Prepare to experience a true soul gem reimagined for the modern age with this special 7-inch reissue of Matt Covington’s classic, I'm So In Love With You. Originally released in 1983, this rare groove masterpiece captures the essence of early '80s R&B with its smooth, heartfelt vocals and lush instrumentation. Covington’s romantic delivery and the track's elegant arrangement have made it a coveted piece for collectors and soul aficionados alike, with the original pressing becoming increasingly hard to find over the years. For the first time ever, I’m So In Love With You is being reissued, allowing a new generation of listeners to discover its timeless charm. On the flip side, we’ve included Muhammad Ali, a standout cut from Covington’s self-titled album that resonates with soul, funk, and infectious energy. A favorite of acclaimed DJ Floating Points, Muhammad Ali pays tribute to the legendary boxer with a groove that’s as fierce as its namesake. Whether this has been sat in your wantlist for years or new to Matt Covington’s music, this 7-inch offers an essential addition to your collection. With its impeccable blend of silky soul and rhythmic punch, this reissue promises to become as cherished as the original release.

Professor Supercool’s "If You Love Somebody" is many things at once: an example of a special brand of British pop music, influenced by US-American soul more or less from the get-go, the Second Summer of Love, the conception of Balearic as a music genre, the cultural interchange of European dancefloors and DJs from across the pond and underground music marketing through the vessel of special one-time pressings. The mysterious Professor Supercool is actually a moniker for Dr. Rob of The Blow Monkeys’s fame, who produced the song with a veteran and legendary DJ of the Northern Soul scene The Real Hector - a resident at the famous Wag Club.

Originally a part of the band’s album "Spring Time For The World", it appeared first as a special For-Promotion-Only-12“ in 1989 with limited information as a trial ballon to avoid preconceptions. The fear was without reason. Like the band’s other big dancefloor record and Balearic fave "LA Passionara" a year later, it got played and supported by the DJs of its time. Next to Graeme Park at the Hacienda or Paul Oakenfold, it also got picked up by Mastermixer Tony Humphries and became a staple at his radio and club sets for KissFm respectively Club Zanzibar. While the vocal mix found its way on said album, the preferred 12“ instrumental version has never been released anywhere else up until now and made the record go for a substantial amount of Discogs dollars.

Expanded with an edit by Running Back's in-house DJ Gerd Janson that is supposed to work as a dub alternative to the vocal mix, the 12-inch contains the original plus a faithfully restored and remastered version of the in demand instrumental. If you love this record it is impossible to let it go!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Amazing late 80s bomb that straddles genres with charismatic belligerence. Part baggy rave bomb, part garage masterpiece, part proto-house Zanzibar anthem; and previously rare as white dog shit; "If You Love Somebody" sees a triumphant return with a fresh Gerd Janson edit to boot.

TRACK LISTING

A1. If You Love Somebody
B1. If You Love Somebody - Instrumental
B2. If You Love Somebody - Gerd Janson Edit

The Greatest Love follows the British trio’s critically acclaimed #1 selling album Californian Soil, which was released in 2021 and earned the band their second BRIT nomination for Best British Group. Arriving over a decade since the trio first entered our consciousness, the new album is a celebration; the sound of a band laying to rest the past and realising a newfound sense of freedom.

First single House embodies London Grammar’s new trajectory as frontwoman Hannah Reid delivers the uncompromising lyric: This is my place, my house, my rules. Speaking about the single Hannah said, “House is about drawing boundaries around yourself. When I hit my thirties, my mindset shifted, and I no longer felt like a victim of anything – it all felt within my power. I thought, making music should be fun, and we're gonna make that happen.”

Having first formed as teenagers at University, their seminal double-platinum selling debut If You Wait paved the way for what was to become a hugely successful career for the band, the rare longevity of which has firmly rooted London Grammar in British pop culture. Now over 10 years later, the band have sold more than 3 million albums world-wide, with two #1 selling records, 1 billion streams, an Ivor Novello and numerous BRIT Award nominations under their belts.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: London Grammar return for their 4th LP, and this one sees the band slide even further into smooth neo-pop, flickering crepuscular electronica and simmering soulful grooves. They are a band that continue to push forward, confidently and succesfully stepping outside the bounds of their established canon. A brilliant return.

Following last year’s JUNO award winning album 'When We Were That What Wept From The Sea', 'The Love It Took To Leave You' features 11 new pieces of emotionally scorching music.

The album was recorded over a week in 2023 at The Darling Foundry, a 144-year-old former metalworks facility in Montreal with a voluminous main room that still maintains its raw architecture of brick, concrete and steel. From the album’s opening track Stetson charts a carefully sequenced ride, travelling through intense territories punctuated with tragic melodies that seek transcendence, epic and frenzied shredders, and many shades of scary beauty, betrayal, and redemption. This is the art of storytelling wrought instrumentally. 'The Love It Took To Leave You' is a perfect storm of technical, musical and compositional complexity and achievement. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It would be putting it mildly to say I don't completely understand what Stetson actually does to produce the sound he does, and this comes from someone who played saxophone for a few years. He's an unfathomable genius at his chosen instrument, obviously but there is always such a strong narrative thread and emotional intensity tied to Stetson's work, that it never seems like the instrumental athleticism is ever the core facet of his music. It's rich, emotional, hypnotic dynamic instrumental music that only Stetson could do.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Love It Took To Leave You
2. The Six
3. The Augur
4. Hollowing
5. To Think We Knew From Fear
6. Malediction
7. Green And Grey And Fading Light
8. Strike Your Forge And Grin
9. Ember
10. So Say The Soaring Bullbats
11. Bloodrest

Whiskey Disco #74 follows up Michael The Lion’s stellar single with a return to classic Whiskey Disco form; a mix of somewhat recognizable samples tweaked for the floor or the poolside.

Summer is in full swing and so are the artists on the latest Whiskey Disco ode to summer parties. The A side showcases a long lost gem from Cole Medina that never quite saw the light of day. It’s a longtime honour to be able to put this song on the label and we can’t wait to have a loud 45 side in our hands to drop at the choicest of rooftop parties, poolside, beachside, or to break the tension after a dirty underground session. On the flip, we see Love Athletics breaking out with All of My Love, a cheeky vocal sample underpinned by a rocking bass groove and high hats that are more than a nod to Sex Shooter. The flanged groove will be perfect for day or night tie parties. Closing out, label boss, Sleazy McQueen provides an all analog cut up with palpitating drums and hypnotic grooves, with a nice surprise to break things up a bit.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Cole Medina - We Call It Good 2 Me
B1. Love Athletics - All Of My Love
B2. Sleazy McQueen = BSD (Brian Saves The Day)

For Fans Of... Jungle, SAULT, Aaron Frazer, CARRTOONS, daste., Thee Sacred Souls, Yaya Bey, Durand Jones.

Admittedly, I'm not a great salesperson when it comes to running our little label. I do my best not to give into hyperbole or build something up too intensely if someone has not heard a new artist yet. I prefer to simply present the music and let the listener decide how they feel about it. However, we live in an age when the "story" put together by publicists, labels, and managers are often the driving force of an artist's ascension into the zeitgeist. And for me, that's always felt rather artificial, even when the narrative is genuine.

But every once in a while, a project comes along that takes on a life of its own. And I can say without a doubt that the growth of Pale Jay's reach since we first started working with him has little to do with conjured narratives or clever marketing, but more to do with how the music makes the listener feel. It's that simple. In fact, Jay is so enigmatic and without a narrative that the mere absence of a story has become the story. Who is he? Where is he from? What's next?

Some questions are better left unanswered in my opinion, my friend. Including the question, "Why does this music make me feel so much?" You're better off just sitting back, disconnecting, and letting Low End Love Songs by Pale Jay wrap you up. Enjoy and spread the good word. Terry Cole (Colemine).

“Low End Love Songs”, more so than previous releases, is a diary in form of song. I knew I just had to wait for the songs to be ready to be picked, like ripe fruit from a tree. Each tune encapsulates a distinct moment in my life, with music serving as my means of processing complex and sometimes conflicting emotions. In this album, I depart from loop-based song structures towards more intricate and lush compositions. Latin influences permeate the music, adding new layers of rhythms and textures to my soul-music roots. Pale Jay

TRACK LISTING

1. The Simple Days
2. Quadris De Ouro
3. Baby
4. Branch By Branch
5. The Garden
6. Floating On A Memory
7. Spend More Time With Your Friends
8. Love Around The World
9. Easy, Lee

On this new ATON 12" we have two very different beast, basement or bigroom, both sampling a rare disco 45 by Sass Band called 'Where Is the Love'. Side A is another East Coast Love Affair outing, a super deep druggy disco burner for the heads, we need to make more of these. To counteract the A side on the flip we have a full on late 90s style party banger that will deffo get some asses moving (and some beard strokers crying). Kevin McCullagh (BDK) sent me this last year (or possibly the year before) and gave me the idea for this 12, it took some time to track down the licence but with some help Julien (Waxist DJ) andPascal. at Pusher distrubtion we were a le to clear the sample which was super appreciated. Get it, pick your side, rock the party.

TRACK LISTING

1. Love Chug
2. Pure Sass

On Oceanator’s third full-length album, 'Everything is Love and Death', songwriter Elise Okusami showcases her exceptional pop sensibilities, delivering 11 tracks full of melodic depth and lively energy. Produced by Grammy nominated engineer/producer Will Yip (Title Fight, Turnstile, Bartees Strange), the new album features some of the biggest and boldest songs Okusami has ever written, such as the anthemic and sludgy 'Drift Away', featuring backing vocals from NNAMDÏ.

Oceanator’s music has been praised in outlets such as Stereogum, Pitchfork, NPR and SPIN, who described Okusami as having “the kind of voice that can silence a room.” The band has shared the stage with the likes of Jeff Rosenstock, Laura Jane Grace, PUP, and others with a notable touring history across North America and Europe.

TRACK LISTING

1. First Time
2. Lullaby
3. Cut String
4. Happy New Year
5. Get Out
6. Home For The Weekend
7. Be Here
8. All The Same
9. Drain The Well
10. Drift Away
11. Won't Someone

'Love Rudiments' is a meditation by Ty Segall on his first love: the drums. Known popularly as a singing guitar player, he generally starts the recording of his songs by laying down a drum track. 'Love Rudiments' kicks off with drums and percussion, then adds a few other percussive and production aspects. It travels a great journey in this configuration. However, 'Love Rudiments' wasn’t written or performed to present as some kind of solo drums album - it’s just another music album, with vibes (figurative as well as literal), feels, a theme and a through-line.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Ty’s made an instrumental album of percussive music that rides the wild surf of a waxing-then-waning love affair - from the first blinding look, to the eventual recognition, that look back at love’s rudiments, viewed from beyond and outside that seemingly infinite sensation.

And why not? Drums are a melody instrument too. Ty plays them with precision and sensitivity, delving deep into the textures of timpani, vibraphone, xylophone, percussion and e-drums, all of them occupying space within the luxe stereo spread of the drumkit. In the process, a psychological space is opened - a private emotional location where only two can meet.

'Love Rudiments' reembodies the passion and compulsion that drives all of Ty Segall’s music in a suite of moments played on orchestral batterie to explore the most delicate passages of human interaction - playing on the bones of love.

TRACK LISTING

1. First Look
2. First Conversation
3. Walk Home Pt. 1
4. Getting Ready
5. Arrival
6. The Dance
7. Walk Home Pt. II
8. First Touch
9. Honeymoon/Life
10. Confrontation
11. Argument
12. Separation
13. Realization
14. Love Rudiments

More Modern Soul madness from the team at Celestial Echo. No Stranger To Love is one of those rare tracks that crosses over both Modern and Northern scenes & has long been a favourite of collectors and selectors with original copies regularly changing hands for £100 + on the second hand market.

This lead to the synth laden funk track being picked up by Dam Funk & the Stones Throw crew, who shone a new light on the track via online mixes which has only increased the demand.

Officially reissued for the first time in 40 years and as always, officially licenced and remastered by Celestial Echo Records. Needless to say, buy or cry.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Modern soul from '89 that'll set you back over a ton for an original. Thankfully this repro 7" sounds just as slick, with that punchy bass and fizzy stabs complimenting the suave vocals by Glenda beautifully. Top drawer stuff.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Vocal
B1. Instrumental

Pink Rhythm was one of John Rocca’s mid 80’s solo project and an evolution of his pioneering band Freeez. Pink Rhythm lasted between 1984 and 1985 three singles were released including the cult favourites 'Melodies of Love' & 'India'.

Over the years John Rocca’s music has been sampled by many including Jamie xx, Empress Of, Brandy, Burial, Todd Terry, Coolio and more. Often credited as one the pioneers of BritFunk, John’s music is iconic and has been used in TV & Film and the Fashion world for Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton and more.

'An 80’s Love Affair' contains six classic Pink Rhythm tracks, four of which have not been available on vinyl since the original single releases in 1985. The tracks were originally produced and recorded at Miraval Studios in The South of France (made famous by George Michael with Careless Whisper).

They were mixed by John in Rooster Studios London and remastered in 2024 by Geoff Pesche at Abbey Road.

It is pure, smooth 80s drum machines, it is synth sounds, saxophones, and keyboards.... it’s retro, but it could also be current. Either way, it's as refreshing now as it was then.

TRACK LISTING

1. Melodies Of Love
2. Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love
3. India (12” Instrumental)
4. More & More
5. Walking In The Rain
6. India (12” Version)

One of the smash hits of last year, Ghost Assembly's more-garage-than-garage burner 'I Miss Your Love' is back for 1993 with a pair of deadly remixes and another world-building insert to break your heart.

Also known as one of Manchester's finest DJs/curators/all round top humans Abigail Ward, her debut release (!), the original Ghost Assembly 12", dropped a year ago, sold out almost instantly and is yours off discogs right now, for £100+.

But wait - we've got some shark repellent here in the form of a brand new 12 featuring the all-important club mix together with 2 phenomenal remixes that take things in very different directions.

After Abigail wowed all her mates with her hitherto-unheard production GENIUS, her more eager pals were quick to hit her up for some stems so they could have a go at a remix. Abs is better connected than most and has better taste than us all so it's no surprise that we got some top-shelf efforts returned to us.

Keen to elaborate on the world she'd expertly created with the first 12 - and its accompanying insert, masterfully telling the story of a queer club in 80's Manchester; a more brutal time, long before the Pink Pound - we now fast forward 5 years and who better to capture the vibe of the North in 93 than Red Laser's hardcore OG...DJ ABSOLUTELY SHIT who teleports us from the Jive Club to Bowlers with 2 double doves straight up the bum and earns himself the prime A1 position on the record, cut loud and heavy for maximum impact.

Flip over and you get the classic Club mix once more and then there's a B2 for the ages - double legends BRIAN NOT BRIAN and PIERS HARRISON team up with a load of hardware and dub everything right out creating a bonafide Red Seal Roller, channelling On-U to bring a remix that if it actually dropped in 93 might have saved us all from Trip Hop.

Don't forget the insert - sealed with a loving kiss is a letter that will make you cry. It's not addressed to you though, so will you be a nosey parker and crack it open or will you leave it be so you can shark the whole thing on Discogs (trust me no amount of money you get for doing this will match the value of opening the letter).

This is strictly limited again, it's gonna be the hit of the year yet again, just be grateful you didn't have to wait five actual years for it...!!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Second lap for one of the biggest records of 2023. Now with added remixes from DJ Absolutely Shit and Brian Not Brian & Piers Harrison who each impart plenty of character into their individual tangents.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Miss Your Love (dj Absolutely Shit Remix)
2. I Miss Your Love (original Club Mix)
3. I Miss Your Love (brian Not Brian & Piers Harrison Disco Dub)

From the longing expressed in "My Little Red Book" and "Alone Again Or" to the introspective nature of "A House Is Not a Motel" and "You Set the Scene," each track from the Love ‘Now Playing’ delves into the complexities of love and human connection. Formed in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s, Love blends elements of rock, folk, jazz, and psychedelic music, creating a unique sound that was ahead of its time.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Love's own brand of psychedelic folk and stamping rock and/or roll influenced jams get nicely summarised by a nice collection from the Now Playing crew. Another *love*ly collection (sorry).

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. "My Little Red Book" 2:32
2. "7 & 7 Is" 2:08
3. "Orange Skies" 2:42
4. "Alone Again Or" 2:44
5. "A House Is Not A Motel" 3:14
6. "Andmoreagain" 3:10

Side 2
1. "The Red Telephone" 4:28
2. "Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark & Hilldale" 3:21
3. "You Set The Scene" 6:34
4. "Always See Your Face" 3:15

Widely hailed as a genius, Arthur Lee was a character every bit as colorful and unique as his music. In 1966, he was Prince of the Sunset Strip, busy with his pioneering racially mixed band, Love, and accelerating the evolution of California folk-rock by infusing it with jazz and orchestral influences, a process that would climax in a timeless masterpiece, the Love album Forever Changes. Shaped by a Memphis childhood and a South Los Angeles youth, Lee always craved fame.

He would achieve his ambition with a mixture of vaulting talent and colossal chutzpah. Drug use and a reticence to tour were his Achilles heels, and he succumbed to a dissolute lifestyle just as superstardom was beckoning. Despite endorsements from the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, Lee s subsequent career was erratic and haunted by the shadow of Forever Changes, reaching a nadir with his imprisonment in 1996 for a firearms offence.

Redemption followed, culminating in an astonishing postmillennial comeback that found him playing Forever Changes to adoring, multi-generational fans around the world. This upswing was only interrupted by his untimely death from leukemia in 2006. Written with the full consent and cooperation of Arthur s widow, Diane Lee, Forever Changes is a meticulously researched biography that includes lengthy extracts from Arthur s vivid, comic, and poignant memoirs, published here for the first time.

Author John Einarson has also amassed dozens of new interviews with the surviving members of Love and with many others who fell into the incomparable Lee s flamboyant orbit. This updated edition adds a new foreword by Love s co-founder and lead guitarist, Johnny Echols.

An incredible, uplifting joint from New Zealand soul artist Arjuna Oakes. His second release on the Albert’s Favourites imprint overflows with the clear enjoyment of the band featuring legendary Nathan Haines. We’d say there’s a reasonable nod to D'Angelo’s essential Spanish Joint within these grooves.

The b-side delivers a vinyl exclusive – a downtempo, moody little number with an emotional drive that is deeply compelling – one to get lost inside.

TRACK LISTING

A1. The Love That I Feel
B1. Mallet Groove

Lowell George was the guitar virtuoso, vocalist, and songwriter for Little Feat. In this collection of 25 songs, artists such as Elvis Costello, Ben Harper and Dave Alvin interpret and perform his diverse catalogue.

George, born in Hollywood, California, was a member of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention before leaving that band and forming Little Feat with Bill Payne. Lowell’s tenure in the band was for seven years until his death, and during that time they released eight albums.

While George died in 1979, his legacy lives on through this album. Sweet Relief, the organization who provide financial assistance to all types of career musicians and music industry workers who are struggling to make ends meet, have come up with a gem.

TRACK LISTING

Trouble - Mike Viola
Cold, Cold, Cold - Joachim Cooder
Long Distance Love - Elvis Costello
Heartache - Bedouine
I've Been The One - Bhi Bhiman
Rock 'n' Roll Doctor - Miles Tackett
Be One Now - Lady Blackbird
Love Needs A Heart - Madison Cunningham
Easy To Slip - Jonah Tolchin
Dixie Chicken - Eleni Mandell and Milo Jones
Roll 'Um Easy - Ben Harper
Lafayette Railroad - Larry Goldings
6 Feet Of Snow - Jack Shit
Cheek To Cheek - Gaby Moreno
Two Trains Running - Chris Seefried
China White - Chris Stills
A Apolitical Blues - Dave Alvin
Feats Don't Fail Me Now - Sugaray Rayford
Sailin' Shoes - Taylor Goldsmith
Spanish Moon - Inara George
Rocket In My Pocket - Sam Morrow
Willin' - Jonathan Wilson
Teenage Nervous Breakdown - The Bird And The Bee
Crazy Captain Gunboat Willie - Andras Jones
20 Million Things To Do - Gus Seyffert

Limited run 7" vinyl, featuring a previously unreleased version of “Angel[Take 7].” This newly mixed, stripped down version includes the original performances recorded by Hendrix, Mitchell and Cox on July 23, 1970. It does not include any of the drums and additional percussion elements Mitchell opted to add to this master take after Jimi had died. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Angel (Take 7)
2. Message To Love (New York Pop Festival, Downing Stadium, Randall's Island, NY - July 17, 1970)

Mr. K Edits' latest release caters to roller skaters and groove enthusiasts alike. It features two mid-tempo tracks uniquely edited by the studio scalpel master himself as they make their debut on 45rpm. First is Rodney Franklin's 'Felix Leo,' which was originally overshadowed by his hit 'The Groove.' It unfolds with hypnotic chords trimmed to their essence and unfolds at a gradual, majestic pace with captivating and lush strings making it all the immersive. Second up is Prince's early gem 'In Love' which showcases his instrumental prowess with drums, bass, guitar, and creamy synth lines. Mr. K extends the mix seamlessly, enhancing its danceable rhythm and timeless appeal with his usual class.

TRACK LISTING

Felix Leo
In Love

It’s been over seven years since The Rifles released their previous record, but now the east Londoners are set to return with their new album ‘Love Your Neighbour’ on April 26 which they today preview with the new single ‘The Kids Won’t Stop’. Their previous two albums - ‘Big Life’ and ‘None The Wiser’ - achieved the highest chart positions of their career to date, while their cult-like popularity has continued in the intervening years with countless sold-out London shows at venues including the Roundhouse, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, O2 Kentish Forum, KOKO, Electric Ballroom and Electric Brixton. The triumphant reaction and electrifying energy of those shows inspired The Rifles as they sent about writing ‘Love Your Neighbour’. It’s a record which bursts with the traits that have inspired such devotion amongst fans: songs as gritty as they are anthemic, and full of lyrics which capture broadly relatable experiences and provide evocative snapshots of modern British life. The overriding message of the album is a plea to embrace the power of your local community

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though their sound is often cited as rock & roll, it reminds me pretty strongly of the early 00's ska-punk / skate punk scene, with bright melodies and crisply produced distorted guitars sitting beautifully behind the rousing vocals.

Repress of the critically acclaimed 3rd album from the South-East London based post-rock trio.

‘If I don't make it, I love u’ is Still House Plants’ third LP and the fullest embodiment of their sound to date. Where ‘Fast Edit’ formed with quick attachment and jump cuts, ‘If I don't make it’ is shaped by persistence - a commitment to the songs that makes the music solid, warmer and accepted. Marking the trio’s decade of friendship, this is the first record written whilst all live in the same city since 2017's ‘Assemblages’. The band rehearsed it relentlessly, playing for nobody except themselves, consistently building support for one another and growing the way they play. Jess’ voice is deeper. Fin’s guitar is full size, richer. David drums harder. Focused on one point together, everyone gets bigger and nothing falls apart. The guitar and the drums blend, raise the voice, make room for what is being said, what is felt. When able to finally record, production allowed layers, gave elasticity, a chance to fully stretch. Playing with length and connections, the band brought in analogue techniques - a Lesley cabinet on ‘Headlight’, sidechaining the snare with the guitar, pushing vocals through cheap DJ software - each process an attempt to bring one instrument closer to another, to give bass, body, backup. ‘If I don't make it, I love u’ seeks beauty, holds feeling maximum and builds surety with its sound. The most generous SHP record to date, the music is wide open, demands less. Play it again, it will come clear. 

TRACK LISTING

1. M M M
2. Pant
3. Sticky
4. MORE BOY
5. Probably
6. 3scr3w3
7. Silver Grit Passes Thru My Teeth
8. Headlight
9. No Sleep Deep Risk
10. Pushed
11. No More Faster

'Love Heart Cheat Code' is a snapshot of four musicians dancing together on the edge, 11 playful, exuberant tracks that shine light. Yet, for a band that made a name for itself with its complexity and received critical praise and multiple Grammy nominations for their embrace of maximalism, one of the most striking things about Love Heart Cheat Code is its simplicity.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Hiatus Kaiyote have always been a pretty upbeat bunch, with Choose Your Weapon and Mood Valiant proving a big hit in the shop, but 'Love Heart Cheat Code' is the perfect summery distillation of their hazy, psychedelic sound.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dreamboat
2. Telescope
3. Make Friends
4. BMO Is Beautiful (feat. BMO Of Adventure Time)
5. Everything's Beautiful
6. Dimitri
7. Longcat
8. How To Meet Yourself
9. Love Heart Cheat Code
10. Cinnamon Temple
11. White Rabbit

Emerging once again from the unending waves crashing upon our fragile time-craft (adrift on the eternal ocean, and taking on water), Dirty Three are (a) back, (b) tangled in seaweed, rank with saltwater and possessed of three rather ominous thousand-mile stares (at least!), and (c) not wasting another minute – as nothing is guaranteed.

For their first album in over a decade – yep, it’s been since 2012’s ‘Toward the Low Sun’ – they flew in, got together and started playing. End of story. What else is there to say or do but that? Music’s their language, their true love; they never stop listening to that. And like the label says, ‘Love Changes Everything’.

The Dirty Three – Warren Ellis, Mick Turner and Jim White – formed up in Melbourne in 1992, to play with guitar drums and violin or viola, and within a couple years, they’d broken out – out of Australia, out of anything else they might have been inside of, to boot – and got worldwide. Over the next ten years, they toured over and over the planet, ceaseless like, and cut seven albums out along the way. After this, their unique style of play, fitted together like puzzle pieces, was decoupled, more often than not, and pieced together in many other, fruitful collaborations with many other esteemed talents. Over the past 20 years, they’ve gotten together a few times, renewed the vow, revved the engines and played some shows, or made an album. Like now –

These are the sounds of Dirty Three getting up to speed again:
- the original fury of their drums/guitar/violin-or-viola power trio, cutting three unique paths through the wild into sudden convergence –
- piano-plucked melodies ringing sweetly out over an undulating landscape flowing with guitar, drums, violin or viola, and synths! And broken hills, forests, lakes and deserts. And mountains rising in the distance...
- mercurial shifts in mood; sudden descent from tumult of flights and heights into deep canyons of heart-struck adagio.

Equally sudden second-winds, feisty activity in their extremities never really ceasing. Opening depths. Wariness and patience allowing them to get caught up in loops, become ambient, transcend, and then fight their way back in again. Their wild and wandering heart not simply a spry derivative of collective sea legs; a telepathy already old as time evidenced way back in the beginning of their thirty-years-and-some run.
- such mood! Once desolate fields pouring full of emotion, wandered into, come upon as if by happenstance (but actually sourced by the divining rods in their hands).

- all of it – everything changed by love and bubbling up with the clarity of just-struck spring water; translucence giving way to muddy gushes of distortion – dirty guitar, smears of violin, drums at times pounded upon beyond the microphones’ ability to receive...

And when received, and committed to “tape”, or whatever they used – the master could well be carved in plates of amphibole – this music has been untethered from its streams of consciousness and reconsidered as a recording; brought to bear through edits, overdubs and mixes, re-sequenced and made suite-like. Made into this album. These lot were born to be as weathered as they are today. Time doesn’t matter. They make their gathered wisdom of the ages sing like something new every time. It renews. And Love Changes Everything. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I've long been a fan of Dirty Three's unique brand of cataclysmic, free-wheeling post-rock / experimental chamber music, and their latest is a brilliant summary of their sound in one grand statement. Sweeping waves of guitar and soaring violin arpeggios break upon the shore into brittle streams of flickering pizzicato and droplets of tentative piano. Stunner.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Love Changes Everything I
Love Changes Everything II
Love Changes Everything III
Side B
Love Changes Everything IV
Love Changes Everything V
Love Changes Everything VI

Charlotte-born and raised artist LUCI has always sought music as a refuge. The Don’t Sleep signee’s catalogue, buoyed by 2022’s debut EP, ‘Juvenilia’, showcases a blend of R&B, hiphop, trip-hop, and whatever else she has the whim to explore.

After graduating from Charlotte’s Northwest School of The Arts in 2014, she moved to nearby Asheville and immersed herself in the local music scene. She made her way to upstate New York in 2019, where she learned how to produce on Ableton music production software and filled multiple notebooks with songs. Some of those ended up on 2022’s ‘Juvenilia’, including her formal debut, the ‘Ash & Dust’ single, which music outlet Consequence called, “a wildly original statement that points towards the future of hip-hop."

The future is now for LUCI, who’s set to release her upcoming album. ‘They Say They Love You’ was recorded in Ambridge, Pennsylvania as well as LA, and explores themes of love, loneliness, perseverance amid uncertainty, self-care, and coming of age.

The album includes production from William J Sullivan (Kid Cudi, Ye, 070shake, Paris Texas), Louallday (Doja Cat, Tylor, the Creator, Outkast, Khelani, Dckwrth), Elias Abid and Edmund Irwinsinger (Glass Animals), and others. She says she wants ‘They Say They Love You’, like all of her music, to “touch all the senses. My inspiration comes from the fact that great art exists in the world. And if I can touch people, move people, and it makes people want to do things for the better. I want to be the example of doing what you love, and being relentless about it.”

TRACK LISTING

Martyr
11:11
Lips
Rockwichu
Thunder Calling
Inside
Spins
Call Jane
Stay Steady
Morning Wine

It got away! The hounds are back on the leash for another session, as Montel makes a bid for better days with this all-out charm offensive of serenades, blissed up patter and emotional blackmail, Palmer-style.

The result is 12 tracks steeped in mind games, romance power plays and neurotoxin rollercoasters, with additional bonus strategies to dissociate with minimum dignity.
Big up Kiwi’s Kiosk..

Seriously wacked-out musica! RIYL: Dean Blunt / Hype Williams, James Ferraro, Sun Araw, Michael J Blood, Durutii Column. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: A truly singular piece of outsider electronica and druggy downbeat that should appeal to fans of Relaxin Records (Lolina, Inga Copeland etc) and the aforementioned Dean Blunt / Michael J Blood axis. Truly breathtaking mutant musicia!

TRACK LISTING

Love Getaway
Just What You Do
Get Into It
Monopoly
Talk To Me
Cant Walk Straight
Time To Get Up
Told You Not To
Mermaid Wolf Whistle
Western Break Apple Turnover
Questions Looking For Solutions
Tears Of Pure Joy

"At the frayed bottom-edge of Indiana – just a moderate bike ride north of Louisville, Kentucky – multi-instrumentalist, artist and songwriter Ryan Davis’’ Americana-noir soundwaves have been emanating for years in a myriad of forms. As driving force for the lauded State Champion, long-running member of Tropical Trash, administrator of the esoteric and excellent Cropped Out festival, and lone proprietor of the Sophomore Lounge label, Davis lays down his first proper ‘solo’ release with Dancing On The Edge, a rich, 2LP tapestry of tunes that absolutely glows over seven expansive cuts. It’s a pure collage of modernity and heritage.

After a period of introspection spent re-immersing himself in his drawing & painting practice, as well as his newfound delvings into instrumental music, Davis’ sea change was imminent. “I wasn't sure I would ever make another record of ‘song’ songs,” he says, “but last year I started writing again and it eventually took the shape of the record at hand. I worked painstakingly hard on the material. It felt virtually impossible to complete for a bulk of the time I spent trying to enter into it, but the process pulled me out of a strange place. I was eventually able to live inside of the songs enough to understand the world within them – to ultimately help shape them into what I understood them to be.” Indeed, there’s a load of inspiration captured in the grooves with Ryan’s unfiltered, folk-traditioned approach to poetic twists-of-tongue meeting head on with sublime instrumentation.

TRACK LISTING

1. Free From The Guillotine (08:22)
2. Learn 2 Re-Luv (06:03)
3. Flashes Of Orange (09:56)
4. Bluebirds In A Fight (07:07)
5. Junk Drawer Heart (06:25)
6. A Suitable Exit (09:20)
7. Bluebirds Revisited (03:57)

If ever an album could transport you to the hazy sunshine and imagined halcyon paradise of Southern California in the mid-1980s, could capture the early evening warmth of hanging at an inclusive boogie jam as it approaches “magic hour” in Santa Ana or Anaheim, then it’s Vaughan Mason and Butch Dayo’s Feel My Love. A brilliantly produced deep slung, low rider funk classic originally released on Salsoul in 1983. It’s a masterpiece of “funk love music”.

Yes, this is indeed a perfectly formed five track “mini LP” of unparalleled heat, but there’s one song here that, above the rest, represents Orange County boogie-funk. A straight killer beloved by all that have had the pleasure of moving to it. A track that can fill up a dance floor within seconds of its starting. That song is the eternal title track, “Feel My Love”.

This is a work of art that made people fall in love with the funk. It transcends the limitations of genre. “Feel My Love”’s deceptive simplicity makes it perfect to drop during a house set, a classic funk party or at a west coast rap jam. It’s sexy, deeply emotional, melancholic, hopeful, passionate and just radiates so, so much raw energy. This is music.

The rest of the record is hardly filler though. Opener “Oh, Love” is a dizzying, emotional slow jam. With heaven-sent vocals riding gorgeous, sweeping keys that alternate between sweet twinkling lines and funk-fuelled stabbing. It’s sensational. A rollerskating jam named “Rollalong Songs” is an ultra-swish piece of dance floor dynamite. Its slick drums, staccato piano and neck snapping claps underscore Dayo’s buoyant vocals. It’s essentially “Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll Part II”.

The flip begins with “Party On The Corner”. Smoother than silk vocals, day-glo synths, a bubbling bassline and guitar licks that surely received the Prince seal of approval. It’s another example of how Vaughan Mason and Butch Dayo flirt with perfection so routinely. The most majestic closer, the kaleidoscopic, cow-bell-assisted synth-funk heater “You Can Do It” is a proto-rap groover that truly smokes.

This prized LP is a stone cold jam and finding original copies on vinyl at affordable prices has been tough for years. Mastered brilliantly by Simon Francis, cut by Pete Norman and with lovingly reproduced artwork, this fresh Be With reissue ensures this legendary LP now sounds, looks and feels as sensational as it should.

TRACK LISTING

A1: Oh, Love
A2: Rollalong Songs
A3: Feel My Love
B1: Party On The Corner
B2: You Can Do It

The new album by Richard Hawley, 'In This City They Call You Love' sees Richard ditch the distortion pedals and go back into making voice most prominent.

Following the universal acclaim for 'Standing At The Sky's Edge', the award-winning musical based on his songs, in May Richard Hawley returns with 'In This City They Call You Love', his ninth studio album and his first since 2019's 'Further'.

'In This City They Call You Love' features 12 outstanding songs, many of which can be described as 'vintage Hawley' and are amongst some of the finest ballads he's ever written. Gorgeous melodies and arrangements are accompanied by his emotive and sonorous voice, which sounds better than ever, and will make this a crowning moment in a hugely successful recording career of almost 25 years.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A perfect distillation of Hawley's classic sound, whimsical balladry and beautiful instrumentation around a core of thoughtful lyrics and rich, swooning orchestral majesty. Nobody sounds quite like Hawley, and this couldn't be a more perfect representation of his appeal.

TRACK LISTING

1. Two For His Heels
2. Have Love
3. Prism In Jeans
4. Heavy Rain
5. People
6. Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow
7. Deep Space
8. Deep Waters
9. I’ll Never Get Over You
10. Do I Really Need To Know?
11. When The Lights Go Out
12. ‘Tis Night

Multi-genre album with crossover potential, blending jazz, soul, funk, and electronics. Cult artist active since the early 1990s who has released records on labels like Warp and Kindred Spirits. Fresh collaboration between singular vocalist/musician and the Cold Diamond & Mink band. LP Housed in vintage style Tip-On Sleeve. There are certain occasions when you can truly feel the stars align. One of these is when the interstellar voyager of cosmic soul Jimi Tenor finally lands his spaceship at full force on a Timmion recording. In 2024, he will be serving us two spaced out album sessions recorded together with Cold Diamond & Mink. Jimi is no stranger in these space ways as he has operated behind the Timmion scenes for years, furnishing several of the label’s artists with his flute and reeds artistry. The first album out is titled “Is There Love In Outer Space?”, which begs the question with the force of five extended tracks that are guaranteed to blow your mind to the stratosphere. The pieces are loaded with whooshing and glistening synth noises and span from lofi space funk to cinematic soundscapes. The sweetly floating title track is like some of those galactic ballads that rare soul collectors are spending their pensions on. At the other side of the spectrum, album closer ‘What Are You Doing?’ sounds like Sun Ra sat down at a JBs session, and is straight up meant to get that booty moving. Combined with the raw soul prowess of CD&M, Jimi is able to refine new shades from his already impressive repertoire of talent. Even if you are a friend of his previous work you might not have heard him get down quite like this. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Is There Love In Outer Space?
2. Gaia Sunset Pt.1
3. Gaia Sunset Pt.2
Side B:
1. Orbiting Telesto
2. Laputa
3. What Are You Doing?

A rare but unknown modern soul dancer from band Premonition or Premonitions depending on what release they put out. The A side is well written proto disco dancer, it's no wonder collectors have been calling begging for the TPs on this , as nobody can find an original (my copy is beat to death).

I actually really dig the sweet soul flip, its almost to cheesy but walks the edge well, and has some great rising moments if that's your bag (which is should be).

TRACK LISTING

1. Here In The Name Of Love
2. Righteous Love

In 1975, the New York City alto saxophonist Alan Braufman released his debut album, Valley of Search, on the India Navigation label. Braufman went on to record and tour with everyone from Carla Bley to The Psychedelic Furs, and didn't release another album under his name until 2020's The Fire Still Burns, which received rave reviews from The WIRE, Downbeat, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and NPR.

2024's Infinite Love Infinite Tears is a surprisingly catchy program of free jazz, richly detailed and forthright, embodying a range of emotions and circumstances that convey individuality, collectivity and hope. There is much history and love in this band, and in Alan Braufman’s art overall. Fifty-odd years after debuting on record, his sound-world is as vital and inviting as ever.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chasing A Melody
2. Infinite Love Infinite Tears
3. Spirits
4. Edge Of Time
5. Brooklyn
6. Liberation 

Released by Epic Records on April 6, 2004, Good News For People Who Love Bad News offered a unique blend of existential lyricism and innovative soundscapes which helped Modest Mouse break out of the rock underground after more than a decade of existence. The album, which has been certified double platinum for U.S. shipments of 2 million copies, is hailed as an alternative classic on the strength of songs such as the Modern Rock chart-topping, 5-times platinum single “Float On,” the gold-certified “The World At Large” and “Ocean Breathes Salty.”

Remastered for vinyl in opaque baby pink and opaque spring green, the package includes an alternate album cover, 8-page booklet and five ew remixes. 

One day early in the global lockdown, Frédéric Blais scribbled four words on a Post-It note and pinned it up in his studio. When he headed to a studio in the mountains north of Montreal to start work on his fifth album as Fred Everything, those words went with him. They would not only provide inspiration during two weeks of isolated music-making, but ultimately provide the subsequent album with its title: Love, Care, Kindness and Hope.

Those sentiments – a positive mantra during a period of personal and collective vulnerability and isolation – resonate throughout the album, a gorgeously warm and beautiful affair that counts as Blais’s most personal, musically expansive, mature and sonically detailed set to date.

While each of the tracks began as a rough sketch laid down during Blais’ retreat, they evolved considerably over the months that followed. Blais reached out to a handful of carefully selected guest vocalists and collaborators, including Stereo MC’s, Robert Owens, Sapele, James Alexander Bright, Wayne Tennant, string arranger Pete Whitfield and multi-instrumentalist Finn Peters. He also lent his voice to several tracks, a first in a career that stretches back to the 1990s.

The results are magical, with Blais not only offering subtle variations on his own trademark deep house sound, but also nods to complimentary music styles and classic electronic albums from the late ‘90s and early 2000s.

Naturally, much focus will fall on the album’s high-profile guests, whose contributions work perfectly with Blais’ cultured dancefloor electronica and soul-soaked broken house grooves. Robert Owens – “the voice of house” himself – expertly delivers lyrics full of compassion and reassurance on recent single ‘Never’, Sapele infuses ‘A Long Time Coming’ with lashings of soulful spirituality, and UK hip-hop/soul legends Stereo MC’s make their presence felt on the subtly Latin-infused dub house excellence of ‘Soul Love’.

Then there’s ‘Breathe’, where UK singer-songwriter James Alexander Bright and backing vocalist Wayne Tennant rise above punchy broken house beats, Blais’ trademark square-wave bass and Pete Whitfield’s swelling strings on ‘Breathe’. By the time kaleidoscopic, sun-down breakbeat brilliance of ‘A Good Day’ arrives to draw proceedings to a close, you’ll be overflowing with Blais’ “love, care, kindness and hope” – just as he intended.

TRACK LISTING

A1. A Long Time Coming (feat. Sapele)
A2. Evening Ghost
A3. Never (feat. Robert Owens)
A4. Something For You
B1. Soul Love (feat. Stereo MCs)
B2. Breathe (feat. James Alexander Bright)
B3. Asolee
B4. A Good Day

An obscure late 80s double sided killer brought to light! Originally released as a 12 inch, this was dug out of a white label box by Planets head honcho on a North London digging mission. 1989 fusion of Lovers, Street Soul & Soundsystem music from T-Dynamix & Lisa Ellis. Originally based up North near Manchester!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: As the months turn brighter and the clouds clear we look towards carnival season and this record in particular could cause more than a casual rukus at your local Mancunian sounds soundsystem. A huge single that traverses that golden boundry between reggae, street soul and lovers rock. Essential!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Alone
B1. Your Love

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 20TH 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 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 22ND.

The first track from Celeste's highly anticipated sophomore album. Includes a stunning rendition of Love Will Tear Us Apart.

Experience the rebirth Of Jim Spencer’s musical vision through Piya Malik’s captivating rendition in say she she’s limited 45 rpm edition of ‘Wrap Myself Up’. Malik’s artistry infuses fierce elegance into the original tune, honoring spencer’s legacy, with spencer himself featured on the B-side.

TRACK LISTING

1. Say She She - Wrap Myself Up In Your Love
2. Jim Spencer - Wrap Myself Up In Your Love

Across the ten tracks on Jess Ribeiro’s incoming new album ‘Summer of Love’, she traverses isolation, loss, tiny snatches of love, expectation versus reality, once-in-a-century pandemics and healing. It was written and recorded during a particularly unstable time, with Ribeiro living in nine different houses across a two year period, including six months in a church outside of the city, “That instability affected my mental health, ”she says. It also created the spark for her fourth album, on which she transfixes audiences as she digs deep into the present, past, and wanted future.

The first demos for Summer of Love were put down at a solar-powered shack by Jess with her friend and musical collaborator Dave Mudie (Courtney Barnett, Super American Eagle), an experience that wasn’t without excitement: “We used all the solar power trying to record. It ended with us around a fire for the rest of the night, terrified that the boars were going to get us.”

From there, she recorded the album with Nick Huggins on Wautharong Country in Point Lonsdale, with special guests Jim White (Dirty Three, Xylouris White,) on drums, Darcy McNulty on saxophone, folk-diviner Leah Senior on keys, James Seymour on bass, Davie Mudie taking percussion duties, Carrie Webster’s violin and viola, and Huggins himself chipping in on bass, tape and drum loops, synth, guitars and piano. The way in which the album came together with her collaborators - separately, but towards the same north star - is where the beauty in the work is experienced. “It was improvised and experimental, musicians could only visit on eat a time due to the restrictions, half of the musicians never even came to the studio”.

TRACK LISTING

1. Maybe If I Wore Sunglasses Inside I Won’t Feel Tired
2. Everything Is Now
3. The Trees & Me
4. Paradise
5. Jump The Gun
6. Airborne
7. Helicopter
8. Summer Of Love
9. Wake In Fright
10. Howl

RIYL: The Field Mice, Blue Boy, The Clientele, Cindy.

The cinema of the scenes as told from the heart and spirit of the omniscient narrator shines through the awe-inspiring oeuvre of Glenn Donaldson's canonical titan that is The Reds, Pinks & Purples. The storied and esoteric histories of every underserved underdog becomes immortalized in records and poignantly penned paeans that evoke the eras and underachievers that became synonymous with their own respective corresponding localized micro-movements. Donaldson channels that psychic spirit and journeyman earned wisdom to provide contemporary era rock operas that eulogize tales of infinitely influential rises and falls. Crystalizing the tragic self-celebrating kingdoms of fortunate failures, false heroes, music press deities of limitless deceit, hometown dive gods and humanity in the grips of all its romanticized wonder and woe — the latest sortie of the sensational and spectacular takes aim at the threads of hope and an untethered abandon into the intimacy and dualities of idolatry and isolation with Unwishing Well.

Ever since its emergence from the harried late 2010s — The Reds, Pinks & Purples have become the absolute encapsulation of Donaldson's own proliferation and prestige. From a musical legacy that chronicles a long list of minor successes and major tragedies; Glenn distills the timelines of distinction from yesterday, today, tomorrow and whatever may be into a musical phenomenon that embodies something more than all of its analogous inspirations. Beyond the clamor about the retro cult pop artistic allusions and tropes that can be found in those spirit expanding kaleidoscope chord chimes; Donaldson takes you on a guided tour through the San Francisco underground movements that would have been, could have been or perhaps never were at all from the start. The Reds, Pinks & Purples’ coveted catalog inadvertently, consciously or unconsciously, offers an authorized and anonymous history of imperfect and ambitious debutantes, dilettantes, auteurs, et al. The lauded visionaries whose volition informed the big money touring stage headliners, but only enjoyed a fleeting jaunt through the glorious corporate clad carnival canopies from the touring circuit routes and tech funded festival tent tabernacles. Unwishing Well is a eulogy for the buzz bands that crashed, the wily one hit wizards, and omnipresent (and often uninspired) eternal aesthetes who work the lucrative outlets of licensing media markets.

Glenn pulls no punches with the promiscuity of the pop machines and their exploited propped up brand ambassadors on the cutting "Your Worst Song is Your Greatest Hit" that tangles with the lumbering and inescapable creatives and careerist trajectories that trade in boardroom playbooks and verticals. Expressions and influencers break out into the collective commissaries of commerce exhibitionism on “Public Art”, to auditing the forums of fandom that pertain to developed affinities and the roads to rabid infatuation with the obsessive in earnest, “Learning to Love a Band”.

And while the Glenn spins many yarns on the under-appreciated secret histories of DIY, Unwishing Well offers cathartic hymns of modern malaise. Sighing in lamentation of regressive trends, “What’s Going on with Ordinary People'' balks with concern over contemporary states of devolution, while “Faith in Daydreaming Youth” questions what vestiges of hope and valor can be found in the new vanguards of political bodies that govern the world’s sovereign daydream nations. The dustbins of dastardly discontinuity are imbued with desire and grief on the dramatist tragedy of “Dead Stars in Your Eyes”, to basking in the discarded ditches of the damned below in voids of obscurity on “Nothing Between the Lines at All”. The human addiction to languishing in anguish, misery and negativity tussles, tosses and turns on “We Only Hear the Bad Things People Say”, the penultimate ode to inherent human infallibility as Donaldson rides the audience out into the gilded sunset glow of “Goodbye Bobby”.

The central set piece of Unwishing Well revolves around the title track that wrestles with wellness and wishes tempered by the sobering reality of ultra pragmatic skepticism. Donaldson shows the audience where the dream falls short, an indictment on the fickleness of wants and the life/work/art balances of making it all work. It's the group that never makes it, the idea that never gets off the ground, the recognition that never arrives, the raise that is never awarded, nor the promotion to the next ladder rung that remains laughably inaccessible. Glenn has the gift of bridging the divide between the hunger artist, their adoring cult public and the common threads that connect these local and global communities through the humanist cause of collective commiseration.

As increasingly found in the continued adventures of The Reds, Pinks and Purples canon — Glenn circles the drain of surrendering to unabashed sentimentality in passions worthy of being showcased as the top headlining spot that your favorite revered then later reviled pop act never even had the chance to claim or ascend. Unwishing Well uplifts and uproots the undercurrents that carry the commonalities between the spectators and the spectacles. Donaldson pays homage in heart to everything and everyone that never got their due or to the lucky ones that made the grade, but paid an ultimate price. The cycle of these pop vignettes depict successes and failures in the same sentences, existing within the same stanzas, where the stories of making it and breaking it operate as events that live on different sides of the same coin. Unwishing Well is a reflection of us, the icons we adore, the Adonises we worship, the false prophets that proselytize the edicts from theses cults of personality, the fallouts, the third acts and the artistic fabrics that spool these sub-sects of artful dodgers into the stuff of legend.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There are obvious comparisons to be made here with the jangling, morose indie of the late 80's and 90's but the resulting sound on The Red Pinks & Purples' new album is both hugely modern, while breezily embracing the lo-fi jangle and airy melodicism of the era. 'Unwishing Well' is a perfect distillation of both Donaldson's established sound and the musical influences he absorbs, and results in an absorbing and emotional listen.

TRACK LISTING

1. What’s Going On With Ordinary People
2. Learning To Love A Band
3. Unwishing Well
4. Faith In Daydreaming Youth
5. Your Worst Song Is Your Greatest Hit
6. Dead Stars In Your Eyes
7. Nothing Between The Lines At All
8. Public Art
9. We Only Hear The Bad Things People Say
10. Goodbye Bobby

2023 was a remarkable year for James - with a Top 3 album (their 9th Top 10 album), a sell out UK tour with a 25 piece orchestra and 8 piece choir onstage with them, a stunning special guest appearance at Latitude Festival, a headline show at The Acropolis in Greece and receiving the Icon award at The Ivor Novello awards in recognition of their songwriting. Amongst all of this, the band have recorded their new album to be released in April 2024. It is produced by Leo Abrahams (who has previously collaborated with Jon Hopkins, Brian Eno, Jarvis Cocker, Imogen Heap and Regina Spektor) and mixed by Cenzo Townsend (Courteeners, Specials, Keane, Snow Patrol, Everything Everything).

2024 is already shaping up to being another huge year for the band - their June Arena tour is their biggest ever tour and they are already close to selling out both The O2 and the new Manchester Co-Op arena. James release their new album Yummy, with the first single ‘Is This Love’. The artwork for both the album and first single was designed by Stephen Kennedy (Studio Fury) who is responsible for a number of iconic works over the years including the Rolling Stones’ latest album Hackney Diamonds.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: One of the most legendary bands in Manchester's storied musical history return for their latest LP, 'Yummy'. It's got all of the soaring melodic turns and presents a perfectly produced, meticulously paced backdrop for Tim Booth's instantly recognisable vocals. Another brilliant statement from a band that show no signs of slowing down.

TRACK LISTING

Standard CD And LP Tracklisting:
1. Is This Love
2. Life Is A Fucking Miracle
3. Better With You
4. Stay
5. Shadow Of A Giant
6. Way Over Your Head
7. Mobile God
8. Our World
9. Rogue
10. Hey
11. Butterfly
12. Folks

Deluxe 2CD Tracklisting:
1. Is This Love
2. Life Is A Fucking Miracle
3. Better With You
4. Stay
5. Shadow Of A Giant
6. Way Over Your Head
7. Mobile God
8. Our World
9. Rogue
10. Hey
11. Butterfly
12. Folks
13. Anyone But You
14. Close Enough
15. Mine To Lose
16. Activist Song
17. Won’t Be The Same
18. Tell Me Something
19. Poolewe Day1Jam4
20. Arpen Charp
21. Deliver The Dawn
22. Something Of A Pleasure
23. Walk Tall
24. 50s Out Takes

Recalibrating her singular journey in the British musical landscape with her most open-hearted, direct and intimate collection of material yet. Love In Constant Spectacle evokes spectacular imagery and distills the artists’ vision in its purest form, elevating her inimitable sound and poetic vision to new heights.

Recapturing the melancholy of her early work whilst propelling it forward, she sketches scenes as we watch new colours, shapes and languages emerge and fill the frame. Love In Constant Spectacle sees her take measured steps towards a vivid, dreamlike record, that offers resolve in the face of life’s inevitability.

The foundations of Weaver’s sound are still evident – lush motorik drums, pulsating bass, custom modded synths and exotic fuzz pedals - but the stream is awash with scrabble piece poetry and Letraset lullabies leading to lush escapism, the free abandon that you’d associate with free jazz and the avant-garde. But, as determined and visionary as Weaver might be, Love In Constant Spectacle wasn’t executed without assistance. Here we find a long mooted unison with Jane’s first ever producer, John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding), who has shared Weaver’s process in the surrounds of Rockfield Studios and Geoff Barrow’s Invada studio.

Love In Constant Spectacle is otherworldly, it is both intimate yet distant, a surrealist interpretation of the foundations that make us human – the stories and landscapes it paints are habitats of their own. A voyage into undisclosed pastures, it’s a heartfelt manifesto from an artist that continues to boundlessly evolve with each chapter in her career.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: We're big fans of Jane & co. here at Piccadilly, and 'Love In Constant Spectacle' takes everything we've known and loved from previous releases; her rich melodic thread and progressive instrumental leanings, and injects the pieces with perfectly extracted DNA from jazz, 60's psychedelic pop and art-rock.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Perfect Storm
A2 Emotional Components
A3 Love In Constant Spectacle -
A4 Motif
A5 The Axis And The Seed
Side B
B1 Is Metal
B2 Happiness In Proximity
B3 Romantic Worlds
B4 Univers
B5 Family Of The Sun

In their decade-plus together, the four-piece Julia Shapiro (guitar, vocals), Lydia Lund (guitar, vocals), Gretchen Grimm (drums, vocals), and Annie Truscott (bass, vocals)—have created a resonant body of work. Live Laugh Love is a natural continuation. Against the bizarre backdrop of the past few years, Chastity Belt remained a supportive space for the members to grow and experiment, drawing on the ingredients most essential to their process since the beginning: authenticity and levity. Recorded over three sessions in as many years (January 2020, November 2021 and 2022), the focus became more about enjoying their time together in the studio than making it feel like work. Their ease and familiarity with engineer Samur Khouja in LA, who also recorded their last album, made for a particularly enjoyable process. Once completed, they returned to renowned engineer Heba Kadry who mastered the album.

Album opener “Hollow” sets the tone with a gently driving rhythm while guitar layers stream like sun rays through an open car window. A warmth radiates through Shapiro’s voice, even while grappling with feeling lost and stuck. “The older I get,” Shapiro says of the lyrics, “the more I realize that I might just always feel this way, and it’s more about sitting with the feeling and accepting it, rather than trying to fight it.” That wisdom seems to anchor Live Laugh Love. Chastity Belt has never shied from navigating the spectrum of difficult emotions, and an existential thread weaves throughout the subject matter. And yet the songs feel more grounded than ever; there’s a sense of quiet confidence and self-assurance that comes with being less numb and more present. Facing discomfort takes more fortitude, after all.

Live Laugh Love finds the members in their prime as musicians. Their parts trace intricate patterns over one another, but there’s room to breathe between the layers. Everyone contributes to the writing, sometimes switching instruments, and for the first time, all four members sing a song. It’s never been more apparent that they are creative siblings, cut from the same belt. “We’ve been playing music with each other for over a decade,” says Shapiro, “so it really does feel like we’re all fluent in the same language, and a lot of it just happens naturally.”

“Laugh” seeks in the balm of friendship, aware of the anticipatory nostalgia that hits during a good time that you’re already missing before it’s gone; the heavier guitar tones on “Chemtrails” streak ominous chord progressions over Grimm’s precision timekeeping, lamenting memories that won’t fade easily. During a transitional time, Truscott came across a note in their phone that read, “it's not hard all day, just sometimes,” which inspired a poignant line in the chorus of “Kool-Aid,” their first song as lead vocalist on a Chastity Belt recording. Another standout, “I-90 Bridge” shines with a silvery melody that soars as Lund belts one of the most resounding moments on the album: “Tell your girlfriend she’s got nothing to fear/I’m set in my head/My body’s a different story.” The track “Blue” saunters nonchalantly with a wink; you can almost hear Shapiro’s smile as she sings “Faking it big time/So I can hit my stride/Man, it feels good to be alive,” channeling early Chastity Belt channeling early ’90s before channeling the late Elliott Smith in a spiral of distortion and insight: “Don’t get upset about it/It’s gonna pass/Tell all your friends about it/They’re gonna laugh.” “We have such a strong sense of each other’s musical inclinations” says Lund. “I think this allows for a lot of playfulness…we can kinda surprise each other, like a good punchline would.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Jangling indie guitars float beautifully around airy vocal melodies, crafting a beautifully honed noise that lands somewhere between shoegaze, folk and art-rock. Brilliantly inventive throughout, but never shy a melody or two. Lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Hollow
Funny
Clumsy
It’s Cool
Kool-Aid
Chemtrails
Blue
Tethered
1-90 Bridge
Laugh
Like That

Charlie Ingui a veteran blued eyed soul singer who formed the band The Soul Survivors In the 60's is back with a brand new single.

'Wake Up Old World' is a song about making the world a better place.

Charlie explains 'This has always been a theme in our songs inspired very much by our collaboration with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff of Philadelphia International Records whose songs like "Love Train" and "Love Is The Message" had a positive and spiritually uplifting message.'

In 1967, Charlie Ingui formed the band The Soul Survivors. They scored a #2 record with Gamble and Huff' first major hit with the song "Express Way To Your Heart.' They were a bunch of hoods from The Lower East Side of New York.

They were part of the same scene in NY with The Rascals, Joey Dee and the Starlighters, The Soul Survivors, The Vanilla Fudge, and many other Blue Eyed Soul Bands that paved the way for folks like Hall and Oates.

Originally they were a trio and had a third singer, Kenny Jeramiah, who went on to have success in Atlantic City.

They went on to have several other great records. The first was in 1969 with Muscle Shoals producer. Rick Hall. The Swampers with Duane Allman played on that one. In 1974, Gamble and Huff got a custom CBS label – Philadelphia International Music and signed the Soul Survivors once again. They made a fantastic record with their amazing band, Charlie and Richie Ingui, John "Beedo"Dzubak The amazing Fred Beckmeier on bass. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Wake Up Old World
2. Movin' In Love's Direction'

Originally released in 1975 by RCA via its subsidiary Midland International—and recorded at the legendary Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia—these two tracks have never since both been released on the same single up until now, appearing once in unison on an acetate reference recording, copies of which have never sold on Discogs and are believed to be in the hands of 4 collectors worldwide.

Hailing from their brilliantly produced debut ‘I’m In Heaven’, this release skims the cream of the album and hones in on the poignancy, sheer musicality and grit of the Philly sound; combining soaring male vocal harmonies and flamboyant horns with luscious strings and rollicking disco rhythms to fantastic effect. These are readymade and tested dance floor classics, certainly with the legs and drive to make the modern listener get down.

Touch of Class effortlessly blend together the classic Motor City Sound and Philadelphia’s hard-driving disco groove in one fell swoop, records that sound like they have been produced from both the Gamble and Huff and Dozier playbooks, while retaining a unique register exclusive to the group—from John “The Monster” Davis’ nimble flute movements and Larry Washington’s rolling congas on I Love You Pretty Baby to “Sugar Bear” Thornton’s thumping basslines and Roco Bene’s sensational breathwork on You’ve Got To Know Better

TRACK LISTING

1. I Love You Pretty Baby
2. You Got To Know Better

Tel Aviv's Elado has put out a fine run of eight releases in just two years on the likes of GAMM, Barefoot Beats and Bonfido Disques, but for his next move, he branches out with his own reissue label. Its aim is to "focus on uncovering lost gems" with the original paired with his own remixes. The first one is a 1983 private press from the Canadian pair OUI. 'Circle Of Love' is a big disco banger with flashy synth work and rugged arps, with a pair of Elado's mixes making it even more dancefloor ready. 'You Make Me High' is a more sentimental 80s pop sound. A fine start to life for this new label.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: One for fans of euro pop soundalikes and big, borderline cheesy disco tunes. This 12" has got it all - 3 versions plus a bonus number for those who like it extra kitschy, what more could you ask for!

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Circle Of Love (Elado Remix)
2. Circle Of Love (Original)

Side 2
1. Circle Of Love (Elado Remix Instrumental)
2. You Make Me High

Jacob Lusk, Ryan Hope & Ari Balouzian; an acclaimed gospel singer and choir director, an established film director and a classically trained musician and soundtrack artist. This is the trio that fate brought together and now make up Gabriels.

Their debut EP ‘Love & Hate In A Different Time’ comprises five songs that sound instantly of another era without faltering into throwback territory. True masters of story-telling, their timeless take on vintage soul, new R&B and just a hint of ultra-contemporary altpop have seen them become firm favourites of Gilles Peterson, Off White’s Virgil Abloh, Benji B, Annie Mac, Elton John... the list goes on.

The lead track and new single, ‘Love & Hate In A Different Time’, showcases their sound perfectly. A soul-stirring song with elements of funk and that joyous gospel influence too. Jacob has one of those terrifically cavernous deliveries and understands the power of when to adopt restraint and when to let rip. It’s raw, show-stopping and combines to form a magical few minutes of cinematic sound, unlike anything else out there today.

In the song’s long-form video, directed by band member and British born musician Ryan Hope (himself a celebrated music video director), we’re taken through a history of the dancefloor in archive footage, culminating in Jacob singing Billie Holliday’s Strange Fruit to a rapt audience during a Black Lives Matter protest in LA last year. It’s an engrossing, moving watch and an evocative listen.

The rest of the EP stands tall with its lead track, shoulder to shoulder. Experimental flourishes, sultry beats and jazzy polyrhythms. Intoxicating stuff, it’s music that is hard not to like. Simply riveting and a hugely promising introduction to an already accomplished new act.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Repress of pretty much the biggest soul 12" of the year. There's been no escaping these tracks and now they're available for all once again.

TRACK LISTING

A1 - Loyalty (Featuring Ashley Sade)
A2 - In Loving Memory
A3 - Professional
B1 - Love And Hate In A Different Time
B2 - The Blind
B3 - Love And Hate In A Different Time (Alternate Version)

RIYL: Stereolab, High Llamas, Deserter’s Songs era Mercury Rev, Death of A Ladies Man.

The Foreign Department is the second album by Astrel K, the solo project helmed by Stockholm-based British ex-pat, Rhys Edwards. Those already familiar with Edwards’ work will likely know him for fronting the cultishly great Ulrika Spacek, and given he operates as the principal songwriter in both projects, much of the same hallmarks of his cathartic, elliptical songwriting are present in Astrel K. Nonetheless, The Foreign Department feels like a rubicon moment of sorts, and the album that Edwards has unconsciously been working towards his entire creative life.

As a title, The Foreign Department offers an instructive guide for the listener, framing a life-in-transition/artist-in-exile document that maps two impromptu moves in twelve months for its songwriter: the first from London in pursuit of a relationship, the second between homes in Stockholm as that decade long relationship then suddenly dissolved. Indeed, diffusion, dissolution and reconstitution feel like appropriate touchstones for its recurring themes. Written amidst the flux of two states, at once isolated from home and then any established emotional anchor, the resulting eleven tracks came to represent a precognitive search for shifting identity and with it forming an unwittingly biographical record. It's commendable and somewhat telling that during this shake up, Edwards somehow landed upon his most realised and original work.

With a former life stripped away, there emerged an opportunity to reinvent a sense of self through art, now not just as a writer, but a composer also. Developing the confidence to arrange songs in ways he'd previously considered off-limits, while also taking cues from the opulent string and brass arrangements of records like Mercury Rev's Deserters' Songs and Death of A Ladies Man by Leonard Cohen, Edwards enlisted a range of performers to bring to life the mini-symphonies forming in his head. Perhaps it's inevitable that an album written while facing the consequences of being alone would eventually ossify around the process of bringing people together.

For all its troubled origins, The Foreign Department is a remarkably warm sounding collection. Edwards' lyrics are typically knotty and neurotic, dancing around the poetry of quarter-life anxiety, but the music itself is often joyous and even uplifting, the combination expressing that neat duality of melancholic euphoria. Edwards sings variously of crises, "torrid pieces of art", of "houses on fire" and not "having the guts for it", yet these troubling sentiments are framed by seemingly incongruous swelling strings, chirping horns or motorik percussion, creating that sense of pushing forward or floating above, of wrapping your troubles in dreams, a salve for the moments when you get a bit too much for yourself.

Lead single, 'Darkness At Noon', likely captures this all best. Named for the French idiom "midi a quatorze heures", the maddening idea of attempting the impossible for the sake of some greater possibly pointless cause, it directly grapples with the opposing notions of wanting and not wanting, of being here and being there at the same time. The conflicting and impossible self. It’s something Edwards addresses in the song at perhaps his most open, opining, “I know I want to be seen, but I hate most of what comes out of me”. And yet here is, putting it all out in the open and on the line, the dialectics of his enlightenment up on show.

TRACK LISTING

Heavy Is The Head
Darkness At Noon
By Depol
Brighter Spells
Firma
Birds In Vacant Lots
The Foreign Department
C Ya!
A Rudderless Ship
Daffodil
R U A Literal Child?

Love Makes Magic, the debut LP by JIM - aka Jim Baron of Crazy P & Ron Basejam notoriety - was released in June 2023 and the album has connected with an ever growing number of fans; lured in by great songs, Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter acoustics, 60’s psychedelic folk-rock, a dash of Balearic, discoid funk and a healthy dose of yacht-rock. The album was voted Album of the Year in the Bill Brewster Furtive 50 chart for 2023 - like a Balearic BAFTAs - and Still River Flow (Generalisation Dub) came 2nd in the tracks of the year... which was nice.

Disco Pogo, Piccadilly Records and Mr Bongo all gave the LP honourable mention in their end of year charts too. As you’d expect with an artist who has 25 years of dance music connections the accompanying remixes weren’t bad either... Crooked Man, Ruf Dug, Flying Mojito Brothers and Generalisation all came up with fine reinterpretations. Luke Unabomber hailed The Crooked Goth version of Phoenix as his track of the year. The vinyl run of the Crooked Mixes sold out in record time.

As the remixes racked up we considered collecting them together for a remix LP. And so here we are... presenting Love Makes Magic - The Remixes.

The five aforementioned mixes will be joined by five brand new ones from X-Press 2, Mang Dynasty, Chris Coco, Begin ( James Holroyd) and Brown Fang. Spanning pumping club bangers, perfect sunsets soundtracks and left-field electronica.

We love them.
We hope you do too..

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stunning set of remixes from some of the hottest names in the electronic music world, for Jim's brilliant 'Love Makes Magic' LP, one of our collective favourites of 2023. Basking in the relaxed, Balearic waters of the original but twisted and coaxed around a variety of grooves, these pieces shine in a whole new light when viewed through a different lens, and show the talents of remixers and Baron alike. Brill.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Still River Flow (Generalisation Dub) Phoenix (Crooked Goth)
A2. Oxygen (Ruf Dug Remix)
B1. Ballad Of San Marino (Mang Dynasty Remix) Still River Flow (Begin Remix)
B2. Where The Leaves Are Falling (Brown Fang Remix) Across The Street (Generalisation Dub)
C1. Phoenix (X-Press 2 On Fire Remix)
C2. Oxygen (Flying Mojito Bros Refrito)
D1. The Ballad Of San Marino (Chris Coco Extended Dub Version)

Mari Steven aka Little Red Flames has been writing songs forever, singing in bands throughout the 90s, supporting the likes of The Fall, The James Taylor Quartet and Gil Scott Heron and playing the first T in The Park and then working with dance music producers in the 00s and featuring on several Ibiza chill out albums! With life rooted in music she interviewed every major band from 1994 – 2006 on TV, Radio and in the press and made TV documentaries about Coldcut and Roni Size and Reprazent… but all this good life kept getting in the way of the dream… to record an album.
Non, je ne regrette rien, the life stuff is all brilliant and the time has never been quite right until now.

Produced by legendary Glasgow producer Alex Smoke, ‘Love Feeling’ is a spirit lifting, heart wrenching, emotional rollercoaster of the smoothest electronic synth pop with the darkest most gynormous beats and oh yes, it will make you dance.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'Love Feeling' is one part gritty minimal electronica, one part airy spine-tingling rave and a healthy dash of synth-pop all melted into a pot and laid down as a syrup-smooth backdrop for Mari Steven's soaring vocal. It's bold, blistering electronic music, beautifully produced too.

"Matasuna Records", on a mission to unearth musical treasures of the past for the last 7 years, presents an exciting discovery of the present with the band "Bidaide" from Barcelona. This 7-inch vinyl single not only marks Bidaide's vinyl debut, but also unveils their captivating versatility and musicality with two previously unreleased tracks, "Batua" and "Love Me & Give Up".

Soul, funk, psychedelic rock, reggae-dub and library music merge seamlessly in Bidaide's recordings, forming a unique sound. Two great tracks that are now available on vinyl!

"Batua" on the A-side is the energetic prelude to this 45. A dynamic, unfiltered rhythm section provides the foundation, while two guitars engage in an agile conversation underscored by sharp keys and fantastic brass overdubs. Recorded in the band's studio on multiple tracks using analog methods and equipment, the song boasts an opulent, organic sound. Batua is a funky, psychedelic journey interspersed with soulful & harmonious interludes and stirring percussive breaks.

Flipping to the B-side, "Love Me & Give Up" offers a more soulful, relaxed contrast, showcasing the band's versatility. A laid-back beat sets the stage, with keys and guitars weaving a soulful sound tapestry.The chorus, delivered with restrained conviction and backed by a warm organ, evoke a Motown-esque charm.

Founded in 2019, Bidaide began as a duo with "Asier del Álamo" and "Juan Cruz Chiappara". With the arrival of "Sergio Caño" (keyboards), "Manuel Diaz" (drums), and "Nacho Llauradó" (Telecaster), the duo blossomed into a vibrant band. Through experimentation and maturation, they forged their own distinct sound, reflected in their 2021-2022 recordings titled "BATUA" (Basque for "unity"). These recordings embody the spiritual essence of a group that has found and solidified its own powerful sound, showcasing its talent for arrangements and harmonies.

Some members of Bidaide, who already knew Matasuna and their releases through their involvement in the "Gatzara Soundsystem", sent Matasuna their demo of the recordings in mid-2003. Their fresh, impressive sound immediatelyfound open ears. This connection paved the way for Bidaide's exciting vinyl debut, marking a new chapter in their musical journey.

TRACK LISTING

1. Batua
2. Love Me & Give Up

DJ and producer Gratts returns to his own imprint with the third instalment of the "Balearic but bumpin'" trilogy. Here, the Belgian puts forward a captivating piece of organic, Body & Soul NY inspired deep house, assisted by Cata Mansikka-aho on vocals. As always, an instrumental is provided for maximum nightclub daydreaming. On the flipside, British duo Faze Action up the energy levels with an equally musical disco version that hits in all the right spots. Artwork once again by Mads Cooke.

TRACK LISTING

Rhythm Of Love
Rhythm Of Love (Daydreamin' Instrumental)
Rhythm Of Love (Faze Action Remix)

Introducing the limited 7" re-release of the single by the legendary Bay Area group, Liason. Led by Morris 'Skid' Clay, Liason made their mark on the music scene with their distinctive sound and unforgettable performances. Recorded at Freeway Studios in Oakland back in 1977, this single captures the essence of the era and the spirit of the band.

Originally released on their independent imprint, 'A.L.C.' - named after three of the group's members astrological signs: Aquarius, Libra, and Capricorn - this single quickly became a cherished gem among fans and collectors alike. Now, decades later, it's being brought back to life for a whole new generation to enjoy.

TRACK LISTING

1. Life
2. Disco Party

Saturday night and Sunday morning; the sacred and the profane. These are the creative spaces of electronic pop duo Strange Boy. Disillusioned with the elitist hierarchies of classical singing, Kieran Brunt turned his attention to the songwriting world, drawing on his love of storytellers such as Anohni, The Magnetic Fields and Rufus Wainwright. With Brunt weaving a choral narrative on top of collaborator Matt Huxley’s atmospheric soundscapes, Strange Boy create a world rich with symbolism, grandeur and communion.

The London-based duo are releasing their debut album, ‘Love Remains’, via Groenland Records. The eleven songs that make up the album have formed gradually years of collaborating since they first met on a night out while wandering through Glastonbury in 2011. After moving to London together to pursue music seriously, Strange Boy’s sound has matured alongside Brunt and Huxley’s notable collaborations with the likes of Terry Riley, Nils Frahm, Clark, Squid, Aurora and artist Jeremy Deller.

Combining a bold narrative thrust with grandiose symbolism, Strange Boy have created a suite of impressionistic songs that exist in atmospheric soundworlds. The first single, ‘Boston Blue Period’, sets out the stall as a lush-but-unsettling piece, building over an extended intro then falling away to reveal a tender tale about letting go.

Following single ‘Sofia’ opens with a bouncing solo synth; the propulsive pattern ebbs and flows through the song, swelling with the outline of Brunt's beautiful, bittersweet address to the titular ‘Sofia’, who he explains “was the first child to come into my life as a grown-up. She brought with her such a fun and fresh energy at a time when I was grappling with early adulthood and despairing at what was happening in the world around me.”

‘Follow The News’ is the lead single from the album and draws upon Brunt’s personal experiences with ‘medication and self-medication’. Serious themes of mental illness are brought to the fore across the record, and treated with a mixture of irony, humour and catharsis.

Elsewhere on the album, the band lean further into this intimate, reflective mode of storytelling than ever before. ‘November Skies’ combines lo-fi vocal production with the lush strings and guest vocal of Nico Muhly and Anna B. Savage respectively, while Side A closer Whipping Boy’s softly crooned vocals and up-close piano recall the early works of James Blake and Anohni and the Johnsons. Brunt signposts his love for The Magnetic Fields with a cover of cult classic ‘100,000 Fireflies’, recorded in one take over layers of found tape played backwards at half-speed.

The album closes with the eponymous ‘Love Remains’, a song written early in the band’s formative years and honed gradually over their time together in live performances. The song swells in intensity as Brunt’s choral-inspired vocal soars over Huxley’s organ drones, industrial layers and experimental string textures, meditating on life and death in a swooping narrative of deep self-introspection.

The writing and recording of the album was as dramatic as it’s subject matter: while developing material Brunt was forced to leave his studio space at very short notice and ended up moving into the crypt of a Victorian church in London. The space - beautiful , spooky and very atmospheric - had a grand impact on the sonic imprint of the music, which was completed in Yorkshire alongside producer and mixer Richard Formby.

Working with rising star Jack Warne on the artwork, the band decided to make church objects and surroundings integral to the imagery of the album.

Ultimately, as the amorphous presence of Strange Boy, Brunt and Huxley have built a sonic world that inspires communion – with ourselves and with something more ethereal. Their debut album is a visceral storytelling experience not to be missed.

TRACK LISTING

Boston Blue Period
Follow The News
Oscar’s Song
Drunk In Iceland
Whipping Boy
(I Count The Fleeing
Hours)
Annunciation
Sofia
November Skies
100,000 Fireflies
Love Remains

The third single off her seminal 1989 debut album, "Ladies' First" remains one of Queen Latifah's signature songs

Featuring Monie Love, "Ladies' First" became an anthem of women's empowerment. This 7" also includes a B-side of "Come Into My House," originally released in 1990 as the fourth single.

TRACK LISTING

Ladies First (feat. Monie Love) [Radio Edit]
Come Into My House

Over the course of her career, spanning three-plus decades, Laetitia Sadier has never shied away from the hard topics, or stopped advocating for the possibility of self determination and emancipation in the face of the powers that be, conscious or unconscious. This is an essential part of the foundation she co-built with Stereolab, showcasing her spiritual, scientific and sociopolitical inquiries. She’s continued this process with Monade and under her own name and as a writer/singer/and musician whose every album acts as a report on her journey of the self through time, space and the collective.

On Rooting For Love, the report is set alight by the heat of a turbulent world, collapsing institutions and Laetitia’s fully engaged process of expression as well as orchestration. The opening number, “Who + What” elucidates the central issue of the album: a call for a collective striving for Gnosis – an inquisitive outlook that will lend clues to the traumatized civilizations of Earth, allowing us to evolve away from millennia of alienation and suffering and towards the achievability of healing. The musical arrangements help to embody the layers of the issue, as with “Who + What”’s combination of organ, synths, guitar, bass, trombone, drum programming, vibraphone and zither, all working along intricate paths of chord and tempo changes. Leading from the inside is the implacable presence of Laetitia Sadier, herself interacting with a vocal assembly of men and women billed as The Choir. The regular reappearance of The Choir throughout Rooting For Love is a reminder of this music being one of a people in critical mass, in addition to an evolution that continues to deepen the rich harmonic fields in which Laetitia plays.

Past wounds are addressed again and again in the libretto, as the music provides a transformational balm to aid the healing process. The melodic funk of bassist Xavi Muñoz leads a Chic-adjacent slink to the occasional dance floor vibes and no-wave rockouts, while Hannes Plattemier and Emma Mario take turns in mixing the tracks and informing the far reaches of the material, with vibes, additional drum programming and synths alongside a talented cast of players and singers from Laetita’s Source Ensemble and beyond.

Whether drawing inspiration from Zen Shiastu training, or the lyrics of Véronique Vincent, (lyricist and singer for Aksak Maboul, and once upon a time, lead singer of the Honeymoon Killers), Laetitia faces the truth without flinching. The shadows, whatever stuff they are made of - individual and collective, present and ancestral - need to be recognized and acknowledged, because the more we heal within ourselves, the more undivided we become in the face of looming Neo-fascist/Neoliberal narratives polluting the inner and outer landscapes. As with the cover image of the winter tree mirrored by the word patterns of Rooting For Love, Laetitia maintains that how we heal the world that’s coming, and what we make of it, will be a co-creation. The quality of our imagination, the orientation we give our thoughts and the capacity to bring love to ourselves and the world are a first step.

Alongside of her collaboration with Modern Cosmology, last year’s incredible What Will You Grow Now?, as well as her continued tours with a reformed Stereolab, Rooting For Love finds Laetitia back in the world, once again urging all our grounded inner alignment and heart power to make us better equipped for creating what’s to come.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A deeply psychedelic journey through whimsical french psych-folk, airy downbeat and hazy funk-adjecent groove. It's got the spirit of early Stereolab (for good reason) but lightened with a majestic, excitable pop sensibility. A really beautiful journey.

TRACK LISTING

01 Who + What
02 Proteiformunite
03 Une Autre Attente
04 The Dash
05 Don’t Forget You’re Mine
06 Panser L’inacceptable
07 The Inner Smile
08 La Nageuse Nue
09 New Moon
10 Cloud 6

“I'd always been on the side of making up scenarios rather than being really honest about my life within my music,” says Jack Kenworthy of Colouring about his second album Love To You, Mate. “This is the first time I've been able to be more honest and direct. I've not been scared of it because it's not my story. It’s a shared one.”

The Nottingham-based songwriter and producer’s life was upended in February 2021, months before release of his debut album Wake, when his brother-in-law Greg Baker was diagnosed with Stage 4 bowel cancer. What followed was the most “unbelievable” year of togetherness when life seemed set on fracturing the life of a young man.

Colouring has been a solo project since Wake, an album influenced by the 00s post-Britpop greats (early Coldplay, Elbow, Keane) but taking electronic and rhythmic cues from Radiohead and James Blake. Kenworthy’s debut marked a renaissance. “Truthfully, there were a lot of times when I didn't feel completely at home in the music I was making before then,” the Leicestershire native says.

The EPs Symmetry (2016), Heathen (2017) and Bn (2018) were released via Interscope Records while Colouring was a poppier affair backed by three other musicians. The records led to tour support with The 1975, mainstream radio airplay, an extensive headline tour of North America, and Bn’s lead single ‘Time’ featuring on the 13 Reasons Why soundtrack.

Despite being called Love To You, Mate the album isn’t concerned about Kenworthy’s relationship with Greg. “Obviously he's the heart of it and certainly those last two songs are definitely to him, but it would've been disingenuous to make a record just about my relationship with him.”

“My goal and intention with it was a message of love to [the family] and for what they did,” Kenworthy continues. “We were this tight-knit, inseparable group of friends for a whole year… a year that was both horrible and great, in a weird way. I really feel we've made this music together. Our favourite conversation is talking about Greg and this album.”Kenworthy determines: “I've just taken the photograph.”

TRACK LISTING

1. For You
2. I Don't Want To See You Like That
3. How'd It Get So Real
4. Lune
5. A Wish
6. The Light
7. Love To You, Mate
8. Coda
9. 'small Miracles'
10. For Life
11. Big Boots

Sal, Bea and Raquel aka Shooting Daggers, are without a doubt burning it up at the moment. Since releasing their EP ‘Athames’ last year the whispers are getting louder. Since then, things have been pretty much upwards, non - stop, and Daggers are fast becoming a fiery beacon at the beating heart of the burgeoning UK hardcore scene.

Plus, their full on live shows have made them a must-see proposition. Whether it’s Desertfest, supporting Amyl & The Sniffers, a plethora of underground gigs and festivals across the UK and Europe including Fluff and Burn It Down. Or sharing the stage with the cream of up and coming American hardcore, Scowl, Gel, Zulu, Spaced, and being personally asked to play the ‘Cult Of Luna’ curated ‘Beyond The Red Shift’. There’s no doubt that Shooting Daggers are most certainly in demand. It’s a wonder they have the time to do anything else. Thankfully, they had a week spare to go in with Wayne Adams at Bear Bites Horse Studio in London to record their debut album.

Titled ‘Love and Rage’ it’s a huge leap forward from their EP, in fact we believe Daggers have recorded something of a corker in terms of modern hardcore in fact ... a potential minor classic debut maybe. Classic you say? As in 'The Ramones' or 'Damned Damned Damned', as in 'Los Angeles' or 'Bad Brains', as in 'Repeater' or 'Pussy Whipped', or as in (because they wouldn't forgive us if we left them out) 'Non-stop Feeling', by the genre-deviating, mainstream breakers Turnstile. And yeah, we've noticed how male that list is! Whatever way you spin it, there is no doubt that ’Love and Rage' is an album of jaw dropping depth and melody as well as blinding energy and angst.

The band says … We want to spread a positive message, we are challenging rage into a good force, seeking for justice and unity. Anger serves us as a bodyguard for our personal pain and suffering. But when you recognise rage within you, if you handle it with attention, love, and compassion, it can be a powerful mobilizing factor to take action in solidarity and commitment to enacting social change. This is a time to focus on ourselves and our community. Protect our rights to be in this world and stop caring about men's validations. It's time for women and queer people to channel all our power together. In this album we touch subjects such as Unity, sorority, self love, taking the power back, queer love and skateboarding. And the album sums this up completely over 9 storming numbers. The are kick ass buzzsaw punk bangers of course, blistering shards of pent up fury, like ‘Dare’ and ‘Not My Rival’ ‘Wipeout’ and ‘Bad Seeds’. Daggers ‘as you might expect, but here, more catchy, more direct, more focussed than before. However, things start to get even more interesting with songs like ‘Smug’ and ‘Tunnel Vision’ a big hint that this is no ordinary punk rock record. A grungy intro bangs into stuttering riffs and a chorus with harmonies that will lock itself into your head. Then the band drops ‘A Guilty Conscience Needs An Accuser’ and you go well what is this? A sort of 90’s shoegaze grunge infused soaring ballad, that is as breathtakingly bold as it is unexpected and a real standout. As is the album’s title track ‘Love And Rage’ with its Dinosaur Jr meets Lush vibe. It all fits perfectly. The final track ‘Caves/Outro’ is just vocals and piano … It can only be described as ‘lovely’. Wow. The influences never overwhelm, it’s always unmistakably ‘Shooting Daggers’. It has to be said that the band are not just bashing it out here. The playing is knockout and the vocals in particular are a standout. Singer Sal proving that she can do hard and fast and cool and melodic with equal aplomb. Add in some really inventive vocal arrangements and harmonies, and you have a band that is pushing that hardcore envelope big time.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1.
1. Dare
2. Not My Rival
3. Smug
4. Wipe Out
5. A Guilty Conscience Needs An Accuser
Side 2.
1. Tunnel Vision
2. Bad Seeds
3. Love & Rage
4. Caves/Outro

Brothers O’Kelly, Rudolph and Ronald, from Cincinnati, Ohio, need no introduction to the Northern Soul scene. Their now legendary Motown output may not have hit in Detroit but it has been a staple of UK club land “forever”. Our top-side – “My Love Is Your Love” – is perhaps the most treasured of their rare soul recordings and, incredibly, was not deemed worthy of a release at the time. It first appeared in 1972 on the UK EMI budget imprint Music For Pleasure on the album Tamla Motown Presents The Isley Brothers (Side 1, track 3). It had to wait a further 40 years before finally being released on 45 as part of the 2013 Motown 7s Box Set. “Tell Me It’s Just A Rumour Baby” is a club anthem and yet another enigma. Again, Motown did not consider it worthy of release in America, but instead, thanks to demand from Northern Soul fans, it was released in the UK on Tamla Motown in 1973. We are proud to release the official 50th Anniversary edition.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tell Me It's Just A Rumour Baby
2. My Love Is Your Love (Forever)

A wonderful soul gem first time on 7" vinyl by the relatively unknown artist Jimmy Messina. No breaks and samples just good vibes and perfect for that soul box.

Love is here - a great soul sing a long and a dance floor mover, brung on the sunshine!

Do you wanna dance - is a perfect soul dancer

TRACK LISTING

1. Do You Want To Dance
2. Love Is Here

On 7" for the first time ever, one of the most important rap records ever.

It's timeless, it's genius, it's just pure beautiful brilliance. It's Common's masterpiece.

One of the best songs in all hip-hop history, “I Used To Love H.E.R.” was the first single from Common's eternal 1994 LP, Resurrection. He personifies hip-hop as an ode to the art form he once loved, lamenting how the genre became too commercialised and, due to a mass influx of mainstream rap in the 90s, some of the purity and freshness of the culture was being lost.

Common uses a first-person romance narrative to detail the history of hip-hop, resulting in an extended metaphor that's sophisticated, clever, and delivers a moral message that touched millions of people and still absolutely blows minds at the song's conclusion: "'Cause who we're talkin' about, y'all, is hip-hop"

Perfectly produced by No ID and incorporating a gorgeous, melancholic sample of George Benson’s “The Changing World”, the plaintive sonic landscape provided the ideal foundation for Common’s innovative storytelling. Almost 30 years later, “I Used To Love H.E.R.” remains one the most significant moments in hip-hop: a classic in every sense of the word.

Common did discuss the true meaning of the track in a 1995 interview on “Yo! MTV Raps”, stating: “H.E.R. stands for Hip-Hop in its Essence is Real. And all I’m talking about his how I first came into contact with hip-hop music and how it evolved into where it is now. And it’s like all these gimmicks going on, all the phoniness, ain’t nobody being real with it. Everybody’s stressing that it’s real but ain’t nobody being true to it. I think that came about because — once it started becoming a business, then people started losing their soul and they started looking at it, taking it more as a business than an artform.”

On the flip, we've stayed faithful to the track used for the original 12" release. And what a track it is. Destined to be overshadowed by the behemoth on the A-Side, the frenetic neck-snapping jazz-rap "Communism" has it all - those horns at the start, the lyrical dexterity, the beat. Oh my.

So, one of the greatest pieces of music ever, in any genre. This is not merely music. It's high art. Speaking of which, we've recreated the striking original artwork from the 12" and shrunk it down to the 7" format. It looks and sounds stunning. The most important song in rap history, if you really think about it. We all miss her. We all miss hip-hop...

TRACK LISTING

A I Used To Love H.E.R.
B Communism

Serving up art-pop for the anthropocene, Springs Eternal is the Mercury-nominated, critically acclaimed artist William Doyle’s most ambitious and most playful creation to date. Taking a panoramic view of the ecstasies and agonies of life in the 2020s, the record asks how we exist as fragile flesh and blood – our hearts beating and our minds racing – in an unprecedented, almost unimaginable time of runaway climate destruction and technological expansion.

Springs Eternal presents a strange and thrilling cast of characters – from cowboys to castaways – who just might be Doyle, once or twice removed. “Most of the songs are in the first-person, but rather than being autobiographical, I was trying to imagine hyperreality versions of myself,” Doyle says. “What if decisions I made in my life had resulted in the self of each particular song? How many degrees of separation am I from those realities? It’s a frightening thought, and frightening thoughts often make for good songs.”

Across 11 tracks, we hear from narrators teetering on the precipice of global disaster, heartbreak, addiction, indoctrination and mental illness, until they pass into the great unknown. The lyrics, by turns earnest and ironic, upfront and allegorical, are paired with infectious melodies and often outright swagger. Co-produced by indie superproducer Mike Lindsay (Tunng, LUMP) at his MESS studio in Margate, we hear the siren song of the sea washing around pulsating electronics and stirring instrumentation, featuring contributions from musicians Alexander Painter, Genevieve Dawson and Brian Eno.

A recurring theme of water and flooding runs through the record, alluding simultaneously to the global climate crisis and the deluge of overwhelm these parallel-universe Williams are experiencing. “It wasn’t until we were mixing the record that I realised how many water references there are,” Doyle says. “I guess there’s a fluid border between our inner selves and the outside world that allows things to flood in, in unstoppable or perhaps irresistible ways.”

Springs Eternal is the next chapter in the William Doyle sonic odyssey that began with his incarnation as East India Youth (Total Strife Forever, 2014; Culture of Volume, 2015) and developed under his own name, producing the critically acclaimed records Your Wilderness Revisited (2019) and Great Spans of Muddy Time (2021). Alongside his own output, Doyle recently produced Anna B Savage’s celebrated debut album A Common Turn (2021) and plays in Orlando Weeks’ band both live and on his upcoming record.

TRACK LISTING

Garden Of The Morning
Now In Motion
Relentless Melt
Soft To The Touch
Eternal Spring
Cannot Unsee
Castawayed
Surrender Yourself
A Short Illness
A Long Life
Because Of A Dream

As one of the most traditional guitar bands to emerge during the Brit-pop era of the mid-'90s, Cast have carved out a sound that was heavily indebted to the British Invasion of the early '60s, yet it was infused with a mystical, pseudo-hippie lyrical sensibility, which lead singer John Power expanded upon. What really made Cast into a success was Power's gift for simple, classic pop hooks, as demonstrated on the hit singles "Fine Time," "Alright," and "Walkaway."

With seven Top 10 singles, three Top 10 albums and a rich catalogue of timeless songs, Cast were one of the big success stories of the Britpop era. Power’s gift for sparkling melodies and instantly additive hooks remains as strong as ever.

Power has hinted that the new album Love is The Call feels like a missing link between his time with The La’s and Cast’s first breakthrough with their debut album ‘All Change’.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bluebird
2. Forever And A Day
3. Rain That Falls
4. Far Away
5. Starry Eyes
6. Love You Like I Do
7. Love Is The Call
8. I Have Been Waiting
9. Look Around
10. Time Is Like A River
11. Tomorrow Calls My Name

An edition of 620 copies in a generic card sleeve, with a hand stamped band name and Duophonic logo, plus each disk will be numbered.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Andrew Pekler composes with samples, field recordings, electronic and acoustic instruments and is the very definition of a DIY artist.

A modern, mid-tempo masterpiece whose lush arrangement and laser-sharp groove provide the perfect foundation for Jalen’s profoundly soulful vocals. The track exudes charm and manifests positivity in a way rarely captured on today’s soul scene.

On the flip is the moody, previously unreleased beat-ballad, “What is Left to Do”, whose gorgeous strings, plaintive, call and response chorus and tasteful delay create the kind of subdued psychedelic that was coming out of Motown in the early 70’s. But contrary to the trends of that era, both sides of this disc are presented in glorious mono.

TRACK LISTING

Side A – Come Around And Love Me
Side B – What Is Left To Do

Amazing floaty modern soul / disco goodness out of late 70s Queens, NY. 'Love Is The Same' two brilliant and different versions, both dancefloor fire…

Mark Beiner met Ben Iverson in 1976 when I was 17 years old, at the time he was a junior at Newtown High School in Elmhurst, Queens. Mark had taken a part time job as a Produce Clerk at Walbaum's Supermarket on Northern Boulevard in Jackson Heights, Queens, where I met Ben Iverson, the "Frozen Food Manager."

Back then Mark remembers, 'I was going to work early just to talk to him about his musical background and his time spent in the 50's and 60's with the Ohio Doo Wop Group, "The Hornets", or better known as, "Ben Iverson and The Hornets."'

In 1978 after Ben and I discussed getting together and composing music, I started writing poetry and expressing in writing my break-up with my college girlfriend, Paula. Ben and Mark went on to writing two albums worth of material, which in turn gave us a lot of time and presence on stage at our live gigs.

The regular Coast to Coast Band members consisted of Ben Iverson on Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitarist and Co-Executive Producer, Joe Crowley, who is known today as "New York Congressman Joe Crowley." Carl (Woody Wood) Morton on Bass Guitar, Jimmy Johnson on Keyboards. Lead Guitarist, Lou Jimenez, currently owns his own recording studio, Music Labs in Elmont, Long Island. On Drums, Eddie Byam, on Alto Sax, Jay Cohen, who in the 70's used to record for "Gary U.S. Bonds." Gary Pevols on Trumpet. On Bone, Scott Burrows, Trumpet player, Steve Becker, along side Neil Levine, Stan Stockley, Tom Russo.

TRACK LISTING

1. Love Is The Same
2. Love Is The Same (Instrumental)

RIYL: Orange Juice, Sarah Records, early Creation, Mary Chain, C86, Lush.

The Umbrellas are four renegade romantics crafting irresistible indie pop hymns. The band’s self-titled 2021 debut album became a breakout moment, winning critical praise and sparking an international tour. Follow-up LP ‘Fairweather Friend’ goes a step further – absorbing the sonic attack of their live shows, it balances this with studio finesse, allowing the San Francisco four-piece to become the band they’ve always aspired to be.

It's a record overflowing with highlights. The candyfloss melodies of introductory track ‘Three Cheers!’ are matched to an impactful percussive punch; ‘Say What You Mean’ finds The Umbrellas working with total confidence, letting the song ride out to its chiming conclusion, four voices working in precision. ‘When You Find Out’ offers rotating notes of guitar punctuated by a vocal that pushes past angst to accept a world full of hope. A lean 10 track affair, it grasps towards beatific pop while fuelled by a sense of risk, and the precision that comes from long months on the road.

The Umbrellas coalesced around a group of musicians who would frequent legendary San Francisco record emporium Amoeba Music. Singer and guitarist Matt Ferrera links with bassist Nick Oka, while Keith Frerichs is the powerhouse drummer. A chance encounter with Morgan Stanley singing karaoke at a Fourth of July party cemented the line-up around an avowed thirst for melody. “All of us love really earnest pop songs,” Nick points out. “I guess we got to a point in our lives where we wanted to be genuine.”

Playing shows at San Francisco’s vital DIY redoubt Hit Gallery, The Umbrellas would share line-ups with local heroes such as April Magazine and Cindy. Recording their debut album across a two-day spell at Matt’s parents’ house, the results won a devoted cult following. Yet the experience of touring bonded them tightly and allowed the volume to tick up a little higher, and higher, and higher. “I think we got tired of people saying, oh you’re so much louder than I thought you’d be!” laughs Matt. “Our early recordings are sweet and earnest… and we wanted it to be louder.”

Kicking off sessions in November 2022, the band used an ad hoc space Matt created in his basement, working across a four-month period. Sessions were a little more relaxed in terms of timescale than their debut, but The Umbrellas were incredibly focussed on the project. “We gave ourselves more space for this album,” says Keith. “We wanted time to sit on the songs, and really work on them.”

Allowing their live dynamic to bleed out on tape, The Umbrellas are at once more physical and yet also more controlled on their new album. Take opening track ‘Three Cheers!’ – the peppy, sun-soaked rush masks a barbed lyric, courtesy of Nick Oka. “It’s a pseudo-political song about power struggles that occur in a job situation, or a friend group. It’s an observational song.”

‘Toe The Line’ has an unkempt, rollicking sense of energy, the playful relationship analogy of the lyric pushed to the speed of light by Keith’s ultra-fast punk drumming. ‘When You Find Out’ meanwhile epitomises their unified, egalitarian way of making music – with The Umbrellas, each voice counts. “It sounds different from any song we’ve ever written together,” says Morgan. “It shows how much we’ve grown. Trust helps us to build the songs. It’s definitely a team effort.”

It's also a record of ambition. ‘Say What You Mean’ stretches past the four-minute mark, the viola performance informed by Estonian minimalist composer Arvo Pärt. ‘Gone’ was the first song attempted for the new album, and the last they actually finished, endless re-writes transforming it into a manifesto of control and release. Taken as a whole ‘Fairweather Friend’ is a bold indie pop triumph, crafted with purpose and attention. Taking their time over each note, the four-piece have strengthened their songwriting, adding depth and assurance while unlocking their potential. Some bonds last a lifetime – The Umbrellas are ready to capture your heart.

TRACK LISTING

Three Cheers
Goodbye
Toe The Line
Echoes
Say What You Mean
Games
Gone
When You Find Out
Blue
PM

Double LP
This expanded edition features the complete album in it's original running order on LP 1 - including the band's biggest chart hit 'The Only Living Boy In New Cross' which reached No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart plus Top 40 singles 'Do Re Me, So Far So Good' and 'The Impossible Dream' (a cover of the Man of La Mancha standard).

LP 2 features '1992 - The Other Love Songs', the complete collection of B-sides from the period plus the non-album Top 20 A-side 'After The Watershed (Early Learning The Hard Way)'.

Newly remastered by Phil Kinrade at AIR Mastering and pressed on 180g blue (LP1) and yellow (LP2) translucent vinyl, housed in a gatefold sleeve with poly-lined inner bags.

CD Box
This new edition features the complete album newly remastered on CD 1- including the band's biggest chart hit 'The Only Living Boy In New Cross' which hit No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart, plus Top 40 singles 'Do Re Me, So Far So Good' and 'The Impossible Dream' (a cover of the Man of La Mancha standard).

CD 2 features rarities, B-sides, and the non-album Top 20 single 'After The Watershed (Early Learning The Hard Way)', plus BBC 'Live In Norwich' recordings, and a previously unreleased mix of 'Skywest And Crooked'.

CD 3 includes the complete 1992 Glastonbury headlining performance from the legendary Pyramid stage - available in its entirety for the very first time.

Rounding off the set is a DVD with the 55 minute 'What Do You Think Of The Programme So Far?' feature, plus three Top Of The Pops performances, all appearing on DVD for the first time and accompanied by exclusive new commentary by Jim Bob and Fruitbat.

Canada’s finest label, Friday's Funky are back with another couple of Jim Sharp sure shots! Side A flips J Lo to great effect with Big Horns and Phat drums whilst side B slows up the tempo of an Armand Van Heldon classic, Full Moon featuring Common – these won’t hang around so don’t sleep – snooze you lose! 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Right On (Jim Sharp Mix)
B1. Full Love (Jim Sharp Mix) 

Pieced together with musty samples from children’s exercise records, vintage drama, clunky British jazz and library records, this is an archaeology of emotion, an exploration of the power of not only childhood memories, but of the collective unconscious.

Julian House’s own The Focus Group; oddly assembled sampledelic collages, stitched together from fragments of library cues and forgotten soundtracks. A beautiful, unhinged stream of consciousness that seems to prod at buried memories

REVIEWS

Julian Houses's Focus Group should appeal to anyone who grew up in Britain in the '70s: its a condensed memory of that decade's daytime and after hours television. These 19 soundbites ape the incidental music for The Tomorrow People, The Clangers and Follyfoot, jazz drums, bass flutes, continuity men and grubby science-lab electronica. Like Boards of Canada minus beats, the feeling of smothered innocence evokes powerful intimations of the uncanny.

TRACK LISTING

1. Icicle Wheel
2. You Do Not See Me
3. Clockbell
4. Echo Release
5. Xylophone Signal
6. Modern Harp
7. Inside The Rubber Box
8. Lifting Away
9. Today’s Rhythm People
10. Hey Let Loose Your Love
11. String Sine Romance
12. The Moon Ladder
13. Planning For Urban Green
14. Swinging Phantom
15. The Thre
16. Jam-jar Carnival
17. Baroque Face
18. The Leaving
19. Reflected Message

Freestyle drop a much needed and fully licensed 12" repro from 1984, in the form of Midnight Energy's Front Line b/w Saving All My Love originally released on Wal-Brooks Records. Two slamming sides of spenny electro-boogiefunk from out of New Jersey, written and produced by Tony McLachlan of the Fresh Band (of 'Come Back Lover' fame) - dig in!

TRACK LISTING

1. Front Line
2. Saving All My Love (Long Version)
3. Saving All My Love (Edited Version)

London based singer and producer George Riley releases her ‘Un/Limited Love’ EP via Ninja Tune. Through a progressive sound that encapsulates soul, forward thinking electronics, ambience and so much more, Riley has, over the space of two critically acclaimed projects in ‘interest rates, a tape’ and ‘Running In Waves’, carved an abstract yet wholly relatable niche within London’s thriving music scene.

The EP explores themes of agency and feeling in control, as well as Space, female archetypes, surrendering to something you can’t control, love and voyeurism.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lust
2. Skin
3. Elixir
4. Star
5. S E X (Feat. Hudson Mohawke)
6. Satisfy You 

Hidden Spheres supplying the fruits once again. More tried and tested club material from the Fruit Merchant main man. Love Hate EP is a tale of two sides.

On Side A Hidden Spheres proves there’s no messin’ with ‘Step to me’ & ‘Don’t Front. Flipping over to the B we see that he’s really just a lover at heart, not a hatter, with the swung out sounds of ‘LUVR MAN’ and the deep sleaze of ‘SO SXY’..

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Shop favourite and all-round good egg 'Spheres presents another deep suite of jagged dancefloor melodies and rich, syncopated FM hits. Tom's instantly recognisable style and angular swagger shine through on these tracks, but with a step towards the more wonky side of house. Another classic and impeccable sonic fusion from Hidden Spheres.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Step To Me
A2. Don’t Front
B1. LUVR MAN
B2. SO SXY

The Love Movement" stands as A Tribe Called Quest's fifth studio album. It was initially launched on September 29, 1998, under the Jive Records label. This album is a concept masterpiece delving into the theme of love through its 15 album tracks and 6 bonus tracks, spread across 3 LPs. Notable singles from the album include "Find A Way" and "Hot Sex".

TRACK LISTING

DISC 1 - LP - Side A
Start It Up
Find Away
Da Booty
DISC 2 - LP - Side B
Steppin’ It Up
Like It Like That
Common Ground
4 Moms
His Name Is Mutty Ranks
DISC 2 - LP - Side A
Give Me
Pad & Pen
Busta’s Lament
Hot 4 U
DISC 2 - LP - Side B
Against The World
The Love
Rock Rock Ya’ll
DISC 3 - LP - Side A
Scenario (Remix)
Money Maker
Hot Sex
DISC 3 - LP - Side B
Oh My God
Jazzy (We’ve Got) (Re-recording)
One Two Sh*t

Alongside an absolutely crucial reissue of Moodymann's remix of "Another Night", Larry Heard's Alleviated Records come through with a brand new release courtesy of Piccolo JT & Rio Love.

Piccolo Jt gets things underway with "1969", a beautifully airy deep house stroller with a spoken word sample reminiscing about early black music parties and delicate conga patterns a la the Alleviated standard. "Juke Joints Liquor Houses" follows suit with equally sumptuous, open air deep house vibrations narrated by another commentary on black music and society from back in the day.

Rio Love takes over the reins on side B, "My Country" pairing mechanized electronics and a stripped back rhythm to a politically charged speech on power struggles and economic / race divisions in society. Finally, "I'm Not Tough But Im Tired" sees a weighty house throb decorated with melodica and gentle piano chords for a moment of deep house, plasma pool bliss - the likes of which is almost synonymous with Larry Heard's Alleviated imprint.

These two new signings ensure Alleviated is still at the top of the deep house pyramid after over 30 years! Don't sleep... 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Amazing new vibes from Larry Heard's Alleviated camp. Piccolo JT delivering pure deepness, up there with some of the best on the label. The spoken word snippets really elevate it - a feast for the mind and body. Can't get enough of this...

TRACK LISTING

Piccolo Jt - 1969
Piccolo Jt - Juke Joints Liqour Houses
Rio Love - My Country
Rio Love - Im Not Tough But Im Tired

"Without Your Love" is a wonderful, uplifting modern soul tune which was recently comped on "Praise Poems Vol. 9". The original 45 RPM single is ultra-rare and extremely hard to find, so this reissue is here to please a lot of music lovers.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Tramp continue to deliver the goods this week, offering up rare-as-hen's-teeth tracks on tasty 7". An original of this smoochy and fiery double header would set you back a cool two ton.

TRACK LISTING

1. Without Your Love
2. The Real Deal

A command across genres has distinguished Yasushi Ide’s work as a DJ and producer since emerging from the multiscene spawning big bang that was Tokyo’s highly influential club milieu of the 1980s. His productions draw variously from hip-hop, dub, house, punk, jazz dance, exotica and electronic music - and at their most expressive, synthesize sensibilities within a single track. The respect Ide’s earned is well evident in the impressive roll call of collaborators he’s accrued over the years - Masters At Work, Tom Verlaine, Don Letts, James Chance, DJ Krush, Pharaoh Sanders, U-ROY, and Bongo Herman, just to name a legendary few.

Now available for worldwide distribution from Love Injection Records in both digital and 7-inch 45 vinyl formats, the Yasushi Ide “A Place In the Sun (Kaoru Inoue Remix)” is paired with the equally gorgeous “A Place In the Sun (Dub).” On the former, Inoue’s treatment largely strips away the track’s beats, anchoring it to a subtle percussion pulse that emphasizes the composition’s irresistible melodic qualities. The latter finds Yoko Ota at the controls restoring and pushing reverb-soaked drums to the forefront of the mix, accentuating Ide’s affection for the sound system aesthetic while exercising just the right amount of spacial arrangement flourishes to inject some brawn amidst the beauty.

These serendipitously rediscovered renditions of a back catalog deep cut are just the latest examples of Yasushi Ide’s artistic reach. In addition to recording such acclaimed albums as 2020’s Cosmic Suite and its 2022 sequel (for which Love Injection has remixed a track), his work has spanned music supervision of some 200+ compilations for major labels, artist management, his Grand Gallery shop/gallery proprietorship, and books showcasing the depth of his archival sensibilities, including vintage t-shirt and ephemera curation. Perhaps most inspiring, however, is that Ide is still winning new appreciators and collaborators in unexpected ways four decades into a revered career that continues to evolve and expand.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Place In The Sun (Kaoru Inoue Remix 45 Edit)
2. A Place In The Sun (Dub) 

An elusive Soul/Funk masterpiece from mid-70s Lakeland, Florida. The Riley siblings; Carrie, Horace & James laid the foundation for the two songs they would bring to Auburndale's custom recording studio, Central Sound to be released on the Nashville/Florida label, 'Music City'. Jerome McNeil, William Freeman, Bruce Bolden & Sam Graham would complete the outfit and be collectively known as 'Carrie Riley & The Soul Fascinations'

'During the early 70's The Riley family members who formed the Fascinations (originally the Soul Fascinations), James, Horace and Carrie along with a few friends, were destined to develop and perform musically as music flowed through our veins. Our father was a musician who played piano and sang the blues. As children we gathered around an old upright piano after dinner to hear our father play and sang. By the time I was 14 and my brothers, James and Horace were 16 and 17, we had all learned to plan an instrument. My focus was on vocals with many role models to learn from in the music industry such as; Dianna Ross, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight and Mable Staple. My brothers loved the Commodores, Kool and the Gang, Rick James and Earth Wind and Fire. The Isleys's were a favorite of ours also. James was the driver of our success in recording as he made sure we practiced for hours on end. Sometimes we would practice popular songs until 2 in the morning. James began to write songs and develop melodies that he would share with Horace and I. We would make suggestions for revisions such as arrangements and melodies. Before long we traveled to Miami where we recorded, Super Cool which was our title song, 'Living in A Lonesome House' and a few other tracks. 'Super Cool' is a song that is personal to me. It is a song about relationships and trust, while the Lonesome house song was about love affairs and breakups. So much great music came out of the 70's. I am grateful that our music contributed to the industry during a time when great music was about love and relationships.

Lovingly
Carrie'

TRACK LISTING

1. Living In A Lonesome House Without You
2. Super Cool

Re-issue of this obscure Bay Area, mid-80s Disco/Soul single produced by the late Harvey Scales & Cedrick Rupert

TRACK LISTING

1. (We Are The) Stars
2. Best Friend

This modern soul masterpiece, originally released in July of 1978 at a cabaret club in downtown Detroit has been revived and re-released via Fantasy Love.

TRACK LISTING

1. Everybody Needs Lovin, Now's The Time
2. Hey Look At Me

Chicago’s Magic Touch label gets the Numero treatment. Legendary rare groove selector & DJ Red Greg’s edit of Disco Holy-Grail “Why Do I Love You” is now available on 7” for the first time and housed in official Magic Touch Double Disco Smash 7” Company Sleeve. This tune has been making waves in the DJ community for years only after Red Greg introduced his crucial edit eliminating the studio fluff and dialing in the raw disco meat. Certified Floor Filler with a groove guaranteed to answer all questions on love.

TRACK LISTING

A. Why Do I Love You (Red Greg Edit)

B. Why Do I Love You (Instrumental)

No band smoulders quite like The Slow Show.

The Manchester four-piece have built a reputation for soaring crescendos and deep emotional canyons, making music for romantic souls and wounded hearts.

Subtle Love not only distils The Slow Show’s sumptuous indie pop formula, but it casts the group’s net into exciting fresh waters, incorporating winsome folk (Royal Blue) and anthemic, widescreen rock (One Shot) too. Across ten songs, the listener is taken on an amble through the band’s past and into a tantalising future. It is a highly melodic and moving affair, made by kindred spirits and lifelong friends.

The band decamped to Cave Hill in Belfast, where Joel Byrne-McCullough grew up. “I hadn’t been there for 15 years,” marvels the guitarist. While there, the band stuck side by side and bonded afresh. “It was a great time of togetherness,” reveals Rob. “We lived in the same house, we ate together, we went to the local pub, we talked about life.”

Across a five-day period, all ten songs that make up the album had taken shape and been committed to tape by their producer, Joel’s brother, Dan Byrne-McCullough. Dan’s presence enabled an intimacy and familiarity that made everyone feel comfortable, and this brought out the best in the band.

One Shot is the first taster from the album and is arguably the band’s most anthemic and sing-a-long song of their career to date.

Joel reminisces “I remember when we had the music of One Shot. It was the evening, and we were sat in the sitting room [in Belfast’, the fire was on, and we were having our dinner watching the news: me, Rob, and Fred [Kindt – band keyboardist]. After dinner, Rob was singing a few things over those chords.

As soon as he sung, ‘We’ve got one shot’, I said, 'That's it'.”

TRACK LISTING

Roulette
Tides
Learning To Dance
Subtle Love
Royal Blue
One Shot
Lament
Builder Boy
Trainride
Pale

RIYL: Silver Jews, Pixies, Husker Du, Wilco, Pavement, Superchunk, Modest Mouse.

As the front person of celebrated indie band Cymbals Eat Guitars, guitarist and singer Joseph D’Agostino spent over a decade setting autobiographical, emotionally vivid lyrics against a backdrop of soaring and compositionally ambitious rock. After four critically acclaimed LPs that solidified D’Agostino’s reputation as a gifted songwriter, he chose to break from his long-term band and debut a new project: Empty Country. On 2020’s self-titled debut, D’Agostino’s storytelling lens shifted away from personal narrative and toward fiction; psychopaths, apparitions and deplorables populated a bleak and uncanny parallel version of American dystopia. Empty Country’s sprawling and sonically adventurous arrangements—filled out by collaborating musicians including Rachel and Zoë Browne (Field Mouse), Kyle Gillbride (Swearin’), Zena Kay (Angel Olsen), and former CEG drummer Charlotte Anne Dole—ranged from luminous jangle-pop to scorching emo-punk to narcotized Americana. Though the pandemic curtailed planned touring, a seven-piece iteration of the band played one packed Brooklyn show in May 2022, supported by Charles Bissell (The Wrens) and Field Mouse; Empty Country also backed Bissell on several classics from The Meadowlands. “It was a wonderful return to live music for all of us,” says D’Agostino. “So many folks reached out to me and told me how Empty Country offered them comfort during those first several months of being stuck inside. I’m happy that it came out and connected with some people and that I was able to establish this universe I could continue to build on.”

Empty Country II, the project’s second full-length, is a thrilling expansion of that world. D’Agostino pushed himself to new places as a songwriter, crafting a collection of short stories set to music that grapple with the biggest questions now hanging over America—gun violence, the addiction epidemic, and generational hopelessness among them. In 2020, he’d moved from Philadelphia to small-town New England to be closer to family, and his new locale, coupled with the dread of lockdown, inspired him to return to the haunted world from the first LP. “It’s pretty jarring to leave a city—where you can safely assume you’re aligned with your neighbors on many political and social issues—for somewhere more rural and conservative,” says D’Agostino, noting the Trump flags and Blue Lives Matter hood wraps that dot his new dirt road residence. Across the new album’s nine tracks, D’Agostino introduces us to a bevy of characters: three generations of West Virginia clairvoyants, crushed by the weight of their secret knowledge; a group of drag queens and misfits in early ‘80s New York City; a pill mill doctor’s daughter who dabbles in necromancy; a convicted killer; a bullied kid injured and alone in the forest as night falls. Through the stories of these characters, Empty Country II delivers an engaging and deeply moving rumination on time, family, and the disintegration of America.

Despite the stoicism of its storytelling, Empty Country II cuts the darkness with beauty, humor, and an earnest belief in the transcendent power of rock music. It was recorded over two weeks at Fidelitorium, the renowned studio in Kernersville, NC, belonging to R.E.M. producer Mitch Easter. Legendary recording engineer John Agnello, whose previous collaborations with Cymbals Eat Guitars resulted in their 2014 high-water mark, LOSE, brought his trademark clarity and nuance to the process, helping Empty Country II crackle with a vital energy that imbues these stories with genuine lifeforce. Dole returned on drums for the record, her virtuosic performances lending raw power and immediacy; her twin brother Patrick joined on bass, his decades of experience uplifting the songs with subtle melodicism and formidable technicality. The group's chemistry and deep personal history are palpable, allowing them to approach the record’s complex story with subtlety and dynamism. “Mitch has collected an astounding array of weird mics, amplifiers, and oddball orchestral instruments: organs, Buddhist temple bells, bar chimes, tubular bells,” enthuses D’Agostino about the studio. “FLA,” a gripping portrait of a queer tour boat pilot in the Florida Keys pining for their absent lover, was arranged from the ground so the group could incorporate Easter’s timpani. D’Agostino considers it a high point of his lengthy discography and lauds that song’s harmonica solo as “my favorite 30 seconds of music that I’ve ever been a part of.”

Empty Country II also features some of D’Agostino’s most danceable songs—like “David,” a tribute to D’Agostino’s late friend David Berman. Featuring a lyrical tapestry of Silver Jews references and surreally beautiful images, head-nodding Philly soul grooves collapse into cosmic freeform jazz-inspired sections, ornamented with inventive hand percussion, marimba flourishes, and toe-tapping piano chords. “Recite a poem as the day vibrates,” D’Agostino sings. “I finally wrote this song for you / But I don’t know who I’d show it to.” It’s a paraphrase of W.S. Merwin’s famed short poem “Elegy”, written after the passing of his own mentor, John Berryman. On “Bootsie,” a runaway girl from West Virginia explores the crumbling, glorious 1980s New York City of Paris is Burning, finding community in a scene of drag queens who offer her a new way of thinking about what makes America—and rock music—great. Based on his own mother’s experiences at the height of the AIDS epidemic, the song has deep personal meaning to D’Agostino. “The men you thought were brave / are arrogant and depraved,” he sings against the damaged disco beats of the Dole siblings’ rhythm section. Inverting the chorus of the Talking Heads’ “Heaven,” the lyrics of “Bootsie” celebrate the underdogs and misfits: “Hell is the place where everything happens / The band’s playing all the songs ever written at once / Shape the chaos, make your little story / Baby, this life’s perfect purgatory.”

Though Empty Country II is a record about the forces that drive Americans apart, it’s also imbued with empathic love and an understanding of what binds people to family and country—in spite of the darknesses we encounter. The concept of a Great American Rock Album might scan as outdated in 2023, but with this sprawling and uncompromising epic, D’Agostino and Empty Country shatter ambivalence and confront the horrors with a community-minded sense of cautious optimism. “We may be staring into an abyss,” says D’Agostino. “But we’re all staring together.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Pearl
2. Erlking
3. David
4. Dustine
5. Syd
6. Bootsie
7. FLA
8. Lamb
9. Cool S

RIYL: the Dead C, Birchville Cat Motel, Skullflower, heat exhaustion, feeling of confusion and self-recrimination et al. …aka A Bunker Intimation Vol. 1. And what have they built down there? A remodel in 40 minutes at half-time, the group temporarily slimmed and tuned to a different gait, a shifting of pulses, delay, moving air; the sound of the room and the body, of the body in the room; a room fogged as emphysemic lungs where indistinct translucent ooze lines its walls, possibly of paranormal origin, possibly of nocturnal transgression alone. The reality - as it ought - is occluded from view. Not necessarily the IFWM unit you might assume, but most certainly one of the many versions they've always been. And not so much a new beginning as an alternative diversion through the abyss. Indexe'e: aka Index For Working Musik. Onwards, inwards.

TRACK LISTING

1. Church Normal
2. Half Leib II
3. W1 Sprokla
4. Frucht Keller

LOVE + POP is a snapshot of a moment in not-so-far-away time; something fast, loud, moody and a little dangerous. It is, in some ways, classic Current Joys: full of wild ambition, sneaky hooks, and songs that move from concept to completion with prolific speed. But LOVE + POP also explodes myriad expectations with aggressive, deconstructed production, house music influence, and a guest appearance from Lil Yachty. It is not so much a twist as it is a unique multiverse identity for Current Joys, as Nick Rattigan’s set out to “capture this sonic moment and harken back to the way I first released music.”

The story of LOVE + POP begins with one of those house parties: the kind that bulldozes your home and, in its aftermath, leaves a wreckage that finds you flattened but also ready to be new. In that mess and mayhem, Rattigan watched Everybody’s Everything, the documentary of Lil Peep, and recorded a cover of “walk away as the door slams”. But the itch wasn’t scratched, and what began as a moment of homage morphed into something bigger, deeper and more fundamental, a point where the seemingly haphazard – in his home, in Peep’s process – opened Rattigan up to an entire creative space and a new approach to bending or even detonating genre.

Crucially, all of this was recorded at home, in what Rattigan calls a “tribute to the process of creating” in a DIY space. And what began as a singular passion project unexpectedly grew into a uniquely collaborative record for Current Joys. “I’ve set out to make collaborative records before,” Rattigan explains, “but they often end up totally me, with just a couple exceptions. But then this record gave me the opportunity to be extremely collaborative, to let other people write instrumental tracks, sending links around for people to mess with and weigh in on. I sat down to do credits and realized here were all these people and styles and they all came together and worked.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Walk Away As The Door Slams (feat. Your Angel)
2. LOVE + POP (feat. Your Angel)
3. Gatsby (feat. Lil Yachty)
4. My Shadow Life (feat. Oddbody)
5. CIGARETTES
6. Bb Put On Deftones
7. Dr Satan
8. Moon Sickness
9. Rock N Roll Dreams (feat. Brutus VIII)
10. I Feel Truth Inside Of U
11. 3lefant (feat. Slow Hollows)
12. U R THE REASON

18 classic songs from the Velvet Underground catalog performed by The Feelies at White Eagle Hall/ Jersey City, NJ - October 13, 2018. The Feelies have spent their entire career covering songs by the Velvet Underground and are masters of the VU sound. They toured Europe opening for Lou Reed in the 1980s, sharing meals, hanging out backstage, even joining him to perform some of his classic material. On October 13, 2018 the Feelies were invited to perform Velvet Underground songs at Jersey City, NJ’s White Eagle Hall as part of a traveling museum show of VU memorabilia.

This double vinyl album of 18 classic Lou Reed songs includes VU standards like “Sweet Jane,” “Rock & Roll” and “I’m Waiting for the Man” as well as rarely covered gems like “I Heard Her Call My Name” and “That’s the Story of My Life.” The Feelies are one of the most influential bands to emerge from the NY post punk scene of the late 1970s and have continued to perform together and make records for 4 decades. Includes guest performances from Bongos members James Mastro and Richard Barone.

Double LP Includes liner notes by veteran music journalist Howard Wuelfing. 

TRACK LISTING

01. Sunday Morning
02. Who Loves The Sun
03. There She Goes Again
04. What Goes On
05. Sweet Jane
06. Head Held High
07. I’m Waiting For The Man
08. White Light/White Heat
09. I Heard Her Call My Name
10. New Age
11. That’s The Story Of My Life
12. All Tomorrow’s Parties
13. Rock And Roll
14. We’re Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together
15. Run Run Run
16. I Can’t Stand It
17. After Hours
18. Oh! Sweet Nuthin’

History has shown that the greatest bands - bands with that certain, ever elusive quality called lasting power - neither conform to nor buck the trends of their time, but rather force the times to catch up to them. Sheer Mag has such lasting power in droves. After almost a decade spent carving out a career that has already become the stuff of modern underground legend, the band’s new stand-alone single, “All Lined Up,” comes alongside the announcement of their signing to Third Man Records - their first partnership with a larger independent label–who will also be physically and digitally re-releasing the entirety of Sheer Mag’s back-catalogue, including their cult-beloved early EPs I (2014), II (2015), and III (2016), as well as their first two breakthrough LPs, Need To Feel Your Love (2017) and A Distant Call (2019). Sheer Mag’s sensibility, as fervently beloved by baseball-tee clad garage rockers and tattoo-less indie kids as it is by leather-and-stud-loyal punks, finds its strength in an unconventional mixture of refined complexity and straight-forward pop prowess. Seamlessly trading between head-turning guitar heroics and a charmingly timeless blend of disco, hard rock, and garage inflected hooks, Sheer Mag’s oft-referenced, never-replicated sound has played an undeniably large role in stoking the current resurgence of interest power-pop forward rock music. While quickly adopted as a fan-favorite amongst the sweat-caked crowds of the early 2010’s underground, time has attested to Sheer Mag’s singular cultural mutability: though never straying too far from their home-town Philadelphian origins

TRACK LISTING

1. Suffer Me
2. Meet Me In The Street
3. Pure Desire
4. Need To Feel Your Love
5. Until You Find The One
6. Just Can't Get Enough
7. Milk And Honey
8. Expect The Bayonet
9. Rank And File
10. Can't Play It Cool
11. Turn It Up
12. (Say Goodbye To) Sophie Scholl

ABC perform their classic album "Lexicon Of Love" in it's entirety, plus their other greatest hits.

Sheffield's finest, ABC, were back in their hometown for a very special anniversary show which marked exactly 40 years to the day since the album was released on the 21st June 1982.

ABC were joined by the original orchestral team of Southbank Sinfonia and longtime collaborator and arranger Anne Dudley who conducted the evening.

TRACK LISTING

LP TRACKLISTING
Disc 1
Side 1
1. Overture
2. When Smokey Sings
3. Viva Love
Side 2
1. The Night You Murdered Love
2. (How To Be A) Millionaire
3. The Flames Of Desire
4. The Love Inside The Love
Disc 2
Side 1
1. Ten Below Zero
2. One Better World
3. Ocean Blue
4. Be Near Me
Side 2
1. Show Me
2. Poison Arrow
3. Many Happy Returns
4. Tears Are Not Enough
Disc 3
Side 1
1. Valentine's Day
2. The Look Of Love
3. Date Stamp
Side 2
1. 4 Ever 2 Gether
2. All Of My Heart
3. The Look Of Love (Part Four)
4. The Look Of Love (Encore)

2CD TRACKLIST
Disc 1
1. Overture
2. When Smokey Sings
3. Viva Love
4. The Night You Murdered Love
5. (How To Be A) Millionaire
6. The Flames Of Desire
7. The Love Inside The Love
8. Ten Below Zero
9. One Better World
10. Ocean Blue
11. Be Near Me
Disc 2
1. Show Me
2. Poison Arrow
3. Many Happy Returns
4. Tears Are Not Enough
5. Valentine's Day
6. The Look Of Love
7. Date Stamp
8. 4 Ever 2 Gether
9. All Of My Heart
10. The Look Of Love (Part Four)
11. The Look Of Love (Encore)

3CD TRACKLISTING
Disc 1
1. Overture
2. When Smokey Sings
3. Viva Love
4. The Night You Murdered Love
5. (How To Be A) Millionaire
6. The Flames Of Desire
7. The Love Inside The Love
8. Ten Below Zero
9. One Better World
10. Ocean Blue
11. Be Near Me
Disc 2
1. Show Me
2. Poison Arrow
3. Many Happy Returns
4. Tears Are Not Enough
5. Valentine's Day
6. The Look Of Love
7. Date Stamp
8. 4 Ever 2 Gether
9. All Of My Heart
10. The Look Of Love (Part Four)
11. The Look Of Love (Encore)
Disc 3
1. Overture
2. Show Me
3. Poison Arrow
4. Many Happy Returns
5. Tears Are Not Enough
6. Valentine's Day
7. The Look Of Love
8. Date Stamp
9. 4 Ever 2 Gether
10. All Of My Heart
11. The Look Of Love (Part Four)
12. The Look Of Love (Encore)

Berlin-based British composer, percussionist, and instrument maker Bex Burch was invited to spend a month in the US by International Anthem in Summer 2022. Burch immersed herself in the label’s creative community and listened to what it gave her, making field recordings and allowing There Is Only Love and Fear to emerge from the collaborations and environments she encountered.

Sessions for the album spanned multiple non-traditional recording spaces including a storefront in Bridgeport, Chicago and a canyon in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, with an eminent cast of creative musicians including Ben LaMar Gay, Macie Stewart, Anna Butterss, Mikel Patrick Avery, and Dan Bitney of Tortoise, all of whom Burch met for the first time in the moments before they played. These moments of instant collaboration were then edited, decomposed, and recontextualized by Burch, resulting in a deeply organic, energetic-yet-patient addition to the canon of modern composition.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautiful distillation of percussive new age, wandering jazz and heady melodicism from the always reliable International Anthem. Burch has crafted a hugely immersive, transportive piece of work.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dawn Blessings (feat. Macie Stewart)
2. If I Was You, I'd Be Doing Exactly The Same
3. Don't Go Back To Sleep (feat. Dan Bitney)
4. Fruit Smoothie With Peanut Butter
5. Pardieu
6. Start Before You're Ready
7. You Thought You Were Free?
8. "Joy Is Not Meant To Be A Crumb"
9. On Falling (feat. Diego Gaeta)
10. Follow Me, I Make You Happy
11. This Is The Sound Of One Voice
12. When Love Begins 

The recording project of producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jeffrey Paradise, Poolside shares his new album "Blame It All On Love", bolstering his reputation as a dignified tastemaker, with features from notable artists including Panama, Vansire, Ben Browning of Cut Copy, Slenderbodies, Mazy, Life On Planets, Ora The Molecule, and Munya.

In 2011 Poolside set out to produce appropriately chill music for summer soirees, a light but danceable kind of music with sunny vibes and liquid rhythm that he dubbed Daytime Disco. Since then, Poolside has released three acclaimed albums - "Pacific Standard Time" (2012), "Heat" (2017) and "Low Season" (2020) - remixed countless high-profile acts such as Billy Idol, Jack Johnson & Milky Chance, DRAMA, Miami Horror, L'impératrice, Purple Disco Machine, Big Wild and more. Poolside has also recently collaborated with Todd Edwards, Neil Frances, Brijean and Buscabulla. Poolside’s seven-piece live band has supported Kacey Musgraves and Tycho along with performing at major music festivals including Coachella, Primavera, Outside Lands and Corona Capital, with Jeffrey DJing opening sets for LCD Soundsystem and Earth, Wind & Fire. Poolside’s cover of Neil Young’s classic “Harvest Moon” - which they made a one-of-a-kind 12-inch just for James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem) and halted the pressing of the album to include it on the debut album "Pacific Standard Time" - has been streamed over 100M times.

"Blame It All On Love" sees him venture even further into rich songwriting, high gloss production and a decidedly relaxed, West Coast aesthetic. Full bodied and multi-layered it brings to mind the poppier sides of Braxe + Falcon with nods to other Californian soft rock legends such as Ned Doheny along the way.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Bright, energetic electronic business here from Jeffrey Paradise (what a name too), mixing horizontal Balearic grooves and flickering disco guitars with smooth as silk vox.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ride With You
2. Float Away
3. Back To Life
4. Moonlight
5. Where Is The Thunder?
6. Each Night
7. We Could Be Falling In Love
8. Ventura Highway Blues
9. Hold On To You
10. Sea Of Dreams
11. Lonely Night

Provocative post-punk from Israel’s undercover goth prince. Megira’s lone album with the Modern Dance Club showcased a grimier, more driving vision of his brand of trashy no wave. Spread across 31 tracks and two LPs, Love Police schizophrenically mixes industrial soundscapes, surf ditties, hardcore, swamp pop, bubble grunge, screaming, ecstasy, and enough fuzz to warrant a needle check.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. The Return Of The Russian Frogmen That Died And Came Back To Life As
Strange Looking Radioactive Creatures
2. Sababa One
3. Rhythm Of Hate
4. At The Elvis Inn
5. No Wave Exercise
6. Existence
7. The Wall Of Death
8. U.S.F.

SIDE B
9. And Now I Wanna Drown In Your Dark Dreamy Eyes
10. Boo
11. Beach Bums Must Die
12. The Strange And Bizarre Tale Of The Boy Who Had One Testicle Too Many
13. 333
14. (Used To Be...) Psychic Youth
15. Elvis Is Not Dead
16. Smack Dab

SIDE C
17. Beneath The Underground
18. Valley Of Tears
19. Mao/Mao
20. Here Comes Your Mama
21. Ode To A Cocksucker
22. Homesless Body
23. Sababa?

SIDE D
24. Freak Junior
25. Psychic Youth-2
26. Another No Wave Exercise
27. Street Machine
28. Da Homogreaser Stomp
29. All Tuned Up And Ready To Go
30. Je Ne Parle Pas Francais
31. Dead Girl Blues

††† (Crosses) - Chino Moreno (Deftones) and producer/multi-instrumentalist Shaun Lopez - release their anticipated new album Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. on October 13th with notable features from EL-P and Robert Smith.

The arrival of Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. will follow the band's critically acclaimed EP PERMANENT.RADIANT, which recently received a new spin on the duo's PERMANENT.RADIANT.REMIXED. The reimagined release contained remixes from a noteworthy list of electronic innovators including Hudson Mohawke, suicideyear, AWAY, and Machinedrum.

With new single “Invisible Hand,” Moreno and Lopez embark upon a new chapter filled with merciless creations as they continue making music without compromise.

TRACK LISTING

01 Pleasure
02 Invisible Hand
03 Found
04 Light As A Feather
05 Pulse Plagg
06 Runner
07 Big Youth
08 End Youth
09 Last Rites
10 Ghost Ride
11 Grace
12 Eraser
13 Natural Selection
14 Girls Float † Boys Cry (Feat. Robert Smith)
15 Goodnight, God Bless,
I Love You, Delete.

In the midst of the UK house rave-olution of the early-’90s, London’s V4 Visions imprint documented the confluence of street soul, deep house, swingbeat, and jungle sounds emanating from the clubs and pirate radio signals. Over the course of half a decade, V4’s unparalleled 12” output referenced every significant Black British music scene; from lovers rock to jazz-funk, sound system reggae to hip hop, new jack swing to garage, from artists Ashaye, Julie Stapleton, Maureen Mason, Rohan Delano, The Wades, and Endangered Species. This 18-track double LP is the first critical overview of the label, with extensive notes by Simon Reynolds, era-defining photographs, and fresh remasters, all housed in a glorious foil-stamped gatefold tip-on sleeve. Is this a dream?

TRACK LISTING

1. Maureen Mason I'm Believing (In Love Again)
2. Ashaye What's This World Coming To
3. Julie Stapleton Just Dreaming
4. Ashaye Dreaming (Original Mix)
5. Julie Stapleton (Feat. Ashaye) All The Way (Guitar Mix)
6. Maureen Mason If This Is A Dream
7. The Wades Get Off That (Poison)
8. Ashaye Come Go With Me
9. Julie Stapleton Where's Your Love Gone (Remix)
10. Rohan Delano The Way I Love You
11. Ashaye Dreaming (Jungle Mix)
12. Endangered Species Just A Memory (Vocal Mix)
13. Endangered Species Endangered Species
14. Insight (Feat. Ashaye) Fantasy (Insight Mix)
15. Ashaye Nowhere To Run (Instrumental South Side Mix)
16. Insight Paradise (Para Dub)
17. Jungle Biznizz Joy In The Jungle
18. Rohan Delano Inflight

Mother I’d Like To Funk are back with another sizzling hot re-issue, this time straight from Denmark. Danish pop group Boulevard released an obscure LP back in 1981, called “American Dream”.

This official re-issue features the street funk anthem “Ready For Your Love” on the A Side, with a special “Synthphonic Dub" version on the B Side (previously only available on the album)

Guaranteed to light up any boogie-leaning dance spot, Mother I'd Like To Funk deliver a trunk of funk on their imperative second release!

TRACK LISTING

Ready For Your Love
Still Ready (Synthfonic Dub)

Compiling the follow-up to a very successful first album is always a tricky task, but just 12 months since the release of volume one in the 'With Love' series, miche has excelled himself once again with another glorious, deep dive into the world of rare soul0

15 tracks of independently released music, created by magnificent artists with stories to tell and primed for rediscovery.

The ambition to celebrate under-the-radar artists has remained, but instead of a facsimile of volume one, what we have here is a selection shaped by life changes. Volume two is for the dancers; still soulful, still ultra- rare and slept- on records from the USA, Chile, Brazil and beyond, but the dynamics of the collection have shifted slightly. It represents a move from being immersed in a week in week out environment of beautiful, soulful music in a cosy, dimly lit hi- fi bar to playing livelier, more energetic, dancefloor-focused music in nightclubs. This volume will get you on your feet, make you move and unleash whatever it is that makes you get down.

One of the jewels in the crown of this compilation is a joyous, anthemic gospel version of Stevie Wonder's 'As' by The Family Tree (a project produced by the fantastic Julius Brockington). We are also treated to a rare and sought- after Pennsylvanian funk / AOR bomb by Maxwell, a stunning modern soul tune 'High On You' by Freedom, and self-released Brazilian 45s by Banda 22 and Ze Da Lata. P.J. City's 'Straight Forward (Non- Stop)' is gospel- disco perfection, and we also have 'Dame Solamente Amor', a sublime, soul beauty from Chile by Rogers Mitchell. Many of these artists featured in this compilation aren't household names, but they deserve their moment to shine, to be heard, loved and appreciated for their artistry.

As miche says it, "I hope this compilation helps in some way to keep this glorious music alive and play a part in connecting generations of music lovers from the worldwide soul family. As always, it has been made 'With Love'."

A connoisseur's selection of lost and rare modern soul, disco gospel, boogie, jazzy AOR, and Brazilian gems.

TRACK LISTING

Billy Boomer - I Like What She's Doing
P.J. City - Straight Forward (Non-Stop)
Maxwell - Realize
Cecil Lyde - I'll Make It On My Own
Mixed Generation Enterprize - Take To The Sky
Mark Meadows - You And Me
Alice Cohen & Fun City - Save The Best 'Til Last
Banda 22 - A Luz Que Brilha Meu Viver
Ze Da Lata - Misterio Brilhante
Rogers Mitchell - Dame Solamente Amor
The Eleventh Commandment - Then I Reach Satisfaction
Billy Boomer - You Can't Hide
Freedom - High On You
The Lost Family - Blow My Mind
The Family Tree - As 

Betty Davis was a musical maverick with vision. Image, substance, sex, and grit combined with a badass band that could deliver the funk bed backbone to the sultry music between the sheets. After cutting two notorious discs for the Just Sunshine label (Betty Davis and They Say I’m Different), and Nasty Gal for Island Records, Davis went to work on her most personal and expressive record yet. After capturing 10 hard-hitting tracks in 1976 at the remote Studio In The Country (Louisiana), a creative difference with her then label caused the platter to be unexpectedly shelved. Davis would cut one final album and soon retreat from the music business, completely disappearing from the public eye.

Is It Love Or Desire is a little-known gem in the Davis catalog. Mastered from the original tapes, and untouched for over 30 years, this release features detailed liner notes, the originally intended artwork housed in a lavishly packaged digipak, rare photos, archival material, and recent interviews with Davis and her skin-tight band Funk House.

Never bootlegged, never released, never heard until now, the secret story of this lost album will finally enter the history books and cement this bold soul sisters contributions to music and popular culture. Its time to get down…

TRACK LISTING

Is It Love Or Desire
Whorey Angel
It's So Good
Crashin' From Passion
When Romance Says Goodbye
Bottom Of The Barrel
Stars Starve
You Know
Let's Get Personal
Bar Hoppin'
For My Man

Prisoners Of Love And Hate is an offering to community, to desires that imprison and liberate, to people in all their divinity and ugliness. Apostille - aka Night School Records’ captain Michael Kasparis - presents his third album with a bang, a bursting ball of NRG, empathy and bristling living.

Like its predecessor Choose Life, Prisoners... was recorded in Full Ashram Celestial Garden in Glasgow with Lewis Cook (Free Love) through 2022. A 9 song treatise on Pop music, trauma, ecstasy and the mundanities between the extremes, Kasparis takes on classic 80s Synth Pop, 90s House music, 00’s Trance, wistful balladry, 70’s Power Pop. The thread that runs through the album is a boundless energy, an openness to the moment, to living the pains and joys equally, open armed.

This is a place of no judgement, of possibility, challenge and comfort. The nine songs on Prisoners... can be read as separate ruminations on the feelings and desires that imprison our experience. Through it all the narrator struggles against them, transported and fooled by love and longing, peering through the bars of anguish, flailing in a cell of emotions. Saturday Night, Still Breathing breaks the album open with an invigorating scream and pounds into the night with a nod to Whigfield, Kasparis’ Punk roots and House music. Over a thumping 909 kick and bassline, Kasparis pens a love letter to being with people, the collective energy of hearts in a room, thrumming together, making it through together. Written as private ritual magic, manifesting community during a time of isolation, it’s as if the party is the most important thing in the world. Rely On Me imagines 80s Mute Synth Pop, Erasure fronted by Bruce Springsteen, romance doomed and forever perfect in the mind. Spit Pit completes the opening triptych of fast paced rollercoasters, an ode to childhood forged out of change and discomfort told with a bold, epic production by Lewis Cook, AFX breakbeats, 160BPM kicks and a commanding vocal performance.

On People Make This City, Kasparis eases off the gas, lets the mist blowing in from the Clyde River blow over his version of Glasgow. A wistful ballad about small town gossip and coming through anger to leaving it all behind, it provides some shadow to the bright light of the vibrancy of the album. Natural Angel owes much to 70s and 80s power pop, guitar melodrama, Thin Lizzy and Rick Springfield through the prism of co-dependence in relationships. It’s a theme that’s picked up in slow burner Nothing But Perfect, a hazy synth soul-inflected song about building your own mythology, constructing a dream to hide in, to hold on to. The most surprising track of the album, Summer of ’03 re-imagines the Trance music of early naughties Europe into a lament for an eternal summer or as a fan once put it, “Meat Loaf with a donk on it.” A recognition that all ecstasy has tragedy laced within it, it’s a theme that is sewn through out the LP and continued on the final song Feel Good (You Can Make Me). Referencing Shalamar’s 1982 mega hit by way of N-Trance’s piano riffs, the epic closer is riddled with heartbreak, vulnerability and power. It’s a testament to the new confidence in Kasparis’s songwriting, sure, but also to the enduring power of people to come together in mutual dependence and love. If ecstasy is always laced with tragedy, the Prisoners of Love and Hate can always reach out between the bars to meet in the middle, the eternal now.

TRACK LISTING

1. Saturday Night, Still Breathing
2. Rely On Me
3. Spit Pit
4. People Make This City
5. Natural Angel
6. Disease To Please
7. Nothing But Perfect
8. Summer Of 0’3
9. Feel Good (You Can Make Me)

1968’s Love Cry mixes Albert Ayler’s free jazz with a catchy combination of nursery rhythms and brass band marches, resulting in a peak example of experimental jazz of the period. This was Ayler’s last recording with his brother, Donald, who keeps the pace fiery along with the rhythm section of bassist Alan Silva and drummer Milford Graves, and harpsichordist Call Cobbs.

This Verve By Request title is pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Third Man in Detroit.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Love Cry
2. Ghosts
3. Omega
4. Dancing Flowers
5. Bells
6. Love Flower
Side B
7. Zion Hill
8. Universal Indians

The House Of Love – guitarist and vocalist Guy Chadwick, lead guitarist Terry Bickers, bassist Chris Groothuizen and drummer Pete Evans – formed in London in 1986 - Chadwick had been around the music industry for several years, but was energised seeing The Jesus And Mary Chain, inspiring him to form the band - Signing to Creation, The House Of Love were greeted enthusiastically by the music press and their single, Shine On and self-titled debut album became indie disco classics - By 1989, the band were big news and had signed to Fontana, part of the PolyGram group.

The group's debut album for Fontana, also entitled The House Of Love, was released in February 1990. Known often as 'The Butterfly Album' after Trevor Key's distinctive artwork, much was made at the time of its protracted birth and the weight of expectation, and the fact it was produced by five different people. Years later, it sounds assured and confident commercial indie, bursting with invention and melody. The re-recording of their Creation calling card, Shine On, gave them a UK Top 20 hit and Beatles And The Stones points the way to the gentler side of Oasis some years later.

TRACK LISTING

Hannah
Shine On
Beatles And The Stones
Shake And Crawl
Hedonist
I Don't Know Why I Love You
Never
Someone's Got To Love You
In A Room
Blind
32nd Floor
Se Dest

The House Of Love – guitarist and vocalist Guy Chadwick, lead guitarist Terry Bickers, bassist Chris Groothuizen and drummer Pete Evans – formed in London in 1986 - Chadwick had been around the music industry for several years, but was energised seeing The Jesus And Mary Chain, inspiring him to form the band - Signing to Creation, The House Of Love were greeted enthusiastically by the music press and their single, Shine On and self-titled debut album became indie disco classics - By 1989, the band were big news and had signed to Fontana, part of the PolyGram group.

The touring and promotion for The House Of Love took its toll on the group with lead guitarist Terry Bickers leaving the group to be replaced with Simon Walker. Taking its name from a Peter Blake painting, Babe Rainbow was released in July 1992. Overseen by The The and Julian Cope producer Warne Livesey, it has a tremendous urgency and greater unity than their previous album. Trailed by the single The Girl With The Loneliest Eyes, Babe Rainbow also contains live favourite Crush Me, the brooding High In Your Face and Top 50 hits Feel and You Don't Understand. Simon Walker left the group and was replaced with Simon Mawby, who himself was to depart by the end of 1992.

TRACK LISTING

You Don't Understand
Crush Me
Cruel
High In Your Face
Fade Away
Feel
The Girl With The Loneliest Eyes
Burn Down The World
Philly Phile
Yer Eyes

The House Of Love – guitarist and vocalist Guy Chadwick, lead guitarist Terry Bickers, bassist Chris Groothuizen and drummer Pete Evans – formed in London in 1986 - Chadwick had been around the music industry for several years, but was energised seeing The Jesus And Mary Chain, inspiring him to form the band - Signing to Creation, The House Of Love were greeted enthusiastically by the music press and their single, Shine On and self-titled debut album became indie disco classics - By 1989, the band were big news and had signed to Fontana, part of the PolyGram group.

Released in July 1993 Audience Of The Mind makes a claim for being the great lost House Of Love album, slipping into the UK charts for a solitary week, and having no singles taken from it. Self-produced and recorded as a three-piece in under two weeks, Audience Of The Mind feels as fragmentary as 'The Butterfly Album' feels fulsome. There are some great moments – the moody-yet-melodic Haloes, Shining On (featuring a guest appearance from guitarist Sean O'Hagen), the eight- minute Into The Tunnel and the acoustic title track with Chadwick sounding something like an aggrieved indie Nick Drake. It is a work ripe for rediscovery.

TRACK LISTING

Sweet Anatomy
Audience With The Mind
Haloes
Erosion
Call Me
Shining On
Portrait In Atlanta
Corridors
Hollow
All Night Long
Into The Tunnel
You've Got To Feel

Artists like Jalen Ngonda come around once in a lifetime, so it is our privilege and distinct pleasure to announce the release of his debut album ‘Come Around and Love Me’.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of seeing Jalen perform live knows that he is one of the most captivating performers on today's soul scene. His voice, equal parts raw feeling and elegance, exudes confidence and charm—disarming packed rooms of rowdy concert goers, leaving them silent as they hold fast to every syllable sung.

Plans for the album were struck just months before the COVID 19 pandemic shut the world down. Notwithstanding, Jalen eventually made it to Hive Mind Studios in Brooklyn, NY where he began writing and recording with the help of producer/arrangers Mike Buckley and Vincent Chiarito (both members of Charles Bradley's Extraordinaires) and a crack team of a-list musicians from the Daptone family. The team skilfully blends heavy arrangements and introspective lyrics with Motown sophistication, leaving the listener in a blissful wash of wonderment.

Jalen has been writing songs since he was 14, and his compositions are also very much of these times. He explains, “I love music from the 20th century— I listen to it all the time, but I'm in this world and the 21st century. ...to a stranger, I'd describe my music as modern soul and R&B, while trying to ft in the Beach Boys and the Beatles somewhere in between.” ‘Come Around and Love Me’ reveals how he creates a classic approach that is rooted in the sounds of revered pioneers, without falling into imitation–leaving no doubt that Jalen will continue to shine within the superlative, timeless musical tradition that is Daptone's hallmark.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Born and raised on the East Coast of the USA, just outside Washington DC and now resident in Liverpool, Jalen Ngonda’s debut album is released on Daptone, which is reason enough to take note - let’s face it, they rarely put a foot wrong do they? The album kicks off with the title track “Come Around And Love Me”, that brings to mind ‘What’s Going On’ era Marvin, and then runs through a collection of pristine 2-3 minute gems that perfectly capture the golden era of soul, from the mid 60s to mid 70s.

Jalen is the real deal, with a voice that ranges from raw soul power to sweet falsetto, and songwriting skills to match. There isn’t a bad track here, in fact pretty much every song could be a single in its own right. You can pick out a whole host of influences, from the aforementioned Marvin Gaye, to the psychedelic soul of Isaac Hayes, the Motor City sound of The Four Tops and sweet harmonies of The Temptation but there’s a fresh modern feel to the production too, it’s not some tired pastiche. I guess if you’re looking for a contemporary comparison, Michael Kiwanuka springs to mind in the way that he fuses the old and new so seamlessly. So to sum up, if you’re a fan of modern soul, full of romance and heartbreak and infused with classic Motown and Philly Soul ingredients, then this is for you.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Come Around And Love Me
2. If You Donʼt Want My Love
3. Lost
4. Thatʼs All I Wanted From You
5. Please Show Me
Side B
6. Just Like You Used To
7. What A Difference She Made
8. Give Me Another Day
9. So Glad I Found You
10. It Takes A Fool
11. Rapture

Fourth LP from The Courteeners, originally release in 2014.

TRACK LISTING

White Horses
How Good It Was
Small Bones
Has He Told You That He Loves You
Yet
Black & Blue
International
Next Time You Call
Summer
Saboteur
Dreamers
Beautiful Head