Arguably one of the most acclaimed and loved bands of the past 20 years, by both fans and their musical peers alike, The Beta Band formed in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1996. Innovative and singular, their unique musical and aesthetic approach to everything they did set them far apart from their musical contemporaries.

Together for a relatively short period of time, the three albums and three EPs they released between 1996 and 2004 would nonetheless help define them as one of the most exciting and cherished bands of their generation. 

TRACK LISTING

Champion Versions EP
A1. Dry The Rain / A2. I Know / B1. B + A / B2. Dogs Got A Bone

The Patty Patty Sound EP
A. Inner Meet Me / B. The House Song / C. Monolith / D. She’s The One

Los Amigos Del Beta Bandidos EP
A1. Push It Out / A2. It’s Over / B1. Dr. Baker / B2. Needles In My Eyes

CD Features The Same Tracklist In The The Same Order.

2CD edition in 3-panel digipack with a 16-page poster booklet.

Arguably one of the most acclaimed and loved bands of the past 20 years, by both fans and their musical peers alike, The Beta Band formed in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1996.

Innovative and singular, their unique musical and aesthetic approach to everything they did set them far apart from their musical contemporaries. Together for a relatively short period of time, the three albums and three EPs they released between 1996 and 2004 would nonetheless help define them as one of the most exciting and cherished bands of their generation.

After acquiring the Beta Band’s catalogue last year, Because Music will reissue their releases, starting on September 14th with a double CD Best-Of compiling all their best hits and a live show recorded at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire (London) in 2004.

Because Music will also celebrate at the same time the 20th anniversary of their 1998 compilation ‘The Three EPs’ by releasing a deluxe vinyl edition gathering in a slipcase the EPs ‘Champion Versions’, ‘The Patty Patty Sound’ and ‘Los Amigos Del Beta Bandidos’ with remastered tracks and coloured vinyls. 

TRACK LISTING

CD1
1. Dry The Rain
2. Inner Meet Me
3. She’s The One
4. Dr. Baker
5. It’s Not Too Beautiful
6. Smiling
7. To You Alone
8. Squares
9. Human Being
10. Gone
11. Broke
12. Assessment 
13. Easy
14. Wonderful
15. Troubles
16. Simple

CD2 – Live At The Shepherds Bush Empire
1. It’s Not Too Beautiful 
2. Squares
3. Inner Meet Me 
4. Simple
5. She’s The One
6. Easy 
7. Dr. Baker 
8. Dry The Rain 
9. Quiet
10. Broke
11. Assessment
12. Dog’s Got A Bone 

Perhaps not words we all find ourselves uttering on a daily basis, but then the esteemed singer is far from your average joe stuck in the day-to-day grind of an average job…

‘I Love My Job’ is the first album release in 5 years from the former Inspiral Carpets and Lovers lynch-pin and his current outfit: The Tom Hingley Band.

Arriving as the follow-up to his remarkable double album ‘Sand’ & ’Paper’ (released in 2013, with Pledge Music), the THB’s latest effort is an equally ambitious outing of vision and voice. On ‘I Love My Job’, Hingley and co. seek to offer a snapshot of the political revolution, anger, and aggression that have formed the backdrop for him, and us all, over the last three years.

Using the freedom of expression and amplification to communicate with the masses that is gifted to those in the job that Hingley finds himself in (though is so often shied away from by many of his musical contemporaries), ‘I Love My Job’ sees the singer using his platform to both shout to the heavens and put the world to rights. Someone has to right?

Getting it all of his chest, the record is very much a rejection and reaction to the here and now, with Hingley providing a loquacious outpouring of his own pure emotion, as well as socio-political commentary of wider contemporary issues that grip the current world, all wrapped up in 11 tracks of unbridled rock’n’roll….

“Nasty People” is a short sharp snap at the cowardly trolling culture that has developed and dominates the online realm, whereas the recoil of ‘Bullet’ is a revenge song that sees Hingley take direct aim at the convicted paedophile and Lost Prophets frontman Ian Watkins along with those who would use their power for acts of such despicable evil. “Beggar’s Hand” decries the shameful homelessness that plagues the streets of Manchester under the current government, whereas “White Sheep” is a song for those who feel oppressed by the corporate world of ‘too big to fail banks’ and utility companies in which extortion and profit at the expense of innocent consumers are business of the day.

But on a more personal level, there’s an outpouring of emotions in tribute to the sounds and loved ones who have inspired Hingley throughout his life. “Introduction” glistens with the chimes with bells to honour the many lost souls that have departed over the past few years, not least his own mother and sister-in-law who he also pays homage to on “Black Light”:

TRACK LISTING

1) Introduction
2) Black Light
3) Glory Days
4) Toy
5) Bullet
6) Beautiful Girl
7) Beggars Hand
8) Prodigal Son
9) Nasty People
10) White Sheep
11) Shining For Somebody Else

As two of the UK’s finest exponents of traditional song, Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy’s rich, distinctive and authentic voices have engaged new audiences and admirers across two generations. Between them, they have three prestigious Mercury Prize nominations, an MBE each for services to English music and have both been presented with BBC Folk Singer of the Year awards, as well as innumerable other accolades. Eliza recently embarked on her most ambitious project yet by recording and touring with the 12 piece Wayward Band, a 12-piece. The resulting album, ‘Big Machine,’ garnered both acclaim and more Radio 2 Folk Awards nominatiions in 2018 (‘Best Group’ and ‘Best Album’).

Although they have recorded independently and together on many occasions over the years, ‘Gift’ (2010) was Norma and Eliza’s first duo release, produced by Eliza. The album went on to pick up Best Album and Best Traditional Track at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

The remarkable new album, ‘Anchor,’ produced by Neill MacColl and Kate St. John, was recorded in their English home town of Robin Hood’s Bay and features an eclectic and beguiling collection of both traditional and contemporary songs. Amongst the 11 tracks we find Norma leading on Tom Waits’ ‘Strange Weather’ and ‘The Beast in Me’ by Nick Lowe. Trad Arr. ‘The Elfin Knight’ sees Eliza supported by Norma, Martin and extended family, ‘Lost in the Stars’ is a wonderful take on the Kurt Weill classic, while ‘Shanty of the Whale’, also featuring guest vocals of Martin Carthy, is a track written by KT Tunstall inspired by the singing of the Watersons, now come full circle in mutual respect and admiration.

A Danny Krivit and Harvey favourite, as sampled by J Dilla and Glenn Underground - a dubby disco cover of the Gamble & Huff penned O’Jays classic. Also featuring on Kenny Dope's amazing "Disco Heat" compilation and receiving plenty plays at Mancusso's legendary Loft parties.

This sound was later pioneered by the likes of Arthur Russell and Larry Levan, and is especially present throughout the Sleeping Bag records catalogue. Replica original 7” artwork, official Mr Bongo reissue, mastered from our original DAT copy.

Having become something of a cult favourite in their hometown for their raucous live shows, Too Many Things To Hide is the long-awaited debut LP from Birmingham, UK quartet Swampmeat Family Band, which includes members Low Cut Connie, PWEI, Bentley Rhythm Ace, The Castillians, Terror Watts etc. Combining their inner ‘70s country soul and glam pop with more traditional heartbreak laments the quartet’s created a lasting collection of tracks that resides somewhere in the realm between Americana and garage rock, and Too Many Things to Hide is set to be released on March 23 via the Stockholm based indie label PNKSLM Recordings.

TRACK LISTING

1. Long Way Down
2. Needle & Thread
3. Stupid Kid
4. Suzie Stop Saucin'
5. Too Many Things To Hide
6. Down Home Girl
7. The Wire
8. Nothing On Me
9. Do It For The Babies

Soundway Records presents “Down In The Basement”, the debut EP from The Mauskovic Dance Band - a heady, tropical blend of cumbia, Afro- Caribbean rhythms and space disco, resulting in a vibrant hypnotic groove destined for bustling dancefloors. The Mauskovic Dance Band is the brainchild of the Amsterdam-based producer and musician, Nicola Mauskovic. A seasoned drummer, he finds himself constantly in demand - as part of Turkish psychedelic outfit Altin Gun, a recent tour with the revival of Zambian legends W.I.T.C.H., and a worldwide tour with psych-pop artist Jacco Gardner, with whom he then went on to form the dance-oriented duo Bruxas (released on Dekmantel).

Throughout this hectic schedule Nic still found time to begin studio experiments that would eventually lead to several 7” singles, released on Swiss label Bongo Joe Records in 2017 under the name “The Mauskovic Dance Band”. Following this, he tapped long-time collaborators Donnie Mauskovic (vocals, keys, effects), Em Nix Mauskovic (guitar, synth, percussion), and Mano Mauskovic (bass) to make the jump from record to stage. Soon they caught the ear of fabled underground Cumbia producer Juan Hundred, who left his home on a Caribbean island to join the band on drums.

With each band member of varying heritage, the group draws inspiration from diverse genres: primarily Afro-Colombian styles such as champeta, palenque, cumbia and the pic soundsystem culture, as well as the Afro-Disco and No-Wave scenes in their current base of Amsterdam. The city’s hotbed of underground producers has also brought an electronic edge to the band, with vintage drum machines and synthesizers effortlessly melding with Afro-Latin rhythms and slick guitar riffs to create a contemporary sound rich with cultural influence.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: The Mauskovic Dance Band providing all the tropical disco grooves, bright and zesty this is the exact sort of twelve inch to get the Summer vibes in full swing. Take a listen and float to a faraway island of your choice, ahhhhh.

Produced by Giles Martin for this year’s universally heralded ‘Sgt. Pepper’ Anniversary Edition releases, the album’s new stereo mix was sourced directly from the original four-track session tapes and guided by the original, Beatles-preferred mono mix produced by Giles’ father, George Martin. Praised by fans and music critics around the world, The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’ Anniversary Edition is 2017’s most celebrated historical music release and an ideal gift for Beatle People here, there, and everywhere.

Live album from Bob Dylan & The Band, originally released in 1974, documenting their American tour. A 21 song double album, pressed on black vinyl with download code insert. 

TRACK LISTING

Side One

1. "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)" 02-14 (evening) 4:15
2. "Lay Lady Lay" 02-13 3:14
3. "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" 02-13 3:27
4. "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" 01-30 New York City 3:51
5. "It Ain't Me, Babe" 02-14 (evening) 3:40
6. "Ballad Of A Thin Man" 02-14 (afternoon) 3:41

Side Two

7. "Up On Cripple Creek" (Robbie Robertson) 02-14 (evening) 5:25
8. "I Shall Be Released" 02-14 (afternoon) 3:50
9. "Endless Highway" (Robertson) 02-14 (evening) 5:10
10. "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" (Robertson) 02-14 (evening) 4:24
11. "Stage Fright" (Robertson) 02-14 (evening) 4:45

Side Three

12. "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" 02-14 (evening) 4:36
13. "Just Like A Woman" 02-14 (evening) 5:06
14. "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" 02-14 (evening) 5:48
15. "The Shape I'm In" (Robertson) 02-14 (afternoon) 4:01
16. "When You Awake" (Richard Manuel, Robertson) 02-14 (evening) 3:13
17. "The Weight" (Robertson) 02-13 4:47

Side Four

18. "All Along The Watchtower" 02-14 (afternoon) 3:07
19. "Highway 61 Revisited" 02-14 (evening) 4:27
20. "Like A Rolling Stone" 02-13 7:09
21. "Blowin' In The Wind" 02-13 + 02-14 (afternoon) 4:30

• Reissue of first studio release from Segall with his touring band, now with bonus track
• Upped the ante on past solo releases with a full-throttle, go-for-the-throat bombast
• Once on double 10-inch, now expanded to double 12-inch

A reissue of the 2012 debut release by the Ty Segall Band on In The Red, featuring a bonus song not on the original release! The Ty Segall Band is Ty Segall (obviously), Mikal Cronin, Charlie Moonheart and Emily Rose Epstein. While Segall has released many incredible solo releases, Slaughterhouse marks the first time he recorded with his touring band. For this mini-album (originally released as a double 10-inch, but now expanded to a double 12-inch) the band recorded with Chris Woodhouse at the Hangar, turned their amps all the way up, set their fuzz pedals on “obliterate” and commenced to kick ass and take names. Seriously, this record will melt your face. All of Segall’s usual psych-pop sensibilities are present but Slaughterhouse adds the fullthrottle, go-for-the-throat bombast that the band delivers in the live setting. The fuzz riffs, bratty howl and Cro-Magnon bashing culminate with a feedback freakout that’s clearly the only sensible way to end a workout of this magnitude in shit to announce the debut release by the Ty Segall Band.

TRACK LISTING

1. Death
2. I Bought My Eyes
3. Slaughterhouse
4. The Tongue
5. Tell Me What’s Inside Your Heart
6. Wave Goodbye
7. Fuzz War
8. Muscle Man
9. The Bag I’m In
10. Diddy Wah
11. Oh Mary
12. Swag (bonus Track)

Focused around the songwriting talents and production skills of Jo Dudderidge and Adam Gorman and the rhythmic driving force of enigmatic drummer Nick Vaal, The Travelling Band have been quietly honing what Marc Riley described as "Mancunian Americana".

The resulting album mines a rich seam of influences, with key album track 'Last Night (I Dreamt of Killing You)' and the grungy 'Wasted Eyes' highlighting the band's love of American indie rock, but still with that Mancunian twist nodding to Elbow and I Am Kloot. 'Mopping Forwards' draws on their time spent in East Nashville and the almost Satie-like melancholic ballad 'Loser' belies the darker turn that Jo and Adam's lyrics have taken.

TRACK LISTING

Moments Like Switches
Wasted Eyes
Into The Water
Mopping Forwards
Loser
Unlike You
Last Night (I Dreamt Of Killing You)
Out Of The Water
Failure Is A Bastard
Leftover Lines

When Darren Hayman (Hefner) and Emma Kupa (Standard Fare/Mammoth Penguins) decided to make a duets record, we knew the results would be great, but we didn’t expect them to be THIS great. Gathering together a rhythm section consisting of Michael Wood (Whoa Melodic/Singing Adams) on bass and Cat Loye (Fever Dream) on drums, The Hayman Kupa Band create brash, bold and effortlessly melodic power pop. Sharing writing duties and sometimes singing each others words, lines are blurred and creativity explored in a wonderfully exuberant collection of songs.

The album, recorded in 3 days, is an exploration of relationships and, at its heart, it’s the sound of a friendship being made. Darren explains further: It’s only happened a few times but just once or twice I have seen someone on stage and thought, “I want to be in a band with them.” But I thought it the first time I saw Emma playing with her magnificent and under-rated band Standard Fare. I met her properly a little later in Sheffield when we played together. Before the gig I said I was suspicious of bands that wore hats. She wore a hat on stage. They say imitation is a form of flattery and I was glad that I noticed when I wrote the song “Boy, Look at What you Can’t Have Now” that it sounded like the sort of thing Emma might write. I covered up my theft by asking her to sing on it. When we were recording the song I suggested that we should write a whole album of duets. Musicians suggest things like this all the time because they are stupid or drunk. A few months later Emma told me she had started writing the album. This is what Emma does; she says something then does it. I race to play catch up. The songs were written over 3 weekends at her house and mine. Co-writing is something I’m not used to. It’s very intimate and me and Emma became friends through the process. Emma’s lyrics are sharp and precise whereas mine are more metaphoric. We talked about relationships and that’s what the album is about. It’s about our fears and paranoias and the search for trust and love. We deliberately swapped lines and genders so the narrative is never truly that of traditional duets. We wanted a band to make the album and chose Michael Wood and Cat Loye. 

TRACK LISTING

A1) Let’s Do Nothing
A2) No More Bombs
A3) Red Petal
A4) Over’s Now Overdue
A5) We Can Get By
A6) Do You Know

B1) A Tent Of Blankets
B2) Draw The Line
B3) My Right Arm
B4) Pretty Waste Of Time
B5) Reach Out
B6) Then We Kissed

Too Pure present the third instalment of the 2017 edition of the Singles Club with the awesome Unqualified Nurse band.

Derby’s Unqualified Nurse Band follow up 2016’s debut album ‘Debasement Tapes’ with the two headed beast that is ‘Death Surf A52’ / ‘White Dove’.

‘Death Surf A52’ is a one note juggernaut that opens up into Dream Surf bliss, weaving its way through 50 shades of rock and roll with no intention of slowing down for anybody.

Significant other ‘White Dove’ staggers and struts and then before you know it you’re howling at the Harvest Moon.

Both songs recorded by Rich Collins at SNUG Recording CO, Derby and mastered at Abbey Road Studios by Alex Wharton. 

TRACK LISTING

Death Surf A52
White Dove

Riding on a cloud of smoke, psychedelic travelers Shadow Band make sounds that move like foggy dreams from fantastical lands. Their patient but powerful songs set in motion a series of refracting echoes that call forth images of medieval battles, spirits unseen by human eyes, and the gentle, constant pulsing of the universe. The band formed organically around the songwriting of Mike Bruno, a quiet figure whose vibrant mental landscape is the center of the group’s orbit. Growing up in New Jersey, Bruno immersed himself in a self-made world of gloomy sonic alchemy, honing his songcraft as a solo act in New Brunswick's small-but-dedicated freak scene. The early years saw Bruno attracting a rotating cast of area heads around his growing arsenal of songs and dubbing it Black Magic Family Band. The sprawling web of artists varied with every gig and recording session, but the roots of Shadow Band started here. Sonically, the homespun production mirrors the communal environment in which they were made. Layers of murky instrumentation congeal into a singular sound, with strange stringed instruments, theremin vibrations and buried percussion all washing by as a solid alien texture. Songs melt into one another to the sound of distant birds and pagan pan flutes only to rise up in swells of unholy synth.

TRACK LISTING

1. Green Riverside
2. Endless Night
3. Shadowland
4. Eagle Unseen
5. In The Shade
6. Indian Summer
7. Morning Star
8. Mad John
9. Illuminate
10. Darksiders' Blues
11. Daylight

Pioneering English traditional folk powerhouse, Eliza Carthy, first assembled the Wayward Band in 2013 in order to explore and celebrate her long and varied career in folk music; 'the last truly underground music scene'.

To do this Eliza put together a team of hugely talented people from across the UK, and set out on the road to promote her 'Best Of' compilation, 'Wayward Daughter,' which coincided with a biography of the same name. Since then, the band has become a festival favourite, and Eliza has been awarded the MBE for services to folk music. Eliza and the Wayward Band loved playing together so much it seemed natural and inevitable, as well as characteristically ambitious, that this 12-piece would set about recording an album. Early in 2016 they did just that. 'Big Machine' is the result and the renowned Real World and Rockfield Studios are where it all happened.

The material represents a healthy slice of everything good that is happening in traditional music now, across a sparkling spectrum of sound. The album features three contemporary songs; Eliza's own 'You Know Me' about the migrant crisis and notions of hospitality (featuring MC Dizraeli), a powerful cover of Ewan Maccoll's Radio Ballad 'The Fitter's Song' (at the behest of Peggy Seeger - and the song which inspired the album title) and an affectionate reworking of 'Hug You Like a Mountain' (Rory MacLeod), re-imagined here as a duet with Teddy Thompson.

There are also several examples of the Broadside ballad collections housed in Chetham's Library in Manchester given a new twist with music by Eliza and the band. This follows an acclaimed programme Eliza presented for Radio 4 about the Manchester Ballads last year, covering everything from songs about and caused by domestic abuse ('Devil in the Woman,' 'Fade and Fall (Love Not)'), to love of the seafaring life ('The Sea'). Added to that a couple of searing instrumentals, a song about dying from custard poisoning and a heartbreaking traditional ballad 'I Wish that the Wars were all Over' (performed live with the band onstage in Real World Studios' Studio One and featuring Irish superstar Damien Dempsey), and you begin to get the picture.

A very Big picture, a Big Machine firing on all cylinders. 'Big Machine' is one of Eliza Carthy's most adventurous and accomplished works to date -- and given that Eliza is the most passionate and groundbreaking English traditional singer of her generation, 'Big Machine' is an album you really won't want to miss.

In the vapor trail of “How Does It Make You Feel,” the first track on this self-titled full length, one can smell the burnt ozone of a seventies-full-orchestra-nebula-pop-odyssey, the flakes floating down and landing like snow, giving grave-chills … the ash of a masterpiece pop song. Once And Future Band: this incredibly accomplished cabal of total prog wizards has circled the earth, but then, these are the accomplished gentlemen of many former pursuits (the formidable Drunk Horse among them) and all of them comets themselves.

The very mid-’70s vibe at work here surpasses pastiche, and crests that lovely anachronistic conceptual peak: a fully realized and meticulously arranged psych record, meant to be listened to from top to bottom, with the lights down low and in a comfy chair perhaps, or while gazing out the window of your life pod. The Dark Side of the Moon feel, with shades of early Yes’s technicality, a dash of Steely Dan’s vocal prowess and effortless sheen, and some seriously outsized hooks that call to mind the mighty ELO, Le Orme and, yes, even the unsinkable Queen powered on Brian May’s tape echo jet fuel and sequined power cells. This is a head record in the classic sense but utter fealty to The Dark One insures both being trapped and infected by the pop-parasite. That it is largely self-produced (with tracking / engineering on three of the songs by Phil Manley at El Studio) makes it all the more jaw dropping. Making prog cool again, again, and then slightly more complicatedly, again.

This long-overdue vinyl reissue of Yoko Ono’s seminal but massively under-appreciated ‘Plastic Ono Band’ has all the makings of a classic rock nostalgia trip: Ono, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Klaus Voorman and free-jazz legend Ornette Coleman. All the pieces are here to stir up a dangerous amount of nostalgia but once the needle drops the record achieves something exactly perpendicular to nostalgia.

Released in 1971, the album not only influenced the approach of other musicians for decades, it also sounds absolutely modern 44 years out, eternally fresh despite the forward march of time.

‘Plastic Ono Band’ not only predicted the intersection of the avant-garde and rock that would take place in the second half of that decade, the album would sound right at home at where that intersection is happening today.

TRACK LISTING

Why
Why Not
Greenfield Morning I Pushed An Empty Baby Carriage All Over The City
AOS
Touch Me
Paper Shoes

BBE are back with another essential reissue, putting this ultra-rare LP from Ted Coleman back in press for the first time since 1980. Heavily influenced by the likes of Bobby Hutcherson and Roy Ayers, "Taking Care Of Business" is full of positive, uptempo soul/jazz gems, featuring Ted Coleman's wonderful vibraphone playing throughout. Not only did Coleman both sing and play piano, synth and vibes on the record, but he also designed the artwork himself; a true DIY LP if ever there was one! This DIY ethos even extended to the New Jersey label JSR who originally pressed the LP, describing themselves as: "a new company that helps working club bands that can sell their own records. JSR artists spend no money for recording or production costs, and there are no recording contracts." This could well explain the album's rarity, with original copies selling on Discogs for eye-wateringly high prices. Ted Coleman cut his teeth playing local clubs and venues in his hometown of Pittsburgh, where his skills on vibes and mallet percussion quickly earned him popularity in the local area. "Taking Care Of Business" was his very first studio album, blending latin rhythms with smooth jazz and soul stylings. The musicianship on the record is striking, the vocals mellow and soulful, the lyrics warm and tender: put simply this album is designed to warm the heart. Still writing and recording at ‘Joyful Noise’, his Metuchen New Jersey studio, Ted Coleman also performs across the US with his “Good Vibes” band. More sublime stuff from the flawless BBE.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Oh my Lord! BBE reissue another lost classic here, putting the spotlight on unsung vibraphone hero Ted Coleman. Stick this on the player and soar away on the soulful strings, deep grooves and stunning vibes of this jazz-funk masterpiece.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Can You Feel It
A2 Due Consideration
A3 If We Took The Time
A4 Due Consideration Interlude
B1 Sweet Bird
B2 What A Lovely Way
B3 Samba De

‘Band Of The Future’ is Ausmuteants’ fourth album and probably their best to date.

The band’s previous albums have been released in the US on Goner Records and they last toured the US in support of their previous album ‘Order Of Operation’ in 2014.

Ausmuteants are not the band of the future or the past. Ausmuteants are just a band. Not punk, new wave, hardcore, boogie, darkwave, oi, hyphenaterock or pet rock. Not drug users and not straight edge. Ausmuteants are regular dudes practising the sound of things falling apart.

TRACK LISTING

Silent Genes
I Hate You
New Planet
Coastal Living
Cross Eyes
Spankwire
Music Writers
Band Of The Future
Mr Right
Come Home With Me
Liars
Stuck
Struck By Lightning
Calculations

Produced by Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters, Patti Smith) and recorded in Rockfield Studios, By Default is the sound of a group on the sharpest form of their career, more engaged and focused than they’ve ever been. The follow up to 2014’s Himalayan, from the English trio - made up of Russell Marsden (guitar, vocals), Emma Richardson (bass, vocals) and Matt Hayward (drums) – the new record came about via a conscious decision from the band to take a step back from their relentless world-wide touring schedule (having never spent more than a month off the road in the last 2 years) to decamp to and write songs in a Southampton Baptist Church-cum-makeshift HQ. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: From funky staccato guitar to four-to-the-floor drums, three-part harmonies and rhythmically delivered vocals to National-esque introspection and distorted churning bass. 'By Default' is a swooning and morphing beast, no sooner do rousing crescendos appear than they melt into a cauldron of bubbling morosity and jagged tension, with relief never being too far behind. Measured and impeccable, apopleptic and serene. A whole of many halves, and every one of them brilliantly conceived. Highly recommended.

TRACK LISTING

1. Black Magic
2. Back Of Beyond
3. Killer
4. Bodies
5. Tropical Disease
6. So Good
7. This Is My Fix
8. Little Momma
9. Embers
10. In Love By Default
11. Singing
12. Something 

If you’ve seen Girl Band live, you understand. If you’ve heard ‘The Early Years’ EP or one of their early, handmade releases - or perhaps if you’ve seen the not-for-the-squeamish video for their eight-minute cover of Blawan’s “Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage,” you’ve got a sense.

‘Holding Hands with Jamie,’ Girl Band’s debut album, comes a few years into their tenure; a few years after their first tour; nine days crammed into a Fiat Panda; a few years of stamping 7” sleeves to sell at merch tables and mail-order; a few years of writing songs and touring and developing a live ferocity unmatched by nearly anyone. Recorded in April 2015, two days after returning home from their first-ever US tour, the nine tracks making up 'Holding Hands with Jamie’ capture, more than any previous recordings, the tension and abrasive energy of a Girl Band performance.

Going into the studio (Bow Lane, Dublin) to record an album - rather than a track or two here and there - “required a different mindset,” guitarist Alan Duggan explained. "It was way more challenging to stay focused – tricky to find a balance between keeping a distance from the songs for perspective but also to fully concentrate on them.” While they had the luxury of studio time (“we spent three or four days just setting up drums, amps, and mics”), the band laid down seven of the tracks in less than two days, ensuring that the record pulses with vitality and forward momentum.

Recalling any number of things but for only milliseconds at a time, Girl Band make a mockery of comparisons, because you can only get as far as “oh this bit sounds like—” before a guitar scuff-screams, the bass crunches like a car in a bailing press, or something else visceral and glorious comes from the speakers, and the thought’s erased. This young Dublin foursome are creating vital, propulsive, and almost terrifyingly energetic noise-rock that pulls as much influence from classic techno as from their more obvious post-punk, noise and industrial predecessors.

TRACK LISTING

1. Umbongo
2. Pears For Lunch
3. Baloo
4. In Plastic
5. Paul
6. The Last Riddler
7. Texting An Alien
8. Fucking Butter
9. The Witch Doctor

"The Band's first album, Music from Big Pink, seemed to come out of nowhere, with its ramshackle musical blend and songs of rural tragedy. The Band, the group's second album, was a more deliberate and even more accomplished effort, partially because the players had become a more cohesive unit, and partially because guitarist Robbie Robertson had taken over the songwriting, writing or co-writing all 12 songs. Though a Canadian, Robertson focused on a series of American archetypes from the union worker in "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" and the retired sailor in "Rockin' Chair" to, most famously, the Confederate Civil War observer Virgil Cane in "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." The album effectively mixed the kind of mournful songs that had dominated Music from Big Pink, here including "Whispering Pines" and "When You Awake" (both co-written by Richard Manuel), with rollicking uptempo numbers like "Rag Mama Rag" and "Up on Cripple Creek" (both sung by Levon Helm and released as singles, with "Up on Cripple Creek" making the Top 40). As had been true of the first album, it was The Band's sound that stood out the most, from Helm's (and occasionally Manuel's) propulsive drumming to Robertson's distinctive guitar fills and the endlessly inventive keyboard textures of Garth Hudson, all topped by the rough, expressive singing of Manuel, Helm, and Rick Danko that mixed leads with harmonies. The arrangements were simultaneously loose and assured, giving the songs a timeless appeal, while the lyrics continued to paint portraits of 19th century rural life (especially Southern life, as references to Tennessee and Virginia made clear), its sometimes less savory aspects treated with warmth and humor." - All Music.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Just as good as the first, maybe without the same impact. Includes the world-classic "The Night They Drove Old Whiskey Down".

TRACK LISTING

1. Across The Great Divide
2. Rag Mama Rag
3. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
4. When You Awake
5. Up On Cripple Creek
6. Whispering Pines
7. Jemima Surrender
8. Rockin' Chair
9. Look Out Cleveland
10. Jawbone
11. The Unfaithful Servant
12. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)

Recorded in Wales, Los Angeles, and Somerset this is Mercury and Brit nominated McRae's 7th studio album, and is the follow up to 2013's critically acclaimed "From The Lowlands".

Featuring his international band, this new album of soulful alternative Folk/Americana has been garnering rave reviews.

**** MOJO "A dark triumph"
**** Q Magazine "finds real beauty in despair"
8/10 UNCUT, "a thrilling air of doom...beautiful" 

TRACK LISTING

1. The High Life
2. The Dogs Never Sleep
3. Christmas Eve,1943
4. Expecting The Rain
5. Let Me Grow Old With You
6. We Are The Mark.
7. My Desert Bride
8. Lover, Still You.
9. Hoping Against Hope

Bringing together both of Josephine Foster and the Victor Herrero Band’s Spanish albums in one place, with a previously unreleased track. Anda Jaleo was originally released in 2010. Federico Garcia Lorca's popular folk song collection "Las Canciones Populares Espanolas" was banned under Franco's dictatorship and today the music survives but marginally within the Spanish sub-conscious.

Taking their cue from Lorca and La Argentinita's infectious 1931 recording of the songs, Josephine Foster and her partner Spanish musician Victor Herrero arranged the poetically rich collection for their acoustic band, formed while living in the Grenadine Sierra. Anda Jaleo is the band's live recording of "Las Canciones"; a visceral celebration of the persistence of popular anonymous song.

This new edition includes an additional track not featured on the original release, an interpretation of ‘Sones de Asturias’. La colección de "Canciones Populares Españolas" recopiladas y armonizadas por Federico García Lorca fue censurada en tiempos de Franco, y hoy en día la música sobrevive aunque de una manera vaga en el subconsciente del pueblo español. Inspirados por la contagiosa grabación de las canciones de Lorca y La Argentinita de 1931, Josephine Foster y su compañero el músico español Víctor Herrero han arreglado esta poética y rica colección para su banda acústica , formada mientras vivían en la sierra de Granada. Anda Jaleo es la grabación en directo de su versión de "Las Canciones"; una celebración visceral de la canción popular anónima y su persistencia. Following from Anda Jaleo, Josephine Foster and the Victor Herrero Band created a superb follow-up entitled Perlas (Pearls). It is a jewel of a collection, with songs and poems selected by Josephine herself, gathered from dusty old scores and brought vividly to the present with warm performances full of flesh-and-blood emotion. Made with a variety of stringed instruments and simple percussion, the songs were recorded live in the studio on to analogue tape by Paco Loco in Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain. Foster breathes new life into timeless traditional melodies, drawing from the Spanish-folk traditions of Castile, the Basque, Santander and the Costa Brava.

TRACK LISTING

Anda Jaleo:
1. Los Cuatro Muleros
2. Los Pelegrinitos
3. Las Morillas De Jaen
4. Anda Jaleo
5. Las Tres Hojas
6. Los Mozos De Monleón
7. Sevillanas Del Siglo XVIII
8. Los Reyes De La Baraja
9. El Cafe De Chinitas
10. Zorongo
11. Nana De Sevilla
12. Sones De Asturia……

Perlas :
1. Puerto De Santa Maria
2. Sangre Colorada
3. Cuando Vienes Del Monto
4. Cuatro Pinos
5. Peregrino
6. Dame Esa Flor
7. En Esta Larga Ausencia
8. Abenámar
9. Perlas
10. Brillante Estrella

If you’ve followed The Phantom Band throughout their career to-date then you’ll know two things of the Glaswegian six-piece: feast often follows famine, and you should never accept them merely at face value. Just as two wildly singular, diverse albums in Checkmate Savage and The Wants sprung up one after another between 2009 and 2010, before a period of quiet (solo projects notwithstanding), so the group’s more direct third record released in June 2014 - Strange Friend – more art-rock than rock-art – comes followed by seven tracks cut largely from the same recording sessions at Chem 19 in Blantyre, in the form of Fears Trending.

Lauded last spring pretty much across the board, Strange Friend’s instant hit to the senses was the sound of a band pulling a thread tight through their naturally wandering creative tendencies and affecting a sense of positivity, even amidst quiet doubts over living in a world simultaneously hyper-connected and disconnected through the internet. For those who saw through the likes of ‘Clapshot’s’ irrepressible anti-anthem swell, though, Fears Trending is a resounding confirmation that the band’s recent recording sessions also bore out something of a darker hue.

“Maybe it's the evil twin of Strange Friend,” comments guitarist Duncan Marquiss. “They're stranger friends, oddball vestiges and hybrids.” Chief vocalist Rick Anthony agrees, pointing out that although Fears Trending merely came about as an anagram of their third record’s title, its connotations ring true, with a greater focus on themes of online isolation that they pawed at previously. “The reference is obviously there,” Marquiss explains. “Maybe it reflects our wariness of communications technology just now – which paradoxically seem to alienate people from themselves. We're all swamped with information so I question whether the band would necessarily want to add to the clickstream.”

Certainly the tone of the record matches this apprehension; the opening ‘Tender Castle’ – one of just two tracks, alongside ‘Spectrelegs’, that date back before the Strange Friend sessions – runs on in, imbued with the band’s recently heard gusto, yet quickly swivels on a tumbling floor of murmuring electronics and cautious intonations, setting the scene for some of the band’s weightiest music yet. There are familiar tropes here; the aforementioned ‘Spectrelegs’ introduces itself by way of a wavering electronic organ, Iain Stewart’s drumming is never less than forthright and punchy, stomping through ‘Local Zero’ with accustomed vigour. But then there are songs like the ominous slow-build tumult of ‘Black Tape’, and the poignant final track ‘Golden Olden’, which sees the band in some-part return to the Scottish folk routes that partly informed their first record (cult Scottish folk favourite Alasdair Roberts also appears on opening track ‘Tender Castles’.) “If Thomas Pynchon was asked to write the screenplay for Young Guns 3 I hope this song would be the soundtrack,” Marquiss reflects.

‘Denise Hopper’ differs again, taking on a melodic structure whipped up as though on an Estesian gust across Turkey, Anthony’s vocal rising and falling in its oscillating breeze. Delivered with steeliness beyond the usual dry wit that’s occasionally hinted at within the group’s usual off-kilter meanderings, the track cracks and breaks amidst a storm of guitar detritus. “That melt down at end could be one of my favourite Phantom Band moments on record to date,” Marquiss comments.

It’d be too broad to call Fears Trending the dark side to Strange Friends’ light. The playful intricacies and deviations of The Phantom Band remain and, after all, the album was recorded at the same time as its sister. “I think it's more about the atmosphere than the writing process that splits the two albums” Anthony reflects. “I guess there was a desire with Strange Friends to come back with no baggage attached and release a record that seemed really straight to the point. This record is straight to the point too but it's just that it's making a different point.” So it goes with The Phantom Band, a group forever changing, each new evolution more often than not a prescient for what’s to come.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tender Castle
2. Local Zero
3. Denise Hopper
4. Black Tape
5. Spectrelegs
6. The Kingfisher
7. Olden Golden

The Budos Band return with 'Burnt Offering'; a wild, booze-fueled ride of hazy riffs and take-no-prisoners horn lines that summons the occult - an evolved sound for this mighty 10-piece band sparked by their love of Black Sabbath and Pentagram.

'Burnt Offering' was recorded live in the studio, engineered and produced by Tom Brenneck, a founding member and guitarist in The Budos Band who runs Dunham Records and Studios. It was written at the band’s longtime Staten Island studio, where they’ve gathered for weekly rehearsals for over fifteen years. The haunting album cover was created by drummer Brian Profilio, a NYC public school art teacher.

The new album is dripping with the psychedelic sounds of early heavy metal fused with the tight-knit propulsion of Fela Kuti. “The Sticks” kicks off with a snarling riff seamlessly doubled on bass and guitar and unfurls into sludgy breakdowns and searing guitars.

The Free Fall Band are five very young timeless pop creators bursting with melody and sublime choruses, hailing from Mataró, a village north Barcelona.

‘Elephants Never Forget’ was the band’s debut album, produced by Miqui Puig and released on LAV Records. The record sums up The Free Fall Band perfectly: echoes of The Beatles, Jonathan Richman, The Shins, The Zombies… fun and emotion in equal measure, carefully assembled arrangements and a youthful image.

2013 put them at the forefront of Spanish pop, thanks to landmark moments such as their performance at the Primavera Sound Festival and supporting Rodriguez in Barcelona. They also released their first step on El Segell del Primavera, an EP with covers of The Strokes, Violent Femmes, New Order, Booker T. & The MGs and Jonathan Richman.

And now their second album arrives. It’s called ‘The Münster Sights’ and shows the band in another level: the songs reflect a band that have been playing and growing as musicians. The album was produced by Darren Hayman (he used to play in Hefner and has a long and amazing solo career) and engineered by Giles Barrett (from London popsters Tigercats), a perfect choice for The Free Fall Band as they’ve long been fans of both musicians. As a result ‘The Münster Sights’ sounds richer and fatter than their previous efforts and contains such great numbers as ‘Fontana’ and ‘I Want To Know’.

TRACK LISTING

I Want To Know
City Of Raleigh
Fontana
Look At Me Run, Dear
Lonesome Cowboy, Solitary Peggy Sue
Oh, What An Awkward Day
By Your Window
Every Man
The Barbershop
A Friend’s Homecoming
The Münster Sights

It all started over a year ago with the caption “Mindblowing psychedelia from Thailand” - the Youtube video that accompanied this headline on the Dangerous Minds website was exactly that. Here was a group of Thai musicians being filmed parading through a remote village hundreds of miles away from Bangkok playing some of the heaviest psych known to mankind out of a crazy homemade soundsystem.

Six months after that first encounter with Khun Narin’s Electric Phin Band, a Los Angeles music producer named Josh Marcy used Facebook and interpreters at his local Thai restaurant to get in contact with the band and inquire whether they’d be interested in having him travel to their town to record their music for a global audience. At first the band was naturally suspicious, but through subsequent interactions the group’s leader and namesake Khun Narin (also known simply as “Rin”) warmed to the idea of having Marcy come visit.

Khun Narin’s Electric Phin Band’s membership is always in rotation and spans several generations, from high school kids to men well into their 60s. A standard engagement has the band setting up at the hosting household during the morning rituals, playing several low-key sets from the comfort of plastic lawn chairs occasionally working in a cover version of a foreign classic while the beer and whiskey flow freely.

Now Innovative Leisure bring us the debut release from Khun Narin's Electric Phin Band, whose music is described by Dangerous Minds as "indescribably beautiful psychedelia". This recording features the band playing a traditional three-stringed lute and using effects pedals, distortion and digital delay, with Fender pickups installed into the lutes' hardwood bodies. It combines heavy psychedelia with rock and electrically modified traditional instruments.

Recommended for fans of William Onyeabor, Ravi Shankar, Os Mutantes, Jimi Hendrix, Mulatu Astatke, Buena Vista Social Club, Ry Cooder, Tinariwen etc. 

Videos of Khun Narin's Electric Phin Band have been featured in The Wire, the blog of globally renowned experimental radio station WFMU, and the popular technology and culture website Boing Boing.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2014 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

The Further Navigations EP is a continuation of the themes which informed The Memory Band album On The Chalk (Our Navigation Of The Line Of The Downs) also released on Static Caravan. Featuring remixes from Belbury Poly and Grantby and a brand new Memory Band track the EP draws inspiration from the ancient "lost road" that is the Harrow Way. The choice of collaborators are two producers who have had a profound impact on The Memory Band sound in different ways, but both bring to the fore the cinematic elements of Stephen Cracknell's approach to traditional music. In the decade since The Memory Band began one of its greatest contemporary influences has been the fine collection of work released by the Ghost Box label, in particular the Belbury Poly aka label boss Jim Jupp. Spectral, haunting and yet vibrant and knowing his work has established Jupp as a truly English original, making some of the essential electronic music of the new century. For "Hobby Horse" Belbury Poly takes the blueprint from the Memory Band's version of the traditional funeral march "When I Was On Horseback" transforms it by speeding it up, flicking the swing setting and produces something that sounds like David Munrow making music for schools on analogue synthesisers. Grantby aka Dan Grigson has a mysterious history, famed for the Timber EP and tracks for labels such as Mo-Wax in the mid ‘90s, his work defined and exceeded trip-hop and garnered a loyal international underground following who spoke of him as an English version of DJ Shadow. Memory Band leader Stephen Cracknell worked alongside Grigson on a one or two of those early recordings and when Grigson withdrew from music after an ill-starred move to Creation Records, Cracknell moved to focus on his own projects which lead to The Memory Band. Recently Grigson returned to music, working on music for film and television music before returning to remixes and production. Here Grantby takes the traditional ballad "As I Walked over Salisbury Plain" leads it into the military zone and the result is "The Ballad Of Imber Down" named after the "lost village" of Imber upon Salisbury Plain, from which its inhabitants were evacuated by the Army during the Second World War only to learn that after the War that it had been decided the village would remain the property of the military and that they could never return again. Their ultimately doomed campaign to return has itself passed into legend.The Memory Band original "Walk Along It" is a hymn to majesty of walking in the open air. It borrows heavily from the anonymous and haunting version of the traditional English tune The Lincolnshire Poacher, broadcast from a shortwave numbers station and believed to be operated by the British secret services.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. The Memory Band & Belbury Poly - Hobby Horse
2. The Memory Band - Walk Along It
Side 2:
3. The Memory Band & Grantby - The Ballad Of Imber Down

With seminal producer Nick Launay (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arcade Fire, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds) at the helm, Band Of Skulls deliver an album which will cement their rock credentials, combining trademark raucous blues riffs, masterful musicianship and faultless vocal harmonies in an album full of raw power and beautiful melodies.

After the success of 2011’s ‘Sweet Sour’, which hit the UK album chart at No14, the band have toured worldwide, with full throttle live shows earning them a reputation as one of the most accomplished, exciting live bands around. In the last year they have shared the stage with Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Black Keys, The Dead Weather, Queens Of The Stone Age and Muse.

Band Of Skulls are performing at the top of their game; 2014 looks set to catapult the band to the forefront of the British music scene. ‘Himalayan’ is one of the most anticipated albums of the year.

Re-released for the first time since 1974, this is the sequel to the classic 1973 ‘Bongo Rock’, which became a foundation of rap and popular music, up to the present day. This LP has been sampled by Bentley Rhythm Ace, Fatboy Slim, Macy Gray, Group Home and Koushik.

The Incredible Bongo Band is a blend of many multi-talented people. Jim Gordon is one of the featured musicians. Ringo Starr has said "Jim is one of the finest drummers in the world". Gordon composed 'Layla' in association with Eric Clapton. King Errisson is one of the best percussionists in the world, having contributed to the Jackson Five and most other Motown hits as well as touring with Diana Ross
.
Perry Botkin Jr. is a writer, musician and producer of the highest order who received an Academy Award nomination for "Bless the Beasts and the Children" and produced groups such as as The Letterman, Vanity Fair and Ed Ames. Micheal Viner formed The Incredible Bongo Band to be a musical forum for himself and his friends. The Bongo Band has picked up ideas from a multitude of greats ranging from Harry Nilsson to Ringo Starr and Mike Deasy, who played with Elvis Presley for many years, made a large contribution to this album.

TRACK LISTING

Kiburi
When The Bed Breaks Down I'll Meet You In The Spring
Sing,Sing,Sing
Pipeline
Wipe Out
Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley Your Tie's Caught In The Zipper
Topsy Part I, Topsy Pat II, Topsy Part III
Sharp Nine
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Got The Sun In The Morning And The Daughter At Night
Ohkey Dokey

"These shows will astonish you. I had tears of joy in my eyes". This was the standout line from a Five Star review by The Guardian newspaper of the live shows by The Magic Band - a collection of extraordinary musicians drawn from the lineups that were brought together over the years by the legendary Captain Beefheart. Tribute bands and ghost bands are usually a decidedly poor relation to the real thing, but The Magic Band are different, as the tracks on this album prove. Recorded at the UK shows during 2004, the material bursts with new life, and the band achieve a near-impossible task - not just playing the notes as they are on the records (hard enough in itself in some cases) but playing them convincingly enough to send a sold-out London audience into ovation after ovation. These are the players who were inducted into the Captain's secret musical universe, and who transformed his unique ideas into works of unfathomable and inimitable beauty, and live in 2005 they did that same thing again.

The Free Fall Band are five very young timeless pop creators bursting with melody and sublime choruses. They appeared out of nowhere three years ago from the Maresme. They quickly gained recognition: finalists of the Demoscópicas de Mondo Sonoro or at the Villa de Bilbao (where they were the winners of the Pop Rock category in 2011) azzaldia de Donosti, Faraday, popArb… a series of achievements that led them to record their debut album, produced by Miqui Puig and released on LAV Records (co-released with Buenritmo).

The record sums up The Free Fall Band perfectly: echoes of The Beatles, Jonathan Richman, The Shins, The Zombies…fun and emotion in equal measure, carefully assembled arrangements and a youthful image.

2013 has put them at the forefront of national pop, thanks to landmark moments such as their performance at the Primavera Sound Festival and supporting Rodriguez in Barcelona. Before the year is out they will play at BAM and will also take part in the Primavera Sound Touring Party that will take them all around Spain.

This next step is a mini album of covers (their first record on El Segell Del Primavera) that includes covers of The Strokes, Violent Femmes, New Order, Booker T & The MGs and Jonathan Richman.

Their second album is planned for the beginning of 2014.

TRACK LISTING

‘Love Vigilantes’ (New Order)
‘The Modern Age’ (The Strokes)
‘When We Refuse To Suffer’ (Jonathan Richman)
‘Green Onions’ (Booker T & The M.G.s)
Violent Femmes Medley

Originating in New York City, Talking Heads drew inspiration from funk, rock, classical minimalism, and African rock to create one of the most individual and stimulating bands to emerge from New Wave. Lead by Byrne’s whimsical, esoteric lyrics and the bands intricately layered polyrhythmic textures, Talking Heads found international fame and went on to become ranked in Rolling Stone’s ‘100 Greatest Artists of All Time’ (2011).

Originally released in 1982, the double live LP ‘The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads’ features the original quartet in recordings from 1977 and 1979, with the second album consisting of their expanded 10 piece line up that toured with the band throughout 1980-81. The release includes the cult hits ‘Psycho Killer’, ‘Life During Wartime’ and ‘Take Me To The River’.

Freewheeling Brattleboro, VT rock/folk wonderments the Happy Jawbone Family Band bring their latest full-length to Mexican Summer. What they’ve entrusted us to give to you represents their finest and most directly fulfilling effort to date.

The energy and humor of early releases remains; that band you may have loved before has grown even stronger and more potent, its songs now monuments to individualism, to longing, to happier endings resulting from imperfect circumstances.

Binding folk, indie rock and pop forms together is easy enough; it’s what this band does with them, how it builds its sentiments and bursts preconceptions, that put them in a place where these musicians can rest, comfortably above and apart from almost every band working in this same terrain today.

We’re hearing the trippiest moments of the Beatles, Lindsey Buckingham at the peaks he reached on Tusk, and both poles of American post-punk songwriting royalty, Camper Van Beethoven at one end and Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 at the other. Try it on.

“Happy Jawbone's disturbed take on whimsy and rebellious, youthful spirit recalls lo-fi stables, Elephant 6 and K Records” - Pitchfork

"something truly defining” - The 405

"beautiful psych-punk creation” - Ad Hoc

TRACK LISTING

1. Everybody Knows About Daddy
2. I Have To Speak With Rocky Balboa
3. D-R-E-A-M-I-N'
4. The Green Light
5. Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid"
6. Stay-at-Home Soldier
7. Can't You Hear Me Ticking
8. Do You Want Me
9. Mr. Clean
10. I'll Never Go Skin Deep Again
11. I Don't Wanna Dance Tonight

Following her hugely successful run as curator of London’s Meltdown Festival, this album continues an astonishing bout of creativity for Ono, who is celebrating her 80th birthday with major museum retrospectives around the world, her 10th #1 hit on the Billboard Dance charts, a sequel to her instruction book Grapefruit, winning "Digital Genius" MTV O Award, and spearheading the activist effort against fracking in her home state of New York. A career retrospective book will be published by Genesis in Autumn followed by reissues of her '60s-80s albums in 2014.

“My new album comes at a very special time for me. The energy I have right now, and the desire to continue to make as much great work as I can, is really moving me forward all the time. This album is the culmination of a lot of ideas I’ve been having over the last few years and I feel proud to release it at such an exciting time of my life."

Take Me To The Land Of Hell was recorded in New York and produced by Yoko, Sean Lennon and Yuka Honda. Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band includes members of Cornelius and Cibo Matto, plus – special guests for this album – tUnEyArDs, ?uestlove, Lenny Kravitz, Nels Cline and Andrew Wyatt. The album includes remixes by Mike D & Adrock and Keigo "Cornelius" Oyamada.

OK, hands up who remembers the album, ‘Fuchsia’ from 1971? Hands-up who loves the mix of acid-folk, progressive rock, strings and songs? Yeah, me too.

Me and My Kites are a new band, from Sweden.

Why is that relevant? They are named after a song on Fuchsia's album, which must say something about their influences and, on their first-ever single, it’s all the more appropriate as Fuchsia's original lead singer Tony Durant wrote and now sings a new version of Fuchsia's song 'The Band' on the a-side (remember those?) of this new 7” on FdM’s Regal Crabomophone label.

The b-side is dedicated to Kevin Ayers, and is an extended version of the Me And My Kites song, Isis’ Adventure, from the band’s new album, ‘Like A Dream Back Then’)

I hope you like it.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Band (written By Tony Durant) 3:15
2. Isis’ Adventure (written By David Svedmyr) 3:30

Strangers Family Band are brothers Rick & Scott Seltzer ,(vocals, guitar & bass) , Juan Londono (vocals/percussion ) and John Randono (keys), originally from Florida but now based in L.A and signed to Dead Meadows Xemu Records label for their first album release. Collaborating with like minded L.A musicians like Jeff Davies (ex Brian Jonestown) , the band’s sound has now evolved in to a fully flared psychedelic experience reflecting the bands interest in obscure 60’s psychedelia. The album has been produced by Dead Meadow’s Steve Kille and mixed by Dave Schiffman (RHCP/BRMC).

‘Son Be Wise’ is the follow-up album to Ralfe Band’s acclaimed album, and soundtrack to the Warp film, ‘Bunny And The Bull’.

‘Son Be Wise’ features guest vocals from Alessi’s Ark and Piney Gir.

The album was recorded with Rob Ellis (PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi) and Andy Ramsay (Stereolab).

Blending euphoric folk pop, whispering ballads and inspired instrumentation, this album will appeal to fans of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Beirut, Villagers, Andrew Bird, M. Ward and Sufjan Stevens.

TRACK LISTING

Ox
Barricades
England My Darling
Oh My Father
Magdalena
Come On Go Wild
Kings And Queens
Dead Souls
Hidden Place
Ladder
Cold Chicago Morning
Boy With An Old Tin
Drum

Stagecoach is a pop rock band from the south of England, with a smashing debut album and UK tour coming in May. Huw Stephens span their single 'Map To The Freezer' exhaustively on both his Radio 1 shows. He then invited the band to play the BBC Introducing stage at Reading & Leeds 2010, before naming Stagecoach one of his BBC Introducing acts of the year. In February 2011 the band recorded a live Radio One session at Maida Vale. You may have heard Stagecoach on BBC One's ‘Gavin and Stacey’ Christmas & New Year specials. Channel 4 also used them on season 2 of ‘Skins’. Two of the band’s tracks feature on the international trailer for this year’s breakout British comedy ‘Killing Bono’. The band recently toured with friends Johnny Foreigner, Glaswegian rockers Twin Atlantic and opened for Jimmy Eat World. With a handful of singles and ep's released through indie labels Alcopop! and This Is Fake DIY the first full length album (produced by Rory Attwell) is due early 2013.

For fans of: Johnny Foreigner, Pavement, Fight Like Apes, Wilco, Los Campesinos, Prefab Sprout Big melodic gutsy slacker pop!

TRACK LISTING

1.) Work! Work! Work!
2.) Action
3.) 56K Dial Up
4.) A New Hand
5.) Threequel
6.) Kings Resolve
7.) First And Last
8.) Nothing Leads You Astray
9.) We Got Tazers
10.) I’m Not Your House
11.) Video Shop

Releases by Stephen Cracknell and his acclaimed project The Memory Band have always lent themselves to journeys and landscape: dream-like stumbles through stony megaliths, wintry climbs along snow-covered hills, drunken dashes through sun-splashed fields with a summer love. Their records have always been more pre-occupied with external narratives than internal emotions. But perhaps never before quite as literally as on adventurous new album On The Chalk (Our Navigation of the Line of the Downs), a beguiling musical tribute to a mythical ancient pathway crossing a Southern England shrouded in mystery and withered by time.

Made of eleven songs spread across haunting horn noises, crackles, drones, blissed-out beats and tender piano melodies, this fourth studio album marks the tenth anniversary of one the most invigorating and much loved folk acts around, a group described by NME as “a disorientating, drugged-up soundtrack for the 21st Century… genuinely beautiful.” And speaking of monumental journeys, it’s been quite a road to this moment for Cracknell and his ever evolving cast of collaborators.“I’ve had a decade of marginal poverty, nice trips and the company of wonderful dreamers,” laughs the mercurial composer, formerly seen fronting much loved outfits The Accidental and Balearic Folk Orchestra. “The idea with this record was it to be sort of a road trip along a mythical track way, an irreverent and episodic journey across a landscape inundated with history and the marks of change and transformation, some striking and immediate, others slow and imperceptible.”

He may as well be describing his own sounds to be found in On The Chalk… – for every jaw-dropping shimmer of harp or arresting moment of reed organ, there’s an avalanche of clever quiet detail to be unearthed, with cinematic overtones that recall his Wicker Man touring soundtrack that Cracknell has taken to fields everywhere from Glastonbury, Green Man to a castle in Jersey.Cracknell says: “There’s been a real revival of interest lately in old roads and green lanes, in literature, art and film. This has run parallel to so much of the renewed interest in folklore and folk music. One supposedly ancient trackway that I'd hear referenced again and again was the Harrow Way, which stretched from the Straits Of Dover all the way to the west country by an overland route on chalk ridgeways. I grew up in a place supposedly along its route.”What followed was a period of extensive research, digging deep into his own past and the World around him, listening to a strange combination of traditional folk-songs and seminal British landscape music such as Chill Out by acid house pranksters the KLF, tracing old roads and creating ambient recordings on site for use on the album. ”It was all a lot of fun, running round the country playing at psycho-geography,” recalls Cracknell. “Like the landscape that inspired it, it’s an album that at times is dark and imposing and at others more peaceful and serene.”Recorded in the songwriter’s home studio in East London (“an empty schoolroom overlooking a park… quite a peaceful place for London, really”), this is an album by a group who, like their subject matter, have changed and grown over time, but remain every bit as vital as ever.

The first Ralfe Band single from the forthcoming ‘Son Be Wise’ album, the follow-up to their acclaimed album and soundtrack to the Warp film ‘Bunny And The Bull’.

New single ‘Come On Go Wild’ is a madcap Bossa nova sure to brighten your ears and bring a smile to your face.

For fans of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Beirut, Villagers, Andrew Bird, M.Ward and Sufjan Stevens.

TRACK LISTING

Come On Go Wild
Horse To The Hinterland

Debut single from French 3-piece electronic garage band, The Jimi Ben Band. Based in Lille, France, they came to our attention having played with Thee Spivs. We strongly suggest you YouTube the video to experience the full majesty and psychedelic majesty of the band.

Once upon a time, Jimi Ben found himself lost in the jungle. He had been wandering in South East Asia for years and could find no way out. One night he was cruising for dirt and love, he got struck by sexedelic visions emerging from the red lights of go-go bars. An inner baboon voice told him: “Jimi ! Bad is good for you. Why don’t you set up a Rock’N’Roll band ?”. That’s exactly what he did. Back in his hometown (Stockton, Northern France), he was taught by long time friend Ricky Love how to play power chords on a guitar and recorded a first LP demo on a 4 tracks tape recorder in his kitchen.In December 2009, Johnny Boom (drums) joined Ricky Love (bass, vocals) and Jimi Ben (vocals, guitars) for their first show and further DIY tape recordings (Monkeys In Da House EP – 2011). Mainly influenced by American Garage bands, 60’s British Beat groups, Surf Music, Punk Rock and New Wave, these slackers like it rather cheesy, danceable and fun. The Jimi Ben Band started as a lo-fi garage trio. Since then, they have performed about 40 shows in France and Belgium and developed a degenerate style based on energy, coconut vocals and great amounts of reverb. They have made it quite clear that they wanted nothing but having girls dancing at gigs.

Family Band is a collaboration between visual artist turned singer Kim Krans and heavy-metal guitarist Jonny Ollsin. The couple met in the Catskill Mountains in 2005 and still write many of their songs there in a two room, hand-built cabin.

‘Grace & Lies’ is the group's second album, and as the title suggests, it is equal parts light and shadow, evoking the mystery and terror of early Cat Power, the ghostly aura of Warpaint (with whom Family Band toured in 2011), and the hushed longing of prime-era Cowboy Junkies.

Though they explored similar territory - both sonically and lyrically - on their self-released debut, ‘Miller Path’, on ‘Grace & Lies’ their canvas is wider; the greys lusher; the blacks deeper.

TRACK LISTING

Night Song
Lace
Moonbeams
Ride
Your Name
Again
Grace & Lies
Keeper
Rest

‘The Devil Takes Care Of His Own’ is a prime example of the band’s swaggering, blues-rock sound, tipping its hat to Led Zep, whilst the Unkle remix of ‘Sweet Sour’ is the product of a recent Hong Kong art exhibit collaboration between the two groups.

Originally available as a limited edition, one sided 7", this new version  features an Unkle remix of the title track of the band’s second album, ‘Sweet Sour’.

As you'd expect from Ike Turner's band, the playing is top notch on this killer blues rocker featuring vox from Willie King, who's happy with a one legged woman on side A and less happy with the mistreating woman on the soulful blues B-side cut featuring much Tremelo vibrato on the guitar.

‘Blues Funeral’ is the new Mark Lanegan Band record, the first since 2004’s ‘Bubblegum’, recorded in Hollywood, California by Alain Johannes at his 11ad studio. In the mean time, he’s been busy working with the likes of Isobel Campbell, Twilight Singers, Gutter Twins and Soulsavers. Here, the music was played by Johannes and Jack Irons with appearances from Greg Dulli, Josh Homme et al.

The awesome ‘Gravedigger’s Song’ kicks things off, with it’s pounding, claustrophobic beats. The tempo slows for the next track ‘Bleeding Muddy Water’, with it’s soulful, pulsing groove. In fact, the whole album ‘grooves’ to varying degrees, from slow and soulful, to Kraut-ish metronomy, to almost funky – yes really! There’s a lot going on here, and it’s taken me a good few listens to get to grips with it, but as ever, Mark’s dark tales, delivered in his distinctive gravelly tones have won me over.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Gravedigger’s Song
2. Bleeding Muddy Water
3. Gray Goes Black
4. St. Louis Elegy
5. Riot In My House
6. Ode To Sad Disco
7. Phantasmagoria Blues
8. Quiver Syndrome
9. Harborview Hospital
10. Leviathan
11. Deep Black Vanishing Train
12. Tiny Grain Of Truth

'Ternion', from the Latin for a group of three, sees We Have Band make a stylistic leap on from their debut 'WHB', which despite its critical acclaim the band were keen not to repeat.

Dede Wegg-Prosser: "The first album was us getting together and having fun. We really weren’t expecting anyone else to hear it or come watch us play it. Whereas this time we knew we were making a record with the knowledge that people would be listening, it gives you a very different mindset."

Darren Bancroft: "We were very aware of where out first album sat and whilst we were happy with it we knew it wasn't a place we wanted to revisit. We knew there was a task ahead of us in writing this record; we needed to write a different kind of record. People would say to us oh you're a 'buzz band' or 'you're an electro band' and that was fine, but for us it was also clear it was time to move forward."

Moving forward meant a radical change in how the band approached writing the new album. From the music through to the lyrics they wanted to create something 'timeless', and so they began to look inward, mining the experiences that they had shared as their career had taken off.

The result is a very different record, an intensely personal album that manages to be both uplifting and melancholic. Gone are the nonsense lyrics replaced by frank and honest accounts of their relationships, struggles to make sense of the world around them and the effect, both physical and emotional, of a life on the road.

Musically too, 'Ternion' reveals a very different band to the one who first burst onto the scene in 2008. The increased use of live instrumentation and extra time spent getting every sound just right with ex Clor member and Foals producer Luke Smith at his Flesh and Bone Studios in London shines through every song.

Thomas Wegg-Prosser: "The first album was really digital, chopped up and quick, and those things are all quite urban. You can listen to it and pin down when it was recorded and what scene it was part of, but with this record we've moved away from that sound. There's a lot of warmth in the band and that comes through in this record."

TRACK LISTING

CD1:
1. Shift
2. After All
3. Where Are Your People?
4. Visionary
5. What’s Mine, What’s Yours
6. Steel In The Groove
7. Tired Of Running
8. Watertight
9. Rivers Of Blood
10. Pressure On

CD2: 'Ternion Aside' Bonus Disc - A Tom WHB Album Rework

5 Tracks of post apocalyptico techno from Urban Americanica fore runners Moon Pool & Dead Band....Detroit, Michigan being the birthing place for this ..Moon Pool & Dead Band, A duo who deal in old school DIY tweaked and bleaked techno ideal that assimilates the dystopian furies oft found amongst some of the master-works of John Carpenter to a no-future groove. Moon Pool & Dead Band is David Shettler and Nate Young.

"It is all analog synth, real drums and whatever.. played live=no overdubs, make no mistake this is syncopated synthesizer music or Detroit Techno....Dance music" ---Nate Young.

Amazing sleeve art...see to believe! 700 only.

Soundway return once more to the Caribbean and are proud to present ‘Ifetayo’ by Black Truth Rhythm Band originally released in 1976. Led by the charismatic Oluko Imo, ‘Ifetayo’ was the only release from the Afro-centric, Trinidadian band and is re-issued here for the first time on CD and vinyl. Whereas most of their peers at the time were looking to the funk of the USA & James Brown for inspiration, Black Truth Rhythm Band looked to Africa, fusing rhythms from Africa and the West Indies with elements of jazz, funk, calypso and soul.

In 1975 Imo took his musicians into the studio to record the album ‘Ifetayo’. Imo played bass, kalimba, conga, flute and percussion as well as lead vocals. The album was released the following year in 1976 and despite being released in the US, remained an underground, albeit unique and forward thinking record that has remained out of print for years now. ‘Ifetayo’ was to be the only release from Black Truth Rhythm Band but Imo continued his music and love of African rhythms, going onto record with Fela Kuti in 1988 and later on perform with members of Fela’s Egypt 80 band.

TRACK LISTING

Ifetayo 
You People
Save D Musician 
Kilimanjaro 
Aspire 
Umbala
*Imo 

Bonus Track Available On SNDWLP033X Version Only.

In a decade which has seen a wide ranging and fruitful revival of interest in folk music, Stephen Cracknell's The Memory Band has established itself in that fine English tradition of slightly schizophrenic projects pointing in several directions at once which manage to find their place in the ever exciting independent music scene, popping up at several influential moments and though the marvels of technology finding audiences all around the world.

From the outset The Memory Band has embraced change and for its third album, "Oh My Days", the ever-fluid line-up of The Memory Band has shifted once more, with a fresh emphasis on rhythm courtesy of the powerhouse team of bassist Jon Thorne from Lamb and drummer Tom Page of Rocketnumbernine, as well as an all-new vocal frontline featuring Jess Roberts, Jenny McCormick, Hannah Caughlin and Liam Bailey (whose debut album is out on Poyldor later this year). Sam Carter, winner of this year's Horizon award at the Radio 2 Folk Awards, plays and sings on a number of songs, while there are contributions from names new and old; Nancy Wallace, Dot Allison, Sam Genders on vocals, guitarists John Smith and Pete Greenwood, bassist Jonny Bridgwood, string players Quinta, Rob Spriggs, Jennymay Logan and Laura Moody, Sarah Scutt on accordion and recorder, and Serafina Steer on harp.

"Oh My Days" is a warmly-textured, delicately-balanced blend of the best elements from its predecessors. Low-key electronic pulses and loops purr away gently beneath material that radiates a quiet strength, having expanded its palette to embrace soul, gospel, Laurel Canyon rock and country blues alongside the folk and jazz elements of the earlier albums. It's a beautifully-poised piece of work, with the usual handful of inspired covers – Sandy Denny's "By The Time It Gets Dark", Graham Bond's "Love Is The Law" and Jeff Alexander's "Come Wander With Me" (from the TV series The Twilight Zone) – nestling amongst ten originals, several of which are already live favourites.

The Straw Bear Band is the main focus of attention for Dominic Cooper - member of the Owl Service collective and inhouse graphic designer for the Rif Mountain label (of which he is also a co-founder). The Straw Bear Band play a kind of 'garage-folk'; stripped down, raw, earthy, and concerned with the darker, more grim aspects of our aural heritage. During a break from recording their second album (a mammoth 26-track concept album which is an A-Z of songs about British eccentrics), the band cut these 2 sides in the studio of producer/multi-instrumentalist Gerry Diver (best known for his work with Lisa Knapp). The songs are both traditional re-workings, and both are elevated to new levels from any previous recorded versions. A Lyke Wake Dirge is performed as a driving, chorus-led stomp-fest, while Nottamun Town is presented in a stark, angular arrangement which suits the dream-like lyric perfectly - the portentous percussion and Diver's wild, bewitching violin used to stunning effect.

The band are named after a folk festival which takes place in the town of Whittlesey where Dominic Cooper grew up. Each year since at least the mid-19th century, a man dressed as a straw bear visits all the ale-houses in the town to entertain the patrons before being torched in a breathtaking finale (sadly, this event has lost much of it's charm since the intervention of health and safety executives).

For fans of Alasdair Roberts, The Owl Service, Cath & Phil Tyler.

‘No man is an island’ wrote John Donne, but what about bands? Well, they’re probably not islands either, but like most things in life, you need exceptions to prove the rule. That’s why it was so remarkable when The Phantom Band, with their legion of musical references, still managed to sound quite unlike anyone else when they released "Checkmate Savage" in 2009, a debut that earned mass critical applause and made them the cult success of the year. Twelve months later, they’re still in a movement of one, and their follow-up, "The Wants", looks set to cement their reputation as one of the most inventive and vital units at work today.

If "Checkmate Savage" was the product of a band mulling over the human race’s inexorable slide into oblivion, then its follow-up found them turning feral and heading for the hills to ride out the storm. Holing up in Chem19 (Chemikal Underground’s studio in the wastelands of Blantyre), The Phantom Band immersed themselves in a primordial soup of influences before emerging six months later, emaciated and squinting in the pallid sunlight, cradling "The Wants": a nine-track musical folly and the soundtrack to their own personal apocalypse.

Charged with creating a second album more or less from scratch and in situ - an album upon which their creative and material survival depended - they contracted a virulent strain of cabin fever and promptly set sail into the mouth of madness. Keyboardist Andy Wake elaborates: 'As you know, The Phantom Band was built on the site of an ancient Indian burial ground, so every time we record it's like an emotional exorcism. It's painful, prolonged, confusing; at times it's hard to tell what's happening outside of this other-world'. Guiding them through this tortuous birthing process was the chimerical figure of Mungo Bang, 'a spiritual adviser of sorts who came highly recommended. He also added vibes'.

Their madness had method, because a lot came out in the mix: a forest of tuned percussion, poly-rhythmic group vocals, fuzz guitars and medieval electronics. Musical inspirations included David Lynch and John Carpenter soundtracks, German kosmische music of the 70’s, Tom Waits, digidub rhythms, R&B harmonies, doo-wop and rock'n'roll. Lyrical inspiration emerged from lycanthropy, vampires, doppelgangers and the Salem witch trials. That’s also Teenage Fanclub’s Wurlitzer organ you can hear on "Everybody Knows It’s True", alongside a host of other instruments, both homemade and hard-bought. Various bits of furniture, wood, a toy drum machine, some home-made drum triggers and FX pedals (aptly named the Phantosizer), shelvaphones, a dulcimer and the studio fire extinguisher - all had roles to play on the final recording. 'Sink [Greg Sinclair] appeared at rehearsal one day with what looked like a body bag containing at least one corpse. It turned out to be a full size vibrophone with all the trimmings', explains Wake. If any more evidence of creative initiative was required, the album opens with the sound of a baliphone being sawed into tune in preparation for a take.

The end product represents a major leap forward for the band, a sound more of their own. Juxtapositions are more apparent – arcane folk melodies and gothic lyrical imagery straddle vintage analogue synths and primitive drum machines. 'Where Checkmate Savage was varied, we've intensified those elements, because we've got no reason to be subtle with them', says Wake. 'It's much more concentrated, more skilfully executed and with more decoration. It’s "Checkmate Savage" - On Ice'.

The Phantom Band was pulled together from all four corners of Scotland, settling on Glasgow as PB HQ. Duncan Marquiss (guitar), Gerry Hart (bass), Andy Wake (keyboards), Rick Anthony (vocals) and Greg Sinclair (guitars) are a volatile cabal of creative contradictions: a disorientating amalgam of music, art and performance that defies categorisation and provides an object lesson in how to forge something distinct and unique from well-worn sources. "Checkmate Savage" won plaudits from the mainstream music press and the indie blogs alike, finding famous fans in Peter Buck and comic artist Frank Quitely, while the influential music emporium Piccadilly Records named it their album of the year. Their new album may be "The Wants", but what do The Phantom Band want for? 'Survival. For this album to lead to another after it, that's all. We think it's better than the last one, and if anyone agrees with us then brilliant, they can hop aboard. Those who disagree can hop aboard too, but they're sailing at the stern'.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: The mighty Phantom Band return with a superb follow up to their debut album, which was our Album Of The Year in 2009. "The Wants" picks up where "Checkmate Savage" left off adding more and more layers to their already complex sound. It's less motorik than their debut, but still with their distinctive pulsing rhythms at the heart of it. There's more analogue synth action and knob twiddling going on this time around and on each listen, you're plunged deeper into their world.
The first band to get a Piccadillly Album Of The Year in consecutive years? The competition is pretty stiff this year, but it's definitely in the running.....

TRACK LISTING

1. A Glamour
2. O
3. Everybody Knows It's True
4. The None Of One
5. Mr. Natural
6. Come Away In The Dark
7. Walls
8. Into The Corn
9. Goodnight Arrow

Says Yoko: 'In this very special year which would have seen my husband and life partner reach the age of 70, I hope that this remastering/reissue programme will help bring his incredible music to a whole new audience. By remastering almost 150 songs spanning 8 of his most brilliant albums, I hope also that those who are already familiar with his work will find renewed inspiration from his incredible gifts as a songwriter, musician and vocalist and from his power as a commentator on the human condition'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Mother (2010 Digital Remaster)
2. Hold On (2010 Digital Remaster)
3. I Found Out (2010 Digital Remaster)
4. Working Class Hero (2010 Digital Remaster)
5. Isolation (2010 Digital Remaster)
6. Remember (2010 Digital Remaster)
7. Love (2010 Digital Remaster)
8. Well Well Well (2010 Digital Remaster)
9. Look At Me (2010 Digital Remaster)
10. God (2010 Digital Remaster)
11. My Mummy's Dead (2010 Digital Remaster)

Tim Robbins, Oscar winning actor, director and writer, releases his debut album.

Produced by the legendary Hal Willner, the album features a host of world class musicians, including Kate St John, Leo Abrahams, Roger Eno and Rory McFarlane, amongst others.

TRACK LISTING

1. Book Of Josie
2. You’re My Dare
3. Dreams
4. Time To Kill
5. Toledo Girl
6. Queen Of Dreams
7. Crush On You
8. Moment In The Sun
9. Lightning Calls

"Nick Holmes can turn a cliche into a catch-phrase and a platitude into a stinging sentence that loops around your brain for a decade." - Melvyn Bragg.

While it has only been 18 months since Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band's self-titled debut, they have traveled what feels like thousands of miles. "Where The Messengers Meet" is in real time, an expansion of the sound of the band's eponymous debut. They take the same frantic and skewed elements and stretch them out, giving them room to breathe and blossom.

Thematically, "Where The Messengers Meet" is an exercise in contrasts: the delicate and gentle, the dark and furious. Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band collects powerful compositions into one cohesive whole held together with lush production and a haunting atmosphere. They are imperceptibly inching away from an angular style influenced by Modest Mouse and Wolf Parade, instead incorporating an epic sound recalling both the modern masters such as Arcade Fire, and classic pioneers, like Pink Floyd.

Two killers from the Ebb stable back to back! On side A Floyd Dixon hits us with the brilliant jivin' rock & roller "Ooh Little Girl", while on the flip Tony Harris, JJ Jones And Band deliver hollering slinkie slowie "Try This Li'l Ole Heart".

PC Worship is the music making project of Justin Frye (Teeth Mountain, Gary War) who lives in Brooklyn, NY. The sound is all over the board, containing elements of free jazz, grunge, psychedelic punk and pop to create a wash of consonant and disorienting sound.

"War Dream", the second album from Baltimore’s Crazy Dreams Band, is saturated with heaviness, psychedelia, pomp and grit, and noticeably lacking any nostalgia hangups. This rock music is refractory and satisfyingly off; put on a slide, manipulated and projected on a screen, or felt through a chain-link fence. Lost love, genocide and forgotten histories collide with raw-dog vocal thundering, slippery bass frequencies, adventurous percussion and seductive guitar ripples.

Opener “Feels So Good” is a swirling dirge that could be a half-figured-out version of “Carouselambra”; “Awkward for Everyone” showcases recent addition Jorge Martins of Lisbon duo Fish & Sheep playing what sounds like a deflating blow-up Les Paul copy that actually has strings - you’ve got to hear the killer solo! The sidelong “Life Is the Knife” is like a secret ritual from an unreleased Billy Jack sequel where he went back
to Vietnam and built a temple that bled the purest opium. Here, Jake Freeman’s adventurous sub-frequencies and Nick Becker’s saucy space wanderings shine on to break the dawn in half. "War Dream" was recorded in three days at Beat Babies in Woodstock, MD, by Chris Freeland (OXES, Frenemies, Long Live Death, Baltimore Rowdies
Collective) with heaping platefuls of assistance from his brother Mickey (Bow ’n’ Arrow, Height with Friends) and a cat that looked like a dirty snowman.

1980 album from post Can project.

Phantom Band is: Jaki Liebezeit (Can etc.), Rosko Gee (Can, Traffic), Helmut Zerlett (eg Dunkelziffer, Unknown Cases), Dominik von Senger (eg Dunkelziffer, Damo Suzuki Band/Network), Olek Gelba, Sheldon Ancel.

Guest musician: Holger Czukay

The music on “Phantom Band”: Can-style monotonic polyrhythms meets afrobeat, funk, jazz, disco, reggae, dub.

1981 album from post Can project.

Bizarre, how the magnificence of some music only comes to be recognized retrospectively. The albums of the Cologne combo put together by Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit undoubtedly falls into that category. In spite of continuing in the vein of the last three Can albums, the Phantom Band (recording three albums themselves) remain unknown to many who would count themselves fans of Can. The two LPs from 1980 (“Phantom Band”) and 1981 (“Freedom Of Speech”) are quite different to each other – although there was just a single change in personnel: whilst ex-Can bass player Rosko Gee (earlier Steve Winwood’s bassist in Traffic) played a significant part in both the music and the production of the first, he was absent from the next. The surviving quartet managed without a bass for the most part (or substituted a keyboard) and invited spoken word performer Sheldon Ancel to step up to the microphone. And whilst the debut album revealed many Caribbean or African influences and a generally positive frame of mind, “Freedom of Speech” is a somewhat darker avant-garde rock manifesto, interspersed with individual dub or reggae pieces. All they have in common are Jaki Liebezeit’s inimitable monotone polyrhythmic drumming and the Phantom Band’s predilection for hypnotic (Jamaican) grooves.

The CD booklet and LP insert features comments by Jaki Liebezeit, Helmut Zerlett and Dominik von Senger, bringing to life the creation and unique chemistry of the Phantom Band.

Ralfe Band are based around the talents of British songwriter Oliver Ralfe. Here they have created a magical, inventive and atmospheric soundtrack, with enchanting melodies and beautiful instrumentation including piano, guitars, mandolin, accordion, strings, brass and electronic elements.

From Fluxus and performance-art pioneer and Two Virgins to chart-topping dance-music heroine(inspiring punk rock along the way), Yoko Ono has been an innovative and influential force on music and art, while simultaneously campaigning for peace on the world's stage. At 76 years young, Yoko continues to kick ass. "Between My Head And The Sky", a career-defining album made with her new Plastic Ono Band. The record is a gorgeous, mind-melting blend of styles, restating and sharpening themes while plunging into the always-mysterious future. Band includes Keigo 'Cornelius' Oyamada and his band members Yuko Araki and Shimmy Shimizu, Sean Lennon, Yuka Honda (of Cibo Matto) as well as NYC improvisers Erik Friedlander, Shahzad Ismaily, Michael Leonhart, Daniel Carter and Indigo Street. Raw rockers, electronic pulse glimmers, dark late-night improvisations and heart-breaking elegiac ballads- Yoko takes a variety of textual approaches on this beautifully balanced collection of work. A career-defining album by one of contemporary culture's reigning geniuses.

"Bodies Of Water" is the debut album from Minneapolis trio Solid Band. Self-released in the States at the end of 2008, the album and the band's singles "Get Over It and "Bible Thumper" - both included here - have been garnering rave reviews across the blogs. "Bodies Of Water" manages to navigate that tricky combination of a indie band sound with more electronic edges really well. The trick is in the song writing, which Solid Band do with aplomb, underpinning layers of warm synth pads and washes, and that 'dancefloor' edge with memorable tunes and rock-solid playing. Like MGMT and Passion Pit, Solid Band are sure to provide dance aficionados with their indie fix, while not frightening the indie kids away with style over substance and no tunes!

From their first gig in April 08, The Hayley Faye Band have garnered a loyal following. This debut single features two tracks: "Babysleepmode", which is driven by a propulsive snare drum beat and the upbeat stomp of "Kings And Queens", with both tracks being defined by Hayley's distinctive, charismatic vocals and perceptive lyrics.

Creating your own genre of music is not for the faint hearted and this is exactly what this album uncompromisingly sets out to do. Despite strong influences from the Mediterranean and the Middle East, it admirably keeps its feet firmly on the ground of Manchester and British Indie. Following in the footsteps of British bands Asian Dub Foundation and Transglobal Underground, the album layers exotic sounds like darbuka, saz and bouzouki over a strong, driving back beat. From electric guitar to the haunting Turkish çümbüş, each song holds small surprises from the unusual array of instruments arranged with loving attention to detail.

A mixture of Darwish's songs in English and modern rearrangements of Turkish and Kurdish songs, this album successfully fuses lyrics in English, Turkish and two Kurdish languages. Anatolian folk songs, some thought to be over 300 years old, sit comfortably next to some of the most biting English lyrics to have been written in recent times. The whole album has a meaningful weight to it but never becomes trite or pompous like so many of its world music counterparts.

The country and eastern sound is both uplifting and adventurous, never more exemplified than in the stomping cover of Dolly Parton's classic song "Jolene". Every listen reveals a new detail from the many intricate layers that go together to set this album in a world of is own. With anthemic and poetical comments on immigration and the Iraq war it is firmly set in the 21st century but the breathtakingly original mixture of languages and sounds from east and west takes you to a world where the only borders really are in your mind.

Limited 7" from this hot Sydney three piece, bursting on to the music scene with a fuzzed out guitar sound, the simplicity of a three piece format and the haunting vocals of Sarah Kelly. This is distorto dream pop, that reminds me of Juliana Hatfield and Lush a bit too. Sisters Sarah and Lizzie Kelly form the core of the band and record with the addition of a boy drummer / vocalist.

Band Of Horses 2006 debut, "Everything All The Time" was a big favourite here at Piccadilly and so naturally we're very excited about this follow up. For a lot of reasons, "Cease to Begin" is the perfect title for this record. Not only do the songs themselves weave this theme through the record, but stopping and starting anew is also a reflection of the past year and a half for Band Of Horses. Though they worked with producer Phil Ek again, as they did on "Everything All The Time", much has changed between the fairly recent then and now. There have been band members who have come and gone, including Mat Brooke, who left the band to pursue other interests and his own band. For core members Ben Bridwell, Rob Hampton and Creighton Barrett, there has been a move from Seattle, WA to Mt. Pleasant, SC, a relocation that had been planned for some time so that they could all be closer to their families. And, close friends and family have come and gone-some far too early. Necessarily shot through with these experiences, the songs on "Cease To Begin" are strikingly beautiful, if less elliptical and more straightforward, with more sophisticated arrangements than the last record. It certainly doesn't disappoint.

TRACK LISTING

Is There A Ghost
Ode To LRC
No One’s Gonna Love You
Detlef Schrempf
The General Specific
Lamb On The Lam (In The City)
Islands On The Coast
Marry Song
Cigarettes, Wedding Bands
Window Blues

This is Anticon co-founder Sole's official follow up to 2005's "Live From Rome" LP, and first release with his new band, Skyrider. It's the label's finest hip hop album since Sage Francis' classic "Personal Journals" way back in 2002. In some ways, this is a record of return - a return to rhyming for one, particularly the complicated rhyme schemes that marked Sole's early work, a return driven by his seeming, but not actual, discordant love of both Lord Byron and Lil' Wayne. It's a record where the lovely analog of "Shipwreckers" (where Sole jacks the hook from the Guy Debord film Refutation Of All Judgements) comfortably co-habits with the grinding, anthemic opening track "A Sad Day For Investors".

"Wake Of The Dying Sun King" is the second full-length of epic meditative drone from this South Western Virginia collective. Like Pelt (with whom it shares several members), Spiral Joy Band uses mostly acoustic instruments to create slow, building pieces rich with human detail. The steady rolling of multiple Tibetan bowls, bowed and struck gongs, hypnotic fiddle, sruti box, and other instruments are recorded live in continuous performances that frequently stretch beyond an hour per piece. The performance aspect is key to Spiral Joy Band's aura - the variations in approach, force, etc. with which each tone is played, and the clear, open recording (mostly in Blacksburg's Glade baptist church) highlight the subtleties of the music.

A new Joanna Newsom record already? Don't rub your eyes and ears just yet —it's 'just' an EP. But with all new arrangements and performances of two already-classic Joanna songs and the debut of a brand-new song, it's a solid short-play record at least — and another inspiring slice of Newsom at best! The EP was performed by Joanna's road-tested band: Kevin Barker, Neal Morgan, Dan Cantrell and Ryan Francesconi, with Joanna Newsom singing and playing her harp. Recorded and mixed in its entirety by Tim Green at The Plant Studios in Sausalito, California, it's an all-new, live and lively look into the world of one of today's fastest-growing young artists. Both formats feature "Colleen", "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie" and "Cosmia".

While it's true to say that when they came together in 1965 The Incredible String Band were, ostensibly, an acoustic folk group, even in these early days they mixed in elements of folk, blues, bluegrass and jazz, akin to an American style jug band, and very different from any other performers or groups on the folk scene in England and Scotland. By the time they released their two most rightly celebrated albums, "The 5000 Spirits" and "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter" in 1967 and 1968 respectively, The Incredible String Band had come to embody the notion of the hippie ideal. They were extraordinary records, incorporating Indian and African traditions and effectively presenting 'World music' for the first time, some 25 years before the term was coined. Right now, as folk music goes through one of its regular revivals and has become hip once again under the umbrella of nu-folk, alt-folk or twisted folk, call it what you will, The Incredible String Band, now find themselves revered gurus of this new scene. Since the ISP began performing together again in 1999, they have been embraced by these younger musicians both here and in America and just last year flew the flag for the old guard at the Green Man Festival along side the likes of Bonnie Prince Billy, Espers and Joanna Newsom. It's a fitting time to present a new introduction to the Incredible String Band, here drawn from "The Elektra Years", a groundbreaking and exhilarating five year period from 66-71. The collection is a convenient starter pack. You'll hear nothing in the music of today to compare with the unique sound of the Incredible String Band.

One of the most enigmatic, mysterious, and defiantly anti-commercial groups to emerge from the New York loft scene during the 90s, the No-Neck Blues Band formed in 1992 around a consistent core of multi-instrumentalists who have stubbornly and admirably insist on individual anonymity. Incorporating elements of folk, drone, psychedelia, free jazz, noise, and just about everything else, NNCK have nevertheless carved out a distinctive sound from complementary and disparate component elements. "Letters From The Earth" was NNCK's first digital output and is a document of their first ever outdoor Orthodox Easter concert in 1996. This double CD outputs 111 or so minutes worth of this group's dizzying array of sonic blattage, cable disruption, tribal tranceadelics and trip or drone aesthetic.

Debut EP from this Manchester based five piece who've been peddling their own brand of dandy-rock across the city since the start of 2006. The EP features four tracks: the title track is an insight into the chaos of a band hurtling towards destruction, "Preensters" rails against the shallowness and desperation of figures that writhe in the darkness around them, "Leaving Soon" is a heartfelt plea from a character who is trapped in the daily grind of 9 to 5, and the EP finishes with the leftfield pop of "(My Girlfriend Is Like A) Trojan Horse".

This long running but until-now-undocumented Virginia group was founded in 2001 by Pelt members Mikel Dimmick and Mike Gangloff with Karl Precoda (Last Days Of May, The Dream Syndicate). Their debut CD concentrates on live performances featuring marathon, unorthodox drone treaties for acoustic instruments, including tibetan singing bowl, gong, sruti, and esraj. The bowed, rolled, and (usually) gently struck metal percussion anchors the sound with rich, resonating tones. The music is a cousin to Pelt's explorations. "Lullaby 1" is built almost entirely on the gongs and bowls, a slowly building narcoleptic trip. The forty-one-minute epic "Lullaby 2" begins with Gangloff on esraj, building up a trance before the shenais and sharply struck gongs take over at the climax of the piece. "Lullaby 3" throws some surprisingly melodic and active piano into the mix, evoking a long-form version of Popol Vuh's "Die Nacht Der Seele".

The 1966 debut from the forward-thinking furry folkies. Recorded as a trio before their inspiring trips to Morocco and Afghanistan, it's a straight-ahead blend of traditional and original material, played in a mix of American and Celtic folk styles.

Featuring 15 original tracks and boasting some stunning guest appearances, "Bubblegum" is simply one of Mark Lanegan's (Screaming Trees singer and Queens Of The Stone Age member) best albums, a stunning dark americana journey full of tales of remorse and loneliness delivered by his unique and emotive gravel-edged voice. Musical assistance on "Bubblegum" comes from luminaries including Queens Of The Stone Age bandmates Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri, PJ Harvey (who provides vocals on "Hit The City" and "Come To Me"), Afghan Whigs and Twilight Singers' Greg Dulli and Ween's Dean Ween amongst others.

This third album from Silver Mt. Zion, is by far the most melodic album released by any Godspeed You Black Emperor project. On this release, they expand on their core six piece line-up, to include guests on drums and a couple of dozen folk on choral duty! Dense layers of strings collide, blend and differentiate against a backdrop of ragged repeating guitar figures and noise treatments. Their long instrumental passages are there as ever, but there's a much stronger vocal presence than before.

From the Floydian Mellotron ballad of "In My First Mind" to the seagulls and wavesounds on "The Beauty of Time Is That It's Snowing" the first Steve Miller Band album from 1968 is full of suprises, each track segues into the next and can be termed a concept album, there is a blues feel about it but there are also moments of psychedelia and progressive rock that make you really sit up. A minor classic.

"Number 5" the Steve Miller Band's 1970 release remains a real favourite amongst his fans. It seems to epitomise his early work (prior to his car crash and later more pop-orientated career). It's full of melodic, spacey guitar-led songs with much use of the Echoplex. It includes classic Miller songs like "Good Morning", "Going To The Country" and "Jackson-Kent Blues".

Opening with the haunting "Song For Our Ancestors" Steve Miller's 1968 album "Sailor" is probably the finest of his career. The band were on song with half the album more bluesy and the other half more rockin'. It includes classic Miller songs like "Living In The USA" and "Gangster Of Love". With Stones producer Glyn Johns at the controls, this is a great album if you love that epic 60s San Francisco sound.

The Souther, Hillman, Furay Band was one of those supergroup creations of the 70s. Chris Hillman was an original member of The Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers, Richie Furay was one of the founders of Buffalo Springfield and Poco, and JD Souther worked with Glen Frey of The Eagles. In 1974 they formed this outfit and recorded this eponymous album of counrty tinged soft rock with Manassas style guitar and plenty of classy songwriting.

Souther-Hillman-Furay was the offspring of just about every notable country-rock band. Richie Furay was a founding member of both Buffalo Springfield and Poco, Chris Hillman had been with the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Stephen Stills' Manassas and JD Souther formed Longbranch Pennywhistle with Eagle Glenn Frey. Although the band received a great deal of promotion their career was short lived. Their debut sold reasonably well, but the aptly titled "Trouble in Paradise" never took off and the band split shortly after its release. It's an album of soft rock with the country embellishments that made them worth listening to.

The Incredible String Band were one of the most esoteric bands to emerge on the British folk revival of the mid 60s. Led by Mike Heron and Robin Williamson they brought a genuine hippy ethos to their music and were heavily influenced by ethnic instruments and melodies (listen to the opening track on "U" the "El Wool Suite" and its vibrant sitar playing). In the 70s too many drugs made them lose some momentum and the group's ambitious stage show "U" did not translate easily from stage to record. Now it can be seen as a rare successful mix of Celtic roots, psychedelia and world music.

A double CD edition of Henry Rollins and the Rollins Band, one enhanced including videos and stuff, and you know what to expect. Rollins is as confrontational as ever, age has not wearied him or blunted his polemical style.

Well orchestrated pop tunes from vocalist / multi instrumentalist Chris Adolf, incorporating a whole host of unusual instruments - marimbas, glockenspiel and even a musical saw!

Freak-out garage psychedelia with radical musical elements ranging from Korean traditional pop, rock and electro lounge, psychedelia, B52 girlie choruses and garage wig-outs. In other words it's bonkers over the top stuff for people who like a large dose of strangeness in their listening. The last track is a long over-dubbed freak-out jam with trippy fuzz guitar.

A collaboration between The Melvins, and Mike Patton's Fantomas. Recorded live in San Francisco, December 2000.

Second album that finds the band expanded to a six member core. The addition of cello, second violin and second guitar has allowed them to develop a much broader sound with more vocals and guitar. Think of a sound somewhere between Godspeed.., Spiritualized and Rachels. Fantastic stuff!!!!!

Remembered primarily for the 1968 smash #1 hit "Judy In Disguise." Seventeen tracks include "Judy In Disguise," "Leave Her Never," "Anges English and more. Pure psychedelic bubblegum.

Much more than one-hit wonders, even though "Couldn't Get It Right" was their only massive hit. Pete Haycock's languid and fluid blues guitar lines are as distinctive as ever and the good time feeling it evokes is all as potent as in the '70's.