Produced by Nigel Godrich, Win & Régine, and recorded in multiple locales including New Orleans, El Paso and Mount Desert Island, WE paradoxically distills “the longest we’ve ever spent writing, uninterrupted, probably ever" (per the band’s Win Butler) into a concise 40 minute epic – one as much about the forces that threaten to pull us away from the people we love, as it is inspired by the urgent need to overcome them. WE’s cathartic journey follows a definable arc from darkness into light over the course of seven songs divided into two distinct sides -- Side “I” channeling the fear and loneliness of isolation, and Side “WE” expressing the joy and power of reconnection.

On the album’s cover, a photograph of a human eye by the artist JR evokes Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. This stunning image -- embellished by the distinctive airbrush color tinting of Terry Pastor (utilizing the same physical technique he employed on David Bowie’s iconic Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust covers) – is the visual expression of WE.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'We' takes Arcade Fire back to their orchestral roots, eschewing the mind-bogglingly diverse range of sounds on 2017's 'Everything Now'. Pieces here sound like classic Arcade Fire but imbued with the real-world concept of tension and release, manifested as a taut musical energy offset by a jubilant orchestral bliss. Massive and euphoric and quintessentially Arcade Fire.

TRACK LISTING

“I”
1. Age Of Anxiety I
2. Age Of Anxiety II (Rabbit Hole)
3. End Of The Empire I-IV
“WE”
1. The Lightning I, II
2. Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)
3. Unconditional II (Race And Religion)
4. WE

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2022 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

1000 pressed. A much sought-after Kristin Hersh side project. Black Vinyl LP. Back on vinyl for this bracing, ever twitching opus made of seven fluid pieces that fold into one continuous mantra. An essential release from the Throwing Musesí offshoot helmed by Kristin Hersh and Bernard Georges, with Chalk Farmís Rob Ahlers on drums.

"Menacing, stalking, spirals of lean, hungry riffs." Drowned In Sound 9/10. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Medicine Rush
2 Honeysuckle
3 Power+Light
4 Skeleton Key
5 Broke
6 Wax, 7 Sun Dog Coma

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2022 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

1000 pressed. Rare EP from this much sought-after Kristin Hersh side project. Black Vinyl LP. Back on vinyl for this Kristin Hersh fronted project, a super rare 2016 EP of enchanting and exhilarating sounds that shift from dreamy and emotional melancholy to jagged and almost Neu!-like rhythms that evolve behind her pointed prose and astute one-liners. A rush to the head thatís caustic yet comforting. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Bath White
2 God's Not A Dick
3 Human
4 Ratted Out
5 St.Christopher
6 Sun Salute

‘Black Pearl’ is the brand new album from 50 Foot Wave: Kristin Hersh’s ‘other’ band - active since 2003, with fellow Throwing Muses’ member Bernard Georges on bass and drummer Rob Ahlers. A sonic trip from the heavy, echoey riff of ‘Staring Into The Sun’ with all of its grunge melancholy and dronecore menace to the perfectly baroque ‘Hog Child’ with its spidery guitar that dissolves into motorik bass and drums.

Hailed in various quarters as “an outlet for the material deemed too weird or wild for Throwing Muses”, their “menacing, stalking, spirals of lean, hungry riffs, set alight” as “feedback rips into the fragile melody.”

50 Foot Wave continue to traverse the rigid tension of their own sound. They remain detuned and discordant at will.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's been quite the week for heavy new music, with Kristin Hersch's band putting out this absolutely stunning mix of grooving post-rock and angular hardcore on the ever reliable Fire records. Roaringly heavy but imbued with myriad moments of paddling, Isis-like downtuned post-metal business. Really, very good indeed.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Staring Into The Sun
A2 Hog Child
A3 Fly Down South
A4 Black Pearl
Side B
B1 Broken Sugar
B2 Blush
B3 Double Barrel

Rewriting the history of music, Pere Ubu continue to confound convention and shift personnel. The next box set in Fire Records’ reissue series, ‘Nuke The Whales’ houses 4 LPs originally released between 2006 and 2014 –
'Why I LUV Women’, 'Carnival Of Souls’, ‘Lady Of Shanghai’ and Long Live Pere Ubu!’

‘Nuke The Whales,’ is a nod of respect to a couple in Cleveland who would daub such messages over the big news stations’ advertising boards. “Very few bands display such dedication to constant self-reinvention as Pere Ubu” The Quietus.

All four albums have been remixed and remastered by original Pere Ubu member David Thomas. ‘Why I LUV Women’, originally released on Glitterhouse in 2006, gains its first vinyl release. "Spews 11 tunes of arcane lyrics and dense music” shrieked The Cleveland Gazaette.

It’s joined by ‘Long Live Pere Ubu’ a soundtrack to a musical adaptation of the play. “Skronking, squalling rhythms and melodic snippets undulating round a pulsating soundscape." Record Collector

And ‘Lady From Shanghai’, their Fire debut for Fire in 2013. Originally released on the 35th anniversary of the group's debut, ‘The Modern Dance’, a latter day re-evaluation of the unprompted dance genre.

And its follow up ‘Carnival Of Souls’, a haunting “underscore’ to a tale of alienation, it “combines metallic percussion, spare guitars and David Thomas' muttered vocals into something rustic and rickety, yet threatening at a moment's notice.” AllMusic.

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1 - Why I LUV Women
A1 Two Girls (One Bar)
A2 Babylonian Warehouses
A3 Blue Velvet
A4 Caroleen
A5 Flames Over Nebraska
B1 Love Song
B2 Stolen Cadillac
B3 Mona
B4 Synth Farm
B5 Texas Overture

Disc 2 - Lady From Shanghai
C1 Thanks
C2 Free White
C3 Feuksly Ma'am, The Hearing
C4 Mandy
C5 Musicians Are Scum
C6 Another One
D1 And Then Nothing Happened
D2 Road Trip Of Bipasha Ahmed
D3 Lampshade Man
D4 414 Seconds
D5 The Carpenter Sun

Disc 3 - Carnival Of Souls
E1 Golden Surf II
E2 Drag The River
E3 Irene
E4 Road To Utah
E5 Throb Array
F1 Visions Of The Moon
F2 Dr Faustus
F3 Bus Station
F4 Carnival
F5 Moonstruck

Disc 4 - Long Live Pere Ubu!
G1 Ubu Overture
G2 Song Of The Grocery Police
G3 Banquet Of The Butchers
G4 Tear Your Eyes Out
G5 March Of Greed
G6 Big Sombrero
G7 Bring Me The Head
G8 Alienating The Audience
H1 Road To Reason
H2 Slowly I Turn
H3 Watching The Pigeons
H4 The Story So Far
H5 Snowy Livonia, Pt 1
H6 Elsinore & Beyond

For Fans of: Menahan Street Band, The Budos Band, Antibalas, El Michels Affair. The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble are definitely on a roll coming off of their third LP, Build Bridges, which debuted at #1 on Billboard's Contemporary Jazz Chart. Their new and fourth LP, Step Down, is a direct reflection of the heavy times they were written and recorded in. Covid-19, two Presidential impeachment trials, the George Floyd murder and resulting social unrest, a seditious attempt to subvert the democratic process at The Capitol… With titles like Step Down, The Other Side, Time To Rebuild, Omnificent, Love Age, and In Common, SFSE uses their music to beautifully paint a picture of societal woes, but also points toward the solution and a better world.

Heavy Cinematic Soul, spiritual Jazz-Funk, upbeat Afro-Funk, and deeply introspective rare-groove cuts lace this ten-track transmission vessel. SFSE is deeply defined by the sum of their influences, but always have their eye focused beyond the horizon as well. We think this album will capture your heart immediately, but also provide the depth for discovery upon repeated listens. SFSE have made a true statement here, and we are very proud to present Step Down to the world

TRACK LISTING

1. Step Down
2. The Other Side
3. Time To Rebuild
4. Omnificent
5. Boardwalk
6. Gandys
7. High Times
8. Love Age
9. In Common
10. Thomas The Cat 

Island Family is the fifth album from Isle-of-Eigg dwelling electro-acoustic psych-pop wonder Pictish Trail, AKA Johnny Lynch. A strange, unpredictable, sardonic and yet deeply personal record inspired by all from Fever Ray to The Flaming Lips, Liars, Mercury Rev and Beck, Island Family is Pictish Trail’s contrarian view of arcadia; a search for the euphoric in the bucolic, bound up in sometimes conflicting ideas and feelings around nature and environment, sincerity and artifice, escapism and belonging. It’s an album about how no man can remain an island, however hard he might try.

Released by Fire Records, with support from Johnny’s own label Lost Map, and produced by long-term collaborator Rob Jones (The Voluntary Butler Scheme, The Gene Dudley Group), ‘Island Family’ opens with its title track, a song of death, ghosts and the ties that bind, fusing abrasive electronic beats with a tongue-in-cheek fireside folk refrain and the haunted ice cream van melody of a digitally reincarnated traditional Scottish jig. A purgative surrender to nature’s whim driven by a clattering machine drumbeat rolled in a puddle of filthy dirty fuzz, ‘Natural Successor’ is five-and-a-half-minutes of cathartic churning bass.

‘In The Land of The Dead’ is an eight-bit glitch-core reflection on island party excesses spasming into existential dread and regret, suitably accompanied by a funereal mariachi band. It’s followed by the epic ‘It Came Back’, the understated verses and arms-aloft falsetto chorus of which are accompanied by a tense, foreboding bass-driven electro hip hop instrumental with (spoiler) a brain-shattering industrial-metal meltdown. ’Melody Something’ is the album’s purest moment, a cautiously uplifting solar-powered-ballad about losing track of time in the cycle of the seasons, and the gap between memory and reality. Shapeshifting closer ‘Remote Control’ is a channel hopping cabin-fever-dream flipping from warped boyband ballad to deep-fried fuzz pop.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The latest outing in the Pictish Trail odyssey takes the blippy, 8-bit sounds of 202's 'Thumb World' and winds them around a core of wicker-folk psychedlia and oddball glitched electronics for stalwart label, Fire Records. It's both wonderfully odd and stunningly melodic in parts, but beautifully balanced with just the right amount of syncopated oddity and swimming lysergic folk.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Island Family
A2 Natural Successor
A3 The River It Runs Inside Of Me
A4 In The Land Of The Dead
A5 It Came Back
Side B
B1 Thistle
B2 Melody Something
B3 Nuclear Sunflower Swamp
B4 Green Mountain
B5 Remote Control

Comedian Stewart Lee and director Michael Cumming (Brass Eye, Toast Of London) investigate a missing piece of punk history. Robert Lloyd, best known for fronting cult Birmingham bands The Prefects and The Nightingales, has survived under the radar for over four decades. But how, if at all, does Robert want to be remembered? The anti-rockumentary ‘King Rocker’ weaves the story of Birmingham’s undervalued underdog autodidact into that of the city’s forgotten public sculpture of King Kong, eschewing the celebrity interview and archive-raid approach for a free-associating bricolage of Indian food, bewildered chefs, vegetable gardening, prescription medicines, pop stardom and pop art. All of the highlights from the film are here, along with rarities which won’t appear on any of the deluxe reissues of the Nightingales’ catalogue, among them 7″ versions of “Use Your Loaf”, the Bob Luman hit “Let’s Think About Living” and “Black Country”, a glam remix of crowd favourite “Thick And Thin” and a version of Christy & Emily’s “Ghost” which rivals the Nightingales’ take on TLC’s “Unpretty” for sheer beauty. The only act with roots in the punk era that have gone on to make records more captivating, cutting and entertaining today than at any point in their past; 2022 will be a busy year for the Nightingales, with months of live dates planned, a limited edition remix 12″, deluxe reissues of both ‘Hysterics’ and ‘In The Good Old Country Way’, and a hardcover book collecting Robert’s lyrics.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A selection of brilliant Nightingales rarities and pieces from the film of the same name, written about Robert Lloyd of The Nightingales and The Prefects. A wonderful audio document in it's own right, and a perfect companion to a very funny film.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Use Your Loaf (7” Version)
A2 Surplus And Scarcity (Live)
A3 What A Carry On
A4 Let's Think About Living (7” Version)
A5 Black Country (7” Version)
A6 Ghost
B1 Born Again In Birmingham
B2 Overreactor
B3 Thick And Thin (Glam Version)
B4 Chaff
B5 The Desperate Quartet
B6 Gales Doc

Lemonheads’ seminal album ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’, lovingly reissued for it’s 30th Anniversary. The long overdue reissue includes a slew of extra material, including an unreleased ‘My Drug Buddy’ KCRW session track from 1992 featuring Juliana Hatfield, B-sides from singles ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’ and ‘Confetti’, a track from the ‘Mrs. Robinson/Being Round’ EP, alongside demos that are released for the first time on vinyl. 

Described by music journalist and author Everett True as “A 30-minute insight into what it’s like to live hard and fast and loose and happy with like-minded buddies, fuelled by a shared love for similar bands and drugs and booze and freedom.”. ‘It's A Shame About Ray’ had a considerable impact back in those heady, carefree days of '92, the record perfectly captures Dando’s ability to effortlessly encapsulate teenage longing and lust over the course of a two-minute pop song.

Singles such as 'My Drug Buddy' and the breezy perfect pop of the title track might stand out (plus the add-on of 'Mrs. Robinson' which later copies included), but the album's real strength lies in the tracks in-between; the truly fantastic 'Confetti' (written about Evan's parents' divorce), and the eye-wateringly casual acoustic cover of 'Frank Mills' (from the "hippie" musical Hair), a version that seems to resonate with every ounce of pathos and emotion felt for the lost 1960s generation. To hear Evan Dando sing lines like 'I love him/but it embarrasses me/To walk down the street with him/He lives in Brooklyn somewhere/And he wears his white crash helmet' is to truly appreciate how wonderful and tantalising pop music can be. Then, there's the rush of insurgency and brattishness on the wonderfully truncated 'Bit Part'; the topsy-turvy 'Ceiling Fan In My Spoon'... this was male teenage skinny-tie pop music on a level of brilliance with The Kinks, early Undertones, Wipers.

TRACK LISTING

It's A Shame About Ray
1 Rockin' Stroll
2 Confetti
3 It's A Shame About Ray
4 Rudderless
5 My Drug Buddy
6 The Turnpike Down
7 Bit Part
8 Alison's Starting To Happen
9 Hannah & Gabi
10 Kitchen
11 Ceiling Fan In My Spoon
12 Frank Mills

Essential Extras
1 Mrs Robinson
2 Shakey Ground
3 My Drug Buddy (KCRW Session, 1992)
4 Knowing Me, Knowing You (Acoustic)
5 Confetti (Acoustic)
6 Alison's Starting To Happen (Acoustic)
7 Divan

Demo Recordings
1 It's A Shame About Ray (Demo)
2 Rockin' Stroll (Demo)
3 My Drug Buddy (Demo)
4 Hannah & Gabi (Demo)
5 Kitchen (Demo)
6 Bit Part (Demo)
7 Rudderless (Demo)
8 Ceiling Fan In My Spoon (Demo)
9 Confetti (Demo)

‘Devasting, with slow, burning songs that shudder and wince’ NY TIMES

Peel Sessions is an essential nine-track set catching Boston’s mighty Come at the peak of their powers. The collection includes two sessions recorded for John Peel in both 1992 and 1993, plus a previously unreleased live track ‘Clockface’ from 1991, unwrapping the blueprint of their sonic idealism. Raw, loud and live, exactly where the band’s dissonant blues noise rock originates.

1992’s four track session is direct from their debut; but more mangled, strangled and abrasive. The follow-up set from a year later includes live favourite ‘Mercury Falls’ and ‘City Of Fun’ neither of which surfaced as studio recordings.

The sessions feature the masterful guitar interplay of two central pivots of the post-post-punk and alternative noisnik underground, Chris Brokaw (Codeine, Pullman, Thurston Moore, Ryley Walker, Lemonheads) and Thalia Zedek (Uzi, Live Skull, solo). The session’s line-up is completed by the addition of Sean O'Brian and Arthur Johnson’s visceral bass and percussion, documenting an essential era for the band.

Peel Sessions follows their recently released ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ reissue, part of Fire Records forthcoming reissue series for the seminal group.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Dead Molly (Peel Session, 1992)
Bell (Peel Session, 1992)
William (Peel Session, 1992)
Off To One Side (Peel Session, 1992)


Side B

Wrong Side (Peel Session, 1993)
Sharen Vs. Karen (Peel Session, 1993)
Mercury Falls (Peel Session, 1993)
City Of Fun (Peel Session, 1993)
Clockface (Live In Boston, 1991)

René Laloux’s celebrated 1973 sci-fi animation ‘La Planète Sauvage (Fantastic Planet)’, is overhauled with a re-imagined soundtrack by electronic modernists Stealing Sheep and legendary sound innovators The Radiophonic Workshop. This exclusive release is part of Fire Records’ re-imagined score series, and is released on Delia Derbyshire Day 2021.

It’s a real pre-Avatar conundrum that Stealing Sheep, with the help of Bob Earland, Dick Mills and Roger Limb from the Radiophonic Workshop, unravel. Creating an ethereal excursion that’s narrated by Roger Limb; like a futuristic Martin Denny, or Dr Who gone ambient techno, with a hint of Forbidden Planet 50 years on. It’s an analogue swirl set in an off-world paradise; a field recording from the future. This is a creative, generation-spanning, union brought together to score this unique cult film.

A must for fans of psyche electronica and Stealing Sheep’s formidable ‘Big Wows’ album.

‘La Planète Sauvage’ is a thing of ambient beauty punctuated with electronic earworms that switches from intensely ominous to otherworldly dream like moments.

“No institution has had a greater impact on the development of electronic music than the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.” The Vinyl Factory

“Stealing Sheep devour a broad range of styles, incorporating everything from the dark dance-pop of Grace Jones to the experimentations of Radiophonic Workshop pioneer Delia Derbyshire and John Carpenter soundtracks.” The Guardian.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Opening Credits
A2 The Chase
A3 Saved/Captured
A4 The Bracelet
A5 Council Of Draags Pt.I
A6 Terr & Tiwa
A7 The Knowledge Pt.I
Side B
B1 The Fight
B2 The Knowledge Pt. II
B3 The Initiation
B4 Escape
B5 The Big Tree
B6 The Ritual
B7 The Duel
Side C
C1 Theft/Zarek
C2 The Bird
C3 The Free Oms
C4 The Purge
C5 The Journey To Ygam
Side D
D1 The City Of Free Oms
D2 Robot Attack
D3 The Fantastic Planet
D4 The Final Battle
D5 Terr C6 Council Of Draags Pt.II
D6 End Credits

A brilliant and soulful biography of one of today's most acclaimed singer-songwriters, Nick Cave.

An intensely beautiful, profound and poetic biography of the formative years of the dark prince of rock 'n' roll, Boy on Fire is Nick Cave's creation story, a portrait of the artist first as a boy, then as a young man. A deeply insightful work which charts his family, friends, influences, milieu and, most of all, his music, it reveals how Nick Cave shaped himself into the extraordinary artist he would become.

A powerful account of a singular, uncompromising artist, Boy on Fire is also a vivid and evocative rendering of a time and place, from the fast-running dark rivers and ghost gums of country-town Australia to the torn wallpaper, sticky carpet and manic energy of the nascent punk scene which hit staid 1970s Melbourne like an atom bomb. Boy on Fire is a stunning biographical achievement.

Through the hazy daze of a smoky folk opus, Modern Studies craft rich soundtracks, stuttering Super-8 sketches from a washed-out world of melancholy, hand-tinted and tantalising. Lullaby couplets blossom into gorgeous chamber pop melodies, the drama unfolding behind Emily Scott’s plaintive vocal; part Julie London, part Sandy Denny, a little bit Kate Bush, with a hushed sigh of Joni.

Sweeping strings carry them into unchartered terrain on their new album ‘We Are Here’, flying high above their psych-folk roots, it’s an epic journey that’s exquisitely delivered, transcending categories, nodding to Brubeck, Low, Talk Talk, Jim O’Rourke and Pentangle, making music that is ready to cross over in these modern times with songs of substance.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Sink Into
A2 Light A Fire
A3 Comfort Me
A4 Two Swimmers
A5 Wild Ocean
Side B
B1 Open Face
B2 Won't Be Long
B3 Mothlight
B4 Do You Wanna
B5 Winter Springs

A beautifully observed baroque masterpiece, part dream pop, part futuristic psych-folk with ambient synths and Josephine Foster’s plaintive guitar. Godmother is a slowly unfolding song cycle that marries a myriad of previous musical escapades with electronic experiments.

Exploring new horizons on this record, it sees Foster at her most expressive and hypnotic. Now back home in the mountains of Colorado, Josephine’s 20-year journey to this new nirvana becomes enthralled further with a symphony of synths that sound like they are played in some neighbouring netherworld, through cotton gauze. It’s music that’s devotional, spiritual, a fitting soundtrack for any journey within or without, a means to experience places and vibrations beyond the boundary of time and space.

Discussing the record, Josephine explains “You may notice me travelling a bit further sonically from our precious earth, aspiring to rise into broader astral perspective, to contemplate the light and origins of it all, as I do believe there is a grand source that is the sum of it all, us all. Performing all the parts on this recording, you may sense me focussing gestures of my singing into the instrumentation, which is a very great relief indeed, as the voice has such grand dreams to be set free.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Hum Menina
2. Sparks Fly
3. Guardian Angel
4. Old Teardrop
5. Flask Of Wine
6. Gold Entwine
7. Dali Rama
8. Nun Of The Above
9. The Sum Of Us All

Following Lucy Gooch’s acclaimed ‘Rain’s Break’, her first release on Fire Records earlier this year, the artist’s acclaimed debut EP ‘Rushing’ is revisited with new artwork and a brand new track, ‘Orthione’.

“Lucy’s sound marries the etheral qualities of ambient music with buoyant, effortless pop” Crack

‘Rushing’ in its original shorter five-track incarnation was heralded as a touchstone beneath the cascading torrent of modern times and an oasis for turbulent times. An intimate collection of songs built around Lucy’s emotive vocals and unique ambient dream pop, the newly added stand-out track ‘Orthione’ trips into the esoteric world of Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass; here her voice is the grounding force that travels to a space that heals and grows.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. My Lights Kiss Your Thoughts Every Moment
2. Rushing
3. Stalagmites & Helicitites

Side B
4. Sun
5. There Is A Space In Between
6. Orthione

"Step Down" is the definitive noir soundtrack for the end of the age of disinformation. What better way to usher it out than with this heavily blaxploitation influenced funk anthem. Let huge horns, fuzz guitar, harpsichord, and funky flute be your guide. The B-side, "La Fachada", pays homage to a San Diego late night favorite with a beautifully dreamy mandolin driven tune. That floaty feeling you get with a belly full of tacos, Tecate, and their staple slow roasted pinto beans. Chuck in a few hits of your favorite Californian land strains and you've one heady chunk of nodding funk. Grandiose and spectacular in its entry; the rising horns and frenetic breakbeats adding to the rich, thick, smoky air. This is the one folks! 

TRACK LISTING

1. Step Down
2. La Fachada

The Dream Syndicate’s 1986 album is back on CD for the first time in 24 years. Hidden inside of ‘Out of the Grey’ are some of Steve Wynn’s strongest songs - “Slide Away” is delightful pop, “Now I Ride Alone” is moody and intense “like the hardboiled typewriting of novelists Jim Thompson, Ross MacDonald, and James Cain” that Wynn dug back in July ‘85. The epic “Boston” imagines the era in which Van Morrison was holed-up in that city circa 1967-68 writing the songs that comprised Astral Weeks while “50 in a 25 Zone” is a vehicle for a band-driven, slow burn groove.

Deliciously remastered with new liner notes from the band’s historian Pat Thomas, the package compiles 51 songs spread across 3 CDs, including a previously unreleased live album (from July 1985) and many unreleased demos and out-takes. The deluxe reissue also features interviews with Steve Wynn, Mark Walton, Paul Cutler, and Dennis Duck - plus plenty of rare photos.

Discs 2 and 3 reveal a wealth of unreleased material – including a never-before-heard July 1985 live album which has the ‘balls to the wall’ energy hard not captured in the studio. The songs were so fresh on that July night - they had not been recorded in the studio yet. On Disc 3, you’ll hear alternate versions of several Out of the Grey songs recorded as ‘demos’ before the album versions. These studio versions also have the raw energy of the live show, plus the band plays rare cover versions by Pink Floyd, Cream, Santana, Green on Red, Alice Cooper, Temptations, and Dolly Parton.

51 songs including 34 never-before heard Dream Syndicate recordings – released under the title of: What Can I Say? no regrets... Out of the Grey + live, demos & outtakes… in other words, you need this!

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1 – Out Of The Grey
1 Out Of The Grey
2 Forest For The Trees
3 50 In A 25 Zone
4 Boston
5 Blood Money
6 Slide Away
7 Dying Embers
8 Now I Ride Alone
9 Drinking Problem
10 Dancing Blind
11 You Can't Forget
12 Let It Rain
13 Cinnamon Girl
14 Ballad Of Dwight Frye
15 Shake Your Hips
16 I Won't Forget
17 The Lonely Bull

Disc 2 - Live At Scorgies NY, 1985
1 Out Of The Grey (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
2 50 In A 25 Zone (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
3 That's What You Always Say (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
4 Slide Away (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
5 Dancing Blind (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
6 Blood Money (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
7 Dying Embers (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
8 It Hits You Again (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
9 Now I Ride Alone (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
10 John Coltrane Stereo Blues (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
11 Still Holding Onto You (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
12 When You Smile (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
13 Days Of Wine And Roses (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)

Disc 3 - Odds & Sods
1 Here On Earth As Well (Demo, 1985)
2 Dancing Blind (Demo, 1985)
3 Blood Money (Demo, 1985)
4 Dying Embers (Demo, 1985)
5 Slide Away (Demo, 1985)
6 It Hits You Again (Demo, 1985)
7 Now I Ride Alone (Demo, 1985)
8 Eighteen
9 Another Brick In The Wall
10 Brain Damage
11 Out Of The Grey Waltz
12 The Munster's Theme Song
13 Sixteen Ways
14 Papa Was A Rolling Stone
15 Low Rider
16 Papa Jam
17 I Ain't Got Nobody
18 Jeannie's Afraid Of The Dark
19 Badge
20 Dancing Blind (Live At The Stone SF, 1984)
21 Blood Money (Live At The Stone SF, 1984)

An essential rock artefact tracing The Groundhogs from their pre - ‘Thank Christ For The Bomb’ blues roots to the final live show for the classic line up of Tony McPhee (guitar and vocals), Pete Cruikshank (bass) and Ken Pustelnik (drums). Never before heard recordings from the Warner Brothers’ vaults including a vintage 1969 set from their show at the Richmond Athletic Ground (AKA The Crawdaddy Club) and their final explosive set at the Pocono Raceway track. Includes the live debut of what would become the anthemic ‘Cherry Red’ and McPhee’s seismic destruction of ‘Amazing Grace’. A career-spanning gem from the ultimate heavy rock power trio book-ending 976 days and 250-plus live shows. “In their stage act they concentrate on being as heavy and as hard-hitting as possible.” The Scene magazine. “Performing on stage we feel that the emphasis is on excitement so we play the numbers that involve the greatest amount of movement and dynamics,” Tony McPhee told Star Pop.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Cherry Red (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969)
A2 Mistreated (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969)
A3 Natchez Burning (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969)
B1 BDD (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969)
B2 Times (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969) 
C1 Still A Fool (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969) Side 
D1 Group Intro (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969)
D2 No More Doggin' (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969) 
E1 Eccentric Man (Pocono Raceway, Pennsylvania - 8th July 1972)
E2 Music Is The Food Of Thought (Pocono Raceway, Pennsylvania - 1972)
E3 Cherry Red, Split Part 2 (Pocono Raceway, Pennsylvania - 1972) 
F1 Still A Fool, Amazing Grace (Pocono Raceway, Pennsylvania - 1972)

‘Until We Fossilize’ is the debut album from Marta Del Grandi, an eclectic singer songwriter from Italy. This is an award-winning jazz vocalist set in new territory, crossing borders of genre and style from West Coast ‘60s to ambient exotica, from plaintive Lynchian etherealism to dramatic Morricone scores. Marta gathers influences from near and far to create a unique genre-splicing style who’s now travelling her own unique and unchartered path.

Newly signed to Fire Records, this debut is an unravelling of time and distance; a breath taking journey from mainland Europe to the Far East and back again, delivered as an eerie, soundtrack by a captivating vocalist. A self-produced gem; filled with lush strings and electronic ambience and an eclectic vocal that transcends boundaries.

Lead single ‘Amethyst’ takes inspiration by the myth of Amethyst, filled with Greek mythology, touching the wildest manifestation of imagination, it’s the story of a woman who frees herself from the expectations imposed on her by patriarchy. Composed with Indian drummer Tarun Balani, Marta sounds like Sandy Denny backed by Eno on Gamelan with a nod to Sun Ra.

‘Until We Fossilize’ is a lyrically aware set of dramas littered with life-affirming couplets over gorgeous, dramatic turns.

“It’s modern and ancestral at the same time.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Del Grandi flirts with exotica, ambient, Mediterranean and West Coast moods on this LP, providing an accidental Balearic hit.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Taller Than His Shadow
A2 Shy Heart
A3 Amethyst
A4 Swim To Me

Side B
B1 Somebody New
B2 Lullaby Firefly
B3 Birdsong
B4 Totally Fine

1000 copies pressed. Fist time on vinyl. Double debut from Howe Gelb’s one-off project that features members or Arcade Fire, Grandaddy, Scout Niblett and M Ward among others. Featuring extensive notes and interviews with the collaborators, exploring how the whole thing was put together.

TRACK LISTING

Side A.

1 Velvet And Pearl
2 Where The Wind Turns The Skin To Leather
3 AAAA (1)
4 Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys.

Side B.

5 Man On A String
6 Bottom Of The Barrel
7 AAAA (2)
8 Can Do Girl.

Side C.

9 Blue Blue Marble Girl
10 Baby It's Cold Outside
11 Re-Entry
12 Loretta And The Insect World
13 AAAA (3)
14 Talula And The Last Straw.

Side D.

15 Vows
16 AAAA (4)
17 Recital
18 The Leaving You. 

A purgative surrender to nature’s whim driven by a clattering machine drumbeat and rolled in a puddle of filthy dirty fuzz, ‘Natural Successor’ is the riotous new single from isle of Eigg based Scottish psychedelic electronic-pop ogre Johnny Lynch AKA Pictish Trail.

Set for release on limited-edition 12” vinyl by Fire Records, with support from Johnny’s own label Lost Map Records, it’s the first taste of a set of brand-new Pictish recordings produced by longterm collaborater Rob Jones (The Voluntary Butler Scheme, The Gene Dudley Group).

The 12” single features exclusive remixes by Django Django and Makeness

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Always nice to hear from the driving force that is Johnny Lynch. "Natural Successor" is soaring psychedlic rock with stadium potential. Django Django jump on board with a baggy, ALFOS-friendly tweak too. Then Makeness twist things up with a frenzied jungle refix.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Natural Successor
A2. Natural Successor (Instrumental)
B1. Natural Successor (Django Django’s Fazed And Confused Mix)
B2. Natural Successor (Makeness Remix)

In 1994 Come responded to the difficult-second-album stereotype with the hypnotic, intense and emotional masterpiece ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’. Featuring the original line-up of Thalia Zedek, Chris Brokaw, Sean O’ Brien and Arthur Johnson, the Boston band broadened their sound by slowing down the tempos and creating a dense urban stream of consciousness that mixes noise, city blues and… catharsis. The album hits you immediately as one of the greatest dissident records ever made.

Lovingly remastered, this expanded edition includes 'Wrong Sides', an additional albums worth of b-sides and unreleased tracks, including the band's very first single 'Car' and their last recorded song, 'Cimarron', featuring this core line-up. These gems showcase the rawness and incredible growth of a band completely in command of their songwriting and at the same time paying homage to some of their punk roots with beautiful renditions of Swell Maps 'Loin Of The Surf' and X's 'Adult Books'. Also Includes new artwork with unearthed photos and fresh liner notes by the band.

Dissident from traditional rock this is a band playing music that thematically and structurally seems to pull from old Europa, from Eastern folk and modernist classical music as much as US and UK rock. Dissident from traditional ideas about singing and songwriting Thalia’s (ex of Live Skull) presence on songs like ‘Yr Reign’ and the astonishing closer ‘Arrive’ isn’t the pushy self-aggrandizement of a lead singer but the internal voice of the eternal migrant, someone who knows about survival, hiding, how living between multiple worlds can become its own refuge of distance, its own sanctuary of unbelonging Don’t Ask Don’t Tell emerged from a period of cohesion, a break from the tight and hectic touring schedule Come had been plunged into after the acclaim accorded 11:11, and you can hear that increased focus in every moment the layers of guitars and feedback are even more precise, the structuring of songs takes on a new openness and ambition, and the whole narrative arc of the record from ‘Finish Line’ to ‘Arrive’ is more exquisitely realised and sequenced.

TRACK LISTING

Don't Ask Don't Tell - Disc 1
A1 Finish Line
A2 Mercury Falls
A3 Yr Reign
A4 Poison
A5 Let's Get Lost
B1 String
B2 German Song
B3 In/Out
B4 Wrong Side
B5 Arrive

Wrong Sides - Disc 2
A1 Car
A2 Last Mistake
A3 Submerge
A4 Loin Of The Surf
A5 SVK
B1 German Song (Demo)
B2 Adult Books
B3 Who Jumped In My Grave
B4 Angelhead
B5 Cimarron

‘Burning Your Light’ is a new six-track EP of covers from the remarkable Brigid Mae Power, it follows ‘Head Above the Water’ (2020) which saw her unique vocal style and music heralded in all corners. Power’s ability to interpret songs is unquestionable, as is her love of the art of songwriting. She skilfully brings joy from pain which is perfectly illustrated on this new EP.

Ranging from the brittle collapse of ‘Didn’t It Rain’ (Songs: Ohia) through to the slings and blows of Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan and Patsy Cline, she brings hope and reverence to these classic songs.

The EP features ‘I’ll Be Here In The Morning’ from the late great pioneer of alt-country Townes Van Zandt’s essential album ‘For The Sake Of The Song’ (1968), ‘One More Cup Of Coffee’ hails from Bob Dylan’s ‘Desire’, Aretha Franklin’s ‘It Ain’t Fair’ from her 1970 album ‘This Girl’s In Love With You’, Songs: Ohia’s ‘Didn’t It Rain’ to ‘Leavin’ On Your Mind’, a country standard by Patsy Cline from 1963, that’s now taken to new depths of despair.

Also reworked is ‘May Morning Dew’ an Irish ballad that allows Brigid’s voice to ululate in the best tradition of the genre; the traditional sound is brought into a new decade with its chilling ambience.

"A remarkable Irish singer emerges from filigree and shadow" Mojo.

“The magic is in the folk singer’s extraordinary voice” Sunday Times.

"A remarkable Irish singer emerges from filigree and shadow" Mojo.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Well, it's certainly a week for the cover versions isn't it? First Angel Olsen and now the folk stylings of Brigid Mae Power with her wonderful collection of folky covers of classics. It's Powers' voice that really tie together the songs here, filled with unrivalled emotion and brittle folky charm.

TRACK LISTING

A1. I’ll Be Here In The Morning
A2. One More Cup Of Coffee
A3. It Ain't Fair
B1. Didn't It Rain
B2. May Morning Dew
B3. Leavin' On Your Mind

Love Record Stores Edition available instore from 10am on Saturday September 4th, any remaining copies will be available on online from 9pm on the same day.
Limited to one per person.

‘Life Flows In Endless Song / The Body Is A Tide’ EP is released on vinyl for this year’s Love Record Stores on 4th September 2021.
Following the release of ‘The Weight Of The Sun’ LP, Modern Studies shift from light to dark over two new EPs brought together as six track 12-inch ‘Life Flows In Endless Song / The Body Is A Tide’, a record that further cements their reputation for innovative craftsmanship. ‘Life Flows In Endless Song’ showcases the band’s increasingly expansive sound, swelling with orchestrated drama behind the rich vocal pairing of Emily Scott and Rob St John, before their otherworldly dreaminess is pin-pricked at its height by Emily’s beautiful alto on ‘The Failing Light’. ‘The Body Is A Tide’ hails from ominous darker terrains, scratching further into their own psyche; it’s heady and baroque, ornate and super-detailed, an opus that climaxes with ‘High Hymn Summers’ and its slowly-rolling drone, created by processing all the songs from ‘The Weight of the Sun’ played at once. "The EP nods at the idea of our collective bodies weathering rough times, played out with massed strings, prepared guitars, slow bass grooves, hypnotic drums, wobbling saw, xaphoon and mellotron. We shook off our usual song structures in favour of something repetitive, slow and heavy; life flows in endless song." 

From the turn of the millennium, ‘Pennsylvania’ was the eleventh studio album from this uncompromising and influential group, presenting their dark take on pop music. This edition is newly remixed by David Thomas in 2021 and reissued on Fire Records. “Everyone talked about our artiness and our unlikeableness, people completely ignored for decades me saying, ‘We’re a pop band’.” David Thomas. With ‘Pennsylvania,’ Pere Ubu welcome you to a barely recognisable secret country drawn out of its own spectral geography... This is much more than just music.

“[Pere Ubu] were still creating great works of abstract art, pushing the limits of rock ‘n’ roll to twist into avant-garde explorations of the darkest recesses of the human mind” Classic Rock // “From the beginning they obviously understood the nuts and bolts of popular music, and then loosened them.” Mojo

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Woolie Bullie
A2 Highwaterville
A3 SAD.TXT
A4 Urban Lifestyle
A5 Silent Spring
A6 Mr Wheeler
A7 Muddy Waters

Side B
B1 Drive
B2 Indiangiver
B3 Monday Morning
B4 Perfume
B5 Fly's Eye
B6 Wheelhouse

Pere Ubu's darkest and most dramatic statement, ‘St Arkansas’ remains a work of offhand brilliance by a band who often seem capable of miracles. This edition is newly remixed by David Thomas in 2021 and reissued on Fire Records. Following ‘Pennsylvania’, ‘St Arkansas’ (2002) was Pere Ubu’s next studio album featuring a travelogue of characters encountered on the Mighty Road from Conway Arkansas to Tupelo Mississippi, I-40 to US 49 to State 6. “I drove the route and wrote down what the Road was telling me.” David Thomas. Pere Ubu are the mainstream.

“Immediate, energised and claustrophobic.. It's difficult to think of a more important band.” Mojo.

“Straddling the extremes of pure, uncompromising modern art and pure, uncompromising loud rock.” The Sunday Times.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 The Feverered Dream Of Hernando DeSoto
A2 Slow Walking Daddy
A3 Michele
A4 333
A5 Hell

Side B
B1 Phone Home Jonah
B2 Lisbon
B3 Mr Steve
B4 Where's The Truth
B5 Dark

Kevin Martin’s first solo full-length album under The Bug moniker for seven years could not be better timed, and could not be more needed: ‘Fire’ - the third exhilarating part of an incendiary urban triptych, that began with 2008’s explosive ‘London Zoo’ via 2014’s mind-melting 'Angels & Devils' - is fourteen tracks that immolate the synapses, flail the body, that cinematically take you from arcing evocations of a bleak lockdowned city-scape to swooping deep-focus close-ups of Martin and his collaborator’s psyches at breaking point. The aggression, the attitude, the vertiginous scope and subterranean incisiveness, the destabilising unsettling frenzy of The Bug sound is marshalled to perfection throughout but ‘Fire’ is no mere reanimation of the Bug’s past - for Martin, the album is both a response to the unique circumstances of the past year but also a chance to reflect his own journey from reclusive sound-obsessive to family man, and his thirst - in a period of enforced hermetic isolation - for contact, for the mayhem that can only happen between people, noise and bass, the derangement of the senses that has been Bug’s method and trajectory ever since it first crawled out of London’s deepest corners in the late 90s. It’s the Bug’s best yet, possibly the most ferociously realised and immensely moving music Martin has ever made, and still touches on those initial cravings and impulses that first propelled ‘London Zoo’ into your world like a pipe bomb through your letterbox. It’s a HUNGRY record in all senses.

“I've always been addicted to the physicality and intensity of sound: I started The Bug because I wanted to make music for a soundsystem I had in storage, and the live experience of The Bug has always been something I wanted to reflect on record - I’m always looking for fuel to the fire and live shows - and MISSING live shows in lockdown was a real impetus” Martin admits. “I’m always asking - how can I ramp this up MORE? How can I get people more out of control? For me a live show should be unforgettable, should alter your DNA, or scar you for life in a good way - that’s always been my goal, to set up shows that are unforgettable. I like friction, chaos, fanning the flames with sound, and this album is the most reflective of the live show in terms of intensity and the sheer fuck-off attitude of those shows. ‘WHAT the FUCK?’ is the reaction I want - insane is a good reaction especially at a time when there’s so much control in how people consume music and are pacified culturally”.

The MCs featured (longtime likeminds like Flowdan, Roger Robinson, Moor Mother, Manga Saint Hilare, Irah & Daddy Freddy alongside relatively new names to the Bug stable like Logan, Nazamba and FFSYTHO) inevitably reflect the external madness of a world turned upside down, but also dig deep into themselves to craft reflective, pitilessly honest portrayals of the rage, resistance and resignation the last year has engendered in all of us. Check the juddering maelstrom of ‘Clash’ wherein Logan matches every lunging hit of the kick and Martin’s none-more-dank dubtronics with a diseased narrative of mental warfare and strife, or ‘Pressure’ where Flowdan imperiously calls out the universe for a scrap over a beat so thunkingly rapacious its as if the ghost of Andy Weatherall has been reanimated for some rerubbing duties. Throughout ‘Fire’ you can hear MCs and Martin upping the ante, pushed to new heights and lows by an ever-present, periphirally-glimpsed armageddon. The album is bookended by the TS Eliot Award winning poet and long term friend and collaborator Roger Robinson.

“2020 was the worst dystopian nightmares made real - part of me was panic-stricken, the other part of me was ‘how am I going to stay sane?’” recalls Martin. “I’ve got to support 4 people and it might be YEARS before I play shows - this was at the back of my mind making the album. Just to keep calm I got into making solo albums which was meditative, got me back in touch with myself and enabled me to rebuild my studio which kept me working and helped me keep my head straight. It was crucial because I’ve realised through life that what keeps me grounded is music. I used to think I wanted to bury myself in NOW, reality, sensation, information - as time’s gone on I’ve realised I want to actually make a parallel world in sound - the studio gave me an escape from just how fucked up the world was last year. That feeling of external chaos but really questioning yourself internally is something that all the MCs, in different ways, reflect on ‘Fire’. And I feel I’ve grown - making music not just as an egotistical pursuit but to support my family has meant I’ve stopped overthinking things - we KNEW when tracks were finished and loosening my maniacal control over the music, letting it breathe and come together more naturally. That’s something I think you can hear throughout the album.”

‘Fire’ then is 14 tracks that not only chart where we are right now, but offer tantalising glimpses of just what miracles we might soon conjure again together. Growing up VAST. Get some ‘Fire’ in your belly and feel the BURN. This plague has found its soundtrack. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Having long been one of the most uncompromising forces in music, there is a significant amount of excitement over the new Bug LP. and with good cause. 'Fire' lurches from cavernous bunker techno to shadowy trip-hop via dark hip-hop, perfectly performed by a superb line-up of guest collaborators, and brought together in The Bug's inimitable no-holds-barred production style. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. The Fourth Day (feat Roger Robinson) (1:57)
2. Pressure (feat Flowdan) (3:48)
3. Demon (feat Irah) (3:48)
4. Vexed (feat Moor Mother) (3:44)

Side 2
1. Clash (feat Logan) (3:07)
2. War (feat Nazamba) (4:30)
3. How Bout Dat (feat FFSYTHO) (3:47)

Side 3
1. Bang (feat Manga Saint Hilare) (3:03)
2. Hammer (feat Flowdan) (3:28)
3. Ganja Baby (feat Daddy Freddy) (3:15)
4. Fuck Off (feat Logan) (3:24)

Side 4
1.Bomb (feat Flowdan) (4:46)
2. High Rise (feat Manga Saint Hilare) (4:17)
3.The Missing (feat Roger Robinson) (4:35)

Tenth anniversary reissue of Josephine Foster’s lauded ninth album ‘Blood Rushing’. The North American Colorado based singer-songwriter has lent her warbling mezzo-soprano and interpretive wit to nearly two decades of self-produced recordings. Foster’s songs are rooted in early American folk-blues as well as classical art song and Tin Pan Alley. A rock-ballet chanté, the music is set to a Pueblo drum's metapulsing Pan-American heartbeat. Recorded in Colorado by Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes) with the collaboration of her partner Spanish guitarist Victor Herrero, and musicians Paz Lenchantin (The Entrance Band), Heather Trost (A Hawk and a Hacksaw) and Ben Trimble (Fly Golden Eagle). A story within a story, ‘Blood Rushing’ is a glimpse into the world of Blushing, a heteronym of the artist Josephine Foster. “North American folk linage from Jean Ritchie and Hedy West through to the present, via the chugging, churning electronic (folk) rock of The Velvet Underground, all the time infused with a joyous communal warmth.”

TRACK LISTING

A1 Waterfall
A2 Panorama Wide
A3 Sacred Is The Star
A4 Child Of God

B1 Blood Rushing
B2 The Wave Of Love
B3 O Stars
B4 Geyser
B5 Underwater Daughter
B6 Words Come Loose

An exploration of repression, longing and ‘otherness’ amidst illusory landscapes, ‘Rain’s Break’ EP is inspired by the early technicolour films of Powell and Pressburger. Lucy Gooch uses synthesisers and vocal layering to concentrate elements of each film’s score and narrative into songs which move through different moods of yearning and renewal:
“I first experienced their strange cinematic worlds in childhood, and they stayed with me, like waking dreams – their vibrancy seemed to capture the hidden emotional lives of everyday people. The films’ fantastical sets were often met with the complexities of the inner female experience, as portrayed by each heroine. People wrestling with post-war isolation, changing attitudes to women and sexual repression alongside their struggle to establish equality and autonomy of their own lives.”

So, it is amidst 1940’s austerity that these films were an escape, an over-rich backdrop of possibilities. A snatched piece of dialogue, the film’s score, the crackle of uncertainty all succumbs to the layered ambience of Lucy’s music as she traces moods of yearning and renewal on ‘Rain’s Break’ EP.

Originally from Norfolk, Lucy studied Fine Art and later moved to Bristol to join the emerging ambient scene there - gradually developing her writing and finally releasing her debut ‘Rushing’ EP in early 2020. Over the past year, she’s dipped into a wealth of long gone celluloid as the basis for a filmic journey, a five song EP that relives formative movies in her unique take on ecclesiastical pop.

‘Ash and Orange’ emerged after listening to old recordings of women’s choirs from the 1930’s, their stoic sopranos circling churches and halls. In two parts, it touches on an everyday person’s hidden life that leads to an emotional breaking-down. A change from Lucy’s trademarked looping style it takes its inspiration from choral composition.

‘Chained To A Woman’ by contrast, is more playful, nodding to ‘80s synth pop, a homage to some degree to Blue Nile, pop music tinged with melancholy.

“I sought to stick to that tradition of talk-singing the verses, and it seemed to fit in with the feeling of the song, which is more ambiguous. I wanted the words to be about being devoted to something, like family, a person or religion and all the things that come with that kind of devotion.”

Inspired by the monsoon scene at the end of Black Narcissus (1947), the title track ‘Rain’s Break’ takes its lead from the weather to reflect an emotional journey.

“That amazing tradition in early film of using weather to reflect the character’s emotional journey - it seems cliched now but at the time it was revolutionary. This is my attempt at trying to recreate the feeling of total surrender to drama, of something totally sensual.”

This is music that takes you places, shifts focus, paints large canvases.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There are all sorts of musical touchstones flying out of the player for this one. It's essentially widescreen ambient music but with a focus on the walls of echo and reverb-effected synths more akin to shoegaze. Slowly building into crescentic waves of layered tones, brilliantly warm but undeniably massive.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Rain's Break
2 It Brings Me Back To You
3 Chained To A Woman

Side B
4 6AM
5 Ash And Orange

Come Away With ESG - 35-year anniversary release of the classic genre-busting debut album by the Bronx sisters ESG. The sample-friendly opus that’s the inspiration for hip-hop, house and post punk. Music that falls outside of the no wave, new wave and post punk library, it’s for the dance floor but it’s not funk, there’s no horns, no driving organ; it’s the opposite of Sly And The Family Stone but no less cool and no less groovy. “A lasting document of their unique brand of minimal funk that would influence subsequent post-punk, hip-hop, and dance music acts. Stripped down to the most basic of drumbeats and rudimentary bass lines, ‘Come Away’ confirms the notion that the real rhythm is what happens between the beats.

TRACK LISTING

1. Come Away
2. Dance
3. You Make No Sense
4. Parking Lot Blues
5. Chistelle
6. About You
7. It’s Alright
8. Moody ( Spaced Out )
9. Tiny Sticks
10. The Beat
11. My Love For You

“Treacy is the outsider's outsider, committed to a raw honesty, constantly bearing witness to his own suffering, his own weakness and fallibility.” The Quietus // A comprehensive remastered collection of all of the Television Personalities’ ground-breaking single releases from the Peel-approved ‘14th Floor’ through to the effervescent ‘Salvador Dali’s Garden Party’ EP. Includes the super rare Creation flexi, the TVPs as The Gifted Children, and the even rarer Caff 45 where the band tackle Stock, Aitken And Waterman.Purists will also find two shelved 45s for the Dreamworld label plus their take on Syd Barrett’s ‘Apples And Oranges’ from the ‘Beyond The Wildwood’ tribute album. Features the seminal ‘Where’s Bill Grundy Now’ and the self-effacing ‘Part Time Punks’ alongside a host of pop culture-bating gems. A celebration of the songwriting of Dan Treacy

TRACK LISTING

Side One

01 - 14th Floor
02 - Oxford St., W.1
03 - Part Time Punks
04 - Where's Bill Grundy Now?
05 - Happy Families
06 - Posing At The Roundhouse
07 - The Prettiest Girl In The World
08 - If That's What Love Is

Side Two

01 - Smashing Time
02 - King And Country
03 - I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives
04 - Arthur The Gardener
05 - Three Wishes
06 - Geoffrey Ingram
07 - And Don't The Kids Just Love It!

Side Three

01 - A Sense Of Belonging
02 - Paradise Estate
03 - How I Learned To Love The Bomb
04 - Then God Snaps His Fingers
05 - Now You're Just Being Ridiculous

Side Four

01 - She's Only The Grocer's Daughter
02 - A Girl Called Charity
03 - Salvador Dali's Garden Party
04 - The Room At The Top Of The Stairs
05 - This Time There's No Happy Ending
06 - Part One: Fulfilling The Contractual Obligations

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2021 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY JUNE 12TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 6PM ON THE SAME DAY (SATURDAY JUNE 12TH).

1500 pressed on Creamy White vinyl & DL card. First time on vinyl since 1998 for this magnificent patchwork collage of the Giant Sand main manís eclectic muses; a cut and paste gem, meandering, melancholy and beautiful. Classic solo album from Giant Sand's main man Howe Gelb circa 1998, re-issued with new liner notes and remastered on cream vinyl. A catch-all collection from the much-travelled troubadour that brings together a wealth of personal recordings edited into an intriguing ponder wander through the manís thinking.

A truly intoxicating set of songs buoyed by Howe Gelb's prosaic prose and effortless use of the mind-bending one-liner. ìíHisserí is the vision of a truly unique and engaging talent, and in its pure heart and soul lies a masterpiece.
College Music Journal // Pure genius and usually chaotic, Howe Gelb is a cottage industry often labelled the Godfather of alternative country. BOMB magazine // There are wonderful glimpses of what Gelb is capable of when heís not rushing off to dabble with the next nugget in a seemingly inexhaustible flow of ideas. The Line Of Best Fit // One of those albums that could have a semi-permanent spot next to the hi-fi for late-night playing. The Independent 

TRACK LISTING

Side A. 1 Temptation Of Egg 2 4 Door Maverick 3 This Purple Child 4 Shy Of Bumfuck 5 Propulsion 6 Catapult 7 Creeper.
Side B. 8 Tanks Rolling Into Town 9 Halifax In A Hurricane 10 Living On A Waterfall 11 Like A Store Front Display 12 Explore You 13 Nico's Lil Opera 14 Thereminender 15 Hisser 16 Intro Speck 17 Soldier Of Fortune 18 Lull 19 Short Way To End The Day

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2021 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY JUNE 12TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 6PM ON THE SAME DAY (SATURDAY JUNE 12TH).

1000 copies pressed on Yellow vinyl & DL card. Fist time on vinyl. All-enveloping superbly alternative third take on 1988's Charmed Life album featuring previously unissued versions and a half dozen previously unreleased songs. Includes brand new liner notes and an interview with Jad and David Fair.

TRACK LISTING

Side A. 1 Said And Done (Alternate Version) 2 Evidence (Alternate Version) 3 Vietnam (Alternate Version) 4 Love At First Sight (Alternate Version) 5 Snake Line (Alternate Version) 6 Fun For All 7 Face Rake (Alternate Version) 8 Later In A Magazine (Alternate Version) 9 Red Dress (Alternate Version) 10 Charmed Life (Alternate Version 1).
Side B. 1 Day And Night With Angie 2 Madonna Nude (Alternate Version) 3 Ashes On The Ground 4 T For Texas 5 I'll Change My Style (Alternate Version) 6 Fortunate (Alternate Version) 7 Please Crawl Out Your Window 8 30 Seconds In Heaven 9 Charmed Life (Alternate Version 2)

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2021 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY JUNE 12TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 6PM ON THE SAME DAY (SATURDAY JUNE 12TH).

1000 only pressed on limited edition ORANGE Vinyl & DL card.

Super rare self-released recordings from 2000, from the Philadelphia psych rockers; a must-have insight into their long, strange trips. Collated from a limited run original CDr, remastered and double-dosed for maximum sound. A viral jam session remastered onto vinyl for the very first time.

"The missing link between John Cage's 4'33 and Merzbow's ultimate noise; a grinding cacophony tempered with motorik precision. Immerse yourself in the gloopily transcendental pleasures of the world's finest purveyors of psych-rock magnificence."The Quietus.

"Few contemporary bands understand psychedeliaís weird mix of weightlessness and heaviosity better than Bardo Pond." Uncut.

A deconstructed masterclass that concludes with the mystical rampage of Into Something Else, a ten-minute slice of sludge blues at its gnarliest. Bardo Pond are no ordinary band." Drowned In Sound.

TRACK LISTING

Side A. 1 Sit Sleep 2 Cymbals 3 Syn Dept.
Side B. 4 Before 5 Into Something Else

Marina Allen glides on angelic highs, surfing the husky deep; she is one of the great new voices of her generation. Writing songs that carry notes from other realms; these are kitchen table tales about love and fear, the capturing of the wild heart, sketching the breaking of dawn, bringing real life back to life. Every song on stunning debut album ‘Candlepower’ is a tick box of influences, asides, inspirations, quickfire theories, storylines and melodic progressions that galvanise a chemical reaction for each dramatic scene that unfolds on this genre-traversing seven song epic.

One listen to opening track ‘Oh, Louise’ underlines the range of Marina’s talent, it’s a filmic play on words, with an arrangement that’s like a Kate Bush dream sequence. It’s the perfect foil for the plaintive strum of ‘Sleeper Train’, a haunting, folky paean fit for Judee Sill brought up to date with some echoey electric guitar; or the conversational ‘Believer’; with a nod to Joni Mitchell in the lyrics it sounds every bit like Simon And Garfunkel at their Big Apple best listening to the ‘7 O’Clock News’ re-imagined on Sunset. The stuff of legend for a voice that surfs many musical tangents, hovers, and persists, that stings with honesty; morphing from Karen Carpenter’s gentle reverence to Laura Nyro’s soulful grit, moving through the phases like some possessed Dada performance artist before throwing in a melody from Joni at her jazziest or from the close harmonies of the lamented Roches when they flipped out with Robert Fripp. ‘Candlepower’ is a juxtaposition of melodies, an achingly beautiful set of songs set against the clank of the mundane world, a beguiling commentary on the everyday and everywhere. It’s all here, in under 20 minutes… every second counts.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Oh, Louise
A2 Original Goodness
A3 Belong Here
A4 Sleeper Tran
B1 Believer
B2 Ophelia
B3 Reunion

Soul Jazz Records’ new Studio One collection ‘Fire Over Babylon: Dread, Peace and Conscious Sounds at Studio One’ features a stellar selection of 70s roots music - classic and rare tracks recorded at Clement Dodd’s musical empire at 13 Brentford Road in the 1970s.

Rastafarian-inspired Roots music was an ever-important aspect of Studio One’s output from the start of the 1970s onwards and this album features many of the groundbreaking groups and artists that established the sound of Jamaica during this decade and beyond.

Featured here are seminal artists such as Freddie McGregor, The Wailing Souls, The Gladiators, Horace Andy, Devon Russell, Cedric Brooks, Count Ossie and Judah Eskender Tafari alongside a host of lesser-known rare cuts made at Studio One from artists such as The Prospectors, Viceroys and Pablove Black.

Studio One and founder Clement Dodd’s connection with Rastafarianism dates back to the early 1960s, with Dodd accompanying members of the Skatalites up to the hills of Kingston to listen to the music of the Rastafarian Count Ossie and his drummers. The album sleevenotes discuss how Clement Dodd’s musical links, as well as his role in heading the most important record label in Reggae, are in many ways linked to the beliefs of Rastafarianism.

TRACK LISTING

Freddie McGregor - I Am A Revolutionist
The Silvertones - Burning In My Soul
Wailing Souls - Without You
Devon Russell - Jah Jah Fire
Trevor Clarke - Sufferation
The Gladiators - Sonia
Judah Eskender Tafari - Always Trying
The Viceroys - Ya Ho
Im And Count Ossie - Give Me Back Me Language And Me Culture
The Gladiators - Serious Thing
The Prospectors - Glory For I
Wailing Souls - Things And Time
Pablove Black - Inner Peace
The Gladiators - Peace
Horace Andy - Mr. Jolly Man
Wailing Souls - Rock But Don’t Fall
Albert Griffiths And The Gladiators - Righteous Man
So Many Problems - The Viceroys

New studio album from the Dunedin (NZ) songsmiths helmed by the enigmatic Martin Phillipps with artwork by Trees’ David Costa. Dunedin’s finest, The Chills release their seventh studio album ‘Scatterbrain’, a glorious self-examination of Martin Phillipps’ songwriting hot (ish) on the heels of the hugely successful ‘Snowbound’ (2018) and the critically-acclaimed movie ‘The Chills: The Triumph And Tragedy Of Martin Phillipps’ a year later. “It’s about artistic integrity, self-realisation, self-acceptance and a reflection on mortality.” The Guardian Now in 2021, Phillipps is now taking stock of things – everything. Yes, everything.

The result is this triumphant new Chills’ album ‘Scatterbrain’, a thought-provoking and evocative take from a man who has lived through good times and bad. A mature and honest reflection on life, destiny and the fate of our times delivered in beautiful melodies with Phillipps’ trademarked incisive turn of phrase. Viewed from the perspective of a man understanding his age and indeed his own mortality, the new album takes a mature look at matters arising with a side order of perspective. ‘Scatterbrain’ is a life passing before your ears as uncertainty increases and fake news rumbles on; during which aliens invade, Phillipps scales the walls beyond abandon as he probes the minutiae of worlds within worlds and the hourglass fills. A landmark album from one of the great modern song writers, it’s pure pop music for the new normal and we can’t wait to see how it ends…

TRACK LISTING

Side A

A1 Monolith
A2 Hourglass
A3 Destiny
A4 Caught In My Eye
A5 You're Immortal

Side B

B1 Little Alien
B2 Safe And Sound
B3 Worlds Within Worlds
B4 Scatterbrain
B5 The Walls Beyond Abandon

RIYL: Ritual Howls, Throbbing Gristle, Coil, The Legendary Pink Dots, Suicide, Cabaret Voltaire, Sonic Youth, Current 93 & The Stranglers.

Mission to the Sun synthesizes ambient, post-industrial landscapes with expansive arrangements and haunting vocals. Comprised of Christopher Samuels (synths, samples, programming) of Ritual Howls and Kirill Slavin (vocals), the Detroit-based duo creates an atmosphere of lamentation for a world left behind. Fragments of industrial noise and hypnotic synths fill Samuels' foreboding, alien terrain, and it's in this vastness that Slavin’s voice mourns the drudgery of everyday life and the loss of universal consciousness.

The duo's debut album, Cleansed by Fire, takes the listener on a journey home to the inferno of the sun, navigating memories of a life lived, dissolved into time. A wind of desolation opens "Take Me Back," with Slavin mourning for a return home to a distant reality. The song uses repetition to build a somber ambience while maintaining a spaciousness sparsely accented by noise with care and precision. Slavin's lyrics examine the conflict and paradoxes that riddle the human condition with

Samuel's instrumentation providing a fitting backdrop. "The Unbroken Sea" illustrates this symbiotic reflection with a propulsive bass line contradicted by ethereal synths that swell and contract, only to be finally engulfed by a pulsating crescendo of rhythmic noise at the end. The dystopian title track "Cleansed by Fire" marches steadily along to a creeping darkwave rhythm. The basic elements of dance music are there, yet the song remains devoid of danceability. Punctuated by lyrics inspired by J.G. Ballard and technological isolation, a glimmer of pop sensibility can be found beneath the haze of the track's potent mood.

Mission to the Sun beautifully captures an alien feeling: one ripe with despair and longing, one that doesn't quite belong to this world or time. A slow, satisfying burn, Cleansed by Fire traverses the dystopian past and present, while moving toward the future.

TRACK LISTING

01. Take Me Back
02. Cleansed By Fire
03. Damaged
04. Mission To The Sun
05. The Unbroken Sea
06. Computers
07. In Your Eyes
08. Three Crossings

Performed across two nights at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm in March of 2017, the 20-track recording is a theatrical staging of Leonard Cohen’s songs, poems, and letters. Conceived and anchored by First Aid Kit, the Swedish sister duo were joined by an array of fellow Swedish guest artists, an 8 person band & strings, and two actors, as well as a 20+ person choir on two of the songs. 

Klara and Johanna, longtime fans and greatly inspired by Leonard Cohen, were deeply saddened by his passing in November of 2016. At the time, First Aid Kit shared: "… If you ever put a guitar in our hands and ask us to sing, we will always play ‘Suzanne.’ When we heard it for the first time we were transfixed. ‘How does one do that?’ we thought. ‘How does one write like that?’ One doesn't, we suppose, only Leonard Cohen does… In the midst of this deep sadness, we are so intensely grateful... [His art] has been a guiding light for us for these past ten years since we started making music, both a consolation and an arrow pointing at where to strive…”

Speaking today about Who By Fire, the Söderberg sisters say: "We recently listened back to this concert and realized that this was something out of the ordinary for us. It was a challenge to create a performance that wasn't centered around First Aid Kit songs. It was something we'd never done before, but everything came together so well. Dwelling deeply into Cohen's world was a pleasure, he was so prolific as both a poet and a songwriter, and everything he ever put out held a very strong standard. He cared immensely for his work. The band, the guest artists, the atmosphere on stage...everyone had a great passion and it felt magical. This is definitely a record that is best enjoyed listening to back-to-back with no interruptions. Allow yourself to just disappear into Cohen's world for a little while.

We decided not to edit any of the performances. The flaws are part of the live experience. In a time when you sadly can't go to an actual physical live show, you can listen to this and imagine you were there..."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A wonderfully heartfelt tribute to Cohen, a superb selection of guests, and an unsuprisingly warm folky hue that we've come to expect from the Söderberg sisters. Really lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tired (First Aid Kit, Nina Zanjani, Maia Hansson-Bergqvist)
2. Suzanne (First Aid Kit)
3. Sisters Of Mercy (First Aid Kit, Nina Zanjani, Maia Hansson-Bergqvist)
4. Who By Fire / As The Mist Leaves No Scar (First Aid Kit, Nina Zanjani, Maia Hansson-Bergqvist)
5. Twelve O'Clock Chant (First Aid Kit, Nina Zanjani, Maia Hansson-Bergqvist)
6. Everybody Knows (Frida Hyvönen, First Aid Kit)
7. Avalanche (Loney Dear)
8. The Future (Maia Hansson-Bergqvist, First Aid Kit, Nina Zanjani)
9. Chelsea Hotel No.5 (Jesper Lindell, First Aid Kit)
10. You Want It Darker (First Aid Kit, Nina Zanjani, Maia Hansson-Bergqvist)
11. If It Be Your Will (First Aid Kit)
12. The Asthmatic (Nina Zanjani, Maia Hansson-Bergqvist, First Aid Kit)
13. Famous Blue Raincoat / Anthem (Maja Francis, First Aid Kit, Nina Zanjani)
14. Show Me The Place (Jesper Lindell, First Aid Kit)
15. Hallelujah (Annika Norlin, First Aid Kit)
16. Prayer For Messiah (Klara Söderberg)
17. Bird On The Wire (First Aid Kit )
18. Who By Fire (Reprise) / Letter To Marianne (First Aid Kit, Nina Zanjani, Maia Hansson-Bergqvist)
19. So Long Marianne (First Aid Kit, Frida Hyvönen, Loney Dear, Jesper Lindell, Annika Norlin, Maja Francis, Nina Zanjani, Maia Hansson-Bergqvist)
20. You'd Sing Too (Johanna Söderberg)

One of the North-West’s finest exponents of otherworldly pop has landed back on earth with an album of shimmering space age bliss. Elements of disco, new wave and krautrock are undoubtedly present in Flock, but Jane never relies on genre tropes to carry her work. Instead, she harnesses familiar rhythmic devices and choices of instrumentation in her own distinctive way. And while comparisons could be drawn between Jane and contemporaries like Vanishing Twin and Gwenno, she has undeniably staked out her own domain within the realm of off-kilter synth pop.

Throughout Flock Jane demonstrates her delicate vocal agility over a series of hypnotic loops and clever synthesis. The lazy disco strut of “The Revolution Of Super Visions” sets up a jangling interplay between Jane’s sweetly sung declamations, new wave style guitar interjections and Cowley-esque synth squelch. While “Modern Reputation” is propelled forwards by a Broadcast style motorik rhythm with electronics whirring in the background and mantra-like vocal loops swirling in a strange ecstasy.

In the title track Jane’s gauzy vocals reverberate over the ebb and flow of a loose knit groove, while in “Sunset Dreams” ornate guitar riffs weave in amongst a haze of twinkling chimes and fizzing sawtooth synthesis. The album culminates in a moment of escapist pop euphoria with final track “Solarised”, laden with cascading arps and irresistible vocal hooks. Once again Jane has succeeded in creating something playful, fresh and unpretentious which is in equal parts a fun and intelligent listen. All hail the cosmic synth queen! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: This new outing from Jane Weaver sees Jane and co skirting the outer reaches of Disco, Synth-pop and ambient to stunning effect, rich with hooks but unmeasurably deep, it's one that will reveal more and more with each listen. Unsurprisingly superb.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Heartlow
A2 The Revolution Of Super Visions
A3 Stages Of Phases
A4 Lux
A5 Modern Reputation
Side B
B1 Flock
B2 Sunset Dreams
B3 All The Things You Do
B4 Pyramid Schemes
B5 Solarised

Mats Gustafsson - Flute, baritone sax, live electronics, Johan Berthling - Electric bass, Andreas Werliin – Drums with Goran Kajfes – Quartertone trumpet, Mats Aleklint – Trombone, sousaphone, horn arrangements. Not the most optimistic title for pressing times, but the music sees Fire! tracking new paths and reaching new levels of excellence, still honoring their 12 year old vow of presenting a fresh approach to improvised music. Their debut album, You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago, was released in 2009 to wide international acclaim. “The basic strategy of pairing the expressive energy of free jazz with a sturdy sense of groove has yielded something potent and self-contained” (New York Times). Between this and Defeat there´s been five albums, including collaborations with Jim O´Rourke (Unreleased?, 2011) and Oren Ambarchi (In The Mouth A Hand, 2012).

No two Fire! records sound the same, but with Defeat they have taken their biggest leap so far, with Gustafsson giving the flute a prominent place in the sound image, a surprising and most successful move, his both expressive and ornamental approach given ample room to breathe, especially on the two long tracks bookending the album. In places more subdued than on previous efforts, but with the distinctive bass figures and hypnotic mood fully intact. There are some lively stretches with guests Goran Kajfes and Mats Aleklint, bringing to mind their big band offshoot Fire! Orchestra, albeit on a smaller scale. For over 20 years we have made a habit of releasing music that is beyond easy classification, in later years typified by Hedvig Mollestad, Elephant9 and Krokofant, but cemented by Fire! and their exploratory curiosity and deep love of music in general. We, and many others, have tried to compare the trio to other groups, but listening to Defeat we realize how futile this is. Given the above there´s no doubt there are many influences at play, but the resulting brew is in a class by itself.

TRACK LISTING

1/A Random Belt. Rats You Out.
2/Each Millimeter Of The Toad, Part 1
3/Each Millimeter Of The Toad, Part 2
4/Defeat (Only Further Apart)
5/Alien (To My Feet)

One of the year's most daring and true pop records, private LIFE comes as the result of Virginia Wing living through, and with, huge personal emotional and mental traumas. It is a document of how the very process of music creation in a group can be of huge therapeutic benefit to people. The three members of Virginia Wing have explored the depths of their creative and artistic inspirations within performance, production and composition, and have made a candid and brash pop record that speaks clearly about hope, desperation, impulse, addiction, urge and shame.

More tumultuous than its predecessor, private LIFE knocks hard. The evolution of Virginia Wing’s sound continues to build on the broad creative flow of the last album whilst being another audacious contribution to contemporary pop. The drums are huge and playfully unquantized. Edits are both assured and heavy handed, the instrumentation lightly mediates the two and finds itself on the edge of collapse alongside them. The icy facade of Merida Richards’ words are still front and centre, but are contrasted by dense, multilayered improvisations, vying for attention throughout the record. Over ‘I’m Holding Out For Something’s relentless juggernaut of 90’s R’n’B beats, Richards examines the relentless hope and desperation glued to modern consciousness, and speaks of how we often find the answer, or the route through, right at the breaking point. Subsequently, ‘St Francis Fountain’ compounds the issue, observing that often our own coping mechanisms can grow into full blown traumas of their own. Virginia Wing’s last record opened its arms into euphoric light, private LIFE invites you through a door and closes it. It examines what we’re doing at night, on our own, after work. What we do to enjoy ourselves, to cope, to be together, to be alone. It shines a dim blue light on what might be happening, causing us anxiety, stress and desire.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Virginia wing bring another nuanced slab of moody synth-indie, with 'Private Life' displaying all of the superb songwriting prowess which made 2018's 'Ecstatic Arrow' such a heavy hitter, but with a more world-weary experience and depth of feeling. Superb stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 I’m Holding Out For Something
A2 Moon Turn Tides
A3 Soft Fruit
A4 Michael Returns To The Garden
A5 99 North
A6 Return To View

Side B
B1 St. Francis Fountain
B2 Private Life
B3 Half Mourning
B4 Lucky Coin
B5 OBW Saints
B6 I Know About These Things

The third album from Dutch punk-laced noiseniks adds new maturity and a conceptual feel that pulls the extremes of their sound together. A psychefuelled journey into the id punctuated with rhythmic kabuki modal mood swings, thunderstorms, digital beeps, traffic noise, and just plain old beautiful cacophonous reverb-drenched sound when needed.

The ‘third chapter’ refers to the last five years that the Dutch band have spent creating their “difficult” third album. Each song spins a yarn; there are plagues, dreams, wind and fire, ‘mythical’ characters, and the search for the secret government warehouse. Lead single, Tokyo Music Experience, resonates with a conveyor belt-propelled modal guitar, reflecting the halcyon days of Japanese super-productivity; a mesmerising mantra, infected with news bulletin on-thehour bleeps underlining its time-sensitive nature; a pristine super-commercial anthem to drive loyalty and reinforce solidarity with the party!

Having been described as creating “underground noise with a bracing, warped pop appeal” (Mojo), their new album is a coming-of-age post-classic with a unique worldview - inspired by Van Dyke Parks (Song Cycle) Scott Walker (3 & 4), Moondog (Elpmas), White Noise (An Electric Storm) and Beach Boys (Smile).

If their previous effort (Tape Hiss) was their very own sketch of a sketch for an incomplete concept album, a noisy reaction to their previous life, then ‘Excerpts From Chapter 3..’, with all its interlaced intricacies, is the realisation of their transition from punk-spiked-pop to psyche-pop protagonists. Evolving, testing, infectious...

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: This wild and superb outing from Rats On Rafts shows that the bands playful spirit and whimsical melodies don't have to give way when things get serious. A brilliantly deep and eminently enjoyable third outing.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Prologue: Rain
2 A Trail Of Wind And Fire
3 Second Born Child
4 Tokyo Music Experience
5 The Rise And Fall Of The Plague
6 Another Year

Side B
7 Fragments
8 The Disappearance Of Dr. Duplicate
9 Excerpt Taken From Chapter 3
10 Where Is My Dream?
11 Part One: The Long Drought
12 Part Two: Crossing The Desert
13 Epilogue: Big Poisonous Shadows

Bonus Dinked Edition 7":
1. Tokyo Music Experience (Single Edit)
2. Osaka

Half Japanese return with another thrilling ride into unknown charters encountering beasts, celebrities, and menaces.

Purveyors of noise and indie rock for over four decades, Half Japanese have inspired generations of fans from musicians and critics alike.

Now set to release their 19th studio album ‘Crazy Hearts’ continues with their detuned, outsider pop capturing you in the way that only Jad Fair ever can.

A philosophical psych-tinged journey, these whip-smart observations are uplifting with life-affirming sentiments (‘Wondrous Wonder’) that we are familiar with. They meld melodic classic rock riffs with heavier bass lines and darker, more twisted tones on ‘My Celebrity’ and ‘A Phantom Menace’.
Their last excursion saw Uncut praising them for their “unchanged, more ecstatic musings on love and science fiction” that continues to resonate here.

Half Japanese deliver another well-wrought album with their usual DIY ethos and art punk spirit at its core (‘Undisputed Champions’), all whilst wearing Jad’s heart firmly on its sleeve (‘Crazy Hearts’).
Recorded across various studios in Spain, France and the US, Jad Fair is accompanied by his longstanding band members John Sluggett, Giles Vincent Rieder, Mick Hobbs and Jason Willett. Mastered by Brian Pyle and mixed by Jason Willett of the band. Album includes artwork from American illustrator and cartoonist, Gary Panter and David Fair.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Beast Master
2. Wondrous Wonder
3. Dark World
4. And It Is
5. My Celebrity
6. Late At Night
7. Undisputed Champions
8. Crazy Hearts
9. As Best You Can
10. A Phantom Menace
11. A Job Well Done
12. Let It Show

Not many heavy metal bands have tried their hands on Christmas songs. Last year, Greek power metal band Silent Winter decided to give it a try, and recorded 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas' in full blown metal style, including high pitched yet melodic vocals and, of course, guitar solos. Given the more than 20.000 views of thei video, it did indeed find an audience in the metal community. And now the song found its way to vinyl, as B-side to Silent Winter’s single for the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club. Songwriter and guitarist Kiriakos Balanos took up the challenge to write a new Christmas metal song, and came up with 'Holy Land Of Fire And Snow', the A-side of the single. It's five-and-half minute of fast paced power metal, that couples sleigh bells, an angel choir and church bells with heavy guitars, ultra fast solos and blast beats. The sometimes melodic and sometimes screaming vocals of Mike Livas tell the tale of this holy land of fire and snow, where Santa reigns, who doesn't seem to be as peaceful as we have been told, as he travels through the black and starry sky with his burning sleigh, causing panic and destruction along the way.

Silent Winter was originally formed in the mid-1990s in the Greek city of Volos, recorded two demo's and broke up in 2001. In 2018 the band reformed and now in 2020, Silent Winter consists of singer Mike Livas (also in Maidenance and Keepers of Jericho), guitarists Kiriakos Balanos and Vaggelis Papadimitriou, bassist Vaggelis Tsekouras and drummer John Antonopoulos. In 2019, Silent Winter recorded its first full length, 'The Circles Of Hell' for Sonic Age Records, to good reviews. Their 2020 lathe cut 7" 'Nightfall', sold out on the day of release.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Holy Land Of Fire And Snow
B1. We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Pure X is the last band, has always been the last band. Not that there won’t be future acts, more that Pure X understands that all this pageantry, this civilization is wrapping up. It burned hot and bright like thermite used to bust a safe open, but now is the age of radiating waves, each one buckles the foundation more than the last. Rare Ecstasy 2009-2019 is a collection of recordings and rarities that span the more than a decade career of the Austin underground legends. Referred to by Pitchfork as the ‘druggy, wall-of-sound escapism that put them on the map’. These 12 tracks embody the Pure X sound, breaking it down and offering up a raw emotive portrait that cycle the Band’s expansive output. A must have addition to the collection of any Pure X fan.

TRACK LISTING

Pressure Drop
Alexandria
One Day At A Time
I Don’t Wanna Make Love (With Anyone Else But You)
Make It Look So Easy
Valley Of Tears
Baby
Making History (Instrumental)
Utopia
Streets Are Haunted
Crazy Lust
Please Please Please

Brand new album from Colorado’s freewheelin’ melodist Josephine Foster.

Revolving between her adopted Spain and her native American West, Josephine was stationed this spring in Nashville with maverick guitarist and comrade-in-arms Matthew Schneider. The result: ‘No Harm Done’, a spacious and enveloping love letter of an album.

Eight new slow-burning songs branch forth from idiosyncratic country folk blues, sung with sibylline wit and a hint of the absurd, awash in sensually anachronic lyricism.

“The Wheel of Fortune”, nearly a title track by virtue of its refrain: 'No harm will come/if there's no harm done', are words of a homebound wanderer finding refuge in healing stillness with her beloved, having 'time to kill' in the midst of 'hard times to feel at home'. All delivered with calm sagacity upon the pedestal of Mr. Schneider's pedal steel and underscored by a knowing trebled chorus in Foster's lower register. Going nowhere never felt like so righteous of a destination before.

Devotion in all its permutations, spiritual to carnal, are seamlessly explored.

In 'Conjugal Bliss', overtones of the 12-string and autoharp gently interplay, sounding like some unearthed Carter family wedding hymn (it bears the subversive subtitle '69' ) while 'How come, Honeycomb?' bounces low in the hips like a sultry old music hall number à la Harry Nilsson. The obliquely sapphic 'Leonine', it's unquiet harp scaling right out of ancient Lesbos, dreams of a kingless land; in 'Sure Am Devilish', a stargazer humbly confesses to a lowercase lord. 'Old Saw', the mesmeric album closer, is a medium's petition to cross the threshold and merge with the holy spirit.

Josephine's enigmatic voice captured once more by frequent co-producer Andrija Tokic in his analog Bomb Shelter studio, where layers of her guitar, piano, organ entwine with Schneider's 12-string, pedal steel and electric bass to rouse a spectral yet full blooded band. The ensuing cycle of songs pulse and glow within the ruins and deep fundamental roots of American song.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Freemason Drag
2 The Wheel Of Fortune
3 Conjugal Bliss
4 Love Letter

Side B
5 Sure Am Devilish
6 Leonine
7 How Come, Honeycomb?
8 Old Saw

‘A Mythology of Circles’ is the new album from Brooklyn-based composer and musical artist Faten Kanaan, her first to be released on Fire Records. Cyclical patterns and 'variation through repetition' are central to Faten’s music. Harmony and counterpoint are composed intuitively and treated as narrative tools- with sound, silence, and the resulting mystical relationship between notes used as gestures to tell a wordless story. The album is separated into a ‘dusk to evening’ side, and an ‘underworld/dream-state’ side; highlighting the myths of Ishtar, Inanna, Orpheus, Persephone, and others.

Inspired by cinematic forms and mythological story structures: from sweeping landscapes and quiet romances, to patterned tensions and dream sequences; Faten brings an earthy, visceral touch to electronic music. In symbiosis with technology is an appreciation for the vulnerability of human limitations and nuances.

All the sections are played in real time, neither looped nor sequenced- allowing for subtle changes to unfold. The use of VST sampled choral voices in this album embodies the forlorn state of technological acceleration, and the desire to return to a vulnerable human sound. The album art also explores a complicated relationship with technology: the statue comes from a series of digital replicas, returning in its last stage to a more intimate and handmade feel.

Composed, produced and mixed by Faten Kanaan, the album was mastered by Heba Kadry (Bjork, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Julianna Barwick).

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I've been a fan Of Faten Kanaan's work since her superb split 7" with Pye Corner Audio on Polytechnic Youth a few years ago. What we have here is the spiritual and logical culmination of an artist working hard at their already considerable skills in the intervening years. It's a stunning work of scope, beautifully transportive and haunting.

TRACK LISTING

1. Patagonia Motet 1: Lago
2. The Archer
3. Hesperides
4. Birds Of Myrrh
5. Night Tide / Anteros
6. Sleepwalker
7. Mist & Madrigal
8. Rêve-Rivière
9. Erewhon
10. Patagonia Motet 2: Andes
11. The North Wind
12. The Heron
13. Ishtar Terra

The sixth album by Bardo Pond, a critically revered space rock masterpiece, lovingly reissued on double purple vinyl for the first time since 2003.

TRACK LISTING

Jd
Every Man
Dom’s Lament
Walking Clouds
Test
Night Of Frog

Recorded in Gold Dust Studios with a new sense of optimism and a fuller sound down to lots of extra energy (Nick believed it might be their last ever record) and the addition of piano and keyboards brings an instrumental direction.

Released on double LP with gate-fold sleeve for Record Store Day.

Originally released in 2002, two years after Valedictory Songs, The Bevis Frond returned with a more progressive sound with complex structures and instrumentation.Bursting with their trademark guitar licks, impeccable songwriting and a more upbeat sound.

Out on double LP with gatefold sleeve for Record Store Day.

Ltd edition BOOKBACK CD companion to the Deluxe vinyl reissue of The Lemonheads ‘Lovey’ for Record Store Day 2020, housed in a bookback sleeve with expanded liner notes and unseen photos – this is the definitive document of Dando’s first steps towards the mainstream. The lovingly repackaged CD is accompanied by a second disc, ‘Triple J Live at the Wireless’, an unearthed radio session taken from their 1991 trip to Australia.

The major label debut for Evan Dando’s Lemonheads from 1990, following three “ramshackle punk” (©Select magazine) albums for Taang! Pivoted on a more approachable set of sweet melodies still rife with punky spirit. A light and dark album, polished in the arrangements, nodding to the excess of American culture (Manson and Gummi Bears), hectoring Reagan’s drug laws (‘Lil’ Seed’), riffing on everyday life.

Remastered with a freshly-dusted off second album featuring a full radio session recorded during their trip to Australia to promote the album and their gorgeous cover of Gram Parsons’ ‘Brass Buttons’.

“Like Hüsker Dü when they were at their most ferocious or REM when they were at their most Byrdsian hypnotic.” NME

TRACK LISTING

Disc One
The Lemonheads - Lovey
1 Ballarat
2 Half The Time
3 Year Of The Cat
4 Ride With Me
5 Lil Seed
6 Stove
7 Come Downstairs
8 Left For Dead
9 Brass Buttons
10 (The) Door
11 Untitled

Disc Two
The Lemonheads - Live At The Wireless
1 Come Back D.A.
2 Stove
3 A Song For You
4 Come Downstairs
5 Nighttime (Big Star Cover)
6 Year Of The Cat
7 Ride With Me
8 Die Right Now

Back in the 80s Dons Savage of Dead Famous People joined her first band Freudian Slips which soon ended so she along with fellow Freudian Slip refugee Biddy Leyland could pursue their own talents. A chance encounter with Flying Nun's spiritual guru, Chris Knox, led to a one-off deal with the label that resulted in a five-song EP, ‘Lost Persons Area’. Moving to London in 1986 the fabled "Flying Nun sound" began making an impact outside New Zealand. The release of near-perfect compilations by The Clean and The Chills except Dead Famous People were a little early for that buzz. Stumbling into a deal with Utility Records, Billy Bragg and legendary manager Pete Jenner. Dons later started singing with new combo, Saint Etienne, her vocals feature on the original version of their cover version hit, ‘Kiss And Make Up’, as well as a cover of Gil Scott-Heron's ‘Winter In America’. Around this same time, Martin Phillipps of The Chills asked Dons requested she sing on ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’. Dons soon returned home to Auckland without an outlet for her music, three decades later Fire tracked her down and the rest is history. Now set to release her new album ‘Harry’, it’s more philosophical than her earlier work. It feels like the right one for a world of apocalyptic pandemic, uncertainty and quarantine. Dons' power over melody and knack for profundity remains unchanged since Dead Famous People's original incarnation. A rare record in a time of musical factionalism and a world divided into camps of willful obscurity and grotesque mockeries of stardom and art, it’s a document of unadorned perfection.

"Bob bought a DFP single which we both really liked, we were drawn to the mystery of the band's name and the melancholy tone of Dons' voice." Pete Wiggs - Saint Etienne.

“There was a sense of excitement that something special was happening." Martin Phillipps – The Chills.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Looking At Girls
A2 Goddess Of Chill
A3 Safe And Sound
A4 Turn On The Light
A5 Dead Birds Eye

Side B
B6 Groovy Girl
B7 The Great Unknown
B8 Dog
B9 To Be Divine
B10 Harry

Part of Fire’s ongoing series of re-imagined soundtracks. Following on from Fenella, Jane Weaver’s score for Marcell Jankovics’ ‘Feherlofia’, and Death and Vanilla’s reworking of ‘The Tenant’ and ‘Vampyr’. A specially recorded soundtrack for Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary Ripper-based drama by multi-award-winning composer Graham Reynolds (Where Do You Go, Bernadette/A Scanner Darkly). ‘The Lodger’ – based on Marie Belloc Lowndes’ 1913 novel with a nod to the infamous Jack The Ripper case – set many hearts racing when visiting the East End of London and an unexpected fog descended.

The drama was afoot, and the tension has been further escalated with a re-imagined score by multi award-winning composer, bandleader, and innovative improvisor, Graham Reynolds. This tale of murder and suspense set on the streets of terrorised London is eerily completed as Reynolds’ sweeps from light to dark; it’s playful in places, haunting, a tease – like Hitchcock at his best. Nowhere is safe, even the seemingly innocuous ‘Police Station’ which is accompanied by a brooding piece of maniacal piano that underpins a gloriously evocative theme; a haunting and suggestive muse that stutters with tension. It’s another Reynolds’ master stroke on the heels of his score for Richard Linklater’s ‘Where Do You Go, Bernadette’, his work on Ballet Austin’s ‘Grimm Tales’ and his contribution to ‘The Sound Of Science’, a multimedia collaboration with Kronos Quartet’s former cellist Jeffery Zeigler.

TRACK LISTING

Side A

A1 - The Lodger
A2 - When He Sits At The Table
A3 - Golden Curls
A4 - Tempting Providence
A5 - You Will Not Rest

Side B

B1 - The Satchel
B2 - Keep Your Handcuffs Hidden
B3 - Police Station
B4 - A Kiss On The Hand
B5 - The Chase

This is Thurston Moore’s seventh solo album, and features musicians Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine) on bass and backing vocals, Jon Leidecker aka ‘Wobbly’ (of Negativland) on electronics, James Sedwards on guitar, and Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, as well as Jem Doulton, alternating on drums. ‘Hashish’ is the first single from the album to be released and is described by Moore as “an ode to the narcotic of love in our shared responsibility to each other during isolation." The song includes a video with footage from The Thurston Moore Group’s tour in early 2020 in Europe, as well as footage of Thurston quarantined in his home during the past few months “with respect to the sacred healing truth of nature.”

Prior to isolation during the COVID pandemic, Thurston worked in recording studios in North London until the third week of March 2020 to complete this album for release on September 5, 2020. While the musicians may not immediately tour, Thurston was adamant to release BY THE FIRE in 2020, and with Daydream Library, has released this quote: ​BY THE FIRE is music in flames.

2020 is our time for radical change and collective awareness and Thurston Moore has written nine songs of enlightenment, released to a world on fire. Taking a cue from Albert Ayler's "music is the healing force of the universe", this recording offers songs as flames of rainbow energy, where the power of love becomes our call. These are love songs in a time where creativity is our dignity, our demonstration against the forces of oppression. BY THE FIRE is a gathering, a party of peace—songs in the heat of the moment.

Some of the songs feature all of the musicians whist a few are solo guitar and vocals.

BY THE FIRE is released on The Daydream Library Series record label which was founded in 2018 especially to release London Afro-punk feminist trio Big Joanie’s debut album ‘Sistahs’.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hashish (5:54)
2. Cantaloupe (4:44)
3. Breath (10:54)
4. Siren (12:20)
5. Calligraphy (5:20)
6. Locomotives (16:50)
7. Dreamers Work (4:53)
8. They Believe In Love (When They Look At You) (7:49)
9. Venus (14:20) Instrumental

Artist, illustrator, writer and lo-fi innovator, Tobin Sprout was the super-productive partner of Robert Pollard in the legendary Guided By Voices. The gifted songwriter returns with a pensive, expansive part autobiographical new album ‘Empty Horses’. Here he’s part Townes Van Zandt, part John Prine, part Robbie Robertson at his retrospective best.

The album is a meticulously observed study of America and Americana (not the music, but the state of mind). An alternative American Songbook, if you will, a collection of laments to simpler times and the struggle for what’s right, peppered with an examination of faith and the search for a sense of justice. Close up and personal, ‘Empty Horses’ is a poignant carefully etched experience, a rolling journey in modern times, nodding back to tradition, a personal snapshot filled with honesty.

‘Empty Horses’ is released on vinyl LP and also a deluxe bookback CD, beautifully packed with 24 pages of paintings and lyrics by Tobin Sprout, a true collectors piece for fans of Tobin’s music and art.

“The perfect aural encapsulation of melancholy: in turns somnambulant, romantic and all-consuming” Rolling Stone.



“Raw, honest and often revelatory” Consequence Of Sound

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Wings Prelude
2 The Return
3 Breaking Down
4 On Golden Rivers
5 The Man I Used To Know

Side B
6 Every Sweet Soul
7 Empty Horses
8 Antietam
9 All In My Sleep
10 No Shame

‘Sun Racket’ is the brand new album from legendary Boston trio Throwing Muses, consisting of Kristin Hersh, David Narcizo and Bernard Georges. The follow up to 2013’s ‘Purgatory/Paradise’ is an outpouring of modal guitars, reverbed shapes, echoey drums and driving bass set behind Kristen Hersh’s well-thumbed notebook of storylines. A ten-song opus of suitably wrought tales set against a wall of sound that’s at once calm and ethereal before building into glorious cacophonous crescendos. When Throwing Muses wrote their last album, they were shattered. Pieces were coming and going, elements repeating and charging the whole. “It sounded beautiful jumping around like that”.

Two-minute songs reappearing as twisted instrumentals or another song’s bridge. They mimicked the effect live which kept them on their toes. Whatever was happening was already over in other words. ‘Sun Racket’ is the opposite. It refused to do anything but sit still. It says, “sit here and deal”. “All it asked of us was to comingle two completely disparate sonic vocabularies: one heavy noise, the other delicate music box. Turns out we didn’t have to do much. Sun Racket knew what it was doing and pushed us aside, which is always best. After thirty years of playing together, we trust each other implicitly but we trust the music more” - Kristin Hersh And so, they continue. Business unusual.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Throwing Muses bring us their newest selection of gritty, fuzzed-out rock and / or roll, classic rock tinged melodies and deep, bluesy grooves. It's an intoxicating and exciting mix, and one that hasn't tempered any over time.

TRACK LISTING

1 Dark Blue
2 Bywater
3 Maria Laguna
4 Bo Diddley Bridge
5 Milk At Mcdonald’s
6 Upstairs Dan
7 St Charles
8 Frosting
9 Kay Catherine
10 Sue's

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2020 RELEASE AVAILABLE ONLINE ONLY AS PART OF THE AUGUST 29TH DROP DAY AT 6PM.
LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Black Vinyl.Essential reissue of Josephine Foster's crucially revered classic 'This Coming Gladness' ñ for the first time on vinyl since 2008.Comes with brand new artwork and housed in a reverse board sleeve with a download card.

Where L.A. Witch's self-titled album oozed with vibe and atmosphere, with the whole mix draped in reverb, sonically placing the band in some distant realm, broadcast across some unknown chasm of time, Play With Fire comes crashing out of the gate with a bold, brash, in-your-face rocker “Fire Starter.” The authoritative opener is a deliberate mission statement.

“Play With Fire is a suggestion to make things happen,” says Sanchez. “Don’t fear mistakes or the future. Take a chance. Say and do what you really feel, even if nobody agrees with your ideas. These are feelings that have stopped me in the past. I want to inspire others to be freethinkers even if it causes a little burn.” And by that line of reasoning, “Fire Starter” becomes a call to action, an anthem against apathy. From there, the album segues into the similarly bodacious rocker “Motorcycle Boy” a feisty love song inspired by classic cinema outlaws like Mickey Rourke, Marlon Brando, and Steve McQueen. At track three, we hear L.A. Witch expand into new territories as “Dark Horse” unfurls a mixture of dustbowl folk, psychedelic breakdowns, and fire-and-brimstone organ lines. And from there, the band only gets more adventurous.

Play With Fire is a bold new journey that retains L.A. Witch’s siren-song mystique, nostalgic spirit, and contemporary cool. Despite the stylistic breadth of the record, there is a unifying timbre across the album’s nine tracks, as if the trio of young musicians is bound together as a collective of old souls tapping into the sounds of their previous youth.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fire Starter
2. Motorcycle Boy
3. Dark Horse
4. I Wanna Lose
5. Gen-Z
6. Sexorexia
7. Maybe The Weather
8. True Believers
9. Starred

Crawling Up The Stairs is the sophomore album from Austin underground luminaries Pure X, re-issued on 180 gram vinyl by Fire Talk.

The anticipated follow-up to debut ‘Pleasure,’ the new record places Nate Grace’s ragged vocals upfront in the mix with more clearcut, refined production choices, while still imbued with the jagged sexual tension and undercurrent of catastrophe that has won them fans across the world.

More accolades from the press followed, notably Pitchfork calling the record ‘sophisticated and self aware,’ lending a further upward trajectory to the band’s steadfast cult status. The duality of vocals from Grace and Jenkins for the first time evoke an even more enthralling immediacy to Pure X’s continued evolution of their nightmarish visions, a spellbinding combination that will find appeal in old fans and new listeners alike.

TRACK LISTING

Crawling Up The Stairs
Someone Else
Written In The Slime
I Fear What I Feel
Things In My Head
Shadows And Lies
I Come From Nowhere
Never Alone
How Did You Find Me
Thousand Year Old Child
Rain At Dawn
All Of The Future (All Of The Past)

Pure X is the last band, has always been the last band. Not that there won’t be future acts, more that Pure X understands that all this pageantry, this civilization is wrapping up.

It burned hot and bright like thermite used to bust a safe open, but now is the age of radiating waves, each one buckles the foundation more than the last. Recorded live in single takes in the Texas hill country by Danny Reisch (Shearwater), this is their clearest, most focused work to date. The rhythm section is locked in--a night train through the desert. There is more singing, the weary wisdom of the lyrics ringing like Tibetan bowls. In 38 minutes, Pure X weave a culmination, all the delays and distortion, the grinding mortar of touring, the low-tide pulling them out from a cult band, to a legacy band, it’s here, understood and forgiven.

The album’s cover (designed by long time collaborator Christopher Royal King) depicts a coffin necklace set against a wide open blue sky. It’s as if we carry our mortality like a pendant on a chain. Learning to own up and accept ourselves through self reflection. It would be understandable to express such forbidden fatalism in a brittle, harsh nihilism, the stark echo of a stone rattling down an endless well. But on this album, their fourth and first in six years, there is a predawn kindness. It may be funereal, but it is a Viking pyre ablaze in the middle of a river, one of those moments when the water seems to pause and reflect the clouds blooming like smoke from an invisible glass pipe.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Searing walls of guitar swooning around the heartfelt vocals and slo-mo percussive stomp, Pure X is a cacophony of noise, but shifting quickly enough to form chords above the tuned dirge and heady vocal soar. Melodic shoegazing for the hypnotised.

TRACK LISTING

Middle America
Hollywood
Angels Of Love
Free My Heart
Making History
Fantasy
Man With No Head
How Good Does It Get
Slip Away
Grieving Song
Stayed Too Long
I Can Dream

Brigid Mae Power paints expansive songs that are effortless, hypnotic and folk-oriented like Judee Sill, Bill Callahan and Sharon Van Etten.

The third album from the celebrated singer/songwriter, ‘Head Above The Water’ is a coming of age opus featuring a ground-breaking amalgamation of traditional folk and country - an engaging blend of strings, bouzouki, piano and Power’s distinctive vocal make this an achingly beautiful body of work.

Recorded in analogue studio The Green Door in Glasgow with Alasdair Roberts co-producing alongside Brigid and Peter Broderick. It’s a continuing tale of everyday survival; more diverse, different, a bigger canvas, with broader brushstrokes…

Country and traditional folk rub shoulders, making for a juxtaposition of threads, with added instrumentation from five musicians lured into the studio to provide larger dynamics.

“Power meditates on the dichotomy that’s always existed in her work, melding atmospheric bliss and stark desperation.” Pitchfork.

“Power invokes the elements, either in contrast to internal weather or in sympathy with it.” The Guardian.

“Haunting and haunted” (The Line Of Best Fit), ‘Head Above The Water’ continues in that vein becoming more ethereal, more personal and even more alluring.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 On A City Night
A2 Wearing Red That Eve
A3 Wedding Of A Friend
A4 Not Yours To Own
A5 I Was Named After You

Side B
B6 We Weren't Sure
B7 You Have A Quiet Power
B8 I Had To Keep My Circle Small
B9 The Blacksmith
B10 Head Above The Water

Set My Heart On Fire Immediately is the fifth studio album from Perfume Genius that will be released May 15th on Matador Records. It sees artist and musician Mike Hadreas re-teaming with GRAMMY-nominated producer Blake Mills and features contributions from musicians Jim Keltner, Pino Palladino and Matt Chamberlin. It was recorded in Los Angeles, where Perfume Genius settled in 2017 with longtime partner and musical collaborator Alan Wyffels.

The album explores and subverts concepts of masculinity and traditional roles, and introduces decidedly American musical influences. Throughout Hadreas plays with themes of love, sex, memory and the body, channeling popular music mythologies while irreverently authoring its own – from the delirious, Cyndi Lauper-nodding celebratory pop of ‘On The Floor’, specters of Elvis on haunted tremolo waltz ‘One More Try’, to the harpsichord- punctuated baroque pop of ‘Jason’, and gliding steel guitar and Balearic rhythm of ‘Without You’.

“I wanted to feel more open, more free and spiritually wild,” says Hadreas, “and I’m in a place now where those feelings are very close-- but it can border on being unhinged. I wrote these songs as a way to be more patient, more considered -- to pull at all these chaotic threads hovering around me and weave them in to something warm, thoughtful and comforting.”

First album taster ‘Describe’ captures this sense of fleetingness and living in the moment through a heavy fog of grizzly distortion and tumbling slide guitars: “It started as a really somber ballad. It was very minimal and very slow. And then it turned into this beast of a song. I started writing that about when you are in such a dark place that you don’t even remember what goodness is or what anything feels like. And so, the idea was having someone describe that to you, because you forgot or can’t get to it.” Its accompanying video, self-directed by Hadreas, envisions “an end of the world where there are no boundaries, there are no edges, no rules, or the rules are completely new with how you interact with each other and the space around you.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Whole Life
2. Describe
3. Without You
4. Jason
5. Leave
6. On The Floor
7. Your Body Changes Everything
8. Moonbend
9. Just A Touch
10. Nothing At All
11. One More Try
12. Some Dream
13. Borrowed Light 

A Deluxe remastered edition of Giant Sand’s 1991 album ‘Ramp’ with a second disc featuring the Mad Dog sessions from earlier that same year. “Convertino's brush-work and Burns' upright bass provide the perfect foundation for Gelb's parched voice and chaotic guitar, and guests include Rainer, Victoria Williams and country veteran Pappy Allen. It’s one of Giant Sand's strongest and most complete albums.” The Quietus // Featuring piano lounge music for an off-world colony interrupted by an onslaught of guitar when needed, it’s light and dark and the better for it, a musical journey on a road less travelled. With Gelb’s lyrical invention to the fore: “His thoughts unfold in long, rolling sentences that don't always follow conventional rules of grammar or syntax.” The Quietus // The Tucson sound at it very best.

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1

1 Warm Storm
2 Romance Of Falling
3 Wonder
4 Welcome To My World
5 AntiShadow
6 Neon Filler
7 Jazzer Snipe
8 Z.Z. Quicker Foot
9 Seldom Matters
10 Resolver
11 Nowhere
12 Always Horses Coming
13 Patsy's Blues

Disc 2 - Live At Mad Dog Studios – 30th January 1991:

1 Back To The Black And Grey
2 Trickle Down System
3 Bible Black, Book II
4 Still Too Far
5 Romance Of Falling
6 Can’t Find Love
7 Shadow To You

New album from kosmiche folk-rock quartet Modern Studies. A glorious compendium of haunted disco hallelujahs, mercurial krautrock chorales, cosmic pop adagios and euphoric, resilient, anthems. ‘The Weight of the Sun’ sees principal songwriters Emily Scott and Rob St John further their warm, esoteric field studies with Pete Harvey and Joe Smillie, as previously reconnoitred on ‘Swell To Great’ (2016) and ‘Welcome Strangers’ (2018).

“The exact point where Fairport Convention meet Jim O’Rourke at a remote Scottish railway station.” Tim Burgess.

“Melancholic magic… recalls Johnny Marr’s hazier reveries and the febrile, electrified folk of Polly Harvey’s Let England Shake.” UNCUT

There is a strange familiarity, and a welcome strangeness, in the quiet alchemy of Modern Studies.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Photograph
2. Run For Cover
3. Heavy Water
4. She
5. Corridors
6. Signs Of Use

Side B
7. Brother
8. The Blue Of Distance
9. Back To The City
10. Jacqueline
11. Spaces
12. Shape Of Light

Popping up unassumingly in the second season of the popular series ‘End Of The F**cking World’ on Netflix and Amazon. This new release is sided with exclusive B-side ‘All Glow Now’. Taken from her 2013 album of the same name, ‘I’m A Dreamer’ beckons with a gentle hand, each note clear and crisp. ”Another stellar effort” (NME) the album “collects together a set of early country-esque songs” (The Quietus) and is produced by Andrija Tokic. The song sits comfortably at home in salon or saloon with its delicately arranged piano, woozy harmonica and soul-searching lyrics. “A masterclass in songwriting that perfectly invokes old Americana” Time Out // The North American Colorado based singersongwriter breathes new life into archaic forms, embodying the cultural archelogy of Harry Smith’s old weird America. She has lent her warbling mezzo-soprano and interpretive wit to nearly two decades of self-produced recordings. Her songs are rooted in American folkblues as well as classical art song and Tin Pan Alley. (E. Gades)

Argentinian grrl group Las Kellies return with new album ‘Suck This Tangerine’ out 27th March on Fire Records and will be touring Europe in Spring 2020. Sucking you in, Las Kellies takes us straight back to the party reminding us of what we’ve been missing with their libidinous mix of garage, punk and dub. Thrashing it out on the dancefloor, ‘Suck This Tangerine’ deals with the difficulties of a society in never ending crisis (‘Funny Money’) to the highs and lows in relationships (‘He’s Who’, ‘Let You Go’) and there’s a guest appearance from ex-Kellie Julia Worley on ‘Close Talker’. Recorded at home in Buenos Aires, the chemistry of the duo’s formative years remains as does their febrile new wave post-punk sound soaked in fiery dance beats and dub-pop. Their first release since 2016’s ‘Friends & Lovers’ was “impressively varied” (The Vinyl District) whilst “seamlessly melding psych/fuzz pop, post-punk attitude and dance beats” (Louder Than War). Las Kellies are Cecilia Kelly (bass, guitars, vocals) and Silvina Costa (drums, percussion and vocals). "Absolutely love 'em" Lauren Laverne

TRACK LISTING

1. Closer
2. Funny Money
3. Baby
4. He's Who's
5. Matrixland
6. Despite.
7. Charade
8. Rid Of You 
9. Weekdays
10. Let You Go 
11. White Paradise
12. Close Talker

Critical praise from Pitchfork, Clash, The Wire, Q Magazine and more upon release. New inverted LTD edition artwork. Fire re-issue Bardo Pond’s eponymous eighth studio album from 2010, their debut for Fire from way back when. A lysergic brain wrestler in which the Pennsylvanian drone outfit perfect their modal sound. Teasing the artistry of LaMonte Young and Terry Riley into a guitar shaped cauldron, the album’s compulsive reverbed guitar shapes slowly simmer behind Isobel Sollenberger’s esoteric vocals “Like hearing a tannoy at a station in the voice of Jesus.” The Quietus. A claustrophobic stuttering raga interlocks with their psychedelic leanings best exemplified on ‘Cracker Wrist’ which sounds like something that’s intentionally always just about to happen/and/or spin back in time. Featuring lengthy fully nurtured play offs between the quintet ‘Bardo Pond’ is a heady statement that’s like the most wholesome kind of vegan-friendly mushroom trips. Pitchfork reckons they’re “playing fuzzed out stoner dreams.” Vice’s musical brother Noisey likens them to “Fugazi On Acid.” Allmusic intervenes with: “These are epic, soaring psychedelic ambient power-drone rock noise melodies where partially buried, distant female vocals are laced throughout a roaring, murky/sludge guitar soundscape

TRACK LISTING

1 Just Once
2 Don’t Know About You
3 Sleeping
4 Undone
5 Cracker Wrist
6 The Stars Behind
7 Wayne’s Tune

A Powys trio whose free-spirited invention and exuberant intensity flows through experimental pop: hypnotic, exhilarating and defiantly unique. The Welsh band Islet return with the release of their long-awaited new album.

Eyelet was recorded at home tucked away in the hills of rural Mid Wales. It took form the months following the birth of band members Emma and Mark Daman Thomas’ second child and the death of fellow band member Alex Williams’ mother. Alex came to live with Emma and Mark, and the band enlisted Rob Jones (Pictish Trail, Charles Watson) to produce.

‘Caterpillar’ described by Emma as “a song for my unborn child”. It's followed by syncopated lullaby ‘Good Grief’ with its haunting keyboard hook and icy percussion thawed by Emma’s yearning vocals about the quiet strength of generations of women. With nods towards Arthur Russell and Jenny Hval, ‘Geese’ is a mini symphony of driven electronica inspired by Welsh cultural theorist Raymond Williams’ novel People Of The Black Mountains.

Young Fathers inflected rhythm can be heard on ‘Radel 10’ that accompanies the multi-tracked variations of Emma and defiant lyrics that were inspired in part by The Good Immigrant - the landmark anthology of essays on race and immigration by BAME writers.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Islet were one of the first bands I saw play when I moved to Wales, and remained a mainstay on my shelves since that day. Whilst their groove has morphed, and the frenetic energy has both waxed and waned, the output has remained undeniably brilliant. 'Eyelet' is on the more relaxing side, but absolutely glimmers with astoundingly written pop songs and immersive, soaring heft. Their greatest work to date, in a catalogue of gold.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Caterpillar
A2 Good Grief
A3 Treasure
A4 Geese
A5 Sgwylfa Rock

Side B
B1 Radel 10
B2 Clouds
B3 Florist
B4 Moon
B5 No Host
B6 Gyratory Circus

Bold, weird, wild, wired, sonically luxurious yet never losing touch with its DIY-‘til-I-die roots, Thumb World is a voyage to the outer rings of Pictish Trail’s mind at its darkest, funniest and most inventive – a plugged-in, fuzzed-out, fucked-up contemplation on, as he puts it, “life repeating and gradually degrading, the inevitable cyclical nature of things, and the sense of their ultimately being no escape.”

Expect alien abductions, thumping beats, Trump-haired pigs, paternal panic, astronaut sex, bad acid trips, worse hangovers, lashings of distortion and a lot of anthropomorphic thumbs. “Our opposable thumbs are the things that separate us from most other animals on Earth,” Pictish explains, of the fat digit symbolism, “they are also the things that we use to swipe on screens, to separate ourselves from our normal lives, but which in turn trap us within an artificial reality.”

Produced and mixed by Rob Jones, featuring string arrangements from Kim Moore and drumming from Alex Thomas (Squarepusher, Anna Calvi, Air), Thumb World is Pictish Trail’s most collaborative album to date.

An audio-visual dialogue with Swatpaz, AKA Scottish artist Davey Ferguson – the man behind the Turbo Fantasy series and an entire episode of cult TV phenomenon Adventure Time – furnished Johnny with not just a graphic aesthetic for the album, but even helped him to shape the sound of the finished record. “I sent Davey a work-in-progress mix of the album,” Johnny says, “he came back with sketches in which he had reimagined Thumb World as an 80’s arcade game. Some of the songs are centered around specific visual images, inspired by Davey’s sketches.”

Due for release on Fire Records on February 21, 2020. Four years in the making, Thumb World is the much-anticipated follow-up to his critically acclaimed Scottish Album of the Year Award public vote winner Future Echoes.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: This definitely falls solidly within my realm of interests,

videogame aesthetic [x]
superb production [x]
brilliantly written tunes [x]

It's got it all, and only goes to show how the super talented Johnny Lynch keeps smashing it out of the park. Ace stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Repeat Neverending
2 Double Sided
3 Pig Nice
4 Lead Balloon
5 Fear Anchor

Side B
6 Slow Memories
7 Bad Algebra
8 Heart Eyes
9 Turning Back
10 Thumb World

Celebrating its 50th Anniversary, ‘Thank Christ For The Bomb’ is released with bonus tracks on CD. A hugely influential album cited as the embryo for punk, grunge and beyond. Featuring epic 1970 concepts from this far reaching trio much praised by Underworld’s Karl Hyde, Captain Sensible, Stephen Malkmus and a host of others. ‘Thank Christ For The Bomb’ is a visionary tale of cold war fear, alienation and everyday drama. “This is a masterpiece!” New Musical Express. A thinking man’s rumination on alienation, the album is a game of two halves; side one tackling the thermo nuclear threat while side two traces riches to rags alienation in everyday London. Also featuring Radio 1 sessions and live versions of key tracks including a lengthy take of ‘Soldier’ recorded for the BBC’s In Concert series. First of a trio of ground-breaking albums that steered the band from the Blues into a heavier, more prog-based sound and a true reflection of their much-praised live sound. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Strange Town
2 Darkness Is No Friend
3 Soldier
4 Thank Christ For The Bomb Side
5 Ship On The Ocean
6 Garden
7 Status People
8 Rich Man, Poor Man
9 Eccentric Man
10 Garden (Radio 1 Sessions)
11 Eccentric Man (Radio 1 Sessions)
12 Garden (Live At Leeds)
13 Eccentric Man (Live At Leeds)
14 Soldier (Radio 1 Sessions)

“What Black Lips do so well is tease the horror out of wholesomeness and recast golden-age rock’n’roll in a strange, discomforting light” Pitchfork.

“Cosmic country that comes strutting off a dusty back porch with gritted teeth” Consequence Of Sound.

It’s country music but not as we know it which begs the question: Have these Bad Kids of 21st Century rock ’n’ roll finally grown up on their ninth studio album? Are they at peace with themselves? Have they made a record their parents could listen to? The Black Lips new album ‘Sing In A World That’s Falling Apart’ continues to flick the middle finger to one and all. This ain’t another gaggle of bearded southern sons fleeing their collective suburban upbringings and collegiate music education. There aren’t the usual clichés about drinking, honkytonks, and heartbreak. These are, after all, the same Black Lips who rescued the waning garage punk subgenre by not sounding or dressing their musical predecessors. They also dug contemporary hip-hop and punk and actualized themselves Like so many dramatic moments in the Black Lips career, ‘Sing In A World That’s Falling Apart’ was born out of crisis. The band’s stylistic evolution through decades of prolific touring and recording took them where no garage punk band had gone before - huge venues, network television shows, and major music festivals. Here Black Lips are at their grimiest, most dangerous and equipped with the best collection of songs since the aughts. Skidding onto the asphalt in a shower of sparks, they roll on with an unapologetic southern-fried twang, pacing the beast, every now and then dropping a psycho howl into the rubber room madness lurking underneath the truckstop fireworks. This ain’t your granny’s country album. And conversely this ain’t your mama’s Black Lips.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Just as the thigh-slapping hoedown starts, it fades away into rich psychy rock and swinging blues riffage. Black lips have always been one of the most distinctive bands that start with 'Black___' (of which there are A LOT), and 'In A World That's Falling Apart' provides a feelgood alternative to that exact scenario. Turn it up and don't stress. Black Lips got this.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hooker Jon
2. Chainsaw
3. Rumbler
4. Holding Me Holding You
5. Gentleman
6. Get It On Time
7. Angola Rodeo
8. Georgia
9. Odelia
10. Dishonest Man
11. Locust
12. Live Fast Die Slow

Numbered, limited edition recreation of a 7" released in advance of the band's debut album "Funeral."

Could it be that the world is finally ready for the tempestuous folk-rock opera that is "All the Leaves are Gone?" In 2004, only the truly informed and forward-thinking heads "got" this mini masterpiece. Critics scratched their heads and usually resorted to comparisons of past artists, like ol Grace Slick and her Great Jefferson Society, Fairport Convention (but which era? SURELY Judy Dyble's early reign?), and at best, Shirley Collins. A few fans attempted to connect the record to even more obscure "freak folk/rock" like Mellow Candle, Fear Itself, or Trees. "All the Leaves are Gone" was made by unique personalities not concerned with influences or copying any bygone era. Surely, some things are in our DNA or even early childhood, as Josephine Foster's roots in opera manifest themselves as much as any other influence in this organic song cycle. Sure, guitarist Brian Goodman may have heard Richard Thompson before, but his alchemical and molten guitar spray is purely his own, in tunings and intervals still not meant for normal humans to understand, mostly because his 2004 guts were poured into every sublime note (I think even Brian himself never even understood how good he was). That fiery emotion is also in every nuance of Foster's songs--like life, there's disquieting, jagged moments of unease, and there's calm both before and after the storm. There are moments of utter gentleness along the journey---because yes, every concept album should be a voyage, and this is one everyone should take. - Steve Krakow

TRACK LISTING

Well-Heeled Men
The Most Loved One
All The Leaves Are Gone
Nana, Deathknell
Silly Song
Jailbird (Hero Of The Sorrow)
Worried And Sorry
Who Will Feel Bitter At The Days End?
John Ave
Seen From The Gray Train
Don't Wait Mary Jane
(You Are Worth) A Million Dollars

This unique package successfully archives the key elements of Jane’s ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ tour. Housed in a concise limited-edition pocket-compendium the new CD version brings Jane’s fully realised ‘Loops Variations’ and sonic installations into your own environment with new illustrations based on the songs by Andy Votel and DVD featuring the experimental film installation featured on the tour by Nick Farrimond. When science fiction turns science fact the effect can be truly momentous. The state demands that no-one wants an unlicensed machine-hum from an outbuilding; no-one wants clever prose mapping the future, no-one wants “music” that is attention-seeking, soul-defining, beneficial, Biblical, baroque and beautiful.

No-one told Jane Weaver that. Jane Weaver’s multi-layered synthetics evolved into a welcoming slew with 2014’s ‘The Silver Globe’, continuing through to 2017’s ‘Modern Kosmology’. ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ is a re-imagined journey through parts of both albums, with new ambient pieces primed and polished; with new tangents explored in a lab-friendly blossoming of the Weaver vision that travels yet further into the psych of our future. A continuous experience with one-line observations set in glorious sense-stimulating sound. That source material was then united in an expansionist experiment in late 2018. The ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ tour fused unrelated sounds set off against sympathetic new textures, tones and drones; hot-housed into an idealistic soundscape that formed the conducive parts of the imminent album of the same name. Co-conspirators include Henry Broadhead, PJ Phillipson and Andy Votel. Renegades all, headed by the enigmatic Weaver all under surveillance. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Element (Loops Variation)
2 Milk Loop
3 Arrows (Loops Variation)
4 Found Birds
5 H>A>K (Loops Variation)
6 Did You See Butterflies (Loops Variation)
7 Sun House
8 I Wish (Loops Variation)
9 Mission Desire (Loops Variation)
10 Battle Ropes
11 Found Birds
12 Slow Motion (Loops Variation)
13 Margins
14 Cells (Loops Variation)
15 Code (Loops Variation)
16 Signs Are Rising
17 Ravenspoint (Loops Variation)
18 Sous Le Même Soleil, Vie Disparu Dans Le Ciel (Loops Variation)
19 Majic Milk (Loops Variation)
20 Conduit
21 Ivana Vessel
22 Battle Ropes

Emily Jane White's new album juxtaposes a heavy melancholy with an intimate touching lightness through her singular alto voice backed by orchestral percussion, soaring strings, heavy guitars, a choir of voices, and an overall cinematic presentation of dynamic songwriting.

Ten songs, all written in minor keys, present a deepening storm of melody that offers the hopeful ray of Emily's voice as the waves of rhythm crash and dance around her. Her voice is the listener's guide, a steady and reassuring presence as they march through eerie landscapes, caverns of reverb, church organs and synthetic arpeggios. The occasional samples of birds, insects, and thunder mix with the blend of electronic and acoustic instruments, a subtle reminder of the necessary link between the fate of our ecology and the moral use of technology.

A conceptual masterpiece, complete with a second disc capturing a classic KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic session just prior to the original album’s release in 1994, plus five bonus tracks available for digital download. An epic windswept desert dry encounter with one of America’s greatest bands that traverses genres and styles to create a complete masterpiece. “While the guitars still squall and roar, they're used more sparingly, erupting to devastating effect in gloomy, low-key songs.” The Quietus // Emotional and uplifting, and always thought provoking, the band’s line up of Howe Gelb, latter day Calexico’s Joey Burns and John Convertino are joined by Victoria Williams, Pete Holsapple, Chris Cacavas, Pappy Allen and Lisa Germano, the whole shebang produced by Daniel Lanois protégé Malcolm Burn. “Giant Sand move to the darker side of their emotional stew. Within is jazz, country, folk, blues even Glam, we’re led to believe the mainstay is downbeat but the result is monumental

TRACK LISTING

A1 Glum
A2 Yer Ropes
A3 Happenstance
A4 Frontage Road
A5 Painted Bird

B1 1 Helvakowboy Song
B2 Spun
B3 Left
B4 Faithful
B5 Bird Song
B6 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

C1 World Stands Still – KCRW SESSION
C2 I Wish You Love - KCRW SESSION
C3 Interview - KCRW SESSION
C4 Lester Lampshade - KCRW SESSION

D1 Get To Leave - KCRW SESSION
D2 Left - KCRW SESSION
D3 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - KCRW SESSION
D4 Interview - KCRW SESSION
D5 Instrumental - KCRW SESSION

‘Fenella’ is the latest project from Jane Weaver - musical polymath and one of the most respected electronic composers of recent times - and her long-term bandmates Peter Philipson and Raz Ullah.

Having already released three critically-acclaimed LP’s within the last five years Weaver’s creativity continues to expand ever further into the (modern) kosmos with this reimagined soundtrack to Marcell Jankovics’ cult animation Fehérlófia.

Released in 1981, Fehérlófia is a remarkable animation based in ancient folklore with a narrative culled from mythical tales of the Scythans, Huns and Avars.

Weaver’s richly emotional and psychedelic music offers a perfect contemporary dialogue with Jankovics’ astonishing visual aesthetic.

A mixture of ambient textures, menacing drones and spine-tingling vocals combine to create a lavish soundscape saturated with hypnotic moods and cinematic atmosphere.

Fenella’s self-titled LP is a continuation of Fire Records re-imagined score series.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: F'in-ell-a, this is good. As you'd expect, a project from Raz, Jane and Peter being anything but wonderful would be a rare day indeed, but this woozy slab of arpy psychedelia is pushing the boundaries. Intricate but easily digested, this rich tapestry of fizzing oscillators and analogue saturation is a gift straight from the white mare's mouth. AT LEAST 250ug of pure joy.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Slow Swoop
Three Heads Rising
Bright Curse
Occurring In Waves
Triangular Journey
The Seed
Pendulum
Shard Of Glass
Truly Seduced

Side B
The Spectacle
Battle
Echo Chamber Of Your Heart
Strength In Air
Rotation Wells
Gilded Griffin
Transfiguration Into One

A hugely influential album cited as the embryo for punk, grunge and beyond. Featuring epic 1970 concepts from this far reaching trio much praised by Underworld’s Karl Hyde, Captain Sensible, Stephen Malkmus and a host of others. ‘Thank Christ For The Bomb’ is a visionary tale of cold war fear, alienation and everyday drama. “This is a masterpiece!” New Musical Express.

A thinking man’s rumination on alienation, the album is a game of two halves; side one tackling the thermo nuclear threat while side two traces riches to rags alienation in everyday London. First of a trio of ground-breaking albums that steered the band from the Blues into a heavier, more prog-based sound and a true reflection of their much-praised live sound. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1 Strange Town
2 Darkness Is No Friend
3 Soldier
4 Thank Christ For The Bomb.

Side B:
5 Ship On The Ocean
6 Garden
7 Status People
8 Rich Man, Poor Man
9 Eccentric Man

In a world chock full of flame-outs, coulda-been contenders and great white hopes, the band Jonathan Fire*Eater are among the “almost-est.” Widely praised as the mid-Nineties next-big-thing, they are largely credited with being the earliest purveyors of the “New York City Rock and Roll Revival” circa 2001. Which would be great, if only the band hadn’t imploded by 1998. The quintet employed a fresh, one-of-a-kind blend of sly rock and roll reference and reverence. Their press release at the time name-dropped all the correct and relevant influences...the Stooges, the Modern Lovers, Tom Waits, the Scientists, ? and the Mysterians, the Cramps, Nation of Ulysses, the Stones, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds...all markers conveying the point that Fire-Eater’s dark, brooding overtones are complemented by springy Farfisa tones and impressionistic, evocative lyrics.

The band was inarguably in top form with the 1996 EP release of Tremble Under Boom Lights. Mean and lean at only five tracks, those songs click together perfectly, enough so to kick-start a major label bidding frenzy which found the band signing a lucrative, seven-figure contract. Showcasing lead singer Stewart Lupton’s redolent exercises in picturesque poetry, coupled with Matt Barrick’s inimitable percussive attack, Paul Maroon’s wide, unadorned guitar blistering throughout while Walter Martin’s choice, deliberate organ accompaniment and Tom Frank’s propulsive, bottom-heavy bass all join together for a full, beautiful, glorious masterpiece. Lead-off track “The Search For Cherry Red” would not only provide the EP with a title via its lyrics, but would also see a second life as covered by esteemed rock-and-rollers The Kills. “Give Me Daughters” is enviable for the perspective it foresees, when taking into consideration its narrator was barely 21 years old at the time.

Songs fl it about cockfights, open caskets, ballroom gowns, switchblades, motorcycle accidents and jewel thieves all to propel the record into a world of juvenile delinquent attitude and vivid cinematic color. For the Japanese release of Tremble Under Boom Lights, the five-song running order was accentuated with four bonus tracks...three songs from the band’s 1995 debut single and a spritely cover of the Lee Hazelwood gem “The City Never Sleeps.” With the 2019 reissue, Third Man Records is proud to make these seminal songs available digitally and on vinyl for the first time in over two decades. All parties involved are beyond overjoyed to augment the running order of the Japanese version of Tremble Under Boom Lights to include the bonus track “In the Head.”

Touted by the band members as the last song they ever recorded, it is wincingly brilliant, the most artful, dudes-in-their-early-twenties version of a swan song that one may ever hear. After the break-up, Barrick, Maroon and Martin would go on to form the backbone of the Walkmen and enjoy a solid run with their seven full-length releases. All three are still active in the music business today. Frank went on to a career in journalism, writing for Vanity Fair and acting as contributing editor for Washington Monthly. Despite struggling with addiction for years, Stewart Lupton notched solid efforts with his bands the Child Ballads and the Beatings. Lupton passed away suddenly on May 27th, 2018 at the age of 43.

TRACK LISTING

01. The Search For Cherry Red
02. Make It Precious
03. Give Me Daughters
04. The Beautician
05. Winston Plum: Undertaker
06. The Public Hanging Of A Movie Star
07. The Cakewalk Of Crime
08. When Prince Was A Kid
09. The City Never Sleeps
10. In The Head (previously Unreleased)

“Her significant solo output has been remarkable” Drowned In Sound. Following a special vinyl release for this year’s Record Store Day celebrating its tenth anniversary, ‘Crooked’ will be reissued on black vinyl and CD on 27th September.

‘A figurehead for feminist indie rock’ (Classic Rock), Kristin Hersh achieved a music and publishing first when her eighth solo album was initially released as a multi-media book in 2009. Hersh’s “poetic, provocative and puzzling songcraft” (The Washington Post) makes ‘Crooked’ a stunning record. The resplendent, melancholic ‘Flooding’ came to Hersh in the form of song but was also a premonition of the imminent death of close friend and musician Vic Chesnutt. Mainstay in her recent live shows, ‘Mississippi Kite’ is snarly and unsettling whilst the spectral psychedelic tones of ‘Rubidoux’ stem from a 50foot Wave car ride and a late-night recording session. The songs still lead the way hitting Hersh fully formed but it’s her beguiling raspy vocals paired with guitar, and any other instrument that she chose to play on this album, that has a beautiful intensity that’s jarring, unpredictable and inherent in her music. “She's still as powerful a presence as she ever was.” Pitchfork… 

TRACK LISTING

1. Moan
2. Sand
3. Glass
4. Mississippi Kite
5. Fortune
6. Coals
7. Crooked
8. Krait
9. Flooding
10. Rubidoux 

For Fans Of… Menahan Street Band, The Budos Band, Antibalas, El Michels Affair.

Build Bridges combines stellar musicianship with unlimited drive and lag proof swing-ability. You can hear the maturity of their sound, which inadvertently allows you to appreciate their previous recordings even more. They're all in the same ballpark yet seem to be on a completely different playing field. Tim Felten's lineup not only shows his keen ability to pick top choice artists, but also shows his sense of direction and investment to high quality musicians. The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble is a staple of the west coast soul / jazz / funk scene and with their third LP, they solidify their position. Heavy grooves and drums, with top tier musicianship and writing. Build Bridges is just as sophisticated as it is soulful and funky! 

TRACK LISTING

1. Aragon
2. El Nino
3. Sucker Punch
4. Campus Life
5. Costa Blues
6. Build Bridges
7. Roxy Funk
8. Gloria’s Anthem
9. Backyard Boogie
10. Step Up

HTRK’s seminal debut gets a new cut to white vinyl with white sleeve and gloss cover. An abrasive record shrouded in sonorous pulses, deafening feedback and tension-soaked reverb that immerses you deep into their world. HTRK’s lo-fi post-punk, post-industrial noise-electronica echoes Suicide, Throbbing Gristle and Joy Division. "Nostalgia" took inspiration from the sound and imagery of David Lynch, The Birthday Party and electronic artist Pita. Rowland S Howard’s ‘Teenage Snuff Film’ was also cited as a big influence, HTRK notably caught the post-punk legend’s attention with their live gigs which saw him endorse the band and go on to co-produce their next release "Marry Me Tonight". A compelling introductory statement that delves into their guilty nostalgia for the nihilistic energies rampant in the 80s underground. 'An agitated haze of addictive ambivalence instead of the swagger and violence of their influences, the overall feeling is of beautiful disharmony'.

TRACK LISTING

A1 - Hate Rock Trio
A2 - Look What’s Been Done
A3 - Look Down The Line

B1 - Look At That Girl
B2 - Look At Her
B3 - You Injured Me
B4 - I’m All Broke Up 

It’s 33 and a third years since the seminal Giant Sand and its country cousin The Band Of… Blacky Ranchette entered the studio to lay down their second albums. Yes. Both bands had recorded their second albums each. Two sides of the multi-faceted hyper-productive Howe Gelb. “I was turning 28,” he recalls, “and had been wanting to make and release albums since my early 20s, but only recently had figured out how. It was time to make up for lost time.”

Time was of the essence. That thin line between then and now has seen journeymen Giant Sand release 27-ish albums, their latest, ‘Recounting The Ballad Of The Thin Line Men’ turning the clock back to 1986’s ‘Ballad Of A Thin Line Man’, picking over the bones and making a whole new soup. All these years on, the latest incarnation of Giant Sand: Howe Gelb (guitars, piano) Tommy Larkins (drums) and Thøger Lund (bass), have dusted off the old vinyl and re-imagined those heady days – they’ve polished these buried gems, reignited some truculent tirades and rekindled an ageless angst. The revamp re-orders the tracks, drops a couple and adds ‘Reptillian’, a previously lost song hailing from their album’s 25th anniversary re-issue, a tune that opens proceedings and basks in all its crinkly glory. There’s also two takes of ‘Tantamount’. The unique thing about Giant Sand’ is they make it all their own, they sound like no-one else. The songs remain the same, but somehow completely different. Howe: “We were a fine storm. The greatest storm in terms of tumultuous velocity and pelting bluster. It proved unstoppable... for a minute”.

TRACK LISTING

1 Reptillian
2 Hard Man To Get To Know
3 Desperate Man
4 You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory
5 Tantamount
6 Who Am I
7 Body Of Water
8 Graveyard
9 The Chill Outside
10 Thin Line Man
11 Tantamount Blast (Bonus Track)

“Swoony Swedish indie-pop.” Record Collector. Two new tracks from Malmo’s much-praised Hater. “One of the best bands in the world” Gorilla Vs Bear. Hot on the heels of last year’s ‘Siesta’, their second studio album and first for Fire Records. It’s a compelling slice of angular pop music; dysfunctional, dreamy, tempting, and teasing. ‘Four Tries Down’ presents an acute hand-tooled angular rasp, with its chiming guitar chopped out against a disengaged rhythm, topped with the dreamy ambience of Caroline Landahl’s whispered confessional that cuts through the mesmerising hum. ‘It’s A Mess’ is more subtle, with a teenage Nico admitting to inevitable boyfriend trouble. Drums rattle before cutting down to the basics to let Landahls pontificate as it all goes wrong – it’s a beautiful mess. Beautiful. “Nostalgic for ‘90s indie pop innocence.” MOJO Set for release this Autumn, 7" 'Four Tries Down' coincides with Hater’s first US tour. “Too noisy to be indie pop, too sweet to be post punk.” Clash.

The Mojo Man says: You’re holding a "fine frame, no parts lame" platter filled to the brim with boss gee-tar tunes from the golden age of music. It’s hard to stand still. All the cats conjugate to elucidate. Very different guitar styles from "slick" to "mean" and everything in between. This disc is loaded with hepcats from all fronts, mad aces in their places. 

Modern Studies’ much praised ‘Welcome Strangers’ album from 2018 re-imagined by designer / musician Tommy Perman. “A heady compendium of haunted disco lullabies for foggy urban woodland raves and psychotropic campfire sing-alongs,” said The Quietus of the original Perman (Random Audio Therapy Unit, Cybraphon) re-invents it as a series of modern electronic compositions, like Brian Eno, John Carpenter and Tangerine Dream’s offspring hanging out with Aphex Twin’s twin. “My solo work follows an analytical documentary style and much of it has taken the urban environment as inspiration.” On their previous work together as Water Of Life, The Vinyl Factory claimed Perman and Rob St John’s music as "a fascinating and ambitious project that tests the boundaries of what we perceive as music in the environments we live in". A Frankenstein moment? A monster of ambient ardour, ‘Emergent Slow Arcs’ is something else. An electronic homage, a mystical re-telling that sounds so askew from the sum of its parts it has a life all of its own, traversing an arc previously unchartered. 

TRACK LISTING

A1 Ephemeris Mist
A2 Faraway Hills
A3 Celestial Dance
A4 Moonshot

B1 Ghost Skies
B2 Spectral Cannon
B3 Edgeland Duet
B4 Sunup Shutdown

A comprehensive remastered collection of all of the Television Personalities’ ground-breaking single releases from the Peel-approved ‘14th Floor’ through to the effervescent ‘Salvador Dali’s Garden Party’ EP. Includes the super rare Creation flexi, the TVPs as The Gifted Children, and the even rarer Caff 45 where the band tackle Stock, Aitken And Waterman. Purists will also find two shelved 45s for the Dreamworld label plus their take on Syd Barrett’s ‘Apples And Oranges’ from the ‘Beyond The Wildwood’ tribute album. Features the seminal ‘Where’s Bill Grundy Now’ and the self-effacing ‘Part Time Punks’ alongside a host of pop culture-bating gems. A celebration of the songwriting of Dan Treacy

TRACK LISTING

Disc One -

01 - 14th Floor
02 - Oxford St., W.1
03 - Part Time Punks
04 - Where's Bill Grundy Now?
05 - Happy Families
06 - Posing At The Roundhouse
07 - The Prettiest Girl In The World
08 - If That's What Love Is
09 – Miracles Take Longer
10 – Apples And Oranges
11 - Smashing Time
12 - King And Country
13 - I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives
14 - Arthur The Gardener
15 – Painting By Numbers
16 – Lichtenstein Girl
17 - Three Wishes
18 - Geoffrey Ingram
19 - And Don't The Kids Just Love It!
20 - Biff, Bang, Pow!
21 - A Picture Of Dorian Gray (Live)

Disc Two -

01 - A Sense Of Belonging
02 - Paradise Estate
03 - How I Learned To Love The Bomb
04 - Then God Snaps His Fingers
05 - Now You're Just Being Ridiculous
06 - She's Only The Grocer's Daughter
07 - A Girl Called Charity
08 - Salvador Dali's Garden Party
09 - The Room At The Top Of The Stairs
10 -This Time There's No Happy Ending
11 - Part One: Fulfilling The Contractual Obligations
12 - I Still Believe In Magic
13 – Respectable
14 – Privilege
15 – Me And My Desire
16 - My Imaginary Friend
17 - I Remember Bridget Riley

“Television Personalities have been England's great forgotten band for too long.” Melody Maker // A comprehensive remastered collection of all of the Television Personalities’ ground-breaking single releases from the evocative ‘Strangely Beautiful’ EP through to the dark introspective terrain of ‘Far Away And Lost In Joy’. Includes the super rare ‘Favourite Films’ 12-inch (only previously available on12-inch vinyl) plus the exquisite ‘Goodnight Mr Spaceman’ and ‘You, Me And Lou Reed’ EPs. Sequenced in chronological release order including every track and remix, embracing a host of pop culture threads from art, music and writing with all the ironic wit and wisdom of a master tunesmith – a veritable L-shaped room of pop desire. A further celebration of the songwriting of Dan Treacy. 

TRACK LISTING

CD1 -

1. Strangely Beautiful (7" Mix)
2. Reaching For The Stars
3. Not Even A Maybe
4. Strangely Beautiful (Chill Out Reprise)
5. She's Never Read My Poems (7"mix)
6. The Day The Dolphins Leave The Sea
7. Christ Knows I Have Tried
8. She's Never Read My Poems (12" Mix)
9 - Favourite Films
10 - The Dream Inspires
11 - Happy All The Time (Ten Years Ahead Of Its Time Version)
12. We Will Be Your Gurus (7” Mix)
13. An Exhibition By Joan Miro
14. Love Is Better Than War…

CD2 -

01. Goodnight Mr Spaceman (12” Mix)
02. If I Was Your Girlfriend
03. She Loves It When He Sings Like Elvis
04. Goodnight Mr Spaceman (Lost In Space Mix)
05. You, Me And Lou Reed.
06. My Imaginary Friend
07. I Remember Bridget Riley
08. I Wish You Could Love Me For What I Am
09. I Don’t Want To Live This Life
10. Far Away And Lost In Joy
11. Do You Know What They’re Saying About Me Now?
12. I Get Frightened

When science fiction turns science fact the effect can be truly momentous. The state demands that no-one wants an unlicensed machine-hum from an outbuilding; no-one wants clever prose mapping the future, no-one wants “music” that is attention-seeking, soul-defining, beneficial, Biblical, baroque and beautiful. No-one told Jane Weaver that.

Jane Weaver’s multi-layered synthetics evolved into a welcoming slew with 2014’s ‘The Silver Globe’, continuing through to 2017’s ‘Modern Kosmology’. ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ is a re-imagined journey through parts of both albums, with new ambient pieces primed and polished; with new tangents explored in a lab-friendly blossoming of the Weaver vision that travels yet further into the psych of our future. A continuous experience with one-line observations set in glorious sense-stimulating sound.

That source material was then united in an expansionist experiment in late 2018. The ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ tour fused unrelated sounds set off against sympathetic new textures, tones and drones ; hot-housed into an idealistic soundscape that formed the conducive parts of the imminent album of the same name.

Co-conspirators include Henry Broadhead, PJ Phillipson and Andy Votel. Renegades all, headed by the enigmatic Weaver – all under surveillance.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Beautiful reinterperations of tracks from Jane's last two albums, interspersed with new ambient style pieces to make a brand new album in its own right. Gorgeous.

TRACK LISTING

1 Element (Loops Variation)
2 Milk Loop
3 Arrows (Loops Variation)
4 Found Birds
5 H>A>K (Loops Variation)
6 Did You See Butterflies (Loops Variation)
7 Sun House
8 I Wish (Loops Variation)
9 Mission Desire (Loops Variation)
10 Battle Ropes
11 Found Birds
12 Slow Motion (Loops Variation)
13 Margins
14 Cells (Loops Variation)
15 Code (Loops Variation)
16 Signs Are Rising
17 Ravenspoint (Loops Variation)
18 Sous Le Même Soleil, Vie Disparu Dans Le Ciel (Loops Variation)
19 Majic Milk (Loops Variation)
20 Conduit
21 Ivana Vessel
22 Battle Ropes

The Lemonheads bring together two unique takes on The Eagles’ ode to romance and the road, ‘Take It Easy’. From their ‘Varshons II’ album that brought together intriguing takes on everyone from Nick Cave and The Bevis Frond through to John Prine, Yo La Tengo, Lucinda Williams and Paul Westerberg. Version One is a piece of itchy white line fever, switching gears as the eight-track spirals on, a singalong variation with a right arm tan – all alt-country and joyous, with an undertone of pain and remorse. Evan: “‘Take It Easy’ is kinda rough. It was my girlfriend's idea, but it was my idea to make it sound anaemic and bloodless... enjoy!” Version two is a Matthew Cullen production – a suicide mix, with Schneider and Hutter sharing the wheel, as the road map heads right into the soundtrack of Tron – that’s Satnavs for you… 

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

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

STAFF COMMENTS

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

TRACK LISTING

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

The inventors of lo-fi indie rock return with a 15-track blast of melodic melancholy, all delivered by the smudged middle finger of Dinosaur Jr original Lou Barlow - 'The auteur of the subterranean lovesick blues.' (Houston Press).

Their first studio album since 2013’s "Defend Yourself" and their first release with Fire Records, Lou Barlow and team return with a smorgasbord of beautifully dysfunctional tunes harking back to their finest college rock anthems.

It’s Barlow at his introverted songwriting best; matter-of-factly delivering a stream of self-questioning stories, punctuated by detuned guitars, spine-tingling time changes and throwaway one liners. A grainy post grunge postcard wrapped in bittersweet melodies with an aftertaste that’s pure heartbreak.

More songs about growing up wrong for those who continue to act surprised at life itself - all illegibly handwritten and lovingly submitted to vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

1. Phantom
2. Celebrate The Void
3. Follow The Breath
4. Medicate
5. See-Saw
6. Vacation
7. Stunned
8. Fool
9. Raging River
10. Sunshine
11. Act Surprised
12. Battery
13. Belief
14. Leap Year
15. Reykjavik

Black Peaches follow up their acclaimed 2016 debut with a dazzling display of musicianship on their explosive new album Fire In The Hole.

“Black Peaches existed inside me before I was aware of it,” says the band’s Rob Smoughton, also known as a member of Hot Chip and Scritti Politti. “It’s the culmination and continuation of the music I love. I started to notice how Brazilian rhythm, funk, soul, classic country and pop were all combining in the music I was writing, and I looked for other band members to join me to bring it alive.”

And he found other members to bring that combination alive in Susumu Mukai, Charlie Michael, Nick Roberts and Thomas Greene. Together they released 2016’s acclaimed Get Down You Dirty Rascals and now return with an album that continues to throw genres together with all the seamless grace of a seasoned cocktail maker but free of the postured affectations associated with such moves.

Black Peaches are a place where genres collide and musical eras meld. On their second album the band has absorbed all the tropical sounds, glistening melodies and funk-ridden grooves into a sound that is truly their own. “I wanted the combination and layering of our influences to be organic,” says Smoughton. “To create Black Peaches music. To take the ideas from the first record further into our own place.”

The result is a record that skips with the vibrancy and buoyancy of a band still in love with the idea of bringing their record collection to life, but the band now understand themselves as much as the music that inspires them and have created something new and refined.

Given the eclectic styles rooted in the make-up of the band, to enter into the world of Black Peaches is often to feel like one is flying from country-to-country with each new song. For Smoughton this musical traversing is a key part of the experience of the band. “I find the combination of mythology, history and geography to be romantic and I want our music to elicit the same thrill. I think the album conjures up the adventure of moving from one place to another; from Spain into Northern Africa, where North America tips into the South. Narratively the songs inhabit a place between the conscious and subconscious - between dreams and waking life.”

This globetrotting sonic voyage creates a sense of the unknown in the record, where each track exists as a new and unpredictable path. This is all done under the mission of creating a record that is capable of pure musical transcendence. “I really believe that music has the ability to transcend and move people emotionally and spiritually,” Smoughton says. “Our music is not about the separation between musician and audience but about the space in between.”

Yet the album also works on an intuitive and physical level. On top of its narrative of the world between the conscious and the subconscious, it is also simply a collection of songs to make you dance and move. Whether it’s the Delta blues influenced strut of “Lemonade”, the “slinky and naughty” dance floor pounce of “The Black Peach Boogie” or the Afro-Brazilian skip of “Cuatro Berimbau.”

Perhaps the most emblematic song of all when it comes to capturing the essence, power and groove of the album is the title track “Fire in the Hole”. “It comes from a phrase that miners would shout it to warn others that they had charged an explosive,” Smoughton says. “It’s to tell you something is about to explode. In this case it’s about being unable to resist the urge to dance. About giving over to rhythm and sound.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Cuatro Berimbau
2. Lemonade
3. Fire In The Hole
4. Barracuda
5. The Black Peach Boogie
6. Spice Route
7. Pillars Of Hercules

Bonus Dinked 7”
Side A
Bad Luck
Side B
Dub Peach Boogie

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

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

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

“Fantastically eerie.” Clash.

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

STAFF COMMENTS

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

TRACK LISTING

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

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

1000 only. “A wandering troubadour in search of treasured happenstance, Howe Gelb is an enigma.” The Quietus // Long out of print, Howe Gelb’s debut solo album ‘Dreaded Brown Recluse’ is re-imagined on for Record Store Day on brown vinyl. Back then, circa 1991 Howe’s main squeeze Giant Sand were nothing short of prolific, songs were oozing from every pore, their creative id was effervescing, overflowing. With Giant Sand’s colossal new album of ’91 ‘Ramp’ imminent what to do with those further outpourings? An idea: Disguise the band as Howe Gelb solo and produce a song cycle that, on repeat, melds into an eclectic stew that’s easy to dip in and out of but still remains potent several hours in the oven. It’s music as soundtrack to your day, a playful, anarchic piece of situationism that unfolds like all the best dramatic prose. ‘Dreaded Brown Recluse’ includes a rethunk ‘Warm Storm’ with strings (it also appeared on ‘Ramp’). It also features songs about faxing (how quaint), blankets and the insect world, as it straddles territory lost somewhere between psychotic ramshackle punk and slimmed down acoustic reverie. Track List A1 Spirit Lie A2 Picture Shows A3 Loretta and the Insect World A4 Actually Faxing Sophia A5 Cello of the City A6 Still too Far B1 Warm Stone B2 Always Horses Coming B3 Vigdis B4 Vienna Two-Step Throw Away B5 Bible Black Book II B6 Brown Recluse B7 Blanket for Tina

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

1000 only. Special art edition with extra LP of unheard material on Blue Vinyl. 30 years on Half Japanese’s ‘Charmed Life’ is reissued for Record Store Day. Less love and more monster, Half Japanese sound more realised and fully formed on their sixth studio album. Jad Fair had “become increasingly adept at funnelling his obsessions into songs charming, frank, comical and weird.” Marc Masters, Pitchfork. “As accessible as Half Japanese get” The Quietus // Track List 1 Said And Done 2 Penny In The Fountain 3 Evidence 4 Vietnam 5 Roman Candles 6 Love At First Sight 7 Snake Line 8 Bright Lights, Big City 9 Face Rake 10 Later In A Magazine 11 Red Dress 12 Trouble In The Water 13 Charmed Life 14 Day And Night 15 One Million Kisses 16 Miracles Happen Every Day 17 Terminator 18 I'll Change My Style 19 Fortunate 20 Real Cool Time 21 Poetic License

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

1000 only - soundtrack from much loved cult episode of ‘black mirror’.

first time on vinyl, bespoke artwork from butcher billy, includes ltd edition poster art print. 2lp red vinyl. “a brilliant take on star trek homages, gaming and toxic geekery” the guardian // the emmy nominated soundtrack from the much-loved emmy winning episode of black mirror. daniel pemberton’s score for black mirror’s ‘uss callister’ is available for the first time on vinyl with bespoke artwork from butcher billy and limited-edition poster art print. taken from the first show of the show’s fourth season, it’s the ‘star trek’ episode when a gifted programmer becomes frustrated with his job and creates digital clones of his co-workers for his own dark adventures in space. the ivor novello award winning, golden globe award and multi bafta nominated and acclaimed composer shifts effortlessly between symphonic and electronic instrumentation. “a brutal star trek scenario that’s half comedy, half indictment of silicon valley leadership” the verge // “one of hollywood’s most sought-after composers” screen daily.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 13th ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON. IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 12.01AM SATURDAY APRIL 20th.

1000 only. Purple vinyl edition. First time on vinyl since initial press in 1995. ‘Big Laughing Jym’ follows 1994’s ‘Bufo Alvarius’ and between 1996’s ‘Amanita’, inducing tenebral states with their sludgy yet beguiling psychedelic rock. On “"Dispersion" and "Clearhead" whirlpools of bass, feedback-clogged flute, and John and Michael Gibbons' high-dosage, irradiated guitars, are definitive Pond.” (AllMusic). The record also includes ‘Hummingbird Mountain II (A Return Trip’) and ‘Dragonfly’. “Playing fuzzed out stuff of stoner dreams since the mid ‘90s.” Pitchfork // “Today they stand as an elder statesman at the epicentre of an international underground of psychedelic extremists” Sunday Times // “They’re still making jaw-droppingly visceral spine-tingling music” Shindig // Track List 1 - Dispersion 2 - Respite 3 - Clearhead 4 - Champ 5 - Soaked 6 - Hummingbird Mountain II 7 - BLJ

LTD pressing of AA 7" single. 1000 pressed. “No strangers to a cover, The Lemonheads perfect the art” NME // Limited edition pressing of AA 7” single, ‘Can’t Forget’ is the lead single, and Yo La Tengo cover, from the new Lemonheads album. AA-side is unreleased cover of Lou Reed’s ‘Wild Child’ this is an exclusive and not on the album. Produced by Matthew Cullen and mastered by Howie Weinberg (Beastie Boys, Nirvana, The Ramones). It’s nearly ten years since The Lemonheads strummed to a halt on their ninth studio album, a perky well received set of covers that brought together many unlikely bedfellows (Gibby Haynes produced, Kate Moss did a cameo vocal). The band’s follow up repeats the formula with Evan way out upfront, his emotive slow maturing vocal making sense of another wide-beam playlist. He really has become one of the great expressive singers. “Heartfelt songs and a honey voice with which to sing them” GQ // “Boppy, overcast alt-rock delivered at a fast clip and sung in a whiskey tenor” Pitchfork // Track List A – Can’t Forget AA – Wild Child