Rocket is (Sandy) Alex G’s eighth full-length release—an assured statement that follows a slate of humble masterpieces, many of them self-recorded and self-released, stretching from 2010’s RACE to his 2015 Domino debut, Beach Music.

Rocket’s sessions began shortly after Beach Music’s ended, with Alex tracking songs at home, by himself and with friends, in the gaps between a hectic 2015 and 2016 touring schedule (including working with Frank Ocean on Blonde).

Rocket was mixed by Jacob Portrait (Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Bass Drum of Death), who also lent his hand to Beach Music, giving the album a fine-tuning that retains the homespun personality of earlier efforts.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Uplifting folky plucking, heart-wrenching fiddle work and those heart-melting vocals. It's not all smooth sailing though, with pieces like 'Brick' coming way out of leftfield, you have to hear it to believe it, but the range of talents on display here is mindblowing. Well worth your time.

TRACK LISTING

Poison Root
Proud
County
Bobby
Witch
Horse
Brick
Sportstar
Judge
Rocket
Powerful Man
Alina
Big Fish
Guilty 

With ‘Best Troubador’, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy pays homage to a longtime and forever hero, the late Merle Haggard.

A singer who, some 25 years previously, first performed in public by playing a Merle Haggard song, Bonny has often cited Merle’s work in performance, on records and in conversation with anyone who was around, even talking to Merle himself for Filter magazine in 2009.

‘Best Troubador’ flips through his song book, landing on pages unmoored from their time and located anew. Moving from 1978 to 1969 to 2003 to 1981 allows the album to circle Haggard’s music in a simulation of thought and memory, slipping around from spot to spot as if they were discrete impressions, unknown but knowable yet.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Superbly uplifting plucked guitars, swooning woodwind and Mr. Billy's sweet but serious vocal delivery. It's a wonder that there could be any more gold flowing from this supremely talented songwriter, yet it continues. Touching, beautiful and sublime.

TRACK LISTING

The Fugitive
I’m Always On A Mountain When I Fall
The Day The Rains Came
Haggard (Like I’ve Never Been Before)
I Always Get Lucky With You
Leonard
My Old Pal
Roses In The Winter
Some Of Us Fly
Wouldn’t That Be Something
Pray
That’s The Way Love Goes
Nobody’s Darling
What I Hate (Excerpt)
I Am What I Am
If I Could Only Fly

South London trio Little Cub release their debut album, ‘Still Life’, on Domino Recordings.

Marrying a wry, worldly and subversive form of diarist lyricism with sumptuously evocative electronic production, ‘Still Life’ announces the arrival of a band at once deeply in tune with the greatest traditions of progressive, homespun British pop music and at odds with the increasingly vacuous pop culture they are born into.

TRACK LISTING

Too Much Love
My Nature
Breathing Space
Mulberry
Death Of A Football Manager
Hypnotise
Closing Time
October
Loveless
Snow
Television

‘Electric Lines’, the new album from producer Joe Goddard, is all about connections. The title refers to the colourful cables that link the modules in his Eurorack synthesizer and to the invisible wires that run between all the different kinds of electronic music that he loves. An apt title for a record which brilliantly unites the strands of his prolific career: member of Hot Chip and The 2 Bears, songwriter, producer, DJ, Grammy award winning remixer and co-founder of the Greco-Roman label. Like Four Tet, Caribou and Jamie xx, Joe combines a thirst for experimentation, an instinctive understanding of the dancefloor and a love of left-of-centre pop music. ‘Electric Lines’ confirms his place in the front rank of British producers.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Goddard superbly mixes the off-key rotating chord electronica of his day-job at Hot Chip with post-dubstep atmospherics and the warm vintage hum and twisted modulations of analogue synths. An epic journey (even more so in the extended CD version), and one worth undertaking. Brilliantly varied but resolutely enthralling synth 'tronica.

TRACK LISTING

‘Electric Lines’
Ordinary Madness
Lose Your Love
Home
Lasers
Human Heart
Children
Truth Is Light
Nothing Moves
Electric Lines
Music Is The Answer

Bonus 12” (With Indies Exclusive LP Only)
Bumps
Funk You Up
Lose Your Love (Full
Length Version)

Following the chilled-out acoustic draughts blowing through both ‘Further’ and ‘Chorus’, to say nothing of the folkundertones in the 1996 EP release ‘Sally Free And Easy’, it seemed that the direction for future Flying Saucer Attack musics was clear: increased melodicism with more roots exposed in ever-cleaner productions. Apparently not - 1997’s ‘New Lands’ brought a return to the starkness and shadowplay of extreme noise and FSA’s Dave Pearce’s sonombulent vocalizing, along with the introduction of an unanticipated new development - a rubbery, almost dance-rhythmic bottom end that only increased the atmosphere of dread hanging above the fray. This set the stage for ‘Mirror’, which followed ‘New Lands’ over two years later, with only a cover version of Skip Spence’s ‘Goodbye World’ opus, ‘Grey/Afro’ coming between.

‘Mirror’ arrived wrapped in a vibrant, multicolored cover designed by Savage Pencil but the opening sequence of songs offered some of the quietest, most refined Flying Saucer Attack songs committed to tape. The violent spells of ‘New Lands’ had given way to a flattened drone on the electric pieces ‘Space (1999)’, ‘Islands’ and ‘Dark Wind’, while the glittering acoustics of ‘Suncatcher’ and ‘Tides’ highlighted an incredible fragility within the songs. Dave Pearce seemed to be further away in space than ever, a wispy presence over streamlined hard beats and loops of ‘Chemicals’, which create the direction of ‘Mirror’’s second side.

Particularly when considering the silence that followed, this impression makes ‘Mirror’ a distressing encounter at times, though certainly one of the most enervating listens of the FSA catalogue - quite an achievement, when the blinding airs of previous phases are recalled. 

TRACK LISTING

Space (1999)
Suncatcher
Islands
Tides
Chemicals
Dark Wind
Winter Song
Rivers
Dust
Rise
Star City

Likely titled New Lands due to Flying Saucer Attack being lauched upon "phase two" (as the liner notes put it), this release finds FSA down to Pearce and Pearce only, as before with a bit of help here and there from Rocker and, on "Present," the co-writing skills of two members of Amp. That the first two tracks are called "Past" and "Present" and that the first has more of a "classic" FSA sound with a steady rhythm and huge solo while the second revolves around a buried, near inaudible series of loops, seems to be part of the album's plan, such as it is. New Lands in general showcases Pearce in testing mode, seeming to see what works and what doesn't, looking backward as much as forward. Indeed, the lengthy, majestic steady build of "Whole Day Song" reappears from the Goodbye/and Goodbye EP, this time with vocals and a low-key, softly intoxicating piano line. While the more experimental parts of New Lands aren't really Pearce completely trashing his general aesthetic and trying something new, they do show him attempting and often succeeding at introducing further variety to his murky, intriguing field. Thus, "Up in Her Eyes" has a very familiar vocal and guitar style, but the obsessive, upfront yet still shadowy percussion -- sounding more like a chugging train engine than anything else -- dominates the track, at least up until its slightly more ambient, free-flowing end. Other curious rhythms, reminiscent of past comparisons to the work of Main, crop up more than once -- the near arrhythmic, squealing loop that introduces "Respect" or the blunt, brusque punch of "The Sea." Through it all, the combination of Pearce's tender, dark folk vocals and skybursting guitar provides the central point of the experience, making for some fascinating, entrancing results. - Allmusic

Seemingly emerging out of nowhere following an initial single or two, Flying Saucer Attack's debut album crystallized an incipient 1990s underground as in thrall to folk music as to feedback blasts and Krautrock influences. The description the band members themselves used, also considered by some as an alternate title to this album, was "rural psychedelia," and rarely has form so readily followed function. The original duo of Pearce and Brook, with some help from friend/Third Eye Foundation mainman Matt Elliott on percussion and clarinet (thus creating an even more alien atmosphere on "Moonset"), created a thick, evocatively haunting collection of modern mind-blowers. If any one thing could be singled out about the album, it's the continual contrast between Pearce's soft, reflective singing, often sunk deep into the overall mix and treated with heavy-duty echo, and his often tremendous guitar work, electric squalls, and drones piled atop one another. Songs like the exultant "Wish" and "A Silent Tide" are the breathtaking results. Initial comparisons were made to My Bloody Valentine and the shoegazing crowd, but they're misplaced -- it's a consciously different style employing some similar elements, but with notably varying results. Two astonishing drone/tribal instrumentals are named "Popol Vuh 2" and "Popol Vuh 1," both open tips of the hat to the long-lived German experimental group. The completely out-of-left-field number, though, is the cover of Suede's "The Drowners" -- changing nothing about the pace but overdriving the feedback and relentlessly toning down the vocals, FSA turn the neo-glam piece into a noisefest beyond description. Compared to later albums, Flying Saucer Attack sets more of an immediately consistent mood -- some numbers aside, the dreamy singing, the seemingly straightforward guitar parts that get more involved the more one listens, and more continue from track to track, generally speaking. The end results, though, are more than worth it. - Allmusic

Yorkston/Thorne/Khan release their new album Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars, the follow up to the band’s debut album, 2016’s critically acclaimed Everything Sacred, and presents a confluence of currents, among them the north Indian sarangi; jazz-tinged bass, reminiscent in places of Danny Thompson; acoustic guitar that owes a debt to Elizabeth Cotton, Dick Gaughan and Mississippi John Hurt; and three very different vocalists - James Yorkston (East Neuk of Fife), Jon Thorne (Isle of Wight) and Suhail Yusuf Khan (New Delhi).

“Piya is a word in the Hindi language, meaning beloved,” explains Khan. “The Hindi lyrics of the song were composed and written by me. They talk about a lover who is longing for a beloved, devastated by pain. A point comes when the lover starts hallucinating that the beloved has arrived and starts having conversations with this hallucination. There is a strange feeling of dark happiness: the beloved is there, but only as a hallucination.” “When Suhail explained the Hindi lyric to me,” Yorkston continues, “it reminded me of the great old song The Daemon Lover, also known as The House Carpenter, so I sang a fragment of Annie Watson’s version to introduce the piece.”

This harmonious and singular collaboration can be found across all of Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars, and in fact, YTK’s Everything Sacred may be the only precedent. “The combination of a singer-songwriter, a jazz bassist and an Indian classical sarangi player is totally unheard off,” says Khan.

A collection of traditional Indian and UK folk songs, beautiful originals and idiosyncratic covers, Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars does not only bring together Indian classical music and jazz, then, but kosmische too; Yorkston also cites dub reggae, Uilleann pipes and the Madagascan guitarist D’Gary as influences. That breadth, says Thorne, is critical: “I think YTK is a fine example of how music operates without boundaries as a common international language and a source of cross-cultural unity. It’s an important message in the times that we live in.”

Produced by YTK and recorded entirely onto 24 track 2” tape at Analogue Cat studios in Northern Ireland by Julie McLarnon, Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars comes after a period of steady touring for the band (including incredible main stage performances at Green Man, Celtic Connections and Edinburgh International Festival, and tours in India, Spain and Ireland) and reflects the confidence and increasingly fluid interplay between Yorkston, Thorne and Khan.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: From the warming droning fiddles and chanting of 'Chori, Chori' and the soaring emotive twists of 'Bales' to the more ambient excursions and traditionalism of 'Jaldhar Kedara', this is a fascinating and riveting glimpse at one of the most enjoyable and unique collaborations out there today. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chori, Chori (Vocals: Suhail)
2. Samant Saarang / Just A Bloke (Vocals: Jon, Suhail)
3. Bales (Vocals: James, Suhail)
4. Jaldhar Kedara (Wedding Song) (Vocals: Suhail)
5. False True Piya (Vocals: James, Suhail)
6. The Blue Of The Thistle (Vocals: Jon)
7. Recruited Collier (Vocals: James, Suhail)
8. The Blues You Sang (Vocals: James, Suhail, Jon)
9. Halleluwah (Vocals: Suhail)
10. One More Day (Jon’s Song) (Vocals: Jon)

On In Mind, the fourth full-length record from Real Estate, the band fine-tunes the winsome songwriting and profound earnestness that made previous albums - 2009’s Real Estate, 2011’s Days, and 2014’s Atlas - so beloved. Recorded in Los Angeles with producer Cole M. Greif-Neill (Julia Holter, Beck), In Mind delivers the same kind of warmth and soft-focus narratives that one has come to expect from the band - pastoral guitars, elegantly deployed arrangements, a sort of mindful melancholy - but there is also a newly adventurous sonic edge to the proceedings.

It offers a mild shifting of the gears, positing a band engaged in the push/pull of burgeoning adulthood. Reflecting a change in lineup, changes in geography, and a general desire to move forward without looking back, the record casts the band in a new light - one that replaces the wistful ennui of teenage suburbia with an equally complicated adult version.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: One of Piccadilly Records' favourite janglers return with another swooningly resigned ache-a-thon, this time with added quirk and expanded dynamism thanks to the addition of the splendid Julian Lynch on lead guitar.

TRACK LISTING

1. Darling
2. Serve The Song
3. Stained Glass
4. After The Moon
5. Two Arrows
6. White Light
7. Holding Pattern
8. Time
9. Diamond Eyes
10. Same Sun
11. Saturday

Featuring the original line-up of Howard Devoto (vocals & songwriter), Pete Shelley (guitar & songwriter), Steve Diggle (bass guitar) and John Maher (drums), ‘Time’s Up’ was recorded at Revolution Studios, Bramhall Lane Stockport on the 18th of October 1976. The session, recording Buzzcocks’ live set at the time and was engineered by Andy MacPherson.

TRACK LISTING

You Tear Me Up
Breakdown
Friends Of Mine
Orgasm Addict
Boredom
Time’s Up
Lester Sands (Drop In The Ocean)
Love Battery
I Can’t Control Myself
I Love You, You Big Dummy
Don’t Mess Me Around

‘Solide Mirage’, the follow up to the 2014 album, ‘Piano Ombre’, offers a glimpse of coherence in a distorted world. The album was recorded in the chaotic-yet-calm environment of Brussels - the capital of Europe - a city where the future of a million ‘others’ is being decided.

Fránçois Marry and his shape-shifting band The Atlas Mountains recorded with Ash Workman (Christine & The Queens, Metronomy) before Owen Pallett added violins from his home in LA.

‘Solide Mirage’ - like an imperceptible dream, a fantasy where reality shifts as one approaches it - is a perfect definition for this protean, changeable-yet-direct album which reveals new facets and new territories in every listen. Sometimes soft (on ‘1982’, ‘Apocalypse à Ipsos’, ‘Pepétuel été’, ‘100.000.000’), sometimes tough (‘Bête Morcelée’ and its rush of pure grunge, ‘Grand Dérèglement’ and the roughness and splinters of ‘Jamais Deux Pareils’), sometimes crazy (the digitized trance of ‘Âpres Après’) but always highly political, whether direct or reading between the lines.

TRACK LISTING

Grande Dérèglement
Tendre Est L'Âme
Apocalypse à Lpsos
1982
100.000.000
Âpres Après
Bête Morcelée
Jamais Deux Pareils
Perpétuel Été
Rentes Écloses

The new Dirty Projectors song ‘Up In Hudson’ is an elegy — to the Obama years, to a generation of indie rock, and to a relationship. Over the course of nine verses and almost eight minutes, the lyrics situate David Longstreth & his band in the vivid textures of the recent past like a millennial Blood On The Tracks. It is a piece of epic storytelling unlike anything else in Dirty Projectors’ discography. 

To arrive where we began and know the place for the first time: ‘Up In Hudson’ is an origin story for a new chapter of Dirty Projectors. 

And with it, Dirty Projectors announce their long-awaited 7th LP. 

The new album does everything we want and expect from Dirty Projectors — but in a way we never could have imagined or anticipated. In a career of surprising conceptual gambits, unexpected stylistic evolutions, and continually changing lineups — this is, as DJ Khaled says, “ANOTHER ONE”!

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Soulful beats, driven choruses and synthy breakdowns clash headfirst with soaring melodies, rapidly flicking from glitchy meltdowns into beautifully formed jazzy flourishes and silken harmonies. Brilliantly written and constantly evolving, a true gem.

TRACK LISTING

01. Keep Your Name
02. Death Spiral
03. Up In Hudson
04. Work Together
05. Little Bubble
06. Winner Take Nothing
07. Ascent Through Clouds
08. Cool Your Heart
09. I See You

Proceeding ‘Feel It’ (2011) and ‘Olympia’ (2013), ‘Future Politics’ is the third studio album from Canadian electronic pop outfit Austra, fronted by Katie Stelmanis.

The album was written, produced, and engineered by Stelmanis with mixing by Alice Wilder at Transmitter Park Studio in New York and Union Sound Company in Toronto.

The project concerns the concept of projecting innovation and creativity through individualism and the injustice of an, at times, closed minded or stunted world. A matured message, ‘Future Politics; is for fans of iconic sounds resonating from The Knife, Fever Ray and Bjork to Grimes and Anohni.

Their most visually compelling record to date, ‘Future Politics’ sees transcendent, modernist artwork shot at Luis Barragán’s famed Cuadra San Cristóbal in Mexico City.

TRACK LISTING

We Were Alive
Future Politics
Utopia
I’m A Monster
I Love You More Than
You Love Yourself
Angel In Your Eye
Freepower
Gaia
Beyond A Mortal
Deep Thought
43

The return of Shirley Collins after a 38 year silence. ‘Lodestar’ is a collection of English, American and Cajun songs dating from the 16th Century to the 1950s, recorded at Shirley’s home in Lewes by Stephen Thrower and Ossian Brown of Cyclobe and produced and musically directed by Ian Kearey.

Though Shirley Collins (MBE) has been absent from the music scene for many years, her impact has not diminished. The likes of Graham Coxon, Jonny Greenwood, Stewart Lee and Angel Olsen laud her and a documentary, ‘The Ballad Of Shirley Collins’, is currently in progress. Additionally, she was given the Good Tradition award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2008, elected President of the English Folk Dance & Song Society in the same year and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music from Sussex University this year. Shirley released her first memoir, ‘America Over The Water’, in 2004 and is currently working on her second book.

“Shirley is a time traveller, a conduit for essential human aches, one of the greatest artists who ever lived, and yet utterly humble” - Stewart Lee.

TRACK LISTING

Awake Awake / The Split Ash Tree / May Carol / Southover
The Banks Of Green Willow
Cruel Lincoln
Washed Ashore
Death And The Lady
Pretty Polly
Old Johnny Buckle
Sur Le Borde De L’Eau
The Rich Irish Lady / Jeff Sturgeon
The Silver Swan

On turning 60, legendary producer Clive Langer decided it was time to get a band together.

Recorded at Iguana Studio in Brixton with musician mates and long-time cohorts (including Suggs and Roxy Music’s Andy Mackay), ‘Practice’ is jagged, melodious, ingenious, impulsive and exhilarating.

Driven by a frantic and restless energy, ‘Practice’ is exactly the kind of record you’d hope someone would make if they woke up aged 60 thinking, “Sod it, I’m going to start a rock & roll band.”

TRACK LISTING

Concertina
Acre Lane
Amsterdam
I’m Sorry
Bike
Had A Nice Night
Heaven Calls Another Name
Picture Postcard Paradise
Knock Me Off
Out Of Time

Written and produced by Devonté Hynes, Blood Orange’s highly anticipated new album, ‘Freetown Sound’ features musical contributions from Nelly Furtado, Carly Rae Jepsen, BEA1991, Debbie Harry, Adam Bainbridge (AKA Kindness), Empress Of, Ian Isiah, Kelsey Lu, Jason Arce, Ava Raiin, Aaron Maine (AKA Porches), Bryndon Cook (AKA Starchild) and Patrick Wimberly.

‘Freetown Sound’ is a tour de force, a confluence of Hynes’ past, present and future that melds his influences with his own established musical voice.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: I saw Test Icicles in 2005 and thought they were a right load of bollocks (wahey!). I've flirted with Devonté's output since without taking it past first base, before finally calling it a day after 'Cupid Deluxe'. When 'Freetown Sound' hit the shelves I avoided eye contact and kept walking, almost missing out on one of my records of the year. Politicised, soulful and culturally aware songwriting expressed through the most forward thinking synthwave sounds.

Barry says: A soulful mix of ultra-silky synthwave textures, Hynes' trademark vocal delivery (as well as a who's who of guests) and silky hip-hop percussion. Though the production throughout is impeccable, it manages to retain an element of surprise, ranging from heartfelt soul to a percussive instrumental breakdown in a few short minutes. Brilliantly innovative, but eminently listenable, this is another tour-de-force from Hynes et al and sure to become a favourite for lovers of (almost) any genre. As exceptional as it is revolutionary.

Millie says: Freetown Sound is such a prominent album for me, resounding politically and emotionally charged, it holds a lot of important messages. The album seems more progressive from his previous albums, it is confident and distinct. The songs Chance, Love Ya and Hadron Collider are a handful of my favourites off the album.

TRACK LISTING

By Ourselves
Augustine
Chance
Best To You
With Him
EVP
Love Ya
But You
Desirée
Hands Up
Hadron Collider
Squash Squash
Juicy 1-4
Better Than Me
Thank You
I Know
Better Numb

PICCADILLY EXCLUSIVE: PRE-ORDER THE ALBUM AND ENTER A DRAW TO WIN A 100cmx100cm PROMOTIONAL FABRIC DISPLAY BANNER – ONLY 1 IN THE WORLD!!!

Where 2014's Present Tense album found Wild Beasts in reflective mood, absorbing a fascination with online culture and electronic music, Boy King has them, as Tom Fleming puts it, "back to being pissed off". The quartet’s ever-present knack for sensual melody via Hayden Thorpe and Fleming's dueting vocals, Ben Little's sinuous guitar groove and Chris Talbot's potent rhythm section carries in Boy King an aggressive, snarling and priapic beast that delves into the darker side of masculinity and Thorpe's own psyche. As Hayden himself says, "After five records there had to be an element of 'what the fuck?'".

A newfound creative friction between Thorpe and Fleming proved key to unleashing the unique pop sensibility of Boy King - Fleming’s more visceral experimentation unlocking new dimensions in Thorpe’s own writing. After spending a whole year finessing this new found impetus in East London, the band emerged with a collection of songs ready to take to Dallas and producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Swans, The War on Drugs). Both Thorpe and Fleming credit that trip to Dallas with teasing out the raw power of Boy King. In the studio, the band kept up the intensity of the office hour routine they'd employed during writing sessions and, they say, responded well to Congleton's sober discipline. "He made us get in there, get on and do it," Fleming says. "English politeness never featured."

The raw pop of Boy King's songs are the perfect foil to Thorpe's libidinous lyricism: "it became apparent that that guitar almost became the character within the songs, that phallic character, the all-conquering male," he says. "I'm letting my inner Byron fully out, I thought I'd tucked him away, but he came screaming back like the Incredible Hulk." Here lies Boy King's greatest success. Between the slide of prowling aggression and interior darkness, there are glorious, gorgeous moments. It’s yet another incomparable Wild Beasts record; a visceral, sensual and jolting body of work that acts as a remarkable soundtrack to the early 21st century male malaise. Or as Thorpe puts it: "I think Boy King is an apocalyptic record. It's about swimming in the abyss. When you think about sex, you've got to think about death, they're one and the same.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Wild beasts come back to the fore with this funky slab of wistful electronic indie, drenched in 90's reverb and synth stabs. This outing sees their minimal instrumental input accentuated by crystal-clear production values and thumping sub-bass drones. Indie for the dancefloor, satisfying and ethereally rousing. Top stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Big Cat
Tough Guy
Alpha Female
Get My Bang
Celestial Creatures
2BU
He The Colossus
Ponytail
Eat Your Heart Out Adonis
Dreamliner

Over their almost decade-and-a-half career, The Kills have released four records. Each one a restless, reckless enigmatic art statement that bristled with tension, anxiety, sex, unstudied cool and winking ennui, yet not one of them sounded like the previous one. Ash & Ice is the follow up to 2011’s critically lauded Blood Pressures and was five years in the making in part due to Jamie Hince’s five hand surgeries, which resulted in him having to re-learn how to play guitar with a permanently damaged finger.

Unlike earlier albums, which have largely been written and recorded at Key Club Studio in Benton Harbor, Michigan, the bulk of the recording for Ash & Ice took place in a rented house in LA and at the world famous Electric Lady Studios in NYC. The album was produced by Jamie Hince and co-produced by John O’Mahony (Metric, The Cribs), and mixed by Tom Elmhirst (Adele, Arcade Fire, Amy Winehouse) and Tchad Blake (Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys).

It was during Hince’s recuperation from surgery that he first started sketching out what would become the songs for the album. To shake up the writing process, Hince booked a solo trip on the infamous Trans-Siberian Express for inspiration while Alison Mosshart, now residing in Nashville, TN, wrote some of the most affecting, poetically candid lyrics that she ever has, painting word pictures that mine the dangerous terrain between romantic obsession, prophecy and tough love. Where previous albums had an air of detachment and emotional austerity, underpinned by an uneasy self-awareness and unexpressed anger, the 13 songs on Ash & Ice are more understated, less tempestuous and more affecting because of that, exposing the kind of push-pull you feel when you find yourself in a complicated but all-consuming relationship. Ash & Ice is The Kills at their emotionally charged, arresting best. Prepare to be slayed.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The Kills return with their newest album since 2011's 'Blood Pressures' and this might just be their most intricate and emotive offering yet. Further emphasising their innate ability to pluck at the heartstrings whilst soothing the soul. Mossheart's vocals are as sultry and emotive as ever, and the instrumentation is just as you'd expect : raw, honest and beautiful.

TRACK LISTING

1. Doing It To Death
2. Heart Of A Dog
3. Hard Habit To Break
4. Bitter Fruit
5. Days Of Why And How
6. Let It Drop
7. Hum For Your Buzz
8. Siberian Nights
9. That Love
10. Impossible Tracks
11. Black Tar
12. Echo Home
13. Whirling Eye

The most beautiful and stark of Cass McComb’s albums, ‘Wit’s End’ is a classic in a cannon of superlative songwriting.

Respected by everyone from Vampire Weekend to Band Of Horses it’s time for you find out what all the fuss is about.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Sad songs say so much!

TRACK LISTING

1. County Line
2. The Lonely Doll
3. Buried Alive
4. Saturday Song
5. Memory’s Stain
6. Hermit’s Cave
7. Pleasant Shadow Song
8. A Knock Upon The Door

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2016 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

‘Cool Out’ stems from a spontaneous collaboration with fellow Richmond producer and Stones Throw recording artist DJ Harrison and features long-time friend and collaborator Natalie Prass on vocals.

AA side ‘Maybe In The Night’ was recorded with White’s full live band in Dublin and mixed by esteemed producer Dan Carey in London.

This song is an RSD exclusive and has never been heard before prior to this release.

Limited to 600 copies.

TRACK LISTING

Cool Out Feat. Natalie Prass
Maybe In The Night

‘Pennied Days’ is the second album from Minneapolisbased band Night Moves.

Written and recorded by principle band members John Pelant and Micky Alfano and produced by John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Sonic Youth, The Walkmen), the album follows 2012’s ‘Colored Emotions’.

The album feels warm with feeling, tinged with a deep appreciation for rock & roll’s most storied songwriters. Ranging from traditionalist heroes like Leon Russell and The Band to R&B originators Curtis Mayfield and Sly Stone to pre-punk experimentalists Suicide. It’s distinctly modern and a great leap forward from ‘Colored Emotions’.

‘Pennied Days’ was recorded following tours with Father John Misty, Lord Huron, Django Django and Polica.

TRACK LISTING

Following last year’s re-emergence with ‘Instrumentals 2015’, three of Flying Saucer Attack’s most revered albums - ‘Chorus’ (1995), ‘Distance’ (1994) and ‘Further’ (1995) - are now reissued on Domino.

All three albums are essential listening for those who are still capable of dreaming even as our dreams are co-opted and second guessed in a digital era which is revealing itself to be monstrously voracious and venal. ‘Chorus’, ‘Distance’ and ‘Further’ open up spaces in the mind where one may wander at will, with main man Dave Pearce’s excoriating feedback serving as a dream weapon designed to cleanse the grit from the mind’s eye. The melodies beyond the noise reassure us that it’s okay to take this route away from the superhighway and explore paths trodden only by a few, Pearce and collaborators included. This may be derided by some as escapism; rather it is parallelism. The search for alternatives, when the very term ‘alternative’ has been devalued beyond all recognition.

TRACK LISTING

Oceans
Standing Stone
Crystal Shade
Instrumental Wish
Distance
November Mist
Soaring High
Oceans 2

The album finds Alex Turner and Miles Kane reunited with James Ford (production and drums) and Owen Pallett (string arrangements) and joined by Zachary Dawes (Mini Mansions) on bass, recording the follow up to 2008’s ‘The Age Of The Understatement’ at Shangri La Studio in Malibu.

Featuring current single ‘Bad Habits’, ‘Everything You’ve Come To Expect’ is a more open and expansive work than its predecessor, wearing its influences less obviously on its sleeve – by turns the album is soaring, snarling and breathlessly seductive.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Once again, Alex Turner and Miles Kane deliver a minor-key slice of melancholic yet melodic indie-rock. Dark reverbed vocals, snappy snare hits and oy-like shouting appears completely naturally, the sound not suffering at all from a change of pace. The strings on show here further emphasising the crescendo of both tone and density, and exacerbating the lifting tension present. Low-fi but meticulously crafted, and yet another reason (as if you needed one) that Turner and co. deserve your attention.

TRACK LISTING

1. Aviation
2. Miracle Aligner
3. Dracula Teeth
4. Everything You’ve Come To Expect
5. The Element Of Surprise
6. Bad Habits
7. Sweet Dreams, TN
8. Used To Be My Girl
9. She Does The Woods
10. Pattern
11. The Dream Synopsis

7"  Bonus Tracks (Indies Exclusive Vinyl Only)
1. Bad Habits
2. The Bourne Identity

‘Potential’ is the new album from Brooklyn, NYbased musician James Hinton, aka The Range.

‘Potential’ uses as its backbone a series of vocal samples that Hinton has found in the forgotten corners of YouTube, introducing us to unknown artists expressing themselves unfettered by the constraints of industry, lost in the infinite potential of an audience unknown.

A documentary about the people he has sampled, entitled ‘Superimpose’ and directed by Daniel Kauffman, will be released this spring.

TRACK LISTING

‘Potential’
Regular
Copper Wire
Florida
Superimpose
Five Four
Falling Out Of Phase
No Loss
Skeptical
Retune
So
1804

‘Strings EP’ (comes With Indies Exclusive Vinyl Only)
The Magic
True Value
Flag
Naught

Following last year’s re-emergence with ‘Instrumentals 2015’, three of Flying Saucer Attack’s most revered albums - ‘Chorus’ (1995), ‘Distance’ (1994) and ‘Further’ (1995) - are now reissued on Domino.

All three albums are essential listening for those who are still capable of dreaming even as our dreams are co-opted and second guessed in a digital era which is revealing itself to be monstrously voracious and venal. ‘Chorus’, ‘Distance’ and ‘Further’ open up spaces in the mind where one may wander at will, with main man Dave Pearce’s excoriating feedback serving as a dream weapon designed to cleanse the grit from the mind’s eye. The melodies beyond the noise reassure us that it’s okay to take this route away from the superhighway and explore paths trodden only by a few, Pearce and collaborators included. This may be derided by some as escapism; rather it is parallelism. The search for alternatives, when the very term ‘alternative’ has been devalued beyond all recognition.

TRACK LISTING

Feedback Song
Light In The Evening
Always
Feedback Song Demo
Second Hour
Popol VUH III
Beach Red Lullaby
There But Not There
February 8th
There Dub

For fifteen years Animal Collective has been rewriting the musical map, their line-up and aesthetic shifting with each astonishing release as they continue their pursuit of a new psychedelia. Their wild path has taken them from cramped concrete basement shows and forest floor singalongs to immersive installations at the Guggenheim and performances to millions on national television. So where to from here?

Dizzyingly upbeat and gloriously realized, their new LP bounces and pops with an urgent, ecstatic energy, propelled by polyrhythmic beats and gurgling modular synth, with Noah Lennox and Dave Portner’s vocals gleefully falling in and out of syncopation and off-kilter harmony.

Working as a trio, Portner (Avey Tare), Lennox (Panda Bear) and Brian Weitz (Geologist) began trading demos in early 2015, pursuing a goal of what Portner calls “really short songs: no B.S, get in, get out material…” The three met up in Asheville during that Spring and began exploring the songs together. Recording took place in the legendary EastWest Studios in Hollywood, home to sessions by The Beach Boys and Marvin Gaye. The album features contributions from John Cale and Colin Stetson, and was engineered by Sonny DiPerri.

The result: Painting With. Warm and personal, kaleidoscopic and high definition, concerned with art (cubism, Dadaism, and the distorted way those artists viewed the world) and the human experience, and the meeting of both - creating something elemental, joyous, and unmistakably Animal Collective.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: From the very first moment, 'Painting With' grabs your attention through a mix of exuberant lyricism and vocal delivery, underpinned by frenetic psychedelic instrumentation. Part surf-psych, part art-pop, this is undoubtedly an Animal Collective record, and quite possibly the best one yet.

TRACK LISTING

01. FloriDada
02. Hocus Pocus
03. Vertical
04. Lying In The Grass
05. The Burglars
06. Natural Selection
07. Bagels In Kiev
08. On Delay
09. Spilling Guts
10. Summing The Wretch
11. Golden Gal
12. Recycling

Porches is the project of Aaron Maine, who resides in New York City. ‘Pool’ is Porches’ second full length album and their debut on Domino.

Written and recorded almost entirely in the Manhattan apartment he shares with his partner and frequent collaborator Greta Kline (aka Frankie Cosmos), ‘Pool’ is an elegantly drawn set of gorgeous, synth-driven pop songs that were influenced, in part, by settling down.

‘Pool’ was written, recorded and produced by Aaron Maine and mixed in Los Angeles by Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Grizzly Bear, Beach House, Tobias Jesso Jr).

TRACK LISTING

Underwater
Braid
Be Apart
Mood
Hour
Even The Shadow
Pool
Glow
Car
Shaver
Shape
Security

Your Friend is Taryn Miller, who plays guitar, writes, sings the vocals and crafts loops. Taryn recorded ‘Gumption’ in New York with Nicolas Vernhes (Deerhunter, War On Drugs) at his Rare Book Room studio.

The album builds on the ideas of Your Friend’s previous EP, ‘Jekyll/Hyde’ and since Taryn has toured with Courtney Barnett and play her first SXSW.

TRACK LISTING

Heathering
Come Back From It
To Live With
Desired Things
Nothing Moved
Gumption
I Turned In
Who Will I Be In The Morning?

There are no Peel sessions anymore - that tradition was buried in the pyramids with John Peel himself upon the great man's passing. Of the thousands left in the wake, six are ascribed to Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - and of those six, three have been combined to form the deeply congruous experience of Pond Scum.

A span of eight years is covered, in reverse, and many chestnuts are rolled out, freed of former contexts with sparse arrangements. "(I Was Drunk at the) Pulpit" feels, ten years from inception, more vividly worn; "Death to Everyone" is loosed from its frame, the bones decoupled and spread out, giving the song a re?ective air (as opposed the biting declamation of the original); "Arise, Therefore" adapts its metronomic base, the evangelic twist of its roots made palpable. With the centre of the performance in stark relief, the gnomic qualities of two "Get On Jolly" pieces are intensi?ed. Further accenting the devoted spirit of this collection is the inclusion of Bonnie's take on Prince's "The Cross", as well as the previously-unreleased original "Beezle."

Bonnie's lone shadow casts over this lot, accompanied on the ?rst four tracks by David Heumann, but otherwise playing solo through a set of original songs (and two covers) representing a decade of progress in the almost unbearably intimate-yet-unknowable manner that was so often the vibe of those strange and wondrous days.

Layers peel to reveal the subtle artistry and refinement contained within these sessions, so begin to dig deep into the vault on January 22nd, 2016! But wait, there's more! You can download a new arrangement of "Rich Wife Full of Happiness", (which is similar in tone, but not found on Pond Scum!)!

Cass McCombs’ new anthology, ‘A Folk Set Apart’, is subtitled ‘Rarities, B-Sides & Space Junk, Etc.’ and showcases McCombs’ thematic and emotional diversity.

Comprising songs from 2003-2014, this release will both satiate and perplex those already familiar with McCombs, while compelling and rewarding new listeners, pointing a way towards his back catalogue.

‘A Folk Set Apart’ includes 19 songs (19 on CD, 11 on LP plus 8 digital bonus tracks) all remastered for this release.

There has been an issue with barcode on the limited vinyl version and so it has been pulled until this is resolved. We should have it back in stock again later in the week. Sorry! 

‘West Kirby County Primary’ - written and recorded by Bill Ryder-Jones in his childhood bedroom at his mother’s house in West Kirby before being filtered through Liverpool’s legendary Parr Street Studios - is the third full length album from Bill Ryder-Jones and finds him fronting a classic band set-up.

Each of ‘West Kirby County Primary’s ten tracks offers a sneaked glance into his private world; they eavesdrop on a set of encounters that go about “turning stories into beautiful truth” set to glorious molten melody that explodes like fireworks over water.

It all adds up to a remarkable record by one of Domino’s most cherished musicians - a musical polymath as at ease on stage with the Manchester Camerata (where he performed as part of the Manchester Literature Festival last Autumn) or on live guitar duties with Arctic Monkeys as he is on production duties with Hooton Tennis Club and The Wytches.

The follow-up to ‘A Bad Wind Blows In My Heart’ was produced by Ryder-Jones and mixed by James Ford.

TRACK LISTING

Tell Me You Don’t Love
Me Watching
Two To Birkenhead
Let's Get Away From
Here
Daniel
Put It Down Before You
Break It
Catharine And Huskisson
Wild Roses
You Can’t Hide A Light
With The Dark
Satellites
Seabirds

Bonus 7” (with Indies Exclusive Vinyl Only)
Out Of The Dark
Even Good Things

Philadelphia’s Alex Giannascoli aka Alex G releases ‘Beach Music’, his forthcoming new album and his first for Domino.

The album, his seventh full-length, follows on from previous beloved albums ‘DSU’ (Orchid Tapes), ‘Trick’ and’ Rules’, all which have led to a fervent cult fanbase and a number of Artist To Watch designations from publications such as Fader and Rolling Stone.

The album was mixed by Jacob Portrait of Unknown Mortal Orchestra.

TRACK LISTING

‘Beach Music’
Intro
Bug
Thorns
Kicker
Salt
Look Out
Brite Boy
In Love
Walk
Mud
Ready
Station
Snot

Alex G Live At The Headroom
(Bonus LP - With Deluxe Vinyl Edition Only)
Look Out
Black Hair
Bug
Kicker
Wicked Boy
Mary
Ice Head
Boy
Snot
Rules
Soak
Mis
After Ur Gone

THE PICCADILLY RECORDS ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2015.

PICCADILLY RECORDS EXCLUSIVE: For a limited period only, buy either the vinyl or CD of 'Have You In My Wilderness' and get a free CD bonus disc, Julia Holter 'Selected Tracks 2011-2014'. 

'Have You In My Wilderness' is the fourth full length album by Los Angeles artist Julia Holter and her most intimate album yet. Recorded in her hometown over the last year and once again crafted with Grammy-winning producer and engineer Cole Greif-Neill, the album follows 2013's 'Loud City Song' and two much-lauded previous titles - 'Ekstasis' (2012) and 'Tragedy' (2011).

'Have You in My Wilderness' was written from the heart - warm, dark and raw - and explores love, trust, and power in human relationships. While love songs are familiar in pop music, Holter manages to stay fascinatingly oblique and enigmatic, with some of the most sublime and transcendent music she has ever written. Like Holter's previous albums, 'Have You in My Wilderness' is multi-layered and texturally rich, featuring an array of electronic and acoustic instruments played by an ensemble of gifted Los Angeles musicians.

'Have You in My Wilderness' is also Holter's most sonically intimate album, with her vocals front and centre in the mix, lifted out of the layers of smeared, hazy effects. The result is striking: clear and vivid, but disarmingly personal.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Finally Julia Holter does what she's been threatening to do for ages: combines all her arty, classical, jazzy, ehtereal, avanty otherness into one near-pop masterpiece! Definitely one of the best records this year.

David says: 'Have You In My Wilderness’ is Julia Holter’s fourth and most accessible album to date, but given that previous records have looked to Greek Philosophers and French novelists for their inspiration, this perhaps isn’t the boldest of statements.
Holter, a music and composition graduate, approaches her craft in a cerebral, conceptual way that is still very much apparent on the album’s arrangements and time signatures. However, on ‘Have You In My Wilderness’, her more exotic tendencies have been tamed by producer M Cole Grief-Neill. He’s convinced Holter to shake off the shackles of reverb in which her otherworldly voice has always been chained and let it take centre stage on the record. It’s a master stroke that’s culminated in a sonically direct, shimmering, leftfield pop classic that everyone at Piccadilly Records has been willing her to make since first hearing 2013’s ‘Loud City Song’.
Dark and lovely, exploring pop’s universalities of love and relationships, ‘Have You In My Wilderness’ is the perfect soundtrack to winter’s long nights. Where previously Holter could be accused of being cold and aloof, she now revels in a new found warmth and intimacy. It’s like the girl on the bus that’s been ignoring you for months suddenly walking over and saying “hi, fancy going for a drink later?” - Completely unexpected and all the more wonderful for it.
But wait, don’t go! I know what you’re thinking. ‘Love and relationships? Surely ballads are the end credit to a thousand, desperate Saturday nights; certainly nothing new in pop music?’ BUT, and it’s a big but, Holter’s take on this, the most clichéd of pop clichés, is brilliantly oblique. Flitting from orchestral chamber music to Laurel Canyon introspection, it’s a schizophrenic record, whose many competing voices have combined to make ‘Have You In My Wilderness’ Piccadilly’s favourite album of 2015.

TRACK LISTING

1. Feel You
2. Silhouette
3. How Long?
4. Lucette Stranded On The Island
5. Sea Calls Me Home
6. Night Song
7. Everytime Boots
8. Betsy On The Roof
9. Vasquez
10. Have You In My Wilderness

'Have You In My Wilderness' Bonus Disc:
1. Try To Make Yourself A Work Of Art
2. So Lillies
3. In The Same Room
4. Goddess Eyes II
5. This Is A True Heart
6. In The Green Wild
7. Hello Stranger
8. Don't Make Me Over

Written, performed and produced by Georgia in its entirety and recorded in her own home-studio, ‘Georgia’ is the product of two years of obsessive work, but also a young lifetime of voracious music listening.

Elements of the glacial yet hyper-melodic tone of early 00's grime, sweltering, mid-summer west London dub and ragga, sophisticated pop, first wave post-punk agitation, the formative influence of Missy Elliott and the high-concept, illuminated sound-design work of contemporary artists such as The Knife and Hudson Mohawke run through ‘Georgia’, a record that reveals new layers of intrigue and ingenuity with every listen. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. Kombine
3. Be Ache
4. Nothing Solutions
5. Hold It
6. Digits
7. Cab Ride
8. Tell Me About It
9. Move Systems
10. Heart Wrecking Animals
11. GMTL
12. You 

Unfurling out of Los Angeles this July comes St. Catherine, Matt Mondanile’s fifth outing as Ducktails. The new album emerges from the roots of Mondanile's previous work, from the free-form, ambient bedroom experiments of seminal underground release Landscapes (2009), to 2013's eighties pop re-imagination The Flower Lane, but ultimately moves Ducktails on to a more refined, personal and sincere place.

St. Catherine is a finely-honed collection of baroque pop songs that take the blissful, cascading melodic fretwork that Mondanile has made his signature with both Ducktails and his other band, Real Estate, and applies it to songs of considerable new emotional heft and dynamic range.

Mondanile partially wrote and recorded St. Catherine over the course of 2014 and then finished off recording at the start of 2015. The longest time he has ever spent working on a record, it took place in bedrooms and studios predominantly in east LA and Glendale, but venturing as far as Berlin and New York as Mondanile worked on tracks around heavy periods of Real Estate touring.

When Mondanile finally settled back in LA at the start of 2015, it was Rob Schnapf, co-producer of Elliott Smith's classic albums XO and Either/Or, that he turned to in order to help put the finishing touches to St. Catherine. Together, the pair added a new crispness and punch to the record's more upbeat, psychedelic pop tracks (such as James Ferraro-featuring, lolloping lead single "Headbanging In The Mirror", and the soaring "Into The Sky"), that recalls the artful muscularity of Smith's later work, whilst title track, the heavenly "St. Catherine" boasts one of Mondanile's greatest ever lead guitar lines and benefits greatly from Schnapf's warm, rich feel.

Where St. Catherine impresses even moreso, however, is when Mondanile steps out of his comfort zone, as he does frequently and with great success. The Julia Holter-featuring "Church" and "Heaven's Room", tracks which see Mondanile flex his muscles as a composer and arranger, introducing complex, interlocking vocal harmonies, gorgeously sweeping string parts (provided by Chris Votek and Andrew Tholl) and a host of off-kilter electronic elements into his sonic palate - channelling the likes of Broadcast, and Stereolab but with a younger, wide-eyed sensibility.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: More lush, dreamy sounds and Anglophile jangles from the moonlighting Real Estate man. Gorgeous, as ever.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Disney Afternoon
2. Headbanging In The Mirror
3. Into The Sky
4. Heaven’s Room
5. St. Catherine
6. The Laughing Woman
7. Surreal Exposure
8. Church
9. Medieval
10. Krumme Lanke
11. Reprise 

Comprised of 15 fresh David Pearce solo performances recorded in characteristically lo-fi manner at home, using guitars only on tape and CD-R, Instrumentals 2015 is an album that will appeal both to FSA diehards and those wholly unfamiliar with the outfit’s recorded output.

The 15 tracks on Instrumentals 2015 present an impressionistic narrative which transports the listener through the excoriating dronescapes and rueful introspection of the album’s early pieces to the more redemptive cadences of the its closing half. Given its sense of momentum, maintained through Pearce’s thoughtful sequencing, this is an album that should be experienced in its entirety, the better to appreciate its deliberate emotional arc.

Celebrated director Peter Strickland has shot his first music video for Instrumental 7, after meeting Dave and using the song ‘Seven Seas’ in his recently released film ‘The Duke Of Burgundy.

“My first ever music video for a band that I'm very glad to see the return of.

Within the Great Plains of Hungary, one can almost hear this music resonating far away in the endless expanse. Three of us in the flatfield for three days with Flying Saucer Attack on our headphones and trying to remember how to use light meters whilst observing a world that mankind is gradually departing from. “ – Peter Strickland

The product of a unique collaboration between Franz Ferdinand and Sparks, ‘FFS’ was produced by Grammy Award winner John Congleton (St Vincent, David Byrne, Anna Calvi) and recorded at London’s RAK Studios.

The seed of FFS was sown around the time of Franz’s debut album when word got back to the Maels that the band were big Sparks fans. “We thought ‘Take Me Out’ was very cool, and wouldn’t it be nice to say hello when they came to Los Angeles?” recalls Russell Mael. “We met and decided then it would be great to do something together. We put forward a couple demos, one was ‘Piss Off’. But they got swept up by everything, and it didn’t happen at that time.”

Fast-forward to 2013 when both Sparks and Franz Ferdinand appeared at Coachella. On the day of Sparks’ warm-up show in San Francisco, Kapranos was in the city trying to locate a dentist when he heard a voice behind him: “‘Alex, is that you?’ It was Ron and Russell. They invited us down to see them play that night. We said hello after, and everyone agreed that the 10-year gestation period for this idea was long enough - we should try and make it happen now.”

‘FFS’ was recorded during an intense 15-day period in late 2014. “We approached it the way bands do with their first record,” says Kapranos. “We had the songs first, rehearsed them and then recorded it all together, in a room. So no hanging around or fannying about.”

Very much a ‘new’ project, ‘FFS’ doesn’t truly sound like either band but a striking and fascinating mutation. “The real motivation was to make something new, not ‘Franz featuring Russell Mael’, or ‘Sparks with Franz Ferdinand backing them,” says Alex Kapranos. “You can’t chart what is Sparks and what is Franz Ferdinand,” suggests Ron Mael. “I think each band unconsciously relinquished a little of who they were in order to enter new territory.”

And just like that, with the sleazy sound of a robotic vocal, Hot Chip are back to defend their crown as undisputed electro-pop lotharios. Now onto their sixth album, the oddball outfit are in vintage form, hitting us with this energetic LP, which reflects all that's come before it without simply treading water. Opening track "Huarache Lights" is as well formed a pop song as you're likely to hear all year, combining breakbeats and disco samples with loose white funk, miami freestyle elements and classic Hot Chip shimmer. For those who've been down since day one, the quirky synth-funk of "Love Is The Future" and "Started Right" offer a more mature take on the sounds first heard on "Coming On Strong", while "White Wine And Fried Chicken" and "So Much Further To Go" are classic Hot Chip ballads in the same vein as "In The Privacy Of Our Love". At the top of the B-side, "Dark Night" sees the group heading into new territories, adding sweeping symphonic strings and distorted guitar to a sublime 80s styled pop groove. If you come to the record looking for the dancefloor stylings of "One Life Stand" and "In Our Heads", the synth heavy lilt of "Easy To Get" and the housed up magic of "Need You Now" should do you nicely, softening you up for the big psychedelic finish of "Why Make Sense?". And coming from one of the world's most unconventional pop acts, why indeed? 

Due to a unique and bespoke printing technique which has never been used before, the album will come in one of 501 different colours. Combined with subtle variations of the design, this means that EVERY copy of the album, on both CD and LP, will feature completely unique artwork. Visually and sonically adventurous and innovative, this is a giant leap forward for a band with plenty more to give.

The follow-up to Conor O’Brien’s debut, Becoming a Jackal, and its successor, Awayland - both hugely acclaimed and Mercury-nominated - is a breathtakingly beautiful, intimate album entirely about love and relationships.

Darling Arithmetic was written, recorded, produced and mixed by O’Brien at home - the loft of a converted farmhouse that he shares in the coastal town of Malahide to the north of Dublin - revealing a single-minded artist at the peak of his already considerable songwriting powers. It encompasses the various shades of feeling – desire, obsession, lust, loneliness and confusion, and deeper into philosophical and existential territory, across a cast of lovers, friends, family and even strangers. Backing up his supple and emoting vocal and guitar is the subtlest palate of instrumentation – piano, Mellotron (which accounts for the album’s occasional horn and cello tones) and brushes. O’Brien plays every instrument on these exquisite, melodic songs in a sparse, spacious, acoustic-leaning fashion.

On Darling Arithmetic, O’Brien doesn’t only pare back his use of language but looks deep into his own heart and motives. The opening track and first single, ‘Courage’, concerns the most important kind of love – for yourself: “It took a little time to get where I wanted / It took a little time to get free / It took a little time to be honest / It took a little time to be me.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Courage
2. Everything I Am Is Yours
3. Dawning On Me
4. Hot Scary Summer
5. The Soul Serene
6. Darling Arithmetic
7. Little Bigot
8. No One To Blame
9. So Naïve 

Matthew E. White is a Richmond, Virginia-based singer, songwriter, bandleader and musical polymath.

‘Fresh Blood’ is the follow-up to the “magical” (Pitchfork) debut ‘Big Inner’ and is a bracing, beguiling record and a bold advance for White. It’s a record that feels like the brilliant bloom to ‘Big Inner’s striking bud.

Produced by White and Spacebomb partner Trey Pollard and mixed by Pat Dillett (David Byrne, Nile Rodgers), ‘Fresh Blood’ marks the next chapter of White’s Richmond, VA-based Spacebomb - an analogue studio, record label and production house with in-house strings, horns and a choir at his behest.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Even better than his first LP and that's really saying something!

TRACK LISTING

1. Take Care My Baby
2. Rock & Roll Is Cold
3. Fruit Trees
4. Holy Moly
5. Circle ‘Round The Sun
6. Feeling Good Is Good
7. Enough
8. Tranquility
9. Golden Robes
10. Vision
11. Love Is Deep

Panda Bear aka Noah Lennox has had a far-from-quiet few years since the release of his fourth solo record, 2011’s ‘Tomboy’. Since the breakout success of 2007’s universally-adored ‘Person Pitch’, each new Panda Bear release is a highly anticipated event and, one high profile Daft Punk collaboration later (‘Doin’ It Right’ from ‘Random Access Memories’), this is more the case than ever.

Old school hip hop textures and production techniques meld with the intuitive, cyclical melodies he has become known for, a sound that is at once both dense and playful.

Recording for the album came together everywhere from El Paso, Texas, to a garage by the beach near his home in Lisbon, Portugal. In a relationship that already proved fruitful on ‘Tomboy’, Noah partnered again with Pete ‘Sonic Boom’ Kember (Spacemen 3, Spectrum), this time in a more top-to-bottom production role.

TRACK LISTING

Sequential Circuits
Mr Noah
Davy Jones’ Locker
Crosswords
Butcher Baker Candlestick Maker
Boys Latin
Come To Your Senses
Tropic Of Cancer
Shadow Of The Colossus
Lonely Wanderer
Principe Real
Selfish Gene
Acid Wash

"Asleep Versions" was recorded at Sundlaugin Studios, near Reykjavik, in February of this year. Intended to be heard as one single 25 minute piece, it is composed of four decelerated, dreamlike re-imaginings of tracks from Hopkins Mercury-nominated "Immunity" album.

Representing the quieter, more meditative side of the album, these new explorations take its hypnotic, transcendent qualities to a far deeper level. At times almost painfully beautiful, the EP contains a new, semi-acoustic re-interpretation of album track ‘Form By Firelight’, featuring additional vocals from the Braids and Blue Hawaii lead vocalist, Raphaelle Standell.

TRACK LISTING

A1.Immunity (with King Creosote)
A2. Form By Firelight (with Raphaelle Standell)
B1. Breathe This Air (Asleep Version)
B2. Open Eye Signal (Asleep Version)

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s new album ‘Singer’s Grave A Sea Of Tongues’ is released on Domino.

At the locus of five corners, mythos is in the wind; a sea of tongues boils forth, mountains spurting forth from the magma. Bonnie sings for who he was and will be and for all of us, in time.

Bonnie Billy has been quoted as saying that one of the songs on the album is a conceptual track that’s about “one day in 1973 when only two people died in the whole world.”

TRACK LISTING

Night Noises
So Far And Here We Are
There Will Be Spring
Quail And Dumplings
We Are Unhappy
It’s Time To Be Clear
Whipped
Old Match
Mindlessness
Mew Black Rich (Tusks)
Sailor’s Grave A Sea Of Sheep

James Yorkston, an artist not unfamiliar with the notion of collaboration, has opened the studio doors to a broad and brilliant selection of players on this his eighth studio album.

Produced by Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor in London’s Livingston studio, it features KT Tunstall, The Pictish Trail, Rob Smoughton, Fimber Bravo and his long term collaborators Jon Thorne and Emma Smith.

‘The Cellardyke Recording And Wassailing Society’ finds James at his most personal and reflective, following 2012’s ‘I Was A Cat From A Book’.

What James and his collection of fine musicians have created is an album that connects the intimacy of his hometown life with the camaraderie of good friends. ‘The Cellardyke Recording And Wassailing Society’ flows with acceptance and relief and is James’ fullest body of work.

The album artwork was created by celebrated children’s author and illustrator Clare Beaton.

TRACK LISTING

Fellow Man
The Blues You Sang
Sweet Sweet
Guy Fawkes’ Signature
Thinking About Kat
Feathers Are Falling
Broken Wave (A Blues For Doogie)
Red Fox
King Of The Moles
Great Ghosts
Sleep On
Embers
Honey On Thigh
As Grey And As White
The Very Very Best
You & Your Sister

Composed of eleven stunning and emotive tracks, ‘From Scotland With Love’ was written by King Creosote and produced by music supervisor and guitarist David McAulay, with additional production by Paul Savage, in Chem19 Studios in Glasgow.

The record features King Creosote accompanied by his band - Derek O’Neill (keyboards), Andy Robinson (drums), Pete Mcleod (bass) and Kevin Brolly (clarinet) - as well as an additional string section (arranged by cellist Pete Harvey) and a choir of backing vocalists.

‘From Scotland With Love’ was created in collaboration with director Virginia Heath and producer Grant Keir as an audio-accompaniment to a poetic documentary film of the same name, to be released for the Commonwealth Games this summer. Featuring archive footage but no narration or interview, the film works around themes of love and loss, war, resistance, emigration, work and play and is driven as much by the music as it is the images. For the first time King Creosote found himself being able to write from other people’s perspectives, such as the female characters found in the archive (the ‘fisher lassies’ inspired the moving track ‘Cargill’, for example). The result is ‘From Scotland With Love’, one of King Creosote’s most widescreen cinematic and finest pieces of work to date.

TRACK LISTING

Something To Believe In
Cargill
Largs (Short)
Miserable Strangers
Leaf Piece (Short)
For One Night Only
Bluebell, Cockleshell, 123
One Floor Down
Crystal 8s
Pauper’s Dough
A Prairie Tale

Resilient and hard hitting rock ‘n’ roll outfit White Lung are set to release their third album ‘Deep Fantasy’ via Domino. The band is every bit as confrontational as before but they’ve managed to open their sound up just enough to draw listeners in before kicking them in the face (in a good way).

‘Deep Fantasy’ was made primarily in Vancouver with producer Jesse Gander (who did both ‘Sorry’ and their 2010 debut ‘It’s The Evil’) in just two, ten day-long sessions at the end of last year and the start of this one.

Vocalist Mish Way is more provocative and melodic than ever on ‘Deep Fantasy’, surveying lyrically addiction (‘Drown With The Monster’), body dysmorphia (‘Snake Jaw’) and sexual dynamics (‘Down It Goes’).

TRACK LISTING

Drown With The Monster
Down It Goes
Snake Jaw
Face Down
I Believe You
Wrong Star
Just For You
Sycophant
Lucky One
In Your Home

‘Enter The Slasher House’ is the debut album from Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks, released on Domino.

Comprised of Avey Tare (of Animal Collective), Angel Deradoorian (of Dirty Projectors, Deradoorian), and drummer Jeremy Hyman (of Ponytail, Dan Deacon), Avery Tare’s Slasher Flicks unites Avey Tare’s songwriting abilities with Deradoorian’s melody lines and Hyman’s flexible rhythms.

The band could be described as a monstrous and nightmarish jazz power trio inspired by campy horror movie themes.

Domino are excited to present the self titled debut album from new singing We Are Catchers (real name Peter Jackson).

A beautiful, timeless collection of songs, ‘We Are Catchers’ summons up the spirits of legendary Mersey beasts like Mick and John Head, the Crucial Three, Bill Ryder Jones, Lee Mavers and the Wild Swans whilst chiming gorgeously with dusty echoes of records by Brian Wilson and Arthur Lee.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: D.I.Y, Spector-inspired indie-pop that tugs at the heartstrings as much as it inspires. With his echoey piano and classic, ringing chords to the fore, Peter Jackson has made an album with all the charm and magic of those early Badly Drawn Boy records. Lovely.

Domino are very excited to present ‘Present Tense’ from Wild Beasts.

This collection of eleven songs will be the Kendal fourpiece’s fourth album, and the first in almost three years since the release of the critically acclaimed ‘Smother’.

Already rightly considered to be one of contemporary Britain’s most innovative and vital bands, the new album sees the group’s ever-restless collective muse lead them to remarkable new heights - boldly embracing new production techniques and songwriting forms whilst retaining the thrilling idiosyncrasies that have made them so beloved over the course of three challenging, beguiling and beautiful albums to date.

TRACK LISTING

Wanderlust
Nature Boy
Mecca
Sweet Spot
Daughters
Pregnant Pause
A Simple Beautiful Truth
A Dog’s Life
Past Perfect
New Life
Palace

New album from ex-Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus and his band The Jicks.

The album was produced by the band (Stephen Malkmus, Joanna Bolme, Jake Morris and Mike Clark) and Remko Schouten (the Dutch soundman of Pavement fame) in a studio in rural Ardennes with ‘a farmhouse vibe’.

In the words of Stephen Malkmus, "‘Wig Out At Jagbags’ is inspired by Cologne, Germany, Mark Von Schlegel, Rosemarie Trockel, Von Sparr and Jan Lankisch, Can and Gas; Stephen Malkums imagined Weezer/Chili Peppers, SIc Alps, UVA in the late 80's, NYRB, Aroma Charlottenburg, inactivity, Jamming, Indie guys trying to sound Memphis, Flipper, Pete Townsend, Pavement, The Joggers, The NBA and home life in the 2010's..."

STAFF COMMENTS

Ryan says: Malkmus displays his songwriting prowess again, following a similar formula to 'Mirror Traffic', Hazy guitar-rock and clever twists and turns make for an excellent listen.

Specially expanded version of Matthew E. White’s celebrated debut album ‘Big Inner, featuring brand new 5 song mini album ‘Outer Face’.

‘Big Inner’, Matthew E. White’s first album, was universally lauded by critics. Compared to the likes of Amy Winehouse, Beta Band, Cat Power, Spiritualized, Lambchop and Randy Newman, it blends vintage soul-pop with blues, funk and gospel to create a soulful masterpiece soaked in a bygone age.

The expanded 2CD ‘Outer Face Edition’ features ‘Outer Face’ as a bonus CD that sees Matthew experimenting with certain recording limitations, giving the record a different gravitational pull and furthering the record’s soulful minimalism. 

Guided by restraint and indulgence, Matthew E White expanded the process that created ‘Big Inner’ and began to find its first descendant, ‘Outer Face’, that White describes as “a monument to love, to non-love, to the confusion of feelings, to the last half century of recorded music, to dub, to minimalism, to pure orchestration, to the human voice, to birds in the sky, to home.” It’s ‘Big Inner’ stripped down to the basics - percussion, bass, strings, choir - exploring tape manipulation, a bit of editing à la Teo Macero, and dub-inspired effects.

TRACK LISTING

Big Inner
One Of These Days
Big Love
Will You Love Me
Gone Away
Steady Pace
Hot Toddies
Brazos

Outer Face
Eyes Like The Rest
Signature Move
Human Style
In The Valley
Hot Hot Hot

The second studio album from Mercury-nominated UK artist Anna Calvi.

Following on from her self titled, critically acclaimed, Top 40 debut, ‘One Breath’ is a bold, confident progression in terms of textures and emotion.

Produced by John Congleton at Blackbox Studios, France and mixed in Texas.

Initial quantities include a free CD bonus disc: 'Quasi covers EP'.

Now in their 20th year as a band, two-piece Quasi return with a veritable Quasi songbook featuring 24 shinning examples of shakin’ blues, percussion freak-outs, chiming minor seventh chords and rock & roll.

TRACK LISTING

You Can Stay But You Got To Go
See You On Mars
Blasted
Chrome Duck
Chumps Of Chance
Fat Fanny Land
Nostalgia Kills
R.I.P.
Headshrinker
Bedbug Town
The Goat
Geraldine
Loopy
Double Deuce
Gnot
Dust Of The Sun
Mole City
An Ice Cube In The Sun
One And Done
The Dying Man
Clap Trap
New Western Way
Beyond The Return Of The Sun Of Nowhere

Quasi Covers EP
Don't' Stop Me Now (Queen)
War Pigs (Black Sabbath)
Let's Get It On (Marvin Gaye)
What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love & Understanding (Elvis Costello And The Attractions)

‘AM’ was produced by James Ford and co-produced by Ross Orton at Sage & Sound Recording, LA and Rancho De La Luna, Joshua Tree. The album was engineered by Ian Shea and mixed by Tchad Blake.

Josh Homme, Pete Thomas and Bill Ryder-Jones all make guest appearances on ‘AM’ – as do the words of John Cooper Clarke, on the track I Wanna Be Yours.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: The perfect mix of pop and rock. Their best since their debut.

TRACK LISTING

1. Do I Wanna Know?
2. R U Mine?
3. One For The Road
4. Arabella
5. I Want It All
6. No. 1 Party Anthem
7. Mad Sounds
8. Fireside
9. Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?
10. Snap Out Of It
11. Knee Socks
12. I Wanna Be Yours

This exuberant, unencumbered record is the first from the Glasgow band since 2009’s Tonight. They seem to have rediscovered the imagination, vitality and fun found on their classic, era-encapsulating debut Franz Ferdinand.

Recorded over the last year at Kapranos’s Scottish studio and McCarthy’s Sausage Studios in London, the LP cements their status as a unique and adventurous British band: emboldened by a decade’s undreamt-of worldwide success, but still daring and defiant. It’s an ecstatic rejection of the drab conventions often accompanying that level of attention and expectation.

When asked for a quote, Kapranos came back with: “The Intellect Vs The Soul, played out by some dumb band.”* God knows what that means, but the lyrics do seem more poetic this time. There were a few interesting collaborations, but more of that later…

The ten songs that make up Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action take what propelled Franz Ferdinand from the incestuous Glasgow Art School world to, well, the entire world - painterly lyrical detail, heavyweight hooks, precise aesthetic vision and that uncanny ability to marry arch artistic sensibility with pop punch – and push it even further. The breadth of influence, musicality and invention on show here is enormous. If this is unmistakably a Franz Ferdinand record, it is as much by virtue of its sonic daring and perfectly patch-worked eclecticism as the timeless songwriting flair that has long been their calling card.

Franz Ferdinand are still Alex Kapranos, Nick McCarthy, Bob Hardy and Paul Thomson. There’s still no one like them.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Franz re-connect with what they do best. It's still clever, but loads of fun too. Proper band!

The third studio album from singular artist Julia Holter.

New album of avant-pop experimentation from the LA based singer / composer that blends influence ranging from Joni Mitchell to Arthur Russell and the poetry of Frank O’Hara into a daringly unique work as conceptually strong as it is immediately affecting.

‘Loud City Song’ follows, and progresses brilliantly from ‘Ekstasis’, one of last year’s most critically lauded records.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Julia Holter's Domino Records debut fittingly feels like the start of something new, honing as it does, everything that's special about her. Dark and dreamy.

TRACK LISTING

World
Maxim’s I
Horns Surrounding Me
In The Green Wild
Hello Stranger
Maxim’s II
He’s Running Through My Eyes
This Is A True Heart
City Appearing

‘Between The Walls’ is the third album by About Group - Charles Hayward (This Heat, Camberwell Now), John Coxon (Spring Heel Jack, Spiritualized), Pat Thomas (has played with Derek Bailey, Tony Oxley), Alexis Taylor (Hot Chip).

Alexis Taylor: “I think the excitement of making music is what I can hear in this record. John’s guitars on ‘Love Because' make me think of buzzing flies swinging wildly around the musical centre of the situation. That the centre is unstable as no one knows what song I am playing, makes me think of the controlled chaos of ‘Like Flies On Sherbert’ or a Cramps record, but ours sounds like it is playing at half speed.”

The Pastels return after 16 years, their first album proper since 1997s ‘Illuminations’; their collaborative works, ‘The Last Great Wilderness’ soundtrack / theatre commissions and the ‘Two Sunsets’ album with Tenniscoats keeping the band busy since then. ‘Slow Summits’ gathers on all these works but moves off in newer and older ways too, with its flowing montage of autumn instrumentals, pop songs, slowmotion build ups and suddenly optimistic melody lines.

Recorded in Glasgow by John McEntire and Bal Cooke, ‘Slow Summits’ features the core Pastels line-up of Stephen McRobbie, Katrina Mitchell, Tom Crossley, Gerard Love, Alison Mitchell and John Hogarty.

Guests include original member Annabel Wright (Aggi) and Norman Blake, two-thirds of To Rococo Rot (Stefan Schneider and Ronald Lippok), and Tenniscoats. ‘Kicking Leaves’ also features a memorable string arrangement from Glasgow-based composer Craig Armstrong.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Thought they'd gone all JAZZ or something?!? Fear not: this is a glorious return from Stephen and co: gentle, considered, warm and melodic. Really lovely stuff.

A collection of songs performed by Dawn McCarthy & Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy as learnt from The Everly Brothers. As children, the music of The Everly Brothers touched Dawn McCarthy and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy; it touches Dawn’s children and the little ‘prince’ within Bonnie today, and makes them dance and sing.

‘What The Brothers Sang’ is no mere gesture of nostalgia. These new versions rethink The Everly Brothers for the audience of listeners today; people who naturally might have no previous knowledge or experience of these songs.

Moving, redemptive and powerfully soulful, ‘Big Inner’ is a timeless record told in seven songs that mingle memory with the rawness of any given human moment.

The references - from the lyrics that echo the common conditions of love, death, seeking, and finding, to open tributes to artists like Washington Phillips, Allen Toussaint, Jorge Ben, Jimmy Cliff, and Randy Newman - are their own scavenger hunt through music history and through Matthew E. White’s place in it.

“Country-soul apostle Matthew E. White offers spiritual succour” - Q

“Bottomless columns of ethereal soul… magical” - Pitchfork

“Resplendently somnolent funk” - Rolling Stone

“A dramatic pop-gospel record that hits extremes of the mood spectrum: very easygoing and very obsessive” - NY Times

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: There is nothing like this record around at the moment: ‘70s, Southern, blue-eyed soul; languid, mellow, groovy and heady. Matthew is a big, funky, bearded dude from Virginia, who has taken years to set up his Spacebomb label and gather cool kindred spirits, a house band of sorts, who add lush orchestration, parping horns, and loose, shuffling drums to these subtly uplifting tunes. His voice is a murmur, at times a whisper, but it fits perfectly with the vintage instruments and production; elegant, slowly unfurling songs, bubbling bass-lines, choirs and cosmic vibes. Think Spiritualized, Lambchop, or The Beta Band, then lose yourself in “Big Love”s heavy, pulsing swamp, whilst the words "I am a barracuda, I am a hurricane. Live free!" float up and you just know what he means. And that he means it! This guy is the real deal. Hearing is believing.

TRACK LISTING

1. One Of These Days
2. Big Love
3. Will You Love Me
4. Gone Away
5. Steady Pace
6. Hot Toddies
7. Brazos

‘Centipede Hz’ is the tenth full length Animal Collective album, following the widely celebrated ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’ (2009), and also the first since ‘Strawberry Jam’ (2007) to feature all four original band members: Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist and Deakin.

As the album’s opening bars of drum crashes and radio interference on ‘Moonjock’ immediately make clear, having returned as a four piece, Animal Collective have made their most widescreen and fully realized music to date.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ryan says: They had a tough act to follow with their last release lurking close behind, but it looks like they've done it! Expect a mixing pot of tones from dark dance-pop to even darker krautrock.

TRACK LISTING

1. Moonjock
2. Today's Supernatural
3. Rosie Oh
4. Applesauce
5. Wide Eyed
6. Father Time
7. New Town Burnout
8. Monkey Riches
9. Mercury Man
10. Pulleys
11. Amanita

His first album since 2008’s ‘When The Haar Rolls In’, ‘I Was A Cat From A Book’ finds James Yorkston playing with a new band comprised of members of Lamb and The Cinematic Orchestra, alongside old friends.

The album was produced by James Yorkston and Dave Wrench and mostly recorded live during five wintery days in Bryn Derwen Studios, North Wales.

It’s an album full of energy and great musicianship, and contains James’ strongest and most bewildering set of songs yet.

Since the release of ‘When The Haar Rolls In’, James has published a book (‘It’s Lovely To Be Here’), collaborated with The Big Eyes Family Players on Folk Songs, and seen the ten year anniversary release of ‘Moving Up Country’, his landmark debut album.

TRACK LISTING

Catch
Kath With Rhodes
Border Song
This Line Says
Just As Scared
Sometimes The Act Of Giving Love
The Fire & The Flames
A Short Blues
Spanish Ants
Two
I Can Take All This
Thar She Blows *
Black Horse White *
(* = Vinyl Only Track)

On Dirty Projectors sixth album, 'Swing Lo Magellan', songwriter and leader David Longstreth shows he really doesn't know how to do the same thing twice. Where prior Dirty Projectors albums investigated 20th-century orchestration, West-African guitar music and complex contrapuntal techniques in human voices, 'Swing Lo Magellan' is a leap forward again. It's an album of songs, an album of songwriting. 'Swing Lo Magella'n has both the handmade intimacy of a love letter and the widescreen grandeur of a blockbuster, and if that sounds like a paradox -- it's because it was until now.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ryan says: Long time projectors fans won't be disappointed, Swing Lo Magellan takes off were Bitte Orca left off. David Longstreth employs his usual spectacular song writing skills again to maximum effect.

TRACK LISTING

1. Offspring Are Blank
2. About To Die
3. Gun Has No Trigger
4. Swing Lo Magellan
5. Just From Chevron
6. Dance For You
7. Maybe That Was It
8. Impregnable Question
9. See What She Seeing
10. The Socialites
11. Unto Caesar
12. Irresponsible Tune

On Dirty Projectors sixth album, 'Swing Lo Magellan', songwriter and leader David Longstreth shows he really doesn't know how to do the same thing twice. Where prior Dirty Projectors albums investigated 20th-century orchestration, West-African guitar music and complex contrapuntal techniques in human voices, 'Swing Lo Magellan' is a leap forward again. It's an album of songs, an album of songwriting. 'Swing Lo Magella'n has both the handmade intimacy of a love letter and the widescreen grandeur of a blockbuster, and if that sounds like a paradox -- it's because it was until now.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ryan says: Long time projectors fans won't be disappointed, Swing Lo Magellan takes off were Bitte Orca left off. David Longstreth employs his usual spectacular song writing skills again to maximum effect.

TRACK LISTING

1. Offspring Are Blank
2. About To Die
3. Gun Has No Trigger
4. Swing Lo Magellan
5. Just From Chevron
6. Dance For You
7. Maybe That Was It
8. Impregnable Question
9. See What She Seeing
10. The Socialites
11. Unto Caesar
12. Irresponsible Tune

Landmark recordings of the 21st century British folk renaissance reissued.

This 10th Anniversary Edition of ‘Moving Up Country’ consists of two discs.

CD1 features the original album, now with the legendary hard to find stand alone debut Domino single ‘The Lang Toun’.

CD2 is a collection of ‘Moving Up Country’ demos, including never heard before demos and a Peel Session originally broadcast on January 2003.

For a limited period both formats come with a free 5 postcard set in a printed wallet. Each postcard featuring the artwork of the release.

The mini album 'Hope' was another change in sound, and featured arrangements by Sean O Hagan, then of the High Llamas. Featuring six songs including a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Winter Lady, Oldham’s voice is set in a reflective and soft-hued sound throughout.

The use of piano as a lead instrument suggest a parlour-song atmosphere, something which is enhanced by Oldham’s frequent repetition of lines in the lyrics, which also expand on his own brand of surrealism. On ‘Untitled’ Oldham sings ‘Did you like the cake? some of it was nice’ as though the importance of the cake is of a more far-reaching consequence than the cake and anyone who may be eating it realises.

TRACK LISTING

1. Agnes, Queen Of Sorrow
2. Untitled
3. Winter Lady
4. Christmastime In The Mountains
5. All Gone, All Gone
6. Werner's Last Blues To Blockbuster

For a limited period both formats come with a free 5 postcard set in a printed wallet. Each postcard featuring the artwork of the release.

On 'Viva Last Blues', Oldham ‘went electric’. Recorded by Steve Albini and including Plush’s Liam Hayes and Sebadoh’s Jason Lowenstein in the cast of accompanying players, the album is as dramatic and accessible as any Oldham has released.

During the accompanying tour and in press shots for ‘Viva’ Oldham often wore a cowboy hat. The record has a distinct Western, frontier-town feel, on ‘Work Hard / Play Hard’ Oldham and band rock-out in suitably blue-collar fashion. The lyrics to ‘The Mountain Low’: ‘If I could fuck a mountain, oh lord I would fuck a mountain’ (Oldham insisted the song was released as a single) were the first to feature the denuded eroticism that would be a hallmark of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s song writing.

On ‘New Partner’, one of the album’s most celebrated tracks, Oldham sounds both warm-hearted and unsentimental – an emotional position that colours many of his lyrics. ‘Viva’ was the first time Oldham had been heard in such clarity and the interplay between the band and his voice produces some startling vocal performances.

Oldham also sounds at his most relaxed and loose on many of the songs, hitting the high notes with abandon as the music ebbs and flows around him, or, as he sings in ‘Viva Ultra’ ‘Are you jealous of the show we put on?’

For a limited period both formats come with a free 5 postcard set in a printed wallet. Each postcard featuring the artwork of the release.

'Lost Blues' was the first compilation Oldham released. The collection rounds up many of the Palace singles and B-sides along with some unreleased recordings.

The debut Palace Brothers single: ‘Ohio River Boat Song’ is included as is Oldham’s version of Sally Timms of The Mekons song ‘Horses.’ Although a cover ‘Horses’ is one of the definitive Palace songs. Oldham’s voice wavers with an intensity he saves for more emotional lyrics and an extraordinary guitar solo by David Pajo cuts through the rest of the song with a delightfully unhinged aggression (Oldham had asked Pajo to play a solo that sounded like Slash).

Other highlights of Lost Blues are the songs from the ‘West Palm Beach / Gulf Shores,’ two of the dreamiest tracks Oldham has recorded and a highlight of the Palace canon. The live version of ‘Riding’ is also a revelation. Originally featured on the ‘There Is No One” album, the song was an agnostic foot stomp about brothers and sisters, here it is turned into a three guitar assault. The contrast perfectly illustrates how Oldham refused to be constrained by any signature style, but how everything he did under the Palace name was instantly recognisable as his and his alone.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ohio River Boat Song
2. Riding
3. Valentine's Day
4. Trudy Dies
5. Come In
6. Little Blue Eyes
7. Horses
8. Stable Will
9. Untitled
10. O How I Enjoy The Light
11. Marriage
12. West Palm Beach
13. Gulf Shores
14. (End Of) Traveling
15. Lost Blues

For a limited period both formats come with a free 5 postcard set in a printed wallet. Each postcard featuring the artwork of the release.

The debut Palace Brothers album was released in 1993 when much American music was going through a particularly bombastic period. In contrast ‘There Is No One’ sounded like a field recording, as though a tape of back porch confessionals recorded by Alan Lomax as an example of high Southern Gothic style, had been newly discovered and released.

The sense of other worldly timelessness was enhanced by the song titles, which were rich in biblical imagery and a backwoods sensibility: ‘Idle Hands Are The Devil’s Plaything”, “I Tried To Stay Healthy For You”, “O Lord Are You In Need?” The music on the record was equally arcane and ancient sounding. Banjos and loose snare drums rattle together in accompaniment to Oldham’s guitar and voice as he sings songs of a desperate and broken worldview. That he was just twenty-two at the time led some critics to wonder if Oldham was acting out a role as a Steinbeck character.

Listening to the record almost twenty years after its release it’s impossible to underestimate “There Is No One’s” influence on what would become known the New Weird America or alt-country, and that any questions about Oldham’s integrity, motives or authenticity are a dead end compared to this dark, unsettlingly brilliant record.

For a limited period both formats come with a free 5 postcard set in a printed wallet. Each postcard featuring the artwork of the release.

The second Palace Brothers album was originally self-titled (or untitled), though the moniker "Days In The Wake" was appended to later pressings. The release is at once a progression from and reduction of the twisted lo-fi country-folk of the debut album. "Days In The Wake" is essentially just Oldham, his cracked tenor and his acoustic guitar. The songs aren't as unremittingly dark as on the previous recording, since Oldham injects a fair amount of stream-of-consciousness humour and light-hearted, elliptical song-poetry. The extreme sparseness amplifies the emotion in Oldham's voice and lyrics though, and on "You Will Miss Me When I Burn" the emotional desolation is harrowing, bringing to mind the best work of Mark Eitzel. The brainy non-sequiturs of the closing "I Am a Cinematographer" are evidence that there's more forethought than savant at work in Oldham's artistic process.

There is a first time for everything. Prior to the recording, 'Wolfroy Goes To Town' was played by the whole band in performance at Chicago's Millennium Park in May, 2011. This is the first time any Bonnie album has been previewed in public before it was made in the studio!

In addition to Bonnie, the players on this record are: Ben Boye (keyboards & extra singing), Van Campbell (drums & percussion), Shahzad Ismaily (percussion, guitar, extra singing), Emmett Kelly (guitars, mandolin, harmony singing), Danny Kiely (basses) & Angel Olson (singing).

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Stark and hushed instrumentation and typically intimate vocals combine to make another Bonnie Prince Billy masterpiece. Perfect for a mellow night in with a fine whiskey. You need this!

TRACK LISTING

1. No Match
2. New Whaling
3. Time To Be Clear
4. New Tibet
5. Black Captain
6. Cows
7. There Will Be Spring
8. Quail And Dumplings
9. We Are Unhappy
10. Night Noises

'Mirror Traffic' is the new Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks album, recorded at LA’s Sunset Sound Studios and at the home of the album’s producer, Beck.

With the question of a Pavement reunion having been triumphantly answered last year with an Ono-esque “YES”, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks return with their most energized set to date. These 15 songs range from hard-rocking political commentary (“Senator”), to touching, winsome folk (“No One Is”), to virtuosic but melancholy and contrite kiwi pop (“Stick Figures In Love”). The lyrics are as curious as ever but more meaningful than they have been since 'Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain'. “This record,” concedes Malkmus dryly, “is relatively approachable.”

As the first producer to work with Malkmus since Pavement, Beck has drawn out a set of performances that ring with clarity and inventiveness. Gone are the long guitar workouts and jams that marked the last couple Jicks albums, replaced with a sharply defined focus and more colorful depth of field. With nearly half the tracks clocking in under three minutes, 'Mirror Traffic' flashes by with a lightness of touch; a decision that band and producer found easy to take: “Beck & I were both burned out on the heavy rocking style,” says Malkmus, “and playing to the strengths of a melody felt like the way to go.”

First two responses from bigshot journalists who got early copies were, word for word:
1) “I’m so psyched, this is the most Malk thing in years”
2) “I respect his right to make any record he wants, but this is the album that me and a lot of other people have waited 10 years for.”

For someone who has occasionally enjoyed a reputation for throwing ideas into the air and seeing where they land, 'Mirror Traffic' is a confident, heartfelt, direct record. Ease into the seat and enjoy the ride.

Devonté Hynes has produced a lot of music. Some for himself: Testicicles, Lightspeed Champion and some for others: Basement Jaxx, Florence & The Machine, Theophilus London, Solange Knowles, Cassie, Diana Vickers. Somewhere in between all of this, Blood Orange was created.

Hynes has been living in New York City for the past three years where he has been concentrating on writing and producing for other artists. He simultaneously worked on songs in his bedroom, compiling them onto mixtapes that he would listen to while traveling around the city at night, letting the city’s nocturnal ecosystem seep into the music in his headphones.

Informed by the equally neon atmosphere of Chris Isaak, Billy Idol, 80s Japanese pop such as Yellow magic Orchestra and French singer FR David, Hynes took the songs that form ‘Coastal Grooves’ on a trip to the West Coast where he started turning the ideas into an album with producer Ariel Rechtshaid in LA. Alongside the music he heard playing in after-hours bars, Hynes drew inspiration from the identity blurring work of transgender icons such as Octavia St Laurent and the playful high-gloss nihilsm of Gregg Araki movies. Blood Orange is the music of a seedy yet inspirational New York night time.

Light and airy, filmic but intimate, carefully arranged but deceptively powerful, "Suck It And See" is Arctic Monkeys’ fourth album.

Recorded at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles with long-time producer / collaborator James Ford, it has a Summery pop feel, with the bulk of work completed on the West Coast.

Retaining only a modicum of the heaviness of "Humbug", "Suck It And See" sees Arctic Monkeys in major chord, classic songwriting territory once more.

TRACK LISTING

1. She’s Thunderstorms
2. Black Treacle
3. Brick By Brick
4. The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala
5. Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair
6. Library Pictures
7. All My Own Stunts
8. Reckless Serenade
9. Piledriver Waltz
10. Love Is A Laserquest
11. Suck It And See
12. That’s Where You’re Wrong

Record Store Day 2011 limited edition orange vinyl.

Cover versions of songs from the Franz "Tonight" album performed by Debbie Harry, LCD Sound System, Peaches, ESG & Stephin Merrit (Magnetic Fields).

TRACK LISTING

01. Debbie Harry & Franz Ferdinand - Live Alone
02. Stephen Merritt - Dream Again
03. LCD Soundsystem - Live Alone
04. ESG - What She Came For
05. Peaches - Turn It On

The Kills - Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart - are back with a new studio album, "Blood Pressures", the highly anticipated follow-up to their critically acclaimed third album, "Midnight Boom".

The 11 tracks find The Kills embracing a fuller sound and becoming more adventurous in the studio, while the lyrics are honest, heartfelt and sometimes just plain heartbreaking.

As one of the most vital, striking bands recording today, The Kills' vividly unique "rock" is at once effortless, edgy and timeless.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Superb return to form: song after top song. Mega sound too. Everything you love about The Kills on one album.

David says: How contrary are The Kills? That they've managed to find the time to make an album at all is an achievement, what with Alison Mosshart touring and recording as Dead Weather and Jamie Hince preparing for life in the tabloids as Mr Kate Moss. But that “Blood Pressures”, their fourth and best album to date, should swagger so effortlessly, well...
The band's trademark Delta sleaze, boogie-box blues could never be described as original and, yes, they're certainly walking a road that many have walked before them but, if you're of the opinion that there's never been need for any more than three chords, a pair of skinny jeans and a decent pair of sunglasses, then look no further: this is the album for you.

TRACK LISTING

1. Future Starts Slow
2. Satellite
3. Heart Is A Beating Drum
4. Nail In My Coffin
5. Wild Charms
6. DNA
7. Baby Says
8. The Last Goodbye
9. Damned If She Do
10. You Don't Own The Road
11. Pots And Pans

"Diamond Mine" is a unique and heartrending collaboration between Scottish Fence Collective boss and singer King Creosote and electronic talent and sound sculptor Jon Hopkins.

Described by King Creosote as a 'soundtrack to a romanticised version of a life lived in a Scottish coastal village', the record weaves in field recordings of Fife life, bike wheels, spring tides, tea cups and café chatter to produce a beautiful, unique and timeless album.

The album is already being talked about as King Creosote’s masterpiece, a modern equivalent of Talk Talk’s "Spirit of Eden".

TRACK LISTING

1. First Watch
2. John Taylor’s Month Away
3. Bats In The Attic
4. Running On Fumes
5. Bubble
6. Your Own Spell
7. Your Young Voice

A six track mini album of original songs from the film ‘Submarine’, recorded by Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner and released by Domino.

The tracks here are much more stripped down than anything the band have released, and this suits Alex’s wry, poetic songwriting perfectly.

‘Submarine’, the debut film from Richard Ayoade, based on the novel by Joe Dunthorne, will be shown nationwide in cinemas from the 18th of March.

Ann Calvi’s debut for Domino is set to be one of the most talked about records of next year.

Brian Eno has championed her as the most visionary female artiste since Patti Smith, Nick Cave has just taken her out around Europe as special guest of Grinderman, and Rob Ellis (PJ Harvey’s right hand studio man) has produced the music.

An inspired guitarist influenced by Django Reinhardt as much as Jimi Hendrix, and with vocals inspired by Nina Simone and Mariah Callas, Anna Calvi’s music is a passionate and incredibly original mix.

The live shows with her permanent three piece band are already wowing audiences across the land.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Ridiculously striking, powerful debut, seemingly from nowhere. If you like all the influences mentioned below, and throw in a bit of gothiness (now apparently ok to like and reference!?) and even early rock 'n'roll, then you're going to love this record.

"For The Ghosts Within" is a new collaboration between Robert Wyatt, saxophonist / composer Gilad Atzmon (currently a main player in Ian Dury’s Blockheads) and violinist / composer Ros Stephen. A song cycle featuring jazz standards such as "Lush Life", "In A Sentimental Mood" and "Round Midnight", "For The Ghosts Within" places Wyatt’s voice (and whistling) amid the seductive drama of string quartet and Gilad’s beautiful saxophone playing. The trio also take on Robert’s own song - the classic "Maryan" from his 1997 album "Schleep", plus covers of Chic’s "At Last I Am Free" (previously recorded for Rough Trade in the early 80s) and Louis Armstrong’s "What A Wonderful World" - a possible future Xmas number one!

For this 2010 album of songs, Bonny Billy and The Cairo Gang together have built a bridge forward, assembled with riffs and bits from Emmett Kelly's guitar and the lyricism of Bonny's heart. But mostly, "The Wonder Show Of The World" was, in its making, about trust. It's a record made eye-to-eye in a room, close and careful, by and for a few men who wanted to be together, who wanted to make music that sounds as good to listen to as it did to make, and who in doing so forged something new in space, the wonder of you and of them.

TRACK LISTING

1. Troublesome Houses
2. Teach Me To Bear You
3. With Cornstalks Or Among Them
4. Sounds Are Always Begging, The
5. Go Folks Go
6. That's What Our Love Is
7. Merciless And Great
8. Where Wind Blows
9. Someone Coming Through
10. Kids

Lightspeed Champion has returned with his second album, "Life is Sweet! Nice To Meet You", the follow-up to 2008’s "Falling Off The Lavender Bridge". It's an epic collection of twelve pop songs, two instrumental intermissions and one piano etude.

Lightspeed’s early leaning towards American country dressings is traded here for a palette that draws on classical music and even musical theatre. Producer and mixer Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley) assembles the eclectic grab-bag of influences, joltingly 70s guitar and synth sounds, classical piano, Greek choruses shouting reprisals, and at least one ukelele-driven moment.

One of the most important British bands of recent years, the Arctic Monkeys follow up their first two phenomenally successful albums with "Humbug", their first record in over two years. "Humbug", which was produced by Josh Homme in the Mojave desert and by James Ford in Brooklyn, showcases a brooding and majestic new sound for the band. Influenced by Cream and Jimi Hendrix, "Humbug" features some of frontman Alex Turner's most innovative and profound lyrics yet, whilst also maintaining the Arctic's core sound.

Wild Beasts have made a record of earthly pleasures that sounds thrillingly widescreen, open and in awe of life; equally intoxicated and disturbed by the possibilities of pleasure. "Two Dancers" is a streamlined, minimalist and user friendly Wild Beasts, moving as God had designed them to, with equal grace and gusto, equally elegant and ugly.

Explosive and infectious, and undeniably Franz Ferdinand, but a bigger, brighter beast, the third album from Glasgow-based Franz Ferdinand sees them taking a step back from the post-punk revival sounds that gave them their breakthrough. With "Tonight: Franz Ferdinand", the band are seen to incorporate more disparate influences such as Jamaican dub and elements of electronica. What remains of the old Franz Ferdinand is their knack for locating a danceable rhythm and their gentle, deadpan humour.

Tracklisting
1. Ulysses
2. Turn It On
3. No You Girls
4. Send Him Away
5. Twilight Omens
6. Bite Hard
7. What She Came For
8. Live Alone
9. Can't Stop Feeling
10. Lucid Dreams
11. Dream Again
12. Katherine Kiss Me

Originally released in 1991, "Dondestan" was remixed, resequenced and reappraised in the studio in 1998 as "Dondestan (Revisited)". Robert Wyatt claimed he 'ran out of words' so by basing half of "Dondestan"'s tracks on her beautifully fragmented lyrics he began a song writing collaboration with wife Alfie Benge that flourishes to this day. It remains a difficult and openly political statement from one of the most honest and committed artists of his generation.

This was Robert Wyatt's first gig after being confined to a wheelchair following a fall from a fourth-storey window. He focuses on selections from his classic Rock Bottom album - a blend of scowling jazz and intimate rapture. An unqualified delight. It's Wyatt's only official live recording of an amazing set from 1974 featuring players such as Mike Oldfield, Julie Tippetts, Fred Frith, Hugh Hopper and Pink Floyd's Nick Mason, as well as having a comedy intro by one John Peel.

"Limbo, Panto", the debut album from Leeds based, Kendal born four-piece Wild Beasts, is a collection of ten beautiful, eccentric, very British tales. It is also likely to be the most unique album you will hear this year. Recorded in Malmo, Sweden with producer Tore Johannson (who also worked on Franz Ferdinand's first album), "Limbo, Panto" is a confident record brimming with the band's sense of purpose, showcasing their pop sensibility as well as their humorous side.

"Lie Down In The Light" is the ninth Bonnie 'Prince' Billy album, and his first proper album release since 2006's "The Letting Go". It is the brightest album to date from the Bonnie 'Prince'. Brisk tempos skip among his signature slower numbers and ballads. Bonnie's vocals are among his most expressive: carefully nuanced, singing all up and down his range, showing him at a judiciously dynamic and tuneful apex. The album features Bonnie repeat players Paul Oldham and Emmett Kelly and also benefits from the multi-instrumental presence of Shahzad Izmaily, who works percussion, piano, guitar, banjo and the mysterious, sensual 'row of wrenches'. New (duet) partner Ashley Webber forges her own presence next to Bonnie in a pair of fantastic turns. Additionally, some of Nashville's finest appear in between the band's strings and harrows, adding light (and yeah, we see a little darkness too) wherever they appear.

After three albums, critical recognition of the post-Pavement career of Stephen Malkmus has suffered; such was that bands legacy on alternative rock music. Of late, a vocal appearance on the "I'm Not There" soundtrack album has helped underline his unique lyrical style and bring his ever boyish vocal to a fresh audience. Refining the scattergun approach to acid rock, folk, prog and bubblegum that characterized the Pavement sound and subsequent three as Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, "Real Emotional Trash" ranks alongside "Wowee Zowee" and "Terror Twilight" as a wonky, woozy 'heads' record. "Hopscotch Willy" and "Baltimore" touch musically and lyrically on the 60s folk-rock tradition. Over ten minutes, the title track jumps from Fairport Convention, Television and Grateful Dead. No doubt taking a cue from Tony McPhee of the Groundhogs, Malkmus indulges his penchant for guitars of all description; electric, acoustic, delayed, distorted, doubled, detuned and often wailing simultaneously in all directions. As much as the songs are undoubtedly from the pen of Malkmus, this is definitely a proper band effort. The bottom end crunch supplied by Janet Weiss (formerly Sleater Kinney) and bassist Joanna Bolme provide ballast and direction, ensuring the album will rock you to the soles of your battered Converse.

"This Gift" is a whirlwind of tarnished sixties glamour and post-millennial celebrity culture, cult-films and literary classics. Executed in contrasting honeyed and caustic tones, with the arresting songwriting and fervent performance that is Sons & Daughters. This is the product of the band's own characteristic intensity and the combative challenge set by the albums famously uncompromising producer Bernard Butler. The album races from the rasping "Gilt Complex", through the souring "Split Lips" (featuring Robbie Stern of Cajun Dance Party on violin), to the Edwyn Collins strut of "The Nest", hitting driving garage rock on "Rebel With The Ghost" via 60s girl-group stomps "Darling" and "Flags", all along hinting at the band's ability to conjure up atmospheres of disturbing unease, most notably on "Iodine" and the desert rock meets Gaelic war cry of the title track. Deluxe heavyweight vinyl in a lovely mirror-board sleeve.

After a devastating string of full-lengths in the early 2000s culminating in the one-two punch of 2005's collaboration with Matt Sweeney, "Superwolf", and 2006's wrenching "The Letting Go", Will Oldham seemed to be in a state of letting go himself. He re-energized his acting career with Old Joy and a goofy appearance in a Kanye West video; wrote "His Hands", the title track to soul singer Candi Staton's comeback record; and backed up Tortoise on an odd album that featured - among other throwaways - a cover of Springsteen's "Thunder Road". "Ask Forgiveness", a mini-album of his own covers, finds Oldham back in fine form even as it chips away at his hard-earned gravitas. Recorded on a lark in Philadelphia with members of the homegrown folkie outfit Espers, "Ask Forgiveness" finds Oldham lending his trademark warble to a diverse array of numbers. While Phil Ochs, Bjork, Thom Yorke, and Danzig are all given the Palace brother's spacious and shambolic indie-folk makeover here, the collection's stand-out is R. Kelly's "World's Greatest", within which Oldham discovers an earnest heart.

Robert Wyatt's first release for Domino is a modern classic, a widescreen vision of love songs, political statement and beautiful haunting melody. More light and live sounding than its predecessors, "Comicopera" is the sound of a group of musicians and friends (Anja Garbarek, Paul Weller, Brian Eno, Annie Whitehead, Seaming To, Monica Vasconcelos etc) playing in the room together. Wyatt is openly a fan of 'tunes', and the deep influence of songs such as "Raining In My Heart", covered on his last record, has perhaps had an impact on the melodies and compressed structures of these new performances: "Comicopera" feels like Wyatt's pop album. But the depth of the journey here, from start to finish, is magnificent, stopping off along the way for the sublime steel pan and sax battle of "On The Town Square", or for "Out Of The Blue", the frantic song of bomber versus bombed, featuring Brian Eno's sampled voice replayed by Wyatt on synthesizer, seems only to be expected in an album as enjoyable and ambitious as this.

Initial work for "Strawberry Jam" started in September 2005 as Animal Collective prepared to tour Europe for the release of the band's 2005 album, "Feels". The process immediately became a very intense and emotional one and they all agreed on a desire to preserve the rawness of the songs that was happening during the initial writing sessions. Animal Collective was very attached to these songs in a live setting and to preserve the live stage energy was a mission. Though the melodies and lyrics for "Strawberry Jam" were written by Panda Bear and Avey Tare in various places such as Paris, New York, Lisbon and Baltimore, there were also three intense full-band writing sessions with Geologist and Deacon. These production sessions occurred in both Lisbon and in NYC. So, while the songs might seem to come from all over the map emotionally, it was important to match that geographical variation sonically. It's an amazing record, which should finally mark some sort of crossover for them. It bears all of their unique and charming hallmarks but with vocals and melody much more to the foreground.

Rediscover The Triffids' most opulent and ambitious album. "Calenture" is the third release from Domino's The Triffids reissue campaign. The "Calenture" 24-page high gloss booklet will include previously unused photos by Lawrence Watson as well as original handwritten notes / sketches from Dave McComb's notebooks and liner notes from Niall Lucy and Sally Collins. Disc one is a 24 bit re-master of the original album, along with five bonus B-side tracks. Disc two tells the story of the 'mystical' "Calenture" through a series of rehearsal and studio recordings.

American troubadour Benjy Ferree kickstarts the new year with an album full of wit and wonder, recorded by Fugazi's Brendan Canty. The album is a combination of acoustic Americana mixed with hints of retro pop (a cross between Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Ray Davies), topped up by an intense rock hit in "Dogkillers".

For his second album after splitting indie-gods Pavement, Stephen Malkmus sets his controls for the heart of the seventies! Eschewing conventional flabby white boy blues rock cliches for a tighter sound more reminiscent of the Groundhogs (long time Piccadilly faves) and Captain Beefheart, Malkmus adds a dash of folk-rock and some ace krautrock synth sounds to his inimitable skewed pop aesthetic. Initially less accessible than his debut, repeated listens reveal "Pig Lib" to be just as rewarding as those more 'musical' later Pavement offerings.

Well it's here at last, the most hotly anticipated debut album since, ooooh I dunno! And don't let the hype put you off, it certainly doesn't disappoint! Clever, cocky lyrics; wry commentary on modern life that Jarvis'd be proud of (must be a Sheff thing!). Add to that loads of hooks and killer tunes and you've got one of the most exciting debut albums in ages! Like The Libertines could've been, if only they'd been Northern!

"You Could Have It So Much Better" is the hugely anticipated second album from Franz Ferdinand. After setting the world alight with their self titled debut album the boys didn't hang around too long before getting started on the follow up. Recorded in Scotland and New York the band's style has matured and developed. The sound is still unmistakably Franz Ferdinand but they've tapped into something deeper and more resonant from the moving epic "Walk Away" to the stomp of first single "Do You Want To".

"Codex Teenage Premonition" features fifteen exclusive tracks that capture perfectly the raw teenage energy of one the most influential and unique British bands of the last twenty five years. The album features tracks recorded at their very first show at Leith Town Hall in 1980 together with unreleased studio versions of tracks that would later appear on their debut single "Get Up And Use Me" and album "Lubricate Your Living Room". Although very different in style, Fire Engines were still very much part of a thriving Scottish post punk scene that featured Orange Juice, Josef K, Aztec Camera and The Associates.