The 2016 LP version is a repress of the original release.
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The 2016 LP version is a repress of the original release.
The 2016 LP version is also a double LP like the original release, but comes with brand new cover artwork and an altered track sequence.
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- CD
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC123CD
- Release date
- 17 Jun '16
Ask Mitski about happiness and she’ll warn you: “Happiness fucks you.” It’s a lesson that’s been writ large into the New Yorker’s gritty, outsider-indie for years but never so powerfully as on her newest album, ‘Puberty 2’. “Happiness is up, sadness is down, but one’s almost more destructive than the other,” she says. “When you realize you can’t have one without the other, it’s possible to spend periods of happiness just waiting for that other wave.” On ‘Puberty 2’ that tension is palpable: a both beautiful and brutal romantic hinterland, in which one of America’s new voices hits a brave new stride.
“No one else can make shattering sound like such an act of strength.” - Stereogum
“Her songs build a quiet fury with lyrics that pulverize the heart while still making a break-up seem almost beautiful.” - Paste Magazine
STAFF COMMENTS
Millie says: Puberty 2 is very original and distinctive in every sense. A strong element of both mixed electronic riffs and heavy guitars gives it a fierce prominent essence; it’s pieced with authentic and wistful lyrics. Her voice begins as a soft lullaby then builds into this astonishing provoked voice of passion.TRACK LISTING
Happy
Dan The Dancer
Once More To See You
Fireworks
Your Best American Girl
I Bet On Losing Dogs
My Body’s Made Of Crushed Little Stars
Thursday Girl
A Loving Feeling
Crack Baby
A Burning Hill
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- LP
- £15.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC110LP
- Release date
- 20 May '16
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- CD
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC110CD
- Release date
- 6 May '16
If ‘Nepenthe’ conjured images of gentle fog rolling over desolate mountains, then ‘Will’ is a late afternoon thunderstorm, a cathartic collision of sharp and soft textures that sounds ominous and restorative all at once.
‘Will’ comes after Barwick’s busiest period to date in her career following ‘Nepenthe’ - a spate of activity that included playing piano for Yoko Ono, performing at the 25th annual Tibet House Benefit Concert alongside such kindred spirits as The Flaming Lips and Philip Glass, releasing the ‘Rosabi’ EP and delivering a reimagining of Bach’s ‘Adagio’ from Concerto In D Minor.
Her life over the past several years has largely been lived in transit and as such the genesis of ‘Will’ was not beholden to location; Barwick reflects on this cycle of constant motion. “You’re constantly adjusting, assimilating, and finding yourself in life-changing situations.” That sense of forward propulsion is largely owed to ‘Will’s synth-heavy textures, an ingredient she was inspired to add to her vocal loop-heavy formula after demoing a new prototype analogue sequencer for Moog.
Another new wrinkle ‘Will’ introduces in Barwick’s sound: Mas Ysa’s Thomas Arsenault, who lends his richly complex vocals to ‘Same’ and ‘Someway’.
The beguiling, beautifully complicated ‘Will’ is the latest proof yet of Barwick’s irresistibly engaging talent as a composer and vocalist.
Julianna has recently collaborated with Moog and MoMa, lending her prestige as both a musician and artist as a whole.
TRACK LISTING
St. Apolonia
Nebula
Beached
Same
Wist
Big Hollow
Heading Home
Someway
See, Know
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- LP
- £20.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC111LP
- Release date
- 15 Apr '16
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- CD
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC111CD
- Release date
- 15 Apr '16
In the Autumn of 2014, Kevin Morby moved to the small Los Angeles neighborhood of Mount Washington. The move would shape Singing Saw, Morby's first album for new label Dead Oceans. Previous tenants at Morby's new home happened to leave an upright piano behind, with a few mysterious pieces of sheet music and an introductory book of common chords stacked on top. Thankful to finally be in one place for an extended spell, Morby, a beginner at the piano, immediately sat at the new instrument and began composing the songs that would form Singing Saw.
Alongside, he began taking long walks through the winding hills and side streets of the neighborhood each night, glimpsing views of both the skyline's sweeping lights and the dark, dried out underbrush of the LA flora. The duality of the city itself began to shape a set of lyrical ideas that he would refine with the sparse accompaniment of piano and acoustic guitar.
What is a singing saw? It is an instrument that creates ethereal sounds, but it is also a tool: basic and practical while also being fearsome, even destructive. Morby watches the singing saw in its eponymous song; that instrument of eerie soft beauty cuts down the flowers in its path and chases after him, while his surroundings mock and dwarf him, Alice in Wonderland style. And in a singing saw, we can understand music as something more powerful than its inviting, delicate sound. No wonder Morby talks about a "songbook" in his head as something he needs to take up the hills so he can "get rid of it." Heavy themes are nothing new for Morby, whose previous records (2013's Harlem River and 2014's Still Life, both released on the Woodsist label) dealt with their own eerie visions and damning prophecies.
Morby opens Singing Saw with "Cut Me Down", a song of tears, debts and a prescient vision of being reduced to nothing. "I Have Been to the Mountain", "Destroyer" and "Black Flowers" continue to explore beauty and freedom, seizing upon the rot that seeps into even the supposedly safest of realms; peace, family and romantic love. By the end of the record on "Water", Morby is literally begging to be put out once and for all, like a fire that might burn all the visions away.
Travels beyond his mountain walks inform songs like "Dorothy", which recounts a trip to Portugal, witnessing a fishing ritual and luxuriating in the aura of a bar light-tinged reunion with old friends The touching innocence of "Ferris Wheel" stands alone in stark simplicity amidst the lush sonic textures of the album. Here, the album is balanced by Morby's signature sweetness and joie de vivre.
The arrangements of Singing Saw trace back to Morby's experience playing in The Complete Last Waltz, a live recreation of The Band's legendary last performance. There, Morby developed a fast friendship with producer/bandleader Sam Cohen (Apollo Sunshine, Yellow Birds), which led Morby to forgo recording in Los Angeles and take the nascent songs of Singing Saw to Isokon Studios in Woodstock, New York. There, in a converted A-frame house, they set about creating a record that would bring a sonic balance, intricacy and depth to match these songs and all that inspired them.
Sam Cohen added a multitude of instrumentation to the record (guitar, bass, drums and keyboard), and were joined by fellow Complete Last Waltz alum Marco Benevento on piano and keyboard, fleshing out Morby's original compositions and upholding the vision for a cohesive piano sound that serves as a touchstone for the entire album. Backup vocalists Hannah Cohen, Lauren Balthrop and Alecia Chakor contribute soaring harmonies; Nick Kinsey (Elvis Perkins) adds drums and percussion; Justin Sullivan, a longtime Morby collaborator and staple of his live band, contributes drums; Oliver Hill and Eliza Bag lift numerous songs with string accompaniments, and Alec Spiegelman on saxophone and flute and Cole Kamen-Green on trumpet bring dramatic swells. Finally, John Andrews (Quilt) adds the eerie lilt of the album's promise, providing saw on the "Cut Me Down" and "Singing Saw".
In the end, Morby fulfills the promise many heard on his first two albums, bringing his most realized effort of songwriting and lyricism to fruition. The songs of Singing Saw reflect the clarity that comes from welcoming change and embracing duality, and the distillation of those elements into an entirely new vision.
TRACK LISTING
Cut Me Down
I Have Been To The Mountain
Singing Saw
Drunk And On A Star
Dorothy
Ferris Wheel
Destroyer
Black Flowers
Water
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- CD
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC105CD
- Release date
- 1 Apr '16
“I was a loose cannon,” the commanding frontwoman says. “I was losing serious control of my personal and creative life. I was falling apart, trying to escape. I felt like Bleached was the only thing I actually cared about.”
The 10-song album was born out of triple the amount of demos. Sometimes the three girls spent time writing at a remote house in Joshua Tree away from the seemingly destructive city (a first since bassist Micayla had never contributed to songwriting on previous releases). Other times Jen and Jessie worked alone, just like when they were teenaged punk brats playing in their parents’ San Fernando Valley garage imitating their heroes The Slits, Black Flag and Minor Threat.
In the studio, Chiccarelli and co-producer Carlos de la Garza (Paramore, YACHT) helped the band perfect their fervent songs into fearlessly big pop melodies. They drew inspiration from the iconic hits of everyone from Fleetwood Mac to Heart to Roy Ayers.
‘Welcome The Worms’ is an ambitious rock record with a new found pop refinement that somehow still feels like the Shangri-Las on speed, driven forward in a wind of pot and petals, a wall of guitars in the back seat.
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- 2xLP
- £16.99
- Cat Number
- SCR091LP
- Release date
- 25 Mar '16
The only instruction was “kill our songs”, and so here are the remains, served up on two mortuary slabs of vinyl (and CD) as a stunning, 13-track album that builds on the original’s feeling of claustrophobia and dread, but recasts it across everything from brutal techno (Blood Music’s ‘This Purgatory’) to New Order-meets-Animal Collective euphoria (Andy Bell’s ‘Sea Of Trees’). It’s an occasionally punishing, but always rewarding listen that begins somewhere in the depths of a K-hole, courtesy of Vision Fortune’s ‘Drag’, and ends somewhere rather beautiful, with the celestial synths of Mogwai’s ‘This Purgatory’. (It’s worth noting that Mogwai’s classic ‘Kicking A Dead Pig’ was a big inspiration here.)
“We see Spectres as something that can work in a variety of contexts,” says frontman Joe Hatt, as he explains the motivation behind ‘Dead’. “Our musical interests spread out in different angles and we are always thinking of ways for what we do to evolve and mutate. We put together a list of artists who we admired, and thought would deliver a varied and eclectic mix. Some were close friends who are conveniently making some of the best music around, and others were pipe dreams that we thought would never happen. It was both nerve-wracking and fun waiting for each of the artists’ versions to arrive in our inbox, and some definitely surprised us; but none disappointed.”
‘Dead’ serves as an important reminder of what a special band Spectres are, something that can be easy to forget with their anti-industry stance and extra-curricular activities often grabbing the headlines more than their music (“We’ve always been like this, and we won’t cease,” threatens Hatt). In 2015 they ruffled feathers with their Record Store Day Is Dying campaign; their unofficial alternative James Bond theme ‘Spectre’ was erroneously reviewed by the Evening Standard and then some leaked and, it turned out, fake emails managed to upset both the BBC and Sam Smith; they made a video in which they murdered Nick Grimshaw, Reggie Yates, Scott Mills and Fearne Cotton after a Radio 1 Live Lounge appearance went awry; and they ended the year with a massively disrespectful cover version of Paul McCartney’s ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ that had all the good cheer mechanically removed.
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: 'Dying' was a perfect pummelling of sonics, unexpectedly brash and brilliantly dark. If anything, this album of reworkings (allegedly handed over to the remixer with the proviso that they 'Kill' their songs) is even moreso. 'Kill' might not be the right word, but they have most certainly stretched, distorted and injected each outing with a dynamic not displayed in the original. Industrial echoes and hammers, cavernous drums. Swashes of distortion swoop and wash over the listener. Barely is there time to breathe between these aural assaults, and when the Stuart Braithwaite remix comes at the end, it feels like you've survived a black storm, and come out of the end all the better for it. Stunning stuff.-
- CD
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC112CD
- Release date
- 19 Feb '16
These covers blend seamlessly with novelistic noir standouts ‘Strange Things’ and ‘Dark Child’ (cocredited to childhood choral pal Tim Moore), which deliver gallows humour with a widescreen groove.
Marlon was nominated for five New Zealand Music Awards (equivalent to The Brits / Grammys) and an ARIA award (Australian Ivor Novello) and won Best Male Solo Artist and Best Newcomer 2015 for the New Zealand Music Awards.
TRACK LISTING
Hello Miss Lonesome
After All
Dark Child
I’m Lost With Out You
Lonely Side Of Her
Silent Passage
Strange Things
When I Was A Young Girl
Everyone’s Got Something To Say
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- Ltd 12"
- £11.99
Usually ships within: 2-10 days - Cat Number
- CC002
- Release date
- 18 Dec '15
- Format Info
Limited to 500 copies.
Limited to 500 copies.
Following the success of last year's debut album, "Electric Hell", London’s occult metal monsters POSSESSOR are back with a highly-anticipated follow up in the shape of their new EP, “Stay Dead”.
Maintaining the trio's love for all things vintage and terrifying, the four tracks on display here crackle and explode like it’s the band's last day on earth. Malevolent high speed thrash riffs tumble and crash into a swamp of sludgy old school British doom, bringing to mind the savage lo-fi lunacy of Bathory and Venom with the hooks and claws of vintage Electric Wizard and 90s filth such as L7 and early Nirvana - all as if beamed to us straight from the set of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Cloaked in a black and white sleeve that brings to mind both Black Sabbath and the hammiest of Hammer Horror flicks, “Stay Dead” will secure Possessor's place in the mysterious annals of British heavy metal, and is a delicious taster for the band's next full length which currently lies festering in the crypt…ready to be resurrected.
“Stay Dead” will be released on 12” clear vinyl in an edition of 500. this is the second release on the Creepy Crawl label…
“Something was creeping and creeping and waiting to be seen and felt and heard.” H.P. Lovecraft.
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- Indies Exclusive LP
- £19.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC109LP-C1
- Release date
- 13 Nov '15
- Format Info
Available exclusively to independent retailers as an orange swirl coloured double vinyl edition with detailed and immersive liner notes and essays.
Available exclusively to... [ + ]
Mark McGuire's albums are, amongst many other things, strong arguments for the album and for the stereo system. They're not just music; they're statements, and they demand to be experienced by the best sonic means available. They're throwbacks, not in style, but intent and effect. Put another way -- they don't make them like this anymore.
McGuire's albums have beautiful and carefully selected cover art. McGuire's own liner notes for his breakthrough Dead Oceans debut, Along The Way (2013), are an experience unto themselves -- a detailed explication of an artist's "journey towards the beginning" -- a new spiritual manifesto you won't find on Spotify. The wall of sounds contained therein constitute a degree of ambition uncommon since the 70s heyday of McGuire's forebears - Göttsching, Eno, Fripp. This is not laptop music.
Beyond Belief, his second full-length for Dead Oceans, finds McGuire now well on the way of his own trip. Fantastical liner note tales written to accompany and set the stage for his mostly-wordless songs delight and confound. Throughout nine tracks we find an unrelenting drive to refine, build upon, focus and maximize the effect of an already remarkably prolific body of work. Though deservedly known for his virtuosic multitracked guitar playing, McGuire in fact plays every bass / synth / piano note, and every beat on the album himself, his vocals more prominent than ever before. 26 months in the making, the passion going into Beyond Belief is self-evident, and the effect is overwhelming.
Running nearly 80 minutes, the bold and fearless Beyond Belief is McGuire's magnum opus to date, but in truth, there is no end in sight for McGuire's vision, making any such assessment wholly premature.
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- Ltd 7"
- £6.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC108LP
- Release date
- 18 Sep '15
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- CD
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC106CD
- Release date
- 28 Aug '15
Broadway Danny Bejar dramatically switches scenes with “Dream Lover,” all Style Council strut and brassy, radio-ready bombast (echoes of The Boo Radleys’ evergreen earworm “Wake Up Boo!”). This being Destroyer, its paramours-on-the-run exuberance is judiciously spiked by his deadpan delivery: “Oh shit, here comes the sun…”
Like the other DB, Mr. Bejar has long displayed a chameleonic instinct for change while maintaining a unified aesthetic (rather than just pinballing between reference points). No two records sound the same, but they’re always uniquely Destroyer. His latest incarnation often appears to take sonic cues from a distinctly British (usually Scottish, to be precise) strain of sophisti-pop: you might hear traces of Aztec Camera, Prefab Sprout, Orange Juice, or The Blow Monkeys. These songs merge a casual literary brilliance with intense melodic verve, nimble arrangements, and a certain blue-eyed soul sadness.
Playfully rueful, “Sun in the Sky” foregrounds cryptic lyrical dexterity over pop-classicist strum before gradually left-fielding into rhythmically supple, delirious avant-squall. It’s as if Talk Talk took over a Lloyd Cole show. Originally released on a collaborative EP with electronic maestros Tim Hecker and Loscil (the latter’s drones are retained here), a retooled “Archer on the Beach” suggests Sade swimming in The Blue Nile, smooth-jazz marimba melancholy dilated by ecstatic ambience. Flecked in heady dissonance, elusively alluring, Dan hymns its eponymous “impossible raver on your death bed” while implicitly beckoning the listener: “Careful now, watch your step, in you go.”
That’s Poison Season in essence: familiar yet mysterious, opaquely accessible. Arch, for sure, but ultimately elevatory.
STAFF COMMENTS
Andy says: After the incredible Kapputt, Destroyer change style again but crucially Keep The Tunes!TRACK LISTING
1 Time Square, Poison Season
2 Dream Lover
3 Forces From Above
4 Hell
5 The River
6 Girl In A Sling
7 Times Square
8 Archer On The Beach
9 Midnight Meet The Rain
10 Solace's Bride
11 Bangkok
12 Sun In The Sky
13 Time Square Poison Season II
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- CD
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC085CD
- Release date
- 7 Aug '15
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- CD
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC100CD
- Release date
- 11 May '15
Early in Dark Bird, toward the end of the opening track, we hear other voices and sounds backing Kristian Matsson’s own. One of them, later credited in the liner notes with Angel Vocals, shows up several times throughout the record, adding new color to the familiar palette. And so the story grows and expands. That first song has horns and a piano, keyboards, synthesizers, and other modern noisemakers . . . and by track two you’ve got The Tallest Man on Earth as full-throttle rock and roll.
While Dark Bird is The Tallest Man at his most personal and direct, deeper and darker than ever at times, it’s also an album with strokes of whimsy and the scent of new beginnings — which feels fresh for The Tallest Man on Earth, and well timed. Reliably, the melodies and arrangements are sturdy and classic, like old cars and tightly wound clocks. The lyrics and their delivery are both comforting and alarming, like tall trees and wide hills.
The other musicians and layers on this recording put a wide lens on familiar themes. Fear and darkness, sleep or lack of it, dreams in the dark and in the light. Moving, leaving, going. Distance and short stops, long straight lines, temporal places. More hopefully, a grateful nod to a traveling partner, a healing mind. Maybe a little forgiveness needed. Definitely some things to forget.
TRACK LISTING
01. Fields Of Our Home
02. Darkness Of The Dream
03. Singers
04. Slow Dance
05. Little Nowhere Towns
06. Sagres
07. Timothy
08. Beginners
09. Seventeen
10. Dark Bird Is Home
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- CD
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC097CD
- Release date
- 27 Apr '15
What the piano taught him was how to connect to one of the great joys of his life. “Music gives,” he says. And he is a grateful receiver. But, it makes him wonder, “Who is the sender?”
Fay - who after more than five decades writing songs is finally being appreciated as one of our finest living practitioners of the art – asserts that songs aren’t actually written but found. He recorded two phenomenal but largely overlooked albums for Decca offshoot Nova in 1970 and 1971. After 27 years of neglect, people like Nick Cave, Jim O’ Rourke, and Jeff Tweedy were praising those records in glowing terms. Recorded in Ray Davies' Konk Studios, North London, Who Is The Sender? sees Bill expanding upon themes he has touched on from the beginning, spiritual and philosophical questions, observations about the natural world and the people in the city he has lived in all his life.
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- CD
- £7.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC101CD
- Release date
- 30 Mar '15
The band on Primrose Green is a mixture of new and old Chicago talent, blending both jaded veterans of the post-rock and jazz mini-circuits together with a few eager, open-eared youths. (It’s worth stating at this point that this is not a jazz record, despite the sheer volume of jazz and experimental heavyweights that make up the rest of Primrose Green’s all-star cast. Chicago has blurred these lines since forever.)
Ryley Walker is the reincarnation of the True American Guitar Player. That’s as much a testament to his roving, rambling ways as to the fact that his Guild D-35 guitar has endured a few stints in the pawnshop. Swap out rural juke joints for rotted DIY spaces and the archetype is solidly intact. His personal life might be tumultuous and his residential status in question, but his bedrock is disciplined daily rehearsal and an inexhaustible wellspring of song craft.
Raised on the banks of the ol’ Rock River in northern Illinois, Ryley’s early life doesn’t give us much more than Midwestern mundanity to speak of. Things start to pick up in 2007, when he moves to Chicago and briefly attempts a collegiate lifestyle. Here, he storms the local noise scene with his Jasmine-brand electric guitar, and a few years of wasted finger-bleeding basement shows firmly established his name locally, if not always positively. By 2011, at age 21, Ryley’s music offered impressive displays of fingerpicking prowess, though not fully elaborated documents.
It was a 2012 bike accident that set Ryley on his current path. Practice became more diligent. He began lacquering his fingertips at cheap salons. Ryley was finding a new path refracting the British traditional spectrum, from Bert Jansch to Nick Drake, and defying all the limitations of the genre. His 2013 recordings — The West Wind EP and All Kinds of You LP – fully express these Anglophilic tendencies to the point of nearly exhausting their possibilities.
“Primrose Green” is a colloquial term for a cocktail of whiskey and morning glory seeds that has a murky, dreamy, absinthian quality when imbibed, and a spirit-crushing aftereffect the morning after. It is the moment before departure from the mindstate of Ryley’s previous release, All Kinds Of You.
STAFF COMMENTS
Andy says: Love Tim Buckley, John Martyn and Nick Drake? So does Ryley Walker! Classic songs, grooves and vibes, but unlike the folk-lite froth choking up the "Charts", this goes straight to the source and brings it on home! Good stuff.TRACK LISTING
1. Primrose Green
2. Summer Dress
3. Same Minds
4. Griffiths Bucks Blues
5. Love Can Be Cruel
6. On The Banks Of The Old Kishwaukee
7. Sweet Satisfaction
8. The High Road
9. All Kinds Of You
10. Hide In The Roses
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- Mini LP
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC091LP
- Release date
- 17 Nov '14
"Noctilucence" is the 12 minute centerpiece of the EP, a sprawling and expansive track which might be the most ambitious track McGuire has ever released.
The term "noctilucence" comes from "noctilucent clouds", the name given to clouds which, for some reason, emit a brilliant vibrance at night. On this recording we find our subject diving into the electric waters of the night sky, in long drives across the vast deserts of America. It's a recording about the discovery and understanding of the shadow, entrance to the realm not controlled by the light of day, or the logic of reason. It's about confronting nocturnal terrors and all of those things that go bump in the night. Understanding that the ancient archetypes which watch over us don't flinch, and stand firm across the spell of time.
On Along The Way McGuire sought the Macrobes for guidance, and on Noctilucence we see them taking real shape. Opening with a mantra to the perpetual regeneration of the spirit of love, crying out for new levels of confidence and consciousness to emerge from the human race, Noctilucence is a deep stare into the infinite eye of the shimmering night sky of the future, and all it holds in its gaze.
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- Ltd LP
- £15.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC098LP-C1
- Release date
- 3 Nov '14
- Format Info
Available exclusively to independent retailers on gold vinyl, limited to 100 copies.
Available exclusively to... [ + ]
‘Greylag’ is rich in melody, mood and detail with a range that mirrors the distance between their individual birthplaces, creating a personal twist on some timeless musical traditions, embracing electric and acoustic with a sound that’s both subtle and forceful.
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- Ltd LP
- £23.99
- Cat Number
- 5414939710216
- Release date
- 27 Oct '14
- Includes MP3 Download Code.
Cave explores his fascination with the American South, with references ranging from Elvis Presley to ‘Blind’ Lemon Jefferson.
Recorded in Berlin, Cave later said of this album, "Berlin gave us the freedom and encouragement to do whatever we wanted. We'd lived in London for three years and it seemed that if you stuck your head out of the box, people were pretty quick to knock it back in, particularly if you were Australian. When we came to Berlin it was the opposite. People saw us as some kind of force rather than a kind of wacky novelty act”.
The album's title is a reference to Jesse Garon Presley, the stillborn identical twin of Elvis Presley, and ‘Wanted Man’ was Cave’s own take on a song Bob Dylan wrote for Johnny Cash. Dylan gave his permission for the lyrics to be changed, with Cave’s interpretation referencing his friends.
TRACK LISTING
Tupelo
Say Goodbye To The Little Girl Tree
Train Long Suffering
Black Crow King
Knockin’ On Joe
Wanted Man
Blind Lemon Jefferson
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- LP
- £24.99
Usually ships within: 3-10 days - Cat Number
- BRED640
- Release date
- 6 Oct '14
“One of the most fiery, politically explosive diatribes you are ever likely to hear...” - Q
"One of the finest slabs of rant 'n' roll ever made…" - Kerrang!
Classic 1981 album pressed for the first time on 180g vinyl.
Complete with original double sided poster and 2 x 7” sleeve replica prints
Cut from the most recent masters.
Contains ‘Holiday In Cambodia’, ‘Kill The Poor’ and ‘California Uber Alles’.
TRACK LISTING
1: Kill The Poor
2: Forward To Death
3: When Ya Get Drafted
4: Let's Lynch The Landlord
5: Drug Me
6: Your Emotions
7: Chemical Warfare
8: California Uber Alles
9: I Kill Children
10: Stealing People's Mail
11: Funland At The Beach
12: Ill In The Head
13: Holiday In Cambodia
14: Viva Las Vegas
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- 2xLP
- £23.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- WARPLP256
- Release date
- 6 Oct '14
- Format Info
Double vinyl pressing in embossed gatefold sleeve.
Double vinyl pressing in... [ + ]
‘You’re Dead!’ features another set of genre-blending tracks from Fly'Lo, with fluid movement between hip hop, jazz-funk and electronica, often combining all three elements densely woven together. Across the album bassist Thundercat lays down some furious fingerwork, while the drum programming gives free jazz a run for its money. Elsewhere things get deep and spiritual, with the influence of his late aunt Alice Coltrane shining through. Flying Lotus provides vocals and rapping as alter ego Captain Murphy, and he's also joined by some to notch guest MCs (Snoop Dogg, longtime FlyLo muse Niki Randa and Kendrick Lamar - whose easy shift between spitting rhymes and a sung delivery works perfectly with the music). Other collaborations on ‘You’re Dead!’ include original jazz-funk pioneer Herbie Hancock and Dirty Projectors' Angel Deradoorian.
“Flying Lotus has become a standard-bearer for 21st century beat construction by looking forward and backward simultaneously and making music that feels like an exploration” - Pitchfork
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- Ltd LP
- £15.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC053LP
- Release date
- 18 Aug '14
- Format Info
Vinyl limited to 100 copies.
Vinyl limited to 100... [ + ] -
- CD
- £10.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC053CD
- Release date
- 18 Aug '14
Here's what you do with it: Check the weather. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you've still got some summer left - the bittersweet tail end of it. Get yourself invited to some cookouts, or throw one, and if you still have it in you to get a little drunk or otherwise shut off any sense of responsibility, go for that. Play this record at that event. You don't have to listen too closely - it sounds great & you're going to have fun with it and feel good. Hey! you'll say, I wish we had this record at the beginning of the summer!
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- LP
- £15.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC084LP
- Release date
- 4 Aug '14
- Format Info
Limited edition coloured vinyl. Just found 1 copy!
Limited edition coloured... [ + ] -
- CD
- £9.99
- Cat Number
- DOC084CD
- Release date
- 4 Aug '14
They’ve always made intriguing records, here especially. It’s easy to see why musicians fall hard for this band. They entice and envelop you. Any ‘Bear In Heaven’ song will most likely greet you with a provocative beat, textural synthesizers and unassuming but adeptly supportive bass and guitar, all exquisitely arranged and glistening. Jon Philpot’s high, smooth, strong voice is so tightly wound into the music that it can be easy to overlook the lyrics, Bear In Heaven’s capacious third dimension. Philpot is a centre seeking, contemplative writer who captures the fleeting thoughts that underscore our emotional lives, the interactions with the world that are both difficult to express and anathema in daily conversation.
While all of this can be said of any Bear In Heaven album, each varies wildly in tone and approach. 2007’s ‘Red Bloom Of The Boom’ is ambitious and experimental. ‘Beast Rest Forth Mouth’ (2009) was a pivotal record that still feels important, seductive and intense. On their 2012 album ‘I Love You, It’s Cool’ the structural and musical ideas are challenging and masterfully developed. For ‘Time Is Over One Day Old’, we witness the band once again turning their gaze inward and prioritizing their evocative abilities in line with or even slightly ahead of technical skills. It feels very much in the tradition of BRFM in that way. It’s beautiful; it’s moving.
Here Philpot and partner Adam Wills are more deeply collaborative than ever. This album is darker at times, louder than their others; it feels personal and direct. ‘If I Were To Lie’ places Wills’ bass groove front and centre, ‘Demon’ is riveting and propulsive in spite of its dark pointed lyric and ‘They Dream’ dissolves into three and a half minutes of deeply satisfying ambient synth work in its second half. Wills has always been the band’s anchor, providing rock solid, rhythmic bass lines and guitars that blur the boundaries of Philpot’s synth. Though in moments such as the final track ‘You Don’t Need The World’ Wills cuts through with an audacious, biting guitar hook. It’s a great culmination of the album’s sense of release. This album isn’t about being dark, it’s about releasing darkness and frustration.
When bands age well, their vitality takes shape. They wear but with intention. They trim excesses. Throughout this album one can hear a band at peace with themselves. They’ve learned to cut back on that which is merely impressive and to concentrate on simply what is crucial. For Philpot this is about making something lasting. “A lot of shedding, getting rid of layers and preconceptions… breaking up with old ways of thinking, old ways of being, starting to look at this thing in a new way and finding something positive.” The result is a record that will stay with you.
Mixed by Nicolas Vernhes (Deerhunter, Matthew Dear, Wild Nothing, War On Drugs).
TRACK LISTING
Autumn
Time Between
If I Were To Lie
They Dream
The Sun And The Moon And The Stars
Memory Heart
Demon
Way Off
Dissolve The Walls
You Don’t Need The World
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- CD
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC086CD
- Release date
- 23 Jun '14
Showalter was on tour, walking home on a mild autumn night in Malmo, Sweden, when he first felt the weight of the personal crisis that would ignite him to write ‘Heal’. “It was a culmination of pressure,” Showalter recalls. “My marriage was suffering, I’d released a record I was disappointed in, I didn’t like how I looked or acted… so I’d gone on tour, I was gone about two years! I didn’t take time to think about failure, but I knew I was going deeper and deeper…I was thinking, I have this life, but it’s not my life, I haven’t done it right…” When Showalter returned, he wrote 30 songs in three weeks, a process that proved difficult but cathartic and at times invigorating. Previous Strand Of Oaks records were more skeletal, raw examples of folk-rooted Americana with occasional rock and electronic currents that have now come to the fore.
‘Heal’ is a bold new beginning, with a thrilling full-tilt sound that draws on Showalter’s love of 70s, 80s and 90s rock and pop, with the singer and guitarist playing the intense valedictory confessor.
Crucial to ‘Heal’s sound was the man who Showalter chose to mix the record, the stellar alt-rock icon John Congleton. Showalter also re-connected with Ben Vehorn, synth expert and studio engineer extraordinaire and drummer Steve Clements, who provides ‘Heal’s thunderous, sinewy drive. Songs such as ‘Shut In’, ‘Plymouth’ and ‘Woke Up To The Light’ have a classic construction and mood, recalling 70s powerpop / ballads and the yearning ache of Big Star’s late, great Chris Bell.
Many of the songs on ‘Heal’ reveal an electronic undercarriage and towering drums that push the album’s wired dynamic to its stretching point, especially on ‘For Me’, which expertly bridges the album’s twin decades of influences. If ‘Goshen ‘97’ recalls the molten energy of Dinosaur Jr, that’s because it actually is J Mascis on lead guitar. Despite the initials, the album’s smouldering 7-minute epic ‘JM’ is not a Mascis tribute but one to the late Jason Molina, about having his music as comfort no matter how bad things get.
TRACK LISTING
1 Goshen '97
2 HEAL
3 Same Emotions
4 Shut In
5 Woke Up To The Light
6 JM
7 Plymouth
8 Mirage Year
9 For Me
10 Wait For Love
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- CD
- £11.49
- Cat Number
- BLACKESTCD006
- Release date
- 26 May '14
By the start of the 1990s Hobbs had joined Jad Fair’s Half Japanese (he continues to play in that group as well as Strobe Talbot, a trio with Fair and Benb Gallaher). In the early months of ’95, Half Japanese were in Baltimore to record their 'Hot' LP; Hobbs stayed on to cut the bulk of the songs that comprise Officer!’s 'Dead Unique' - songs drawn from a rich store of material written and refined in the seven years since the band’s last outing - with a talented assemblage of local and visiting musicians. Returning to the UK, Hobbs brought the tracks to producer Julia Brightly to mix at her 16-track home studio in Bethnal Green; by the end of the summer, 'Dead Unique' had taken shape. And then? Nothing. For reasons that no one, least of all Hobbs, can remember, 'Dead Unique' was shelved, all but forgotten about until 2012, when Blackest Ever Black chanced upon it while trawling the Officer! archive maintained for Hobbs by Andrew Jacques. Finally, rightfully, on May 26th, 2014, the album will be made available to all for the very first time - on double-vinyl and CD.
A complex but thrillingly immediate avant-pop song cycle that charms and confounds at every turn, Dead Unique will give immense pleasure not only to Officer!’s existing cult following, but to anyone with an appreciation of piquant, idiosyncratic songcraft – fans of Kevin Ayers, Flaming Tunes, Art Bears, Woo, Dislocation Dance, R. Stevie Moore, Robert Wyatt, Cleaners From Venus, Lol Coxhill or The Monochrome Set should especially pay attention. It touches upon ragged-raw rock ‘n roll, sumptuous chamber music, pastoral folk, blowsy prog-jazz and paranoid dub-space, effortlessly shifting from skronking abstraction to rousing harmonic refrain and back again. 'Dead Unique' is also the culmination of Hobbs’ lifelong collaborative impulse: his visionary ability to bring musicians together, galvanise them and wrestle coherence out of the collective free play of ideas, arriving at something far more than the sum of its parts. The tension between composition and improvisation is key to the LP’s power, with Hobbs abetted by an extraordinary supporting cast that includes Tim Hodgkinson (bass clarinet), Pleasant Livers’ Fred Collins (vocals), Legendary Pink Dots’ Patrick Q (violin), filmmaker/animator Martha Colburn (vocal), Gilles Rieder (drums), Jad Fair (vocals) and Jason Willett (bass, keyboards, trumpet). Special mention must go to John Dierker, whose superbly expressive clarinet and saxophone parts are a fixture throughout, and to Joey Stack, who takes lead vocals on ‘Good’ and the show-stopping ‘Elephant Flowers’. Nonetheless it is the voice of Hobbs – as principal writer, performer and protagonist of these songs – that resonates most powerfully. Blurring the roles of storyteller, poet and prankster, he turns memorable line after memorable line, booby-trapping them with mischievous puns, fleet-footed literary allusions, sudden digressions and shifts of register, nonsense rhymes and other wordplay. But his acute wit and flair for the absurd is moored by a deep romantic sensibility, and though it delights in the minutiae of the human comedy, 'Dead Unique' ultimately addresses its biggest themes: love, loss, commitment, independence, the mutability and inconstancy of all things.
TRACK LISTING
1. Nest
2. Elephant Flowers
3. It Goes Up / Revenge
4. Go Back
5. Cows Hum In The Fields
6. Shrug / Good
7. Biteman
8. Nardis
9. Someone At The Door
10. Stewed Fruit
11. All I Got
12. VIM
13. Bugs In Amber
14. Guess
15. The Pony Was Contented
16. Lilac And Orange
17. Clint
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- LP
- £15.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC076LP
- Release date
- 31 Mar '14
A deep, dark heady mix of songs, Dienel set forth to subvert the existing power structure of male producer as Svengali and female artist as figurehead.
For ‘Baby’ Dienel worked with friends and acclaimed musicians Sean Carey (Bon Iver), Neal Morgan (Joanna Newsome, Bill Callahan) and Cole Kamen-Green (Beyonce).
Her life-long love of R&B and gospel comes to the fore, complementing and contrasting the sharp dynamic shifts, booming drums and blasts of brass.
Already getting a very strong response at radio and with lots of great reviews lined up, this is sure to be White Hinterland’s moment to shine.
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- LP
- £13.99
- Cat Number
- DC535
- Release date
- 17 Mar '14
The goal for Dead Rider is always super-heavy and superdriving, with more ‘up’ moments than ever before. ‘Chills On Glass’ moves forward in this tradition, juxtaposing high and low values - serious playing, danceablity, controlledoutcomes and experimentation, thick and thrashing rhythms and expertly manoeuvred tight corners, vocal textures smooth and sandy rubbing together and igniting. Synths tickle the top of one’s spine, guitars piercing like a neural system, the fullness of real drums, vocal layers and masks of all kinds.
This is composition that uses improvisation as an element within a larger structure, the ultimate streamlining of production, where songs are processed on several levels, mirroring and flashing their meanings through tactics and layers, backgrounded by a panorama of yawning, silent, benevolent black velvet. Dead Rider move relentlessly around the borders of their sound, finding new textures throughout, which act as candy to the ears. Self-recorded, produced and mastered in the Dead Rider studio suites, ‘Chills On Glass’ is a self-contained statement.
Todd Rittmann, infamous from his days in US Maple, is a guitar warrior with intensive craft at his fingertips. For the past five years, he’s been furthering his reputation by doing further damage with his instrument and others, and by spreading the carnage wide with Dead Rider (Matthew Espy, Andrea Faught, Thymme Jones and Rittmann for ‘Chills On Glass’).
TRACK LISTING
New Eyes
Blank Screen
Weaves
Weird Summer
Sex Grip Enemy
The Unnatural Act
Four Cocks
Of One Thousand
Cry Honey
Fumes And Nothing Else
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- 2xLP
- £15.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC077LP
- Release date
- 3 Feb '14
-
- CD
- £10.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC077CD
- Release date
- 3 Feb '14
From the mid-western underground consciousness, guitarist / producer Mark McGuire emerges with his forthcoming ‘Along The Way’ album. The conceptual album details the inner journey of an individual seeking definition and enlightenment.
For those following McGuire’s musical ascent thus far, the record is a culmination of a prodigious and prolific artist.
Playing with a wide variety of instruments and styles on ‘Along The Way’, McGuire presents his unique vision of modern psychedelia. Using electric and acoustic guitars, a Talkbox, drum machine, a mandolin and lots in between, McGuire conducts a sonic exploration of the inner self.
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- LP
- £12.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC088LP
- Release date
- 2 Dec '13
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- CD
- £7.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC088CD
- Release date
- 2 Dec '13
Destroyer’s Dan Bejar writes: “It was 2013. The English language seemed spent, despicable, not easily singable. It felt over for English; good for business transactions, but that’s about it. The only other language I know is Spanish, and the only Spanish songs I really know are those of Sr. Chinarro, led by Antonio Luque. I've been a decades-long fan of how he conducted his affairs, his strange words, his melodies that have always felt so natural (this is important), his bitter songs about painting the light. Something about them, I knew I could do it...”
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- LP
- £11.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOCSPEC011LP
- Release date
- 9 Sep '13
-
- CD
- £9.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOCSPEC011CD
- Release date
- 9 Sep '13
Darker Shores is a collection of songs that continues to reveal itself. Its path leads back to the vintage synthesizers used to create a unique journey into the human experience. Beyond the bleak and uncertain lies a solace and comfort that comes when songs achieve their highest possible potential. These songs represent both a definite ending and an undeniable new beginning. Hope you enjoy the journey.
All of the songs the Strand of Oaks writes are based on true stories. Lovers get divorced, murder John Belushi’s drug dealer, go bowling with mythical giants, watch their youth slip away and commune with John F. Kennedy’s illegitimate son. Obviously, Timothy Showalter (who is Strand of Oaks) has allowed himself many liberties with what constitutes the truth, and his commingling of fact and fiction, of humor and heartbreak simultaneously distinguishes him from the bearded, acoustic-toting singer-songwriters he’s so easily compared to: immerse yourself in a Strand of Oaks record and confessionals turn into metaphor, autobiography transferred into tall tales.
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- CD
- £10.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC080CD
- Release date
- 2 Sep '13
Intimate timbres - garage sale drum machines, slack guitar strings, hushed vocals - offset the album’s cinematic inclinations. The listener moves through a landscape of Old Testament blood and guts, spaghetti Western deserts and south western horizons, zeroing in on emotions and images that cannot be glanced over.
TRACK LISTING
Movie Music Kills A Kiss
Stitches
Frosted Tips
Magdalene
Bells Break Arms
Moonbath.brainsalt.a.holy.fool
Moses
A Thin Skin Of Bullfight Dust
We Are A Payphone
Turtle Eggs / An Optimist
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- LP
- £18.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC079LP
- Release date
- 15 Jul '13
-
- CD
- £3.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC079CD
- Release date
- 15 Jul '13
After moving back to their hometown of Chicago last year, drummer Craig Nice and singer / guitarist Andy R looked to their teenage selves for inspiration. “I started listening again to the stuff I would have in my Discman in the back of my mom’s car,” says Nice. “White Zombie, Marilyn Manson - the production on those records is so amazing. Nothing sounds like that anymore.”
TRACK LISTING
Human Nature
Spew
Simple
Bad Apple
New To It
Obey Me
Heave
G.I.D.
Falling Out
Waste Your Art
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- LP
- £18.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC042LP
- Release date
- 27 May '13
Already receiving a glowing 8/10 from Uncut (with coverage on the covermount) plus very strong 6Music support, this is a record that teases the listener with ideas and melodies, asking for patience and then rewarding the loyal with one of the most beguiling and beautiful listens of 2013 so far.
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- LP
- £13.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC078LP
- Release date
- 29 Apr '13
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- CD
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC078CD
- Release date
- 29 Apr '13
“The album started with visions of large monumental sounds inspired by the land artists Heizer and Turrell; American works on a grand scale, monuments, dirty hands and an epic American masculinity. Dust, Stone, Sky, Earth. These broad, bold strokes would come to pass but not quite as expected. A Sci Fi aesthetic narrative emerged. How to deal with it open heartedly? The plots within plots of ‘Dune’ mirrored in many layers of sound. Creating 3D sonic atmospheres that our songs and singers inhabit. Our story, a story, all stories. Of the future, of yourself. Of everyone. We are all we are, only this and yet we move forward. Along some line to somewhere. And who knows?” - Seth Olinsky, Akron/Family
“Music dissolves in sad earnest mist of drenched melancholy, spent... […] They’re inside the music, grinding it, fighting it, chewing it, digesting it, then spewing it up to the sky in a multicolored spray of endless sound and love.” - Michael Gira, Swans / Young God Records
This is Akron/Family’s seventh album / masterpiece of musical mayhem and meditations.
“Innovative no-holds-barred pop music” - Mojo (*****)
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- Ltd 12"
- £10.99
- Cat Number
- TR035
- Release date
- 15 Apr '13
- Includes MP3 Download Code.
Their debut EP on Trensmat is venomous with intent from the outset. “The Runaway” is some serious hydraulic electro-techno, a driving 808 rinse-out into a storm beyond the aquatic triangle. “Children of the 303” is a raw , haunted, obscure and sinister sounding…lock up yer kin! Flip for “Fibril” where the 303 gets mangled and twisted, melancholic melodies drowning in running tape delays, wobbling analog pulses-frustrated funk in full effect. “Internal dialogue” closes the B, all dark driving basslines and glitchy sounds going all over the place, straight to the point mixed up machine madness. A perfect soundtrack for a dark basement full of smoke and strobe light. Proper underground electro for those that do because they couldn't care less.
The 12” comes with digital copies of the tracks on the record plus two additional distorted & nasty future-electro groovers not on the vinyl – “MacReadys Tape” & “Mass”. The digital version of this EP is only available to the buyers of the vinyl.
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- CD
- £7.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC082CD
- Release date
- 1 Apr '13
Sisters Jennifer and Jessie Clavin match their ability to blend a mix of freewheeling 1977 punk with vintage sunny Southern California melodic rock and roll, creating blindingly bright hooks and dark heartfelt lyrics about love, loss, and the crazy fun moments in between. That’s the goal - the sugary and sour, repurposed by two aggressively harmonic musicians and songwriters.
The band’s first single, ‘Next Stop’, epitomizes this movement - fun, raw, adventurous and free. Tossing you out onto the dancefloor, hair mussed from make-outs, cigarette still dangling from your fingertips.
Raised deep in the San Fernando Valley, their suburban isolation nurtured the girls’ creativity, as they started making their own music at a young age. Sneaking into punk shows over the hill in Hollywood, they grew up to become teenage underground staples at all-ages downtown DIY venue The Smell. “Me and Jen were punk kids who weren’t taught how to play instruments,” says Jessie. “We taught ourselves how to play, out in the garage.”
Eventually signing to Kill Rock Stars and Post Present Medium, their all girl punk band Mika Miko drew international acclaim, landing slots on tours with No Age, Black Lips, and The Gossip.
Bleached originally formed when the Clavin sisters resolved to continue working with each other after the break up of Mika Miko. Plans were postponed when the sisters joined other bands. Jennifer relocated to New York and toured extensively. With Jennifer away, Jessie began to play with various bands in LA. But in the fleeting moments they found together back home, the songs that became Bleached’s early 7” singles came together.
Since Jennifer moved back to her hometown, Bleached now serves as both girls’ chief creative outlet. “I was going crazy being in someone else’s band,” remarked Jennifer. “Me and Jessie are so proud and happy to be able to focus on our own music, together.”
As a whole, the twelve tracks on ‘Ride Your Heart’ reveal the many facets of Bleached’s music in a delicious vortex of playful harmonies, tangled guitars, and golden noise. Each song brings a new element, while also imbibing the classic moods of bands as varied and iconic in nature as The Ramones and The Cars, to The Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac.
From the syncopated backbeat and two-part chorus of ‘Dead In Your Head’, the rolling riffs and sparkling melodies of ‘Searching Through The Past’ and the pulsating energy and urgency of ‘Dreaming Without You’ and ‘Outta My Mind’, Bleached take you on a sweeping emotional roller coaster that churns and burns. ‘Ride Your Heart’ is a thrilling, beating, glorious wall of sound strong enough to withstand its own impact.
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- LP
- £13.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC050LP
- Release date
- 18 Mar '13
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- CD
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC050CD
- Release date
- 18 Mar '13
Matthew Houck, for he is Phosphorescent, likes to work. The Alabama native, now resident in Brooklyn has delivered five albums as Phosphorescent since his 2003 debut. Houck has a highly distinctive artistic voice, but also a refreshing, rolled-sleeves approach to his expression, and if he had his way, he'd have twice as many albums under his belt by now. The singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer is envious of the time when prolificacy was expected. "In the '60s and '70s, they were making artists crank out records every six months. With guys like Waylon Jennings, John Prine and even Dylan, I don't think those records would have gotten made in today's climate, because now you're allowed – or even required – to make a grand statement. I have this ideal – and I know it's not possible, because of the way the industry works – of making a record every year."
Houck may not have managed that, but still has an impressive output – one born of commitment and his soul's need to have its say. It was 2007's Pride – a delicate and spare, haunted and haunting work of ragged country, bittersweet southern gospel and forlorn folk-ish drone – that first caused ears to swivel appreciatively in Phosphorescent's direction. He followed it with To Willie, a tribute to country legend Willie Nelson, then 2010's Here's To Taking It Easy, an unapologetically enthusiastic plunge into country rock and rolling Americana. Now, his sixth album flashes yet another colour in the subtly shifting Phosphorescent spectrum.
Muchacho reprises the understated melancholia and sensuous minimalism of Pride, while kicking up a little of Here's To Taking It Easy's dust, but it also strikes out into more adventurous waters via rhythm and electronic textures. It took shape if not quite by accident, then partly as a result of events beyond Houck's control. After spending the best part of 18 months touring his last record, Houck was, in his words "pretty fried." In late 2011, he returned to the Brooklyn Navy Yard studio where he'd recorded his previous two albums, planning "on taking this whole thing down a few notches. I wanted to make music," he explains, "but I was weary, so the spectre of putting anything out and getting back on the road was a bit of a block." In December, he bought a load of old analogue gear and "just starting playing around with it, making these noises. They weren't songs, they were just strange sound pieces. I've always had that element in my work, and one or two weird, ambient pieces seem to squeeze themselves onto every record, but suddenly I was doing a lot of those." Houck also turned into a bit of DIY electrician, since a lot of the vintage gear needed fixing. "I ended up spending a lot of time learning about stuff like impedance matching and ohms," he laughs. "I really got quite nerdy about how it all worked."
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- LP
- £25.99
Usually ships within: 2-10 days - Cat Number
- KRANK176LP
- Release date
- 20 Oct '23 (originally released 11 Feb '13)
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- CD
- £12.99
Usually ships within: 2-10 days - Cat Number
- KRANK176
- Release date
- 4 Feb '13
This is a new reissue of Grouper?s breakthrough 2008 album which has been out of print on all physical formats for the last few years.
Press quotes for Dragging a Dead Deer...:
“There?s a deeply meditative, almost spiritual beauty to these tracks; a melancholy that?s simultaneously strangely hopeful.” Drowned in Sound
“This remarkable album is actually what I personally always wanted 4AD records to sound like, only they never quite delivered the hazy pleasures their beautiful sleeve art promised.” Pitchfork [8.2]
“A psych-folk bent for harmonic discord and atmospheric dread ?nds something forever sinister lodged at the album's heart: thekind of beauty that makes sailors run aground.” Mojo
“More than just a pretty acoustic record, Harris, through Grouper, has created a startlingly vivid and brooding shoegaze gem that works in spite of its length and ?rst impressions.” Sputnik
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- CD
- £12.49
- Cat Number
- TCX07D
- Release date
- 17 Dec '12
Vinyl on heavyweight 180 gram black vinyl in gatefold sleeve with die cut inner pocket and printed inner dust cover.
CD in gatefold sleeve with lyric insert.
Released following Eugene’s appearance with the Oxbow Orchestra at Supersonic festival
Introducing vocalist Kaisa Meow The second release in a trilogy from Robinson-Petit following The Crying of Lot 69 LAST OF THE DEAD HOT LOVERS, a secondary installment in the tryptic of modern and highly specialized anomie brought to life by vocal lyricist EUGENE S. ROBINSON and musical tour guide PHILLIPPE PETIT, covers an unspecified disaster at the centre of a failed and failing relationship. Equal parts "Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?" and the last 16 hours of a love affair, LAST OF THE DEAD HOT LOVERS also features the estimable KASIA MEOW in a duet with Robinson that radiates all the best parts of homicidal suicides.
File Under: Experimental / Spoken Word For Fans of: Oxbow, Tom Waits, Swans, The Enablers, William Burroughs.
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- Ltd 7"
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-10 days - Cat Number
- TMR170
- Release date
- 26 Nov '12
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- Ltd 7"
- £4.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC070LP
- Release date
- 26 Nov '12
On ‘Even If We Try’, Yellen makes a stunning first step and displays his strength of sparseness. The A-side slowly builds in force from a wistful lullaby to an unexpectedly buoyant climax.
The song centres around the singer's desire to sever his past life and start anew. It's that awkward and often terrifying feeling of distancing oneself from demons while realizing that they're fundamental elements in gaining the confidence to move forward.
‘Even If We Try’ was recorded in a self-built studio in the former home of Johnny Cash located in Hendersonville, TN. The song was formed on his drives to and from Nashville and Hendersonville.
The B-side, ‘You Were Afraid’, was the first song a then 18 year-old Winston Yellen wrote with Night Beds in mind. The song recounts the gut wrenching realization of an imminent end to a relationship and the bittersweetness that can come with it.
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- LP
- £13.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC071LP
- Release date
- 15 Oct '12
There's something almost supernatural to the feel of this album: “‘Animator’ is supposed to be some weird resuscitation. The animator’s job is to create the semblance of movement in things that cannot move themselves. The musician’s is to make us feel like something is happening with a sound,” explains singer and multi-instrumentalist Jessie Stein.
Recorded and produced at the Treatment Room by band member and experimental brass player Pietro Amato, and mixed by Jace Lasek of The Besnard Lakes at his Breakglass Studios in the band’s hometown of Montreal, ‘Animator’ is a cathartic sophisticated collection of songs.
As melodically compelling as it is artistically rich, ‘Animator’ is intuitive, seductive, moody and textural. It slowly unfolds its beauty and trusts the listener to stay with it.
TRACK LISTING
Montuno
Fifty Fifty
The Quiet Way
Face
Your Name’s Mostly Water
Earth Turner
Talking Mountains
Traces
Crimes Machine
Channeling
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- CD
- £7.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC068CD
- Release date
- 11 Jun '12
The sense of urgency that fuelled his previous work remains, and the results are paralyzing – drums, piano, baritone guitar, woodwinds and pedal steel combine with songwriting so detailed and captivating.
Since his last album, ‘The Wild Hunt’, The Tallest Man On Earth has sold out Shepherds Bush Empire two months in advance of the show, performed on ‘Later With Jools Holland’ and now lands at the start of this campaign with a sold out London Hackney Empire show, with fans desperate to hear his new material.
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- CD
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC066CD
- Release date
- 11 Jun '12
Coming off the back of their hugely well received ‘Onwards To The Wall’ EP (their first release for new label Dead Oceans), this is the album that they have been promising and hinting at on their previous two.
More dynamic, more honest, more brutal and more melodic.
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- LP
- £23.99
- Cat Number
- 0825646658879
- Release date
- 12 Mar '12
- Format Info
180 gram vinyl.
180 gram vinyl. -
- CD
- £13.99
Usually ships within: 3-10 days - Cat Number
- 0825646604852
- Release date
- 13 Oct '08
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- CD
- £4.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC065CD
- Release date
- 12 Mar '12
Now joined by bassist Dion Lunadon, formerly of The D4, in whom the band have found a crucial companion in pulling timeless melodies from their jet engine textures.
Standout ‘So Far Away’ takes all the pure pop perfection of The Box Tops’ ‘The Letter’ and shoots it through with a barely-harnessed dark energy and snarling propulsion. The title track carries a similar balance of classic, 60s pop hooks and doomed-out vibes, employing a boy-girl vocal trade off that’s at once both sexy and menacing.
A handful of contemporary bands are currently exploring the new limits of loud. And here, A Place To Bury Strangers prove that they have not only been leading that charge for some time now, but that they are also evolving and maturing on those front lines.
‘Onwards To The Wall’ is a fresh, complete artistic statement. It’s a new chapter, a prelude for what awaits on the horizon. It is a taste of greatness to come.
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- LP
- £13.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC033LP
- Release date
- 5 Mar '12
-
- CD
- £8.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC033CD
- Release date
- 5 Mar '12
Recorded with Brian Joseph (Bon Iver) in Wisconsin.
From the first song onwards, this is a band willing to make a statement and develop all the finest moments heard on the previous two records. The band sing of the best and most important moments in life and, in turn, create new ones.
In this blistering world, these songs are the rarest sort of balm. A record sure to turn this much loved and well kept secret into one of the most acclaimed bands of 2012.
-
- Ltd 7"
- £3.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC062
- Release date
- 23 Jan '12
Instead of using reverb as a gauze, Gauntlet Hair use its curvature and decay to form and push the melodies, to further shape the songs.
Two exclusive new songs on the B-side: ‘Need To Retire’ and ‘Minimal Armageddon’.
TRACK LISTING
My Christ
Need To Retire
Minimal Armageddon
-
- LP
- £13.99
Usually ships within: 2-10 days - Cat Number
- AGIT003
- Release date
- 19 Dec '11
"It is all analog synth, real drums and whatever.. played live=no overdubs, make no mistake this is syncopated synthesizer music or Detroit Techno....Dance music" ---Nate Young.
Amazing sleeve art...see to believe! 700 only.
-
- CD
- £11.99
- Cat Number
- CST083CD
- Release date
- 10 Oct '11
Even as Siskiyou's first record was delivered to Constellation in early 2010 and getting prepped for release that fall, Colin Huebert remained holed up in Mara, BC (pop. 350) through the winter, writing more songs and eventually being joined by his Siskiyou co-conspirator Erik Arnesen for a few weeks of intensive recording. Unlike the material on their eponymous debut, which was largely recorded in nomadic fashion while Colin and Erik toured as members of Great Lake Swimmers, the Mara, BC sessions found the pair settled, rooted and with keys in hand to the century-old Mara Community Hall. Most of the tunes on 'Keep Away The Dead' were born at Mara Hall, where bed tracks were laid down in the crisp air during depth of winter. The arctic atmosphere of that empty, cavernous, hardwood structure was the perfect complement to Huebert's sensibility: a tense and acute restraint; a shivering, biting, sometimes bitter rending of barebones, folk-inflected rock music. (Neil Young remains a clear touchstone – overtly so with the album's cover of "Revolution Blues" – as do the pointed, starkly controlled arrangements and textures of contemporaries like Angels Of Light.)
Huebert left Mara in spring 2010 and moved to Vancouver, where Siskiyou began to take shape as a full band with the addition of Shaunn Watt and Peter Carruthers. Coming off a season of extensive touring in Euope and Canada in fall 2010, Siskiyou had coalesced into an incisivie quartet and hit Vancouver's JC/DC Studio in early 2011 with engineer David Carswell (Destroyer, New Pornographers), adding to the previous year's Mara sessions and cutting two more tunes for which Carswell ran the mix: "Twigs And Stones" and "Revolution Blues”. Huebert recorded and mixed the remainder of Keep Away The Dead (as he did on the previous record). Where Siskiyou's debut was a stunning little scrapbook of short, sharp tunes, 'Keep Away The Dead' ramps things up with subtle care and clarity, yielding something closer to a rural gothic novella in spirit and scope. The album is a strikingly cold-eyed, tender-hearted song cycle, marked by quiet defiance and desperation. Huebert's acoustic guitar and gently acetic voice, Arnesen's gorgeous banjo and treated guitar lines, and the judicious rhythm section of Watt and Carruthers deliver a superbly compelling album on the knife's edge of darkness, where each tune feels like another precious log thrown on a lone campfire burning in the cold night.
TRACK LISTING
1. Keep Away The Dead
2. Where Does That Leave Me
3. Twigs And Stones
4. So Cold
5. Revolution Blues
6. Dear Old Friend
7. Not The Kind
8. Fiery Death
9. Sing Me To Sleep
10. Dead Right Now
-
- CD
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC056CD
- Release date
- 17 Oct '11
With the self-titled debut, the duo of Andy R (guitar, vox) and Craig Nice (drums, triggers) fulfill the booming promise of those now collectible singles.
Coming as leaders of a scene based in Colorado around a space called the Rhinoceroplis (with fellow bands Pictureplane, Woodsman and Hollagramz), Gauntlet Hair have received a ton of online love over the last year that is now sure to tip over into a mass embrace.
Music made with the sole purpose of losing yourself - both mind and body - inside of it. The band take the listener into the red, evoking that unmistakable feeling of being squarely in front of the speaker as it is screaming blissfully loud melodies.
STAFF COMMENTS
Darryl says: Exuberant and euphoric art-rock, like an in-yer-face Animal Collective or Arcade Fire. Superb stuff!!-
- LP
- £12.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC043LP
- Release date
- 9 Sep '99
-
- CD
- £3.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC043CD
- Release date
- 19 Sep '11
It’s a bolder, heavier, groovier, record. Mixed with Scott Colburn (whose production credits include Arcade Fire’s ‘Funeral’ and Animal Collective’s ‘Feels’) this is a three dimensional being, solidifying the band’s evolution from a bedroom recording experiment to a fully fleshed dynamic ensemble.
TRACK LISTING
1. Fever Dreams
2. You Lookin’ Twice
3. Extra Fast
4. Through The Window
5. So Sweet
6. Trying To Reach You
7. New Feelings
8. Wouldn’t Tell
9. Dancing Grass
10. Gold Jordan
11. Eternal Thrills
-
- CD
- £3.99
- Cat Number
- OSACD023
- Release date
- 12 Sep '11
Their critically acclaimed album 'You Look Cold' was released on Osaka Recordings in 2009. A remix album followed in 2010 called 'You Look Colder'. It featured remixes from the likes of Jape, Hunter-Gatherer and Legion of Two.
Their second album 'Golden Syrup' is released on 12th September. Moving on from the previous more DIY / lo-fi sound we now find them embracing a more gothic synth sound. Reminiscent of lesser known early 80's electronics pioneers such as Robert Rental, Thomas Leer and John Foxx but also drawing comparisons to such contemporary artists as Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti and John Maus. Paul Lester in the Guardian's Band of the Day in November 2010 referred to it as "Spookily brilliant, like Daryl Hall in hell!"
The music on ‘Golden Syrup’ varies from Italo-disco and hypnagogic pop to the ghost-disco of the opener 'Miracle Candle', a dark dancefloor mover, to the more rhythmic synth-hook laden tracks such as 'Golden Syrup', ‘Too Many Harsh Words’ and 'Gouge'. We also get moments of beautiful heartfelt pop such as 'Broken up Now', and almost medieval electronica in the form of 'Strawberry Dog'.
TRACK LISTING
1. Miracle Candle
2. Golden Syrup
3. Seen Me Blue
4. Too Many Harsh Words
5. Broken Up Now
6. Gouge
7. Contact Sports
8. Strawberry Dog
9. I Donʼt Remember
10. Still In School
-
- Ltd 7"
- £2.75
- Cat Number
- DOC059
- Release date
- 18 Jul '11
Following tours with Bear in Heaven, Cults, Small Black, Lower Dens and more, the band went back into the studio and emerged with this stunning new single.
On this 7" the band's modern sounds glance backwards, with faint 80s pop melodies sneaking into the band's repertoire.
Although the sounds are lush, subtle and carefully crafted, Sun Airway once again proves the songwriting comes first, writing instantly classic pop tunes on their new single.
TRACK LISTING
Wild Palms
Symphony In White, No. 2
-
- CD
- £9.99
- Cat Number
- DOC046CD
- Release date
- 13 Jun '11
- Format Info
Includes 20 minutes of additional music not on the North American edition.
Includes 20 minutes of... [ + ]
For a more contemporary touchstone, consider this album as the sad-eyed psychic cousin of GAYNGS’ smooth opus ‘Relayted’. These elaborate songs were lovingly crafted by a large studio ensemble of dedicated players; they are given fresh life on the road by an eight-piece touring band which will visit European shores for the first time this year.
‘Kaputt’ entered the Billboard chart at number 62 and received exultant hosannas from such publications as The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Spin and The Washington Post. Pitchfork awarded it their Best New Music accolade, noting that “‘Kaputt’ feels wise. Like a mirror that actually points back at something better. ‘Kaputt’ rolls luxuriously in its own plush soft-rock grandeur, powerfully alluring and deeply sad at the same time.”
-
- LP
- £12.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC045LP
- Release date
- 14 Mar '11
-
- CD
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC045CD
- Release date
- 14 Mar '11
Akron/Family spent the end of 2009 and half of 2010 exploring the future of sound through bent acid punk diamond fuzz and underground Japanese noise cassettes, lowercase micro tone poems and emotional Cagean field recordings, rebuilding electronic drums from the 70s and playing them with sticks they carved themselves.
-
- CD
- £3.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC055CD
- Release date
- 21 Feb '11
The Luyas enlisted the help of many friends on "Too Beautiful To Work". These friends happen to double as world-class musicians. Owen Pallett plays the violin and arranges the strings. Colin Stetson adds saxophone and clarinet. Sarah Neufeld (who plays in Arcade Fire) also plays violin. John Marshman adds some cello, Daniel Tavis Romano plays the bass, Lisa Chisholm brings the bassoon and Leonie Wall plays the flute.
"Too Beautiful To Work" was recorded by Jeff McMurrich, whose fingerprints can be found on fantastic recordings by Tindersticks, Constantines, Owen Pallett and countless others.
TRACK LISTING
1. Too Beautiful To Work
2. Worth Mentioning
3. Tiny Head
4. Moodslayer
5. Canary
6. Spherical Mattress
7. Cold Canada
8. What Mercy Is
9. I Need Mirrors
10. Seeing Things
-
- LP
- £10.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC052LP
- Release date
- 31 Jan '11
-
- CD
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC052CD
- Release date
- 31 Jan '11
The Magik*Magik Orchestra have a comprehensive mastery of classic performance and repertoire, but also have a full appreciation of the aesthetics of indie and underground music.
Choi arranged and conducted "White Wilderness" with 19 members of the Magik*Magik playing strings and horns, vibraphone, pedal steel and piano, an assortment of reed instruments, and much to JV's benefit, the voice of Minna Choi singing backup at key moments throughout the album.
Recorded in San Francisco, "White Wilderness" was produced by John Congleton, whose resume includes albums by St Vincent, The Walkmen, Explosions in the Sky, Bill Callahan and many more.
-
- LP
- £10.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC051LP
- Release date
- 17 Jan '11
Hailing from Philadelphia, Sun Airway is led by songwriter Jon Barthmus, who is joined by fellow sound sculptor Patrick Marsceill. Recorded primarily in Barthmus’ basement studio over the course of 18 months, the album blends processed sounds, field recordings and timeless vocal melodies into their abstract fractured pop.
The duo expands to a full blown quintet when performing live, with projections designed for each song creating a wondrous sensory overload.
In addition to an ambitious live show, Sun Airway have been reinventing the music of others, with remixes of Delorean, Kisses, Here We Go Magic and more circulating around the internet.
STAFF COMMENTS
Andy says: Wonky, dreamy pop that can't quite make it to the mainstream and is all the better for it.-
- LP
- £10.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC044LP
- Release date
- 22 Nov '10
Adrien Kazigira, Stany Hitimana and Jeanvier Havugimana recorded the songs collected on "Kigali Y’ Izahabu" over the course of one summer evening on the back porch of a friend's home. The primary obstacle to recording the group was that the musicians showed up with only one guitar for two players, and that guitar was missing two strings. Hitimana ‘played bass’ on the 4-string and a beat-up acoustic was located for the second guitarist, the sullen, primary songwriter Kazigira, who interweaves intricate harmonies with cosinger Havugimana.
In a style often referred to as ‘worker songs from the streets’, these simple, direct and plaintive love songs speak more to the healing power of peace than a thousand academic treatises or preachy goodwill ambassadors ever could.
-
- CD
- £4.49
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC048CD
- Release date
- 8 Nov '10
Matsson is the rarest of performers, charismatic and captivating. At many of the Tallest Man on Earth shows this year, Matsson closed his set with a new song titled ‘Like The Wheel’. It quickly became a fan favourite, with YouTube videos spreading virally, and the sets closing on a high note night after night.
STAFF COMMENTS
Darryl says: A five track mini-album and another example of his superb widescreen late night Americana songwriting skills.TRACK LISTING
1. Little River
2. The Dreamer
3. Like The Wheel
4. Tangle This
5. Trampled Wheat
6. Thrown Right At Me
-
- Ltd LP
- £14.99
- Cat Number
- BING070
- Release date
- 11 Oct '10
The trio of Michael Morley, Bruce Russell and Robbie Yeats makes their improvised music sound like the most substantial ever recorded, no matter in what direction they go. Here, vocal-less, thick and thundering electric drones compound and retreat like a Pacific Ocean of noise. Morley once again provides the artwork and continues in his color palette of late. Its circular, flowery texture provides the perfect mandala for contemplation while lost within the deep meditations that "Patience" inspires.
STAFF COMMENTS
Darryl says: Nobody else does improvised avant-rock as well as the Dead C, psychedelic drone fuelled mantras of the highest order.TRACK LISTING
1. Empire
2. Federation
3. Shaft
4. South
-
- Ltd 7"
- £3.99
- Cat Number
- RER001
- Release date
- 20 Sep '10
Describing their sound as 'A kick in the teeth…..with a load of reverb', Speak & The Spells formed somewhere deep inside their collective vinyl collection. And now they’re adding to yours with their debut single.
The ominous surf-rock opening riff of "She’s Dead" sets the tone for a b-movie style tale of grief and grave digging. Scratchy guitars and screams provide the perfect soundtrack for singer Joe Eakin’s lament. Front man Joe is joined by Benjamin Craven (Bass) and Alex Felstead (Drums) to complete a stripped back, bare essentials line-up that’s a million miles from the gadget heavy electro of 2009 but just as thrilling.
The equally enthralling b-side "Brianna" show’s a spiced up more punk side to the band, while "Caleb Pink" finds the band in a more experimental mood with a 4.5 minute instrumental.
Initially bonding at school through a shared love of Garage, Psych and Freak-Beat, the 3-piece outfit was conceived in a West London storeroom playing covers of 60s teenage garage heroes like The Downliners Sect and Tintern Abbey before developing their own unique and exciting style.
Straight out of school, the band created "Ricky Ticks" in a Soho basement, a bi-monthly clubnight where they could play their records and hone their live act. They quickly caught the attention of fellow London promoters, which led to them supporting one of their personal idols; Billy Childish and being invited by The Horrors to play their own night ‘The Cave Club’. They’ve also played alongside the likes of The Guillotines, Bo Ningen and The Vinyl Stitches.
"She’s Dead" is one of those records destined to accompany the sound of needle hitting wax but perfectly at home on your ipod as well as in your pile of prized 45’s.
-
- CD
- £3.99
- Cat Number
- DOC041CD
- Release date
- 2 Aug '10
While it has only been 18 months since Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band's self-titled debut, they have traveled what feels like thousands of miles. "Where The Messengers Meet" is in real time, an expansion of the sound of the band's eponymous debut. They take the same frantic and skewed elements and stretch them out, giving them room to breathe and blossom.
Thematically, "Where The Messengers Meet" is an exercise in contrasts: the delicate and gentle, the dark and furious. Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band collects powerful compositions into one cohesive whole held together with lush production and a haunting atmosphere. They are imperceptibly inching away from an angular style influenced by Modest Mouse and Wolf Parade, instead incorporating an epic sound recalling both the modern masters such as Arcade Fire, and classic pioneers, like Pink Floyd.
-
- LP
- £11.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC019LP
- Release date
- 26 Apr '10
-
- CD
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC019CD
- Release date
- 26 Apr '10
Informed by the likes of Scott Walker, Roxy Music, ‘Nuggets’ collections and the Everly Brothers.
-
- CD
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC040CD
- Release date
- 12 Apr '10
It is impossible to discuss The Tallest Man on Earth's music without acknowledging Bob Dylan. The seemingly effortlessness, the melodic sensibility and the deft lyricism all recall Dylan's early years. But when you witness the Tallest Man on Earth perform live, you are watching a man possessed. The energy pours out with every word. Full of intensity and raw emotion, he paces the stage, bringing the audience into the palm of his hand, completely lost in his songs.
This brings us to the reason you are reading this. With unbridled excitement, we bring you The Tallest Man on Earth's second LP, "The Wild Hunt". It is all here: The words. The voice. The melodies. Ten perfect songs. "The Wild Hunt" picks up where "Shallow Grave" left off, with Matsson doing what he does best. It is unmistakably The Tallest Man on Earth, from the urgent strums of "You're Going Back" and the sweet melodies of "Love is All," to the playful lyricism of live favourite "King of Spain" and the subtle hook on "Burden of Tomorrow". "The Wild Hunt" isn't just another folk album; this is acoustic rock 'n' roll from a man with a story to tell.
STAFF COMMENTS
Darryl says: Ace singer/songwriter with a desolate, stripped down acoustic Americana vibe that brings to mind early Dylan.-
- CD
- £8.99
- Cat Number
- DOC034
- Release date
- 8 Mar '10
"Kairos" was written after Dienel and band-mate Shawn Creeden relocated to Portland, Oregon from Boston and Brooklyn, respectively. There, without regular access to a piano, the centrepiece of previous White Hinterland recordings, Dienel's writing process took on an innovative new shape. Soon she and Creeden delved excitedly into a new practice of collaboration centered around live looping, electronic and acoustic percussion, and kaleidoscopic sound, all providing a shimmery underpinning to intricate layers of Dienel's voice.
TRACK LISTING
1. Icarus
2. Moon Jam
3. No Logic
4. Begin Again
5. Bow & Arrow
6. Amsterdam
7. Thunderbird
8. Cataract
9. Huron
10. Magnolias
-
- Ltd 7"
- £3.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC036
- Release date
- 1 Feb '10
- Format Info
There's only 100 copies of this, so don't hang about!
There's only 100 copies... [ + ]
-
- LP
- £9.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC038LP
- Release date
- 1 Feb '10
-
- CD
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC038
- Release date
- 25 Jan '10
Citay makes a joyous return on "Dream Get Together", the San Francisco cosmic wanderers' expansive third album. Many of the touchstones from Citay's previous work remain intact – flourishes of Led Zeppelin, Eno/Fripp, Thin Lizzy, Pink Floyd, Popul Vuh and ELO can be heard throughout – but a newfound swagger pushes "Dream Get Together" way over the top.
Seldom has there been a more obvious choice for an album-opener than "Careful With That Hat", a song propelled by a deep groove and swing that practically begs the listener to stand up and air-drum wildly. The vocals soar, the lead guitars catch fire and the mammoth solo (courtesy of guitarist Josh Pollock) builds to an ecstatic explosion. This is the shot across the bow. Citay have arrived on "Dream Get Together".
Led by songwriter Ezra Feinberg, Citay has made a career out of studio exploration, recalling a time when studio excess was the norm. Producer Tim Green, of the Fucking Champs, is no stranger to sonic indulgence, and together Feinberg and Green have woven together a musical tapestry that is both heavy and sweet. In Citay, the metal leanings of Green's band are replaced by an altogether different brand of fantasy rock. "Dream Get Together" has an embroidered and epic beauty that flies over the ocean while snuggling up to the ears. Joining Feinberg in Citay is drummer Warren Huegel, whose rhythmic sensibilities are best exemplified not only by his thunderous beats, but also his percussion decorations that lift the Citay sound from the ground up. Flanking Feinberg's acoustic six string live are the electric guitars of Sean Smith and Josh Pollock. Bassist Diego Gonzalez holds it all together throughout. Feinberg shares vocal duties on "Dream Get Together" with Tahlia Harbour and Meryl Press, whose sweet, soaring voices play the perfect foil to the bombast.
-
- CD
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC032CD
- Release date
- 9 Nov '09
-
- Ltd LP
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC031
- Release date
- 9 Nov '09
-
- CD
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC028CD
- Release date
- 12 Oct '09
-
- 2xLtd CD/DVD
- £10.99
Usually ships within: 3-10 days - Cat Number
- 5099923699625
- Release date
- 27 Apr '09
Cave explores his fascination with the American South, with references ranging from Elvis Presley to ‘Blind’ Lemon Jefferson.
Recorded in Berlin, Cave later said of this album: “Berlin gave us the freedom and encouragement to do whatever we wanted. We’d lived in London for three years and it seemed that if you stuck your head out of the box, people were pretty quick to knock it back in, particularly if you were Australian. When we came to Berlin it was the opposite. People saw us as some kind of force rather than a kind of wacky novelty act.”
The album’s title is a reference to Jesse Garon Presley, the stillborn identical twin of Elvis Presley, and ‘Wanted Man’ was Cave’s own take on a song Bob Dylan wrote for Johnny Cash. Dylan gave his permission for the lyrics to be changed, with Cave’s interpretation referencing his friends.
Also features the apocalyptic classic ‘Tupelo’.
This CD and DVD version includes the original album in 5.1 surround sound, one bonus track and three bonus videos.
TRACK LISTING
CD
Tupelo
Say Goodbye To The
Little Girl Tree
Train Long-Suffering
Black Crow King
Knockin’ On Joe
Wanted Man
Blind Lemon Jefferson
DVD
Audio:
The Firstborn Is Dead
(5.1 Surround Sound)
The Six Strings That
Drew Blood
Video:
Do You Love Me Like I
Love You (Part 2: The
Firstborn Is Dead)
Tupelo
Wanted Man
-
- CD
- £10.99
- Cat Number
- DOC010CD
- Release date
- 9 Mar '09
-
- LP
- £11.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC013LP
- Release date
- 9 Feb '09
-
- CD
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC014CD
- Release date
- 15 Sep '08
-
- CD
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC017CD
- Release date
- 18 Aug '08
- Format Info
UK edition with two bonus tracks.
UK edition with two bonus... [ + ]
-
- CD
- £10.99
Usually ships within: 2-10 days - Cat Number
- ROOSTER009
- Release date
- 28 Apr '08
"Dead in The Water" is compilation carefully edited together by The Heads vocalist and guitar player Simon Price. It was originally released in a micro edition of 100 CD copies on the bands own Rooster label, these copies sold out overnight! The material consists of album outtakes, jams and rehearsal recordings, most of which are improvised. "Dead In The Water" is a lot more space rock than the previous Invada outtakes LP "33", it will appeal to fans of Bardo Pond, Acid Mothers Temple, Faust and Hawkwind!
-
- LP
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC009LP
- Release date
- 3 Mar '08
-
- CD
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC004
- Release date
- 4 Feb '08
-
- CD
- £8.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- DOC003
- Release date
- 30 Jul '07
-
- CD
- £11.99
- Cat Number
- 88697083992
- Release date
- 2 Apr '07
-
- 2xLtd CD/DVD
- £14.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- CDSTUMM246
- Release date
- 20 Feb '06
-
- CD
- £6.99
- Cat Number
- SND01
- Release date
- 18 Apr '05
-
- 2xCD
- £14.99
Usually ships within: 2-10 days - Cat Number
- KRANK072
- Release date
- 18 Oct '04
- Format Info
This CD is accompanied with a DVD containing seven visual pieces veering from meditative video footage to real time animation created by Christina Vantos.
This CD is accompanied... [ + ]
-
- CD
- £11.99
- Cat Number
- CDHOLE132
- Release date
- 28 Jun '04
-
- CD
- £13.99
- Cat Number
- ROCKACT14CD
- Release date
- 6 Oct '03
-
- CD
- £9.99
- Cat Number
- B9R18CD
- Release date
- 14 Jul '03
-
- CD
- £14.99
- Cat Number
- 77412 2
- Release date
- 3 Mar '03
-
- CD
- £13.99
- Cat Number
- FAT648 2
- Release date
- 24 Feb '03
-
- CD
- £10.99
Usually ships within: 3-10 days - Cat Number
- CDMRED10
- Release date
- 4 Nov '02
- Format Info
Reissued at mid-price remastered and with restored artwork.
Reissued at mid-price... [ + ]
-
- CD
- £11.99
- Cat Number
- FFLY008CD
- Release date
- 4 Feb '02
-
- CDS
- £4.99
- Cat Number
- DECK004CD
- Release date
- 26 Nov '01
-
- CD
- £12.99
- Cat Number
- PREACH037CD
- Release date
- 19 Nov '01
-
- 2xCD
- £24.99
Usually ships within: 3-28 days - Cat Number
- GDCD4081
- Release date
- 1 Oct '01
-
- CD
- £12.99
- Cat Number
- SPCD540
- Release date
- 7 May '01