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

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

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.

2000 only. Gatefold Sleeve, Double LP + Bonus DL tracks. Singles collection. “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 List Side One 1. Strangely Beautiful (7" mix) 2. Reaching For The Stars 3. Not Even A Maybe 6. The Day The Dolphins Leave The Sea 7. Christ Knows I Have Tried Side Two 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 Side Three 15. Goodnight Mr Spaceman (12” mix) 16. If I Was Your Girlfriend 17. She Loves It When He Sings Like Elvis 19. You, Me And Lou Reed.

A wandering troubadour in search of treasured happenstance.” Quietus / The 24th solo studio album from Giant Sand mainman Howe Gelb. Following two much-praised jazz-tinged ‘Future Standards’ collections, a wider bet captures Gelb’s discordant phrasings and clever romantic lyricism. Joined by a host of collaborators from all over the world, including M. War, Gabriel Naim Amor, Fernando Vacas, Juan Panki, The Lost Brothers, Anna Karina, JB Meijers, Kira Skov and Gelb’s own daughter Talula.

Focussing on Gelb’s celebrated song-writing style, filled with emotive tunes and heart-warming arrangements invariably offset by gorgeous discordant moments. A chance meeting of the indie/alt country Sinatra annotated by clever wordplay, teased by tongue twisters and an earthy ramble. “Gelb’s long-held fascination with words, particularly the way certain ones rub up against one another or encourage an allusive phrase, usually stretched over an odd meter, is a joy.” Uncut… Previous press coverage from Pitchfork, Mojo, Q, Clash, Uncut, NPR and more. 

TRACK LISTING

1 On The Fence
2 A Thousand Kisses Deep Feat. M. Ward
3 Not The End Of The World Feat Anna Karina
4 Anna
5 Give It Up
6 The Open Road
7 Moon River Feat. Talula Gelb
8 Flyin’ Off The Rails
9 Gathered Feat. Pieta Brown
10 All You Need To Know
11 The Park At Dark
12 My Little World
13 Presumptuous Feat. Kira Skov
14 Storyteller
15 Steadfast (CD And Download Card Only) 

“Still creating some of the most engaging recordings of their lives, and that's truly something to believe in.” AllMusic… New studio album from Michigan’s greatest outsider combo. An inspiration to Kurt Cobain, post grunge deep thinkers and veterans of the “Can’t Play/Will play” fraternity. Pop music for those outside of pop music. Songs for those still bedevilled by one liners and abrasive melodies. Thematically succinct tales of puppet people, vampires and the walking dead juxtaposed with discerning love songs and eternal affection.

“Half-Japanese are a respected institution. They've been making noise since the late '70s.” Pop Matters “Innocent abandon is still at the heart of the band” Pitchfork. An off-kilter classic that shouldn’t sound right but ultimately does, in the best tradition of The Residents, Richman, Johnston, Brain Wilson at his most bamboozled and any number of out there talents. Uncategorizable, joyous, detuned, quizzical, alluring, childlike, charming, innocent, questioning – invincible. New album from Half Japanese, an inspiration on Kurt Cobain. Jad Fair of Half Japanese has previously collaborated with Teenage Fanclub, Moe Tucker (Velvet Underground) and Daniel Johnston. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Swept Away
2 Love Explosion
3 The Puppet People
4 Return Of The Vampire
5 Or Ever Will
6 No More
7 All At Once
8 The Walking Dead
9 Forever In My Heart
10 What Are You Gonna Do?
11 It's Here
12 Invincible
13 No Wonder
14 It Has Me
15 Indestructible

The Lemonheads follow up the critically acclaimed ‘Varshons’ from nearly ten years ago with another eclectic collection of covers.

Produced by director Matthew Cullen and mastered by Howie Weinberg (Beastie Boys, Nirvana, The Ramones), their tenth studio album brims with the slowly-matured vocal of Evan Dando as he lures a host of personal faves to his melodic lair. He really has become one of the great expressive singers of our time.

‘Varshons 2’ is a hokey jukebox filled with unique versions of Yo La Tengo, Nick Cave, The Bevis Frond, NRBQ, The Eagles, Paul Westerberg, The Jayhawks, Lucinda Williams and John Prine.

Like Hank Williams slumped in his car between gigs, strumming and hollering, reasoning and weeping, humming it on over, Evan and his Lemonheads make every tune their own.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though it's been ten years in the making, the second iteration of their 'Varshons' series sees The Lemonheads covering a host of excellent originals with style and grace. Where else could you get a masterful combo of John Prine and Nick cave on the same LP? Not many places i'd wager. A superb second outing, and yet more proof of the Lemonheads' continuing relevance.

TRACK LISTING

1 – Can’t Forget
2 – Settled Down Like Rain
3 – Old Man Blank
4 – Things
5 – Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness
6 – Abandoned
7 – Now And Then
8 – Magnet
9 – Round Here
10 – TAQN
11 – Unfamiliar
12 – Straight To You
13 – Take It Easy

New version with updated packaging / digipack format. Spacemen 3’s debut album "Sound Of Confusion", released in 1986, was a blistering affair - establishing their love of the two-chord song and also expressing their admiration for the likes of MC5, The 13th Floor Elevators and The Stooges. Sound of Confusion was 7 tracks of overdriven assault, with a strange bleakness and despair creeping through the hypnotic sprawl. R Hunter Gibson would later say: "It boosts the value of unlit rooms, unpaid debts and unfeigned terror and it would rather tackle the gradients than settle for level best. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Loosing Touch With Your Mind
2 2.35,
3 Little Doll,
4 MaryAnne,
5 Roller Coaster,
6 Hey Man,
7 OD Catastophe.

New version with updated packaging / digipack format. Spacemen 3's second album is a remarkable departure from the band's 1986 debut, "Sound Of Confusion". Reduced to a trio (guitarists / keyboardists Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember, Jason "Spaceman" Pierce, and bassist Pete Bassman) following the departure of the first album's drummer, Spacemen 3 makes an asset out of the newfound lack of percussion, giving "The Perfect Prescription" a considerably less rock-oriented sound with much more open space in its varied, subtle arrangements. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Take Me To The Other Side
2 Walkin' With Jesus
3 Ode To Street Hassle
4 Ecstasy Symphony
5 Feel So Good
6 Things'll Never Be The Same
7 Come Down Easy
8 Call The Doctor
9 Soul 4
10 That’s Just Fine 

The self titled album Bardo Pond is the first new release from Philadelphia's psychedelic rock unit to be released on Fire.

'The first time I saw Bardo Pond, I was, as probably most people are when they first encounter this batch of beatific weirdos, horribly unprepared. To describe the experience as "psychedelic" is an understatement on the order of saying that whacking oneself in the nuts with a ball-peen hammer is "mildly irritating." Needless to say, priorities were rearranged, etc.

Fast-forward 15 yrs, and Bardo Pond have put out many LPs, most of them named after hallucinogens that make you throw up all night and see things - which was kind of them, I always thought. Let ya know what you were in for. All of this recorded output is pretty staggering to me, because, without exception, they seemed able to toss a lasso around some sort of ineffable hoodoo that felt like it was a million yrs old. If Carl Sagan would have 1.) smoked a little more weed and 2.) not croaked, I'm hoping he would have cut a BP track onto that gold LP that they put on the Voyager units. Would've been a way better representation of the best parts of the human spirit than Chuck Berry, I say.

Anyhoo. One night not long ago in the Bardo Compound in Philly, Michael says in a kinda offhanded way, "Hey man, you wanna hear this? ..." And there I was, being bathed in the songs you've got in yr grubby little mitts right now.

I was, once again, unprepared.

This cauldron is a bit of a different brew. It made total sense to me (as it will to you) when he later told me the name of the LP is just "Bardo Pond." Why? It's a distillation. Two decades of playing together have sandblasted away everything unessential and left us with what we have here. It was like no one else before them had ever gotten near the plagal cadence, not Lou Reed or the Stooges or 2,000 yrs of church music. They invented it all over again, independent of any of that, after gawd knows how many yrs of flailing away and burning themselves up.

I fucking love these songs. And while I hate writing almost as much as I hate third-degree burns, I have to say it is a joy to be able to tell you about this record. I feel like Neil Fucking Armstrong.

It took years for them to get here, but this record is the most goddamned beautiful thing they've ever done. Sorry for the superlatives. But really, the only thing left for them to do at this point is explode'. - Fire Records.

John Gibbons: Guitars
Michael Gibbons: Guitars
Isobel Sollenberger: Voice, flute
Clint Takeda: Bass, next-level comedy
Aaron Igler: Electronics
Jason Kourkounis: Drums

with
Jeremiah Misfeldt: Farfisa
Dan Baltzer: Harp

A highly personalised sociopathic gem delivered as a futuristic rewriting of how music works, a melodious breeze with a tail wind of venomous din. A ten-track album, her tenth studio set.

Enveloping the juxtaposition of the concept of ‘dark sunshine’, a brooding solo record creating with friends to expand her off-kilter sonic vision; a squally, squeaky mix of discordant beauty.

Feedback and phasing gyrate from simply strummed normality, imagine Dinosaur Jr and My Bloody Valentine cranking up a Dylan couplet. Messing with both extremes of the sonic spectrum: atonal and arrhythmic, a unique sound and a glorious return to form for one of alternative rock’s true innovators.

“Sometimes the most subversive thing I can do musically is adhere to standard song structure, sometimes the creepiest chords are the ones we’ve heard before, twisted into different shapes, and sometimes a story is lived a thousand times before we can ride it like a roller coaster. Nothing wholly unfamiliar is gonna make you look twice. When you can describe a record as being “deceptively” anything, you’re hinting at the sociopathic nature of music. Something I love. Imagine truly buying your own sunshine and charm, but also your darkness and violence; the two sides of your psychology showing each other off in relief. Songs can do that...we can’t, really. Darkness we’ve seen.” Kristin Hersh, July 2018.

“She's still as powerful a presence as she ever was.” Pitchfork

“The prodigious output and commitment to quality is pretty staggering, but then Kristin Hersh is a very, very special musician.” The Quietus.

TRACK LISTING

1. LAX
2. No Shade In Shadow
3. Halfway Home
4. Fox Point
5. Lethe
6. Loudmouth
7. Gin
8. Tulum
9. Breathe In
10. Lady Godiva

Hater’s powerful vulnerability and charm has seen them rise quickly through the ranks earning kudos from NPR (Austin 100), Stereogum (Best New Bands Of 2017), The Fader, BBC6 Music, BBC Radio 1 and more. Effortless and assured, the Scandi quartet drift eloquently into well-structured and stunning melodies. Resolute in their sound, ‘Siesta’ is the perfect soundtrack for that summer romance and the inevitable break up. Heartbreak has never sounded so sweet!.

Produced by Joakim Lindberg (Yast and Hey Elbow) at Studio Sickan within old railway sheds outside of Malmö Sweden. Hater tackle their personal experiences of life, love and relationships yet through their shared songwriting there's a togetherness. Synth pop earworm ‘It’s So Easy’ contrasts the slower paced 'I Wish I Gave You More Time Because I Love You' that blends beautiful sweeping sax from Inge Petersson Lindbäck. Hater “boast Marr-esque guitars and vocals reminiscent of fellow Swedes and The Concretes” (Norman Records) whilst having the pop sensibilities of The Chills, Alvvays, Snail Mail and Makthaverskan.

TRACK LISTING

1. From The Bottom Of Your Heart
2. It's So Easy
3. I Wish I Gave You More Time Because I Love You
4. Closer
5. Fall Off
6. I Sure Want To
7. Things To Keep Up With
8. Your Head Your Mind
9. Why It Works Out Fine
10. The Mornings
11. Cut Me Loose
12. All That Your Dreams Taught Me
13. Seems So Hard
14. Weekend

‘A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing’ (2006) is an unusual album, first because it does things with classical music that aren’t usually done. The songs Josephine Foster sings here are classical pieces, written (the texts are German poems) by some of the greatest German composers of the 19th century, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and Hugo Wolf. “Foster has found perhaps the most appropriate vehicle yet for her singular and affecting talents – 19th century German art-songs, wholly reconstructed here via Foster’s skeletal arrangements of voice and guitar” Pitchfork. Remastered and repackaged with new artwork

TRACK LISTING

1. An Die Musik
2. Der König In Thule
3. Verschwiehene Liebe
4. Die Schwestern
5. Wehmut
6. Auf Einer Burg
7. Nähe Des Geliebten

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2018 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

‘Closer To God’, as with all TVP albums, is mightily personal. Dan Treacy provides the antidote to the opening of the ill-fated Disneyland Paris and the first McDonald’s in China – it’s a white knuckle ride through his innermost hopes and fears with off stage giggling, half heard dialogue and feedback that sounds like an opera is expiring in an adjoining L-shaped room. ‘Closer To God’ is a spiritual rollercoaster that sounds as poignant and pressing as ever. Remastered double LP on limited edition on marbled black and white vinyl. 1500 copies.

Half Japanese have returned to peel further layers from their onion. They have a new album that's a square further on in their unpredictable musical snakes and ladders board. ‘Why Not?’ is a magical thing – it’s Springsteen’s ‘Born To Run’ recorded in a cupboard, it’s an ode to love, it’s a Wire song with two duelling guitarists being Zappa on helium, it’s Parquet Courts in a tantrum, it’s The Crickets contorted into? and The Mysterians, it’s everywhere and nowhere, baby, it’s where it’s at. On ‘Why Not?’ nuances are mused, situations explained, questions asked.

Outside, zombies and demons roam and everyday aliens emerge from spaceships: it’s a technicolor film transcribed by Jad Fair and friends John Sluggett, Gilles-Vincent Rieder, Mick Hobbs and Jason Willett, their faces at the cracked window of their subterranean habitat looking out at the real world. They’re on a high from their last release: “After all these years, his wiry voice still hits every song with a shock that’s equal parts joy buzzer and defibrillator, each barely in-key bleat alternating between laughable and life-affirming,” said Pitchfork of their last opus ‘Hear The Lion Roar’.

To which All Music added that “after nearly 40 years of music-making, they're still creating some of the most engaging recordings of their lives, and that's truly something to believe in.” ‘Why Not?’ goes further. It’s an even more intense concoction, it’s further out there. It contains pieces of fluffy thought-provoking music, a bag of sentiments delivered with a real sense of wonderment at how the normal world revolves; all powered with heart and soul, some crunchy guitars, a cello and reverb set-to-kill infiltrating their storytelling. ‘Why’d They Do It?’ quizzes track 11. Because they can. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Why not indeed?

TRACK LISTING

1. The Future Is Ours
2. The Face
3. Why Not?
4. Amazing
5. Demons Of Doom
6. A Word To The Wise
7. Bring On The Night
8. Zombie Island Massacre
9. Better Days
10. Spaceship To Mars
11. Why'd They Do It?
12. Magic
13. Falling

Television Personalities unreleased album. Recorded in 1990 by Jowe at his flat in Glading Terrace, Stoke Newington (shortly before it was demolished), over a number sessions on a portable 4-track cassette-tape machine. “Over the course of a few weeks, we had amassed fifteen tracks, some of which ended up being re-recorded with very different arrangements on ‘Closer to God’. The intention was to finish and release these tracks at some point, and that time has finally arrived” - Jowe Head… Of the previously unheard songs, “I Like That in a Girl” was based on a conversation Daniel Treacy had with Lawrence of the Birmingham band Felt, hence the peculiar accent that Dan uses towards the end!

“Love is a Four-Letter Word” was a song the band would play regularly live; it eventually evolved into “Love is Better Than War”. I Suppose You Think It’s Funny” displays Jowe and Daniels double-falsetto skills. “If You Fly Too High” was based on an encounter with Evan Dando of The Lemonheads in Berlin during a memorable gig with them at the Ecstasy Madhouse in December 1989, when the Berlin Wall was being torn down. The band jammed with Evan on stage that night, playing some tunes by Jonathan Richman and Johnny Thunders. The song also mentions Alan McGee, who was a great fan of the TVPS. Alan openly admits that he emulated Dan’s style of music, and influenced his decision to run a mod-psychedelic club, The Living Room, and to start his label, Creation. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Hard Luck Story Number 39
2 Razor Blades And Lemonade
3 How Does It Feel To Be Loved
4 Love Is A Four-Letter Word
5 Beautiful Despair
6 If You Fly Too High
7 Have A Nice Day
8 I Get Frightened Too
9 Goodnight Mister Spaceman
10 Honey For The Bears
11 I Don’t Want To Live This Life
12 I Like That In A Girl
13 My Very First Nervous Breakdown
14 I Suppose You Think It’s Funny
15 This Heart’s Not Made Of Stone

When the sleeve of The Bevis Frond’s ‘Son Of Walter’ arrived circa 1996 it was a mystery. The title is scratched on a window overlooking an Islington block of flats, the sunset is distorted. Today it would be the view from a banging grime pirate radio station. Back then, it was one man locked in his bedroom with too many ideas and too many instruments (and a Portastudio). It’s the Frond’s 15th studio album. “The release of this work signals a resurgent appreciation for the noodly psychedelia of which this Brit is the master,” claimed the beautifully named Jennie Ruggles in Addicted To Noise. “Guitar fans will eat this album up,” Calendar, a magazine in the US argued and Pulse! Magazine reckoned: “’Son Of Walter’ offers new recruits a generous and reasonably representative introduction both to Saloman’s deeply ingrained mastery of ‘60s-vintage idioms and to the humanity and tunefulness that sets him apart from less imaginative retro-formalists.” Ah, retro formalists, we love them.

"Don't ask why, but for this album I decided to make the long-awaited(?) return to the style of the first few BF records. So it's back to the home recording facilities, and back to being the only person involved. So it's definitely worse than the recent stuff. (Feel free to disagree)," Frond mainman and, indeed the only Frond left standing on this opus, reasoned on the sleevenotes when it first sneaked out on the super cool Flydaddy label in the US. So, what is it all about? The trademark folk strum with multi-harmonies is there. There’s a slight nod to a country-ish CSN&Y thing, but that’s only for four bars. Who remembers that when there is the colossal ‘Garden Aeroplane Trap’, a proper wig out at 12 minutes 20. Elsewhere we have the kind of timeless psyche pop that people with ears really love, two songs that namecheck Elvis and a song about a dead man on a train. That was London in the late ‘90s. Hey, rock ‘n’ roll. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Plastic Elvis
2. Beautiful Sister
3. Red Hair
4 You Saw Me Coming (But You Won't See Me Go)
5. Barking Or False Point Blues
6. Forgiven
7. All Hope Is Gone With You Away
8 Dead Man Sitting On A Train
9. It's Not Like You
10. Garden Aeroplane Trap
11 Driven Away
12 Raining On TV
13 Requiem
14 Winner's Way
15 Goodnight From The Band

Ahead of its time, ‘And Don’t The Kids Just Love It’ was Television Personalities’ influential debut album released in 1981 and features ‘I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives’. The legendary lo-fi release sees them produce British inspired 60s pop and post-punk that captured the period and ‘sounds remarkably prescient’ (Pitchfork’s Best 100 albums of the 1980s). With the formidable Daniel Treacy at its core, Television Personalities remain one of new wave’s longest serving and seminal artists with a career spanning over three decades. The indie visionaries directly influenced virtually every major pop uprising of the period including artists as diverse as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Pavement and Creation’s Alan McGee. ‘And Don’t The Kids Just Love It’ is reissued for Record Store Day 2017 on 12” black and white marbled vinyl alongside ‘Mummy Your Not Watching Me’, ‘The Painted Word’ and ‘They Could Have Been Bigger Than The Beatles’. “They provided the inspiration and motivation for me to start the label.” Alan McGee, Creation Records. / “A remarkably influential album that holds up extremely well.” Allmusic. 

TRACK LISTING

A1 This Angry Silence A2 The Glittering Prizes A3 World Of Pauline Lewis A4 A Family Affair A5 Silly Girl A6 Diary Of A Young Man A7 Geoffrey Ingram B1 I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives B2 Jackanory Stories B3 Parties In Chelsea B4 La Grande Illusion B5 A Picture Of Dorian Gray B6 The Crying Room B7 Look Back In Anger

A Standard LP and CD release will follow later. Now re-issued as a double vinyl package, ‘Vampyr’ is full of “eerie haunted ambience” (©The Guardian), an atmospheric and spaced out 78 minutes that galvanizes Moog, glockenspiel, zither and vibraphonette in a beautiful piece of claustrophobia, a timeless slice of suitably scary sound filled with an unnerving sonic vibe that sticks in the psyche. “The retro leaning Scandi duo fire up their Moogs and mellotrons, sonic archaeologists with a hauntological bent.. there is an alluring sexiness to their avant-Kraut Moog-pop excursions.” 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Vampyr Pt.1
B1. Vampyr Pt.2
C1. Vampyr Pt.3
D1. Vampyr Pt.4
D2. Vampyr Rehearsals

Modern Kosmology sees Jane Weaver's melodic-protagonist channeling new depths of creative cosmic energy within. After the huge critical acclaim of 2012's “Fallen By Watchbird”, followed by 2014's exploratory "Silver Globe" LP winning her unanimous "record of the year accolades" and hefty measures of radio play-listing Jane Weaver's conceptual trajectory has sent her neo-kosmische penchants to the point of no-return. Jane Weaver's unwaning yearning for psychoactive pop energy has just reached a new level of magnetism. As snowclones go, Modern Kosmology is the new Silver. Another Spectrum to add to the tension.

TRACK LISTING

A1 H>A>K
A2 Did You See Butterflies?
A3 Modern Kosmology
A4 Slow Motion
A5 Loops In The Secret Society
B1 The Architect
B2 The Lightning Back
B3 Valley
B4 Ravenspoint
B5 I Wish

Released in 1980, ‘The Art Of Walking’ sees Pere Ubu ‘moving even further from the conventions of rock music - and from their own past - but still moving forward, without a doubt, and losing none of their integrity as a group.’ (Melody Maker, Chris Cutler). The album features in new box set, ‘Architecture Of Language 1979-1982’, released in March. It gathers together ‘New Picnic Time’ with its companion releases, ‘The Art Of Walking’ and ‘Song Of The Bailing Man’ plus LP of extras, ‘Architectural Salvage’. Coed Jail! Live dates mark the release of the box with a set list drawn exclusively from the recordings of 1975-1982. Tom Herman, guitarist from 1975 to 1979 and from 1997 to 2002, rejoins the band for the tour. The line-up is David Thomas, Tom Herman, Robert Wheeler, Michele Temple and Steve Mehlman. Wheeler and Temple have been in Pere Ubu since 1994, Mehlman since 1995. 

TRACK LISTING

01 Go
02 Rhapsody In Pink
03 Arabia 04 Misery Goats
05 Young Miles In The Basement
06 Loop
07 Rounder
08 Birdies
09 Lost In Art
10 Horses
11 Crush This Thorn 

The best act I've ever seen at a festival" Paul Thomson, Franz Ferdinand. Rats On Rafts have joined forces with legendary underground Dutch punk band De Kift - Zaandam punk vs Rotterdam punk! A playful revisioning of each other’s music which began at Metropolis Festival in 2013. The record brings together songs from Rats On Rafts critically acclaimed second album ‘Tape Hiss’ and De Kift’s huge catalogue. The two bands locked themselves up for a month to record a completely analogue album. Together they will play this material live on tour. Instantly recognisable as Rats ‘Last Day On De Zon’ is shot through with brass - enter De Kift. Dark, dub infused ‘Meggy’ sees Rats bringing their explosive and unrelenting rolling crescendos. ‘Sleep Little Links 2 3 4’ is uplifting with the addition of brass whilst folk tinged ‘Dit Schip’ sees them bring further depth to the collaboration. Energetic and raw, the spirit of their festival performances prevails throughout. De Kift have released music for three decades with father Heijne only retiring in 2013, brothers Marco & Ferry Heijne and cousin Pim remain alongside co-founder and drummer Wim. The nine piece brass ensemble have released eleven albums, collaborated in theatre, film and various media projects which has seen them win a number of Dutch awards across film and music. Both formats have unique sleeves made from recycled LP/CD sleeves, with the front and back cover printed and stuck on to the recycled sleeve. The band have assembled and fulfilled each one themselves. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Last Day On De Zon
2. Voorbij
3. Brass Poison Face
4. Dit Schip
5. Powder Monkey
6. Melk En Benzine
7. Moonlight Flit
8. Meggy
9. Swan Song
10. Sleep Little Links 2 3 4 

The first release for the Swedish Psychedelic dream-pop band, their self-titled EP caught the attention of French label ‘Hands In The Dark’. They originally released EP in 2010 on CD an extremely limited edition run of 100 copies. The EP is reissued on blue vinyl to match the cover alongside the ‘From Above’ 7” and their self-titled debut long player.

TRACK LISTING

01 Ghosts In The Machine
02 Godspeed
03 Run Rabbit Run
04 The Colour Of Space
05 Ascend And Descend
06 The Dödens Vaniljsås Theme
07 Between The Circles

Marleen Nilsson and Anders Hansson AKA Death and Vanilla released their first full length self-titled eponymous debut LP in 2012. It radiates sophisticated retro-futuristic psych-pop whilst channeling their passion for hauntology, library, krautrock and radiophonic music. Mastered by Linus Sjölund at RED audio it was initially released on French label ‘Hands In The Dark’ which like their EP sold out on pre-order.

Fire Records now release the album on black/yellow splatter vinyl and CD alongside the ‘From Above’ 7” and their self-titled debut EP. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Krauty, moog, hushed, library baroque pop that breezes along in a sultry fashion.

TRACK LISTING

01 Rituals
02 Dreams Of Sheep
03 Cul-De-Sac
04 Somnambulists
05 The Unseeing Eye
06 From Elsewhere
07 Library Goblin
08 The Clearing
09 The Unseeing I

Released in 1982, 'Song of the Bailing Man' is an ‘inspired, invigorating, confounding, disturbing... yeah, one hell of a swinging way to go. Still the futility Ubu must have felt making far sighted music in a chronically near-sighted world is pressed hard into these grooves.’ (Melody Maker, David Fricke).

The album features in new LP box set, ‘Architecture Of Language 1979-1982’, released in March. It gathers together ‘New Picnic Time’ with its companion releases, ‘The Art Of Walking’ and ‘Song Of The Bailing Man’ plus LP of extras, ‘Architectural Salvage’. Spring dates mark the release of the box with a set list drawn exclusively from the recordings of 1975-1982. Tom Herman, guitarist from 1975 to 1979 and from 1997 to 2002, rejoins the band for the tour. The line-up is David Thomas, Tom Herman, Robert Wheeler, Michele Temple and Steve Mehlman. Wheeler and Temple have been in Pere Ubu since 1994, Mehlman since 1995. 

TRACK LISTING

01 The Long Walk Home
02 Use Of A Dog
03 Petrified
04 Stormy Weather
05 West Side Story
06 Thoughts That Go By Steam
07 Big Ed’s Used Farms
08 A Day Such As This
09 The Vulgar Boatman Bird
10 My Hat
11 Horns Are A Dilemma

Building on the breakthrough of her “Glacial Glow” album, and coming off of tours opening for St. Vincent and The Jesus Lizard (something that only makes equal sense for Noveller), guitarist and filmmaker Sarah Lipstate emerged with what AllMusic called “an incredible and complex statement, and one that clearly stands as a challenge to herself and her audience alike.”

The album. “No Dreams” would continue to elevate her songwriting and soundscaping to new heights, with Pitchfork raving; “Sarah Lipstate creates miniature musical worlds, places that you feel like you’ll never leave as long as the record is playing.” Lipstate, a former member of Parts & Labour and Cold Cave, as well as a collaborator with such luminaries as Lee Renaldo and Jim Thirlwell, along with being a member of both Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Army and Glenn Branca’s 100 Guitar Ensemble, has emerged as one of the most exciting and interesting guitarists of this era. “No Dreams” cements her as a talent on the rise. Originally released as a limited edition on the experimental label Important Records, following the success of her most recent “Fantastic Planet” album, Fire Records is reissuing the album on 180 gram vinyl to a wider audience. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Fighting Sleep
2. Mannahatta
3. No Dreams
4. Purchase
5. Gathering The Elements
6. Rue De Montmorency
7. The Fright
8. Outro 

Blank Realm's transformation across the Australian mystic from sprawling spaced out psychotic punk blues, through the startling maverick pop psychedelia of ‘Go Easy’ to the widely acclaimed ‘Grassed Inn’, continues in its unrelenting quest for that quintessential synergy of chiming pop anthems.

Hook-laden throughout they unleash their wild yet tender new album ‘Illegals In Heaven’ which offers up freaked out reflections on life, love and circumstance. As knowing as the Chills or the Pretenders, loner ballads are as gnarled and world weary as Dylan in a cacophony as bruised as Royal Trux yet with the playfulness of Half Japanese.

Recorded and produced with Lawrence English (head of the Room40 label) on a late night at The Plutonium studio in Brisbane, the album sees them on their first foray into a recording studio. While it wasn’t exactly Abbey Road, it truly captures the chaos and majesty of the band’s formidable live shows.
It would be all too easy to say that ‘Illegals In Heaven’ is their finest work to date, but the simple truth is that Blank Realm have been without peers for a trilogy of albums, so it just might be as Sarah huskily intones, "Gold" too.

“Blank Realm are still bent on mixing the diamonds with the rough, and on Grassed Inn that particular swirl is at its most intoxicating.” Pitchfork 8/10

“Balancing the arty with the party to make for a set of danceable, hook-filled songs that bubble and bloom with an almost biological rampancy, shooting out tendrils of strange, snaking melody in every direction like vines enveloping a ruin” Guardian 4*

“A cracking selection of scuzzy, fuzzy psych-rock songs that recall Royal Truax and Sonic Youth” Uncut 8/10

“Blank Realm generate scruffy, VU’s-Sister-Ray-loving grooves, coloured up with blooping synths, and yowling, way-off vocals” Mojo 4* 

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Catchy but cool as you like jangle'n'fuzz psych pop/rock from down-under. A big hit on the shop stereo.

TRACK LISTING

1. No Views On It
2. River Of Longing
3. Cruel Night
4. Costume Drama
5. Dream Date
6. Flowers In Mind
7. Gold
8. Palace Of Love
9. Too Late Now

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

Formed in the mid-70s, and setting the standard for post-punk ever since, Jad and David Fair and Half Japanese return with a new volume that finds us twenty years into their story. The 90s would see them under a new spotlight as Kurt Cobain used his celebrity to tell anyone that would listen about their greatness, and had the band tour with Nirvana. They would respond with three of the most wild and varied albums in their career.

Continuing their Fire deluxe reissues of the entire Half Japanese catalogue, Volume Three: 1990-1995 is the third of four volumes containing three LPs/CDs. This next set of Half Japanese LPs begins with 1990’s explosively, noisy and chaotic (sometimes improvised) ‘We Are They Who Ache With Amorous Love’ featuring their cover of the Them garage rock classic “Gloria” and two tracks “Titanic" and "Hand Without a Body” that were co-written with the like-minded Daniel Johnston. Two years later the notably more delicate and, dare we say, jangly, ‘Fire In The Sky’ (1992) arrived at a pivotal time for the group when they gained notable recognition from the likes of Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Teenage Fanclub and Yo La Tengo (whose Ira Kaplan guests on the record).

This highly anticipated third installation closes the trio with 1995’s ‘Hot’ which became MTVs album of the week on release, with Michael Goldbery writing “Hot, mixes Sonic Youth-style noise, Stooges primitivism and ’60s pop with excellent results. “Lucky Ones” is a simply charming number (“A good thing just got better/ As better as better can be”) reminiscent of Jonathan Richman, while “Drum Straight” is dose of feedback drenched skonk and “Vampire” rocks hard liken the Sonic’s “Bull In The Heather.” Fire’s colossal Half Japanese series began last year with the Record Store Day exclusive of ‘Half Gentleman/Not Beasts’, this set contains the records in their original form with extras that later appeared on CD formats available. It will also include original artwork from Jad Fair and liner notes by Half Japanese hall of famer Mark David Jickling. “Cutting straight to the gut. Jad’s phrasing matches surging sentiments, creating a counterpoint to the spot-on music. When they grind out a groove half-rhythmic/half-blank cadences, the woozy disconnect is oddly compelling” Pitchfork’s Best New Reissue (Volume 2: 1987-1989)

“An impressive and well-assembled study of one of this band's more interesting periods” - All Music.

“This should also lay to rest any questions about the importance of Half Japanese. Without them, we wouldn’t have the primitive pop of Beat Happening nor the id-bearing beauty of Daniel Johnston” - Paste Magazine. 

TRACK LISTING

We Are They Who Ache With Amorous Love:
1 "Every Hour "
2 "Elevator Boy"
3 "Gloria"
4 "Ear "
5 "The Titanic"
6 "Our Eyes"
7 "Spin "
8 "Up And Down"
9 "Run "
10 "All Of Me"
11 "Hand Without A Body"
12 "Going Home"
13 "Three Rings"
14 "How Did You Know? "
15 "Then We Walk"
16 "Secret "
17 "Best "
18 "The House I Live In"
19 "Shanty Town"
20 "Everything Is Right "

Fire In The Sky:
1 "UFO Expert"
2 "Tears Stupid Tears"
3 "Always "
4 "This Could Be The Night"
5 "Possum Head"
6 "Frosty"
7 "Turn Your Life Around"
8 "I Love A Mystery"
9 "12 Houses"
10 "Hangar 18"
11 "Magic Kingdom"
12 "It's No Wonder"
13 "Fire In The Sky"
14 "Good Luck"
15 "Gates Of Glory"
16 "Everyone Knows"
17 "I Heard Her Call My Name"
18 "Eye Of The Hurricane"
19 "It's A Clear Night"

Hot:
1 "Drum Straight"
2 "True Believers"
3 "Well"
4 "Dark Night"
5 "Part Of My Plan"
6 "Vampire"
7 "Lucky Ones"
8 "Vast Continent"
9 "Guess Again"
10 "Black Fruit"
11 "Sleep Talk"
12 "Smile"
13 "Lucky Town"

The first thing the listener will notice about Ricked Wicky is that it is the most musically adept project Guided By Voices' mage Robert Pollard has undertaken in some time, at least since late period-GBV (Half-Smiles of the Decomposed, for instance), or even Boston Spaceships. "[Ricked Wicky] is a sophisticated arena rock band," says Pollard, and I Sell The Circus offers in evidence a series of ball-peen hammers to the brain-pan ("Piss Face" with its James Gang-era slide guitar and the proto-punk stomp of "Intellectual Types," for example) alongside more delicate, prog-tinged frippery ("Cow-Headed Moon" features "Court of the Crimson King"-esque mellotron, while the acoustic guitar mastery displayed on "Even Today and Tomorrow" recalls the mellow-era ELP of "Lucky Man").

Credit the players: bolstering the easy mastery of a dizzying array of song writing forms one naturally expects (and receives) from Pollard are the impressive instrumental prowess of fellow Daytonian Nick Mitchell ("no blood relation to Mitch," Pollard stresses), who can otherwise be found in near-weekly performance at Wings, an important Dayton sports bar, multi-instrumentalist and producer Todd Tobias, and "the worldly Kevin March," (Pollard again) who does double duty these days in Guided By Voices. These guys can play, and on I Sell The Circus, they play the fuck out of the songs. "The band named Ricked Wicky is significant in that it is the very first name I created for a non-existent band in my early teens," explains Pollard. Fourteen of its fifteen tracks were recorded at Cyberteknics in Dayton, a studio Pollard has come to use with increasing frequency due to its profusion of vintage analogue gear.

Used to great effect on ISTC: "Rotten Backboards" is as gorgeous and melancholic a tune as Pollard has ever written, and lyrically sounds a note of wistfulness that long-time fans will not find unfamiliar. "She can run, 'cause that's what I did," sings Pollard over a sublimely-textured background of synth-strings, arpeggiated guitar, piano, and clattery drums, and while it's tempting to read real regret into the content ("rotten backboards" as a metaphor for the debris of the past), it's always dangerous looking for autobiography in Pollard's mostly-fictional constructions. And anyway the misty wistfulness is cleared away immediately by the sharply propulsive prime-Who swagger of the next -- and final -- track "A Real Stab." Which seems to be about needles, or the messengers of Oz, or paper bags. It's one of the best songs on an album of standouts. "Some may wish to refer to us as a 'super group,'" says Pollard, tongue practically poking through his cheek, but as with a lot of the pronouncements made by the oracle of Huffman Prairie, as no one has ever called him or ever will, he's joking, but he's not joking. Ricked Wicky may not be a super group as the term is too-commonly used, but there's no real doubt they're a super group.

TRACK LISTING

1. Well Suited
2. Death Metal Kid
3. Guts
4. Cow Headed Moon
5. Piss Face
6. Even Today And Tomorrow
7. Intellectual Types
8. Uranus Flies
9. The Important Girl
10. Frenzy Of Blame
11. Mobility
12. Tomorrow
13. Miles Of Concentration
14. Rotten Back Boards
15. A Real Stab

Fire Records are delighted to announce the addition of Sterling Roswell to the fold. The former Spacemen 3 drummer and multi-instrumentalist self-released and sold out of a limited run of 300 copies of the album earlier in the year to great acclaim, including a rave review in Mojo (as well as a pick by Andrew Weatherall in the same magazine) and it was album of the month in Rough Trade Shops who described the album like this: "Lavishing in pop structures but drawing in myriad influences to the wondrous black hole, The Call Of The Cosmos features some shimmering spaciousness but also sleazy exotica-themes, not unlike a Lee Hazelwood production infected with Joe Meek's ghost.

Roswell's own songwriting and voice recalls a solar-fried Bobby Gillespie, an artist he no doubt originally influenced with the Spacemen 3. Elsewhere, there's truly psychedelic excursions into outsiderdom which come off like The Seeds mutating ever larger into lysergic-dipped monsters." Any attempt to categorize Sterling Roswell, runs the risk of misrepresenting a true radical. Artist, musician, poet and producer, Roswell is all of these and more and over the years he has embraced a myriad of artistic forms to great effect. For the live shows he will be joined by the band The Psychedelic SRB featuring a rotating collective of musicians including the fantastic George Frakes (lead guitar), Syd Kemp (bass) and Tucker Nelson (drums). They not only bring the album The Call Of The Cosmos to the live stage but in the midst have created their own unique space age sound.

Live appearances, both solo and with The Psychedelic SRB, always hold audiences spellbound and is THE act to see in this new age of psychedelia. The Call of the Cosmos features the singles 'Interplanetary Spaceliner','Give Peace Another Chance' and 'a remix of The Girl From Orbit', cementing the elements which have infused Sterling's work since his days with Spacemen 3, his multi instrumental driving force behind The Darkside and his innovative psychedelic soundscapes as a studio engineer and producer. The album stands testament to a new message for Interplanetary Peace and features a truly fitting tribute to the late, great front man of THE SEED, Sky Sunlight Saxon with a cover of the song 'Tripmaker', which was originally featured in the Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda movie The Trip in 1968. "Baudelaire once wrote, 'music excavates heaven'. Listen to this record and you might just have to agree." Andrew Weatherall / Mojo

TRACK LISTING

1. Interplanetary Spaceliner
2. Give Peace Another Chance
3. The Girl From Orbit In Dub
4. Asteroid No. B – 612
5. Island Of Ether
6. Tripmaker
7. Outskirts Of Infinity
8. Counter Clock World
9. Time Is Of The Essence

Robert Pollard, head lunatic of the Guided By Voices' asylum, has a surfeit of original thoughts. (Most people are lucky to have even one, ever). That this even needs to be expressed is evidence enough for its "truth," as only obvious or obviously untrue things can ever hope to be true. Or to approach the truth. Something Pollard does with uncanny regularity, and which is further on display on every track on the gloriously unkempt, roiling-with-ideas More Lies From The Gooseberry Bush, the second record Pollard has released under the nom-de-rock Teenage Guitar.

Here's a song title: "Matthew's Ticker and Shaft a. come to breakfast b. the girl's c. division of swans d. when death has a nice ring." It starts with distorted guitar over a primitive snare-and-bass-drum beat (all instruments on all songs played by Pollard), shifts into an out-of-tune piano clumping along a simple seven-chord progression, lurches into a wall of distorted guitar as two tracks of Pollard wail wide-panned in each speaker, before finally resolving in a pretty harpsichord (or some synthesized version thereof) figure inelegantly trips over itself before trailing off into the next track: "The Instant American," which presents a multi-tracked Pollard vocals chanting over a background of what sounds like a bunch of people at a party drinking. These are not the two strangest tracks on the fifteen-song album, which clocks in at just over thirty minutes.

If there are times when Pollard's musical ambition seems to overwhelm his ability to present his ideas coherently, that's a feature, not a bug. The spazzy machine-generated beat of "A Guaranteed Ratio," the ham-handed church organ of "Good Mary's House," the off-key crooning, the awkwardly plucked possible-banjo on "All You Fought For" the general (but not always) sloppiness, the rumbling toms and slashing power chording of "New Light": it's all of a piece, and that piece adds up to a sense of urgency and what sounds an awful lot like unconstrained joy suffusing every single track on More Lies From The Gooseberry Bush. For those who like their Pollard stately, tuneful, and elegiac – sure, he can do that without effort, but that's not what Teenage Guitar is about. Teenage Guitar is about trying hard without seeming to try hard.

The result is that rare thing: a completely original album. Which is also a true delight, a sky-blue gem, a timeless and untimely cabinet of wonder. And by some few miles the greatest musical artifact your ears will have the pleasure of encountering this year.

TRACK LISTING

CD DISC 1 & LP – More Lies From The Gooseberry Bush:

1. Go Around (The Apartment Dwellers)
2. Spliced At Acme Fair
3. A Guaranteed Ratio
4. Good Mary's House
5. Skin Ride
6. Full Glass Gone
7. All You Fought For
8. Gear OP
9. No Escape
10. Matthew's Ticker And Shaft
       A. Come To Breakfast
       B. The Girls Arrive
       C. Division Of Swans
       D. When Death Has A Nice Ring
11. The Instant American
12. Normalized
13. New Light
14. Birthplace Of The Electric Starter
15. A Year That Could Have Been Worse

DISC 2 – Force Fields At Home:
1. Court Of Lions
2. Come See The Super Moon
3. Current Pressings Colors And Styles
4. Still Down Stairs
5. 8 Bars Of Meaningless Mathilda
6. Harvest Whale
7. Strangers For A Better Society
8. It Takes A Great Promise
9. It Doesn't Mean I'm Underground
10. Baby Apple
11. Peter Pan Can
12. Alice And Eddie (Fabulous Child Actors)
13. Alfred Never
14. Gymnasium Politics
15. Atlantic Cod
16. Suburban Cycle Saccharine
17. Postcard To Pinky
18. Let Me

The music of Scraps is a unique cosmic universe of emotions, thoughts and bedroom sound. Utilising a minimalist set up of drum machine, keyboard and synth mixed with a life time obsession of the electronic pop music of yesteryear allow Laura Hill's ideas to come alive. These are not cute brainless love songs however. Although love is an inspiration in a lot of the songs, the lyrics and themes mostly deal with the darker painful side of that irrational emotion. Depth comes in the way Hill can effortlessly blend the banal drudgery of everyday living with the abstract and surreal. Meditations on the sadness of a fleeting human existence, strange attractions to machines and the technical world, to the ever present escapist allure of outer space and the dream world. All this set to some of the finest and (I dare say) catchy pop music this side of the 21st century.

Scraps is a distinctly unique artist borne directly out of her environment. Scraps has not gained her small but incredibly loyal and growing cult following through media saturation, blog hype, or a money backed promotional whirlwind. It has been acquired through the independent and uncompromising nature of her spirit, the authentic DIY quality of the music, and her honest approach to songwriting and performing. Strong releases on hometown Brisbane record labels Bedroom Suck and Disembraining Machine have complimented an already dense discography of hand made, self released material. Scraps has performed relentlessly all over Australia and abroad to a wide variety of people alongside an even wider variety of bands and artists. From drunken suburban house parties, inner city generator squat shows, art galleries, cafes and bookstores, museums, drug fuelled nightclubs, rural raves, reputable and disreputable pubs, to some of the biggest venues in town as international support. The fact that Scraps can effortlessly transcend these often starkly contrasting spaces is a testament to the quality of her abilities as a songwriter and performer.

Electric Oceans is a culmination of years spent lost in the independent music wilderness. Experience has been gained through Hill continuously pushing herself as a musician, artist and human. Scraps is not your typically modern spoilt rich kid flash-in-a-pan solo synth songsmith. Tough battles have been fought and either won or lost, both personally and creatively - the results of which are more than evident on this record.

TRACK LISTING

1. Mushroom Gods
2. Lonely Motorbike
3. Saphire Plaza
4. Electric Ocean
5. Asleep
6. Projections
7. Flying
8. Holiday
9. Gone

The first thing you might notice about Hospitality's second album Trouble is what you don't hear. The process of completing Trouble was, for the band, one of learning to accept silence, to let that empty space exist no matter what it might awaken or evoke. You could catch glimpses of these dark and unexplored places in the margins of Hospitality's 2012 self-titled debut, but they are at the very heart of Trouble. If you listen closely, you can hear a band pushing against their own boundaries and limitations until they find the very air around them subtly but perceptibly changed. The trio of Amber Papini (guitar, vocals), Brian Betancourt (bass), and Nathan Michel (drums) approach Trouble with the force and unity of a well-rehearsed touring rock band. They supplement their performances with strategically placed strings, synthesizers, and drum machines. But silence is an inescapable force on Trouble, an invisible fourth player that draws you into the unexplored corners of familiar sounds: the full, ghostly decay of a reverb tail, the round pluck of a bass string, the exact syllables where a doubled vocal line diverges. In its lyrics and its musical construction, Trouble is an album that wonders about the mysteries that lurk just beyond our field of vision. Slyly and sympathetically, Papini ponders a Saturday afternoon fishing trip as a wrenching interplay of life and death, the perfect blue sky at an air show as a setting for a soured romance.

Papini elaborates: "Most of the songs are about everyday environments that arouse anxiety or unease. The ocean isn't meant for people; we aren't supposed to be there, and some of the animals that live there are much bigger and faster than we are in the water. I think a lot of the songs deal with this 'out of place' kind of theme, feelings of unease and the questions of what is under you or what surrounds you." Trouble creates a space where conflicting sentiments and experiences are given room to coexist, where small and seemingly mundane observations pose big questions that hang in the air, unanswered and unanswerable. With a title referencing the artist's endless struggle in the battle between creativity and outside forces, Trouble also explores the universal themes of loss, love, and loneliness with Papini's trademark wit. Lines like "And if I'm lost and low / And need you / I'll disconnect the line" from "Inauguration" somehow make the ultimate kiss-off seem charming, while nature makes clear the loneliness felt when leaving someone you love behind in these lines from "I Miss Your Bones": "And all the stars will / Twinkle in the midst of a sea / Of black and lonely /An everlasting loss lack abyss." It's fitting that the album was hashed out in band practices that blurred the boundaries between work and leisure, darkness and light, creative collaboration and friendship.

Foregoing the usual night-time hours kept by musicians, the band chose to work on these songs during daily morning rehearsals that proved in many ways more demanding than characteristically relaxed night-time gatherings. Through these sessions, the band sought to take their music as far as they possibly could as a three-piece, to make sure that every small gesture fell into place and played a vital role in constructing the shape and feel of the songs. The band carried this daylight-infused clearheadedness with them into the studio with chief arranger Nathan Michel and engineer Matt Boynton acting as co-producers. Nathan describes the process: "We really wanted to avoid the ornamental, but I always like to add more sounds. Matt was helpful in keeping the arrangements as simple and direct as possible. We all wanted the record to have a warm and open sound." When put to tape, some of the songs for Trouble worked better than expected as fierce and focused trio performances, while others called for more substantial re-imaginings. "I Miss Your Bones" emerged almost entirely from a live performance, while "Inauguration" found the band ripping apart their live arrangement and reconstructing the song with drum machines and synthesizers. The album unfolds like a walk on the beach or a journey to a place you didn't know you were going. Perhaps a darker sound overall, but Trouble begins with the trademark Hospitality pop then unfurls to reward the listener with the more expansive stripped-down instrumentation of side B. And here, again, is that distinctively present silence, creating a space where an undulating synthesizer feels as alive and mysterious as a single voice in a room.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nightingale
2. Going Out
3. I Miss Your Bones
4. Inauguration
5. Rockets And Jets
6. Sullivan
7. It's Not Serious
8. Last Words
9. Sunship
10. Call Me After

Sleep Dreamt a Brother is the new album from musician and artist Mathew Sawyer, due for release on Fire Records in October. Mournful, lush arrangements that sound almost medieval at times with stark strings, classical guitar and piano overlaid by Sawyer's bare, distinctive vocals and creepy foley sound effects. The record is a place. Not the representation of a place, but something inhabitable. With a clearer vision than his other records, the album is very notably about death. Sawyer wrote and recorded the majority of the album following the loss of three friends a few months apart in 2011 and completed it two weeks before his son was born. As Mathew explains: "When I talk about death or loss I want it to be the feeling itself, not just a representation of that feeling."

Mathew Sawyer is a renowned painter and artist and has a Masters from The Royal College of Art. He has exhibited all over the world (he was The Guardian's artist of the Week and his exhibition at the Rokeby Gallery was previewed in Time Out). He created a painting as cover art for Sleep Dreamt a Brother, which features a man raising his arms with death mirroring this action. They're a reflection of each other. They're brothers. In Greek mythology, Hypnos and Thanatos are brothers. They are Sleep and Death. The title Sleep Dreamt A Brother imagines Sleep dreaming his brother into being. The record views life and death as just a memory or a dream of the other, and tries to reconcile the gap between them. It considers the dream world to be just as valid an experience as the waking world, and that death is like a dream we'll have. Mathew says; "When I die, I'd like to die in the night time as dreaming in sleep is not of this world anyway. Lost in a dream is nothing to be afraid of." The album was recorded and produced by Sawyer at his home. "I like recording to be hand in hand with everyday living. The sound of cars come through the windows, the phone rings, floorboards creak. These sounds all played an important role in making this record. Studios are quiet and lifeless." Although this record is under his own name, previously he has gone by the name of Mathew Sawyer and The Ghosts, and before that just The Ghosts.

TRACK LISTING

1. New Bird To Be
2. Feeeeling
3. Don't Tell The Others What We Were Singing
4. The Forgetting Head
5. October All The Time
6. Sleep Dreamt A Brother
7. Death Is Like A Dream We'll Have
8. Another World
9. The Golden Heart
10. How To Work

Fire Records will be reissuing the first 3 albums by the Lemonheads, Hate Your Friends (1987), Creator (1988) and Lick (1989), featuring copious bonus tracks and many never-before released rarities and live recordings. Together, these seminal albums showcase the band's early punk rock roots and trace the Lemonheads’ transformation towards becoming one of the most successful and influential bands in indie rock. Before the 90s. Before the internet. Before Nevermind. Back when something called “independent music” first began reaching a wider audience, through college radio, word-of-mouth, and that small “underground” record store you seem to find in every town…there was a band from Boston called Lemonheads.

High school friends Ben Deily and Evan Dando, Lemonheads’ primary songwriters, co-guitarists and co-vocalists, first recorded together on 4-track cassette in the spring of 1985; by the end of the decade they—together with bass player Jesse Peretz, sometimes-guitarist Corey Brennan, and successive drummers Doug Trachten and John P. Strohm—had created a body of recordings which would see them on MTV’s fledgling “120 Minutes,” beating out the Grateful Dead on college radio charts, and entering the consciousness of a generation of music fans. Cited as influences by artists as varied as Billie Joe Armstrong and Ryan Adams, these fledgling Lemonheads recordings—part rock, part pop, part unique hybrid of the 80s punk styles beloved by the band members—mark the start of the trajectory that would eventually lead to “mainstream” success and stardom for a later version of the band. But they also represent a distinct, never-repeated phase of the band’s history: one that is finally receiving the attention it deserves.

Lick is the third full-length album by the Lemonheads, and the last to feature founding member Ben Deily. It was the group's last independent label-released album before signing to major label Atlantic. An odd mixture of brand-new, and considerably older, sounds, 1989’s Lick brings together the output of several distinct recording sources: six brand new songs recorded with Minneapolis-based band friend and producer Terry Katzman, and a collection of older, B-side and never-released material originally overseen by producer and engineer Tom Hamilton. The difficulties of writing and creating a new full-length album every year (Hate Your Friends and Creator were released in 1987 and 1988, respectively) are clearly in evidence on Lick. While the newest material (“Mallo Cup,” “A Circle of One,” “7 Powers,” “Anyway”) hints at promising new song writing directions for both Deily and Dando, there’s an almost valedictory sense of the past in the inclusion of versions of “Glad I Don’t Know” and “I Am a Rabbit” (from the band’s first-ever, self-released EP), and the now-classic track “Ever,” a previously-unreleased tune from the original 1986 Hate Your Friends sessions.

At moments, Lick almost sounds like an elegy for itself—or an elegy for a band that has reached the end of the beginning. Also audible in the heterogeneous songs are the tensions of line-up changes—and inchoate, growing frustrations. After various band break-ups or threatened break ups (such as Dando’s brief departure to play bass for Boston band the Blake Babies), the Lemonheads convened to record new material for Lick now featured Dando on drums, Peretz on bass, Deily on guitar (and “piano,” according to the album credits) along with the addition of long-time band friend—and former member of TAANG! labelmates Bullet LaVolta—Corey Loog Brennan on lead guitar. And yet the frenzied, quasi-ironic hammer-ons of Corey’s axe provide some of Lick’s most entertaining moments—like the unaccountably-translated-into-Italian paen to 70s detective Ironside, “Cazzo Di Ferro.” (The song’s music was originally composed by Brennan for his Italian punk band, Superfetazione.) After the album’s completion, Deily opted out of the subsequent European tour, before leaving the band permanently. Jesse Peretz stayed on to record their Atlantic records debut Lovey, but left after the supporting tour in '91. Since then, Dando has been the Lemonheads' sole permanent member.

BONUS TRACKS: Features bonus tracks including several never-before-released live tracks from a 1987 radio session, live tracks and an interview from the 1989 European tour, and the 4 tracks of the Lemonheads self-released debut EP, Laughing all the way to the cleaners.

TRACK LISTING

1. Mallo Cup
2. Glad I Don't Know
3. 7 Powers
4. A Circle Of One
5. Cazzo Di Ferro
6. Anyway
7. Luka
8. Come Back D.A.
9. I Am A Rabbit
10. Sad Girl
11. Ever
12. Strange
13. Mad
14. Sad Girl (1987, Live On WERS)
15. Nothing True / Glad I Don't Know (1987, Live On WERS)
16. Luka (Live On VPRO 1989)
17. Interview With Lemonheads (Holland 1989)
18. Mallo Cup (Live On VPRO 1989)
19. Glad I Don't Know (Original EP Version)
20. I Like To (Original EP Version)
21. I Am A Rabbit (Original EP Version)
22. So I Fucked Up (Original EP Version)

Creator is the second album by legendary Boston band The Lemonheads. Still featuring the full original line-up of Evan Dando, Ben Deily, and Jesse Peretz, the album also includes John P. Strohm (of the Blake Babies, Antenna, and Velo-Deluxe) on drums. From the oddly surreal album cover image (a snapshot of friend and high school classmate Ivan Kreilkamp, originator of the name “Lemonheads,” clutching a box of Cheerios) to the themes of death, dreams, obsession, and mayhem that haunt the material, Creator is weird, ambitious, and markedly moodier than its predecessor—without having lost the band’s irreverent sense of humour. Also evident in this sophomore effort is a newfound attention to idiosyncratic detail—from the precisely timed inter-song pauses and sound clips, to the carefully-crafted song order of the album’s original 13 tracks.

Creator finds Ben Deily once again slipping in quotations from Emily Dickinson (“Burying Ground”) and references to Matthew Arnold (“Come to the Window”), while Dando breaks new ground in song writing complexity (the rich sonic tapestry of “Out”) as well as arrangement, ushering in the band’s first-ever acoustic recording (his cover of Charles Manson’s “Your Home Is Where You’re Happy”). At the same time, the band still fires off blistering punk rock (“Clang Bang Clang,” “Die Right Now,” “Take Her Down”) and finds time to lovingly trash Kiss’ 1977 classic “Plaster Caster.” Recorded in one coherent series of sessions—unlike its predecessor, Hate Your Friends, and its follow-up Lick—Creator is, for all its musical schizophrenia, arguably the most coherent of the Lemonheads’ TAANG-era recordings.

BONUS TRACKS: This Fire Records re-issue features bonus tracks including never-before-released live tracks from a 1988 radio session (featuring a never-before-heard configuration of the band, including guitarist Ben Deily on bass and vocals); also includes an original song (“Cease to Exist”) never released on any album, and a performance by Juliana Hatfield.

TRACK LISTING

1. Burying Ground
2. Sunday
3. Clang Bang Clang
4. Out
5. Your Home Is Where You're Happy
6. Falling
7. Die Right Now
8. Two Weeks In Another Town
9. Plaster Caster
10. Come To The Window
11. Take Her Down
12. Postcard
13. Live Without
14. Sunday (1987, Live On WERS)
15. Cease To Exist (1988, Live On WERS)
16. Burying Ground (1988, Live On WERS)
17. If Only You Were Dead (Early Mallo Cup) (1988, Live On WERS)
18. Out (1988, Live On WERS)
19. N.I.B. (1988, Live On WERS)
20. Clang Bang Clang (1988, Live On WERS)
21. Take Her Down (1988, Live On WERS)
22. Falling (1988, Live On WERS)
23. Instrumental (1988, Live On WERS)
24. From Here To Burma (With Juliana Hatfield) (1988, Live On WERS)

Hate Your Friends is the 1987 debut album by the Lemonheads, one of only three full-length releases to feature the original band line- up of Evan Dando, Ben Deily, and Jesse Peretz. The album showcases a hardcore-punk-to-pop-rock sound and sensibility as playfully fierce as it is surprising…especially to listeners who know the band only from their better-known major label recordings of the 1990s.

The roots of Hate Your Friends begin with the genesis of the band itself: when high school friends Ben Deily and Evan Dando—inspired by a shared love of the 70’s absurdist comedy troupe the Firesign Theatre, literature, and punk rock—began playing their own songs together in 1985. Dando and Deily first started out as a two-piece ensemble: swapping back and forth between a shared Guild guitar (and a crappy amp) and vocal mic, and pounding a drum kit “borrowed” from the high school jazz band. With the addition of classmate and friend Jesse Peretz on bass, the two-man outfit quickly became a power trio. With a handful of original songs, a passionate love for their favourite bands—from Husker-Du, the Replacements, Black Flag and the Germs, to the Saints, Wire and ‘77 UK punk—and a tiny recording budget, the Lemonheads set about their first studio session within days of their high school graduation in June of 1986.

During that summer, a significant amount of what would become the band’s debut album was recorded in Brookline, Massachusetts, with Deily and Dando sharing vocal, guitar and drumming duties. Above and beyond bass, Jesse proved pivotal as the band’s manager, booker and tireless promoter—helping arrange for the Lemonheads self-released debut EP, Laughing all the way to the cleaners, later that summer, and shortly thereafter helping establish the relationship with Curtis Casella of TAANG! records that paved the way to full-length LP Hate Your Friends. Finally, with the addition of full-time (and fairly short-lived) drummer Doug Trachten, the last songs of Hate Your Friends were recorded in the winter of 1986-7.

BONUS TRACKS: This Fire Records re-issue features bonus tracks including 12 never-before-released live tracks from a 1987 radio session, rare tracks from the early compilation Crawling From Within, and additional tracks not included on the original release of Hate Your Friends (“Buried Alive” and “Gotta Stop”).

TRACK LISTING

1. I Don't Wanna
2. 394
3. Nothing True
4. Second Chance
5. Sneakyville
6. Amazing Grace
7. Belt
8. Hate Your Friends
9. Don't Tell Yourself It's OK
10. Uhhh
11. Fed Up
12. Rat Velvet
13. Fucked Up
14. Mod Lang (From 'Crawling From Within' Compilation)
15. Buried Alive
16. Gotta Stop
17. Sad Girl (From 'Crawling From Within' Compilation)
18. Belt (1987, Live On WERS)
19. 394 (1987, Live On WERS)
20. Falling (1987, Live On WERS)
21. Don’t Tell Yourself (1987, Live On WERS)
22. Uhhh (1987, Live On WERS)
23. Amazing Grace (1987, Live On WERS)
24. Rat Velvet (1987, Live On WERS)
25. Second Chance (1987, Live On WERS)
26. Sneakyville (1987, Live On WERS)
27. I Like To (1987, Live On WERS)
28. So I Fucked Up (1987, Live On WERS)
29. Sick Of You (1987, Live On WERS)
30. Hate Your Friends (1987, Live On WERS)

The impeccably named Scott & Charlene’s Wedding are back with not so much a brand new album, as a generation's glimpse of love, home-sickness, basketball, alienation, rock and roll and all things that matter to an expatriate Aussie stranded in New York. Any Port In A Storm is fated to become your essential backdrop to the summer of 2013.

The brainchild of the amiable and unashamedly charismatic Craig Dermody, Scott & Charlene’s Wedding offer a sonically charged take on the Lemonheads’ ramshackle melodicism and Pavement’s lo-fi drawl. Following the success of Critical Heights' recent reissues of the band’s debut album Para Vista Social Club and the follow-up EP Two Weeks, the new album sees their first new recordings for over two years capturing Dermody at a pivotal time in his life. He has further developed his gloriously ragged anthems to reach new heights of nonchalant perfection.

Having uprooted from Melbourne, Australia to New York, New York, the Big Apple has replaced Melbourne as inspiration his latest trials and tribulations. His heart-on-sleeve lyrics reveal tales of everyday Dermody life, somehow more absurdly unhinged, humorous and poignant than the lives of his peers. All coming from a man with a clear mission to update the rock’n’roll template beyond his inspirations and influences as Scott & Charlene's Wedding effortlessly sprawl across the generations, linking the vintage swagger of the Velvets to the off-kilter pop perfection of the Only Ones by way of the Stooges and Television. The eleven electrifying tracks taking us on an intimate journey with Craig Dermody and his daily struggles, like a peak in to his personal diary.

He documents his move from Melbourne to New York to follow a girl. ‘Fakin NYC’ sees him adjusting to life in a new city, having to find a new job and feeling out of place as a security guard for a trendy bar. ‘Lesbian Wife’ sees him being caught in the middle of the biggest storm ever to have hit NYC and feeling homesick for Australia.

"... the execution for his frustration is point perfect-- his sleepily conversational vocals fold into his sunny, jangling guitars seamlessly" Pitchfork.

TRACK LISTING

1. Junk Shop
2. Lesbian Wife
3. 1993
4. Fakin' NYC
5. Clock Out And Leave
6. Jackie Boy
7. Downtown
8. Spring St
9. Gammy Leg
10. Charlie's In The Gutter
11. Wild Heart

Spacemen 3’s debut album "Sound Of Confusion", released in 1986, was a blistering affair - establishing their love of the two-chord song and also expressing their admiration for the likes of MC5, The 13th Floor Elevators and The Stooges. Sound of Confusion was 7 tracks of overdriven assault, with a strange bleakness and despair creeping through the hypnotic sprawl. R Hunter Gibson would later say: "It boosts the value of unlit rooms, unpaid debts and unfeigned terror and it would rather tackle the gradients than settle for level best.

TRACK LISTING

1. Loosing Touch With Your Mind
2. 2.35
3. Little Doll
4. MaryAnne
5. Roller Coaster
6. Hey Man
7. OD Catastophe

Triple deluxe 7” pack on 3 different coloured vinyl.

After eight years fronting New Zealand's acclaimed "trouble gum art punks" The Mint Chicks, Kody Nielson unveils a new project Opossom with the captivating album Electric Hawaii. Following a June release in Australia and New Zealand on Create/Control, the album will be released in the rest of the world via Fire Records in August.

The Mint Chicks chapter in Kody's career closed with the band splitting time between their American base in Portland OR and hometown Auckland. Brother Ruban formed a new band, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and Kody began producing diverse projects including Bic Runga's recent album and Auckland punk up-and-comers, The DHDFD's.

Electric Hawaii presented a new challenge, an album written and performed with just a little help from others - Bic Runga lending a vocal while Kody's father Chris Nielson (a regular Mint Chicks collaborator) plays trumpet. The rest comes directly from the brain, hands and heart of Kody. Home-written, recorded and mixed by himself with just the final mastering courtesy of Howie Weinberg, Electric Hawaii is a unique beast - it is not the singer-songwriter solo album of a former punk rock band singer. It's a further exploration of Kody's musical journey into a lively, engaging world of carefully layered sonic layers of light and dark. It's an album about love, DIY, drugs and freedom. And why end up Opossom? The mental escape from daily life during the creation of "Electric Hawaii" produced Kody's nocturnal instinctive animal... feisty, vicious and enigmatically cute.

The new direction and new sounds incorporate what Kody terms as an overt attempt to add some of his personal Polynesian background to his blend of beatnik psychedelica made from out of context genres, surf rock to the Velvet Underground, modern and ancient electronica and jazz.

TRACK LISTING

1. Girl
2. Fly
3. Blue Meanies
4. Getaway Tonight
5. Watchful Eye
6. Why Why
7. Cola Elixir
8. Electric Hawaii
9. Outer Space
10. Inhaler Song

Ned Collette moved to Berlin from his native Melbourne two years ago. A well known and respected singer-songwriter in his own country and in underground circles worldwide, he has toured Europe previously with the likes of Joanna Newsom, Akron/Family, Bill Callahan and Nina Nastasia. His early musical output was based mostly in experimental music, before he gravitated towards more traditional song structures.

His new album "2" (his fourth album but his first outside of Australia) will be released in August. It is a mix of experimental pop songwriting, musique concrete and dark folky soundscapes. His current solo shows are performed with voice, nylon string guitar and samples. While comparisons have been made to everything from Leonard Cohen to Ghostface Killah, Collette remains tricky to define but instantly identifiable.

TRACK LISTING

1. IL Futuro Fantastico
2. Stampy
3. The Hedonist
4. How To Change A City
5. The Decision
6. Long You Lie
7. Happy Heart
8. For Roberto
9. What Lights Have You Seen?

More than 18 years since he left the public spotlight, mysterious mad-genius David Baker, legendary frontman of the original incarnation of Mercury Rev, is back with new band Variety Lights. The masterful new album 'Central Flow', due for release in May, is a collaboration between Baker and fellow vintage synth addict Will MacLean and demonstrates that Baker has lost none of his flair for the extraordinary, the experimental and the exceptional. As co-founder and vocalist of Mercury Rev, Baker helped to forge their revolutionary sound with their first two (and most critically acclaimed) albums; 'Yerself Is Steam' (1991) and 'Boces' (1993).

The band were highly innovative and weren't afraid to experiment but above all they were loud, fun and hugely influential. In the UK, the critics embraced enthusiastically, as Chris Roberts in Melody Maker said (in his review of 'Yerself Is Steam'): "At last, one of those rare records that revolve along once in a blooming moon and have something new to struggle to say... A daring, brazen, and demented juxtaposition of voice and guitars and timpani flings Mercury Rev, lemming like at your more responsive caches of fear."

Having left the band in 1993, Baker went on to release a solo album 'World' under the moniker Shady, which featured members of the Boo Radleys, Rollerskate Skinny, Swervedriver and Th' Faith Healers. At times soaringly catchy and lightheartedly loony, 'World' is a sonic adventure which Vox described as "... awash with fragments of dense noise, stumbling, narcotic-laced tempos and lyrics from outer space... that mutate into spiky, bittersweet pop." Although there has been much speculation about his life during his time away from the public eye, Baker has continued to make recordings and is an avid music fan, working as a producer for various artists.

Now he is back, morphed and transmogrified into Variety Lights (a name lifted from Fellini's first film). When he met Will MacLean, Baker found a songwriting partner who shared a passion for analogue synths and electronic psychedelia. Initial experimentation together live to tape – to see how big and crazy just the two of them could sound – started to reveal melodies and Variety Lights was born. Much of Variety Lights’ debut was recorded by Baker at his own Over the Trees studio. The sound was created using a mixture of chained around-the-room 80's era midi expanders as well as the duo's collection of vintage keyboards and combining them with an array of drum machines and effected guitars. In creating 'Central Flow's sound, Baker says that "personal adventure is and always has been the most important thing". Baker and MacLean found themselves using references to colours, pictures and describing film scenes to help them communicate about their music. As in his early work, Baker took a richly layered approach, using multiple vocals in a search to find emotion in noises and sounds.

TRACK LISTING

1. Starlit
2. Establishment
3. Sea Faraway
4. Invisible Forest
5. Silent Too Long
6. Oh Setting Sun
7. Sell Your Soul
8. You Are So Famous
9. Crystal Cove
10. Feeling All Alone
11. Infinity Room

Musician, misfit, culture warrior and bullshitter: Robert "Bobby" Conn. Recorded with his new band The Burglars, this album is the first since 2007’s King for a Day, and his first new release on Fire Records. Bobby has equally delighted and annoyed hipsters since first appearing on the Chicago music scene in the mid '90s. Blending aggressive showmanship with an omnivorous love of musical genres, from Suicide to Streisand or from The Sweet to Stravinsky, Bobby has often irritated and provoked audiences, but never bored them. Bobby Conn's lyrics document the continuing absurdities of contemporary Western culture, illustrating and celebrating the convenient hypocrisies that allow us to sleep soundly every night.

He developed "The Continuous Ca$h Flow System" in 1995 as a critic of the magical thinking that Americans employ concerning their debt fuelled lifestyles. 15 years later, Bobby's "Continuous Ca$h Flow" is revealed as the operating principle of the entire financial system. He has accurately described the Armageddon based world view of America's Christian right since 1996, and tracked its evolution from fringe fanaticism to its current place in the heart of America's political mainstream.

But despite the relevance and prescience of his songwriting, his devotion to total entertainment in glitter and heels has confused as many as he has enlightened. He continues to collaborate with his wife and musical partner, Monica Boubou. Fully his equal as an entertainer herself (and more than his equal in stature), her electrified violin defines the epic melodic reach of their music. In between bouts of touring, Bobby and his band, The Burglars, headed to the studio to create this collection of new tunes, titled "Macaroni". Macaroni is Bobby Conn’s first album in 5 years (and first for Fire Records) will be released on CD/LP in March - followed swiftly by a re-issue of his landmark debut "Bobby Conn".

Macaroni is a contrast between "this is what you want" (the packaged predictable blandness of a Macaroni dinner) but this what you get (the violent mess of reality). Macaroni will be supported by a 7" Single "More Than You Need" backed with a cover version of the Walker Brothers "Fat Mama Kick.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cant Stop The War
2. GREEED
3. Underground Vktm
4. The Truth
5. Afterschool
6. Macaroni
7. Govt
8. Face Blind
9. Walker's Game
10. More Than You Need

After the critically acclaimed release of Pumajaw's "Curiosity Box" comes a retrospective of the first four albums by Pinkie Maclure and John Wills (Pumajaw). These 14 gems that make up "Favourites" have been hand-picked by Pumajaw, highlighting their incredibly productive and creative collaboration for the past 10 years, from the self produced albums. "From Memorial Crossing" (2000) was recorded in an abandoned school in Tottenham, London and features versions of songs by Tom Waits, Artie Shaw and David Lynch. "This Day and Age" (2002) uses samples from 1920s cabaret records, field recordings from the Outer Hebrides and John's hypnotic rhythms as a foil for Pinkie's most expressive vocal explorations. "Cat's Cradle" (2004) is a blend of folk melodies and soulful electronica, featuring concertina and psychedelic guitar. "Becoming Pumajaw" (2006) throws some French chanson into the mix (Jacques Brel's La Chanson des Vieux Amants), along with an untraditional versions of traditional folk songs, psychedelic guitar wig-outs, concertina and darkly humorous laments Pumajaw are a duo that weave, multi-octave voice with looped guitar, mandolin, samples, concertina and hypnotic rhythms, they have their own seductive sound that defies categorization and stretches from psychedelic pop through sultry folk songs to eerie, cacophonous, trance-inducing laments.