”‘Vignetting The Compost’ partly draws on a theme of the endless cycle of life and death, of growth and decay and how the two are dependant on each other […] This album also explores the processes of pain, loss, suffering and healing, with an optimistic hopeful tone growing over the lamentation like ivy on a gravestone. I’ve always been fascinated with the quality of the imagination and dreams, how edges are unfinished and indefinite, unlike the boundaries of a cinema screen. In dreams, forms and details can seem vivid yet vague, impressionistic, powerful yet difficult to recall. These were the qualities and aesthetics that I focussed on with this album, including intertwining musical ‘vignettes’ amongst the more structured tracks.” – Bibio

TRACK LISTING

A1. Flesh Rots, Pip Sown
A2. Mr. & Mrs. Compost
A3. Everglad Everglade
A4. Dopplerton
B1. Great Are The Piths
B2. Odd Paws
B3. Under The Pier
B4. Weekend Wildfire
C1. The Clothesline And The Silver Birch
C2. Torn Under The Window Light
C3. The Ephemeral Bluebell
C4. Over The Far And Hills Away
D1. Amongst The Bark And Fungus
D2. Top Soil
D3. Thatched
D4. The Garden Shelter

Southside sweethearts the Dreamliners first came into the scene as the Royaltones in 1961 when they were students at South San High School in San Antonio, TX. In 1963, label head Abie Epstein signed them to his Cobra & Jox labels, producing four singles. On the way to a studio session, Ana (Ana) Wilburn coined ‘The Best Things In Life’ on the dashboard of her car. Out popped a playful Farfisa and harmony-driven tune reminiscent of the Crystals or Ronettes. Ana also wrote and sang lead on the haunting ballad ‘Just Me and You’. A song about longing and adolescent heartache that’s perfect for any postbreakup session.

The Royal Jesters were a household name in the 1960s in San Antonio, TX. Formed by Henry Hernandez and Oscar Lawson, the group performed at school dances and downtown clubs and eventually leased and managed their own venue, the legendary Patio Andaluz. The group also started their own label, Jester Records, and recorded various singles, including a take on Vanilla Fudge’s ‘Take Me For A Little While’, with the towering Louie Escalante on lead. The group also recorded ‘We Go Together’, a group harmony classic with 16 year old Luvine Elias, Jr on a Lowrey organ.

The Guy Hamper Trio is: Billy Childish on guitar, his wife Julie on bass and Wolf Howard on drums - who as it happens was the drummer in the original incarnation of JTQ - and of course features James Taylor on Hammond organ. The Guy Hamper Trio provide a bottom end, Blues-influenced instrumental mayhem for those unafraid of dirt, germs and true grime.

‘The Portable Herman Dune’ Vol. 3 is the final part of Herman Dune’s acoustic anthology, in which 22 years of songwriting are laid bare, stripped to the most intimate bone. Though sonically naked, the songs are bundled up in emotion and loaded with life.

Back in 2013 we took ourselves on a discographic adventure without really knowing what we were doing! Who would have thought that 10 years later, we'd be releasing our 50th 45 RPM record?

As luck would have it, we are happy to announce our new release, in collab with one of the flagship bands from today's funk scene, Germany's own "Mighty Mocambos", who have been delivering their instrumental groove and Caribbean vibes via their alter ego, "Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band" across Europe for more than fifteen years.

So, what better way to immortalize the raw and intense live sound that they're famous for than releasing a record on our favourite format?

Two sides recorded live on tape during the "Queen 16 B-Girl battle" in Berlin in 2022. Somewhat reminiscent of Can's "Vitamin C", the A side "International Cypher" has an oriental funk feel thanks to the use of the sharp sound of an electric Phin (Thai guitar), while the straight up percussive funk instrumental "Queen 16 theme" pays tribute to the B-Girls only festival, of which the soundtrack was designed for the occasion.

TRACK LISTING

1. International Cypher
2. Queen 16 Theme

Following my recent phone call with Prof. Benson, I left him to continue his 92nd birthday celebrations with his family. We'd talked about his life, his music, his achievements. Throughout our conversation it struck me what a kind, humble and pleasant man he was. I felt that I was in the presence of greatness – not the egotistical greatness that emanates so often from high achievers, but that of someone who had simply won at life.

"I was a music teacher. I wasn't trying to make a record to compete, I was trying to make a record so the students would have something to remember the experience that we had... I was doing it for the kids."

It was 1973 that Prof. James Benson had self-funded his private press LP for the benefit of the teenage musicians he tutored at Cal Poly, California. The album was a momentous achievement for him and his young protegees, something they were all proud of, and rightly so. Taking inspiration from their recent trip to Africa and blended with the radical jazz associated with the young minds of early '70s black America, the Gow-Dow Experience is a unique foray into the enthusiastic mindset of up-and-coming jazz musicians, as encouraged by their mentor Prof. Benson.

We present the album as it was released in 1973 with a heavyweight tip-on jacket and 180g vinyl or on CD. We also include an insert with liner notes and photos provided courtesy of Prof Benson. The LP and CD come with 4 additional tracks taken from the recording session. Until now these tracks have never been heard since the day they were recorded - believe me, they're worth the wait!

Made with love from Jazzman - because we love to dig deeper!

TRACK LISTING

1. Nigeria, West Africa
2. Song For My Black Mother
3. Barry Rae
4. Compared To What
5. Malcolm IX
6. Spring 2000
7. Brother Don
8. Psychedelic Sally
9. Compared To What (Alternate Take)
10. You Are Arrogant
11. Brother Don (Alternate Mix)

New one on cult Yorkshire label Golden Lion Sounds featuring renowned Manchester finger picker DBH (previously of Crowfoot and Thread Recordings). One of the most skillful acoustic guitarists I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing, his tracks of late have taken on a dreamy, enchanted elegance, which is the case here on "Jumbled Whole". A collage of serene strings, echoed artifacts and gentle strums guiding the mind through a blue sky vista filled with fluffy clouds and dancing daisies. Taking it straight to the meadows!

On the flip, The Utopia Strong, previously releasing on Rocket, swap the guitars for synthesizers and enter a psychedelicized alternative realm - with gated arpeggios, winding melodies and galloping drums creating the sense of a magic carpet ride through entity-rich dimensions and realities much more vast and grandiose than our own. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: I've been a long term fan of DBH - imbibing the spirit of John Fahay, Jack Rose, Bert Jansch etc - into modern finger picked soundscapes. The Utopia Strong are a new one on me - totally different in sound; but similarly, they conjure up imaginary dream worlds from their equipment of vintage synthesizers and rickety drum boxes. One of my favourite 7" sleeves the label have produced too!

TRACK LISTING

A. DBH - Jumbled Whole
B. The Utopia Strong - Gatekeeper

'We are the biggest band in Britain of all time, ever. The funny thing is, all that fucking mouthing off three years ago about how we were going to be the biggest band in the world - we actually went and did it.' Noel Gallagher

Oasis are one of the biggest bands the word has ever seen. Here, in Supersonic, they tell the story of the their beginnings from dive-bar hopefuls to global superstars.They themselves talk us through the pivotal moments in their phenomenal trajectory, from the day Noel Gallagher joined his brother Liam's band, through their first crucial five years culminating at their landmark gigs at Knebworth Park in 1996 - the pinnacle of their success.

With over thirty hours of interviews with Liam, Noel and those closest to them, this book documents in unprecedented depth and with their trademark candour and humour, the story behind one of the world's greatest bands, all told in their own words and fully illustrated with exclusive photographs and ephemera throughout.

In 1986, the NME released a cassette that would shape music for years to come. A collection of twenty-two independently signed guitar-based bands, C86 was the sound and ethos that defined a generation. It was also arguably the point at which 'indie' was born.

But what happened next to all those musical dreamers? Some of the bands, like Primal Scream, went on to achieve global stardom; others, such as Half Man Half Biscuit and the Wedding Present, cultivated lifelong fanbases that still sustain their careers thirty-five years later. Then there were the rest, who ultimately imploded in a riot of paisley shirts, bad drugs and general indifference from the record-buying public. Now, for the first time, music journalist Nige Tassell tracks down the class of C86 and recounts their stories, both tragic and uplifting.

Yet, while the pursuit of long-lost musicians can often manifest as earnest hagiography, Tassell's unique, light-hearted approach makes this a very human story of ambition, hope, varying degrees of talent and what happens after you give up on pop - or, more precisely, after pop gives up on you. It's a world populated by bike-shop owners, architecture professors, dance-music producers, record-store proprietors, birdwatchers, solicitors, caricaturists and even a possible Olympic sailor - and let's not forget the musician-turned-actor gainfully employed as Jeremy Irons' body double... More than simply the tale of the tape, Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids? is an exploration of C86's wide-reaching and often surprising legacy.

The Endless Coloured Ways is a collection of songs by legendary singer / songwriter, Nick Drake, performed and recorded by over 30 incredible artists from a range of different backgrounds, genres, age groups and audiences. From Fontaines D.C to Guy Garvey, and Aurora to Feist, each artist has offered their own incredible take on a timeless classic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Road - Bombay Bicycle Club And The Staves
2. Northern Sky - Karine Polwart And Kris Drever

The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte marks Sparks’ first release on the venerable Island Records label in close to five decades, following such classics as 1974’s landmark Kimono My House, highlighted of course by the indelible hit single ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’. The new album is described by Ron and Russell Mael as a record that is “as bold and uncompromising as anything we did back then or, for that matter, anytime throughout our career.”

The album includes such instantly intriguing new musical vignettes as ‘Mona Lisa’s Packing, Leaving Late Tonight’ and ‘Nothing Is As Good As They Say It Is’, songs which once again display Sparks’ seemingly ceaseless ability to craft complete, intricately detailed stories within perfect three-and-a-half minute pop masterpieces. Both characteristically timeless and unequivocally modern, The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte once again affirms that, after more than a half century making such masterpieces, Sparks remain inimitable, ingenious and, as ever, utterly one of a kind. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The sound of Sparks is uniquely theirs, bold pop chorus' and snappy vocal hooks, blooming from subtle and minimalistic to grand and orchestral without batting an eyelid. The title track is particularly enjoyable, showing both innovative groove and classic, Sparks melodies.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte
2. Veronica Lake
3. Nothing Is As Good As They Say It Is
4. Escalator
5. The Mona Lisa's Packing, Leaving Late Tonight
6. You Were Meant For Me
7. Not That Well-Defined
8. We Go Dancing
9. When You Leave
10. Take Me For A Ride
11. A Love Story
12. It's Sunny Today
13. It Doesn't Have To Be That Way
14. Gee, That Was Fun

All the greatest songs from one of Jazz finest artists.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Summertime
A2. All The Things You Are
A3. I'll Always Love You Just The Same
A4. Everything Happens To Me
A5. April In Paris
A6. Parker's Mood
A7. Cool Blues
B1. Ornithology
B2. A Night In Tunisia
B3. Ko Ko
B4. Donna Lee
B5. Scrapple From The Apple
B6. La Cucuracha
B7. Confirmation

The original soundtracks for Stranger Things are composed by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein of the electronic group Survive. They make extensive use of synthesizers in homage to artists and film composers of the 1980s, including Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Goblin, John Carpenter, Giorgio Moroder and Fabio Frizzi.

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1
Side A
1. Stranger Things - Titles
2. Kids
3. This Isn't You
4. Eleven
5. Eulogy

Side B
1. The First Lie
2. Soldiers
3. Choices
4. Boys And Girls
5. The First I Love You

Disc 2
Side C
1. The Silver Cat Feeds
2. Aftermath
3. What's The Internet
4. You're The Heart

Side D
1. Teens
2. Letter To Willy
3. You Have Already Lost
4. Season 4 End Scene

The Midwich Cuckoos is based on the 1957 science fiction novel by John Wyndham, and tells the story of an English village where the women become mysteriously pregnant. Hannah Peel‘s score is described as a unique and intricately produced soundscape, working in harmony with the sound design of Sky’s adaptation. With analogue synthesisers recreating the horror of the ‘Hive Mind’, tape manipulations, drones, woodwind and melodies echoing the song of the cuckoo bird, Peel creates a score that perfectly balances the organic instrumentations and melodies, juxtaposed with an increasingly dark electronic ‘invasion’. Peel explains, “Creating the score was a constant endeavour to find the balance between darkness and light, fear and beauty. It was a very fine and intricate equilibrium between the normal sunlit logical world as we know it, and a subversive unfamiliar musical language.”

TRACK LISTING

Hive Mind
Cuckoo
Help Me
Ward 300
Hive Scream
Seen
Underground
Midwich School
Midwich Cuckoos
The Blackout
Awakenings
Pregnant
Scared
The Keys
If And When
No Leaving
Waking
A Pattern
Come Out
It's Over

“In May of 1996, with a handful of releases under their belts, the kings of the insanity sound, then known simply as: The Champs, began recording their magnum octopus, III. This time their sights were set beyond the still diminutive cassette format and trained squarely on a gatefold double album - the perfect medium for Total Music. Over the next year, in between touring up and down the west coast, the band molded the Kubrickian monolith known as ‘III’.

“In May of 1997, after lugging a console, tape machines, speakers and a smattering of outboard gear up three flights of stairs, the band mixed the album in the bedroom of a third floor apartment, directly overlooking the 280 freeway. The noise floor was such that all windows remained closed for the duration of the process.

“Over the next six weeks they played wherever people thirsted for something compelling and different, something to rock out with their Bach out, in a word, well two words, Total Music. While on the road, the band also searched for a suitable record label willing to make the financial commitment a gatefold double album requires - a tall order for a band virtually unknown outside of the west coast and the borough of Manhattan.

“Ultimately, the eclectic San Francisco label, Frenetic, took the plunge and generously emptied their modest coffers to fund the manufacture of ‘III’, which was released under the legally distinct band name: C4AM95. In print, the name was easily decoded by use of the ubiquitous ‘devil horns’ or ‘maloik’, with the index finger covering the awkward section of the 4 and the underrated pinkie finger covering the southern portion of the 9. This deliberate obfuscation shielded the band from increasingly ominous communications emanating from Nashville concerning the similarity in name to a certain band from the 1950’s.

“After the release of ‘III’, The Champs continued to tour the US, embarking on (and completing) six tours before the turn of the millennium. It was at this point the powers that be at Drag City International realized they could sit on the sidelines no longer and committed to release the band’s aptly titled follow-up, ‘IV’ (on which I was honored to guest, playing bass on the only Champs song ever to feature that instrument). However, one obstacle stood in the band’s way to global dissemination of Total Music: the seemingly benign moniker they had saddled themselves with so many years earlier. After much discussion and consultation with The Oracle, it was determined that adding the supplemental ‘Fucking’ to The Champs name would clear up any confusion regarding another band of the same name from the 1950’s and provide lasting legal indemnification.

“The band subsequently released four albums with Drag City, an EP with Thrill Jockey, and a collection of greatest hits on Matador. They contributed music to moving pictures (both television and film) and wrote music for video games, such as The Sims. They collaborated with French sensations Justice. They toured the US, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and spread the totality of Total Music far and wide. Name dropped by luminaries such as Chloë Sevigny, they were often cited as inspiration by sources from Metallica to The Strokes to that guy from Guided by Voices. The Fucking Champs left an indelible mark on the musical consciousness of the second to last and final millennia.

“For this special 26th anniversary edition of III, the album was remastered by the band from the original master tapes, lacquers expertly cut by John Golden and artwork restored by forensic experts in Drag City’s employ. Long sought after on eBay, Discogs and the like, this will be the first time that this master stroke of musicality will be made widely available.”

“I hope you enjoy this timeless classic as much I have these past 25 years.” - Dale Nixon, April 15, 2022

TRACK LISTING

Andres Segovia Interests Me
Valkyrie Is Dying
Don The Atmosphere
Heart To Heart
The Trees
Silent Night, Friendly Night
Some Swords
Lee Tom
Now Is The Winter Of Our Discoteque
You’re Feelings
Dale Bozzio
Sad Segovia
Amanda
’84
Flawless Victory
The Golden Pipes Trilogy:
1) The Golden Pipes
2) On Seas Of Sorrow Sail Death’s
Ships
3) Starlight On The Barrow Downs
Some Swords Reprise
ROM
Atop The Pyramid That Is You
Guns In Our Schools
Tonight, We Ride
The Tennis Book
You’ve Got A Thirst, Portland

Two more classic tunes from the Deptford Northern Soul Club dancefloor. Remastered for maximum effect. Harold Hutton’s ‘Lucky Boy’ was originally on the Chess sub-label, Checker. Released in 1965, an original goes for around £50 these days. ‘Lucky Boy’ was the B-side of his debut single, ‘It’s A Good Thing’, which launched him on a career that included regular spots on Soul Train during the 1970s. Filled with Motown-esque horn stabs, ‘Lucky Boy’ builds into a bongo-powered frenzy. The super soulful Dells’ flipside from a year later was initially on Cadet, another Chess subsidiary originally called Argo. Another £30-£50 gem, if you can find an original copy. Typical of the band’s close harmony style, ‘Thinkin' About You’ is a mid-tempo groove with an insistent rhythm and some lush strings. All topped with a heart-warming baritone vocal on a classic piece of soul romanticism.

Public Library, the album by Canadian indie rock/folk rock band The Burning Hell was released in 2016, and has been sold out for several years. Now it returns as a limited edition coloured LP. Public Library was another high point in surreal humour, virtuosic wordplay wrapped in smart indie rock songs.

Released on the Cadet label in 1970, this album’s wondrous mix of spiritual and funky jazz and unique instrumentation defy categorization. Harpist Ashby adds the koto, a 13-stringed Japanese instrument to her arsenal, and her long-time arranger Richard Evans blends flutes, vibraphone, oboe, kalimba and Ashby’s own vocals into a singular and soul-affirming set.

This Verve By Request title is pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Third Man in Detroit. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Myself When Young (Side A)
2. For Some We Loved (Side A)
3. Wax And Wane (Side A)
4. Drink (Side A)
5. Wine (Side A)
6. Dust (Side B)
7. Joyful Grass And Grape (Side B)
8. Shadow Shapes (Side B)
9. Heaven And Hell (Side B)
10. The Moving Finger (Side B)

After more than a decade of non-stop touring, acclaimed Austin songwriting duo, Kelsey Wilson and Alexander Beggins, quietly stopped touring as Wild Child. Headed in different sonic directions, the pair didn't know if they would ever make another Wild Child record. Then, what felt like the "end of the world" brought them back together. Pandemic lockdowns closed stages and drained bank accounts. As artists from all backgrounds took their shows to the internet, Wild Child was no different.

Wilson and Beggins got together to practice for a series of online performances for devout fans, and within 30 minutes they wrote the first single for what would accidentally become Wild Child's fifth album, End of the World. Mixed by Matt Pence (Jason Isbell, Elle King) and including contributions from guitarist Charlie Wiles (Paul Cauthen, John Moreland, Orville Peck), End of The World sees the pair find catharsis in art amid compound disasters.

As Wilson describes it, “I just started signing about things that were freaking me out. Wearing a mask for a year. Global warming. There's no heat, no water. It was like a dirge to begin with. But by the end we were all screaming and laughing that, yes, this might be the end of the world, but we're all together right now, making music in my living room by candlelight. It's all OK."

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A

1. Bottom Line
2. Cheap Champagne
3. Could’ve Fooled Me
4. Dear John
5. End Of The World
6. Good Luck

SIDE B

1. Love On A Bad Day
2. Photographs
3. Ride With Me
4. Sleeping In
5. Underwhelmed
6. Wearing Blue

Expanded 30th anniversary re-issue of The Lemonheads’ classic 1993 album. The breakthrough record that took American alt rock global and catapulted Evan Dando into the hearts of a generation. With a wealth of unreleased demos, alternative versions and rarities - including covers of Victoria Williams, Buddy Holly and The Flying Burrito Brothers plus The Lemonhead’s take on the Cole Porter standard ‘Miss Otis Regrets’.

In the 90’s Evan’s Lemonheads produced hit after a hit, a string of super cool singles: ‘Big Gay Heart’, ‘Into Your Arms’, ‘It’s About Time’, and ‘The Great Big NO’. Pure genius filling the radio waves and taking the stage... Some 30 years on; Evan is still knocking that song writing thing out of the park and ‘Come On Feel The Lemonheads’ sounds as fresh and perky as it ever did. Amid the hits on the original record are stencils and outlines for yet more magical music and now this deluxe edition adds a second disc of demos and acoustic versions, plus a host of one-offs from sessions and compilations that add further colour to the myth and how it was created.

There’s the in-demand combo lovingly covering Victoria Williams’ ‘Frying Pan’ from her ‘Sweet Relief’ album, which is joined by an eclectic set of flipsides and out-takes, like their version of original garage punk nugget ‘Little Black Egg’ by The Nightcrawlers, Evan’s homage to Gram Parsons on the winsome ‘Streets Of Baltimore’ and Buddy Holly’s melancholy ‘Learning The Game’. Evan knows a good song when he hears it, as ‘Come On Feel The Lemonheads’ certainly proved.

TRACK LISTING

Disc One
Side A
A1 The Great Big No
A2 Into Your Arms
A3 It's About Time
A4 Down About It
A5 Paid To Smile
A6 Big Gay Heart
A7 Style
A8 Rest Assured
Side B
B1 Dawn Can't Decide
B2 I'll Do It Anyway
B3 Rick James Style
B4 Being Around
B5 Favorite T
B6 You Can Take It With You
B7 The Jello Fund ( + Lenny - Hidden Track)
Disc Two
Side C – Alternative & Acoustic
C1 Big Gay Heart (Demo)
C2 Being Around (Alternative)
C3 Into Your Arms (Acoustic)
C4 Down About It (Acoustic)
C5 Deep Bottom Cove
C6 Acoustic Rick James Style
C7 It's About Time (Acoustic)
Side D – Covers & Curiosities
D1 Miss Otis Regrets
D2 Learning The Game
D3 Little Black Egg
D4 Streets Of Baltimore (Acoustic)
D5 Frying Pan
D6 He's On The Beach
D7 Favorite T (Live In Session)

The Telescopes are an all embracing concern that began in 1987, the only constant being sole composer/ instigator, Northumbrian born Stephen Lawrie. The band’s line-up is in constant flux, there can be anywhere between 1 and 20 members on a recording.

The Telescopes were initially signed to Cheree Records then moved on to What Goes On Records where they became regulars at the top of the indie charts before gaining more mainstream success on signing to Creation Records. The Telescopes are now with Tapete Records. The previous album for the label – Songs Of Love And Revolution saw a return to the indie charts in 2021, including a Dinked edition with remixes by Anton Newcombe, Lloyd Cole and Third Eye Foundation. The Telescopes music has constantly pushed at it’s own boundaries, it overlaps many genres following its own course, inspiration led.

Time has shown The Telescopes music not only withstands repeated listening but also reveals something new with each listen, it has been described by the British music press as 'more a revolution of the psyche than a revolution of the sidewalk'; a thread consistent throughout a highly influential body of work spanning over 30 years. The Telescopes have been cited as an influence on many artists across genres, around the world. The first five albums have all been re-issued by renowned labels such as Cherry Red, Bomp! Rev-Ola, Space Age Records, Weisskalt, Glass Modern, Fuzz Club and many more.

Of Tomorrow is the 15th album from The Telescopes, the fifth for Tapete. The album was created entirely by Lawrie at his studio in Shropshire, it is a departure from what the press often refer to as a ’wall of throb’ when describing the dense merge of noise and sound synonymous with most of The Telescopes output. Of Tomorrow marks a complete change in dynamics. Here we have the poetry of motion, solid grooves to the fore, leaving crystallised trails across a fluttering undercurrent of uplifting rhythm and hooks. Lawrie’s voice, usually treated as an instrument equal to the rest of the sound now takes the reins, engaging the listener in a melodic swirl of radiant harmony that speaks, sometimes in a whisper, of love as revolution. Every song on the album stands it’s ground, each one unique. Everything from the composition to the performance, arrangements and production are leaps beyond previous offerings. This is an album to get lost in on the dance floor or headphones in equal measures.

TRACK LISTING

1. Butterfly
2. Everything Belongs
3. Where Do We Begin?
4. Only Lovers Know
5. (The Other Side)
6. Under Starlight
7. Down By The Sea

Led by the freewheeling vision of Will Turner and Georgie Fuller, The Heavy Heavy “write and play music with that lick of madness that makes early Fleetwood Mac and peak Stones so thrilling” (The Guardian), blending Turner's roots as a studio musician with Fuller's operatic, irresistibly raspy vocal range and background in the London theater.

This expanded edition of their debut EP ‘Life and Life Only’ features runaway hits like the Top 5 AAA radio-charting “Miles and Miles,” current Top 15 breakout “Go Down River,” and rapturous opener “All My Dreams” in addition to hypnotic, harmony-laden takes on Father John Misty’s “Real Love Baby,” Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Guinnevere” and a previously unheard rendition of Jonathan Wilson’s “Desert Raven,” plus a roaring live recording of “Man of The Hills” and an acoustic arrangement of “Go Down River.”

TRACK LISTING

1. All My Dreams
2. Go Down River
3. Man Of The Hills
4. Miles And Miles
5. Sleeping On Grassy Ground
6. Why Don’t You Call
7. Desert Raven
8. Man Of The Hills (Live)
9. Real Love Baby
10. Guinnevere
11. Go Down River (Acoustic)

Back in 2012, Thee Oh Sees made their first appearance at Austin Psych Fest, performing an electrified set at Emo's East. The first of many Levitation appearances down in Austin, this show has been mixed by John Dwyer and mastered for vinyl by JJ Golden. Now immortalized on glorious 12" colored wax. "I think this was our first time at levitation but our millionth time in the amazing and tough as nails city of Austin, Texas. Brigid Dawson, Mike Shoun, Petey D and myself had already laid the live show out in front of crowds here, so it wasn't our first rodeo and certainly not my last. Our love is obvious here as we bring forth a short but sweet set of hits and deep cuts. This is also the version of the band with Lars "Fingers" Finberg of Intelligence fame as second banana drummer. So enjoy some primal and sensual double drumming and as a side note, no one died at this show. Thanks as always to Levitation for making shit happen" - John Dwyer 


The first Austin Psych Fest was held in March 2008, and expanded to a 3 day event the following year. The event quickly developed into an international destination for psychedelic rock fans, with lineups spanning the fringes of indie rock, from up-and-comers to vintage legends, and capped off with headline performances from co-founders The Black Angels, along with Tame Impala, The Flaming Lips, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Thee Oh Sees (in various forms) and many more. LEVITATION helped spark a movement, inspiring the creation of similar events across the globe and a burgeoning psych scene that would soon ignite. The series captures key moments in psychedelic rock history, and live music in Austin, Texas, pressed on beautiful limited edition colorful vinyl pressings - each an eye popping visual representation of the music contained within. The artists and sets showcased on Live at LEVITATION have been chosen from over a decade of recordings at the world-renowned event, and document key artists in the scene performing for a crowd of their peers and fans who gather at LEVITATION annually from all over the world.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Dream
2. Devil Again
3. Tidal Wave
4. Enemy Destruct
5. Robber Barons
6. Block Of Ice
7. Meat Step Lively
8. Minotaur

Rock 'n Roll With The Modern Lovers is the second album released by The Modern Lovers. The band was formed in 1970 by singer, songwriter, and guitarist Jonathan Richman, augmented with Jerry Harrison (keyboards), Ernie Brooks (bass), and David Robinson (drums). Richman's friend John Felice joined them occasionally. Their sound almost totally focusses on the sound from the Fifties. The lo-fi record breathes folky roots music and rock 'n roll as it would sound ages ago. The album features the popular tracks "Ice Cream Man", "Roller Coaster By The Sea", and "Egyptian Reggae". The latter was a cover version of Earl Zero "None Shall Escape The Judgement" and became a UK Top 5 hit.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. The Sweeping Wind (Kwa Ti Feng)
2. Ice Cream Man
3. Rockin' Rockin' Leprechauns
4. Summer Morning
5. Afternoon
6. Fly Into The Mystery

Side B
1. South American Folk Song
2. Roller Coaster By The Sea
3. Dodge Veg-O-Matic
4. Egyptian Reggae
5. Coomyah
6. The Wheels On The Bus
7. Angels Watching Over Me

The Notorious B.I.G.’s READY TO DIE returns as a RETAIL EXCLUSIVE to ‘Bricks and Mortar stores’.

The Notorious B.I.G.'s debut album, "Ready to Die," was released in 1994 and is widely considered a classic of the genre. Certified Platinum in the UK, the album showcases Biggie's distinctive storytelling style and features hits like "Juicy," "Big Poppa," and "One More Chance." With its raw lyrics and gritty production, "Ready to Die" remains a defining album of the East Coast hip hop scene.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. Things Done Changed
3. Gimme The Loot
4. Machine Gun Funk
5. Warning
6. Ready To Die
7. One More Chance
8. #!&@ Me
9. The What
10. Juicy
11. Everyday Struggle
12. Me & My B*tch
13. Big Poppa
14. Respect
15. Friend Of Mine
16. Unbelievable
17. Suicidal Thoughts
18. Who Shot Ya

US poet Ellen Zweig combines experimental spoken word with ambient, fourth world minimalism for the first ever release of key 70s and 80s works Fiction of the Physical.

In the 1970s, Ellen Zweig was a young poet experimenting with poetry as performance. Her presence in New York’s Downtown scene, even during a period of such creative and artistic fertility, represented an astute and profoundly expressive voice. By 1980, and her two pieces “Network of Letters” and “Sensitive Bones” (both collected here on Fiction of the Physical), Zweig had introduced and perfected a technique she named the “human loop”, directing multiple performers to repeat a single poetic phrase over and over as they recorded to tape. Inevitably, the loops phase in and out of synchronisation over time, creating a sonic collage of drifting, rippling syllabic waves that rise and fall with natural tides. The text becomes performance, and in turn it becomes dreamily and hypnotically abstracted from the written word.

An astonishingly singular collection, created from a unique creative vision, Fiction of the Physical offers few reference points. Zweig intentionally disrupts of fourth wall convention and applies of spoken word as a musical device, a pioneering early female voice in underground avant garde scenes. Even her veil of “ambient music” is made porous enough to allow challenging and atonal sonics into the tapestry.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sensitive Bones
2. Act Of Watching
3. Network Of Letters
4. If Archimedes 

First released back in 2014 on Greg Wilson’s Super Weird Substance label, as a limited 12'' vinyl run of 500, ‘Don’t You Worry Baby The Best Is Yet to Come’, has subsequently become a much sought after record with modern soul enthusiasts, copies currently selling at well over £100.

It was soul legend, Colin Curtis, who suggested, at last year’s We Out Here festival, that a 7'' pressing may be timely. Colin’s connection with the track goes back to hallowed Northern soul club, the Blackpool Mecca, in ‘70s, where the Bessie Banks original, never issued in the UK, was a cult-classic.

The Reynolds are Merseyside twins, Carmel and Katherine Reynolds, who worked with Greg across various projects on the label. Katherine takes the lead on this track, and handles it like a veteran, her vocal elegantly gliding the groove – Greg working in collaboration with Wolverhampton DJ/musician Peza, who programmed and co-mixed the track.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Part 1
B1. Part 2

Lovetime Guarantee is delighted to announce the official re-issue of Tobago-born Rootsman's "Wild Goose Chase", which is a perfect blend of boogie, disco, dub, funk, and reggae. This worldwide reissue is the first for Lovetime Guarantee and is expected to be the first of many rare gems spanning the soulful spectrum of music.

Rootsman's career dates back to the late 1970s, and he is best known for hits such as "Miami Vibes", "Rack Mih Rack Mih", "Parkway Rock", and "Soca In The Palace". He produced "Wild Goose Chase" himself and worked closely in the Trini scene with names like Leston Paul. Unfortunately, he passed away on August 21, 2015, leaving behind a rich musical legacy.

The LTG001 vinyl features new artwork by Sirkett, and it is a must-have for all collectors and lovers of rare tunes. Lovetime Guarantee has worked with the legal rights holders to provide this high-quality repress for all to enjoy. Originally pressed in 1986 by Crosby's, this reissue not only includes a remaster of the original but also an extended dubbed-out re-edit from Nick The Record & Dan Tyler - a version that has already received dancefloor approval from Nick's recent sets!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Seems like we're due a disco-reggae resurgence this summer with Nick The Record and Dan Idjuts adding some extra dancefloor umph to this lilting sunshine skank from Rootsman.

TRACK LISTING

A. Wild Goose Chase (Remastered)
B. Wild Goose Chase (Nick The Record & Dan Tyler Re-Edit Extended & Dubbed) 

Throughout 2022, The Wedding Present’s ‘24 Songs’ series saw the legendary indie band release two new tracks a month as double A sided 7”s, ultimately creating a much-sought-after box set. David Gedge has now re-curated full-length versions of all twenty-four tracks for a new compilation album that will also comprise five bonus recordings including one featuring The Wedding Present’s first guitarist, Peter Solowka.

‘24 Songs’ was a doff of the cap to The Wedding Present’s ‘Hit Parade’ project of 30 years previous. That series proved to be a real milestone for the band with them becoming only the second-ever artist to achieve twelve Official UK Top 40 hits in a calendar year – at the time something that only Elvis had achieved!

David Gedge says: “When it came to compiling the ‘24 Songs’ album, I decided not to sequence the tracks in chronological order. With six sides of vinyl, you have six ‘beginnings’ and six ‘ends’ to play with, and I felt that the opportunity to build some kind of a musical journey was too good to miss! Listening back to this collection, I have to say that I genuinely believe that, for this project, The Wedding Present have recorded some of the best tracks in our history. I loved releasing the singles, but it’s satisfying to have them all rounded up together.”

“The idea of releasing another collection of twenty-four tracks did initially seem quite daunting,” admits David Gedge in the deluxe-CD sleeve notes but, with Jon Stewart (also of Sleeper) having joined the band at the end of 2019 and their subsequent writing partnership flourishing, he began to feel confident that they would be able to produce a year’s worth of music. And, with one of the UK’s most influential independent record labels by their side in Clue, a key partner to EMI North who will be distributing the record - there was no looking back.

TRACK LISTING

24 Songs
1. I Am Not Going To Fall In Love With You
2. Memento Mori
3. That Would Only Happen In A Movie
4. We Interrupt Our Programme
5. We Should Be Together
6. Strike!
7. Science Fiction
8. Summer
9. Each Time You Open Your Eyes
10. We All Came From The Sea
11. Monochrome
12. Kerplunk!
13. Don’t Give Up Without A Fight
14. X Marks The Spot
15. You’re Just A Habit That I’m Trying To Break
16. Plot Twist
17. Whodunnit
18. A Song From Under The Floorboards
19. Telemark
20. Astronomic
21. Go Go Go
22. Once Bitten
23. La La La
24. The Loneliest Time Of Year

5 Songs
25. White Riot
26. Panama
27. Jump In, The Water’s Fine [Japanese Edit]
28. We All Came From The Sea [Utah Saints Remix]
29. Teper My Hovorymo

Deluxe DVD:
Featuring The Band Playing Live During The ‘24 Songs Launch’ Event At The Old Market, Hove, In January 2022, Plus A Fascinating Fly-on-the-wall Documentary Filmed As The Songs Were Being Written, Arranged And Recorded. 

The Bebble Rock virtuoso Kabaka Pyramid released his sophomore album, 'The Kalling,' produced by Damian 'Jr Gong' Marley. The fifteen-track masterpiece features some of the reggae icon's most frequent collaborators like Damian Marley, Protoje, Black Am I, Jesse Royal, and new collaborators like Buju Banton and Stephen Marley. This second installment in Kabaka's album discography is a symphony of songs that make a musical statement about the evolution of his craft.

The name "Kabaka" is Ugandan for "King." The long-lasting survival of the Pyramids of ancient Africa represent his desire for longevity in music and deep connection to Kemetic roots; leaving messages for generations to come. He is known for songs like Warrior, Well Done which focused keenly on local systemic issues and Reggae Music that took on a life of its own. His debut album Kontraband was met with critical acclaim, containing hits such as Kontraband featuring Damian Marley and Kaught Up with a popular music video that debuted on BET.

His recent singles: Make Things Work and Red, Gold and Green, featuring Damian Marley, Grateful, featuring Jemere Morgan, and the title track The Kalling, featuring Stephen Marley, were the four leads for this new album.

The album features production from Damian Marley, Stephen Marley, Young Pow and Kabaka Pyramid, another tradition carried over from the previous album. Providing a sufficient platform for Kabaka to update listeners about his growth since his first album. The production highlights the richness of Reggae music, from the keen perfection of percussion and bass to the sampling of iconic songs of Junior Byles in Faded Away, featuring Buju Banton; Peter Tosh in Mystic Man; or Eddie Fitzroy in EZ Ride.

"The Kalling is really about my journey in music being for a higher purpose, not just to get rich or popular, but to inspire a higher vibration in whoever listens" says Kabaka Pyramid. "While the majority seek pleasure and sense gratification, there are a few who the Most Highkall [sic] upon to keep the balance inna [sic] earth. Music is what I use to answer the kall and you can feel it throughout this album."

The album is the winner of the best reggae album at the 2023 Grammy's.

TRACK LISTING

1. Mystic Man
2. Red Gold And Green (feat. Damian Marley)
3. Make Things Work
4. Grateful (feat. Jemere Morgan)
5. Stand Up (feat. Nathália)
6. Safe Right Here
7. Mr. Rastaman (feat. Tifa)
8. The Calling (feat. Stephen Marley, Protoje& Jesse Royal)
9. Faded Away (Buju Banton)
10. Addiction
11. Energy (feat. Jemere Morgan)
12. Mary Jane (feat. Black-Am-I)
13. EZ Ride
14. Life Is Everything (feat. Answele)
15. Kontraband, Pt. 2 (feat. Damian Marley) [Bonus Track]

Eric Emm and Jesse Cohen of Tanlines are indie-rock lifers turned reasonable, happy middle-aged fathers of two, figuring out their place in a chaotic culture and industry that can no longer command their full attention.They are emblematic of a particular time and place that doesn’t really exist anymore, yet here they are existing, and thriving, in 2023.

The Big Mess came together when Emm and his family moved from Brooklyn to rural Connecticut, while Cohen launched a marketing career and a successful podcast and stayed in the city. Emm continued writing songs hundreds of them through all the weirdness of the past few years, but he wasn’t exactly sure who he was writing them for. “I spent years figuring out in my mind, ‘What is my musical life going to look like?’” he says. “I just kept writing.”

Cohen gave Emm his blessing to continue Tanlines, even if his own contributions would be limited due to his own non-musical obligations. “I’m like, ‘Whatever you can do to keep this thing going, do it,’” Cohen says. And with that, Tanlines was reborn.

By January 2022 Emm felt he had a body of work that made sense as a Tanlines album. Cohen spent ten days with Emm at his Connecticut studio, along with unofficial third Tanline Patrick Ford (!!!). This was tied together with a sleek final mix from Peter Katis (The National, Interpol) at his famed Tarquin Studios, resulting in a clear vision of what Emm’s musical life was going to look like: The Big Mess.

The first sounds on The Big Mess are the title track’s coiled guitars and thumping drums, building into the kind of outsize, choral rock anthem artists like Tanlines were almost a reaction to. It is warm and nostalgic, and Cohen likens a lot of the prevailing mood to “a sepia filter on a digital photo.” He continues, “we were pretty intentional about making this the first song on the album, underlining the way that this is a new phase of the band.” Cohen says.

The moody, scintillating “Burns Effect” serves as one of the biggest pushes forward for the Tanlines sound, and for Emm as a lyricist. He says that the song is “deep and dark and dangerous, but in a fun way. It’s one of the more personal tracks on the album where this ungrounded part of my personality surfaces, but with an over-the-top machismo, almost an ironic character.”

Other tracks like “New Reality” and closer “The Age of Innocence” are also demonstrably guitar-forward in ways that wouldn’t seem obvious for Tanlines (despite Emm’s pedigree in austere avant-garde math-rock outfits Storm & Stress and Don Caballero), but Emm is less sure The Big Mess is a total departure. “I’m trying to make these absolutely simple things,” he says. “I think of these songs as Rothko paintings: They’re big and they’re bold and they’re seemingly straightforward, but they have a lot of depth and they engage with you and make you feel something.”

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. The Big Mess
2. Outer Banks
3. New Reality
4. Burns Effect
5. Clouds
SIDE B
6. Unreal
7. Arm’s Length Away
8. Endless Love
9. Speed
10. Hold On
11. The Age Of Innocence

The Undertones formed in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1975 and released their follow up album ‘Hypnotised’ in 1980 which peaked at #6 in the UK Charts.

The themes on this title follow suit of their debut, focusing on teenage angst, boisterousness, and heartbreak. Though Hypnotised is notably both lyrically and musically more sophisticated than it predecessor.

The album contains 14 punky pop classics, with a slightly tougher edge than the unfailingly sweet-natured debut. The giddy love rush of the title track is matched by some of Feargal Sharkey's most exuberant vocals, and the snotty "What's with Terry?" and "My Perfect Cousin" are yet more perfect slices of adolescent frustration.

This reissue is the first time the bands highest charting release has been pressed on red colour vinyl. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
More Songs About Chocolate And Girls
There Goes Norman
Hypnotised
See That Girl
Whizz Kids
Under The Boardwalk
The Way Girls Talk
Hard Luck
Side B
My Perfect Cousin
Boys Will Be Boys
Tearproof
Wednesday Week
Girls That Don't Talk
Nine Times Out Of Ten
What's With Terry

The Murlocs had visions of creating a quintessential country-rock record when they begin recording their 7th LP - a collection of sublimely mellowed-out songs inspired by iconic albums like "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" and "Exile on Main St" - but the record soon took on its own unruly character. Spiked with The Murlocs’ signature breed of sharply crafted garage-punk "Calm Ya Farm" twists country-rock convention into a free-flowing album fully in touch with the frenetic energy of modern life. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Initiative
2. Common Sense Civilian
3. Russian Roulette
4. Superstitious Insights
5. Centennial Perspective
6. Queen Pinky
7. Undone And Unashamed
8. Captain Cotton Mouth
9. Catfish
10. Smithereens
11. Forbidden Toad
12. Aletophyte

The first time on vinyl for the complete collection of these two albums together in one package with special 12 page booklet included

TRACK LISTING

1. The War On Wisdom
2. We Are Doomed
3. Friends Before Larry
4. A Really Long Wait
5. National Hamster
6. Shit Storm
7. Youth Of America
8. Gluey Porch Treatments
9. Revolve
10. Missing
11. Lovely Butterflies
12. Tipping The Lion
13. Interstellar Overdrive

Jimmy LaValle’s The Album Leaf has spun from solo outlet to full band and back in its nearly 25 years. His acclaimed catalog spans releases for labels such as Sub Pop, City Slang, Relapse, and others. He also composes music for film and television, scoring over 20 projects (narrative features, documentaries, and TV series) since 2009. The cinematic sensibilities of The Album Leaf were present from the beginning. His 1999 debut introduced the start of a signature sound: melodic and meditative electro-organic soundscapes constructed with guitar, percussion, Rhodes, and field recordings.

His seventh full-length LP, and first since 2016, arrives in 2023 via Vancouver’s Nettwerk Records. FUTURE FALLING finds LaValle working with an array of musicians, shaping slightly darker, more spacious, and synth-driven songs with contributions from Bat For Lashes, Kimbra, and many others. The music registers a shade darker and more synth-driven than most moments in his acclaimed catalog, a bridge between shadowy, cerebral terrain and dreamy precision pop, where softly percussive frameworks meet shimmering sound design and emotive instrumentation.

LaValle sees the construction of FUTURE FALLING as less conventional than past work. Contributions were done remotely with a “throw everything at it” mindset, making LaValle the arranger of layers from all over: drums, synths, horns, violins, voice, and more. LaValle created a pastiche of these layers and elements; in some cases even moving vocal takes to new tracks entirely. Without the in-the-room dynamics, he had more time to experiment, adding and subtracting ad infinitum. The album opens on “PROLOGUE,” an evocative, slow-building instrumental that rides a pattern into a symphonic sea of static. Keys and horns glide atop the rhythmic pulse of “DUST COLLECTS,” setting the contemplative scene for “AFTERGLOW,” the record’s most pop-minded performance. Here Kimbra, the Grammy-winning New Zealand singer-songwriter, renders a striking recollection of past love as percussive elements shimmer and swirl.

A plaintive piano line moves throughout “Cycles 19.9” encircled by light ambient washes, both a valley between two peaks and a powerful composition in its own right. “Future Falling” follows; with origins tracing back to 2015, the track embodies the full sonic journey LaValle has taken. All the hallmarks of The Album Leaf — melodic builds, vivid sprawl, tonal shape-shifting — assemble to a blissful finish. For the next stretch, “Cycles” begins with a uneasy Rhodes loop that builds and erupts into a wall of texture paving its way into “Give In,” where LaValle models a movement that begins subtle and measured before curving up with skyward, percussive bursts (“Stride”) and settling back down to the album’s back-half centerpiece, “Near” featuring the acclaimed English artist Natasha Khan aka Bat For Lashes. “Do you feel me near?” she sings into a mist of widescreen synths and soothing, distant drum beats as if searching through the dark.

TRACK LISTING

1) Prologue
2) Dust Collects
3) Afterglow (featuring Kimbra)
4) Future Falling
5) Breathe
6) Cycles
7) Give In
8) Stride
9) Near (featuring Bat For Lashes)
10) Epilogue

Esben and the Witch — comprising Rachel Davies, Thomas Fisher and Daniel Copeman — began in Brighton in 2008, later decamped to Berlin, and is now split three ways across the UK, Germany and the US. Their winding geographical journey feels representative of their path as a whole. The band have snaked through various scenes and sonic worlds across their 14 years together, while always squirming away from an easy genre classification. Their first two albums, 2011’s Violet Cries and 2013’s Wash the Sins Not Only The Face — both released on Matador Records — offered gothic, electronic-tinged dream pop and post-rock. Beginning with the Steve Albini-produced A New Nature (2014, self-released on their own Nostromo Records), they came to explore heavier post-punk and metal textures, which they intensified through 2016’s Older Terrors and 2018’s Nowhere (both via Marseille-based metal label Season of Mist).

Hold Sacred represents a reset in many ways. After Nowhere, Davies felt exhausted and disenfranchised with music, and for a while entertained the possibility that Esben and the Witch had come to an end. If they were to make a new album, they needed to take everything back to basics. They departed from their record label, returning to independence through Nostromo. They expanded operations, too, with the launch of Haus Nostromo, an online emporium and journal through which they branch away from purely music, selling “a curated collection of books, zines, art prints, clothing and more”. It’s aimed at building community, celebrating the act of collaboration, and offering an ethical, passion-driven and truly DIY platform for artists across various mediums. “Similar to the spirit of Esben, it’s always been essential for us to do everything on our own terms,” says Davies.

In the summer of 2019, the band retreated to a villa outside of Rome, with no expectations or pressures but simply the intention to enjoy each other’s company and see what musical inspiration may arise from that. This is where the rough sketches of the songs that would form Hold Sacred came to be. “It was a wonderful, restorative retreat,” Davies says. “It felt free again, and a reminder that perhaps there was still a spark left for us to unearth.”

The songs that were emerging were different than any previous. They’re brooding, gentle, almost ambient; there are no live drums, and the instrumentals comprise simple, sparse guitar and keys. “We wanted to create a softer, calmer record; a record we’d listen to when we need soothing, like the ambient records we find comforting and, dare I say, almost spiritual,” says Davies. The band used no outside producers or engineers, keeping the process limited to the three of them from start to finish — harkening back to the spirit of their earliest days when Copeman would record them in his bedroom and bathroom.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Brittle, atmospheric post-rock instrumentals and beatless ambient excursions beautifully accentuated by the haunting vocals of Rachael Davies. Swimming with gothic charm, but undeniably beautiful 'Hold Sacred' is new territory for the band, and sounds every bit as necessary as the rest of their canon.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Well
2. In Ecstasy
3. Fear Not
4. Silence, 1801
5. True Mirror
6. A Kaleidoscope
7. Heathen
8. The Depths
9. Petals Of Ash 

Is there a curse that says Brian ‘BC Camplight’ Christinzio cannot move forward without being knocked back? That the greatest material is born out of emotional trauma?

Whilst making his new album The Last Rotation Of Earth, Christinzio’s relationship with his fiancé crumbled after nine inseparable years. The album follows this break-up amid long-term struggles with addiction and declining mental health. The outcome is an extraordinary record, with Christinzio describing it as “more cinematic, sophisticated, and nuanced than anything I’ve done before. And more desperate”.

That Christinzio has bettered his previous album is an achievement, given that Shortly After Takeoff received the best reviews of his life. “A masterpiece,” said The Guardian’s 5 star review, “a half hour or so that roils with anxiety, stuns with beauty and, occasionally, provokes laughter.” Even then, fate intervened when the album was released in April 2020, just as Covid and lockdown kicked in, so he was unable to tour the record until late 2021. The Philadelphian then joked, “I can't wait to make an album that isn’t surrounded by some awful tragedy.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A wonderful return for Brian Christinzio, full of soaring pop songs and perfectly manicured melodies, as you'd expect. What's not so expected however is how BC's self-confessed pains and setbacks have resulted in such a wonderfully jubilant end-result. Heartfelt, grand and full of nuance, 'The Last Rotation..' is by far his most refined and enjoyable outing yet.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. The Last Rotation Of Earth
2. The Movie
3. It Never Rains In Manchester
4. Kicking Up A Fuss
Side B:
1. She's Gone Cold
2. Fear Life In A Dozen Years
3. Going Out On A Low Note
4. I'm Ugly
5. The Mournin

What better way to celebrate Spare Snare's 30th birthday than reuniting with Steve Albini to record their 12th album, in Leith, assisted by Rod Jones of Idlewild. Featuring 10 brand-new songs written over the past year, the album shows off the Dundee band’s new six-piece line-up, along with two legendary guests. Gary Barnacle and Terry Edwards, who met for the first time on the session, duet on more than half the album, bringing a new texture and urgency to the Spare Snare sound.

TRACK LISTING

1. Brutal
2. Hold Your Sex
3. Ring To Me
4. Bleached Out Rainbows
5. Wi-fi
6. I Have You
7. Have A Go
8. Hey Won't You
9. Where Does It All Go
10. That's About It 

This is the Pennine Edition - unique to a selection of shops in Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria - all formats include an exclusive embroidered patch.

Standers is the second full-length album by Craven Faults. It follows a trilogy of long sold out EPs, 2020’s Erratics & Unconformities LP, the Enclosures mini-album and a series of studio performances entitled Live Works.

Meticulously curated, each release moves the Craven Faults story forward. Each one a self-contained analogue electronic journey across northern Britain, viewed through the lens of a century in popular music. Studios, venues and movements. Technology and ingenuity. Vibrations. Lines drawn to connect those moments of inspiration.

On Standers, there’s a sonic shift. A new palette to paint from and further refinement of the craft. We’re no longer exclusively travelling overland. Familiar landscapes are viewed from a different perspective. There’s a growing obsession in how this island came to look the way it does, and how its ancient and modern history affects its current population. Landscapes shaped by the elements, and then by countless conquerors and settlers. Livestock and machinery. Money, religion and politics.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Craven Faults' releases don't stick around for long, it's both incredibly evocative and endlessly rich synth work that people just can't get enough of (myself included). That in mind, it's safe to say if you like any sort of hypnotic oscillations or saturated slo-mo cosmic ambient etc, then this is absolutely for you. Another triumph.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Hurrocstanes (16:32)
B1. Severals (7:55)
B2. Meers & Hushes (12:21)
C1. Sun Vein Strings (18:18)
D1. Idols & Altars (7:07)
D2. Odda Delf (10:06)

There's something intangible about ‘Celeste’, The Soundcarriers’ second album, originally released in 2010. It has a light, lucid quality, almost like driving exhausted through a strange city at night. Freeflowing yet tethered, dreamy yet attacking, the band continue the fight to reconcile competing impulses. Various threads just about keep the shimmering tapestry from tearing. Haunting folk melodies underpinned by rhythmic static and the physicality of the totally analogue recording and mixing, baroque keyboard counterpoints and sweeping arrangements.

The opener “Last Broadcast” seems to encapsulate this but it's almost as if the album gets the angst out of its system with this track and is free to explore the quieter, less crowded back streets. After the smoke of “Last Broadcast” has cleared, the twisting road takes in the soft introspection of “Hideaway” and “Morning Haze”, both tracks morphing into heavy psyche grooves or the eastern tinged psyche funk of “Signals” and “Rise And Fall”. Or takes another turn with the tightly arranged opening segment of “Long Highway”. Somehow it still manages to fit in ‘60s pop gems like “There Only Once”.

An album to really lose yourself in, yet more concise than the sprawling Harmonium and more relaxed and free-flowing than the nervy rush of Entropicalia, Celeste could be arguably their most indispensable album and not to damn it with faint praise, their most listenable.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Last Broadcast
2. Step Outside
3. Morning Haze
4. Broken Sleep
Side B
1. Long Highway
2. Rolling On
3. There Only Once
4. Out Of Place
Side C
1. Signals
2. Rise And Fall
3. Hideaway
4. Celeste
Side D
1. Long Highway (Inst.)
2. Out Of Place (Inst.)
3. There Only Once (Inst.)
4. Last Broadcast (Alt. Mix)
5. Celeste (Alt.mix)

Alison Goldfrapp has set a towering bar for British synth-pop in the 21st century and she’s only just getting started. The magnetic London-born singer, songwriter and producer’s seven albums with Goldfrapp were fuelled by an unfailing modernity and a sixth sense for sounds that were more timeless than any trend. With the release of her debut solo album The Love Invention- an electrifying dance-pop suite - her multi-faceted musicianship reaches a new peak.

The Love Invention marks Alison’s reawakening as a dancefloor priestess, in an intoxicating showcase of the disco and house influences that have always been at the heart of her musical DNA. “So Hard So Hot” bottles the ephemeral joy of a dancefloor with its anthemic house beat, disco handclaps, and an exquisitely alluring vocal from Alison. The sense of uninhibited liberation courses through album highlights like “In Electric Blue,” a yearning synth-pop confection with a chorus as blissful as love’s first butterflies. On “NeverStop,” she is flooded with the rush of an all-encompassing love over a buoyant, rubberised beat; the sublime synth-pop of “Fever” is an ode to the intoxicating majesty of the dancefloor, with a chorus that explodes as if setting off a glitter cannon.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Alison Goldfrapp has been at the forefront of electronic music for a good few decades now, both with Will Gregory and now on her own. 'The Love Invention' sees Alison veer dramatically into synth-heavy dancefloor grooves, crisply produced house and rich 303 sweeps. While there is very little that would sound bad with Goldfrapp singing atop it, this is the perfect mix of drive and wooze.

TRACK LISTING

NeverStop
Love Invention
Digging Deeper Now
In Electric Blue
The Beat Divine
Fever
Hotel (Suite 23)
Subterfuge
Gatto Gelato
So Hard So Hot
SLoFLo

The Cult is fronted by Ian Astbury on vocals and Billy Duffy on guitar. Their music and albums at this point need no introduction as they have cemented themselves over the years since they began in 1983, as one of the greatest rock bands around. 1994 brought their seif-titled sixth album The Cult, sometimes also known as the “Black Sheep” album due to the cover image. Recorded with Bob Rock, It is a very personal album with a lot of the narrative subject matter referring to Astbury’s younger years. Unlike their previous albums, this one revealed itself more slowly with each listen. This album is considered an overlooked and underrated gem and preceded their 1995 break-up. The band reformed in 1999 and continues to tour and release albums, including their most recent, 2022’s Under The Midnight Sun.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Gone
A2. Coming Down (Drug Tongue)
A3. Real Grrrl
B1. Black Sun
B2. Naturally High
B3. Joy
C1. Star
C2. Sacred Life
C3. Be Free
D1. Universal You
D2. Emperor’s New Horse

D3. Saints Are Down

Ky is the new “solo” project of Ky Brooks, best known as vocalist/lyricist of noise trio Lungbutter and a slew of other Montréal-based out-music projects like 8-person queer punk band Femmaggots and experimental/improv trio Nag. Power Is The Pharmacy is an album of cerebral and visceral artpunk “mainly about grief, death, the fear of loss, losing dreams, losing youth, people, public space, ultimately oneself” an emotionally electrifying collection of songs fuelled by Ky’s piercing poetry, both spoken and sung, delivering an incisive blend of socio-political observation and spiritual sadness, swirling through vortices of disenchantment and re-enchantment.

The seeds of Power Is The Pharmacy were planted in pre-lockdown performances where Big|Brave’s Mat Ball played tape loops to Ky’s poems, with their intent “to figure out how to make music that involved singing in a more melodic way and use parts of my voice I wasn’t using with Lungbutter and other noise/punk projects.” Then pandemic hit, along with Canadian pandemic income support, allowing for Ky’s acquisition of a couple of mini-synths. Songs took on all kinds of further re-shaping in the isolation of Montréal’s intense lockdown winter 2020-21. Then devastating tragedy struck (as it had for so many) in spring 2021 when Lungbutter drummer and dear friend Joni Sadler died suddenly of a brain aneurism. Ky describes “All The Sad And Loving People” as “the most direct piece of writing I’ve done in response to Joni’s passing” and the song’s haunting, devotional simplicity is a numinous album highlight among many.

Power Is The Pharmacy careens through hissing bruitist synthscape, free/jazz sprinkles, soft-focus gauze, coldwave and ambient-to-thick sludge, all anchored by Ky’s superbly sly, searching, serrated lyrics and voice. The album ranges from trenchant spoken-word tracks like “Power Is The Pharmacy (Teeth)” and “Work That Superficially Looks Like Leisure”—which repeats the line “Suddenly! / No not suddenly! / But with a fantastic regularity and remarkable softness! / I woke up and decided I knew how to work!” to the haunting electro of “The Dancer” and “All The Sad And Loving People” (most overtly evoking Big Science-era Laurie Anderson, a recurring stylistic touchstone). The album’s second half brings Ball’s incendiary noise-improv guitar to the fore, along with Ky’s voice more fiercely and soulfully unleashed, on heavy incantatory cuts like “Revolving Door”, “Dragons” and the quasi-operatic cabaret of “Listen! Avoid Magic! Be Aware!”

Ky enlisted a diverse crew of fellow Montréal iconoclasts to flesh out this gripping voyage through unruly stylistic and mood swings of experimental song, including the aforementioned Mat Ball, synth maven Nick Schofield, saxophonist James Goddard (Egyptian Cotton Arkestra), bassist Joshua Frank (Gong Gong Gong) and drummer Farley Miller (Shining Wizard). Ky composed all the music, plays synths and guitars, asked all these friends to “not under any circumstances play any particular thing” and then and mixed the album “for 10 million years.” The album draws its title from A Critique Of Black Reason by Achille Mbembe, as quoted in the liner notes: Power is the pharmacy, thanks to its capacity to transform the sources of death into a seeding strength, or to convert the resources of death into the capacity for healing. And it is because of its dual ability to be the force of life and the principle of death that power is at once revered and feared. But the relationship between the principles of life and death is fundamentally unstable.

TRACK LISTING

1. Power Is The Pharmacy (Teeth)
2. All The Sad And Loving People
3. Work That Superficially Looks Like Leisure
4. The Dancer
5. Revolving Door
6. Listen! Avoid Magic! Be Aware!
7. Dragons
8. Elvin Silverware
9. The Replacement

The garage punk band The Cramps returned in 1994 with their sixth studio album Flamejob. Wild vocals from Lux Interior and the creepy guitar work from Poison Ivy marks one of their most energetic performances in quite a long time. The whole album centers on sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. Most of the tracks clocking just beneath the 3 minutes and the album contains multiple covers. The most famous one of them is “Route 66”, which is infused with the famous Cramps sound.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Mean Machine
2. Ultra Twist
3. Let's Get F*cked Up
4. Nest Of The Cuckoo Bird
5. I'm Customized
6. Sado County Auto Show
7. Naked Girl Falling Down The Stairs

Side B
1. How Come You Do Me?
2. Inside Out And Upside Down (With You)
3. Trapped Love
4. Swing The Big Eyed Rabbit
5. Strange Love
6. Blues Blues Blues
7. Sinners
8. Route 66 (Get Your Kicks On)

Brazil Classics 5: The Hips of Tradition, comes in a limited Amazon Green edition.

Here’s what you have in store: Household appliances and tools in arrangements with horns, strings, “prepared” guitars (punctuated by grunts, screams and other wild percussion), all melded with eccentric metaphorical lyricism.

Wearing their influences on their sleeves, it’s clear they draw faithfully from the authentic stylings of Billy Childish, Dan Sartain, nasty 50’s rockabilly, gritty 60’s garage and trashy 70’s punk rock. They are a no-messin’ rock and roll band.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Haunted Man
A2. Strange Times At Roswell High
A3. Jackalope
A4. True Love
A5. Now That You're Gone
B1. Ouija Board Waltz
B2. Hotel Metropole
B3. Cry Baby Don't Like It
B4. Stop Talking
B5. Ranchero

Massive release for fans of Stranger Things, hip-hop and the movement known as nerdcore - mash-up don Amerigo Gazaway joins forces with nerdcore rapper Mega Ran for a project which sees classic boom-bap beats, samples and soundbites from the show and lyrical content based on themes explored in season four of the cult series.

It's brilliantly conceived. "The Hellfire Club" samples Metallica's "Master Of Puppets" while Mega Ran raps about Dustin being 'master of the dungeons' and 'saving Hawkins from disaster'. "The Nina Project" discusses El and the dodgy goings on in the holding facility. There's even two masterful joints utilizing Kate Bush's anthemic track which would almost singularly soundtrack the entire show.

It's cleverly done and should give fans of the cult series plenty of feels whilst the beats, sampling and vocal delivery should keep even your most ardent hip-hop head nodding their head in approval. Pressed on special red & black splattered vinyl with a full color picture sleeve. Limited copies!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Conscious boom-bap themed around Stranger Things season 4?! This is the very definition of the musical movement known as NERDCORE - but is also a killer hip-hop LP in its own right.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Strangers
A2. The Hillfire Club
A3. The Nina Project
A4. Superheroes & Monsters

B1. Vecna's Curse
B2. The Upside Down
B3. The Massacre
B4. The Dive
B5. Superheroes

'The World in Air Quotes' is a genre-shifting style-melting kaleidoscope of art-rock, jazz, techno, folk & industrial. The God In Hackney sound like very little else from the early 2020's and whilst 'The World In Air Quotes' innovative progenitors are manifold - Eno, Coil, Robert Wyatt, The Durutti Column, 1980s ECM jazz to name a few - it sounds beholden to none of them.

The God In Hackney's first album 'Cave Moderne' was Andrew Weatherall's album of the year for NTS Radio.

The God In Hackney's second LP, 'Small Country Eclipse', was album of 2020 for critic Sukhdev Sandhu of The Colloquium for Unpopular Culture: "Mordant music: stuttering, dread, black humour. A record that felt truly independent, beholden to no genre, out of step with all centres and signposted nodes."

"The most enthralling melange of art-rock & new wave in the last decade" Hi-Fi Choice Magazine May 2023

"Left-field art-pop with leanings to 80's pop experimentalists like Peter Gabriel or Magazine...Peter Gabriel fronting Talking Heads?" Peter Hollo / Utility Fog, April 2023

Getting right to the point, "In This Room" by The God in Hackney is definitely one of the best songs I've heard so far in 2023, and almost certainly in all of the 2020s (the 2010s are being looked into as we speak). (Larry Dolman / Blastitude! April 10 2023)

'The World In Air Quotes' is The God In Hackney's 3rd album and their most musically emotive and lyrically inventive to date. It's an album that resonates with feelings about climate change, isolation, extinction, the social impact of technology, the flattening of history—and illuminates the darkness with imaginative rhythm, melody, noise & poetry. Songs range from widescreen, anthemic rock, to strange intricately arranged jazz-influenced songs, to abstract, textural electronic pieces. There's a strain of dark and surreal comedy too that runs through the lyrics and some of the choices the band makes in their sounds and arrangements.

The core God in Hackney quartet of Andy Cooke, Dan Fox, Ashley Marlowe and Nathaniel Mellors has expanded to include American multi-instrumentalists and composers Eve Essex (Eve Essex & The Fabulous Truth, Das Audit, Peter Gordon & Love of Life Orchestra, Peter Zummo, Liturgy) and Kelly Pratt (Father John Misty, David Byrne/St Vincent, Beirut, and Lonnie Holley among many others), signalling a new and ambitious direction for the band.

The album cover features original artwork by Iranian-American artist Tala Madani, recently the subject of a career survey exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

TRACK LISTING

1. In The Face Of A New Science
2. Heaven & Black Water
3. Bardo!
4. In This Room
5. Red Star
6. Philip
7. Interstate 5
8. Broken Pets
9. American Email
10. A Frozen Western
11. Non-Zero Number

The always superb Sounds Of The City comes through here with some freshness and newness via their newly minted 'Sounds Of The City, Dark' series. It finds the French outfit Catalogue debuting on the label with a sound that brings a different perspective to the new post-punk movement. Their sound is a mixing pot of an array of different influences and what you get is music that will get you nodding to the grooves while your mind gets lost exploring synthetic elements, angular guitar riffs, robotic rhythms and lovely deep bass.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1 "Synchronized"
2. "Parallele Lines"
3. "Fragments"
4. "Suburban Girls"
5. "Houseplant"
6. "2030"

Side 2
1. "At Night"
2. "Casino"
3. "La Croix"
4. "Ageing"
5. "Kids Of The Black Hole"

Undeniably one of the best smaIl bands in the history of jazz, the Miles Davis Quintet of the mid-1950s featured an all-star line-up of Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor sax), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums).

This new edition of “Workin’” is release as part of the Original Jazz Classics Series and is pressed on 180-gram vinyl at RTI with all-analog mastering from the original tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and presented in a Tip-On Jacket.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. It Never Entered My Mind
2. Four
3. In Your Own Sweet Way
4. The Theme (Take 1)
Side B
1. Trane’s Blues (a.k.a. Vierd Blues)
2. Ahmad’s Blues
3. Half Nelson
4. The Theme (Take 2)

James Ellis Ford has been hidden in plain sight for his entire two-decade-long career. The composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter has worked with some of the biggest names in music, from Arctic Monkeys to Depeche Mode via Foals, Gorillaz and Kylie Minogue and as part of Simian Mobile Disco and The Last Shadow Puppets’ touring band. 

This year he takes centre stage with a bewitching debut solo album, ‘The Hum’. It is as much a homage to the tender and eccentric English pop music of Brian Eno and Robert Wyatt as it is love letter to his wife and son’s Palestinian roots; as much exploration of the pastoral verve of Canterbury prog as it is informed by the dynamics of modern hip-hop production; as much a madcap Radiophonic voyage into the cosmic unknown peppered with Can-like grooves. With ‘The Hum’, James Ellis Ford has finally come out of hiding.

TRACK LISTING

01. Tape Loop #7
02. Pillow Village
03. I Never Wanted Anything
04. Squeaky Wheel
05. The Yips
06. Golden Hour
07. The Hum
08. Caterpillar
09. Emptiness
10. Closing Time

For Fans Of… Charles Bradley, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Lee Fields.

Bobby Harden & The Soulful Saints are proud to announce their debut album, “Bridge of Love.” The album’s ten original compositions are presented in sparklingly-clear stereo sound and run the soul gamut, from grits-n-bricks R&B (‘Played a Fool by You’) to throw-back psychedelia (‘One Tribe’), svelte seventies pop (‘One Night of the Week’) and some seriously sophisticated ballads (‘Wounded Hearts’, ‘Bridge of Love’).

Together they document Bobby’s life journey in song. Through youthful self-doubt in the opening track ‘It’s My Time’, to confirmation on the exuberant finale ‘Raise Your Mind’, Bobby proves that faith and hard work can pay dividends. “Life is a joy when you free your soul.”

Throughout the album, Harden’s voice is tailored to perfection by the almost impossibly dexterous Soulful Saints, and further dressed to the nines by an accoutrement of Latin percussion, full-on horns, high-flying backing singers and even a string quartet. This comes as no surprise as The Soulful Saints have performed live and recorded together with acts such as Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, Lee Fields & The Expressions, The Budos Band, Mark Ronson, Antibalas, The Impressions, & The Wu-Tang Clan.

TRACK LISTING

1. It’s My Time
2. One Tribe
3. Feels So Good
4. One Night Of The Week
5. Wounded Hearts
6. Played A Fool By You
7. Bridge Of Love
8. Butterfly
9. Runnin’ (To Get To Your Love)
10. Raise Your Mind

A globe spanning ( France, Italy, Germany, USA, Belarus, Sweden, Russia, Australia, Canada ) covers album of the late great Marc Bolan songs starting with the earliest cover in 1965.

Covering a huge range of genres and styles.

A response to the U.S Hit album Angel Headed Hipster which opened up the songs of Bolan to a new American audience by using big names and TV advertising …this concentrates on quality recordings by lesser known artists 

TRACK LISTING

CD Tracklist
Disc 1
1. Beyond The Rising Sun (Il Faut Trouver Son Coin De Ciel) - Sylvie Vartan
2.The Third Degree - Andy Ellison & Boz Boorer
3. Menthol Dan - Andy Ellison & Boz Boorer
4. Pictures Of Purple People - Automatic Shoes
5.Child Star - Witchwood
6.Chateau In Virginia Waters - Swervedriver
7. Stacey Grove - Marsha Hunt
8. Travelling Tragition - Fair Folk (CD Only)
9. Eminesque Head - Puretongue (CD Only)
10. Cat Black (The Wizard’s Hat) - Chris Connelly & The Liquid Gang
11. Lofty Skies - Automatic Shoes
12. Wind Cheetah - Catherine Lambert
13. Elemental Child - The Charms
14. Visit - Tarwater
Disc 2
1. Cosmic Dancer - Mair 
2. Lean Woman Blues - Alison MacCallum (CD Only)
3. Jeepster (Alt Version) - The Polecats
4. Raw Ramp - Black Bombers
5. Ballrooms Of Mars - Kelly Reilly
6. Spaceball Ricochet – Speedtwinn
7. Life’s A Gas - Mexican Dogs
8. Children Of The Revolution - Burn It To The Ground 
9. Life Is Strange ( Dziunaje Zyccio) - Illa Falazynski
10. Calling All Destroyers - Rachel Stamp
11. Soul Of My Suit - Chris Braide
12. Visions Of Domino - Schwefel
13. Prelude – Jewel - Buick Mackane

Vinyl Tracklist:
Side A
1.Beyond The Rising Sun (Il Faut Trouver Son Coin De Ciel) - Sylvie Vartan
2.Third Degree - Andy Ellison & Boz Boorer (Exclusive)
3.Pictures Of Purple People - Automatic Shoes
4.Stacey Grove - Marsha Hunt
5.Chateau In Virginia Waters - Swervedriver
6.Child Star - Witchwood
Side B
7.Cosmic Dancer - Mair (Exclusive) 
8.Wind Cheetah - Catherine Lambert
9.Elemental Child - The Charms
10.Visit - Tarwater
11.Cat Black ( The Wizard’s Hat ) - Chris Connelly & The Liquid Gang
Side C
12.Children Of The Revolution - Burn It To The Ground 
13.Lofty Skies - Automatic Shoes
14.Ballrooms Of Mars - Kelly Reilly
15.Spaceball Ricochet – Speedtwinn
16.Jeepster - The Polecats
17.Soul Of My Suit - Chris Braide
Side D
18. Calling All Destroyers - Rachel Stamp
19. Menthol Dan (Dan The Sniff) - Andy Ellison & Boz Boorer
20. Raw Ramp - Black Bombers
21. Life’s A Gas - Mexican Dogs
22. Life Is Strange - Illa FalaZynski
23. Visions Of Domino - Schwefel 

Strut presents the definitive reissues of two all-time classic Caribbean soul and funk albums, The Beginning Of The End’s ‘Funky Nassau’ (1971) and ‘Beginning Of The End’ (1976).

Emerging from Nassau in the Bahamas in 1971, the band was formed around the Munnings brothers (Ray, Leroy and Frank) and the first song they recorded, ‘Funky Nassau’, became a No. 1 Billboard R’n’B hit, selling over a million copies. “We wanted to create something new,” remembers Ray Munnings, “something that was truly Bahamian. We loved funk but wanted to include elements of junkanoo, the indigenous music of The Bahamas.” An album was written within a week and recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami. “We brought in more Bahamian themes, like ‘Monkey Tamarind’, a wild fruit that grows there.”

By the time of their second album in 1976, the band was managed by Don Taylor, also Bob Marley’s manager. “Don took us to Byron Lee’s studio in Jamaica and used Teddy Randazzo (Little Anthony & The Imperials) to direct the sessions,” recalls Munnings. “He gave us more of an uptempo jazz funk sound with Chicago-style horns.” The album led to a run of incredible bad luck. Booked to support Marvin Gaye’s ’What’s Goin’ On’ tour, the US Musicians Union stepped in and ordered a US group to fill the slot. They were then added onto a major Bob Marley tour in 1976 before he injured his foot, cancelling all dates.

These definitive official reissues of ‘Funky Nassau’ and ‘Beginning Of The End’ are remastered by The Carvery from original tapes and feature full length tracks from the studio sessions. Both albums feature a history of the albums and the band by vocalist Ray

Munnings, alongside rare photos. ‘Beginning Of The End’ appears on loudpress 2LP for the first time. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Superwoman
2. Trip To Nowhere
3. Jamaica
4. I’Ve Got The News
5. Falling Apart At The Seams
6. That’S What I Get
7. Bluestrain
8. Jump In The Water
9. Bahamian Boogie

Brazil Classics 4: The Best of Tom Zé Massive Hits, comes in a limited Brazilian Blue gatefold edition.

Here’s what you have in store: Household appliances and tools in arrangements with horns, strings, “prepared” guitars (punctuated by grunts, screams and other wild percussion), all melded with eccentric metaphorical lyricism.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Mã
A2. O Riso E A Faca
A3. Toc
A4. Tô
A5. Um “oh!” E Um “ah!”
A6. Ui! (você Inventa)
A7. Cademar
A8. Só (solidão)
B1. Hein?
B2. Augusta, Angélica E Consolação
B3. Dói
B4. Complexo De Épico
B5. A Felicidade
B6. Vai (Menina, Amanhãde Manhã)
B7. Nave Maria

New Heavy Sounds has had its radar pointing at the stars for quite a while now. MWWB (Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard) was our first contact with the dream side of the cosmic. Now we prepare to welcome the second. Hailing from Kansas, They Watch Us From The Moon have landed to present their first magnum opus ‘Cosmic Chronicles: Act 1, The Ascension’ A band with riffs as heavy as Osmium and melodic lead guitar lines (think Gilmour meets Buck Dharma) as strong as spider's silk, it’s a wonder they managed to escape the atmosphere. Perhaps it’s because the sublime vocals of TWUFTM's twin 'Space Angels' Luna Nemesis and Nova 10101001 guide you beautifully through the clouds. In fact their vocals are a total highlight throughout and lift this record far above any genre pigeonholing. TWUFTM are also a band that has a concept behind the groove. Sci-fi space opera, a love for Bowie and Queen, brought to the fore visually, in their mashing of comic book narratives and Funkadelic style alter ego’s. TWUFTM are truly an immersive experience on every level. As to the music … the colossal weight of riffs on this first-contact missive are made so gloriously enjoyable by memorable hooks, honed repetition and and an agile rhythm section that can make each one of their (sometimes 10 minute) stargaze rides feel like an epic odyssey. Fellow space travellers Hawkwind and Pink Floyd, and even Spacemen 3, have been in similar orbits before, but never this heavy. Now, alongside a trajectory charted by Monster Magnet and maintained by The Sword, Ufomammut, White Hills and Witch Mountain .... TWUFTM don't just breathe new life into cosmic tones, they take it to a different level. ‘Cosmic Chronicles: Act 1, The Ascension’ is space opera for Heavy Psych Doommers and Shoegazers alike. This is something new within Heavy Psychedelics, in fact it’s something new anywhere. The epic single 'Return to Earth' last December, following their 'Moon Doom' EP, had the scene talking, and the few album snippets that have been secretly disseminated, has created much anticipation. "A phenomenal blending of doom, psych and spacious rock'n'roll that is as heavy as it is accessible” Desert Psychlist. Cosmic Chronicles contains 5 immense tracks chock full of weight and brimming with melody. ‘On The Fields Of The Moon’ is like fresh oxygen in bright sunlight - chiming lead guitars and angelic twin vocals (almost like Fleetwood Mac … imagine that) melodies draw you in like gravity itself. Complete with a space-bound chorus and a ripping guitar only 250 seconds into our flight. It sets the tone perfectly. 'Space Angel' is literally that. The band's angel’s Luna and Nova are simply mesmerising, weaving through the heaviest of space-kraut riff grooves. With 'MOAB', the mood is darkening. 'Days of destruction, days of disease' - a warning for our times - the pace has slowed, it’s black and doom laden, yet our vocal angels still give us reason for optimism. And there, fellow travellers, we suggest that you take a moment to take in what you’ve just heard, and imbibe whatever is your drug of choice before tackling the final two ten minute space flights. 'Creeper AD' is a psychedelic trip to lose yourself in. Shifting chord progressions, cool guitar breaks and again, those vocal harmonies, entwined and bewitching. 'Return To Earth' does just that, and is pretty much the summation of what we have experienced. An epic, gorgeous space symphony.

TWUFTM are: Luna Nemesis - Lead Vocals / The General Shane Thirteen - Guitar and Vocals / Adryon Prahktaur- Drums / Zakkatron- Bass / R. Benjamin Black- Lead Guitar and Vocals / Nova 10101001- Vocals.

TRACK LISTING

On The Fields Of The Moon
Space Angel
Mother Of All Bastards
Creeper A.d.
Return To Earth

The third release on Midnight Drive takes us back to the heady days of 1984, New York City. We find Clive Stevens, a UK born saxophonist, producer, writer and poet at the helm of a truly staggering cast of international musicians known as 'Brainchild', recording an LP entitled 'Semjase' for Brazilian label Vôo Livre. The LP featured incredible session musicians whose CV's include work with some of the biggest names in popular music including Chic, Kate Bush, Miles Davis, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty and more (the list is endless). One track from this fairly obscure LP - 'Mystery Man' - somehow managed to find its way into the hands of the one and only Daniele Baldelli, who swiftly turned it into a cosmic classic. Present and correct on a number of the cosmic tapes, "Mystery Man" is a truly unique record melding electro-style programming, live percussion, synthesizers and vocals into a blistering slow motion disco jam that'll have you dancing like a loon and scratching your head trying to work out when, where and how it was made. Not content with offering us ucky bunch a first official reissue of this classic, Midnight Drive procured the original 1984 session parts from Clive himself, enabling a brand new remix from Gerry Rooney and Joel Martin aka Velvet Season & The Hearts Of Gold. Stretching the track to new tripped out heights, Gerry and Joel transform the cosmic roller into a dreamy and dubby tropical pop killer perfect for your next Balearic dancefloor set.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Holy interplanetary beach resort Batman! Midnight Drive pluck one of the finest Cosmic classics from the Baldelli tapes and deliver a first official reissue of the mega "Mystery Man". Alongside the original mix of this totally tropical electro-funk killer we get the dubby delight of a brand new extension from Velvet Season & The Hearts Of Gold. Top one!

TRACK LISTING

A. Mystery Man (Disco Mix) 
B. Mystery Man (Velvet Season & The Hearts Of Gold Special Disco Mix) 

NEW UR !! Wavejumpers spotted off the coast of Scotland. Can you decode the sound that lurks in the fog?

Complimenting the hi-tech jazz flavoured Manu De Fuego (UR-095), also released this week, we have a Drexciyan flavoured release from Wavejumper, another new UR jam to blast away all other competition!

Underwater, squiggly, scuba diving techno and electro that's deliciously textured. You can almost feel the propeller's drag through the aqua-tunnel! Don't need to tell you how quickly these are gonna get snapped up.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Hard to pick a favourite out of the TWO, NEW (!) Underground Resistance records this week. Mana De Fuego sorts out the much needed main room money shot but here Wavejumpers (who?) go on a Drexciyan scuba dive, exploring the sub layers with a street-wise and fierce attitude. It's killer!

TRACK LISTING

A1. The Sound
A2. Aquatic Justice
B1. Cetacaen Nation
B2. Decoding The Maps
B3. Sunken Treasure

ATUM is a rock opera presented in three acts by inimitable American rock band The Smashing Pumpkins. The album tells an epic interplanetary story set in the not-too-distant future, though the songs themselves respectively stand on their own in the Pumpkins pantheon. This is the final installment in a concept album trilogy, which began with 1995’s Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness and then continued with 2000's Machina/The Machines of God. The album features three original members of the band - William Corgan, James Iha, and Jimmy Chamberlin - as well as longtime guitarist Jeff Schroeder. Corgan had been developing the idea for the rock opera for years, and the pandemic gave him the time off the road to meticulously complete it in the grandiose way he had intended.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness is one of my favourite albums of all time, it's impossible not to be excited by this epic culmination of the trilogy that includes that and 2000's also-excellent Machina (Machines of God). A huge, expansive collection, spanning the Pumpkins' wide tonal palette.

TRACK LISTING

1. Atum
2. Butterfly Suite
3. The Good In Goodbye
4. Embracer
5. With Ado I Do
6. Hooligan
7. Steps In Time
8. Where Rain Must Fall
9. Beyond The Vale
10. Hooray!
11. The Gold Mask
12. Avalanche
13. Empires
14. Neophyte
15. Moss
16. Night Waves
17. Space Age
18. Every Morning
19. To The Grays
20. Beguiled
21. The Culling
22. Springtimes
23. Sojurner
24. That Which Animates The Spirit
25. X Ray
26. Pacer
27. In Lieu Of Failure
28. Cenotaph
29. Harmageddon
30. Fireflies
31. Intergalactic
32. Spellbinding
33. Of Wings
34. Audio Story

Meaning can come from surprising places. In 2020 the Irish guitarist Cian Nugent moved back into his family home in Dublin to care for his mother, Kathy, who was then recovering from a stroke and experiencing aphasia (di­culty with speech). She began saying: “she brings me back to the land of the living” seemingly out of nowhere and with little knowledge of its origin or meaning. "It stuck with me," says Cian, who at the time was working on songs for what would become his 4th album, and felt it would make an apt title for that record. "The songs here act as a way of processing change and accepting new futures." Kathy also provides the cover art, a painting she made while still in the hospital.

Seven years since Nugent's previous album, She Brings Me Back To The Land Of The Living merges the previously explored styles across Night Fiction (2016), the expansive Born With The Caul (2014) and his enigmatic debut Doubles (2011). Extensive touring across North America and Europe, including work as a guitarist with Steve Gunn, Ryley Walker and Nap Eyes, provided Nugent with a greater understanding of his musicianship and a clarity of purpose all of which contributed to the making of his finest album to date.

TRACK LISTING

1. Empress
2. The Sound Of Rain
3. High Up Airplane
4. Siamese Sharks
5. I've Been Down
6. Dogs In The Morning
7. Pass The Time Away
8. How Time Passes

It's time to face the music. Still reeling from the loss of Gamora, Peter Quill rallies his team to defend the universe and one of their own - a mission that could mean the end of the Guardians if not successful. Featuring a stellar line-up of tracks perfect for any hero saving the galaxy.

TRACK LISTING

1. "Creep" (Acoustic Version) - Performed By Radiohead
2. "Crazy On You" - Performed By Heart
3. "Since You Been Gone" - Performed By Rainbow
4. "In The Meantime" - Performed By Spacehog
5. "Reasons" - Performed By Earth, Wind And Fire
6. "Do You Realize??" - Performed By The Flaming Lips
7. "We Care A Lot" - Performed By Faith No More
8. "Koinu No Carnival" (From "Minute Waltz") - Performed By EHAMIC
9. "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" - Performed By Alice Cooper
10. "San Francisco" - Performed By The Mowgli's
11. "Poor Girl" - Performed By X
12. "This Is The Day" - Performed By The The
13. "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" - Performed By Beastie Boys
14. "Dog Days Are Over" - Performed By Florence + The Machine
15. "Badlands" - Performed By Bruce Springsteen
16. "I Will Dare" - Performed By The Replacements
17. "Come And Get Your Love" - Performed By Redbone

The Endless Coloured Ways is a collection of songs by legendary singer / songwriter, Nick Drake, performed and recorded by over 30 incredible artists from a range of different backgrounds, genres, age groups and audiences. From Fontaines D.C to Guy Garvey, and Aurora to Feist, each artist has offered their own incredible take on a timeless classic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Place To Be - David Gray
2. Parasite - Stick In The Wheel

The original album, newly re-mastered by GRAMMY®Award-winningengineer, David Glasser, using Plangent Processes from the original analog 2-track tapes, recorded live by Owsley “Bear” Stanley. The Grateful Dead's first true archival album, Bear's Choice, was lovingly produced as a tribute to Pigpen shortly after he passed by none other that the Dead's original soundman and benefactor, Owsley Stanley, aka Bear. Drawing from live shows recorded three years earlier by Bear at the Fillmore East in New York City, Bear's Choice captures the Dead at an essential moment of their history, as they were about to record Workingman's Dead (and shortly thereafter, American Beauty), and were transitioning into becoming Americana pioneers, while never losing touch with their psychedelic improvisational roots. Three of the eight songs on the album are sung by Pigpen, with Side 1 being the definitive example of early Acoustic Dead, and Side 2 being electric blues and rock & roll, with Pigpen leading the charge on both tracks on the second side. This has been re-mastered by David Glasser using Plangent Processes from the original analog 2-track tapes recorded live by Bear and has never sounded better.

TRACK LISTING

Side One
1. Katie Mae
2. Dark Hallo
3. I’ve Been All Around This World
4. Wake Up Little Susie
5. Black Peter

Side Two
1. Smokestack Lighnin’
2. Hard To Handle

With a foreword by Paul McCartney'It's semi-devotional -- a really special place' Florence Welch'There are certain things that are mythical. Abbey Road is mythical' Nile RodgersMany people will recognise the famous zebra crossing. Some visitors may have graffitied their name on its hallowed outer walls.

Others might even have managed to penetrate the iron gates. But what draws in these thousands of fans here, year after year? What is it that really happens behind the doors of the most celebrated recording studio in the world?It may have begun life as an affluent suburban house, but it soon became a creative hub renowned around the world as a place where great music, ground-breaking sounds and unforgettable tunes were forged - nothing less than a witness to, and a key participant in, the history of popular music itself. What has been going on there for over ninety years has called for skills that are musical, creative, technical, mechanical, interpersonal, logistical, managerial, chemical and, romantics might be tempted add, close to magic.

This is for the people who believe in the magic.

Featuring Captain Sensible and Paul Gray from The Damned, with Johnny Moped drummer Marty Love! Who, what and why are The Sensible Gray Cells? Captain:- Paul Gray and myself being garage psych aficionados would prefer to hear more of this kind of music and this is our contribution to the cause. If I said that some of the songs were 'Damned rejects' that shouldn't be seen as an indication of inferior songwriting.. more that they're not wearing the right shirt. A Postcard From Britain came out in 2013. What have you been up to since then? Captain:- I've never been a prolific writer.. being a lazy so and so I think it's best to wait for inspiration to call.. which explains the 7 year gap..(how many albums could the Beatles have crammed in that period!) but in the meantime PG rejoined the Damned and we've gigged about a bit, which is always fun A Postcard From Britain was a snapshot of modern life. Does the new album cover similar themes or have you taken a new direction? Captain:- It's sad that high streets around the world have been destroyed by online shopping but nobody's forcing people to do it.. but what can you do. These are very strange times were living though - I just count myself lucky to have been around to witness the 2nd half of the 20th century.. a fab time for music, culture, ideas.. and that without even mentioning Benny Hill and On The Buses. The new album coincides with all this virus malarkey.. which, unpleasant as it is will undoubtedly be used by the powers that be to tighten the screws on us little people on behalf of their billionaire paymasters. Blah blah, etc. There's a bit of that hidden away in the album. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Sell Her Spark
2. Get Back Into The World
3. Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn Ya
4. Black Spider Memo Man
5. Stupid Dictators
6. So Long
7. A Little Prick
8. DJ With Half A Brain
9. Jam Tomorrow **CD Only Extra Track
10. What’s The Point Of Andrew?
11. Fine Weather Friend
12. I Married A Monster
13. You And Me
14. Another World **CD Only Extra Track

Prima Queen's highly anticipated debut EP 'Not The Baby', demonstrates this band's remarkable ability to straddle genres and embrace heartfelt topics, starting with lead single Back Row, a soaring, horns-led pop song about the heartbreak of breaking someone else's heart.

TRACK LISTING

1. Back Row
2. Crow
3. Dylan
4. Hydroplane

Manchester's legendary and long standing group The Mouse Outfit return with the tightest head-nodding beats, jazz influences, and smooth, stoner sonics to soundtrack the summer - this time with new talent and multi-instrumentalist One Only. With Metrodome joining in on production duties "Sunrise" is the feel-good, empowering summer anthem to raise spirits; whether your BBQ'ing in Alexandra Park, cruising the ring road on the way to a jam at Six Trees or dropping on your local soundsystem.

Flip it for a deep liquid DnB version by Shift Ops which perfectly marries that soul-elevating vocal with smoothing rollin' breaks and powerful subs. A ridiculous flip that makes total sense. Highly recommended!!

Produced by Chini + Metrodome
Guitar: Omar Sohawon
Bass: Alan Keary (Shunya)
Keys/Drums: Chini
Percussion: Emanuel J Burton
Mixed by Phil Kirby
Vinyl Master by Simone Squillario

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Our favourite jazz-soul-hip-hop crew return with an absolute fire 7" in time for the summer. Gonna light up any gathering with this feel good slice of jazzy downbeat hip-hop. Raise energy levels with the tasty DnB tweak on the flip. A Manchester essential!

TRACK LISTING

A1 The Mouse Outfit - Sunrise
B1 The Mouse Outfit - Sunrise (Shift Ops Remix)

‘Mercy Of The Crane Folk’ is the beautifully accomplished second album from Athens GA’s Immaterial Possession. A theatrical soundscape littered with subconscious flashbacks, retro keyboard flurries, wandering Morricone-esque guitar and dreamy Sumac-like harmonies.

Featuring the ethereal eerie dream pop of former artist commune residents Cooper Holmes and Madeline Polites, with drummer John Spiegel and Elephant 6 descendant Kiran Fernandes (keyboards, clarinets, flutes). Additional contributions come from drummer Jon Vogt who can be heard on ‘Mercy Of The Crane Folk’ and ‘Birth Of Queen Croaker’.

It’s a haunting and immersive trip into the inner psyche of these nomadic soothsayers; a psychedelic dance party from a half-lit underground world; breathlessly eerie and all consuming; a salubrious sojourn that sounds like nothing else. Filled with a kind of peculiar optimistic uncertainty that any quest to make sense of a drowsy recollection of simpler and far better times would have; ‘Mercy Of The Crane Folk’ is soft and serene summoning up a fanciful folkloric place where, undoubtedly, the mysterious crane flock prosper.

TRACK LISTING

Side One
A1 Chain Breaker
A2 Mercy Of The Crane Folk
A3 To The Fête
A4 Medieval Jig
A5 Siren's Tunnel
Side Two
B1 Current In The Room
B2 Ancient Mouth
B3 Cypress Receiver
B4 Birth Of Queen Croaker
B5 Red Curtain

On Everything Harmony, the fourth full-length studio release from New York’s The Lemon Twigs, the prodigiously talented brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario offer 13 original servings of beauty that showcase an emotional depth and musical sophistication far beyond their years as a band, let alone as young men.

Everything Harmony successfully blends the brothers’ distinct personalities while giving voice to their eclectic influences. Opening the album with the unassuming acoustic folk of plaintive “When Winter Comes Around,” which echoes the sophisticated grandeur of classic Simon & Garfunkel recordings, they immediately switch things up to the sunny classic pop motif of “In My Head.” “Corner of My Eye” channels an Art Garfunkel-like vocal melody over a moody, vibraphone-tinged backing track suggesting the chamber pop of Brian Wilson.

While they had no grand concept for Everything Harmony, both the D’Addarios felt a “palpable mood of defeat” prevailed while writing and recording it. “New To Me” was inspired by their shared experience with loved ones suffering from Alzheimer’s, “What You Were Doing” is dressed in the tortured jangle of vintage Big Star, while “Born To Be Lonely,” written after watching John Cassavetes’ Opening Night, deals with what Brian calls “the fragility that often comes with age.”

Everything Harmony is a unified song cycle born of shared blood and common purpose. With two musical heads being better than one, there’s no shortage of ideas to draw on. Their only impediments are time and the challenge of keeping up with their own prolific musical inspiration. “We share an intuition and tend to be influenced by one another,” says Brian, “so the lyrical ideas on this record tend to complement each other. Writing has never been the issue for us. It’s completing, editing and compiling that takes the time. We’re trapped in a web of songs!”

TRACK LISTING

1. When Winter Comes Around
2. In My Head
3. Corner Of My Eye
4. Any Time Of Day
5. What You Were Doing
6. I Don’t Belong To Me
7. Every Day Is The Worst Day Of My Life
8. What Happens To A Heart
9. Still It’s Not Enough
10. Born To Be Lonely
11. Ghost Run Free
12. Everything Harmony
13. New To Me

Long out of print 1979 roots reggae classic - limited 7" repress / in-demand roots anthem - backed with Prince Jammy's black belt dub cut.

Recorded at Channel One and mixed at King Tubby's

Produced by Prince Jammy

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Classic Jammy's from just before he went digital! Mixed at Tubby's it's full of that authentic original dub flavour and shows he was just as skilled and mixing these styles as he would later, dancehall.

TRACK LISTING

Sugar Minott - Give The People What They Want
Prince Jammy - Brothers Of The Blade

John Andrews is something of an open secret in a certain corner of the music scene: a versatile musician and animator. A film school drop out whose work hat-tips tradition as much as outsider anti-aesthetics. He’s spent over a decade on the DIY circuit, playing early house shows alongside then up-and-coming peers Weyes Blood and Daniel Bachman. Today he is still out there projecting his sketchy hand-drawn animations during his performances in coffee shops, small galleries and non-traditional venues. Andrews’ painterly approach now introduces the listener to his version of New York City, the place he was bound to end up after years of dwelling in Pennsylvania farm towns and New Hampshire barns. There is handmade vibrancy to the world he’s imagined here: intimate moments seen from the interior, looking outward from hole-in-the-wall restaurants, theaters and the fragments of peace found within the restless and dirty street corners.

Love For The Underdog, his aptly titled fourth release with the Woodsist label, was tracked live to tape in various studios and apartments across the Empire State with help from his bandmates in Cut Worms’ touring outfit, Max Clarke, Keven Lareau and Noah Bond. Buoyant melodies are supported by timeless string arrangements, translated from Andrews’ head to page with the help of friend Simon Hanes. The string quartet follows the tradition of Francoise Hardy, Harry Nilsson, Margo Guryan and Belle and Sebastian, giving the whole thing a cinematic ambience with stark shadows of an Edward Hopper painting. The lyrics tie together narratives of cynical heroes and troubled lovers. Put on the record and sink into well-worn red velvet theater seats, when the lights go down and the flickering of projectors run the title: Love For The Underdog, indeed.

TRACK LISTING

1. Checks In The Mail
2. Never Go Away
3. Fourth Wall
4. Starving Artist
5. Walking Under My Loves Ladders
6. Cloudy
7. Only Heart
8. I Want To Believe

Anchored by evocative melodies and an enthralling lyrical narrative, First Two Pages of Frankenstein signals a thrilling new chapter in the band’s beloved discography. The 11-song album was produced by The National at Long Pond Studios in upstate New York and features guest appearances by Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers and Sufjan Stevens.

The follow-up to 2019’s top five hit album I Am Easy To Find, First Two Pages of Frankenstein was initially stalled while lead singer Matt Berninger navigated “a very dark spot where I couldn’t come up with lyrics or melodies at all, and that period lasted for over a year. Even though we’d always been anxious and argued quite a lot whenever we were working on a record, this was the first time it ever felt like maybe things really had come to an end.” Instead, The National “managed to come back together and approach everything from a different angle, and because of that we arrived at what feels like a new era for the band,” according to guitarist/pianist Bryce Dessner, whose bandmates also include his brother Aaron (guitar/piano/bass) as well as brothers Scott Devendorf (bass, guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums).

First Two Pages of Frankenstein channels the group’s revitalized chemistry into a body of work that beautifully balances elegant musicality with the National’s more idiosyncratic impulses. Tracks such as “Grease in Your Hair” and “Ice Machines” were road-tested in 2022 before they were recorded, allowing the band to hone the material in real time (another song, “Weird Goodbyes” featuring Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, was released as a standalone track last August). “To me the power of this record has to do with the intentionality and structure of the music meeting with a lot of accidental magic,” says Aaron Dessner.

Swift duets with Berninger on the luminous “The Alcott,” continuing her recent string of collaborations with members of The National on her chart-topping albums folklore and evermore and Aaron Dessner’s Big Red Machine project. The song finds Berninger and Swift inhabiting the roles of a couple attempting to resurrect a troubled relationship, forging a finely drawn story nearly novelistic in scope. “It’s about two people with a long history returning to a place and trying to relive a certain moment in time,” says Berninger. “It’s got the feeling of a last-ditch effort to hold onto the relationship, but there’s a hint of something positive where you can see the beginnings of a reconnection.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Succeeding on from the beautiful yet gut-punching 'I Am Easy To Find', 'First Two Pages Of Frankenstein' is another exquisite slice of moving and expansive indie from Berninger and co. Boasting huge guest spots from Taylor Swift, Sufjan Stevens and Phoebe Bridgers, this record further cements The National as the generational talent we've always known them to be!

TRACK LISTING

Once Upon A Poolside (feat. Sufjan Stevens)
Eucalyptus
New Order T-Shirt
This Isn't Helping (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)
Tropic Morning News
Alien
The Alcott (feat. Taylor Swift)
Grease In Your Hair
Ice Machines
Your Mind Is Not Your Friend (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)
Send For Me 

‘Thank God! It’s The Dream Machine…’ is the hotly anticipated debut album from The Dream Machine. A self-produced collection of 12 tracks exploring everything from love and loss to angels, dogs and The Devil. Recorded on an 8-track in the winter of 2021 in the bands rehearsal space. The album treads a familiar path of 60’s inspired pop anthems, psychedelic-tinged country, punk, doo wop and everything in-between.

The Dream Machine take their name from ‘Dream Machine’ an invention that recreates hallucinations similar to psychedelics without taking substances with their music being portrayed as enigmatic, mysterious and very psychedelic. Formed in 2021, the band have already gained widespread support including Steve Lamacq, Radcliffe & Maconie and Chris Hawkins on BBC Radio 6 Music, John Kennedy on Radio X, Gary Crowley on BBC Radio Londo, Dave Monks on BBC Introducing in Merseyside as well as repeat plays across Amazing Radio.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: The Dream Machine brilliantly toe the line between jangling psychedelic 60's influenced pop and soaring northern indie. It's both melodically rich and full of hooks, but never strays into pastiche.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lola, In The Morning
2. Tears
3. Children, My England
4. Sweet Mary
5. TV Baby/Satan's Child
6. The Time Around
7. White Shadow Blues
8. Intermission
9. Away For The Summer
10. The Last Temptation
11. Always On My Mind
12. Angel Of The North

7" With Dinked Edition Only:
Side A
Before The Rain
Side B
01. Rama Go

Manchester band The Lottery Winners new album ‘Anxiety Replacement Therapy’, features collaborations with Boy George, Frank Turner, and Shaun Ryder.

A mammoth step forward, ‘Anxiety Replacement Therapy’ is on one level a set of 10 absolute anthems (and three interludes from a mystery narrator). These are mass singalongs in waiting from a band who’ve specialised in bringing people together over their previous two albums.

Scratch the surface, however, and there’s a world of empowerment and defiance, tackling subjects such as austerity, as well as of course, anxiety, mental health and its medications, and ADHD. It helps that these messages come wrapped with some of the best choruses you’re likely to hear all year.

“Each of the albums in my collection are a self-help tape for me,” explains singer Thom Rylance. “If I listen to Paul Simon’s Graceland, it’s because I know it’ll put me in a good mood. If I play The Queen Is Dead by The Smiths, it’s because I want to embrace feeling sad. We wanted to present ‘Anxiety Replacement Therapy’ as a self-help tape for anyone playing it.”

The album features guest spots with their friend and previous collaborator Frank Turner on the moving and stirring ‘Letter To Myself’ , as well as Boy George who puts in a bravura performance on the summery ‘Let Me Down’ which recalls the emotional intensity of his work with Culture Club, and Shaun Ryder who brings his freewheeling brilliance on the already incisive austerity anthem ‘Money’, reprising his iconic “Call the cops!” refrain from Happy Mondays’ 1990 classic ‘Step On’.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Featuring some pretty huge collaborators (including 'Not not Stephen Fry'), the Lottery Winners' newest LP is a heartfelt message to both those suffering from anxiety and those dealing with the results of it. Full of beautifully written songs and calming interludes, ART is rich and deep and excellently portrays an important message. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

1. [PLAY]
2. Worry
3. Burning House
4. Money (ft Shaun Ryder)
5. Long Way Down
6. Sertaline
7. [PAUSE]
8. Letter To Myself (ft Frank Turner)
9. Jennie
10. Let Me Down (ft Boy George)
11. Not Alone
12. Anxiety Replacement Therapy
13. [STOP]

46 years after releasing the ground-breaking debut, “Damned Damned Damned”, The Damned return with “DARKADELIC”, their twelfth studio album. The album, from the band that launched punk and invented goth, once again innovating and expanding upon their unique universe. The “The Invisible Man” track is a showcase for Captain Sensible’s riffadelic guitarwork and David Vanian’s snarling baritone vocals. “DARKADELIC” barrels along from there and features some of The Damned’s sharpest song writing and genre-bending performances reaching peaks with other tracks such as “You’re Gonna Realise” and “Beware of the Clowns”, drenched in classic horror movie references, nods to swinging 60’s London, and a refined palette of musical influences. The Damned will indeed paint the world DARKADELIC in 2023.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Invisible Man
2. Bad Weather Girl
3. You’re Gonna Realise
4. Beware Of The Clown
5. Western Promise
6. Wake The Dead
7. Follow Me
8. Motorcycle Man
9. Girl I’ll Stop At Nothing
10. Leader Of The Gang
11. From Your Lips
12. Roderick

Visceral yet inherently soulful, 'Hardly The Same Snake' is the sound of the Johannesburg-born, Doncaster-raised artist Doya Beardmore finally finding his voice – both literally and figuratively. In practical terms, that involved finding the courage to foreground his gravelly baritone in these gloriously genre-agnostic productions. But it also meant branching out beyond his safety net to figure out the artist he truly wanted to be.

As Skinny puts it today, “This album is what I would have created the first time round had I rated my own voice.” The idea of forging your own path – and shedding skin, so to speak – is integral to 'Hardly The Same Snake'. Begun pre-pandemic and completed in the spring of 2021, it’s a defiantly outward-looking record contemplating family, religion and major life milestones, from parenthood to death. Where previously Skinny relied on dream diaries as his primary lyrical resource, this time he took notes at design exhibitions, using these unfiltered observations as a jumping off point for songs. If this superb second album proves anything, it’s that it doesn’t matter how much Skinny errs on the side of self-deprecation – he remains one of the UK’s most fearlessly original voices.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Skinny Pelembe's latest opus takes the perfectly manicured multi-genre mashup of 2019's brilliant 'Dreaming Is Dead Now' and pushes even further outwards into euphoric neo-soul, jazz and synthwave. It's a heady mix, and one that could only be so perfectly executed by a talent like Skinny.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Same Eye Colour
2. Hardly The Same Snake
3. Deadman Deadman Deadman
4. Don't Be Another

Side B
5. Oh, Silly George
6. Charabanc
7. Like A Heart Won't Beat
8. Well, There's A First
9. Secret Hiding Place

The legendary Bluebells return with In The 21st Century, the first album from the trio in over two decades.

The new LP features 12 brand new songs including upcoming singles "Gone Tomorrow", "Blue Train" & "Ballad of the Bells", housed in a beautiful gatefold sleeve designed by Robert Hodgens and Jim Lambie, with photography from Brian Sweeney.\r\n

TRACK LISTING

She Rises 
Disneyland And Rock 'N' Roll 
Living Out Loud 
Blue Train 
The Ballad Of The Bells 
Anyone Could Be A Buzzcock 
Beautiful Mess 
The Boy Who Slipped Away 
Stonehouse Violets 
Orienteering 
Gone Tomorrow 
Daddy Was An Engineer

The triumvirate of Roky Erickson, Tommy Hall and Stacy Sutherland had to feature. Transcendent slower songs (often) don’t feature full band performances – so, no Splash One. The song had to be a band original. So, no Baby Blue. 13 unlucky for some. This compilation launches a new phase in the 13th Floor Elevators catalogue and previews the forthcoming series THE QUEST FOR PURE SANITY: the release in optimal quality of all surviving source material for all of the band’s recordings. ‘

13 OF THE BEST’ has been mastered separately to vinyl, CD, and streaming for the best possible sound quality for each format. Each original source has been referenced to the earliest vinyl pressing and meticulously transferred at 96khz 24- bit resolution. Multitrack tapes of the original recording sessions have been newly mixed in strict accordance with the records as first released. ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’, the band’s seminal single, is presented here for the first time in true stereo. Taken from the original multitrack session tape, the song has been mixed to stereo in accordance with the iconic mono 45 as recorded and engineered by Walt Andrus. ‘Slip Inside This House’ viewed by fans and critics alike as the Elevators’ masterpiece and one of the key psychedelic recordings of the era, is included on the LP as the edited mono single mix so the loudest possible cut can be achieved. The eight-minute stereo version is included on all other formats. ‘Never Another’, ‘Dr Doom’ and ‘Livin’ On’ from the band’s final sessions have been newly mixed but without the overdubs added almost a year after recording. While the session tapes survive, the overdubs do not. ‘Livin’ On’ features Roky Erickson’s original superior vocal performance instead of the overdub used on the ‘BULL OF THE WOODS’ LP. What is uniquely presented here is 100% Elevators as mixed and intended for the LP. No embellishments!

‘13 OF THE BEST’ is produced by 13th Floor Elevators official archivist and historian Paul Drummond who has also written sleeve notes with full track-by-track information.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's not much you can say about the 13th Floor Elevators that hasn't already been said, but this stunning collection has been remastered and collected with care and attention, giving Erikson & Co's psychedelic meanderings their finest sheen yet. Ace collection.

TRACK LISTING

1. You’re Gonna Miss Me
2. Through The Rhythm
3. Roller Coaster
4. Reverberation (Doubt)
5. Kingdom Of Heaven
6. I’ve Got Levitation
7. She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own)
8. Slip Inside This House
9. Earthquake
10. Never Another
11. Dr Doom
12. Livin’ On
13. May The Circle Remain Unbroken

Third in a trilogy of albums of library music miniatures from composer and multi-instrumentalist Daniel O’Sullivan (Æthenor, Ulver, This Is Not This Heat, etc) following 2020’s Electric Māyā and 2021’s Fourth Density. For heads, the term “library music” in 2021 might evoke dodgy Italian gray market LPs and crate-diggers hunting for “funky breaks”—but London’s venerable KPM Music is working with groundbreakers like O’Sullivan to open up new avenues for composers to experiment. The fifteen tracks on The Physic Garden are fully-formed and orchestrated compositions, which would be highlights on anyone’s release, never mind as incidental music. Of the music, O’Sullivan says: “The Physic Garden is an album of diverse instrumentals inspired by a swathe of verdant vistas from manicured gardens and follies to urban common land, overgrown and forgotten. Convalescent memories in the shape of psychedelic auditory botanics.” Key tracks include the droning acoustic folk of the title song; the Canterbury-esque rolling horn and woodwind melody of “Return The Heart” (with expert drum kit from Frank Byng); the prog-ish odd meter interlude “Buttercup Tea”; The quiet ambience and delicate melody of “Dusty Feather:”; and the Eno-like drift of “Vapourer Larvae.”

TRACK LISTING

1. The Physic Garden
2. Greenfingers
3. Return The Heart
4. Ivy In The Holly
5. Buttercup Tea
6. Wishes On The Wind
7. Crawl Under Here
8. Dusty Feather
9. The Vine Column
10. Paul
11. Perennials
12. On Lawn Drake
13. Vapourer Larvae
14. Axial Flame
15. The Scented Ape

A genuinely sprawling collection of high-fidelity mutation music that suits the compact disc format perfectly, Hypnotape is the third consecutive Sunburned Hand Of Man album of studio assemblages following 2019’s Headless and 2021’s Pick A Day To Die. Recorded throughout 2021 and 2022, it’s an album possessed with a peculiar runaway locomotion which jump cuts feverishly between unusual atmospheres yet maintains a beguiling consistency—throbbing, twisting, undulating rhythmic blast-offs suddenly kick the door down into serene realms of nuanced acoustic privacy which are unexpectedly plunged back, face first into a miasma of shirtless, raging thuggery, ad infinitum. The album is notable in the group’s monstrous catalog for a few reasons: first, it showcases founding member Conrad Capistran stepping out from behind the keyboards and electronics to spread his smooth, buttery baritone atop the majority of the tracks.

From his velvet cooing above the pulsing whirlwind of opener “People Person” to his vivid and febrile musings as a trip reporter on the frontlines of the meltdown zone on “Roger” his honeyed vocals guide the listener Virgil-like through the inferno all the way to the album’s finale where he duets with Ron Schneiderman on the old Dino Valenti / Quicksilver chestnut “What About Me”. Secondly, it features the recorded debut of Sunburned’s longtime friend and collaborator Mark Perretta after years of touring with the group. Some may remember Perretta from his days stomping across the primordial Boston underground of the late ’80s / early ’90s with the mighty Subskin Cables or his solo career as Deluxx but most, no doubt, will be familiar with his stint with Lou Barlow, John Davis and Bob Fay as Deluxx Folk Implosion, most notably when Perretta’s whimsical ode to fatherhood “Daddy Never Understood” was used in the opening sequence to Larry Clark’s beloved coming of age tale Kids in 1996. Finally, with Hypnotape, Sunburned steps into the hallowed VHF arena after decades of hovering along adjacent corridors!

TRACK LISTING

1. People Person
2. Roger
3. Barefoot On Brush
4. Music
5. Hypnotape
6. The Sun > The Moon > The Stars > The Earth
7. Priest Of The Village
8. Violate The Silence
9. That Which Is
10. Salt Taffy
11. Sweat Ship
12. Dragon Drainer
13. With Zeus
14. Salad Bar
15. Height
16. Edward's Buggy
17. What About Me

Fans of the innovations and originality that sprang from the L.A. underground of the late 1970s and ’80s often ask, “What’s Paul B. Cutler been up to?” A vital participant in the Los Angeles music scene of that period as bandleader, songwriter, musician and producer, Cutler’s work—in particular his guitar playing— with The Consumers, 45 Grave, Vox Pop and The Dream Syndicate is still admired by fans and an influence on anyone interested in that period and the styles that developed from it.

In 2014, “Ryan Adams contacted me and wanted to form a band. He loved 45 Grave, he wanted to do some goth / punk, whatever you want to call it. That’s right up my alley. He’s amazingly talented and inspiring to work with. We did that for a while, and I wrote a bunch of songs.” Enthused about his new material, Cutler continued recording songs with just his signature electric guitar style and vocals. As this was developing, another vet of the early L.A. scene—Brad Laner of Medicine and Savage Republic—got in touch with Cutler. Soon Laner was mixing, co-producing, playing keyboards as well as adding the rhythm section. The overall process took some time, with songwriting beginning in 2014. When reflecting on the music that comprises Les Fleurs, “To me, and it does not sound like it, but because of the philosophy I had while producing it, it’s punk. I come from the original punk, before it was a genre. Before it was a ‘sound.’ When I got to LA in 1977 there were about twenty, maybe thirty bands and they all sounded very different. The Screamers, The Deadbeats, so many different takes on what music could be. There was no chance for commercial success so we all just did what we wanted. I never stopped. So philosophically I consider this punk rock, made in its original spirit although nobody would recognize it as such. I am a punk to this day.” So that, dear reader, is the basic story. Now it’s up to you to see what you recognize in Paul B. Cutler’s Les Fleurs.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Cold Light Of Day
2. Engineer
3. For The Children
4. Fly Away
5. Grinning Reaper
6. Medusa
7. Istanbul
8. The Game
9. Chains
10. Home Sweet Home
11. Eat Me
12. Last Kiss
13. Decay
14. Persistence
15. Body Shadow Spirit

Summer Forever And Ever succeeds Blue Gene Stew, 2019’s debut by the Wolfmanhattan Project, a collective unit co-starring three musicians familiar to In The Red listeners: singer-guitarist Mick Collins, front man of the seminal Detroit-bred garage units the Dirtbombs and the Gories, singer-guitarist Kid Congo Powers who played in such legendary bands as the Gun Club, the Cramps, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and drummer-vocalist Bob Bert, whose skin work has distinguished albums by Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, Lydia Lunch’s Retrovirus, and Jon Spencer and the HITmakers.

The group was founded as a studio project by three musicians who are kept busy by their primary bands. Blue Gene Stew was written and recorded quickly. Powers says, “I think that the new record was much more a group effort. I think there’s more of a group kind of sound, as eclectic as it is. I feel like we all played together, as opposed to playing on each other’s songs.” Bert notes that the band’s music is grounded in spontaneity: “Me and Mick went in and had a couple of rehearsals, and I would come up with a beat, he would come up with a riff. I still have a cassette Walkman, believe it or not, and we’d put it down on that. It wasn’t even a full song. We’d just put down a bunch of ideas. When it came to recording we’d lay down the basic tracks and work out different things, and a lot of it was made up on the spot. It really is a great collaboration.” Recorded and engineered by Mark C. of Live Skull at his studio, Summer Forever And Ever finds Powers playing piano and the Kaoss touch-pad effects unit and Collins playing synthesizer, in addition to their usual instruments. The album reflects the same eclectic mix of musical styles heard on the debut. References and sometimes even direct quotes from sources as diverse as the Andrea True Connection, Captain Beefheart, the Count Five, and Eurythmics leap out of the speakers.

TRACK LISTING

1. Like Andrea True
2. Countdown Love
3. Summer Forever
4. Respectable Pigs
5. Hypnotize Too
6. H Hour
7. Silky Narcotic
8. Very Next Song
9. New In The World
10. Raised/Razed

Monday 20th September 1976 saw one of the most unexpected moments in music history when what was to become one of the most iconic, important and mimicked bands of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s took to the stage at The 100 Club in Oxford Street, London. A last-minute addition to the '100 Club Punk Special' that included The Clash, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and The Damned, an unknown Siouxsie and The Banshees, comprising Sid Vicious, Steve Severin, Marco Pirroni and Siouxsie Sioux, unleashed twenty minutes of 'performance art' improvisation, featuring fragments of 'Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles', 'Twist And Shout' and 'Satisfaction'. 'The Lord's Prayer', which was to become a staple of Siouxsie and The Banshees' early live repertoire, was a white-noise assault on the senses and a barometer of the alienation many teenagers felt from the bloated nature of mid-1970s 'arena rock'.

Several line-up changes later, in 1978, Siouxise and The Banshees were propelled into the pop stratosphere. Signed to a major record label, the band released 'Hong Kong Garden' and wrote one of the most influential post-punk albums of all time, The Scream, a savage critique of curtain-twitching suburbia, the cheap titillation of the tabloids, and the dangers of believing and following any one doctrine. 1979's Join Hands, influenced by the political landscape in Britain and further afield, and the catastrophic loss of life in World War One, was a milestone of the band's increasing maturity, from the adrenaline-fuelled stomp of 'Icon' to the phased guitar, saxophone and bells of 'Playground Twist'.

After a tour fraught with fractiousness, a new line up with Slits' drummer Budgie and Magazine guitarist John McGeogh, together with Siouxsie Sioux and Steve Severin, released the band's most experimental album, Kaleidoscope, which was a heady mix of psychedelia and sonorous adventures including the singles 'Happy House' and 'Christine'. Siouxsie and The Banshees The Early Years explores the adventures, trials and tribulations of a band defying categorisation. Their uncompromising brilliance is exemplified by three unique albums, which are chronicled in the pages of this authoritative survey.

Formed in 1972, 10cc were at once commercial, at once strange - Described as the 'missing link between the Beatles and Blur', it was rare to have four talented writers, singers and multi-instrumentalists all under one roof; but in Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman, Lol Creme and Kevin Godley, 10cc had just that - They released some of the most inventive and elaborate pop music ever to emerge from Britain.

After two albums and a run of hit singles on the UK label, the group moved across to Mercury Records in 1975. On the strength of one song, 10cc did a five-year deal with them for five albums. That one song was I'm Not In Love. The group's signature song ? played over five million times on US radio ? was one of many riches on their eagerly anticipated 1975 album, The Original Soundtrack. Also containing the hit single Life Is A Minestrone, the album opens with the influential nine-minute mini-opera, Un Nuit A Paris, demonstrating how far pop music had travelled in a short space of time.

This re-issue faithfully replicates the original 1975 Mercury Records UK release with legendary Hipgnosis-designed gatefold sleeve and printed inner and is pressed onto high quality 180g vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

Une Nuit A Paris
I'm Not In Love
Blackmail
The Second Sitting For The Last Supper
Brand New Day
Flying Junk
Life Is A Minestrone
The Film Of My Love

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Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes have built a reputation for blistering anthems that owe as much to brooding desert rock as it does hardcore and power-pop. They're redefining punk-rock with a sound that straddles eras and genres, putting The Rattlesnakes in a category all their own, while also challenging tired cliches and setting the world to rights. These two tracks will only be released physcially for RSD with no future plans to release them on other formats. 'The Drugs' features Mercury Award winner and UK chart topper Jamie T. Spec: Transparent red / transparent red 7", CMYK Labels, White Paper inners, Spined Sleeve, Shrinkwrap

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Exclusive acoustic re-recording of 4-tracks from the album ‘Turn The Car Around’ for RSD 2023 – Orange coloured vinyl, 45RPM. Exclusive artwork.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Overnight Trains (Wurlitzer Version)
A2. Don’t Say It’s Over (Studio Outtake)
B1. Long Live The Strange (Acoustic Version)
B2. Turn The Car Around (Studio Outtake)

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Released in late 2012, Odes is the fourth studio album from The Flowers of Hell. It is a covers record and the first release from the group to feature vocals and verse-chorus-verse song structures. It was premiered by Lou Reed, who opened the twelfth and final episode of his New York Shuffle radio show by airing three songs in a row and praising the album as ñ "So beautiful and great. I think it's an amazing, amazing album. Exquisite." Never available on vinyl until now and being released on Space Age Recordings. Greg Jarvis, front man of The Flowers of Hell, has created something very special; the artwork features a die cut outer sleeve, revealing the printed inner sleeve and when removed, revealing more artwork on the inside of the 300gsm outer sleeve. The music has been remastered for LP by Odes co-producer Peter Moore. Pressed in a red 180g heavyweight vinyl, the whole package is stickered and poly bagged, a real show stopper!

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The Hoax formed in Manchester in 1979 with the original line up of Ian Chambers (vocals), Steve Mardy (bass), Andy Farley (guitar) and Mike Joyce (drums). They rehearsed at the now legendary TJM studios along with other Manchester punk bands such as Joy Division, Buzzcocks, The Fall, Slaughter and The Dogs etc. After a handful of gigs at some of Manchester's long forgotten venues it was time to enter the studio to record their first ep. Cargo in Rochdale was the obvious choice as this was the favourite studio of Manchester's punk elite. After three more releases and a handful of line-up changes The Hoax called it a day. Ian left after the first recordings, Steve went onto pursue a career outside the music industry, Andy kept the band going til the final release in 1981 and Mike Joyce went on to join The Smiths and the rest is history. This limited edition (500) coloured release for RSD is a compilation of The Hoax first three ep's all recorded at Cargo studios in Rochdale. A perfect document to highlight the spirit and diy ethos of the Manchester Punk Scene. Play loud and ENJOY!

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The launch of a brand new Record label by Skint Records Head honcho - Damian Harris ~ a rare never released on Vinyl remix of The Juan McClean classic "Happy House" Licensed from james Murphy's (LCD Soundsystem) DFA Records remixed by Matthew Dear, & Audion and then reimagined for 2023 by Mark E - A Happy House (Mark E remix of Matthew Dear v Audion Remix) AA Happy House (Matthew Dear V Audion Remix)

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Queen Talk: Live at the Left Bank is an official never-before-seen concert recording from one of the greatest female jazz organists of all-time, Shirley Scott

With George Coleman on tenor saxophone and Bobby Durham on drums completing a powerhouse trio, this hand-numbered (to 3,000), double LP set was transferred from the original tape reels and is pressed on 180- gram vinyl. It features 100 minutes of music and is packaged in a gatefold sleeve with an extensive booklet containing liner notes by acclaimed music writer A. Scott Galloway, rare photos by Don Schlitten and Raymond Ross, and memorabilia from the Left Bank archives.

Jazz heads can also find interviews with jazz organ icon Joey DeFrancesco, Scott’s former bandmate saxophonist Tim Warfield, and pianist Monty reminiscing about drummer Bobby Durham. The set is co- produced by label owner musician Cory Weeds and renowned archival recording producer Zev Feldman.

The show was recorded at the Famous Ballroom in Baltimore Maryland on August 20, 1972 and hasn’t ever been previously available. Philadelphia- born Scott rose to fame in the late 1950s playing the Hammond B-3 organ influenced by blues and gospel evolving into '60s soul jazz. She recorded numerous albums for Prestige, Impulse!, Atlantic, Cadet and Candid performing with countless jazz legends including Stanley Turrentine, Oliver Nelson and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis.

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40th anniversary of influential mini-album The Reptile House EP. Out of print on vinyl since 1983. Features the original line-up of Andrew Eldritch (vocals), Craig Adams (bass), Gary Marx (guitar), Ben Gunn (guitar) and Doktor Avalanche (drums).

TRACK LISTING

Side One
Kiss The Carpet [5:55]
Lights [5:51] |
Side Two
Valentine [4:44]
Fix [3:42]
Burn [4:50]
Kiss The Carpet (Reprise) [0:36] 

Sophomore album from Nashville / New York based Country Westerns. Produced by Matt Sweeney.

TRACK LISTING

1. Knucklen
2. It's A Livin'
3. Speaking Ill Of The Blues
4. Something Goes Wrong
5. Grapefruit
6. Cussin' Christians
7. Where I'm Going
8. Money On The Table
9. Wait For It
10. Hell
11. Marinero
12. Country Westerns

Warm Slime is the tenth studio album by Thee Oh Sees, originally released on May 11, 2010.

The album is the fourth to be released under the name Thee Oh Sees, and is the band's tenth studio album, overall.

The album's liner notes state that the album was "recorded live at 606th street in San Francisco in one day, one week after the gay pride parade 2009 on a tascam 388". 606th Street in San Francisco was, at the time, the location of Club Six, a hip hop club where John Dwyer worked. Dwyer described Club Six as "A big, airy room with a nice wooden stage, hardwood floors and really high ceilings. I gave them $500 to record in the room for 12 hours." The whole album was recorded "live" with no overdubs in an attempt to recreate the feeling of the band's live performances. Mike Donovan, the leader of Sic Alps, was the only guest musician on the album. Donovan was a past collaborator that had appeared on OCS' 2005 album 3&4, on which he provided vocals for the song "Burning Beauties". Like the majority of the band's catalogue, Warm Slime was recorded and mixed by Chris Woodhouse.

Much attention was drawn to the album's title track. At over thirteen and a half minutes long, it was the lengthiest song the band had ever released. Dwyer claimed that he had wanted to record a long format song like Can's "Yoo Doo Right", The Doors' "When the Music's Over", and Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".

John Dwyer – vocals, guitar, tape
Petey Dammit – bass
Brigid Dawson – organ, percussion, vocals, Wurlitzer
Mike Shoun – drums
Mike Donovan – fuzz guitar, percussion

One of the BIG faves in the Oh Sees catalogue!

TRACK LISTING

1. Warm Slime
2. I Was Denied
3. Everything Went Black
4. Castiatic Tackle
5. Flash Bats
6. Mega-Feast
7. MT Work

Let's get it straight: "This is" is THE album by Ghia. It catches the band at its peak and features 10 songs, including not only their impeccable hit, "What's Your Voodoo?" but a full arsenal of yet unheard, timeless, and soulful music without equal. The songs on the album, which were recorded between 1988 and 1991, could be considered forerunners of the downtempo genre, with one foot in the late 1980s street soul direction but sparkling with touches of synth pop and contemporary jazz-funk. Genre limitations aside, all that Ghia ever wanted to do was create music-good music-and you will hear this in the depth of the compositions.
The album starts with "Keep Your House In Disorder," which has yet again become another classic song from the band's catalog since it was featured as the B-side of the "What's Your Voodoo?" reissue. The song is about a relationship in which the woman has trouble adapting to her boyfriend's turn in life. He tells her to "keep your house in disorder," meaning don't take things too seriously, don't stand still, and you will do better to take the sideroads in life.

"This Is" continues with the downtempo numbers "Crystal Silence" and "Close to You." Both are deep, one-of-a-kind, and previously unissued street soul ballads. On these two tracks, you can still hear the band's roots in jazz-funk. Hence, as a follower of the band's output may have yet recognized, instrumentals of these two tracks can be found on their first LP, "Curaçao Blue." In fact, "Close to You" was one of the band's first compositions. Earlier recordings of the song exist with different singers and different vocals, but it wasn't perfect until Lisa laid down the final version and a choir was added. It's difficult for us to recall any late-80s soul tune as beautiful and intriguing as this one. The final section, which begins with "so much baby we can say," sounds ahead of its time, reminiscent of mid-90s contemporary R&B.

Next up is "Eskimo," an equally brilliant and soulful downtempo composition, but with more focus on synth sounds than the previous tracks. Once more, it showcases the creative lyricism of the song writers, Boberg and Simon, imagining a train ride during a rainy and cold night: "feeling like an Eskimo in an igloo in New York."

Eskimo leads to the aforementioned classic, "What's Your Voodoo?" Originally released in 1991 on the small Mikado label, it was reissued on our label in 2019. We already called this "one of the most wonderful and mystic slow motion synth pop tunes ever recorded"-and we still mean it! Let's face it: this was done before British bands like Massive Attack, Tricky, and Portishead laid the foundation of trip-hop. Dare we call Ghia's music "proto trip-hop"? As a special bonus, the digital version of the LP features a previously unreleased mix of the song, which includes added samples; this should clarify how close Ghia actually was to the sound of the mid-'90s.

"Angel On Your Shoulder" and "L O M E" are two more completely unissued and great tracks from the band's shelved works. Being a bit more uptempo than the rest of the album, they fall between contemporary soul/R&B and synthesized pop music. And of course, another downtempo hit needed to be featured on the album: "You Won't Sleep on My Pillow." It was the original A-side of their single release in 1991, and since then it has been featured on various compilations.

The album concludes with a really strong ballad entitled "I Haven't Got The Power." Here we hear only pianist and keyboardist Lutz Boberg with Lisa Ohm, without further instrumentation. Basically recorded in a live session, this showcases once more the talent and ingenuity within the Ghia project.

Whether you agree or not, "This is" may easily be considered one of the best German late 80s/early 90s soul pop and downtempo albums ever recorded. Cautiously, it may even be submitted as the missing link between mid/late 80s soul by bands such as Sade, and later trip-hop groups like Massive Attack. Let us celebrate Ghia and their music, which had been shelved for more than 30 years but has now finally been released on The Outer Edge.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Keep Your House In Disorder
Crystal Silence
Close To You
Eskimo
Sometimes 

Side B
What's Your Voodoo?
Angel On Your Shoulder
You Won't Sleep On My Pillow
L O M E (List Of Missing Elements)
I Haven't Got The Power

New LP by Hip-Hop producer Shuko (Anderson.Paak, Kanye West, Nipsey Hustle, Talib Kweli, etc.) who's accompanied by longtime collaborator Basti to create 31 sample-ready grooves and sounds in the vein of 60's and 70's vintage library records full of funk, jazz, fusion and soul.

Shuko´s new LP is something different. He and the producer Basti (Kanye West, Joey Badass, Timbaland) spent the last 3 years creating samples, learning vintage recordings and putting their knowledge of vintage soul jazz, 60´s and 70´s composer and r&b music into crafting this 31 track album. What makes this release so special is that you now are able to use those samples for your own music and recreating something new without the hustle and pain of clearing samples. Just visit tracklib, pay a little licence fee and register your new work with them. And even if you are not into creating music, this LP is a perfect soundtrack for a calm start into the day or something you will love to relax to.

TRACK LISTING

1. Good Love_88
2. Bittersweet_75
3. Mamas Cooking_88
4. Dropout Years_82
5. Autumn Walk_68
6. Just Sorry_86
7. Moody Jazz Night_73
8. Jazzmen_74
9. Street Life Is A Misery_69
10. Morning Sunrise_82
11. Love Movement_83
12. A Brooklyn Love Story_85
13. Inglewood Sunset_60
14. Funk Doc_82bpm
15. Ain't No Love In_82
16. Dark Knight_90
17. A Lonely Street Walk_75
18. Tyler_118
19. Jazzy Sunday_79
20. R&B In My Vein_70
21. Alchemist_70.5
22. In My Closet_88
23. Lonely Streets_76
24. 80s Champagne Lover Boy_100
25. Lori Heaven_71
26. Gone Till November_70
27. Pan Tao_70
28. Ghost Manor_85
29. King Edward_120
30. Sunlight Kiss_84
31. Mirage_73

Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Cole, Blair Cowan, Lawrence Donegan, Neil Clark and Stephen Irvine – were formed in Glasgow in 1982, where Buxton-born singer-songwriter Cole was studying Philosophy and English at the University of Glasgow -Their sound swam against the tide of shiny 80s synthesisers, offering intense, melodic, guitar-based pop, topped with droll words packed with literary references.

Given just how loved debut album Rattlesnakes was, it would have been hard for whatever followed to be received as warmly – yet Easy Pieces made a good first of it. It was to sell twice as many copies in its first two weeks as Rattlesnakes had to date, giving the group a Top 5 chart placing on its release in November 1985. Recorded with 80s super- producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, its first two singles, the brooding, gospel influenced Brand New Friend and the forever-jaunty Lost Weekend reached the UK Top 20.

TRACK LISTING

Rich
Why I Love Country Music
Pretty Gone
Grace
Cut Me Down
Brand New Friend
Lost Weekend
James
Minor Character
Perfect Blue

The Orb’s pulsating discography grows ever more huge, with their 18th album, and 3rd helmed by core duo Alex Paterson and Michael Rendall. Despite the connotations of its title, here they continue to rollick freely without inhibition across ambient, house and dub, but also tangent into poetry, pop, full-blown drum ‘n’ bass and actual reggae.

The LP features electronic musicians David Harrow (whose CV includes Anne Clarke, Psychic TV, Razormaid, Adrian Sherwood and Andy Weatherall) and Gaudi (whose credits include Max Romeo, Capleton, Johnny Clarke and Desmond Dekker). Other guests include Orb regular Youth, violinist Violeta Vicci, Kompakt records alumnus Leonardo Fresco, Metamono man Jono Podmore, Guitarist and Alex’s old schoolchum David Lofts, plus vocalists Eric Von Skywalker, Andy Cain and Rachel D’arcy. ‘Prism’ begins with the epic winding journey of ‘H.O.M.E’, which features a poem by Paterson, and traverses through dark ambient into star-surfing Fingers-style house, before ‘Why Can You Be In Two Places At Once…’ kicks into a funked-up, afrobeaty chug.

With Paterson’s decades-long love for Jamaican music and output oft drenched in the dubwise, it should come as little surprise that The Orb have now gone full reggae, on the ebullient nostalgia tale of Von Skywalker’s youthful romance, ‘A Ghetto Love Story’. The album then disappears down a wormhole of rubadub head-music called ‘Picking Tea & Chasing Butterfiles’, which sounds like Colourbox meets Popul Vuh in Shanghai, and also echoes back to Weatherall’s Ultrabass II remix of ‘Perpetual Dawn’.

Flipping the script entirely, by sprinkling a large bag of disco dust, is the slinky boogie wonderland of ‘Tiger’ (the name and nickname of Paterson’s son and late brother respectively), which juxtaposes but somehow coheres with the melodica-tinged thunderous bass music of ‘Dragon Of Oceans’ and it’s Sirius B gazing wordplay. The expertly-executed, floaty 90s trance dance of ‘The Beginning Of The End’ works very nicely within its own familiar parameters; which contrasts sharply with ‘Living In Recycled Times’, which ignites over ten plus minutes into fully-fledged, rave-ready D&B fire, which although out of their comfort zone still sounds very Orb.

Music for the ‘Prism’ of your mind, the album ends with its title track – a big ambient epic in done in fine style – as awe inspiring as the cold, infinite expanse from whence it came.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There are few bands making electronica today that have a more profound impact on afterparty culture than The Orb do, mostly owing to their perfectly manicured mix of euphoric acid, crisp dub and otherworldly melodies. 'Prism' has all of that in spades, moving effortlessly from dancefloor to the sofa and everything in-between. Classic Orb.

TRACK LISTING

1. ‘H.O.M.E’
2. ‘Why Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All’
3. ‘A Ghetto Love Story’
4. ‘Picking Tea Leaves & Chasing Butterflies’
5. ‘Tiger’
6. ‘Dragon Of The Oceans’
7. ‘The Beginning Of The End’
8. ‘Living In Recycled Times’
9. ‘Prism’

"Let it first be said that the title track of The Hypnogogue, the first new album from The Church in six years, is one of the most breath-taking singles they’ve released in years, a darkly psychedelic six minutes that slowly spirals into a menacing descent. That alone is reason to keep this one on your radar; the Australian neo-psych band have been going for over 40 years, with around a half dozen classic albums and zero bad ones, yet their ability to keep evolving and uncovering new aspects to their sound and approach only serves as a reminder of how vital they remain after four decades." After an epic return to homeland stages, Australian psych-rock legends The Church announce their forthcoming studio album The Hypnogogue. Following on from 2017’s widely acclaimed Man Woman Life Death Infinity, the Sydney band’s 27th album was recorded just before the world was shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging from the darkness is the band’s first new studio album in six years and the first to feature the newest line-up led by founder, bassist and vocalist Steve Kilbey. “The Hypnogogue” is the most prog rock thing we have ever done, we’ve never created a concept album before,” says Kilbey. “It is the most teamwork record we have ever had. Everyone in the band is so justifiably proud of this record and everyone helped to make sure it was as good as it could be. Personally, I think it’s in our top three records.”

Picking up substantial international airplay, raising anticipation for the album’s release, the digital singles ‘The Hypnogogue’ and ‘C’est La Vie’ set the stage for the album’s striking science fiction narrative. Kilbey unpacks the themes that tie the album together: “The Hypnogogue is set in 2054, a dystopian and broken-down future. Invented by Sun Kim Jong, a North Korean scientist and occult dabbler, it is a machine and a process that pulls music straight off dreams.” This new five-piece line-up is made up of Kilbey along with long-time collaborator, drummer and producer Tim Powles, who’s remained a staple across 17 albums since 1994. Joining them is guitarist Ian Haug, formerly of Australian rock icons Powderfinger, who has been with the band since 2013. Touring multi-instrumentalist talent Jeffrey Cain is now a full-time member since the departure of Peter Koppes in early 2020. Completing the line-up, newcomer Ashley Naylor is one of Australia’s finest guitarists and a long-time member of Paul Kelly’s touring band.Formed in 1980, The Church found early chart success in their homeland, before establishing themselves as an international touring entity, earning a worldwide hit with the single ‘Under The Milky Way’ from their hit 1988 album Starfish, while their stellar live shows have been deemed ‘spectacular’ by MAGNET magazine and continue to win the hearts of industry and fans across the world.Often seen as the Godfathers of an Australian psych/prog scene generating such internationally successful names as Tame Impala and King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, The Church have gone on to maintain a loyal and far-reaching following as their fanbase has expanded with their evolving sound. Entering their fourth decade as a band, The Church continue to remain a treasured creative force.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1:
1. Ascendence
2. C ’Est La Vie
3. I Think I Knew
Side 2:
1. Flickering Lights
2. The Hypnogogue
3. Albert Ross
Side 3:
1. Thorn
2. Aerodrome
3. These Coming Days
4. No Other You
Side 4:
1. Succulent
2. Antarctica
3. Second Bridge