You could be forgiven for thinking Basso‘s been hitting the plant food of late. Last time out we took a trip with Trance, and now our esoteric expert nods his head, rolls his shoulders and drops a h-h-h-house record on our unexpecting asses. That‘s right folks, roll up the rug, push the sofa back and enjoy some ‚Personal Growth‘ from James Booth.
Operating a million miles away from the kick and hiss of the trendy lo-fi folks, the Berlin based producer favours subtle rhythms, delicate textures and tender melodies - turning out a string of sophisticated dance floor winners for 100% Silk, Church and No Bad Days. Now he brings his organic house stylings to the Growing Bin with a fresh five-tracker packed with all the warmth of a Tempelhof picnic on a balmy July afternoon.
Emerging from the watery depths of the Drexciyan ocean, opener "Mood" strides calmly through the morning dew, stretching those loose limbs and seeking out Hardcastle‘s rainforest. Drifting freely through immersive, aquatic pads and soft focus melodies, the track takes in a little R&R before snapping electro percussion, cascading synthlines and a rolling rhythm up the intensity. The deepness continues on the A2 as "Dream Precipitation" offers a medicated vision of Debussy doing P-Bar while Lynch rolls the cameras. Syncopated hi-hats, jazzy keys and star-gazing sine waves wrap themselves around your cerebellum, expanding your mind as a steady kick moves your body into the pleasure zone. Booth takes a Derren Brown tip on the flip, imbuing "You" with the kind of mesmeric rhythm that can make the staunchest wallflower pull a Pink Panther on a packed dance floor. The exotic tumble of woody percussion and hissing castanets keep up a fascinating rhythm, driving the titular mantra and snaking synth melody through bursts of slapped bass and subtle 4/4. "Dhoop Stick" stays on board with the boogie hypnotism, weaving its way through celestial melodies, squelching bass and toasty Rhodes before "The Chorus" brings down the curtain with wailing FM vox, military snares and the dreamy synth pop charm of a lost Sheffield classic. Warm, woody and entirely organic, this is the birth of Green House...you heard it here first!

TRACK LISTING

1. Mood
2. Dream Precipitation
3. You
4. Dhoop Stick
5. The Chorus 

Wintres Woma-- Old English for "the sound of winter"-- is James Elkington's debut solo record, but you've likely heard his masterful guitar playing and arranging, even if you didn't realize it. Elkington (an Englishman living in Chicago) is an inveterate collaborator who brings his lyrical compositional and improvisational sensibilities to any group. He has toured, recorded, and/or collaborated with Jeff Tweedy, Richard Thompson, Steve Gunn, Michael Chapman, Joan Shelley, Nathan Salsburg and Brokeback, to name just a few of his many enthusiastic admirers.

His assured album, recorded at Wilco's Loft, is baroquely detailed and beautifully constructed, featuring both his baritone vocals and some of Chicago's finest, including Tomeka Reid. Elkington was brought up in England during the ’70s and ’80s—a time when traditional and acoustic music was largely shunned in favor of the new wave (to which his largely-destroyed copy of The Fall’s Perverted By Language will attest)—but found after his first forays into songwriting that some semblance of the folk music vernacular had crept in and wouldn’t leave.

Elkington’s music, however, is anything if retroactive, and anything if folk music: “It’s not folk music,” he asserts. “I may use the mechanics of folk music to put across my own ideas at times, but it really doesn’t fall into any specific community or songwriterly tradition. The album’s lyrics do seem to have a preoccupation with unseen powers at work and other dimensions, both of which seem to show up in traditional English music, but it’s based on my own experience and understanding, not anyone else’s.” Wintres Woma was recorded at Wilco’s studio, The Loft, in a five-day sprawl with engineer Mark Greenberg. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Make It Up
2 Hollow In Your House
3 Wading The Vapors
4 Grief Is Not Coming
5 When I Am Slow
6 The Parting Glass
7 The Hermit Census
8 Greatness Yet To Come
9 Sister Of Mine
10 My Trade In Sun Tears
11 Any Afternoon

Flanked by a string quartet and a consort of seven trombones, this unique collaborative ensemble have assembled an expansive song cycle that explores the Sun, the Moon, the planets and other celestial bodies of our solar system (and beyond) through soundscape, song, science and myth.

The subject of the album is not just the wilderness of outer space, but also the interior space of human consciousness and how it engages with divinity, depravity, society and self - what does it mean to be human?

A musical and aesthetic journey as far-reaching as its subject: from lush piano ballads to prog-rock political anthems, curious electronic backbeats to classical cadenzas, which occasionally give way to ambient interludes and majestic brass chorales, buttressed by a percussive drive that keeps the momentum skyward.

In spite of all the experimentation in sound and style, Sufjan’s vocals provide a clear and coherent centre of gravity, and includes some of his most diverse vocal performances to date (from soft hush to guttural scream); whether he’s singing through effects pedals, vocoders, auto-tune or not, his voice delivers an ambitious flight map through the cosmos.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Conceptually intimidating but perfectly executed suite of space themed pieces, bold and tender in equal measure, beautifully composed and impeccably performed by a superbly talented bunch of some of the best musicians of modern times.

TRACK LISTING

1. Neptune
2. Jupiter
3. Halley's Comet
4. Venus
5. Uranus
6. Mars
7. Black Energy
8. Sun
9. Tides
10. Moon
11. Pluto
12. Kuiper Belt
13. Black Hole
14. Saturn
15. In The Beginning
16. Earth
17. Mercury

"If you don't vote it's on you, not me," Jim James sings on his second solo album. It's an election-year entreaty geared towards too-pure leftoid lintheads, but the song is no screed, befitting a guy whose music usually turns inward. James floats his humidly ethereal soul mumble over seven minutes of a languid beat, cottony strings and chill organ bleat. Throughout Eternally Even, the My Morning Jacket mainman renders his change gospel with conversational grace, Bill Withers warmth, Sly Stone optimism and Neil Young conviction – less soap box pugilist than lazy-Sunday sage.

The music recalls Aquarian soul, Nineties trip-hop and laser-gun funk: "True Nature" ties a find-your-mission message to a hazily coiled Blacksploitation groove; the loose flowing prettiness of "Here in Spirit" links today's battles to a history of struggle. The sonic spaciness can sometimes undercut James' less probing moments ("This world is war and blood when it could've been love," he observes on "We Ain't Getting Any Younger (Pt. 2.)" More often, the effect is charming. The gentlest moment is the title cut, in which his Kentucky coo cuddles against a track that's like Dark Side of the Moon as an astral doo-wop lovers prayer, reaching for a personal and social over-the-rainbow moment of Zen so sweetly visioned it feels like it's already unfolding –walking in the shadows, tripping towards the light. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: This record has the meandering, groovy, mellow and melancholic vibe of Marvin's masterpiece "Here, My Dear". Stoned, soulful, fuzzy songs bleed into one another to create a powerful meditation on the times (political and personal). It is a stunning record.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hide In Plain Sight
2. Same Old Lie
3. Here In Spirit
4. The World's Smiling Now
5. We Ain't Getting Any Younger Pt. 1
6. We Ain't Getting Any Younger Pt. 2 [Explicit]
7. True Nature
8. In The Moment
9. Eternally Even

The Starless Room is the debut solo album by Gallon Drunk mainman and PJ Harvey cohort James Johnston.

The Starless Room - The results are a revelation, and not just for James Johnston. Vast in its scope, visceral, intimate and instinctive - " I just followed whatever triggered an emotional response in me".

The Starless Room represents a remarkable distillation of both his lyrical obsessions and prodigious, arguably under-acknowledged talent. Suitably, it's the title track that encapsulates the romantic sweep of the record best, with its star at his most intense and Sebastian Hoffman's string arrangements at their most ambitious. For James Johnston, however, the greatest pleasure of all is a simple one: the songs' slow tempos, "Something I adore, like a lot of the Isaac Hayes or Ray Charles albums that I love. It almost feels like I'm listening to someone else's record." But it's not. It's James Johnston's debut solo album, The Starless Room. Like he said, it feels just right.

James Johnston - As well as playing with Gallon Drunk, James Johnston has spent considerable time working with others: A mid 90s spell as a touring guitarist in The Bad Seeds led to a full role in Nick Cave's band between 2003 and 2008, and he's performed regularly with other iconic acts, including Lydia Lunch, Faust, and, currently, PJ Harvey, on whose The Hope Six Demolition Project Johnston appears. But if it sounds like he's softened on this album, he argues powerfully otherwise. "The band's records have quite an earthy feel, but in a way this is rawer, more focused and direct, musically and emotionally. The last Gallon Drunk record's my favourite, and it was certain elements of that which I really wanted to take further, to strip away the dissonance and anger, to reject the more familiar sounds in order to free it all up again. So the instrumentation is very different, led by piano and voice, and the overall sound is lush yet intimate. Overall it's far more reflective of me, both as a person and the sort of music I actually listen to."

" It felt right, and when that happens, you just go with it," says James Johnston of his decision, well into a third decade as frontman of Gallon Drunk, to record The Starless Room, his unexpectedly sumptuous, long-awaited, debut solo album. Over eight albums, Gallon Drunk have carved out a reputation as a savage live act whose work has increasingly revealed a bold sophistication, growing from the psychotic fury of 1991's You, The Night… And The Music up to 2014's epic The Soul Of The Hour. A solo album by their co-founder, though? That had somehow never come to pass. Especially one this lavish.

"It wasn't something I'd really considered before," Johnston admits, and even now he appears a little startled by the turn events have taken. "But that's where the writing was going. I've always poured all my ideas into Gallon Drunk, but we'd done two great records in fairly quick succession, and I really didn't want to repeat myself, so I was writing in a different way, one that didn't feel like it would work as Gallon Drunk. The moment the decision was made to go ahead with a solo album it freed a lot of things up for me, letting it go somewhere different without any constraints or expectations."

The Starless Room is distinguished by its grandeur and romance as much as its refreshing musical approach.

As well as playing with Gallon Drunk, Johnston has spent considerable time working with others: a mid 90s spell as a touring guitarist in The Bad Seeds led to a full role in Nick Cave's band between 2003 and 2008, and he's performed regularly with other iconic acts, including Lydia Lunch, Faust, and, currently, PJ Harvey, on whose The Hope Six Demolition Project Johnston appears.

Given the licentious nature of much of his previous work, that this newly mature, refined sound is indicative of Johnston's character may be unforeseen. His influences, however - "Big Star's Third, John Cale's 70s albums, Lee Hazlewood, Nina Simone, that sort of thing" - remain much as they were, if arguably employed with a new, more thoughtful perspective. Furthermore, his considered approach is indicative of a man with a musical education, both formal and informal.

Suitably, it's the title track that encapsulates the romantic sweep of the record best, with its star at his most intense and Sebastian Hoffman's string arrangements at their most ambitious. For Johnston, however, the greatest pleasure of all is a simple one: the songs' slow tempos, "something I adore, like a lot of the Isaac Hayes or Ray Charles albums that I love. It almost feels like I'm listening to someone else's record." But it's not. It's James Johnston's debut solo album, The Starless Room. Like he said, it feels just right.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Heartfelt anthems ruminating on life and love, existence and everything inbetween. Slow string swells and bombastic build-ups fade into mournful piano territory, all driven along by Johnston's heartfelt crooning vocal delivery. Sensitive soaring rock equally at home in the front room or belting out over a stadium PA.

TRACK LISTING

1. I'd Give You Anything
2. St. Martha's
3. Starless Room
4. Cold Morning Light
5. Dark Water
6. Frozen Time
7. Heart And Soul
8. The Light Of Love
9. Let It Fall
10. When The Wolf Calls

Holden and Luke Abbott flirt with the new age in this split double album, with a pair of extended synth meditations indulging their respective loves of arpeggio and drone, originally composed for the occasion of Terry Riley’s 80th birthday. Holden’s "Outdoor Museum Of Fractals" fuses the endlessly unfolding fractal complexity of luxurious washes of arpeggiations with the pitched tabla drumming of Camilo Tirado, co-pilot on this hypnotic, meditative journey. Luke Abbott’s metallic gong-drone offering "555Hz" layers this mystical frequency and its related harmonics in a sequence of transportive wave-like swells. Running to over 45 and 30 minutes apiece in digital form but split in two to fit on the vinyl. The heavyweight double vinyl also includes uninterrupted digital download codes.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Border Community head-honcho and fanatic Synthesist James Holden teams up with one of the label's many star signings on this double LP. On one LP Holden jams over the trance-inducing Tabla playing of Camilo Tirado to full new-age effect, whilst on the other, known hardware-fiend Luke Abott explores drone and ambience. Both sides are exercises in skill and restraint and show how truly talented these guys (and generally, Border Community as a whole) are. Worth the effort this one, and a record that reveals more every time I listen.

James Hunter has been on the scene for enough years to acquire plenty of feathers in his cap. He has earned an international reputation as a rhythm and blues troubadour for his command of the microphone both on stage and in studio. This album, however, is something far deeper than just another notch in his belt. It is truly an artist’s vision come to fruition.

This may be James Hunter's fourth album, but it is his first Daptone record. Produced by Daptone's own Bosco Mann (Gabriel Roth) at Penrose Recorders (Daptone West) near his home in Riverside, California, ‘Hold On!’ is a perfect portrait of an artist at the top of his game. 

Though tunes like "(Baby) Hold On," "If That Don't Tell You," and "Stranded" carry the buoyant energy, crackerjack arrangements, and tough soulful pulse for which the band has become renowned, the true treasures of this LP may lie in the deeper grooves. Rumbas, boleros, bossanovas, and easy rockers, each one swinging more than the last: "This Is Where We Came In", "Something's Calling", "A Truer Heart", “Light of My Life”, “In The Dark” - no clichéd throwback nods to a-time-gone-by here.

These are forever songs crafted with immaculate care and ingenuity, sung with an effortless balance of tenderness and grit. Many will be tempted to describe it as “authentic,” but the word really has no place here. Hunter's words are truly his own and though at moments his voice may "evoke" Ray Charles or Sam Cooke, there lies an inherent naturalness in these songs that bucks any comparison past or present.

Essex-born, Liverpool-based songwriter James Canty returns with a new five track EP.

EP title track 'Love' is packed with harpsichords, synthesisers and electronic flourishes, coming across like some amazing future-retro psych-folk experiment. The collection of tracks follows two years on the road across Europe for Canty, with the five songs written and recorded in the home studio of producer and Obscenic Records chief Joe Wills.

TRACK LISTING

Love
Deborah
Strangers
Putney Bridge
Burning Alive

According to Tim Booth, Laid and Wah Wah are “the culmination of playing four or five hours a day four or five days a week in Manchester and the new band adapting to that. It is about the transition of becoming more of a band but with Brian at the helm.” Booth remembers jamming “hundreds of songs that never saw the light of day” and guitarist Larry Gott suggests it might have been “as many as 340 tracks.”

The simultaneous, coupled reissues are particularly notable, however, due to the fact that producer Brian Eno and the band had originally favoured releasing the records as a double package. Recorded concurrently in 1993 during a frenetic six week period at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Complex, the albums were always intended as companion pieces – Laid being referred to as the “song” album whilst Wah Wah was known as the “experimental” or “jamming” album – but the record company’s decision to release them months apart put paid to this conception: Laid, released in the UK in October 1993, reached the No.3 spot in the UK and became the band’s biggest album to date in the US, selling 600,000 copies and breaking the band in the USA in the process but the subsequent follow-up Wah Wah effectively sunk the band over there and – according to Booth – “put paid to us breaking America at all!”. More pertinently perhaps, by the time Wah Wah came out, U2 (and Eno) had released Zooropa and “everyone thought we were copying off them instead of the other way round!”

A super limited coloured vinyl reissue of Batman Begins, the first film soundtrack in the batman trilogy. A first time ever coloured vinyl release for this much admired and innovative Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard score

• A limited edition of just 500 copies WORLDWIDE
• Gatefold sleeve double album
• Orange Vinyl

TRACK LISTING

SIDE 1
1. Vespertilio
2. Eptesicus
3. Myotis
4. Barbastella
SIDE 2
1. Artibeus
2. Tadarida
3. Macrotus
SIDE 3
1. Antrozous
2. Nycteris
3. Molossus
SIDE 4
1. Corynorhinus
2. Lasiurus

Manchester’s finest make a welcome return with ‘La Petite Mort’, the first full length studio album in 6 years. Produced by Max Dingel (Killers. Muse, White Lies) and written as ever, by the band, with Tim Booth lyrics, this new disc ranks among their finest in their 30 year career.

Highlights include the mighty first single ‘Moving On’, the anthemic ‘Curse Curse’ and ‘Frozen Britain’, which will be previewed from today online and on air.

Max DIngel is the latest in a long line of first class producers the band have worked with including Brian Eno, Gil Norton and Youth.

‘La Petite Mort’ was recorded in the wake of Tim Booth losing his mother and best friend in quick succession and understandably many of the songs deal with mortality, hence the album title. However, ‘La Petite Mort’, is an incredibly uplifting record.

Their reformation in 2007 was widely considered as a ‘second coming’ with the band creatively recharged. While they have since regularly toured together.

The album (featuring all new material) draws on the fine musical heritage of Barclay James Harvest whilst bringing the BJH legacy up to date with expansive compositions and thoughtful lyrics. The band’s roots in rural north-west England are explored on the album’s title track, along with another extended piece, ‘On Leave’. The album also includes the recent digital single ‘Unreservedly Yours’ and ‘Ancient Waves’, a song performed live in more recent times.

TRACK LISTING

1. If You Were Here Now
2. Ancient Waves
3. In Wonderland
4. On Leave
5. The Real Deal
6. On Top Of The World
7. Unreservedly Yours
8. North
9. The End Of The Day

Austin, TX psych rock gang The Saint James Society plays electrifying rock music that brilliantly connects the dots between dark ‘60s blues-based garage rock and early ‘80s post punk resulting in a hypnotically powerful sound the fabulous four-piece calls "Pentecostal Desert Glam."

TSJS's full length debut – the mystically-titled Bab(a/y)lon Rising – pulses through the speakers like punk rock gypsies on a rampage, perfectly capturing the band's apocalyptic nomad-rock as it drips with dark fuzz and acid drone that will surely find favour with restless sinners everywhere.

It has been said that "The Saint James Society sounds as good as any band on the planet at full volume," a point to which the band's bustling fan network of artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, photographers, creeps and thieves would most assuredly agree. When the heavy swagger of vocalist/bassist Brandon Burkart and golden guitars of Dahveed Dubois align with the band's heavy-footed rhythms, ticking-time-bomb beat and stunning twin vocal tandem of rebel queens Elza Burkart and Candice Bertalan, the resulting musical statement mainlines the thrill of defiance straight to the listener's heart.

TRACK LISTING

1. Refractions
2. Bab(a/y)lon Rising
3. The Serpentine Highway
4. Blood & Sand
5. The Book Of The Jaguar Priest
6. Get Cold
7. Post Tenebras Lux
8. Ode To The Turquoise Ox
9. Letters Signed In White
10. Celestial Symbols Interpreted
11. House Of Snakes

As ever Aphex's music is pulling in different directions on this 1996 CD, with tracks underpinned with glitchy chopped up beats and overlaid with lush, emotional synth work. Includes the single "Girl / Boy Song".

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

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

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

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

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

Austin TX psychedelic garage rockers The Saint James Society play electric rock music that brilliantly connects the dots between the late 60s British blues-based bands and the brooding atmospheres of early 80s post punk resulting in a hypnotically powerful sound the fabulous five-piece has coined "Pentecostal Desert Glam" to create their self titled debut EP. Placing their steps in the petrified footprints left by the Velvet Underground and the slightly fresher ones of Spacemen 3, The Saint James Society reduces the blues to one nasty lick pickled in distortion.

For fans of: White Hills, The Black Angels, The Stooges, Spacemen 3, Sisters of Mercy, The Velvet Underground, The Cult and Spiritualized

TRACK LISTING

1. Reflections
2. The Ballad Of The White Horse
3. Of Silver & Gold
4. The Devil, An Angel And A Broken Widow

Proto-house classic 'Nightgruv' gets a re-release featuring a longer unreleased edit, PLUS you get a nice loud cut of boogie-soul anthem 'I Want Your Love'!

James Mason is mostly known for his late 70s album 'Rhythm Of Life', which is a soul-jazz classic. Soon after music trends shifted to (electronic) disco and James' music went out of fashion, leaving 'Rhythm Of Life' to be the only album he released to date. The early 80s saw him have a few studio sessions from which more electronic output like Wuf Ticket’s ‘The Key (Prelude) resulted. James also produced various disco acts like Disco 3, Earl Flint and Brenda Bayton.

However, most of his early 80s studio sessions have remained unreleased, until today. ‘Nightgruv’, which was recorded in 1984, did eventually get a release when it was picked up 12 years later (!) by a small UK indie label and was again reissued in 2000 by Soul Brother. Both pressings are still highly sought after and go for a lot of money on Discogs, mostly to do with the timeless nature of this prototype house wonder, which sounds like a recording Larry Heard never made. A magically seductive groove, recorded at a time when house was still in its infant years.

Not only is this release offering a remastered version of the original, it also includes an unreleased edit which stretches the original to a cool six minutes. The B-side features the epic 11 minute original version of 'I Want Your Love', a boogie-soul classic. Comes with original artwork!

TRACK LISTING

A. Nightgruv
B. I Want Your Love 

The past couple of years have seen creative explosions and new generations coming through in both dancefloor electronics and heartfelt, introspective singer-songwriting, but self evidently they’ve remained mutually exclusive genre islands. Until now. With a uniquely emotional electronic production style every bit as deeply personal and impassioned as his voice or songwriting, James Blake is sketching out his own place in the musical universe.

When a teenage James first visited the pivotal London dubstep night FWD>> in 2007, he’d already been to drum ’n’ bass nights with schoolfriends, but the music and atmosphere there were unlike anything he’d experienced. This was what James had been waiting for – he just hadn’t realised. This midnight epiphany in Plastic People’s Shoreditch cellar led, in a few short years, to the James Blake of 2010, a surefooted 22-year-old composer whose extraordinary tracks are not so much breaking down existing musical barriers as leaping over them and creating an entirely new kind of pop that belies its author’s tender age.

Although loosely tethered to the cutting edge of contemporary electronics, James’s songs possess uncommon grace and soulfulness. Whether intended for the FWD>> dancefloor or, like new single "Limit to Your Love", destined to melt hearts and prick ears, his music is characterised by a playful and arresting honesty, a human touch that, despite his status as a hugely in-demand DJ, naturally aligns him with contemporary artists such as Bon Iver or Laura Marling or the xx.

Yet more than this, it is the shock of the new in James’s music that’s causing real commotion: the sounds, that voice, the silence, the rhythm (or lack of it), the waiting, the tension. You have to know the rules in order to break them with such conviction, and by daring to be different, James stands head and shoulders above his peers. No doubt, you’ll remember where you were when you heard tracks like "Limit to Your Love" or "I Never Learnt to Share" for the first time.

TRACK LISTING

CD Tracklisting:
1. Unluck
2. Wilhelms Scream
3. I Never Learnt To Share
4. Lindesfarne I
5. Lindesfarne II
6. Limit To Your Love
7. Give Me My Month
8. To Care (Like You)
9. Why Don’t You Call Me
10. I Mind
11. Measurements

LP Tracklisting:
Side 1
1. Tep And The Logic
2. Unluck
3. The Wilhelm Scream
Side 2
1. I Never Learnt To Share
2. Lindisfarne I
3. Lindisfarne II
Side 3
1. Limit To Your Love
2. Give Me My Month
3. To Care (Like You)
Side 4
1. Why Don't You Call Me?
2. Blake I Mind
3. Blake Measurements
4. Blake You Know Your Youth

For his solo debut, Tennessee-based James Jackson Toth (AKA Wooden Wand) has conjured a mysterious, alluring world; Toth's scenarios are intriguingly tawdry and his sounds tantalizing, with layered, almost dreamlike harmonies; touches of blues, country and soul and the occasional flash of punk swagger. He assumes the role of storyteller, maybe even confessor, spinning inter-linked tales of hope and misfortune, romantic trials and spiritual yearning. "Waiting In Vain" is the first album that Toth, long a cult figure, has released as a solo artist, and it marks a new beginning for him. For several years he experimented with a folk-psychedelic rock hybrid, putting out numerous discs under variations of the name Wooden Wand. James Jackson Toth's evolution continues when he hits the road and this strange and compelling world he's brought to life will be waiting for you.

Long awaited debut solo album from South East London singer/songwriter Ceri James formerly of Zen and Tuesday Heartbreak. "Start & Begin" which is released on MileHighMusic is an eclectic mix of indie/disco, punk/soul, spacefolk/roots there are some strong and memorable melodies here which are already well loved.

Classic re-issue from 1986, their debut album didn't quite live up to the splendour of their Factory ep's, but it beats sounding like a poor-man's REM anyday! All quirky rhythms, beautiful words, and an originality that made them stick out from the crowd, this album still sounds fresh and full of intrigue. They were in it for the.....ART man!

This collection is a welcome rattle bag of laments, cover versions and traditionals that reveal the side of Yorkston that would happily sit in on a high-spirited ceilidh, or woozily join on the harmonies at one of the Fence Collective's legendary homegames. It also demonstrates James Yorkston's blood deep understanding of the dynamics of folk music, storytelling, and singing your life even as it unfurls around you. On tracks such as "Sleep Is The Jewel", "The Hills & The Heath" and "The Lang Toun", the instinctive dynamic understanding Yorkston shares with his band The Athletes, especially drummer Faisal, can be heard in full flow. Carrying everything is Yorkston's rich voice and wry lyric, which always manages to sound hopeful and pessimistic at the same time. Yorkston's ruminations on love / lust / longing / liquor share a more eternal, resigned, Celtic feel with the battered reflections of Jacques Brel, Shane McGowan and Bert Jansch than any of his contemporaries. The album compiles unreleased or vinyl-only tracks over the years.

James Green is a member of the Manchester / Leeds / Sheffield ensemble Big Eyes who've previously released stuff on Pickled Egg. "Tempers" is James' first solo outing and comprises of 14 delicate instrumental guitar pieces. All are first or second take and are either solo guitar or two tracks maximum. The CD is limited to 250 copies, and comes beautifully packaged in a lino-print sleeve. A must for fans of John Fahey, Bert Jansch, Jack Rose and The Dirty Three.

Three track single from this ace ska-punk-soul act.

Nu skool skacore band, Jesse James have recently received rave live reviews from Metal Hammer and Big Cheese for their appearance at the sold out 'Smash It Up' UK punk show recently held in London. They have released this little five track introducing their brand of exciting skacore.

Following on from "Keep It To Yourself", James LaBrie (Dream Theater frontman) brings you the second instalment of his side project, Mullmuzzler. He has tapped deep emotional wells with this record and he's created a lush musical soundtrack.

12 tracks from Oldham's finest prog rock exports Barclay James Harvest at £5.99 who can complain.