly performed, they have the loose collaborative feel of improvisational sessions, which results in something that feels free and easy, and incredibly competent.

TRACK LISTING

1. UPS Brown
2. Fish Sticks
3. Charlie
4. Cobwebs
5. Fenceline
6. Fleet Week
7. Aquinas
8. Mumblecore Melody
9. Pitch Boats
10. Hardore Of Beauty

'Trying Times' is James Blake’s seventh studio album and features British rapper Dave, and singer-songwriter Monica Martin. Written between Los Angeles and London, it’s a record about being in love whilst battling the limits of the self against a backdrop of global uncertainty. He explores the tension between intimacy and isolation, the pressure to curate and perform even as everything, inside and out, feels fragile and precarious. Themes of reflection, both literally and metaphorically, run through the record’s visual presentation, as Blake holds a mirror to the contradictions of modern connection - how we see ourselves, how we’re seen by others, and what gets lost in between. It’s about the disorienting loop of joy and dread: feeling safe in love, yet knowing the bubble could burst at any moment; struggling to stay present while global anxiety and private doubt pull you in different directions. A meditation on love, identity, and fragility in an age where the world feels balanced on a knife edge.

Since emerging in the early 2010s, British producer, songwriter, and musician James Blake has become one of the most influential artists of his generation. He has earned nine GRAMMY® nominations and two wins, a Mercury Prize, and an Ivor Novello Award, while his groundbreaking blend of electronica, soul, hip-hop, and alternative R&B has shaped the sound of contemporary music. Across six acclaimed albums, including his GRAMMY®-nominated 'Playing Robots Into Heaven', the platinum-selling ‘Overgrown', and the UK Top-5 'Friends That Break Your Heart', Blake has evolved from post-dubstep visionary to globally celebrated vocalist, composer, and producer. His signature sound and midas-touch production have supported some of the most defining artists and albums of the last decade, including Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, ROSALÍA, SZA, Travis Scott, Jay Rock’s GRAMMY®-winning hit “King’s Dead" and most recently ground breaking UK rapper Dave.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Walk Out Music
2 Death Of Love
3 I Had A Dream She Took My Hand

Side B
1 Trying Times
2 Make Something Up
3 Didn’t Come To Argue (ft. Monica Martin)

Side C
1 Days Go By
2 Doesn’t Just Happen (ft. Dave)
3 Obsession
4 Rest Of Your Life

Side D
1 Through The High Wire
2 Feel It Again
3 Just A Little Higher


Exclusive Bonus 7”
Side A: So Far Away (Carole King Cover)
Side B: Landslide (Fleetwood Mac Cover)

“I’ve always wanted to make work that’s a reflection of my life experience,” says singer-guitarist James Petralli, leader of venturous L.A.-based rockers White Denim. “The just-below-the-surface significance to ‘13’ as an album title is that I was born on the thirteenth of August. ‘13’ in numerology can signify independence, creativity, and a solid foundation, but inversely is often considered to be unlucky and can signify chaos and misfortune. Like everyone, I can certainly see both sides in my life.”

‘13’ also happens to be the thirteenth album of White Denim’s career. An incandescent, groove-heavy alchemy of rock, funk, dub, soul and down-dirty blues – and plenty more besides – it’s imbued with the same questing spirit that’s been the band’s trademark since first starting in Austin, Texas, some 20 years ago.

Petralli’s wide-ranging musical appetites have become more voracious over time. The sounds and textures of ‘13’ are informed by everyone from Scritti Politti to The Gap Band, Terry Reid to King Tubby, Caetano Veloso to John Cale, Stevie Wonder to ‘80s-era Steve Winwood. Such diversity is reflected in multi-faceted gems like “(God Created) Lock And Key”, “Only A Fool” and “That’s Rap”. The seed of the project is rooted in the irresistible “Chew Nails”. “It’s a straightforward glam-rock tune,” says Petralli. “My take on the ‘New York Groove’, which is itself a take on the Bo Diddley beat. It has a big ol’ guitar riff and a singalong chorus. It’s familiar territory for me, yet the vocal is perhaps more forward than most things I’ve done for the band. It’s the song that made me feel like I was definitely making a White Denim album.”

The duality of ‘13’ is immediately apparent. The pungent funk-blues of opener “(God Created) Lock And Key” begins with a piece of waggish self-mythology – “On the thirteenth day God created White Denim…” – but soon goes somewhere darker. “This is a Beefheart / Sun Ra sort of thing,” Petralli explains. “I hope that it’s a somewhat terrifying, startling, and visceral piece for everyone that hears it. Everything I say in that song is the truth. It's about power, generational cycles of abuse, shame, violence, and survival. The things that we all understand and know and see and push down to get through the day.”

Elsewhere, the temperate “Time Time” heads into the kind of soulful, horn-gilded territory that earmarked White Denim’s previous album, 2024’s critically lauded ‘12’. Here, Petralli addresses the roll of the years, creative freedom and the importance of family: “It’s a sort of promise that, as long as I’m alive, I will try to prioritise my wife and children and our relationships above all else.” This is a key theme of ‘13’. “I felt that I had to write about my life and experience as a middle-aged dad trying to do better for a family and make sense of this life through making art,” he adds.

A similar sensibility drives the fabulous “Earth To”, a hallucinatory piece of self-reflection that charts Petralli’s journey thus far. Though, as ever with White Denim, it also speaks to the universal. “If you zoom out a little bit, the song is ultimately a sort of takedown of the American dream,” he says.

Then there’s “Keep Calling Me (Baby)”, which rides a fine line between dubby calypso and shimmery sunshine-pop. Petralli likens it to “sort of Ace of Base meets Cyndi Lauper meets Roy Orbison in my mind. Nick Lowe’s ‘Jesus Of Cool’ tells me it’s OK to do whatever you want. He gave me permission to do this one.”

The song features band members Michael Hunter (keyboards) and Cat Clemons (guitar), alongside original drummer Josh Block, who, having also journeyed west from Texas in recent times, is now Petralli’s neighbour. Block’s presence on ‘13’ - alongside the likes of Matt Young (drums, percussion), Jesse Chandler (clarinet, sax, flute), Kosta Galanoupolis (bass), and Dawes siblings Griffin and Taylor Goldsmith – highlights both the fluid nature of latter-day White Denim and Petralli’s determination to honour the band’s initial directive. Also aboard is fellow original, bassist Steve Terebecki. “I wouldn’t call a project White Denim if it didn't include significant contributions from another founding member of the group,” asserts Petralli. “‘12’ and ‘13’ both feature Josh and Steve in various capacities. I recorded and arranged these last two records for the most part, but I really don’t ever want to be alone. Music has given me a place and purpose in this world. And it’s been the primary way I’ve connected with other people over the years.” ‘13’ proves that Petrali continues to do so. And in imperious style

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: An unabashed tribute to rock and roll here from White Denim, with a roaring selection of distorted guitars and screaming gravelly vocals, rolling basses and pummeling percussion. Though there are moments of off-kilter funk and melodic oddities peppered around, this is at it's heart, a great rock record. If it ain't broke...

TRACK LISTING

Side A
(God Created) Lock & Key
Chew Nails
Only A Fool
Time Time
Crossfyre
Keep Calling Me Baby

Side B
1. Earth To
That’s Rap
3. Hired Hand #2
4. Ruby
5. Matchbook Baby
6. Quiet Moments
7. Drive Trucks

With “Creature of Habit”, Courtney Barnett leans further into the quietly transportive charm that has always defined her songwriting - the ability to turn the mundane into something intimate, profound, and strangely luminous in just a few lines. Recorded in the expansive openness of Joshua Tree, the album doesn’t push Barnett’s voice into the background so much as let it float within a noticeably wider sonic space, where atmosphere becomes as important as lyricism.

There’s a strong sense of place running through the record: faint silences between instruments, unhurried pacing, and arrangements that stretch outward rather than rush toward resolution. “Creature of Habit” often feels meditative, cohesive, and unforced, with tracks built less around traditional verse-chorus structures and more around steady, evolving grooves that reward patient listening.

Sonically, this is perhaps Barnett’s most textured work to date. While guitar remains central, it’s frequently softened, with warm, rounded basslines layering underneath and subtly guiding each track without ever dominating it. The rhythm of the album tends to breathe - building, receding, and circling back - creating a hypnotic quality that makes the record feel less like a collection of songs and more like a continuous emotional environment.

The opening track, "Stay in Your Lane", sets the tone with a hazy, dreamlike drift, establishing the album’s preference for atmosphere over immediacy. It’s followed by "Mostly Patient", which feels like a love song viewed from a distance: gentle guitar strums cradle Barnett’s restrained vocal delivery, which carries an ease and comfort that feels newly settled. Across the record, her voice is notably more restrained than in earlier work, favouring spaced-out phrasing and repetition over her once more rapid-fire delivery. At its most effective, it takes on a mantra-like quality - calming rather than confrontational.

This shift in vocal approach deepens the album’s emotional palette. When she sings lines like “The sky stretches wider than I thought it could,” they land less as literal observation and more as shifts in perspective - moments where external landscape and internal state quietly blur into one another.

Compared with earlier records like “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit”, “Tell Me How You Really Feel”, and “Things Take Time, Take Time”, this is a more expansive, patient iteration of Barnett’s voice - less focused on immediacy, more willing to linger in ambiguity. Even the sharper edges of earlier releases like “The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas” feel reinterpreted here through a slower, more reflective lens, while her collaboration with Kurt Vile on “Lotta Sea Lice” feels like a distant precursor to this looser, more spacious sensibility.

If there’s a challenge, it’s also the album’s defining trait: its patience. “Creature of Habit” doesn’t chase instant hooks or immediate gratification. Instead, it unfolds gradually, layer by layer, revealing emotional weight that only becomes fully visible with time.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stunning new album, replete with soaring melodies and clever, incisive lyrics delivered in a typically laid-back, jangling bed of woozy indie. There are hints of off-piste electronics and experimental leanings (Thanks Floating Points) but in all, a wholly melodic, reliably brilliant Barnett outing.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Stay In Your Lane
Wonder
Site Unseen (featuring Waxahatchee)
Mostly Patient
One Thing At A Time

Side B
Mantis
Sugar Plum
Same
Great Advice
Another Beautiful Day

Cosmic exploration. Spiritual transformation. Unbridled spontaneity. These are the guiding principles of Pigeon, a psychedelic five-piece rooted in the English seaside town of Margate, yet making music that transcends borders. Pigeon are Falle Nioke (vocals, percussion), Graham Godfrey (drums), Josh Ludow (bass), Steve Pringle (keys, synths) and Tom Dream (guitar), musicians whose combined credits include Little Simz, Michael Kiwanuka, SAULT and Saul Williams.

Their debut album, OUTTANATIONAL, is a thrilling collection of party songs without limits: think William Onyeabor in outer-space or early Hot Chip making motorik afrobeat in a 70s New York loft. Building on a string of acclaimed EPs that have been playlisted on 6Music and led to coveted live slots at UK festivals like Glastonbury, Pigeon have evolved out of Afro-disco territory into something moodier. It’s an expansive record laced with heady krautrock, post-punk and punk-funk, indebted to the power of the groove and questing to find the meaning of home. Pigeon must fly.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Driving cosmic passages and soaring synth lines, snappy kosmische percussion and distorted vocal snippets, Pigeon present a wonderfully deep and danceable mix of indie, post-punk and afrobeat.

TRACK LISTING

1. NRG
2. Black James Dean
3. Miami
4. Horse With A Blind
5. 117
6. Mirror Test
7. Hype Prototype
8. Future Country
9. Today Is Another Day
10. Caramel

SLAG joined hands on the Brighton seafront in September 2023 and brought their music to the people 2 months later. Since then, they have cemented themselves as a household name of the Brighton music scene and are continuously working on getting their sticky fingers in the pies of other cities across the UK and the world.

The band is comprised of Amelie Gibson (guitar and vox), Seb Cooper (Keys and Bvs), Luke Martin (Drums), Freya Eastcott (Bass and Bvs) and Dan Phillips (guitar). They all like each other very much and this is why they don’t mind going on tour in a car that only has 3 doors. The music they make is a glorious Frankenstein of influences that looks a little bit like prog rock in the right lighting. When they perform it’s like watching the Winx Club reach their full potential through the irrefutable power of friendship.

SLAG won’t tell you that they’re the best because they don’t feel qualified to make your mind up for you, but with outstretched arms they invite you to see for yourself.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Face Off
Losing
Still Here
Private Gyno
Dislocated

Side B
1. Ripped
2. Heaven
3. Legs

Irish duo Chalk’s full-length debut LP, Crystalpunk, speaks directly to the upbringing and roots of the band members—award-winning musicians and filmmakers Ross Cullen [vocalist + producer] and Benedict Goddard [multi-instrumentalist + director]. The beauty, confusion, complexity, and intensity of their youth – lived under the shadow and around the scars of conflict – are entangled in the industrial dance-punk hybrid encoded in the record’s DNA, aptly entitled Crystalpunk.

“This record is us waving a flag for that generation — the ones who inherited confusion, resilience, and a fractured sense of self.” They’re waving that flag as intensely as possible too. For the uninitiated, Chalk mainlines the reaction between genres, eras, and cultures, commuting this collision into their sound. The Belfast group could comfortably power an underground warehouse party after-dark, incite a mid-day festival mosh-pit, or shake an arena on any given evening. Their power has seamlessly translated to the stage with the group packing venues and delivering alternately sweaty and electrifying performances to a growing rabid fan base. As a group, they've sold out shows across the UK, EU and USA, notched festival performances such as Glastonbury, SXSW, BBK, Trans Musicals and more across 11 countries and were handpicked to tour alongside IDLES and Fontaines D.C..

Coming from dissimilar backgrounds and rallying together naturally, Ben and Ross first crossed paths in film school. As the story goes, Ben had noticed a framed poster of Dublin disruptors Gilla Band in one of Ross’s Instagram photos and felt a kinship before ever actually speaking to him. “Nobody else at our school was into experimental noise guitar bands, so that was all I needed to see,” laughs Ben. Emerging in 2022, Chalk initially made waves with songs like “Them,” “Velodrome,” and “Static.”

In 2025, the guys hit the studio in Donegal with producer and longtime creative cohort Chris W Ryan to bring Crystalpunk to life. Documenting youth and living fully in their process allowed the band to create their most immersive piece to date.

Ultimately, they come-of-age and tell a story that resonates beyond borders. Not just a portrait of the band, but one of their home, a complicated place where the sacrifices made and risks taken by activists, artists, ravers and punks created the only environment that a band like Chalk could emerge from. Crystalpunk is not about choosing a side, it’s about choosing the future.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Tongue
Pain
Can’t Feel It
Longer
One-Nine-Eight-Zero

Side B
Eclipse
Skem
I.D.C.
Béal Feirste
Ache

Hotly anticipated debut album from the fast-rising Birmingham four-piece whose heart-on-sleeve, emotional indie rock and powerful live shows have earned them a devoted young following across the UK and Europe.

Produced by Rich Turvey (Blossoms, Rachel Chinouriri) and mixed by Cenzo Townshend, the debut follows large sold-out headline shows across the UK and Europe, support slots including with Wunderhorse and Inhaler, and appearances at Reading & Leeds, Boardmasters and Isle of Wight Festival.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Blazing, emotionally charged punky indie from Birmingham, with hints of pop-punk and alt-rock, and a huge focus on the vocalists particularly powerful performance. A hugely energetic debut that reminds me of the punky blast of Ash's '1977', no bad thing.

TRACK LISTING

1. Union Station
2. Sandman
3. Is This Real?
4. Fall In Love
5. Bonnie & Clyde Pt. 2
6. Forever. You
7. Spinning
8. I Will
9. Get Up!
10. Heaven

deathcrash’s third album, Somersaults, glimmers with an everyday euphoria. The London-based slowcore/ post-rock quartet has always had an affinity for building worlds only to crush them. From their breakout EP, People thought my windows were stars (2021), through two critically acclaimed studio albums, Return (2022) and Less (2023), they have been both the architects and the destroyers, the creationists and the ones manning the flood barrier. But, recorded between Black Box Studio in the Loire Valley and Haggerston’s Holy Mountain, Somersaults is almost joyful.

Its ten tracks are more vocal heavy than any of the band’s catalogue – think Mark Linkous via The Kinks – but lyrically, Somersaults resists revelation. For all its abrasion, phrases appear half-swallowed, broken off at the edge of meaning, consumed by the smaller textures of living. “Thirty, no career, it fucking worries me / And doing the band doesn’t help,” Banks sings in ‘NYC’. But, “This life is the best life,” he finishes in ‘CMC’ on top of the ambient white noise of an office printer, thankful that the band is still there, “still making noise in the doorway.”

Musical abstractions jettison the same way sunlight might catch the broken glass of a ransacked liquor store. Within those prisms are songs crafted from real hurt, but reflect beautifully. Their role as caretakers of Duster, Low and Codeine’s slowcore lineage is all across Somersaults – songs scud to a narcotic crawl, sound monolithic and inwards before spotlighting a crystalline nothing. Cathartic builds are muddied with tenderness, the bass a heavy grounding, the drums an exhausted heartbeat grasping for air. But more so than ever, even the silence feels collaborative – a gesture of communal trust – friends celebrating the room they’ve made for each other’s ghosts, and some of the biggest, brightest songs they’ve made to date.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Somersaults
NYC
CMC
Triumph
Bella

Side B
The Thing You Did
Wrong To Suffer
Stay Forever
Love For M
Marie’s Last Dance

wing!’s debut EP MISSED IT JUST THE ONCE is a ghostly instrumental hip hop project shaped by instinct, collaboration, and the constraints of a work lunch break - combining sample-based beat-making with live instrumentation.
Emerging from a period of creative exploration and personal transformation, MISSED IT JUST THE ONCE marks a pivotal moment for wing!, the moniker of Bexleyheath born-and-raised producer Adam Swan. “This EP was a breath of fresh air for me,” he shares. “It was the first time I had multiple tracks I was proud of. The idea of having an EP to listen back to and be excited about was completely new to me.”

Each track on the EP tells its own story, both in sound and in the moments of its creation. The first single "Out From Outer" was the first track written for the EP, and its original skeleton was conceived during wing!’s lunch break from working in a coffee shop - a habit that has been the basis of all of the tracks on the EP. “I was listening to a lot of Brazilian funk and thinking about how J Dilla layered samples on Geek Down,” he recalls. “I wanted it to feel like a live DJ endlessly flipping samples over a drum loop.”

The track served as the catalyst for the formation of wing!’s live band: after sending it to drummer Joe Killick, they had their first rehearsal and began transforming the music into a live experience, soon joined by bassist Kai Charlton. They made their debut at The Windmill Brixton in April 2024. As a trio playing live, they bridge the gap between beat-driven electronic & hip hop music and live jazz-inflected improvisation. Their blend of trip-hop textures with post-rock dynamics contributed to the EP’s final completion, with all three performing on the closing track.

Closing track In A Second I Will Need A Second’s post-rock inspired sound blends seamlessly with wing!’s more native hip-hop beatmaking. Drawing influence from the likes of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Butch Kassidy, the track's energy is built around a drum crescendo of epic proportions. Initially hesitant to incorporate live drums over the usual sampling, wing! ultimately embraced the organic energy it brought to their live and recorded sound. The track’s momentum is driven by drummer Joe Killick’s subtle dynamic shifts. Kai Charlton brings deeply melodic bass, resulting in a piece that feels immense while remaining introspective.

The EP came hot off the back of opening Green Man Festival’s iconic Mountain Stage after winning the Green Man Rising competition.

MISSED IT JUST THE ONCE is wing! planting his flag in the ground, and making their first definitive statement. Boom bap grooves melding seamlessly with trippy ambiance and propulsive composition. With ‘In A Second I Will Need a Second’ the trio close out their debut EP in an epic conclusion. wing! continue to move from strength-to-strength, and have cemented themselves as one to watch with this release. With Missed It Just The Once, wing! establishes himself as an artist unafraid to follow his instincts, experiment freely, and find creativity in unexpected places.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Let The Rest Go
Out From Outer
Pack It In
In A Second I Will Need A Second

Side B
Let’s Just See (Physical Only Bonus)

For his new album, Irreparable Parables, Andrew Wasylyk felt a strong desire to write a set of songs featuring an element hitherto rare in his work: the human voice. Equally strong was the conviction that he did not want to sing them himself.

The Scottish multi-instrumentalist and composer set about assembling a group of guest singers, sending out the songs to wherever they were in the world. The vocals were recorded remotely and then, like migrating birds, winged their way back to Scotland. The result is an album of great beauty which, perhaps preeminently in Wasylyk’s work, expresses the vulnerability and resilience of the human spirit.

Six singers appear on the record, represented by six songbirds illustrated on the sleeve by Clay Pipe Music’s Frances Castle. The cuckoo is a nod to Belle and Sebastian’s 2004 single ‘I’m A Cuckoo’, that band’s Stuart Murdoch being the first voice you hear on the new album. When the vocal for ‘Private Symphony #2’ arrived, says Wasylyk, “it was everything that I was looking for and more. But this is Stuart Murdoch. Of course he’s going to make something incredibly beautiful and thoughtful.”

The song lyrics were, for the most part, written by the singers. The music is Wasylyk’s creation. He navigates a sound world that lies somewhere beyond the borders of classical and jazz, ambient and abstract. It is difficult to describe, but easy to understand, which is to say to feel. That is the way Wasylyk’s work is experienced: as a feeling. It takes you back to childhood, perhaps, to feelings of comfort and safety, or to memories of walks at sunrise and sunset, or to the way a shadow falls on a particular field in a particular place at a particular time in your life. This is consoling music. That is why, though pretty, it is not merely pretty. These are songs to shore up the soul.
Wasylyk writes in a room, in his native Dundee, full of “half-broken” instruments. He picks these up, plays a little, seeking an idea, a feeling, a door that lies ajar. The musical palette of Irreparable Parables includes brass and woodwind, a six-piece string section, guitar, bass, drums, vibraphone, Mellotron, Fender Rhodes, tape loops, synthesisers and percussion. The strings were arranged by the cellist Pete Harvey, a long-term collaborator.
Among the other guest vocalists are Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals, Saya Ueno from Japan’s Tenniscoats and Peter Brewis from Field Music. Wasylyk himself takes the lead vocal on the title track, though a throat infection and touch of pitch-shifting have altered his singing in a way that even he, having fallen out of love with his own voice, finds acceptable.
The heart of the record can, arguably, be found in two tracks, ‘Love Is A Life That Lasts Forever’ and ‘Spectators In The Absence of God’, sung respectively by Molly Linen and Kathryn Joseph. The former, bright with trumpets, was inspired by the writing of Derek Jarman. “I was feeling deeply upset about the world and wanted to try and write something that was obviously hopeful,” Wasylyk says.

‘Spectators …’ offers an emotional counterpoint. It is an “apocalyptic hymn” that seems to grapple with watching human suffering from afar, too distant to be at physical risk, but experiencing the psychological wounding, and feelings of helplessness, even complicity, that come with constant awareness of other people’s pain. “Kathryn’s a pal, I love her dearly, and she’s a brilliant artist who really feels what she writes,” Wasylyk says. “The cracked tenderness of her voice is spellbinding.”

The album closes with an instrumental piece, ‘Soul Enters The Ocean Sun Climbs Out Of The Sea’, all piano and strings, that offers a sense of resolution and ascension. A good moment, too, for Wasylyk to reflect upon the artistic companionship that he enjoyed while making this record – the songbirds that answered his call: “These humans are incredible at what they do. I’m deeply grateful and feel so lucky. It blows my mind.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Private Symphony #2 (Feat. Stuart Murdoch)
2. The Cold Collar (Feat. Gruff Rhys)
3. Love Is A Life That Lasts Forever (Feat. Molly Linen)
4. First Moonbeams Of Adulthood
5. Road To The Amber Room
Side B
1. Hachi No Su (Feat. Saya From Tenniscoats)
2. In Portmanteau (Feat. Field Music)
3. Irreparable Parables
4. Spectators In The Absence Of God (Feat. Kathryn Joseph)
5. Soul Enters The Ocean Sun Climbs Out The Sea

Dinked Edition Extra CD:
01. Private Symphony (Instrumental Mix)
02. The Cold Collar (Instrumental Mix)
03. Love Is A Life That Lasts Forever (Instrumental Mix)
04. First Moonbeams Of Adulthood (Alternative Mix)
05. Road To The Amber Room (Alternative Mix)
06. Hachi No Su (Instrumental Mix)
07. In Portmanteau (Instrumental Mix)
08. Irreparable Parables (Instrumental Mix)
09. Spectators In The Absence Of God (Instrumental Mix)
10. Soul Enters The Ocean Sun Climbs Out The Sea (Alternative Mix)

Bruise Control are a loud-mouth four-piece punk outfit from Manchester who’ve become a serious force in the UK DIY scene. They’ve been carving their name with a ferocious energy, mixing the raw aggression of ’80s hardcore with hooky, jagged indie riffs pulled straight out of the early ’00s. Their new EP and extended physical release, which they co-produced (by their guitarist Niall Griffin), really captures that chaotic, live-wire feel - think shout-along choruses, gritty vocals, and a jagged musical edge that somehow still feels melodic.

On stage, Bruise Control are notorious for bringing the party - wild shows, loose banter, and a real sense of community. They’ve played at festivals like 2000Trees, The Great Escape, Bearded Theory, Left Of The Dial and more, bringing their DIY punk spirit to a big crowd. The band have also played shows with Amyl & The Sniffers, Spiritual Cramp, Civic, Press Club and loads more.

Their single “Gone to Ground” is "raw, urgent, and emotionally honest — and it’s a great example of how they balance grit and melody". - Punkinfocus

If you like bands who hit hard but still keep things weird and thoughtful, Bruise Control are here for you…

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Be Like You
2 Left Behind
3 Spinners Mill
4 Gone To Ground
5 If You’re Not Mine
6 Jumping Ship

Side B (Exclusive To Vinyl)
1 Nostalgia (Demo)
2 Bruise Control (Live In Manchester)
3 Dead On Arrival (Live In Manchester)
4 No More
5 Left Behind (Alternative Version)

At last, a brand new album from the legendary outfit, The Heads.
'yourprettyplaceisgoingtohell' is their first new material for 20 years.
It will be released almost 30 years on from their seminal debut “Relaxing With”, this will be their fifth studio album proper.

The band are a well established though reclusive part of the UKs underground / cult psychedelic rock scene. A constant four piece, they also perform/record in their own projects; Paul Allen/Anthroprophh, Simon Price/Kandodo and Wayne Maskell and Hugo Morgan are both now in Loop.

The album was recorded over three days whilst the Heads were rehearsing for a couple of live dates with their friends, and peers, Mudhoney. The guitars, drums and bass were laid down live in Bristol, over-dubs added and then mixed/produced by John McBain in Portland.

Initially planned as two single albums, (Volumes 1+2) it soon made sense that they should be put together as a double LP.
Named in a nod to the Stooges' Raw Power classic 'Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell', it describes the trajectory we're all on.

The Heads are renowned for their brutalist take on psychedelic rock, this new album shows how much they have absorbed from their years of existence, their peers and the world around them. Not much change though, they haven't mellowed out.

The pummel is there, the spaced out sike zones are there, there’s wigged out guitar solos that will peel the paint off the walls, there’s even pop songs if you look/listen hard enough. John McBain has done a grand job in fine tuning the noise and sonic assault.
It's hard to draw a direct “for fans of “ list, because ultimately this album is for fans of The Heads.
However, you can trace the DNA of this album back to the Stooges, Hawkwind, 13th Floor Elevators, Can, Mudhoney, Monster Magnet, Loop, Spacemen 3, MC5 etc. all squeezed through The Head's heavy sonic blender.

A band that only ever existed on the fringes, "if you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much space''.
Life and jobs got in the way a bit but hey, at least that kept it pure.
'One chord, three pedals, six years' was an old mantra of theirs. They've pushed that to 'three chords, double album, 20 years'.
Don't expect another.


notes from Simon Price about the album........
The lyrics reflect a despair at what we, the human race, has done, is doing and will do. Not only to ourselves and to each other but also to the delicate balance of our ecosystems, Gaia, Mother Earth. The creatures and critters really don't deserve us.

But it seems it's so much easier to kill than to create. We're crap custodians, quick to destroy habitats and homes rather than to nurture our inter-connected futures.
Playing loud guitars, creating beautiful noise, gives us release, escape from the mundanities of life. Screaming into the void. Know that doesn't really help much but it's better than nothing.

your pretty place is going to hell, Raw Power from a lost age of comparative innocence.
'what've we done? Made it for nothing? The race was won but can't stop the rushing?' The money machine chews it all up,spitting out diminishing returns, ever increasing pain and poisoning our planetary home.

'So many lives in concrete hives' This is progress? We've lost our connections to the 'Vast One', forgotten that we are a part of the greatest whole. 'Chopping it down, delicate balance.'
if only plastic would rust

Music allows us to vent some frustrations of powerlessness, confusion, anger, of living in a world run by egotistical greedy old men. 'Cos it's always been this way' Does it have to be this way? is this it? really?

we, humanity, are the plague that will choke our planet, the only animal that kills for fun.'The only hope is in the trees, bullets fly but no bees'
in 5000 years, a flicker of a candle in space's eternity, we have managed to go from caves to the moon and yet seemingly get nowhere.
Everybody knows we got nowhere.

Animals adapt or die, only we haven't/can't adapt to our environment, still gathering in excess and hunting wealth to the detriment of all else.
'The earth/the planet, the future is gold/sold'

yourprettyplaceisgoingtohell
Wars rage endlessly, driven by vain ancients, warped realities, climate collapse, greed and desperation.
The innocents are at best ignored, at worst destroyed.

It's not all doom, gloom and pessimistic rantings; shyness, love and loss are also covered.

We know everything and yet have seemingly learnt nothing. snafu
'the less you know, the more that you say' there's a 'post truth' media slop overload,
AI can only speed the descent, junked up food for primitive brains.
wanna just shut out the noise,
so we plug in, bang the drums, hit the fuzz

Apparently we want to go to Mars and beyond but cannot see what we've already got, heaven in a wild flower.
Not to worry, we're fucked, but, hey, we've got enough distractions, such as making this album, so we can ignore that iceberg dead ahead.
yourprettyplaceisgoingtohell

pre-apocalypse blues of rhythmic fuzz and acid rock.

This album will be the soundtrack to navigate 2026.
Released on the Vernal Equinox (March 20th 2026)

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The Heads' incendiary 5th album comes incredibly cold on the heels of their last new material some 20 years ago. Fortunately then, they've still retained all of the irresistible groove and pummelling force of their earlier, seminal works. It's fitting that it should include such an overt Stooges reference, but the stylistic similarities stay well within the confines of the Heads' characteristic maelstrom.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Hits Like A Dove
2 Cardinal Fuzz
3 Can't Stop The Rushing
Side B
4 It's About Time...and Space
Side C
5 On
6 Snake Oil
7 Sunquaker
8 Socially Awkward
Side D
9 Entropic Dissolution
10 Bullets Fly But No Bees
11 It's All Over Now Sunshine
12 Off

Following the crazily limited Dinked Edition white label pressing of this incredible album (it sold out in minutes), we now bring you the official worldwide release on Mute. Hailed as one of the US’s most exciting and provocative new bands, Prostitute’s bracing debut Attempted Martyr has been quite the talking point!


Emerging out of Dearborn, Michigan, this five-piece deal in pure chaos and catharsis - fiery live shows, razor-sharp intensity, and a sound that’s as incendiary as it is brutally tight. Their name reflects their fixation on identity, desperation, and survival under late capitalism.

Attempted Martyr was written in the midst of global and personal turmoil, capturing the zeitgeist of a world unraveling. A loose concept record, it chronicles the rise and fall of a doomed zealot whose pursuit of holy vengeance spirals into a psychotic orgy of violence, greed, and lust. It’s dense, turbulent, and charged with blaring Middle Eastern, African and East Asian influences - all scorched into shape by producer Chris Koltay (The Armed, Mdou Moctar).

With mounting online buzz, critical acclaim and a run of sold-out bootleg editions, Prostitute’s debut continues to gain momentum.

“Really heavy, intense, intriguing, thrilling, and thematically unique album, and aesthetically unique, too” - Anthony Fantano

“Calling the Dearborn noise rockers’ debut “intense” is somehow still underselling it.”- Pitchfork

“...a terroristic noise rock opera, complete with groovy riffs, pummeling drums, and a frontman more crazed than anyone in their orbit” - Stereogum

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: The insanely fabulous debut album from Michigan’s Prostitute is provocative, intense, and deeply unsettling. The band forge an uneasy, densely layered collision of brutal post-industrial percussion, blown-out noise rock, and eerie Middle Eastern-tinged motifs. The result is a raw, claustrophobic sound that feels both hypnotic and confrontational, pushing distortion and rhythm into dark, ritualistic territory. Bold, abrasive, and strangely captivating - amazing stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 All Hail
A2 Judge
A3 M. Dada
A4 Body Meat

Side B
B1 Senegal
B2 In The Corner Dunce
B3 Joumana Kayrouz
B4 Harem Induction Hour

The New Eves’ extraordinary debut The New Eve Is Rising was released on 1 August 2025 to critical acclaim. Written in Brighton and at an artistic residency at The Cornish Bank and recorded at Rockfield Studios and Bristol’s Cotham Parish Church, The New Eve Is Rising takes the four-piece’s untamed melting pot of musical styles - an instinctive, incendiary mix of Patti Smith radical poetry, rock’n’roll recklessness, freak folk experimentalism and plenty more - and somehow turns it into a collection of clarion calls that you can still hum. It’s completely immersive; a whole world to dive into that’s taken on a life of its own. “We’re all adhering to The New Eve entity of the band,” Ella notes. “The band knows what it wants.”

Across its nine tracks are references to highwayman’s caves and 12th Century lovers Heloise and Abelard; to krautrock and Swedish cow calls and even lyrics whispered into a bat detector. The band call what they make Hagstone Rock. “There’s a lot of mythology around a hagstone, and it’s different in different places, but generally if you look through the hole of hagstone you can see the truth,” says Ella. “We see ourselves as a rock band, but there’s a lot of depth in there and putting hagstone in front of it felt better.” Pause. “It also has the word ‘hag’ in it, which we really identify with…”Nestled somewhere between primal rock'n'roll live performance and transcendent ritual, there's an unmistakable alchemy that happens when Violet Farrer (guitar, violin, vocals), Nina Winder-Lind (cello, guitar, vocals), Kate Mater (bass, vocals) and Ella Oona Russell (drums, flute, vocals) step onto a stage together.

Now, they've distilled this visceral energy into their extraordinary debut album 'The New Eve Is Rising': a lighting rod of inspiration channelled by a quartet with the ability to create something greater than the sum of their parts. 'The New Eve Is Rising' was written in Brighton and at an artistic residency at The Cornish Bank, co-produced by The New Eves and Jack Osbourne (Bingo Fury) and recorded at Rockfield Studios and Bristol's Cotham Parish Church

TRACK LISTING

1. The New Eve
2. Highway Man
3. Cow Song
4. Mid Air Glass
5. Astrolabe
6. Circles
7. Mary
8. Rivers Run Red
9. Volcano

Ellur is one of those unique artists who combines an undeniable authenticity with a forceful ambition and a voice that reaches beyond her years.

From Halifax, Ellur (named after the Yorkshire pronunciation of her name Ella) writes songs about feeling, battling with, and ultimately drawing comfort from vulnerability in a way that takes influence equally from classic alternative rock as it does the new school of songwriters of today. ‘At Home In My Mind’, her debut album, is an open invite into the world and is a brutally honest reflection on life in your emerging 20s - an arm extended out, looking for people who need a hand to hold.

“Recording this album felt like the crescendo of years of struggling to understand myself. It can get quite claustrophobic living inside my head.” The album is a journey around Ellur’s mind, it dips into different musical genres that have shaped her for the past 24 years – from the 90s indie rock she grew up with, to glitch-pop she discovered in her late teens to the alt-folk she cherishes now. Ellur has created a warm abode for her thoughts and experiences as a young woman growing up in Yorkshire’s Calderdale Valley and ‘At Home In My Mind’ beds them all in, safely together. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Shimmering synthpop meets driving electronica and swooning folk, topped with Ella's evocative, bracing vocals (there's a particular similarity to Lucy Dacus - thus Bruce Springsteen running through these pieces). A stylistically diverse, beautifully produced whole.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
God Help Me Now
Missing Kid
The Wheel
Dream Of Mine
Yellow Light
Black Sands

Side B
Pushing Away
The World Is Not An Oyster
Disintegrate
Lonelier In Heaven
At Home In My Mind
Knowing

YARD are the electrifying three-piece electropunk band from Dublin. Known for their intense and immersive live shows, YARD bridges the gap between electronica and post-punk, creating an auditory onslaught that leaves audiences sweaty, energised, and strangely unnerved.

Since their inception, YARD has shared stages with the likes of A Place To Bury Strangers, Psychotic Monks and Mandy Indiana. Their electrifying live performances, akin to Death Grips, Nine Inch Nails and The Prodigy, have earned them coveted slots at festivals such as Les Transmusicales, Haldern Pop and Into The Great Wide Open.

With a recent live performance on KEXP, continued support from Rolling Stone, BBC Radio 6, Clash and Louder Than War among others, a string of European festival appearances, featured tracks in Netflix’s ‘House of Guinness’ as well as Nicolas Cage’s ‘The Surfer’ and the release of their second self-titled EP, YARD are set to continue their meteoric rise in 2026.

A recent live review captured the YARD experience perfectly: “In their presence, you see and feel them painstakingly crafting every note and sound with their bare hands, wrestling with different sockets, switches, strings, or even their voices. The venue was transformed into this factory of raw, unadulterated noise which kept us all at the mercy of the sound - collectively banging our heads in synchronicity.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A (EP1)
Trevor
Appetite
Slumber
Sunlight

Side B (EP2)
Essential Tremor
Big Shoes
Friction
Lawmaker
Auto Erotic

For Mandy, Indiana, the truth is the only way through. On their Sacred Bones debut URGH, the four-piece - vocalist Valentine Caulfield, guitarist and producer Scott Fair, synth player Simon Catling, and drummer Alex Macdougall - are a force of uncanny nature, grafting together a record that is as much a call to action as a parlay into oblivion and transcendence. Across the ten tracks, the band interpolate their own unconventional language into a mantra for self-determination and resilience, forging a template for a brighter future before it fades to black.

Much of the album was written during a residency at an eerie studio house in the outskirts of Leeds, then recorded across Berlin and Greater Manchester. It was an intense environment partially due to the health issues faced by Caulfield and Macdougall during the writing and recording process.

Yet Mandy, Indiana remain uncompromising. Caulfield uses her voice as a distorted instrument and a weapon, oscillating between playful and eviscerating. The throbbing siren-sound of “Magazine” stands alongside the cut-up vocal fry of “try saying” and the shapeshifting ferocity of “ist halt so,” which channels the urgency of protest movements, referencing resistance to the genocide in Gaza while speaking to struggles more broadly, while final track “I'll Ask Her” is a deliberate directness calling out toxic boy’s club culture and a tenacious reckoning that hangs over the album at large.

Although there are still undeniable “bangers” (like the frazzled rap of “Sicko!” featuring billy woods), URGH often feels hewn with precise cinema. From the bristling techno of “Cursive” to the deconstructed feedback loops of “Life Hex,” the album moves between industrial catharsis and cinematic unease, threading a tension that Fair describes as “a remix of itself.” This contrasting palette is both a necessary aspect of the record as well as the underlying connective tissue.

Though deeply personal, URGH reflects the violent, fractured state of the wider world. Caulfield’s lyrics grapple with assault, systemic indifference, and the omnipresence of pain, while also insisting on moments of beauty and solidarity. URGH belongs in the physical world, and the artwork by Carnovsky, featuring an anatomical illustration of Andreas Vesalius, underscores the record’s visceral confrontation with the body and its limits.

URGH is both otherworldly, and physical and cathartic, a first step toward healing and a refusal to let the conversation die. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A sonically scathing, rave-indebted mix of post-industrial soundscapes and fever-dream glitch. There are moments of perfect, uninterrupted melody but it feels like the unintended result of endless, dizzying syncopation rather than ultimate the goal of it. Endlessly surprising and undeniably rousing post-everything electronica.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Sevastopol
Magazine
Try Saying
Dodecahedron
A Brighter Tomorrow 

Side B
Life Hex
Ist Halt So
Sicko! Ft. Billy Woods
Cursive
I’ll Ask Her

Glasshouse Red Spider Mite share their much awaited debut EP ‘What Do You Mean The Monster?… Hahaha’ on its first vinyl pressing.

Recorded by Louis Milburn (Folly Group) - a “one of a kind friend & talented producer” according to bassist Alex - in the back of an audio equipment shop, the EP is a diverse but cohesive collection of slow-burners, delivering an incredibly well-developed exploration of instrumental and lyrical storytelling, and the band’s longstanding musical relationships with each other.

Growing up together in Devon, and initially forced together by the encouragement of a secondary school music teacher, Glasshouse Red Spider Mite began in earnest in 2023 in Brighton. Their first two singles in 2024 created a buzz in the local scene and industry; with this EP they have attempted to create their first signature body of work, and plant their flag in the ground. The band say “The songs were written before we even dreamt of playing our first shows, let alone before seeing the release of our first music as a band. No one knew about these songs & we weren't exactly sure if people would one day hear them. They only existed between us four until we found the courage to give this band a go.”

Drummer Benji explains that the EP is “a testament to our friendship, a strong bond & commitment to the cause. A vessel for therapy - helping each other keep mobilised, in belief & pushing towards a collective objective or something out of our individual control or capacities… an emotional outpouring of vulnerability, absolute honesty & healing.”

The EP immerses the listener, carefully rising from tense beginnings into unflinching heights. Guitarist Ethan says that the songs “all help to tell a story from a time that feels hard to put into words.” Each rhythm is a fault line waiting to crack open. Despite this, the tracks manage to remain sensitive in their delivery, through layers of swelling guitar, atmospheric strings and insistent percussion. Slow-building, deliberate, and massive in its impact. The band say this EP is about “facing all the pieces of yourself that you’ve let run riot. It’s about revealing yourself to yourself. Questioning your judgements & challenging your laurels. Using past pain to build a fear-free future. It’s post-rock. It’s the sound of the hole in your heart & the pit in your stomach.”

On ‘What Do You Mean The Monster…’ the band have tried to “encapsulate the highs & lows which the 'monster' that life seems to be, swallows you whole… there's been a lot of change, turbulence & learning to understand ourselves, which we think is trapped in the music we make.”

‘What Do You Mean The Monster?… Hahaha’ is available for the first time vinyl, containing a 20+ minute physical exclusive track ‘Spider Mite Season’. It is the band’s first release on London indie label, Memorials of Distinction, whose previous releases include Porridge Radio, caroline, Grove, Naima Bock, Kiran Leonard, and JPEGMAFIA.

In the wake of the EP, Glasshouse Red Spider Mite had sold out headline shows in London (Third Man) and Brighton (Alphabet), followed by their festival debut playing 2 sets at End Of The Road Festival, followed by their international debut at 043 in Maastricht, and then supporting Dutch Interior on their UK tour. This followed supporting Porridge Radio’s UK tour in 2024.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Everyone Loves You
Ant Mill
Time For Change
I’m Batman

Side B
Spider Mite Season

We are so honoured to bring you an official Dinked (Bootleg) Edition of Attempted Martyr, the debut LP from Dearborn experimental noise / post-punk band, Prostitute.

Formed in 2020 in Michigan, and born out of the isolation of the COVID-19 lockdown, the album was written in the midst of global and personal turmoil, capturing the zeitgeist of a world unraveling. A loose concept record, it chronicles the rise and fall of a doomed zealot whose pursuit of holy vengeance spirals into a psychotic orgy of violence, greed, and lust.

The album debuted late last year to huge critical acclaim, but we've all been struggling to get hold of copies for the racks. In classic record shop serendipity, we spoke to the right person who spoke to the right person and the band hooked us up. But not only did they hook us up with stock on this thrilling album, they have gone one better with a one-and-done, hyper-limited special edition for Dinked... White label, all hand sprayed, Dinked stickered and including the band's manifesto. Do. Not. Blink!

"Calling the Dearborn noise rockers’ debut “intense” is somehow still underselling it." - Pitchfork 7.8

A full official release will follow in 2026, but do not miss the chance to cop this hugely important album.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Attempted Martyr
All Hail
Judge
M. Dada
Body Meat

Side B
Senegal
In The Corner Dunce
Joumana Kayrouz
Harem Induction Hour

“You’ve got to die and be reborn between albums,” begins Henry Wade, guitarist for The Orielles, describing the foundations of the band’s fourth studio album, Only You Left. “It comes naturally,” adds singer and bassist Esmé Hand-Halford, “it’s not something we consciously do.”

Through this process of creative renewal, the Manchester-based trio – completed by drummer Sidonie Hand-Halford – have managed to weather a pandemic, defy the fickleness of a trend-led music industry, and emerge, phoenix-like, with something familiarly Orielles, yet altogether different. Recorded in two locations – Hydra and Hamburg – over the summer of 2024, the 11 tracks of Only You Left sees the band consolidate the bold experimentation of their previous LP, Tableau (2022), with a return to the more stripped-back, song-led approach of their early origins.

“There’s nothing more trad than a three-piece,” quips Henry, in reference to the band’s decision to return to their roots as a trio. Originally from Halifax, the Orielles first came to recognition in 2018 with their debut album, the indie-rock Silver Dollar Moment, which is approaching its eighth birthday in February 2026. “These things come in like seven year cycles. So we've come in like a full circle back to a familiar place, just as different people.”

By exploring binaries and contrasts, the Orielles are finding shapes in the chaos and confusion of the world around us – it’s an undertaking that benefits from more than 15 years of close collaboration, driven by friendship and the artistic compulsion to find meaning in music.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Esme, Sid, and Henry return after the dark majesty of Tableau, bringing an album that still explores mysterious, shadowy landscapes but lets more light in. Jangling, post-rock-inflected jams often unfold into bright, melodic pop songs, revealing a newfound warmth and clarity in their sound. The Orielles’ adventurous spirit remains intact, but there’s a sense of growth and confidence throughout, proving that the band has matured while keeping their playful, genre-blurring charm fully alive.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Three Halves
Shadow Of You Appears
Tears Are
Embers
Tiny Beads Reflecting Light

Side B
The Woodland Has Returned
All In Metal
You Are Eating A Part Of Yourself
Whenever (I May Not Feel So Close)
Wasp
To Undo The World Itself

Geese’s 'Getting Killed' lands like a seismic shock. Tracked in a whirlwind ten days in Los Angeles with producer Kenneth Blume (Kenny Beats), the band’s third album is a chaotic comedy, shambolic in structure but laser-focused in vision. It trades classic rock mythology for something stranger and more self-destructive, balancing big riffs and choir samples with lyrics about war, anxiety, and emotional ruin. The result is a jagged, joyfully unhinged triumph that was immediately heralded as the best rock album of the year.

The reaction has been explosive.

Thousands of tickets have vanished in minutes, streams and sales are surging, and co-signs are flooding in from Cillian Murphy to The Dare. Geese have even slipped into meme culture without lifting a finger, becoming that rare band that’s both dead serious and untouchable.

From New York’s dive bars to Times Square billboards, Geese have somehow spun pure chaos into unstoppable global momentum.

STAFF COMMENTS

Willow says: There’s very little ground not covered by this manic, sprawling masterpiece. A challenging and unique effort by a prolific collective of artists, ‘Getting Killed’s devilish genius is in the minutest of its many subtle details. Bombastic and cathartic at some points, subdued and hypnotic at others, the common threads through this album are the off-piste but considered instrumentation that elevate simple ideas to unexpected heights and, of course, Cameron Winter’s distinctive Walker-cum-Cave croon, at once comforting and unsettling.

In a year of both newer faces and veterans honing in on their areas of expertise and producing fantastic work, Geese have emerged as one of the biggest winners by deciding to have a go at one of everything - the biggest surprise not being that it works, but that it fits together so cohesively - typified by the lead single from the album “Taxes”, that in its short run time embarks on an ethereal journey through the various moods and styles that this project boasts. My personal favourite moments from the album are of course psychotic Doors-esque opener “Trinidad”, the Stones-y one-two punch of “Islands Of Men” and “100 Horses”, and the gorgeous closing track “Long Island City Here I Come”. Careful not to overstay my welcome in gushing about the grip this album has had on the Saturday squad since its relatively late entry into the year’s canon, suffice to say that this is a gem that will not lose its lustre with the passage of time.

TRACK LISTING

1. Trinidad
2. Cobra
3. Husbands
4. Getting Killed
5. Islands Of Men
6. 100 Horses
7. Half Real
8. Au Pays Du Cocaine
9. Bow Down
10. Taxes
11. Long Island City Here I Come

Courtney Marie Andrews has long been celebrated as an artist who challenges herself, and who finds new interplays of Folk and Americana. Also a vivid poet and accomplished painter, she brings a multidisciplinary richness to her work that shines throughout her 9th studio album, Valentine.

Co-produced with Jerry Bernhardt and recorded almost entirely to tape, the album features complete in-studio performances that prize raw performance rather than perfection. It is Andrews’ most sonically explorative record thus far – she plays flute, high strung guitars, myriad synths, and draws heavy inspiration from her art outside of music. Her voice is gorgeous and acrobatic always, but on Valentine it finds a new depth, an assertiveness that brings new dimension to its biggest anthems and its softest moments.

Written during a period of profound endings and new beginnings, Valentine is a vulnerable exploration of love vs. limerence. While anticipating the imminent loss of a loved one who would eventually recover, a new but uncertain romance began to develop. Rather than lift her up, the two emotional poles seemed to bleed into each other to sow doubt, trouble, even obsession. But through her own exploration of music and art, Andrews found a way to grow stronger inside this feeling.

“I didn’t want to slink into my pain, I wanted to embrace it, own it” she says. The songs that emerged are devotional in their lyrics but defiant in their energy; it’s the very sound of a woman standing in her first wisdom. With Valentine, Andrews rejects the objectification of love, the love filled with gestures and objects instead of trust, mess, and growth. In doing so, she delivers her most beautiful and loving album to date.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Warmly evocative ballads, floating melodies and airy vocals twist together in a frayed but wonderfully solid whole. Brittle vocals grow into grand, roaring statements and die again into hushed whispers and reverb tails. It's a beautifully crafted and innately human feeling expression, relatable and transportive.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
PENDULUM SWING KEEPER
CONS & CLOWNS
MAGIC TOUCH
LITTLE PICTURE OF A BUTTERFLY

Side B
OUTSIDER
EVERYONE WANTS TO FEEL LIKE YOU DO
ONLY THE BEST FOR BABY
BEST FRIEND
HANGMAN

Howling Bells return with their first new album in over a decade. The Australian trio's version of hypnotic indie-rock always stood separate from the pack and very much a reflection of their unbreakable union. Equal parts sepia-toned romance and gritty rock’n’roll thrills. Together with long term collaborator Ben Hillier, in the producer’s chair 'Strange Life' is an album that harnesses the unique musical perspective that pricked up the music world’s ears back in their beginnings, but transposes it onto a lifetime’s more experience, ‘Strange Life’ is both familiar and new; a record that will unfurl like an old friend to long term fans whilst speaking in a language that only hard-won experience and a few more trips around the sun can understand. It may be a ‘Strange Life’ and a weird old world, but it sounds better with Howling Bells back in it.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brand new album from Howling Bells after 10 long years is more than welcome, and hits all the notes you'd expect despite the long break. Evocative lyrics ride atop jangling guitars, rolling bass and that super laid-back aussie vocal style, pushing into fuzzy grunge territory on a good number of occasions. Top stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Unbroken
2. Heavy Lifting
3. Angel
4. The Looking Glass
5. Sacred Land
6. Halfway Home

Side B
7. Melbourne
8. Dreamer
9. Chimera
10. Sweet Relief
11. Light Touch

With his new record Croak Dream, Puma Blue (real name Jacob Allen) returns to the spectral intimacy that first won him a cult following, now reimagined with the raw, instinctive energy of his live band. The album fuses lo-fi jazz balladry with jungle breaks, krautrock textures and trip-hop atmosphere, drawing comparisons to Portishead, Jeff Buckley, and D’Angelo.

Written in solitude and brought to life in collaboration, Croak Dream was conjured from tape loop sessions at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, co-produced and engineered by Sam Petts-Davies (The Smile, Frank Ocean) where the band improvised to fragments of Allen’s songs they’d never fully heard. The result is a dreamlike collage of baritone sax-drenched ballads and restless grooves: tender, feverish, and alive.

This record marks a daring evolution for Puma Blue, balancing bold sonic experimentation with raw emotional clarity, tailor-made for the stage.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A wonderfully off-piste collection of gloomy missives and crackling unease, haunting vocals and woozy delay lines held together by Allen's perfectly imperfect vocals and impeccably rendered atmospheres. There aren't many RIYL's that would fit here, but there are certainly similarities to be drawn to Radiohead without stretching too much.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Desire
2 Mister Lost
3 Hold You
4 Croak Dream
5 Heaven Above, Hell Below

Side B
6 (Fool)
7 Hush
8 Jaded
9 Silently
10 Cocoons
11 Yearn Again

Rooted in London’s DIY scene and with a steady run of compelling singles and unpredictable live shows, Hank have gained a reputation for being “one of the best alternative acts in London right now” (So Young). On record, they slip between noise and melody, intimacy and dissonance, drawing comparisons to forebears like My Bloody Valentine, The Breeders and Beck, while their live performances only serve to elevate these contrasts. The past few years has seen formative performances at DIY parties and support slots alongside Been Stellar, Catcher, DEADLETTER, HighSchool, Mannequin Pussy, RIP Magic, Sorry, and Sunken, with this summer seeing them play their first headline shows across the UK as well as appearing at festivals including Left of the Dial and The Great Escape.

Their debut EP 'Twist Grip' set the tone, produced by Jamie Neville (Mark William Lewis, PVA) and featuring guest spots from Asha Lorenz (Sorry) and Ben Romans-Hopcraft (Warmduscher), it earned quick attention with Still Listening Magazine naming it their EP of the Year for 2024. Their second EP ‘Spiralic' came just six months later; again working with Neville, it showed their first EP was no fluke. From the expansive opener “Stand On Yr Star” to the probing “Temp Fix” (featuring Lola’s longtime friend Theo Bleak), Spiralic explores vulnerability, memory and unease through a circular motif of resurfacing thoughts (hence the title).

To close the year, both EPs are being released on vinyl for the first time, being collected as a mini-album as the third in the exciting series of Dinked’s exciting new ‘Early Doors’ series limited and exclusive pressings for the best new bands around. This special edition is also being expanded with second EP’s previously unheard title track “Spiralic” being added; a meditation on repetition, confrontation and escape which features both Sorry’s Asha Lorenz and Marco Pini (also RIP Magic, Slow Dance), the latter also designing the beautiful sleeve art that extends the record’s spiral theme into its physical form.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1. Angel Says
A2. Pull It Off
A3. DYLM
A4. RanThruBlue

Side B
B1. Stand On Yr Star
B2. Temp Fix
B3. Trusted
B4. Dogstar
B5. Spiralic

Dear Life Records and Dinked are proud to present an limited edition deluxe repress of MJ Lenderman's breakout album Boat Songs (DLR031). A little over three years after its release, 'Boat Songs' is now commonly read as the keystone to the 2020s renaissance of alt-country (or whatever you want to call it), and features some of his most enduring hits and live set staples.

“The thing about loving your own frailties is that it deepens your ability to love the rest of it, too. Lenderman renders suffering and joy in the same gentle, unhurried deadpan, dragging all those heightened feelings back down to the ground where they can sprout” - Pitchfork

“There are few eternal truths in this world, but drinking beer with your buddies is always a good time. Asheville’s MJ Lenderman understands this. His third LP Boat Songs doesn’t get bogged down with intellectualism or make apologies for its love of Southern ephemera. These 10 tracks of countrified indie rock sound primed to soundtrack plenty of beer-battered bull sessions” - Flood Magazine.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Hangover Game
You Have Bought Yourself A Boat
TLC Cage Match
Toontown
SUV

Side B
Under Control
Dan Marino
You Are Every Girl To Me
Tastes Just Like It Costs
Six Flags

Legendary singer, composer and transgender activist Beverly Glenn-Copeland today announces his new studio album, Laughter In Summer - a collaborative effort born from the love story between himself and eco-poet, activist and producer Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland.

From the moment we are born, we begin the long walk home. Elizabeth and Beverly Glenn-Copeland started down the path together nearly half a century ago, and have been trailing it since, hand in hand and song by song. Together, they’ve made a life sharing their unselfish hearts - ones too large for earthly configuration - through art and community, encouraging us all to take our own dance down the road with elemental love and grace.

Now, as Glenn lives with a version of Dementia known as LATE, their walk has taken on a different weight. Out of this season comes Laughter In Summer, an album the couple made together - realising, before long, that it was a love letter to one another: a tender ledger of memories, shared devotion, grief and joy.

Laughter In Summer follows Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s highly acclaimed 2023 record The Ones Ahead, as well as the 2024 collaboration with Sam Smith on a new recording of his classic song “Ever New” for the Red Hot Org Transa compilation record

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There is no precidence for my enjoyment of Beverley Glenn-Copeland (aside from the previous album which I loved, and the Gybe / Hotel2Tango connection), I have little knowledge of Copeland's brand of softly spoken jazz-folk or indeed the milieu in which it was conceived, I just know it's so well done and so earlestly delivered, It gives me chills. Beautifully done, evocative and touching.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Let Us Dance (Movement One)
2 Ever New (At Hotel2Tango)
3 Laughter In Summer Feat. Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland
4 Children's Anthem Feat. Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland
Side B
1 Harbour (At Hotel2Tango) Feat. Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland
2 Middle Island Lament Feat. Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland
3 Shenandoah
4 Let Us Dance (Movement Two)
5 Prince Caspian's Dream (At Hotel2Tango)

Though Death in the Business of Whaling arrives as Searows’ second album, it’s the product of many firsts, including his first time recording outside the creative cocoon of his bedroom. His 2022 debut Guard Dog was written, recorded and self-produced in Duckart’s Portland home and independently released with little expectation as to how it would be received. The music soon found a passionate audience that were already sharing snippets of Duckart’s music via communities on TikTok and received co-signs from prominent artists such as Ethel Cain and Gracie Abrams, both of whom he went on to support on tour.

Time spent on the road touring the hushed and compelling songs from Guard Dog and subsequent projects End Of The World and flush was instructive when working out the direction his new material would take musically and lyrically, with collections of ideas for his new record starting to take real shape in late 2024. When the time came to commit them to tape, he set up shop in a converted horse barn outside of Seattle, keen to harness a greater sense of scale and space in the creation of the music, working this time with co-producer Trevor Spencer (Father John Misty, Beach House, Mary Lattimore) to expand his creative vision. The result showcases Duckart’s range as a songwriter, pushing the boundaries of his typical acoustic palette into electrifying guitars and beating drums, and writing songs that read more like folklore.

The songs became a vessel for digging deep and exploring his life and point of view, but in a way that spoke outwardly more symbolically than literally. “Something your subconscious understands before your conscious mind does. Visceral rather than literal. And that relationship to our deeper selves, our subconscious, our souls, is a major theme of the album for me. Most of these songs are about the different ways we all bump up against the human condition. Our spirit, the shadow self, our egos, trauma, love and fate. How we cope with our experiences and how we connect and take care of one another in an exceedingly dark and violent world. This record is still deeply personal to me. But it is an attempt to reveal my cards in a more coded, symbolic manner.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Beautifully shining acoustic guitar, impeccable dreamy vocals and warm synths come together into a deep orchestral wash of emotion. Impeccably produced and wonderfully written, it's another step forward from Duckart's brilliant 'End Of The World' EP.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Belly Of The Whale
Kill What You Eat
Photograph Of A Cyclone
Hunter
Dirt

Side B
Dearly Missed
Junie
In Violet
Geese

On her fourth album, Unclouded, Melody’s Echo Chamber embarks on a life-affirming new chapter with an album that celebrates the present moment, whatever state we find ourselves in. There’s a continuity that runs through Melody’s Echo Chamber’s brand of psychedelic pop going back to 2012’s self-titled debut but now comes a perfectly executed shaking up of personnel.

Unclouded’s impressive cast includes Swedish maestro Sven Wunder, who co-produced the record and contributed to the writing, bringing his unique sonic palette to the richly-textured canvas; Josefin Runsteen on strings, who brings her avant-garde smarts to the tableau; Dina Ögon’s Daniel Ögen on guitar and Love Orsan on bass who Melody describes as “masters of the velvet groove”; British drummer Malcolm Catto, collaborator with Madlib and DJ Shadow, and the powerhouse behind The Heliocentrics; and frequent collaborator Reine Fiske whose guitar parts can be heard throughout the record.

Last but not least, Leon Michels - the Wu-Tang, The Carters, Norah Jones and Clairo collaborator - worked with Melody on the album’s closer “Daisy”, a sparkling pop song plucked from the ether. El Michels Affair’s Grammy-winning mixer Jens Jungkurth was drafted in to bring everything to life. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. The House That Doesn’t Exist
2. In The Stars
3. Flowers Turn Into Gold
4. Eyes Closed
5. Childhood Dream
6. Memory’s Underground

Side B
7. Broken Roses
8. Burning Man
9. Into Shadows
10. How To Leave Misery Behind
11. Unclouded
12. Daisy (feat. El Michels Affair)

It was the arrival of a Studer A80 master recorder at the front door of Sam Shepherd-otherwise known as Floating Points-that caused him to begin building the studio that led to the creation of his debut album, Elaenia. After a slight miscalculation meant that he could not physically get the thing inside his home, what happened next can only be described as a beautiful example of the butterfly effect. Breaking away from making electronic music on his laptop, the DJ, producer and composer spent the next five years engineering Elaenia, all the while deejaying in cities across the globe and working towards his PhD in neuroscience. An incredibly special album that draws inspiration from classical, jazz, electronic music, soul and even Brazilian popular music, Elaenia-named after the bird of the same name-is the epitome of the forward-thinking Floating Points vision in 2015.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Nespole Track
2. Silhouettes (I, II & III)
3. Elaenia
Side B
4. Argenté
5. Thin Air
6. For Marmish
7. Peroration Six
8. Precursor

Vintage recording equipment has long been a bit of a fetish, but to sound pioneers Voka Gentle, even the most magical machines are a means to an end. The band, made up of twins Ellie and Imogen Mason, along with Imogen’s husband, William J Stokes, are a family band in the truest sense. Whilst they started out as a folk trio, their new album Domestic Bliss is an album of throat-grabbing, avant-garde indie rock songs studded with eccentric choices: a synth with its keys jammed, playing a tune of its own making; field recordings – Morris dancers, motorbikes – captured on binaural headphones.

Domestic Bliss is concerned with power: the abuse of it, being on the cusp of it, and what it really means. The album is teaming with imaginary people in picaresque scenes that reveal the band’s rich cultural storehouse. The songs draw on history, literature, everyday life and pop culture references (specifically Jude Law’s 1995 Vogue cover), with tracks like Cheddar Man reflecting on climate change and prehistory and Creon I tracing the unease of authority through the lens of Greek mythology.

Recorded in the orchestral studios of City University, the album folds intimacy into scale, from phone-recorded vocals and samples of breath to heavy, tribal electronics in grand acoustic spaces. The result is by far their most refined record yet, where the band treat the recording studio like an instrument.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Cheddar Man
2. Creon I
3. Torpedo Mike
4. Battle Sequence (I’m Atomic)
5. You Deserve It!

Side B
1. Kinema
2. The Creature
3. K Sees The Deal Go Down
4. Jude Law For Vogue (1995)
5. Ultra Aura Glow Feat. Hamish Hawk

BONUS CD (DINKED EDITION ONLY)
Creon I (Goat Girl Remix)
Cheddar Man (Sonic Boom Remix)
K Sees The Deal Go Down (Jonathan Snipes Remix)
Creon ! (state51 Factory Session)
Cheddar Man (state51 Factory Session)
Battle Sequence (I’m Atomic) (Dope Isotope Mix) By Curtain Twitcher
First Snow (Bo Ningen X Voka Gentle)

Following the breakthrough success of 'Suburban Light', the 2001 collection of The Clientele’s initial singles and EPs, tastemakers and aficionados were eager to hear what the trio of Alasdair MacLean (guitars, vocals), Mark Keen (drums, piano), and James Hornsey (bass) could make if set loose inside a studio to record a full-length album. What they emerged with from London’s Medina Road Studios in the fall of 2002 was tantalizing: Their already sharply realized motif of ’60s psychedelia and modern fuzz-pop took on inflections of jazz, particularly in how the space afforded by the LP format allowed for a keener articulation of atmosphere.

The Clientele stretch the early evening of 'The Violet Hour' out infinitely, manipulating the structured time of the pop song the way poets manipulate the structure of language—to capture place, mood, stray thoughts, disappointments, potential, and, above all, longing. It is a shimmering jewel of a record, its languid melodies and reverb-drenched choruses at once sublime and tragic, its hazy, dreamlike discursions at once recalling the warmth of a favorite record played over a midsummer rainstorm while yearning for the mist-veiled future of a yet unwritten night.

'The Violet Hour' has endured decades later as a signature album in
The Clientele’s catalog, not only perfecting the sound that made the band
a message-board phenomenon but revealing entirely new depth to it. In its wake, it was no longer possible to declare them one of the best-kept secrets in indie pop. The Clientele were, and remain, one of the genre’s most important figures, and 'The Violet Hour' was, and remains, one of their most vital statements: a lush invitation to their underground.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Violet Hour
2. Voices In The Mall
3. When You And I Were Young
4. Missing
5. Jamaican Born Rhumba
6. House On Fire
7. Everybody’s Gone
8. Porcelain
9. Haunted Melody
10. Prelude
11. Lamplight
12. The House Always Wins
13. Policeman Getting Lost

When Chuck D proclaimed "Bass, how low can you go?" on Public Enemy's anthemic 'Bring the Noise,' maybe he was pre-empting or inciting the 10,000 fathoms-deep, spine-bending basslines and sub-quake tremors of 'Implosion.'

Implosion is a crushing split album, appropriately released on The Bug's own PRESSURE label. Mapping out a new form of spectral dub, the sound is deliberately immersive, introverted, and yes, definitely implosive. In pursuit of heavy lids, blurred vision, and merciless bass bin punishment, it’s one part meditation, two parts low-end theory, and essentially a confession of devoted sound system addiction.

As expected from a tag team featuring British soundlab explorer and 'London Zoo' composer Kevin Martin, aka The Bug, and Michael Fiedler, aka Jah Schulz—a long-time graduate of Germany's new school of sound system reggae culture—the duo approaches their target differently yet share the goal of keeping their sound "raw" (Fiedler) and "brutally minimal" (Martin). This proves that opposites can attract, even if their tools are different and their methods sometimes diverge.

From such a disparate combo, hailing from different geographical and aesthetic backgrounds, contrasts are certainly on display, even within each artist's own contributions. From the melancholia and transcendence of 'Alien Virus (West Indian Centre, Leeds),' to the duality of ascension and descension on 'Hope,' or the Sunn 0))) in dub, visceral drone of 'Dread (The End, London),' to the tripped-out repetitions of 'Midnight,' which reinvents Chain Reaction for post-millennials, the result is both sacred and narcotic. Each track illuminates the emotional impact and atmospheric pressure being explored across this deceptively sparse album—a mastery of tone and texture.

This collection might be as reduced, minimal, and deep as The Bug has ever gone, perhaps echoing the solemnity of his recent Kevin Richard Martin Black release and invoking the futurist steppas self-pioneered on his previous Pressure album. Alternatively, Fiedler‘s Ghost Dubs project ventures into his most heavyweight direction yet, which is no mean feat considering his previous, the critically acclaimed album Damaged, was a monstrously massive triumph of analogue weight and enviable sound design.

Implosion is ice-cool, a stark contrast to the warmth and sociability of traditional Jamaican roots and the current trends in digi-dub. Instead, the mood is soaked in tension and intense dread, finding an unexpected melting point where classic dub's stark rhythm attack, isolationist ambience's eerie drift, dub techno's floatation strategies, and even the relentless riffs of doom metal collide. As the bass-obsessed pair drop what is arguably the heaviest ambient dub album to emerge from any electronic sector—a moody counterpoint to The Orb's fluffy clouds, etc, Martin has cited The Roots Radics, Black Jade, and On U Sound's Pounding System as heavily influencing his approach to the album, while Fiedler has expressed his admiration for Adrian Sherwood's productions and Rhythm & Sound's enchanting soundscape. Yet, the super heavyweight pulsations, emotive resonances, and bone-rattling vibrations detonated here effortlessly go far beyond these influences.

Shadowy and elusive, there’s a mysteriousness at this record's core. A haunting moodiness oscillating between nostalgia and future shock. Despite the deadly fixation with SLOW and HEAVY, the album maintains a totally hypnotic swing throughout. Implosion and its lead single 'Imploded Versions' are testaments to being enveloped in bass, seduced by bass, submerged in bass, and utterly crushed by bass, as The Bug and Ghost Dubs seek to craft a new form of dub for zonal headz and Babylon seekers.

Mastered by Stefan Betke (a.k.a. POLE) at Scape Mastering studio, this record is heavy as f-ck without resorting to continuous distortion. It’s low-end worship taken to an absolute extreme, yet remains highly listenable and definitely danceable, albeit at the slowest of paces. Sacred and narcotic, this is low-end worship amplified to the max. Dive in if you dare. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Living in a small block of flats, and being the considerate neighbour I am; I rarely get to fire up my separates subwoofer. This weekend however I will make an exception - as I simply cannot envisage listening to this mighty slice of tectonic bass meditation without detailed profiling of the 20hz - 150hz range. I suggest you do the same! An absolute beast for bass heads, and a real development of sound system dynamics.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 THE BUG – Hooked (Hyams Gym, Leytonstone)
A2 GHOST DUBS - In The Zone
A3 THE BUG – Believers (Imperial Gardens, Camberwell)
Side B
B1 GHOST DUBS – Hope
B2 THE BUG – Burial Skank (Mass, Brixton)
B3 GHOST DUBS – Dub Remote
Side C
C1 THE BUG - Alien Virus (West Indian Centre, Leeds)
C2 GHOST DUBS – Down
C3 THE BUG - Militants (The Rocket, Holloway
Side D
D1 GHOST DUBS – Into The Mystic
D2 THE BUG - Dread (Mass Brixton)
D3 GHOST DUBS – Midnight

DINKED BONUS DINKED EDITION 12” / CD
A1. THE BUG - Spectres (Plastic People, Shoreditch)
A2. GHOST DUBS – Waterhouse
B1. THE BUG - Duppied (Brixton Rec)
B2. Ghost Dubs – No Words

On Love and Fortune, the third album from Australian musician Stella Donnelly and first for Brace Yourself Records, Donnelly returns with a deeply personal and anchored set of songs, a body of work that traces the journey back to herself after a period of profound change. Recorded in Naarm/Melbourne, the album carries the grounding energy of place, offering a sonic landscape that feels both intimate and expansive.

After several intense years on the road, Donnelly stepped away from touring to re-evaluate her relationship with music and to ask whether she still loved it. That quiet pause led to a deeper listening: to her instincts, her emotions, and the many past versions of herself. What emerged is a collection of songs shaped by multiple endings — the dissolving of relationships, the closing of chapters, the echo of things that once felt permanent. These are breakup songs, but not just of the romantic kind. They mark a shedding of skins, a release of old expectations, and a cautious openness to what might come next.

“These songs wouldn't leave me alone,” Donnelly says. “Like seagulls, they screamed at me when I rode to work, they pecked at me while I wrote essays, and they stole my chips the second I thought I was happy without music.”

Tapping back into this source, Donnelly arrives at a starker sound that lays bare the individual behind the artist. Love and Fortune blends pianos and guitars, as in her earlier work, but this time the arrangements are more exposed, more intentional. It captures the stiller self, the reflective self, that gently asks where to next. There is a clarity here, the kind that comes from reconnecting with what matters. The result is Donnelly’s most open-hearted and self-assured work to date — a record about loss, certainly, but even more about the quiet, enduring fortune of finding one’s way home.

Love and Fortune follows 2019’s Beware of the Dogs and 2022’s Flood, two albums that marked out Donnelly as one of Australia’s finest contemporary songwriters and drew praise and acclaim from the likes of The Guardian, Pitchfork, NME, BBC Radio 1, Clash, DIY, NPR, BBC 6 Music, Paste and many more. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A profoundly gorgeous selection of pieces that move between barely adorned, vocal-forward folk (Love And Fortune / Baths / Ghosts) and the more dynamic, upbeat groovers (Being Nice / Feel It Change). For me, 'Baths' is a probably the most heartfelt, affecting thing she's done. A stunning, beautifully textured whole.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Standing Ovation
2. Being Nice
3. Feel It Change
4. Baths
5. Year Of Trouble
6. Please Everyone

Side B
7. W.A.L.K
8. Friend
9. Ghosts
10. Love And Fortune
11. Laying Low

“We died when we started writing this album,” say Sorry, preparing to release 'COSPLAY', their third studio album, set for release on 7th November on Domino. But if Sorry did, indeed, die before a note had been recorded, before a single word had even been jotted down, who the hell are this bunch now masquerading as Sorry? Who has donned the Sorry outfits so convincingly? Who is it that has recorded 'COSPLAY', this album that first meticulously erases and then extravagantly redraws the perimeters of what a contemporary rock’n’roll band can achieve? Welcome to the world of 'COSPLAY', where anyone can be anyone, past or present, real or imaginary, dead or alive.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Effortlessly slipping between jagged, angular garage rock and woozy alt-pop with flickering post-rock instrumentation and soaring synthy accents. All of this perfectly twisting around Asha Lorenz's evocative, chameleonic vocal. A brilliantly momentous, constantly evolving treasure.

TRACK LISTING

1. Echoes
2. Jetplane
3. Love Posture
4. Antelope
5. Candle
6. Today Might Be The Hit
7. Life In This Body
8. Waxwing
9. Magic
10. Into The Dark
11. JIVE

On WE WERE JUST HERE, Dundalk, Ireland five-piece Just Mustard surge out of the shadows from the submerged world of Heart Under with a sound that leans toward light and euphoria. Their signature elements remain intact - warped guitars, cavernous low ends, twisted sound design - but this time the noise is channelled into something warmer and more melodic. Inspired by club spaces and physical joy, the songs strive for immediacy and feeling. Katie Ball’s vocals rise higher in the mix, capturing a conflicted pursuit of happiness that she describes as “trying to feel euphoric, but at a cost.”

Produced by the band and mixed by David Wrench (FKA Twigs, Frank Ocean, Caribou) the album expands their emotional palette while keeping things strange, textured, and uniquely their own. WE WERE JUST HERE explodes into technicolor, creating a world that feels immediate, haunted and ecstatic.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. POLLYANNA
2. ENDLESS DEATHLESS
3. SILVER
4. DREAMER
5. WE WERE JUST HERE

Side B
1. SOMEWHERE
2. DANDELION
3. THAT I MIGHT NOT SEE
4. THE STEPS
5. OUT OF HEAVEN