Songs created in the shadow of terror and loss, but that crackle and pop with defiance Fear Fear is a record made for agitating and dancing, for heart and soul, for here, now and tomorrow. It’s a record that explores juxtaposition; that of life and death, acceptance and isolation, environment and humanity, hope and despair, the real world and the digital world. That top to bottom rigour, the complete vision is what makes the second album from Working Men’s Club such a stunning and unique achievement.

Their critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, released in summer 2020, was the sound of singer and songwriter Syd Minsky-Sargeant processing a teenage life in Todmorden in the Upper Calder Valley. He was 16 when he wrote some of those songs, now 20, he had to get up and out of the Valley. “The first album was mostly a personal documentation lyrically, this is a blur between personal and a third-person perspective of what was going on.” Fear Fear documents the last two years. Yes, there is bleakness – but there is also hope and empathy. “I like the contrast of it being happy, uplifting music and really dark lyrics. It’s not a minimal record, certainly compared to the first one. That’s because there’s been a lot more going on that needed to be said.”

Making the busy feel finessed and the dreadful feel magical – Fear Fear manages those feats, and then some. Or, as Syd Minksy-Sargeant puts it: “We just set out to make the best-sounding album we could.”

Fear Fear was produced by Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys, MIA, Tricky) and recorded at Orton’s studio in Sheffield.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Working Men's Club return for one of the most anticipated follow-up LP's around. This time sees them treading similar ground to the post-punk indebted debut debut, but imbued with a more dancefloor friendly groove. It's a heady mix, and one that stands as the perfect follow-up for a band at the peak of their game.

TRACK LISTING

1 19
2 Fear Fear
3 Widow
4 Ploys
5 Cut
6 Rapture
7 Circumference
8 Heart Attack
9 Money Is Mine
10 The Last One

In dark, troubling times, maybe the most instantly gratifying solace one can seek is a wittily barbed diagnosis of the situation. “The fox has his den. The bee has his hive. The stoat … his stoat-hole,” Stewart Lee once remarked: “But only man chooses to make his nest in an investment opportunity.” Caustic retorts like this are what fuel the debut EP by dance-punk outfit Regressive Left, ‘On The Wrong Side of History’. For pervading through their dynamic and glitching music is a duty to report unflinchingly society’s ills. They are a staunchly political group, but far from your average po-faced by-numbers punk band. There is a gristly social commentary at the band’s core, but the songs themselves are characterised by a need to have fun, to find some kind of solace and escapism from the inevitable rapture.

Recorded over an intense 5-day spell with in-demand producer Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys, MIA, Amyl and The Sniffers) in Sheffield, Regressive Left’s debut EP ‘On The Wrong Side of History’ was immortalised over a handful of 11am-1am sessions in his studio. In many ways it is a time capsule of the maelstrom of ideas that got the group to this point in the first place – the infuriating, bleak political climate, and the urge to find escapism from it – consigned to vinyl in one herculean effort. Taking influence from the booming post-punk, funk and disco scenes of New York, Regressive Left’s sound is stark and danceable. Angular guitar scratches meet dirty synth basslines, whilst Simon Tyrie’s Edwyn Collins croon is chased around by effervescent drums. The banal horror of life in Tory Britain expressed with sharp and dry wit, and then set to truly barnstorming and infectious dance music

Due out July 15th on Bad Vibrations Records, the new EP arrives following a trio of acclaimed singles (‘Eternal Returns’, ‘Take the Hit’, ‘Cream Militia’), tours with the likes of Bodega and Folly Group, festival appearances at End of the Road, Latitude, Great Escape and Wide Awake, and a sold out headline at The Windmill.

TRACK LISTING

1) The Wrong Side Of History
2) World On Fire
3) Bad Faith (ft. Mandy, Indiana)
4) No More Fun

Leipzig, Germany-based experimental group Flying Moon In Space will release their second album, ‘ZWEI’, on June 24th. Due out via Fuzz Club Records and preceded by UK and EU tour dates through Spring/Summer, the latest album from the six-piece will arrive off the back of their highly-praised and sold-out self-titled debut album and a recent remix 12" that featured reworkings of tracks from the S/T album courtesy of kindred spirits Xiu Xiu, Suuns, A Place To Bury Strangers, Minami Deutsch, Camera and Warm Graves.

Where Flying Moon In Space's debut album was an extension of their live shows, long improv performances that would last hours at a time, the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions meant they were forced to reinvent their creative approach on its follow-up. Adopting the childhood game 'Stille Post' (or 'Telephone'), the six members would each send the demos around in a circle, recording a single line or changing up the tempo, until the songs took on a life of their own.

These demos were then taken into a studio deep in the forests of the Czech Republic and 'ZWEI' was born. "Musically it turned out to be somehow something completely new to us. As a result ZWEI has a more structured, poppy side compared to our debut, even though soundwise we opened up to more experimental layers - using synthesisers for the first time, as well as loops and field recordings of the church and surrounding forest. I guess generally you can say that the process behind this LP was manifold - testing out personal and aesthetic borders, and carrying on our idea of what Flying Moon In Space can be sonically.”

TRACK LISTING

1) Traum Für Alle
2) Optimist
3) This Exists
4) Power
5) The Day The Sun Was Made
6) Illl Ill Ill
7) Dissoziation
8) Prophet 

A staple of the global psychedelic scene, Lover has spent nearly a decade fine-tuning a broken, abstracted form of electronica that pools together a tapestry of trip-hop, synthesised krautrock, dub and dark ambient. Utilising an arsenal of samples, drum machine, analogue synths and live instrumentation, Lover’s is a kaleidoscopic sound that’s J-Dilla, DJ Shadow and Lee Scratch Perry by way of Brian Eno, Kraftwerk and Kluster. Central to Lover’s music is a desire to explore the fringes of psychedelic music and the common threads that run through its far-reaching styles, drawing elements from the past and connecting them to the future.

Through the years he has released a number of studio albums and beat tapes, remixed the likes of Osees and Night Beats, been resident DJ for the Levitation and Desert Daze festivals and collaborated with the likes of Goat, Anton Newcombe, Cairo Liberation Front and White Fence. Now, Lover returns with his latest studio album, ‘Cosmic Joke’ – a series of synthesised philosophical meditations on modern life, in all its tragicomic absurdity. "'Cosmic Joke' came from observing the rising, compounded absurdity in recent years and seeing structures of normalcy dissolving. It’s my attempt to view these things as part of a higher-order process, through a metaphysical lens rather than an ideological one. It’s been an exercise in holding the paradoxical relationship of comedy and tragedy, joy and pain, growth and decay, scale and decline as part of an interlocked system that, at a deep level, is essential to how we interface with the world.”

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Stereoscopic View (5:39)
2. Parallel Pathways (2:46)
3. Cosmic Joke (4:12)
4. Ultimate Reality (Question) (1:50)
5. Infinite Impermanence (2:33)
6. Order From Chaos (4:26)
Side 2
1. Integrated Paradox (2:41)
2. Deep Time/Complex System (4:03)
3. A Very Mechanized Dance (3:07)
4. Experiential Feedback Loop (1:50)
5. Corresponding Contradiction (3:51)
6. Reverberative Relationship (2:56)
7. Linear Return Cycle (3:32)

Blixa Sounds release a deluxe edition of The Las Vegas Story, the classic 1984 album by punk rock legends The Gun Club - This Deluxe Edition includes a second LP of the unearthed 1984 concert at Scorgie's in Rochester, NY, and a download link to previously unreleased footage – 1984 Home Movie: The Gun Club On The Road.

The Las Vegas Story has been digitally remastered and comes in beautiful gatefold packaging. The Deluxe Editionof this classic 1984 album features extensive liner notes written by Gun Club members Terry Graham, Kid Congo Powers, and Patricia Morrison, as well as guest musicians Dave Alvin, Phast Phreddie Patterson, and producer Jeff Eyrich. The LP includes gatefold packaging and printed sleeves that feature rare Gun Club photography. This classic line-up only stayed together for this one album, featuring original drummer Terry Graham, as well as guitar from Kid Congo Powers (The Cramps, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) and bassist Patricia Morrison (Sisters Of Mercy). This is considered by many to be the most iconic Gun Club line-up and was only together for this one album and tour!

TRACK LISTING

The Las Vegas Story
Walkin With The Beast
Eternally Is Here / The
Stranger In Our Town
My Dreams
The Master Plan
My Man's Gone Now
Bad America
Moonlight Motel
Give Up The Sun
Secret Fires
Brother And Sister
Walkin' With The Beast
Eternally Is Here
The Stranger In Our Town
Moonlight Motel 
Like Calling Up Thunder
Sleeping In Blood City
Goodbye Johnny
The House On Highland Avenue
Give Up The Sun

Communing at the triangulation of words, music and image, O’Brien has always conjured powerful worlds: but none more powerful, or as immersive, than on her debut record. In the space that exists between her delivery – at once wry, silky, vicious, and self-assured – and the music – a dynamic, dancing call-and-response from her collaborators, guitarist Julian Hanson and drummer Oscar Robertson – lies a productive tension. Using a method of creating on-instinct, in constant communication with multisensory cues, O’Brien is carving out a space as a musical oracle for an ever-shifting era. The 11-track album was produced by indie super-producer Dan Carey (Fontaines DC, Squid, Black Midi, Kae Temptest, Bat For Lashes, Hot Chip, Franz Ferdinand) and recorded in his south London studio Mr Dan’s in late 2021.

“The story of the album is built up in layers; one song giving context to the next” explains Sinead; “I thought about becoming undressed; testing my ideas, my voice. Working myself out across themes of identity, curiosity, creative process. Experimenting with the form and shape of language, using tone and delivery to get to the immediate centre of what I am saying. The record opens and closes with poems, these tracks have a really clear direction - a form which is set apart from the ‘songs’. I hold stops in different places, moving emphatically through the lyrics, changing the meaning. No punctuation - only the voice mapping out the way.”

“The album title “Time Bend and Break The Bower”, from the song ‘Multitudes’, came into my head and made its demands, an idea that pressed on me throughout the record. It has a very active role. The clock symbol is enlarged, it looms like a moon over my activity watching, counting me down to zero. Dripping with self-sabotage and the feeling of being chased; it pulls and pushes against the verses which talk of ’Multitudes’; the things that faithfully come back - the images, the words, creativity. It is creativity itself.”

Since 2020, O’Brien has garnered international critical acclaim from titles like Rolling Stone, DIY, Dazed, Dork, Loud & Quiet, NME, Paste, Stereogum, The FADER, The Guardian, The Quietus, and AnOther Magazine, among others. O’Brien has also been consistently supported on national radio: she counts Jack Saunders at BBC Radio 1, and Steve Lamacq and Amy Lamé at BBC Radio 6 Music as champions of her music, with the latter station giving two tracks a spot on their B List. And O’Brien is building on her US support from the likes of Seattle’s KEXP alongside appearances at SXSW – in virtual form in 2021, and live with her band in Texas later this spring.

With a background on the design teams for John Galliano and, later, Vivienne Westwood, it’s no surprise that raven-haired O’Brien’s cultural touchstones also span a rich history of art, photography, film, dance and movement: from Helmut Newton femme fatales and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s bleak landscapes to modern performance by Michael Clark and Michael Laub companies, to the writings of Virginia Woolf and Samuel Beckett. Recently tapped by Alessandro Micele’s Gucci to perform, it’s clear that O’Brien’s esoteric instincts will continue to inspire those beyond the industry as well as within it.

TRACK LISTING

1. Pain Is The Fashion Of The Spirit
2. Salt
3. Girlkind
4. End Of Days
5. Like Culture
6. The Rarest Kind
7. Holy Country
8. Spare For My Size, Me
9. There Are Good Times Coming
10. Multitudes
11. Go Again

The improbable missing link between ABBA and Daniel Johnston - RIYL Sparks, Electric Light Orchestra, Orange Juice.

Their music has been variously referred to as "garage rock" (Austin Town Hall), "no bullshit pop" (Tiny Mix Tapes)
"jangle-thrash" (My Old Kentucky Blog) 
" lo-fi-tropicalsurf-pop" (Nialler9) 
" b e d r o o m indie" (Impose Magazine)
"sugary artpop" (Gimme Tinnitus)
"new wave-y indie rock" (Brooklyn Vegan)
"like a stripped-down, sugar high Pet Sounds" (NYLON Magazine) 
"a bit like Girl Talk" (Vice Magazine)

TRACK LISTING

1. Waterfight
2. Save The Circus
3. Black And White
4. Spaceman's Gold
5. Telly Worldwide
6. MacGuyver
7. The Trundling Path
8. Ctrl-Alt-Delete
9. A Bugle Call
10. Case By Case Basis
11. Ticker Tape Parade
12. Walk The Plank 

Debut art-rock album project from Moaning’s (Sub Pop) founding member/bassist/synth player, Pascal Stevenson (she/they).

RIYL: Moaning, Wire/Colin Newman’s solo work, early Brian Eno, Cate Le Bon, Crack Cloud, Japan, Preoccupations, Deerhunter, Iceage, Ought.

Scrutiny, the debut album from Moaning's Pascal Stevenson under her new solo alias Fashion Club, explores the mind's complex relationship to morality, and the way structures of power tend to replicate themselves through unexamined habits. Stevenson began writing the songs that would become Scrutiny toward the end of 2018, as Moaning embarked on a European tour in support of their critically acclaimed first album. Between shows, in the back of the band's tour van, she traced early drafts of Scrutiny's instrumentals on her laptop, planting the seeds of what would bloom into her captivating solo debut.

While concocting Scrutiny's dreamlike art-rock palette, Stevenson drew inspiration from artists working during the incipient decades of the synthesizer’s lifetime, like Kate Bush, Brian Eno, and Wire's Colin Newman –
musicians whose work bridges the gap between disarming experimentalism and pop pleasure. The album similarly channels the influence of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’s tactile, material production on Janet Jackson’s late ‘80s albums Control and Rhythm Nation 1814, records that exploded the potential of digital music-making and entwined the sounds of new technology with the currents of the body.

TRACK LISTING

01. Pantomime
02. Failure
03. Dependency
04. Scrutiny
05. Feign For Love
06. Reaction
07. Chapel
08. Phantom English
09. All In Time

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

A transparent blue vinyl version of our best selling Northern Soul release. With exclusive black and white label design.

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

Newly recorded live session on coloured vinyl.

Delete My Feelings is The Let Go's debut EP on Chess Club Records. The mixtape features self-produced bangers 'Woke' and 'Vegas' as well as current single 'Last Year's Model Club', which features additional production from Oscar Scheller (PinkPantheress, Arlo Parks, Ashnikko). The Let Go are Cole and Scout, 19-year-old Washington natives who relocated to the UK to attend LIPA in Liverpool. They write and produce all their own work together, with influences ranging from The 1975 and Billy Joel to Brockhampton and Dominic Fike, drawing influence from bedroom pop, hip hop, punk, indie and everything in between to create their own unique sonic landscape made for the here and now. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Delete My Feelings
2. Vegas
3. Woke
4. Last Year's Model Club
5. Beabadoobee
6. Ghost

Diggin deep, two treasured cuts from the John Collins vaults, remastered, reissued and sounding oh so weighty. The lush Lovers vibe of Victor Romero Evans - At The Club and the mind-bending, cosmic, space-echoed dub from The Detonators - Lift Off.

Both written and produced by the mighty John Collins, producer of some seminal tracks from the likes of Janet Kay and Rick Clarke, it was his production prowess on these two tracks that led Jerry Dammers to get Collins in to produce The Specials - Ghost Town / Why? / Friday Night, Saturday Morning after hearing the magic of this EP. With originals trading hands for £70 it's high time a reissue came around.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Delightful 12" showcasing a sozzled ska-reggae track perfect for drinking too much Dragon Stout this bank holiday weekend. On the flip a twisted, tape-echoed dub exercise so ganja-soaked I convinced myself it was already 4:20! Again, if you're aiming to get horizontal this weekend this is the disc for you!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Victor Romero Evans - At The Club
B1. The Detonators - Lift Off

Curating these compilations, where Mr Bongo share their latest musical discoveries and old favourites from the global stage, is always a labour of love. This selection is less dancefloor driven than their previous volumes, as fewer opportunities for live events drove them to explore other paths and styles in the musical spectrum. But, whether you're DJing for a kitchen or a club, there is still a generous serving of spicy dancefloor magic.

For Volume 5, Mr Bongo looked to a broad church - from Brazil to Cuba, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan, Mauritania, South Africa, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, the UK, and the US. They pulled songs from the 70s up to the present day and feature a stellar cast of artists. There's an exclusive track from Sven Wunder which was recorded solely for this compilation. There's also a track from Admin which was released as a private press 7" at the start of 2021 and one they felt was far too good to only be available for the lucky few. You'll also discover one of their most treasured Gyedu Blay Ambolley productions, a full-force African disco colossus!

TRACK LISTING

1. John Barry-Moore - Abertura De "Os Inocentes”
2. Willy Chirino - Sing A Song (Canten Mi Canción)
3. Malouma – Nebine
4. Yasuaki Shimizu - Karachi
5. Mariah - Shinzo No Tobira
6. Mave & Dave - You Are Delicious
7. Mark Capanni - I Believe In Miracles
8. Admin - Step Into Light
9. Phillip Malela – Tiba Kamo
10. Gyedu Blay Ambolley - Let's Be Happy (Disco Mix)
11. Tyrone Evans - Rise Up (Discomix)
12. Stimela – I Hate Telling A Lie
13. Eamon - Ready For War
14. Sven Wunder – Mosaic
15. Hiroshi Suzuki – Romance
16. Tetê Da Bahia – Duplo Sentido
17. Malouma – Yarab

On the title track to Welcome 2 Club XIII, Drive-By Truckers pay homage to the Muscle Shoals honky-tonk where founding members Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley got their start: a concrete-floored dive lit like a disco, with the nightly promise of penny beer and truly dubious cover bands. “There were no cool bars in town and Club XIII was the best we had—but it wasn’t all that good, and our band wasn’t particularly liked there,” says Hood, referring to the vocalist/guitarists’ former band Adam’s House Cat. “From time to time the owner would throw us a Wednesday night or let us open for a hair-metal band we were a terrible fit for, and everyone would hang out outside until we were done playing. It wasn’t very funny at the time, but it’s funny to us now.” The 14th studio album from Drive-By Truckers—whose lineup also includes keyboardist/guitarist Jay Gonzalez, bassist Matt Patton, and drummer Brad Morgan—Welcome 2 Club XIII looks back on their formative years with both deadpan pragmatism and profound tenderness, instilling each song with the kind of lived-in detail that invites bittersweet reminiscence of your own misspent youth.

Produced by longtime Drive-By Truckers collaborator David Barbe and mainly recorded at his studio in Athens, Georgia, Welcome 2 Club XIII took shape over the course of three frenetic days in summer 2021—a doubly extraordinary feat considering that the band had no prior intentions of making a new album. “We had some shows coming up and decided to get together and practice, since we hadn’t even seen each other in a year and a half because of the pandemic,” Hood recalls. “We started demoing song ideas, and pretty soon we realized we had a whole record. It was all sort of magical.” Featuring background vocals from the likes of Margo Price, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, and Mississippi-bred singer/songwriter Schaefer Llana, Welcome 2 Club XIII was recorded live with most songs cut in one or two takes, fully harnessing the band’s freewheeling energy. “For us it’s always about just getting together and having fun, but this time there was the added feeling of being set free after a long time of wondering if we’d ever get to do this again,” notes Cooley.

Arriving as the band enters its 26th year, Welcome 2 Club XIII marks a sharp departure from the trenchant commentary of The Unraveling and The New OK (both released in 2020). “All our records are political to some extent, but after making three overtly political records in a row we wanted to do something much more personal,” says Hood. A hypnotic introduction to the album’s sprawling autobiography, “The Driver” kicks off Welcome 2 Club XIII with a seven-minute-long, darkly thrilling epic punctuated with lead-heavy riffs and Llana’s unearthly vocals. “Around the same era of Club XIII, I spent a lot of time driving around late at night when I couldn’t sleep, listening to music loud and often having a beer or two,” says Hood. “Sometimes during those drives I’d have these epiphanies about what to do with my life—like listening to Tim by The Replacements not long after it came out and deciding to drop out of school to try and make this whole band thing work.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: This sounds like classic DBT, country leaning indie rock imbued with a hazy southern groove. It's heavy in parts, but also nuanced and cohesive. For a band coming on 30 years together, they're showing no signs of slowing down or faltering. A brilliantly uplifting and well humoured new entry in their storied history.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Driver
2. Maria's Awful Disclosure
3. Shake And Pine
4. We Will Never Wake You In The Morning
5. Welcome 2 Club XIII
6. Forged In Hell And Heaven Sent
7. Every Single Storied Flameout
8. Billy Ringo In The Dark
9. Wilder Days

In November 2014 The Jesus and Mary Chain celebrated three decades of their incendiary cult-classic debut album, ‘Psychocandy’, with a run of tour dates in which the infamous Scottish group played the album in full for the very first time in the band’s history. As part of the ‘Psychocandy’ tour, the Mary Chain descended on Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom – a legendary venue down the road from where the Reid brothers grew up in neighbouring East Kilbride – and tore through the songs that would propel them to worldwide acclaim upon ‘Psychocandy’s release in 1985.

The Barrowland performance – an equal-parts deafening and blinding assault on the senses – was cut to vinyl by engineer Noel Summerville and originally released in 2015. Fast forward to 2022 and the ‘Live at Barrowland’ album is now being reissued by Fuzz Club Records. 

The influence that ‘Psychocandy’ and its pioneering sonic belligerence had on popular music cannot be overstated. Taking bittersweet pop melodies and tearing them up apart through the medium of buzzsaw guitars, ear-piercing feedback and an unapologetic hostility towards their listeners, the band’s breakthrough album experimented with noise in a way that had never been done before and would inspire for generations to come. The ‘Live At Barrowland’ LP captures ‘Psychocandy’s complete 14 tracks in a live setting and in all their boundary-pushing and feedback-ridden glory. The CD and digital versions of the reissue – including the download card that comes with the vinyl – also feature seven bonus tracks taken from the prelude set on the night, including such fan-favourites as ‘April Skies’, ‘Head On’ and ‘Reverence’.

TRACK LISTING

1. Just Like Honey – Live
2. The Living End - Live
3. Taste The Floor - Live
4. The Hardest Walk - Live
5. Cut Dead - Live
6. In A Hole - Live
7. Taste Of Cindy - Live
8. Never Understand - Live
9. Inside Me - Live
10. Sowing Seeds - Live
11. My Little Underground - Live
12. You Trip Me Up - Live
13. Something's Wrong - Live
14. It's So Hard - Live

Originally released in 2017 on the band’s own label Artificial Plastic and now being reissued by Fuzz Club Records, ‘Damage And Joy’ is the seventh studio album from Scottish alt-rock legends The Jesus and Mary Chain. The long-awaited follow-up to 1998’s ‘Munki’, ‘Damage And Joy’ was the band’s first studio album in nearly two decades and contained brand new material alongside reimagined versions of songs that had been released in various forms by the Reid brothers in between the Mary Chain’s 1999 break-up and 2007 reunion. Coproduced by Youth (Killing Joke) and featuring the lead singles ‘Amputation’ and ‘All Things Pass’, ‘Damage & Joy’ also featured guest appearances from Scottish singer-songwriter Isobel Campbell (‘The Two of Us’, ‘Song For A Secret’) and American alt-pop star Sky Ferreira (‘Black And Blues’).

Included in this reissue and available on vinyl for the very first time is ‘Ono Yoko’ (originally only available on the Japanese CD version of the album), as well as alternative versions of ‘The Two Of Us’ featuring Sky Ferreira and ‘Black And Blues’ featuring Isobel Campbell.

As Pitchfork wrote at the time of the album's release: “It will take more than a nearly twodecade recording hiatus to diminish the band’s intrinsic ultraviolet vibe. ‘Damage And Joy’ carries the reassurance that now, more than ever, The Jesus and Mary Chain are united in holy acrimony.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Amputation
2. The Two Of Us (feat Sky Ferreira)
3. All Things Pass
4. Always Sad
5. Song For A Secret (feat. Isobel Campbell)
6. War On Peace
7. Black And Blues (feat. Isobel Campbell)
8. Los Feliz (Blues And Greens)
9. Mood Rider
10. Presidici (Et Chapaquiditch)
11. Get On Home
12. Facing Up To The Facts
13. Simian Split
14. Black And Blues (feat. Sky Ferreira)
15. Ono Yoko
16. The Two Of Us (feat Isobel Campbell)
17. Can't Stop The Rock

At times percussive and dancey, at others hypnotic and cinematic, the largely synthesiser-driven soundscapes of 'L’Orée' feel both of the past and the future. It’s the sound of two different worlds – a record capable of being as primal and ritualistic as it is synthesised and digitally manipulated. Where the band’s prior minimal Krautrock (see their 2019 ‘Sinie Sinie’ LP) might have brought to mind cold, dark post-industrial cities, ‘L’Orée’s kosmische experimentalism takes you instead on an instrumental journey through the natural wilderness via the medium of shape-shifting psychedelic electronics.

That ‘L’Orée’ explores a more natural and organic sound than heard on their previous releases owes largely to the environment it was made in. Recorded in a tucked-away house in the French countryside that bordered on a surrounding forest, Ashinoa recall sessions spent soaking up their surroundings with a number of collaborators coming in and out to perform on the record: “The house we recorded the album in was kind of in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by douglas pine trees.

From this proximity to the forest, we wanted to take our soundscapes to a place we’ve never been before. Before we were surrounded by concrete, and then far from it. We were looking for a new listening place, to discover new intriguing sounds. We had laid down the basis of the album and then musician friends that would visit us at the time were invited to participate in the making of the album, each one of them bringing a touch of their own.” Since forming in 2015, the French five-piece comprised of Chris Poincelot, Matteo Fabbri, Jérémy Labarre, Paul Renard and Ghazi Frini have been at the forefront of the alternative scene in their home city of Lyon.

Initially associated with the city’s Misère Records movement and collective, the band have now signed to London-based label Fuzz Club Records (Night Beats, Tess Parks, The Underground Youth) for their latest. It follows the band's debut 'Sinie Sinie' LP and a vinyl-only release of the 'Koalibi' single as part of Fuzz Club's Reverb Conspiracy compilation series. Having toured around France on a number of occasions Ashinoa have also through the years shared stages with the likes of Metz, Flamingods, Tomaga, Warmduscher, Bo Ningen, Kikagaku Moyo, Minami Deutsch, The Holydrug Couple and many more.

TRACK LISTING

1) Vermillion
2) Koalibi
3) Feu De Joie
4) Space Cow
5) Falling Forever
6) Fuel Of Sweet
7) Unknown To Myself
8) Selvatica
9) BAde BaidebSz
10) Disguised In Orbit
11) Yzmenet
12) Outro

Originally a duo founded by Sophie Landers (drums/vocals) and Kevin Gibbard (guitar/vocals) but now recently fleshed out to a trio with Matt Holt joining on bass, Black Doldrums deal in a dark, shoegazing psych that melds gothic post-punk with a leather-clad rock’n’roll spirit. Produced by Jared Artaud (The Vacant Lots, Alan Vega), the ‘Dead Awake’ LP arrives following two sold-out EPs (most recently 2019’s ‘She Divine’), tours around the UK, EU and US and praise from the likes of Clash Magazine, New Noise Magazine, Louder Than War, Shindig and more.

Having already cultivated a die-hard following in the psych underground, Kevin and Sophie set to work on their long-awaited debut album in 2020. Their original plans were to travel to New York to record the album with Jared Artaud of fellow label-mates The Vacant Lots however the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns and travel restrictions inevitably put a stop to that. Instead, they recorded the album in London with Artaud producing and mixing the album remotely from Brooklyn. “It made for an interesting collaboration as the distance could have been an obstacle”, Sophie recalls, “but it actually helped creativity as we were more inclined to stay in touch and have really decent phone calls at length discussing the songs in a lot of detail.

We really enjoyed those conversations with Jared about music and all of our influences. I think you can hear on the record that it is a full collaboration.” The more collaborative effort of ‘Dead Awake’ finds Black Doldrums switching gears and adopting a cleaner, more precise creative approach than that of their earlier material: “The idea was to be absolutely brutal with our songs and cut them down to what we only felt was necessary. Up until this point we had been experimenting and were happy with what we had created but we no longer felt the need to hide behind too much reverb and an excessive amount of guitars. It still sounds like us but it has all the elements needed to stand the test of time.” The result is an album that feels colder and more stripped back – the effects are still there but stripped down to their fundamentals so that the songs themselves take precedence over any wall-of-sound deliria.

TRACK LISTING

1) Sad Paradise
2) Into Blue
3) Sleepless Nights
4) Now You Know This
5) Dreamcatcher
6) All For You
7) Runaway
8) Sidewinder

Arriving seven years on from their 2014 debut album ‘Ships Will Come’, Warm Graves (the moniker of Leipzig-based composer Jonas Wehner) return with their second studio album, ‘Ease’, on Fuzz Club Records. This seven-year gestation between the two albums brings with it a transformation in the creative process of Warm Graves, much like the human body exchanges its cells every seven years – our human bodies being both the same and wholly other. “For me, ‘Ease’ always comes back to the idea of transformation”, Wehner says: “In this case, from struggle to ease, choirs to whispers, rush to patience, light to dark. Those 7 years didn’t pass lightly. Life took a lot of turns and I had a lot to learn. It’s all in there compressed in 9 tracks.”

Where 2014’s ‘Ships Will Come’ dealt in ethereal, dream-like atmospherics guided by an operatic choir, ‘Ease’ offers a collection of harsher, more experimental electronic works touching on dark ambient drone, austere coldwave and synthesised kosmische musik. The transitions in this new album are more violent than before, expressing the difficult personal and social upheavals of its composition period. The choir is now absent and Wehner’s own voice assumes a more central, hypnotic stance. The soundscapes of the first album make way for something darker and a concentration of melody into a single voice – a voice no longer collective, but embodying both isolation and intimacy. "I've lit my own fate", Wehner sings in ‘Sun Escape’. A fate which he firmly places under the microscope across this album.

Warm Graves was brought to life by Jonas Marc Anton Wehner in 2012. In the years following the release of their epic 2014 debut ‘Ships Will Come’, Warm Graves soon found themselves touring with the likes of Exploded View and Moon Duo and sharing stages with The Soft Moon, Crystal Stilts, Efterklang and Moonface, among many others. As well as headline tours around Europe of their own, they’ve also appeared at such international festivals as The Great Escape, ATP, Iceland Airwaves, Roskilde and Eindhoven Psych Lab. Having spent the last few years quietly working on ‘Ease’ in the shadows, Warm Graves is now emerging once again as both a live and recording force – and doing so with a new live band, new album and reissue of ‘Ships Will Come’ (also released via their new label Fuzz Club Records) in tow.

TRACK LISTING

1) Atoria
2) Black Wine
3) Neon
4) Sun Escape
5) Cara
6) Deliria
7) Nightfall/Daylight
8) Ease
9) Sound Sleeper

Following the release of their self-titled debut album in December 2020, Flying Moon In Space – a Leipzig-based group that deal in an experimental melting pot of psychedelic pop, krautrock, techno and math-rock – are now releasing a new EP made up of remixes of tracks from the debut album by the likes of Xiu Xiu, Suuns, A Place To Bury Strangers, Minami Deutsch, Camera and Warm Graves.

On the new EP, which is released digitally and on 12" vinyl by London-based label Fuzz Club, Jamie Stewart of prolific American experimental group Xiu Xiu pushes the industrial 4/4 psych of 'Faces' to IDM extremes, Brooklyn noise-rock heavyweights A Place To Bury Strangers give 'The Observer' a feedback-blasted redux and Montreal art-rockers Suuns turn 'Steam Water Solid' into an 81-second assault on the senses. Elsewhere, German group Camera transform 'Where Lovers Meet' into a piece of hedonistic synthesised krautrock and Japanese band Minami Deutsch inject the sinister 'Ardor' with a motorik dark disco groove. Closing the EP is a beautifully slow-burning and atmospheric reworking of 'Baustelle' courtesy of fellow Leipzig experimentalists and Fuzz Club label-mates Warm Graves.

TRACK LISTING

1) Flying Moon In Space - Where Lovers Meet (Camera Remix)
2) Flying Moon In Space - Faces (Xiu Xiu Remix)
3) Flying Moon In Space - The Observer (A Place To Bury Strangers Remix)
4) Flying Moon In Space - Ardor (Minami Deutsch Remix)
5) Flying Moon In Space - Steam Water Solid (Suuns Remix)
6) Flying Moon In Space - Baustelle (Warm Graves Remix)

Boy Harsher’s latest release, ‘The Runner (Original Soundtrack)’, is an exorcism.

Augustus Muller and Jae Matthews’ fifth release entitled ‘The Runner (Original Soundtrack)’ is not a traditional album. Rather, it is the soundtrack to a short film, also entitled ‘The Runner’. The film, written, produced, and directed by the duo, is a searching horror film, attached to a meta-style “documentary” about Boy Harsher’s recording process. The album includes several distinct components: cinematic arrangements, vocal features, and of course classic Boy Harsher dark pop.

Last year, in the midst of the obvious chaos (the global pandemic), but additionally with Jae’s MS diagnosis, Augustus started working on moody, cinematic sketches. It was uncertain what these pieces would become, other than catharsis. In Jae’s period of convalescence, she kept thinking about this sinister character: a woman running through the woods. Together, they developed this idea further into a film. They were unable to tour, a drastic (and isolating) shift in their career, and making ‘club music’ did not feel right. But there was so much they needed to get out. The next Boy Harsher release would be a reconciliation of this time. The album processes feelings of universal anxiety and the confrontation of at home illness. A necessary expulsion during a time of unrest.

The album opens with “Tower”. The only track on ‘The Runner (Original Soundtrack)’ that Boy Harsher has previously played live, but never recorded. The song is an incantation, with its pulsing synth and Jae’s begging vocals. A spell about desire and impending destruction. Jae asks 'But are you honest? Do you trust? You trust in me?' Questions answered by her desperate yells. It starts both the film and the soundtrack with a heavy presence.

Two songs on ‘The Runner (Original Soundtrack)’ feature vocalists other than Jae Matthews. He allows a distinct sound for both vocalists and really leans into the possibility of divergent genres. “Machina”, is a HI-NRG homage, performed by Mariana Saldaña of Boan, and “Autonomy” a new wave tribute, performed by Cooper B. Handy of Lucy. Augustus Muller fully embraces the soundtrack ethos, by creating fictional ‘bands’ to generate additional content.

‘The Runner (Original Soundtrack)’ is exactly what’s in the name: a soundtrack. At first the shape of the release was nebulous - yet once realized the album is dynamic. It serves as the story of the running figure and her musical accompaniment. Those expecting a traditional release will be surprised, but not disappointed.

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Cold wave darlings Boy Harsher return with a new record as well as a horror film written, produced, and directed by the US duo. The accompanying soundtrack is everything you could want from a Boy Harsher album. Dark and mysterious, yet catchy and danceable, it is up there with some of their best work.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Tower
A2. Give Me A Reason
A3. Autonomy (Feat. Lucy - Cooper B. Handy)
A4. The Ride Home
B1. Escape
B2. Machina (Feat. Ms. BOAN - Mariana Saldaña)
B3. Untitled (Piano)
B4. I Understand

Arriving right off the back of their second album 'El Refugio' which was released in November 2021 via Fuzz Club Records, Mexican post-punk/krautrock group Sei Still are back with a 'Fuzz Club Session' LP that's due out January 21st 2022. Having upped sticks from Mexico City to Berlin, Sei Still's Fuzz Club Session was recorded live at Berlin's Monoton Studio back in October 2020 and is comprised of five tracks from the newly-released 'El Refugio' LP: 'Esperando' (later titled 'Saldados Caidos' on 'El Refugio'), 'Hombre Animal', 'Las Puertas De La Noche', 'Me Persigue' and 'Se Asoma el Sol' (later 'Solsticio'). 'El Refugio' and the session LP set to be released in support capture a new era for Sei Still. The expansive Krautrock jams heard on their 2020 self-titled debut have evolved into a dark, motorik post-punk sound that owes far more to 70s punk, goth-rock and Spanish New Wave than any kosmische travellers. The session is released on 180g black or white vinyl with a printed inner sleeve and is accompanied by a series of videos recorded during the session.

TRACK LISTING

1) Esperando (Saldados Caidos)
2) Hombre Animal
3) Las Puertas De La Noche
4) Me Persigue
5) Se Asoma El Sol (Solsticio)

Lesser Man (Extended Version) is the first release of Boy Harsher`s imprint, Nude Club Records, originally released on cassette by Soft Science in (2014), and Night People (2015). The album was reissued by the infamous Berlin goth label aufnahme + wiedergabe in Nov 2017 on 500 copies, and sold out in less than two weeks. Remastered by Thomas P. Heckmann at Trope Mastering, Lesser Man (Extended Version) includes the dark wave hit, “Pain” and the unreleased track “Run” which was recorded during the Lesser Man session. LP version includes digital download code + 2 bonus tracks: “Pain (radio edit)” and “Pain (The Soft Moon Remix).”

TRACK LISTING

1. Lust
2. Modulations
3. Pain
4. Run
5. Crimea
6. Love
7. Spell
Bonus1. Pain (The Soft Moon Remix)**
Bonus 2. Pain (Radio Edit)**

'Ships Will Come' is the highly acclaimed debut album from Leipzig, Germany-based outfit Warm Graves. On the LP, Warm Graves deliver surreal, dream-like atmospherics that are underpinned by repetitive, organic rhythms and echoing vocals, performed by a self-taught choir composed of a collective of friends. Across the seven perfectly structured and interwoven tracks, Warm Graves create a sci-fi soundtrack that manages to be as gorgeously mesmerising and ethereal as it is anthemic and empowering. Originally released in 2014, the album is now being reissued by their new label home, the London-based Fuzz Club Records. Having spent the last few years out of sight and quietly working on new music, Jonas Wehner’s Warm Graves have now completed their long-awaited second album which is set to be released via Fuzz Club in 2022. Until then, their fantastic debut, ‘Ships Will Come’, is now available to stream/download on all digital platforms once again and will have a vinyl reissue arriving on December 3rd. Warm Graves have previously toured with Exploded View and Moon Duo and also supported The Soft Moon, Crystal Stilts, Efterklang and Moonface.

TRACK LISTING

1) Ravachol
2) Penumbra
3) Cold Women
4) Ships Will Come
5) Best Ezra
6) Headlines
7) Rouleaux 

Following the recent release of 'X', the first new music from Working Men’s Club since their acclaimed self-titled debut was released in the autumn of 2020, the band share remixes from Paranoid London and Minsky Rock.

A side project of Syd from the band and producer Ross Orton, the Minsky Rock remix channels the energy of the primetime Detroit electro of Aux 88 or Cybertron while Paranoid London, the duo made up of Quinn Whalley and Gerardo Delgardo, turn in a bubbling 303 drenched acid workout.

TRACK LISTING

A1. X Paranoid London Remix
A2. X Minsky Rock Remix

B1. X Paranoid London Remix (Instrumental)
B2. X Minsky Rock Remix (Instrumental)

Cindy & The Playmates, led by Cindy Redd (later of The Voices) and backed by Wanda Cunningham and Manesbia Pierce, deliver an upbeat funky floor filler. Copies go for between £300-400 pounds for this storming and evocative fist-clenching gem which builds dramatically with strings and an emotive lead vocal. Cut with Paul Kelly’s ‘The Upset’, which was the B side of his second single for Lloyd Records, the vehicle for Willie Clark’s Florida-based productions. A monster sound with a grinding funky backdrop providing the perfect foil for Kelly’s aching vocal; the chorus break is a guaranteed spine-tingling moment. Copies currently go for around £250 if you can find one. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Catchy and bright, funky floor fillers from yesterday, earnestly repressed by your good friends at Deptford Northern Soul Club who should be awarded a medal for their services to soul.

TRACK LISTING

Cindy & The Playmates - Don't Stop This Train
Paul Kelly - The Upset

A Deep City Records release (one of five for Helene Smith) that originally came out in 1965 on the Miami-based label, ‘True Love Don't Grow On Trees’ is a gorgeous mid-tempo soulful heartbreaker, while the flipside and its wandering guitar line sounds like girl group buried treasure that would have sounded fantastic covered by Dusty Springfield. In the hands of Helene Smith, both tracks are nothing short of magnificent. These two tracks only previously appeared as a long-lost single that goes for £300 a pop these days. Acclaimed as the First Lady Of Miami Soul, Helene Smith came back into prominence with the issue of Numero’s 2006 ‘Eccentric Soul’ album of Deep City cuts.

TRACK LISTING

Helene Smith - True Love Don’t Grow On Trees
Helene Smith - Sure Thing

Quantrells’ only single release from 1972 goes for two to three hundred pounds if you can find a copy on the Chicago-based Yambo label. A deep soul smoocher with a glorious vocal with enormous brass stabs, it’s like a roughed up version of The Jackson 5. Backed with Promise’s ‘I’m Not Ready For Love’; one of two singles from the mid ‘70s by this all-girl teenage four piece on the New Directions label. Built with a driving bass and the girls’ gorgeous vocals dropping into party mode over a funky guitar break midway through, it’s a classic ice breaker. Copies go for around £100.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Deptford Northern Soul Club continue to attack the market value of this elite scene by repressing some of the most memorable and must-have records at an everyman's price. I've always championed such behaviour and I'll be honest, it was one of the things that always left a sour taste in my mouth about the Northern scene. It's nice to hear these tracks on vinyl without having to worry about auctioning off your liver.

TRACK LISTING

Quantrells - Can’t Let You Break My Heart
Promise - I’m Not Ready For Love

X is the first new music from Working Men’s Club since their acclaimed self-titled debut was released in the autumn of 2020, the album was the band’s perfect statement of intent, X is the delivery, the message, the action.

X rides on a sustained attack and gives way to a glorious synth heavy release of a chorus that’s just biding its time for a summer of discontent and dancing. This is the sound of your new favourite band hitting their stride. Count the days ’til you can see them in a field or in a club again.

Self-produced by Syd Minsky and once again mixed by Ross Orton, Y? is a synth heavy assault which picks up where X left off before venturing off into deeper acid-laced territory.

TRACK LISTING

A.X
B.Y

To quote the famous French marine explorer Jacques Cousteau, Electric Eye’s ‘Horizons’ LP sees the Norweigian psych-rock group venture into the depths of “a different kind of music, the sounds from the ocean floor.” Spending a week locked away from civilization in a lighthouse on the tiny Norweigian island of Utsira, Electric Eye’s new album ‘Horizons’ is a record “inspired by volcano eruptions, sub-sea adventures and the raw power of the surrounding sea.” The result is an album of oceanic psychedelic rock wig-outs that submerge the listener in a whirlpool of hypnotic space-rock, kosmische garage-blues, dystopian acid-prog and experimental electronics.

‘Horizons’, their fourth full-length to date, is the follow-up to the Bergen-based band’s critically acclaimed 2017 LP, ‘From The Poisonous Tree.’ Since forming in 2012, Electric Eye have released three studio albums and two live albums and toured heavily around Scandinavia, Europe, the UK, the Middle East, Japan and the US. They’ve also shared stages with the likes of Michael Rother (Neu), Wire, Hawkwind and Endless Boogie and played at a number of international festivals, including Roskilde, The Great Escape, Eurosonic, Icelandic Airwaves and two stops at SXSW. Returning to London-based label Fuzz Club for the ‘Horizons’ LP, Electric Eye first started working on the new album back in June 2018 when they retreated to Utsira, a small island located 70km off the coast of Norway and surrounded by notoriously unpredictable and tough waters. Here, they spent a week jamming day and night in the island’s lighthouse.

“Our only audience were the seagulls and some lost bird-watchers wondering where these strange noises were coming from,” the band recall: “We were surrounded by an unusually quiet ocean, almost eyeballing us waiting for the next eruption. The wild nature was omnipresent and could not be ignored as jam sessions got more intense and songs started to materialise. In our coffee breaks we were watching documentaries like ‘Into the Inferno’ by Werner Herzog and old explorer series by Captain Jacques Cousteau and the rest of the crew at the Calypso. The epic commentaries of Herzog and Cousteau were included in the jams to add to the vibe, and some of the sounds are still present on the final record. After a week off the grid we returned to civilization with hours of recordings inspired by volcano eruptions, sub-sea adventures and the raw power of the surrounding sea.”

TRACK LISTING

1) En Bekymringsfri Koloni
2) Last Call At The Infinity Pool
3) The Sleeping Sharks
4) Our Water Is On Fire
5) Put The Secret In Your Pocker
6) Lighthouse Rock
7) Den Atomosfaeriske Elven
8) The Singularity

Deptford Northern Soul Club continue their retrograde mission with two colossal floorfillers from the late 1960s Northern scene.

‘I’ll Be On My Way’ is not only a staggeringly beautiful song, it’s also a super rare side filled with those strings that recall the echoey ceiling of Wigan Casino. A supremely soulful cut with a sturdy beat from 1966, with a classic vocal to fall in love with. Originally on Big Mack and going for over two grand, even the re-issue on Goldmine fetches 75 quid, it’s such an invigorating vocal and storming instrumental.

On side B, The Volumes’ funky floor surfer ‘I’ve Never Been So In Love’. Filled with horn slurps over a crazed organ anchor, it chugs into a singalong chorus that’s impossible to forget. From 1969 and originally on the obscure Garu label, it goes for between £40 and £140 pounds if you're lucky enough to find a copy.

Nicely pressed in sturdy 7" disco bag. Northern never sounded so crisp and fresh! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Shark-slaying re-issues to keep Kevin Lewandowski crying into his dipping stock value. If you're a fan of Northern on a budget (and sounded nice n crisp to boot!) you need these floor-fillers!

TRACK LISTING

Bob & Fred - I’ll Be On My Way
The Volumes - I’ve Never Been So In Love

The second instalment of Melodies Record Club 12"s is curated by none other than all round uber-DJ Ben UFO so you'd best sit up and pay attention.
The Hessle don drops a little science on our ass here with two total staples from his DJ sets, neither were originally produced with a club setting in mind, which is why they’ve never been available in this format before.
On one side, we have “Drums” from Laurie Spiegel’s 1980 experimental electronics album “The Expanding Universe”, a collection of tracks produced between 1974 and 1976 using a computer playing the actual sounds by controlling analog synthesis equipment under control of the GROOVE hybrid system developed by Max Matthews and F.R. Moore at Bell Labs. Drums is a percussive seven minute computer generated workout inspired by Laurie’s interest in African and Indian musics, and which brings to mind the most far out kosmiche music of the period to modern day techno. A connection Ben has tried to make explicit by including it in his first BBC essential mix back in 2013.
On the flip we have a track by Olof Dreijer from the Swedish band the Knife who’s work you might also be familiar with under the moniker Oni Ayhun. Back in 2009 his artist friend Adnan Yildiz curated an exhibition called “THERE IS NO AUDIENCE” in Montethermoso, dedicated to public imagination. Adnan commissioned a single piece from Olof called “Echoes from Mamori”, that played on loop during the exhibition and was subsequently released only on CD. A contemporary piece more clearly indebted to house music, Olof built the track around arpeggios generated using sounds of frogs he recorded in the Amazon and birds around Berlin, fed into a sampler.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: In case you're still missing the memo, Ben UFO is pretty much as good as DJs get, so the opportunity for two of his secret weapons on one 12" is especially tasty. On the A-side we get hypnotic, tribal electronics from Laurie Spiegel - think alternative kosmische for the club, while the flip sees Olof Dreijer (of The Knife / Oni Ayhun fame) turn out a masterpiece of techno-tropical, Afro-electronix joy.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Laurie Spiegel - Drums
B1. Olof Dreijer - Echoes From Mamori

Fuzz Club Records are reissuing the ‘Beautiful & Damned’ EP from The Underground Youth, the Blackpool-born and now Berlin-based band led by musician, poet and author Craig Dyer. A homage to the F. Scott Fitzgerald book of the same name, the 4 track EP confirmed Dyer’s obsession for the darker side of literature and poetry of the last two centuries, as well as his early DIY approach. Rigorously recorded in the band’s home studio with the help of producer James Shillito in early 2014, ‘Beautiful & Damned’ acted as a preview to their 2015 ‘Haunted’ LP. It was the first TUY material featuring synth and electronic equipment and also represented a significant shift to a much darker sound and lyrical content, as anticipated by their first single/video ‘Naked’ – a fan-favourite to this day that exhibits a perfect encounter between the atmospheres of the Cocteau Twins and the early Creation Records sound. The 2021 reissue of the EP comes on a coloured 10” with remastered audio.

TRACK LISTING

1) Behind
2) Damned
3) Naked
4) Shadow

To celebrate its ten-year anniversary, Fuzz Club Records are reissuing The Underground Youth’s 2011 ‘Low Slow Needle’ EP on 10” vinyl with remastered audio. ‘Low Slow Needle’s hauntingly minimal, neo-psychedelic melancholy provides a more lo-fi snapshot of the now-Berlin-based band’s earlier days – when The Underground Youth was more of a DIY solo endeavour for Blackpool-born musician Craig Dyer, as opposed to the much-adored, full-band, international touring force that it is now. Looking back on ‘Low Slow Needle’, Dyer said: “The EP was recorded in September 2011, I had just returned to the UK from St. Petersburg where Olya [now drummer in The Underground Youth] and I had just got married.

Olya had to stay in Russia to finalise her paperwork before we would move into our first home together in Manchester. It was a difficult time, being apart after just getting married, and so I distracted myself by working on these songs that would become the Low Slow Needle EP. It was sort of my love letter to that period, looking back and also looking to the future. I worked closely with mine and Olya's friend in St. Petersburg, Daria Xenofontova, who gave her beautiful voice to my words and featured on three of the most popular songs on the EP, 'Midnight Lust', 'Addiction' and 'Blue'. These three songs still remain popular with our fans, who still request we play them live to this day.” When compared with the cinematic folk-noir heard on the band’s tenth album, the newly-released ‘The Falling’ (2021), what we find here captures a more stark and stripped-back The Underground Youth as the project was about to come out of its embryonic phase: “All five tracks were recorded in my bedroom and I really wanted to strip back the sound, to give a romantic feel of that period for me. To consider it 10 years on, it feels like the beginning to the next step of the journey, my life in Manchester with Olya, making contact with Casper at Fuzz Club and signing up with the label (this came just after the release of Low Slow Needle) and us putting together the first incarnation of TUY's live band (again this followed the release of the EP). So, in a way, this record marked the end of the first era of The Underground Youth, and in doing so, paved the way for the next.”

TRACK LISTING

1) Midnight Lust
2) On Your Screen
3) Addiction
4) Blue
5) Witchcraft

Omara Portuondo, the leading lady of the Buena Vista Social Club, is one of Cuba’s most celebrated voices.

The album ‘Buena Vista Social Club Presents Omara Portuondo’ was released in 2000 in the wake of the phenomenal reception of the original Buena Vista Social Club album, and was remastered from the analogue tapes for its 2019 LP reissue. Omara is backed by a dream band formed of many of the original Buena Vista Social Club members including Ibrahim Ferrer (vocals), Rubén González (piano), Compay Segundo (guitar) and Orlando ‘Cachaito’ Lopez (bass).

To celebrate the “Women In Music” theme of this year’s National Album Day, this classic album will be pressed on limited edition purple colour vinyl.

“The kind of record that forces you to stop worrying and enjoy life to the fullest.. an exquisite trip to the heart of Afro-Cuba.” – Rolling Stone

“This album adds yet another magical chapter to the Buena Vista legend.” - Uncut.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. ¿Dónde Estabas Tú?
2. La Sitiera
3. He Perdido Contigo
4. Mariposita De Primavera
5. Canta Lo Sentimental
6. Ella Y Yo
Side B:
7. No Me Vayas A Engañar
8. No Me Llores Más
9. Veinte Años
10. El Hombre Que Yo Amé (The Man I Love)
11. Siempre En Mi Corazón

‘Ungrateful Heart’ is the fourth album from Milan-based group The Gluts. Whilst their previous releases traded in an explosive psychedelic noise-rock, ‘Ungrateful Heart’ sees the Italian four-piece hone in a more post-punk-indebted sound. Although no less abrasive and confrontational in its utlising of ear-piercing feedback and hard-hitting riffs, the band say that the songs here primarily take cues from the likes of Fugazi, Gang of Four, the PiL-Pistols canon and the Campana brothers’ long adoration of Italian and American hardcore punk. The album arrives off the back of 2019’s ‘Dengue Fever Hypnotic Trip’ LP and tours and festival dates around the UK, Europe and South Africa.

Laid down over a tireless week living side by side and working in the studio around the clock, The Gluts – comprised of Claudia Cesana (bass/vocals), Dario Bassi (drums) and Nicolò and Marco Campana (vocals/synths and guitar, respectively) – recorded ‘Ungrateful Heart’ with Dutch producer and close collaborator Bob de Wit (A Place To Bury Strangers, Gnod, The Sonics). On the sessions, the intensity of which is mirrored in the fierce uncompromising attitude of the music itself, the band said: “Bob’s contribution to this album was essential. He pushed us beyond our limits. It was difficult, we can’t hide it, but it really was worth it.” Although the album is still shot through with moments of lacerating noise-rock ('Mashilla' and 'Eat Acid See God'), songs like 'Love Me Do Again' and 'Bye Bye Boy' deal in a timeless hedonistic punk sound. Elsewhere, the politically charged 'Breath' and 'FYBBD' see The Gluts turn their sonic belligerence towards fascists and systemic racial violence to rallying effect.

TRACK LISTING

1) Mashilla
2) Love Me Do Again
3) Black Widow
4) Breath
5) Leyla, Lazy Girl From The Moon
6) Something Surreal
7) Ciotola Di Satana
8) Bye Bye Boy
9) FYBBD
10) Eat Acid See God

Portuguese experimental trio 10 000 Russos are gearing up for the release of their fifth album ‘Superinertia’, which is due out September 10th on Fuzz Club Records. Following on from 2019’s ‘Kompromat’ LP and tour dates around the UK, Europe and Mexico in support, the Porto-based band describe ‘Superinertia’ as a record addressing the “state of inertia that humans live in the West nowadays. It isn’t a record about the past or future. It’s about now.” For all that ‘Superinertia’ might take aim at a world without motion, however, the same cannot be said of 10 000 Russos themselves.

On the one hand, since their 2013 debut LP and the three that have followed on Fuzz Club since (2015’s self-titled, 2017’s ‘Distress Distress’ and ‘Kompromat’), 10 000 Russos’ music has always been about as kinetic as it gets: a truly unrelenting and motorik sonic force. On the other hand, ‘Superinertia’ also sees the band itself move into whole new musical territories – aided especially by the recent addition of synth player Nils Meisel to the line-up (who replaces former bassist André Couto.)

“The synths really opened up the sound of the band and gave more routes for the music to journey down. The most important thing on this album was to not repeat ourselves. A new arc in our sound is coming to life”, drummer and vocalist João Pimenta explains. On said arc, the Russos sound is expanded to include moments that invoke Ry Cooder’s ‘Paris, Texas’ soundtrack (‘Mexicali/Calexico’), dancey outbursts that transport you to the 90s Summer of Love (‘Super Inertia’), the closest thing Russos have ever done to a pop song (‘A House Full of Garbage’) and even a touch of banjo (albeit one that sounds like a country band on amphetamines playing over a feedback-blasted Stooges beat.)

TRACK LISTING

1) Station Europa
2) Saw The Damp
3) Super Inertia
4) A House Full Of Garbage
5) Mexicali / Calexico

Mild High Club makes a long-awaited comeback with Going Going Gone, the band’s first solo album since 2016’s cult favourite Skiptracing.

An album that speaks directly to the times we live in, Going Going Gone sees Mild High Club blending the psychedelic pop of earlier albums Skiptracing and Timeline with influences from around the world, especially Brazilian avant-garde music from the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Songs from Skiptracing and Timeline have hundreds of millions of streams. Mild High Club recently had viral success with single ‘Homage’ on TikTok, with over 50k videos posted and millions of likes. An active Reddit community dedicated to the band boasts thousands of members.

The band has played at such iconic festivals and venues as Coachella, Le Bataclan in Paris, and Brixton Academy in London. In 2017, they released an album with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Sketches from Brunswick East. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Mild High Club return for their newest outing, mixing the hazy indie guitars and swooning progressions of yesteryear but with a more crystalline, loungy production aesthetic. As wonderfully evocative as their previous outings, but even more beautifully varied.

TRACK LISTING

Side A

1. Kluges I
2. Dionysian State
3. Trash Heap
4. Taste Tomorrow
5. A New High (feat. Winter)
6. It's Over Again

Side B

1. Kluges II
2. I Don't Mind The Wait
3. Dawn Patrol
4. Waving
5. Me Myself And Dollar Hell
6. Holding On To Me

‘Buena Vista Social Club’ is both the name given to this extraordinary group of musicians and the album, recorded in just seven days in 1996 in Havana’s 1950s vintage EGREM studios. It was clear from the atmosphere of the recording sessions that something very special was taking place. However, no one could have predicted that Buena Vista Social Club would become a worldwide phenomenon – awarded a Grammy in 1997 and, at 8 million copies, outselling any other record in the same genre.

The acclaim of the original album has elevated the artists (including Ibrahim Ferrer, Rubén González & Omara Portuondo) to superstar status, inspired an award-winning film by Wim Wenders, and has contributed to popularising Cuba’s rich musical heritage. Produced by Ry Cooder for World Circuit, the timeless quality of the music and the sheer verve of the veteran performers have ensured that this will go down as one of the landmark recordings of the 20th century.

TRACK LISTING

2xLP Tracklisting:
A1 Chan Chan (2021 Remaster)
A2 De Camino A La Vereda (2021 Remaster)
A3 El Cuarto De Tula (2021 Remaster)
A4 Pueblo Nuevo (2021 Remaster)
B1 Dos Gardenias (2021 Remaster)
B2 ¿ Y Tú Qué Has Hecho? (2021 Remaster)
B3 Veinte Años (2021 Remaster)
B4 El Carretero (2021 Remaster)
B5 Candela (2021 Remaster)
C1 Amor De Loca Juventud (2021 Remaster)
C2 Orgullecida (2021 Remaster)
C3 Murmullo (2021 Remaster)
C4 Buena Vista Social Club (2021 Remaster)
C5 La Bayamesa (2021 Remaster)
D1 Vicenta *
D2 La Pluma *
D3 A Tus Pies *
D4 La Cleptómana *
D5 Orgullecida (alternate Trio Take) *

2CD Tracklisting:
CD1
1 Chan Chan (2021 Remaster)
2 De Camino A La Vereda (2021 Remaster)
3 El Cuarto De Tula (2021 Remaster)
4 Pueblo Nuevo (2021 Remaster)
5 Dos Gardenias (2021 Remaster)
6 ¿ Y Tú Qué Has Hecho? (2021 Remaster)
7 Veinte Años (2021 Remaster)
8 El Carretero (2021 Remaster)
9 Candela (2021 Remaster)
10 Amor De Loca Juventud (2021 Remaster)
11 Orgullecida (2021 Remaster)
12 Murmullo (2021 Remaster)
13 Buena Vista Social Club (2021 Remaster)
14 La Bayamesa (2021 Remaster)

CD2 (with 19 Bonus Tracks)
1 Chan Chan (monitor Mix) *
2 Vicenta *
3 La Pluma *
4 Dos Gardenias (alternate Take) *
5 Mandinga *
6 Siboney *
7 A Tus Pies *
8 El Carretero (alternate Take) *
9 Ensayo *
10 El Diablo Suelto *
11 Saludo Compay *
12 Descripción De Un Sueño *
13 Pueblo Nuevo (alternate Take) *
14 La Cleptómana *
15 ¿ Y Tú Qué Has Hecho? (alternate Take)
16 Orgullecida (alternate Take) *
17 Descarga Rubén *
18 Candela (alternate Take) *
19 Orgullecida (alternate Trio Take) *

* BONUS TRACKS

The success of S. Fidelity's sophomore LP "Fidelity Radio Club" (April, 2021) is still culminating. Widely recognized as a highlight for instrumental beat music this year, with recent track placements on Spotify's Editorial Jazz Vibes and Butter Playlists, each with over 1.9M Followers. Now, S. Fidelity teams up with the unmistakable sound of Berlin's Toy Tonics to rework four of FRC's track to perfectly fit dance floors worldwide as they slowly reopen.

Toy Tonics label head Kapote as well as TT label artists Cody Currie, Rhode & Brown and Sam Ruffillo deliver four high quality club renditions from FRC. The EP, only 500 copies pressed, is to be released via Jakarta Records on September 3rd. Musically, the EP combines the feel-good, beat factor of "Fidelity Radio Club" with the dancefloor ready house, disco and funk grooves that Toy Tonics are known for. The EP will be a perfect follow-up to S. Fidelity's previous Jakarta releases, which have gained more than 3.3M cumulative streams on Spotify alone.

The 1st single, "Me At The Zoo feat. Àbáse (Cody Currie Remix) is to be released on August 13th along with announcement of the pre-order for the Limited 12" EP. The upbeat collaboration with Cody Currie – who has more than 2M cumulative streams on Spotify – takes the swinging groove of the original and gives it a Balearic, percussive, dance-ready vibe. Currie, a London-born DJ and producer has been on the rise since moving to Berlin and teaming up with talent from the city's jazz and house scenes. He's released two EP's with Grammy nominated pianist Joel Holmes on Toy Tonics as well as the mini album "Atlantic Exchanges, Vol. 1" with Felipe Gordon on DJ Haus' Shall Not Fade in 2021. This year Currie also shared his first solo 12" on Toy Tonics, "Moves EP", which showcases his sublime ability as a producer to blend elements of feel-good house, disco, jazz and UK garage into each other.

The three other tracks are set to be released as digital singles on the physical release day, September 3rd, in order to maximize playlist reach and hit each of the artists release radars. Toy Tonics head honcho Kapote, a.k.a. Mathias Modica, takes S. Fidelity's boogie tune "Something Good" and spices it with a catchy piano lead line, infectious drum programming and several synth solos. Kapote, with more than 3.5M cumulative Spotify streams and over 97K Monthly Listeners, ran Gomma Records for more than 15 years, where he produced and released the likes of WhoMadeWho and Rammellzee.

Rhode & Brown remix "Presumably Broccoli", a straightforward hip-hop instrumental, which they flipped and "reverso-ed" into a just as straightforward high energy dancefloor gem. The duo from Munich have been delighting house music fans with rock solid productions on such labels as Toy Tonics, Permanent Vacation, Public Possession, Shall Not Fade and their own Slam City Jams imprint, establishing themselves as one of the most consistent house producers groups. Most recently they released their debut album "Everything Is In Motion" on Permanent Vacation. Bologna-based Sam Ruffillo rounds out the EP with a deep and meditative house rendition of S. Fidelity's "Higher" featuring Àbáse on keys and a prolific vocal recording of Steve Arrington. The Italian DJ and producer debuted on Toy Tonics just a year ago with the pandemic inspired EP "Sport House", offering jazzy-house alternatives to dancing while clubs remained closed. Sam Ruffillo received co-signs and spins by the likes of Romare, Folamour and Spotify's Fresh Finds: Basement playlist.

The release will primarily be promoted by the artist's and label's social media accounts and profiles.

TRACK LISTING

1. Me At The Zoo (Cody Currie Remix) [feat. Abase]
2. Something Good (Kapote Remix)
3. Presumably Broccoli (Rhode & Brown Reverso Mix) [feat. Suff Daddy]
4. Higher (Sam Ruffillo Remix) [feat. Àbáse & Saint Ezekiel]

Juju is the brainchild of Sicilian multi-instrumentalist Gioele Valenti (Lay Llamas, Herself) and this Fuzz Club Session LP finds Valenti and band (Vincenzo Schillaci, Simone Sfameli) storming through four tracks at I Candelai in Palermo, Italy. The resulting session is released as a series of videos and pressed on vinyl.

Due for release August 13th on London-based label Fuzz Club, the session comprises two tracks from their 2017 second album 'Our Mother Was A Plant' ('In A Ghetto' and 'And Play A Game') and two from 2019's 'Maps and Territory' LP ('Master and Servants' and 'Motherfucker Core'). Juju's worldly, genre-bending experimentalism fuses psychedelia, new wave and krautrock with touches of afrobeat, funk and zamrock and it's in a live setting, such as that captured here, where that captivating blending of sounds is at its most spellbinding and hypnotic.

Juju's Fuzz Club Session (the latest in a series which has previously included the likes of A Place to Bury Strangers, Night Beats, Holy Wave, The Entrance Band and more) makes all too clear why the band have been praised as one that "resets the coordinates and makes the past seem startling new again" (The Quietus).

TRACK LISTING

1) In A Ghetto - Live
2) Master And Servants - Live
3) Motherfucker Core - Live
4) And Play A Game - Live

Originally released on the Ovide label from Houston, Texas in 1970 and currently going for around £175, if you can find a copy.

Get Your Point Over is a brass-led funky dancer that beautifully compliments Sebastian Williams’ soulful vocal style, while the flipside, I Don't Care What Mama Said (Baby I Need You), is a slower groove that lets that vocal really soar, arriving complete with a groovy psychedelic guitar break before Williams testifies to his lady amid some punchy brass stabs.

Two stellar tunes from Sebastian Williams (aka Roger Williams of no-hit wonders The Quarter Notes), whose solo recording career amounted to just three 45s, all five years apart, along with a couple of releases as Sebastian And The House Rockers and finally, in 1975, just Sebastian.

Imagine vintage Tavares lead singer Chubby Tavares at his gritty best with a funky brass section in a soulful Harold Melvin And The Blue Notes- styled blast. Both tracks mastered from the original sound source for maximum soul sound

TRACK LISTING

1. Get Your Point Over
2. I Don’t Care What Mama Said (Baby I Need You)

Two more stormers from Deptford Northern Soul Club. Floor fillers primed for the DJs returning to the club circuit.

Featuring The Soul Stirrers’ funky, backbeatthumping classic ‘Don’t You Worry’, with gorgeous harmonies and a tortured lead vocal.

A gem filled with the kind of soulful positivity we need right now. In every sense, an upbeat classic that fetches around £200 on 7” on the original Checker imprint out of Chess back in 1969.

Backed with The Spinners’ ‘Memories Of Her Love Keep Haunting Me’, an essential piece of lost Tamla Motown from the late 1960s that’s never been officially released as a single before.

Powered by that Motown slap drum sound and a conga player on uppers, it’s a stomping tale of love lost with a super Motown production and a great horn break.

Both mastered from the original sound source for maximum soul sound.

TRACK LISTING

The Soul Stirrers - Don’t You Worry
Spinners - Memories Of Her Love Keep Haunting Me

Mark Rae is world reknowned for his work in creating Grand Central Records, the shop Fat City and his artistic endeavours as one half of Rae & Christian. This project follows on from his 2016 autobiography, Northern Sulphuric Soulboy.

This single vinyl, 14 track album, provides an instrumental soundtrack to Mark Rae's forthcoming debut novel, The Caterpillar Club. 

TRACK LISTING

1. The Caterpillar Club Intro
2. Chapter 1 - The End Of The Night
3. Chapter 8 - Second Hand Pram
4. Chapter 18 - Runout Groove
5. Chapter 42 - Belonging
6. Chapter 39 - Last Requests
7. Chapter 33 - Curtains & Infrared
8. Chapter 35 - The Night Plane
9. Chapter 36 - French Number One
10. Chapter 17 - Scanning The Horizon
11. Chapter 43 - Two Hombergs
12. Chapter 45 - Speed Bumps, Gas & Air
13. Chapter 46 - Those Were The Times We Had
14. The Caterpillar Club Outro

Both box sets include 62x62cm poster. Artwork and remaster exclusive to Fuzz Club Bootlegs. The live album was recorded when the prolific Australian psych-rock group descended on Thebarton Theatre in Adelaide, Australia on July 12th 2019. This career-spanning live album sees the band storm through tracks from ‘Chunky Shrapnel’, ‘Infest The Rats Nest’, ‘Fishing for Fishies’, ‘I’m In Your Mind Fuzz’, ‘Flying Microtonal Banana’, ‘Polygondwanaland’, and ‘Float Along - Fill Your Lungs’. This ‘Live In Adelaide 19’ bootleg is remastered by Brett Orrison (Jack White, The Black Angels, Roky Erickson) exclusively for Fuzz Club and arrives as a hand-numbered triple LP box-set with exclusive artwork.

TRACK LISTING

1) Evil Star
2) Planet B
3) Mars For The Rich
4) Venusian 1
5) Cyboogie
6) Real’s Not Real
7) Hot Water
8) Open Water
9) Sleep Drifter
10) Billabong Valley
11) The Bird Song
12) Inner Cell
13) Loyalty
14) Horology
15) Plastic Boogie
16) Organ Farmer
17) Self-Immolate
18) Head On/Pill

Band on the Wall Recordings is excited to present the first release from The Singles Club; a body of new work for 2021 that celebrates the artistic practice and far-reaching talents of one of its favourite artists and one of the hardest working musicians to grace the Band on the Wall stage.

Second year participant of Gilles Peterson’s Future Bubblers scheme and rising vocal talent, Mali Hayes is a jazzy-nu-R&B type neo soul artist, who has received personal endorsements from the likes of Jamz Supernova, Gilles Peterson & Jamie Cullum.

“A really great new British female vocalist from Manchester… She's got a real un-flashy kind of approach which I really like. Kind of a milder Jill Scott / Erykah Badu, definitely one to watch. We'll be hearing a lot more from her I'm sure!” – Jamie Cullum, BBC Radio 2

"I was fortunate enough to play demo's on my shows here at the BBC by Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. All premiers. And this is another one I think I'm gonna be proud of in a few years. Remember the name, Mali Hayes” – Gilles Peterson

A rising star in a flourishing Manchester music scene, jazzy-nu-R&B type neo soul artist Mali Hayes steps in a new direction for The Singles Club. Calling on past sounds, she breathes new life into previous work, combining vibrant real-life stories with honesty and soul, resulting in a release that is refreshing, infectious and dynamic. The lead track ‘Forgive You’ is a collaboration with fellow Future Bubblers participants, Medikul & Cult Architect.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Two stunning tracks from Mali Hayes fresh off the new Band on the Wall Recordings label, if this is a sample of what’s to come then we’re in for a treat. Soulful hazy-jazz which is good for the soul, mind and body.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Forgive You
B1. Come Closer

Cult of Dom Keller will release their fifth album, ‘They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O’, on May 21st via Fuzz Club Records. Since 2007 the British band have been leaving a trail of sonic fever dreams, dark psychedelia and experimentalism that beats with a heavy industrial heart and the forthcoming LP sees them conjuring their heaviest and most adventurous work to date. Channelling recent limitations and turning them to their advantage, Cult of Dom Keller found themselves radically altering their creative approach and morphing their sound into a whole new beast. On this LP the band hone in on an industrial noise-rock sound that is pushed to the brink. On 'They Carried The Dead In A UFO', the band said: “We managed to create our most experimental and exciting album to date without being in the same room together. U.F.O. was recorded, mixed and produced by ourselves, meaning we had total control over every noise on the record.

This was the exact record we wanted to make: Experimental and playful; moments of light and pure dark... we wanted to f*ck with the listener and pull them in with moments of beauty and chaos. We hope you enjoy the trip!” Cult of Dom Keller have long been at the forefront of the contemporary British psych scene but their notorious reputation also extends much further afield too. They’ve done several tours around the UK, Europe and US and shared the stage with greats like Roky Erickson, Spectrum, Silver Apples and The Sisters of Mercy, as well as contemporaries like The Black Angels, Fat White Family, Sleaford Mods and Temples.

TRACK LISTING

1) Run From The Gullskinna
2) Lyssa
3) Cage The Masters
4) She Turned Into A Serpent
5) Infernal Heads
6) Psychic Surgery
7) Amazing Enemy
8) Last King Of Hell

Following the recent ‘That’s All You Got’ 7”, Night Beats’ latest long-player lands May 4th via Fuzz Club Records. Made during the height of the California wildfires (where Danny now resides), rioting in the streets and a nation in lockdown, ‘Outlaw R&B’ deals in a psychedelic and R&B-infused garage-rock sound that’s “bathed in post-apocalyptic bliss”.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: You're always in good hands with Fuzz Club, and this latest Night Beats LP is a perfect example. Though there is a noteable country influence to the sound, it's a distinctly psychy affair and perfectly toes the line between bombastic, heavy riffs and shimmering melodic Americana. Brilliantly evocative and endlessly stirring, another classic from Night Beats.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A

1. Stuck In The Morning
2. Revolution
3. New Day
4. Hell In Texas
5. Thorns
6. Never Look Back (feat. Robert Levon Been)

SIDE B

1. Shadow
2. Crypt
3. Cream Johnny
4. Ticket
5. Holy Roller

A classic Vee-Jay side from 1965 that originally sneaked out on the Bay Area Wee label. The original goes for around £100, the second Wee press for £75, while the Vee-Jay version is 50 quid a throw. That said, copies are few and far between these days.

Featuring an upbeat, brass-powered Temptationslike harmony with a call and response, a deep sax wail and a piano motif pushing it forward towards a glorious middle eight that breaks into a Gospel roll out.

Powered by Ric-Tic-like drum rolls; a euphoric soulful classic split into two essential parts.

The Ballads were a four-piece from Oakland, across the bridge from San Francisco, featuring Freddie Hughes, who would later sign to Wand. The band themselves almost made it, charting in 1968 with the Willie Hutch-produced ‘God Bless Our Love’ but this earlier recording is the business.

Both sides remastered from the original sound source.

TRACK LISTING

I Can’t See Your Love (For The Tears In My Eyes) Pt.1
I Can’t See Your Love (For The Tears In My Eyes) Pt.2

The award winning compilation series Future Disco returns with it’s 14th instalment ‘Dance Club’, an embodiment and celebration of dancing, unity and togetherness, packed with key artists such as Dimitri From Paris, Dr Packer, Gerd Janson, Aeroplane & more.

Eighteen carefully curated tracks by label owner and curator Sean Brosnan. Featured on the album are some of the finest selections of disco, and club ready DJ tools to soundtrack the summer of 2021 and beyond. The album also features a raft of exclusives, edits and unreleased tracks from Theo Kottis, New World, Antenna, and The Showfa.

Sean comments on the concept:

‘The dance club is a concept that focuses on the most important aspect of dance music - the dancing itself. This album is a celebration album, which sounds strange in such difficult times, but it’s a celebration of dancing and how we have so badly missed this expression. How we are ging to dance again in the future and it’s going to be better and bigger than ever.’

Opening proceedings, Dimitri from Paris is an obvious choice and Yusek’s remix of ‘Can’t Get Enough’ is a holding hands together moment that pours sunlight over you in rejoice.

Ron Basejam’s rework of label signee Black Hawks of Panama sets the tone, with an upright funk selection that bellows its bass with adorn. And a regular to the series, COEO drives through a melodic transition to early 90’s rave, with embracing power-chords that reverberate the kick drum.

Drawing out the excursion, Hot Creations aficionado Jansons, takes on remix duties for Tommy Farrow’s 2020 belter ‘Let’s Just’, which saw widespread success, reaching BBC Radio 1 playlisting and nearing 1m streams. This main room powerhouse of a record is fittingly escorted by Catz n Dogs and Gerd Janson’s epically euphoric ‘Modern Romance’.

TRACK LISTING

CD1: Mixed:
1. Dimitri From Paris & Aeroplane Featuring Leela - Can’t Get Enough (Yuksek Remix)
2. Titeknots – On My Mind
3. Black Hawks Of Panama Feat. Bisi - Feel For You (Ron Basejam Remix)
4. Theo Kottis - Seventies (Theo’s Future Disco Edit) [Exclusive]
5. Chevals - All I Wanna Do Is Love You
6. New World - Glances (Future Disco Vocal Edit) [Exclusive]
7. COEO - I Can Never Be Yours
8. Antenna - L’atellier [Exclusive]
9. Jex Opolis - Listen To The Band
10. Kahwe - All Day
11. Hustlers Convention - Final (Dr Packer Remix)
12. Gerd Janson & Jacques Renault - Never Saw Never
13. The Showfa - Joy (Future Disco’s More Joy Edit) [Exclusive]
14. Mix & Fairbanks - Red Light Runner
15. Tommy Farrow - Let’s Just (Jansons Remix)
16. Catz N Dogz & Gerd Janson - Modern Romance (Original Mix)
17. Emil Rottmayer - L.E.V.E.L
18. Ekkah - Wendy’s Yard (Gilligan Moss Remix)

CD2 : Unmixed :
1. Dimitri From Paris & Aeroplane Featuring Leela - Can’t Get Enough (Yuksek Remix)
2. Titeknots – On My Mind
3. Black Hawks Of Panama Feat. Bisi - Feel For You (Ron Basejam Remix)
4. Theo Kottis - Seventies (Theo’s Future Disco Edit)
5. New World - Glances (Future Disco Vocal Edit)
6. COEO - I Can Never Be Yours
7. Antenna - L’atellier
8. Kahwe - All Day
9. Hustlers Convention - Final (Dr Packer Remix)
10. Gerd Janson & Jacques Renault - Never Saw Never
11. Mix & Fairbanks - Red Light Runner
12. Tommy Farrow - Let’s Just (Jansons Remix)
13. Catz N Dogz & Gerd Janson - Modern Romance (Original Mix)
14. Ekkah - Wendy’s Yard (Gilligan Moss Remix)

LP:
A1. Dimitri From Paris & Aeroplane Featuring Leela - Can’t Get Enough (Yuksek Remix)
A2. Titeknots – On My Mind
A3. Black Hawks Of Panama Feat. Bisi - Feel For You (Ron Basejam Remix)
A4. Theo Kottis - Seventies (Theo’s Future Disco Edit)
B1. Chevals - All I Wanna Do Is Love You
B2. New World - Glances (Future Disco Vocal Edit)
B3. COEO - I Can Never Be Yours
B4. Jex Opolis - Listen To The Band
C1. Kahwe - All Day
C2. Hustlers Convention - Final (Dr Packer Remix)
C3. Gerd Janson & Jacques Renault - Never Saw Never
C4. The Showfa - Joy (Future Disco’s More Joy Edit)
D1. Tommy Farrow - Let’s Just (Jansons Remix)
D2. Catz N Dogz & Gerd Janson - Modern Romance (Original Mix)
D3. Emil Rottmayer - L.E.V.E.L
D4. Ekkah - Wendy’s Yard (Gilligan Moss Remix)

English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Alfie Templeman follows up last year's Happiness in Liquid Form EP with new album Forever Isn't Long Enough. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Shady
2. Forever Isn't Long Enough
3. Hideaway
4. Wait, I Lied
5. Everybody's Gonna Love Somebody
6. Film Scene Daydream
7. To You
8. One More Day

“Melodies Record Club”, a string of DJ and artist curated mini compilations in loud 12” format. The first instalment was put together by Four Tet, selecting two big peak-time Jazz tracks he used to spin regularly at Plastic People.

On one side, we’ve got all time jazz greats Jackie McLean and Michael Carvin’s De I Comahlee Ah, taken from their seminal album Antiquity recorded in Denmark back in 1975. A year and a half ago, we visited Steeplechase, the original label in the outskirts of Copenhagen. They informed us that at the time, the track was cut short as it didn’t fit on the full LP. They were kind enough to provide us with the tape of the full original recording, allowing us to release for the first time the full extended version capturing twelve and a half minutes of studio magic. Speaking with Michael back in November, he told us that every song on that album was recorded without any overdubs. They had taken their shoes off and organised the studio in such a way that they could move from instrument to instrument during the take (!!)

On the flip, we have Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath – MRA. Back in 70s London, the Brotherhood had brought together musicians who had sought refuge from South Africa’s apartheid regime and the best of a new generation of British jazz musicians. Music journalist Richard Williams, who had originally reviewed the band in the 1970s tell us: “They made music that appealed in equal measure to the head, the heart and the feet, taking the jazz legacy of Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus and adding to it the fantastic dance rhythms and gorgeous harmonies of the townships and untethered collective improvisations of the new free music”.

Four Tet’s instalment is out early May in 12” format and digitally (stream & download), first press comes with a folded A2 insert with words from and about the artists. Graphic design by Studio ChoqueLeGoff, illustration and animation by Nevil Bernard and for the audiophiles out there, remastered and cut at half speed by Matt Colton at Metropolis Studios!

The second instalment curated by Ben UFO is scheduled shortly, which will be followed over time by a string of releases including selections from Hunee, Mafalda, Floating Points, Anya & Julia from Javybz, Daphni, Josey Rebelle, Charlie Bones, Gilles Peterson… and more, stay tuned!

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Time to get your Jazz on, Four Tet Selects these absolute gems for the first instalment and it doesn't disappoint! Bring on the rest I say... more jazz, more jazz!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Jackie McLean & Michael Carvin – De I Comahlee Ah (extended)
B1. Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood Of Breath - MRA

Kings Go Forth ‘One Day’ - Originally released in 2008 on Mr C’s and going for over £80 a throw, the band’s excellent funky debut 45, remastered for maximum dancefloor appeal. This stellar stand-out cut from the band’s 2010 album ‘The Outsiders Are Back’ was released on Luaka Bop. Think Curtis Mayfield with Fela’s horns and a percussion backing set to self-destruct; a spine tingling anthem, no less.

Willie Tee ‘First Taste Of Hurt’ - Cut with Willie Tee’s Gatur Records’ flipside that goes for £250 minimum. An organ-led, brass-powered groove from the New Orleans soul legend, originally released in 1972. A deep, soulful croon with an enveloping rhythm and a euphoric lift, remastered from the original sound files for added soul.

TRACK LISTING

Kings Go Forth ‘One Day’
Willie Tee ‘First Taste Of Hurt’

As with all Fuzz Club releases this is for Indies only. ‘Flowing Fades’, the second Saccades album from The KVB’s Nicholas Wood, is due for release April 9th on Fuzz Club Records. Where Wood’s work in The KVB (Invada Records) trades in minimalist postpunk/coldwave, the Manchester-based artist’s solo material under the Saccades moniker is an exercise in escapist psychedelic pop. On ‘Flowing Fades’ we find a world of blissed-out synths, languid carefree guitars, dreamy vocals and influences that range from J.G. Ballard and Serge Gainsbourg to 80s dream pop and yacht-rock. “I began to properly work on this album after returning from The KVB’s North American Tour in late 2019, my head filled with new inspiration for this project and a clear idea on how this album should sound”, Wood remembers: “I wanted to create something soothing and immersive. Music for escapism, which can be listened to at sunrise or sunset. Even though it’s lighter and mellower than my usual output, I feel like there are strong hints of melancholia in there too, reflecting the world in which it was created.” With the bulk of the album written whilst Wood was cooped up in his apartment over lockdown, the album inevitably reflects the social unrest that was unfolding outside - touching on everything from lockdown paranoia and fractured relationships to missing life on the road.

TRACK LISTING

1) Islands Past
2) On Your Mind
3) All Divided Selves
4) Like Everyday
5) Tonight We Can Expect The Same
6) Breezy
7) Day Dreamer
8) Older Than Tomorrow
9) Heat
10) Endless Spring
11) Flowing Fades
12) Lady Blue

"It’s a bit of a ‘lost tapes’ album," says the group’s vocalist and bassist, Joel Cadbury of From Here On Out. "We’ve uncovered these archives. Everything’s on cassettes or defunct products. We had to find a good tape deck that didn’t wobble too much and digitize everything. That was a long process. And then someone would find another bag of cassettes. I must have listened to 40 hours’ worth. But I knew that I had better go through everything because if I don’t, it will come back and I’ll have to do it again. It unearthed some really cool stuff".

TRACK LISTING

1.Save Your Sorrow
2.Remind Me
3.Here On Out
4.Wasted Reminders
5.Breaking Away
6.Mad Day
7.Instrumental A 99
8.I Know What You're Like (Demo)
9.Run On Time (Demo)
10.Southern Climbs (Chiswick Reach)
11.Time To Riot (DIV)
12.Separate Meaning
13.Breaking Free
14.I'd Be Lying
15.Better Things (Demo)
16.Coming Of Age

Australian five-piece Mt. Mountain will release their fourth album, ‘Centre’, on February 26th 2021 via London’s Fuzz Club Records. Hailing from Perth, Australia, Mt. Mountain deal in a sprawling, motorik psychedelic rock sound that journeys between tranquil, drone-like meditations and raucous, full-throttle wig-outs that’ll blow your mind as much as your speakers. Taking cues from Krautrock pioneers like Neu! and Can whilst existing in a similar world to contemporaries like Moon Duo, Kikagaku Moyo and Minami Deutsch, Mt. Mountain are formidable torchbearers of the minimal-ismaximal tradition. Musically, the band’s sound is born out of long improvised jams so naturally much of the album was recorded live to capture the band at their most freewheeling.

Growing up surrounded by religion but not a follower himself, Stephen Bailey (vocals / organ / flute) describes how, thematically, much of ‘Centre’ is a dissection of faith – both spiritual and secular – and his personal, often complicated relationship to it: “The album for me, lyrically, is mostly about my experience of religion. It explores these concepts and the rules that were told to me from childhood to adulthood and my thoughts on my own connection to them. Similar themes arise between the tracks whether it be lyrically or structural, both a play on repetition and simplicity.” With a number of EPs and singles and three albums behind them – their 2016 debut ‘Cosmos Terros’, 2017’s ‘Dust’ and 2018’s ‘Golden Rise’ – the Perth quintet have picked up a formidable reputation in their homeland and further afield, thanks especially to their wildly all-consuming live shows. Constantly touring across Australia with each release, they’ve also shared the stage with notable down-under comrades like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and ORB, as well as a long list of international heavy-hitters including Sleep, MONO, Thee Oh Sees, Acid Mothers Temple and Moon Duo.

TRACK LISTING

1) Tassels
2) Hands Together
3) Dawn
4) The List
5) Two Minds
6) Aplomb
7) Peregrination
8) Second Home
9) Deluge

Two classic cuts from the President catalogue.

Doris Willingham ‘You Can’t Do That’ - A big Northern floorfiller from a renowned soul backing singer who cut her own material later as Doris Duke. Her only release under the Willingham name, originally out on the super cool UK Jay Boy imprint in 1968 (the label’s debut release - BOY1).

Produced by Bernard Purdie (Funky Donkey label) who was at the controls for a number of super rare Northern sides. An early gem from the artist who ended up working with the legendary Swamp Dogg (Jerry Williams) charting with the ballad ‘To the Other Woman (I’m The Other Woman)’.

Pat Hervey With The Tiaras ‘I Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind’ - An anthemic, handclap-friendly gem that goes for anywhere between £50 to £100. Released on the UK President label from 1966.

Blue-eyed Canadian soul backed by black Canadian harmony group The Tiaras (not to be confused with the LA harmony outfit). A slow burner that ramps up the horns and strings behind some funky guitar chops and Hervey’s euphoric vocal, her one-off stab at the soul charts guaranteeing obscurity and legendary status.

TRACK LISTING

Doris Willingham - You Can’t Do That
Pat Hervey With The Tiaras - Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind

South announce the 20th anniversary re-cut of the cult-classic debut album ‘From Here On In’. They called themselves South as a statement; an act of bravado. Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough. Manchester bands had dominated for two decades, be it the Smiths, New Order, the Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays, and of course Oasis. Now it was the turn of three lads from North London. Move over Madchester. Although commercial success eluded them in the UK, South soared abroad - notably in the US, Germany and Japan. They toured the world with Elbow - one night South would top the bill, the next night it would be Elbow's turn. Guy Garvey would always dedicate a song to them from the stage "because they're real". In the US, their prominence was partly due to the fact that they composed the soundtrack to the smash gangster movie Sexy Beast, and that their biggest single Paint The Silence featured on the teen drama TV series The OC. When South split up in 2008 – four albums and a decade down the line - they had a back catalogue to be proud of.

And twenty years on from its release, their debut album From Here On In sounds as fresh as the day it was first pressed in 2001. Despite the swagger in their name, South couldn't have been less laddish or pugilistic. All three were quietly spoken, thoughtful, serious minded. They originally saw themselves as an electronic act, before morphing into a crusty-haired grunge band. They got a regular spot at the St Moritz Club on the legendary Wardour Street in 1998 and evolved again - less thrashing, more acoustic, tingling guitars, and sublime harmonies. Within weeks of starting at the St Moritz they had signed a publishing deal with Warner Chappell, before James Lavelle signed them to Mo'Wax.

For all that South eschewed the North, they would have been perfectly at home in Manchester. You can hear the influences of the great Manchester bands on From Here On In - the tender Gallagheresque ballad Keep Close; the gorgeous Paint the Silence nodding to the Stone Roses. Yet at the same time they brought so much extra to the party - dance beats in thumping rock rock songs; acoustic ballads that blaze ferociously. The reviews were sensational, particularly in America. "The tempos were stately. the lyrics suitably doleful and warmhearted," said the New York Times. The Chicago Tribune eulogised about "the dreamy atmospheric mix of pensive acoustic songcraft and electronic soundscaping."

Meanwhile Billboard said: "Every now and then a band comes along that prides itself on not fully ascribing to any one musical philosophy. Welcome to the world of north London's South." From Here On In was the perfect post-modern album - ballads to rave to, dance tracks to mourn to, pop rock, electro-rock, folk-rock, instrumental rock, prog rock, and even occasionally rock rock. In many ways the album was decades ahead of itself. Perhaps its time has come now.

TRACK LISTING

1.Broken Head (I)
2.Paint The Silence
3.Keep Close
4.I Know What You're Like
5.All In For Nothing (Reprise)
6.Here On In
7.Run On Time
8.Broken Head (II)
9.Sight Of Me
10.By The Time You Catch Your Heart
11.Live Between The Lines (Back Again)
12.Recovered Now
13.Southern Climbs
14.By The Time You Catch Your Heart (Reprise)
15.All In For Nothing
16.Broken Head (III)

Today Lana Del Rey releases her new song and visual ‘Chemtrails Over The Country Club’. The song is co-written by Lana Del Rey and Jack Antonoff, with the visual being directed by BRTHR.

Following the success of her 2019 GRAMMY®-nominated album Norman Fucking Rockwell, Lana has announced that March 19th, 2021 is the official release date for her highly anticipated seventh studio album Chemtrails Over The Country Club.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Lana's 7th album, Chemtrails Over The Country Club brings all of the latent melodicism and swooning pop of her previous outings but with a more melancholic leaning, resulting in a hugely enjoyable distillation of pop with more esoteric production elements.

TRACK LISTING

1. White Dress
2. Chemtrails Over The Country Club
3. Tulsa Jesus Freak
4. Let Me Love You Like A Woman
5. Wild At Heart
6. Dark But Just A Game
7. Not All Who Wander Are Lost
8. Yosemite
9. Breaking Up Slowly
10. Dance Till We Die
11. For Free

Up until disbanding last year announced via a social media post saying they “were off to get some smokes” Oakland cosmonauts Lumerians were one of the most prolific and genre-bending bands to reside on the outer edges of contemporary psychedelia. Since their formation 2006 they went on to tour around the world and share the stage with everyone from My Bloody Valentine to Killing Joke and Black Moth Super Rainbow. Constantly evolving, their sound has been known to journey from synthesised ambient excursions to far-out space-rock and kosmische post-punk, often dabbling with touches of dub, free jazz and the works. What might very well be the final Lumerians LP comes in the shape of a new live session recorded for Fuzz Club Records when the band stopped off in London as part of a European tour in 2019. Recorded live at Love Buzz Productions and pressed to 180gm vinyl, Lumerians’ Fuzz Club Session LP is comprised of four tracks, new and old. 'Longwave' and 'Corkscrew Trepanation' are lifted from the band's 2011 Partisan Records-released 'Transmalinna' LP and their 2008 self-titled debut EP, respectively.

On this record, though, we hear the songs take on a whole new life: "Both of these songs had mutated into different animals over the years and were frequently played together as a finale during our live shows. We wanted to document their transformation since we really liked what they had become", the band reflect. As well as those reimagined Lumerians cuts, the Fuzz Club Session also features two previously unreleased jams. They describe 'Light The Beacon' as "a snapshot of a piece of music we had been using to open our shows for tours in 2018 and 2019. It started as a simple oscillator drone that would lead into the first song but eventually became a song in and of itself.

The song never really had a name, but since we used it as a way to signal the show was beginning and draw people towards the stage, 'Light the Beacon' seemed appropriate for this version." 'Transmission Overture', on the other hand, was a spontaneous composition that they'd never played before and haven't since: "This is basically the process by which we wrote all of our songs. We'd record our improvisations, listen back and then select the parts that stood out most and learn how to play it again. Some seemed so fully formed out of the gate that we'd call them "transmissions" as documented on our 'Transmissions from Telos' EP series.

TRACK LISTING

1) Light The Beacon
2) Transmission Overture
3) Corkscrew Trepanation
4) Longwave

The Underground Youth is a Manchester-born, Berlin-based group led by Craig Dyer that, on March 12th 2021, will release their tenth album, ‘The Falling’, via Fuzz Club Records. The new full-length sees Craig and band trade their acerbic post-punk melancholy for a more refined and stripped-back sound that, instead, enters the world of romantic, shadowy folk-noir. A marked departure from the primal intensity often heard on the band’s previous work, ‘The Falling’ showcases a softer, more cinematic musical landscape shaped by acoustic guitars, piano, accordion and a heavy presence of violin and string arrangements. It’s not just the instrumentation and atmospherics that have undergone a transformation on this record, it is also Craig’s most sincere and introspective work to date. “Lyrically this album finds me at my most honest and autobiographical. I still shroud the reality of what I have written within something of a fictional setting, but the honesty and the romance that shines throughout the record is more sincere than it has been in my previous work. The idea was to strip back the band to allow for lyrical breathing space”, Craig reflects on the album.

With the original plans of heading into the studio upon their return from their 2020 USA tour grinding to a halt – the tour cancelled midway through due to the Covid-19 outbreak and followed by months of isolation in their Berlin apartments – the album is also very much a product of the distressing and unfamiliar world we now find ourselves in. As a result of the pandemic, ‘The Falling’ was recorded between Craig and guitarist/producer Leo Kaage’s apartments-turned-home-studios (also in the band is Craig’s wife, the artist Olya Dyer, and Max James, who formerly played in Johnny Marr’s live band): “The album sees me going back to my writing approach from our earliest records, writing the demos as stripped back acoustic tracks at home. What started out as a set of romantic and deeply personal songs also took on the surrounding frustrations and feelings towards the situation we found ourselves in. Born from the heartbreak of how the worldwide pandemic has changed the industry we were thriving within, this album also functions as a love letter to the past.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The gloomy, post-punk atmospherics of Undergound Youth past is eschewed for a more subdued, Dylanny guitar and harmonica vibe. It's a testament to an act when they can shift direction quite so capably and 'The Falling' shows every bit of the skill of previous releases, but wrapped in a new skin.

TRACK LISTING

1) The Falling
2) Vergiss Mich Night
3) Egyptian Queen
4) And I…
5) A Sorrowful Race
6) For You Are The One
7) Cabinet Of Curiosities
8) Letter From A Young Lover 

Classic 1969 blue-eyed soul monster that was the flipside of Sue Lynne’s ‘You’ single on RCA.

Huge at Wigan Casino back in the day.

Original copies now go for a huge £700 apiece.

A brass-powered stomper with a funky rhythm and backbeat that leads to a euphoric chorus and instrumental break.

Expertly remastered from the original sound source.

Two stellar versions; both mono and stereo for maximum dancefloor impact.

Written by Chris Andrews, who also penned Chris Farlowe’s mod anthem ‘Out Of Time’.

Sue Lynne (AKA Sue Vanner) quit the music business after the single’s failure to chart and ended up in the Bond movie ‘The Spy Who Love Me’, as well as a host of TV shows.

TRACK LISTING

Sue Lynne - Don’t Pity Me
Sue Lynne - Don’t Pity Me (Mono Version)

This Special Edition not only features a remastered version of the original classic album, but also includes a 2nd disc featuring the Miami demos.

This classic 1982 album has been digitally re-mastered and comes in beautiful gatefold packaging with extensive liner notes and archival photos and other collectable images.

The Gun Club recorded a few albums after Miami, but this one with the original band is the one that is considered their masterpiece!

TRACK LISTING

Album Tracklisting
LP 1:
Carry Home
Like Calling Up Thunder
Brother And Sister
Run Through the Jungle
Devil In The Woods
Texas Serenade
Watermelon Man
Bad Indian
John Hardy
Fire Of Love
Sleeping In Blood City
Mother Of Earth

LP 2:
Carry Home (Demo)
Like Calling Up Thunder (Demo)
Brother And Sister (Demo)
Run Through The Jungle (Demo)
Devil In The Woods (Demo)
Texas Serenade (Demo)
Watermelon Man (Demo)
Bad Indian (Demo)
John Hardy (Demo)
Fire Of Love (Demo)
Sleeping In Blood City (Demo)
Mother Of Earth (Demo)

CD Tracklisting
CD 1:
Carry Home / Like Calling Up Thunder
Brother And Sister
Run Through the Jungle
Devil In The Woods
Texas Serenade
Watermelon Man
Bad Indian
John Hardy
Fire Of Love
Sleeping In Blood City
Mother Of Earth

Like Calling Up Thunder (Demo)
Brother And Sister (Demo)
Run Through The Jungle (Demo)
Devil In The Woods (Demo)
Texas Serenade (Demo)
Watermelon Man (Demo)
Bad Indian (Demo)
John Hardy (Demo)
Fire Of Love (Demo)
Sleeping In Blood City (Demo)
Mother Of Earth (Demo)
Walkin’ With The Beast (Demo
Prune Dicks From Mars (Demo)
Vampires (Demo) / Journey To Zatar (Demo)
Blue Hair (Demo)
Pig Boys (Demo)

Bombay Bicycle Club are very pleased to announce details of their new live album, ‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose - Live At Brixton’. The album was recorded on 8th November 2019 at the band’s sold out Brixton Academy show, celebrating the 10th anniversary of their debut album. 

The live album follows the release of the band’s fifth studio album, ‘Everything Else Has Gone Wrong’ earlier this year. The album peaked at #4 on the UK album chart and garnered widespread acclaim from fans and critics alike. Its release was due to be followed by an extensive European and North American headline tour and numerous festival headline appearances. The new live album acts as a timely gift to their fans and a fine celebration of the power and togetherness of live music.
 

TRACK LISTING

Emergency Contraception Blues – Live At Brixton
Lamplight – Live At Brixton
Evening / Morning – Live At Brixton
Dust On The Ground – Live At Brixton
Ghost – Live At Brixton
Always Like This – Live At Brixton
Magnet – Live At Brixton
Cancel On Me – Live At Brixton
Autumn – Live At Brixton
The Hill – Live At Brixton
What If – Live At Brixton
The Giantess – Live At Brixton

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

Arriving off the back of their recent 'Interzone' LP, Brooklyn electro post-punk duo The Vacant Lots are putting out a new remixed song, titled 'Departure', which has been produced by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's Robert Levon Been. A long-standing crowd-favourite, the track is now set for release for the very first time and is bolstered by the remixing duties of the BRMC guitarist and vocalist, whom The Vacant Lots became close friends with after both bands toured together on several occasions. Blending proto-punk and psych as effortlessly as you’d expect from a Vacant Lots release, the ‘Departure’ remix – due for release October 16th on Fuzz Club – sees throbbing 'Nightclubbing'-esque electronics interlaced with distorted, hard-hitting guitars and vocals that are just as snarling as they are detached. First conceived when The Vacant Lots were writing their 2014 ‘Departure’ LP but left unreleased and having now evolved over the years since, the song became a staple of the band’s visceral live performances and is now set for a long-overdue vinyl release in the form of a 7” with an etched B-side that’s limited to 500 copies. The remix is mastered by Maurizio Baggio (Boy Harsher, The Soft Moon, Merchandise) and housed in stark, minimalistic artwork by longtime visual collaborator Ivan Liechti

Two great Brunswick sides on one disc, from two of the greatest soul vocalists. The A side features Tyrone Davis’ version of Clarence Carter’s ‘Slip Away’ from his essential ‘Can I Change My Mind’ album, which has never previously been available as a single. A mid-tempo toe tapper with a mid-section brass build that’s underpinned by a funky groove. The flipside cranks up the action with Gene Chandler’s riotous take on James Brown’s anthem ‘There Was A Time’. Worth the entry for the horn stabs alone, it’s an expressive slice of sharp-edged driving funk.

TRACK LISTING

Tyrone Davis - Slip Away
Gene Chandler - There Was A Time

We're super excited to be able to get our hands on some of these limited edition version of this fantastic book. 

This edition features an exclusive 7" single - Angel (part 1) b/w Angel (part 2) - from Piccadilly favourites Working Men’s Club. They blew us away with their live shows last year and we can't wait for their debut album. 

You may have heard Angel in all its 12 minute glory in WMC’s legendary live sets. Here’s the studio version, produced by Ross Orton, split over both sides of a 7”.

Heavenly was already a state of mind. Seemed like the right time to make it something really special. We were all deeply immersed in music that we loved. None of us could believe our fucking luck, really. (Jeff Barrett) 

It was thirty years ago today - or thereabouts - that Heavenly came to be. In celebration of this big ol’ birthday comes Believe in Magic - a chronicle not only of Foxbase Alpha, Working Men’s Club and 28 of the releases in between that got the label to where it is today, but also of the haircuts, nights down the pub, pencil-eraser-carvings, cheese toasties, acid houses, Sunday Socials and lost Weekenders - Yorkshire and otherwise - that are as much a part of its story. 

As Jeff Barrett puts it at the beginning of the book, if there’s a continuous theme that runs through all of this, I think it’s that everything comes down to conversations with people about music. It might seem like it all starts with someone on one side of the counter who is selling you something, or someone writing excitedly in a magazine telling you about a band you need to hear, but I don’t think I’ve ever really seen things as one-way transactions. It’s more an ongoing dialogue, one that never really stops and helps to build up this growing soundtrack to our lives, something that’s passed from one person to another. That’s really the ever-present thread. That’s why we still believe in magic. 

Though we are three decades distant from The World According to Sly and Lovechild, lineup changes, ups, downs, and a good few office cleanups under the label’s belt, the Heavenly firm continue not to believe their fucking luck; at still being here, keepin’ on keepin’ on doing what they love, and at being able to pass all of this - then, now, and next week - on to you. 

Believe in Magic is a fully illustrated history of one of the most colourful and exciting independent British record labels; a label responsible for creating satellite communities of fans around the country and at all the major festivals.
After several years working at Factory and Creation, Heavenly Recordings was set up by Jeff Barrett in 1990 as the acid house revolution was in full swing; early releases set the tone and tempo for the mood of the decade to come - their first release was by perhaps the most revered acid house DJ of them all, Andrew Weatherall; and this was quickly followed by singles from St Etienne and Manic Street Preachers. 

Heavenly was always different to other labels; more of a 'club' with a defiant spirit of inclusiveness, and in 1994 they set up The Heavenly Social, which alongside the Hacienda, became perhaps the most famous club in recent British history, where the Chemical Brothers made their name. 

Over nearly 200 releases in thirty years Heavenly have consistently produced some of the most exciting music across all genres - dance, acid house, singer-songwriter, psych-garage - and this book collects rare photographs, ephemera, artwork into a celebration of a label that is, alongside Rough Trade and Factory, one of the most beloved institutions on the independent landscape. Running though the book are thirty stories, mostly told in the form of oral history by artists like James Dean Bradfield, Flowered Up, Beth Orton, Doves and Don Letts, which capture the presiding personality of the label, its bands and the people associated with its success. 

Reykjavík maverick Henrik Björnsson is due to release ‘Good Sick Fun’, his eleventh album under the Singapore Sling project. Inspired by goth-rock, dub and big-band jazz on top of the usual fuzzed-out rock’n’roll touchstones that are seared into Henrik’s work, the latest Singapore Sling full-length is as perversely hedonistic as they come – and that’s not without competition by any means. An invitation to “rejoice in doing wrong”, in Henrik’s own words, ‘Good Sick Fun’ is the latest morbid and characteristically-depraved addition to a back-catalogue spanning nearly two decades from the cult Icelandic band. Arriving off the back of the 2019 ‘Killer Classics’ LP, Henrik says of the new album: “Old rock´n´roll is the main influence on this record, as on most of my records. When I release a record it means rock´n´roll has saved my life, my mind and my soul once again. And it does that quite frequently. Sometimes I start running astray, getting sucked into pointless garbage and thinking it actually matters. Then I realize that it´s absolute garbage and that nothing matters but rock´n´roll so I go and make a record instead.” 

TRACK LISTING

1. Touch The Filth
2. Soul Kicks
3. Good Sick Fun
4. Summertime Blues
5. Love Sick Love Fuck
6. Vindication
7. Sick Fuck
8. Sickin Street
9. Like The Breeze
10. No Fire
11. Girl Inside Your Hand
12. Friday Bye Bye

Soul legend Jackie Wilson’s 1973 Brunswick single is a smooth, hook-laden, vibe-driven classic that goes for £80 and upwards. In typically fine voice, Jackie’s ‘Because Of You’ is an aching tale of the power of love that’s irresistible. Backed with Dorian Burton and Herman Kelley’s brooding ‘You Don’t Have To Worry’ from 1967; a snip at $400 these days. It was a Brunswick oneoff from the duo that plays off their falsetto and baritone vocals and his been sampled by both Common and 50 Cent among others.

TRACK LISTING

Jackie Wilson - Because Of You
Doris & Kelley - You Don’t Have To Worry

The breadth, detail and care of Tunng’s Dead Club project is a striking thing. “It’s not just a record, it’s a discussion, it’s a podcast series, it’s poetry, it’s short stories, it’s an examination,” says the band’s Mike Lindsay. Tackling the still near-untouchable subjects - grief, loss, the act of dying, where we go, what becomes of those left behind - death is a taboo beyond all others.

Around the time of Tunng’s sixth album, 2018’s Songs You Make at Night, lyricist Sam Genders found Max Porter’s novel Grief is The Thing with Feathers, and was struck by its power. Its viscerality and rawness and rage. Its beauty and love and connection. He passed Porter’s book around his band members.

For months the six band members discussed the subject at length. That they are such a sizeable band, diverse in opinion and perspective, proved helpful: “When all those things come together that’s what makes it Tunng,” says Genders. “And because the subject of death is so powerful for people in different ways, we talked about the kinds of issues it might bring up, that we might need to be sensitive about.”

Firstly, Dead Club is an extraordinary record; contemplative, intimate and celebratory. It includes collaborations with Max Porter, who wrote two new pieces for the album. It draws on the research the band conducted — nods to the Wari people of Brazil who eat their dead, discussions of consciousness and memory, Genders’ visit to a death cafe in Sheffield, and the Swedish art of Death Cleaning. It touches on personal loss, fear, and humour and sorrow and love.

“Trying to turn this whole concept into an album, into music, without it being too sombre and difficult for people to listen to, that’s been the challenge,” says Lindsay. “We wanted it to be colourful and we wanted it to be kind of uplifting. Although some of it’s a lot darker than I was imagining it originally, I think it’s a thought-provoking and emotional journey; it doesn’t make me feel sad.”

It's also a podcast series, produced by the band’s Becky Jacobs and Sam Genders, speaking to those who work in the field of death: philosophers, scientists, frontline workers, and beyond. Philosophers Alain De Botton and A.C. Grayling discuss cultural attitudes towards death, alongside palliative care physician and author Kathryn Mannix, mentalist Derren Brown, forensic anthropologist Dame Sue Black, musician Speech Debelle, and Poetry editor of the New Yorker, Kevin Young. Samples from these discussions in turn appear on the album: Brown’s voice hovers over Fatally Human, Black considers what happens after we die on The Last Day, while on A Million Colours, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib of Tinariwen speaks of the traditions around death of the Tuareg in northern Mali.

There were live events planned of course, collisions of music and readings and art that the band had hoped might prompt conversations about the subject among the audience. Perhaps the hope of this project is not to commandeer grief, to explain it or provide a structure for loss, but to bring a new openness to the subject.

We no longer have the religious script we once had that helped us to deal with death, Genders notes. “And I think a lot of us are struggling to know how to behave around it.” But there are skills we can learn, conversations we can have, cultural baggage we can question, to find an approach that reflects an experience that is “inherently human”, as Genders puts it. “I think in life in general there’s something very powerful in total honesty,” he says. “In being honest about all the different ways that you experience things. Because it’s nearly always the case that you discover everyone’s got the same anxieties, and the same fears, and having the same experiences. And maybe that can be powerful.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though the idea and the creative process behind 'Dead Club' is significantly different from their usual collaborative approach, it has every bit of the alt-folk charm and bracing mix of electronic and organic instrumentation we saw in 'then We Saw Land' or the brilliant 'Good Arrows'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Eating The Dead
2. Death Is The New Sex
3. SDC
4. Three Birds
5. A Million Colours
6. Carry You
7. The Last Day
8. Tsunami
9. Man
10. Scared To Death
11. Fatally Human
12. Woman

A rumble on the horizon. Gritted teeth, nuclear fizz and fissured rock. A dab of pill dust from a linty pocket before it hits: the atom split, pool table overturned, pint glass smashed — valley fever breaking with the clouds as the inertia of small town life is well and truly disrupted. Here to bust out of Doledrum, clad in a t-shirt that screams SOCIALISM and armed with drum machine, synth, pedal and icy stare are Working Men’s Club, and their self-titled debut album.

It’s hard to believe that the three fresh-faced music college kids who bounced out of nowhere and onto the 6 Music playlist with the sweet-but-potent, twangy guitar-led ‘Bad Blood’ (Melodic Records) in 2019 are the same band who clattered back there with maddening techno-cowbellpuncher ‘Teeth’ less than half a year later — and that’s because for the most part, they’re not. Having signed to Heavenly and with the hype around them building, underlying tensions came to a boil a mere five days before the band’s all-important first London headline show, and wunderkind frontman Syd Minsky-Sargeant was left high and dry; guitarist Giulia Bonometti had decided to focus on her blossoming solo career, and drummer Jake Bogacki was against the new electronic direction Minsky-Sargeant saw Working Men’s Club taking. (“I guess WMC started off as a bit more guitar-based, tryna copy stuff in our own way, like the Velvets and stuff like that, but I didn’t want it to be that anymore. It became dancier and dancier as I tried to experiment”, he explains.) All that remained of the outfit was Minsky-Sargeant himself, recently recruited bassist Liam Ogburn, and — given the band’s indebtment to wood panelled, community-run venues for an early leg-up — a rather pertinent name. But with staunch determination burning in his belly, Minsky-Sargeant quickly assembled a lineup consisting of himself, Ogburn, and Mairead O'Connor (The Moonlandingz) and Rob Graham (Drenge, Baba Naga) — both of whom he had met at the Sheffield studio of producer Ross Orton (The Fall, M.I.A., Arctic Monkeys) — replaced the live drums with a drum machine, and rush-rehearsed the new setup before going ahead with the show. “If it wasn’t for Sheffield then we probably wouldn’t have played that gig” he says. “I was shitting myself, because I didn’t know what would work or not.” Luckily, something stuck: “After about three gigs with that lineup it was already way better than what we’d had before.” Two original members lighter and three new ones the richer, Working Men’s Club took on a new hard-edge permutation, their shows becoming ever more sweaty, pulsating and rammed to the rafters; their energy raw; their vigour renewed; their interplay as musicians growing ever-more intuitive and elastic. Their eponymous collection of songs is equal parts Calder Valley restlessness and raw Sheffield steel; guitars locking horns with floor-filling beats, synths masquerading as drums and Minsky-Sargeant’s scratchy, electrifying bedroom demos brought to their full potential by Orton’s blade-sharp yet sensitive production.

It was at home in the town of Todmorden in the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire, feeling hemmed in, that 18-year-old Syd Minsky-Sargeant first began assembling these 10 songs. “There’s not much going on, not much stuff to do as a teenager” he says. “It’s quite isolated. And it can get quite depressing being in a town where in the winter it gets light at nine in the morning and dark at four”. It is this sense of cabin fever, of “thinking that you will never escape a small town in the middle of nowhere” on which the album opens, with the boredom-lamenting and rave-reminiscent ‘Valleys’. In a post-punk talk-sing over an old-skool beat, Minsky-Sargeant begins:

Trapped, inside a town, inside my mind

Stuck with no ideas, I’m running out of time

There’s no quick escape, so many mistakes, I’ll play the long game

This winter is a curse

And the valley is my hearse, when will it take me to the grave?

Fortunately for Syd and a thousand other bored-shitless, dark-dwelling teenagers, the Calder Valley boasts a burgeoning grassroots music scene, chiefly centred around The Golden Lion in Todmorden, and the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge — both of which were instrumental in the early life of the band. “Without those venues we probably wouldn’t have been able to get into playing live music”, Minsky-Sargeant reflects. Working Men’s Club’s first ever gig, at The Golden Lion, was self-booked and self-promoted, landlord Waka having allowed the band to use the 100-capacity room above the pub for free. Even before booking himself onto the stage though, Minsky-Sargeant regularly snuck into the venue to watch the internationally renowned DJs, like Justin Robertson and Luke Unabomber, who passed through its doors. This, combined with the discovery of 808 State, his stepdad’s extensive afrobeat record collection, YouTube videos of Jeff Mills making beats on a Roland TR-909, and a chance festival encounter with Soulwax, provided sustenance and inspiration for Working Men’s Club’s developing sound. Though it is songs almost entirely written and sung by Minsky-Sargeant that appear on the record, he is quick to point out the influence of the other members of his band on the record too; that “everyone that’s been involved in this band, from the old lineup to the new lineup, played on the record, contributed and shaped it in some way, through the phases”, wheedling in and around Minsky-Sargeant’s songs, embellishing them with their own bass, guitar, key or backing vocal parts. And without Orton, “it wouldn’t have been half as good a record.” Working with the producer radically changed MinskySargeant’s songwriting practice — “I tried to replicate what he was doing in his studio in my bedroom, and think more about drum sounds and making them more complicated and messing around with synths and stuff like that. It made me think about more components than just a guitar.”

The songs following ‘Valleys’ come fast and relentless — momentum ever increasing, mission well and truly stated as the frenetic, pew-pewing ‘A.A.A.A’ speeds through to nonchalant existential groove ‘John Cooper Clarke’ — centred around the realisation that yes, even the luckiest guy alive, the Bard of Salford himself, will someday die.

Hard holds hands with soft, and rough with smooth. On washily-vocalled, Orange Juicily-guitared ‘White Rooms and People’, there are simultaneously beautifully blooming flowers and ‘people talking shit about you’, and the hazy, ricocheting ‘Outside’, the gentlest track on the album, flips straight into the tough-as-shit, industrially-geared ‘Be My Guest’, which opens the second half of the record with markedly E. Smithian brio. The opening bars of ‘Cook A Coffee’ are momentarily reminiscent of ‘Bad Blood’, but spiral into direct and uncomfortable eye contact in song-form; a lost Joy Division number from an alternate universe, about taking a dump live on the telly. ‘Tomorrow’ glitches and glimmers, whilst outro track ‘Angel’ moves between psychedelic languidity and hardcore thrash, the album playing itself out on a 12-and-a-half-minute noodle.

It is with war, free-fall, and re-birth already behind them that Working Men’s Club emerge, resilient; inspiration from across breadth of eras, genres and tour-mates merely strata in their very own indie-cum-dance-cum-techno niche in the crag.

Diva Harris, February 2020

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: It's perhaps unsurprising that a band from the Calder Valley on the edge of the Pennines draws on influences from both sides of the hills. Todmorden’s WMC have done just that, splicing the synth led sounds of 80s Sheffield with doomy Mancunian post punk stylings to create a forward thinking monster of a debut album. The acidic synths and pulsing beat of album opener “Valleys” encapsulate the claustrophobia of growing up in a small town and the smothering intensity is maintained through the industrial clatter of “A.A.A.A.”. With its funk fuelled grooves, nonchalant vocals and bitter sweet chorus, “John Cooper Clarke” could easily be an undiscovered classic from early Factory days. As side one draws to a close, the mood is lifted with the choppy guitar groove of “White Rooms and People”, and on “Outside”, it feels like they’ve escaped the town for sun kissed wide open spaces. Side two reverts to pounding industrial grooves and distorted guitars on “Be My Guest”. “Tomorrow” marries monotone vocals with a super catchy chorus while “Cook a Coffee” takes a cheeky snipe at a certain TV presenter. “Teeth” is aimed squarely at the dancefloor with its relentless synth stabs interwoven with doomy guitar riffs and “Angel” brings the album to a triumphant close: Jangling guitars and crashing cymbals over a driving rhythm that morphs into a sprawling psychedelic wig-out.

They set out to make a dance record that wouldn’t be pigeonholed as a dance record. I think they’ve nailed it.

TRACK LISTING

1 Valleys
2 A.A.A.A.
3 John Cooper Clarke
4 White Rooms And People
5 Outside
6 Be My Guest
7 Tomorrow
8 Cook A Coffee
9 Teeth
10 Angel

Growing Up is the debut physical release by Newcastle quartet Club Paradise, released on Kids Records (The Wombats, The Whip, Band of Horses, I Like Trains) featuring four epic guitar-pop tracks each, in the words of CMU: "featuring a chorus that will fill every corner of any room you'd care to put it in".

The band have built a fierce local following and have already shared the stage with the likes of Vistas, Apre, Larkins, Kashmere, Vant, Saint Raymond, The Navettes and Only The Poets, as well as picking up early attention from the likes of Clash Magazine, Shortlist and a legion of blogs. Made up of school friends Ryan Young (vocals/guitar), Jackson Vert (lead guitar), Harry Webb (bass) and Nathan Hogg (drums), the band cite the likes of Foals, The Midnight, Jungle and The Horrors as influences, writing tracks reminiscent of an 80s Sunset Boulevard movie montage.

As the final act before their hiatus ñ coming after three critically praised albums in a decade - 'Live at the Trades Club Hebden Bridge' is Cherry Ghost performing an intimate, starkly arranged set at the 2015 Heavenly Weekender.Released now for the first time ñ on double vinyl and download ñ this is perhaps the best realised collection of songs from Cherry Ghost, the alias of the Ivor Novello award-winning songwriter Simon Aldred. The instrumentation ñ Aldred is joined on keyboards and light percussion by Christian Madden and Grenville Harrop ñ brings to the fore Aldred's peerless songwriting, his oak-aged, prematurely wisened baritone.'History' wrote the Quietus in 2014, 'will be kind to Aldred', and this collection proves exactly that ñ with a bit of time and distance, the songs presented here show a highly singular, highly accomplished songwriter, aspiring to the pop classicism of Glen Campbell or Bill Callahan. All of human life is here ñ tracking a drizzly Northern gothic of last bus loneliness, late-night Spars, solitary drinkers, factory floors and Gods that betray.And yet, there's more than meets the eye.There's magnetic renderings of his best known songs - '4AM', 'People Help the People', the soaring 'Mathematics' - but surprises reveal themselves.'All I Want' and 'Herd Runners' candidly examine Aldred's sexuality, whilst the seldom heard b-side 'Bad Crowd' reveals Aldred to be a much funnier songwriter than remembered. What runs right through Aldred's work, however, is a yearning ñ a much tested faith in romance ñ so no wonder that the album ends on its most optimistic notes, at the darkest point of winter nestled in the West Yorkshire valleys, promising clear skies ever closer.

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

Working Menís Club hotly anticipated, self-titled debut album was due to drop this June, now, for reasons obvious to most of us, it is due October. Looking at the blank space left by the postponement, 18 year old wonderkid frontman Syd Minsky-Sargeant decided to utilise his free time, in lockdown, and capitalise on the creative momentum the band has garnered. The result is a 21-minute continuous ëMEGAMIXí that simultaneously acts as a taster and a condensed electronic reworking of parts of the album. ìOur album would have been released today but we had to push the release back due to Covid. It doesnít feel like a particularly apt time to be self promoting anything at all however we wanted to give something to the people who pre-ordered the album on what would of the original release date,î says Minsky-Sargeant. ìInitially it seemed a bit of a crazy idea to go and remix an album we've just made that isn't even out yet. But once we got into it we were like, ëlet's fucking go for ití. One could of course argue that crazy ideas are whatís needed in such crazy times but, in reality, what has been produced is less of a chaotic and scatterbrain idea and more a coherent artistic statement in line with the bandís perpetual forward momentum. Minsky-Sargeant teamed up with the bandís producer Ross Orton - under the moniker ëMinsky Rockí, a recently started project under which they recently completed a Jarvis Cocker remix - and the pair worked remotely to create the unique reimagining. ìRoss has a studio in Sheffield and I have a bit of one at home. So I would play a synth part and then send him the file over and he'd put it into his computer and then bring it up on a shared screen. I could see his interface and we'd mix it like that. It was like being in the same room.î The result is a ìreinterpretation rather than a remixî says Minsky-Sargeant. Over its seamlessly flowing duration, as it unfurls in hypnotic and infectious grooves - teasing snippets of songs as they weave in and out - the mix plays out like a classic 12î extended mix. Albeit one that takes on different forms and explores new terrain altogether. ìIt takes a number of parts of the album but different versions [and edits] of the songs,î he says. ìI've played new parts on more or less everything. Some tracks I've taken out the guitar parts and re-done them with synths or replaced bass lines with synths.î Thereís something of a northern lineage that can be traced here too, in that the 12î band remixes were something of a mainstay of Manchester bands like New Order and A Certain Ratio, and in a similar spirit, WMC are a new young band pushing, and crossing, the boundaries of where guitar and electronic music can interlink and overlap. ìIt's free flowing and electronic, rather than sounding like a band,î Minsky-Sargeant says of the mix. ìIt gives an insight into what the record is like, as well as the future of the band, but itís also something totally exclusive. It's very much its own thing.î

One of Indie-pop’s brightest prospects, BLOXX have come a remarkable way since exploding onto the scene.

Fronted by powerhouse lyricist Fee Booth, the trio craft stadium worthy indie anthems with deep, relatable undertones, a seamless snapshot into love, loss, and teenage life in a satellite town.

TRACK LISTING

Lie Out Loud
Coming Up Short
Go Out With You
5000 Miles
Thinking About Yourself
Off My Mind
Give Me The Keys
Hey Jenny
Changes 
It Won’t Work Out
What You Needed
Swimming

INDIGOS, the latest export of Bristol's vibrant and significant live music scene, are pleased to announce the release of their heavenly self-titled debut EP. An effortless blend of 90s post-punk grunginess mixed with layers of psychedelic guitars and irresistible pop hooks makes 'INDIGOS' an enchanting prospect, steeped in that ever popular juxtaposition between dark existential angst and blissful summer licks. The 4-track was produced by Ben Johnson and IDLES guitarist Lee Kiernan.

Two rare and mystery-shrouded party-in-the-house sides from 1976. Willi J Coe’s Cleethorpes anthem ‘Boogie With Your Baby’ was a no-hit wonder that goes for around £100 if you can find a copy on the original shortlived Ki Ki label.
Produced by Willie J Key and arranged by Bob Holmes (Joe Tex / Freddie North / Slim Harpo) it’s a slice of funky party disco. A proper floorshaker. V Rare Function’s ‘Disco Function’ was originally on Soul Unlimited in 1976 and fetches around £50 a copy these days.
Sampled by Luke Vibert in more recent times, it’s a brass-stabbed party anthem with a nod to Kool And The Gang when they were funky.

TRACK LISTING

Willi J & Co. - Boogie With Your Baby
Rare Function - Disco Function

'Interzone' is the third full-length album by New York’s electro post-punk duo The Vacant Lots, to be released via Fuzz Club. A genre-blending synthesis of dance and psych, 'Interzone' is made for secluded listeners and all-night partygoers, meant for headphones and the club. Uninhibited by the limitations of two people and continuing their mission of “minimal means maximum effect,” The Vacant Lots’ Jared Artaud and Brian MacFadyen create an industrial amalgam of icy electronics and cold beats with detached vocals and hard hitting guitars.

'Interzone's trance-like opener ‘Endless Rain’ and the kinetic Krautrock stomper ‘Into The Depths’ are followed by scintillating dark disco anthems 'Rescue' and 'Exit’. Side 2 kicks off with 80’s synth-pop track ‘Fracture’ and haunting after-hours minimal wave ‘Payoff,’ while ‘Station’ and album closer 'Party's Over' deal with disillusionment and conquering one’s indifference to make real change. The album creates order from chaos and delves into escapism, isolation, relationship conflicts, and decay. With nods to William S. Burroughs and Joy Division’s song of the same name, “Interzone is like existing between two zones,” Jared says. “Interzone doesn't mean one thing. It can mean different things to different people depending on their interpretation. Working on this album was a constant struggle reconciling internal conflicts with all that’s going on externally in the world. Interzone, in one word, is duality."

On Interzone, the band produced the 8 songs, 30 minutes record and teamed up with long term collaborators Ivan Liechti who designed the album artwork, and Ted Young who engineered the record. Maurizio Baggio mixed the record and contributed additional production and it was mastered by Gianni Peri. The Vacant Lots have released singles with Mexican Summer and Reverberation Appreciation Society, collaborated on their debut album 'Departure' with Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom, their second album 'Endless Night' with Alan Vega, and most recently on their two EPs, 'Berlin' and 'Exit', with Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe at his studio in Berlin. The group has toured with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Suicide, Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Growlers, Dean Wareham, The Dandy Warhols, and Spectrum. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Sounding like an amped-up Dandy Warhols, the Vacant Lots have always perfectly toed the line between distorted, power-chord rock and hypnotic psychedelic electronica, and 'Interzone' is the indication that they've hit their creative zenith. Rich, deep and hypnotic without ever being self-indulgent.

TRACK LISTING

1. Endless Rain
2. Into The Depths
3. Rescue
4. Exit
5. Fracture
6. Playoff
7. Station
8. Party's Over 

Two classic floor fillers from the DNSC record label.

Featuring Herb Ward’s 1968 RCA release that goes for around £200 if you can find a copy.

A Catacombs Club favourite that emphasizes Ward’s deep soulful vocal with a gorgeous call-andresponse bridge that leads into a truly uplifting chorus.

Backed with Bob Brady And The Con Chords’ blueeyed soul classic from the same year.

Often compared in style to Smokey Robinson, ‘Love In’ is a brass-led scorcher with a pulsating back beat that could have been a Motown 45.

Both tracks remastered from the original sound sources for maximum dancefloor effect.

TRACK LISTING

Herb Ward - Honest To Goodness
Bob Brady & The Con Chords - Everybody's Goin' To The Love - In

For over a decade, the duo comprising Christian Berghoff and Sebastian Haas have been busy dealing in swampy, fuzzed-out delta blues with a penchant for strung-out psychedelic drones and on their latest effort, picking up where 2017’s ‘The Rhythm of Ooze’ left off, they return sounding better than ever.

If you ever wondered what’d happen if two best friends who share a collective mission to not take life too seriously spent just as much time soaking up the muddy blues of Mississippi as they did the kosmisch experimentations of West Germany (the pair also play in Krautrock collective Datashock) then Pretty Lightning are your answer. Unsurprising, then, that as often as their sound is indeed full to the brim with crunch, swagger and feedback, they’re also just capable as easing off on that oft-abused accelerator and dealing in something more far hypnotic and drone-like

TRACK LISTING

1. Swamp Ritual
2. Jangle Bowls
3. Greyhound
4. 123 Eternity
5. Voo Doo Boo 
6. Boogie At The Shrine
7. RaRaRa 
8. Hum 
9. There Is Ozoze On Our Shooze
10. Shovel Blues

Two more floor-friendly 45s from the Deptford Northern Soul Club’s record box.

Featuring fifty quid’s worth of excellent brasspowered psyche soul that originally turned up on Buddah Records in 1969. An absolutely huge Blackpool Mecca 45 with a backflip moment at around 40 seconds that repeats for all stomping excessives.

Backed with the legendary Lee Dorsey’s mighty ‘Give It Up’ from the same year. A swampy soul stew with a funky feel by the hugely underrated singer. An Allen Toussaint

TRACK LISTING

Lou Courtney ‘Trying To Find My Woman’
Lee Dorsey ‘Give It Up’

Manchester’s The Slow Readers Club return with their fourth album, The Joy Of The Return. Opening to an energetic blend of driving drums and infectious guitar lines, the opening track builds through evocative verses and anthemic choruses, imbued with their idiosyncratic brand of insightful and confronting lyricism and set against relentlessly danceable and energy-provoking instrumentation. “‘All I Hear’ is about a lack of agency and an inability to affect change. That there’s something happening, and you have no choice but to go along with it,” explains singer Aaron Starkie.

Throughout the album, the band explore a vast swathe of sonic territory, from the passionately delivered ‘All The Idols’, to the poppier tones of ‘Jericho’ that power through with bright indie guitar lines and ethereally melodic choruses.  Recorded at Parr Street Studios in Liverpool and produced by long-standing collaborator Phil Bulleyment, The Joy Of The Return marks a significant change in the band’s process, with their extensive touring allowing them time to write and develop tracks and arrangements through soundchecks and back-of-van jams.

“I think it’s definitely our most interesting and accomplished record musically,” says singer Aaron Starkie. “Lyrically the album covers love, alienation, the rise of right wing populism and comments on algorithm driven propaganda. And as always, I try to deliver those lyrics with uplifting melody.”

The dark power-pop that defined their previous releases holds a strong influence, with the brooding ‘No Surprise’ providing a powerful dose of evocative lyricism amid immersive soundscapes, while the unsettling ‘Paris’ is an undulating exploration of observational songwriting and eclectic musicality The swelling, arena-sized ‘Zero Hour’ displays the enormity of The Slow Readers Club sound and sets the precedent for their incredibly exciting future, while ‘The Wait’ closes the album with a beautifully absorptive combination of atmospheric synths flipping the pace of the record on its head to intoxicating effect.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. All I Hear
2. Something Missing
3. Problem Child
4. Jericho
5. No Surprise
6. Paris

Side B
1. Killing Me
2. All The Idols
3. Every Word
4. Zero Hour
5. The Wait

Two super rare sides, both remastered for added dancefloor punch. The Delreys Incorporated on original Tampete goes for close to £1.5K (often a bootlegged copy). This release is from the original master, licensed from source. A huge Blackpool Mecca sound and big at Cleethorpes after that. “It's the best record I ever played at Blackpool Mecca! I mean, how an artist like that can make one record and then nothing?” - Colin Curtis, 2019

Backed with Oscar Wright’s 1966 Hemisphere flipside, a notoriously rare and, when found, in poor condition 45. Taken from the original sound source, it goes for anywhere between £150 and £300. A funky northern gem with a Hendrix break - one of the great brass-led soul tearjerkers.

TRACK LISTING

The Delreys Incorporated - ‘Destination Unknown’
Oscar Wright - ‘Fell In Love’

Throughout their career, Oakland’s Lumerians have consistently been a shape-shifting psychedelic force, traversing krautrock, drone, dub and jazz in their quest to create truly cosmic music. Hot off the heels of their 2018 album Call Of The Void’, the band’s dizzying space-rock opus, Lumerians have stripped things back to their raw fundamentals with the single ‘Yellowcake’. ‘Yellowcake’ sees the band trim away the fat in favour of a highly-focused psychedelic garage rock jam. Winding, contorted guitars meld with motorik drums and a rumbling bassline that stretches out into eternity. Driven by the axe wizardry of Jason Miller and Tyler Green, atop the track’s skeleton they constantly spin webs of claustrophobic Contortions-esque guitar flourishes. The single is, in the words of the band, “about someone waiting on a train platform before sunrise to go to work, staring at the city and fantasizing about what it would be like if a nuclear bomb went off." The lyrics are ambiguous at best, delivered by a careless Damo Suzuki-esque whisper from deep within the track’s dense soundscape, but the chaotic darkness of the song is on the surface for all to hear. The B-side is ‘C Rock’, an angular, krautrock-inflected cover of the 1977 song of the same name by Italian synth-pop/post-punk combo Chrisma

TRACK LISTING

1. Yellowcake
2. C Rock

“Everything Else Has Gone Wrong” is the eagerly anticipated follow-up to their fourth album, ‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’ released back in 2014.

The new album was largely recorded out in the US alongside Grammy Award winning producer John Congleton (St. Vincent/Sharon Van Etten/War on Drugs).

Speaking of the record’s title, vocalist/guitarist Jack Steadman explains: “This is an album for anyone who’s ever turned to music in a time of need. It’s about the solace one can get from listening to music or playing music. For me personally it's about the frustration of not being able to express myself to others, of leaving conversations feeling dissatisfied and misunderstood. Music’s the way I’m able to truly express myself”.

Bombay Bicycle Club have continued to grow, develop and evolve since the release of their debut album, “I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose”, back in 2009 when they signalled their arrival as young teenagers. With an innate ear for melody and invention, the four-piece make a very welcome return.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There have been a good run of massive synth albums from returning feel-good artists of the mid 00's and Bombay Bicycle Club are the latest and possibly most welcome of those returns. Huge neon synths, stadium echoes and hand-waving choruses bring to mind their seminal earlier works (our man Forbes is a big fan), while pushing things firmly into the 20's with crisp, crystalline production.

TRACK LISTING

1. Get Up
2. Is It Real
3. Everything Else Has Gone Wrong
4. I Can Hardly Speak
5. Good Day
6. Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You)
7. I Worry Bout You
8. People People
9. Do You Feel Loved?
10. Let You Go
11. Racing Stripes

This is the debut 7” single from DJs Deptford Northern Soul Club featuring two classic floor fillers from mid-60s Detroit. It includes the late Detroit soulman Lester Tipton’s one and only release ‘This Won’t Change’ from 1966, original copies of which go for a staggering $5000. Plus, from 1967, Edward Hamilton and the Arabians’ superb ‘Baby Don’t You Weep’ which the one-time member of The Falcons recorded for Lou Beatty’s Mary Jane label, originals of which go for a paltry £250.

TRACK LISTING

Lester Tipton - This Won’t Change
Edward Hamilton And The Arabians - Baby Don’t You Weep

Christmas is a time to spend with family and to feel a bit nostalgic, and exactly these two aspects of Christmas come together on the single the Swedish acid folk duo Us And Them recorded for the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club. In 'When The Stars Are Brightly Shining', the fragile vocals of singer Britt Rönnholm recapture the get-together with friends and family on Christmas Eve, the return to the place where you have spend your youth and the memories it all brings back. Multi-instrumentalist Anders Håkanson uses a wide range of instruments to built an atmospheric soundtrack to Britt's meanderings. Their version of Tori Amos' 1992 single 'Winter' is much in the same vein. In the song, Tori remembers the winters of her childhood and the bond she built up with her father during her youth. Us And Them replace the intensity of the original with the same nostalgic mood that can be found on the A-side, making the songs on this single sound as the family they are.

Us And Them are the Swedish duo of multi-instrumentalist Anders Håkanson and singer Britt Rönnholm (who also happen to be a married to each other), that came together in 2006 when Anders, who had been playing in bands since being a kid, realized that he wanted to do something different. Influenced by British folk, baroque pop and the softer side of psychedelica, he started recording songs with Britt on vocals, and this developed into Us And Them. Since the start of the group, Us And Them have released singles EP's and albums on labels like Fruits De Mer and Mega Dodo. Most records feature a mixture of covers and originals, all in the distinct dreamy, fragile and otherwordly Us And Them style, an update of the sound of psychedelic acid folk for the 21st Century.

TRACK LISTING

A1. When The Stars Are Brightly Shining
B1. Winter

Los Angeles rock band Livingmore’s Christmas single is one in a tradition of American Christmas 45’s that started in 1949, 70 years ago, when the first Christmas 45’s were released. ‘Show Me Light and Love’, the A-side of their single released as part of the 7th edition of the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club, was written by lead guitarist Spencer Livingstone and singer Alex Moore. According to Alex, the lyrics were inspired by ‘my grandmother and all the ladies out there taking care of Christmas’, who are keeping that part of the Christmas tradition alive. The song is a catchy rocker, carried by Alex’s crystal clear vocals and great guitar work by Spencer, and, of course, sleigh bells. For the flipside, the group recorded an acoustic version of one of the greatest American seasonal songs of all time, ‘Winter Wonderland’. Livingmore, with Alex and Spencer sharing the vocals, adds another great version to the many versions that exist of this song that was written 85 years ago by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith.

Livingmore was formed in Los Angeles by singer/songwriter's Spencer Livingston and Alex Moore, after they met through mutual friends in 2014. Alex and Spencer, who are responsible for all the songs of the band, were then joined by drummer Mike Schadel and, since 2017, bassist Rodrigo Moreno. In 2017, Livingmore had an indie hit with their single ‘Really Mean It’, and in 2018 released it on a 7” for the bands appearance on South By Southwest. The band released their debut album ‘Ok To Land’ on Nomad Eel Records last year and followed it up with 3-song 7” ‘It’s All Happening’ in December 2018. With influences as diverse as Garbage, The Kinks, Belle And Sebastian and Roy Orbison, Livingmore have been described as a mixture between Blondie and The Everly Brothers.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Show Me Light And Love
B1. Winter Wonderland

Kykeon is the long-awaited third album from Italy’s finest shoegazing noise-rockers Rev Rev Rev, following on from their 2016 LP Des Fleurs Magiques Bourdonnaient. The band say of the new record: “Kykeon is about exploring the obscure. It’s a ritual descent into the underworld, but also a flight through the cold spaces amid the stars. There’s stripped-back song structures, trance-like drumming, fuzzy reverberated guitars, abrasive atonal sounds and tonnes of feedback.” Kicking off the album with a relentless torrent of noise is ‘Waiting For Gödel’ and ‘Clutching The Blade’: two cuts of blistering psychedelic noise-rock that take no prisoners.

The band say of the latter: “Clutching The Blade’ is a good snapshot of our sonic virulence. Among the new songs, it’s the one that truly conveys the energy of our live show. The song itself is about being trapped in the quicksand of a certain situation and the appalling feeling that the more you struggle, the faster you sink.” This sense of danger and losing control runs throughout the album, manifested perfectly in the claustrophobic noise-rock of ‘Sealand’ and ‘Egocandy’: primal and piercing, both tracks are dominated by screeching feedback and slabs of unforgiving fuzzed-out guitars that are more than capable of blowing both amplifiers and eardrums. Kykeon isn’t always quite such an intense affair though. Tracks like ‘Summer Clouds’ and ‘Adrift In The Chaosmos’ deal in a sublime Loveless-esque shoegaze sound; Laura Iacuzio’s shadowy, ethereal vocals emerging through all-consuming walls-of-noise. Then there’s the murky, ritualistic drone-rock found on ‘Gate Of The Dark Female’ and ‘One Illusion Is Very Much Like Another’ which keep hold of the band’s trademark fuzz onslaughts but gear them more towards explorations into repetition and texture. ‘One Illusion…’, especially, is bolstered by modular synths, DIY guitar pedals built by guitarist Sebastian Lugli and the use of a tanpura, a stringed drone instrument originating from India. Their finest work yet, Kykeon proves that Rev Rev Rev – based in Modena, Italy – are without a doubt one of the finest bands today to be carrying the torch for shoegazers far and wide, old and new – praise that’s already been justly lauded on them countless times since they formed back in 2013

TRACK LISTING

1 Waiting For Gödel
2 Clutching The Blade
3 3 Not 3
4 Gate Of The Dark Female
5 One Illusion Is Very Much Like Another
6 Egocandy
7 Sealand
8 Adrift In The Chaosmos
9 Summer Clouds
10 Cyclopes
11 Spots On A Dice

Discordant, claustrophobic and unforgiving, Icelandic psych-rock heavyweights Singapore Sling – the project of Reykjavík-based noisenik Henrik Björnsson – have been conjuring their own scuzzy nihilistic anthems for nearly two decades and have picked-up a cult-like following along the way. Two years on from the Kill Kill Kill (Songs About Nothing) LP, the band are now back with their tenth full-length, Killer Classics. An eleven-track collection of macabre rock’n’roll scuzz, Killer Classics sees Singapore Sling return on top form. Throughout its running time, the record pools together the primal gusto of The Stooges paired with a (un)healthy smattering of Mary Chain fuzz-pedal belligerence and Suicide-esque proto-punk.

More than the sum of their influences, though, each song is delivered with the same trademark charm – or perhaps, lack of – that the band have been cultivating since Henrik founded the project back in 2000. Outlining his mission statement for the record, Henrik says: “The last record [‘Kill Kill Kill’] was about music. This one is about songs. The title of the record is ‘Killer Classics’ because that is what I set out to make: Killer Classics. Just simple, catchy rock’n´roll songs. As rock’n’roll songs should be. Of course.” The album borne out of a particularly challenging period in his life, which he wound up channelling into the new material, he goes on to explain: “Before I recorded this new album I had many frustrating months where I didn’t have the time, space or peace of mind to write and record. When I was finally able to do that again I had to let all that frustration out and I did that by making a lot of noise and saying fuck a lot.” 

TRACK LISTING

1.  All The Way In
2.  Sugar And Shite
3.  Highway Reject
4.  Lynchbilly
5. It's A Hit
6.  Switchblade
7.  Nothing Matters But Rock N Roll
8.  Underground Man
9.  Dub Swirl
10.  Confusion Then Death

Following 2006's astonishing debut "Gulag Orkestar", Zach Condon AKA Beirut returned in 2007 with "Flying Club Cup". In between the two albums, he had been living in Paris immersing himself in France's culture, fashion, history and music, in much the same way as he absorbed Balkan culture for his debut album. Condon's musical gaze now looked to the likes of Jacques Brel and Francois Hardy for inspiration, and "Flying Club Cup" is another sweeping and triumphant European folk album that combines these new ideas with elements of his previous work too. Where as "Gulag Orkestar" was mainly a solo effort, for this album Condon acted as a band leader putting together a core group of eight musicians and together they've managed to recreate his cultural borderless vision with this expansive and enthralling album.

TRACK LISTING

1. "A Call To Arms" 0:18
2. "Nantes" 3:50
3. "A Sunday Smile" 3:35
4. "Guyamas Sonora" 3:31
5. "La Banlieue" 1:57
6. "Cliquot"  3:51
7. "The Penalty" 2:22
8. "Forks And Knives (La Fête)" 3:33
9. "In The Mausoleum" 3:10
10. "Un Dernier Verre (Pour La Route)" 2:51
11. "Cherbourg" 3:33
12. "St. Apollonia" 2:58
13. "The Flying Club Cup" 3:05

Madding crowds may have found their bounce to the beat of ‘Bad Blood’s post-punk groove but Working Men’s Club will defy all expectation with their eagerly anticipated follow-up. Forcing backs off the wall and deeper onto the dancefloor, electric stomper ‘Teeth’ possesses enough bite to set pearly whites on edge and induce a wildly ecstatic feeling that’s anything but comfortable.

“It is a metaphor,” teases the band’s singer, guitarist and beat-maker, Sydney Minsky-Sargeant. “It could be about going insane or what you see, what you think you feel inside, a lot of things… put through a drum machine… basically we just want to confuse the fuck out of people, in a good way!”

For Syd, alongside fellow Club members Giulia Bonometti, Jake Bogacki, and recently recruited bassist Liam Ogburn, the last 12 months has seen the 4-piece buckle up for a meteoric rise that’s been a hell of a ride; “Signing to Heavenly was a big deal for us,” offers Jake. “We’ve worshiped the label and its bands for a long time so it’s nice to be part of the family. It’s a culture; we’re all running in parallel.”

Like hopping aboard Willy Wonka’s psychedelic boat trip through their own funked-up factory, ‘Teeth’ puts the ‘itch’ into glitch and urges everyone to embrace the rave. Recorded with producer Ross Orton (The Fall, Roots Manuva, M.I.A, Arctic Monkeys) at his Sheffield recording studio, between a brothel and Fat White Family’s base, the vibrations of ‘Teeth’s chatter cut like fork lightning across a fog-filled Hope Valley. As the needle hits the groove, its threatening cowbell and motoric Techno beat buzzsaws Syd’s Mark E mantra, “I see grit in your teeth,” whilst a drum machine and frenetic guitars reinforce the party vibe. “We’re definitely a dance band,” Syd affirms. “If you can make someone move that’s a big thing.” Jake agrees; “When you can convince a person to subconsciously dance without understanding why, it’s a religious feeling and taps into this primal instinct.”

Shapeshifting through the band’s collaborative writing process, ‘Teeth’ offers an epic fusion of the band’s broad repertoire of influences from godfathers of early Techno, Stingray to Thelonious Monk’s jazzy piano riffs - not to mention LCD Soundsystem or Delta 5 bounce. “It works because there’s a conflict of what we each want from it,” Jake tells. “It’s like tectonic plates and that friction causes an earthquake. When we meet in the middle, ‘Teeth’ is what comes out.” Reworked from Syd’s electronic-heavy demo, laid-down at his Todmorden home through synthesizers and drum machine, the track’s climactic shakedown ignites a love of Detroit House, Acid House, Afrobeat and Cuban rhythms from his DJ beginnings and stepdad’s influence. “I’ve always been into Nigerian 70s funk, like William Onyeabor,” Syd tells. “It’s happy, jolly, danceable; I don’t think my own lyrics are that happy - but it’s not just about that. It’s about how great music can make people dance.”

Capturing moments to write, whether walking through woods, splitting crisp packets open at the local pubs around their northern hometowns or between chapters of reading Hunter S. Thompson and Sylvia Plath, Working Men’s Club put the groove first, unafraid to rear the wise heads on their younger shoulders. "We’re brought together by the fact we care about being 100% ourselves,” reveals Giulia. “We sing and talk about what needs to be said, to put it out of our minds and bodies. Music is an outlet, a medium to communicate.” Aspiring to the lyrical greats John Cooper Clarke, Lou Reed, Ian Curtis, Glen Campbell and Townes Van Zandt, the band first bonded over back catalogues rather than passing trends. “You should never deny your influences; you do things your own way,” suggests Syd. As for politics? “Bands like Squid, Black Midi, us, Orielles; we’re taken seriously, but aren’t politically adverse for sake of it,” Jake says. “Essentially, the country’s fucked and not enough of us are talking about it. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re a political band, but we’re not gonna, not talk about it.”

TRACK LISTING

A
1 Teeth
2 Teeth (Extended Mix)

B
1 Teeth (Gabe Gurnsey Remix)
2 Teeth (Gabe Gurnsey Dub)

The ethos of London-based indie label Fuzz Club is a desire to uncover and celebrate the best in fuzz, reverb and drone from every corner of the globe. As well as via their extensive back-catalogue and their Fuzz Club Eindhoven festival, one such particular medium through which they do this is their annual Reverb Conspiracy compilation albums. Where the first five volumes were hailed as a Nuggets-like documentation of the European psych scene, Reverb Conspiracy Vol 6 sees the compilation go global: bringing together bands from South Africa, Australia, the USA, Germany, Brazil, the UK, Italy and Russia.

Amongst a number of the label’s own bands – including Medicine Boy’s shadowy noise-pop (DE) and Nest Egg’s motorik “mood music for nihilists” (US), plus Steeple Remove’s dub-inflected post-punk (FR) and Crimen’s heady, repetitive psych-rock (IT) – there is Aussie garage-psych outfit Nice Biscuit, an exclusive cut of Bikini Kill-meets-Oh Sees noise from Julia Robert (SA), as well as lo-fi garage-pop from Super Paradise (UK) and the double-barreled psych-blues wig-outs of Frankie & The Witch Fingers (US). In the compilations darker moments, though, there is the hypnotically face-melting “space-surf” of Japanese Television (UK), goth-tinged post-punk from Float (UK), murky psychedelic stoner-rock from Brazil’s Firefriend, relentlessly driving krautrock courtesy of Verstärker (USA), the heavy space-rock drones of Psychic Lemon (UK) and Moscow’s Selbram, who deal in a jagged alt-rock sound that takes its cues from No Wave, psych and the “pulse and noise” of city life. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: You don't get on to the 6th instalment of your compilation without doing something right, and this outing from Fuzz Club's Reverb Conspiracy is a perfect lesson in how to smash out a great comp. Stuff you've never heard of, varied in both tone and drive, fitted together excellently and at a great price. What more could you want?

TRACK LISTING

1. Julia Robert - Mud Girl
2. Nice Biscuit - Out Of Sight
3. Frankie And The Witch Fingers - Underneath You
4. Medicine Boy - Water Girl
5. Firefriend - Surface To Air
6. Nest Egg – DMTIV
7. Steeple Remove - Ferris Noir
8. Float – Watch
9. Crimen – Flahzz
10. Japanese Television - Tick Tock
11. Selbram - This City You Know
12. Super Paradise - 6:30
13. Verstärker - Mit Glück
14. Psychic Lemon - Interstellar Fuzz Star 

European pressing of Star 69, the fifth album from Los Angeles garage heavyweights Cosmonauts! With the album out now in the US and the band currently on a run of dates with Night Beats and The Dandy Warhols – with European dates in the pipeline which may or may not coincide with a certain festival in Eindhoven – we’re really stoked to be teaming up with fellow fuzz-fiends Burger Records to release the duo’s latest album on this side of the pond. The vinyl is due for release June 28th but in the meantime, you can stream Star 69 in full and check out the video for lead single ‘Seven Sisters’ below. A perfect insight into the new record set against hypnotising visuals of them playing on a rooftop, ‘Seven Sisters’ is a piece of primal, visceral garage-psych that sounds like Spacemen 3, The Stooges and The Jesus & Mary Chain left out to bake in the California sun for a little too long. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Crystal
2 Seven Sisters
3 Medio Litro
4 Cold Nature
5 Wicked City (Outer Space)
6 Heart Of Texas
7 Faces For Radio
8 Molly On Grass
9 Humming
10 The Gold Line
11 Suburban Hearts

"Nothing short of splendorious" - NME.

"The Breeders are reincarnated via Tokyo with feedback and gossamer female vocals" - The Times.

Critically acclaimed Japanese indie-pop four piece Taffy return this year with their fifth studio album. 'Deep Dark Creep Love' encapsulates the bands infectious, melodic take on the noise-pop genre, with a greater emphasis on big choruses and backing vocals than their previous work. The material has honed in on that classic Taffy contrast which is musically light but delves into dark places vocally. In tone it feels softer, but effortlessly dips into tracks such as 'The Bates', based on Psycho's infamous lead and his sinister relationship with his mother. At its heart, it's a record about love. Whether it's new, old, romantic or platonic, it's about love for the people and things around you, both a love-letter to their fans, as well as a deeply personal insight into romance.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Huge euphoric rock choruses mixed with shoegazey distortion and swathes of echoing guitar, all topped with a Japanese take on the Britpop aesthetic. It's a mix I would never have expected to sound this good, but I have never been more wrong, and I am often wrong.

Eindhoven-based industrialists RMFTM (Radar Men From The Moon) are back with new material in the shape of an EP titled Bliss. The three-track EP arrives via long-term label Fuzz Club and follows on from a split 7” with cult Norweigan noise-rock/metal band Årabrot (2019), the third and final volume in their Subversive album trilogy, Subversive III: De Spelende Mens (2017), as well as a collaborative record with Salford collective Gnod under the Temple Ov BBV moniker 2017). With a new full-length in the works, Bliss offers a welcome introduction into what’s to come: a world of apocalyptic drone and ambient nightmares. Taking influence from such avant-garde innovators as Cabaret Voltaire and Nurse With Wound – whilst also following a similar path to it’s more contemporary proponents in Shit & Shine, Container and collaborators Gnod – RMFTM say of the new release: “The Bliss EP is made up out of three songs that were conceived on the 2018 Secret Howls For Europe Tour, in support of Subversive III. When we came back from that tour we recorded them immediately. These three K-Hole anthems are an experimental exercise in ambient, drone and dark electronics.”

The titular, opening track ‘Bliss’ – “a Dionysian meditation put to sound” – offers a menacing insight into what’s to follow on the rest of the EP. Across it’s 12-minute running length, the Dutch band envelope the listener with a deluge of dark, droning electronics, eerie chiming bells and a propulsive beat that’s submerged beneath a stormy sea of feedback that twists, throbs and hisses away from start to finish. ‘Moon’ is something of a comedown from the former; in absence of the previous track’s 4/4 beat ‘Moon’ is instead a piece of shadowy ambient drone that sounds like La Monte Young in the clutches of a terrifying hallucinogenic-induced fever dream. Upping the ante once again, final track ‘Naked’ sees the band approach industrial techno territory, the claustrophobic drone still looming in the background but what drives the track is a pulverising mechanical beat that never lets loose for a second. RMFTM formed in Eindhoven in 2010 and is comprised of Glenn Peeters, Tony Lathouwers, Titus Verkuijlen and Bram van Zuijlen. 

TRACK LISTING

1) Bliss
2) Moon
3) Naked

French outfit You Said Strange are the latest to join the Fuzz Club Session ranks alongside the likes of A Place To Bury Strangers, The Myrrors, Night Beats, Heaters, The Entrance Band, Holy Wave, Heaters and many more. When last in the UK in support of their debut LP, Salvation Prayer, the four-piece took to London’s Lovebuzz Studios to lay down a live session comprising four tracks of warm, jangly psychedelic bliss taken from their aforementioned debut. The resulting session will be released on vinyl and digital via Fuzz Club. Emerging out of Giverny, Normandy, You Said Strange became a mainstay of the European underground long before they headed over to Portland to record their highly-anticipated debut album with Peter Holmstrom of The Dandy Warhols - whom the band set out on tour with back in 2015, solidifying a friendship that would see Holmstrom take on production duties for another band for the very first time.

Dining on an influence of The Velvet Underground, The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Ride – though delivered with their own insatiable, forward-looking French charm – You Said Strange carve out an intoxicating, heady sound of shimmering guitars and reverb cloaked vocals that’s just as potent when drifting into full-blown fuzz-overloads as it is when dealing in jubilant, earworm melodies that’ll get stuck in your head for hours. The live recording of the session sees both of those sides shine brighter than ever, making it undeniably clear why the band has spent the last several years bringing their sublime live show to countless venues and psych festivals across Europe and beyond. 

TRACK LISTING

1) Brain
2) Cold Crusader
3) Extend
4) Leave The Lord

The Berlin-based musician Hákon Aðalsteinsson, originally hailing from Iceland, can be found fronting neo-psych outfit The Third Sound and gloomy alt-country troupe Gunman & The Holy Ghost, as well as being the live guitarist for The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Anton Newcombe’s ongoing collaborations with Tess Parks. Now, Hákon is also turning his attention to another project: an electronics-inflected solo endeavour going by the name of Diagram. His debut album under the new moniker, titled Transmission Response consists of 12 tracks that find a home somewhere between a pared-back, synthy post-punk sound and atmospheric dream-pop hues. Detailing the self-recorded album, a marked departure from his usual rock-oriented work, Hákon explains: “The sound is inspired by the minimalism of Suicide, Chrome and 70s German electronica, as well as the film music of Angelo Badalamenti and John Carpenter,” he continues: “In the beginning I had this one beat-up keyboard and limited knowledge of making electronic music so I was just learning as I went. As this was a process of exploration I ended up with around 40 song ideas before I even thought about making an album. After deciding I wanted to take things further I set upon the task of reworking all those ideas and cutting a lot of them to put together a record that worked as a whole, and this is the result.” Always one to immerse himself in new projects, Hákon Aðalsteinsson’s new material as Diagram witnesses him enter a whole new world, and a sublimely cinematic one at that. With plans for a live show in the works it’s more than likely we’ll be hearing quite a lot from this one too. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Like the electronics and percussion of Nine Inch Nails, mixed with the twinkling, melodic juxtaposition of 80's new-romantic synths and industrial vocal echoes all brought together with a strong rhythmic undercurrent, this is a heady and addictive mix perfect for the dancefloor or LOUD on your home stereo.

TRACK LISTING

1) Electroconclusive
2) In My Heart, In My Soul
3) Dark Omen
4) All Night
5) Radione
6) Remove The Veil
7) Our Fate
8) Gateway
9) Go To Pub (MES Tribute)
10) Panic Evoked
11) Eisern Union
12) Sleepwalking